igor67

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense Everyone gets that this is a huge drag and lots of people are getting hit hard, superfly. But your comments indicate you don't actually understand the scale of potential carnage. Particularly your earlier flippant 'a real threat would be 50% mortality' comment. Only the Black death has ever come somewhat close to that level of mortality and been widespread. On most historical population graphs it's also the only population decline recorded for humans. Think about that no wars ever managed to kill enough people to produce a net population decline. To try and put some perspective rather than pretending 90+% survival is good let's look at the American Civil War about 620,000 dead Americans out of 31 million. As stated before the natural R0 rate puts herd immunity at 2/3 of the population. The exact death rate remains to be seen, but if we go on the very low side at 1% that still gets us to 2.2 million after accounting for the disease sputtering out. If you scale up the Civil War present size that would be 6.2 million. A 2% death rates produces 4.4 million, and 3% surpasses in everyway. Undoubtedly you can come up clever sounding comebacks, but that completely misses the point. The fact that a reasonable estimate of not using our 1 tool that works right now to slow the spread gives final death tolls even remotely comparable to the war that killed more Americans by far than any other is horrific.

I have no relevant insight into how long for the market, but I did see a prominent Libertarian oriented blogger suggest that he was significantly rethinking the benefits of globalization as the hyper market specialization has left everyone vulnerable to huge disruptions in supply chains. It's undoubtedly influenced by his deep reading of history and understanding that prior plagues have wreaked havoc on many an empire and helped to stimulate significant upheaval.

I think it is fair to say that a lot went right last year with the pitching, this year we've had worse luck then average. Even offensively Hiura is really the only over achiever and there are multiple candidates for underachievement. And we are still playing authentically competitive ball. The number of teams close to us may lower the post season odds noticeably, but we are unlikely to be eliminate until the last week of the season at the worst.

I haven't counted, but I don't think volume-wise this was a particularly slow deadline especially in the 2nd wildcard era. And honestly I don't like a ton of movement. August 15th is too late for my taste. You build a team in the offseason, that's your team. The years when volume has been high and every contender tried to upgrade their 5th reliever well it almost smacks of the obnoxiousness going on in the NBA.

I did some preliminary calcs and Yelich's lead in the batting title is pretty secure. Someone in the .310 area or so would need a 4-4 or 5-5 day and Yelich would need to go 0 for Sunday and the potential Game 163 for it to be maybe possible. Oddly enough Can might have the best shot because he might get the extra game. He's got the HR as long as Carpenter doesn't hit one today though the possibility that the Rockies have to play 2 games with Story and Arenado sitting at 35 each gives them a chance to take that portion of the crown. The 2 RBIs to catch Baez are certainly possible even without some HRs.

I've come around to actually liking both, though I do think we really to add a big addition to the rotation to maximize the value of the moves. Yelich is basically everything we hope Brinson might become and there were already cautionary signs that he might fall well short of that. My only negativity was really emotional attachment. Harrison was the big tool guy we drafted to get impact players and it looked like that was starting to pay-off. But Yelich is like the best of getting a free agent and the best of having a great prospect. Now it is certainly fair to think that we can't do too many more deals like that or the team will have a very short shelf life as it ages quickly without enough young talent to cycle in. Things potentially look even better anticipating some kind of return for someone out of the Aguilar/Thames/Santana group. Cain put me down in the camp that 5 years is not too long as long as your expectation is not that he'll give more value then he is being paid every year. With his profile it is easy to imagine him being a solid or better 4th outfielder in that 5th year. If you've gotten good value the other years that is not a disastrous hit by any means.