LouisEly

Norris was on a one-year, $2.5M deal. Not a whole lot to be saved, especially considering that the Braves apparently sent some cash to the Dodgers. I'm guessing/hoping it was to cover the luxury tax on Norris' salary, as there is no way the Dodgers should get cash to pay Norris the $1.25M he is owed for the rest of the year.

Blacked out in Appleton on Dish Channel 152. 476 you have to rent. No channel 478.

Nunez is having a career year - his career OPS is .722 (including this year), and his minor league career OPS is .682. Nunez can play SS, but offensively he is inferior to Hill. Dozier has never played an inning of 3B and surprisingly his career OPS (.736) is lower than Hill (.746), Lawrie is on his fourth organization (says what you need to know about how much teams want him in their clubhouse) and has a career OPS lower than Hill, LeMaihu is having a career year (career OPS of .724), Beckham is having a career year on a small sample (career OPS of .681), Prado like you said may not be available if the Marlins are in contention, and Valencia has played a total of 41 innings in his career at 2B. If you need someone who can play both 3B and 2B, Hill is arguably the best of the bunch that for sure is available.

He has a 95mph fastball and a 70 mph curve - a 25 mph differential. Throw in a mid-80's change... if he can consistently generate the same arm action/slot/speed that kind of differential can be devastating. He also gets a lot of movement on that curveball.

There is a third and fourth option. Option #3 is you have to put up a bigger down payment to cover the short. Happens in CA quite a bit. Option #4 is that they used lousy comps. I recently refinanced my rental property and it's a 10-year-old duplex, four bedrooms and 1800 square feet each side. The appraiser used property comps that were 40 years old, one was a four plex with two bedroom apartments, the third was a three bedroom with 400 fewer square feet each side and 30 years old. Refused to use anything that was more than two miles away. We did a rebuttal and got the appraiser to come up a bit, but still much lower than what it could have sold for. If there are few similar sales nearby you can get screwed especially if the market is rising.

Thought I heard that next year's draft is supposed to be a lot better than this year's. Might want to get all the picks you can next year. That being said, the Hawks are said to be shopping both #12 and #21 this year in order to get cap room to resign Horford and Bazemore. MCW is a RFA after next season; could he get #12? Not sure if Inglis or O'Bryant plus a 2nd rounder could get #21, but they are cheap and they do want to get rid of the guaranteed contracts that come with the picks.

Nate with the first mention of Ellenson in the last couple of pages of the thread. Wonder what people's thoughts are of him. Obviously he needs to improve on his outside shooting, but he was just a freshman. Poor man's Kevin Love? Love certainly had better stats as a Freshman at UCLA. For their 2nd round, a guy I have liked for a while is Josh Scott of Colorado. Doesn't have the outside range, but he is a big body who wasn't afraid to rebound and can make his free throws. I think he can be a good PF off the bench. Joel Bolomboy has more of an outside game and certainly wasn't afraid to rebound; didn't play the level of competition that Scott played in the Pac-12 though. WalterFootball.com has Oregon State's Gary Payton II going to the Bucks at #38. Oh the irony of Gary Payton having to go to Milwaukee to watch his son play...

With ARI picking up $6.5M of Hill's contract, any team will only have to take on at most $3M and the Brewers could easily kick in $1M-2M so salary shouldn't stop any deals. While he is middle-of-the-pack this year in production for 3B or 2B, very few players having a better season will be available. Valencia of OAK is likely the only one, and he is having a career year so far (career OPS of .752), so it's debatable if he's perceived by GMs as better than Hill. 1) Royals - Released Omar Infante and Moustakas is on the DL. For now are going with Cuthbert at 3B and Merrifield at 2B; while Merrifiled has been hot, he has a career minor league OPS of .733. After winning the WS last year they should have plenty of cash on hand, and they are only a game out. 2) Indians - They have no business giving 200 PAs to Juan Uribe. With Byrd suspended and Brantley hurt they have had to move Ramirez and Chisenhall to OF. Maybe they are looking for OF help more than IF though. 3) Giants - both Duffy and Panik have come back down to Earth this year, and Panik is on the DL. Giants are resorting to starting Conor Gillaspie at 3B. With Cain hurt again and Peavey showing his age the Giants may be more focused on starting pitching, but Hill would be an upgrade offensively at both 3B and 2B. 4) Cardinals - one of the best in the business at 3B, but 2B has been an issue - Wong has been awful, and Gyorko hasn't been getting it done either. Peralta has never played 2B, and Diaz has played 2 innings at 2B in his entire professional career (he's also playing way over his minor league production and is due to come back to Earth). Greg Garcia? Cubs are running away with it, but the Cards are only one game out of the WC. 5) Blue Jays - Goins shouldn't be a major leaguer, and Darwin Barney isn't much better. Devon Travis tore up A-ball a few years ago and did well at AA, but his OBP is south of .300. If Tulo can return to career norms they might make another push. 6) Yankees - Pineda/Nova/Eovaldi need to right the ship and Tex needs to get healthy, but if they do Hill will be an improvement at either 3B or 2B.

