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Jake Burger has been through hell and back. I don't understand the fat jokes. He's supposed to be a really good guy. He is a White Sox. Maybe pull for him.

Yeah, but it was regarding the frozen pizza he had in the oven.

This is 3 years old, just stop.

Always believe the rumors. Then poke fun at the guy. The funny thing is I would bet that he looks like the Rock next to some people making fat jokes at his expense.

Is this lifted from an article? If so, please source it, and probably should not be copying and pasting that much of a piece here.

If it makes you feel better. I just don't understand it. He was a better prospect. Got hurt, and got hurt again. Pretty traumatic for a guy just starting his professional career. Judging him without knowing any facts, just things you want to believe, is ridiculous. Frankly, I think White Sox fans should have nothing but compassion for the guy.

I hear Joe Borchard has "light tower power"

Look, do whatever you want to, I just think your formatting will drive people away. If the “content and analysis” is really what’s important to you, then you should make the change. If you simply care about your pride, then stick with the italics. Again, I’m not trying to be a dick, was just trying to give you some friendly advice.

I’m really not trying to be a dick and can respect your logic for using the italics, but in all honestly it makes your posts much less friendly to read. I would highly recommend changing your style or people will likely skip through your posts.

That horse left the barn.

Boomers on message boards man. There's another one on another baseball board that personally signs all his posts with his real name like he's writing a fucking letter to the editor.

Not trying to be critical or rude at all, and I apologize if it seems that way, but why the italicization?

After having watched all of his posted videos, I'm sorry to have to say that they really are awful. Tim seems to be constantly "playing to the camera". Most of his continuous hand symbols and mutterings, are either inaudible, or unintelligible, and often cringe worthy. The intriguing idea of having good quality video, revealing an inside look into the personality of this appealing group of Sox players seemed promising. Unfortunately, this effort falls far short of its potential. Eloy has the personality to do something like this, but I'm afraid that Tim just isn't cut out for it. Perhaps the best thing Tim could do is simply pretend that no one is capturing any of his antics on video. Just be himself and stop playing to the camera. Oh, and better quality video, and better editing would also help. Nevertheless, I like Tim, love the way he plays, and appreciate the good things he does. Hey Tim, just "don't give up your day job".

Marcus Semien is a free agent next year. Good thing you aren't the GM, because that's some trash

Isn't that why we have user names and pics we can use?

The Real Steve Cishek in now.

Or, in this case, to quickly scroll past it.

You just knew Ricky would do his lefty-righty bs. Delmonico hitting 4th. Before someone says "spring training", you know this is going to happen in the regular season.

what about the name that appears to the left of the post?

Moncada has said many times now that he doesn't like leading off. Why would him leading off still be a consideration?

This doesn't mean he's given up; do you really think the Sox invited him to camp and he said thanks but no thanks? Also, do you expect him to post videos from the strenuous and lonely rehab process on his social media? I don't get the assumptions many are making; rehab is horribly lonely and depressing... even more so when you consider that this is his career on the line, and he worked his ass of (I'm sure he did) the first time only to fall victim to the same injury. This is a traumatic injury as well, and it really limits the amount of cardio and etc you can do to stay in shape. Burger may just have a body type that, regardless of his work, will be a little larger. The fear that must seep into his head when doing the most basic drills is immense. I don't know why anyone thinks they know anything about his work ethic and etc... rumors were derived from his appearance - nothing said by anyone within the organization. By all accounts, his teammates constantly post and support him on social media as well so he doesn't appear to be some lazy asshat whose teammates hate him.

3rd catcher / insurance in case of injury. For all of the griping over the years about Collins' defense, Mercedes makes him look like Yadier Molina.

Giv me big boi yermin and trade that bust collins

Did Parkman actually make that “Gollum” post? I thought it was some other poster making a sarcastic post falsely under Parkman’s name. Wow. Parkman, no one in this country or world is required to work hard at their respective jobs to share jack shit with you or any other entitled people who share your insane beliefs. Nailed it. Your timing was impeccable.

It’s amazing how people don’t understand the concept of taxes and how services are ultimately paid for. States and governments aren’t just giving out free money. It’s comes from somewhere (i.e. taxpayers).

Look at this. Top income tax bracket in Denmark is 60% and it kicks in at 55K. Sweden, it's 57% and kicks in 66K, Finland, 49% at 79.5K, Norway 40% at 88K, New Zealand 33% at 47K. Switzerland is a bit of an outlier with 42% affecting income over 213K (I call it an outlier because it's the only top bracket that wouldn't affect me, but it's still more drastic than the USA. Also, these countries all have tiny homogeneous populations (5-10 million) and strict immigration controls, with strong restrictions on who can show up and access welfare benefits. So, anyway, fine, you're free now because the state taxes everyone enormously to pay for your stuff. Congrats. Wanna talk about how my freedom is restricted by this? If my wife and I make 100K a year filing jointly, you just took something like 17K out of my pocket. I worked for four months for no reason just so you could not worry about food. What about my freedom? You wanna know why I could be so calloused towards people like you, well...you'd deprive my children of my labor so you could live in your fantasyland and babble about how great it is that you're finally free. Sorry- screw you, buddy.

