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That's not true. Only those true blue state senators like Kirk have not endorsed (and Rauner), but Paul Ryan won't actively not endorse him. Marco Rubio is still endorsing him. Mitch McConnell is endorsing him. Kelly Ayotte endorses him. So you have Kirk and Collins.

Good.

Pivot to the center.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Aug 9, 2016 -> 12:21 PM) I'd like to see Call, Fisher, and Adolfo together in W-S to start next season I'm thinking Call, Fisher, Remillard, Schroeder, Hamilton, Mike Morrison, Hansen, Lambert and I guess Flores together at W-S and let them ball out. Hopefully Hansen is too dominant to stay with this group, but these are our successful college players. Let them play together with some younger guys and learn how to play the game right and what it takes to win. It likely will not matter that much but, you know, Cardinals.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 9, 2016 -> 03:10 PM) I want to say it is like 43 days? Yep. 34k per year after 43 days of service.

QUOTE (Hatchetman @ Aug 9, 2016 -> 02:56 PM) shuck starting in CF batting 8th tonight.

It will be interesting to see if Trump polls this bad in October if we suddenly see Merrick Garland appointed Edit: confirmed not appointed.

Oh dang Jason Coats is gonna get that MLB pension isn't he

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 9, 2016 -> 02:09 PM) Not a bad post. I can accept all your points. But what about somebody like me? I despise both Hillary and Trump, so if I vote it has to be a write in. Is it worth me going to the polls just to vote for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Jesse Ventura? Excellent post. I can buy everything you are stating here. Thing is I do think the Hillary fans on this board think she truly is great. I believe in their minds she is a helluva candidate for President. But I would love for some Hillary-ites to admit there were better Democratic candidates out there. Greg you realize like half the dems in this thread voted for Bernie right? You were posting on this board often when those same people were supporting Sanders. This is a good example of why you get so much pushback. You don't seem to respect other people in this thread enough to read what they write instead of just posting your Hannity blast of the day over and over.

This year has been brutal. I hope Coats sees some regular ABs.

Yes, me saying he's out for the season is me actually fighting with my other half that is saying "HE'LL BE BACK TOMORROW". Sucks. I know it I can't sulk in a pity party too much though, every team is dealing with it. Just need so much more depth.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Aug 9, 2016 -> 01:21 PM) Greg - Why not ask the question the other way. Do these hillary fans really think she has the makeup to be the president (not compared to trump, just in general). I'm willing to admit Trump doesn't, but I also think it is sickening that Hillary is the best that the dems could put out (as she has real issues which, while we could debate whether they are criminal or not, they are certainly indicative of extremely extremely poor judgement). That said, while Bernie was a likeable character, I don't know that he was the better candidate. Was this more of the DNC / party as a whole just viewed it as her time or were their not other candidates who should have came out to compete against her? Democratic governors were destroyed in 2010 and 2014. That leaves the slightly more successful senator bloc, who worked with Hillary and makes it unsurprising they may defer to her.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Aug 9, 2016 -> 01:27 PM) OK. All I pointed out was 3 straight years of decline is inaccurate. 2 straight years of decline is accurate. But nice to see you want to get involved. I know you have never pointed out a post not being accurate. Edit: we're moving on. I'm moving on. Back to how nobody cares about children.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Aug 9, 2016 -> 01:22 PM) Ok, so after one rookie season, you expected Jose Abreu to be able to be a .960 OPS player and a steady 6 WAR? That would have made him one of the top 15-20 sluggers in baseball history. I'm not sure a single rookie season ought to earn that kind of expectation. Jose Abreu could be in decline, sure. However, all of us who follow the game have seen, hundreds of times, that there are rookies who come out and put up great numbers, and once the league adjusts to them, they experience some decline. One needs look no farther than Gordon Beckham to find an example of this. I'm inclined to believe the 2015 version of Jose Abreu is much, much closer to the "true" version, and that his rookie year was simply off the charts because the league hadn't made those adjustments they would make in the following year. Every rookie has holes in his game that haven't been exposed yet. Jose's holes are that he doesn't have great patience with pitches outside of the zone, and can be fooled on breaking balls badly. This has been exposed this year, particularly. I won't argue that defensively, he's been a liability. I have no problem shifting him to DH eventually, as we currently don't really have one. Still, an .850-.860 OPS player is nothing to sneeze at. I'd take numbers resembling Bernie Williams, Wade Boggs, George Brett any day of the week. And yes, Adam Dunn fits into that .850ish career range too, but Adam Dunn was a great run producer for a long time before we got a hold of him and he went south. And again, I'm not trying to offer any explanation as to why he had an off April and May, and didn't hit a homer in July. However, I think it's very, very wrong for several posters to enter this thread and be sanctimonious about how hard it is to be away from your kid when there is absolutely zero evidence that this is the reason why he's in decline. I also would reiterate that it's ludicrous for us to try to find reasons to explain these things away, other than s*** happens and in baseball there are streaks. That's all we can really know. I do think it's much more likely that the 6 months of 2015 and past 2.5 months of 2016 paint a very consistent career picture for Jose Abreu, one that is a happy medium between his white-hot 2014 rookie year and his 2016 spring slump. I could be wrong, as well. I don't disagree with you in theory. Though I don't think questioning whether personal issues are to blame for contributing to his decline is a stretch. How much it contributes is impossible to know. I think .850 is more likely who he is than .960 OPS. But for our team construction where we consistently throw out the bare minimum required to win 88 games if all goes well, that's not enough. .850 makes him the 10th best 1st baseman offensively, but defensively he's quite bad. That doesn't mean he's a trash player, he is a normal player most good teams have in positions. But the Sox didn't need normal from Abreu. They needed a star, especially when we get the production we get out of DH. But what percentage would you put that Jose Abreu is an .850 OPS player next year? I wouldn't put it higher than 50% anymore. If he can chase his home run total and power numbers up to an .800 OPS at the end of the year I'll revise that up. But this year has been a gut punch.

