Willihammer

Kinda seems like hitters could be sitting FB on 2-0

Well at least he didn't walk Colon.

How long can Colon go?

These are the exact sort of people I'd hoped they'd target. I'm encouraged.

IMO the pitching situation is a long-term problem that realistically won't be fixed for 2-3 years at least. The defensive component is a smaller but still material factor that they could address by keeping guys in positions where their skills play up, not down. IE. no more DanSan or Rosario in center, get Sano out of the infield. At least put him on first base. Get Polanco off shortstop. And maybe the most important, find an above average glove / framer / game caller / CS at catcher.

I'm not too discouraged by a couple big names turning down interviews. I kinda prefer they pull an up and coming no-name out of the ranks somewhere anyways. Maybe someone like this: http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/59830/unknown-hero-helps-make-giants-world-series-champions/

You are the resident tech expert, I'll defer to your opinion on the phone. I'm just amazed at the black-Friday type crowds that show up for the upgrades when perfectly functional, and much cheaper alternatives, are out there. Hell I'm still using a Galaxy 3! Good point about the contract cycle.

Ah, didn't realize it was selling so well. Apple customers are incredibly prodigal loyal.

Yeah... do you know why is Apple on a run?

The interplay between the market and the Fed has been really incredible to observe. There appear to be a range of viewpoints from voting and non-voting members. Yellen leads a group that is searching for reasons to raise rates. Kaplan and others seem focused on policies that are more globally consistent with China and European policy. Dudley, Kashkari, Tarullo and others are flat out dovish about holding rates low until inflation picks up. The latter group seems to hold sway for now but will be interesting to see what happens next year when we see turnover in voting members.

I suppose Dick will chalk 100% of that up to Buxton's speed right, about, now...

What is it, new avatar day?

Polanco got a new glove? Forgot to double bungie wrap, under the mattress, hot oil, 425 degrees etc.

Are you saying they were organized?

I suppose you can quantify the damages differently. I may not be giving due weight to the non-fee damages like any identity theft that might have resulted from it. If I were a shareholder, I would be less concerned about punishing the grunts who did the deeds and more concerned about what is going on that 5300 employees are independently breaking the law. Perhaps the sales quotas are unrealistic. Maybe the gr-eight objective is flawed, etc.

It was fraud but I doubt prosecuting them would do much. First of all, from an ethical standpoint consider the scale of damage. 2.1 million fraudulent accounts were opened, of which 100,000 incurred fees totalling $2.4m. An average of $452 of damage per employee. Termination seems more than proportional for that level of damage I'd say. Prosecution would be unnecessarily punitive. But, this has been going on since 2011. It went on for four years. The ghost accounts inched WFC towards its "Gr-eight" goal of increasing customer accounts by 33%. Middle management was certainly aware of it and it seems likely upper management was too to some degree. It was a systemic failure, not a case of 5300 bad apples.

Saw that. This is a sad story really. Not letting those 5300 employees off the hook, what they did was unethical. But, I reckon the vast majority of those employees setup the fake accounts with the specific goal of them not incurring any fees or impact the customers in any way at all. You have to understand how many customers still refuse to take their accounts online or do anything above rudimentary banking. Employees no doubt thought they could achieve the benefits of the incentive program without causing any actual harm to anybody. And if you look at the report, of the 565k ghost credit card accounts opened, only 14,000 incurred fees. Those fees included annual fees (which don't apply to all WF credit card account types), overdraft protection (which again doesn't apply to all account types). Thus I believe this small percentage (2.45%) is explainable by user error in opening the accounts incorrectly. The other 97.5% incurred no fees. (There were also late fees on some accounts which I can't explain). Its sad because the punishment of termination is going to be made to appease shareholders, but I guarantee the vast majority of those who participated caused no actual harm to their customers, and were just trying to achive the bonuses of this program. Again, what they did was wrong but clearly the punishment doesn't fit the crime for those employees. Full disclosure, I have a brother who works in retirement accounts for WFC. I'll just say, if you think your boss micromanages you, talk to a WFC employee sometime. Their account reps endure an extreme minute-by-minute tracking of their output along with regular performance reviews and quotas which impact their ability to schedule decent working hours, among other things. Its a hyper-corporate management structure and I think this type of thing is going to keep happening for WFC as long as they put the blame on employees and not this management style.

Wow, the learningmarkets presentations are really excellent. There is a lot of free knowledge on that website. Yesterday on the podcast Jagerson talks about the Apple cash pile. He speculates that the market may not be discounting the stock price for the (small) chance that it will have greater tax obligations in the future. He also sees some risk that management could be increasingly distracted with managing its cash as opposed to focusing on its core business. https://www.learningmarkets.com/podcast/

The entire lineup isn't made up of streaky batters, so its a moot point. The entire lineup is made up of some average hitters and then a guy with an OPS that's .150 points higher than everyone else- Dozier. If the rest of the lineup moved up to Dozier's batting line- regardless of how streakily or consistently they achieved it, this would be a much improved team.

This theory just doesn't seem to bear out in reality. Not for this year's Twins anyway. April: 7-17; Dozier: .617 May 8-19: Dozier: .632 June 10-17; Dozier: .1.163 July: 15-11; Dozier: .824 Aug: 9-20; Dozier: 1.072 Sept: 2-4; Dozier: 1.724

He did start the year in a slump, and the Twins got off to a horrid start. On the other hand he hit 13HRs in August and the Twins still had a losing record. I do not think one man decides most games either way.

IMO the Miller trade reeks of a manager-turned-officer reaching back to get one of his former players. I realize Miller didn't debut for the Cards until 2012 but they shared spring trainings together before that.

Neither of the DBacks moves were celebtrated on their own by independent outlets. Fangraphs valuated the Miller trade as a massive overpay. The Greinke contract was an overpay- even Greinke is quoted somewhere as saying "I'm not really this good." The DBacks horrible execution doesn't invalidate the strategy.

Exactly. Pretty sure I speak for 75-80% of fans when I say hiring a dinosaur like LaRussa for his first executive job ever would be a huge disappointment.

Sorry for the derailment but hole crap Ian Kinsler... HoFer?