Yossarian

Actually, it's Kepler's right. And it's boring to read one beseech another to be "better" when he's merely exercising his right to be left alone.

We'll have to agree to disagree. Calling Kepler out for not vocally supporting the author's societal, political position is inherently political and, given this site's avowed premise, not worth the click.

Several years ago, ESPN became political. I turned them off. They did politics subjectively. Their views weren't original or thought-provoking, but repetitive and trite like much of the pathetically inept print and electronic media. Recently, after having just about burned its brand to ashes, ESPN chucked the political and returned to concentrating on sports. I turn them on once in a while.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but did your op-ed not take aim at Max Kepler for not taking a public stand (or an incorrect one) respecting the Floyd murder, and that you were disappointed that he did not do so? The correct expression was one of outrage against police misconduct based on skin color, no? I think I got your drift right. I resent the snark about current events. What's happened in the past week has long been unacceptably so. The Noor-Damond incident is an example. None of it's right. But, no one recalls anyone at TD writing articles when Noor shot Damond about anyone being in anguish about police misconduct or interracial murder, or about ballplayers remaining silent at Noor's misconduct. And my direct experience is that until your op-ed, TD rebuked all comments it deemed political. TD can change its theme anytime it likes. But, trying to replicate the Strib's op-ed page will prove to be a poor business model.

Excellent. However, I don't recall Max Kepler taking a public stand on this episode of police misconduct. And I do not recall TD calling out Kepler for not taking a public stand. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

"In my opinion the $35 million commitment the team made to him last year calls for more than playing baseball. It calls for being a representative of the franchise and city. Does that mean he needs to be an activist? No. I'm not asking him to. But in my opinion it does entail a certain level of social responsibility, like understanding and empathizing with a humanitarian crisis in the city where you play." Why did TD not call out Minnesota's sports franchises for their silence in the aftermath of Justine Damond's shooting in 2018? Was there not an argument that Mohammed Noor was victimized? In every year since 1980, roughly 10% of murders in the US have been interracial. Ninety percent involve people of the same races. Throughout this period, murders of white people by black people are about two-to-three times more common than vice-versa. That is a fact, not conjecture or hyperbole. To paraphrase BLM, all murders matter. But, why does the media, now apparently including TD, focus on the minority of interracial murders? Stated another way, why does not TD call out Minnesota's pro athletes for not making public statements about the tragedies that are all interracial murders? Why not call out Minnesota's state and local government for not addressing a racial divide that is far more broad than the tragedy of George Floyd? Why is outrage so ignorantly one-dimensional?

I see what you did there. Face up to any problem you see worthy of your attention. But don't pull the shaming trick on others (ballplayers or fans) who prefer to express themselves otherwise or not at all. They have as much right to do so as you have to pontificate or say nothing at all. This world would be a much better place if the morally-outraged paid more attention to improving themselves first before telling others how to express themselves. I could specify a dozen current problems that should be faced directly by society. But, let me just point out two and test your principled commitment to down-the-middle, no-left-right commentary. Minnesota's AG and his family have quite publicly expressed their support for Antifa. Today, Antifa tweeted, "f the cities, it's onto the suburbs." Does it bother you that the state official in charge of enforcing the law expresses support for those who would break the law? Last (Memorial Day) weekend, Chicago experienced one of its most deadly periods in its history. The vast majority of deaths were African-Americans. The vast majority of perpetrators were African-American. When criticized, Chicago's mayor's first comments started with an "f" and ended with a "u." Does that bother you? Both of these issues would seem to be susceptible of apolitical, not left-right analysis. But, I'm not young enough to know everything---prove how committed to resolving these issues you are. No baseball shouldn't be an excuse to turn a baseball-only website whose owners less than six months ago restated their policy to penalize comments they deemed political into another journalistically inept Strib or Twitter. Of course, the owners can use any excuse to change their site or hypocritically maintain its original theme. But, if TD's owners want to develop a valuable site that attracts attention and respect, they've now failed. Nick's comments belong on the letters-to-the-editor page of the PP. If TD wants to allocate space to politics, then I'm deleting my account. TD's owner's political views just aren't worth the trouble. But, I hope they feel better....

