- Larry Sabato is right: “The real presidential race begins now.” Up to this point, the polls have mostly measured name recognition.
- I don't think Fred Thompson really wants the job that bad.
- Jimbo of The Hubster has been doing good work blogging that East Boston state rep race: Reports, interviews, the works. Check it out. (We like Gloribell, BTW.)
- Shannon O'Brien on Romney:
“I totally discounted Romney when there was first talk of him running for president,” she said in a recent interview in the cafe of the Jurys Hotel in Boston. “And my point was, ‘Those conservatives will kill him. They’ll never vote for him.’ Well, guess what? He’s flipped every single position that would offend them, and—and I’m not the first person to say this—because many of the Republicans tend to be perhaps a little more evangelical, a little more appreciative of redemption and turning yourself around, he’s been able to walk away from that.”
- Was Coughlin a plant? So far unnoted on this page, but the biotech revolving-door story certainly seems like very bad business indeed — especially considering the strong whiff of corporate welfare from those tax breaks. (I should have smelled it when the breaks were being put forth to begin with.)
- When Manny comes back, Ellsbury stays, Drew sits. Make it happen, Tito.
- 108 yard return? What is this, Canadian football?
- Update, one more: Nice quick overview of the upcoming Fourth Middlesex Senate race to replace Bob Havern, at the Woburn Advocate. Lotta folks want this seat.
Please share widely!
please please pleaseeeee
Absolutely! The only downside is that we'll have an official bench-warmer making over 14 million of these ———>$
Then again, it's probably better that he's warming the bench for the productive players rather than hitting into a crucial double play yet again….
Can I just say I hated this deal from the start. And just think, the original scuttle-but was that the Sox were picking up Drew as a replacement for Many, who is supposedly going to be traded every off season.
Hello, Iraq. :4a7d3d609129a9296bf7ac0608c2097
I was just reading the chapter on cost classification in my managerial accounting book not 15 minutes ago, and the part that talked about irrelevant decisions related to sunk costs sounded exactly like what the Sox are doing with JD Drew.
…but from what I can infer, what you are writing about is a contractual obligation.
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I don’t do accounting particularly much, but I wouldn’t consider it a sunk cost, unless the Red Sox actually paid him US$14M up front. A “sunk cost” is somewhat like buying a machine because you think you might want to use it for something-or-other, and discovering that you don’t have a need for it.
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Of course, the owner of the machine can try to sell the machine to a 3d party for some amount of money Just as the Red Sox can try to sell the contract for the player to another team for some amount of money. Also, of course, the Red Sox will be obligated to pay the player the difference between what the other team is willing to pay and the amount in the original contract.
Sunk cost just means that the money is already committed and future decisions will not get your money back. It just means that there is no reason to factor your cost into how you use the item in question.
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It is true that Drew could be traded, but that still does not make much of a difference in how to play him since playing him more won’t change his value unless he suddenly starts playing a lot better, and if you thought he was going to do that, then you would play him regardless of how much you spent.
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an inferior player with a higher salary. He's worthless on the bench, but by playing him you might draw interest from another team, and then get some value from him.
Of course, a less capable but popular player may get PT too, to get fans in the seats. This obviously doesn't apply to the Sox and Mr. Drew.
I tend to think that ownership/GMs lean on managers to play the overplayed underperforming players more than the manager would like to on his own, for the two reasons above and for the illogical reasons surrounding sunk cost.
You don’t risk your post-season in order to boost the value of a player you won’t trade until the next year.
Funny, I clicked thinking I’d make the only Drew comment — only to discover all the comments were about him.
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Playing Ellsbury over Drew is like Cape Wind (and charter schools, cmon, you know you wanted it), in that a pol knows it’s the right thing to do, that it’s not even a close call on the merits, but why upset the apple cart?
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The easier road is to keep Drew as the starter, to call for Cape Wind somewhere else or for infinite “study.”
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Tito will slip Ellsbury in 3 out of 5 games…1 for Coco, 1 for Drew, 1 for Manny.
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Poor Bobby Kielty.
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More importantly: Sit Dice-K until September 28th. Arm shot.
I support Jacoby Ellsbury.
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J.D. Drew is like a charter school. High cost, from outside the system, low performance based on expectations
Charter schools in MA are Papelbon. Lower cost than Foulke, demonstrably better outcomes.
Papelbon was promised, hyped, advertised as a starter. Turns out he's a closer.
Potential that succeeds at something different than what was promised. Kinda like charters.
i think.
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what was promised, and what is the success?
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i think the “promises” were:
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a. options for parents, particularly those with kids in low-performing schools
b. flexibility to try new things, new ways to put teachers in a position to succeed…
c. …with those new things able to go to traditional schools
d. increased accountability as the “price” for increased flexibility
e. overall, outperform sending districts.
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the results have been (realize you may disagree)
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a. parents getting options — inherent in waiting lists, particularly in urban areas
b. some new things tried. however, definitely some failure here — schools that neither innovate in big ways, nor (like the school where i work), lots of little ways that add up to teachers who feel they have a much better chance of success.
c. some examples of new practices into traditional schools. but not enough.
d. mixed record here. a few low-performing charters shut. some stay open, just like traditional low-performing schools, because parents plead their case to Board of Ed, saying “my next best alternative is a failing district school.”
e. good track record in MA, on average. bad track record in some other states, like TX or OH.
