(Tuesday, October 09, 2018 2:39:29 PM)
It has been more than two weeks since we heard that a buyout agreement between Joakim Noah and the Knicks was close to being finalized, but Noah remains under contract with the club. Despite the delay, the veteran center is still expected to be waived before next week’s roster deadline, per Stefan Bondy of The […]
(Tuesday, October 09, 2018 10:50:00 AM)
Joakim Noah remains on the Knicks roster, but not for long.
Unless a trade opportunity suddenly emerges for the center, the Knicks will waive Noah before the regular-season roster needs to be set on Oct. 15, sources told the Daily News.
The Knicks have been shopping Noah but are declining to attach…
(Tuesday, October 09, 2018 10:30:00 AM)
Kevin Knox isn’t a prototypical 18-year-old ninth overall pick. He will play in the NBA as a rookie. A lot.
He will be expected, at the very least, to demonstrate the potential of a franchise cornerstone. The Knicks’ strategy is built around hitting on their draft picks, and Knox is currently at…
(Tuesday, October 09, 2018 10:26:32 PM)
Tim Hardaway Jr. used to be the only Knick that grew up with a professional athlete as a father. Until Kevin Knox joined the team.
(Tuesday, October 09, 2018 2:03:47 PM)
The Knicks will waive Joakim Noah before the roster needs to be set on Oct. 15 if they are unable to trade him.
(Tuesday, October 09, 2018 1:45:30 PM)
On the premiere of The Adventures of Coach Fiz, the new coach happily takes on all the things New York has to offer, except for one thing.
86 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2018.10.10)”
> If the Knicks get good again, writers will come…
I get nibbles here and there. People who want to write. But they never get passed 1-2 emails. I think I get emails in September from college kids with lots of free time, who then are swamped by October.
If anyone wants to take on the job of recruiting writers, let me know.
I’m working on a way to get a little more content on here, should be up before the season starts. If you haven’t noticed I’ve worked on the morning posts to get more new/relevant content on there.
Thanks, Mike. We’re all so conditioned to expect free content on the internet that it becomes easy to forget to express gratitude for the people who provide it — and a place to chat about our cursed favorite team, at that.
Thanks as always for all your work Mike. Best place to be a Knicks fan in the entire world.
Well, I guess it’s Knicks time…
My main takeaway from Knox so far is that I don’t understand how the pick was defended on the basis of his allegedly “high ceiling.” What I’m seeing is pretty much the opposite of that. He’s pretty slow, his ball handling skills are more PF than SF, and he doesn’t really look to pass. Even if he “puts it all together” all I can really see is a better version of, say, Jabari Parker. That would be a fine player to have, it’s just weird given the justification of the pick was his ceiling.
I think the Brothers Bridgers were relatively safe picks while Zhaire Smith and Troy Brown represented low-floor/high-ceiling options. In my view we kind of got the worst of both worlds. As usual, I can only hope to be wrong.
This site wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for all of you. So THANK YOU!
> I’m discussing stratomatic’s theories on merit-based team building while my country almost elected straight away the most fascist, homophobic presidential representative ever, a worse Trump, and will probably elect him anyway in a couple of weeks.
Jon Oliver did a segment on Bolsonaro. The problem isn’t the people like him which get elected as much as the millions that believe them, support them, and vote for them. Looking back on history, I always wondered how humans could be so cruel. I always thought it was just a small minority of individuals who were heartless, uncaring, selfish, and willing to hurt others for their own benefit. I think recent events shows my estimates to be way too conservative.
Or maybe I’m just sad because Giancarlo Stanton chokes more than a kid with a nut allergy trying to win a peanut butter & jelly eating contest…
Praise Jah, and also Mike K.
I’ll happily do the post-game report cards this year, as long as I don’t have to watch any of the games.
You can always find individual cases that refute a generality. Lebron James does whatever he wants whenever he wants and doesn’t have to worry about playing time or his next contract. Most players do.
This is not complicated.
If you are benching players that should be starting or getting a lot of minutes so that young inferior players can develop you are going to have problems in your locker room and people are going to ask to be traded. It happens every year to loads of teams with all kinds of players at different stages of their development. Players want minutes because they enjoy playing and because they are competing for future contracts. It’s just a reality of business and the human condition. At the end of the season, it’s a little different because you’ve made your point as an individual and the team is already eliminated.
And while I’m on the Yankees, they have talent, but I think they lack a team. Besides Judge, do they have another + fielder? Hicks and Didi maybe? Gleyber is OK but should be better considering he’s a converted SS at 2B. Andujar is awful won’t be a third basemen for much longer, unless he pulls a Wade Boggs and eventually becomes competent. Stanton is unplayable in the field. And Sanchez is a poor man’s Mike Piazza.
Those 90s Yankees didn’t have a bat like Judge, but they fielded well. Brosius, Jeter, Bernie, Jorge, etc.
