nrockway

Chief "Don't Call Me Vlad" Sosa looks a lot better this callup.

Something about Robert and Eloy getting on base then Robert being driven home by Vaughn is satisfying and gives me some optimism for the future in light of the ' cautiously good' news.

Wow. would've thought they'd wait until the offseason and would've thought KW sticks around.

And the Sox are about as close in attendance to the A’s than they are to the Cubs whereas the A’s have been purposefully trying to torpedo attendance for about a decade. Obviously there’s interest there for a baseball team as much as there is for a second Chicago team. And more real estate development potential which is a necessity now when it comes to building a new stadium. I just don’t think Chicago’s position within the nation is as strong as it used to be and it’s hard to justify two teams. I think the only way the Sox stay is if there really is some “ballpark district” kind of development opportunity and it won’t be around 35th and shields. My money is on “bronzeville” or around the United center.

I'm talking about in the middle of the night, grandpa

Who would move a team out of the East Bay?

This is a few years earlier than expected but not surprising. There is no willpower to build a new park for the Sox anywhere in city limits but I also don't think they're out of GRF in 6 years. That being said, if there could be a site for a new ballpark I bet there is actual willpower to redevelop large swathes of land around the Michael Reese hospital site and that the city would facilitate the process. The ongoing project is very stupid and a giant waste of money, but part of a larger strategy to yuppify the land between McCormick Place and Hyde Park. If they could figure out how to make a ballpark "inclusive" and "equitable" and "sustainable" and "innovative" maybe there could be a new South Side Park.

it's not that hard to believe, maybe you're old and funny looking

ez win

It is an exaggeration but not a huge one. Never been so much as catcalled in my life til I moved to boystown, all of a sudden people are coming up to me in bars and biting me or grabbing my ass or yelling at me on the street. It’s a weird place man. I’m not homophobic and have lived in San Francisco’s gay district too but men are still men and Chicago is the epicenter for every gay man in the Midwest, creep or not.

could you imagine kopech's era if he played for the rockies?

Used to live by that BP at Irving Park and Broadway, first gas station to stop at if you're getting off LSD toward Wrigley. I bet that's where it happened. Sketchiest place imaginable, every other night there would be a carjacking or a robbery or a hit and run. One of my neighbors was paralyzed in a hit and run there a few years ago, if I heard sirens you bet it was because someone robbed the minimart. Lakeview is honestly a shithole even beyond the Cubs and Ohio State yuppies. Don't even get me started on the everyday sexual harassment (I'm a man). I now live on the south side and there's some irony that I feel 1000 times safer than I ever did living on the north side or how I feel in the Loop after about 7:00pm.

I "do" have a clue about it (what do you know about me) and I can objectively prove it too but I'm done with this s%*#, I like this forum and I'm not going to get banned because of my opinion about dogs.

I don't want to argue about dogs either on a baseball forum but there's very good reason municipalities make these laws. you don't hear about poodles or shih tzus doing this stuff because they weren't bred to be pea-brained killing machines like pits. at least dobermans and rottweilers have some brainpower. they are also a complete drain on animal shelters who could be providing care for dogs that should actually be around children...like a lab, an actual family dog.

Dogs also do what they've been bred to do for countless generations. They're bred to fight and they're dumb too and hard to train relative to a lot of other breeds.

that's exactly what I take out of it lol. the "family dog" that will rip a toddler's face off for looking at it funny.

I think it's close between Soto and Robert for the third first team spot. Soto's offensive numbers aren't significantly better (aside from the fact that walks 4x as much) but Robert is far and away a better defender at a premium position. Soto is one of the worst defenders in the league, can't completely write that off.

probably not best practice to trade guys at their lowest value though. same with Tim. perhaps the same with Cease. there's really no point unless Bummer is some clubhouse cancer.

IDK, Bummer has been pretty good before this year. Throws 4-5 different pitches and has a unique left-handed arm slot. Relievers like that don't grow on trees. I don't get why he was 'untouchable' in trades but I think he's worth keeping around. He's super unlucky this year, frankly. Check out how his FIP compares to ERA

Bummer's first HR given up this season. that seems notable. not a bad pitch either.

