caulfield12

With more attention being paid to Ohtani (especially by non-sports news sources), the national/international writers covering that story will spread more of their coverage to the appreciation of Trout, imo.

I wouldn't say "upset" is the correct description...rearranging where Call/Fisher potentially end up position-wise is probably issue #38 in all of the things Rick Hahn has to be concerned with as of today.

Basabe might SNIFF the back end of the Top 100 (85-100) if he can sustain this pace statistically for a full season (and stay healthy)... But he's not going to be passing Jimenez/Robert anytime soon.

I'm simply responding to the suggestion earlier in the thread of moving one of them to 1B. The end.

Fisher/Call SHOULD THEORETICALLY have more value as "trade bait" to other organizations playing their natural positions...rather than trying to fit a square peg into a round hole of creating yet more 1B/DH types in this organization.

Except we've got how many of those guys already? Delmonico, Davidson, Skole, Palka, Zavala/Collins...that's the ONE position on most MILB depth charts that's not difficult to fill. You better be able to hit 30+ homers, play Gold Glove level defense or hit like John Olerud to hold down that position as an everyday player.

https://eand.co/why-american-collapse-is-only-just-beginning-not-ending-21cac6b14533 And I thought Trump's inaugural address was bleak, lol...at any rate, REDDY, the 30-40% of America who reads this essays and nods their head over and over again, they are the ones the Democratic Party has to figure out how to speak to (again) because they've been taken for granted for 25+ years by the national party. It's also right in line with a Greg775 "humanity is collapsing" rant. There are many beliefs America holds that the rest of the world finds gruesome and strange: guns, capitalism, greed, cruelty. But among these is a new one: that this dark period in American history is an anomaly — and therefore, things will revert to normal. Sorry. American collapse is not an anomaly — it is the very opposite: the culmination of decades-long trends. Those trends, which I’ll discuss in this essay, have not ended — and so collapse has barely only really begun. Let me begin by dashing your hopes. There’s much talk of a “Blue Wave” — excited and hopeful talk. Alas, when we look closely at the wave of politicians that are to turn the country around, it’s all too easy to see that there is no transformative agenda that unites them — mostly, they stand for minor incremental changes, not exactly a New Bill of Rights. And as they are elected, they will quickly meet the reality of American politics: lobbying dollars which control a two-party system that offers the barest illusion of choice. Would you prefer armed teachers — or merely armies at school? Would you like greed with a sugarcoating — or lethally savage capitalism? And so on. The Blue Wave has as little chance of turning America around as Houdini might actually turning water into wine. So the longest-running trend in America — that its democracy has long been broken (or never really been much of one at all, if you want to count the inconvenient fact that it was a segregated nation until 1971, which is usually too much reality for most Americans to bear) — can only continue. Today’s noble Blue Wave idealist is tomorrow’s capitulating Obamacrat — they must either compromise, toeing the party line, or they will quickly find themselves powerless, unheard, and invisible. So Blue Wave or no Blue wave — it is quite irrelevant — American political reality means it will simply go on having little chance of gaining working healthcare, higher education, public media, safety nets, or retirement, because it lacks the capacity to create it — though that is precisely what most Americans, by many measures, want. But they do not just want it. They need it. The average American’s plight is so desperate that people in other rich countries can scarcely comprehend it. Dying from a lack of insulin? The elderly working at Walmart? Less than a week’s pay in savings? It sounds like a dystopian film, not reality. Yet this points to my second megatrend. American incomes have been flat since the 70s — but all the while, the basics of life, all the things above, from retirement to healthcare, have grown in price. First creeping up, and now skyrocketing. Of course, this shatters the average person economic hopes — but it makes those at the top ultra-wealthy. So America’s two great economic megatrends — rising inequality, growing poverty, and an imploding middle class, are likely to bite harder as well. People who must choose between food and healthcare, of course, enjoy poorer and poorer standards of living. And that is America’s third big trend — a declining real quality of life. America yesterday was an optimistic nation — perhaps falsely so — yet still, there was the sense that eventually, life would get better for “all”, as each generation outdid the last. But now that hope is gone. Life is not getting better — it is getting worse, by the day. Life, however you would like to define it. Life expectancy? Shrinking. Infant mortality? Rising. Loneliness, despair, depression? Spiking. Trust, bonds, relationships? Imploding. American life will go on getting harder, meaner, nastier, crueller, and more dismal in every way — because a decent life, at least to the rest of the world, has become an unaffordable luxury. What do people whose lives are falling apart do? Well, the first thing they usually do is take it out on each other. Americans have been doing that for a long time now, so much that it is a way of life. This is my fourth megatrend — it is an emotional one: rage, despair, and anxiety as a way of life. Americans will go on taking the bitter anger and grim despair of living in a collapsing society out on each other. After all, they have no way not to — no mental healthcare, universal education, functioning media, or even norms of basic decency anymore. They will go on hurting one another in every imaginable way — destroying each other in hard and soft ways, denying one another retirement, degrading and bullying each other at work and school and play, refusing to invest in the barest bits of society, walking around with machine guns, building tomorrow’s predatory systems, whether Ubers or hedge funds — precisely because there is no way to aspire to anything better, since the political system is broken, and the economy is irreparable. Because it all seems so hopeless, societies governed by rage and despair also give up on democracy. So we are likely to see a constant “tussle” between authoritarians and the comic Marco Rubio-esque charade that passes for American leadership. But I put “tussle” in quotes for a reason. Authoritarians don’t need a majority — they never have, and that is foolish myth promoted by American intellectuals. It’s enough for fascists and tyrants to capture perhaps 30–40% of a nation to take over its institutions, norms, and future — because that 30% is like a wrecking ball, that can be used to intimidate, bluster, threaten, and bully (as long as the rest is split). That fringe, lunatic 30% now controls America wholesale — not just making any kind of progress not just impossible, but demanding wholesale regress: banning books, taking science out of schools, putting fundamentalist religion into public life, and so forth. That is my fifth megatrend, authoritarianism, and I am sorry to have to tell you that it will not stop with this President — it will continue, gain strength, and shape America for the foreseeable future. I am sure that by now, perhaps, you find all this quite unbelievable. Ah, but wouldn’t you yourself have said where America is today was absurdly, absolutely impossible even two years ago? Wouldn’t you have laughed if someone had read you today’s headlines then, and cried, “LOL. Get real, dude. No way!!!!!”?

