caulfield12

How many season tickets would Manny Machado sell? 1000? 2000? Harper immediately gets a lot of local corporations to consider buying back in...that “cool” or “it” factor, Q ratings, whatever you want to call it. In the end, it’s about winning...but the marketing side here (right now) has to be 50% of it, and leveraging Harper’s presence to elevate the tv dollars. They’re simply not going to bump up the tv rights deal $20-30 million per year for Machado. They can point to the Orioles over the last 2-3 years as reasons why that doesn’t make sense. Harper’s presence alone gives you the ability to add a Keuchel or Pollock for “free” essentially. I would venture there are more kids out there who have grown up wanting to play with Bryce Harper since they picked up a bat and ball.

Unfortunately, for every true believer...there are going to be "10 Doubting Thomas'es." We've finished in 2nd or 3rd place for way too many players for that not to be the case, until proven otherwise.

That 3 year opt out would make a ton of sense for the Cubs, actually. They're going to have to do a complete rebuild/tear-down at exactly that point.

Maybe. Adam Dunn in 2011 (debacle though it proved to be) was one of the big names that off-season. It is pretty sad that's our "biggest" move in over 20 years (you could put Luis Robert and Abreu up there as well.) Unless, of course, we go by a $100+ million contract doled out, in which case we're nowhere close to the original impact of the Belle signing over 20 years ago (which was also done out of spite over the labor negotiations, and to make a point to fellow owners.)

The Hate U Give is one of the 5 best films of the year so far. Should be required viewing for all middle and high school students.

Corbin presumably...Keuchel and Kimbrel. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2018/11/mlb-free-agent-predictions-2019.html Once you get past the Top 10, there’s a severe drop off in quality. Also has Josh Donaldson signing a $20 million one year deal, Harper at $420 million to the Dodgers and Machado at $390 million to the Phillies. Only three deals for over $100, though, with Corbin at $129 million to the Yankees. If the Twins are going to spend $100 million plus, it will be the shocker of the offseason.

As long as they have that pitching and two stars they’re going to be tough to knock off. Their bullpen is a huge question mark now. Who in their right mind is going to overpay for Encarnacion? There might be a market for Gomes, but they already dealt their best catching prospect last year in Mejia. It will take auctioning off Kluber for me to believe they’re actually serious about rebuilding...because you’re going to get deals like the ones for Sale, Eaton and Q that more often that not go bust with young prospects involved.

Isn’t Medeiros going to get a shot at starting as well?

If we’re going for bad character stretches, might as well sign Kang for one year at third... Would sign Joe Kelly (closer or 5th starter) and Ottavino. Brantley or Pollock for 3 years. Kick the tires on Moustakas or Josh Harrison on one year deals (assuming Kang wouldn’t be considered.) Then one veteran starter added. That gives them an outside shot if everything goes right and the Indians suffer some major injuries to their rotation and/or Lindor or Jose Ramirez. Fwiw, the Cubs aren’t going to give up Happ and Russell along with Heyward, if anything, they’re better off moving Schwarber, but no way both young players go together. Besides, that would force Almora Jr., into everyday play without it being warranted. And the Cubs must have magic dust if they can assume Zobrist can repeat 2018 at his age. The only way that huge package comes back is with Rodon going the other way. But then the return’s a bit light for the Sox. Sox counter with Jones/Rodon + taking on remainder of the Heyward deal to get Russell and Happ...they’d actually be better off with Darvish’s deal, with Steverson unlikely to do much with a veteran hitting project.

Current playbook. Solidify Senate hold (will likely be 52/48) and use that and Supreme Court as buffer/protection against the Dems. Blame the likes of Disappearing Paul Ryan for not fighting hard enough on the immigration wedge issue and instead focusing on “real/local” problems like health care, jobs, infrastructure, education, environment, etc. Blame women for voting against him when “all he wants to do is give them a sense of security and protection.” (Dusts off cover of The Birth of a Nation CD and The Camp of the Saints book.) Pretend like you’re going to make a deal with China to bring the stock market (temporarily) back up. Say anything and everything about pre-existing conditions, birthright citizenship, firing on unarmed refugees/children and mothers, middle class tax cuts, Jewish financial cabals/conspiracies...to confuse uninformed voters.

