Fear The Chorizo

I'm not saying PCA's ceiling is that of a 5th OF at the MLB level - he's just not going to be a perennial all star because he won't hit consistently enough to allow the rest of his elite tools to shine and be a player rival teams will hate facing for years and years. Sure, still just 23 - but he's now into his 3rd season where he's played at the MLB level, and at some point either that superstar switch has to light up or it's obvious it just isn't there in a guy to begin with. Also, it's not fair to any prospect to compare what they've done compared to what Chourio did in MLB last season as a 20 yr old...even with his first 1.5 months of struggles, what Chourio did was historic.

I like that comp, too. He's not an OMG watch out for this guy the next decade sort of prospect. Good tools, stellar defense, but he's just not going to hit enough at the MLB level to be a cornerstone offensive player

PCA is doing a great job thus far affirming my belief that spring training numbers are absolutely meaningless...and that's he's got alot more Corey Patterson to his game than most Cub fans begging for him to take a significant step forward at the MLB level will allow him to actually do it.

Cole basically could only give the Yankees a half season last year, too. Wasn't there some strangeness with his existing contract "opt out" only for the Yankees to basically keep him on his existing deal last November that included a hesitancy to give him an extension (and also a hesitancy by a Boras client to jump into free agency whenever he could)? And now he shows up to spring training with a bum elbow that needs surgery - must be nice to throw upper 90's whenever you're not rehabbing from surgery and get paid $30+ million for something a guy 10 years younger than you can give a team for 95% less cost on the field.

The Fed waited far too long to raise rates to try and get a handle on inflation, and even after they did they didn't raise them high enough to actually get prices headed back down - not to just keep slowly increasing, but to actually drop. Them starting those rate increases from a point of basically zero was still an after-affect of the last bad recession from the housing market crash. This goes back years, not months - and the market still has a significant amount of a bubble baked into it because of monetary policy that wasn't allowing a typical economic downturn to happen in financial markets. We are overdue for a recession that also includes a market correction that isn't self-imposed like the COVID shutdown was, and trying to soften or ease into/out of it just risks it being more painful than it otherwise would be for people who don't have yachts. My point doesn't discount the fact that imposing new tariffs of any kind from the US' perspective on foreign goods is impacting the markets right now - especially until there's some sort of certainty on what those will look like in the long run. Kind of the same way that tariffs imposed on US goods by other countries in the long term had been baked into the global economy. Fundamentals of the economy are still really solid, which is why the weird threat of making trees from Canada or bottles of red from France cost alot more to get through customs and into the US marketplace isn't going to be a sustained anchor on what the markets do or don't do. The uncertainty of what may or may not come next is the biggest drag - but once that does clear up and if we wind up seeing a better overall economic playing field for US goods to compete in because of it, stock prices will bounce right back up the other direction.

Corrections and extended bear markets inevitably happen with the market even when every single economic lever is is pulled in the direction to try and avoid them at the expense of the rest of the economy. The fact things are so volatile and swing so wildly based on what anybody is saying points to how long those levers were left unchanged in effort to avoid natural market swings that would more accurately mirror what the rest of the US economy has been feeling for years. Despite the shock of the last few weeks of a market swing down, it's a blip when you look at market performance over the past 5 years - it feels like a profit taking cycle before all of a sudden a whole bunch of capital gets dumped back into the market and we're going the other direction again.

The #'s absolutely bear it out - without unicorn Ohtani in the NL, Chourio was the NL MVP the last 4 months of the season....as a 20 yr old

Trying to time the market based on politics is too risky for my investing stomach, regardless of party - if all it takes is one trade agreement announcement or actual concrete policy going into effect to restore enough certainty for an index to recoup a month of losses in one day (or lose a month of gains), it's too late to try and either take cash back out from under your mattress or grab a wheelbarrow and take it out of funds. More often than not, staying in the market and riding whatever happens out with continued investment winds up being the best option. I think the bigger concern is banks trying to figure out how to get out from under massive commercial real estate losses that are continuing to mount without it leaking into the housing market. Everything that's happening in D.C. right now is little more than reshuffling deck chairs with the markets compared to what would happen if banks start going under again. All that being said, it's less than an ideal time to be less than a few years from retirement and wonder what to do to best protect and continue growing that nest egg. That has been the case for several years not because market uncertainty, but persistently increasing prices on everything across the board. However, as nate indicated even a slipping market is a good opportunity to make some money in the long run.

