caulfield12

That said, one of the two lower rated players from the Padres supposedly made huge strides in 2020...to the point where "observations in swing improvements" led him to the periphery of their Top 10. I guess the other part of it we just jumped from Crochet's draft year to him directly being an integral part of the current roster and not considered a realistic trade piece (due to the possibility of following in the lines of Sale.) Normally, those recent draft pick guys would build depth in a system over a 2-3 year period. We also have the 2 big Lat Am signings, but those realistically aren't considered legit trade pieces since doing so (quickly) would put a damper on the so-called Cuban Connection.

He went on a crazy homer tear that one year. Not unlike that crazy Golden Gopher going 8/9 the other night from 3 after being 2/10 previously. Everyone has their 15 minutes of fame.

Lawsuit?

Arugula?

Just don't let him get married again. We don't need another McCourts drama like the Dodgers went through...

The DeVos Family would be quite elated with choice #6. #8 is DON'T EAT? It probably should be don't eat OUT everyday, lol.

He's fine at the back end. They quickly learned this post-season, though, that's he's not the kind of pitcher you can necessarily rely on to shut the other team down in the playoffs, and that's all that matters to SD right now (and getting past the Dodgers.) Just imagine in 2022, they'll have Gore/Lamet/Clevinger/Darvish/Paddock as their starting rotation...but they still have Morejon, Ryan Weathers, Lucchesi (back end/spot or swing starter/trade piece like Davies) and Michel Baez to back them up or make yet another trade. The top options will likely be Luis Patiño and Adrian Morejon. Patiño, who turned 21 this week, had a 5.19 ERA and 1.85 WHIP this season. Although these aren’t inspiring numbers, he was just 20 years old all season long and has a lot of work to do now that he has made his MLB debut. His 21 strikeouts in 17 1/3 innings show promise in his stuff, though. Morejon, 21, recorded a 4.66 ERA and 25 strikeouts in 19 1/3 innings. Both of these young pitchers had a huge opportunity on this Padres team this season to showcase their abilities. Another pitcher who is worth looking at is Joey Lucchesi. Lucchesi was one of San Diego’s workhorse pitchers in 2018 and 2019 but only made three appearances this past season. With Lucchesi and Morejon currently being the only two LHP with a solid chance to break the rotation, one of them will likely make it. Manager Jayce Tingler would likely go with the younger Morejon for 2021, as shown by his usage in 2020. Two other left-handed pitchers that turn heads are Ryan Weathers and MacKenzie Gore. Weathers, 20, made his MLB debut in Game 1 of the NLDS against the Dodgers. In 1 1/3 shutout innings, he walked two batters and struck out Cody Bellinger. Weathers is the Padres’ No. 6 prospect and will be intriguing to watch if placed on the roster in 2021. MacKenzie Gore. The Padres’ No. 1 prospect, the top pitching prospect in all of baseball, and the No. 3 prospect in all of baseball. Gore, 21, is expected to be a future top-of-the-rotation starting pitcher. Due to COVID-19, Gore, along with all minor league players, did not have a season. https://www.eastvillagetimes.com/an-outlook-at-the-2021-san-diego-padres-rotation/

Paddock really regressed last year, but that rotation if Gore even comes anywhere near fulfilling his potential is closer and closer to rock solid right now. They also managed to retain Morejon and Baez, who have been Top 75 or above MiLB guys in recent years. And CJ Abrams is a lot like Profar, where he can play basically anywhere on the field. All things considered, they’re in a pretty good place...just need one more stud in the bullpen (or one of the castoff starters to take off). Of course, as long-term White Sox fans well know, nothing goes quite like planned in baseball.

Mejia is a lousy defender but has a rocket arm, think of him a bit like Miguel Olivo at this point. But equating his value with Collins is borderline ridiculous.

Crochet not a chance with his likely reliever profile. Kopech’s the closest. I would think 75% of MLB front offices or more would prefer Patino. Most notable is not giving up Abrams, either. Better package here than the Clevinger one because of the possibility of Mejia breaking out and obviously Patino’s got a ton of potential, but there’s more risk for the Rays as well (compared to the Indians, who were almost forced to trade their guy.)

Just look at the hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars paid for music catalogs...the exponentially increasing value of fine art collections, etc.

Kemp in Georgia and Reynolds in Iowa, along with Noem in SD...the former finally stood up to Trump these last 4-6 weeks, but not knowing anything about how the virus is transmitted months into a pandemic is pretty pathetic.

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.