TheLeviathan

What made Fisk a great antagonist was that he wanted the same thing as Daredevil, they were two sides of the same coin. He was also well acted, intense, and believable. Killgrave had all of the same things. No matter how vile those two guys were, they never strayed from being relatable and engaging. Diamondback was like a Sci-Fi movie villain. Or that's what he felt like. Trying to generate emotional buy in by being over the top and ridiculous. The second Cottonmouth died, the potential for the series to be great died with him.

If we non-tender Milone I'd like to try and bring him back as a cheap, not terrible option on the team. But I doubt he does that. Kintzler and Pressley were good enough and cheap enough tenders that I do it for depth. But I'm still looking to drop some serious cash on a reliever this offseason.

Those same crazy people also abandon the candidate when they abandon that rhetoric. The need to keep feeding red meat to that base is why they keep losing the Presidency. You can keep control of the House that way and keep the Senate in play, but it may be awhile before the Presidency is even on the table for Republicans until they stop giving in to that loud, influential base.

I think Luke will be a far more enjoyable character as part of the larger ensemble. His personality will be a nice contrast with Jessica Jones and Daredevil. Had they found a way to keep Cottonmouth the antagonist the entire series this may have turned out better overall IMO. But I'm looking forward to seeing who he might bump into back at Sea Gate, lots of possibilities there.

See, I think the much more relevant question is, if the young core is good enough to compete next year, how did we manage a historic number of losses? How can a team so ready to compete next year look so ridiculously unready this year? Like it or not, the time for these core guys to develop has to happen regardless. If they do develop, we should be building the most sustainable long term effort to win with them possible. If they don't develop, we're probably screwed regardless. But I'd argue we're EXTRA screwed if we hang on to valuable assets now in some deluded attempt at contention. So, again, what is the highest percentage play for the most long term gain? It ain't riding this 100+ loss team hard hoping you pull a miracle and compete next year. The odds of flipping our record by 20+ games is incredibly low. So why gamble on that? You're gambling the value of Dozier and Santana and other moves on that hope? Why even consider that a reasonable course of action?

I should clarify. I don't like them as in "I think they'll be good", more in the sense of "I like the idea of giving them a chance to sink or swim as a part of the long-term plan". Provided we get them some defensive help. And stop playing infielders in the outfield.

I tend to think Romney (the real Romney, not crazy guy talking to the Republican base Romney) would be doing well. But at this point I don't think any Republican can win the Presidency until the party's internal squabbling is resolved.

Personally, I like the idea of Berrios, May, Santiago, Mejia, Gibson, and hopefully a couple trade acquisitions as a rotation. Is it world beating? No, but you're giving at least three guys there the innings they need and you have movable guys to get out of the way should Gonsalves or the acquisitions prove ready. The key, in my eyes, that we can do to help next year and the future is to address two key defensive positions (SS and C) and get those solidified. That should be our top priority.

In some offseasons this may be possible. This one? Pitching is going to be at an extreme premium. You simply won't be able to achieve that kind of turnover.

I think you're right, but of Hillary's many strengths, charisma and inspirational or transformational leadership is not among them. I think she continues to do best to just let herself coast to victory and let Trump do all the damage down stream on the ballot by himself. In fact, her biggest mistakes in the debate, IMO, were when she too readily engaged Trump and took the bait.

The alternative is to fill your rotation with aged pitchers that implode like Hughes. Or don't transition well like Nolasco. And then you are forced to turn to Pat Dean and Andrew Albers. And, really, how often does that "beating the door down in AAA" thing really work? At some point, they have to face major league hitting or you won't know what you have. The longer you make them wait, the less of their prime you have available to you.

This is demonstrably false. You should look up when we signed some of our recent FA starting pitchers.

I'm not advocating you ignore lottery tickets. I'm advocating that you don't retain Ervin thinking that he and a few lottery tickets suddenly transforms you. The lottery tickets are to be cashed in when July rolls around or don't do it. If you want to sign one or two to try and get lucky Jake Arrieta style - I say go for it. But I'm not sure this offseason is going to be a particularly good year for that strategy either. As for your larger point, I don't disagree that in the past we had opportunity to use those guys due to a lack of pitching talent. But we have guys coming now, filling our rotation with aging starters doesn't help us long term. In fact, it may very well hurt it. But if you're going to argue "go out and make this team better in FA", it's worth pointing out that we tried doing exactly that and it failed miserably. Because, by and large, it's a poor long-term strategy. It's more of a short term fix that you pay for a long term.

