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LCHorn

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Everything posted by LCHorn

  1. I actually think (and it’s very context dependent) this might be an area where I don’t trade.* There are 500 AB’s that went to Sanchez, Trammel, Hummel, and McCormick that were wildly below replacement level on offense. I know those weren’t all projected starters back in April, but Brown needs to have better depth in AAA for the inevitable injuries. Maybe that’s Melton once it’s realized he’s not starter material on a good team. *also, I don’t think the Leon’s of the world are worth anything.
  2. Cristian Javier’s performance in 2025 has all kinds of small sample size noise (big red flag, for example, is a HR rate half his career average). Hell, counting on him to even be healthy going into a 2026 playoff series is a riskier bet than I want Crane/Brown faced with. I don’t think you can rely on him, either. Forget health, his performance when presumably healthy in 2025 shouldn’t make anyone feel comfortable as a rotation piece. I get the general optimism because you can find things to like about these two (and Blubaugh), but each requires betting on a big performance jump in 2026. I know you know they don’t ALL have to hit, but it’s also a bad way to build a team. We’re also avoiding taking about a Brown regression and that’s certainly in the range of normal outcomes, too.
  3. I’ll add one more thought in regards to prospects for MLB consolidation trades-we tend to overrate our own around here, some of it supported by the diamonds in the rough that keep turning up and Brown’s bonafides as a scout. That said, I disagree with folks like @Snake Diggity that our farm is just a few stolen 1st round draft picks from being a mid-tier farm. Almost everyone with any prospect sheen has major warts, too, and I think now is probably a good time to not be over precious about trading away youth. I really don’t see anyone below the MLB roster that should be considered untouchable.
  4. On this point, I’m struggling with why Schumer and Jeffries don’t re-orient around it aside from the fact that they are captured by the Dem billionaire donor class. The author kind of makes the same point, that you need to make a Bernie if you don’t have one. Everyone‘s favorite whipping boy Ezra Klein made the point that if Schumer and Jeffries can’t make a pivot* then the Dems need to find new leadership. *to be fair, he was referring to using a shutdown threat for real leverage against Trump. I think his bigger point, however, is Schumer and Jeffries aren’t good war time consiglieres.
  5. Good Opinion piece in The NY Times today-“Eat The Rich Is the Only Answer” TL:DR, Dems need to win back first priority economic voters and the way to do that is tackle issues like income inequality and the injustice of rich Americans enjoying too much of the bounty of US economic production. I know we’ve talked about it here plenty, but I continue to be befuddled that it doesn’t get more play because it’s very much the simple solution to breaking apart the MAGA coalition.
  6. I don’t want to re-sign him, either, but more than replacing his innings, we need a pitcher besides Brown that can reasonably expect to start in the playoffs. That usually means someone who can miss bats, and it’s why the Dodgers have been filling up their roster with high strikeout pitchers while taking a chance on the injury prone. I’d kick the tires on Chris Sale, heck maybe even see if the Braves want to get out of that Spencer Strider contract. Dylan Cease is going to want all the money but I’d inquire there, too. Crediting @Wulaw Horn on this, but he wrote a year or so ago that the window was open as long as the Astros could turn out cheap starters, but unfortunately injuries have made all our in-house options unreliable bets for 2026.
  7. Gemini says 1 WAR in 2025 is worth about $8m, and Dubon is about to get a bump in his last year of arbitration eligibility. That said, he’s 31 and most of that is for defense and ideally he’s getting no more than 300 AB’s (if that) as a infield sub. That makes me think there’s going to be little demand for him in the market at $7m, and even at that amount you maybe get a lotto ticket back as a prospect. Urias, for example, is basically Dubon at half the cost and his market (based on trade value) was a 19th round 2024 draftee pitcher in low A. Anyway, I think it’s worth pointing that out because the Astros are very much as stars and scrubs team at the moment and there’s a number of Dubons that need to go the moment they cost more than a penny.
  8. Sanchez is actually an interesting comp for Jacob Melton. Both were athlete over skills prospects with platoon handicaps. I will be very surprised is Sanchez has much trade value going to his third team after that second half. I think it’s more necessary to upgrade there than at second. Non-tender or trade Dubon, let Uriah play second and give Matthews a chance to either beat him out or see if he can play OF.
  9. Unfortunately that’s pretty emblematic of the Texas Dems; they “work their asses off” so should be forgiven for failure. Or do you think that the Dems best path to power demands that someone, whose main credential is affiliation with a union representing less than 1% of Texans be listed among the top leaders of the party?
  10. I’m sure we have the same goals for making sure a certain fidelity to truth accompanies the news, I’m just trying to correct this conclusion that media consolidation is to blame. It’s a little like blaming horse and buggy manufacturer consolidation when the internal combustion auto has become popular. Who cares if there’s only two options for yesterday’s tech? In large part social media is shaping popular consensus, the national agenda, and it’s where most marketing dollars are going, political and otherwise. If you’re worried about Disney pulling Kimmel off the air and that depriving his 1.6 million viewers of his anti-Trump views, you’re missing Theo Vonn’s 4.6 million YouTube subscribers and many more listeners of his podcast. Also, the reason I’m belaboring this is because it’s probably better than 50% of the reason the Dems lost in 2024. They have been habituated to mainstream media and that’s not where the majority of media consumers are anymore.
