caulfield12

Let them eat cake. You can see they're up against the wall with Christmas and the fact it would be awful politically to go home for a couple of weeks without doing anything at all for the actual American people they are supposed to represent.

Yeah, Thursday at midnight. Limited restrictions here....except still need to wear mask coming into theatre, lining up to enter...limited to 30-50% capacity still despite last case being over six months ago. Almost everyone is wearing a mask in public still due to Japan and South Korea fears, that the same thing would happen here if they allowed international travel or travel bubbles. https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/wonder-woman-1984-china-debut-183339825.html It should also be noted that only 25% of revenues from American films shown in China go back to the US...which is lower than the rest of the world by +/- 10% or so. The Rescue (local movie) is supposed to be terrible but the government manipulates the review aggregator numbers for nationalistic/patriotic films. They also manipulated the negative scores with Mulan quite obviously, fwiw.

I’ll just say this. The first movie is arguably one of the top 3 modern-day superhero movies. This movie almost forces you to consider a future world where nobody leaves home, as unlikely as that seems. The line between premium Netflix content and a $200+ million tentpole event movie has never been so indistinguishable...part of it was the lack of at least one more set/action piece, or maybe it just felt like so much less action then the previous one because of the 2 hour 31 minute running time. Having two villains seemingly forced another 30-45 minutes into the film. I’ll leave it for others to add spoiler tags with all the implausible plot gyrations...it’s almost like they tried to throw everything from 2015 to 2020 into a geopolitical stew and didn’t realize how bland and befuddling the result would be. Just hope Jenkins can pull it back together for the Star Wars series.

Unfortunately, seeing Wonder Woman 1984 in the theatre will prove to be a choice the majority of American families will later come to regret. No idea how it can have an 88% positive ranking at RT. There’s simply not enough action, there are enough plot holes to drive a Brinks truck through, Cheetah’s CGI is total mess and the last 1/3rd or 1/4th of the film is bordering on incoherence.

Then there’s the question of whether people will take the vaccine. In America, the number of people willing to get the vaccine — 60% — isn’t high enough to achieve herd immunity, the point at which a virus effectively stops spreading. (Herd immunity requires 85% of the population to be vaccinated.) That means that Covid will effectively become a seasonal flu. Think about that for a second: Covid is going to go permanent in America because millions of Americans are that stupid. Britain will probably end up the same way, for several years at least. Europe is in a better position, because Europeans, who trust their institutions more, will probably get vaccinated to herd immunity levels within the next twelve months. So we’ll see a range of sharply divergent Covid outcomes in Western countries. America, which has fared the worst, done shockingly badly, will probably go on doing shockingly badly. Not only will not enough Americans take the vaccine to reach herd immunity, but American politics, which puts the idea of free-dumb first, probably isn’t going to make the vaccine mandatory. Add to that the fact that people will probably have to pay for it, whereas it’ll be free in every other Western country. And you quickly understand that Covid will likely become a permanent dystopian feature of American life, another thing that people have to suffer there that they don’t elsewhere, like school shootings and “medical bankruptcy.” America’s Red States will probably be Covid Belts permanently. America will probably never beat Covid. https://eand.co/the-west-thinks-its-beaten-covid-but-covid-is-still-beating-the-west-9ed91a05f88a

But that doesn't take into account the regional sports networks for MLB, with the Dodgers' $2+ billion deal from nearly a decade now being the prime example. It also doesn't take into account MLB Advanced Media/BAM Tech, MLB.TV, etc. Yes, if you look at the Big 4 networks (ABC in this case), ESPN, FS1, TBS/TNT, etc., the NBA definitely wins.

