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So, I'm reading In the Garden of Beasts right now, Erik Larson's (Devil in the White City) book about the American ambassador to Germany from 1933-1937. I haven't ever really touched the subject of how Hitler came to power, and how he was able to obtain popular support in Germany for objectively inhumane and horrible policies. In any event, as I'm reading, I note similarities between the events that Larson depicts (Nazi's attacking the "other" - in their case the Jews, their attacks on the press, and perhaps most startlingly, the number of instances of foreigners getting assaulted for not giving the Nazi salute during parades) and some of the things this administration has done (verbal attacks on immigrants - legal or illegal, attacks on the mainstream media as "fake news," and demonizing people for not standing during the National Anthem). Note, I'm obviously not saying that Donald Trump is Hitler. I don't bring these comparisons up to say that Donald Trump is about to start gas chambers for immigrants, or to invade the world. Rather, I think it's important to note some of the similarities between Hitler's rise to power, and the authoritarian nature of President Trump's behavior in office. The flag stuff, the military parade, the demonizing immigrants, the attacks on the press. The fact that he cozies up to Putin, and expresses admiration for Kim Jong Un and Duterte of the Philippines while attacking NATO and our allies. This is really authoritarian stuff. And this is the stuff that shouldn't be normalized, and that both sides of the aisle should be pushing back against hard. This is the stuff that transcends my team vs. your team. And we should be taking lessons from the rise of authoritarian leaders of the past (even, gasps, Adolf Hitler) to recognize the signs and push back against it.

Jenks, this is the stuff that I'm talking about in the other thread though. We can't normalize this type of authoritarian behavior from the President of the United States. There needs to be forceful condemnation of these types of words from both sides of the aisle. I agree with you that those words probably didn't cause this specific shooting, but they are still completely and utterly unacceptable. And until his own party actually calls him out on this, nothing is going to change.

What I'm getting from SoxTalk: Why aren't all of our minor leaguers hitting like 1994-1998 Frank Thomas?

So I was able to dive a little deeper into your claim that Jose Abreu has lost bat speed as he's aged & is now unable to catch up to fastballs. Below are some numbers (four seamer data only) I've pulled from Statcast and my underlying findings: 2018 represents Jose's highest average exit velocity on four seamers (since Statcast started) 2018 represents Jose's highest line drive % of balls in play on four seamers (since Statcast started) Jose is swinging more on four seamers this year, both inside & outside the zone Jose's batted balls in play are down a bit this year, entirely due to pitches outside the zone Jose's swinging K percentage is up a bit this year, far more significantly outside the zone Jose's HR numbers are relatively flat, but with some small improvement within the zone Jose's XBH numbers are up moderately, entirely due to improvement within the zone Jose's batter balls in play are up significantly against high velocity pitches, both within & outside the zone Jose's swinging K % is down significantly against high velocity pitches, both within & outside the zone Jose appears to be struggling with low velocity pitches within the zone & medium velocity pitches outside the zone I see no evidence to suggest a substantial drop-off in bat speed or that his ability to catch-up to fastballs has been impacted

I apologize, it's true we do have too much pitching

A loaded Oregon State team to a loaded Winston-Salem team. He’s not going to be used to losing when he makes it to Chicago.

Or maybe you can just give him some time to figure out the strike zone first. My God. We've become such a culture of instant gratification.

I mean, I think we're all a little frustrated with Moncada. But the talent is there, and we just need to give it time. He'll come around.

I doubt there are many Trump "supporters." I think there are several conservatives on the board who don't agree with Trump (vehemently so) but nevertheless don't buy into the bullshit "if you don't agree with liberal-think you're a bigot/racist/fascist Trump Nazi." Myself included. And it's just not worth the effort of contributing anything to the board when you're immediately held responsible for mass shootings because you believe in gun rights and/or that you apparently support family separation policies because you believe that sensible immigration laws/enforcement is necessary.

This may be true but the strikeouts are very alarming and with this pitching staff those errors especially on "easy" plays are causing them trouble because often they can't pitch around them. No one is arguing about his potential but also keep in mind this was the #1 prospect in all of baseball, consensus across the board, to see him struggling like this gets your attention. This wasn't a 17th round draft pick or a minor league free agent. This was supposedly the top guy. Now add in the Sox issues with developing everyday players (non-pitchers) for the last 15 years and fair or not fans start to think, "they're screwing up another kid...again."

