Transmogrified Tiger

It's admittedly the part I'm least sure about in the whole process. I would be a little surprised if it got close to $100/person in practice, but it's definitely possible it's higher than $50. Every $4 or so is another 10 million given the previous assumptions, so you can calibrate with that how you like. Whatever fan survey statistic had the Cubs as the highest cost for a family of four, which was like $375 or something. So a little under $100 per person in revenue. I've seen those types of estimates but I've never been clear on if that is actually representative of the average(e.g. there's one version of this I've seen with borderline excessive food purchases). Similarly, there's some average cost per ticket stuff out there but when I poke around it seems like it mostly is talking about season tickets, which is helpful but not a 1:1 comparison.

It's admittedly the part I'm least sure about in the whole process. I would be a little surprised if it got close to $100/person in practice, but it's definitely possible it's higher than $50. Every $4 or so is another 10 million given the previous assumptions, so you can calibrate with that how you like.

Ok, someone do the math. If they are break even at 20%, they sure must make a killing at 100%. 20% capacity is between 8 and 9k. 2019 average attendance was a bit over 38k, so let's simplify and call it 30k fans for 80 home games, 2.4 million fans worth of profit. At $50/person, that's 120 million. Cot's says the current payroll is 145 million actual and 170 million luxury tax, so you can do the math on how much potential room that gives them assuming all the assumptions on what Kenney is implying and our napkin math are roughly accurate. It does paint a picture that the conversation about avoiding the repeater penalty for being over the luxury tax may have some basis in reality, but the current payroll situation would entirely be temporary loss aversion(or recovery of 2020 losses if you prefer).

They're now at 12 years and 4 coaches(including 2 fairly high profile guys in Weis and Miles) since their last FOUR win season. It kinda boggles the mind how they can't seem to stumble into being only mediocre if only for a single season.

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I didn’t see his post game comments, but I assume Klopp said something like “so you want me to rotate the squad? I’ll show you rotation all right”

They're at least a little related, the injuries have meant Henderson and especially Fabinho have gotten taken out of midfield and hurt that group's quality and depth. Plus Van Dijk in particular is great at breaking lines with his passing and his defensive quality gives TAA license to get forward. That said, the midfield has always been the least dynamic part of the LIverpool formation, it's full of guys who can do a job but aren't going to single handedly break anyone's game plan. Especially against the Chelsea formation where there's a lot of numbers in the midfield causing congestion. I guess Im speaking more about Thiago. He was supposed to be the one to do that and yesterday and he seems to never even get close to doing anything other than losing possession or back passing and stalling out a break. Yeah he's been a disappointment, no doubt. Not sure how much of a coincidence it is that the midfielders who are supposed to bring the most creative attacking quality(Thiago, Keita) have struggled the most.

They're at least a little related, the injuries have meant Henderson and especially Fabinho have gotten taken out of midfield and hurt that group's quality and depth. Plus Van Dijk in particular is great at breaking lines with his passing and his defensive quality gives TAA license to get forward. That said, the midfield has always been the least dynamic part of the LIverpool formation, it's full of guys who can do a job but aren't going to single handedly break anyone's game plan. Especially against the Chelsea formation where there's a lot of numbers in the midfield causing congestion.

I've been expecting this "collapse" for some time basically because their style of play is not physically sustainable with this many games and a roster not deep enough. It still seems like luck is a major factor but you really can see how things have broken down. The overall system cannot be sustained. I think it's likely a combination of things - style of play ill-suited for this level of fixture congestion, plus a lack of depth(or Klopp's unwillingness to use depth) - a debilitating run of injuries at a single position, plus a few others(they probably would've snagged a few more points if they hadn't been without Jota and to a lesser extent Keita so much) - bad xG luck, which you can call purely chance, lack of composure(Alisson) and finishing, etc The good news is that none of those appear to be super long term concerns, the biggest worry likely being if they can have the requisite depth in future seasons or if Klopp will use it. The current problems are intractable enough that the Champions league is a big question mark though, and missing that would really undermine their ability to add depth.

counterpoint: Mount could hit a 30 yard screamer in every game for the rest of his life and I will still think of him as a tryhard muppet

losing to Pulisic-less Chelsea with Mount scoring is a lot to take, too much, some would say

Makes sense, with so many schools still shut down there's probably not a lot of substitute teacher work.

It's time to let go of hope with Underwood. It's been 9 years, he's gonna turn 27 this summer, and that arrow straight fastball has gotten torched in the high minors and MLB. It's not gonna happen.

friendship canceled with Christian now (spins wheel) Tyler is my best friend

Yeah, as much as I would like to see it, Bayern typically doesn’t pay EPL prices unless it’s a local guy like Sane. Plus they aren’t really short on quality wingers with Sane, Coman, and Gnabry. i thought coman was leaving Ah, I was too lazy to double check if one of those guys might be on the way out. Still, not quite a weakness, and maybe even more of a situation where Bayern might not pay the price tag since there isn’t a gaping hole.

