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Ugh. If there is one thing the Americans have always been, it is xenophobic. The only thing we have been welcome of it more of our own types. English speaking white Europeans? Sure. Come on over. We have targeted so many different ethnic groups over the centuries, using the same language and the same phrases to do it. The Chinese Exclusion Act, Japanese interment camps, The African Slave trade, No Irish allowed, on and on. All went back to the tried and true "safety" arguments that continue to get used here to this day. Go back and revisit the Zoot Suit riots where Mexicans were being accused of raping US women and were randomly murdered for essentially no reason other than hysteria. If you look at maps of our major cities, a large reason why you see places named Chinatown, Little Italy, Germantown, and the like was the forced segregation and the anti-immigrant sentiments of the periods of times for those ethic groups mass migrations. It is why barrios exist around the US exist today. And please don't pretend like there wasn't terrorism or immigrant violence in the 19th century or whenever our families came over. I mean can we start with the Mafia? Did we shutdown Italian immigration because of that? There has always been an element of trouble, but that is due to poverty and not due to ethnic lines. It isn't Mexicans that are more dangerous than other immigrant groups in the 21st century. That whole idea is just ridiculous. At the end of the day it is one thing to have a structured and legal immigration program in place. But this is a whole other level of humanity here. It also doesn't matter who started it or whatever other political points people want to gain here. For the modern superpower of the world to be acting in this manner is a disgrace. We would have a holy fit if American children were being held without legal representation in camps of this nature in another country. It would be a human rights crisis of the highest degree. And honestly this is something that hasn't been touched since Ronald Reagan was President. No one has had the guts to fix it. Now comes along Donald Trump to exploit it, and to gain from it. While other President turned a blind eye, including Democrats, there is no arguing that Trump has pushed this to another level. The evidence is all 100% clear there. Both are true.

This is just a panic move by the Astros since they haven't won a game in 24 HRs....Fleece em Slick Rick!

But he’s not near 40%, he’s just under 35% for his career. Someone mentioned Judge but Kris Bryant is another example of a guy that struck out >30% in his first 500 plate appearances. Like Judge, he’s not just a perennial all star, he’s a perennial MVP. Also worth noting Bryant was 23 during his rookie year and Judge was 25. Moncada just turned 23. Far too early to write this kid off. He still has perennial all star ability.

I think Abreu can get you one top 100 guy, and maybe 1 or 2 mid-tier guys. But what I wonder is if the Sox can pair Abreu up with one of our relievers, like we did with the Yankees trade last year. Go for one really high-end guy, like Alvarez, whom everyone is mentioning. But on his own, maybe something like LHP Cionel Perez, 3B JD Davis, and C Garrett Stubbs??

If the Sox are willing to pay all of Abreu’s contract does that bring us back a better haul? Would the Sox do something like that?

As I said in previous Abreu threads, the market for 1B/DH bats is the thinnest its been in years. Abreu should command two back end top 100 prospects or one back end, one top 150ish and something interesting. Astros - OF/1B Yordan Alvarez + LHP Cionel Perez + SS/2B Jonathan Arauz Rockies - 3B Colton Welker & RHP Peter Lambert Dodgers - OF Yusniel Diaz + RHP Dennis Santana + LHP Caleb Ferguson Yankees - have a need but don't quite match up with them Angels - SS Kevin Maitan + 2B Jahmai Jones

Big difference between Abreu and JDM. You get an extra season with Abreu, as well as the ability to get a comp pick if he leaves after next season.

You should trade greg on the NYSE because you pretty much own him.

And our guy is out for the season with his second surgery.. If medicals check out, he's still a solid get.

Ironic coming from a guy that thinks this is a 48 win team WITH HIM.

well if your aunt was your uncle she'd have balls.

Man you guys devalue Abreu. Have you looked at his career stats? The guy is an all star and more than that a good clubhouse guy, too. He's a fricking stud. He will bring a ton back. For the record, greg DOES NOT want to trade him, I've just accepted that he gawn.

I think Whitley is the guy to target. They have some lower guys that are interesting as well. Novis and Solis come to mind. He projects as a 1B/DH at the next level. Those guys don't really have a ton of value in trades regardless of where they rank prospect wise.

Mechanically, there can't be much worse from an offensive player in a long time

The Indians crew sucks. They are the cockiest crew I've seen for a team that hasn't won jack shit since Truman was in office.

