caulfield12

America...where nobody can ever be happy without their participation trophies, lol. In that case, Fathom should get some type of lifetime meritorious service award for most gamethread posts in SoxTalk history. Maybe Honorary Mod for one whole week, and free In-N-Out Burger for at least a year, sponsored by Alex and Ursula Snelius. PS: Maybe the Top Ten Leaderboard should be able to give away points to new posters they feel are deserving of special recognition...?

Zuckerberg will predictably get hammered by Trump tweets...it would be funny if he responded back “at least my wife is a real American,” then pushed one of those big red nuclear button props that reads “adios QAnon, goodbye NRA...now permanently banned from the platform, and you too, Avenatti and Guiliani.” Of course, that would have a ripple affect on FB stock because he’d be losing 20-25% of his user base and probably incur an assassination attempt as well.

It’s a free world here at SoxTalk, perhaps moreso than anywhere else (I’ll go with the “mods have gotten softer/kinder/busier/too rich from investing in Amazon explanation.”)

Because his defense and speed will kick his fWAR value up by 1 to 1.5 alone, making him a 3.5-4.0 value player...and either his power numbers or walks/OBP will creep up as well. As it stands, Moncada and Anderson are barely 700 ops guys...do you really see Anderson ever getting to even 800? If we’re going by that criterion, then you have to keep Avi, because Jimenez and Collins are the only advanced hitters that should be above that mark. Of our other hitting prospects, it’s hard to do much more than squint to see any surefire results, at least 800 and above...Robert, I guess? And the point of everything I wrote was to articulate exactly why OPS wasn’t the be all and end all with Madrigal. Far from it, in fact.

I've spent a lot of time back home here in the Quad Cities listening to Cubs' games and the SCORE and I've noticed that Coomer and Hughes are using the nickname "Magic" for Javier Baez. But, after finally getting around to listening to this podcast (and the one right before the June draft with his OSU coach), Nick Madrigal is eventually going to be the one eventually "stealing" that nickname away. https://art19.com/shows/white-sox-podcast/episodes/e3557c6b-b05c-45b5-be8d-02c11deeb208 Listening to him, this was probably the first time I believed...just maybe...that the rebuild was going to work, that they could win another World Series in my lifetime. I don't particularly believe in Hahn, but I believe in players (typical Ozzie witticism, but he was right on this)...and this kid just has that something special that will rub off on his teammates and make the Sox a better team in the middle of 2020 (at the latest). He just plays the game the right way, and, while he's obviously not going to put up 1.000 OPS numbers like an Eloy Jimenez, I do think he'll end up having a tremendous impact on Tim Anderson and Moncada in particular...especially their lack of focus on what they're actually up at the plate to accomplish each time they go up there. (This has been one of the biggest pet peaves for White Sox fans who have grown up with "garbage" baseball the last 6 years...as opposed to "corpseball" the previous decade.) He will automatically improve the defense, and he'll be like the captain or player-manager out on the field. I'm pretty sure (the podcast was his last day at Kanny, last Thursday morning) that he was moved up to Winston-Salem largely to take advantage of the time to be around Omar Vizquel and soak up his wisdom/knowlege/insights forat least a month. It was also very clear that he was impressed by Justin Jirschele's desire and willingness to win, even though he was only there one week. So I'll make a prediction that Vizquel is at Birmingham next year and Jirschele moved up to Winston-Salem. One of those two guys will be the next White Sox manager, IMO. The thing that really stood out to me in that interview was talking about winning a World Series (from most other players' mouths, it seems like a cliche or just something they say because they're expected to say it), about always being the first one to the field and setting an example (he doesn't explicitly say it, but you can feel it...and the fact that he's never ever really thought much about being the youngest and shortest player in almost every competitive athletic situation because he feels his work ethic and practice/routine make him the biggest player on the field. That he's never thought about what kind of career he would have if he was 6'0". As I said, I don't know how great a hitter he can be...I expect he'll settle in around 750-775 unless he can really increase his walk numbers...but I do think he's the most important position player in this rebuild because of the positive influence he'll have on the rest of his teammates (especially about the strikeout issue and fouling off pitches). I know this all sounds like what we used to hear constantly about Tim Tebow, but listening to this guy and his college coach and Hostetler, it's hard not to be convinced to believe in this guy who has proven the doubters wrong his entire life (just like Altuve or Nellie Fox or whoever we want to compare him to...) Another thing that was pretty cool is the fact that his twin brother also made it as a Division 1 pitcher at that height. Beyond our middle infielders, I think he's going to get along really well with Collins, who will hopefully evolve into a leader at that position (Tyler Flowers never assumed that role, the constant turnover at catcher has been yet one more flaw in the last decade of Sox baseball) along with Nick. Finally, I think there's nothing to worry about with who's going to play exactly which infield/outfield position. Whether it's the Brewers, Cubs, Dodgers (http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/24267936/is-positionless-baseball-mlb-next-big-thing) the trend is now upon us, unless they add 1-2 more players to each roster in order to avoid so many position players pitching in blowout games. We already have (had) a lot of players that fit that bill in Saladino, Leury, Yolmer, Cordell...it's just that they're all essentially utility or role players instead of starters, but the running game and aggressiveness are already starting to come around this season, and it will only increase in the future with the additions of players like Madrigal, Robert and Basabe. While Madrigal is not "Baseball Jesus," I do think we're underestimating the difference that one player can make in turning around the attitude of an entire organization...everyone is merely looking at his stature and statistical projections (see allusions to Darwin Barney, who also played at OSU), but baseball is about so many more things that Madrigal does instinctively and we'll realize after watching him day after day, start to truly appreciate him, and wonder why all players don't have that "team first" mindset (obviously part of the answer is the fixation on launch angle and power numbers). Chicks dig winners/winning teams more than the longball. And Rudy wins the day!

