LCHorn

I prefer Nola over Snell if the $$ are the same (on this team, anyway). Snell's walk rate terrifies me and Nola is more durable. Don't think we didn't all notice you sneaked in Whitley for 30 innings. If he makes the majors I hope you quickly unload all those autographed cards you've been sitting on.

Not really. We have 120 innings we need to replace between Neris and Maton. We have 33 starts that were devoted to Bielack and France that ideally get replaced by someone better (I don't hate France like @Wulaw Horn hates, or hated, Maton but he was very, very lucky. If that's repeatable I'd be shocked). Garcia and McCullers can't really be dealt and are worth more to us than anyone else, anyway. Take a look at the pitching staff in Sugar Land--calling it hot garbage is actually generous. Besides Blanco, there's no one that's poised to help in 2024, even to provide slightly below average innings. Maybe someone from AA like Kouba can improve his velocity in short stints but do you really want to rely on that? I don't know if he was actually as great as the analytics nerds considered him to be, but someone like Kevin Goldstein, who coordinated pro scouting, would be very useful right now; if we aren't going to have the budget for a Hader we really need some replacement level bodies that can shuttle back and forth between the majors and Sugar Land.

I’ve said this before but the loss of high value prospect depth makes it all the more critical that the team add free agents-both to fill holes but also to make it possible to deal players like Dubon. We need to create a surplus somewhere (relievers are probably the most fungible).

I think you’re overstating the demand for a light hitting AA left fielder but I guess we’ll see.

Tell me more about Merissa Hansen-hot and crazy is my wheelhouse.

I like to make fun of him but looks like Habib called it yesterday in regards to today's CPI.

Many years from now we’ll discover that MLB perpetrated a league wide conspiracy to steal signs but only at Minute Maid and only provided to the away teams.

I think it’s 95% pledges, personally.

You're misunderstanding the strategy--their objective in most cases isn't to poach from our roster, it's to increase OUR cost of retention. If I'm supporting @Wulaw Horn's argument, I'd say this works both ways--we need to be doing that to Aggie, too.

I doubt Worthy is the only pure mercenary on our team and it behooves the Aggies to tempt whoever isn't a starter or just wants to get a better deal out of our NIL. This one doesn't require that much imagination, but let's say Dan Lanning comes in and wants to build his defense around Hicks. Hicks doesn't want to go, really, but Lanning has the institutional support to offer $250K in "NIL" money and that's a big bag. I'd presume we'll match but maybe we'd have only paid Hicks $100K otherwise. That $150K additional isn't there now for Bryce Anderson or whoever. If I was A&M I'm making very clear to the Texas players that the bank is open just to see who appears interested.

I know we are all excited about poaching off the Aggie roster but here’s a little glass half empty rebuttal-the chaos of a coaching change always results in a bunch of transfers out and that’s before NIL and a feckless NCAA made it attractive to jump. If A&M does lose 40% of its roster, it’s going to be natural for boosters to hunt for replacements and our roster would be a good place to start. I doubt they pull anyone but it likely makes it more expensive to keep the roster intact and those dollars could otherwise be devoted to incoming transfers. I’m sure we’ll happily take a player or two if they come with low demands in an area we expect to lose starters to the NFL, but I doubt we are going to spend big if USC or someone else gets greedy.

I think it’s telling that from all appearances, they made a decent movie. They just can’t sell tickets for it.

I think it was @Brisketexan who touted his method of tipping $20 or more on the first drink. I guess that’s prudent if you’re the only one there but most of the time I’m getting a single cocktail before a dinner seating or it’s a bar where it’s so busy that keeping up with patrons would seem a low priority for a bartender.

It’s not just that; quite a few realtors I talk to are half terrified of negotiating anything. They get overly concerned with the listing agent’s opinion of them. When I do new agent classes there’s always a few “wait, I can do that?” responses. I’m always like “hell yeah, that’s the fun part-why did you get in this business again?”

I always wonder about that, too. Tipping a bartender 15% for opening a bottle of wine seems excessive if that’s the same expected tip for waitstaff hustling back and forth from your table repeatedly.

Marvel’s issue is needing Ant-Man to do better than $500m to make a profit. I agree with @atomheartbevo, they’ve got to find a way to lower the stakes from Endgame and still have a compelling cross-film background narrative.

The issue, for which you likely agree, isn’t specific to just Talarico. It’s that any state rep from the minority party is a bad candidate to win a campaign against Ted Cruz. Plus, I’m picking on you Talarico partisans a bit-ya’ll are a little like Westlake parents thinking every one of your football players should be recruited by UT. Gina Hinojosa and Vikki Goodwin, just to name two local reps, have more appeal, in my opinion, than Talarico and no one is promoting them as formidable in a hypothetical race against Cruz.

Are you the guy on the board that is constantly pimping Talarico? He’s going to need to actually accomplish something first besides giving the diminished number of white male Democrats a candidate who looks like them. At least run for mayor or something. NYT just ran a conversation with Frank Bruni, Nate Silver and someone else with whom I’m unfamiliar and one of the three commented that they thought Allred is a better candidate than Beto was in 2018. I disagree, I think that campaign represents the top end of what a Dem could have done in that race but I am interested to see if Allred’s pending loss shows us something new about the electorate.

I have a suspicion that the entire industry is built on a canard that falls apart quickly if providers actually have to document services performed besides entering in a billing code.

I just can’t envision a scenario in which any of the rumored or actual third party candidates hinder Biden more than Trump.

Off topic but why cast a total fox like Paula Patton and then omit her from your print ads? Was this a one sheet only for Des Moines?

That update is completely devoid of new information. No news means it's Espada? Brown would certainly understand that his role in the organization is strengthened if the manager appears beholden to him for support. It just doesn't appear that Crane wants him to have that kind of authority.

I'll join you there--I've seen nothing so far that's encouraging about his tenure.

I was going to write a rebuttal to this but @Js1 got there before me. I think there's this perception that the Democrats nationally are total boobs when it comes to running campaigns, messaging, how to allocate limited resources, etc., and it's unsupported by the lots of evidence to the contrary. We (in Texas) are probably a little more sensitive to it just because our state party apparatus has been starving to death for 20 years in both money and talent.

Well put.