They have no reason to RUSH Jimenez, especially with him having his season debut delayed 2-3 weeks. He'll be there in BIRM at least until the middle of June. Polo has always profiled more as a 4th/5th outfielder, last guy off the bench at the next level type...he will be pushed out of the way for Booker, and Fisher/Call will have to sort themselves out by their play on the field. Booker and Basabe have the advantage here because they have the tools to play all three outfield positions...with Rutherford (hitting for average/OBP/doubles) and Adolfo (pure power/plus arm when healthy) having more specialized skill sets for a corner spot or DH. Then you have Robert.

Then you have to deal with the gerrymandering on a state by state level...the huge losses in governorships, state legislature control, school boards/city councils over the last decade or so. (They're already making inroads in states like PA and WI, fwiw.) That was "papered over" by the fact that Obama won twice, but for the state and local parties, it was a disaster. As far as writing legislation to undo Citizens' United, to what end? Hoping Gorsuch is going to be party to upholding it? If anything, with one or possible two more justices likely to change before the Republicans give up power (at the very least, they can hope to delay until the last few months of 2019 when they can then use the "Merrick Garland Run Out the Clock Tactic"), and that's even more complicated to prevent if they don't flip the Senate, which is still looking like a 25% proposition at best. The Democratic Party has been okay for decades with doing very little for minority communities while expecting their votes, why is it suddenly a problem now that a large block of the base sees a problem with the strategy and messaging and wants to change it in the hopes of making some actual progress? (quote) Exactly right. It's hard to name many SUBSTANTIVE policy changes that the Republicans have put into place that support the Christian Conservative/Fundamentalist/Moral Majority/Christian Coalition vote...sure, that effort at the beginning with stopping NGO's outside of the US from using funding for abortions, a few grenades tossed around about transgender military service, but it's almost all been lip service and PR spin. Yet those particular voters are trapped with nowhere else to go, not until/unless another party or the Dem's provide them a better voting option. Trump couldn't be MORE the opposite of 1976 Jimmy Carter, the closest we've ever had in the last 50 years to a legitimate "moral" leader as president...yet his support levels are way through the roof, even vis a vis the "compassionate conservatism" movement of George W. Bush in 2004.

