eaterfan

I'm not focused on it because to me Cellebrini is in a tier all his own. After that there are about 12 guys in the next tier. There are some I like better than others, but to me I wouldn't be surprised if any one of them became the best NHL player of the bunch. The Ducks don't "need" a forward any more than they "need" a defenseman. So basically, I see very little difference between having pick 2 and having pick 5. The chance of winning the one pick is pretty low.

The tax accountant talked to Ippei? I mean, how many financial classes do you think Ohtani has taken in his life? How comfortable would you be discussing technical finances in your second language in a country you aren't familiar with tax laws in? It's a sizeable chunk of money, but if you don't care about money and let people manage your money for you and there's always plenty in the account when you want to buy something, why worry about it? I mean a guy just stole $20 million from the Jacksonville Jaguars for gambling and the owner speaks English and could talk to anyone. There's a lot you can do if you have access to people's accounts and the accounts aren't getting close to $0.

It can. It depends on a lot of things. From the time FTX collapsed until Sam Bankman Fried was sentenced was only a year and a quarter. In that case there was a trial, and there were billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of accounts effected, lots of financial maneuvering, and SBF wasn't cooperating. If Ohtani handed over his financial information, I imagine it wouldn't take long to examine his few accounts. Plus, it sounds like the bookie is cooperating, too. I don't think this is the complicated web that FTX is. If Ipei wants to avoid a trial, I'm not surprised this isn't taking that long.

I don't get the hype with Rada. It's fun to daydream because he's so young, but what is the upside? He's small and has no pop. He has good command of the zone, but as the pitchers get more control as he moves up he will probably walk less. He doesn't seem to have the power to keep pitchers from throwing strikes. I get that power is the last thing to develop, but it's not like he's 6' 2" and skinny with a frame to add more weight. There's the occasional Altuve, but I don't like the odds of Rada being close to that. What does he project as in the big leagues? CF David Eckstein?

He can afford a halfway decent accountant. He shouldn't be paying any taxes anywhere.

The only All-Star game that mattered was MLB. And with interleague play it lost its luster. Get rid of interleague and it will be more fun again. The other games are really hard to do well because effort matters so much. In baseball the pitcher and hitter are really the only ones who need to try. Basically it requires the players to try for about 10% of the game. The other sports require effort from everyone all the time or else it doesn't look like an actual game that counts.

Sure, but we aren't winning and haven't been. So many teams have guys that are as good as those and in similar volumes. The rest of the Angels have been so bad for so long that we've grown into thinking that a few young guys contributing anything is exceptional. Also, is been a year. We've had Fletcher, Walsh, Borjous, Barria, Canning, Suarez come up and look good for short periods of time. The system was bad and still looks bad.

Yeah. And every year people on here say we're ranked too low and scouts only pay attention to the Yankees and Dodgers prospects... Meanwhile we've produced Trout, Ohtani and no one else of note in 15 years. Maybe the low rankings were right.

I'd like them to sign him. The team isn't going anywhere this year and I'd rather watch Joey Votto hit (or not) than a marginally better player who I don't care about. This is to say I'd rather win 80 games with Votto than 82 with CJ Cron.

Chargers hired former QB Jim Harbaugh as head coach. 5 year deal. Hopefully this works out for them.

Gibson is sick and they need to activate a backup. LaCombe is eligible to be sent down. Simple as that.

Even with all the players sitting out because they are entering the draft or transferring?

A 7-5 UCLA team is playing a 7-5 Boise St. team in something called the "LA Bowl hosted by Gronk" on December 16th is ruining college football way more than the transfer portal ever could. Maybe it's me, but I loved watching the Oregon Washington games between transfers Penix and Nix instead of them being stuck on mediocre Indiana and Auburn teams fighting to reach the Bahamas Bowl or whatever. But maybe you enjoy that more?

There are dozens of courts by my house. Whenever I walk by, they're half filled with old men with beards and mustaches wearing skirts trying to win the first place trophy in the ladies 55+ division tournament. It's horrid and unfair and no one can say anything about it because of this PC cancel culture BS.