Then there’s the pitching. We’re waiting for Justus, Lasagna, Chance, and/or Nolan Ryan. And unless Sevy somehow finds his first half self, they need a #1 starter. Tanaka is nice as a 3rd or 4th guy. Lynn and Happ are probably gone. But who the hell is in the rotation next year? Everyone’s saying the Yankees should get Machado and/or Bryce, but what about the starting pitching?
They were a 99 win team, but they have a lot of questions going forward.
My plan. Dump Stanton or keep him. Whatever. Have Andujar field ground balls until he can’t stand anymore. If not move him to first. Maybe sign Bryce and bat him 2nd and Judge third (enough with those solo HRs). Somehow find some starters. Maybe an inning eater or two (Happ?) Hope their pitching prospects work out. Pray the Bosox don’t upgrade.
I simply disagree with the consensus.
1. a draft pick is an asset
2. cap space is an asset into which you can place a player or take a bad contract to get a pick
3. both have value
Do we agree so far?
The value of the pick is related to the quality of player you can expect to get with a pick in that range, what that player will cost, his age, his development time, the probability of him turning out the way you hope, what you’ll have to pay him before he’s actually any good and wants an extension, what year the pick is going to be made in etc…
The value of cap space is related to the quality of player you can get in free agency and at what price or what kind of pick you might be able to get if you rent it out by taking on a multi year bad contract.
IMO, one is not intrinsically better than the other. It all depends on the details of the deal.
All I am adding is that if the options for renting cap space for a pick are not especially attractive at the moment (the contract you will be taking is long and sucks compared to the pick you can get) and the free agents available are not especially appealing either, there’s a 3rd option. That is, you can sign a player for a year or so at reasonable price. It doesn’t matter how bad that player is as long as the price is reasonable and he’s coming off the cap quickly. That player only serves as a place holder so you can get that cap space back quickly and have the same options again quickly when the market may offer better opportunities one way or the other.
@7
Jah Smith? ;op
Harsh.
Sincerely,
A Yankees Fan with a Peanut Allergy
Re: The Yankees, their payroll was $50M below the Red Sox this year. I’m not sure how the Yankees brainwashed so many of their fans to give a crap about luxury tax payments, but the reality is that their owners cheaped out on a team that was close to WS level this year but needed a little push over the top. The team was about two starting pitchers short and it showed in this series. I’m sure they’ll pony up for next year but title windows close fast in sports and not maximizing your chances in a year where your window was wide open in order to pinch pennies for a team that prints money is some bottom tier ownership. Even Dolan would have gotten this one right.
Re: Knox I think it’s interesting that some people do cite his high ceiling when I’m much more enamored of his floor. If he grows into his body at all he’s going to have pretty much the ideal body for a big wing in the modern NBA, a guy who can play 4 and the other team cannot punish by going big, and yet can spread the court on the other end. Those guys don’t have to be able to create with the ball in their hands or pass well, they don’t even need to be great shooters, just creditable. Look at how Houston used Tucker or Mbah a Moute last year. Stand in the corner and make enough of your 3s that teams can’t abandon you, and then be a versatile defender on the other end. If Knox gets to that level he’ll make good on the pick (although I think he’s likely to be more O, less D than the guys I mentioned). That’s why I believe in his floor.
@10 – I agree with all this. Of greater concern is that they actually used up a lot of resources since last July just to go backwards. The wins improved, but RD was worse this year. And relative to Boston and Houston, they are further behind.
– They wasted one of their Stupid Long Term Contract chips on a streaky DH instead of a valuable two-way player.
– They wasted good prospects on Sonny Gray instead of an actual front line starter.
– They played the manager card and ended up with a downgrade.
I like Cashman a lot, but his last 14 months have been abysmal.
I expect them to go hard after Machado and use Andujar as a chip to improve the pitching. I hope they stop valuing “years of team control” more than “being a good pitcher”.
Followed by Squi at cleanup?
IMO, it’s rarely because they are willing to hurt others for their own benefit.
Everyone wants a better world for themselves, their families, and friends. However, they often have different visions of what “better” is. The how and when to get there may also be different.
If one group sees current policy and circumstances as endangering their hope and vision for themselves in the future, they will elect people that change the path. That in turn will automatically create backlash from people that thought we were on the right path. It will also create disruptions.
I’ll give you an example.
I am close to 100% certain many state, local, and other government pensions are eventually going to blow up and a lot of people are going to get screwed badly.
If I vote for the guy that is willing to make some cuts now to avoid draconian cuts later am I a scumbag trying to screw poor old people or am a responsible person looking at demographics, funding status of the plans, expected returns, etc… and saying that the people that made these promises are dumber than a pile of rocks and we need to do something now to avoid a bigger disaster later.
I think I am the latter. I think the people that made the promises were complete morons.
Many people would call me a scumbag because some poor person is going to get his pension cut. Maybe they think resources are unlimited and everyone can have everything. I want to get exactly where they want to get. I just want to get there a different way.
I am on the left on some things and on the right on some things, but it’s rare that I think my opponents are cruel or evil.