We’re not talking about the Guardians, the Fighting Walleyes, the Blue or Green Sox, the Midges, the Spiders or the Cleveland Baseball Team. Any connection to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame – Rocks, Rock Stars, North Coast Rockers – has been disallowed as well. We’re not even talking about jewels such as the Cleveland Rock-a-Fellers. Think about that, one name covers the Rock Hall, Hall of Famer Bob Feller and former Cleveland millionaire John D. Rockefeller. That took some doing, but that ground has been turned over more than once. City on the lake: Belters (after the Rust Belt and the home runs they hopefully hit, and not from The Expanse/Sci-Fi Network), Centrals (best location in the nation), Rapids (as in RTA), Municipals and Native Sons (not to be confused with James Baldwin novel). https://www.cleveland.com/tribe/2020/10/some-new-suggestions-to-rename-the-cleveland-indians-the-week-in-baseball.html 18 different categories of names listed, majority are pretty darned awful

Right now, they have so many different options on the outside that can knock down 3's, even if you can "control" Garza's numbers to an extent in the paint, you still have to deal with Bohannon, Weiskamp, Frederick, Nunge, etc., on the wings. Before, there would always be 1-2 guys you could count on to knock down those shots. Now there's so many that a couple of bad shooting nights won't knock them out of the game. Then they have Toussaint as the defensive stopper on the opposing team's PG. We'll see what happens when they lock horns with Gonzaga next week. Can't remember ever feeling pretty relaxed/comfortable as an Iowa fan going into a game with the #1-ranked team in the country. Fwiw, as a Bettendorf alum, not shocked at all that DJ Carton moved much closer to home. Also not surprised he had no interest in Iowa with both McCaffrey's kids battling for playing time. Hopefully everything works out well for him at Marquette.

Hard to argue that. It has always been Indiana and MSU during the Izzo Era. Then there’s that tier just below with Wisconsin, Maryland, Ohio State, etc. Illinois always had to be taken seriously due to the amount of talent in Chicago. Iowa is successfully recruiting the kind of players who stick around 3-5 years that are definitely good enough for the BIG10 but lack NBA quality, such as Garza, Bohannon and probably Weiskamp as well. Before, they’d just get outclassed athletically...although Duke has always been the electric third rail team to beat since the 80’s, compared to Carolina.

But they’ve hardly broken the bank with their additions so far. Writing on Tuesday before the Eaton deal was reported, FanGraphs’ Craig Edwards estimated that the White Sox projected 2021 payroll was about $30 million below this year’s total. Accounting for Eaton’s salary puts Chicago about $22.5 million shy of that mark -- aka one Springer-sized contract. We’re rounding here, and potential arbitration raises for players like Giolito, Engel and Evan Marshall are still pending. Springer is not a perfect payroll fit, even before one accounts for the potential financial losses the White Sox suffered from the coronavirus pandemic. And we’re not blind to the fact that Chicago could use more bullpen help, the kind of need that Hendriks (on a cheaper salary than Springer) would help solve. Except there’s no guarantee that Hendriks (whom the A’s rode hard this past October) or Hand (already seeing declining velocity on his fastball and slider) would solve the White Sox bullpen shortcomings. Relievers are the sport's most unpredictable players, and this year’s market might be flooded with more of them (see: Matt Wisler’s reported $1.15 million deal with the Giants) than ever before. Springer seems like a surer bet to remain valuable alongside the White Sox young stars as they mature. He’s also a proven postseason performer who could help Chicago learn how to win in October. By Matt Kelly @mattkellyMLB December 8, 2020 https://www.mlb.com/news/george-springer-free-agency-case-for-white-sox?partnerId=zh-20201209-156906-MLB&qid=1026&bt_ee=cSZo3oyy55BDXSe%2BlmAwiqb0YUL72zFpP9u3ki6XzTwlLvVNnmfGo8oyJzOspV6R&bt_ts=1607517407145

I'd say it's probably closer to 75%, because so many professional athletes are naturally looking to pay the lowest amount of taxes possible. That's the foremost issue for many "normal/common/ordinary" players who have obscure 3-5 year careers around the league minimum and barely qualify for pension benefits. I worked for an NFL football player who tried to convince me about the "Prosperity Gospels" on an everyday basis, and I find it somewhat ironic he ended up serving a long term in Federal prison (Miami) for real estate fraud because he got too greedy. In fact, at that time I lived in Augusta, Georgia, and roughly 90-95% of the PGA golfers back in the 1990's were GOP voters.

Okay fair enough, I haven't been posting much in the last 3-4 months or so so I haven't really read most of the threads...just popped in because so many newsworthy things were happening together.

He's so constantly lumped in with the LaRoches that it has become popular opinion he must be similar... https://www.nbcsports.com/washington/nationals/why-controversy-surrounds-adam-eaton-and-minor-league-pay-problem The reality is that a lot of his opinions are more nuanced than that...but most people only focus on the headlines. I think he's simply outspoken, and he offers up an opinion on nearly anything he's asked.