You've obviously haven't spend time living and working in those countries. It absolutely not true by your definition. They are beholden to the almighty currency as anyone. Especially Switzerland. I've worked in Zurich, the cost of living there is impossibly high. It puts Chicago to shame.

C’mon, try to answer it from an “intellectual standpoint.” ?

Ouch, awful situation. Hope something opens for you.

If this is the definition, no one in the history of mankind has ever been free.

He's almost certainly going to get a shot this year, unless you think Jose and EE play a combined 300 games. He's a DH/1B only. You can't have him catch a MLB game based on what we've seen this spring. I'm not sure why the Sox haven't gotten off the pot on that yet.

Honestly, it’s not helping anything and your obsessive use of carriage returns after single sentences is brutal. You are writing posts, not haikus. Add in all these carriage returns with your Caufield-length posts and you are making threads absolutely painful to scroll through.

Wow he can do it all! Trade Grandal & McCann!

I've been fortunate enough to watch a few games with Mercedes playing on mlb network this year. He reminds me somewhat of Pablo Sandoval. I hope the White Sox find him some AB's at the big league level this year.

Having insurance provided by employers is the biggest restriction of true freedom for Americans. How many people stay at jobs they hate because of good health benefits? How many people would take a chance a start a business if health benefits weren't tied to employers? How many people after losing/changing jobs have to hold off on health care because they have to wait for the health benefits to kick in? The system needs to be overhauled no doubt. Maybe medicare for all is not the answer most would like to see but get rid of employer based health care plans and have all these insurance companies compete for business the old fashioned free market way. Better coverage/benefits for the best price and may the weakest providers be thrown into the grinder. It obviously needs to be super regulated but that way people don't have to great anxiety about how to get covered if your employer based health plans absolute hot booty grease. Deductibles should be based on your salary and capped accordingly. OOP maxes as well. Premiums as well. I am in between jobs right now and in health care purgatory waiting for my new benefits to kick in. Fingers crossed I don't need any health care until April. What kind of freedom is that shit?

McCann still exists right?

And what if we give him a chance and rakes in the majors, is still just going to be a bat off the bench if he is one of our best hitters? People are assuming he is not the real deal but we won't know unless we give him a chance.

YM has a serious shot at 26 because he has shown serious hitting skills. Given his age there is no concern about his development or pt. Just roll with it.

I was excited too, unfortunately I was informed by other Soxtalk members that Yermin is unlikely to amount to anything. Supposedly, because previous 25yr old+ AAA players in the Sox organization that have put up .850+ OPS have failed, that Yermin is doomed and we shouldn’t get so excited. That being said, I’m hoping those in the organization have more sense than this shallow thinking:)

LET THE MAN PLAY! Plenty of folks here will be eating crow

I think he is saying you can't just throw out random names as examples of players who couldn't produce at the MLB because we could just as easily do the opposite.. AKA provide names of former minor leaguers who put up big numbers and continued to in the MLB, specifically non-major prospects (Like Yermin). I am with him, stating bad MLB players who had a good year or two in the minors is not the same.

Again, you selectively picking players with similar statistics is not a “comparison”. It literally has no predictive ability or signal, thus is useless. The success or failure of those players (and others with very different stats) play no role in the future for Mercedes. You may personally believe it, but it doesn’t make it true. We can all data mine to find things to fit our narrative.

Wanting to see someone get a shot in the majors doesn’t mean we’re getting ahead of ourselves. And cherry picking players with a 800+ OPS literally has nothing to do with whether or not Mercedes will be successful or not. Nobody, and I repeat nobody, is saying that he definitely WILL BE successful because of minor league numbers. Only that they think he deserves a chance. It may be you who doesn’t understand the context by evidence of the straw man you built above.

If you're going to tell me Fangraphs is comparing Brinson to LuBob because of their skin color you are ignorant at the least.

One is Latin and the other black. Those arent the same races. Besides that, great point there einstein. In the sports comp world, people of similar skin color seem to always be comped to each other.

Yeah, lets make something racially based that clearly is not with an orginization that regularly ranks "dark skinned" baseball players. Give me a fucking break. Ill edit this too. If you want to virtue signal about garbage racially biased takes go to Reddit. You'll get like 1000 upvotes. This is not the first time I have seen you say something as dumb as this about race.

I agree. His plate discipline profile isn't that great but for a supposedly raw player he did perform a lot.

Maybe it's like the original Civilization games, where Gandhi is so passive off the bat that if he becomes more passive, it broke the game and he became a power hungry warlord. Luis Robert is so weak that he can hit BOMBS off the top off scoreboards, because it just skips the field of the play.

Nah, they've upgraded individual grades for players throughout the season. They have maintained their power grade by choice. And there reasoning was... well lewis brinson who is also dark skinned and athletic and did cool things in the minors isn't good so Robert isn't either. Brinson never had a year like Robert has had though and literally downgrading a prospect because another human being had good tools and failed is one of the dumbest rationales ever. Players are unique. Lewis Brinsons outcome has nothing to do with Robert's. Prospects of all kinds of abilities and skills have failed. Some elite walk/k rate guys were complete trash. Some elite contact guys with good defense were trash. Robert started the year exactly where he ended it for fangraphs, 20th. Which is absurd unless they expected him to go 35/45 with an ops over 1000 and a 165 wRC+. He was an unknown to start the year.