Transmogrified Tiger

Agreed. Beyond their defensive disinterest, having Konrad and Dest on the left with Aaronson inside meant that no one was particularly interested in getting to the left touchline, and the central dribbling became real predictable. I think Dest on the left is more palatable in a 3 back, where he has more defensive cover, more license to gravitate centrally, and is more likely to have a different formation in front of him(5-3-2 or 3-4-2-1) to make that flank more dynamic. Probably should've just played Lletget over Konrad at the least to get Aaronson out of the middle. But even with the player selection and player performance being uninspiring, they got a road point, which is all they really need for the first road qualifier in front of a raucous crowd. 3 teams dropped home points yesterday, so beat Canada and take your shot against Honduras, who is not in a great competitive cycle, isn't at full strength on top of that, and will have heavier legs than the US. That will be our last chance til the final game @CR to play on the road in the 3rd match to take advantage of depth/rotation, so while 5 points would be fine, they'll definitely have missed a significant chance to breathe easier.

how do the pirates sell a single ticket all year

Tying on the road is fine, but the road games don’t really get easier and you miss the chance to pad your margin for error.

Sargent looks like a USL player with the ball at his feet today, I don’t get it

270+ minutes across concacaf and zero open play goals, seems about right

There are 4 Espinozas to go along with 17 Vizcainos in the system, are we sure it's Anderson getting promoted

I had come around on Acosta being a useful member of the national team, but now I think I love him? "You didn't even start the game, you're retired" is just incredible

This is going to be a big and ongoing thing so I'm starting the thread so bits of news and rumor can be centralized. Anyway part of MLB's proposal to the MLBPA last month was setting Free Agency eligibility by age(29.5 as of July 1) instead of service time, and boosting pre-FA salaries in the process: https://nypost.com/2021/09/01/mlb-makes-new-service-time-proposal-to-players-union-sherman/ I think I like the overton window being moved away from service time as a metric, and my guess is this gets more money to younger players which would be good. As an ownership proposal I'm sure it doesn't add up to the right amounts, but age-guaranteed FA with more money paid to pre-FA players is a loose idea I could see leading to a better result than the current system.

There's a LaHair/haters wordplay that goes here and I just can't quite make it work so pretend I did

It looks like it's: Thursday/El Salvador: CBS Sports Network, Paramount+, Universo Sunday/Canada: FS1, Unimas, TUDN Wednesday/Honduras: Paramount+, Universo So the Honduras game is behind a non-cable paywall unless you have Universo, but the other 2 have more distribution.

Probably a better situation for him than Schalke, but I would also like it if our young strikers all weren't catnip for teams fighting relegation.

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I would also add that EV and launch angle aren't exactly being calculated in laboratory conditions, for an individual swing(or comparing 2 individual swings) there's room for measurement error.

On the plus side I believe this now means Bote can throw 110 mph when he heals

did the announcer really call them the Myr-men or did I hallucinate that

It’s so much fun, mine is that Weah is the answer to “what if Zardes had Champions League pedigree” and we should be playing him at the 9

Possible, but I wouldn't count on Happ facing lefties as a LHH is going to lead to a better outcome against them. Unless the argument is he'll be significantly better against RHP by simplifying.

I will stop doing this the day it stops telling me positive things, but Happ is up to 126 wRC in August and 105 since the All-Star break. He was at a career mark of 116 prior to this season.

The summer of L Tri

Jed has been up front that the CBA is going to be a big driver in the offseason’s strategy. Given how pissed the players are and the possibility for a work stoppage or more significant changes(even non-confrontational ones like universal DH), no one should be certain how they’re playing the market and I’m extra skeptical of people who are certain of what will *not* happen with that specificity. At least until there’s some stronger tea leaves on what the next CBA looks like. Even if we accept the ‘no mega deals/long term contracts’ motto, the amount that holds them back depends on the entirety of the picture. We’ve talked about them buying young players by taking on deals of teams up against the tax like Hosmer, Myers, or Upton, maybe the new CBA makes that need so extreme that the Cubs are one of the few that can do that and it’s an immediate contributor and a prospect for taking on the deal. Maybe they save their star power for younger acquisitions. Just to use the rotation as an illustration, you can pay for likely 4+ years to add Stroman and Gray to the rotation, or you can sign Greinke and trade for Sandy Alcantara without committing long term dollars and get to a similar place. This FA class in particular is loaded with talented players who may struggle to get long term commitments due to age and the CBA environment(e.g. Baez and Rizzo), so playing in those waters is not a multi-year forfeiture. You just have to make sure it’s not the only additions you make so you don’t get on a treadmill of trying to keep pace with what you were without making further improvements. The farm can mitigate this, especially if you think of who might be contributing in 2023, but it’s still a balance you want to strike.

Honestly curious as to how the US isn't red-listed https://twitter.com/tutulismyname/status/1430238372220579844 Early indication is that FIFA isn't going to play along so those EPL teams could face punishment for doing so. EDIT: The team hurt by this the most in the short run is probably Jamaica? They have several EPL players and play @Mexico/v. Panama/@Costa Rica in the first set of games. Mexico doesn't get Jimenez back but I'm not sure if he was going to be fit for that round of games. Off the top I can't think of another Ocho team who would be particularly hurt.

I don't really understand how all of this works, but is this a reason why depth in a system is less important than star power? They overlap in several ways, but I would think of this as star power raises the ceiling, depth raises the floor. In general star power is more important because it's harder to find and keep, but having depth makes it easier to build a roster and work around constraints(finances, injuries, imperfect skill sets on the roster, etc) and take more chances to find star power.

Bote did all he could, but it wasn’t enough. Man is Bote terrible. And his contract is even worse. Bote gets paid 3 million a year for the entirety of his deal, there is just no way where that can qualify for an 'even worse' in 2021. It inhibits nothing, it's a rounding error. In more pleasant news, Happ is up to a 120 wRC+ in August and 100 wRC+ since the all-star break.

The Rangers fans seem to think he might be on the losing end of a power struggle, but yeah there's no benefit of the doubt for the Epstein front office tree right now.