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Snake Diggity

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Posts posted by Snake Diggity

  1. Just now, chainsaw said:

    paxton has been far more loyal than cornyn. he fucking tried to overturn four other states' election results

    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.

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  2. 2 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

    Paxton will get the dotard endorsement, everything else don't make a shit in a gop primary

    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.

  3. 48 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

    You know Paxton is basically in a 3 way tie with the other two candidates, right? One of which is a sitting Senator with a huge war chest. Why are you anointing Paxton? I mean, sure, I'm cheering for Paxton. But lets not pretend it's fait accompli.

    My beef is Talarico seems to be he's following the Colin Allred plan. 10 emails a day asking me for money, and I'm not seeing shit else. 

    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.

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  4. 50 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

    Never seen Talarico do this

     

    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.

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  5. 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.

     

     

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  6. 1 hour ago, LebongJames said:

    Agreed but what are you suggesting they do about it? Hire Ripken as the trainer?

    The only thing that would make any logical sense is trading Pena for prospects but then you have a worse team and 4 injury prone players.

     

    1 hour ago, HtownHorn said:

    I'd trade Pena and Alvarez. It's foolish to think they you are winning anything with this roster as currently constructed. Altuve needs to be the full time DH, and that only happens if Alvarez is gone.

    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.

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  7. 20 minutes ago, HenryJames said:

     

    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.

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  8. 40 minutes ago, LCHorn said:

    I love your optimism but I'd never hire you for a GM.  You need to rely on mean outcomes (or just be realistic) for team building.  "If healthy" is doing A LOT of work with post.  

    Just picking on trade candidate Jake, but he's had one season with full health in 2024 and had 1.7 WAR.  He's going to turn 30 in June, i.e., we're not talking about projecting a big age-related performance jump (hell, we're probably closer to the decline phase given how reliant he is on his athleticism).  

    You've acknowledged either here or on clutchfans that we need to replace 200-300 innnings between Framber and just not having reliable starters.  I'm out on Nooks fascination with Sandy Alcantara, Rasmussen and Mitch Keller aren't playoff starters on a good team, and probably like you I'd love to not surrender a draft pick trying to bring in someone who can give a Cease like performance.  

    Anyway, tacking back to that because I think starting pitching is really where I'd devote the off-season attention.  

    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.

  9. 26 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

     

     

    HOUSTON -- Astros second baseman Jose Altuve, who was bothered by a sore right foot in the final two weeks of the regular season, underwent a minor skin aspiration Monday, a source told MLB.com. He will be ready for the start of Spring Training.

     

    https://www.mlb.com/news/jose-altuve-right-foot-procedure?p=1&partnerId=it-20251118-15730086-mlb-1-B&utm_id=it-20251118-15730086-mlb-1-B&lctg=142204093

     

     

    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.

  10. 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.

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  11. 25 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

    https://www.texastribune.org/2025/11/14/texas-tribune-festival-us-senate-democrats-colin-allred-james-talarico/

    How dumb do you gotta be to take money from the woman who destroyed the Mavs?

    Fuck off with this disingenuous bullshit.  She donated to every politician who she knew would be in favor or legalized casinos.  She gave Talarico’s campaign……wait for it….$59,000.  The horror.

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  12. 9 hours ago, runthebone said:

    Offensively, there is no realistically available better fit for the Astros lineup than Donovan.

    1. Trade Sanchez and Urias for Bart and PTBNL
    2. Sign Verlander and McCann
    3. Trade Meyers, Brito, and Diaz for Rasmussen and Jax
    4. Trade Matthews, Sullivan, and Hicks for Donovan

    RF Donovan*

    DH Paredes

    LF Alvarez

    3B Correa

    2B Altuve

    SS Pena

    1B Walker 

    CF Cole

    C Bart*

    Bench: Dubon, McCann*, Dezenzo, Trammell

    SP: Brown, Rasmussen*, JV*, Javier, Pearson, Alexander

    RP: Hader, Abreu, Jax*, King, Sousa, Okert, McCullers

    Optioned: Arrighetti, Gordon, Murray, VanWey, Salazar, Whitcomb, Smith, Melton, Ullola*, Santa*, Fleury*

    IL: Wesneski, Walter, Blanco

    DFA: De Los Santos, France, Ort

    Traded: Sanchez, Urias, Meyers, Diaz, Matthew

  13. I can’t imagine a scenario where Trumps approval rating dips below 35% while he is still in office.  The severity and volume of shit that has happened in the last year but especially the last month has had to have eroded any potential approval he was getting from movable people.  The 39% who currently approve of him are doing so in spite of a shitty economy, heavy evidence that the president is a pedophile who had sex with underage girls, severe domestic political unrest, and a fragile geopolitical environment.  We know they are approving of him because of his efforts to disparage and punish minorities and the poor and because of his polices that exacerbate environmental and societal problems, not in spite of them.

    A severe economic depression or a war in which the US gets attacked by a foreign country and is losing are the only 2 things I can imagine serving to reduce Trump’s approval rating from where it is, and even then I can’t imagine it getting below 25%.
     

    The Democrats had effective messaging/leasership anytime before 2024, he wouldn’t be president.  One thing I’m not sure of is if they had gotten effective messaging/leadership at any point this year, how low would Trump’s approval currently be?

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  14. McConaughey would fail as a politician, especially in Texas.  Trying to think of any celebrity that would actually make a good statewide or national politician.  A high Q score is not a good reason to think someone would make a good politician.  Taylor Swift seems to have the faculties to make the transition, but she would have to navigate a very fraught path over the next decade in order to be successful, and I don’t see her wanting to do that or being able to do it; but she is an extremely high quality individual.

    I suspect Stephen Colbert could do it.  But he’s already 61 years old.

  15. Shit is so fucked up and crazy that I am starting to actually believe that there is some known pending apocalyptic event that only extremely powerful people know about and Donald Trump was chosen to distract us until it happens.

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  16. 20 hours ago, InkaUtexas said:

     

    The more cursewords Pete Buttigieg is quoted as saying, the higher his chances are of being president one day.  If he had started his tweet with “This dumb motherfucker right here…” it would have been even more effective.

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  17. Dumb, weak motherfuckers.  The only way this makes any sense is if the Dems know the Epstein shit is gonna actually fuck shit up so opening back up to get Grijalva in office will be worth it.  I don’t buy that for a minute, far more likely is the establishment democrats completely validating all criticism against them and further empowering Trumpism.  The stupid, weak, corrupt mothfuckers.

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  18. 52 minutes ago, ChiTownDoc said:

    Yep, father time is doing work.   Not fast enough, but we'll take what we can get.  I'd put over under at 5 years and put a nice chunk on the under. 

    Please let you be right.  But I don’t think I have that kind of luck.  Based on the last decade that motherfucker is going to live at least another dozen years and be in office for 8 of them.

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