Roman Reigns suspended 30 days for "wellness policy" violation. You'd think that they have to turn him heel now. Nice to see the Wyatt family back. I thought they were going to start pushing Bray for the WWE title the way he looked at it when he had a face-to-face with HHH a few months back.

There is a grill-your-own steakhouse in the Gaslamp called the Gaslamp Strip Club, named after their house cut of meat the NY Strip. (The receipt says Gaslamp Steak House, so you don't get in trouble if you have to submit for business expenses or if the wife sees it.) It is one of my favorite restaurants on the planet. The steaks are good, and it's fun to grill your own, but the sides are perhaps THE best sides I've ever had. I've gone there and just ordered sides. The other thing that is great about it - no one under 18 is allowed in the restaurant. They have artistic nude paintings on the wall and the waitresses are in burlesque outfits and it is kind of a classy burlesque atmosphere. If it's a guy trip, I highly, highly recommend. Rockin' Baja Lobster is a great casual, low cost bar/restaurant to grab some tacos (fish or otherwise) before the games. I had my first Miller Chill there about 10 years ago - San Diego was a test market and they had a promo going on there. But the fish tacos are excellent and there's a little patio to sit outside. The Marriott has a nice rooftop, but it gets crowded for games because you can kind of see inside the stadium. There are other hotels with a rooftop bar/lounge (Courtyard, Hotel Indigo) and I think Hotel Palomar has a nice pool lounge that is a good scene at night and Hotel Solamar has a rooftop pool and I think rooftop bar (The Nolen) There is also the Stone Brewing Tap Room, but I'm not a big fan of Stone's beers. They might have some exotic stuff at their taproom though. Also like Lime and Cat Eye Club Tiki Bar. Hell, I'm thinking about booking a trip right now...

It's not about not having money, it's about not even having access to things at all. No matter how poor you are, chances are you've eaten at a McDonald's. Not possible in Cuba, unless you find a way to sneak into the military base at Guantanamo Bay. No matter how poor you are, chances are you have or have access to a TV and multiple over-the-air TV stations. Even if you have money in Cuba, what cars do you have access to? Car purchase wasn't legalized in Cuba until 2011 (and only 50 cars and four motorcycles - total, new and used - were sold in the first six months of 2014). A vast majority of the few cars that are there are 50 years old; they haven't been able to even import anything since the 60's. How would you react to just seeing things that you have never even seen before? If you're poor in the U.S., you've at least seen these things even if you can't afford them. It's one thing to have access or exposure but not be able to afford; it's another thing to not even have access or exposure at all.

Cuba is a country, not a race. In theory, you could be Cuban and be any race on the planet, just like you can be American and be any race on the planet. I think his comment had more to do with coming from a non-free society and suddenly having both money and access to many things you never had access to. Like the proverbial expression, "kid in a candy store". Similar to how Russians clamored for many things American that they never had access to. Talk to people who were able to get into Russia/Soviet Union back when things started opening up; you could bring half a suitcase full of Levi's jeans and pay for your entire trip - you could easily get over $200 per pair, and that was back in the late 80's.

Reinventing himself... I was thinking the other day, if I was him, I'd get as much video of Jake Arrieta as possible and give those mechanics a try, see what happens. Arrieta kind of throws cross-fire, but not as much as Jungmann.

