caulfield12

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.

Video?

Or go back to the “conservative conspiracy against the Clintons” or further back to the media’s war with Richard Nixon...heck, let’s try the media’s war with LBJ administration over the prosecution of the Vietnam War (see McNamara’s “The Fog of War”). Didn’t start with Obama and Trump, clearly, but it has to be pretty darned close to the low point since the late 60’s/early 70’s.

Even if CNN and MSNBC were 80/20 anti-Trump, they’re cancelled out by Fox and Breitbart. The majority of political radio talk shows in America are conservative. The majority of small and medium-sized (distribution and population density served) newspapers tend to be owned by conservative conglomerates. Most of the financial press (think Forbes, CNBC or Wall Street Journal) is at their heart conservative/fiscal conservative with a social conscience. Same with Time, Newsweek, US World & News Report, etc. Sure, you have The NY Times, Washington Post, Yahoo, Huffington Post, Mother Jones, The Onion...still not seeing where this idea of liberal bias is coming from, because we haven’t even touched sites like Gab, QAnon, Alex Jones, Matt Drudge (the entire alt-right media conspiracy infrastructure). What exactly is the left equivalent of those groups...don’t give me names of groups (BLM, Nation of Islam, La Raza, etc.), let’s hear actual media entities with significant subscriber bases.

1. The shooter in the Pittsburgh synagogue was inspired to commit his heinous act by the false storyline that liberal billionaire George Soros was providing the financial backing for the caravan. It's not entirely clear where the shooter got this idea, but Fox Business Network anchor Lou Dobbs, for one, did a segment with Judicial Watch's Chris Farrell in which the notion is given credibility. The mainstream media repeatedly debunked this ridiculous claim and called it for what it is: anti-Semitism. 2. Trump's definition of "fake" news is this: News that is bad for him. How do I know? Because he tweeted about it! "The Fake News is working overtime," Trump tweeted in May. "Just reported that, despite the tremendous success we are having with the economy & all things else, 91% of the Network News about me is negative (Fake). Why do we work so hard in working with the media when it is corrupt? Take away credentials?" "Negative" and "fake" are not, of course, synonyms. Trump's attacks on the media's "inaccurate and even fraudulent reporting of the news" have to be understood in that context. This isn't about actual fake news at all. This is about Trump believing the media is not being nice enough to him. 3. Trump's tweet condemning the media for fomenting divisiveness includes this line: "The Fake News Media, the true Enemy of the People." We have a President who is simultaneously insisting that the media is the prime driver of the divisions and hatreds on the rise in this country and that the entire free and independent media are an enemy of the American people. The irony is suffocating. What makes all of this worse is that Trump, at heart, doesn't hate the media at all. He loves the media. His Twitter feed, his interviews, his back-and-forths with reporters all make clear how much of an avid consumer of the mainstream media he is. He spends hours a day watching TV and tweeting about it. He not only knows reporters who cover him by sight but he also knows stories they've written about him and whether those stories were, in his mind, good ("true") or bad ("fake") for him. We've never had a President before who is such a connoisseur of the media or who cares as much about what the media thinks of him as Trump. https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/29/politics/donald-trump-moral-leadership/index.html

Would it be better to have private loan companies charging 6-18% interest, or the government charging 3-5%? This is the first complaint I’ve ever heard about the government being in a position to earn a profit. We only hear about the USPS or Amtrak and how inefficient government enterprises shouldn’t be subsidizing public corporations with cheaper services than would be available through the private sector. So what is the solution, to close most humanities programs and force the majority to study business, law, medicine, engineering, STEM, AI, robotics, VR, AR and IOT (internet of things/big data/cloud computing)? If that’s the case, why even have general requirements? Why not just directly into your major at 18 and graduate at 20? And a low supply of doctors and oversupply of lawyers is one of many reasons why we’re currently experiencing exploding health care costs...if they want to rebalance, they should provide more grants/assistance for future doctors and make law school comparatively more expensive so we don’t end up with a glut of unemployed lawyers who can’t pass their state bar exams or pay back student loans.

Average age of the eleven synagogue victims = 74.0

https://www.actionnetwork.com/mlb/world-series-odds-2019 Shocked they weren’t a bit lower, something like 24th-26th.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/28/opinions/trump-hypocrisy-hate-glaring-obeidallah/index.html Another glaring example was in May 2016, after Julia Ioffe, a Jewish journalist, wrote an article viewed by some as critical of Melania Trump. In response to the article, the journalist was subjected to a barrage of vile anti-Semitic threats, including a graphic depicting the journalist in a Nazi concentration camp and a barrage of messages on her phone, in which excerpts of Adolph Hitler speeches were played. When Trump was asked point blank by CNN's Wolf Blitzer about the anti-Semitic death threats being sent to the journalist by several self-professed Trump supporters, Trump responded, "Oh, I don't know about that. I don't know anything about that. You mean fans of mine?" Blitzer then explained, "Supposed fans of posting these very angry -- but your message to these fans is?" Here was Trump's opportunity to send a clear, passionate message to his supporters that there was no place for anti-Semitism in American political discourse. But what was Trump's response? He stated, "I don't have a message to the fans." And then, shockingly, Trump pivoted to slam the journalist with the comment, "A woman wrote an article that's inaccurate." Actually, when Trump said, "I don't have a message to the fans," he was misleading. Trump was sending a clear message that he had no problem with anti-Semitism being used as a tool to silent Jewish journalists. (In fact, other Jewish journalists were targeted with anti-Semitic hate for criticizing Trump after this interview with Blitzer.) My favorite is saying "it's actually the Democrats in the South in the 1940's/50's/60's who were the racists...the Democrats were founders of the KKK...and what about Woodrow Wilson?" as if those party principles and the Republicans of the Lincoln Era had anything to do with their modern incarnations at all. In fact, the Dixiecrats basically split off completely from the Democrats (see George Wallace, 1968) and the South became "the solid South" which meant consistently voting for Republican candidates ever since the 1980 presidential election of Reagan.

Burger? Dunning?

Harper is worth how much MORE in terms of marketing/Q rating? For a franchise like the White Sox, Harper just moves the meter into credibility more than any other (available) player in baseball. Kershaw, after this World Series...Corbin, nice names...but even they have loads of question marks. Corbin less so, but he's a completely unknown quantity to most Sox fans. (On the other hand, since the White Sox are already developing their "Cuban/Latin American" pipeline...have a Hispanic manager and likely a replacement in Vizquel lined up, you can see the argument for tipping the balance in the direction of Machado. That said, he doesn't really fit into a "role model for young/er" players mode in terms of attitude and professionalism, and Ventura/Renteria both proved to be challenged in getting the most out of players in terms of fundamentals/hustle at different times. If they were in "win now" mode starting in 2019, there wouldn't be as much hesitation, especially if they had more veterans (Castillo and Shields) to balance out the clubhouse between vets and youngsters like Tim Anderson.