Thurston Fluff

Why do you think using the same development path they did with Peralta, Woodruff and Ashby wouldn't work with Small?

Why do you think using the same development path they did with Peralta, Woodruff and Ashby wouldn't work with Small?

If there was nothing different to his approach then I'd agree there is nothing left for him to do in AAA. But he did make some changes. I think the mechanical changes he made can be worked on in AAA. It also might help his trade value. Some team is going to look at the tools and the production he had and think they can fix it. Or they may be a rebuilding team that has time to let him sink or swim and have someone that has no future in the rebuild process to give us.

He was not bad but not good either. There is still hope for him but he really needs to cut down his strikeouts. Some regular playing time in AAA might be good for him. A productive AAA stint may also help his trade value if the team decides there is no place for him on our roster.

Take away the bad teams from any schedule and every team will look worse.

It's been a while but I seem to remember either the Yankees or Red Sox complaining about Houston cheating may have kept them from winning a championship. I might be wrong on that but it appears Houston was just trying to keep up. Also not very flattering for Manfred https://sports.yahoo.com/leaked-yankees-letter-confirms-team-stole-signs-in-2015-which-mlb-hid-from-public-212021003.html

A nice elderly lady came into our store and asked if she could get a balloon with the month and day on it for her grandchild. I said they don't make ones that give the month and day on it. She said she found one online for her other granddaughter but could only find that one. Turns out her other granddaughter was born on 4/20. She had absolutely no clue what 4/20 meant. I wish I could have seen the looks on here kids faces when mom came to the house to give her grandchild a 4/20 balloon. I also have the song "One Toke Over The Line" stuck in my head now.

Thinking way out of the box I would make the game more an audio vs visual oriented entertainment source. I always thought baseball was better as a radio sport than a tv one. I'd also get rid of blackout rules so people could actually follow the game no matter where they are. Right now I can listen to a radio station on an app but not the games. That's just stupid IMHO. Not being tied down to a tv would mean broader audiences. Not to mention longer games would be more a feature than a bug. I'd also look at changing the way broadcasts are done. Instead of the traditional play by play/analyst roles I'd have a little more fun with it. Do a little comedy, have a broadcaster who can do comedic impersonation or play characters to spice up the down time part of the game. Maybe do some contests where the caller predicts what's going to happen for an at bat and have prizes for the correct outcome or add call ins where the announcers talk to a fan during the broadcast like sports talk radio does. More sound drops and some fun graphics for those watching online or the phone. Basically I'd change the way the game is delivered to the fans.

I think people have to keep in mind the credit cards themselves are not the only charge. Merchant Services processes all cards and charge for each transaction. That includes refunds. IF a store sells something and it gets returned store pays the transaction fee for both the sale and refund. On the high end of transaction fees that means an 8% loss for the store. If someone contests a charge they remove it- and charge the vendor for it- if the customer loses the contested charge it gets processed again- and the processing fee is once again charged. On the high end that's a 12% fee. Which in some businesses is more than the profit margin. They're kind of evil IMHO. They are also the ones who add all the hidden charges and fees.

I love the "don't panic" sign on the off topic forum in the forums page. Obviously somebody knows where their towel is.

I think it would be best to make sure it doesn't linger. I'd rather go without him for the first two months than have him deal with it for the entire season.

At least Yelich has started out hot. I know its four games but if that's enough to start worrying about then its enough to be encouraged about.

I think they just realized there was nothing to stop them from increasing the rates. Not allowing credit cards is not an option for most places.

I doubt it. Some 3rd party delivery services take a percentage of the restaurant's bill others just add their own charge to it. If that was a real problem they'd just go with the ones that added their own charges. I'd guess that it has more to do with the fees associated with credit card processing. Every charge has an added fee charged to the vendor. That charge is largely dependent on volume of the place using it. Generally speaking the smaller you are the higher rate you pay. Restaurants generally have a small profit margin so it really does add up. Especially if they're really small with a higher rate. Then there are the dreaded added/hidden fees. We once discovered we were paying a monthly fee because we failed to fill out an online survey for example.

"Yea I was taking something to benefit my performance and got caught." Is something rarely said by anyone who ever tested positive. I imagine of those who did take something by accident most feel pretty bad for being stupid enough not to ask. I also imagine those who took it on purpose feel pretty bad for being stupid enough to get caught. So either way I'm sure he feels the same about it whether he did it on purpose or not. Embarrassed and sorry.

Penn State just dominated the NCAA wrestling championships. They have five national champions. There are only ten weight classes. Yet they couldn't even win the Big Ten.

A while back someone stole a check of ours from the mail. Dude got caught and confessed. Now I just read two more people were arrested for stealing mail in the Fox River Valley. Got to wonder if it's part of the same group or if it's sort of a fad in the petty criminal world in general.

I think they said they could ban some shifts not the shift. Small difference in words but pretty significant in meaning.

I doubt the players want to dilute the draft as much as an international draft would. If I'm a draft prospect the fewer options teams have the higher I'm drafted.

I can hear the discussion in the clubhouse now. "Since we won't make the playoffs this year, lets not win too many games so we get our cash bonus." Now suddenly you will have about 12 teams not passing that threshold every season. Not if it goes to the players over the entire league instead of just that team. It doesn't even have to go to the players. As long as the team itself has an incentive to win more games even if they can't be competitive for post season play it reduces the bad games fans end up watching, give networks paying millions a better product and adds incentives to partake in free agency. Even if it's not for the high end guys.

That's true, but changing the system to spread out where dollars are being spent and ultimately increase the size of the pie the players get would likely need to lead to a stagnation of free agent mega-deals for aging superstars. The problem many on the players' side have is they want to continue seeing those contracts balloon because they worked themselves through this outdated process themselves. I think organizations would be much more willing to pay younger players significantly more $$ if they also don't feel like they have to pony up over $40M a season for 3 fully guaranteed years on a new contract to have a 37-yr old be a starting pitcher in order to actually acquire a superstar veteran on the downside of their career. I get what you're saying. The older players who paid their dues and are about to cash in would essentially be left out when the system changes. But they can implement changes in phases to deal with that. In the mean time one thing the owners an do is address the problem of rebuilding teams not fielding competitive rosters. I get not spending money when there is no hope of winning but it effectively eliminates 30% of the teams from spending every off season. Given the salary floor is out of the question maybe something like a minimum wins threshold teams must reach or they have to pay a players tax or some such thing. That would help reduce tanking and get more teams to participate to some level in free agency. It would also help fans in the sense that they'd get to watch more competitive games during the season. Even if your team is good it still sucks to watch them play a AAAA team.

How is changing the way of evaluating player worth to a way that pays players less not being cheap? Teams aren't paying aging veteran free agents 7 figures a season when they can get similar production from guys from their own system for a few hundred thousand. That's not being cheap. That's being smart. Being cheap and being smart are not mutually exclusive. What is being cheap is finding people who can do the same for less money then refusing to change the system that allows them to exploit the people who are doing the same as those who made more.

How is changing the way of evaluating player worth to a way that pays players less not being cheap?

Why should the players be giving up anything if revenues are going up and salaries are stagnating? I don't think they should be giving up anything, but people are implying and stating that they are. I was simply looking for the thing they are giving up. It depends on how you define giving up something. If it's strict dollars then they aren't giving up anything. They just aren't getting much. If it's based on the percentage of total revenue then I think it's fair to say they are losing something.

Why should the players be giving up anything if revenues are going up and salaries are stagnating?