  11. 40 years ago you had the big three broadcast networks and cable news was still consigned to early adopters. Most people would have gotten the news of the day from a newspaper. In terms of broadcast, most households had a preferred station and/or anchor and the big three spent a lot developing their on-air talent because it helped retain viewers. 60 Minutes, for example, was the most profitable news program on air and regularly competed with The Cosby Show, Cheers, and others for the highest Nielsen rating in a given week. Let’s talk impact-over the 85-86 tv season 60 minutes averaged over 20 million views. In the last week of August (admittedly, not usually a great time for max tv watching), the top over the air program was Sunday Night Football with 10 million views. Basically, the article posits that there has been media consolidation (I’d argue that it’s always been controlled by a small number of firms) and that this is bad because: If that is true, then the decline in viewers would indicate that they aren’t overshadowing shit, in fact they are fiercely competing with social media companies because their share of ad revenue has fallen off a cliff. And social media basically exists to monetize smaller, independent voices. Anyway, the is largely to say who gives a shit if Kimmel gets silenced?* What you really need to be terrified about (and there was a NY Times op-ed on this very thing today) is when the admin leans on Alphabet to make criticism of Trump unavailable in their search results. *this isn’t to take away anything from the necessity to preserve Kimmel and any other voice that would be categorized as oppositional. Silencing those is a prelude to more consequential steps.
  12. In the interest of accuracy, this is a big mischaracterization of how consolidated the information stream is. The article is mainly pointing out that the corporations that own broadcasters are relatively small, but that was true 40 years ago, too. The problems with our country coincide with those broadcasters losing viewers to social media and YouTube and it’s not because they created a monolith of homogenous news production and acted in cartel like ways to preserve market share. In fact, it’s the diversity of approaches that’s been the hallmark of the last 20 years as each tried to create niche as declining viewership sapped ad dollars. I totally agree that more competition and more choices is better than less, but that’s because it makes it harder for ill intentioned regulators like a Trump FCC to limit their independence.
  13. I think there's a coherent end game, it's just begging for scraps rather than forcing the Republicans into remembering they run an equal co-branch of government. Regardless, and at risk to my personal income (I'm a mortgage lender and shut-downs are usually bad for rates), I'm here for it. Democratic leadership needs to remind Democrats that they still exist. I'm also on team #fuckthefilibuster. If the GOP will abandon it (which is probably what's poised to happen) it'll be easier to pass pretty much everything down the road and I'm weary of legislative roadblocks being used to deny popular measures.
  14. Let's just take a look at some of the executive leadership at risk of needing to move, work remote, or find alternative employment.... I'm kind of picking on these three because Scudder is new (and presumably ran on making changes), and Cathey can at least tout campaign experience, and these are the next three on the leadership page. Is there anything about these three individuals resumes that make you go "I'm a donor, this a team with the experience to be effective spenders of my money"?
  15. I've had a little crush on her since The Babysitters--there's something about her that's super attractive despite relatively plain features. We're seeing it next week at the Bullock--hoping it crushes word of mouth because the trailer is terrible.
  16. Institutional knowledge of how to lose races and advise inept campaigns? He probably needed the pretense of moving the headquarters to jettison the dead weight that’s attached itself for the last 30 years.
  17. Yup, unborked, thanks!
  18. ooh, whatever you did sped things up dramatically. I think you're on the right track if you haven't fixed it entirely.
  19. Fwiw, I’m having the same issue with Safari 18.6.2, I presume it’s embeds.
  20. He could easily be a good guy now, but he was a weirdo back when Varsity Blues was filmed per a couple of my fraternity brothers who were extras. The story I remember best was that he stuck his thumb out of his pants zipper in between takes of a pep rally shot and was saying (bear in mind this is in front of a stadium crowd of extras of all ages) “look Mom, Dawson has his pee-pee out”. Regardless, fuck cancer.
  21. I was east of Houston and most of the dads of my friends worked at the Arco plant or Chevron Cedar Bayou (or they farmed, and most of them were hurting, too). I also recall being invited to Baptist Sunday school (we were Methodist) and being incredulous when told the apocalypse was two, maybe three years away. I don’t know what it is about these people that they are so eager for the hereafter, but I think it’s maybe an American version of Edith Hamilton’s description of the richly imagined afterlife created by Egyptian slaves.
  22. @cabowabo was being sarcastic... I love Luhnow, too, but with the benefit of hindsight his draft record and international signings show there was some performance based criticism we seem to overlook. I mainly appreciate the faith that Crane appeared to place in him to roll the dice in a way that Click and Brown can't.
  23. I was a little disappointed and felt the last three episodes lacked suspense. I'm sure Hawley wrestled with this, but investing in a protagonist who appears to be invincible robs the viewer of the natural tension from putting the protagonist in peril. What's Wendy/Mary's peril? The hapless (to this point) Weyland-Yutani corp and their agent Morrow? Also, I don't know if this is lighting, how it's shot, creature design, etc., but the xenomorph here: Is so much less scary than here:
  24. Mexico is much closer, has better food and you don't have to learn Portuguese.
  25. Yeah, I think you have to contextualize a) who was available and b) was the move supportable, regardless of who the decision maker was. This isn’t like rolling out Chris Carter because you want to keep the payroll low. Abreu and Walker were relatively affordable and patched a hole. Also, 1B league wide has become a position with surprisingly little offense compared to the 90’s/early 2000’s. Anyway, the 2025 Astros don’t have the stink of Baytown refineries because the owner fucked around with 10% of the payroll, it’s because the other 90% didn’t get it done.
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