Cap'n Piranha

Count me out on Bauer, unless that price comes way, way down. Yes, he's been quite consistent, but he's only had one season (excluding 2020) above 3.3 WAR. He's only had one season (excluding 2020) below a 3.88 FIP. I'm not ready to reward that track record with a deal worth only $6M less than what Gerrit Cole makes. Gerrit Cole had 3 seasons with a WAR above 3.3, and 6 seasons with a FIP below 3.33. I also think Bauer's numbers from 2020 are likely to regress to the mean. His BABIP was .215, by far the lowest of his career, despite his hard hit % going up, and his GB rate plummeting to a career low, which suggests a fair amount of luck. This contributed to a strand rate of 90.9%, which is more than 10 percentage points above any other year in his career. His fastball velocity also decreased, which is worrisome since he threw his fastball almost 50% of the time, and is about to turn 30. None of this is to say I wouldn't be good with Bauer on the Twins, just for nowhere near $30M. I'd much rather give Odo a 3 year, $39M deal, and then take flyers on Gausman (3 years, $30M with a mutual opt-out after 2022) and Smyly (1 year $5M with a second year option for $7M). If Bauer does get $30M, those three would be cheaper than Bauer, give the Twins a better rotation foundation in 2022, and provide fantastic depth (Smeltzer, Dobnak, Thorpe, Duran, and Balazovic can all stay in the minors until needed). And not for nothing, but Gausman's FIP was only .21 worse than Bauer last year, and his xFIP was actually better.

If owners are forced to take a large cut in revenue, such as 25% or less fan capacity, there is absolutely no way they will not pass that along to the players. It is (to a degree) up to the players on what form they want that to take. The players can agree to a one-time reduction in pay, or not agree, and watch as the owners decline options and issue non-tenders while turning to prospects, all while greatly increasing the chances of a strike/lockout one year from now.

Boy, am I embarrassed to have my math corrected by an abacus user .

The Twins playoff scenarios are as below; The Twins cannot finish with the 6 or 8 seed.The Twins magic number to finish ahead of Cleveland is 1. If they do that, they cannot be the 7 seedThe Twins magic number to finish ahead of New York is 2 (perhaps 1). Both the Twins and Yankees have 23 division wins, but the Yankees play Buffalo tonight. Win that, and the Yankees get the tiebreak, and the number is 2. If Buffalo wins tonight, I'm not sure who gets the tiebreak between the Twins and Yankees, as I don't want to look at results of the last 40 games. Regardless, 2 Twins wins/Yankees losses mean the Twins can't be the 5 seed.Both Tampa and Oakland have already won more division games than the Twins, and therefore have the tiebreak. Tampa's magic number to finish ahead of the Twins (and White Sox) is 1.Oakland has 5 games left (1 against LAD, 4 against Sea). The Twins must win at least the same number of games as Oakland to finish ahead of OaklandThe Twins must win at least one more game than Chicago the rest of the way to finish ahead of ChicagoTL;DR Seeds 6 & 8 are impossible Seeds 1 & 7 are improbable Seeds 2 & 5 are possible, but unlikely Seeds 3 & 4 are the most likely If the Twins are seed 4, they will likely play the Yankees (the Yankee's magic number to finish ahead of Toronto is 1). Otherwise, if the Twins are the 3 seed, they are guaranteed to play Houston. In short, cheer for Cleveland and Oakland today, then the Twins to sweep and Oakland to at least split with Seattle. That would put the Twins on the 3 line, which is the best possible draw, imo.

I'm disappointed in Donaldson for getting himself kicked out of this one. You're playing the team you're chasing, in a game you pretty much have to have if you want the division, and it's a nailbiter. Instead of acting like the 34 year old leader he's supposed to be, Donaldson decides to throw a tantrum because he didn't like the ump's strike zone. I've got news for you--that's going to happen from time to time. It's surely happened to Donaldson before, and it will happen again. Control your emotions, and stay in the game for your team.

