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I don't see the Mariners parting with France even if they sell (which is appearing less likely since they are heating up like they did last year at this time). They don't have a good replacement option for France and they finally found a suitable DH in Mike Ford for the time being. If they do sell, Teoscar Hernandez would be the most likely candidate to move. How about Mark Canha as a salary dump option from the Mets? He's owed about $5.5 million more this year + a $2M buyout. Not a splashy option but he can fill in all over the field which is attractive.

Makes sense. Curious to hear your libertarian perspective on PPP loans.

Why didn't you invest the money and do a bulk payment when interest collection resumes?

There are 43 million people who owe student loans and the average monthly payment is something like $300 or $400. So you can do the math on that and see how much money is going to be coming out of the economy every month starting this fall. It's absolutely going to put a noticeable dent in consumer spending (I would guess low-to-mid single digit percentage but that's still significant). I can't imagine more than a quarter of people with student loans actually stashed away those payments (and I say that as someone who did). You would have to have been an idiot to make payments while the interest rate was zero. Most people just spent the money because many needed to and the rest have the financial literacy of the average American or worse. I doubt there will be many defaults, most will go on income-based repayment plans and whatever other help the Biden admin comes up with. I don't mind paying them back but after what happened with the PPP loans it feels kind of icky. Given the interest rates of mine and my income, the math says I should be frugal and pay then down quickly so I probably will.

Yeah I tend to mostly agree with this. What else can corporations do to maintain or further grow their massive profit margins? They already did mass layoffs and jacked up prices to the moon. It's honestly incredible that demand hasn't softened much yet given that wage growth has been below inflation for a while now. I have zero sympathy for the banks, everyone knew that interest rates would be going back up after the pandemic. Here's at least a bit of optimism. The US is having the strongest post-pandemic recovery in the G7 -- lowest inflation, greatest increase in GDP. We're doing pretty good relative to our peers, and we've finally made some progress on things that could really screw us over like transitioning to green energy and bringing some manufacturing back to the US. I've decided to leave most of my liquid investments in money markets for now, it's too hard to say no to a guaranteed 4-5% return given the continuing uncertainty.

And Ohtani is on pace for a 12 WAR season...

Not our problem anymore!

Practice for moving the Brewers to Nashville I suppose

Vegas was the plan all along, negotiating with Oakland was a leverage move for Vegas. The funding and approvals were moving through in Oakland. Slowly, because it's California, but they were moving. Once the Oakland city council figured out what was going on they bailed. By the way, this was brilliant. Kudos to A's fans for a fantastic night.

We'll see what 23-24 looks like. Giannis got an extra month of rest. Jokic's reaction to winning last night has drawn laughs, but the guy clearly is tired after playing into mid-June. It's hard to repeat in the NBA these days.

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

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.

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.

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.