Yanks have about $40M of payroll coming off, in CC, Gardy, Robertson and Walker. Then, Didi, Bettancis , hicks, gray and kahnle are all up for arbitration, which is $30M….I bet bettancis and kahnle are gone and didi and hicks split that 30 longer term. you still have $$ to spend.
CC will retire, Gray will be gone; that means Severino, tanaka is all you have left. They might be forced to keep Gray (assuming his arbitration number won’t be so great).
what they should do is sign Happ and Patrick Corbin. What they are likely to do is sign Machado. Then could move andujar to first. but, they would then have to trade for an SP or two, and he might be the bait. I don’t want that to happen
The economics of the salary cap are pretty compelling. It’s a couple hundred million dollars in the balance, not chump change.
I can see a Yankees fan being disgruntled after losing to the Sox. Have nothing but admiration though for how well they have managed the team in the last few years. Gregorius was a heist. Andujar was a super solid international signing even if he can’t field. Torres was a ridiculously sweet return for an expiring asset. Hicks was a terrific find. Judge was a late first pick who has turned into one of the best players in baseball. Luke Voit will probably return to Earth next year but was also the single best deadline acquisition this year.
As a Mets fan, I would love to have the problems the Yankees have right now.
I was okay with not going into the luxury tax this year because resetting it does save hundreds of millions like Owen mentioned. However, if they still avoid it despite resetting I’m going to be fucking pissed. You simply cannot get cute with championship windows, they’re always closed earlier than you think.
I’ll flesh out my detailed desired offseason soon but I definitely want to open the vault for Patrick Corbin, warts and all. Explore the 1B market but don’t do anything drastic because I’m willing to give Voit a shot to hold down the job. Explore SP trades but I do think people need to ease up on Andujar; plenty of players were terrible defensive players as rookies before coming around to at least competence. Re-sign Britton, Robertson, and Happ. I love Gardner and CC but they shouldn’t be priorities (happy to have both back on the cheap). McCutchen is a solid piece who I’d ideally like to hold on to but I wouldn’t go overboard, other 120ish wRC+ corner OFs with below average defense can be found.
i don’t think you can keep britton and robertson….they are going to want $10M each, and Britton will get it.
It seems that this argument is basically: things are complicated so you can’t evaluate any deal without an exhaustive understanding of the context in which it was made. Except that’s exactly what we do here. That’s pretty much all we do here.
It would be such a fantastical leap of logic to believe that the Knicks’ last five seasons — 29, 31, 32, 17 and 37 wins — were the result of a maximization of available assets (draft picks, free agents, trade pieces), rather than inept management all around. So either that’s the implication, or you’re really asserting agnosticism (“we can’t really say whether the team would be better off if Rose, Noah, Lee, Afflalo, Williams, Hardaway had never happened”) despite years of terrible losing basketball.
It’s just interesting that you’re unwilling or unable to make a bet that the Knicks actually made bad personnel decisions when Occam’s Razor says that a perennially-losing basketball team is the result of abject organization failure.
If they don’t go over the cap after resetting, then yeah, release the wolves…
It really is chump change, actually.
The Red Sox are going to pay approximately $9mm in tax to have a nearly $50mm advantage in payroll.
The Yankees would have had to pay $10mm to close the gap by $20mm.
Those figures are nothing.
It’s like the win curve. In a year like this, you pay the tax. If you print money, charge exorbitant prices, have a team that can win the world series, and are behind two other teams in your league, you should go for it.
They fucked up by paying it in all the years where they weren’t really contenders. That’s how it’s gotten over the $100mm mark. But that’s like not giving up a 1st round pick for Anthony Davis because you previously gave up two for Carmelo Anthony.
The Sox have been running circles around the Yankees at the ownership level ever since John Henry bought the team. The last 12 months are as bad as it’s been.
The Yankees were 2 or 3 hits from beating a 108 win team in a series where they got one decent start. It sucks, and they could have managed better, but it’s also baseball and that shit happens
Patrick Corbin perfectly fits the profile of every bad pitching acquisition we’ve ever made. If you want the next Jeff Weaver/Javier Vazquez/Carl Pavano/Javier Vazquez again/Sonny Gray, by all means, back up the vault.
SP2s and SP3s from small markets who look good on paper but have zero-to-near-zero postseason experience and questionable makeup are to the Yankees what overpriced Shooting Guards are to the Knicks.
The only time we’ve succeeded in high-cost pitching acquisitions is when we’ve backed up the truck for experienced SP1s like Mike Mussina, Roger Clemens, CC Sabbathia, et al.
The Yankees’ problem is that they invest too many resources into inefficient volume scorers like Stanton who can’t hit a 3 under pressure.
No, he doesn’t.
Corbin just posted a 6.3 fWAR season with an ERA/FIP/xFIP line of 3.15/2.47/2.61. The guys you listed did not do anything remotely close to that in the season prior to coming to the Yankees.
If your point is the signing would come with a lot of risk, then yes that’s correct. Welcome to signing literally any pitcher for any amount of money. I don’t think now is the time to be risk averse.