https://medium.com/s/story/pity-the-rich-a7a812f09d8e We should pity the rich

Gurriel (intl signing), Aoki, Beltran, Gregerson?

Not close to Nazi/Japanese Empire in WW 2 extreme, yet, but this is also 2018, we were supposed to be the “shining light on the hill, a beacon, etc.” What the hell has gone wrong with America? The closest parallel is the treatment of Japanese-Americans during WW 2, although the scale was larger.

Did Greg hack your account?

Well, the Rays going with their relievers to start, and all three (Yarborough and Shields) working extremely slowly...

Example/s?

Boo!!!

Nice strategy to get to 400, lol...

Wow, Stanton hit a ball at 121 mph...thatttt’s pretty pretty good. Baeball clearly needs MORE nearly 5 hour Yankees/Red Sox games. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy in Chapman...unfortunately not a couple more like that in the 2016 World Series.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/local/article/Immigrant-GI-booted-out-of-Army-at-Fort-Sam-13130805.php Bad guys out, good guys in? I thought we desired to attract hard working immigrants/future doctors? The QAnon theory takes many forms, but it essentially stipulates that Trump is secretly saving the world and stopping pedophiles and the like. As Paul Musgrave recently wrote for The Washington Post, the central conceit is that "behind the scenes, Trump is really doing something amazing and heroic — that the shambolic mess of a commander in chief the world sees is just a front for a hypercompetent superhero." Some believers in this theory take it really seriously. They talk about it on message boards and social media sites. Others aren't sure what to think, but they know it's "fun" to participate in, like a political video game. They become part of a story that stars Trump as the hero. There's a "choose your own adventure" aspect to all this. Trump's allies are expert at providing a counter-narrative to the prevailing media narrative. And Trump himself knows how to change the story with the click of a Twitter button. This is why the term "alternative reality" comes up so often in conversations about the Trump presidency. There's Trump ... and his favorite talk shows ... and his favorite authors ... and the fans who come up with the conspiracy theories ... all of the Twitter bots and trolls that promote it ... and the politicians who play along ... all amounting to a well-constructed reality that bears almost no resemblance to news reportage. In the same way that Disney fans fly to Florida, in the same way that comic book fans argue on internet forums, Trump loyalists flock to his rallies. They are not representative of the public at large, but they do represent something powerful. They are motivated to defend him. And they're motivated to keep telling his story. https://money.cnn.com/2018/08/05/media/donald-trump-story-telling/index.html

Babe Ruth and Rudy Guiliani

In this case three, although he can get a pass for “(a) huge talent”

We get six still? Robert, Burdi, maybe Hamilton, Dunning (based on health), Rutherford/Basabe...Lambert? A lot depends on how hard they want to push Cease, and Dunning’s health. Was Hansen there last year? Ideally, they can get him on track before the offseason...so it depends where he is psychologically one month from now. They could just as easily shut him down and hope he’s 100% out of the gate next year. Madrigal will be 2019. Long look in spring training, 2020.

Bettendorf...53rd Street And it’s employee owned. (Full disclaimer, have never worked at a Hy-Vee, but it’s an Iowa tradition like Whitey’s ice cream and Happy Joe’s pizza, haha)

That’s unlikely he would do that when Hahn was just in town...he better get called up, I just informed someone in a White Sox T-shirt at the local Hy-Vee the move was coming!

Bring out the plane tracker app...the fact that it’s the Yankees at home, the timing is pretty pristine. And, if this all falls apart, Hahn will get really annoyed answering the same question for almost two more months.

Yeah, you could almost argue Yolmer, but that won’t happen, either. Trade Leury? Engel’s the one guy pretty much nobody cares about remaining on the roster or not. Except for his immediate family. Shields goes, to someone, or Covey to the bullpen and Minaya dfa’d?

More 4 hour games, lol...that’s reason enough to dump Renteria, but absolutely nobody will care anymore if Jimenez and Kopech look good.

Franmil Reyes of the Padres with one of the most impressive homers of the season...he was reaching and out on his front foot and almost hit it over the batter’s eye to almost dead CF at Wrigley. Impressive power. Booing at Wrigley is perfect ending to today. And Arenado is gold, c’mon Brewers. Btw, is LUIS Robert in the lineup today or already traveling?

Might as well throw all 67 mph screwballs and hope for the best. This dude was FSL MVP last year...huge jump to majors in one season. Just hope they get DP instead of walk-off...although getting another 4 pick would kinda suck after suffering through this season. Huge huge gamble to avoid the DP.