Why are we stuck in 1954, thinking that his fielding is bad because of a completely subjective stat that doesn't take into account any sort of play made that the average fielder wouldn't make. We've made progress with fans finally accepting that batting average has little meaning in modern baseball, so why do people choose to ignore the vast array of new defensive statistics and base opinions off of one outdated, extremely flawed stat? I care as much about a player's error count as I do how many sandwiches they eat. It is really so subjective and a limited indicator of defensive skill that I'd argue it's even less relevant than batting average. If you watch the games, it's obvious that he sometimes botches an easy play, but he'll iron those out and he makes up for it with his incredible range. He's a top 5 defensive 2B in baseball per Fangraphs. Even if you disagree with that, I think it's very clear that he's an above average fielder at this point in time.

If his fielding continues to suck, wouldn't shock me at all if they demote him to send a message.

I think it's time to move Yolmer back to 2b. It's either that or send his ass back to Charlotte. Some one has got to get his attention and let him know he is no longer the chosen one.

It's amazing how quickly he deterioated. He's a cornerstone of our rebuild and watching him play is embarrassing lately. How the hell did he become this bad?

200 strikeouts in first 568 plate appearances. That's not good

Geeze. This is baseball...shouldn't they at least keep it interesting for a few minutes?

Well Red Sox traded for Pierce so they will not be a suitor for Abreu.

Look what you did!

We actually have three respectable starters??

I enjoyed this read from a couple days ago on this subject:

Hahaha. Sorry. I got nothing.

And Q has been a disappointment for the cubs this year for sure. I think it’s due to a secret love Q has for the Sox so he’s stinking on purpose.

A DSA candidate also bumped out the house majority whip in Virginia in the Coastal Elite area of *checks notes* Harper's Ferry. They aren't just winning on the coast, but even if they were, I'm still going to be happy about the best candidate possible in a given area.

Why isn't HE hitting like 1994 Frank Thomas?!?!?!

I think we'll see this happen during the back end of our lifetimes. American Football, while a great game, has inherent injury risks that cannot be mitigated without significantly altering the nature of that game. By extension, youth American Football and school-sponsored programs will have to either change the game, or face insane liability insurance costs in the future. Fewer and fewer parents [to include former American football players] want to see their kids have premature neurological issues as a result of playing American football. By extension, I'd imagine that the other team sports [Baseball, Basketball, Soccer] will have more kids participating who once played American Football in the past.

I think you're giving too much credit to this FO. The biggest offense was resigning Mirotic when their goal was to tank and rebuild. This is a well known symptom with the Bulls for many years, that they simply cannot let average players go for nothing, even though it doesn't align with the goal of the team. Which is why I fully expect them to overpay and retain Lavine. Had we not had the Mirotic effect, we likely be looking at a 1st or 2nd pick. When it's all said and done, but we effectively moved up from 37th pick to the 22nd pick while taking on $14M future salary. But moved up from the worst record to the 6/7th worst. Second biggest offense is after we lucked into getting Bell at a spot much lower than most expected him to go, we sold him for cash considerations. General consensus was this is a bad move at the time (not revisionist history). Bell now looks like the next Clint Capela with maybe even more impact defensively and a better passer. I wouldn't be surprised if he was a top 10-15 pick this draft. Third biggest offense was poor talent evaluation and overpaid for Felicio who has only shown glimpse of potential but as the same time limitations. The worst part is locking him up for 4 years. I'm also surprised they couldn't at least get rid of Holiday, or even Lopez, but I will cut them some slack on this one. So had these moves not screwed up for us, we'd like be looking at a core of Bell/Lauri/Doncic/Dunn with money for 2 max players this and next year. I'll give credit to them for hitting the the Lauri pick and buying low on Dunn. But they haven't gotten much right for this rebuild ever since.

You just said that you "hated" that a red rose twitter handle was getting in. I also don't know how a group that is part of the Democratic Party and is helping bring people into the party and be active in the party isn't helping or advancing the party. I love how centrists were mad that people like Ralph Nader were running and that people were supporting him. They said why don't you just join the Democrats and run in the primary. So that is what DSA is doing and now that is bad as well. I guess just fall in line with the party that has lost over a 1000 seats in the past few years and don't complain.

Hes 26 and has accomplished nothing in his career while the Red Sox enter a roster crunch. I wouldn't give up anything remote of value and would ask for him for free. If the Red Sox continue to over value him then so be it.

