Fear The Chorizo

Agreed on thats what Rodgers may feel, but that also shows how insane that perception is. The Packers did a ton between the 2018 and 2019 seasons to improve their roster (short and longterm). If they truly had a "moving on" plan established, they don't go out and sign all the free agents they did and use high draft picks before the 2019 season in effort to fill the talent gaps that roster had at key spots on the defense. If Rodgers thinks that 7 win improvement between 2018 and 2019 seasons was due to his performance, he needs to look at his stats again.

NFL sets 2022 salary cap ceiling to $208.2M...that means it won't go over that amount next year no matter what the league revenues look like. That would amount to a nice, healthy ~$25M hike from what 2021's cap number is but not nearly as high a jump as many had speculated it could jump to given an assumed return to typical gameday revenues, + adding a 17th game and new TV money. With all the cap gymnastics many teams had to go through to get under the 2021 cap, that $208M number doesn't provide a ton of relief for teams that kicked the can down the road. Specifically to the Packers, it should give them enough room to lock up some key players that will need to get paid next year to remain Packers (Alexander, Adams in particular) regardless of what happens with this Rodgers soap opera. But, bringing in new talent from outside will need to happen via the draft much more than free agency given their midterm cap situation. Pretty sure this cap increase all but guarantees many of the other high dollar QB/marquee player contracts are going to be in for another round of restructurings next offseason, too...

The Packers would likely have enough cap savings post 6/1 to be able to take Carr's contract back in a swap for Rodgers. A subsequent extension would free up more, presumably. What would a Raiders/Rodgers deal look like? Carr+ what? One little factoid - guess who one of Adams' collegiate QB's was?

MVP year threw a wrench on the plans. If Rodgers is all about winning, this never, ever gets out of his mouth. Hell, if Rodgers is even sort of about winning and is a team player even just on gamedays this probably never comes out of his mouth. I'd love to listen to him expand on what exactly these "plans" are that Rodgers is so certain were inevitable, no matter what his level of play was moving forward. No team just cuts bait and moves on from an MVP quarterback the season after he wins MVP. He's still under contract for 3 more seasons - in no way is that a "year to year contract" if Rodgers continued to perform at a high level. And bringing in a talented but developmental QB project high in a draft is in no way locking down the expiration date on Rodgers' tenure as a Packer - his onfield production dictates that no matter what the backup QB roster situation looks like. If anything, multiple Rodgers injuries over the years that just cratered seasons because Green Bay had nothing aside from him in the QB room made getting more talent at that position a priority, then Rodgers' 2018 and 2019 seasons probably solidified a sense of urgency to plan for the future. That's obviously what the Packers' front office had in mind with drafting Love, and Rodgers knows this - he just can't bring himself to actually say those words because he knows that would speak to the flaws (age, injuries, 2018-2019 performance decline) that were creeping into his onfield abilities in recent years.

Yes - particularly with this weird upcoming salary cap year where it's actually lower than 2020 due to COVID revenue shortfalls. For example, Tom Brady's 2021 cap hit is roughly $10M after another crazy restructure this spring - that allowed Tampa Bay to basically resign anyone they wanted from their Super Bowl roster who was a free agent. Takes both parties wanting and being willing to push the can down the road, however. When GK was restructuring anyone he could on the current roster this spring, Rodgers was really the lone remaining big contract player who didn't restructure (Adams also, but both parties likely want the next negotiation to be a big extension and not just a restructure). Reading the tea leaves, I think Rodgers was approached about a restructure of his current deal and he declined - instead asking for a brand new monster deal that probably included a crazy amount of signing bonus money upfront and a contract the Packers just couldn't make work under this season's cap limitations with their current roster.

He can say that all he wants, but really it is. Agreed - he's been consistent in framing Love as "a good kid that's fun to work with"....same stuff he was quoted saying about other QBs drafted in later rounds or undrafted FAs brought in who were never viewed as a potential heir apparent (i.e., Hundley, Flynn, Boyle, Brohm - who was drafted in round 2 of the 2008 draft right before Rodgers was given the keys to the franchise amidst the Favre fiasco). The difference with Love (and Rodgers obviously knows this) is he's talented enough to be a starting QB in the NFL after a bit of seasoning/development....based on how Rodgers' contract is currently structured I'm convinced he had been planning this sort of tantrum for awhile, probably after next season when he would have felt he'd have the Packers cornered the most in effort to get one more huge contract done - but then they went ahead and drafted a legit quarterback prospect last season and hastily sped up Rodgers' timeline in case people see that Love can play once he's actually able to take meaningful game snaps this coming preseason - even if the only person who felt Love actually would unseat a QB playing at an MVP level is Rodgers himself, that's all it took for him to have the view that everyone is thinking that way.

