Transmogrified Tiger

Boy I like that deal a lot. Deichmann’s knocks heading into the year were present production and hit tool/K rate, and all of those are looking much better in 2021 even if you only look at his road numbers. I honestly had him in mind when thinking about deals for Kimbrel or Baez, so to get him for Chafin is good business.

Looks like he clarified that it's just him reading the twitter tea leaves.

They aren't playing each other, and the minnows they are playing are 0-2 with a -12 GD against Brazil/Netherlands so far, so I think they just rest players where necessary for fatigue/yellow cards and collect the W. Maybe Brazil takes their foot off the gas as early as they're comfortable since they're the ones who would have to make up goal differential to leapfrong the Dutch.

Where do we think Canada is with their top squad? I think they're solidly third in the region talent-wise, but I'm not sure they "know how to win in concacaf" yet. They're sort of where the US was in the early aughts before we started beating pretty much everyone at home, including Mexico, consistently. If they can start holding home court consistently in qualifying, and getting draws/regular wins against the riff raff on the road, there is no reason they can't be the new, second tier power in the region going forward. I just don't know if they are there yet mentally. The bottom 2 spots of qualifying are definitely going to be fascinating. This Gold Cup team dispatching of Costa Rica is a decent sign, but last cycle's meltdown against Haiti and their relative inexperience make me unsure. Costa Rica, Panama and Honduras are not on the upswing, El Salvador feels like not enough talent to match the pluck they have to get into the Top 4, and Jamaica have underperformed their talent for a long while. Someone's gotta make it, and I feel like betting against Panama, El Salvador, and Honduras is a decent bet, but picking a loser from CR/Canada/Jamaica (add in the US if you like knocking on wood) is really tough.

I haven't made it all the way through the gymnastics from last night yet, but it was funny watching Biles falter on both floor and vault but still pile up high scores because the stuff she does has a wildly higher difficulty level than anyone else's. The US trials were the same way, it's insane that she's doing stuff at such a different level that she can take on significant deductions for landings or stepping out of bounds and still be comfortably ahead of everyone.

Roldan's going to be at his best in the international game playing wider and even then he's not going to take on players with abandon, but he's incredibly positionally smart and has very good service. Glad he's finally gotten over the hump of inexplicably playing worse for country than he does for club. Agree that Dike was more the future than the present last night. I saw someone point out that he hasn't really had a break in a year(MLS -> December/January camps -> Barnsley -> MLS -> Nations League/Gold Cup) and is carrying a bit of a knock too, so while my confidence in him for WCQ hasn't wavered, Zardes might be better for Qatar when we're going to need the striker to help break down a team sitting back. This is an excellent description, similar to the 'piano carriers v. piano players' analogy I've seen used. It's also a good reminder that we've got our 2nd choice spine(who like you mention are not good being the focal point), and our 3rd/4th options on the flanks, so facing a Jamaica team at near full strength with that roster is not a minnow we can expect to overwhelm. If my napkin math is right, this brings Berhalter up to 14-2 in competitive games with a +35 goal differential. I'm still not sure how the team will handle true road games in qualifying and he's sometimes a bit too slow with subs, but the above really bears out how well he's done when it matters. For comparison, Tata is 14-1-1 with a +28 GD, and 2 of the wins were shootouts.

The Frazier return is a bit underwhelming, but hes a known commodity clearly having an unsustainable career year so I can see that extra year carrying less weight.

Pretty sure you can stream it on Peacock, though no idea if they paywalled it. I’d bet a lot they will show it on a major channel later today when they can get more eyeballs on it, that’s just how NBC handles the timezones for these.

Yeah it is by far the most baffling part of this. Your prospects will develop better and contribute more or be more valuable in trade, and you’d have an efficiency wages advantage with minor league FAs and the like. Would easily pay itself back for less than the price of an okay free agent.

Maybe the novelty would wear off, but whenever I watch handball at the olympics I feel like it should be a lot more popular in the US.

Imagine a PK as it works now, one guy in the box to strike it, keeper on the line, 20 other players outside the box. When the ref blows the whistle, all 22 players are live and can cut off the shot if the taker is too slow, charge down the shot angle, or be a passing option. I'd keep the rule about the taker not touching the ball consecutively. The net result is that takers are now taking those shots a lot faster to avoid losing angle or getting caught from a field player. That 1) looks more like real soccer than the current format of dancing up to the ball and stutter stepping to try and trick a keeper into committing 2) would lower the success rate, which in turn lowers the incentive to try to get a PK and the consequences of a borderline PK call.

Basically, you know how at the moment the a PK is kicked, the ball is live and any player can rush in to make a play? Make that the rule for when the ref blows the whistle to take the kick, with a caveat the taker can’t dribble. My hope would be throw ins would be faster and more like open play, you have more of the field accessible to make runs into, and you don’t create a game of head tennis with a short pass. Yes near the corners you’d see more structure, but that happens to a fair extent now.

