Snake Diggity

Wife is car shopping. I am frugal, so buying a brand new car is against one of my core values. On top of that, I consider 2023 to be one of the worst years in history to buy a new car. That said, her current car needs to be replaced, so she has to do something and I know it is a lose-lose situation for me. So I gave my opinion early on and then have tried my best to stay out of it as much as possible. A couple of weeks ago she announced she’d decided on which make/model/trim she wanted. Yesterday she calls me practically in tears. She says she called a dealership that had the car she was looking for “on the way”. Based on what she told me, this is how that conversation went: Mrs Snake Diggity: “Hello, I see online you’re expecting a such and such with such and such options. Is that car already sold?” Salesman: “No but it will be soon.” MSD: “Oh good. Well, I want it. I’ve heard other dealers are marking their cars up over MSRP. I am willing to pay above MSRP if required. Are you asking for more than MSRP? Because if so I’ll pay that.” Salesman: “…Actually yes, the car will be marked up. Hang on and let me ask my manager how much the markup is.” (*brief hold*) “Yes ma’am the markup is 20% over MSRP.” *TLDR wife literally suggested to a car salesman that he should add a markup on top of msrp* Predictably, her convo with me ended poorly, because I was not being “supportive”. Fuck my life.

Bill Wattersons brother was a HS teacher in Austin for decades. Just recently retired.

Blacks were willing to come out for Biden. I strongly doubt they would do that for Buttigieg. I truly think Biden was the only available candidate who would’ve beaten Trump, and so far I think that is also the case for 24.

Well, pardon me if I assume the owners and their front office execs have a little bit more information and forecasting expertise than you do. I do not think teams would be doling out $300M deals like hotcakes if they thought there was any impending revenue collapse. If anything, the spending spree would indicate the teams expect the opposite. That said if I were making predictions, I would guess there will be a 1-2 year hiccup while things get sorted, but after that TV rights revenues would be at or above RSN levels. There’s efficiencies to be gained by the league managing them directly and presenting them as a standalone product. I think the bigger issue is the revenue disparity among the teams and the indications that there may be more revenue sharing coking, to the point that it would negatively impact the 2nd tier orgs like Houston.

Went to urgent care this morning, looks like a grade 2 tear; doc said Achilles and tendons all look/feel good. Crutches for 2 weeks then doing whatever I can as tolerated. Still sucks. Chasing my little daughters around has not been fun this weekend. Shit like this sure does make waiting to have kids until my late 30s seem like a bad idea.

There is ad revenue in addition to subscription fees. The games aren’t shown commercial free on the RSNs and they won’t be on the new model. I don’t know how much money that will bring in but it will be significant. Sports programming was a pillar of cable tv revenues and so it is a viable business. Whether it comes in under or over in the new model I don’t know but I doubt it will be a major hit for the teams over the long haul.

For now Biden has credentials (and obviously experience) that Buttigieg doesn’t have. I don’t think Buttigieg will be a viable presidential candidate until he has been either a senator or a governor. He is a traditional politician (aside from the whole being outwardly gay thing); he doesn’t have any business or celebrity or military bonafides to run on, and despite being a genius talker, he’s not charismatic enough to rally enough people just based on his personality. And until I see evidence to the contrary I do not think black democrats will turn out for him. Buttigieg would certainly lose to Trump. He would very very likely lose to DeSantis. If he becomes a governor then I think depending on the cycle he could be a very good candidate for president.

Pretty clear that the teams/MLB have known about both Bally and ATT issues for months and are going to recapture all the media rights and have their own streaming service. Long overdue. Hopefully this is the last season that requires a $70/mo minimum to watch regular season Astros games in market. I am hoping it’s something like $20/mo to watch just your team or $30/mo to watch all the games. Would be super cool if they went back to Disney with it and you could get MLB combined with ESPN and SEC network all streaming for some reasonable price. It will be interesting to see how this impacts revenues this season and beyond. If all those teams aren’t going to get paid their fees this year then we could see several teams anxious to cut payroll (hopefully not the Astros). It also remains to be seen whether MLB owning their own tv rights will result in more or less revenue and how that will be distributed.