I'm not absolving Rodgers from his part in this saga. But can't believe management let things deteriorate to this point. But if the primary reason things deteriorated to this point is the fact Rodgers is a narcissist that probably decided he was going to do this 3 years ago right after signing his current contract extension, what else could management do?

And if this is about money that's ridiculous. If you're hurt about other guys making more than you, get over yourself. That has always been a thing. You get a new contract, you're the top dog for a little bit and then after a couple years your contract is outdated and other guys end up getting bigger deals. If you don't like it then sign 1 year deals rather than mutli year deals with big guarantees. He didn't seem to have much issue with his contract or salary after a couple lackluster seasons in '18 and '19. Keep in mind there is a 1st ballot HOF qb who has never been close to being the highest paid player in the league at his position. That qb also has 7 rings, and I think those two facts are linked.

After watching whatever that was on espn last night, I would be fascinated listening to an interview with rodgers' family, who he largely alienated. I'd imagine many of the issues Rodgers has conjured up are the same between the Packers front office and his fam... Dude comes off as a narcissistic headcase. He wants to be Brady but doesn't realize his own personality runs opposite of Brady's. And I think losing to Brady at home in the NFCCG has driven him nuts.

For the substances some are approved by MLB as there has always been this unwritten rule that pitchers can use some substances to be able to grip the ball better. This is good for the batter in terms of the pitcher is able to accurately throw the pitch you don't really want a pitcher who could possibly hit you in the head at some point as they are not able to control where they are throwing the pitch. Perhaps if they made sure MLB pitchers didn't have foreign substances available to use, velo would decrease in order to improve command of pitches and the concern about pitches just flying everywhere would vanish on its own. I don't hear about a dramatic number of collegiate or high school players getting hit in the head by pitchers that still throw pretty darn hard to hitters that typically aren't nearly as used to seeing velocity in the batters box, and I'm fairly certain there isn't pervasive pine tar/foreign substance use at those levels. Overall, the foreign substances probably helps more with controlling offspeed/breaking pitches while allowing pitchers to maximize velocity on those pitches where high RPMs make a difference in "stuff". It could easily explain how pitchers are suddenly throwing low 90s sliders and mid 90s "cutters" on top of mid 90s four seamers - that collection of high velo stuff is essentially unhittable if all those pitches can be commanded at an elite level. Without unnaturally high RPM rates, those offspeed offerings are a bit slower in order to be commanded for strikes/location, and suddenly hitters have a chance.

This is something that could easily be dealt with by MLB if they actually wanted to (and I think they should). They already have control of game balls being put into play. Next step is to have the same person/official in charge of game balls being in charge of pitchers' game mitts - they can be inspected at the start of each game and given/taken from the pitcher whenever he heads toward the mound or comes off the field between innings. Gloves are by far the easiest spot for pitchers to conceal a foreign substance within - if they want to try and put it somewhere on/in their uniform or cap that's something I'm willing to rely on opposing dugouts/umpires to try and police. It's pretty simple - being able to grip the baseball better than a pitcher normally can without a foreign substance allows for them to throw with max effort and maintain better than expected command of those pitches. Eliminating foreign substances will initially lead to a huge spike in BBs, then forcing pitchers to dial back effort/velo a bit to get back in the zone and, what do you know, reaction times for hitters are back to where they've typically been and hitting numbers improve. The excuse of allowing foreign substances for hitters' safety to make sure a pitcher can grip the ball falls really flat, especially now that we are out of late winter/early spring game temps - I'd be willing to make an exception of adding a pine tar rag or something on the mound if the game conditions warrant for player safety (i.e., game temp below 40, rainy, or something like that) - but it should be like a rosin bag that's universal for both teams.