The Twins drafted Buxton #2 overall. The Astros took Correa at 1:1.

So when you see a guy with RBI's, you just assume he's better at dealing with mental pressure, without bothering to understand the context of the situation? I don't deny that some players are better at handling mental pressure, and there could be some extra mental pressure in RBI opportunities. However, you seem to ignore that there could also be extra mental pressure on pitchers/defenders in those situations too. Furthermore, the pitcher usually has to pitch from the stretch instead of the windup (unless it's a reliever who always pitches from the stretch). This is borne out by the fact that hitters generally perform better with RISP than bases empty (link at the bottom). If RBI opportunities create pressure which reduces performance, than why are there broad-based (meaning across all batters) increases in average and OBP in RISP situations? Given a hitter full credit for an RBI without examining context is like giving a football player full credit for a TD without examining the context. Maybe the wide receiver ran a perfect route, adjusted for the catch, and then outran two DB's to the end zone. Maybe the running back made a guy miss in the backfield, then broke 5 tackles while tip-toeing the sideline. Or maybe the fullback walked into the end zone from the 1 yard line after the O-Line pushed the D-Line 3 yards backwards at the snap. Context matters. And that's all me, or anyone else who doesn't want to use RBI as a standalone stat, are saying. https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/29288/prospectus-feature-the-risp-mystery/#:~:text=So%20I%20looked%20for%20hitters,than%20in%20other%20plate%20appearances.&text=All%20of%20this%20makes%20a,appearances%20in%20a%20season%20batted%20.

My whole point with the swing is if the inputs are the same (launch angle, exit velocity, atmospheric conditions, etc), the hits will be identical--same distance, same elevation, same landing spot. The process of the batter hitting the ball, if identical, will produce identical results. The entire point I was making about RBI's is that the process of the batter hitting the ball can be identical, and yet yield non-identical results, vis-a-vis RBI. This demonstrates that RBI's are not completely controllable by the batter, and as such, in order to truly quantify batter performance via RBI, we need additional data.

Which is why there are park factors. People who understand that concept get that 30 homers in Petco is more impressive than 30 homers in Yankee stadium, and will value those players accordingly. What I'm saying is there needs to be a "park factor" for RBI, to help us understand if the RBI came from a solo home run, or the fast runner on third scoring on a routine grounder. Those are vastly different processes to get to the same outcome, and unlike homeruns, I'm not aware of a readily available stat that can speak to that.

But not to the degree that RBI's are. With the bases empty, you cannot get an RBI unless you hit a HR. RBI's are way more contextually driven than almost anything else, because that context comes within the game from other players. If you have two identically hit balls in the same stadium, if one is a homer, so is the other. That's not true of the situation I outlined. Stealing bases off Astudillo is different than Molina, but everyone in that game gets to steal off the same guy--the situation is constant, and therefore is not the determinant of outcome.

But putting a ball in play (barring the very rare case of an inside the park HR) with no one on base is also, by that standard, worthless. The problem with RBI as a stat is not that it's worthless--it's that it's completely devoid of context. Let's say Eddie Rosario hits a routine ground ball to the second baseman with less than two outs. If Byron Buxton is on third, there's a good chance Rosario gets an RBI. If Nelson Cruz is on third, it's essentially a 0% chance Rosario gets an RBI. Exact same batted ball by Rosario, diametrically opposite RBI outcomes. The reason for that is because often a large part of the run being scored has absolutely nothing to do with the batter who gets credit for the RBI. Thus, absent an accompanying, context-providing stat, RBI is at best a crude metric, and at worst, a downright misleading one.