I disagree, it got significantly worse when the racists and bigots came out of the woodwork when to their horror a person of color was elected president. But really, it was the Nixon administration that was patient zero for the radical right virus that infects this country now.(I'm looking at you Kissinger) It should have been quarantined in the 1970s, as it spawned Ronald Reagan, who was the was the catalyst for it. Read about Paul Manafort's "Southern Strategy" in the 1980 election. That election was won on racism and bigotry based on so called Christian Values. Also, a lot of the illegal immigration issues we're facing now comes from the destabilization of Latin America due to the foreign policy decisions of one Henry Kissinger during the Nixon/Ford administrations.

And corporations are forevermore going to take priority over the American people, thanks to the SC, well, let’s just say for the next 25-30 years at least.

I miss the days of reasonable takes and analysis of our prospects without the copious amounts of negativity and pure shit-posting.

Dude, Gleyber Torres is two years younger than Moncada and is already a better player. I would argue that Torres is light years ahead of Moncada at the plate right now. The kid is scary good and is looking like a generational talent. Albies is also two years younger and already a better player. No one is writing Moncada off completely yet, but this excuse that not all development is linear is getting lame. He is getting lapped by his peers. Let's hope he can catch up with them and become the stud that he was projected to be.

I would say a large majority of Republicans/conservatives support Trumps policies. They just don't like him because he is crude. That's why he has almost a 90% approval rating from his party.

This. I will never get how so many of the same people who cried for a rebuild for years, and are acting like we are still in go for it mode with the pitch to pitch evaluations of everyone in the entire system on a daily basis. If you can't handle erratic play, bad slumps, horrible fundamentals, and bad IQ baseball, you probably shouldn't root for a rebuild.

Despite the fact that I think that Trump is a scumbag to the nth degree, a downright despicable human being and a compulsive liar, If he does something positive I would give him credit for it (it hasn't happened yet and I'm not holding my breath) I agree with him in principle about protecting US jobs and keeping them here, but I disagree with the way he's going about it.

Also, Moncada is still one of the highest rated defensive 2B. Fangraphs has him at #5

Nope, everyone needs to be superstars right away or else they're busts. The irony is that everyone's favorite young players (Torres, Andujar, Albies) all have major issues. Torres is the worst defensive 2B in baseball, Andujar is the worst defensive 3B in baseball, and Albies forgot how to play baseball.

The need for people to write off prospects as quickly as possible is quite amazing. Before Moncada went down with his injury, the kid was incredibly productive (.868 OPS / wRC+ 140) and was top two in exit velocity. While there was BABIP luck fueling those numbers, the power was beyond legit. He was also one of the highest rated defenders at 2B and I believe the highest rated base-runner in all of baseball. To say he was flashing superstar potential would be a massive understatement. What has happened since then I’m not sure and clearly his overall game is suffering from him pressing on the offensive side, but I will never doubt a kid with this much ability. Maybe he never reaches his ceiling, but I’m going to give a lot more time to figure his shit out because we’ve already seen what it looks like when everything is clicking.

I kinda miss the good old school days on the FS board. Love that the system is good and alot of posters are interested in the minor leaguers (especially when it used to not be like that) but some of the annoyance from some who don't understand the ups and downs and/or current situations, certain guys as a whole from not seeing a prospect(s), etc. Reminds me of Hawks fans from the dark ages to the "bandwagon" fans.

Nolan Arenado was out today publicity asking Rockies management for trade help. They need a 1st baseman bad. I think Abreu’s mentoring has run its course. Let’s make a deal.

Awesome! So stoked that Madrigal gets to end his career as a Champ, but also, please sign tomorrow and get this thing started.

I picked a good year to move to Belgium. This has been really fun. And with the U.S. not making it, it has been nice to have a legitimate team I can root for.

In contrast to some of the other teams, which are in the "race to the bottom," the Sox have few contributing assets, which will be traded, at the deadline. Moreover, they have just gotten back Rodon and the 'Garcias'. The improvement in the lineup, coupled with the continuing development of the young guys, and oh yes, a surprisingly decent bullpen, could surprise a lot of people. If they trade both Soria and Shields, it may depend upon how well their replacements do. Nevertheless, I wouldn't be surprised if this team played .500 baseball, the rest of the way. That would leave them with a final record, 23 games below .500. 68 wins would not put them in a great position for the Draft, but it would be fun to watch and would hopefully start to create a winning culture, for this young core. Frankly, I'm more concerned about how well our current crop of prospects progress, than I am about the potential for another couple of top Draft picks. I'd be satisfied, if they end up picking in the top 7 or 8.

I'm out.

This is about the only situation that I'd be cool with keeping Migo.

We are all going to need rehab once he re-takes the mound for the White Sox.

He's probably a better option than Giolito right now. That's counter-tank productive.

I played. Then my son played, and I don’t think I will ever get a chance again