caulfield12

NATO is based on the principle of collective defense: an attack against one or more members is considered an attack against all. So far that has only been invoked once -- in response to the September 11 attacks. To make the idea work, it is important for all members to make sure their armed forces are in good shape. So NATO sets an official target on how much they should spend. That currently stands at 2% of GDP. The 2% target is described as a "guideline." There is no penalty for not meeting it. It is up to each country to decide how much to spend and how to use the money. source: CNN Not exactly, Southsider2k5, he's just TRYING to say Germany is paying 1.2% (out of 3.467 trillion USD, Trump actually said the number was closer to just 1% in his verbatim quotes) for military expenses/defense (this ALSO doesn't count all the costs of taking on the burden of immigrants flowing into Germany from the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa.) That would be about $41 billion USD for Germany The North Atlantic alliance has its own military budget worth €1.29 billion ($1.4 billion), which is used to fund some operations and the NATO strategic command center, as well as training and research. But it is miniscule compared to overall spending on defense by NATO countries, which NATO estimates will total more than $921 billion in 2017. The alliance also has a civilian budget of €234.4 million ($252 million), used mainly to fund the NATO headquarters in Belgium, and its administration. Only five of NATO's 28 members -- the U.S., Greece, Poland, Estonia and the U.K. -- meet the 2% target. The US is 3.61% X $19 trillion=$686 billion (total spending on NATO/defense) From doing some more internet research, the USA pays for 73% of NATO dues/costs.

The remarks came amid an improbable series of events that few could have anticipated even three months ago. The unlikely images of US and North Korean counterparts engaging in friendly dialogue lent the day an air of unreality. In a detailed menu, the White House said the men were served Häagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream for dessert. Other developments also fueled that impression. Minutes before the historic handshake, Trump tweeted that his top economic adviser Larry Kudlow had suffered a heart attack. Immediately after the encounter, Dennis Rodman -- one of the only Americans to have met Kim -- was openly weeping while being interviewed by CNN's Chris Cuomo. Even Kim seemed to acknowledge the surreality of the day. "Many people in the world will think of this as a (inaudible) form of fantasy ... from a science fiction movie," his translator was overheard saying as the two leaders walked down a white-columned colonnade. source: cnn.com

Winston-Salem Dash (CWS) 37 27 .578 - - 18-11 19-16 23-18 8-2 W4 Buies Creek Astros (HOU) 34 28 .548 2.0 5 18-13 16-15 22-20 5-5 L1 Myrtle Beach Pelicans (CHC) 33 30 .524 3.5 4 19-12 14-18 21-19 9-1 L1 Down East Wood Ducks (TEX) 32 30 .516 4.0 4 21-10 11-20 26-26 2-8 W1 Carolina Mudcats (MIL) 29 33 .468 7.0 1 19-15 10-18 20-29 3-7 L3 The Winston-Salem Dash have a 2 game lead with 6 games left to play before next Tuesday night's All-Star game. Buies Creek has 7 games left, including a DH on Tuesday (rain-out Mon). Birmingham has an elimination number of just 1, and is in 5th place (out of 5 teams) in the Southern League North Division.

Is split-ticket voting officially dead? By Amber Phillips November 17, 2016 Going into the 2016 election, Senate Republicans' hopes to keep their tenuous majority were pinned on persuading voters to do something they're less and less inclined to do at the ballot box: Split their ticket by voting for the Democrat for president, Republican for Senate. Turns out, Senate Republicans didn't need split-ticket voters to keep the Senate. Quite the opposite, actually: The 2016 election saw the highest percentage of STRAIGHT-ticket voters in more than a century — literally 100 percent of states holding Senate elections voted for the same party for Senate as for president. And Republicans kept control of the Senate and won the presidency. As a team of nonpartisan political analysts under professor Larry Sabato at the University of Virginia pointed out Thursday, we haven't seen partisan numbers like this since the 17th Amendment was ratified in 1913, allowing senators to be elected by popular vote (as opposed to being elected by state legislatures). https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/17/is-split-ticket-voting-officially-dead/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5d62fd7ecbbf

Unless you count "internal" extensions for Buehrle, Contreras, Ordonez, Konerko, Danks, etc. I guess we can certainly say we haven't given out boatloads of $100+ million extensions...but we've been very smart about guys like Eaton, Sale, Q and now Tim Anderson (creating surplus value.) We potentially were in similar situations with Crede and Jenks but injuries derailed their careers before extensions could be signed (luckily, for the Sox.)

Just don't Big Baller Brand anywhere near him....certainly Nike/Team Lebron are smart enough to avoid that family.

If he had an already established baseline of putting up multiple 5+ fWAR seasons, there wouldn't be much of a reaction around here, sure...agreed.

wRC+=99 (career) fWAR 2017=1.1 in 231 PA's fWAR 2018=1.2 in 246 PA's 2.3 fWAR in 477 PA's (.233 career batting average) Chris Sale (2017/18)=7.7+2.6 fWAR=10.3 (I only say this because earlier in the thread it was possible to project Sale ending up behind Moncada for the season, which was obviously a bit exuberant) Byron Buxton (the last #1 prospect in baseball) 2015 0.1 2016 1.4 2017 3.5 2018 -0.3 4.7 fWAR total in 1074 PA's (.230 average, 76 wRC+) The last two consensus #1 prospects have almost exact carbon copy fWAR's, although Buxton gets more points for his incredible defense but loses it for his anemic offense (minus a couple of mini-streaks mixed in there)

It's also confirmed by the fall from a 1.6 fWAR to 1.2 before tonight's game...

