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Disclaimer-just-ta-be-super-sure:  there is a mild Sports Is Life easter egg in the below internet trailer.  Forge ahead at your peril. - Dr D

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Ryan Divish has a sweet mailbag-type column up, and he starts it with Dr. D's patented word "cobbling."  You simply cannot argue with the word Cobble.  But we can at least hope he's wrong about James Paxton still being three weeks off.  (No, honestly, he could be right, but, Ryan sometimes gives you a little extra helping of the No Cheering In the Press Box 'tude.)  

Divish also has some solid analysis, and even a skosh of access, on Paxton/Boras extension talks.

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The M's website explains each jersey nickname.  Also each player gets a tribute patch and a statement, apparently with free reign to tribute whom they like.  Taylor Motter went with "La Pesadilla," meaning The Nightmare.  That would be a fairly enterprising jersey for Mike Trout or Richard Sherman, don'tcha think?

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David Phelps is back.  Thursday was an off day.  The bullpen has palm-stomped one of Hillary's big red re-set buttons. 

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In January, Bill James wrote a very heavy-duty political article called "How the Democrats Can Win Kansas," and the reaction to it was ... ah, spirited.  Let's just say they don't arrive at consensus over there quite the way we do at SSI.  Since then I've never noticed him fielding even minor political questions at BJOL - a complete moratorium.  Now all of a sudden, a couple of days ago, he started talking politics again.  Great by me.

He led off with a suggestion that the USA peacefully dissolve into "two or three" separate nations.  Not to pop the clutch 0-to-60 or anything.

Sports Is Life.  Baseball has a few league changes in its history; why not us?.  Our forefathers conceived a great nation, and it long endured.  We survived the Soviets and Santa Ana, only to take a Twitter arrow in the heel.  We hear California is receptive to league changes especially.  You do realize that Western Washington would be part of the new league.  

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Baseball fights are getting way better.  First you had Rougned Odor's logo-worthy KO shot and now you've got Miguel Cabrera floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee.  No way the McGregor-Mayweather fight matches that.

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This MLB.com preview of the Yankee$ series is worth a quick scan, if only just.  Coupla stats at the bottom for yer.

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The Seahawks draft class looks dynamic, for this point in the preseason.  Here's another gush over interior DL Nazair Jones.  Hard-bitten Field Gulls fans see him as a real chance to make an impact, and see Frank Clark as ready to become who knows what.  [Bennett and Avril] as you know are pretty much equal as DE's to [JJ Watt and me or you], so if that DL forces some rushed throws here and there ...

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Dr. D has been dis'ing the Twinkies extremely heavily, not based on any particularly close look at them.  Here is Jeff Sullivan with a research-heavy word in their favor.  Paid for by denizens for equal action.

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Suburbs Guy has stepped back into the comments section and been splashing the fences.  If you missed his tabulation of the BJOL rankings w/r/t the M's rotation:

"Aces"

"#2s"
(45 James Paxton)
(53 Felix Hernandez)

"#3s"
86 Ariel Miranda

"#4s"
(99 Hisashi Iwakuma)
106 HWMNBN

"#5s"
 

"#6s"
(164 Sam Gaviglio)
168 Erasmo Ramirez

"#7s"
(194 Andrew Moore)
(201 Christian Bergman)

"#8s"
225 Andrew Albers
226 Marco Gonzales

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Muchas gracias very much,

Dr D