Balta1701

In 2009, the Star Trek series was basically on life support, and they brought it back by literally saying "We're going to go make a good movie first". They gave a few throwbacks to the fans like me, but the priority was "Make a good movie". I don't think anyone would say that has been the priority for any of the last 2 star wars movies, maybe any of the last 4. The closest was probably Rogue One, because they had to introduce entirely new characters top to bottom; TFA and TLJ and Solo were all nostalgia fests that had to be moved away from telling interesting stories to telling stories that were accessible to the largest market possible. That studio has a choice; keep putting out bland, unnecessary action movies, or actually go tell an interesting and unexpected story. There's hints from the director changes and studio related reshoots that both Rogue One and Solo were moved more into the "standard action movie" format by Disney, and that's where they've gotten right now. I note that the person who did tell the interesting 2009 Star Trek story was in fact Abrams.

Frankly, yes, I will go with that being the entire cause of the increase in crime through the 2nd half of the 20th century and the entire cause of the decrease starting in the late 1980s/early 1990s. There is absolutely nothing else that correlates with that trend line. Police tactics didn't suddenly change in the early 1990s, the amount of money put into policing didn't suddenly change, the number of guns used defensively didn't suddenly increase. Find another variable that goes up drastically in the latter part of that century then turns around at around 1990 over the entire country, with differences in timing based on when each state banned the use of those chemicals. You won't. And on the 2nd point...this isn't the only answer, but it sure helps to kill a lot of people when you have access to an assault style semi-automatic weapon that puts people on the ground with one shot.

The removal of a neurotoxin, lead, that did serious long-term damage to the brains of children exposed to it, from gasoline and other consumer products after the establishment of environmental protection.

Here's one other thing worth considering. I took a look at the top 11 relievers on Fangraphs in WAR this season and went through what they were doing in the minors (#10 and #11 are tied). There are 2 of them who were not starters in AA - Sean Doolittle and Aroldis Chapman, who is something of an obvious exception. Aside from those 2, the best relievers in the league today were not relievers in the minors, at least they weren't drafted that way. The guys who are having the biggest success are guys who were converted from starting to relieving right before they were called up, or in some cases after they were called up. The guys in the bigs who have made huge impacts on bullpens the last few years - Andrew Miller, Wade Davis - these guys followed that same setup. Some of the White Sox's guys, like Danish, Fulmer - they are getting some experience as starters before they're brought up. Guys like Burdi, Hamilton, Frare, Fry - these guys are being put on a path that looks fundamentally different from the path that is being taken by almost all of the top relievers in baseball today. For this to be a "moneyball" setup, where there's value teams aren't recognizing, the White Sox need to be better at turning full time relievers in the minors into quality big league relievers, because what the white sox have done with these guys is in fact different from the paths that produced the top relievers in the league right now.

They're way over the tax line this year and they're going into the multi-year repeater penalties next year. I think they need a serious playoff run before they can talk about committing that kind of money to Sale. They still have all their other guys about to hit arbitration or free agency too. What exactly could the White Sox have done in 2015 that would have put that team even into the discussion as one of the better teams in baseball? They had virtually no assets to trade, that's why 2 straight offseasons they had to trade away scraps and eventually gave up and traded an international signing they hadn't seen. Take a look at the free agents that signed that year and tell me where these difference makers are. James Shields, Pablo Sandoval, Melky Cabrera, Chase Headley, Russell Martin, Hanley Ramirez? I guess Martin hasn't been bad, but I'm sure everyone's thrilled about that extra $25 million remaining on his deal when he put up a .637 OPS so far this year. The only real guys out of that offseason who have made a difference for teams have been Lester, Max Scherzer, and Nelson Cruz. Fine, happening to sign those 2 guys and no one else might have actually pushed that team above .500, I'll grant that, but you can't just expect to only sign guys who work out when the list is that freaking bad. Our biggest discussion that offseason was whether or not to sign Victor Martinez to DH for a $70 million-ish deal to beat out the Tigers, with one unnamed poster saying that he had learned more about hitting and was sure to put up dominant numbers into his late 30s. In 2015 he got hurt and put up a .667 OPS, and he's going to be worth something like -4 WAR over the duration of that contract. Signing him would have been a worse signing than signing LaRoche. The problem is not that the White Sox did not go all in, the problem is that the White Sox were a low 70s win team based on how much talent they had, and their GM deluded himself into believing they weren't. Their system was pathetic and it was doing nothing to support their big league roster, so the free agent market was the only way they could have gotten better, and the free agent market is a disastrous way to try to build an entire team. You can't just magically hope that all your signings are going to work, instead you have to assume most of them are going to flop. They did everything they could have reasonably done and wound up mid-70s after a huge investment. That was how any version of that plan was going to wind up; they could easily have spent a ton more and wound up equally bad or worse.