You quoted me in your response but didn’t address what I said at all. No one is arguing that you might be able to dream up some context in which signing a free agent might make more sense than using your cap space to acquire other assets. I would say that it’s highly unlikely for that to be the case with a shitty team like the Knicks for the last decade plus, but that’s irrelevant.
I asked you a specific question, which I’ll repeat:
“Really? Picks, literally any picks, aren’t more valuable than one bad season from Derrick Williams/Arron Afflalo/Kevin Seraphin/Derrick Rose?”
These are the “holdovers” Phil Jackson acquired.
Was acquiring them smarter than making the trade Philly made, in which they took on all expiring contracts, spent less total money, and got multiple first round picks?
Most of Phil’s moves were panned here by The People Who Know What They’re Talking About the instant they were made. I was later to the party than most, I didn’t really see the full extent of Phil’s idiocy until the Noah/Rose off-season. His tenure was bad process, bad results. He should have started the rebuild when he got here instead of his stupid “two-track” plan that was supposed to be “win now, win later” but instead was “win never.”
He sucked at his job and we’re pretty far away from any kind of contention thanks to that senile doofus.
You didn’t even look. Javier Vazquez had fWAR of 6.0 and 6.5 the years before he came to the Yankees. He followed them up with 2.0 and 0.0. Weaver was a 4.0 fWAR, Pavano a 4.5 fWAR
And it’s one season. He has one season that stands out from everything else he’s done, and you’re going to pay him for the one season and expect him not to be like the cumulation of his data. Just like we liked Gray because of his 2015, and Pavano because of his 2003. We’ve only been successful, historically, when taking risks on pitchers with multiple seasons of sustained success.
So pass on Patrick Corbin, please. Unless we’re going back to our free spending ways of 2009 and he’s the AJ Burnett to someone else’s CC Sabbathia. In that case, sure, add him if money doesn’t matter. But if we’re really being fiscally conservative, spend the money more wisely.
> I am on the left on some things and on the right on some things, but it’s rare that I think my opponents are cruel or evil.
While your example was completely reasonable, I’m sure there are some gay/trans people that would have a hard time coming up with the other side of some of the policies people want to enact that directly affect only them. And I’m sure there are women in states where abortion laws have made it nearly impossible for some to get proper care (whether or not they want an abortion). And if the argument is that they are saving babies, I can understand that. However the same people tend to be against options that would curtail unwanted pregnancy, especially among at risk groups (teens). So I can’t take their actions in good faith, because they are just seeking to punish others, not solve a problem.
I’m fine with policy discussions, but I think a lot of policy these days are just to hurt the other side. For instance I recognize there are differing opinions on immigration. I’m fine with the party in power making reasonable laws to tighten illegal immigration. But to separate children from parents (some permanently) seems extraordinarily cruel and evil.
> Even Dolan would have gotten this one right.
He would have sent Andujar and Justus to Toronto for Sam Gaviglio, the Andrea Bargnani of baseball.
I would sign Machado to play 3rd and use Andujar as a trade chip for DeGrom. Anything they want besides Torres. Sheffield plus Andujar plus more… he’s absolutely worth it. The Sox paid a similar price for Sale and I’m sure they have no regrets.
Look at Vazquez’ FIP/xFIP breakdown. In 2003 it wasn’t remotely close to what Corbin just posted. He got to 6 WAR by being a solidly above average workhorse. His 2009 was closer, but he still didn’t match Corbin. The others were SP2/SP3 types and got paid as such (in either money or trade assets) so I don’t see their relevance to Corbin.
More importantly though, I think this is a poor use of precedent. Those examples are “good process, bad result” types. Acquiring them made perfect sense at the time, as did acquiring Moose, Clemens, Sabathia, etc. Sometimes you get burned with pitchers. The solution isn’t to not acquire any pitchers. Corbin had a truly elite season and is our best bet to add another desperately needed frontline starter.
Ntilakilla
October 9, 2018 at 10:05 pm
i love this post, and, the incredible juxtaposition it has in regards to our concern for the success of the knicks, or yanks (i too miss girardi, still, boston is a better more complete team)…
if you’re out there ras…i think your concerns are simply a matter of faith…and, lead to the larger question towards the purpose of man (not simply in a theological sense)…where do we fit in to the grand scheme of design…
sustaining the growth of our species is a math problem that simply can not be solved…at some point we will literally eat ourselves out of house and home (we produce and consume at a phenomenal rate): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221209631730027X
our leaders, concerned for their immediate success, will continue to behave in a very short sighted fashion that damages our ecosytem at an increasing rate – it’s a part of our nature…
granted my views are jaded by my early years of consuming large amounts of asimov and clarke – i’m of the thought that our purpose is to bring life (tomatoes and potatoes) to parts of our galaxy…
and, if the actions of our species help facilitate the necessity for us to find a way off of this rock and adapt our specifies to living “elsewhere”…so be it…blame intelligent evolution…
good for you though for caring and sharing, and for wanting to do your part in the here and now…
> I’ll flesh out my detailed desired offseason soon but I definitely want to open the vault for Patrick Corbin, warts and all.