I also did come up with a comparable white player to Rosario--CJ Cron. Last year Cron hit a homer every 20 PA's, Rosario did it every 18.4. Look at the RBI/PA rates for various scenarios below. Rosario with none on--18 RBI in 305 PA--.06 RBI/PA Cron with none on--14 RBI in 284 PA--.05 RBI/PA Rosario with men on--91 RBI in 285 PA--.32 RBI/PA Cron with men on--64 RBI in 215 PA--.30 RBI/PA Rosario with RISP--79 RBI in 173 PA--.46 RBI/PA Cron with RISP--55 RBI in 121 PA--.45 RBI/PA Cron isn't known for gunning down players on the basepaths sure, but that's not something first basemen get a chance to do much. Cron did rate out better defensively than Rosario, by a lot; of the 24 players who logged at least 500 innings in left field in 2019, Rosario was 21st in UZR/150, 18th in errors, and dead last in range (his arm was 3rd). Cron was 20th out of 29 first basemen by UZR/150, 26th in errors, and 8th in range (there's no measurement for arm for first basemen). None of us were upset when the Twins let Cron go, despite the fact that he is reasonably comparable to Rosario in Rosario's alleged strengths.

Eddie's hard hit rate is indeed the second highest of his career. That being said, his 37.5% hard hit rate is good for 106th out of 154 qualified hitters, which puts him in about the 31st percentile. He also has the highest soft contact rate of his career, at 21.9%. That puts him 13th out of those same 154 qualified hitters, which is in the 91st percentile. By any definition, Eddie does not do a good job of making solid contact. Eddie's zone rate (percent of pitches that would be called strikes) is 34%, which is second lowest in all of baseball--only Bryce Harper sees fewer pitches in the zone. Pitchers are still able to keep Rosario off the bases (as evidenced by his .311 OBP, 121st out of the 154 hitters) without having to give him pitches to hit.

Well, that's not what happened. The author said he made a stupid mistake--here's the quotation lifted directly from yesterday's game wrap. "For the second consecutive day, Eddie Rosario made a stupid base running mistake that likely cost the Twins runs early in the game" No where is he called stupid. I'll also work on naming a current white player with Rosario's stats when you name a white player with your collection of old-school platitudes. Your middle paragraph, wherein you state you don't accept anyone's argument that Rosario is a bad player, is also problematic, for a couple of reasons. Number one, it suggests you are not open to changing your mind, even if evidence suggests it; head-in-the-sand thinking is dangerous. Second, no one is saying Rosario is a bad player; the whole point of the article is that Rosario costs the team runs, and potentially wins, due to his continued overaggression, and eroding skills everywhere except homers, RBI's, and throwing. If he was inexpensive, or at a position with little depth, it's not necessarily grounds for moving on, but neither of those two conditions are true. Rosario is more expensive than the average player. He also plays at the Twins greatest position of strength, where much, if not all of his production could conceivably be replaced by players making less than 10% of what Rosario does. That money can be used to extend Berrios, re-sign Cruz/Odo, lock in a young player to a Kepler/Polanco type deal, or try and obtain additional talent on the free agent market.