I'm not sure this really describes what the Astros did (I don't know the Brewers as well). The 2 highest K guys on the Astros in 2015 were Colby Rasmus and Chris Carter - Rasmus's spot, for example, is now in the hands of Springer, who remains a high strikeout guy, but who is a better hitter because he has more power. They replaced Valbuena with Bregman, who has a comparable number of Ks, but who is just a vastly better hitter. They let Castro walk and brought in McCann, cutting them a little but in both cases the guys are now hurt. The only one where this really counts is Carter to Gurriel but Carter hasn't even remained a big leaguer. You can make the case for each of those that they just brought in better players due to bringing in more power, with the exception of Carter where they just brought in a better overall hitter.

Have we actually seen any big trades for relievers in the offseason recently? Chapman, Hand, Miller - all moved at the deadline. The only one I can think of traded in the offseason was Kimbrel and he's not even really on the same level as the other guys.

Yeah, that. A lefty with an established track record, an 11K/9IP rate, a minimum salary, 5 years of control, and showing he's healthy? The going rate for that is one of the top prospects in baseball.

So yeah, 11 K/9 for Fry versus 15 for Kahnle, better ERA for Kahnle for whatever that is worth, 1.49 FIP versus 2.27, 0.8 WAR versus 2.1 WAR. These are big differences. The extra control makes up for it some, but if you're gambling on the guy to be a quality long-term dominant reliever you pick Kahnle. If Fry is putting up identical numbers next year, and he's done this in the bigs for a year and a half and proven things...then you start talking about him being worth a top 25 prospect with that degree of control. Whether or not anyone would give that up, who knows.

Someone should congratulate him on his upcoming 5 year honeymoon (less with good behavior)

Ozzie Guillen then handed in a lineup with Brian Anderson on the bench and Rob Mackowiak in CF, and added "Now this is how you f***ing don't care about defense".

Oh thank god.

The guy murdered him while his 5 year old son watched. He also got into a fight with another guy at the same place a month before and used a bunch of racial slurs. But he's a Florida hero.

NEW STADIUM TIME!!!!

Well then

The problem is - Fry is a left handed bullpen pitcher with a 2.29 FIP and what, 6 full years of control remaining? If you think he's that pitcher, you'd be silly to trade him for less than that because that's a huge asset in coming years. But, he's been that pitcher for less than 30 innings, so it's a huge gamble to think he'll stay that pitcher. So, the White Sox shouldn't give him up for less than something like ace value given how long he's under control (Imagine Andrew Miller with 6 years of control!), but what team is going to give up that kind of value for a guy who has only proven what he can do for those 30 innings?

If he's been hurt for this long it's darn near criminal the White Sox didn't put him on the DL mid June. They'd have gotten better production with Davidson there.

https://deadline.com/2018/07/james-gunn-fired-guardians-of-the-galaxy-disney-offensive-tweets-1202430392/

Ok dude last shot.

And over his last 44 games, .245 average, .863 OPS. Over that same stretch, Abreu's OPS is about .520.

Not only would that be a terrible move for Gurriel, but they can play Kyle Tucker there and get experience for one of their rookies. Houston is going to acquire bullpen help. It's not even a rumor, they've said it repeatedly. I've never seen any rumor that they're going to move Gurriel away from 1b, there's no talk of it whatsoever close to Houston. They're not giving you anything for a 1b right now, let alone one who has been terrible for the last month and a half.

Yuli Gurriel should have been the AL's all star at 1b and Evan Gattis is leading the Astros in HR and RBI. They are not mediocre players. And if they're caring about future performance, there's a nonreasonable chance that his future performance over the next 1-2 months is comparable to the previous month and a half, which means no one, including Cashman, is giving up anything of value for him right now. If they want him, they can claim him on the waiver wire in August.

Jose Abreu is a substantial downgrade at both 1b and DH for the Astros and apparently I'm going to keep pointing that out every time someone suggests it.

So the only question that matters is...does this satiate the Cubs need for RHP relievers or might they still hunt for more?

My first reply is that the segregated areas where black people were pushed into were much more heavily contaminated with lead pollution and as we get farther away from the heavy use of that, exposure will probably drop and as a consequence violence will probably continue to march downwards as it has for much of the last 25 years. But then my question to you is - is the only way for there to be a police presence to be police who are trigger happy and ready to arrest or shoot anyone they see who looks wrong? Summary of DOJ report If that is the way police in Chicago are going to handle being police, then how can these communities trust that police won't make lives in their areas worse? People will not trust police or want police in their communities if their experience with police is the experience these communities currently have. Oh, and at some point it would be nice if the city could stop the flow of freedom coming from gun stores in Indiana and Wisconsin, but hey, that's just freedom.