Cup of Coffee: March 26, 2025

Good morning!

There's a paywall break just below this intro, but I wanted to send this out to free tier subscribers too as a reminder that I am running my annual Opening Day sale right now:

You like Free Thursdays? Just know that Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday are just as good. I'd love to have you here five days a week, so maybe slicing 20% off the price for a year will inspire some of you to do it.

As for today's newsletter: Big Dumper gets an extension, Jordan Montgomery goes under the knife, something about Republicans' defense to SignalGhazi does not add up, the D.C. bar does not care if its lawyers are white supremacists, everything's a scam, throw your iPad in a river, it'll be fine, and dem bones, dem bones, dem bones.

Let's get at 'er.

The Daily Briefing

Cal Raleigh, Mariners agree to a six-year $105 million extension

The Seattle Mariners have backed up a dump truck's worth of money for Big Dumper.* The club and catcher Cal Raleigh have agreed to a six-year $105 million extension. There is an option for a seventh year and there are incentives that could push the total to $123 million. The deal starts this year and buys out three of his free agent seasons.

*note: his nickname is "Big Dumper" because he's got a big dumper.

Per Jeff Passan, Raleigh will get a $10 million signing bonus and $1 million salary in 2025, followed by salaries of $11 million and $12 million in 2026 and 2027. He will then make $23 million salaries in 2028, 2029, and 2030. There is a vesting player option valued at $20 million for 2031 with a $2 million buyout. As if "2030" and "2031" are real years. Lol.

Raleigh, 28, is coming off of his second straight 30+ homer season. Specifically, he hit .220/.312/.436 (119 OPS+) with 34 dingers and 100 RBI. He hit 30 homers the season before. No, he doesn't hit for average and he strikes out a good bit but those homers – especially given that home park – and his excellent defense behind the plate make him a very valuable contributor. As in, he's among the top-20 position players in the league over the past three seasons per fWAR.

He's also a fan favorite, so what's not to love? Congratulations Big Dumper.

Jordan Montgomery to undergo Tommy John surgery

It was reported yesterday that Arizona Diamondbacks lefty Jordan Montgomery will undergo Tommy John surgery.

Montgomery had a horrendous 2024 season, going 8-7 with a 6.23 ERA (67 ERA+) over 25 games. This after he signed a one-year $25 million contract with a vesting option that ended up vesting and being worth $22.5 million for 2025. Last October Dbacks owner Ken Kendrick decided it was a good use of his time to publicly blast the signing of Montgomery, which made no sense given that it was all but certain Montgomery would exercise the option and stick around, making it awkward for everyone, but when was the last time you met a billionaire with sense of the moment and halfway decent interpersonal skills?

Whatever the case, now Ken Kendrick is paying Montgomery $22.5 million to have surgery and begin rehab. Figure next fall or winter that Montgomery will sign one of those split rehab deals for almost no dough in 2026 to see if he can pitch and a team option for 2027 at more or less market rates.

Quote of the Day: in defense of Stuart Sternberg

Rays owner Stuart Sternberg is under fire. The stadium deal he had helped broker collapsed – primarily because he and his underlings botched it all – and reports have emerged that Rob Manfred and other owners want him to sell the team. But fear not, he has his supporters!

“The more and more I’m reading about Stu and the momentum, the groundswell, of how much dislike there is for him, how he should sell the team and move on, that he’s a terrible owner . . . I just can’t sit on my hands anymore. I just really can’t. I have to just say something . . . Stu couldn’t be a more straightforward guy that just always wants to do the right thing. That’s who he is. That’s his business . . . I’ve known Stu 30-plus years, and this is not the Stu that I know. I’d put him up there as one of the best owners ever in any sport out there. If we win a World Series, he should be in the Hall of Fame.”

Those words – and there are a lot more of them – came from Randy Frankel, a co-owner of the Rays and a friend and business partner of Sternberg's.

I don't know if Sternberg's mother is still alive, but if she is I'm sure she'll also offer her full and unbiased support.

