Laguna Beach, California
As one of Southern California’s most popular beach destinations, the city of
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Whale
Lahaina, Hawaii
There are many places to go and many sights to see when visiting
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Cape Cod, Massachusetts
For couples that want to spend a little romantic time exploring the eastern seaboard, take a trip to
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Wedge, Blengino & Co. Go Off on LincStrong & JZ
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Don't have much time, but ... that piece was a loooooong time coming. Thanks Geoffy!
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Q. Does the piece indicate, to you, that Zduriencik is "a bully"?
A. Not by F-500 standards, no ... by baseball standards, apparently, he uses his authority in a way less gentle than they'd like.
Now, bear in mind, Dr. D hates bullies, hates men who pick fights with smaller men and run from fair fights. Where there is real bullying, he's the first one to speak his mind. But that's not what we read, in this case, not based on the content of Geoff's article.
.......
Jack Tatum, in They Call Me Assassin, once mocked Dick Butkus for bragging "When I hit people, I like to see them wobble back to the huddle." Tatum scoffed, "Anybody in today's NFL knows that if you hit somebody with your best shot, and they can get back to the huddle under their own power, then you are not a hitter."
It's all a question of how you calibrate things, I guess. I dunno how many high-ranking execs that Geoff has worked under...
Not much that was attributed to Zduriencik, in Baker's article, would have been at all unusual for the Boeing execs I worked for.
Just f'r instance, I was puzzled, the "bullying" account that Zduriencik apologized to Fusco in the phone call, "You didn't do anything - it wasn't my call." The exec's I've been around wouldn't have been sheepish about a firing. No way no how, babe.
The guy who fires anybody sheepishly, that's not the bully you watch out for ... :- ) Some of these guys need to meet some execs with REAL fangs down to their chins.
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Q. Any other examples of "re-calibration" on "bully" definitions?
"We're At That Point"
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The question, "Were the Seattle Mariners smart or dumb to sign Cano?," is an interesting one. It's not the ONLY question I want to talk about, though.
There are other things to talk about, in baseball, besides "Should I be the general manager instead of Jack Zduriencik." For example, you could talk about:
- How would the 2014 Seattle Mariners win 90 games
- What are the M's chances of getting Masuhiro Tanaka
- How does Kyle Seager look as a #4 hitter
- How good is the Mariners' bullpen going forward
- In what way is the M's $2 billion TV deal related to their drive for celebrity players
- Would you rather keep James Paxton or Taijuan Walker
- What is Lloyd McClendon's managing style
- etc
By a happy coincidence, Spectator and Jeff Sullivan did exactly this, today -- they responded to the Cano deal by asking, "What happens next?"
..........
On the MLB Tonight show, their theme has been --- > "Cano is bringing other big players in with him, like LeBron James going down to the Heat and saying 'Let's all play here together!' "
They're talking about Choo or Beltran into the order, perhaps with Kendrys Morales coming back, and (of course) the attempt to add the ace to give them the Big Three.
When Zduriencik says "we're at that point," he is referring to the idea that the young talent has jelled enough to support some stars, and to provide for trades. Let's split that out into another article, though ...
Should the M's push all in? That question is now moot. Here we are, gentlemen. The local baseball team IS IN FACT going all in.
..........
This Creates a Whole Different Offseason
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For those who just joined us, Dr. D has never owned a Fortune 500 company. Neither has he ever run one. Neither has he ever worn even a senior manager badge within the halls of one. Neither has security ever come and escorted him out of the halls of one, no thanks to a few managers who'd have liked to have seen it ...
What he has done, however, is chair (a whale of a lot of) steering committees for them, and worked with senior executives, reallllly senior executives. You spend two years in Portugal, you probably speak some Portugese. Dr. D, during his travails on the 7th floors of F-500 companies, did learn the language of Linc-Strong-ese.
Bat571 speaks Naval Command. TJM speaks MegaMedia. Different guys speak different languages. Dr. D will chime in with his own, when and if they apply.
Speaking a language doesn't mean you've got the solutions, naturally. We do notice, however, that it makes you rather more able to guess at what is going on, than other bloggers .... who often blithely inform you of a thing that is going on when you know that is the one thing that COULDN'T be going on.
:- )
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Poli Sci 253
Lincoln and Armstrong, as a power bloc, as a Tag Team, a pair of upper-upper execs who could easily win a 3-legged race against men half their age --- > hired Jack Zduriencik.
Whither Choi?
This is really starting to bug me.
MLB.com midseason-top 20 prospect list: no Choi
Prospect Insider top 20: no Choi
Fangraphs top 15 for 2014: no Choi
Marc Hulet at Fangraphs, who's work I'm generally a fan of, explains thusly:
Follow On to Ji-Man Choi
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I've said, many times, that when it comes to these kind of prospects ...
- In the Mariner org
- Not nationally well-known
... that I'd rather have Gordon's and Spectator's evaluations, than anybody else's on the internet.
So it's weird-and-wonderful that everybody else on the internet dismisses Ji-Man Choi as no prospect*, and our guys tell us that Choi is absolutely the M's best prospect with the possible exception of D.J. Peterson.
Don't Mess with ... Prince Fielder
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The White House has a website up. (Not that website!) It allows citizens to file petitions, and if one gathers 25,000 signatures, the White House issues a formal response.
There's a petition for Texas to secede from the union. That petition has, I think, 102,000 signatures. (There's another petition to deport anybody who signs a petition to secede from the union.)
I wish I wuz from Texas.
......
No sooner did we opine that Detroit was "desperate" to offload Fielder -- due to Cabrera's legs -- than they completed a deal that must have been weeks in the making. We had speculated further that if you sent Detroit good stuff -- notably cost-effective infield quality -- you might "chip away" at Fielder's $24M annual salary.
Texas sent Detroit really, really good stuff -- that being cost-effective infield quality -- and so the Tigers sent them back $4.3M per year in coupons toward paying Prince. SSI has a bear of a time predicting GM's, but it feels like it read the tea leaves okay on this one.
Talking points being these:
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Kinsler vs Seager and Miller
If you want to use a WAR/$ paradigm -- and with $24M and $16M contracts at play, MLB teams certainly factor it in -- here is where these three players lined up:
| WAR/162 | $/year | Net value thru 2018 | Remark | |
| Kinsler | 3.0 | $13M (x5) | ca. $10M | Declining |
| Seager | 3.5 | $5M ? (x4) | ca. $60M | Improving |
| Miller | 3.5 prorated | $4M ? (x4) | ca. $60M | Moving target |
The Tigers succeeded in trading Kinsler out of the logjam they had between him, Profar, and Andrus. If Jack Zduriencik elects to do the same with his brewing logjam among Seager, Franklin, Ackley, Miller, and D.J. Peterson (if not also Stefen Romero), he's got some MASSIVE chips with which to play poker.
May Dr. D ask, very benignly, why Kyle Seager is not on Fangraphs' top-50 list for trade value?!
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"Albatross" Contracts
In July, Prince Fielder made Fangraphs' list of the five worst contracts in MLB. They figured that in a vacuum, Detroit would need to pay somebody $48M to take Fielder off their hands.
They say he literally smelled like flowers
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DAD: Hey, John. Check this out. Here's a CBS list of 25 reasons football is better than baseball.
JOHN: :: shrugs :: ["what's next? A list of 25 reasons that three-on-three hoops is better than plunging the toilet? Okay, just gimme number 22.]
DAD: What would be your reason?
JOHN: What?! There's always something HAPPENING in football.
DAD: What do you mean. Felix striking out the side is nothing happening?
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