Pretty sure "under" is the safe bet on that one. You can build the best team in history on paper, but you can't control for injuries, non-performance, or, say, the Pirates collectively having career years and slipping past you.

I'd like to see them do that, if possible - trade Cutch now if a strong offer comes in, because his value will be lower next winter, and of course I'm a big Q fan. Those moves probably make them a 90-win team again, no?

I heard about this book called Smart Baseball that's coming out in April. You should check it out. The writer's a funny guy.

Yes. If Harper Collins doesn't have me to do a full book tour, we'll still do some ad hoc events around my spring travel. Also, I have confirmed there will be an audiobook version of Smart Baseball.

Any thoughts today would be pure piffle. Let's see it against live pitching before we think anything of it.

I'd say stick to games that play well in 30 minutes or less. 7 Ronin. 7 Wonders Duel (no connection). Patchwork. Jaipur might be too light, but it plays very fast. I put a whole list of the best two-player games at the bottom of my top 100: http://klaw.me/2eD5Brb

I would expect him to, yes. He's polished enough.

True ceiling, all-star regular at short. Probability of that, maybe 10%.

I don't order pasta dishes in restaurants unless the pasta is freshly made, and you won't see me order something like pasta alla carbonara for that same reason. Long-cooked dishes like brisket (smoked or braised), pot roast, etc. are easy choices for me at restaurants because of the time required. I also eat more seafood out because I can't cook shellfish at home (wife is allergic) and don't cook much regular seafood either.

High ceiling? no. Move fast, get him to the rotation soon to extract value, mid-rotation upside.

Probably a number two. Well above-average starter.

Nothing special on Christmas eve. Going to do a roast pork shoulder on Christmas day.

Depends on the pick, too, but a top 10 pick should return an average regular with a few years of control. The expected return on a pick that high probably is less than that in terms of annual production, but it comes with six years of control, three of them (or three-plus) at the minimum salary.

I'm a fan, think he's at least an above-average regular in a corner who hits for average with power, but if he's the best player in the deal, I'm OK with that for Houston, because Q is an ace.

Yes, Wright more than Faedo for me. They are the only college starters in this class I'd say have that potential. Houck looks like a reliever. Lange doesn't have this stuff. Bukauskus has ace stuff but he's a six foot RHP with some effort.

Absolute joke. It's a big baseball circle-jerk. But I think it has opened the door for writers to vote for Bonds, Clemens, and even suspected-without-evidence PED guys to get in. So that's good. But let's not normalize Selig's reign. He shut the sport down in '94. He colluded against free agents in the 1980s. He ran players and the sport down for most of the first decade of the century, caved to Congressional pressure, and instituted policies (e.g., HGH testing) that have delivered no tangible benefit to the sport. The industry thrived under him, and he gets some (but not all) credit for that, but don't forget the harm he did first to put baseball in the position in which he found it.

I wrote that deal up the other day: http://klaw.me/2hWPF68

Because he's good at hand-egg. Better question: How is Stoops or the Oklahoma athletic director still employed?

Found it kind of repetitive after that. Not bad, certainly, but I felt like I was listening to the same songs again. Had I gone to 16 albums as I originally intended it would have been on there.

I'm saying he's above the threshold, but no other modern reliever comes close to the threshold. There's an enormous gap between him and whoever you feel is #2 (Hoffman, Wagner, other).

Prince, given his age, talent, and the fact that I have been a huge fan of his music, at least his peak output, for about 25 years.

Probably Pujols. Not that productive, under contract forever. At least Miggy produces. Dark horse right now: Stanton. Can't earn that kind of coin if you're rarely healthy.

I think so too. Between that and the bargain salary for Hudson, the Pirates have had a nice week working in a bad pitching market. I'd be very happy with these moves if I were a Pirates fan.

Starter for me. Not sure what that looks like as a reliever - I don't think he's going to have better stuff in short stints; he's a fringy fastball, plus change, above avg CB guy, who'll have to work to the edges of the strike zone with his fastball. That's not the profile of a guy who'll be better as a reliever.

All in for 2017, then look at dealing Machado after the season. Or in July if things go really pear-shaped, which they might if Duquette can't find some starting pitching.

Muppet Christmas Carol. We usually watch that, Holiday Inn (yes, the original cut), and White Christmas.

Yes. It's the best path back to contention for them. It's going to take a lot of time to rebuild that farm system to the point where they can field an organic contender around Trout.

If Lagares is healthy, yes, I agree with that. I see no role for Granderson or Bruce there at this point.

I don't do much in the way of political predictions anyway - I never predicted anything around the election or primaries, because WTF do I know - but I will predict this: Trump is and will remain unpredictable. I guess "mercurial" is the kind word. If the Republican party believes they can control him, I would predict that they'll be disappointed.

