Don

That was a beautiful swing by Walsh there.

There are still plenty of good movies being made, they're just harder to find and often aren't huge studio movies. All the big studio money goes to the superhero blockbuster stuff. And you can't really blame the studios for that, as they know that a $200 million investment in Iron Man 32 is gonna make them at least $500 million every single time. I definitely wish studios took a few more chances though, kinda like they did in the mid to late nineties.

I honestly didn't know until last night. I never cared that much in the past, and this year wasn't any different. Not that I hate it or anything, and I've definitely tuned in for a couple minutes here and there before, but it's just not particularly entertaining.

I hate the fact that the call on the field has a built in advantage over making the objectively correct call. It gives immediacy an advantage over objective reality. I still like Adam Carolla’s idea of a “replay gimp” that decides calls under review. Basically someone that doesn’t know the call on the field at all, but just views the play with all the available replay angles and decides what actually happened.

If that ball was fair it’s because it hit the line. And if it hit the line there would have been some chalk flying up. It’s really simple.

Shocked that call wasn’t overturned.

You're welcome. It's a rarity. Everyone reading this thread should consider themselves special.

I honestly thought he'd be out about three weeks, so if it ends up being two I'll call that a win.

This feels like a direct attack.

Yeah, he needs a bounce back start or I'll be officially worried about keeping him in the rotation.

That's a really interesting question honestly. Trout isn't showing any signs of slowing down right now, and if he plays like he has the last few full years for another 6-8 years with another few years of decline toward the end, he's in the conversation for best position player ever. And it would be freaking awesome to have a guy of that caliber as a lifelong Angel. So, in that sense, I can't really justify trading Trout for anybody from a historical/franchise-lore perspective. But from a value perspective? That's certainly debatable. I probably wouldn't do it for Acuna. And that's not to say he won't be the best player in the league at some point in the next few years. It's just that I could see Acuna's career going either the Eric Davis route: Crazy talent, some injuries and bad luck, but still a really really good to elite player for about a decade when healthy; or the Willie Mays route: Elite athlete that manages to stay healthy and maintain peak, elite level production for 12-ish years, followed by another 5+ years of still really good. Those two outcomes and pretty much anywhere in between are possible for Acuna IMO. Soto would intrigue me a bit more just because of the numbers he's putting up at such a young age. I really wish last year would have been a full season, because this question would be so much easier to answer. I mean a 142 and 143 OPS+ at age 19 and 20 are insane. But a 217 at age 21 is just like orders of magnitude more insane than those seasons. It was over the course of 47 games, so we'll have to see what he does over a full season this year. But if he's in the range of 180 in his age 22 season this year, then I'm pretty sure we know that offensive leap he displayed last year is real. For the record, Trout rocked a 168, 179, and 169 in his age 20-22 seasons. So if Soto gets to that 180+ area, and maintains that level for another 10+ years, then MAYBE he becomes more valuable than Trout offensively just because of his age. That said, defense and speed are still areas where Trout has him beat, and nobody knows about Soto's ongoing health (or Trout's for that matter, though he does have a decent track record). So it's kind of a coin flip there I guess unless five years from now a 27 year old Juan Soto has been rocking a 210 OPS+ for six straight years and the argument about who the best hitter in baseball is is officially over. It's just a question of whether or not last year was a short season fluke or an honest progression for one of the best young offensive talents of this generation.

Wasn't pretty, but Shohei got through it. He's got some control issues to work on, and F me did Suzuki do a bad job helping him out on some close ones. But at least it should help with his confidence. Knowing he can get through a bad night when he's having trouble locating is a big deal for him. He managed to avoid the meltdown inning.

I like Walsh hitting 2nd when Ohtani isn't hitting. Him and Trout should be back to back in some way every game while Rendon is out.

What Soto did last year, at the age he did it, is pretty insane. If he gets pretty close to that over a full season, the best hitter in baseball debate is officially over. That said, I'd still consider Trout a better overall player right now because Trout got reasonably close to those numbers in each of his last three full seasons, is a better defender than Soto, and has more speed. Acuna is the most difficult out of the three Strad mentioned to project over a career. I think his floor is basically Eric Davis and his ceiling is Willie Mays.

I don't know a single person in KC that refers to him as anything other than Salvy.

Don't you rain on my symptom-free parade.

For some. Anecdotally, I have several friends, family, co-workers, etc... that have had both doses of the Pfizer vaccine, and well over half have said they felt perfectly fine after dose two (I did as well). A few others had mild symptoms (tired for a day or two, slight headache, etc...), and so far I've only talked to two people that felt legit bad after getting it. And even then, it was like two days max. Obviously it's not a super scientific study, but my guess is you'll wake up tomorrow feeling fine, or possibly a bit more tired than usual.

Yeah, he had a good day at the plate, but there's no reason he should be hitting fourth in this lineup ever at this point.

Why have I been restricted from such a fun convo? I don’t think I said anything bad.

In my opinion this all happened because somebody deleted the Jerome Williams thread just as @Blarg and I were beginning to dissect the financial windfall that a very mediocre major league career can bring a man.

Left a lot of men on base, and that Suzuki drop was brutal. Merrifield is the kind of player that will make you pay for mistakes like that. Suzuki was pretty upset with himself about it.

Who is Mayfield?

Best I could get in the pandemic. Plus I get to scream obscenities at Dyson. JK, I actually like Dyson.

It’s actually from my seat.