caulfield12

I guess we have to agree to disagree on that one. You’re going with floor, I’m going with max ceiling. Obviously, the previous TJS makes Cease a BIT riskier as well, although the velocity issue is almost the opposite of the Giolito one (gaining, rather than losing.)

Big test coming up for Dylan. Btw, ERA’s heading into tonight: Chris Sale, 5-3, 3.00 ERA, 110 K’s Dylan Covey, 1-1, 2.82, 21 K’s Covey seeks back-to-back strong outings in his fifth start of the year. The right-handler had a no-decision in his last start against Milwaukee despite allowing just one run — none earned — in five innings. He struck out seven. He’s never faced Boston.

Gary Majewski?

If you do a good enough job, yeah, you’re going to lose a number of good players and you’re also going to have a significant talent pool to trade off the surplus...as the Astros have done with guys like Domingo Santana/Brett Phillips (for Carlos Gomez) and, in particular, the Verlander trade that pushed them over the top last summer. Players like Singleton, Grossman and Preston Tucker were all casualties of the roster crunch. Jonathan Villar, yet another player that was traded. Astros kept trucking along, right? We’ve seen the exact thing happen to the Cubs’ wealth of position prospects over the last 2 years...to an extreme, because you’re talking sacrificing at least 2 franchise talents in Torres/Jimenez, another potential one in Cease, not to mention Candelario, Soler, Villanueva, etc. It’s a normal sign of an organization functioning on all cyclinders...of course, even then, you end up with roster crunches where you simply can’t afford to pay 6-8 “young core” guys extensions in free agency when you already have the Lester/Heyward/Darvish contracts on the books (and try to add Machado/Harper as well?)

https://www.yahoo.com/news/romney-predicts-trumps-election-062339518--politics.html Speaking of winning political moves, Romney has now flip-flopped on his anti-Trump stance and “expects that not only will he get the GOP nomination, but he’ll also be re-elected in 2020.”

His OSU coach has actually specifically mentioned CF as a position where he’d do extremely well. Said that he was ready for MLB right now as a defensive replacement at 2B in the late innings. RF would be the biggest issue.....for him making that long throw across the field from RF to 3B...but how often does that happen every 10 games? Just a couple. Is there any way to look up that particular stat....how many throws to RFer’s have to make either cutting down triples, runners advancing from 2nd on a SAC FLY or runners trying to go 1st to 3rd? As it stands, it would probably be: 2B, SS, 3B, CF, LF in that order...with RF and 1B (for obvious reasons) being the least likely options.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/08/us/anthony-bourdain-obit/index.html

We also brought back Beckham, whatever his cost was...it was under $10 million for both, but I’m not sure I would describe it as insignificant to a mid-market team

https://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=6153&position=3B/SS Not exactly. 7.7 fWAR 2013 0.0 (only 179 at-bats) 2014 2.6 2015 1.9 2016 -0.2 2017 1.7 2018 1.7-1.8 (after today)...but heading for a 5ish season If we count the middle 4 years, 1.5 fWAR player. 11/6=1.83 for six years...hard to say he’s worth 0 or 5 (outliers), but this offseason should be valued at least as a 2-2.5 if not 3 player.

Witt, Jr. is pretty clearly the best high school player in the country (for the moment) and there’s nearly-universal scouting agreement on his possessing five tools... As far as our OSU studs go, let’s see how he does next year when you strip away a group of their 5 best juniors/seniors. Can he keep performing offensively at that same level, and continue to improve his defense? At any rate, having Madrigal on board, they’ll (seemingly) have the best insights of any organization on whether to draft one of his former teammates or not.

They need to keep Paciorek around to announce THAT crazy name...

https://www.c-span.org/video/?446461-1/dignitaries-gather-50th-anniversary-assassination-robert-kennedy 50th Anniversary of RFK’s death celebration (Clinton speech begins around 51 min mark) Bill Clinton at first glance seems awfully frail/wounded, almost a shadow of his former self at age 72....but, boy, can he still give a great speech. I keep trying to talk myself into Kennedy’s grandson having a shot at higher office, then you see their two speeches side by side and you realize how far this younger generation has to go in terms of being able to connect with people. Clinton just has that gift...to make people reminisce, to share a common experience (sorrow/pain or joy) and can connect like no other politician in my lifetime. The problem is that no CURRENT Democrat possesses anything resembling that same political gift...a few times, you even start wondering if Clinton’s lost it, his train of thought seems to be meandering off course, and then he ties it all back together, and manages to capture what RFK (especially the 1968 campaign) represented in a way none of the other speakers came close to approximating. We can do better, be better...we have to, it’s our obligation. It’s so jarring to listen to a speech like this and then turn around and be bombarded by the vitriolic/acidic attacks back and forth from both sides of the aisle at each other.

