Quick Hits: Volume CCXCVI

 - MN State Rep-elect Walter Hudson raised a few eyebrows when giving a speech this past weekend.

During a meeting on Sunday conducted by the group Mask Off MN, Hudson compared medical professionals and others who recommend the COVID-19 vaccine to plantation owners who “enslaved Black people.”

“The plantation owner who said, ‘I need cotton and you’re going to pick it,’ is morally equivalent to the person today who says, ‘I don’t want to get sick, so you have to take the jab,’” he said.

Just to make sure he wasn’t misunderstood, Hudson repeated what he just said.

“And I want to be clear … that I mean exactly what I just said. OK? It’s not a gaffe. I mean it,” Hudson said. “You are the equivalent to a plantation owner who enslaved Black people and forced them to work for you if you today, as a medical professional or just a member of the populace, demand that your neighbor take a vaccination to keep you safe.”

For his full statement from that evening, you can check it out here: 

 

I consider Walter a friend and I understand where he was coming from. While I eschew any analogies to slavery, Nazism, etc., Walter is more than capable of defending his comments. 

All that said, It's amusing to me to witness the obligatory pearl clutching from a lot of the same people who suggested NFL owners requiring their players to stand for the National Anthem was tantamount to (you guessed it) slavery. 

- After the walking cadaver in the White House signed into law the "Respect for Marriage Act," he attempted to make a grandiose speech which devolved into his usual gibberish. 

Biden: "When a person can be married in the morning and thrown out of a restaurant for being gay in the afternoon, this is still wrong."pic.twitter.com/oF2DtveW6P

— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) December 13, 2022

There is literally no legal recourse for a business to throw out patrons for being gay and the insinuation that this is actually a thing is complete bull pucky. In fact, there are a heckuva lot more documented incidents of people being denied service due to being politically right-of-center. However, that doesn't quite fit this narrative, does it? 

- The love we lost. 

Shortstop Carlos Correa and the San Francisco Giants are in agreement on a 13-year, $350 million contract, a record-long deal that is the richest ever for the position and gives the team a franchise-type player around which it plans to build, sources familiar with the situation told ESPN.

The free agent path of Correa, 28, was far less circuitous than last year, when he entered the market in hopes of landing a $300 million-plus deal but wound up signing a shorter-term contract with the Minnesota Twins that included an opt-out after the first season. This offseason, Correa found a market that lavished $300 million on Trea Turner and $280 million on Xander Bogaerts far more to his liking, and he wound up with the second-biggest deal, behind Aaron Judge's nine-year, $360 million contract with the New York Yankees.

The Twins front office was all in on signing Correa long term, and for that I commend them. However, once Trea Turner got $300 million, the Twins needed to immediately commit resources elsewhere since there was no way the younger Correa was going to settle for a penny less. This is especially in light of reports the Twins weren't willing to go beyond $285 million total. 

So now what? The Twins still need a shortstop and the only big prize remaining is Dansby Swanson. But since the Los Angeles Dodgers and Boston Red Sox also have a need at the position, it's likely the Twins will have to overpay if they really want Swanson, which would leave them fewer resources to acquire another starting pitcher. 

For all the goodwill the brain trust of Derek Falvey and Thad Levine have built up over the past six years, they can ill afford to give off a vibe that they had no alternative plan if Plan A (i.e. re-signing Correa) fell through. There's still time to right the ship.

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