We still don’t have enough pitching with Dunning/Hansen and Cease one major injury away from a bullpen career. We haven’t dipped into the Asian market or improved at all in the Dominican (looks at Paddy). Tatis, Jr. fiasco. Either terrible luck with Rodon/Fulmer/Adams/Beck/Burdi or just not as good as other organizations at pitching talent assessment. Jury still out. Huge questions about the first two guys in Sentence #1. Didn’t bring in a huge haul along with Robert, like MANY teams have done in their one year overshoots. Players that we haven’t seen much out of like Junior Guerra, Jose Martinez and Tyler Flowers have gone on to perform well with other teams (albeit that happens with every franchise). That said, even if you undid the Frazier and Samardzija trades, we’d still basically be in the same middling position talent-wise. Not much success in Rule 5. Jury still out on Covey, but mostly Adrian Nietos here. Collection of relievers has potential, but guys also have a lot to prove...repeating success, or simply establishing themselves. While Rutherford, Adolfo, Gonzalez, Robert and Basabe all have their plus points, none of them are without flaws...in other words, you have to squint really hard to see a 3+ fWAR big leaguer right now. Burger, Sheets, Collins, Walker, Robert and Madrigal all have major warning signs on their hit tools so far. (Obviously, it’s still early to make any determinations, but this year will be huge in determining if this will all work out or blow up in their faces.) Abreu and Avi slid backwards, along with Davidson/Delmonico/Yolmer. Kopech/Giolito/Moncada fell off cliffs of varying expectation heights. Leaving the majority of hopes resting on Jimenez/Cease to be breakout stars... All those things being said, the bigger question is pulling the trigger on the right free agents, and that has been the single biggest weakness in Hahn’s resume. Sure, sure, sure...he’s never had unlimited resources to work with, but does he really have that right now?

One thing's not debatable, Machado signing would take all the pressure off of Moncada, Jimenez and even Kopech/Cease. That said, there's also the fear he's a negative influence on a young team (with oodles of Latin American talent) and/or he has a repeat of his 2017 season. That almost ensures they have to bring in an established brand manager like Girardi/Scioscia or, more likely, Vizquel. No way Renteria's the type of personality that can bend Machado (at all) to his will, or at least get him to compromise.

Look at the Brewers. They went out and got Cain and Yelich, and didn't care if it would block Domingo Santana and Thames, who both had very solid offensive seasons in 2017 but were defensively-challenged/limited. Basically, it amounts to this. Every year we'll have a Delmonico/Narvaez/Yolmer/Palka on the plus breakout side, but is anyone really counting on them being consistently capable of performing at high levels? That's the $20,000 question.

https://eand.co/does-america-have-a-future-da09ba31d050 Jack might be the only one with the patience to read this...but it's a compelling argument that the Millennials are the only group who can "save" America at this point, and the rationale makes a lot of sense, certainly when you think of it in terms of what's currently going on politically with the politics of division/identity dominating over policy ideas for improving the country. It's all about protecting the old guard vs. what's next? Of course, the Dems haven't done a great job articulating what they want to do exactly that will really make a significant impact, partly due to the fact that "big projects" don't seem to fit with a $21.5 trillion debt (and growing). https://medium.com/s/free-money 8 arguments (for and against) establishing Universal Basic Income in the future as AI/machine learning/robotics replaces more and more "human" occupations.

The last time we really had 6 legit starters was going into 2006 with Javy and McCarthy. I'm with most here in that we need at least ONE if not TWO additions to the rotation for depth. All you have to do is look at what the Dodgers went through in the last couple of years to see why. We're one injury away from another year of Dylan Covey at this point. The odds of Giolito, Rodon and Cease staying healthy for the entire season isn't exactly high probability stuff. Lynn and Pomeranz are good candidates, didn't Lynn pitch much better the second half of the season after he got his legs underneath him due to the late "spring training" for him? Gio would be fine, although he's probably going to get 2+ years instead of taking a one year deal. We might want to kick the tires on Erwin Santana. Morton for one year, as a flip candidate. There are tons of possibilities, but it would be pretty negligent to go into the season without at least one "decent" quality addition below Corbin's tier.