I think the hangup is that it's probably quite common for a fully vaccinated person to get COVID...but it's quite rare for that person to have a severe symptomatic response to it (where all the 90+% efficacy stats are generated from), and it's also exceedingly rare for a fully vaccinated person that gets COVID to transmit the virus to others based on extremely limited viral load. Aside from instances where testing is still conducted no matter what on people (i.e., businesses, sports teams, etc) as part of protocols, the only other instances where fully vaccinated people are being subjected to COVID testing when they aren't showing symptoms is if it's part of a contact tracing request if they have been in close contact to a person who developed symptomatic COVID....that's how my fully vaccinated mother found out she had COVID a few weeks after being considered "fully vaccinated". This should also be the item fully vaccinated people can lean on in order to incinerate their stockpile of masks with a clear conscience, btw...

The scandal broke in November 2019 and since then the Brewers offense has not been good, most notably Christian Yelich. Or, you know, fouling a ball off one's kneecap and shattering it followed by natural hesitancy in the batters box recovering from that injury in a pandemic-shortened 2020 season coupled with what appears to be nagging back issues to start this year could be to blame.

Piggybacking on this, won’t hitters have a tough time adjusting to the added distance of the mound being moved back? They’ve trained themselves to get their timing down on fastballs, etc. for years. The added distance of pitches will add to the amount of time the ball gets to the plate and, even though we’re talking fractions of seconds, it’ll still throw off hitters a bunch, wouldn’t it? Maybe I’m overthinking this. Increased distance from home plate gives the hitters more time to see the ball and swing/react to a pitch - the idea being that since average pitch velo is higher than its ever been, an increased distance gives the hitters back those fractions of a second back they've had previously. It would benefit hitters to have more time from the release of a pitch before it hits the catcher's mitt.

1 - why, so there is less downward trajectory on pitches and hitters with uppercut swings have even a smaller amount of time the barrel of their bat and the ball is in the hitting area? Also, lowering the mound more all but eliminates pitchers using their legs at all in their delivery, so unless injuring a bunch of them is viewed as a good way to increase scoring this is a bad option. 2 - plausible, although I'm not entirely certain how much time that would save if the current feast/famine approach for pitchers and hitters doesn't stop every at bat. Going for K's from a pitching standpoint and not worrying about K'ing from a hitting standpoint guarantees long at bats no matter what. 3. It falls within the normal pace of a game, and MLB will never do away with between inning commercial breaks to pay the bills, so there's no point. getting rid of extreme shifts was also mentioned earlier in the thread...also a solution looking for a problem. What about late game situations when managers sometimes opt to bring an OF in to put an extra guy in the infield to cut off ground balls and make plays at the plate? Would teams be given the option to deploy weird defensive shifting in specific game situations? Would this be yet another thing that could be challenged? Would this positioning rule be applied when the pitcher starts his windup? If so, what's to stop the pitcher from just taking extra time at the start of it so infielders can go run into a shifted position when there aren't any runners on base. what's even the in-game penalty for not following a rule like this? From what I can largely gather, extreme shifting isn't nearly as prevalent once there are runners on base, so maybe to eliminate shifting hitters should actually find ways to get on base more often? The solution is for hitters to figure out how to adjust, plain and simple. I think reverting back to the what the baseball was a few years ago makes some sense, but I'd almost rather have MLB stick with the ball they have this season to force hitters to adjust - otherwise this will resemble watching fastpitch softball where the best pitchers threaten throwing no-hitters more often than not. There always have been big power bats in baseball that have an all or nothing approach at the plate - IMO what the issue has become is there is an extreme lack of contact hitters currently in the game, and even most contact hitters are oftentimes trying to behave like power hitters....that worked ok with a baseball that was likely a bit juiced and its genesis started when players themselves were juicing - now with steroids not being the frontline issue in the league and a baseball that isn't as jumpy we are back to seeing batted ball results being similar to what they were decades ago....frankly I'm not entirely certain that's a bad thing.

Kluber with a no-no tonight....that's 6 on the year (and not counting MadBum's 7 inning no-no in a shortened game)...so essentially 7 no hitters already this season. The all time record for no hitters in a major league season is 8....in 1884. The modern era of baseball has had 7 9-inning no hitters thrown in a season 3 times....1990, 1991, and 2012. Right now MLB is on pace for well over 20 no-hitters in the season, obliterating any prior records. The most shocking part of this to me is this is occuring in an era where a starter going the full 9 is exceedingly rare based on pitch count limits and it being right at the start of the year (where managers are going to err on the side of caution and pull pitchers early). Sure the pitching is better....but it's not THAT much better. People look at the putrid Brewers' offense and wonder how they're even hovering around 0.500 a quarter into the season...in large part it's because most teams' offenses are also terrible, and some teams that are a bit better don't have as strong a pitching staff.

