caulfield12

You really think the NL Central won’t beat up on the Reds? A lot more quality over there...although Pitt is falling back to earth, and quickly (see Cora/Freese confrontation.)

We (especially Moncada) can’t get out of Cleveland fast enough...

Bob Iger of ABC called Valerie Jarrett to let her know that ‘ABC does not tolerate comments like those’ made by Roseanne Barr,” Trump tweeted, referring to Disney chief Iger. “Gee, he never called President Donald J. Trump to apologize for the HORRIBLE statements made and said about me on ABC. Maybe I just didn’t get the call?” If Trump now threatens ABC/Disney, tries to block a merger or acquisition down the line...that’s where it gets murkier. What happens when Iger doesn’t respond to Trump’s request, setting off another billionaire pissing contest like he has had with Jeff Bezos already? You’re also jumping into freedom of the press potentially being infringed upon.

https://www.mlb.com/news/could-outfield-be-in-tim-andersons-future/c-278979304

Amazingly, even at -9 today, two teams are still a bit worse in RS/RA differential...Balt at -86 and Miami at -94. We’re currently at -85. KC -82.

I should have phrased it differently...in the sense that (many/most) people believe it’s a free speech issue (being infringed upon) when it’s really about the rights of corporations to run their businesses as profitably as possible, as long as they’re adhering to the law.

Only 16 more games left with CLE in their last 111. They really needed that win in Game 1 to believe they could actually beat them. Rodon, IMO, might be the only one capable of pulling it off...have a feeling they would destroy Kopech if he was getting behind in counts ad trying to overpower them.

Jacob May is blocking Jimenez’s path, lol...

The only reason would be if the team decided it already KNEW what it had in Yolmer....wanted to move him all around the field (especially outfield now) as a supersub and give DH at-bats to Hanley Ramirez in the hopes of flipping him (or simply releasing him pretty quickly if he didn’t go on a hot streak in his first 2-3 weeks with the team). Depends on how long Matt Davidson’s going to be out. Or maybe you want to see what Skole can do at DH...the problem, as usual, is his defensive limitations and lack of versatility. The actual cost would be only about 2/3rd’s of the league minimum salary...and actually one-half of that, because he would be released or traded before July 31st.

The connection is the fact that many conservatives are now calling for a boycott or cancellation of The View...and criticizing ABC/Disney’s contract with Keith Olbermann, who has obviously been anti-Trump from the very beginning. Turnabout is fair play, yadda yadda. As noted earlier in the thread, it’s not about FREE SPEECH at all...as nobody is arguing even the KKK doesn’t have the right to march up and down your street if they get the required permits. The argument is that public corporations are being “unfair” to conservative voices like Tim Allen and Roseanne (although if you research Roseanne’s many public comments, 1/3rd of them are what would probably be termed libertarian.) If it’s not Joy Behar, it’s Whoopi Goldberg. Just so we’re all clear, you have to know the difference between when somebody’s coming for you, when somebody is paying you a compliment and when somebody is saying, ‘here’s my observation.’ If you can get that together, maybe you can be president.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/hunger-hurt-bad-robert-kennedy-learned-poverty-boy-delta-090025735.html There’s your RFK story...perfect timing Wellstone Follows In RFK's Footsteps WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, Feb. 24) -- Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) plans to follow in the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy's footsteps with a May trip to the Mississippi Delta. Wellstone is positioning himself as the Democrats' liberal conscience, and while some have urged him to run for president in 2000, he denies he is considering it. Wellstone, 52, told The Associated Press he wants to emulate Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1968, and focus national attention on the poor. "I am going to travel the length and breadth of this country, as Robert Kennedy did 30 years ago and as Eleanor Roosevelt did during the Depression, to observe the face of American poverty -- not from behind a Senate desk, but in the streets, the villages and neighborhoods of those in distress," Wellstone said in a speech recently. Not everyone is happy about his Mississippi trip, though. Charles Evers, brother of the late civil rights leader Medgar Evers, said Wellstone doesn't have to come to Mississippi to find poor people. "I resent our state always being pointed out as the poorest state in the country," Evers said.

Did you correct for games played discrepancies? If you go just by American League teams, they are 13th/15th in Runs Scored. For Runs allowed per game, they are 14th out of 15, barely ahead of the Royals for LAST (5.47 vs. 5.46) If you look at their pitching fWAR for all of MLB, they’re 25th. Hitting, they are 20th (a couple of weeks ago, they were 14th)... wRC+=99 for 13th/30 Slugging 9th/30 (.417) OBP 22nd (.311) They’re not getting on base as frequently...and they’re struggling to drive in runners in scoring position, essentially, they don’t have a terrible or even bad offense, especially when you consider our stolen bases and how many sacrifice bunts we’ve wasted that haven’t led to runs scoring.

