In a battle of pitch to contact starters, the Phillies’ Jeremy Hellickson “outduelled” the Braves’ Bartolo Colon last night as Atlanta droppred its fourth straight contest to fall to 6-10 on the year.
Colon allowed 11 hits and four runs in his sven innings of work, while Hellickson allowed Atlanta 2 runs on three hits – Adonis Garcia singling after an Ender Inciarte double in the 4th, and a Freddie Freeman no-doubter solo shot in the 6th. Garcia then led off the 9th with a solo shot off Phils closer Hector Neris through a rain shower. Then after a 24 minute weather delay, the Braves made it interesting with two out – with a Nick Markakis single followed by a Brandon Phillips single. However, Tyler Flowers was unable to seal the deal, striking out after a long battle.
Jamie Garcia, with his more hits allowed than innings pitched goes tonight, looking to get back on the winning side.
@42 in the last thread – looking at your question from an economics perspective, money that you use to pay down your mortgage gives you a return on investment (ROI) equal to your mortgage rate less the foregone tax benefit of the mortgage interest deduction (which varies depending on a person’s particular tax situation).
For the sake of this example, let’s assume your net annual ROI on mortgage payoff would be 3.5%. Obviously, that’s a better return than keeping the money in a savings account (~1% ROI). Other common options for you would be to invest that money in some kind of fixed income fund (ROI varies on risk level, returns range from 1% – 4 or 5% i think), an equity fund (no guaranteed ROI), or a fixed income + equity blend fund. If you have other debt (student loan, car loan, credit card loan) you could also direct the money there. You could also try your hand at real estate investing. Notably, the savings account, stock and bond investments are highly liquid while mortgage paydown, debt paydown and real estate investments are not.
As an initial matter, you should ensure that you’ve got a sufficient pool of cash or cash-like assets available to you should you need it – several months’ worth of expenses at least (I’ve seen recommendations of up to six months’ worth). I wouldn’t recommend putting money in risky and/or illiquid investments like a real estate investment until you’ve got a decent rainy day fund. Moving to investments – if you have any high-rate debt, pay that off first… you’re getting a guaranteed return at a healthy effective ROI. If high-rate debt isn’t in the picture, that’s when you move on to considering other uses for your money.
To some degree, the question of “what should I do with my extra money?” depends on what investments you already have. Ideally, you’ll be working towards putting together some safe sources of cash flow (bonds, possibly real estate, maybe a pension) and some equity investments (for long term capital gains). The investment landscape right now looks pretty crazy – bond yields are crazy low (and thus unappealing) and the US stock market has appreciated a ton since 2009-ish and looks expensive by historical P/E ratios (hard to predict a healthy ROI in the near to medium term on money invested in the stock market right now). Other stock markets around the world are less pricey but economic growth expectations outside the US are muted.
If stock and bond investments don’t look great, what about real estate? I have limited experience with real estate investment myself; generally though I can confidently say that real estate investment 1) is not for the faint of heart 2) is best done with a decent-sized cash cushion 3) requires knowledge of local real estate conditions 4) be prepared to either deal with tenants (or pay someone to do it for you) and 5) it really helps if you are handy at diagnosing and fixing things.
Long story short, it’s hard to say what you should do with your money right now. Have you considered investing in Acuna, Maitan, Demeritte, Allard and Gohara futures?
Jeez ya’ll, too many acronyms for a Saturday morning.
Gohara was lights out again last night.
19 year old Mike Soroka is off to a hot start in AA as well.
Shades of Ron Gant with Madison Bumgarner. Riding a dirt bike in the offseason is dumb…in season, just unfathomably stupid.
I am currently in the US and watching MLB network. Oh man, Preston Wilson. What the hell? He is the worst commentator I have ever listened to.
I don’t hate announcers the way a lot of baseball fans do, but Preston Wilson definitely has some work to do.
I echo the two other contributor’s concerns about rental properties. Blouses hit the concerns well. If you have a local market expert then you can make real estate investment work, but the streets are paved with people that get in over their heads.
Blouses does make a key point that I had not considered: taxes in the long-term. You got any articles on that?
Random thoughts:
-I still don’t think the Fox Trax is accurate. It’s like the mapping is translated over a few-several balls to the left.
-I didn’t watch the game yesterday, but it seems like Bartolo was dinked and dunked pretty good. I wonder if having average-to-below-average fielders pretty much everywhere but CF is going to have an impact on 4 non-strike out SPs in the rotation.
-I get why Dansby was dropped in the order, especially since he was probably rushed into a prominent point in the offense, but has there been any official explanation for why they put Adonis in the 2-hole vs. Phillips? I guess they didn’t want to “mess up” the middle of the order, but you’d think Phillips belonged in the 2-hole from the beginning.
If you’re planning to live there until the mortgage is paid, you’re probably good; if you think you might move or resize you might want to pay some on it, especially if you move early in a long term mortgage, then you probably haven’t paid down much principal. The only other thing I suggest is having enough life insurance to cover the remainder of the mortgage.
@ #7
Snitker wanted García, who would be hitting in front of Freeman, to see more fastballs and maybe get his bat going.
But if Dans is also struggling and the formula to break a player out of a hitting slump is batting 2nd (so they can see more fastballs) shouldn’t that demand Dans bats 2nd? After all, one of those two guys is The Future and the other one is Adonis Garcia.
I feel like the ‘move a slumping hitter to 2nd’ is a questionable decision, period, but if you accept that logic doesn’t it makes more sense to keep Swanson at 2nd than to put Garcia there?
Exactly. They’re two struggling hitters. I think it was more to take pressure off of Dansby, which I agree is necessary, but wouldn’t they accordingly put more pressure on Adonis? Honestly, I think our offense needs Brandon Phillips seeing and crushing a bunch of fastballs behind Ender and in front of Freddie. Whatevs.
I think Bowman posted on Twitter that Dansby led the league in lineouts a few days ago.
Brandon Phillips hasnt really been a high OBP guy in recent years, but he’s a better choice than Adonis. Pretty sure sabermetrics would put Freeman 2nd.
Fangraphs has Dansby hitting about 15% more flyballs this season so far, which probably accounts for the loss of a few hits.
His BABIP is .152 and his LD% is about the same as it was last season when he hit .300. I think he’ll be fine.
Freeman is hitting .421 on BIP. I’m actually surprised it’s not higher. His LD% is actually down a tick. Needless to say, this hot streak won’t last forever.
#10
Agree completely.
Also, 43% of Freeman’s flyballs have left the park.
Dansby just got robbed.
Anecdotally, it really seems like the other team has made all of their tough defensive plays and we’ve made little on this losing streak. I feel like there’s some bad luck there somewhere.
I am getting tired of all the sliding and jumping catches by the Phillies outfielders.
Brandon Phillips… sweet!!
And sour.
Eff this.
When do we play the Padres again?
That’s a rotten way to lose a game.
Take out the Padres, and this team really really sucks.
recapped.