Kolten Wong is performing to his career offensive norms and has provided stellar 2B defense...who signed him this last offseason? If Hiura doesn't fall on his face to start this season and get demoted, and Yelich have to go on the IL right after getting going to start the season most of the angst about a lack of corner IF and OF offensive production goes away. It was always about how those two middle of the order bats performed - one tanked and the other couldn't stay on the field, and we're seeing the results. If Stearns is to blame at least in part for the offensive woes to date, it's that he's brought in a collection of offensive players that by and large aren't talented enough to hit their way out of a funk, and collectively they aren't deep enough to overcome one, let alone two key losses in their lineup due to a bad, extended slump (Hiura) and injury (Yelich).

Regarding LaRussa - I hate the personality, but love him as a manager. If it's simply about winning games on the field, the White Sox made a quality hire - many here will harpoon me for saying it but it's true. LaRussa will rank 2nd in MLB history to the likes of Connie Mack for total wins later this season, and on top of that he's in the top 30 in win percentage in MLB history for managers with over 1,000 wins. There's also a huge segment of White Sox fans that absolutely do not view his hiring and everything that he drags along with him persona-wise as bad for the team they root for. Argue all you want against his unwritten rules nonsense - a big part of me thinks his teams never have really practiced what he preaches and it's a mental angle he presses to stay under the opponents' skin much more than a baseball manager should be, and to take heat off his own players. His personality is also the reason he can't seem to stay in one clubhouse forever for a manager with his record of success, so he gets in his own way from being universally regarded as the best in-game baseball manager there ever has been spanning multiple eras....but it's tough to argue the results.

This is a leaguewide issue - the launch angle adjustment players have made in effort to increase slugging combined with the increase in pitch velocity and frequency of high fastballs means the pendulum has swayed well into the pitchers' advantage. Pitchers have adjusted to that launch angle change with velo and with location (high in the zone) - it's on the hitters to adjust their approach, and that means sacrificing slugging for contact, plain and simple. Pitchers got away from throwing high in the zone a few decades ago because those were the pitches that wound up in the seats - particularly during the steroid era. Since they worked heavily down in the zone, hitters adjusted launch angle to do more consistent damage with lower pitches...pitchers then saw the enormous holes in these swings and are now exploiting them - moving the mound back a foot or lowering the mound or any of the other changes being tossed about wouldn't have near the positive impact on hitting that hitters simply adjusting their swings back to where they've traditionally been for most of modern baseball history would bring. Deadening the ball, even slightly, turns those 2nd-5th row HRs into warning track flyouts for players that simply shouldn't be considering themselves sluggers - we are seeing alot of those (in addition to K's) with this Brewers roster. 'Changing the approach' means more than trying to beat shifts by hitting away from positioned players - to me the bigger change hitters leaguewide need to make is leveling their swing paths out so the bat stays in the hitting area longer. That will reduce HRs, but also reduce Ks dramatically. And frankly, shifting works so well because the uppercut launch angle limits where batted balls in fair territory in the field of play go. Someone pointed to an increase in foul balls recently - it's because the length of time a max effort uppercut swing has in the actual hitting zone where the ball is struck well enough to result in a fair ball is miniscule, if hitters are off by just a fraction of an inch in terms of swing path or timing the ball just gets fouled off.

I do get a kick out of the President essentially stating that if you want to stop wearing masks, get vaccinated....at this point in time 90 percent of adults who haven't started getting vaccinated in the USA haven't been wearing masks on their own time since, well, ever. And yeah, i'm pleased that this was formally announced, because otherwise this never really ever ends. My mom tested positive 4 weeks after getting her full Moderna vaccine regimen, but only found out because she had to get tested as a close contact to a friend who had a symptomatic covid case between her 1st and 2nd jab. She was bummed about it until I reminded her that the vaccine probably did its primary job of preventing her getting sick from covid - she was probably the highest risk member of my family I worried about due to age and other health conditions. The business mandates and other state specific mask mandates will fall off in very short order, too - for businesses it was all about liability, for certain state and local governments it was just following the herd and/or wanting to be on the opposite side of places like Texas and Florida no matter what.