I recall a TD article earlier this year that mentioned Fernando Romero's visa problems about which I commented only to be admonished by a mod that TD doesn't do politics. Clearly, TD does when it suits a few. Move this to a politics forum. I'm glad Kepler doesn't do public politics. Social media are putrid places to spend one's time (unless it's limited to baseball, right?) That's one of the incredible number of choices we have in this country. That doesn't mean Max is unfeeling about the loss of life. Let's not confuse politics or political expressions with one's capacity for empathy. Let's also not confuse matters further by ignoring the aftermath. People have a right to protest. No one has a right to damage another's property or take another life in the aftermath of a murder. One may be outraged, but remain respectful. And exercising one's right to be quiet should offend no one. A society gets the government it deserves. I don't live in Minnesota, but make it there once a year to watch a Twins' series, last year with Cleveland. If there was something wrong with the police, mayor, DA, AG or governor last September it wasn't apparent. But, state and local government's response to Floyd's murder has been awful. (And Minnesota's politicians' response to the Covid-19 has been equally pathetic---where's the TD outrage to the fact that ~75% of Minnesota's Covid-19 related deaths have been in its nursing homes? Negligence? Manslaughter?) Fix government by all means, exercise your 1st Amendment rights, but don't use a baseball forum to cast a shadow on a athlete for exercising their right to refrain from making public politic comments.

Germany doesn't have a centralized FDA like we do. German companies were able to build on the WHO test (which isn't perfect), develop a reliable test and implement distribution without having to clear a bunch of regulatory hurdles. The WHO distributes their tests to countries that don't have the means and resources to develop and distribute their own tests and vaccines. The strong help the weak. While the test components aren't secret, the US develops its own viral testing regimens subject to approval of our FDA. That's our decades-old system. That the FDA bureaucracy is not ready for prime time has been long known. But before we point fingers compare the testing and vaccine timelines for FDA approval during the Ebola and H1N1 virus pandemics. There's slow, and then there's real slow. The FDA has had arteriosclerosis for a long time. Suspend the FDA regulatory system during a pandemic? Sacre bleu! Call the NY Times! Our citizens cannot be at risk and subject to the profit whims and whimsies of drug companies. The good news is that by June we and MLB/Milb players, coaches and staff should have a readily available COVID 19 test available, as should we all. If we give credit to Germany's test results as well as its testing regimen, then the mortality rate is pretty low, worse than the flu granted, but treatable with drugs that are readily available and cheap. Risk-free? Certainly not. But, what in life is?

I've long suspected the rate of arm injuries correlates inversely with cold weather, i.e., the colder the playing weather, the more arm injuries. Baseball before 4/15 or after 10/15, especially in Minnesota, seems risky. Were I Commish, games wouldn't be played if the temp at game time were 45 degrees or less.

No sense in trading Thorpe. No one will pay up for his real value given his '19 MLB stats and '20 spring training stats.

I love stats, but past performance does not, etc. Dobnak's sample size is so low that leaning to 2020 regression could be a lean in the wrong direction. Subjectively, I love Dobnak's makeup, his durability and the fact that he's flown under the radar. I'd bet on another leg up on trajectory before Dobnak reverts to mean. If anything is due for a reversion to mean, it's 2019's MLB-wide fly-ball and homerun rate. Somewhere, methinks there's a finger on the scale down in the depths of the Rawlings organization and someone said, "we overdid it in 2019." We'll see.

They're both really nice prospects, but with those leg-kicks they better have world-class CF defensive skills (and neither does) to tolerate early-Buxton-like 40-50% SO rates. Much more likely in '19-20 the Twins put Cave in a corner and move Kep to CF and live with the defensive results they got last year. If they bring someone up, they'd put Larnarch or Rooker in a corner and Kep to CF. Different story in two years, but for this year the Twins will let Lewis and Celestino develop.

Not much trade value after reading this page.... The kid's 23 y.o., for chrissakes. The question still remaining after this article is, given Thorpe's below-average Statcast data, how did he achieve remarkable whiff and SO rates? Stated another way, what did Thorpe do right and how does he do more of that?

Nice work, Tom. But, MadBum destroyed NL pitching? He hit .127/.236/.222 in 2019, well off his best years. Sounded like we'd play MadBum at 1B on his off-days, but Shohei Ohtani he's not.