caulfield12

Should get NEGATIVE 2 points for those "easy pickings," lol.

The Olympics, to me, are a big testing opportunity this summer. With 98-99% of the Chinese population not vaccinated (partly because nobody has had Covid in Wuhan for many many months, at least half a year), it's a conundrum because tourists will never voluntarily go through 10-14 day quarantines on both sides of a trip. So the question becomes if international travelers HAVE to have a vaccine certificate, from which providers (will the Chinese ones be accepted in the EU or US, for example?)...or will it be enough just to take "instant" exam and, at worst, have a 24 hour quarantine that first night until coming up with a "clear" test. Because we all know that if you have a test 2-4 days in advance (sometimes it's so hard to get an appointment the day before travel), they're also potentially missing X number of cases that later turn symptomatic. It's kind of frustrating here, because 1) many people don't trust the Chinese vaccines, both here and abroad, say, the Philippines....but 2) there are no other choices but the Chinese vaccines, and those have only been administered to government officials, international business travelers, embassy/party officials, active duty military, etc. No talk of doing any vaccinations for teachers...in no large part because it has been since April or May where there was a real concern about outbreaks, at least where I live (Beijing and Northeast China is a slightly different story over the last 4-6 months, there was certainly a lot of concern during Spring Festival/New Year's when hundreds of millions of people all travel over the span of 2-3 weeks.)

He’s never been able to consistently hit well playing everyday against left and right handed pitching. He has his hot stretches like all hitters, but relying on Engel to be a 775-825 ops hitter is not a recipe for success. And he will get some infield hits due to his possessing Top 5 sprint speed...putting the ball up into the air is not his game, it’s getting on base and getting in opponent’s head. Otherwise, if they believed in his everyday ability, no need for Eaton and that money invested in someone like Quintana instead.

He has a minor league option remaining. Likely they keep him starting every fifth day at Charlotte...they simply can’t afford to have 4/5 starters going 4+ innings each start, so Lopez at the very least can eat up those innings in blowout losses to save the key high leverage guys, and would next man up in the case of Cease/Rodon failures or injuries.

https://www.fangraphs.com/players/dylan-cease/18525/stats?position=P You must be confusing Cease 2019 with the 2020 version. If he repeats 2019, there will be be massive bullpen issues if he again averages less than 5 IP per start. If you had Cease 2019 for fifth start, that’s more what would expect from the typical playoff-bound rotation.

https://qconline.com/news/local/debate-sparks-over-glass-steagall-act/article_da61ae1e-056f-566a-b254-32f038075496.html Of course, Rep. Leach from our district in Iowa was acting in retrospect like he wasn’t at the center of all this, along with Phil Gramm of Texas. (Well, at least his niece, Leslie, who went to Occidental, was nice...Leach was always perceived as a center-right banking expert and had as much to do with financial rules and regulations as anyone in the 1980’s and 90’s.) I guess if blame had to be assigned going all the way back to Reagan/Regan/Stockman, it’s 55-60% GOP and the remainder on the Clinton administration, with Obama giving everyone a convenient free pass at the end of it all. On GME second move... “But, don’t expect it to happen once more. Wall Street will likely fight back against another onslaught of coordinated buying by Reddit investors. Whether that’s via trading restrictions, as we saw brokerages like Robinhood do at the height of the short-squeeze saga. Or, perhaps Wall Street could pressure Reddit itself to shutter the popular subreddit. How Wall Street fights back isn’t the point. It’s the fact it’ll likely curb any future short-squeeze sagas any which way it can. With it more a game of predicting the unpredictable, the ability to handicap the situation is limited. We’ll know in the coming days whether this second round has legs, or if it quickly sputters out.” https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/despite-reddit-rebound-stay-away-160643747.html

If if if he can actually stay on the field for 145+ games...

White Sox Jimmy Cordero: The White Sox bullpen is stacked with intriguing pitchers about to embark on their first full seasons. We're highlighting Cordero because his bloated ERA (6.08 in 26 innings) tells a misleading story about his 2020. His sinker-slider combination suppressed contact at an elite rate last season, permitting him to rank in the 96th percentile of exit velocity. That didn't prevent him from allowing 11 hits per nine frames, but we don't think that will carry into the new year. As an added bonus, Cordero has the best short-sleeve game in the majors since the days of Joel Peralta. https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mlb-breakout-candidates-one-player-from-all-30-teams-whos-ready-to-step-up-in-2021-season/

Yes, where Dustin May, Gonsolin, Gavin Lux, etc., don’t even have starting roles without injuries (see Price, David).

