owbc

Bummer...enjoy your paid vacation (if you received severance) and best of luck landing a new job.

Getting rid of blackouts is a big step forward. The second is to make the broadcasts entirely free, which will come eventually when the paywall results in reduced viewership for a relatively small amount of revenue. They will be lucky to pull in $5-10 million in revenue if they can get 10,000 people to sign up for MLB.tv, which seems like a stretch. No matter how you spin this, the long term prospects are very, very good for fans of MLB and for fans of small market teams. As local TV revenue dries up in small markets, MLB will have no choice but to boost TV revenue sharing significantly. The Brewers should eventually end up on a more level playing field because of that, even if they have to take a short-term hit to revenue when they eventually join the group of teams without an RSN deal.

Toro appears to be the best player in the Wong-Winker trade. His 0.0 bWAR is looking pretty good compared with the combined -1.8 bWAR generated by Wong and Winker.

Memorial Day / Labor Day are one of the few times where MLB teams will sometimes schedule games with a start time that is ideal for parents with young children who take afternoon naps (3:30 or 4 PM start). I'll also give MLB credit for one thing...recently they have been doing the poppy patch on Memorial Day which feels far more appropriate than another military salute holiday that is indistinguishable from the others.

Nobody wants to give up their 3.5% mortgage.

Yeah these days I would recommend watching a few Youtube videos, making a checklist, and doing a quick inspection yourself at the open house. It's hard for first time home buyers because they are less likely to know what to look for. Every house is full of flaws and you have to learn the difference between cheap cosmetic flaws and money pits. In theory a good agent should help you with this but good luck finding one that is truly on your side. We ended up getting a house with no competing offers on one of the busiest weeks of the year in the middle of the 2018 peak. The house we bought had a poor cover photo on Zillow and all of the buyers flocked to a couple homes nearby that looked sexier on the outside. Way cheaper to spend $5K on an exterior paint job than $50-100K on a bidding war.

Yeah, unfortunately this was a pretty smart PR move. I also get MLB's concern about keeping ballparks up to date, although in many cases the owner of the club in question needs to look in the mirror. The more relevant comparison is probably not Oakland but Phoenix. Chase Field was not maintained as well as AmFam and it's a way messier situation to deal with after the stadium is already a few hundred million behind in maintenance. The AmFam situation is mostly about proactive maintenance and getting ahead of that built into the next lease. And yeah, it's a shakedown of the taxpayers who are responsible for the bill, but if Wisconsin didn't want that then they shouldn't have gotten into the stadium ownership business.

In my view the location itself is fine. The Brewers draw from a large geographic area and the location along the freeway suits them. The Braves have done well with their stadium location at a freeway interchange. Building the entertainment district is the tough thing, I haven't been to Truist Park but I think it's mostly mixed-use developments around it. Currently I agree, it's 0/10 for amenities. I don't know how you build something like that from scratch when you have a city like Milwaukee that isn't really bursting with demand for new housing or new developments.

"MLB has told the Brewers that they need to tell the taxpayers to make stadium repairs" FTFY

He was a terrible baserunner last year, I'm impressed that he got worse. For whatever reason, whether it be physical or mental or both, Winker just seems like a guy who is no longer interested in being a baseball player. I think he's physically capable of being a faster baserunner but he simply isn't interested in being one. This comes after having previously lost interest in playing defense, which I again think was more mental than physical.

I used to feel this way but after moving around to a few different cities I think it comes down to winning and marketing. It's not an "if you build it they will come" type thing like it would be if they put a team in Quebec City.

We've seen teams like the Cards before that mash the ball and do very little else right. If they make the playoffs it will be because their pitching climbs into the upper half of MLB, not because they are winning a ton of 12-8 games.