Corbin seems like the best starter out there, but what does he give the Yankees? Probably 150-200 IP With an ERA+ of about 115-130. and is another game 3 starter. You don’t beat the Red Sox with Corbin. Which is why I would have tried to pry deGrom from the Mets. Say no to Gleyber, but hope they go for Andujar and a top pitching prospect. Let them pick the one, they’ll probably take the wrong guy anyway.
The Yankees need a #1 guy. Or at worst a pair of #2s (or a triplet!). Otherwise I don’t see them winning a world series, no matter how much hitting they get. (Also can they get a LH hitter. Just sayin…)
I think Cash has done a very good job up until acquiring Stanton, a move that made little sense. Just as the Knicks need 2-way players, so do baseball teams. But Didi, Torres, Andujar, Voit, etc were all great moves.
And of course bringing on Boone was dumb, but that seems more the hubris of an ownership group that wanted the manager to do more of what they wanted, and Boone was absolutely that guy. And they paid for it.
But really, if they had a DeGrom, they would likely have won the series and all would be well. They are a great front-line pitcher away. (And a good one to go with him.)
Meanwhile, unlike Donnie, I think I’m going to watch a good number of games this year. I want to see who’s for real and who’s not, and whether there’s any reason to hope the Knicks might be good before New York becomes West Venice for the rich.
And why exactly would the Mets trade one of the top 5 pitchers in the game for a nice young hitter who can’t field and a pitching prospect that is probably overrated? Sheffield and Adams, while may still turn out to be good, have been over-hyped for the past season. It said a lot that the Yankees only chose to bring up Sheffield in mid September and only used him a few times.
If the Yankees ever want to get serious about acquiring deGrom (since that’s the type of pitcher they need to get to the next level, not a Corbin) they better start with Gleyber Torres or be prepared to empty the farm system, including Andujar, Sheffield, Florial, and Abreu. Even then, I wouldn’t be comfortable with that trade. Personally, I am in favor of buying out the last two years of Big Jake’s arbitration years with a 5/120 extension.
No, signing Jeff Weaver, Sonny Gray, Carl Pavano, Javier Vazquez (TWICE), et al was not the same good process as signing Mike Mussina, CC Sabbathia, and Roger Clemens.
One process is signing pitchers who miss bats and have a track record of success in the same environment you’re going to put them in.
The other is signing pitchers who don’t miss bats and whose success can be partially attributable to variables that will be absent in the environment you’re going to put them in and not anticipating an impact (variables such as pitching in a weak-hitting NL division vs the AL East, or in a huge ballpark like Oakland or Comerica vs Yankee Stadium).
Is…is this supposed to be the case against Patrick Corbin, who was 6th in all of baseball with an 11.07 K/9 last year?
Also it’s a difference of investing in Long track record vs short track records.
“This guy had a good year once, so I’m going to bet on him doing it all the time” is not the same process as signing pitchers with 8 years of sustained success.
Well this string took some surprising turns.
Yankees need pitching not bats.
You can’t get Degrom for a young 3rd baseman who can hit, but not field (and if you can the Mets are idiots).
With so little available on the open market, the Yanks may have to bet on their young arms and hope a No.1 emerges. Severino took some steps back. I hope he sorts himself out. I think with young guys, you can expect this kind of up and down. He clearly has the stuff.
The Yanks were a couple big hits from blowing the Sox out in all but the game they got crushed. They’re incredibly young and incredibly cheap. Judge is making the minimum $600K roughly, which is just brilliant. And two of their most expensive players are coming off the roster, with Sabathia and Gardner likely gone. Stanton I think will adjust to NYC.
Did anyone read about Butler losing his friggin mind in practice? Who the heck would ever want a prima donna like that? I don’t care how good he is. It’s just crazy stuff.
As for the world, we always think our time is the worst, but ’68 was worse. World War II and I were way worse. The Civil War was worse. The World has seen far worse times. It’s not perfect, but I think all of our information bubbles are currently charged to make things seem far more out of control than they are because they are trying to be compelling to catch your eye and to also motivate you to vote however your bubble wants you to vote.
Mankind seems always to be on the cusp of disaster. Life is fragile. We are all a heartbeat away from oblivion, a simple mistake can lead you there. That is part of life. All we can do is strive and think and act and hope the cream of our society rises and averts whatever it is that is troubling us.
This too will pass.
Welcome to Yankee Blogger – awesome…
@43 I agree, the world situation just seems worse because it’s now and there is so much more access to depressing information. One thing that seems constant – the below average state of the New York Knicks, so we have that.
The Jimmy Butler situation has gotten a whole lot uglier, apparently.
Glad the Knicks have no interest in him.
> And why exactly would the Mets trade one of the top 5 pitchers in the game for a nice young hitter who can’t field and a pitching prospect that is probably overrated?