It also hasn't been around through a legit longterm recession to know how it would perform when excess capital isn't looking for a home - if I recall crypto originated on the back end of the last big recession and has been able to fluctuate and gain public interest during a very long period of sustained economic growth - particularly US economic growth. I don't know enough about crypto to be an expert, but in the face of a longterm recession based on economic fundamentals, I'm not sure I'd want to lean too heavily on an imagined asset - making speculative plays, sure.

There will be a significant correction that goes with getting the supply chain and labor/housing markets sorted out after all the things propping them up expire. There's a record amount of job openings in the country, and unemployment is stagnated or even creeping back up - some (not all) of that undoubtedly is the excess unemployment benefits being printed out and issued. foreclosures and evictions are still not happening as far as I can tell - eventually that will be allowed to happen again, and even if it's a gradual phasing back to how things ran pre-covid that will impact the housing and rental markets. CPI going up for these items independent of interest rates/inflation and the real estate market being pretty overinflated is very similar to what happened leading up to the last significant recession around 2006-2007. Differing reasons, but a very similar pattern seems to be underway.

Hitters have almost no control over where the ball goes off the bat. With the vast majority of hitters' current approaches, I agree. A 3TO approach prioritizes generating bat speed at the expense of bat control. I'm not saying well-executed pitches aren't extremely difficult to 'hit em where they aint', but spray charts would look much different if hitters would adjust how much load and launch angle their swings require. With current swing mechanics and equipment it's very difficult to hit an offspeed pitch on the outer half of the plate with any authority the opposite way - so defenses flat out ignore that side of the field (particularly on the ground/infield). I'm not advocating for hitters to suddenly find a way to position batted balls against defensive shifts no matter what the pitch type and location is - what they definitely can do is improve making solid contact for more hittable pitches across a larger hitting zone and in turn become less selective and less predictable in terms of batted ball outcomes. A guy like Eric Sogard with an elite eye at the plate and elite contact rate ends up being below replacement level. Sogard would be much lower than below replacement level if more of the players who are much better hitters adjusted their approach in favor of pursuing more contact and less power. I'd argue the only reason he's had a MLB career at all in this era is because his offensive approach makes him unique, even for a utility infielder.

I cannot say for a fact, but I recall strike zones being huge. I saw someone mention shrinking the strike zone to speed up games, but I actually think the opposite might be true. If the zone is bigger you will require guys to swing more often AND they will have to make adjustments to their swings because they wont be able to try and pull everything. definitely - increasing the zone would force hitters to not only adjust their swings, but likely also change their equipment to increase the amount of contact they make. People will point to pitchers having better stuff and more velocity now than they ever have as a reason why hitters focusing on making contact wouldn't work - but that premise fails to see how hitters could drastically alter their approach at the plate to improve their chances. If a hitter isn't trying hit a HR or at least lift and separate on every swing, a much quieter approach focused on making the pitch's velocity supply the power would look markedly different in the batter's box. One other thing on shifting, it essentially came about well after the 3TO approach started getting widely incorporated into major league offenses. If hitters weren't hellbent on swinging for the downs on everything, they don't become so pull-heavy on balls hit on the ground, their swing paths don't evolve into being mostly beer league softball clones, and spray charts don't skew nearly as much to the point where shifting players from their traditional positions across the board provides a statistical advantage to run prevention.

The biggest way to speed up the game is for it to be played without all the emphasis being on striking guys out or hitting home runs/racking up pitch counts. Leaning so hard on strikeouts is what's made the gameplay incredibly long more than anything. You don't have to go back very far at all, even during the HR's heyday of the steroid era, to find examples of pitchers who preferred to 'pitch to contact' who were famous for shrinking gametimes. Greg Maddux won 355 games by essentially pounding the strike zone with incredible command of his stuff. With today's shifting and defensive positioning evolution, I bet he would have been even more effective. I love baseball, but the current onfield product is borderline unwatchable because it's all-or-nothing, all of the time. People point to shifting as a reason why hitters take more of a 3TO approach - if organizations had more players who weren't just power hitting prospects for their positions, shifting wouldn't be as big of a standard practice throughout the league. Tough to compare sports, but in a way it's alot like if NFL games were nothing but shot plays where the quarterback dropped back and launched bombs on streak routes - resulting in nothing but TDs, incompletions, a few INTs and sacks, and a whole bunch of 3 and outs that never ran any time off the clock.