Take a look at what other free agent starting pitchers have signed for the last two offseasons. For someone with his track record (8 good seasons, one bad season), $12.5M/year for 1.5 seasons is cheap and low risk. If he can show over the next month that he is healthy (no recurring injury issues, no issues going 6-7 innings, ERA under 4.00) there will be no shortage of teams asking about him. As for his "checkered injury history", he's only had one full season in the majors with less than 24 starts and only two seasons with less than 150 IP (and one of those was 148.2 IP).

Free Shane Peterson

Part of this likely depends on how McCarthy and Ryu do in their rehab assignments. If they are likely to be back in July when their rehab assignments are up then they won't need a starter and might make a stronger play for Lucroy/Braun. The Dodgers could include Brett Anderson instead of sending cash to the Dodgers to offset some of the salary; not sure if he has to be a PTBNL because he's on the 60-day DL, but from what I read you can trade a player on the DL as long as it is before the trade deadline. Ethier is a 10/5 guy so he isn't going anywhere. De Leon, Bellinger, Holmes, and either Cotton or Brock Stewart, with Grandal and Van Slyke as spare parts to balance rosters and Brett Anderson to offset salary. I'd be fine with that.

If I'm giving up Lucroy and a solid ML starting pitcher under the age of 30, I'm getting back at least three top 100-caliber players of which at least two better be starting pitching prospects with at least #2/3 potential.

The sample size keeps getting bigger, and he keeps pitching well. He's cheap, but he's 31 - probably time to sell high. Given how cheap he is, any team could take him on without worrying about salary. Orioles? Royals? Are the Giants tapped out in payroll at $170M? They desperately need 4th/5th starters. What could he bring back in trade considering how cheap he is?

Seems to make too much sense. They need help in OF, #4/5 starters, and C. Braun, Garza, Lucroy. If there were a blockbuster of Braun + Lucroy + Garza... what could they get? If the Brewers take Crawford's contract in the deal... could that get a package that includes both Urias and De Leon plus others (Grant Holmes, Jhrel Cotton, Walker Buehler, Willie Calhoun)?

Royals DFA Infante. Would Hill + some cash be able to get one of Foster Griffin or Scott Blewett? Neither are doing well, but both are still only 20 years old.

Molina got a 10-year deal, Holliday got $120M in 2010 and got more than Braun did with Braun's deal not starting until 2016 despite never having been a MVP, and they gave Wainwright almost $100M for five years at age 32 three years removed from missing an entire season. How are those not crazy deals? Just because the Cardinals "knew them", that gives them a crystal ball to see into the future to know how they are going to perform? They got lucky in that those deals - at least two of them - panned out. But if the Brewers had given Fielder $120M in 2010, gave Lucroy a 10-year deal, and gave a 32-year-old pitcher $100M for five years, this board would literally have had a meltdown.

I saw the Fangraphs projection, but they were missing one critical element in their projections/calculations. The guy they had as #1 WAR through age 27 was a guy who struck out 96 batters in 57 innings... and walked 41. Walking 6.5 batters per 9 innings is not a recipe for getting to the majors, or sticking there.

My Millennial comment had more to do with Facetime and this separation anxiety they have from their friends - including having to text them back right away, even when they are on a date with someone else. They can't separate when it is ok to communicate with friends and when it can and should wait. We are seeing all generations be less courteous/aware of their surroundings and paying too much attention to their phones, but with Millennials it seems to be driven by needing to be constantly connected to friends.

I just wonder if Knebel is 100%. On Gamecast it said his fastball was 91-93; not sure if the telecast said that too but if so that's not right for him, he should be at 95-96. Heckuva job there by Torres, getting out of bases loaded with nobody out in less than 10 pitches and only giving up one run.

I can see it now, the Garza haters are going to say look at all of the hits he gave up, but four of the hits were infield singles and one of the doubles should have been caught by somebody. The only player who scored got on base via an infield single. Yeah, Garza will likely not be sent out for the fifth due to pitch count, but that's due to some luckily placed weakly batted balls, not due to poor pitching.