I was reading a book for Rick and in it, a stinky situation arose. A character in that book used a clothespin to mitigate the circumstances. Rick asked what that thing was, and I realized that's a thing he will probably never see in real life. Likely to be many more of those to come.
Well, maybe not in that form, anyway.
The Poissonnière has some of those for making forts. Back in my day, we made do with the wooden ones that had marginal hold but were great at snapping on your fingers.
Now I’m realizing a generation is likely dawning for which “clothesline” means the physical act of removing someone from their feet, without that generation having practical encounters with the eponymous backyard nemesis.
I was thinking the other day how pointing at your wrist to signify "you're late" is having less and less meaning nowadays.
no, watches are back! After about a decade of not wearing one, I went out and got a sportwatch.
Well, one is back.
Do people really not have clotheslines? Why not? We use ours frequently in the summer. Better for the environment and the pocketbook.
I don't think our association allows them
Oof. Associations are the worst.
Too humid.
I repainted our metal clothesline poles a lovely mid-century turqouise in the summer of 2020, then restrung it with paracord instead of clothesline. Much stronger, and hopefully more mildew resistant.
Estrellas did not play Saturday. Sunday, they lost to the Gigantes 4-3. Austin Davis started and pitched three innings, giving up two runs on three hits and three walks and striking out two. The loss went to Ronel Blanco (0-1), who gave up a run on two hits in one inning.
Caribes gave up an eight-run seventh to Lara Saturday and lost 9-5. Willians Astudillo was 1-for-4. Tomas Telis was 2-for-3 with a double. Niuman Romero was 2-for-3. Balbino Fuenmayor was 2-for-5. Herlis Rodriguez hit a home run, his fifth. Harold Arauz started and pitched four innings, giving up one run on four hits and striking out one. The loss went to Roy Garcia (1-1), who allowed four runs on three hits and a walk in a third of an inning.
Sunday Caribes fell to Lara again, this time 8-3. Willians Astudillo was 0-for-5. Luis Sardinas was 3-for-4 with a double. Herlis Rodriguez was 2-for-3. Tomas Telis was 2-for-4. David Richardson (2-2) started and took the loss, allowing four runs on nine this and a walk and striking out one in four innings.
Kind lost in the shuffle of yesterdays 3-0 Vikings win was that the Raiders punter AJ Cole boomed an 83 yard punt ( that was almost saved from being a touchback). That 83 yarder is tied for the 6th longest punt in NFL history. Whats wild is that earlier in the day Los Angeles Chargers punter JK Scott also boomed an 83 yarder.
There have only been 18 punts that have gone 80 or more yards. And in that list includes one from Randall Cunningham.
I thought this was an interesting little article. The ocean can be a scary place.
Gigantic Wave in Pacific Ocean Was Most Extreme 'Rogue Wave' on Record
seriously, I might feel safer going to space
Oh? Look up CMEs and the Carrington Event sometime.
interesting
Will the players' association actually approve this? Maybe the Twins will get another shot!
Effectively a 15 year deal at that price. Or, a 20 year deal that is heavily back loaded. The Dodgers get to pay $68 million per year to a player that might have retired.
I renew my objection.
Yeah, my original source was suggesting $61 million per year and that didn't seem so egregious. Now this is Mike Trout's contract but in all new money. Not super pleased about financialization spreading to ever more things.
In addition to it just being generally distasteful to allow teams to leverage themselves like this, I feel like it's been proven out over time that if you allow it, investors will leverage their position, and in any kind of competitive environment, that eventually means someone is going to overleverage themselves and go belly up. The more flexibility you give them, the faster and more spectacular the demise will be for someone.
If they want to mark the contract at $46M/year, they should just force the contract to be $460M/10yr or make them renegotiate. Otherwise now we're replacing a luxury tax with playing the stock market -- if you can invest the deferred payments at a better return than you get penalized by the luxury tax, then you're beating the luxury tax. If your investments happen to be disappointing, then you just reduce future payroll -- too bad future fans and players, your team sucks because your owners are bad at financial investments. That's not really the future the league should look toward.
There is no world in which MLB or the MLBPA should want that kind of contract to stand. Ohtani would effectively be loaning the Dodgers $680M, which should be something the MLBPA should be completely against considering that the Dodgers could go broke at some point and not live up to their end of the deal.