He’s this year’s version of Drew Anderson with lesser stuff. Dennis Michael Wright Jr. is an American professional baseball pitcher for the Chicago White Sox organization. He has previously played in Major League Baseball for the Baltimore Orioles and Seattle Mariners, and in the KBO League for the NC Dinos. Wright played college baseball for East Carolina University. Wikipedia

https://www.mlb.com/news/best-baseball-cap-for-every-team?partnerId=zh-20210227-156906-MLB&qid=1026&bt_ee=vCw1KXOrq7s4xKn0lqGTnyie0Z60wHy5%2FAsJLGMRKG5vqxbF2mfObP7wojzFirOu&bt_ts=1614429995422 This was about the closest I could find with a quick online search...the 1959 version is much more common, for obvious reasons. https://www.detroitgamegear.com/product=/chicago-white-sox-47-brand-cooperstown-vintage-navy-franchise-fitted-hat?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIisaQ5qmK7wIVXiCtBh0BSQiYEAQYASABEgJpxfD_BwE

Well, it’s essentially like an adjustable rate mortgage for utilities such as gas, water and electric. When someone benefits by rates going lower, they are smart. When the rates go up, or they have a balloon payment they can’t make after buying a house, essentially enjoying a service they couldn’t ordinarily afford...who is responsible? If they bought the house with an ARM or interest-only loan but flipped it for profit in the meantime...will they not enjoy profit? We had a president bragging for years about taking advantage of the system, loopholes, paying no taxes for nearly a decade...why should it be surprising everyone now wants special treatment? Like forgiving student loans, for example. HOUSTON, Feb 26 (Reuters) - Texas's grid operator on Friday shut Griddy Energy LLC's access to the state's power network for unpaid bills and shifted its 10,000 customers to other utilities, as new signs of a financial crisis rose after a state-wide blackout. Griddy was the power marketer that sold consumers electricity at wholesale rates, which rose to $9,000 per megawatt hour as cold weather struck the state last week. Unable to cope with demand, utilities cut power to 4.3 million residents as temperatures fell below freezing. Grid operator Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) "effectively shut down Griddy," the electricity marketer said in a statement on its website. Requests for further comment were not returned. ERCOT separately said $2.1 billion of its service bills went unpaid from utility and other grid users on Friday, another sign of the devastation from high electricity rates during the cold snap. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/1-electric-firm-griddy-loses-005444136.html

One positive with this new bill is that at least checks are only going out to those under $75,000 household income and families...if it went to those over $75,000 as well, you’d see 50-75% of that money going right back into the stock market, rather than paying off debts and being recirculated right back into the economy for goods and services, keeping those small businesses and hourly workers in their jobs. The goal on the flip side of the equation is consolidation/mergers, wiping out anything remotely resembling small mom and pop stores or local restaurants....just feeding into the continued massive corporatization of the country. Those corporations, meanwhile, figure out any possible way to cut down on both human resources and physical office space, driving up stock prices (more buybacks) and driving the bottom 2/3rds of Americans further away from the American dream. This next decade, it will be increasingly challenging for that bottom group to even afford a decent house, with interest rates/inflation rising.

How would you define who’s most responsible? Barney Frank? Rubin and Clinton? Summers? Greenspan? Mortgage lenders who didn’t even verify incomes in the quest to beat the competition and generate as many new loans as possible? Investment banks mixing retail and investment banking? The rating agencies? You could go through that Inside Job documentary (Matt Damon narrated) and there would be so many guilty parties there would be nobody left but Elizabeth Warren, and she’s not entirely the saint the media created, either. I think that’s why nothing substantive was done. You would have to destroy our whole financial and regulatory system and basically start over from scratch

That’s what happens when there was no attempt at national or Federal coordination for a full year, contracts were simply given to pharmacies and public health departments were left out of the loop...to the previous administration, just coming up with a vaccine itself was the victory that would theoretically allow for a second term. But there was no to no thought given collectively or collaboratively on how to distribute it effectively. It was more like a political prop or tool.

Another Hahn special, Emilio Bonifacio...not officially retired yet but don’t see him connected to a team. Will probably end up in an international league.

You can argue just as easily that if Renteria didn’t experiment with the pen (Rodon) and Robert didn’t fall off a cliff...that 2-8 against the Indians, etc., we’d just put away the Twins and were running away then suddenly let up on the gas.

