bmags

You just need a franchise QB injured on thursday night and then it will change.

Population growth in cities is much preferable to depopulation, trust me. Just wait until you need to pay for the same services with a smaller tax base, that gets expensive too.

Aga Radwanska retired. She was fun to watch for how volatile she was. Sometimes a complete dud, others she could put together some incredible series. Wish she could have gotten a major.

It is really hard to gauge. I've seen pointed out a few times, but if you only read twitter or ny pols you would assume cuomo is the least popular governor in america and yet he has incredibly high approvals (i do not like cuomo). NY media can be skewed.

It was no doubt unseemly on amazon's part, I just don't blame the cities for trying.

It is such a disaster and an outlier that it isn't a very helpful lens for amazon. I think it's such a ruse that Amazon acted like there was a national hunt when candidates were obvious from start. They needed talent and went to the zones of the country that don't have to create a new talent stream but already have it. There is risk in going to Denver or ATL and being tapped out immediately. But had they gone to a midwest city, if managed well which is possible, I think it would have been a big boost to the talent drain there. In NYC/NoVa? It's a logistical pain in the butt that may not even show up as positive to local residents who have some of the worlds biggest economies in their backyard (queens). That is a bit what happened in seattle in the first place.

There were a lot of things that make foxconn different. For one, the incentive packages far exceed what NYC and Virginia offered. Two, it was a foreign company making promises of a "new type of factory" in US without a p.o.c. There is much more variables there to how much foxconn would dedicate to a product line, and as we have seen, very little. This is much more straightforward, though there is a lot of strain involved in housing and transportation. It's a bit like the olympics. It is inefficient, it may not net out, but for cities that have decent infrastructure it provides prestige and could with smart management lead to helpful infrastructure reforms.

Yes it is unlikely, but frankly even marginal trades >>> talking about contract opt outs and tax rates.

His presence in the pocket is night and day compared to weeks 1-3. Really pleased recently even with the accuracy disappearances for series.

Also just encouraging population in Chicago with premier company is important. It could have been a big deal for essentially every city except the ones they chose and Boston.

As far as entertainment goes on a message board, I have decided potential trade target talk >>>>>>>>>>>>> free agent talk. this contract stuff has nothing to anchor on aside from difficult to assess opportunity costs. Hoping for some good trade talk soon.

I would put odds that arenado hits market pretty low. Odds that he hits market and white sox sign against the field even lower. It's a risk I'd take.

I'd rather make a $40 million mistake on donaldson than go after someone like jed lowrie or marwin gonzalez hoping to match their career years. SSS, but he did hit with a .940 ops. He also has a relentless drive to improve. He may not be MVP candidate donaldson, but he's still a much better chance at .900 ops. I just tore down marwin gonzalez but i don't know, i see the benefit there too.

You think so? It's hard to tell with prices, but I think $200 mill would go pretty fast. Even 3-4 level pitchers i'd peg at $16-18 mill aav. Any position players I'd peg at *at least* 15 million aav. I know people don't think Donaldson will get a lot, but I think he's at least a 2 for 40 guy. And if we do it, i'd really want them to get at least one projectably dominant bullpen pitcher.

No I saw, and I get it. I am not dogmatic on approach, and I think there are actually big benefits to our young pitchers in pitching on an 80-82 win team as opposed to another 68-72 win team in terms of pitching to pressure, keeping focus, etc. I just don't think there is any combination of players that can get us to 88 wins on the FA market that isn't adding $600 million+ in long term commitments (and I think the quickest way to playoffs is probably building a stupid expensive bullpen) The good news is if the sox do your approach and the free agents strike out, it lets us know earlier that Hahn hasn't put the team around him front-office wise to take us to finish line.

Ah, thanks for clarifying. I think I'm with balta. One reason for this is an exercise I caught up with last year, can't remember if I posted it somewhere. Last offseason in about february just before a bunch of free agents signed, baseball media was perplexed at how many unsigned players there were. Travis Sawchik wrote a post making a team of the remaining free agents and saying that it was probably a playoff team. I checked the WAR on that group in August, it was far behind the playoff teams in terms of team production. It even featured awesome players like JD Martinez. Free agency is really hard, but for me to believe we could compete next year with an aggressive free agency means we'd have to hit close to 100% on not just productivity but career years out of those players. Sox still have a bright future. But things like the bullpen we just have no idea how it will playout. It just requires a lot of luck, and I think it's better to save those bullets until we know we if we actually may need an upgrade at SS or CF or whatever while these kids perform. ANd I still think 2020 is possible. A lot happens in 2 years. 2 years ago today, sox still had chris sale and adam eaton.

I'm not sure you are arguing different things. The white sox are likely to add this year in possibly some big ways in both hitting and pitching if they feel it adds to long term and short term competitive outlook. and Those improvements are still unlikely to make them a playoff team given where they started. I think sox will add in an exciting way this offseason, but I do not think their pitch is that we are ready to compete this year and you will lead us to the playoffs. It's just "we have a bright future ahead of us, and we see you being a leader and producer on the teams that take us over the top"

I'm not sure it matters that much this year. If his bat looks to be league average or better you either expand his positional versatility to OF or whatever else, or you get to trade him for pitching.

I also feel the same with 3b, but the success of rondon gives me pause. On one hand, his power may be for real, on other, sox have not treated him like they think he turned a corner. And obviously CF is a place they can even experiment with a 3 year deal or more for right candidate.

I don't know. On a stacked rotation, and in playoffs, rodon could be super valuable. "Go in there and throw 100% sliders for 3 innings". The opponents success vs his slider is terrible. 40% whiff rate, .251 wOBA. I could see a lot of interest.

Absolutely. I'm also fine with sox handing out short term deals to bounce back veterans in certain positions. They need to show off that they can sign free agents, and in some cases the opportunity cost is just "Nicky Delmonico playing time" and i'm fine with that.

Was thinking same.

Exactly. Sox clearly have identified corner OF as an area they can get a significant upgrade this year. Absent that, it makes sense to give Avi one more year to see if he has future as a dh/of rotational player. This removes that salary from books, lets them explore, and return back to it. I don't see Avi as someone that signs early.

Any yankees fan should be confident the yankees will land anyone they want.

Right, I guess my point is it's possible sox try to re-sign him.