Eckstein or McEwing...

Rutherford’s going to be an interesting case study for the Getz-Ian development of “younger” talent, especially now that he’s come back down to earth from his early season high’s.

Surprised Fathom didn’t have a timely lamentation. It’s amazing how much lesser the Cubs’ Obsession has become now that they’ve won it all.

The quietest member of the Trump family over the last year has certainly been Ivanka, favorite child and a White House staffer. But today, Anthony Cormier, Jason Leopold, and Emma Loop of BuzzFeed have an interesting story about Ivanka Trump’s involvement in a potential deal with Russia that, while it may not suggest anything illegal, does offer a window into how the Trumps were operating long after Donald Trump decided to run for president:

John Cangelosi another shorter Sox player... https://amp.mlb.com/280112286-white-sox-draft-picks-boost-rebuild.amp.html Hostetler said Monday he believes Madrigal will be able to play at Class A Advanced Winston-Salem at some point this season. Madrigal will split his time between second base, shortstop and third base. Chicago rounded out Day 1 with outfielder Steele Walker out of Oklahoma in the second round (No. 46 overall). The White Sox view Walker as a center fielder, though he played mostly right field this year because Oklahoma quarterback, and No. 9 overall selection to the A's, Kyler Murray, played up the middle. Day 2 saw the White Sox select six more college players and two high schoolers. Their top Day 2 selection was Konnor Pilkington, a left-handed pitcher from Mississippi State. Pilkington ranked 60th overall on MLB Pipeline and is unusually young for a college Draft pick -- he doesn't turn 21 until September.

OMB Director Mick Mulvaney: "Mick Mulvaney. He's got two hats on now, right, Mick? You've got two hats, not just one. And you're doing great at both. But Office of Management and Budget has been good, and our budget this year will be -- there will be a lot of cutting, because we want to cut. You know, Mick is really more of a cutter than the other. But we had to get the military through. We got $700 billion approved for military. We needed that. And in order to get that done, we had to do some things for the Democrats that we would normally not do -- because we consider a lot of it waste and a horror show. But in order to get our military and $6 billion for opioid. So we got the -- which Melania is so heavily involved in -- and we got that taken care of. And very importantly, next year, $716 billion for military. So, Mick, great job. And this time, you can start cutting, OK? Because we have our military taken care of now, so you can start really cutting." (185 words) https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/06/politics/donald-trump-jeff-sessions/index.html

Thanks, reuniting teammates...

Baltimore will be TERRIBLE TERRIBLE TERRIBLE once they jettison Britton, Brach, Machado and Adam Jones. Texas should be there at the bottom...they have some interesting decisions to make in terms of eventual direction as an organization. Reds have tough competition in the same division as Cubs/Brewers/Cards (Reyes injury a killer)...that should keep them down. SF would have looked to be on this list, but they held in there so far without Bumgarner so who knows, maybe they're adding. A's would have LOOKED to be on this list but are also surprisingly "sort of contending" but are obviously more future-oriented with the Kyler Murray draft selection w/ the 9th pick.

The question is what would have happened had he gone to an expansion franchise and been asked to become THE GUY right off the bat...? Would he have still become a Top 50 All-Time player without the guiding presence of MJ?

Does anyone have the Top 5 from that BA mock? Taking yet another middle infielder in Witt, Jr., would be....BRILLIANT. If you have players capable of playing either SS/2B or CF all over the field, it's always a GOOD thing. As opposed to trying to shoehorn 1B/DH types into LF/RF/3B/C.

Craig Grebeck + Joey Cora All say hello... Or we can go with Roy Oswalt and Billy Wagner. Jason Frasor. Johnny Cueto. Tim Lincecum. Marcus Stroman. Former KC Royals' LHP Tim Collins is the same height as Madrigal and threw in the low to mid 90's before he got hurt.

Are we also pardoning the Unabomber, Timothy McVeigh (posthumously) and David Koresh (likewise)...?Surely the Ruby Ridge family as well. LOCK HER UP! LOCK HER UP! (Janet Reno)

Our Mississippi State kid's definitely going to start out rated higher...Pilkington.