Dominikk85

The biggest issue with trump is his resistance to good advice. His racist talk, lies, insults whatever but the biggest problem is that he isn't able to listen to good advice and either alienates or fires any smart people that were around him. Had he done all this crazy stupid talk but listened to experts especially on covid like for example merkel did in Germany trump would have easily been re elected. You can be a loud mouth, self absorbed ass but then you can't be incompetent too. His first 3 years he kinda lucked into being seen as somewhat competent in economy but then when a real challenge came he was not smart enough to listen to the experts and run a solid policy. Covid has stopped trump but it was not the virus but trump's terrible handling of it that killed him because such a crisis actually helps the leader if he does a semi decent job handling this. In europe you can see that too for example with merkel or the austrian chancellor too, they handled it well with rather restrictive measures and their popularity grew. Trump didn't even act badly, he did nothing and made jokes about the virus and that is not what a leader does.

Yeah definitely turned out well and the dodgers were a deserving champion. Really no asterisk here as the post season was actually a bit longer and the dodgers won their division like 7 years in a row and lead this year again by some margin so making the playoffs was never in question. However of course the playoffs have a luck component and if the playoff format stays like this eventually we could see a sub .500 team winning the WS so I would not like it if it stays like this.

I wouldn't be surprised if the sox signed odorizzi. He is the type of veteran reclamation project the sox would go for. This hasn't worked so well in the past but if it works it could be good.

Wasn't there an interview were trump was asked for his favorite bible verse and he couldn't come up with one?:) Btw the one positive with trump imo was that he is not interested in Military and war. Not every war is wrong but with his judgement ability him being more military loving could have caused some serious harm. Fortunately he didn't care about that and create another endless war that costs trillions and achieves very little.

Btw I'm no huge biden fan and would have preferred a younger candidate but do trump people really Believe biden will install socialism, get rid of churches, get rid of police and open the borders? Biden-obama actually deported more people than trump did. Biden and harris also both have a strong pro police, law and order record. Also biden is pretty centrist when it comes to economy stuff.he is talking left to appease the bernie/aoc fans but he certainly is not a Socialist by any means when judging his policy in the last 30 years.

I'm not from the us but I don't quite understand why religious people support trump. I think trump goes way less to church then biden, he was married several times, had an affair with a porn star and allegedly paid several women for abortion. Why would religious people support him?

There is also the issue that it could go wrong due to other reasons and still the GM gets blamed. Theo epstein said 15 years ago that having a fixed closer rather than a bullpen ace sucks sabermetrically but that managers,fans,media and players revolt every time that inferior closer blows a game (even though he might have blown it already in the 7th with a traditional closer). Now 15 years later almost all data people agree your best reliever shouldn't close but still only a handful flexible pen aces (like hader or miller a couple years ago) are used. The same happens with that new manager, even if he does anything right and fails due to bad luck the media and fans will go crazy, players might revolt and the GM could get fired. This is also why those things are always tested in small markets, if you do that in NY or boston and fail you get chased out of town.

Because buy in is related to who says it. If you are an IT programmer would you listen to programming advice from a french teacher? Likewise many hitters wouldn't take hitting advice from a guy who played D3 even if what the guy says is correct. That is why teams now are looking for translators who speak both languages and who convey the info of the analytics guys to players in a way they understand and buy in to. I also disagree that managers in these days don't need to be an authority anymore. Many managers these days are more "players managers" and you certainly can be as authorative as 30 years ago but there are still rules that sometimes need to be enforced. You don't tell players to not wear a mustache anymore but there are still scenarios that require intervention (like a player constantly jogging to first base or disregarding sings, clubhouse arguments between players, players showing up late, players throwing teammates under the bus publicly...) And if you are too much of a players friend in those situations it can cause serious issues too as does being too authorative can too. It is a fine line these days, you need to relate to players and their individual needs and you need to be more careful with criticism but if you are too laissez faire then you can lose to clubhouse too because everyone does what he wants disregarding the team.

In theory yes, you could learn that all. However even if two people say exactly the same it is not always perceived the same. If you are parents of a teenage kid you probably know what I'm talking about:). So even if the manager does and says the same stuff players might not buy in if he hasn't done it. That is also an issue those new "data coaches" like Driveline and so on had and sometimes have (maybe that is why lisle failed in chicago), those guys are super smart with biomechanics, saber metrics and so on but players do not always buy in from a guy who has played D3 or not even that. Of course kyle boddy has overcome that but it took him more than a decade to get Accepted in pro ball. Now it is possible to earn that trust but the start is tougher and players are more sceptical if you have not played and in many cases you don't get enough time to convince players otherwise.