Yet, except for that stretch there where we got absolutely killed for 5 or so games there, by and large, we've been pretty competitive in most of our games. Then you have the 3 blown leads against DET, OAK and then the Soria debacle the first game against StL.

Some Icy-Hot rubbed on it...good to go. Unfortunately, that's about the extent of the treatment Sandy Koufax had available to him back then.

It has taken unique candidates like Dean, Obama, Sanders and Warren to get by with lots of smaller individual donations...not sure how easily that success can be replicated.

Assuming he needs surgery and has it done in late August/early September https://www.overthemonster.com/2012/8/22/3260015/when-carl-crawford-should-return-from-tommy-john It takes less time for position players to recover from Tommy John surgery than it does pitchers, but, as Crawford is an outfielder, his recovery time might be somewhere in the middle. Infielders don't need to attempt to throw to home plate from 250-plus feet out, so they are able to come back at something close to recovered more quickly than someone like Crawford will be able to. That being said, Boston shouldn't have to wait long for him to return to games. Following surgery, light throwing and hitting can often be initiated at approximately four months, which translates to December for Crawford. By spring training, he should be able to hit against live pitching if all is progressing well. And while a general recovery time frame of eight to nine months puts the calendar at April-May, it may take some additional time for Crawford to comfortably throw from the field to home plate. ESPN's injury expert, clinician Stephania Bell, has the details: Bell goes on to say that this doesn't mean Crawford will need to miss additional time in order to be fully prepared to throw hard from left (or RF, in the case of Adolfo.) His bat should be fine in time for the spring, and he'll be on the same schedule as the rest of the club in terms of his offense. Defensively, though, it could take a few months even past his return to be at full strength. It's likely that Crawford will be in somewhat the same situation he was in 2012, where he will be forced to hit the cutoff man for everything, at least until his elbow heals entirely. Teammate Mike Aviles knows how that goes, as he underwent Tommy John surgery back when he was a Kansas City Royal: Aviles hit .304/.335/.413 in 2010, the season following the surgery, so his offense didn't suffer despite his elbow taking time to fully heal in regards to throws. Aviles also mentions an important point: recovery time is different depending on who the surgery is performed on. Aviles was ready to work out and play again earlier than many, and even if Crawford isn't, he'll still be able to get to work on his offense as early as December, months before he's needed down in Fort Myers.

The other plus is that Rutherford's stock seems to be rising again...and that would be a huge plus if sticking with that original scouting position on his vast potential as a LH hitter pans out. At least it argues we're not totally inept with high school hitters since the Thompson/Hawkins/Barnum/Trey M. picks.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is upbeat about President Trump’s trade agenda. But he’s not promising a free lunch. “If you don’t show you’re willing to absorb a little bit of pain, how on earth are you going to get things changed?” he said at the Milken Institute’s annual finance-fest in Los Angeles, before heading to China for trade negotiations. In a conversation with Yahoo Finance Editor-in-Chief Andy Serwer, Ross jabbed the New York Times, rhapsodized about space, and predicted Trump’s threats on trade would ultimately produce success. Trade worries is one big thing holding back financial markets in an otherwise robust economy, with investors worried that tit-for-tat tariffs will blow up into an outright trade war. Ross downplays those risks, pointing to tariffs on Korean-made washing machines the Trump administration imposed earlier this year. “There was a bit woe-is-me,” Ross said. “Well, guess what. Both Samsung and LG are increasing their production of washing machines in the United States.” The Commerce Secretary provided an update on negotiations with Canada and Mexico about revamping the North American Free Trade Agreement, a huge trade pact that undergirds much of the US economy. “Either we’ll have a deal in the next few weeks or it probably won’t be until the fall,” Ross said, pointing out that upcoming elections in Canada and Mexico this summer would probably require a pause if there’s not a deal. By the same logic, Ross’s fall deadline might be unrealistic, given that the US midterm elections are in November. The New York Times recently ran a story saying the Chinese plan to rebuff key US demands on trade. Ross was droll when asked about that. “Apparently the New York Times has developed psychic powers,” he said, as titters filled the ballroom where he spoke. Ross ripped the World Trade Organization, which is supposed to manage disputes between member countries, which include both China and the United States. “The WTO is an obsolete set of rules,” Ross said. “It’s been more or less created to benefit exporting countries [such as China], to the detriment of importing countries [such as the United States].” That mimics Trump’s frequent claims that the United States is a victim taken advantage of by smarter countries in various trade deals. https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/trump-adviser-americans-need-absorb-little-bit-pain-185727558.html