One base hit against a LHP or even if the ball against Kimbrel dropped in LF doesn't change the overall direction since returning from the hammy...after he hit that leadoff homer in Minnesota, he was still at a more than acceptable 782 OPS. He has almost fallen off a cliff. Walks and power are way down, too.

Hahn's report card for the rebuild is pretty good, unless you consider Burger, Giolito, Fulmer, Moncada (the exact place he's at RIGHT now), Burdi and Welington Castillo (catcher mess, in general.)

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/11/politics/republican-new-jersey-diversity/index.html GOP congressional candidate: Diversity is 'a bunch of crap and un-American' A Republican running for New Jersey's 2nd Congressional District thinks diversity is "a bunch of crap and un-American," according to comments he made in a video posted to YouTube by a progressive super PAC. "In my view, the best way to bring diversity to the Republican Party is for Republicans to openly say that the whole idea of diversity is a bunch of crap and un-American," Seth Grossman can be seen saying in the video uploaded on June 6 by American Bridge 21st Century, which monitors GOP candidates. In the video, Grossman goes on to quote the Declaration of Independence and says, "the Constitution was designed to incorporate that idea of the Declaration of Independence that everybody is treated equally under the law. Now, what diversity has become, it's been an excuse by Democrats, communists and socialists, basically, to say that we're not all created equal, that some people, if he -- if somebody is lesser qualified, they will get a job anyway, or they'll get into college anyway because of the tribe that they're with, what group, what box they fit into."

At least Moncada didn't strike out against a LHP...Sanchez, Moncada and Anderson all settling down into the low 700's for OPS. That's not (nearly) good enough for Timmy and Yoan. Need to be at least 750 ops'ers to achieve the type of impact we need out of both of them.

Had to be bumped...he hasn't been the same player since he came back from the hammy injury. Or there's a good reason every home plate umpire is out to screw him over, and Renteria's not backing him up. As far as mechanics, he's definitely flying open and losing track of the flight of the ball...lots of K's and weak contact (except for the bomb to straightaway center in MIN), high number of K's, few walks (umps not helping there), and he's also made a number of key defensive miscues in the past couple of weeks as well that have proved costly. Batting from the RH side against LHP has been even more of a mess. Not sure where he goes from here, and where he eventually bottoms out. Right now he's at a 719 OPS. That's acceptable if you're Brian Anderson in 2005, but not in today's game.

Did he at least attribute the ideas to Elam/Passan or just bring it up randomly as a solution to pace of play?

93.7 the best FB that inning to retire Chisenhall... Melky putting up some Engel-like numbers, don't miss that version of him.

Palka would be on pace for exactly 30 homers if he got 625 at-bats...(horseshoes, hand grenades, etc.) Has Renteria been asked on the record about some of the ball/strike calls the last couple of weeks...and why he hasn't even gone out once to protest? Just a weird situation not to stick up for your players...

I'm going by the MLB.com tracker....MLB At-Bat. 1/4 of the ball had the strike zone according to that...

Moncada 86 k's / 245 PA's=35.1% For what it's worth, he's right at his career average now over 2016-2018, .233 over his entire career.

That was a strike, the first one was marginal...could have gone either way. Did Moncada sleep with one of the umpires' wives or girlfriends? Hard to figure out any other explanation for some of the calls he's gotten the last 10 days (across multiple home plate umps).

94,4 there might have been his best fastball of the season....93.4 and 93.5 his other two best FB's. ERA finally under 7 at 6.97

Hopefully Hermie has his "injury-free to the point of anomalous" karma back with this organization.

And Burger is still doing well after the second Achilles' tear, hopefully it's "taking"?? Any updates from his Twitter?

We have 2/5th’s of a starting rotation with Rodon and Lopez. Everything else is up the air. That said, you can’t go out and bring in the White Sox version of Jon Lester until you get a much better reading on Covey, Giolito, Stephens, Kopech, Dunning, Hansen and Cease first. The thing we have to remember is that with starters going shorter and shorter in terms of innings pitched/total pitches, their value in the marketplace will fall by 10-15%, especially for the non-marquee guys, the ones you fill in the last 3 spots in the rotation. With our budget, we’re looking for a solid 2/3 guy, what Floyd and Danks were before they were beset by injuries. Overpaying for an ace’s past performance usually backfires, especially in the FA market. Maybe the best acquisition of the offseason (so far) was Mike Mikolas out of complete obscurity in Japan. https://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/cardinals-mikolas-learned-value-of-quick-outs-in-japan/article_87efa812-e076-5aae-b2a2-7a9ced3862ed.html What is he doing differently? Something seemingly quite simple, pitching to contact with two strikes (not unlike the Pirates’ philosophy of going to shifts, two seam sinkers/pitching to contact AND a renewed emphasis on pitch framing.

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=ss&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=190&type=8&season=2018&month=0&season1=2018&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0 12/27 for Anderson at SS (qualified) Moncada is 9/25 but has slipped almost 200 OPS points since April 26th...if you believe he’s going to stay at a 728 OPS and never will be a 900 OPS player again based on his performance since coming back from injury, well the reality is he’s not as good as late April (at least not yet) and he’s not as bad as the last thee weeks, either. The midpoint between those two ranges is around 825. He’s also made two costly errors in the last week, and been the victim of some of the worst strike zone calls since the umpires’ union was organized. That said, other than the bomb against Minny the first game of the DH, he hasn’t been hitting much...or for power. He has also fallen from 1.6 fWAR all the way down to 1.2.