Because he’s 30, the Mets has the 19th best farm system in the majors, and they only have about 3 young guys on their roster that are above average hitters? If he doesn’t win the Cy Young this year, you’d have to think he’ll be pretty unhappy in blue and orange. Although if they keep him he’ll answer the question, can a starting pitcher make the hall of fame with a stellar ERA, and under 150 wins.
If I’m the Yankees, I’d let them get a couple of AA/A guys as well, but I wouldn’t empty the farm for him. 2 top tier guys and a few middle/lower tier. 4-5 prospects should do. I don’t see a lot of teams laying down for him. He can walk in 2? years.
Besides the Yankees might be the best trade partner for the Mets. Because it seems like the field is:
* Cubs
* Phillies
* Dodgers
* Braves
* Brewers
* Yankees
Guess which team plays the Mets the least? It’d be the best for the Mets organization to trade him, although not necessarily the fans…
“The problem isn’t the people like him which get elected as much as the millions that believe them, support them, and vote for them.”
As no less than Glenn Greenwald has pointed out, the rise of people like Trump and Bolsonaro is DIRECTLY RELATED to the failures of the established elite that are running things. There are plenty of reasons to dislike Donald Trump but this underlying assumption that everything was just fine, then Trump got elected even though no one had any legitimate reason for voting for him, and everything will go back to just fine if we just get rid of Trump is delusional.
I mean, the supposedly normal alternative to Trump in 2016 was to make an accused rapist the first First Gentleman in U.S. history. How did THAT get to be normal?
Mike
I’m usually pro-labor (vs owners) but Butler’s behaviour is really annoying.
The awful timing of the trade request, skipping most of camp and then go there only to (if reports are true) insult owner, coach and teammates?
I don’t understand, does he think that this stuff help raise his popularity? How many teams would pay 190 mil for 5 years of this kind of locker room troubles?
Looks like the classic Knicks’ candidate… 🙂
I like that Perry (and Mills) at least for now are sticking to their words…
@46
I think it is near unanimous that he wins the Cy Young award. He just had one of the 10 best seasons a pitcher has ever had. If by some wild reason he doesn’t win the award, I don’t think his unhappiness in that situation would be directed towards Mets FO.
Yes, deGrom is 30, which usually is the beginning of a pitchers physical decline. I think a 5/120 extension works in favor for both parties. deGrom gets his last two years of arbitration bought out, which are never guaranteed and also financial security until age 36 at $24 mil per year.
As far as the Met’s farm system in concerned, they were rated 19th during the ASB this past season, but that number is sure to rise as the top prospects move up and highly touted pitchers like Szapucki and Kay move into the Top 100. Farm systems are usually cyclical. Just as the Mets farm with rise up over the next year, the Yankees will drop down with all the recent promotions and trading of prospects this past season.
I’m also not buying the list of teams you gave as potential trade partners. Who is to say a team in the next year or two, like the Padres, decide they’re sick of losing and want to go for it and decide to take a flyer on a top pitcher with one year left. That’s also why I wouldn’t be as concerned about how many times I have to see face him but the quality of prospects I’m getting back. I’d trade him to the Nationals if I’m getting back three can’t miss prospects that would be staples of the core for years to come. If in fact the Mets decide to trade him, and not sign him long term.
Ron Baker has a TS% of one hundred and two (102) and y’all are talking about the dang Mets
That’s only because we know it’s going to come down to his more typical 96% soon enough.
So let me get this straight:
The structural issues caused by Third Way and neoliberal politicians — with their quietly devastating policies, usually so boring (the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, for example) that the public doesn’t bother to even learn about them — enabled the rise of Trump.
Yet we get long-form, investigative journalism seemingly every day of the fucking week that connects Trump’s business interests to Russia, or tax evasion, or other criminal activity. And his voters don’t read a word of it.
Trump’s victory can be chalked up to the decades-long, rabid radicalization of the Christian Right and other rural and exurban voters through disinformation, de-education, state-adjacent propaganda on cable news, and the full-on embrace of fringe, conspiratorial thinking like that of Infowars.
Please, for the love of god, find me a single fucking “leftist” Democrat who thinks that Sandy Hook was a hoax. Find me one that thinks that the Parkland teenagers are paid by George Soros. That there was a child sex ring in the basement of a pizza parlor. That the earth was created 6000 years ago by a skygod who plans to return and destroy the planet in a blaze of benevolent glory. And then tell me with a straight face that it’s been the slow decline of American liberalism through globalism that led us to this moment. Give me a fucking break.
This is a nation in which about 41% of voters are fucking dunces, functionally illiterate and will fart in the face of a truthful statement that opposes any part of their dim-witted worldview. Why? Because they’ve been told to shut the fuck up, salute the flag, kneel for Jesus and eat McDonald’s like a good, God Emperor-fearing Christian. And what I say to those people is this: fuck you.