I would explain 2019 by pointing out that Rosario had ONE more RBI than Cruz despite 69 more PA's. I would also point out that Rosario had 285 PA's with at least one runner on, and 173 with at least one runner in scoring position--Cruz had 248 and 135. So despite having more total PA's, PA's with runners on, and PA's with runners in scoring, Eddie only managed one more RBI--this proves Cruz is a much better hitter, which is borne out by pretty much every stat. The story is largely the same this year. Rosario again has exactly ONE more RBI than Cruz, but has 3 more PA's. Although that is small, as is the number of PA's with runners on (72 for Rosario, 68 for Cruz), the big difference is in PA's with runners in scoring position--44 for Rosario, and only 31 for Cruz. Rosario has more RBI's, both this year and last, because he not only has more opportunities to drive in runs, he has better opportunities as well. As for the clutch argument--this year, Rosario has had 14 PA's labelled high leverage by fangraphs. He is slashing .154/.214/.462/.676, with only 2 xbh, a wOBA of .279, a wRC+ of 72, with only 30.8% hard contact (that is, he's not getting hurt by at 'em balls). Cruz has had 9 high leverage PA's, and is slashing .286/.444/.286/.730 with no xbh, a wOBA of .355, a wRC+ of 123, and 66.7% hard contact. For a bigger sample size, here's high leverage stats for 2019. Rosario--49 PA's, .364/.408/.636/1.045, 8 xbh, .421 wOBA, 166 wRC+, 37.2% hard hit Cruz--42 PA's, .323/.500/.484/.984, 5 xbh, .402 wOBA, 153 wRC+, 40.9% hard hit So a little bit of an advantage to Rosario, but not hugely so, and one that has not repeated itself this year. It's also worth noting Cruz only had 53.5% strikes in high leverage, while Rosario had 62.8%. Given that Rosario only walked 8.2% of the time, whereas Cruz walked 26.2% of the time, I think we can fairly assume that Cruz was getting far fewer pitches to hit than Rosario, which can explain some differences as well. Overall, Rosario's HR and RBI numbers look great, but are largely situationally driven, and paper over the other holes in Rosario's game. You know, kinda the point Nick was trying to make.

Cool racism accusation bro! Can you name any current white Twins player with mediocre to bad stats that continues to get playing time AND praise for hustle/hard-nosed play/leaving it all on the field? If not, maybe we can accept the author's argument on it's merits, rather than conduct a search for implicit bias in an owner of a site that has been quite progressive in the current climate.

Although I'd hate to lose him for nothing, at this point Nick Gordon is fairly superfluous. If you want Cruz back next year (and why wouldn't you), there are literally no infield spots open for 3 more years or until Cruz retires. In the outfield, Gordon is definitely behind Kiriloff and Larnach, not to mention Rosario, Buxton, and Kepler who all have at least 1 year of control left. If the cost to getting a right-handed power bat to use against lefties is letting Gordon walk for free, I am all for it.

Come on man, this is just ridiculous. It's a whole new regime now. It's obviously going to be Kevin Jepsen.

I see where you're headed, but the difference here is that I have never said I don't feel it's ok to go to my job until all the concerns of 9/11 first responders are satisfactorily addressed--I understand that even if it was more than just me, and all of us making the same statement were in public and influential positions, one day is not sufficient to create the change. The same is true here--one day is not enough to create the (I assume) large amount of change the players want. I say I assume because I can't find a list of demands anywhere--if I've missed it, I would be very interested in reading it. Therefore, a better statement would have been "We the Twins do not believe we can play on Thursday due to the current state of affairs. We call for a day of thought, prayer, reflection, and discussion to start the process of healing our state and nation. While we plan to return to the field tomorrow, our commitment to fighting inequality wherever it may be remains undiminished". Release a specific and quantifiable list of demands with that statement, and it's quite clear where the team is. That being said, that is not the verbiage I was initially responding to--here is the entire statement by the OP; "I believe one aspect of this is being missed. I’ve heard many players simply say that playing in light of what is happening would send a message that things are ok and they obviously are not." Obviously, this is a poster paraphrasing players, or perhaps even interpreting them, but if this is what players actually believe, then my points stand. There is no mention of the word day, there are only absolutes. When absolute statements are being made, absolute conclusions are reached. If we're in my kitchen and I tell you I have 4 apples, and then ask you if you want me to give you 8 apples right now, you'd look at me like I was crazy. If I said I was going to buy a new car, and I'd narrowed it down to two options, one of which was red and the other blue, you'd be surprised if I told you my new car was green. In both of these situations, unless the initial situation has changed, my following statement is nonsensical and illogical. In regards to the players, their initial statement was absolute (at least as phrased by the poster); we as players cannot play because things are not ok. Not we can't play today. Not we can't play until we see some progress. Things not ok=players don't play. To point out that if this is honestly what the players think, they either would still not be playing, or they have now changed their minds on if things are ok is not unreasonable, it is following the logical process the players subjected themselves to by making an unqualified and absolute statement.

