Dutchrudder

They still have some holes to fill, and apparently plan to re-sign Kershaw who wants 25m a year. I think Ohtanis cap hit will be around 60m a year with the deferral. Sherzer had half his 7 year 210m deal with the Nats deferred, and it only lowered his cap hit by 13% a year. The deferral thing is being overstated, it's not a 1 to 1 deal, the 'savings' is based on NPV dollars and projected inflation, and it's a small portion of the total amount owed each year.

Agree 1000%. Teams like the As, Royals and Pirates only exist to suck luxury tax out of the league. It would also add value to cap space under the minimum, which would allow teams to capitalize further on down years by taking bad contracts from competitive teams to fill payroll. Teams like the Yankees could be shipping out Stanton and several prospects to the A's to clear cap space that the A's otherwise can't fill. It would help bad teams rebuild quicker and make the league more competitive.

Awwww, I was hoping he would go ruin an AL team's payroll for the next decade. I guess the Dodgers are a good team to wreck too. They better win a ring in the next 3 years, or this will be a colossal failure.

Towards the end of the season they might have a shot at a 2/7 matchup with them. Could be interesting, but I would still bet on the Nuggets in 6. I think the current team is about a 41 win team, but they might be able to do slightly better once some teams give up and tank. Should be a 7-10 seed.

NBA Ref assignments in the playoffs should work like jury selection. Each team gets to strike 3 refs from the pool in their series, and the NBA has to fill the spots with the remaining ones. It would be a lot of fun to see who teams disrespect and hate. If a ref is struck by every team, then they are terminated.

NBA Crunch Time is pretty cool. It's a multiview option on League Pass to watch a few games at once, and it highlights close games to make sure you don't miss the good stuff. Kind of like an NBA version of RedZone for the NFL.

Kevin Durant could eat Zion and not gain more than 10 pounds.

Where do you leave reviews for podcasts? Is there a Yelp section for that?

Wow Toronto? Ohtani really loves mediocre teams. I thought the original Angels signing was an odd choice when it happened. It will be interesting to see what Anaheim does once he's officially gone, they should be having a firesale and be one of the worst teams in the league next year. The AL West is going to look weird with the A's and Angels as 2 of the 3 worst teams in the league, and the Astros, Rangers and Mariners all shooting for 90+ wins.

Is Franco coming back for the Rays? Cause if not, they kinda nosedived back to .500 after he was suspended.

The Last of Us was the best TV drama I have seen since Game of Thrones, but this may top it. The style of the Fallout world looks perfect, I just hope the writing and characters are on par with the games. Although, I don't see any way Bethesda would let them take any shortcuts with the story.

LeBron is going to win it and MVP so he can claim it as #5 and enhance his argument as GOAT. So that's at least one person that cares.

That was when the Warriors were the darling of the NBA and got all the calls for about 5 years. It shifts around based on who is the most beneficial to the league, and whatever team is playing against Chris Paul.

Maybe dump the Triple Double stat, since it's kinda pointless? 11 stat categories wouldn't be a problem. I'm in another league that doesn't use Double Doubles or Triple Doubles.

I can't believe that's not reviewable. Should have been reviewed and Suns ball, or a jump ball at worst. Oh well, I'm guessing we will get a Lakers/Bucks final, which should be interesting.

Uhhhhh wow... the Suns just got jobbed on a turnover up 2 with 7 seconds left... Lakers lost of the ball, and got a timeout called even though nobody had possession of the ball. Not reviewable.

None of that is sexual assault. Dude is off his rocker. Anyways, this Phoenix/Laker game is pretty good, lots of back and forth. Lebron and KD are both going off.

I'm surprised Dubon wasn't mentioned there. I'm guessing Chas, Dubon and Meyers will platoon CF. Chas should take all the LF starts when Yordan hits DH, which is maybe ~60 games a year. Makes sense if they aren't signing anyone else. Maybe bring back Brantley if he's cheap.

Brailyn? lol...

So how many of you put money on Chet to win Rookie of the Year? Cause if things keep going the way they are, I think he's gonna beat Wemby for it.

Interesting tactics from the book banners showed up in Conroe ISD a couple weeks ago. Sending in some lady with an obviously fabricated or extremely exaggerated story about how she got addicted to porn because of a Scholastic brand book she got at a fair, which she attended as an 11 year old homeschooler. It appears the book banning isn't about saving the kids (SURPRISE!), and it's more about replacing Scholastic brand books (1.7 billion annual revenue) with some faith-based brand of books for public schools. Big names in rightwing grift have their kids books published and sold through Brave/Skytree. People like Kirk Cameron, Jack Posobiec, Kevin Sorbo and many more. Some great topics they cover are at the end of the article, and they are just as silly and stupid as you can imagine. So I guess this book banning scheme has come full circle: create drama in school boards > get thousands of books banned > libraries need to fill shelf space > supply books won't be protested by all those crazy people causing the book bannings and stop wasting the school board's time! Sure, the people protesting might have personal interests in stoking the flames and causing distractions from real issues, but it's all about saving the children from leftwing ideology at a young age. Instead we can replace it with rightwing ideology kids of all ages can enjoy! Yay! https://popular.info/p/mysterious-woman-tells-school-board

Probably just clearing salary to sign Ohtani

That's awesome, I hope he does win the award. He was such a a great leader when he was a player, and I was very sad when they traded him. Glad to see him back and turning this team around. Really couldn't ask for a better head coach right now.

Eh, I wish they wouldn't whine about it like that, I know it's a staffer but still. Take the W and forget about the refs. Call it like it is, you knew what you were getting into, and you achieved your goal of embarrassing a guy who is likely to be a 2028 opponent. Newsome also got to reach a whole new audience on Fox that likely wouldn't listen to a word he says otherwise, and he did so with excellent delivery, clearly defined thoughts and eloquent speech. His style with actual substance was obvious in comparison to the Carrot Top props Ron was pulling out of every pocket in his cheap suit. Maybe Gavin's message will get through to a few people on that side and start to break the spell, because god knows what garbage showmen those folks have been listening to for the last decade. And nobody "wins" a debate like this either. It's really dumb for people to go to great lengths to argue something you can't measure. Newsome's not running in 2024, and I don't know what Ron had to gain by debating a person that's not running at all. Maybe he has an uptick in fans after this, but I can't imagine that performance did anything for him.

Turn it into a Christmas thing, and say what gifts each Astro gets! Gym memberships for Chas and Singleton, LASIK surgery for Pena so he can see the ball, therapy sessions for Framber, etc.