43. Took one quick step about to start jogging yesterday and felt a big pop and like I got shot in the left calf, then could not put any pressure on my left leg. I’m fucking crippled. Reading about torn calf it says I could be out for anywhere from 2 to 12 weeks. Wtf.

I can haz summary of their predictions?

It actually kind of sounds like the beatings will not stop until morale implodes.

I wasn’t making a prediction. I agree the GOP is fucked. It’s Trump’s/Putin’s party.

Charlie Baker, Larry Hogan, or Chris Sununu.

I’m not talking about voting. I’m mostly talking about funding. Find some kind of Hulk Hogan crossed with David Duke crossed with Chris Kyle crossed with Elon Musk type dude and give him enough money to take 10% of Trumps primary votes from the far right. Then, if you have the right moderate candidate you have an actual chance.

Dems and moderate Republicans need to find and fund a viable nut job to outflank Trump in the GOP primary. Then they need to coalesce around a moderate candidate (DeSantis ain’t it). If they don’t get somebody to draw some of the crazies away from Trump then he has already won.

Over on the Rays and Orioles.

There are 3 moves I wish the Astros had made this offseaon that they didn’t make: sign Omar Narvaez, sign Andrew Heaney, and trade Luis Garcia for 1-2 elite prospects to restock the farm system. That would have made their offseason an A+. As it is, they made a very good signing in Abreu, a fine signing in Brantley, extended one of the highest upside young SP in the league, and are entering the season as the odds on favorite to return to the ALCS, with no glaring roster holes, an improving farm system, and a good amount of payroll flexibility. That can’t be worse than a B grade.

Who do you think he’s gonna get primaried by, someone better?!

Trump’s comment on Haley’s announcement was something like “she loved me and said she’d never run against me but then changed her mind so I told her ‘good luck’, and I wish her the best.” Hard to believe she didn’t get his blessing and there isn’t some sort of deal in place. Who knows if it’s for her to be his VP pick and who knows if he will end up honoring it. But there’s no way his response to her announcement would be that positive if they didn’t have some kind of deal.

Who spied on your campaign? No one. Who stuffed the ballot boxes? Sane, legal voters whom you scared into action. Who paid off the FBI? No one, although you tried.

Conspiracy theory: Haley negotiated to enter the field to ensure the GOP “moderates” cannot rally around DeSantis in exchange for being Trump’s VP. She will play moderate throughout her short time in the primary (through SC) while being very careful not to appear opposed to Trump and going hard after Meatball Ron. Trump probably actually thinks he can literally fuck her after they win. I believe that if this weren’t the deal Trump would have already released a statement condemning her as a traitor replete with a nickname (“Sikhy Nikki”?)

Transitioning roles for pitchers comes with risk. Dudes change their pitch mix and effort level based on role and there’s always the chance doing that fucks them up. If Houston only had 4-5 viable SP I would be a lot more open to it. Abreu’s upside is that of a healthy McCullers. He’s not going to be a playoff ace, but he could be a viable #2 starter worth $25-30M/yr. That would be awesome but I don’t think the odds of that outcome are high enough to justify taking him out of his established role as a playoff-closer-level reliever.

They have 6 SP lined up plus Whitley and Bielak and a few other interesting arms in AAA. Abreu was utterly dominant out of the pen last season. Not worth the risk of derailing him to try to get greedy.

The Rangers seem like they’re only one player away from making the playoffs. Why they weren’t more proactive about upgrading their OF is beyond me. They spent all that money on middle IF last season then dumped a fortune into their rotation, and they didn’t have enough to patch LF with Mitch Haniger or Joey Gallo or Michael Conforto? That said I think Young has made several good moves this offseason and this will be a very competitive team. Heaney, Duffy, and Eovaldi are 3 of the potential best value pitching signings of the offseason.

That looks very close to what I would expect. Unfortunately I do not consider that a very team friendly deal. Pretty much paying market rate for those free agent years which are into his mid 30s.