Fair enough, run free my woodland friend (if you want to run to Target Field this week and spark the Twins' bats, I wouldn't complain)

I would imagine the Cincinnati Reds still fly a 1919 WS pennant, the University of Louisville still (internally) celebrates the 2013 NCAA Tournament title, and USC fans remember Reggie Bush's Hesiman year. Win it all, and no matter what happens, the memories still remain.

Your last paragraph here is frightening to me, given you are an attorney. You are so convinced of the veracity of your position that you assume anyone who disagrees with you is "willfully ignorant". I assure you I am nothing of the sort. I did not initially read the decision--I was doing a number of things, and just didn't feel up to reading what I thought would be a document full of dense legal text I am not equipped to parse--it's why I was careful to state I was not familiar with the specifics of the case, and that I would absolutely change my opinion once I became familiar with the specifics if they so warranted it. This will be a long post, but after your borderline personal attack on me, I feel a need to fully explain. I went back and read not just the first 3 pages, but the first 14, and found a number of problems. Let's start with the first 3 however. This judge, lays forth 19 instances which have no bearing on this case whatsoever, other than they are black individuals who allegedly were killed by white cops. The judge has to go back to 2014 in order to list these 19 individuals. Conversely, on his twitter thread, commentator Leonydus Johnson lists 24 white individuals killed by police since the beginning of 2019 (including links to articles with details). While a number of the individuals Mr Johnson mentions certainly were killed justifiably (it would seem), let's not pretend that is not also the case with some of those listed by Judge Reeves. Specifically, Michael Brown was not killed for jaywalking--he was killed because he refused to stop jaywalking when ordered to do so by Officer Wilson, then resisted arrest, including attempting to seize Officer Wilson's firearm, fleeing, and then returning to charge the officer again. This happened after Officer Wilson recognized Mr Brown as the suspect in a robbery that had just been reported (to the best of my knowledge, it has been confirmed that Mr Brown did indeed commit said robbery). Officer WIlson has been vindicated by the legal process multiple times, notably by the Department of Justice under President Obama in an investigation overseen by Attorney General Eric Holder. Rayshard Brooks was not killed because he was asleep in his car--he was killed because he had fallen asleep in a drive-thru lane leading to employees calling the police, who administered a field-sobriety test which revealed Mr Brooks to be legally drunk. Mr Brooks began to struggle when police attempted to place him under arrest; this struggle escalated to the point where Mr Brooks seized a taser from the officers, shot one with it then punched the other, fled, then turned and fired the taser again. It was at this point Officer Rolfe shot Mr Brooks--the case is still ongoing. Breonna Taylor was not killed because she was sleeping in her bed--she was killed because she was tragically caught in the crossfire when her boyfriend fired first at officers serving a no-knock warrant (we can debate in a separate place the validity of those)--the case is still going. I don't know much about the other cases, and don't have the ability to spend enough time to familiarize myself, save to say at least 8 of the 20 individuals he mentioned (including Mr Brooks and Ms Taylor) would appear to be potentially still in ongoing legal proceedings, given the dates of the articles Judge Reeves provide come from 2020. It seems legally dubious to me to cite unsettled cases as supporting evidence in a legal proceeding, but perhaps that's commonplace (I suspect it's not). A certain amount of bias also seems present in this case. In relating the specifics of the case, Judge Reeves states that Officer McClendon and Mr Jamison have different versions of how the incident started. Officer McClendon's version is given less than one paragraph, and comes after Judge Reeves uses the word "admitted" to describe Officer McClendon's testimony wherein he states he attempted to obtain permission to conduct a search (as if an officer of the law wanting to secure the legal right to conduct an investigation for potential illegal activity is somehow morally problematic). Mr Jamison's version gets close to two pages, and as best I can tell from my parsing of the rest of the document is accepted by Judge Reeves as at least the more likely scenario, despite providing no evidence as to why Officer McClendon's testimony should not be given the same weight (if I missed where Judge Reeves did this, I apologize for my oversight. That said, I doubt it, as Judge Reeves includes a claim made by Mr Jamison about a statement made by Officer McClendon on page 9, and plainly states Officer McClendon was lying. Judge Reeves does state in a footnote that Officer McClendon disputes Mr Jamison's statement, but footnoting this detail, while providing no reason as to why Officer McClendon's assertion is less believable than Mr Jamison's, suggests to me Judge Reeves has decided on a preferred narrative, an argument which is supported by the fact that