Watching the game on MLB extra innings Indians broadcast. I hope their announcers realize these dominant pitching performances are due, in part, because they are pitching against the White Sox. They won’t be getting these results against the Yankees or a team that has real hitters!

And get Omar the hell away from young starters.

I think Davis would be a prime candidate. Houston can't find a spot for him. He can play 1 or 3....hard worker and mashes. I'd like a JD Davis +

Wow Alvarez is up to 32 on fangraphs top prospects now. Doubt he's available for Abreu then

Yeah but my points are well reasoned

Why do they need him? If Houston is legit, then JD Davis would likely be part of return, I'd think. Houston probably would be doing Davis a favor to move him as he has proven plenty in AAA.

Let’s strive mightily to win the game

Kemp and Roberts already got ejected over the awful calls, and this one caused Grandal to be ejected in the 9th, with the game on the line.

This is just through 4 innings...

Very normal President.

Yep, he did the Sunday broadcast with Hawk. It was a great listen.

This is the problem. Farmer is not a play-by-play guy, just does not have the talent for it yet he does the PBP. He is a solid analyst, so is DJ, but both need a legit PBP guy to be successful. Rooney was that.

I miss John Rooney, I always thought he was good and made Farmer better.

The rebuild has only begun. I hope they pawn off Abreu and more players for prospects. Get em out of here! Rick Hahn is god!

Exactly. It's the reason a rebuild frustrates some traditional baseball fans. Time means nothing. It's wait til next year year after year if you have to. As long as you are in "rebuild mode" GMs are heroes and nobody has to produce for people to be happy. Soxfest will be just as happy this winter as it was last winter. Cause we are in rebuild mode and results mean nothing. Eventually so many prospects will be on the MLB team that everybody will be so happy tracking their advanced stats. Maybe the team eventually will start winning but for now Sox fans are the old Cub fans, "Wait til next year" is such a happy mantra for many fans. Hopefully in this dream world the Sox will win 2-4 WS titles and remain great for years after that as they keep their players. All skeptical fans like me can do is wait and hope for the best because I don't follow minor league baseball and don't really care about development. I prefer the big league product.

Agree to some extent. Prospect development is not linear. The top 10 pitchers in WAR this year (Fangraphs) broke out at various points in their career: Scherzer, late 20s; DeGrom at 26; Severino, early 20s; Bauer, this year at 27; Verlander right away; Cole pretty early; and Paxton/Kluber late 20s. So patience is clearly justified. On the other hand, at some point soon, others prospects will force the issue and need to be given a chance over Giolito if he keeps struggling. Lopez/Covey/Rodon are the three best right now. Within the next year, Kopech "should" be ready. Jordan Stephens also appears ready to be given a shot soon. So if Giolito does not turn it around in the next three and a half months, you may have no choice but to bump him from the rotation.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, this is a rebuild and you can't live and breathe by the box scores. You need to take a step back and just let "time" play its course. Don't get overly worked up at the up's and down's because you have to be patient in the process. It might be that everything turns into garbage but it also might be that everything turns out. But if you aren't patience and willing to allow players to develop, you'll see a lot less guys "pan out" in our organization because the reality is most players need time to develop. Gio has issues but he also has flashed potential. It has been a rough year for him but he's working with one of the best pitching coaches in the business and the org needs to be patient with him and I see no reason to rush to immediate judgement one way or the other. If you are talking about "fringy" guys who are blocking other high-talented players, okay, I can buy that to some extent, but in the case of Gio, there is no reason why we shouldn't be patient. I will say the same thing about Moncada and Tim Anderson as well.

It was a report on a public conference call with Customs and Border Patrol.

I’m against all of this but I’m also super pissed at the parents- they are not victims here at all but the kids are. The parents aren’t some war-torn refugees. They are trying to game the system the same way millions of others have: cross illegallywith kid, claim asylum, and then never show up to court. That’s been the way in for quite a while. So acting like they’ve made this million mile trek through the desert dodging land mines and accidentally crossed an invisible border illegally is complete bullshit. These aren’t victims. They don’t need asylum and they are more than likely using their kids or somebody’s kids as props to get released, since that’s been the word on the street for a long time. Shame on Trump and shame on these parents for putting kids in harm’s way. Go to the ports of entry and claim your “asylum”.

They don't need to be separated. They could easily hold families together for a few days during a bond hearing or any expedited judicial process. The policy implementation is purposefully horrendous to be a deterrent. Which of the type of thing horrible people like you defend.