I was joking (knock on wood), but, with all that said, even if it blows up in their faces completely, one would never in a million years expect a mea culpa out of either LaRussa or Reinsdorf. With all that said, would love to have been a fly on the wall in the Hahn and Kenny Williams households over the last month or so.

It's going to be impossible to separate Eaton and LaRussa from the jobs they're doing between the lines to the various opinions people have about them politically...but that's the society we now have to deal with. Frankly, I think most would forgive a LOT if we get another White Sox World Series championship out of it. That said, if they don't perform or are underwhelming, that's when the political angle will certainly come out.

Well, to suddenly be "for" Adam Eaton now after all the abuse that he's taken over the last 4-5 years on this message board is the equivalent of a QAnon member suddenly switching to Antifa. And it's too bad they didn't ask Abreu or Anderson if they thought holding onto "He Who Shall Not Be Named" would be advisable...that would have made this whole World Series run a whole lot easier.

It would be pretty amazing if LaRussa did something with the White Sox to get removed from the HoF. That would be the perfect century-long bookend to Shoeless Joe Jackson in team lore. It was bad (although understandable enough) with Fisk picking the Red Sox over the White Sox cap. At least we got Baines with the iconic hat in there. And, with the way things are looking, Chris Sale is going to be on the outside looking in, although probably a 50/50 bet right now.

Just waiting for the 2020-21 versions of Gordon Beckham, Emilio Bonifacio and Zach Duke to fill out the earlier comps. Shark=Lynn (NL vet) Cabrera=Eaton (grizzled veterans) Robertson=Hendriks (although Hendriks is obviously more of a pure stuff guy, compared to Robertson's cutter and knuckle-curve being his two out pitches) You can pretty much bank on either Yadi Molina or Adam Wainright being Sox at some point.

Looks like an English Premier League presser, or one of the leftover cast members from Snatch.

Isn't hoping for return to health for thirty-something players who have been injury-prone for much of their careers....just so White Soxy? Otoh, if we can ignore stats that are not there due to injury, can we please erase Luis Robert's late season swoon and award him AL ROY? If Eaton can even put up a 2+ fWAR in 2021, it would be a huge win. Of course, we'd then be relying on a one year older version in one of the most important years of the entire competitive window. Leave it to the White Sox to have their best team in decades sidelined by not being able to draw on the massive expected incoming (attendance/sponsorship) revenue increases we'd been banking on... They better hope they are not fading again by the time that recently extended five year broadcasting rights deal expires again. As it stands, they've already missed the window of billion plus deals by 3-5 years...first, too late, and then too early with this latest round coming before they had a contending team again. The only more ill-timed fiasco was the Cubs with Marquee.

If we had $1 for every time we'd witnessed that same argument at SoxTalk over the last twenty years or so, we'd all be decamillionaires by now. But who knows, right? Every 20 years or so, the Big 10 is also better than the ACC in basketball...so absolutely anything's at least theoretically possible.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/adam-eatons-defensive-numbers-keep-getting-even-crazier/ 2016 was such an anomaly defensively because he accumulated so much WAR from outfield assists alone...not unlike the one huge season Avisail Garcia put together for the White Sox. He had a 3.7, 3.9 and then 5.9 from 2014-2016 for the White Sox. In other words, an average of 4.5 over that time span, with 2016 the outlier. Ever since he left the White Sox, he only has 4.2 fWAR. The average from those last four seasons barely makes him a 1 fWAR player. So we've upgrade from Mazara's basically 0 to Eaton's 1 fWAR for about $7.5 million. Balta would be proud, wherever he is...it's just amazing how practically the entire fanbase has been calling for a Joc Pederson trade for what must be going on 4 years now but now we're essentially stuck with Tony LaRussa's 2010ish evaluation of MLB players. Yikes.

As long as it’s not Shelby Miller.

Next up, Wainright. Plus, he just won the Roberto Clemente Award for his off the field contributions. Fwiw, don’t think this will be our last link to the Cardinals while TLR is running things...

The real problem is one year plus out...and further mutations in the virus down the road.