My understanding is that the move to Glendale was a result of clashing with the Suns' ownership and the Suns' arena not being designed for hockey. Obviously it was a poor decision in retrospect. Then the NHL had to take over the team in 2009. The saga with Glendale has been well documented over the past 10 years. The current ownership supposedly didn't pay rent because of a "clerical error" (yeah right) and now they play at a 4,500 seat college arena because there are no better options. The current owner sees the team as little more than a piece to add value to his real estate investments, and they once again embarrassed themselves by failing to fund or plan a proper a "YES" vote campaign and apparently had no backup plan for losing. I'm kind of shocked at your optimism to be honest. The product on the ice has been consistently terrible for years now. I know they bought up bad contracts in exchange for draft picks and a brighter future, but after watching them play the Kraken three times in March/April, I didn't see anything redeeming about them. I don't mean to be harsh but they didn't look like a team that is going to be competitive for at least a few more years. Anyway, I don't mean to dunk on the Coyotes, but the above is just my perspective from being an NHL fan and reading blogs/reddit/etc. I really wish the best for the Coyotes...I lived in Miami and went to Florida Panthers games during some of their lean years, many people wanted them to relocate but they did finally turn things around. I just don't see how it happens in Phoenix and I think this latest setback is going to be the last straw for the NHL. Speaking of the Panthers...what a game last night!

It sounds like they didn’t have a backup plan if they lost the Tempe vote. I suspect they will be playing at ASU again in 2023-24 while they figure this out. Most people seem to think that it’s over for Phoenix which is a real shame but ultimately a consequence of having a series of incompetent owners. Even the lowly Florida Panthers have managed to turn things around after getting competent ownership.

No.

If he can keep up this 4 WAR pace that's fine with me.

Right, and the Mariners needed a DH but dumped him anyway and the reports that came out made it clear that he wasn't interested in putting the work in to get better. Like many, I figured that he was frustrated about his injury and would be motivated to perform in a contract year, but I wonder if there isn't something else going on. That all said, as long as he keeps getting on base he'll have a job with the Brewers.

Have you ever been to Mexico?

Which is extremely dangerous and kills pedestrians. Right turns on red should not be allowed in urban areas and it seems like some cities are finally figuring that out. It's mostly school zone speeding cameras where I live. They are extremely effective. Near-perfect compliance of 20 mph driving through school zones. Recently they have rolled out bus lane cameras and box blocking cameras as well after some state laws were changed to allow more of them. I've also seen them testing some new IR cameras that automatically detect and trigger signals for cyclists which is pretty cool.

They could just make the odds 1/16 for each of the 16 teams that miss the playoffs. Nobody would purposely miss the playoffs for 6% odds of winning the #1 pick.

It sucks that Chicago got him but I hate that any of these teams get rewarded for tanking. He should go to one of the teams that is trying but narrowly missed the playoffs like Buffalo or Ottawa.

Sadly, there are a lot of people out there, especially older ones, who drive cars with one foot on the gas and the other one on the brake. It’s common for them to accidentally floor it when they try to hit the brake. I put an air tag in my car so that I can chase it down if it ever gets stolen. It is my feeling that the pandemic reduction in police enforcement of driving violations was a grave error and we desperately need to more widely use camera technology to enforce traffic violations.

As a Kraken fan I wasn’t surprised with that result, Dallas was the better team this year and that carried over into the playoffs. And then you throw in that questionable goalie swap after game 1 and that was the series. We’re underdogs again against the Stars but I think we’ll manage to make it a long series, especially if Grubauer can stay hot in net. It sure seems to be setting up for Edmonton to take the west but Vegas seems to be peaking at the right time and I never trust the Oilers’ defense and goaltending.

Toronto-Boston is looking likely which is going to be fantastic hockey. NY/NJ is the series that looks most likely to go 7. Seattle-Colorado possibly as well, although Seattle has outplayed the Avalanche and should (hopefully, pretty please) advance.

Milwaukee's air is 2% less dense than sea level. Denver is 14% less dense. Mexico City is 20% less dense. So it's not terrible but you're adding about a third more to the Coors Field effect. It's already going to be hard to pull off a Mexico expansion, so scaring pitchers away is not going to help things. And Monterrey is a fairly wealthy city as well (not quite as high as Mexico City I think...)