The point is, Ronda was INFINITELY more interesting last night when paired with Alexa than she was during her entire runup against Jax. Ronda had her "stone cold" becoming last night against a sniveling, gloating heel and everyone did their jobs perfectly in that segment. THIS is how Alexa needs to be portrayed, not as a dominating ass kicker, but a lying, shortcut taking b****. Also, the little Ronda did speak worked very well because she doesn't have to speak a lot right now, Alexa can carry that. People were questioning why Vince wanted the strap back on Alexa so soon and last night showed us why. The follow up to this will also be important, Alexa needs to talk smack big time knowing Ronda isn't around for the next few weeks, and find a way to weasel her way out of losing to Jax at ER. *fromaselfprofessedalexamark

Seeking asylum isn’t illegal and any viewpoint that you use to rationalize putting toddlers in cages away from their parents is ridiculous and makes you an asshole.

Hes had enough time to heal. They wouldnt have him out there if it wasnt 100%. The issue will be the scar tissue in injury site. There always is some and it will make it more likely for him to injure it again. Its not a guarantee but more likely.

Bat call to @ptatc, who can tell you how smart it is to be incredibly cautious coming back from a re-aggregated soft tissue injury mid season. When Avi gets to the big leagues he's gonna subconsciously (and consciously at times) push that hammie a little harder. Avi is a horse man, he runs hard all the time, it's his most redeeming quality as a player imo. But, a lot like Eaton, that's why he's always fucking injured. Some guys just can't go balls to the wall every play and hold up over 162 games. And if Avi re-injures himself any trade considerations are dead in the water. That is not an acceptable outcome for anyone IMO. So in way more words than SS2K said: be patient.

So back to Giolito talk, the kid only has 25 career starts. Nobody seems to be that concerned with Moncada's struggles and is willing to give him 1500 at bats before they pass judgement. Shouldn't Giolito get 75 or so career starts before he is written off?

The White Sox have no casual fans.

I'm with you on everything but the elimination of the Wild Card, and everyone would be on that bandwagon the moment an 84 win team got in while a 95 win team sat at home. The NFL has the best playoff format, here's how it could be adopted to MLB: 8 divisions, 4 teams per division in 2 leagues with universal DH. Each division winner and 2 Wild Cards get into postseason from each league, for 12 total playoff teams. 3 Game Wild Card Series (Top 2 teams in each league advance to next round automatically) 5 Game Division Series 7 Game Championship Series 7 Game World Series To me, the reason the Wild Card expansion hasn't resulted in a reduction of tanking is that the 1 Game Wild Card round doesn't give enough incentive for fringe teams to get in. Most GMs don't want to mortgage a chunk of the future of their team for what amounts to a coin flip to see if they get into the real playoffs. At least at 3 games you have a series and a Wild Card team will get to see at least 2 games, with at least 1 home game. I think this would increase the interest in being a Wild Card team and thus reduce the number of teams who are outright telling their fans they aren't competing in any given year, which I think would ultimately be best for avoiding concentrations of talent accumulation and "Superteams" and increasing parity throughout the league.

Leury is starting a rehab assignment in Charlotte.

Four team divisions wouldn’t work in baseball. There would be under.500 teams making the playoffs. That can’t happen. If they do it, 16-team leagues, close to a balanced schedule, 1 and 2 seeds get a bye, 3 hosts 6 and 4 hosts 5 in a best of 3. If the 6-seed is under .500, they don’t make the playoffs...3-seed gets a bye too. Then best of 5’s until the World Series. Only the World Series is best of 7.

Eight divisions of four teams each across two leagues. Unversal DH. Division winners get in. 5 game Division series 7 game League Championship series 7 game World Series. I am really against expanding the playoffs. Wild Card era was fun but the dual Wild Card game ruined it for me.

I'm completely against expanded playoffs. One of the things I enjoy about baseball is the fact that the regular season still means a lot - unlike the other sports. The format now is really good. If MLB does expand, I hope they do four 8-team divisions instead of eight 4-team divisions.

Avi 1 for 2 with a walk with Charlotte Tuesday.

Simulated game with a couple towel drills......Hansen is my favorite prospect so now i can enjoy baseball again.

Hansen threw 5 innings Sunday.....0 ER, 0 BB, 3 H, 5 SO.......