Case in point:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/10/09/new-york-times-trump-taxes-221144
When fucking slimeball cretin assholes like Sarah Sanders can help Trump get away with this shit by calling it “very boring” as a dismissal, you really expect me to believe that it’s disenfranchisement caused by the fucking Clintons?
Get. The. Fuck. Out.
Edit: my preceding comment is stuck in moderation, so this post probably won’t make sense until it’s out.
Is the preceding post about the unprecedented efficiency of Ron Baker?
The craziest thing about the Jimmy Butler thing to me is that you just know that there are people who are, like, “Yeah, you show them, Jimmy!”
I’ve expressed many opinions on why we’ve been bad in recent years.
Trading Chandler/Shumpert – I wanted JR Smith & Felton gone, but there was a price to be paid to get it done quickly. I think we got worse in an effort to clean house and start fresh. I may have suffered through another year of those guys, but I get it. It was a “meh” deal to me.
Afflalo etc.. – non event rentals.
Bringing Melo back – I wouldn’t have done it, but I think Melo was generally underrated on this forum even though he’s overrated by the masses.
Signing Lopez – Loved it.
Noah – Giving him 4 years was stupid
Lee – I have no issue with Lee but understand that people that want to take the all out tank route think it was a mistake.
Rose – I didn’t like the deal, but it was essentially a risk free move because we got the 20m cap space back the next year. Unfortunately, we were dumb enough to put Hardaway & Baker into it at ridiculous prices.
Melo to OKC – I was mixed initially, but a couple of posters made the case and I decided it was a good deal even though I knew we created an issue at C.
Hernangomez – I didn’t like the trade, but we maneuvered ourselves into that position by creating a glut at C. I don’t think we handled it well.
O’Quinn – I would have signed him back
That covers most of the big things in the last few years. To me though, the biggest reason we suck right now is that we were missing 2 first round picks from further back. We’ve generally been positioning ourselves better in terms of space & picks. If we had we had those first rounders, we’d be 2 years further into this rebuild despite missteps.
I’m not that far off from consensus. I just don’t think you have to tank for 5 years to rebuild a team.
I don’t want Butler for the Knicks, and I’m happy our management is sticking to its guns. But I’m not sure Butler’s behavior at practice is him being totally crazy. He may just be deliberately antagonistic and disruptive to the team to give them more reasons to trade him. If he played totally nice, the Wolves would have even less urgency to trade him than they seem to have already.
I don’t want to debate abortion because I understand both sides. I even understand why some people are pro life and against birth control. I just think they are the right wing version of being idealistically delusional (which is my usual term for liberals on some issues) if they think they are going to turn back the clock on the sexual revolution and massively decrease unwanted pregnancies.
As the son of immigrants from Italy, I have a lot of compassion for the immigrants of today. I also have serious reservations about the huge volume and risks of some of it. I think it strains our resources until they assimilate and some countries do open additional risks.
Separating kids from parents is a horrible idea, but the press has covered that story inaccurately. It is occurring, but there are also all sorts of terrible things going on with illegal immigrant children like smuggling for the sex trade, abuse, etc.. and it was not a new policy. The effort to counter one problem resulted in another going back quite a few years. It just came out now. The idea is to fix it and not turn it into a political thing.
In #52 Jowles turned the most boring baseball thread ever into absolutely must read to everybody I know material.
Mike, many thanks for your efforts to improve the site.
@52
Jowles, I won’t say whether I agree or disagree with your assessment. I’ll merely point out that Trump mentioned Diane Feinstein’s name at a rally yesterday and the crowd started chanting “Lock her up!”. So….yeah.
@59
Aye, that one may be his tour de force.
She’s a witch! Burn ‘er!
Jowles’ amp goes to 11, you know, for that extra push over the cliff.
@52
That’s all true, but the rightward lurch in U.S. political discourse and the subsequent post-truth world that 40% of the country lives in couldn’t have happened without Democrats continually selling out their base (organized labor and POC especially) at every single opportunity from Nixon onward in an effort to poach mythical “moderates” (in this past election “suburban moderate Republicans”) who don’t really exist. Part of it is simply the rise of the fundamentalist, white supremacist right as engineered by Nixon, Reagan, and the Bushes, but part of it is also the Dems’ inability to represent a real political alternative to the absolutely batshit conservative worldview, at least from Carter onward. Trump’s rise was multi-causal.
Also, fuck the electoral college.
I agree
In addition to leading the NBA in TS% (min 4 games) Ron Baker is second in the NBA in steals per 36 minutes.
Ron Baker aka Jerry midWest is an all-time great Knick just waiting to happen. Alas, we will have to wait until Mudiay and Frank fail miserably at PG for him to get anything more than garbage time minutes… i.e there’s hope.
“Also, fuck the electoral college.”
It seemed to work fine for 240 years or so, now suddenly it’s bad because you don’t like the election result? Got it
Some pretty smart guys put it in place for good reasons so I think I’ll go with their opinion over today’s ideas.