I've said it in other threads - if Garret Mitchell can find a way to stay healthy, he's capable of putting up a handful of prime seasons in the 30/30, approaching 40/40 club and playing gold glove caliber defense.

I actually think it's gotten alot of fanfare....and what is so shocking is the public sector and associated companies heavily reliant on govt contracts have been allowed to balloon to the level they have under both political party administrations where it's acceptable to run multi trillion dollar deficits, continue printing money, and then act like we don't know why things cost so much. The budget deficits are about alot more than government employee payrolls, but in the absence of reasonable reforms to entitlement programs that would require cooperative legislation, slashing the beauracracy while daylighting some of the nonsense receiving tax dollars is the next best thing to do at the moment to shake things up in the public sector. Mass layoffs will always have tough stories for individuals who were cut, both public and private sector. Most of the time it's not about those people themselves not doing effective work in the roles they were in, it's that the roles they were in didn't provide enough value to a project, program, or activity to justify its cost. The public sector can't be allowed to be sheltered from those type of staffing resets, which is exactly what this is. Quality employees/people who are let go by employers find a way to land on their feet and ultimately their careers benefit from these type of job upheavals, too.

The Dodgers aren't the only team with deferrerals, yes, but they are the only team with the quantity of deferrals they currently have, headlined by a guy getting paid $2m of his $70M salary now and still fielding a real dollars 2025 payroll over $300M. The time to make changes was 1994, yes...but the next time to make changes is this upcoming cba negotiation. And I'd be just fine with a missed season or two to get the right changes made. I'd also add that it would be pretty easy as part of the next cba round for mlb to reimburse deferred money deals to teams worried about how they'd find a way to ever finance them ( in the dodgers' case im pretty sure theyd be able to find the spare change layong around), provided the deferred contract garbage ends in the new cba.

The amount of revenue the Dodgers are getting from Japan and Asia for basically having all their best players is most likely comparable to their annual stateside TV deal...they are the farthest team from going bankrupt no matter what changes get made to a future CBA. They are like a cartel running out of room to put all the money coming in

MLB has to get broadcast/TV revenue sharing squared away. As a fan of the smallest market team in baseball, I'd be OK with a new CBA that doesn't include a salary cap or luxury tax structure, includes a $100m salary floor, and fully shares broadcast revenue across the league. Big market teams will still have payroll advantages but the current deferred money advantage the Dodgers have baked into their revenue stream to skirt even crazier luxury tax penalties would be significantly impacted. Right now, it's honestly like mlb has built in relegation and there's no chance a handful of huge market clubs don't make the playoffs every year. In the playoffs anything can happen for baseball, but when roughly 25 teams besides the huge market teams who win divisions annually are vying for 7 mostly wildcard spots that wind up opening with best of 3 game series to even reach the division series round, it's getting too predictable. Mainly, this is a Dodgers problem....

With the current economic disparity in baseball, I don't see why Attanasio's comments should be viewed negatively at all. He doesn't even own more than half of the Brewers, the smallest market in all of mlb, and people are ticked he isn't trying to spend $40m more on payroll? What's the point when any larger market team could suddenly decide to spend $80m more much more easily and outbid them for players they may be targeting? Until mlb does something to actually even the playing field between a team getting close to $350m annually for their games being televised and a team getting $20m annually, I have zero problem with Mark A. being as open and honest about what the Brewers can and can't do in terms of player payroll.

I think people underestimate how much of a grind a MLB regular season is, particularly for younger players who haven't been through it. The idea of Frelick being 25lbs heavier now that he was at the end of last season isn't very far-fetched considering he probably dropped weight over the course of the season from where he was entering Spring Training in 2024. Knowing MMA contestants routinely are able to gain a couple dozen pounds in a few days between weigh ins and the actual fights doesn't make putting on 25 lbs seem that impossible. Properly hydrating your existing frame compared to it being in a mildly dehydrated or fatigued state is typically good for 10+lbs on a normal frame, too.

I don't think Chourio was moved too fast at all - expecting any prospect/young player, no matter how talented, to never have any extended stretch of struggles adapting to a new league (particularly MLB) is unrealistic. Had Chourio continued struggling through the AS Break and wound up finishing last season in AAA instead of putting up borderline MVP-caliber production from July - September in Milwaukee, then yeah I'd say his Opening Day promotion as a 20-yr old was probably a bit too hasty. Start Made at A ball stateside this season and let his performance dictate his progression the same way Chourio's did. It wasn't until Chourio's 2nd MiLB season where many people started going "OMG!!!" when he started destroying A+ and AA pitching as a 19 yr old. Made won't turn 18 until May of this year.

