Snake Diggity

To believe what you do, you have to believe Shohei Ohtani is either stupid or naive. The “evidence” you pointed to is a rumor that the Giants offered a “nearly identical” deal to Ohtani, which means major deferrals. Not very convincing. The bottom line to this deferral business is that the agents and players aren’t that stupid. They’re not going to give up tons of money. Altuve is represented by Scott Boras; I’m sure he’s begging the Astros to defer a shitload of money on some lowball Altuve extension. The idea of Altuve accepting some deal that significantly reduces his tax hit thru deferrals is not realistic. And it’s even less realistic for Bregman, who is also represented by Boras.

Another thing I just learned is that apparently Ohtani can avoid CA income tax on the deferred money if he lives elsewhere when it is paid out.

Where is there anything other than pure rumor that Ohtani was offered $600M+ with no deferrals? To me $460M/10yrs seems pretty close to what his other offers likely were. Balanced against the additional endorsement income that comes with being in LA and I feel pretty confident that Ohtani took the most financially lucrative deal he was offered. There’s a huge factor here in assuming the discount rate the CBT uses to calculate the present value of the payments is aligned with reality, so sure, if you think Ohtani was going to earn 20% investment income on whatever he would have been paid in real time then it looks very stupid.

People are blowing the impact of potential deferrals way out of proportion. The net effect of the Ohtani situation is that he signed a $460M/10yr contract; it’s not like he gave the Dodgers a discount or won’t have a huge impact on their CBT amount. Houston may utilize some deferrals in an Altuve extension but it’s not a magic pill to get players to take a big discount or dramatically circumvent the CBT. In Altuve’s case I think a more effective/likely tool is to structure his extension with an extra year on it with a significant buyout so the amount gets spread over a longer period, lowering the CBT AAV. If Altuve says he wants to play thru age 39 and asks for $150M/5yrs, give him $155M/6yrs with the last year being a player option with his choice of a buyout. Bregman is not going to take a discount, whether thru deferrals or otherwise. With a year to his standard he will command $200M+ easy. Houston is not extending or re-signing him.

Shockingly reasonable take from Rep Dunwell. Good for him.

My guess is 20-35% of the users on this site will vote for Trump in 2024. Probably 25-40% voted for him in 2016/2020.

How you gonna be ripped up like that and only hit 10 HR this season wtf.

John Williams high likelihood. Gonna hear a lot of Star Wars and Superman themes soon.

Wife recently bought a Shark (their 2nd most expensive model). It maps the house, has a self emptying docking station, and can be easily programmed to spot clean a room when needed. It doesn’t mop and it only has the top camera and bumper, not the radar/laser shit that I think the very top of the line models have. So far it’s great. We had a cheap one a few years ago and it sucked; was constantly getting stuck, rarely returned to the docking station, and just generally didn’t vacuum very well. This Shark vacuums as well as the maids do with our big handheld. It only gets stuck when somebody leaves a large item between 1.5” and 3” on the ground (like the dog bed/mat). We only empty the docking station once a month or so. We’ll see how durable it is but for now I’m very pleasantly surprised.

Current FB velo of Houston’s projected opening day pitching staff: Coleman 99 Abreu 98 Pressly 96 Whitley 99 Montero 97 Graveman 97 Martinez 94 Brown 97 Valdez 96 Verlander 95 Javier 94 Urquidy 94 France 93

Good summary. Worth noting that Bielak and Singleton cannot be optioned so they’d ostensibly have a leg up on making the opening day roster if they’re not traded. I think the Garcia/McCullers situations give Bielak a really good shot to make the opening day bullpen and see if he can create some value while keeping a seat warm for one of the injured starters. Singleton’s case got hurt by the Caratini signing, since Caratini can play 1B and hits lefthanded. I know I am in the extreme minority but I think Singleton still has a chance to be an extremely good hitter over the next 2-3 seasons. If I were a rebuilding team with an opening at 1B or DH I would try to acquire him. Anyway, it would not surprise me if Houston opted to keep Singleton on the bench to serve as the de facto backup at 1B, DH, and LF (with Alvarez being able to field there and Singleton DH’ing).

I was worried about Colin Barber, and didn’t really like the idea of losing Misael Tamarez although he would have been more in line with the kind of guys Houston lost in previous years. Houston correctly evaluated that Barber’s injury risk and defensive limitations made him safe to expose.

Those valuations on Spotrac are pure garbage as are the trade value calculators we see posted from time to time. Fangraphs projects Caratini to post 1.5 fwar over just 257 pa for Houston. If he does that for $6M that is a steal.

