SeaBass

Just stopping by to say that in 2020 the Brewers paid 34 year old Eric Sogard $4M to play on their team and paid a $500K buyout on a 2021 option year. He had a 51 OPS+ that season. In his 11 seasons he accumulated 7 bWAR. Seems like a low bar for Pratt to clear, it's not nothing, Sogard was earning his keep with defense for the most part but a low bar anyway. I'm simply not worried about $6.25M AAV going "wrong" for the Brewers. If the Brewers were signing literally every top 10 prospect to these deals then they'd likely be losing money long term but they aren't doing that. Taking these shots on a case by case basis is not going to hurt them even if things go bad.

So I talked a lot about needing context and it seems some context has been provided by MLF himself. Packers' Matt LaFleur mulls low survey grade "According to the survey, which was not supposed to be made public this year but was obtained by ESPN and other media outlets, some players dinged LaFleur when it came to "respect for players." "If I'm being honest about it, I think there were some guys that were upset about roles last year, and I think that took a toll on our football team," LaFleur said." He mentioned that he needed to improve his communication and suggested that the team wasn't "connected".

Speaking for myself, I really like the Blue Jays CC jersey. This new Brewers one isn't very impressive at all. It is what it is though.

I have optimism! (this feels like an "I voted" sticker 🙂)

Reminds me of the old Hardees moose cup back in the 80s/90s. I can't exactly remember how much they were, maybe $5 for the cup (which would be a lot for soda back then) but you could bring it back anytime and get unlimited free refills of soda.

I knew there was a guide somewhere on this site and I found it. Others may still chime in with suggestions but this is a good place to start.

Everyone can thank me for starting Shane Smith on my fantasy team today. JINXED

It's a shame front offices don't scout fan message boards... better for us here though!

17-13

Check his hat size. Cue the Chuck Norris jokes (RIP to a legend). Jake Bauers' chief export is home runs.

I'm not sure this is right, the way I'm reading it is it will be charged monthly and even though they do not say it (it is strangely worded on their website) I would assume you can cancel at any time. So you wouldn't have to do it for the full 12 months. When I looked up the FAQ I saw this: Since it's charged monthly there will be a billing date every month. In any case, it looks like they are offering a free trial for MLB+, I would suggest signing up for that and reading the email they send you regarding renewal.

Yearly fees to operate yachts and private jets is expensive.

I think I saw someone earlier in this thread (maybe it was even you) say that the cap could grow to 500M in the near future. That is just an insane figure to me. A half billion dollar per season cap per team. Crazy money even in a league that is making crazy money. If you'd told someone back in 1985 that teams 40 years in the future would be or potentially would be spending that much per season I think their brains would break and likely just simply wouldn't believe you.

To be clear, I wouldn't be opposed to a shorter extension on Contreras but I wouldn't want too many years on there. I tend to think he would rather try for the golden goose contract (or maybe I should say the big enchilada).

I tend to agree and if they could only pick one to extend it's gotta be Turang. Contreras will be 30 entering the 2028 season and Turang will still only be 28. I'm just 100% out on big money catchers in their 30s. Trade Bill when he's down to his last season and keep doing Brewers things.

Plus there's still going to be $12M total dead cap spread out between the '26 & '27 seasons. That's just a lot of money and consequence for a failed FA signing even if it's not supremely hampering to cut bait after one season. It's not the worst way out but a really bad decision by Gute & the FO.

What exactly constitutes "proper diagnosis"? It's a soft tissue contusion, aka a bruise.

"Arise, arise, Warriors of Murphy! Mitts shall be thumped, bats shall be splintered!"

I don't think we could know for sure until it happens but the messaging seemed to be that it would work exactly like it did before on cable. They aren't looking to rewrite how this all happens, it would just simply be MLB/Brewers coming to a deal with the cable companies rather than Diamond Sports/FanDuel.

I wanted him replaced too. To me, this just doesn't change anything and doesn't sway my opinion either way. I don't think it's that relevant and I still do not see a B- grade as a major concern in any way. I'm not saying it doesn't have any meaning, just not a significant meaning when it comes to how I feel about him. If you feel like it enhances your opinion more that's ok too. We all have opinions. I think it could be construed as more meaningful if a fan is a solid MLF backer. Then I could see it as a minor concern. But again, I just don't know how much weight I can really assign to it. I think about it kind of in terms of, hypothetically, what if a coach is a great coach but a bit of a jerk, or even a lot of a jerk. Like a Bobby Knight though I would say without the actual physical abuse that he did because I just don't think things like that are as likely to happen anymore and if it did it would probably come out in the press. A player could assign a lower grade to a guy just because he doesn't vibe with him, it doesn't inherently mean he's bad at being a coach. There are so many variables that might lead to a guy not giving a coach an A and we're quite literally quibbling here over the difference of MLF getting an A or a B. Ben Johnson was a first year head coach and he got one of the highest grades, how impressive is that actually? I'm not doubting his reputation but I would say it's fair to assume there's a bit of a honeymoon shine to him. MLF has been with the Packers 7 years, the stale message thing becomes kind of real after several seasons. It's hard to say if it's vets that still back him and newer guys that are less sold or the other way around. The Packers tend to the younger side of things. It's just hard to nail down what it is they might think is lacking. I just place more importance on the things we actually see occur during football games, not the attempt to decipher the meaning of a letter grade without the deeper context behind an employee's reasons for assigning that grade to their boss.

