The Buscher

Generally it’s Giants, Yankees, Rangers, Knicks. Basically the “older” teams. But everyone has their own mix, often depending on whatever teams your parents supported.

Got MLB 23 as a Christmas cheapie. One thing I can say got killed dead in MLB 23 is Manager Mode. Which is a shame as I enjoyed doing in-game managing at times when I was too frustrated with hitting. The CPU strikes out a comical amount of times playing against itself even with adjusted sliders. It never used to be like this. I joke about the uptick in strikeouts in real life but in a CPU vs CPU game you will see multiple silver sombreros and probably one or two golden sombreros every game. Manager 10 games of franchise. Through 10 games my team (Mets) have already struck out 139 times. The runner up is the Marlins who I’ve played in 7 of the 10 games with 130 strikeouts. The 3rd highest is the Royals with only 96. That already a huge enough variance to tell you CPU vs CPU play is broken and I suspect it’ll never get fixed now because the number of players who actually use manager mode is quite small.

No prolonged coaching search for Michigan. Sherrone Moore promoted to the head coach role.

I highly doubt it. Even if he was interested, bringing in a coach with that level of gravitas means the head coach is gonna feel like he’s on the hot seat. For that reason I don’t see the Giants pursuing him for their DC opening even though he apparently does have a reverence for the franchise. If the Giants suck next year he’d probably be in play for the job in 2025.

Bill Simmons was all over this on his Sunday podcast. Belichick probably still wants to have a huge say in personnel if not be the GM outright. GMs don’t want to hire a guy who will both undercut their jobs AND put them in a spot where they’ll get fired if there aren’t instant results. You hire a less heralded coach you can have more control over and pitch the owner on a multi-year plan. These guys care about job security a lot more than they care about winning games.

Made me really happy to see David Wright get just enough support to stick around on the ballot for a 2nd year. With his career getting cut short, it's easy to forget how good he really was. He was one of only 6 players ever to accumulate a .300 BA, 200+ HR, and 175+ SB across his first 10 seasons. The other guys to do it are some elite company: Mays, Trout, A-Rod, Larry Walker, and Ryan Braun. His career statline compares very favorably with that of Joe Mauer, but obviously positional comparisons play a big role there. Looking toward his own positions, his first 10 years were significantly better than the first 10 years of Scott Rolen - but of course the difference is Wright didn't get the chance to have his compiling years. He'll never make it to Cooperstown and I respect and understand that. But it's not his fault he got a degenerative back issue that prevented him from finishing compiling the 3B HOF numbers he was very clearly on track to. Letting him hang around on the ballot is at least a little acknowledgment of that. Wouldn't have had the chance to get those votes if there were still a million PED guys clogging the ballot.

That is most likely what they'd go with as they're pretty much always in the game as legends. That said I agree I'd love to see some random silly undercard matches thrown in here and there and this Mania would give a perfect opportunity for that T&A vs. Head Cheese. Steve Blackman in a game would be a day 1 buy.

Hall of Fame results announced tonight. Adrian Beltre and Joe Mauer are both going in first ballot, the former nearly unanimously. Todd Helton finished last year right in that margin where he figured to go in this year and it seems likely he will. And he should, dude was great and Coors shouldn't be held against him. Billy Wagner's currently right above the 75% threshold but the non-revealed ballots tend to be more conservative small Hall voters, hope he makes it but wouldn't be shocked if he misses it by only a few votes and he gets in on his final try next year. Gary Sheffield is just under 75% and it'd be surprising if the small Hall voters who kept him out this long reversed course. But this is his 10th and final try so he'll have to join the litany of sluggers the Veterans Committee will have to decide on. Carlos Beltran is in the mid-60s right now, I think he's in within a few years.

CBS said Bills/Chiefs drew over 50 million viewers, making it the most watched Divisional Round game ever by a mile and the most-watched television program of any kind since last year's Super Bowl. Discourse about the NFL being scripted makes for some fun internet jokes and not much else but if you think the league office isn't actively rooting for the Chiefs to get to the Super Bowl this weekend I'm not sure what to tell you.

Yep, same guy. Titans are hiring Bengals OC Brian Callahan has head coach.

Panthers promote Assistant GM Dan Morgan to President of Football Operations and GM. Hilarious that the worst team in the sport did a full search just to promote from within. Wouldn’t be surprised if other candidates realized working for Tepper would be a nightmare and said no.

Yep! I've barely watched the last 2+ years because Xfinity and MSG can't get their shit together.

Winning really does cure all the pain when you look at it from a big picture perspective. The last decade as a Giants fan has been miserable for all but two seasons but I still can only get so mad at them. Those Super Bowls can't be taken away. So that team has given me by far my highest highs as a sports fan, well ahead of the Mets who gave me a couple of near-misses wrapped around a bunch of joke years, the Islanders who gave me two decent playoff runs in my lifetime, and the Knicks who are the Knicks.

Got this at Christmas and am thoroughly loving it. I'm taking my time, doing maybe one main mission a night but otherwise just exploring, doing side quests etc. The detail in the game is so good - other than the Chrysler Building basically every main landmark is in there. Appreciate that they even took the time to model the city well beyond its playable limits although having Citi Field be just outside of range is cruel

I skipped out on last year which sounded like a decent game and a continued step in the right direction, but I'd just gotten a PS5 and had a lot of other games to give priority to. I'll probably end up getting this one despite the nightmare fuel trailer.

I’d genuinely love to know how many Niners/Ravens conference parlays were placed once the logo was unveiled And for that matter, how many unfortunate souls threw down money on Chiefs/Vikings

The funny thing about conspiracy theories is if you want to dig down the rabbit hole far enough you can’t ever be “wrong”. So it should be a fun time for the wild “NFL rigged” theories next week. The Lions making the SB is an unlikely enough storyline people could say it’s fixed on principle The Chiefs making the SB is “well it’s rigged for Swift” A Niners/Ravens SB “well duh the SB logo is red and purple so they’ve known all along” The geniuses on NFL Twitter will be going off no matter what happens.

If I were a Bills fan this would be it for me honestly. At a certain point you just accept it’s never gonna happen.

Boy are the Bills ever a cursed franchise

Buffalo’s defense is abysmal. Can’t expect to win a Super Bowl looking like that. And then a fake punt puts the Chiefs on the 30. This game feels over.

Fun game. Very strange that the Bucs didn’t use their last timeout to force a 4th down kick. I mean it’s highly unlikely the kick misses but you never know. In any event awesome for Detroit. SF looked beatable last night, especially if Deebo is out.

If Taylor Swift had dated a Bills player instead we might be seeing a video of her jumping through a flaming table today. Missed opportunity.

Josh Hader to the Astros for 5 years, $95 million. Free agent market still moving relatively slowly in terms of the big names left.

Carlson only had a 72% FG percentage in college as well. Probably wasn’t even on the tryout radar for a lot of teams, let alone the draft board. Massive leg no doubt but they bought into the hype because of his brother and it cost them dearly. Erin Andrews reporting that LaFleur said they just “cross their fingers and pray” when it comes to Carlson is pretty shockingly blunt and shows how big of a mistake they made. I’ll give the biggest kudos ever to this kid if he rebounds and is better next year when even his own coach doesn’t believe in him.

Great game ended by an absolutely horrific throw from Jordan Love. Poor Anders Carlson is gonna have a loooooong offseason.