Trump shocks with racist new ad days before midterms https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/31/politics/donald-trump-immigration-paul-ryan-midterms/index.html Honestly, I thought the Willie Horton/anti-Dukakis ads were bad in 1988. This one is worse, we might as well give up as a country trying to talk to the other side because there's absolutely no point right now. The politicians win, and the American people will suffer, in the end. The goal here is to make the rhetoric so inflammatory and divisive that everyone gets ups out of their LaZy-Boy chair and votes. Mission accomplished, but probably not in the way intended. Might as well close off all discussion that might be politically-construed through at least next WED. https://twitter.com/aterkel/status/1057325131398287361/photo/1 It’s 1933 all over again...Jewish candidate attacked in CT state senate race

Never turn down a big league internship for a minor league job that pays more. I could have worked for the Red Sox for $500 per month but turned it down (this was 1994) and you always wonder what would have happened had you taken the other fork in the road. Probably, in the end...I would have reached the same conclusion, working every day in sports might have ruined my love for it, but I only stuck with it for 2-3 before turning to a more conventional field. It's also not so easy to change from the minor league franchises to a major league team once you're pigeonholed.

I'm just going to make the obvious argument that you don't get guys from Cal Tech, MIT and NASA (see Astros) without giving them an incentive to leave their much more profitable private sector jobs. Would most of us be willing to work for 25-50% less than our current salary to work for a professional sports franchise? Maybe? Probably? Depends on age and life circumstances (family/children), etc. The bottom line is that it's not unlike the arguments we're making about having to overpay for Machado or Harper. The Sox need to do the same here, not offer a couple of kids from Northwestern/Illinois/Michigan/Notre Dame/Purdue internships. The White Sox don't have the reputation in the industry, you've got three strong leadership figures (JR/KW/Hahn), so you'd have to convince anyone coming on board that they would have a REAL say in changing the way the team operates, and wouldn't just be a figurehead to pay lip service to the "we do analytics TOO" to cover themselves if the rebuild doesn't work out as intended.

Until they start paying at LEAST $75K (and realistically, it should be at least $150-300K) to attract the best minds from jobs in the tech sector or best math/comp sci universities in the world, it's not going to succeed.

Another good example is Y2K. For months and months, the world was going to end when clocks/computers changed over to January 1st, 2000. Pretty much nothing of significance happened.

So now the argument is that only whites can hold “nationalistic/patriotic” views, and that attacks carrying out such belief systems to their logical conspiracy-driven conclusions by “confused others...meaning NON-WHITES or BLAH PEOPLE” should therefore be disqualified? Sure, makes sense. Fine, I'll simplify. Not everything is about RACE. It's about your belief system, who taught you (parents/school/peers/community) and why you believe what you do. It has a LOT more to do with economic/educational status than racial background. It's no surprise that the amount of (all) women voting Democrat has risen by 40% over the last 2 decades, while the amount of white males with lower than an associate's degree voting GOP has increased by nearly the exact same 40% number during that time frame.

So now the argument is that only whites can hold “nationalistic/patriotic” views, and that attacks carrying out such belief systems to their logical conspiracy-driven conclusions by “confused others” should therefore be disqualified? Sure, makes sense. And, when whites are attacked...the perpetrators aren’t “bad guys” unless they are 100% “pure minority”? Well, that’s never going to hold up because no one in America is ever going to meet the “Aryan standard” and vice-versa, nobody is pure black/brown/NA. Even a certain frustrated painter born in Austria would have failed this test miserably. How is it debatable that a person should ultimately be held responsible for what he/she believes, regardless of the color of their skin?

Papillon with Charlie Hunnam (Sons of Anarchy, Pacific Rim) and Rami Malek was pretty good (but only if you've never seen the original)

Therein lies the problem. Do we fault The Onion or similar satirical sites when large numbers of Trump followers can't distinguish between fact and fiction/conspiracy? Let's face it, there's a huge development over the last 30-40 years in terms of Democrats trending more and more in the direction of college-educated women (of any color) and Republicans increasing mainly in the number of non college-educated males (who are the ones MOST likely to plan and execute a violent attack on American soil). Seriously, when's the last attack where more than 10 or even 5 people were killed by a female in the US? The solution is what, exactly?

Well, the real question is who is influencing the 30-40% in the middle? The people who watch Colbert, Kimmel, Fallon or SNL...they’re unlikely to vote for Trump, by and large.Their minds were already made up a long time ago. https://filmschoolwtf.com/best-christian-movies/ I wouldn’t underestimate the growing power of the Christian films movement. God’s Not Dead, I Can Only Imagine, all the Dinesh D’Sousa films, Left Behind, anything from Kirk Cameron and his wife, the movies about the Promise Keepers, the Mitch Albom books turned into movies, The Blind Side, Soul Surfer, Heaven is for Real...they had a lot more impact than Michael Moore films over the last decade. It’s not even close.