Why are you upset Dick? I love your meaningful additions to conversations.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Aug 9, 2016 -> 01:11 PM) How can it be his third straight year of meaningful decline? It's only his 3 year. Did he decline before he started? Great point Dick. Add this to your mantle.

My position is that Jose Abreu has declined. While I would certainly take an .850 OPS from him, it's not exactly the .960 6 WAR player we imagined at the end of 2014 when we accelerated our rebuild into oblivion. I'm open to the idea that him being distanced from his family has caused this steady decline, because being separated from your family in a completely new city with the pressures of a baseball player could feasibly cause this. But, I don't know how you could be both incredulous that baseball players personal issues could affect their play meaningfully and decide that Jose Abreu has not declined because of fun with sample sizes. Abreu may be fine next year, but this is 3rd straight year of meaningful decline. A .780 OPS first baseman who can't play first base is not a part ofa core. I'm hopeful this is just because of personal reasons, because if not, then it's going to be all the more sad when we sign Jason Castro and trade for a pitcher and say we are going for it in 2017.

He had a slow start in 2015 too, should I remove that to show how much better his june-end of season was?

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Aug 9, 2016 -> 11:29 AM) Yes, Abreu has "declined" in three straight years. I guess. i would say his rookie year and 2nd year were not really all that much different in that they were both excellent seasons, but ok. He's currently on pace for: 1) within 5 hits of his rookie year (173 vs. 178) 2) more doubles than he has ever had (on pace for 37) 3) more walks than last year (not as many as his rookie year) 4) 20 home runs ALREADY, which is not 30 or 36, but it's not insignificant, and is likely to be HIGHER than that, so we all admit he's been slumping. Perhaps we should also note that despite his power outage in July (which I think is still just an anomaly of sample size), he's hitting about .300 since June 1st. That's cool and all but a .300 singles-hitting first baseman isn't valuable. 2014 - .964 OPS 2015 - .850 OPS 2016 - .770 OPS Not sure why you added "Already" after "on pace for", but 20 hr for our power hitting 1b is disappointing. Great that he has more walks but his OBP is lower. Not sure why you are debating whether he has declined when there is clear evidence he has but are arguing against what caused that decline when it's anecdotal anyways.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Aug 9, 2016 -> 11:26 AM) That's hyperbolic to say the least. It would certainly split their coalition or 1/3 to 2/3rds. Hard to win an election when 30% of your party no longer wants to vote for you.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Aug 9, 2016 -> 10:59 AM) What's actually nauseating about this thread is that several people are being sanctimonious to others about the impact of not seeing one's child on one's baseball stats, when this thread was actually intended to be the next nail in the coffin about Jose Abreu being "figured out" or his career being "finished." Would the lot of you please get off of your damned high horse and see the forest for the trees, here? JFC, the explanations aren't even consistent. If he was missing his son, why just for the first four months of 2016 specifically was it a factor? Yes, I have no doubt it gets harder as more time passes. However....who the f*** is anyone to tell me that 2 seasons was fine but the 3rd is harder? What the actual f***, guys? Would you guys care to look at Royce Clayton's personal life and tell me what was going on with him that accounted for his abysmal first half in 2001? Maybe if we look hard enough under a rock, we can find personal reasons why Frank Thomas struggled specifically in 1998 with average and 1999 with power numbers. While we are at it, why not explain away a million other things about Adam Dunn, or anyone else over the years in terms of their personal circumstances at the time? In fact, why don't we have a sub-forum with 25 individual threads detailing the day-to-day personal struggles of each member of this team? ...let me bring this thread back into focus with what should have been said three pages ago 3 home runs in 4 games should put to bed this NONSENSE that Jose Abreu is "finished" as a major league hitter or that major league pitching has categorically "figured him out" ...REGARDLESS OF HIS PERSONAL CIRCUMSTANCES. He's declined 3 straight years. No one is saying his son could be the only reason he has declined, but it could certainly be a factor. His son just arrived for a visit and his play perked up. Could be a coincidence, but could matter. If I paid you $20 million to be poster on this board, which I wouldn't - to be clear - that's going to greg for a new house, you would have days that your personal life affected your focus. Baseball players play nearly every day for four months. Focus can be an issue. It doesn't mean you couldn't have some great days there, but you may have more bad posts than otherwise because of some personal struggles. People admire Jackie Robinson for putting up with so much off the field threats and criticism and still performing. But really, why are we admiring him? He just needed to play baseball for a couple of swings.

Oh he's back! Oh hi.

That's the best case scenario shipps?

QUOTE (daa84 @ Aug 8, 2016 -> 08:53 PM) I've been excited about call and fisher for a few weeks. I'd like to see fisher promoted to loA, especially if call and remillard are there, why not fisher. I'd be real curious to know how each of those guys are doing defensively I know I probably have said this 3-4 times, but I agree. Let's let this group move up together and learn how to win together as a team.

Cool we'll miss you.