caulfield12

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/former-mets-manager-mickey-callaway-accused-of-unrelenting-lewd-behavior-toward-women-in-media-020746255.html Not sure where else this fits...

Pretty sure the ten shares were at $16 but the point still holds...unfortunately, it probably doesn’t make the news at all if it was a middle class Asian kid.

The problem during the last five years is the “veteran middle”...pretty high quality but FAs in their 30’s. Part of it’s obviously due to shortened playing careers with less steroids in the game, theoretically. Players are largely done at 33-34. Obviously there have been a few notable exceptions in all sports, but not many.

By Savanna? Prophetstown?

Or just a solid veteran defensive catcher to pair with Giolito...we have so much depth in that pen...plus there invariably are the vets that become available as final roster cuts.

You’re underestimating the damage that will be done to the pen if the last two starters struggle...and God forbid an injury to the top three starters. Hendriks is fine as an over the top, finishing piece...for a World Series contender. But we skipped over a few steps to get there, at least for this season. The depth we had with two legit catchers is sorely going to be tested. And having experienced Billy Koch, Linebrink, Dotel and David Robertson, I just have an aversion as a lifetime Sox fan about overspending on bullpen pieces when there are major holes remaining across the roster. I’m not going to bother to list them all, but we’ve had roughly 8-10 underpaid guys capable of closing emerge from the most unexpected places since Howry/Foulke, and paying top of the market dollars just is scary. Maybe part of it was witnessing Craig Kimbrel go from the HoF to a complete enigma. Now if we had normal attendance/incoming revenue and weren’t so artificially strapped with budget constraints, it wouldn’t be so bothersome.

Jackie Bradley Jr., instead of Eaton No Hendriks, money goes into a starter, let’s say Odorizzi, instead Veteran back-up catcher

Quite a bargain compared to a much older Messi at 4/$674 million.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/billionaires-blaming-gamestop-surge-covid-214435191.html This is rich, Wall Street blaming stimulus checks for upending the market. Interestingly enough, the $2000 stimulus checks are either disappearing or being cut down quite dramatically as we speak as proposed stimulus package is cut from $1.9 trillion to roughly $600 billion.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/smokers-next-group-eligible-covid-220745023.html https://www.nj.com/education/2021/01/smokers-before-teachers-educators-incensed-over-njs-covid-vaccine-priorities.html “I understand what the optics are here and that attacking folks who took up the habit of smoking and are now addicted may be politically expedient," he added. "But at this time, we are stuck in a position where we have to prioritize limited federally distributed vaccines based on medical fact and not on political want.” Gov. Murphy Another one of those morals/ethics debates....like student loan forgiveness. Should at-risk smokers (or those who are overweight, for example) in New Jersey be prioritized over public transit workers or teachers for Covid vaccines? We typically blame the poor for their condition...so why reward those who don’t follow healthy lifestyles? Should we also prioritize those who refuse to wear masks, for example? Lots of slippery slopes.

You might need to update your signature box to Kyle vs. Ragah. That said, Ragah might not be long for this place the way he’s going recently.

The results are mixed. The Cubs and Royals got their titles, but couldn’t sustain their success out beyond 3-4 seasons. The Red Sox and Giants dynasties also fell apart, but then you have the next generation of rebuilds in the Braves, White Sox, Padres and Blue Jays. The Astros arguably are the closest to validating it, but they cheated...so they’re challenging to objectively assess. Perhaps the Rays and Dodgers are the quintessential mirror images of fundamentally similar strategies (sustained success) but at opposite financial poles.

Right, but you can still make a legit argument that today the four best teams in baseball are all in the NL. There must be some ownership groups wondering if there’s any point in doing anything besides maximizing revenues, like the Pirates. Still, hope spring eternal, like the Rays, Padres, A’s, Marlins and Reds experiencing success last year, or the Royals almost winning two consecutive World Series in a market where fans regularly protested the Evil Empire NY Yankees in the 90’s and 2000’s. Baseball tends to go in cycles, though.

A Private War (real life story of Guardian/Sunday Times Middle East correspondent Marie Colvin) is excellent...and heartbreaking as well. First time I can remember a Bond girl having such a successful dramatic run. I Care A Lot (about elderly/assisted living fraud) is supposed to be an excellent dark comedy as well, putting Rosamund Pike squarely in the Best Actress discussion.

Or find a middle infielder with athletic ability and requisite arm strength (not TA, but Wilson Contreras) and see if a conversion works. Generally, it has been easier to move those guys to pitcher over the last two decades.

Cooper was given a ton of trash, in all fairness. We also got excellent bullpen results with lots in inexperienced performers last year, for example. Keuchel had an unexpectedly strong season, and Bummer emerged as a Top 10 AL reliever. For every Reynaldo Lopez, Cease or Rodon, there have been ten Ranaudo’s or Hector Noesi’s. Dunning was nurtured back after injuries to the point where he became (in)valuable trade bait. The proof will be in the pudding for Katz with those three names again in this year’s rotation, as well as Kopech. Time will tell.

One can argue both the 1987 and especially the 1991 World Series were great for baseball, and neither Twins’ team was objectively great...but massive home field advantage and a few superstar performers added to high drama. Pretty sure there were some .500ish or lower Padres teams during the Peavy era that make it but were quickly dispatched. Baseball survived.

But then you have the Padres/Dodgers issue, as well as the NL East, where 4 of 5 teams are legit contenders. Yet the AL/NL Central teams have been rewarded by beating the hell out of the Pirates, Royals and Tigers. Or the Rays trying to compete with NYY, Boston and now Toronto again every season.

You’d really have to go back to some of the Cardinals teams or 87/91 Twins with the massive home field advantage.

The one thing you have to be careful with is letting the top teams sit too long...which used to be really tough on hitters in cold weather stadiums. That said, momentum is your next day’s starting pitcher. The Padres had a near-miraculous comeback against the Cardinals but ran into a buzz saw in LA, which was clearly the superior team this year. AL/NL Central teams were all clearly flawed, and that showed up in the results. The Twins lost again. The A’s were shocked to actually advance a round. Now we can argue the Astros weren’t deserving, but that’s not the same thing as saying they didn’t have a lot of talented players remaining on their roster. In a normal year, pretty sure Houston is one of those teams on the outside looking in, but it was only a 60 game schedule, so impossible to know for sure what transpires over a full 154-162 games.

AP study: MLB average at around $4.4M for 5th year in row NEW YORK (AP) — Major League Baseball’s average salary ahead of a postponed opening day remained at around $4.4 million for the fifth straight season, according to a study of contracts by The Associated Press. Following an offseason when Gerrit Cole, Stephen Strasburg, Anthony Rendon and Christian Yelich all agreed to $200 million-plus deals, the flattened salary curve is evidence of a shrinking portion of the pie for baseball’s middle class. The stagnant stretch is unprecedented since the free-agent era dawned in 1976. https://apnews.com/article/e4ec65ed068d9b636ac9c302453eac26

If those teams #18-30 have almost no chance to make the playoffs, why not strip down to the screws with $25-30 million payrolls? Therein lies the problem. Last year, many teams like the Reds and Padres were incentivized to at least compete for a playoff spot.

Another Drink (Druk)...one of the top five films of the year, so refreshing and unique Minari probably wins foreign film here, but this one will stick with me for a long time like Promising Young Woman Madds Mikkleson rules!

Vaughn should have been playing last year? Really?