Lazorko Saves

Don't know, I had to change the channel when George Stephanopolous started running his hands over Biden's leg hair.

And not to put to put too fine a point on it, but as I am watching Tampa Bay run out an endless parade of guys who throw 97-98-99 out of their bullpen here.... If we non-tender Middleton at $1m *and* keep Noe for the same price, I'm going to start the "Fire GM [fill in the blank]" thread myself.

Non-tendering Middleton at about $1m is mind-bogglingly crazy to me. If we non-tender him, there will be about 10 (or 20 or 29) other teams calling his agent with offers probably at right near or more than $1m a year. I think many of those offers would even be multi-year. An age 27 pitcher with that kind of power arm on his 2nd year after TJS is a bounceback candidate with a lot of upside. There will be a lot of GMs all over that for only double the league minimum.

Yep. And I think the "after the World Series" thing suggests they want to interview people from teams still playing right now.

Simba ain't getting so much as a Christmas card after quitting, let alone a check for $18.9m.

Actually, I realize now the correct answer is...

I think the person making the more extraordinary claim is the one who needs to back it up. The idea that teams selling zero tickets, zero parking spots, zero beers, zero hotdogs, zero fancy sushi in a plastic box, zero buckets of Cathy's Cookies, etc for an entire year...and yet still won't see a significant drop in revenues is a rather extraordinary claim. I know there's more per-game and playoff TV revenue, but that would be a lot of heavy lifting by a marginal TV revenue boost. That said, I don't have an opinion on if the Angels will cut payroll also. Maybe, maybe not.

It's more a sing-songy kind of thing, but to be honest, I can't quite get all those notes Julie Andrews could back before her James Earl Jones-ectomy.

Yeah I know, not everyone on the internet can be unfailingly witty and original. In a moment of seriousness, yes, Mathis is elite defensively. And some years that positive dWAR overcomes that negative oWAR. And yes, obviously Mathis does some things managers like that the analytics don't measure. I think we all get that. But I'm still taking a jab at that career .194 hitter whenever I can. Especially when we play the Rangers, I can now taunt the Rangers fans by pointing to Stassi and doing the "anything your guy can do, our guy can do better" chant.

Found Scioscia. I knew he'd have an account on here...

A legend among those of us who did baseball cards as kids....

Oh I shoulda read the whole thread first...you beat me to it.

Sosh's first trade would be Ohtani for Jeff Mathis and a catcher to be named later.

You're like Paul Harvey, telling the story backwards.

Bah, my playoff hopes ended back on July 24, when Hoby gave Olson that meatball with his first pitch in the 10th inning.

I cannot wait until the nicknames-on-the-jerseys games next year. I wanna see Walshy with "El Nervioso" on his jersey.

Right now... Two weeks from now, out of the playoffs and picking somewhere around 8th overall...

Yes, but when that happens, we will forever have the memory of Mark Gubicza mangling his name into "Naughty Packton" on the broadcast. So kinda worth it.

He's a pitcher, so yeah, he's a TJ candidate. At least Barreto is not less likely a TJ candidate!

Are you suggesting that all-sarcasm-all-the-time can't be poisonous?

Pfft, this board is just so poisonous sometimes. This is a decent return for only a month of Castro. Power arm with 97-99 FB. There's some upside as a bullpen piece.

Lawson would be a nice high ceiling arm, but he's in Tommy John surgery recovery, so I kind of doubt it.