LCHorn

Yeah, I'd rather we find a way to bring Verlander back than trade for Luis Robert based on my expectation of cost. Jay Jaffe was calling out Crane for being chicken shit about the luxury tax in a chat the other day and I think that's a good point. You're the defending champion and have a chance to go back to back--why are you sweating a few million in tax liability if it extends the window?

I’m only quoting this part for kudos for the whole post-thank you for sharing.

I don’t really have this experience because I have little kids and no social life, but it seems like Aggies try to talk football with anyone identifying themselves as a Longhorn. On the rare occasion I specifically try to avoid that conversation because it always leads to some dig and smirk.

@blacklab@immamacCan we move this to "Board Discussion"? This isn't really a current events discussion.

Why in God's name are you listening to the blitz? Not that I'm happy about anyone losing a job but Craig's place is in the booth calling the game and then putting him back in cryogenic stasis between games. His autistic level fascination with probabilistic outcomes regarding the high school playoffs is terrible, terrible radio "So if Bastrop loses Liberty Hill today, but Kerville Tivvy wins against Buda, then Bastrop Cedar Creek plays Comal Pieper but it's a tie, then let's say Buda Hays decides to forfeit their game against Medina Valley, then Alamo Heights will be district runner-up. But if Bastrop wins, but Kerville Tivvy wins by 15 and Bastrop Cedar Creek loses....."

I was under the impression that the Netflix contracts offered a greater amount of compensation relative to other studios because of the absence of residuals. In other words, labor gets it all upfront.

Siri's offensive statistics outside of the homers are terrible.

My wife works for Google (in Austin); they are still planning to occupy it as far as she's been told.

Haha, that's what I was thinking. I looked at their website and thought it was funny that no one appears red-faced and covered in sweat.

I think that's a little unfair. The Obama pivot to Asia and the Trans Pacific Partnership were both an attempt at a policy and economic realignment. I don't know how we can discuss this without examining the politics about it, but plenty of politicians on both sides in the past couple of decades have been vocal supporters in this direction. Unfortunately, it's not a particularly compelling story to tell and the news media prefers the sugar rush of controversy and politicians willing to exploit it. This is picking nits a little, but I also think 20 years ago we thought both Russia and China would be more friendly world actors by now. It's really just the last ten that things have gone to shit.

These last two weeks of volatility have not been good for my liver.

@henrygandorfwhats your read on Bob Iger’s comments today in Variety? It seems like everyone but Netflix is losing money…

No way Todd Jeffries can write a paragraph that long...

The real problem was not re-signing him because that Arizona contract ended up a huge bargain. One more reason to hate McLane.

The blitz has resulted in an automatic change of station for me ever since the 1300 days. Painfully unfunny.

Yeah, it seems to me it mirrors cable tv distribution (in that a legacy business becomes too pricey/bad value and loses it's audience) and the fact that's such a obvious source of comparison it makes me wonder why the MBA types aren't getting hired by the teams to propose solutions. Mostly because of the NFL (fuck Bud Adams), I have to increasingly hold my nose with professional sports fandom because ownership is typically just so divorced from a sense of noblesse oblige.

Looking at John Sickels 2018 top prospect list now. Hector Perez and David Paulino both end up traded with Giles for Roberto Osuna who dropped off the face of the earth after he hit free agency in 2020. Looks like he's spent the last two years in Japan. In 2023 he's pitched 26 innings and has a WHIP of .462. A couple of over-performers of note: 14) Cristian Javier, RHP, Grade C+/B-: Age 20, signed out of Dominican in 2015; posted 2.25 ERA with 80/27 K/BB in 60 innings between NY-P, Low-A, and High-A, only 38 hits allowed; fastball report was right around 90-91 from Quad Cities but plays up due to strong curve, slider, and change-up; has the component ratios of a power pitcher and should not be under-rated despite the radar readings; like Armenteros, he knows how to pitch. ETA 2020. 16) Framber Valdez, LHP, Grade C+: Age 24, signed out of Dominican in 2015 at the old age of 21; posted 2.79 ERA with 73/29 K/BB in 61 innings in High-A but 5.88 ERA, 53/23 K/BB in 49 innings in Double-A; fastball up to 95-96 but curveball and change-up were less effective in Double-A, though K/rate remained solid; some disagreement about whether he starts or relieves in long run, but he’s a lefty who throws hard, he’ll land somewhere. ETA 2019. And TNSTAAPP: 1) Forrest Whitley, RHP, Grade A/A-: Age 20, first round pick in 2016 from high school in Texas, outstanding 2017 season at three levels with combined 2.83 ERA, 143/34 K/BB in 92 innings, 78 hits; Texas League observers at end of season were full of praise, noting excellent command of mid-90s fastball and better secondary stuff than most pitchers his age, with slider, curve, and change-up all looking very good; mature mound presence as well; main issue now is building up workload and proving durability; possible top-of-the-rotation arm, may go with a straight Grade A when all the lists and rankings are complete. ETA 2019.