Jimmy Butler doing his best to get himself traded – genius
The Knicks will have some interesting roster decisions to make regarding Trier, Noah, Lee, etc.. We’ll see
The electoral college was designed to give slave states more representation in presidential elections. And it worked, most of our presidents until lincoln were either slave owners or their agents. But with no more slavery the electoral college is just a stupid relic.
To be fair, it also ignores that all the various factors that lead to tanking being strategically smart because strat finds it to be aesthetically displeasing, and morally wrong. Just like his bit about pensions leaves out the folks that stole from the pension funds, the folks who cut taxes in the face of these shortfalls, and the possibility of raising taxes because he presumably finds such things either praiseworthy or anathema.
Please tell me about how the Founding Fathers had the right idea about allowing private citizens, as part of a well-regulated militia, to own whatever muskets they wanted, too. Really worked out for those twenty-odd six-year-olds and their teachers and principal in Newtown, am I right?
I’m sure all those law abiding gun owners will turn out to be the real victims, probably because of the impossibility of doing anything about these random unstable individuals. Do you want them to have no protection from those (unidentifiable in advance) folks who are only pretending to be responsible gun owners? Gun control is irrational. Let’s build a big wall.
I was for abolishing the electoral college since middle school, where I rightly recognized that it was a moronic, anti-democratic policy engineered by otherwise pretty smart men. The 2000 and 2016 elections were just further confirmation.
> The electoral college was designed to give slave states more representation in presidential elections. And it worked, most of our presidents until lincoln were either slave owners or their agents. But with no more slavery the electoral college is just a stupid relic.
You could also say the same about the Senate. My Senators represent about 10M people, whereas Wyoming’s represent 300K, or about 5 blocks of the Thanksgiving Day Parade.
> I mean, the supposedly normal alternative to Trump in 2016 was to make an accused rapist the first First Gentleman in U.S. history. How did THAT get to be normal?
I’m choosing to interpret this as you objecting to a First Gentleman (aka a female or gay male president) as opposed to the people rejecting Bill Clinton on ethical grounds.
BTW this is exactly what I’m talking about not operating in good faith. Because the argument is — to prevent an accused rapist from becoming the First Gentlemen, the people rejected his wife and instead elected a man accused of multiple sexual assaults on women.
This, plus the electoral colllege, plus the disengenuous concept of gerrymandering, was all designed by white land-owning men to keep white land-owning men from losing their power to the “tyranny of the majority”. They were smart. But that doesn’t make them right.
Once again your stating as facts things that have no bearing on reality. Immigration has consistently been shown to be an economic boost. Pre-Trump level of immigration, both legal and illegal, was within historic norms.
The semi-official name for this is Murc’s Law. Regardless of who actually holds power, only Democrats have agency. Greenwald is a big fan of this. From Kavanaugh getting confirmed to the Patriot Act, examples are legion. Policy that comes out of Congress reflects the exact Republican policy goals of the last three decades. They co-sign Trump’s initiatives. They are, in several cases literally, the same folks as who were involved in crafting the bullshit that gets ascribed to Clinton alone.
This is one of the biggest problems we face as a nation. We’re beholden to a government structure that was put in place 250 years ago, and we treat Teh Founding Fathers™ like those guys were a bunch of demigods.
They did a pretty good job setting up the framework for a democracy, but the weaknesses in their design have been exploited to the point where we really barely have a functioning democracy. But hey, the guys in the powdered wigs who lived 250 years ago are completely infallible, so fuck it.
I live in California. We have almost 40 million people here, and we get the same two senators that Wyoming gets with their 579,000 people. We have seventy times as many people, and we get the same amount of senators. This is why we have goober ass hick motherfuckers in charge of everything and we’re all going to be underwater in 30 years.
Uh huh…. we get it…. a bunch of old racist white men writing on dead animal skins…..
Please read Federalist 10 and to a lesser extent 68 for the love of God.
Also those old racist white guys put in a method for changing the US Constitution which has been used 33 times (I think) where the actual overwhelming public will is there.
Or…. we can have an Article V convention of the states and change the entire bloody thing.
The founding fathers were pretty fucking smart. If the founding fathers were alive today they’d be taking advantage of the system like all the other pretty fucking smart people. The nation is still decidedly young in the grand scope of history. Aside from allegedly putting a man on the moon there is absolutely no evidence to prove that the founders got it right.
Um, I quoted Federalist 10 in post #76 about an hour ago. But other than that, thanks for the tip.
The electoral college, at the time the Constitution was written, gave more power to the state with the most white men (Virginia). It wasn’t designed to protect less populous states, it was designed to protect slavery.
I love how you use “old racist white guys” with a mocking tone, like they weren’t exactly those things you just said. Hilarious.
The right to have a well regulated militia was probably also there because of slavery. The states with Slavery needed to be able to suppress slave revolts if they had to, so they wanted to be sure they could have militias. I don’t think the clause was intended as a universal right to bear arms.
The tip was designed for the person I quoted.
I’d be more concerned about your new “traffic cops” in Portland if I was you….