Brett Anderson doesn't replace Pat Dean. You're talking about signing your 6-8th starters. Brett Anderson gives you reason to not pitch Gonsalves or Berrios, not Pat Dean. Roll with Gibson, Berrios, Mejia, Santiago, and trade acquisitions for Dozier and Santana. Maybe try to get one upside guy you see as a good trade chip come July. (I doubt you get more than one with this market. Any upside guys are going to get seriously paid) What the team should invest in that can help both now and in the future is a defensive catcher and shortstop. Set the young arms up to succeed by putting a real defense behind them. But your depth behind your starting 5 is always going to be subject to guys like Pat Dean. But you actually put it at more risk of being needed when you have 30+ year old pitchers filling your rotation. Or the brittle likes of Brett Anderson. You want to avoid Pat Dean? Trade Dozier and Santana for some near-ready pitching depth. It won't be by signing multiple Brett Andersons.

This entire post is filled with sentiments you'd never want from your financial advisor. Imagine you're investing in the stock market, last year you got really lucky with a flukey investment that paid off way more than you thought. In the Simpsons Homer invested in Pumpkins, got a huge windfall in October he was too stupid to recognize as dumb luck, and then figured he'd cash in around January. Reminds me a lot of your post. You're deliberately ignoring that last year was dumb luck. That this year is the product of exactly what you have been advocating. We bought ourselves a FA rotation. We invested in FA filler rather than giving innings and at-bats into potential for the future. You want your financial advisor to tell you to double down on the fluke rather than looking for long term payoffs. You want to push your chips in (you only have so many at-bats and innings) on the off chance of a fluke rather than on something sustainable. Adding starting pitchers from this lousy class of FAs will be done at a ridiculous price relative to the talent and will deliberately take innings and opportunity away from younger pitchers that might help you in the future. Keeping one of them (Santana) also removes a valuable trade chip to do the same. Retaining Dozier does the same. You can't know who is going to help you in the long term without investing in them at the big league level. Clogging the roster with minor upgrades on the offchance you have a flukey year again is terrible advice. It's the kind of advice I'd fire my financial advisor for. It's low-percentage gain, high risk, and largely unsustainable. I hope to god the Twins agree and finish this rebuild the right way rather than flushing opportunity down the hole on some fairy tale of competing. The fans will come back when you win. Not when you manage to lose a little less terribly, but still badly.

Except we haven't been giving up because the talent isn't there. We've been plugging our rotation with FA mercenaries for years and where has it gotten us exactly? Inspirational speakers are full of empty platitudes that sound good on the surface but rarely make for good advice in reality. I'd argue that's exactly what the "don't give up on 2017" crowd are giving us. And I don't buy it. And, again, this offseason is a miserable suck fest for talent. There is no "go for it" even if you wanted to. These guys that we think you can buy on the cheap are going to get inflated deals because the talent available is that putrid. I'm not waiting around for a guarantee. I'm waiting for reasonable, good percentage chance times to be aggressive. Being aggressive for the sake of it is stupidity. Just as being passive for the sake of it. I hope Falvey doesn't heed any advice that says press the pedal down for 2017. I hope he presses the pedal down when the high percentage opening presents itself. Not full speed into the back of the first semi he sees, because "dammit! try to win!" is somehow a good way of operating.

Pence isn't the only Republican who is wondering what he got himself into.

If I can't trade Plouffe, I definitely non-tender him.

Not true. Personally, I feel like we have the young bats that we'll need to form the core of our lineup. I also think there is a good chance all of them will need time to refine their approach and their game to be the hitters I believe they will be. 2017 is likely to be that adjustment year for many of them still. So while they are still developing, it's best we don't dump resources into short term fixes in some blind effort to "compete" in 2017 when we can better spend our resources towards 2018. And invest innings and at-bats into players that should be ready to compete then. Dumping a bunch of innings into short term fixes at the expense of long term gains is precisely how we got our 2016 season. Haven't we learned our lesson?

I thought they both did well relative to their expectations. It was also a total *#%^ show as usual.

I've already said a lot on this issue so I'll keep it simple: acquire pitching assets that will be helping you for the long term. I endorse finding a good defensive catcher and gambling on high upside guys to trade for future assets though.

Yup, Nick is right on. I think it was around episode 8 that I noticed the dip.

Pronouncing the death of the Republican party now is easy. It won't seem like that in two years when they probably trounce the Dems like they have the last few non-Presidential elections. The Republican Party won't die until that trend ends.

I would agree that PI has become muddled nonsense at all levels.

The corner did not run him off the ball. The ball was thrown inside of the two players and the corner had inside position. He literally would have had to stop playing defense and move aside or allow the receiver to run over him because of the position of the throw. He had his head turned, looking at the ball, and held his ground. He's allowed to do that. The refs don't have to know where the ball is supposed to be thrown, they just have to know that the corner is entitled to hold his ground too.