Yeah but that would still leave you with another shithole, continuous tanking cheap team. Mlb already has enough of this already. In fact I even would like tampa and oakland to be removed. Yeah they have success due to smart front offices but they have low payrolls every year and their stadium is empty even if they win. Get rid of them and let their front office win for somebody else:).

No. Find a new home for consistently cheap teams like TB, oakland, pittsburgh or miami first before you think about expansion. The last thing mlb needs is another team with a consistent sub 90m payroll.

Here is an article defending the snell decision. Many say that cash just went by the numbers (he is usually much worse third time through the order) and didn't watch the game but the article says that Snell was actually starting to lose velo even if it was only a couple pitches. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/a-defense-of-kevin-cash-pulling-blake-snell-in-the-world-series/

Yeah, makes me wonder whether the renteria firing was hahn's move. I can understand wanting a better manager but saying that ricky was not data savy and modern enough and then hire a 70 yo doesn't fit. Larussa was actually quite modern with numbers 30 years ago but he has been out some time now and that stuff has changed.

Do you think hahn had anything to say in that decision?

The rays generally don't really let pitch pitchers pitch a third time through, especially snell. I think only glasnow did it like twice this year but generally it is a club philosophy to not let pitchers go a third time. I can understand cash here, snell never pitched a third time through, it was a one run lead and he has one of the best and deepest pens in the game.

Yeah winning or losing arb is usually a few hundred k difference but overall the number will still be pretty similar. Maybe it is 5.8 vs 6.3 or so.

I have really not heard much negative about rodon's mechanics. It probably is not 100% perfect but was never considered a big red flag (like sale's mechanics). Maybe there are some things that can be optimized but some guys are just fragile while others with questionable mechanics last a decade.

Wouldn't say rodon was a failure of development. 15-18 he was a solid pitcher averaging a 4.01 ERA and 1.7 bWAR. That is not fantastic but basically a good 4 starter or mediocre 3 starter. He already was not durable averaging only 124 innings but was generally an effective pitcher. Then injuries got worse and he was very bad in 19 and 20 albeit it was only like 40 innings combined. So he maybe was not what you expect from such a high pick but he was generally a solid pitcher who was ruined by injuries. So unless you attribute the injuries to the training or mechanics not optimized by the Sox you can't attribute his decline to bad development.

I'm not a huge baker fan but I feel he did a great job bringing a team that lost Cole, Verlander, Alvarez and the trash can to game 7 of the ALCS.

I wonder if spreading the la russa rumor is a tactical move so that people are more willing to accept hinch (kinda as the lesser evil). Kinda like people don't really want hinch after the scandal but if he can avoid la russa you are kinda OK with it. Maybe Hahn already has a Deal with hinch (maybe even before RS end) but he can't say it because it would be a serious breach with mlb rules to negotiate with a suspended manager while season is still going so the la russa thing is just a smoke screen.

Is is not great but I could see the Sox going for Jake odorizzi. He was very bad but he is only 30 and was limited to 13 innings with some injuries this year (hit by a pitch, blisters) and the Sox could hope for a bounce back if he is cheap enough. Of course this Sox bounce back veteran signing didn't exactly work a lot in the past but he could bounce back to being a solid 4 starter with a high 3s, low 4 Era. Not a great solution, he could turn into EE/la Roche and get even worse instead o bouncing back and obviously Bauer would be a lot better but if the finances don't allow for it I could see oddorizzi being the guy that Hahn goes for

I would definitely expect to notify the GM. Regarding wistleblowing when the GM does nothing that is kind of a risky move. If MLB does act here it might work but if mlb decides to put that under the rug you lose your job and maybe even end up black balled.

I think giants owners said a couple times they don't want a full tank rebuild.

I could see them bringing Mazara back at a discounted rate. He was terrible but if he can get back to 2017-19 level he is a decent albeit not spectacular platton player (105 wrc+against lefties) that could share RF with Engel. Not a premium solution but cheap

I would want to bring in some outside knowledge into the org. Not saying those guys are bad but I would for example get a driveline guy who has proven to be cutting edge. Milb pitching dev of the Sox wasn't terrible but it also wasn't super great either.