No, not if they're packed correctly, and I've learned that better quality beans benefit from a few days of rest after roasting, especially for pour-over or other drip coffee use.

There's nothing different; he just hit better in a smaller sample. The default expectation for prospects who aren't promoted should be a better second half than first, because other prospects in the same league were promoted and, presumably, replaced with younger or lesser players. Sometimes that doesn't work out - guys get tired, play hurt, etc. - but it's a good starting point.

Pretty sure the Davis thing came from Angelos, not Duquette. No way I'd pay Trumbo that when you can get the next Trumbo for essentially nothing - trading a possibly-racist backup catcher, or claiming a guy off waivers.

ABL is below high-A quality. Maybe below low-A quality. But I like Acuna a lot anyway.

I hate the international amateur system - the players blew that, they should have taken a draft - and that we don't have trading of draft picks. I like reducing the link between free agents and the draft, love the ban on hazing (duh), and love that the league is going to stop subsidizing Oakland. Move the team or sell it.

Booker? I really don't know. Good chance it's no one on our radar now. The DNC's position that nothing is really wrong so let's keep all the same people doesn't give me a ton of hope.

Edith Pearlman's Honeydew: http://klaw.me/1U2DPVD

I have never cooked prime rib via any method, but my gut reaction reading this is that 134 then 450 oven is going to push you to medium. Also ensure you have some resting time, maybe 30 minutes, between the sous vide and the browning step.

Lindsay Graham has been one of the few Republicans to continue to say anything at all against Trump, and while that's a low bar, I'm pretty impressed by his relative willingness to stand his ground.

I think so. If EE's agent is bluffing, as I kind of think he is, there's a little bargain potential there for a team with cash.

I think two of those are players. This isn't as fun as "Ikea item or death metal band," though.

That surprises me that he's not in their top 10, but I haven't done anything with their system yet, and as a general policy I don't criticize anyone else's lists. Usually I don't even mention other lists, but Derrick's a friend and knows that organization extremely well.

Yes. Most of Anderson's career, he's been good when healthy. I'd be fine giving him a deal where he gets like $500-700K a start or something. Like, here, you earn the minimum with your first start, and every additional start where we don't have to put you on the DL, here's another check. Not that I think he needs incentive - I've talked to Brett, it's not like he wants to get hurt - but it's totally reasonable to pay a good-when-healthy guy for how often he's healthy because you're probably both going to be happy with the return.

Happiest Baby on the Block.

No power indeed, don't see those guys much in the majors any more, think he sees the majors but would say 60/40 against him having any kind of role.

You're conflating a bunch of things here. Yes, Curt's a friend, and I get along very well with him. Yes, I would vote for him for the Hall, because I think his performance merits it, not because I know him. No, I do not object to people who call him a bigot, and I could not disagree with him more on pretty much anything on politics, race relations, LGBTQ rights, and so on. I can be friends with people I disagree with politically; we're friends with a family around here who are gun-toting, possibly survivalist Trump supporters. I wouldn't and don't support any of the stuff Curt has said about minority groups, and I said at the time I understood ESPN's decision completely.

Zero tolerance policies are complicated, as many people have written recently, because taking away the livelihood of an abuser can make the victim, if she's still with him, worse off. However, for an individual school to say, we're revoking your scholarship because you hit a woman ... that's well within their rights, and they can certainly take a moral stand even if Mixon would end up playing for another school. Give the scholarship and the possibility of an education (ha!) to a more deserving person.

It really depends. This happens to me a lot, of course, because I always have a book. Sometimes it's clear the person is just being kind and the smalltalk won't last. Sometimes the person really knows the book I'm reading, or is truly asking if it's worth reading. And I've had some wonderful, entirely serendipitous conversations because of stuff like that. If my gut reaction is that this person is a wacko, or going to be rude, or about to proselytize to me (that's happened a few times), then I try to polite close the conversation. But I try to at least start with the assumption that s/he doesn't realize s/he's being rude and go from there.

Beef? Black pepper. Cloves. Garlic. Lots of garlic. I'm not a huge fan of beef - I'd choose pork over it every time - so I'm probably not the ideal person to ask. If it's not a short rib or a brisket, which are both good because they're fatty as hell, I'll have the pork shoulder, thanks.

No. That little fucker is creepy.

Yes, I apologize for skipping last week but I will resume with tonight's episode. I thought it was bad TV, in a sense, that every dish was apparently good, and we didn't get a ton of explanation of why the guy who went home went home. Asking "did you make your own bread" seemed a bit of a stretch too - we almost never see anyone make his/her own bread on this show. Also, if every dish includes radishes, tell us more about how the chefs are cooking them, because that's something I have only eaten raw.