nate82

It was just a day. Definitely need to be there for like 3-5 days just to see everything. The Vatican itself is probably a 2 day thing. It may have been just that day or all of the police and attention was on the Vatican that day but it felt less safe the further you got from the Vatican on that day.

That is literally the return the Orioles should be expecting for someone like Ramon Urias. You can expect maybe another 1.5 WAR for the remaining of the season from Urias. That is literally in the range of someone like Black for a return. You could even argue that Black would be an overpay for 1.5 years of Ramon Urias who will more than likely only be a half year rental as I don't believe he would be worth his final arbitration year. So teams are going to look at Urias as a half year rental. Urias is a sub .700 OPS 3B, I am not sure exactly what you think a sub .700 OPS 3B will get on the market but if you think it is someone better than Black then you are insane.

I think Peralta gets traded in the off season as I just don't see the Brewers giving up Peralta during the season even if they are 20+ games out of a playoff spot. I also don't believe there will be a team out there that will pay the price the Brewers want for 1.5 years of Peralta. I think the Rangers make the most sense with a Josh Smith + prospects in the off season for Peralta. The Rangers could slot Peralta into the #2 or #3 slot in their rotation. Something like Smith, Drake and OF Anthony Gutierrez makes some sense here for both teams. Smith will only have two years remaining and he is someone that is just average and is probably better suited as a utility player. That is about $25mm in value from the Rangers which I think is about what you can expect for 1-year of Peralta at $8mm. Peralta even being only a #2 or #3 type pitcher is vastly underpaid by about $12mm a year. Not the greatest of trades for Peralta as I don't think you will get a top 25 prospect for him. At best if you want to get the best prospect deal you are probably looking at something a bit less and someone around the 40-60 range. If you wanted to go that route then someone like Freeland from the Dodgers would probably be the best you can expect to receive back and then the rest of the players involved in the trade being in the 20-30 range from the Dodgers and you are probably only getting one or two back in that range. I would rather just reset with a trade like the one I put together with the Rangers over getting the best possible prospect for Peralta. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the Brewers just kept Peralta and then just took the draft pick instead of trading him.

Mutual options are hardly ever picked up in MLB. It is rare for the team and the player to exercise a mutual option in MLB. I am not saying it doesn't happen just that it doesn't happen all that often. Hoskins doesn't have much in terms of value but he won't just be a salary relief throw away. You are probably only getting one player in a teams 15-25 ranked prospect and then a lottery ticket. Probably someone like Ernesto Martinez is the closest I could find in the Brewers org which is rather deep prospect wise on who I think would be coming back in a Hoskins trade. I think Hoskins has a similar value to what Bell had in 2022. If he wasn't traded with Soto that year.

The negative launch angle means he can’t get any leverage on the ball.

Yelich has the opposite problem that Hiura has. Hiura couldn’t hit anything in the upper strike zone while Yelich can’t hit anything with power in the lower part of the strike zone. When teams make mistakes in the upper part of the zone Yelich is still capable of hitting that with power it is when teams make mistakes in the lower part Yelich just can’t do anything with those pitches even low and down the middle of the plate or low and in where a lot of lefties get their power from. Yelich just has no power in the bottom of the strike zone. I am assuming it is a back and knee issue where he can’t create any leverage on these pitches.

Braun’s lawyers really didn’t have to do anything in his first case. MLB didn’t follow the rules that were setup at the time. The chain of custody for the sample was broken when the tester wasn’t able to transfer the chain of custody of the samples and then placed it in his refrigerator. Regardless if it was normal SOP for doing this it broke the chain of custody that MLB and MLBPA agreed to. The samples should have been discarded based on the CBA that was written up and new samples should have been attained. The second one though Braun wasn’t able to beat. What I have always found weird is that MLB threw out the others that tested positive but only kept Braun’s results. His was elevated more in the testing than the others but that still doesn’t make sense that the others were discarded. I believe it was Pujols and Freese that tested positive and MLB didn’t want to have that hanging over the WS winners and having to explain that.

Difference between last year and this year is the Brewers are getting absolutely nothing from Yelich. Last year he was playing better and this year he is looking like a DFA candidate.

That site is owned by MLB so no the Brewers didn't change it. It was a change on all of the team sites on mlb.com as they all follow the same template. Try Twins.com, Braves.com, Yankees.com or Dodgers.com and you will see they all look exactly the same. MLB made an update to their templates and the standings are now removed from the front page and will probably return closer to the playoff run.

Depends on the city you are in and what gym. If I go to the gym in Tempe or Scottsdale here it is just like the internet anywhere else not so much. The Tempe gym is close to ASU and the few times I have gone there some of the women are wearing tight Yoga pants that is basically like coming in naked. The gym banned these after about a week. The Scottsdale gym I go to nearly all of the women and some men are filming constantly. Very annoying. The gym closer to where I live no filming and the women just wear sweats and other workout clothes. The only time I see someone take their shirt off is when they are flexing in the mirrors. Both men and women will do this.