I've never heard of either of the anime shows they mentioned at the beginning, but if listening to those 2 argue about it doesn't put a smile on your face then I submit you do not have a soul

amazing content [tweet] [/tweet]

1. 30 min halves? I like the spirit. Personally I think you could do some variant of these(stop the clock on every injury, actually use your cards for time wasting on goal kicks/free kicks, etc), but 30 min with stoppages is at least consistent/simple. Would they eliminate extra time entirely? That feels like it would take the most getting used to. 2. Unlimited subs. Bad, throw it in the trash. Should be less than 5. 3. Really like the power play on yellow cards. The duration you can play around with but I appreciate the precedent. The thing to be careful with this and orange cards for tactical fouling is as much as those suck, if you punish them too harshly then you just incentivize more boring conservatism tactically. As far as what I'd do, I'd make penalties harder. When the whistle blows the shooter is limited to only 1 consecutive touch like now, but otherwise all 22 players are live. Eliminate the ponderous run ups and nonsensical punishing of goalkeepers by keeping them on their line. Penalties get harder and the incentive to draw them and the consequences of borderline/bad penalty calls goes down. I'd make throw ins similar to what keepers do, you have to keep your feet on/behind the line but otherwise no rules about feet on the ground, hands on the ball, or arm motion. Let people roll in short throw ins or wind up and make them into through balls/de facto corners if they want. I'd also *liberally* use yellows for players kicking/throwing away balls on stoppages to slow teams down or waste time. It boggles my mind that when it comes to plays on the ball we call fouls regardless of intent or how avoidable contact may have been, but we use this absurd veneer of plausible deniability(or just not caring) when teams toss a throw in away or kick a ball 10 yards after a foul call.

Diaz also doesn't qualify if you include his entire 2018 since he was traded midseason.

Yeah I don’t know if that’s all in with full incentives but I would value him at $4-5 mil. He’s very green. According to their website, they also signed Tanner Tessmann from FC Dallas Yep, and they gave him the 4+ million Wolf would've figured for Busio, despite Tessman not getting consistent playing time at the club level. Venezia is either very prescient, the market for Americans is maturing rapidly, or they're overpaying/not going to get a ton of profit on them in the median case.

That is a ton of money for Busio, sure hope Venezia knows what they’re doing.

metsing intensifies

He's been fairly horsefeathers the last month, but he's still probably still at ~4/70 based on the numbers. I'd give it to him. I think his back issues are more concerning than a computer will properly account for, but I'd balance that out with all the team captain warm and fuzzy stuff in my mental ledger. I have to think they aren't handling aging curves for the position very well. Here's 1B qualifying seasons age 34 and older the past 5 complete years: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=1b&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2020&month=0&season1=2015&ind=1&team=0&rost=0&age=34,40&filter=&players=0&startdate=&enddate= 3 of 16 reached 2 fWAR, one of those was Yuli Gurriel playing 1/3 of his games at 3B, and another was Joe Mauer riding a career high UZR to 2.3 fWAR. The other was Votto's final good season. There's a lot of 'this guy can hit' types in this list too, Pujols, Adrian Gonzalez, Carlos Santana, latter day Votto, it's just a really uphill battle at that age, and any Rizzo extension has him hit 34 in year 2.

Is there any semi-realistic low-price/short-duration extension for Rizzo that wouldn't make you (and I) blanch? What are the numbers? I'd say it's more about the years, and going beyond 2 years would make me pretty uneasy. If we assume we're limiting the length of the guarantee I'm a little more open minded. Yes there will likely be more efficient ways to spend the money, but that's more marginal and I can appreciate there's upside and more than just production at play. Let's say more than 2/30 and I think we're in for a bad time. The part that makes me the most nervous is that a pre-FA extension could potentially be at the opposite end of the spectrum. Maybe I'm worrying too much, Rizzo's valued certainty over max dollars before and his agent should probably be able to foresee a less than frenzied market for him in the offseason. Plus if you bank some of the spending now you can probably consolidate the money better(e.g. Rizzo+Baez now and 2 FAs is a lot more practically feasible than signing 4 FAs when the whole world can bid on them), but I still worry about 30+ first baseman signing deals of significance.

I can (after an appropriate period of mourning) accept choosing Baez over Bryant. He's likely more agreeable to an extension, he probably won't get enormous money given uneven performance and a loaded SS market this year, he's a year younger which matters a lot in any deal of sufficient length, and it's easier to get lucky and find Bryant's productivity from the corners than it is to find someone who does what Javy can. However, please please please don't extend Rizzo now. You want to not trade him and keep your options open? Great. But if you're extending him now you're likely signing yourself up for way too much decline at too heavy a price, and Rizzo's recent health and performance doesn't paint a picture of productivity you must keep at all costs. He's the anti-Javy in terms of how easy it is to find his recent level of production.

To me the worst thing about Todd was that he was so bad with the Marlins in 03, they had to bring up a 20-year-old Miggy early and he helped them get them the WC and the rest is history. My memory is pretty fuzzy, but it seems like he was blocking some prospect from getting regular playing time while he was with the Cubs. Side note: Can you imagine any team trading a 25 year old with Miggy skills? I could be way off but I think it was Jason Dubois Also Matt Murton

Yeah no complaints with this. I especially like this as a level set for deals involving more valuable pieces, and generally speaking, prospects with past performance/pedigree that arent hot after a pandemic year and a late start are a good place to potentially strike it big.

From a preseason list, Fangraphs had Ball as Atlanta’s #11 prospect. He hasnt hit so far this year, .207/.354/.396