I guess my thinking is more derived from the fact that pretty much every baseball fan thinks both Central divisions are a joke. I could look up the statistics on how both Central divisions have performed in terms of W/L over the years, but it's not easily accessible without doing the analysis myself and I already spend too much time writing sports forum posts, but I recall that the Central performs demonstrably worse than the other divisions in the aggregate. I feel as though W/L is a better determiner than World Series Though, regardless of division or W/L, the disparity in payroll is absurd and it strikes me as unfair that some teams have 300 million dollars of wiggle room to spend on free agents -- so then, how much can they spend on front office staff to live in a desirable area like Florida or California? This applies to less desirable coastal cities like Baltimore who essentially just so happened to strike gold in their farm system (and won't pay them) or Tampa. Still, the bottom payroll franchises are big jokes and, aside from a few franchises like Washington, they're not rebuilding they're actually trying to win. Salary cap feels like a no-brainer idea...maybe it isn't all regional but I feel like the perception people have of the Central is the same perception people have of the Midwest in general. It offends me! Great song I've never heard by the way, thanks for sharing. Makes me feel prideful, there really isn't a finer place!!!! only issue is they're driving SOUTH to reach downtown

Houston is basically Chicago with a shoreline. My argument doesn't apply to Chicago, it actually makes the Sox and Cubs look even worse. DFW is where the Sox will move once Jerry dies. That metro area can handle 2 teams better than Chicago will be able to.

Speaking of promotional dates, I'm really bummed I missed that Italian heritage night. Not because I have Italian heritage but because those were some really cool hats they gave away.

This is an excellent idea (especially adding back Montreal...otherwise I'd pick Charlotte before Nashville ?) but I think you run into the same problem with the Midwest division. I don't think it's a popular opinion, but I'd probably prefer to see all the divisions (regions of the country) represented on a regular basis than strictly the "best" teams which are probably the teams that are based in financially-sound, more appealing (for whatever reason...weather, money, things the midwest can't offer) markets. I think a salary cap begins to address that. It's an "owner-friendly" term but I bet it would be better for the sport and could be balanced out with a million different concessions to give to the players union. I tend to think arbitration and delayed free agency is the big thing for the players union to go after. My thinking is that this regional disparity exists more in the MLB than in other American pro leagues. I only watch basketball aside from baseball, but the financial parity in the NBA is pretty great (even if the product gets worse year by year) and the incentives given to players to re-sign long term with their small market team are unmatched by other leagues as far as I know. Look no further than how the Nuggets perform relative to the Rockies. Prudent drafting and trading (good management) won them a championship because they were able to pay more than big market teams to keep Jokic and their other free agents around -- while still being able to go out and sign effective players with limited cap space. The Nuggets won because Jokic is an all-time great but you also have to give a lot of credit to the organization for finding him in the second round and then building an effective team around him, despite injuries. The Bulls and Nuggets made similar trades around the same time with the Magic for their big time pieces and the Nuggets got their championship starter for scraps while the Bulls mortgaged their future for a guy who simply wasn't good enough (even if I like Vucevic). I think you see in the NBA that you can get lucky and win by having the #1 pick in a strong draft or you can build a contender through effective management. Either way, the parameters are pretty much the same for each team. If an NBA owner wants to act like John Fisher or Robert Nutting, the salary floor means he has to pay up regardless. Then the matter of a 'cheap' owner vs a regular one becomes a matter of if they're willing to pay the luxury tax rather than if they're willing to fill out the major league roster with MLB-caliber players. In an MLB-type environment, Jokic is probably playing for the Knicks or Lakers. The Knicks should be like the Yankees but they're constantly mismanaged and are constantly bad; as it should be. The NBA's financial system seems to work pretty well, but it's not one-to-one because one player in basketball can be the difference maker between a struggling team and a championship contender. Still, the best teams tend to perform well regardless of where they're based. Watch for Oklahoma City and Utah to be championship contenders for years to come This post became sort of rambly and off-topic, but I guess it lends credence to the fact that the Sox are a lot worse consistently than they ought to be. Under the current framework of the MLB, there's basically no excuse for a Chicago team to be outperformed by all these other rustbelt cities in the division. It's doubly true for the Cubs, the team that the majority actually likes, but they won a WS recently so they get a break.

he plays a lot more than a typical baseball player. do you ever want a weekend off from your job? one should consider how to keep a 26-year-old's focus for the next decade...millions of dollars is apparently not enough for athletes. beyond that, he deserves a fuckin day off. you probably do too.