TaylorStSox

He signed Belle, which I mentioned. He retained Jordan, in a different sport/the 2nd most popular athlete in history/the basketball GOAT. He drafted Rose. All your examples are awful and my logic is "garbage."

I'm damn near 40 and the Sox have signed 1 significant FA in my lifetime. It was in 1997. I'm not even entertaining the idea of signing Harper or Machado.

I wouldn't invest in a guy with that injury history and high effort delivery. He looks like his arm is going to fly off with every pitch, and the grunting is annoying. I'll pass.

So, 2 guys on a message board thought we'd win 70 games in 19 and that's the conclusion you've drawn? Alrighty.

You've basically manufactured this entire narrative in your head and now you believe it as fact. When you say "we," what you mean is "I."

Jesus. Shut this thread down too.

As Americans, we like to think the world revolves around us, but it really doesn't. The tribalism we're seeing isn't unique to America and it's not solely an American phenomenon. It's a global phenomenon fueled by technology. More people have access to information, and with that comes divisiveness. There are a ton of parallels to the advent of the printing press and how it impacted the church. In the end, civility still won out. We'll survive. I apologize for turning this thread into the Buster.

Considering we're living during a time of relative peace and economic stability, calling this "the most important election in history" illustrates how out of wack our politics have become. Elections in the 1850's, 1920's, 1930's, 1950's and 1960's may have "trumped" them. I'm not even counting the 1910's, which challenged our resolve during a war which saw 37 million people die.

Everyone is asking "what," when they should be asking "why." Why in the hell would we want to trade for Sonny Gray in another year where we'll probably lose 90-100 games?

We got an internet tough guy on our hands.

DC hires James Gunn to write/direct Suicide Squad 2. ? Regardless of what you think about DC, that's some world class trolling.

I don't know what the stats say about Anderson's defense, but I will say that any stat that says it's bad, or even average, is a stupid stat.

I read this line 3 times and I still can't make sense out of it.

Wins and losses are meaningless for the next couple years. The only numbers that matter are these: Hansen Moncada Dunning Robert Adolfo Madrigal Rutherford Collins Sheets etc

It only makes sense. It's a multi-billion dollar business. Probably all of the NFL, Boxing, MMA and Cycling are juicing. Most of baseball and hockey. All olympic sports. Watching the movie Icarus and getting into powerlifting have really changed my opinion of what the human body is naturally capable of doing.

I'm of the opinion that probably half of pro athletes, if not more, are on steroids of some kind. The roiders will always be ahead of the testers. The tests they develop are modeled after they figure out the cocktails athletes are on, which keeps the athletes one step ahead. Altuve is just an obvious choice. Guys that small don't suddenly become power hitters.

A second round draft pick that hit .400 in his 2nd pro year, at AA, with a 1.000 OPS was never a top 100 prospect? I also remember BA naming him the best pure hitter in college his last year, but I could be wrong.

This is gonna piss @southsider2k5 off, but he's got David Eckstein written all over him, which isn't the worst thing.

Moncada's already better than Garcia will ever be, IMO. He's a much better fielder and the walks alone make him a better hitter. Madrigal isn't almost certain to be anything. I can't believe people that have been following baseball for years actually think that. We've seen countless prospects fail. Remember Jeremy Reed? He was the most "can't miss" prospect I've ever seen and he flopped super hard. Beckham is another.

And he's so obviously roided out of his mind that it's making Placido Polanco have flashbacks. Altuve is such an outlier that I wouldn't compare anybody to him. @Eminor3rd hit the nail on the head. It's foolish to worry about positions this early. I will say Moncada has an infinitely higher ceiling than Madrigal, but it's going to be much tougher to reach it.

By that chart, it looks like the Cardinals have more marketshare in the Chicagoland area than the Sox.

The Astros and Cubs won by getting their stars via FA? Really? They didn't win by producing their own stars? *edit* I misunderstood. I thought you were talking about my original point, about the Sox needing to produce their own franchise players, not get them in FA.

Another beautiful thing about baseball is that you don't need elite stars to win World Series. You need production from every position and elite pitching. There's countless examples.

I totally disagree. A team with the Sox' market simply has to develop their stars and not sink 1/4 of a billion dollars or more into 1 player. It's just foolish. Develop your stars/franchise players and invest in the holes.

That's absolutely wicked, but I doubt it's actually 96. Nevertheless, he can't repeat that. If he could, he'd be Pedro.