Southwest Sider

Deja Vu. A hundred times. What happened to the Padres? That whole rumor just went south, Sox stuck to their guns, and are still in 1st place with whatever their offer is?

Sliding that link into my bookmarks. You sent me down a little rabbit hole just now. Did you hear that they are remastering C&C and Red Alert 1, with original Westwood devs? Could be a good sign for a remastered RA2 down the road too...

Wow. Very nice. I was a big player of the Command and Conquer series. Red Alert was my jam as a kid. Red Alert 2 was also amazing. Good memories. You ever play Supreme Commander? My buddies recently got me into that one.

I had a spell in my mid to late 20s like that as well. Didn't own a PS4 or any next-gen console. PS3 gathered dust. Sparingly, I used my PC for a game now and then. I must be honest, the past few years since its launch I did play a fair amount of Pokemon Go. I guess that counts as a game. But now I am 31, got a Switch on launch day and intended to re-sell it on eBay. Instead, I kept it and played the crap out of Zelda. Next thing I know I've got a PS4 and some games for that as well, and I am back to gaming. My attention span and time available for it isn't as great as my younger days, but when there's time (like today), it's enjoyable. I definitely try to stay away from accumulating a queue of titles. My friend has that problem and I feel bad for him. By the time he touches a game he spent $60 on, it's $30 or less. If I buy a brand new titles, I am in on it til I am sick of it. Then I get a few games for cheap on the side incase there's nothing new for me to play. I have Last of Us and Final Fantasy in my queue.

Unless the work is super urgent, I'd hope you would get a pass on today just because of the conditions. IMO no one should really have to go to a Starbucks as a last resort for work, unless it actually cannot wait. Stay warm buddy.

With the money, I guess most are hoping for a reunion with Panarin. I wouldn't be totally against that. The sequence of events if it occurs is somewhat funny. 1. Saad for Anisimov+ 2. Panarin for Saad 3. ??? 4. Sign Panarin 5. Have All 3 Sadly enough, the Blue Jackets would be at the brunt of these jokes. I absolutely cannot argue against Coach Q and don't wish to. I believe I would feel the same way about a Hawks bolstered roster under Q next year as I would under current conditions. Perhaps even better. The only thing that is interesting to me is that Bowman seemed to quickly get rid of "Q guys" like Manning shortly after his departure, which means there might have been some level of disagreement as to personnel and hockey strategy between the GM and the coach. After the disappointments of the last few seasons, I am honestly excited for an organizational refresh while Toews and Kane are still young-ish. That said, I wouldn't find it shocking in the least if Q is back strong with a new organization soon. Maybe it was time for a new voice, maybe not. Time will tell.

I'm intrigued. I'm all aboard the Hawk tankathon for this year in hopes of grabbing Hughes, but I don't think the Hawks are too far away from a turnaround if Bowman is right with his personnel and coaching decisions. He already seems like he's able to make moves more freely, like without the heavy input of Coach Q. If that is actually a good thing or not is yet to be determined. It does intrigue me, though.

Manny, A Couple Hot Ass Deals Offered. Sign It Good Now, No One Waits

If you have any links to any of those, I would love to check them out.

Certainly he will be justified in a higher ask. If the Phillies don't get involved and other teams are not serious, that just means he could drag this thing out even longer than before. Instead of having a buy it now price of 280 over some years, it may increase to 300+. Without competition, Lozano will eventually have to settle. It would just be harder for him to do so.

Generally, I agree with you. I believe earlier in the offseason there were some rumors that the Phillies would try to get both. If they were willing to lock up Harper at nearly Boras' price, it shows a willingness to spend stupid money. I don't believe Philly would sign both, but it is within the realm of possibility that they get into the Machado sweepstakes and push the price past a comfort point for the Sox.

Also, with the numbers being floated for Machado being no higher than 250-260, why would the Phillies suddenly tack on 100 million to a market sized contract? The only justification I can see is if their owner literally decided to live by his stupid money words. I guess I wouldn't be shocked if that was the case, given the owners comments. I'd also be a little surprised that an organization of businessmen would pay such a premium. All said, to get Harper, it was gonna have to come down to a big contract like that anyway. Boras will barely budge from his numbers and everyone knows it. It is quite plausible that the Phillies decided to just go get their guy.

