caulfield12

The Cubs, Yankees, Red Sox and Dodgers are all iconic franchises. Perhaps you can add the Cardinals/Giants (Silicon Valley), and Braves because of TBS/TNT (Turner Broadcasting). You also have the two oldest and certainly most historic stadiums in the sport...and a million other advantages that have been belabored over the years. But the other 25-ish franchises still have to operate more like typical businesses, and not tourism juggernauts.

FIRST MAN is well done, but, for my money, still prefer Hidden Figures and Gravity. This movie's getting criticized on the right and the left of the political spectrum...so it must be doing something right. It's not a feel good story, it's more about "stoic heroism" and really tries to give you an accurate feel for what the 1960's pioneering astronauts went through on the way to the moon landing. That said, it probably will end up as one of the 10 Best Picture nominees, slotting in somewhere between 7-10. Maybe it's just me, but I'm not quite understanding what's appealing about Claire Foy. Maybe her t.v. work is much different? At any rate, kudos to the up-and-coming director for pulling off something so different from Whiplash and La La Land.

Sure, but shouldn't that apply to Giolito and Moncada at the end of 2017? Delmonico at the end of last season? Do we still know anything conclusive about Davidson, Yolmer or Avi, other than the fact they're all "flawed" players, especially the first two? Can we really count on Omar Narvaez to replicate his offensive "breakout" in 2019?

Name the other professional sports franchises (or just MLB) that blame the fans for their failures. This should be good. The Montreal Expos and Marlins? Seems they had Loria in common. The A' s and RAYS? TERRIBLE STADIUMS. Maybe the Pirates, but they never gave fans a pennant winner and dealt their two franchise players in McCutcheon and Cole away. At least the Indians did something to bring their fans back after betraying them twice. Something called repeated success that we are unfamiliar with. Other teams also give their fans weather protection (Brewers/Rangers/Astros/Mariners/Jays/D-Backs) or much better climates in general for the sport, like the Padres.

Fine, Lindor is not technically international, we just don't know how to scout Puerto Rico like other organizations can somehow manage to do. Or Japan/Korea. Btw, Lindor went at exactly the same slot as Fulmer.

What other fan base in MLB is blamed for the team's failures other than the White Sox? Did Houston support the Astros by buying tickets or watching on their RSN in 2012~2014? Not at all. It's like blaming Sears' customers for them going out of business, MySpace blaming Facebook, etc. If you're not willing to do what it takes to provide the fans more value for their money, they will turn elsewhere with their entertainment dollars. Quite simple, really.

Yet they were able to find/scout/acquire Lindor in PR, Carrasco, Gomes, Brantley, Santana, even Kipnis from our own backyard. Developed Kluber when little was expected of him, not unlike Clevinger this year.

WAR/$ for Cespedes, Darvish and Puig on their original deals? It's not rocket science to identify talents like Ohtani, but you at least have to be in the game to win. The Sox since Belle have typically been conservative/risk~averse with their spending. Isn't the Danks extension still the second biggest in Sox history? How pathetic is that?

Some teams manage to consistently do better with international and conventional free agents, such as CLE. Especially in Latin American scouting and development. It's the margins and niches. There's really no excuse when we have all the competitive advantages in the world compared to that franchise.

Well, you keep Thome instead of giving him away to the Twins, sign Victor later (not Dunn) and also have Miguel Cabrera (until his recent falloff), you have at the very least, additional titles in 2010 and 2012. Same with spending money on Kenny Rogers in 2003 instead of letting the Twins have him for a fairly low salary.

If they had signed Cespedes originally, Puig in 2012, Darvish to his original deal, Tanaka, Grandal, Ryu...they were completely unwilling to break the bank. They sort of lucked into Ramirez and Abreu, but our spending on international free agents before Luis Robert was pretty consistently among the bottom 3~5 teams. Just a couple of those guys could have made a significant difference.

Might want to look at some alternative areas like REITs or small and mid-caps to diversify. Emerging markets are getting killed right now. At any rate, no point to sell Alibaba, Ten Cent, JD.com, TSM, Ping An, ZTO Logistics (still net positives compared to purchase price)...the Chinese economy looks to be slowing down, finally, but those companies are more hurt by domestic issues/government actions than anything to do with tariffs. The best bets right now are the 3 large telecom companies here, that are consolidating into essentially two entities to increase their economies of scale for the 5G buildout.

They’re usually either geeks with 2 (incomes combined) $100k+ careers working in Silicon Valley or cashed in on IPO shares, have significant inheritances/trust funds, lucked into houses or parents loaned down payments or simply couples who would rather have a life without kids. Then there are the financial bloggers, as well as the travel/tourism bloggers...

Between Osuna, that terrible call on Altuve and Joe West, MLB and the baseball gods are conspiring to force feed us Red Sox/Dodgers.