Yeah, as much as I would like to see it, Bayern typically doesn’t pay EPL prices unless it’s a local guy like Sane. Plus they aren’t really short on quality wingers with Sane, Coman, and Gnabry.

Rule 5 pick from Baltimore, good arm but very old for his levels, could be a starter, swingman, or short reliever. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-2020-rule-5-draft-scouting-reports/

Yeah it's funny how one performance can shift the window for perception so much. Two bad giveaways from Leipzig and now Liverpool is in commanding position to advance, and the quarterfinals don't start for ~7 weeks so they have a lot of time to get healthy(Fabinho/Jota), get guys in form(Alisson) or up to speed(Kabak) and maybe make a proper run at the final since the only big landmines out there are Bayern and City. PSG? I mean, if you can consider Liverpool a contender, you have to consider PSG one. Also, Athletico - did you forget last year already? I will be shocked if Liverpool gets anywhere near the final. I don't mean to imply it's a foregone conclusion or particularly easy, just that outside of Bayern and City, if Liverpool do get back into form over those ~2 months, none of the other remaining teams I would consider clear favorites against them. Which stands in stark contrast to the justifiable negativity of how their winter has gone domestically.

Yeah it's funny how one performance can shift the window for perception so much. Two bad giveaways from Leipzig and now Liverpool is in commanding position to advance, and the quarterfinals don't start for ~7 weeks so they have a lot of time to get healthy(Fabinho/Jota), get guys in form(Alisson) or up to speed(Kabak) and maybe make a proper run at the final since the only big landmines out there are Bayern and City.

how did I miss that Kepa was back in the team under Tuchel, are they venting carbon monoxide into the Chelsea manager's office or something

For sure, I don't want the takeaway to be 'actually there's no difference between Darvish and Arrieta or Davies', if you need to put money on who will be the most productive then you should put all of it on Darvish. What I'm getting at is that because of the mitigating factors to Darvish's productivity(some of which exist for the others, like age for Arrieta or inconsistency for Williams/Davies), you're dragging down Darvish's likely standard to a level where variance can lead to one of those others matching or eclipsing him, and because you've distributed the risk in multiple players, that chance is non-trivial even if it's not the most likely. To try to say this in a more concise way, if Darvish had an incredible season in 2018 at age 31, you would be way more confident of him setting a higher standard than 3.1 fWAR in the following year because he wouldn't have the age or stamina concerns he has now. Since those concerns do exist for 2021, you create greater surface area for other players to match or exceed his productivity, especially when you have multiple players doing so for the same resources.

I may have something similar re: 2018-present for Darvish, but to be clear the only performance I explicitly mentioned above was his 2021 ZiPS forecast. But even then I think if you take a large but logical timeframe, say after his TJS which strips out pre-injury and mid-20s Darvish that aren't very applicable to his current form, his performance has run the spectrum from 'top of rotation starter' to 'a little above average' to 'missing lots of time with injury'. Plus you're layering on his lack of stamina from 2020 and his 34 year oldedness on top of it.

We got a handful of pitchers who maybe, potentially will put up more WAR combined in way more innings than Darvish will do by himself, a Schwarber clone without the memories, a worse and older backup catcher, and 4 teenagers who won't sniff Wrigley until the few remaining good players we have are sold off or washed up. Yay. I'm not a huge fan of the specific players involved here, but to play devil's advocate, I think we've got a bit too much recency bias with how Darvish's production is being assumed. He was phenomenal last year, but consistency has never been his hallmark, and (relatedly), neither has pitch economy which will likely play a big factor in how much value he can accrue this year in particular. ZiPS has him at 3.1 fWAR in 151 IP this year, and while I don't think it's way off, I think it's closer to being optimistic than pessimistic. There's more than a few potential outcomes where Davies' durability plus a small tweak or Arrieta getting a second wind out of Philly lead to either of them outproducing Darvish(the biggest injury risk of the group) alone, never mind the rest of players Darvish's money may have been put towards. My biggest criticism of Hoyer's offseason so far has been the shape of the returns he's gotten and the players he's targeted. Some of it is more understandable than others, I can kinda see the approach to this season's pitching being a one off in terms of getting across the 2021 bridge where no one will be able to add maximum value and on the other side you have clarity about the position player core + the farm system in a full season. So even though I'd rather have had folks with more team control or a likely future beyond 2021 than Davies and Arrieta, I can live with it. Similar things could be said about Joc too, and my feelings that the Darvish return is appropriate value but should have been on average closer to MLB is still true.

Keith you got people worked up by repeatedly comparing his lack of power to Juan Pierre, then tried to whitewash it with this generic 'guess I was right your team's prospect wasn't a star' schtick when he doubled that level of IsoP at every level, including MLB.

His value is heavily tied to him being able to hit singles, he hasn’t graded out particularly well defensively, and most importantly, the Twins have Andrelton, Polanco, and several other players near MLB ready in middle infield. a .480 SLG indicates he’s doing more than slapping singles It’s a .130 IsoP since that line has a .350 AVG. A .130 IsoP is easily below average for a 2B, and that’s his best split since his overall IsoP runs just under .100.