I think it's good and bad. More bad. The good: If it happens, I think it's something Lozano didn't expect, which would give him a greater urgency to complete a deal with the Sox or whoever. That said... If it happens, it's largely under Boras' terms. Boras isn't desperate yet, so it would be a contract much greater than the Nats 10/300 before the offseason to get Harper to sign now. "Stupid money" remarks notwithstanding, I honestly have a hard time believing the Phillies just decided to say fuck it and meet Boras price. If they did, it sets the market and gives Lozano more leverage for at least 300 million in a contract. Lozano may have more urgency to sign, but he will also have more bargaining power given the going rate of elite baseball players in this free agency period. Additionally, if the Phillies really have decided to tap into the nefarious power of 'stupid money', what stops them from pivoting towards Machado once Harper is locked up? If Harper got something like 10/350, and the Phillies are willing to go 10/300-325 for Harper, are the Sox still gonna be in this thing?

Everyone relax, Rick Hahn was just hungover as shit this morning. I definitely couldn't give good interviews in the morning after a night time bender.

Kaplan asking the tough questions lol... This morning has been quite strange indeed.

LMAO I just noticed that he's actually snacking on it. At first glance it looked like he was just holding it up in the air and intended to smack the glove based on the photographers observations. Jokes on me! 😂

Whatever it is, if it's in the bag they should just get it out there now. Even if it were a Machado signing, the crowd at Soxfest would still be super pumped to have him introduced there even if it wasn't a "surprise, we just signed Manny!" thing.

Nice list. Funny typo. Or was it? 😂

Here we go.. got me excited now!!

FINALLY SOMETHING HAPPENS At first glance, this looks like a pretty darn good deal. On the surface, this definitely could hurt the arguments of Harper and Machado for record breaking contracts.

It'd be interesting to know the AAV of the Sox deal. Sounds like Milwaukee blew everyone away as far as dollars in a year go.

Hunting is definitely a good bit of fun! So far, I've hunted legendary cougar, fox, wolf and elk. The wolf gave me a good scare. I took a repeater with me and shot him in what I thought was his head. He started rushing me and I was barely able to get off another shot on his head as he then fell down dead right beside me. Good times there. The elk was weird. I found it, got a shot off and it bolted. I started tracking it in what seemed to be circles. I figured it was gone at that point, so I started back to my horse and there was the elk... right next to my horse. I whispered "don't move Nokota..." as I was able to pull off a headshot. The elk started running again, and I'm just like "what the fuck". Then I see on the minimap a dead animal so I go to find it died shortly after running away. Victorious! As for fish, I got a legendary bluegill by the chapter 3 camp. Got a legendary sturgeon by St. Denis... thing was a total b**** to catch. Started to make me hate fishing. The bridge I was fishing off of had train tracks, but hours had gone by without a train so I stuck with it without too much worry of a train... now here's where your comment about Saving often comes into play... I FINALLY CAUGHT THE FUCKER. The game went through the whole congratulatory process and whatnot, but at that same moment a train was actually coming! I also realized my horse was right next to me! I couldn't do anything but watch my horse get totally creamed, and somehow I ended up aboard the train, but dropped my fish. I jumped off the train and ran back to see my horse, dead in the lake. Tried whistling but the game said yo your horse is dead af. I also couldn't pick up my fish that was right there. *Sigh*... reload latest save point again and start over. Good times. 😂 I've heard that some challenges near the end can be a pain in the ass to finish. In particular the gambling and maybe another. I don't remember. I doubt I will have the patience for all of it, because by the time I get close to finishing it will probably be halfway through 2019.

I'm also making my way through RDR2. Chapter 4 here, just getting pretty frustrated with St. Denis and pressing a button to mount my horse but instead what happens is I tackle a pedestrian and get wanted. Or other accidental assaults. Other than that, tons of fun. I love exploring. It reminds me a bit of like a Wild West Zelda. So much stuff to find and do. I never 100% games so I probably won't ever get to do this one either, but it's been well worth the money to this point. One example is God of War. Amazing game, got into a good rhythm with it just like I have with RDR2 now. Decided I wanted to beat all the content and pretty much got down to last few things including the NIflheim Valkyrie. I discovered that Niflheim is a giant pain in the ass and instead of grinding it out, stopped playing. I may revisit it again some day but then other games eventually come along and my little spare time for gaming goes to that.

I'm thinking we might hear a little bit more about these rumors later today. Just a feeling, no sauce.

I really hope at this point that the parties are working their way towards a middle number. It would really suck if the Sox were still on 175, or 250, and Lozano was still stuck over 300+. But maybe theyve figured out a general number and years and now are just finishing up the fine details. WSD tweet would lead me to lean more towards the latter.