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Snake Diggity

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  1. Yeah you totally lost me on Alvarez “has never put it together”. wtf? He finished 3rd in the MVP voting in 2022. He has 3 seasons of 4+ fwar, as a DH. He is inarguably one of the 10 best hitters in the world over the last 7 seasons. The reason I said the next 9 months will define Dana Brown is because I agree with you that the Astros are teetering between becoming a dumpster fire and returning to the kind of success they had from 2015-2024. They have a competitive roster but a below average farm. They have an inefficient payroll but no contracts >$20M/yr after 2028. What the GM does this offseason will determine if the Astros are able to have one more meaningful season during Altuve’s career. How he does in the next draft will determine if the farm is able to start producing again and give them hope of being good after the current core is gone.
  2. Trump doesn’t actually care about loyalty. He cares about using people to get what he wants. A loser candidate is not useful to him.
  3. I don’t think it is at all a foregone conclusion that Trump will endorse Paxton. He will only do that if Paxton is able to improve his polling; Trump will not risk endorsing a GOP candidate who loses a Senate seat in Texas.
  4. I told them they are fucking up with their follow up requests for additional money. Very annoying and stupid to continuously bug your donors for more money before you’ve taken another step in the campaign. I could understand doing another round right before and right after the primary then of course leading up to the election. But they should have a FIRM rule that they do not ask anyone for money within 90 days of their last donation. And if there is some kind of emergency where they are desperate for funds, the request should come from a human being (preferably the candidate himself) in person, not a fucking deluge of texts/emails.
  5. What exactly is your beef with Talarico that you’re going out of your way to trash him in comments? He’s a great candidate, so unless you’re a maga troll fuckface, or can articulate a legitimate reason to be against him, these kind of comments are not helpful.
  6. Can you imagine the public reaction if Barack Obama had snapped at a female reporter “quiet, piggy”? He would literally have been killed.
  7. Lotta people reenacting that SNL skit from after the 2016 election. Like there’s a limit to how immune Trump is to consequences and a floor to how fucked up our country is going to get.
  8. Bottom line is this team has a lot of value and overall depth but has definitely fallen into the 2nd tier, well beyond the Dodgers and Yankees and Mariners but still firmly in the playoff mix. They have an aging roster, a nearly maxed out payroll, and lack elite prospects in their farm system, BUT they have an MVP level hitter complemented by a few star level hitters, an extremely good bullpen, and one of the 10 best starting pitchers in the league. Their roster doesn’t justify a full rebuild, but it also won’t be good enough with minor improvements on the margins. The next 9 months will define Dana Brown’s career as a GM. He has enough flexibility to make the Astros a true contender but it’s going to require him to be lucky and smart enough to win the deals he makes. Giving out meaningful free agent contracts to players who fall apart or trading away good players for prospects who bust will accelerate the downfall, but finding unpolished pitching gems and hitters who complement their lineup will revive this team. Houston is on track to have 5 of the top 100 picks in the next draft so that’s another huge task where Dana Brown needs to have success if Houston is going to avoid falling into a perennial also-ran that needs a full rebuild. My guess is there won’t be much demand for Alvarez, Walker, or Paredes relative to their value to the Astros, and that there will be significant demand for Diaz, Pena, and Meyers. But I could be totally wrong. I think Houston is going to have a hard time finding the right bat to complement their lineup and might end up having their offense rely on a young strikeout prone lefty power bat in order to take the next step. Houston has a great track record of evaluating pitchers so I will be optimistic about whatever they end up doing there.
  9. He’s done the opposite of every campaign promise he made except in 3 areas: Be cruel to minorities Cut Taxes for the wealthy Cut access to abortions And those 3 platforms are enough to maintain support from at least 35% of the electorate regardless of what else he does. Even with indisputable proof that he is a child-rapist, his support wouldn’t dip below 25%. Because the xenophobic -greedy-“pro-life” coalition is a powerful one.
  10. I wasn’t posting what I would do, just noting that even without making moves there is reason to be hopeful about the lineup being better than last season. I’ve said it a bunch before but if I were GM I would be looking to use the position player depth/versatility to follow where the market leads. I would be gauging value for Diaz, Walker, Pena, Paredes, Smith, Meyers, Sanchez, Urias, and Dubon (along with the near-ready prospects like Dezenzo, Cole, Matthews, and Melton) to see where I think the best value was. The Astros have 4 primary needs: ToR SP durable MoR SP backup C lefty bat to balance the lineup (preferably able to play the OF and hit leadoff) A pipe dream wish list would also include improving the farm system. If you’re asking for a prediction, I think the Astros are going to trade Jake Meyers, Jesus Sanchez, and one or two of Walker, Paredes, Pena, Dubon, or Urias. It will also not shock me if they trade Diaz although I would not bet on it.
  11. There’s a lot of room for optimism when analyzing Houston’s roster: Altuve was hurt most of the 2nd half (or even before that), if this gets him healthy he could have a moderate rebound. He won’t ever be an MVP level player again but he could have another season or two where he’s an extremely good hitter. Correa is entering only his age 31 season and is only a year removed from a monster partial season; an extremely good year is totally on the table and even a monster 6+ war season is possible if everything goes his way. Paredes could have a monster season if he’s healthy. Alvarez just needs to be healthy and he will be an MVP level hitter. Pena is coming off of a star season and there’s not much in his underlying numbers that indicates it’s not repeatable. Walker was a good hitter after July 1 and an ~830 ops is a reasonable good outcome for him in 2026. Theres nothing that indicates Yainer Diaz can’t rebound to be the well above average hitter he was in 2023-2024. Jake Meyers is coming off of a career year and if he stays healthy is a 2.5-3 win player. Cam Smith and Zach Cole both have monster upside and have shown flashes in the majors. Jesus Sanchez provides some good insurance if they flop as a guy with a long record of being above average against RHP.
  12. Surely the company is just doing a soft layoff of those long range workers. No other logic makes sense.
  13. I’ll munch some crow in this thread. 2.5 years ago I predicted companies’ calling employees back into the office would suffer and that the backlash against wfh would be temporary. I still think companies doing away with wfh will perform poorly over the long term, but I overestimated workers’ leverage. I underestimated the odds of worsening economic conditions contributing to companies’ motivation to use forcing folks back into the office as a way to reduce headcount without doing layoffs. I also underestimated how quickly companies would lean on AI as a way to reduce headcount (doing away with wfh employees first). I still think that long term, wfh will be common and companies that embrace it will be better off. But in the short term, remote employees seem to be proper fucked.
  14. That’s a shitload of draft risk. Yikes.
  15. I’ve updated my odds for if the Epstein files will result in Trumps demise to 0%.
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