If it's an unprotected first this year and maybe a first or second next year, I'm running to the phone to say yes. It would suck if that's the reason the team misses the playoffs...But I like how Dostal is playing and this team is legitimately a year away from being playoff caliber and 2 away from really contending. Oilers are all in this year and their goalies are really holding them back. Their coaching staff and front office are barely hanging on and need to do something. They are up against the cap, so Campbell has to come as an offset and maybe eat some of Gibson's salary this year. But if that can get two firsts (this year unprotected) it's with it. Plus, as you mentioned, it reduces the cap load the next few seasons. That could do a lot to help keep the youngsters together or add some solid depth. The Ducks need some more scoring and if they can have 2 lottery picks that would be awesome. Eiserman is supposed to be a scoring machine but will likely go in the top 3. Beyond that, it's pretty heavy on defenseman. 2 picks would allow you to go BPA with at least one of those picks instead of forcing a winger in the draft. For example, if the Ducks end up with picks 5 and 12 they could take an awesome defenseman at 5 and roll the dice on a wing at 12. If the winger pans out, great! If he doesn't, at least you got a great piece with the other pick.

They just through out huge contracts to aging vets who won't be contributors by the end of their deals. Yeah, overpaying is bad, but there's at least a significant chance the young guys outplay their contracts. I don't get throwing money around recklessly and then claiming the need to spend wisely. It's not a coherent plan. Especially when those big free agent deals were longer term than needed when those young stars you mentioned are coming up for bigger contracts. There are also big risks with the bridge deals, if both players play well, their next contracts will be much bigger right when we need to sign the guys who are coming in behind them. The cap is rising, so you might have to pay $3-4 million more each in 2 years, when the bridge deal is over.

Got to love the strategy of offering ridiculously high contracts to aging mediocre veterans and nickel and diming your young stars. I can see why this team has been so successful over the last half decade.

First was Pujols!

That's why he wouldn't give a definitive statement, but he said it's really hard to come back from a second UCL tear.

Talked to a guy who is an orthopedic surgeon today. He thinks it's likely that Ohtani is done as a pitcher, but he says it's not impossible he comes back to pitch. I imagine he probably moves to the outfield after he recovers from TJ if necessary. I think he'd be pretty good out there if he starts playing out there regularly and that brings more value than just DHing.

Even if Arte were willing to hire someone who could stand up to him, the meddling is only half the problem. The other part is that Arte is cheap and won't spend on anything that isn't on the MLB roster.

I don't think it matters who is hired as long as Arte owns the team. He may have high payrolls, but doesn't spend on anything that isn't on an MLB field. This team gets injured every year and falls off because they don't have a farm system. They don't have the depth to replace injured players the way other orgs do. Arte also lacks the patience and long term vision to build anything sustainable on the farm or in the organization. Every team gets injured, maybe the Angels are more unlucky some years, but not always. Last year the Dodgers lost so many players (and a lot of good ones) and still rolled because of their depth. Every year has been "go for it" since they signed Pujols. They were trying to maximize their window with Pujols and borrowing against the future when they should have been trying to maximize Trout's window. It's not going to change until Arte is gone.

Shocked to learn the guy who worked for Woody Hayes doesn't think the athletes should be able to have control over the services they provide. Even the tiniest amount of power the athletes have is ruining the game and not the coaches who promise playing time and lie when recruiting, or the coaches who leave the school at the drop of a hat when a better opportunity comes up, or the schools who switch conferences to make more money in another conference across the country and throw out a hundred years of rivalries. NIL has made college sports so much better. Guys can actually stay in school and improve their game before going pro for the money. For a decade all we heard about was that one and dones are ruining college basketball, now guys like Jaime Jaquez and Tiger Campbell can stay through their senior year if they want. I loved watching their games this season because I got to know these guys and it's better basketball. Here's a quote from Zach Edey, presumptive "best" player in college basketball next year. It's from an 8/11 article in the Athletic “If this was before NIL, I probably would have left,” he says. “That’s fair to say. But now I’m allowed to be rewarded for the season I had last year, for the season my team had last year. This is how NIL was meant to be used, I think. Not the way some schools are using it.” If it allows key players to return instead of going pro, it's only making college sports better, not worse.

Wouldn't not going to the Big 10 have screwed the tax payers. UCLA had huge debt that the Regents would have had to take on had they not joined the Big 10. If both schools would have made $30-$40 a year in the Pac 11 and UCLA is making $80-$90 a year in the Big 10 then that's a net gain for the regents to have UCLA go.

New rivalries will form. In the end this is really about getting rid of the bottom teams who drag down the revenue for each conference. If USC, Texas, Michigan, tOSU bring in $70 million a year in value and OSU and WSU bring in $10 million it's pretty obvious why those revenue generating schools want to ditch the lower end schools. They just can't kick OSU and WSU out of the conference so they leave to another conference. I think once high revenue schools in the PAC, ACC, and Big 12 have been abandoned the low revenue schools for the B1G and SEC maybe we'll see schools actually kicked out of conferences. Purdue, Indiana, Vanderbuilt, Northwestern, etc. will need to be worried.