“Meanwhile, I'm guessing most of the fans who remain highly critical of the team have continued living through those painful years, and feel that team ownership and management owes them something for them having to endure those years. Is there something to that? For me, returning to the team as I did last year, all I see are good things and growth. Here are a few things that I really like (whether or not other Sox fans do)...” I can just imagine every loss bring blamed on TLR, just like previously with Renteria...but it’s going to be even more polarized. Because lots of fans who have been dormant for the better part of a decade are going to come back to the fold. Expectations are high...the most interest/excitement in fifteen years now since the 2006 team. That’s half a lifetime for quite a few posters here, or at least covering high school through mid to late 30’s. Many posters have left the bachelor lifestyle behind and now rank the Sox in their list of priorities well behind family, friends, work and Covid concerns. Personally, I tried to find other reasons to follow baseball (see Puig or Tatis)..but still followed most of the games on a daily basis until that mid 2016 collapse up to the Moncada debut and then Kopech in 2018 and in and out through 2019. What doesn’t sit too well with me is judging other Sox fans when you deliberately avoided following them for so long. You can argue or assert you’re not judging or preaching or carrying JR’s water or seeing everything White Sox through rose-colored glasses...but you can’t suddenly reappear and suddenly anoint Mr. Collins as a potential everyday player without having watched his at-bats the last three seasons. That will not be well received, certainly. So this relentless, new thread each day or even multiple threads cajoling everyone into being more optimistic are just going to start a war after every loss. If the White Sox were running a $140-150 million payroll out there for Opening Day, I might be convinced they actually were aiming to win a World Series, or at least advance in the playoffs or even to the ALCS. The Royals went from 20th to 17th to 9th in MLB Opening Day payroll from 2014-2016, but they at least set a new franchise high every year from 2013 through 2017, increasing for five consecutive years. The Cubs went from 19th to 13th all the way up to $184.5 million at the start of the 2016 World Series with the Indians around $95 million. The odds of teams not in the Top 12 payrolls advancing in the playoffs over the last four seasons is basically limited to the Rays and A’s over the White Sox. 90% of the frustration is that unwillingness even in the second year of the competitive window to spend at least in that $140-150 million range....it’s even harder to take when you see the Padres spending $162 million with the best team with the deepest pockets the team in front. It feels like if we were in the NL West we would simply aspire to 3rd place and maybe a wild card, but that would be the extent of it. And that self-satisfaction without having really accomplished anything yet is pretty galling. We had the division and coughed it all away the last two weeks...and the main reason we were there was beating up on the worst teams in baseball, particularly the Royals, Tigers...we only went 10-10 versus the relatively weak NL Central, too. We were 7-13 against Cleve and Minnesota, but 18-2 against Detroit and KC. 17-23 is closer to where we really were against the majority of MLB, but the unbalanced schedule and 16 team playoff field saved us.

Go Sox?

Injuries/lack of playing time/issues off the field. Nobody in baseball knows exactly what to expect, and how/if he will respond to such an extended layoff. You could even argue for the vision of Crochet as Randy Johnson over Kopech's long term future as a starter. We just don't have a clue how he will react.

SD Padres, #2-3 team in baseball coming from the 29th media market and opening 2021 at $162 million in payroll in a state with noteworthy Covid issues. We are only around what, $130 million in one of the Top 3~5 media markets in the entire country. It's roughly split 60/40 with Cubs, but that still is a significant market to exploit if only the organization could creatively use their collective imagination...in terms of at least reaching parity with the "greedy/evil" Cubs' collapsing empire.

Madrigal and Moncada will never have an easy road to the ASG. If we do extend Lynn, it won't be easily done, as a strong season from him has to roll down and impact money earmarked for Lucas, Vaughn, Madrigal, Kopech/Cease/Crochet, etc. Personally, would be pretty surprised to see it happen with Keuchel on books. Another obvious weakness besides 4/5 is going to be Grandal's health as he ages. And Zack Collins isn't being counted on for much at all by the majority of the fan base. That said, we could still get lucky with Micker, Sheets or Burger... not to mention Cespedes or Colas.

Meanwhile, JR has signed a deal with the City of Chicago to limit in-person attendance so he has a. legitimate excuse not to invest any more money in the on-field product.

He needs to spend less time on social media and more time exhaustively assessing all options for DH beyond internal ones if Vaughn is deemed to be at least a half-season away.

Except everything from last year we didn’t see... We heard Madrigal wasn’t close to ready after similar struggles his draft year. Why would Vaughn, arguably a more polished hitter, not be capable of following the same timeline of 1 1/2 seasons before recall?