And even if you are going to do some math that attempts to adjust the deferred payments into present value, that's still a total guess as to what future inflation will be. Congratulations, you've just put all the teams in the league in the business of borrowing money from players and hoping that their investments can beat the mark-to-market value of the contract.
The NBA gets by with a stricter salary cap than MLB, and their median player salary is $4.6M and rising, because the CBA stipulates that the players get a guaranteed share of the league-wide revenue.
The rank and file of the MLBPA are getting absolutely hosed under their current CBA and it's beyond delusional that the majority of the league sits back and defends a system that less than 1% of them will truly benefit from. For their own good, they need to try to optimize something other than getting one player the largest possible contract every five years. The only good thing they've had going for them in recent years is having teams like the Braves give out long, guaranteed contracts to players early in their career, so they can start to earn something closer to what they are worth, but really that should be the rule rather than the exception.
the CBA says there is no limit to deferred money...they basically already agreed to it
Yeah…
If it stands, it's total bullshit, and I reserve the right to sports-hate both the Dodgers and Ohtani for it. It's bad enough that they don't have a salary cap, now they are making it into a game of creative accounting. Might as well let teams start paying extra for a 27th roster spot or a 4th out in the 9th inning, as this will put us way past any illusion of an even playing field across the league.
For what it's worth, Ohtani offered the extreme deferrals to everyone. The Dodgers were the winners in how much total got deferred.
The problem(s) are not deferring money. The problems are exempting deferrals from CBT calculations and the bullshit hyping of the contract value in the first place. At the very least, some sort of PV calculation should be considered for CBT purposes. I can't believe they really exempt those dollars.
The deferrals aren't exempt from the CBT and they are calculating the present value. It's a present value $460 million over ten years so $46 million is how much will count yearly for the Dodgers CBT through 2033.
A 4.43% discount rate seems incredibly favorable to the Dodgers when I'm sure they expect any of their investments to beat that out over the next 20 years. It probably seems favorable to Ohtani if he thinks a better supporting cast can get him into the playoffs and improve his exposure, improving his endorsement deals.
Interest free deferrals are very friendly. But as you say, this makes a ton of sense for Ohtani. His goal is first to actually win and second to get paid. He came over very early from Japan and so had to start from the very bottom for salary. No big deal to do that again plus he is making absurd amounts from endorsements during his playing days.
Yeah, I think this is a good deal for LAD and Ohtani, maybe a good deal for the guys he'll play with, but basically bad for everyone else.
But will anything count against their CBT after 2033 (assuming there's still a CBT after 2033)? If not, then the whole thing is crap.
It's a ten year deal so only those years are covered. No different than the Mets owing Bonilla money for another decade. Betts and Freeman also have a lot of deferred money (31.5% and 35.2% respectively) so the Dodgers will be paying $83 million to those three in 2038-2039 and $84 million in 2040.
Yeah, then this stinks even more.
Thanks for clarifying. I had heard suggestions to the contrary but had not verified.
They are using NPV, but it's not enough to prevent a bunch of fuckery.
Say that the Twins sit down with Carlos Correa now and find a way to restructure his contract such that the NPV of the deal is still around $33M/year, but he defers 90% of his pay until after he expects to be retired. The face value goes up, so he can argue it is in his best interest. Even if the league marks the contract at $33M/year NPV, it doesn't matter for the luxury tax, because the Twins aren't getting anywhere close to that as long as you are using NPV instead of face value. But it would give the team more room to sign free agents in the short term, even if it means that the team will be worse after Correa leaves and the bill truly comes due.
It's a bit morbid, but think about someone like Peter Seidler. He could have been even more extreme loading the Padres with short-term talent if he could negotiate a bunch of deferred contracts, and if he didn't expect to live long, why would he care about how the Padres are gonna make their payroll after he's dead?
This just makes it that much easier for a GM/FO to go scorched earth when their job is on the line. Trade anything of value in the farm system, and then saddle the team with a bunch of future payments on top of that. If it all goes sideways, who cares? You won't be around to clean up the mess anyway.
The CBA does cover this somewhat. From The Athletic:
So for Ohtani, the Dodgers need to fully fund the $460 million by July 1, 2026.
It’s telling that MLB allows limitless deferred money, but Ohtani being paid in shares of ownership of the Dodgers instead of a salary is subject to special permission from the Commissioner.
Allegedly MLB had proposed limiting deferred money but the MLBPA shot it down. I really, truly dislike how committed they are to making sure that the top 5 guys in the league get the absolute best possible contract, but hardly fight for anything else.