Yes you are just pushed through but the facility is massive. They have to push everyone through otherwise no one would make it through the whole thing. The Vatican is probably a two day visit. It is a massive building. I think I walked about 3-4 miles just inside the main building.

Soderstrom and Rooker are probably off the table. Rooker just signed an extension this offseason and Soderstrom is one of their top young players. Maybe you could do Peralta and a prospect like Pratt/Made for Soderstrom. I am not even sure that would get the A’s to bite on that trade. You will have to overpay and overpay by a lot to get Soderstrom.

I still have this dream that I missed graduating by one semester of high school and I have to go back at my current age. Pure nightmare. I have also had the college one at least once a year. Lately I have been haunted by a woman in my dreams that I never see her face but I am constantly chasing her. Woman has long black hair in a wedding like dress. As soon as I get to her and she starts to turn around I wake up. Every single time no idea what this dream means.

I was looking at buying places in Dubai and shockingly there are some townhouses/ apartments that are under $90k USD. I saw one 2 bed 3 bath 1461 sqft apartment for about $45k and then the 4% tax would be about $47k. If I didn’t absolutely despise the UAE I would purchase a place there. Update on my trip it was great almost witnessed the Pope being elected by like 2 hours. I really liked Palma in Mallorcas and St. Raphael / Cannes France. If I could afford to live there I would. Cannes France is a really nice area even the smaller towns around the coast. But I am not paying $350k+ for a 800 sqft apartment. I didn’t like Rome other than the Vatican. When visiting the Coliseum one of the people on the tour got jumped by 10 people and stole her purse. By far Rome is the most dangerous city I have ever visited. The Vatican is really the only safe area in Rome because it is heavily policed unlike other areas in Rome. The local police and security just watched and waited for the group to clear out before helping this woman.

British Airlines seats are bigger than American Airlines.

Got stuck in Venice the other day and missed my connecting flight back home. But was put in a nice hotel in London. That wasn’t bad but the Venice airport is not all that great. Reminds me of Milwaukee’s airport. Small and dingy but not as dark as Milwaukee’s airport. Is it still dark and dingy at Mitchell? It has been like 5 years or so since I have been to Milwaukee. Heathrow airport is awesome though.

If you include Peralta with Hoskins you are getting back a few prospects but nothing close to Mayer talent wise.

Went to the Vatican today and wasn’t elected the Pope. Also the Sistine Chapel is closed to visitors.

Nice strawman argument but still my answer is I don’t care and it still doesn’t matter. So if you are working and your employer gives you a free breakfast, lunch and dinner and then says oh we are not paying you any more since we give you your meals you would be ok with that? This is exactly how college athletes were being treated. The colleges were making millions of dollars off of the athletes while only giving them about 1% of that earnings. It was literally legalized slavery. Yes and scholarships are basically a wage well sort of it is just that no money is changing hands. The school is basically just waiving the fee for the person to attend. It is similar to a bar if it has a cover charge to enter and then waives it for you to enter. There are still other costs that you will incur if you decide to do anything else in that bar. The same is true for the school. Not to mention the school isn’t really losing money as it would just be a write off if it is a private school. There are enough federal and state programs where they could easily replace that money lost for a few students each year. I don’t really see a problem here the vast majority won’t get paid all that much. Bobby from random small town in WI won’t be getting paid $50k a year by Nike. Majority will only get paid at best $5k which isn’t really all that much in the grand scheme of things. Yes there will be some who will get more but that isn’t any different than any other job or anything else.

You obviously have no idea on how much work it takes to create the videos. It is not a few minutes it is hours upon hours of work. You spend about 1-4 hours to make a 1 minute video. High school kids getting NIL money is fine. I doubt many will get more than they would by working at McDonald’s part time.

Should it be illegal to hire them to work at said company? Some high school kids already make some money off of YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram and Twitch. What makes this any different? I don’t really care about a sanctity of a sport. So if some kid in HS can make money doing what they are doing I am all for it. I don’t care if it’s sports, influencing or playing video games. If you can make money off of it great if not great also. Age shouldn’t matter either. People complain that younger generations are not putting in “hard” work. But when they do old people complain that they are destroying everything and they are lazy and should be doing “hard” work.

I hate O’HareI hate O’Hare I hate O’Hare I hate O’Hare. Stupid airport I hate it all of the lounges are garbage. Also I am a bigger dude I can deal with the smaller seats width wise that doesn’t bother me but OMG American Airlines not everyone is five foot four. Domestic flight at most it is four hours but a 9 hour international flight and I couldn’t even use the head rest. Ugggg the business class wasn’t any better just another two inches taller but wider. Stupid American Airlines my least favorite airline of all time. Spirit is better than American Airlines.

I am going on a cruise tomorrow in the Mediterranean. Should be fun I hope. Usually I just vacation in Vegas, Nashville or Miami. This will be different for me also first time out of the country for me. I think I have mentioned this before but you may want to consider Vietnam as a retirement option.

Why not just join COSTCO?