later on the same page, Judge Reeves again states unequivocally that Officer McClendon lied about the same statement). Further, if Judge Reeve's aim in this decision is to attempt to eliminate the doctrine of QI (which by the way, he did grant to Officer McClendon), it seems interesting that the only cases he cites in the beginning feature black individuals, when citing cases such as Tony Timpa or Daniel Shaver, both of whom are white, would be extremely helpful to his goal. As such, it reads to me that Judge Reeves is more interested in furthering the idea that police are disproportionately shooting/killing black men, which is not borne out by any data I've seen (again, if there is non-anecdotal data that demonstrates this, I would love to read it). Based on stats from the FBI and the Washington Post's database of police killings of unarmed people, police kill more white people annually, both armed and unarmed, than they do black. While whites are a larger percentage of the population, a key factor would logically seem to be crime rates in the two populations; as it turns out, black people commit (at least in 2019) 33.4 violent crimes per 100,000 people, compared to 11.6 violent crimes per 100,000 white people. That 2.8x disparity is essentially identical to the 2.8x disparity in the rate of individuals killed by police (5.6 black people per million, 2 white people per million). As you can see, I have spent time and effort to educate myself. I do not deny the horrific crimes that reside in this nation's history, and were directed mainly (but not entirely) towards non-whites. However, those crimes are in the past, and I do not support the idea of applying punishment for crimes to individuals who did not commit said crimes. As I've said all along, absent any proof that Officer McClendon is a racist, and my reading of this case reveals none despite what Judge Reeves appears to think, I will not call him one. I read nothing that made me believe Officer McClendon would not have stopped a white individual (indeed, it's possible Officer McClendon had no idea the race of who he was stopping, as it's rather hard to see inside darkened cars at night while they're driving at 70 MPH. There was no indication I read that Officer McClendon had any idea what race Mr Jamison was before pulling him over, and I'm aware of no data that demonstrates the race of drivers is easily determinable at night while driving on the interstate). There's further nothing I saw that demonstrates Officer McClendon proceeded in his nearly 2 hour search process based on racial prejudice. As Judge Reeves points out, the Constitution guarantees equal treatment under the law, and yet he seems to prima facie accept that Officer McClendon acted out of racial animus. With no evidence to support this, I would propose Judge Reeves' line of reasoning in essentially declaring Officer McClendon a racist to be unfair and unequal to the Officer. Racism is serious. It is hateful, evil, and a blight on our (or any other) society. Because of this, allegations of racism are also extremely serious, should not be lightly made, and should require ironclad evidence to be vindicated. While I find Officer McClendon's actions to be excessive, I see nothing that suggests a racial component, and as such, refuse to assign that motivation when there are any number of other explanations that would plausibly fit the situation. As for the statement in question of "I haven't shot you yet", I read the article provided. Based on the data there, I agree that the statement was unacceptable--so did his own department which reprimanded and disciplined him. That being said, while it appears the officer in question was the first to mention race, it is unclear why. The article states the plaintiff told the officer his neighbors should have talked to him instead of calling the police, and then states "Higgins [the officer], who was wearing a body camera, suggested they [the neighbors] did so because Vernio [the plaintiff] 'is a very loud, boisterous black man.'" From this, it is entirely unclear what prompted Officer Higgins to make this statement to Mr Vernio; is it Officer Higgin's opinion (and if so, how did he come to this assessment), or was it provided by the neighbors when they called 911? Is it not possible that Mr Vernio has continued to be a loud and inconsiderate neighbor, despite several requests to refrain? If so, it's logical the neighbors would seek intervention from an authority, and may have provided the statement attributed to Officer Higgins above as their justification for involving the police in an otherwise interpersonal affair. I'm glad Officer Higgins has received consequences for his unacceptable speech, but until racism has been proven, or all other plausible explanations ruled out (I believe that's known as reasonable doubt), I will not assign racial animus to this case, for the same reasons I outlined above. I apologize for the length of this post, but your characterization of me as willfully ignorant, defensive, and dependent on strawman arguments is not in keeping with a site wherein posters are respected for their different views. I love TwinsDaily, and love interacting with literally every poster on the site. As that is exceedingly rare for the modern internet, I would hate to see that spoiled simply because I held different opinions on current events.