Other Stuff

Make it make sense

The scandal in which the highest-ranking Trump defense and intelligence officials planned a war on their cell phones and, inexplicably, dragged in a journalist as they did so continued to be the hottest topic of conversation yesterday. The two most notable threads of it all involve (a) the people involved in it claiming that nothing classified was discussed on the chat; and (b) people on the right trying to personally discredit the journalist who was included, Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, for some reason.

The claims that the chat did not contain classified material are ridiculous on their face. They literally planned an act of war, discussed its strategy and the president's thinking, and then went into detailed specifics regarding targets and stuff while also identifying covert CIA operatives by name. I understand that lie, lie, lie, lie has generally been a winning strategy for Republicans for the past ten years but anyone who believes this particular lie is either a blithering idiot or they're just saying they believe it in order to help circle the political wagons.

The attempts to discredit Goldberg, while predictable, are bizarre. Partially because, as noted yesterday, everyone involved already admitted that what he wrote was true. But also because the more disgraceful Republicans make Goldberg out to be – or the more they claim they have no idea who he is – the worse it looks for the people involved in the chat in the first place. I mean:

Isn't it worse for Waltz that he added a complete stranger to that chat than it would be for him to accidentally added the wrong contact? I feel like that would be worse.

Or how about this:

OK, you coked-out moron, let's assume you're right! Indeed, let's assume you're understating things! Let's assume that not only is Goldberg a Democrat with ties to Hillary Clinton but that he's a time-traveling spy from the 1950s Soviet Union who has "Death to America!" tattooed on his forehead! That's be fun! But wouldn't that also make the National Security Advisor adding him to a group chat and top governmental officials not noticing him as they share top secret national security plans even worse? You do see how that would make things worse, right?

None of this changes a thing, of course. Indeed, the more these guys focus on Goldberg the farther they stray from the actual point: a journalist's presence notwithstanding, these guys are running national security on their unsecured cell phones. What else is being run on unsecured cell phones? What other acts of comical irresponsibility are they engaging in that we don't yet know about because they haven't been intentionally and directly broadcast to the Beltway media?

As I said yesterday, this is a scandal that, before 2016, would end a presidency. It would, at the very least, lead to multiple high-level forced-resignations. And it's all happening because these guys are stupid as hell and are even more arrogant than they are stupid, which is a pretty special combination. So it tracks that their half-assed defenses of their actions here are also infected with stupidity and arrogance.

The D.C. bar does not care if you are a white supremacist

Back in February I shared a reoort from the Texas Observer about an ICE prosecutor named James Rodden, who it identified as the operator of an overtly racist Twitter account, "GlomarResponder."

The account, which was first created in 2012, has spent the last 13 years posting hateful, xenophobic, and pro-fascist content. Such as:

• A post from January which read “America is a White nation, founded by Whites. … Our country should favor us";
• Or a post from last August which read "Migrants are all criminals" and “It is our holy duty to guard against the foreign hordes”;
• Or a post form March 2024 which read “Nobody is proposing feeding migrants into tree shredders. Yet. Give it a few more weeks at this level of invasion, and that will be the moderate position”;
• Or a post from the past in which he said “Freedom of association hasn’t existed in this country since 1964 at the absolute latest,” referring to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He also, in response to someone calling him a "commie" said “I’m not a commie, I’m a fascist. Fascists solve communist problems. Get your insults right, retard.”

There was no suggestion then nor has there been since the publication of the story that Rodden, whose job is to represent ICE in immigration court hearings, was not the person who made those posts. Indeed, based on the highly-detailed Texas Observer article, it is absolutely and without question Rodden.

Though Rodden lives and practices in Texas, he is admitted to the bar in the District of Columbia, which allows him to appear in federal proceedings in Texas. The D.C. bar, like every other bar in the country, has strict and clear ethical rules which prohibit any and all conduct which is prejudicial to the administration of justice. After reading that story it was my view – not unreasonable, I don't think! – that a government immigration lawyer's repeated demonstration of virulent racism, with constant specific mention of how those subject to the cases he brings are subhuman and should be subjected to violence, stands in violation of those rules. As such, I filed an ethics complaint with the D.C. bar over Rodden's social media conduct.