2/2

I really like Caratini. Depends on the contract but assuming it’s a reasonable 2 year deal it’s a great pickup.

Serious question out of genuine curiosity and no judgement: why do you so frequently post negative news like that?

Wish list: WR: Juice Wells, Julian Fleming TE: Tanner Kozial DL: Walter Nolen LB: Kaleb Elarms-Orr DB: Korie Black, Andrew Mukuba

Celebrities over 90: Clint Eastwood, Dick Van Dyke, Mel Brooks, Jimmy Carter, James Earl Jones, Gene Hackman, Norman Lear, David Attenborough, William Shatner Half those fools will prolly bite it in 2024.

That list reflects 8 straight years of being a deadline buyer combined with picking late and losing 4 top draft picks as a penalty for sign stealing. The front office has done a great job in context. If you wanna pick nits you can cast blame on their eval/development of top international bonus signees (Leon, Nova, Lorenzo) but their drafts have been very good considering what they were working with.

I know it’s no sure thing, but if Ewers goes to the NFL, is the staff really comfortable with going into the season with only Wright and Owens behind Manning?

Meh, fuck you. I didn’t make my post as some surefire 100% confidence thing. I was trying to generate conversation that might gives us a clearer picture as to what our needs are. Drawing from your reply, we might only need 2 WR and a TE.

Read thru 20+ pages of this thread and haven’t seen a clear summary of what Texas’ portal needs are actually expected to be, outside of the obvious expectation that we are gonna look at WR. Looking at the roster, I would think our portal needs are: starters: 2 WR, TE, DL, DB depth: QB In/Out by position: QB: Ewers, Murphy out; Owens, grad transfer in RB: Robinson, Brooks out; Gibson, Clark in WR: Worthy, Whittington, Mitchell, Neyor out; Wingo, Dubose, Livingstone, 2 transfers in TE: Sanders, Davis out; Washington, transfer in OL: Jones, Williams, Welch, Agbo out; Baker, Kibble, Cruz in DL: Sweat, Murphy, Tapp, Swanson out; January, Robinson, Hills, transfer in LB: Bush, Ford out; Simmons, TBD recruit in DB: Barron, Watts, Crawford, Thompson, Catalon, LTG, Allen out; Black, Hampton, Mack, Wilson, JJR, transfer in ST: Sanborn out; Kern in

I am way open to the idea of trading Bregman + prospects (and maybe Hunter Brown, Jake Meyers, and Urquidy) adding 2-3 good cost controlled players who are controlled thru 2025. That would give them 2 seasons with the Altuve/Yordan core to try to win another ring and let Dana Brown try to work magic on the farm to extend the window. They could finish up 2025 with up to 5 QO candidates and be poised to draft 8-10 of the top 100 prospects available in the 2026 draft, which would either allow them to trade upper level prospects to keep the window open, or supercharge the farm to hasten the rebuild. Example: Out: Bregman, Hunter Brown, Urquidy, Meyers, Arrighetti, Leon, Loperfido In: Cease, Mullins, Moncada, Kopech, Matt Moore (FA), Victor Caratini (FA) Roster: CF Mullins 2B Altuve DH Alvarez 1B Abreu RF Tucker C Diaz 3B Moncada LF McCormick SS Pena Bench: Dubon, Kessinger, Caratini, Singleton SP: JV, Framber, Cease, Javier, France RP: Pressly, Abreu, Moore, Montero, Graveman, Kopech, Garcia/Bielak, McCullers/Whitley 2025 potential QO guys: Tucker, Cease, Framber, Mullins, Moncada Other 2025 free agents: Abreu, Caratini, Verlander, Kopech, Moore, Montero, Pressly

There might be concern that Framber was only good because of Maldy. I don’t believe that but the Astros would know more than anyone. If he’s about to turn into a pumpkin and they can get a franchise-altering return for him (3-4 top 100 prospects) then it might be worthwhile. I’d guess odds are extremely low because invariably trading him makes the 2024 team worse. I do expect Urquidy to be traded though. Too many teams out there who could use an experienced playoff starter and he’s probably Houston’s 7th or 8th best SP when everybody’s healthy.

Agree with your overall point, disagree on some individual points. Incarceration absolutely deters criminals, but only while they’re incarcerated. For certain criminals, there’s definite societal benefit to that beyond vengeance or the feeble hope of that incarceration works for rehabilitation. Theres also an argument that seeing criminals get incarcerated might deter would-be criminals from committing crimes (that is debatable).