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Snake Diggity

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Everything posted by Snake Diggity

  1. Houston has a mature roster with 7 guys making >$15M in 2024 and another 3 making $10-15M. Crane hasn’t been cheap and they currently have the 6th highest projected 2024 payroll in the league. Unfortunately the last 4 seasons has decimated the farm system such that they also can’t make big trades (without getting extremely creative/risky). They were “aggressive” last year and made 3 bad deals, 2 of which (Abreu and Montero) are still on their books and preventing them from making additional moves that require adding 2nd or 3rd tier contracts. We should be happy Crane and Bagwell aren’t rushing out to give Josh Hader $100M+ or some stupid shit like that. I believe Dana Brown will make at least 1 significant move before opening day. But even if he doesn’t, Caratini will be one of the best backup C in the league and Houston’s roster is on par with any team in the AL; they’re the current odds favorite to win the pennant and go back to the World Series.
  2. My kids are close to getting old enough to start traveling. We are committed to Disney World in 2024 but I think starting in 2025 we will be able to do one trip abroad each year, and I have Europe at the top of my list. I have traveled quite a bit, but it was mostly solo and 15+ years ago. I have a long standing fantasy to visit the places shown in the last 2 episodes of Band of Brothers, which is Bavaria and Austria. I have never been there but my hope is that the natural beauty will be enough to entertain me, the wife, and 2 girls between 10 and 15. Would love any pointers.
  3. My girls are still elementary aged but goddam I’m dreading their teenage years. Legitimately worried we might not all make it thru unscathed. Sanity and reason doesn’t seem to prevail at all during those times and love doesn’t seem to be enough. And I’ve already failed enough as a parent that they’ll have plenty of reasons to hate me by that point (and plenty of reasons for me to blame myself for any negative outcomes they experience). I’m their hero and confidant and generally their favorite person right now and the thought of the other shoe dropping is terrifying.
  4. So a roster close to this: 2B Altuve 3B Bregman DH Alvarez LF Arozarena RF Tucker 1B Abreu C Diaz CF McCormick SS Dubon Bench: Kessinger, Caratini, Singleton, Meyers SP: Verlander, Brown, Javier, Yariel Rodriguez, Urquidy, France RP: Pressly, Abreu, Shawn Armstrong, Montero, Coleman/Garcia, Whitley/McCullers With Cowser, Baumler, and Povich added to the farm. Rotation is suspect. Bullpen is high ceiling but high risk. Lineup is one of the best and deepest in MLB history. Farm would move from well below average to slightly below average.
  5. Ha. Yeah I guess whenever somebody constantly acts like a condescending dickhead I assume they are taking things pretty seriously. But thanks for clarifying that you’re a condescending dickhead to people because that’s just how you entertain yourself. Cool.
  6. If all the shit you said is true, then he’s not badass. Simple as that. Btw you take yourself way too seriously.
  7. If Evan Stewart is badass and we can afford him, go get him if he wants to be here. Let Ewers and/or Manning and Cook speak up if they think Stewart will fuck shit up. Is he a worse influence than Ramonce Taylor?
  8. Dang some of yall had it rough, tip of the cap for coming up out. I grew up middle middle class but often felt deprived because most of the kids I went to school with were wealthier than us (or at least appeared that way); my mom grew up lower lower middle class and my dad grew up upper upper middle class. I am currently upper middle class. Anyway, I hang my childhood hardship hat on 2 things: we didn’t have air conditioning in our home until I was 10 years old, and we only had 1 TV channel (2-3 when the weather was extremely good) until around the same time. We also had a party line telephone, so sometimes I would be talking to a girl and the neighbor several miles down the road would pick up and tell me she needed to use the phone.
  9. Assuming Sark had his ideal roster mix this season, this is what 2024 currently projects to vs 2023: QB: Out: Murphy; In: Owens RB: Out: Brooks, Robinson; In: Gibson, Clark WR: Out: Worthy, Mitchell, Whittington, Cain, Neyor; In: Golden, TBD, Wingo, Livingstone, Dubose TE: Out: Sanders; In: Washington OL: Out: Jones, TBD, Goram-Welch; In: Baker, Cruz, Kibble DL: Out: Sweat, Murphy, Collins, TBD; In: Umeozulu, January, Hills, Robinson LB: Out: Ford, Bush; In: Simmons, Smith DB: Out: Barron, Thompson, Catalon, Allen, LTG, Brice; In: Black, Filsaime, Mack, Hampton, JJR, Wilson ST: Out: Sanborn; In: Kern That would have Trill Carter, David Gbenda, Ryan Watts, and Kitan Crawford all returning as guys who walked on Sr day.
  10. Just wanna chime in to say fucking fuck Allstate. Had 4 policies for over a decade, no claims, no late payments, never even shopped/negotiated rates. Roof damaged in hail storm in September. Allstate adjuster denies 90% of claim. 50+ emails back and forth, dozens of hours of my time, and a conversation with a local attorney later, I tell the adjuster “pay me for replacing the roof today or I am filing suit tomorrow”. The money was in my account 6 hours later. Once everything gets resolved completely, I’m switching carriers, don’t care how much higher my premiums and deductibles are. Fuck those motherfuckers.
  11. You sound poor, lazy, and stupid.
  12. 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.
  13. 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.
  14. 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.
  15. 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.
  16. Shockingly reasonable take from Rep Dunwell. Good for him.
  17. 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.
  18. How you gonna be ripped up like that and only hit 10 HR this season wtf.
  19. John Williams high likelihood. Gonna hear a lot of Star Wars and Superman themes soon.
  20. 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.
  21. 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
  22. 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).
  23. 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.
  24. 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.
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