Braves were off in the timing for opening their new stadium and actually having an exciting young team on the field, but it wasn't as far off as most had previously speculated...of course, the now-deposed GM is quickly forgotten!

It would take 8-10 starts IN A ROW like this for Shields to have legit trade value. What are the odds of that happening?

Flavum, quite the "out on a limb" prediction when you picked the midpoint...+13, splitting the difference in two, haha. In all seriousness, some of those numbers depend on what happens to Nate Jones, Kopech, Eloy Jimenez. Hard to get a feeling at this point when/if they'll bring up those guys this year (if it's to happen before September).

Blake Rutherford, OF, White Sox (A+): The Yankees stole Rutherford after he dropped in the 2016 draft and sent him to Chicago last season in the Tommy Kahnle-David Robertson trade. While Rutherford still hasn’t come into his power, scouts adore his left-handed swing and see him as the player the Phillies had hoped (Mickey) Moniak might be. Dane Dunning, SP, White Sox (AA): Dunning is following the same pattern as last season. Destroy a level for four starts, get a promotion to an age-appropriate level and continue working toward the major leagues. The 23-year-old doesn’t have the upside of Michael Kopech or Alec Hansen, but he projects as a back-of-the-rotation type who can rack up strikeouts. https://www.yahoo.com/sports/prospect-heat-check-mlb-ready-19-year-old-hitting-prodigy-203150051.html

Would be shocked if they selected a high school player here...

Hopefully he can at LEAST speak Spanish. You don't necessarily need an MBA and JD degree like Hahn or Quin Snyder, but it sure doesn't hurt to have one or the other...if you're not studying sports management/administration specifically. Then, your chances go down appreciably if you weren't at least a Division 1-caliber athlete in baseball/basketball/football. That means you need to work 2X-3X as hard for 25-50% as much money starting out and trying to break into the field. Doing crazy things like volunteering to go work in the Dominican Summer League or especially Venezuela (winter ball/year-round training academy) these days.

https://www.inverse.com/article/44383-avengers-infinity-war-thanos-ethics-philosophy Tons of Avengers Infinity War fans think Thanos (utilitarianism combined with lottery selected genocide) might actually be right

Greg, no GM would ever say that publicly...even if he THOUGHT it. What closer would you have acquired this offseason? Even if you spent the money the Dodgers spent to retain Kenley Jansen, it's not like he's been completely reliable (for one of the ELITE closers) the first month or so of the season. Then we'd all be complaining about spending $15-20 million per season on a meaningless closer to bump up our overall record from 58 wins to 64-66 wins. And we'd be giving up 6-8 spots in the first round of the draft to do so, not to mention losing draft picks for signing a premium free agent.

Why didn't you get a Master's degree in Sports Administration and prove yourself in the minor or independent leagues first? At least you would have some basis to be considered. Any armchair QB with a rotisserie league team probably fantasizes about being the next Billy Beane or DePodesta, but you have to have a background in analytics/quantitative analysis and strong business, marketing and communication skills as well to succeed in this role.

Which means they're unlikely to opt for off-season surgery...because that would knock him out of the entire 2019 season, right? Unless they just want to let him DH the next two years (on an everyday basis) and work on his hit tool, knowing he will always be limited defensively and that the elbow strength will be their eventually with so much time to rehab it naturally?