Despite their occasional disfunction, the Eagles were by far the most talented roster heading into the playoffs (Lions would've been in that conversation if not for all their injureis) - with good gameplans and efficient play from Hurts, they proved just that.

The Eagles are just better....way better

Also, last i checked trees grow in other places besides Canada...and if the US was ever truly pinched by a group of countries economically it has plenty of its own resources and manufacturing capacity over time to start drawing from to help offset any pain for long enough to cripple the other countries first. Other countries depend on the US to buy both raw materials and finished goods far more than the US needs specific countries to provide those items at the cheapest possible cost. That's why these tariff threats work to at least get other govt leaders to the table to discuss issues related to trade, and frankly completely unrelated issues.

Which is exactly what it is - and it's also way too soon to assume what's being done at present is economically damaging.

For Contreras, it guarantees him more $ this season than what he would have gotten with a losing arby case, and also guarantees a nice pay bump aligning with what he would be valued at assuming another all star caliber 2025 season - if he gets hurt in May he's still guaranteed a 2026 salary based on his 2024 production. For the Brewers it gives them cost certainty both this year and more importantly next, when other teams that might be looking to trade for him will now know exactly what his 2026 salary will be.

I do understand that the poster boys tend to get more calls go their way than not in the NFL....but at some point there has to be a critical game where 100% of those calls don't go their way. The fact that has not happened for 3 seasons running with the Chiefs (and predated some of their current run, tbh) is alot more than just what we've grown used to seeing from NFL officiating over the years.

Here's the thing that makes me crazy about KC and the refs.....yes there was a defensive hold call on that key 3rd and 5 that would have negated an INT or given them a 1st down if the review did deem it an incomplete pass (which it should have since neither player demonstrated possession when that ball hit the ground). But why is the defensive hold call overlooked by people about that entire sequence/call, when Mahomes' TD run late in the game was heavily influenced by an obvious offensive hold on the perimeter that wasn't flagged? Those type of subjective calls (defensive/offensive holding away from the ball, illegal contact, etc) that many people say could be flagged on nearly every play are simply not called with any consistency when the Chiefs are on the field. The defensive hold in that situation was marginal, and it occured on a receiver not involved in where the ball actually went. Then later in the game we're seeing refs throw holding/PI calls on Bills' DBs getting launched from 30 yards downfield. Also, why aren't we made aware of whatever late flag that was picked up by the officials on that 4th down heave a Bills receiver dropped? I'd assume that flag got dropped in the event the Bills completed that pass somehow and got a 1st down, and it was some sort of ineligible downfield or illegal formation or offensive hold that would have negated that play, too. There are layers to the insanity that is the officiating support KC routinely receives, and frankly expects, at critical points in playoff games. I'm not a conspiracy theorist by any means, but it's to the point with the Chiefs and refs that I can't help myself - too much smoke not to be something going on.

When prognosticators are pretty consistent at putting Made into that top 100 at this stage - which is way before Chourio ever sniffed a top 100 list - it is pretty damn exciting. I do think the Black conundrum can be solved at the MLB level by simply letting him play everyday and see how he adjusts

yep...especially because he unquestionably got the 1st down. I will say this about KC - they simply do not beat themselves and force opponents to make plays through the final whistle to beat them. That is a combination of coaching and personnel that is a tough out in the playoffs in today's NFL. Defensively, they are consistently aggressive at "winning time" instead of playing coverage or any sort of prevent style defense, and more often than not opponents aren't equipped to handle that pressure and make plays consistently. Offensively, there hasn't been a coordinator/offensive head coach that is a better combination of play designer/play caller than Andy Reid in NFL history - that's a bold statement, but one I feel is true considering how long Reid has been in the league doing it with different teams/personnel/roles. That mix plus the consistent calls KC gets from officials at critical moments of a game essentially make them unbeatable unless a team can find ways to generate multiple turnovers - honestly what the Eagles did to Washington Sunday is the exact blueprint to beat the Chiefs..disruptive Dline with an aggressive secondary behind it and LB's constantly trying to cause fumbles when tackling ball carriers. Coupled with an offense that can run the football from multiple formations and a pair of receivers who can abuse press man coverage and make plays downfield. Eagles have to get their Center/Guard situation shored up with all the walking wounded lineman they currently have so Jones doesn't wreck the game, but if they do that and the officials let the secondaries play physical on equal terms I think Philly should win.