I received a response from the D.C. on Monday afternoon. Short version: they don't care. From the letter they sent me:

We are unable to docket this matter for further investigation. The Office of Disciplinary Counsel has jurisdiction to enforce the D.C Rules of Professional Conduct, a set of written rules adopted by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. Even if we could establish that Mr. Rodden is responsible for the content of GlomarResponder’s posts, we do not have a basis to find that his conduct violates one of those Rules. The Rules do not prohibit offensive or racist speech, which may also be protected by the constitutional right to free speech. The Rules address discriminatory conduct only in the context of employment. D.C. Rul 9.1.

We docket cases for further investigation when the complaint: (1) is not unfounded on its face; (2) contains allegations which, if true, would constitute a violation of the Attorney’s Oath of Office or the Rules of Professional Conduct that would merit discipline; and (3) concerns an attorney admitted to practice law in the District of Columbia. The information you provided does not satisfy at least one of these three criteria.

Personally, I think that D.C.'s Rule 3.8(f), which applies to prosecutors and prohibits "extrajudicial comments which serve to heighten condemnation of the accused" applies here. No, he's not a typical prosecutor, but he does prosecute deportation cases for ICE which are quasi-criminal proceedings. Would it be OK for a municipal prosecutor to post all day about how all people accused of crimes are subhumans who should be fed into tree-shredders? Of course not. So it this should, at the very least, be the sort of thing which causes the D.C. bar to make inquiries as to what Rodden has and has not done in his professional capacity to prejudice the justice system against the people he clearly hates yet who are subject to his and his office's authority. Unfortunately, the D.C. bar feels differently about that.

Beyond all of that I, as an attorney in good standing, believe that the fact a raging white supremacist is leading up federal immigration cases discredits the legal profession and undermines the administration of justice. I further believe that, to the extent bar authorities don't care about that, they're not worth a damn.

Everything's a scam

An e-commerce company called Infinite Reality – which, as you'll see, is a profoundly ironic moniker – just bought Napster for $207 million. No, it's not the same Napster you remember from illegally burning music onto CD-Rs 25 years ago. That concern folded in the 2000s. The name and logo, however, was purchased out of bankruptcy and has lived on and has been applied to multiple dubious concerns over the past decade.

At one point a company attempted to turn Napster into a hybrid for music and live-streaming, but that failed. The name was re-purchased again in 2022 by cryptocurrency companies Hivemind and Algorand, but that effort has likewise gone nowhere. The version of Napster Infinite Reality is buying is described as “an innovation company powering the next generation of digital media and e-commerce through extended reality (XR), artificial intelligence (AI), and other immersive technologies.” They say they plan to "create the ultimate music platform where artists can thrive in the next wave of digital disruption.”

I have two primary problems with this:  

1. The name "Napster" has absolutely no currency with anyone under the age of 40, and people over 40 aren't exactly on the cutting edge of "extended reality," "digital disruption," or anything like it; and
2. Even if that weren't a problem, the name "Napster" was and remains inextricably linked to the concept of "wouldn't it be cool if we could get something without paying for it?" The only reason to slap the name Napster on something in 2025 is to leverage associations with the past, but the people who hold that particular association are not the sorts of customers you really wanna be chasing.

Folks, if you have $200 million and you want to simply set it on fire, please, give it to me and I'll take care of it for you. I'll use a couple hundred thousand of it to open up a convenience store called "KaZaA" where everything is free and I'll use the rest of it to purchase and furnish a villa for myself after which you'll never, ever hear from me again. In the end, you'll get more value out of your $200 million in that scenario than Infinite Reality is gonna get out of this Napster play.

Did they put it in rice?

Meanwhile, in London:

An iPad retrieved from the River Thames in London — after sitting underwater and lodged in mud for more than five years — became the crucial piece of evidence that helped police solve a complex international criminal network. The crime ring involved museum heists, luxury robberies and an attempted murder, according to a new report.

