Chisoxfn

Their SUV is really slick looking too - has a range rover kind of look to it.

Congrats!!!

Like I said - I expect puff pieces in the off-season, but I could also have seen a bunch of stuff talking about how Mitch is kind of isolated, taken more of a back seat, etc. The opposite has held true. I will also caveat, no one ever knocked Mitch's work ethic (that I had heard of)...the question is did this just increase the overall intensity. We'll have to wait and see if it is good or bad, but I like the aggression he is showing (as in general I've always thought Mitch wasn't aggressive enough).

LOL - I had debated throwing out the relegation angle - but I dont' think you can do that after the fact. I do think you could do something around the lottery odds, which I know has been thrown around in the past anyway (to minimize the pure reward for tanking). But draft reform already shifted odds to lessen teams from tanking. I think in a normal cadence you are right, they played enough of the season. I think the issue is with the league year not starting until Christmas and the play stopping in March, you are extending the amount of time players sit out, etc.

Yeah - This seems to line up nicely. Sox like to be bargain shoppers so having ability to spend, team positioned well, etc, could be a real opportune time. Hopefully 2020's performance on the field backs this up (i.e., the team does well and young players continue to ascend).

I read something the other day that mentioned Mitch's new trainer indicated he had an inbalance in his throwing shoulder which has been addressed this off-season. I love how Mitch has seemingly responded to the Foles news. Quietly hoping we see him take 2-3 steps forward this year and emerge as the franchise player the Bears originally hoped he could be.

I get why the teams not invited are worried though. It does stunt their players developmental growth, etc. You could say - well be a better team, but it wasn't like teams realized this would happen going into the season. I'm a Bulls fan so would want to watch for no reason other than to see the young players get more practice time. I also don't want for one the players to get hurt in a meaningless game either (so it is hard to say which I prefer - but at the very least enabling practice with some solid scrimmages seems like a good and fair construct.

I think thus far they are saying through testing 10%+ of NBA players have either tested positive and/or shown antibodies for Covid. I presume with all the travel NBA players did before lockdowns and the fact that they probably just see more people, they would in general be expected to have higher infection / antibody rates than a regular individual.

If the NBA does a 2nd bubble for those teams that didn't make the initial cut (i.e., the Bulls), I wonder if they can find a creative way to make it interesting (implications on lottery balls or something). Maybe ridiculous, but I think with everything going on with COVID, every league should find ways to push the envelope on creativity.

Funny part was, Mark Buehrle emerged to be the best of the entire bunch and was never on anyones list. Still, I think if the Sox ever were able to figure out their 5th starter woes during those windows, they would have had a lot of playoff runs and who knows what could have happened.

Technically Kip Wells was a top prospect at the time, as was Garland. I don't recall, but I don't remember when Jon Rauch's labrum imploded (and whether he might have been ready in 2000 or if that was 2001). But yes, the rotation was not pretty. Eldred was pretty solid (but even when he was pitching solid - I think you all knew he would eventually implode...or get injured). Note: Just looked up Wells..kind of crazy someone with a career ERA+ <80 pitched in 12 major league seasons

That was just a really really fun team. Lots of good young players who peaked, especially offensively, mixed with right mix of veterans. It was too bad the pitching broke down / was not good. The Mariners series was just a brutal match-up, partly because they were in the shadows for most of the games (which certainly didn't help a team that relied heavily on offense). The team also showed its fair share of nerves where you just saw they were playing tight after getting backed into a corner.

What is even more sad, the EU really is reigned by a number of various countries and still managed through it better, vs. the US, which yes, has 50 states, but collectively under one federal government. Sometimes I just wonder - what if, at the very least, Trump preached the US of masks from the start (or at least once we shut down and CDC revised its recommendation). That one item - could have been the difference of us being on the same path as the EU vs. being the dumpster fire we are today (we will still survive as a country - but more people will have lost their lives (and our economy will be more impacted) all because of that one action in particular.

Well timed - I was just coming in here to say I moved all of those posts to the CoronaVirus thread that is focused on that topic.