Balta1701

Well you've got to give the last #3 pick/sure thing on that list, Rodon.

I'd think that'd be exactly what the White Sox would push for if they were interested. I don't know if Vaughn's side would look at that as an under-bid on the basis of "Robert's deal was larger", and I similarly don't know if the White Sox would offer that deal - if they are truly tapped out this year, or they don't have enough confidence in Vaughn due to the lack of a minor league season.

He was coming off of a full college season, so a quick number of at bats after a break for the draft and signing was going to be a little challenging.

I mean, the right decision is to extend him, but I do wonder if they offered him something like Eloy's extension if they might not hit a brick wall where his side says "you gave Robert significantly more money why are you lowballing us" and that winds up being the roadblock.

If the White Sox were worried about avoiding a Mariners-style grievance, all they have to do if they start him off the big league roster and call him up in late April is say "we were hoping to give him time against minor league pitching and give more at bats to Collins and Lucroy, but after they struggled the first couple weeks we had to try getting his bat in the lineup and we're excited to have him here". It doesn't even have to be true, they just have to say that publicly.

Those guys are voting members of the union, so if there’s going to be a change in rules, those guys will have a say in accepting it.

No it isn’t, not one iota. Luca$ is going to get paid. If he continues like this for a few years, he is on a path to a Gerrit Cole quality contract. Being nice to Vaughn isn’t going to change the situation for him. If you want an extension, you need to offer him a fair deal that makes sense for him to take.

1. Johnson and Johnson didn’t quite report their data in the same way as the other tests, that has made it difficult for the press to do a straight comparison. 2. J&J was tested at a time when there were more variants running around, that likely also, which may well have increased the number of individuals who showed mild illness symptoms. 3. J&J seems to take longer after the shot to see the full effect. This could well be because they all take 28 days, but with Pfizer and Moderna you’ve got a second shot beforehand. This, hard to compare the numbers cleanly. 4. People with mild symptoms can almost certainly still transmit the virus, so we can’t just say that having the vaccine means you are perfectly in the clear to go around maskless until everyone around you also has had the vaccine. If you have the vaccine then go to a lot of restaurants maskless because you’re safe, your chances of picking the virus up rise, and if the rest of your household is unvaccinated, you could create an easy cluster, undermining the effect of the vaccine. 5. All 3 of these existing and being produced in enough volume for everyone in 15 months after this starts is a fucking triumph of science. 6. Get whatever shot in your arm as soon as you can. 7. One of the last remaining risks is that because vaccines are out and cases are coming down after XMas, states will open things up, declare masks unnecessary, enough people will refuse the vaccine or be unable to get it to allow the virus to continue circulating, and we will combine and evolve the current variants out there into something that is strongly resistant and easily transmitted. Doing things like that at a government level is like hanging 3 straight curveballs to Abreu, you are just hoping nothing bad happens. Considering how many a**hole governors are already doing exactly that, the press and scientists can’t just say “we won!” because the fight isn’t over yet. All 3 are amazing outcomes, but backing off masking restrictions right now is like bringing in Rodon with a 1 run lead in the 8th inning and 2 runners on, with Bummer and Hendricks sitting there unused, because some guy behind the dugout yelled “this game is ova!” So the effort scientists could be spending on saying “please everyone get this ASAP” is being spent saying “please Texas stop trying to help the virus”.

Houston also has all of the major known variants circulating. Only city in the country where they have all been confirmed. If a person gets exposed to more than one at once, it can lead to genetic exchange between them in that persons body and produce a hybrid with the properties of both. So the extra resistance of the Brazilian and South African mutants combined with the longer asymptomatic spread time of the British one sounds like a fun thing to try.

I think it’s a travesty that you posted this article without a tweet including his nickname, “Dick pic Mick”.

As they should be. Wind and sunlight are abundant there. It's far cheaper to build those than to run coal or nuclear plants.

I'd say that rather than doing either, they were taking profits and using them occasionally to buy other utility providers around the country.

Sale should always be used as a cautionary tale rather than a comparison. He was almost turned into a permanent reliever when he had arm problems in his first season as a starter, the team even announced they were permanently turning him into their closer when he returned from injury, and he had to have a screaming match with KW and co to be let back into the rotation . Not exactly the way you want to handle things professionally, and teaching Sale that the way to get what he wanted from this team was to have a giant tantrum also probably not great in hindsight. Thank goodness the team listened though.

It’s not tough at all to give an answer where you compliment rather than criticize the people paying your salary. Hell, Rick Hahn is often fine at it. 90% of the time he gives a fine non answer, but 10% of the time he gives a real answer and puts his foot in his mouth. ”if we keep playing like this we’ll be right there at the end (July 2015)”. ”we expect to add middle of the order hitters” (2018 Soxfest) ”The money will be spent” ”I look forward to conducting a number of interviews as it will help me learn about how to make this team better from a variety of perspectives” ”How dare people be mean on Twitter of all places!” Here’s a better one, one that isn’t dripping with entitlement and acknowledges that the fans are demanding but also pay his salary. ”Oh we understand the fans are frustrated, they have a right to be, it’s been a tough few years for this team. But we believe we’ve put an excellent team on the field this year and we look forward to rewarding their patience”. Doesn’t insult or call out his customers, acknowledges their frustration, keeps the response focused on the team and is positive in its reaction rather than negative. If that’s so hard for him, the White Sox employ one of the best public relations teams in baseball and I’m sure they’d be happy to provide him some media training.

I will trade a 7 figure salary in a public job watching a kids game happily for being called out regularly for my job performance on Twitter. Right now. Please. But if that’s too tough for poor little Ricky’s fee-fees, he can resign today.

Then please lodge your complaint with the general manager who is paid 7 figures to run this team and who still has time to whine about how unfair it is that people are being mean to him on Twitter, and even by using his own words!

Houston’s a mess in terms of cap space, they had the highest payroll in the league last year which means they already have used some of their cap space the next several years. They have virtually no recent impact draft picks because O’Brien traded them all away. That’s why they are releasing Watt and not tagging Fuller, so that they can get under the cap and have a little space. They are getting worse in FA, not better.

They can play that game up to the draft. If the draft passes and they don’t have a QB, he has leverage over the entire season, and can literally force them to punt on the year.

I very much disagree with this. If built correctly, teams can with with a controlled payroll, or at least they could (the Dodgers may have changed this last year by being that good). The Astros only had a $130 million ish payroll the year they won the title (slight assist from a cheap trash can noted). Cleveland made the World Series then won 100 games the next year. Tampa Bay made the World Series last year and had a legit shot at it. Kansas City. The decisions, the professionalism of the front office are key in whether that is possible. That includes when to rebuild, what players to hold onto and extend, how you behave with the press, fans, and players, and how to deploy your resources when they are limited (do you buy the best closer in the league and the second highest paid catcher if your payroll has strong limits?).

Well, after a week of this I unfortunately think we can call this a trend. We got down to under 70k cases a day in the moving average, but this week it turned around and it has gone up every day this week, now up to 77k. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html The drop off over the last month was almost certainly a combination of the vaccine and people not gathering as much after XMas. An increase this week could be one of two things - the Super Bowl leading to gatherings, or the B.1.1.7 variant taking over the trend. Based on the data from January, this is right about when that variant should be reaching 20-40% of the total cases, so if it is growing rapidly then we could actually be seeing its effect in case numbers.

Combine the bad press with the cap space locked up in Watson, and if he’s really willing to sit out the Texans will lose eventually.