Do we honestly want to start threads for 150-200 different players of interest? They’re both in the post-season on the same team, and Bradley’s name has been mentioned around here for at least five years. At any rate, pretty unlikely they can do without his defense, despite underwhelming offensive production.

In my mind, it's having somewhere between $2-3 million in my fifties... I still have to travel around the world (been to 40+ countries and 47 states), but it's now on hold with a 3 1/2 year, except for coming back to the US once every summer and maybe one "international" one week trip per year, and another one week trip somewhere in China or SE Asia. Most importantly, I want to do more volunteer/service-based work for non-profits...still not sure if I want to devote myself to actually running an agency, prefer to pick and choose and not be weighed down by a long-term, 3-5+ year commitment. It means being able to have a primary residence in Iowa and then a vacation or timeshare somewhere in Central America, Colombia/Ecuador or, more likely, somewhere like the Philippines/Vietnam/Malaysia/Indonesia. Maybe running a small boutique eco-resort on the ocean if the right opportunity presents itself. Of course, I also need to think about my son's future college/university expenses, that's the big one.

Jackie Bradley, Jr., with two arbitration years left? I think that ship has (probably) sailed.

And I just like annoying you and playing Devil's Advocate to keep you on your toes...because I know you can take it as a professional campaigner (is that the right term, political advisor/consultant?) better than most. I'll admit to taking out my exasperation on the Trump administration on various posters, because they essentially serve as surrogates for the administration (and they often aren't comfortable being lumped in together with the worst of Trump's instincts, that's the biggest source of conflict IMO) and they are the only available targets. We don't have the ability to chase Trump's motorcade around on a bicycle and flip him the bird, or protest outside one of his golf clubs or properties. (The fact that we even consider such "revenge-oriented" tactics is sad, obviously, but NO NO NO president has intentionally tried to divide the country and antagonize the other side as a political strategy on an EVERYDAY basis in my lifetime. No president until now has been completely without empathy for his common man. In fact, presidents like Reagan and both Bushes at least had the best interests of the country and not themselves at heart, they grew up in that time of common/shared sacrifice that's so lacking in nearly everyone today. I was too young for Nixon and the civil rights/civil disobedience/Vietnam protest era, but even that seemed more uplifting and inspirational than what's going on today in America.)

The White Sox have been so terrible for so long, the main motivation I had to visit was Filibuster AND maybe discussing movies and a few other interests (financial). The depressing thing here is that we're all supposed to be bonded by being White Sox fans...and yet the vitriol is so overwhelming that a community with shared interests can't get along. (I'm also pretty sure if everyone on this board had actually met in real life at a Sox game and got to actually know each other, the tenor of conversations would be quite different, but that's obviously not feasible, some of us are thousands of miles away from Chicago.) Imagine how poorly that augurs for the rest of American society, when their used to be more beliefs about who we are as Americans that united us together as one, rather than dividing us. There used to be a sense of care/concern for anyone struggling in life, down on their luck, depressed or lonely...now there's more and more a prevailing sense that everyone is pretty much on their own, nobody can help you but yourself (and your family.) In the end, the political system has won again. They've managed to put the "common people" at each other's throats and distract them from the issues that really matter in the world. We've gotten bogged down in details, gossip, scandals, conspiracies and minutiae.

Has to be Davis.

What tangible benefits have we received so far out of these renegotiated deals? How can you successfully argue that there will be more American corporate profits without TPP than with it? Based on what? That trade deals in groups or blocs are bad, but not unilateral ones? By the way, most of our global supply chains are sourced overseas, so the negative trade balance in goods and services doesn’t reflect that accurately. What is the soft cost of allowing China to take the lead in Asia on trade with some of those countries who are supposed to be our close/st allies? Since we don’t stand up for human rights in foreign policy, what DO we actually stand for? https://eand.co/the-test-of-a-civilized-society-b615963900ea We’re currently failing the test of being a civilized society...and it’s continuing to unravel with each passing year.

77,000 voters, 3 states, not close in the popular vote...there was never a Blue Wall because most Clinton voters were resigned to voting for her rather than being enthusiastic or hopeful/optimistic.

When have government stormtroopers ever come in and confiscated legally~owned firearms? On the other hand, There's a much higher probability of abortion rights being severely curtailed when a minority of citizens even believe in organized religion anymore. Why doesn't the GoP also fund stable homes and a higher quality education for all those unwanted children, if they're so concered about the sanctity of life? Besides. you would think they would PREFER fewer (future) kids in America who will likely be voting against them...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/01/style/fire-financial-independence-retire-early.html Who's on board, and why/why not? Discuss.

Based on this playoff start and potentially at least one more defining start in the World Series...he will probably get a firm commitment of at least $25-30 million from someone, if not even more.