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i know you tend to disagree with #A and #E; suspect you agree with the general range of promises; unsure what you see as “success” (had thought you didn’t see any).
That when you look at the worst 25 schools in the Boston district by MCAS, just about half are charters. Way ovverrepresented there. Not sure what kind of alternative they are.
And don't forget another result of charters:
f. Finding ways to weaken those inexcusably Democratic teacher unions. If you think charters are funded by conservatives for any reasons other than profit and weakening one of the few professions remaining that's a bastion of Democratic unionization, well, you probably believe that guy was videotapoing the Jets by accident.
Sabutai, I’m not sure what you mean.
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There are 14 Boston charters, compared to about 140-ish BPS district schools. In 2006, 11 outperformed district averages, 1 same, 2 trail. Those 2 are in the lowest 25 of BPS.
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Also, there are 2 additional “Horace Mann” charter schools which are pilot schools — ie, unionized, controlled by the district, etc. One of those outperforms district average, 1 is lower but it is a night school for dropouts.
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I’m not trying to be flip, you’re usually good with cites, so I thought maybe I was missing something. I’m using 2006 MCAS data. Maybe you have some 2007 data or something that’s not yet released?
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With all credit to John Edwards-
“We cannot replace a group of corporate Republicans with a group of corporate Democrats, just swapping the (Washington) Beacon Hill insiders of one party for the (Washington) Beacon Hill insiders of the other.”
The man is becoming a pretty straight Republican propagandist. Tonight’s atrocity was about blaming ‘the culture’ and it’s ‘short attention span’ for not wanting to stick out a 10 year war and achieve ‘victory’ in Iraq.
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Yeah, I struggled hard and sincerely to find the wink or irony to his “report”, and of course he admitted neither the 10 years nor the Petraeus/Crocker mendacity. It’s Keller going stupid on Iraq.
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He’s grossly overpaid for the silly and incredibly dumbed down job (sic) he does on WBZ anyway. If he at least did some serious reporting work I could live with the provocateurish commentary and night-in night-out misentertainment and play to the prejudices of the rubes.
He’s grossly overpaid for the silly and incredibly dumbed down job (sic) he does on WBZ anyway…
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He is certainly overpaid for whatever he does for WBZ. I first heard of Keller due to his stints pimping for commercials at channel 56.
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But I’ll relate another of my little stories. The gym I attend is also attended by a popular Boston newscaster, who shall remain not revealed, and his wife. We (his wife and I) got to talking one morning. She was concerned that she would be losing her job at “xxx” manufacturing plant (which will also remain unrevealed). I asked her, did they really need the extra money from her income, given that (per my expectations) the on-screen talent would be making oodles of dollars. No, she said, the on-screen talent, at least at the local level does not make oodles of dollars.
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I suspect that Keller is not paid as well as you believe he is. But, I would agree that he is overpaid regardless of how much he is paid.
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I’m sure that Dan Kennedy will not want to weigh in on this issue, but as far as I’m concerned, Keller’s presence on Rooney’s Beat the Press is a travesty. I have actually grown to like everyone on there, including Joe Sciaca (sp!) from the Herald. But Keller, no.
Sorry to hear it. Well, I’d be willing to pay Sara Underwood and perhaps one or two others there top dollar for doing, uh, just about anything 😀
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Yeah, I’m impressed by the Beat The Press crowd too. I guess it’s part of getting on local TV regularly that the likes of Sciacca know they can’t lie and misrepresent things the way some of the Republican folks do on The McLaughlin Group. Sciacca got beat up and embarrassed trying to defend the indefensible a couple of times in a row back when he was a beginning regular on the show, but he shaped up wonderfully.
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Keller just has his talking points and figures he’s smart and can bs and play off popular resentments and subtle bigotries the rest of the way.
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…isn’t even a very good entertainment. It has evolved into a shouting match, much like Hardball and some other programs. I don’t remember the commenator’s name, he was a reporter for the Baltimore Sun, who sat in the chair now occupied by the idiot Tony Blankley.
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McLaughlin is modeled on an earlier program out of Washington DC’s public television station that’s carried on Ch44 on Sunday mornings. I forget the name of the program, but it was on in the mid 1970s when I was living in DC.
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I understand your issue with Sciacca in his first few times on the program, but he seems to have learned quite well: the viewership of Beat the Press is not the same as the readership of Boston Herald, and I have actually come to like his commentary. Plug: as do I like Dan Kennedy’s commentary, Callie Crosley’s (sp?), John Carrol’s, usw. The only one that I cannot stand is–Keller.
Polling of the possible Republican nominee may be based mostly on name recognition, but that is certainly not true for the Democrats. If you follow the polls, Hillary has increased her advantage over her competitors. How does name recognition account for a growing lead? Further, there is much more intensity in this primary campaign than in any of the past five presidential elections, so people are and have been paying closer attention to this election, than they have at this point in past elections. Finally, Edwards has solid name recognition having run as VP, and Obama has been the center of a media storm since he announced his run. Also, the primary campaign began considerably earlier than in past elections. It's not just name recognition. I would say the campaign really began in July when it was announced Obama raked in so much money.