Short version: some bad dudes had pulled off a museum heist in Switzerland back in 2006. Then, in 2019, after the member of the gang who got popped for the heist was released from prison, the other members of the gang who are still involved in high-end robberies sought to kill him. They did shoot him, paralyzing him from the chest down, and when they made their getaway they threw the iPad they used to track the victim before shooting him in the Thames.

Flash forward a few years later and police found the iPad while they were dragging the river in that area, believing it was possible the gun had been dumped there. The machine itself was toast but the SIM card was still in it and was functional. From the sounds of it they could've probably convicted the gang on some charges without the iPad, but the data on it helped establish other charges and bolstered what had been a somewhat circumstantial case into something far more airtight.

Let this be a lesson to you criminals: use Microsoft products if you wanna get away with stuff. Those things barely hold up under normal use and if you toss 'em in the river after your crimes they'll almost certainly be useless to authorities.

Dem Bones

A news outlet in Decatur, Georgia ran a detailed obituary of a notable local man earlier this week. He was a 74 year-old attorney named Henry Frantz Jr. who died while scuba diving in Hawaii. The obit talks about just how active a person he was at his age, how involved he was in his community, his love of playing the bagpipes in a local group and all of that. His daughter weighed in and said that, while it was tragic her father died, at least he went out doing things he loved rather than lingering in a hospital.

I don't seek out obituaries necessarily, but I do stumble upon a few like that one every year. I like 'em. I think they're kinda uplifting even though they are occasioned by someone's death because, hey, at least the man made a mark and lived life on his own terms. It's how we'd all like to remembered by our loved ones and our community, I figure.

Except there was one passage near the beginning of Henry Frantz Jr.'s obituary which stuck out a fair amount:

Frantz died on March 10 at age 74 following a scuba diving accident in Hawaii. Days later, on March 16, the family went to his Garden Lane home to settle his affairs. They found a skeleton inside a backyard treehouse, Decatur Police Lt. John Bender said. His daughter, Rebecca Frantz Culpepper, confirmed that the skeleton was the remains of her brother, Henry Doyle Colon Frantz, who had been missing for four years. He was 28 when he went missing, Culpepper said.

After that the obituary just carried on with how great a guy Henry was and all of that jazz! For many, many normal paragraphs! It originally ended like any other obituary too, but an update was been appended after initial publication which reads: "Update: Numerous readers have asked questions about the circumstances surrounding the death of Frantz’s son. Decaturish has contacted the family to request more details."

Here is the full incident summary from the police, also added later:

On Sunday, March 16, 2025, at 3:15 pm, Decatur Police responded to a residence within the 100 block of Garden Lane in reference to a deceased person. Family members of the previous homeowner of the residence located what they believed to be a human skeleton in the backyard of the home, inside a treehouse. The DeKalb County Medical Examiner’s Office was contacted, and they responded to the scene. The DeKalb County Medical Examiner investigator confirmed the skeleton was human and took the remains for further investigation and identification. The DeKalb County Medical Examiner’s Office is currently investigating the case.

My thoughts:

1. This sounds a "Columbo" case. Maybe an inverted version of "Any Old Port in a Storm" combined with the Santa Claus story Phoebe Cates told in "Gremlins." Perhaps the son was trying to take the family bagpipe business downmarket and Frantz just couldn't abide it! I dunno;
2. Strictly from an editorial standpoint, I feel like the reporter shouldn't have tried to weave the part about the son's bones in the treehouse into the obituary but, rather, should've turned it into its own story. It's hard to convey a straightforward story simply. Once possibly-unrelated dead bodies start showing up you're really dealing with obituary-creep; and
3. Maybe this is just me but the update makes it sound like the writer thought the readers were being needy or unreasonable or something by asking about the skeleton in the treehouse. "FINE, we'll do a bit more digging on the unexplained skeleton bit if you truly think it's necessary, but you're really missing an otherwise great obit. God."

We should all support local media because it's important. But also because it often gives you gonzo-ass shit like this and, even when it's about death, that's life, man.

Have a great day everyone.