The issue is (specific to this group of players only) that the rationale for not playing was because everything is not ok. The rationale was not, we need to reflect as a society. It's like if I tell my wife I can't go to the local coffeeshop because it's closed for the next week for renovations, but then tell her on the very next day I can go to the coffeeshop. Either it's no longer closed, or the previous day I wasn't being totally honest about my motivations for not going to the coffeeshop. I'm not saying these players are dishonest per se, I'm saying if they truly think they can't play while things aren't ok, then they can't possibly with a straight face decide to play any time soon.

That's not at all the point I'm making. The statement the original poster attributed to the players, something along the lines of "we can't play right now because things aren't ok" is what sets the logical bar. I'm not setting it--the players did when they made that statement. Calling my logic flawed, and saying I have an impossible threshold for raising awareness is immaterial, because the statement the original poster alluded to has nothing to do with raising awareness; it has to do with things being ok. If the players had said, "we can't play today, because we need to raise awareness about what's happening", I can be convinced that they truly believed a one day hiatus was sufficient to raise awareness. But as I stated, raising awareness is not the bar this particular group of players was setting. The logic is not flawed, the requirements being subjected to it are.

Depends on the circumstances. A black guy minding his own business, or peacefully complying with an officer's orders being told that is obviously problematic. A black guy screaming "don't shoot" while waving a gun in the air, or holding a knife to the throat of a hostage he took is a totally different animal. In those latter scenarios, the officer's words can be construed as a warning, not a threat, that is "if you don't surrender now, I will have no choice but to shoot you in order to ensure public safety." The yet in this situation is representative of the officer's forbearance which is now running thin. I don't know the specifics of this case, so I can't directly comment, although I am inclined to believe the situation in question was probably not similar to the last two scenarios I described. That being said, I'm completely confused as to why an officer telling a black person "I haven't shot you yet" is worse than an officer saying the same thing to a brown/yellow/red/white person. Absent additional evidence of racism (again, not being familiar with the situation, I can't comment on this point), I am loathe to declare an officer racist based solely on one severely threatening statement made to one individual with a different skin color. Am I to believe he either says this to every black individual he interacts with, or that this is the first black person he's had a situation with? If not, it seems more likely to me there were other extenuating circumstances responsible that are not justification for the statement (if, as I suspect, the statement was not warranted), but are not racial in nature. As for QI, I believe that police should have a different set of standards, for the simple reason that we daily ask police to be ready to deal with the absolute worst elements of society. Situations most people would run from, police are obligated to run towards. Police are required in these situations to make split-second decisions, almost always based on incomplete information, and on occasion, inaccurate information. We bemoan when it appears police acted too quickly, but do we ever reflect when police react to slowly, and innocent bystanders become victims? In the specific example you shared on QI, I of course view that as reprehensible, and would hope that after a fair trial, that officer, if convicted, would be remanded to prison for the rest of his natural life, with no chance at parole. I believe QI can be examined, perhaps re-worked, but a starting point of we can no longer have it seems a dangerous place.