Reading the draft thread on crawfish boxes, someone mentioned Jio Meir and the 2009 draft which really took me down the rabbit hole. Some of this is just the state of sports journalism from 15 years ago but we're blessed to have alternatives to "Telvin Nash and Mike Kvasnicka are going to be stars!" that would seem such an illogical conclusion in the face of their performance. Some miscellaneous trivia--in that 2009 draft class JD Martinez would unsurprisingly lead in career WAR, Keuchel is #2, #3 is spoilered: Also, looks like the Rangers had a net negative WAR from their whole draft so it could be worse...

I’m told that most of them make $60k-$75k annually. If you’re making more you’d better be bringing your own advertisers because you’re just additional overhead otherwise. A decade ago pretty much anyone with their name on a show was making $100k+. Dale was reputedly making $300k-$400k, JB and Sandy were at $500k each. Hogan may be better if he’s still considered a station manager or whatever his title is. All these radio personalities that were high profile a decade ago (not named Bobby Bones) have watched their incomes fall or become a cost casualty.

Fwiw, I said we should have signed a starter but it was very much in hindsight. I favored Eovaldi because it would have denied him to Texas, he has pitches that play well in the post-season (except against us 😉) and ideally we wouldn’t need more than 120 innings out of him (so his injury history wouldn’t have been too big an issue). Now do hitters-I haven’t done anything formal but every time I look at our missed connections there it looks like we’d be paying a premium (or HUGE premium) for the same or worse production. That said, I think we should have added depth, the absence of which makes our trade options more limited.

I’ve opined earlier in the thread what a local DJ told me but will repeat it; terrestrial radio in general has had a catastrophic loss in ad revenue due to a graying consumer base. Austin’s market, in particular, suffers for having a very strong NPR station that by itself grabs 60% of the listening audience. Essentially the Horn sucks because it doesn’t make any money. It’s not content, shitty hosts, etc., they are just a symptom of it. This isn’t informed by the person who shared the details above, but I also wonder about sports consumerism in general beginning a descent. The digital generation just has far more niche interests about which they can indulge and as they don’t begin the next generation of patronage the sports content production machine (teams, schools, broadcasters) look to make up the difference by increasing costs on the existing consumer base (thereby resulting in further fracturing as lower income fans shrink their consumption).

Ouch--they did that to us, too, but just by 25 bps. After promising full transparency into raw pricing when we were recruited, the discovery of the upcharge is partly what sped up many of the branch departures. They probably could have sold it if they hadn't lied by omission about it first.

Thanks; everything is all perspective, though. I'll share a story about a former colleague that's had it even rougher. So I'm a mortgage banker and the bank for whom I worked built itself up in 2019-2021 by recruiting some of the best producers in the country and letting them be fairly independent compared to how branches are usually managed (basically, run your branch how you want, run your own P&L, use your dba, we won't be have any overlays on conforming, etc.). The rapid market deterioration, coupled with letting branches run losses too long meant they faced solvency issues at the beginning of the year and they took a bail-out offer from another bank after a large number of the branches left to start their own mortgage bank. For our part, we had read the tea leaves and left late last year before things got really bad. One of our colleagues, however, couldn't leave because he had a $250K or higher (I'm misremembering just how much it was, it might have been $400K) branch surplus on his P&L that he would lose if he left (he basically was a one man shop and had zero expenses; I'm told you can bonus yourself some of that surplus but it can't be more than 10% of your gross compensation annually because the CFPB doesn't want it used to shift compensation around). When the bank was sold he was promised some small fraction of this and I don't think he's received any of it (as you might expect, the original bank didn't have it to pay and the bank's buyer doesn't feel any obligation but will use it as a carrot to retain his branch).

I don’t think those of us in the industry are feeling like market deterioration from the best couple of years most of ever had is unfair; frankly it’s welcome to the extent that I’m not working until midnight seven days a week. What’s cause for our discomfort is just how fast the door slammed shut; we had a team of ten and I took a big pay cut to minimize layoffs last year but it didn’t help; that includes four loan officers I trained personally and was invested heavily in their success, both in terms of time and head hunter fees. Our super sharp admin was a loss; all our biz dev team we had to let go. Maybe it’s better to have the band aid ripped away fast but all of that infrastructure built to handle better times isn’t there now for when rates come down, as they will. Anyway, I can’t speak to anyone else’s experience, but that makes for a pretty shitty part of the business cycle.

I’m not very concerned but it’s a choice-Luhnow was quoted as being bullish on creating a culture of winning in the minors. Tampa, who we presumably want to emulate, has winning records with most of their affiliates. That said, I don’t know how you make THESE teams better besides to slow promotions or sign more minor league free agents (maybe including some AAAA lifers). Playing devil’s advocate, not having a GM early in free agency might have been where signing that additional depth was felt most keenly.