My point is, we already have our opinion of MLF, this really doesn't matter that much. It's like getting 3.5 stars on Yelp. What does that really mean? If he'd gotten an A would your opinion of him change? I suspect no. So it doesn't matter. It's just another drip in the cup and whether you are a fan that supports MLF or wants him gone your opinion is not going to be swayed by this one thing. It's a survey, not everybody participates in the survey. What if 5 more guys participated and gave him As, would that be enough to push him up to a B+ or A-? As with any survey there may be people that never award the "5 out of 5" type scores. We just don't know. If this was a "Has MLF lost the locker room" question and he got a middling score I would take that as a bad thing. I really don't know how to judge this letter grade when separated from the grades different men received around the league. Those men are different and in different situations and being judged by different men. Does it really compare? Why does it compare? I don't care about the other teams, I care about the Packers. I think overall it's not a great barometer. There's not a lot of context in a letter grade with no other commentary. When I look at reviews on Amazon I don't just look at the stars, I read the comments. There are no comments here, just the grade.

B's are not bad grades. Sorry. If there were some breakdown of criteria that showed more context then there could be some debate. So fans are just left with the things we already see every week which are already things that get talked about.

The big caveat about these grades is the survey occurred before the 5 game losing streak. Even so, not really looking that deep into it. I really think a grade system isn't a great barometer unless you're getting Ds and Fs. A C grade can be a concerning blip but it's not completely awful either.

I decided to randomly pick Miami and see how they compared to Green Bay for the NFLPA Grades. Miami rank listed first w/ GB rank in [brackets]: Defensive Coordinator: T9 (A) [GB: T13 (A-)] Food/Dining: T3 (A) [GB: T11 (B+)] General Manager: T8 (A-) [GB: T19 (B+)] Head Coach: T23 (B) [GB: T27 (B-)] Home Game Field: T4 (A-) [GB: T14 (C+)] Locker Room: T5 (A-) [GB: T1st (A)] Nutritionist/Dietician: T7 (A-) [GB: T24 (B)] Offensive Coordinator: T5 (A-) [GB: T26 (C)] Position Coaches: T3 (A-) [GB: T9 (B+)] Special Teams Coordinator: T26 (B) [GB: T15 (B+)] Strength Coaches: T1st (A+) [GB: T28 (B)] Team Ownership: T5 (A) [GB: T13 (A-)] Team Travel: 1st (A) [GB: T13 (B-)] Training Room: T1st (A) [GB: T24 (C)] Training Staff: T1st (A) [GB: T29 (C)] Treatment of Families: T3 (B+) [GB: T22 (C+)] Weight Room: T1st (A+) [GB: T13 (A-)] I bolded 1st ranked finishes in categories and also bolded any grade of C or worse. The Packers didn't earn any grades lower than a C but there were several teams that earned D's and even F's in many categories. They were all letter grades so most of the time there were one or more teams tied at their grade level in a category, at least between Miami and Green Bay who I focused on for this. Have to say I was really surprised how high Miami ended up being ranked in a lot of these categories, I didn't cherry pick them by looking ahead at all their grades. It turned out that they ended with the best overall grade of any NFL team (they received three B grades that prevented them from getting straight As across the board). They tied for 1st in 5 categories, once being the lone first ranked team (for Team Travel). So honestly it's kind of interesting to compare Miami against Green Bay. I think four of the five C grades the Packers received for Offensive Coordinator, Training Room, Training Staff and Treatment of Families clearly stand out. They also received a C grade for Home Game Field which I assume is due to the turf? When you're talking about a winter based team in an outdoor stadium I'm not sure how much weight you can put into this one. Could it be better? Possibly but how much better? A lot is being made of MLF being tied for 27th at Head Coach but he received a B- grade. Is that actually bad? A flat B would push him up to 23rd and a B+ to 21st. I'm not sure I'm buying this is that terrible of a thing. It's not nothing but with simple letter grades there's not a lot of context there. 20 teams received A grades for HC. Would fan's opinions of MLF have changed if he'd gotten a flat A which would push him to a tie for 3rd? I doubt it. The other main thought I had as I was going down this list was that Miami is really highly ranked for a team that's been in the playoff 3 times in the last decade plus. Do the players just like it because it's Miami and warm and they have a country club atmosphere but aren't expected to win? Who can say.

It's a good movie, basically Top Gun in a racecar. I'm not sure how it pulled off a nomination for best picture but the racing action is legitimately fantastic and excellently filmed. You don't need to be a fan of racing to feel it. The one thing I didn't love was the announcing aspect. I get that the filmmakers needed a way to explain the action to those that don't have any knowledge of racing but to put an echo effect on the announcers voices like it was coming over the PA system at the track was corny and brought me out of being fully immersed into the movie. I got used to it but it was a poor choice IMO. I'd rather have seen one or two quick cuts to a broadcast booth to get the point across that it was a broadcast for TV or something so they could avoid the echo effect. I can see the pros and cons of doing that too but it really annoyed me. Overall a small annoyance though.