Jarrett Seidler

perfect timing for the incredibly deserving @rjandersonwrites.com (who should have a mantle full of these)

congrats to all the winners but especially R.J.

all of these are buzzwords designed to absolve "the Left" (read: the DSA/Pod Save aligned campaign operative class, who are getting filthy rich off all this, and the weird people who worship them, most of whom post on this site) from the consequences of their actions

I can just say the magic Z word or even hint at it like this guy, throw in some words about Chuck Schumer or age, and everything goes away though. Right, that's how it works?

And legal. People ask me sometimes why I don’t go harder or deeper into stuff like IFA corruption and the answer is that I don’t have as robust liability protections as someone writing at The Athletic or a major paper

I’m in deeper than you are (traded Chourio for him in scoresheet)

wrote this a little over two months ago (100 more like it are available from your fine local bookseller) @baseballprospectus.com

Cuellar got a pardon of out doing it, that's the other one I can think of

Phil Murphy of all people was really good at it and it never really whipped back on him

Nolan McLean is Future Stars Edward Cabrera but real

Mazel tov my friend

my favorite early season cycling bit is that every week or two there’s a training video of Pogacar just fucking flying up the Poggio because all this man cares about is winning MSR and Paris-Roubaix this year

if $/WAR is non-linear (which no shit, most of us have been saying this for a decade plus) then all of the prospect grading systems (so, almost all of them but us) which have been predicated on the linearity of $/WAR weren't right all along?

That’s kind of my point, that “hey maybe things should be orderly and clean and nice” has become in America, the province of the moderates and the right. That is not true in the rest of the world, nor if you start talking political theory

Essentially every functioning left government in the world is strong on this and a bunch are so strong to the point of being authoritarian

“Antisocial behavior is bad and should be societally discouraged” is a fundamentally leftist position and I’m concerned it doesn’t seem to be in the current American political landscape

*four

that is typically the point, I am too old to get in online fights with activists on this stuff so I leave it generic

leaking an informed ballot internal from a month ago with weird demographics that still shows you down on the topline is, out of context, typically the type of thing a campaign does when they know there's bad news coming (often a neutral poll in the field they expect to show much worse)

I pulled such low numbers for two of the Bruce shows that I got in before dynamic pricing kicked in (not that the base values weren't nuts)

Was the next day!

Has anyone, preferably with meaningful credentials, modeled what would happen if more teams tried to spend more money in current baseball free agency?

To wit: Would bottom-half markets actually get really good players? Or would really good players go to the same places, and just be paid even more?

Remco blaming completely blowing up on a climb on bad hotel air conditioning might be the new funniest Remco excuse which does cover lots of ground

But the idea that they’re doing some rob Peter to pay Paul shit is because people don’t understand the mechanics of MLB salary deferrals. It’s a combo real tax dodge for the player against the government and a luxury tax dodge for the team against the league

if you want to make a directionally correct adjacent argument to this, teams like the Dodgers and Mets have much more liquidity at the ownership level such that they can pay signing bonuses and deferral deposits outside the regular economic beats of the baseball season without blinking

1.) owners have had to put the projected value of the annuity in an interest bearing account within 18 months for several CBA cycles, this is not how "deferred salary" works in MLB at all

2.) even if that wasn't true, secured debts against team would just come out of the franchise's purchase price

like these are all ultimately emotional arguments by fans about the Dodgers that you're not going to successfully rebut by showing parity in the wild cards or over long stretches of time

just my two cents as a neutral, but I think the people who see parity in baseball as an issue worth sacrificing labor solidarity or a season for are *probably* not going to be convinced of anything when the same team has won 3 of 6 World Series and is on a 13 season streak of playoffs/90 wins

I’m using the past tense because Friday will also mark my final day as an active writer. I’ll always love and hold the craft dear, and I’ve been lucky to have this career. But it’s time for me to take on a new challenge. That’s why I’ve accepted a position in the Washington Nationals front office.

I owe you all for reading and sharing over the years. One of the toughest tasks for a writer, and goodness knows there are many these days, is finding an audience. I’ve been fortunate to have a great one across several stops in my career. I’ve never taken you for granted. Thank you so much.

Programming note: Friday is my final day at CBS Sports (though you may see my byline pop up on prewritten items.) My decision, no one else's. I’ve loved my time and my team there. Mike Axisa, Dayn Perry, and Matt Snyder were doing great work before me, and they’ll continue to do so after me.