And 100X more people will be discussing it (and Trump) than if he had actually convened a bi-partisan study group/meeting with the 25 foremost experts in prison reform from around the world....that might have gotten 10-15 seconds/sound bite coverage in the middle 1/3rd of a local news broadcast. This will be a headline...for its sheer absurdity and the “unique authenticity” Kim brings from being married to a rap star who addresses this subject in his music and philanthropy.

David Dennison originated this hocus pocus PR chicanery. Or was it KD?

Hanley will hit like in 2013, lead the Sox into the playoffs, then sign a below-market extension to show his appreciation!

NEW YORK (AP) -- The Latest on the cancellation of "Roseanne" (all times local): 11:25 p.m. Roseanne Barr has returned to Twitter and told people not to feel sorry for her while also highlighting supporters' tweets that attacked ABC and others. Barr's tweetstorm late Tuesday evening came hours after ABC announced it was canceling the reboot of her show "Roseanne" over a racist tweet that referred to former Barack Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett as a product of the Muslim Brotherhood and "Planet of the Apes." In the post-firing tweet, Barr apologized to "all the wonderful writers (all liberal) and talented actors who lost jobs on my show due to my stupid tweet." She then retweeted supporters' statements attacking ABC's hiring of Keith Olbermann, who has harshly criticized President Donald Trump, and a meme that placed Jarrett's photo side-by-side with a "Planet of the Apes" actor.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/whitesox/ct-spt-white-sox-hanley-ramirez-sullivan-20180527-story.html He didn't say it, but the only reason they would seemingly do this would be to flip him again in July if he goes on a hot streak...as they already have Davidson (DL), Palka, Skole, Delmonico, etc., that profile as good candidates for DH at-bats (not to mention Seby Zavala and Ryan Cordell). Maybe even Avi when he returns from the DL could be "protected" in the beginning at DH?

Let's be honest, though: Barr's Twitter feed has been abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with what should have been ABC and Disney's values since long before the show was picked up, and also subsequently. Barr's Twitter feed has trafficked in vile and disproved conspiracy theories and ample content that walked lines many considered racist or xenophobic or prejudiced or judgment-clouded in a number of ways. She has engaged in hostile and insulting fights with Twitter followers high and low. She has shown no interest in controlling herself. This is not new, and no one at ABC can pretend they didn't know. Last August at the TCA press tour, I asked Dungey if it was anybody's job to monitor Barr's Twitter feed in case she said something that made airing the show untenable. "She actually publicly announced a few weeks ago that her son is going to be taking over her Twitter feed for the near future," said the exec. "That was all by her. We did not ask her to do that, but she did make that decision. What we’ve heard from Roseanne is she is very excited about the show and wants to be very focused on the show. The writers room has just gotten started, and she’s going to be an active contributor to that." Several questions are raised here in retrospect. Why was ABC comfortable with Barr's son running a gross Twitter feed in her name, one that featured a verified check mark and was assumed to be coming from Roseanne? Why was that better? When did that experiment with her son running the Twitter feed end? Did anything change? Why does it matter? And why didn't ABC ask Barr to take a break from Twitter? Or to take a break from specific aspects of her Twitter? And does this imply in some way that at a certain point Barr ceased to be excited about and focused on the show, and this is a manifestation of that? After Dungey's TCA panel response, according to the transcript, I followed up, "But no matter who is actually doing her Twitter feed, if you look at the things that whoever it is has tweeted in the past week, there’s some wacky conspiracy stuff that either she or her son has tweeted, and it’s not like this is a new thing. I’m just wondering if that concerns you." She said, "I try to just worry about the things that I can control." I return again to my confusion. Why was this not something that worried them? And why couldn't ABC control Barr's Twitter feed? This was August 2017, remember. At the time, nobody knew how Roseanne would do in its return. Its value to ABC and to Disney was uncertain. I hadn't yet given the new episodes a fairly positive review in which I attempted to separate artist from art. Then it premiered huge. And even after weeks of declines, it still remained at a level well above any reasonable expectations for the show. Since March, ABC has known exactly what the show's value was and that value was potentially huge. How has Barr's Twitter feed not become something ABC could or wanted to control since then? ... This was also inevitable, assuming ABC lacked the power or will to tell Barr to stop tweeting entirely or lose the show. By my read, you could go back through the last two months of Barr tweets and find dozens that could easily have been interpreted as going over some line or at least running contrary to certain values of a network that put her onstage to open its upfront presentation to advertisers just two weeks ago, where she made jokes about Disney/ABC Television Group chairmain Ben Sherwood writing her tweets. Ha ha? I'd guess you could find hundreds of tweets in recent years that many people would have thought were grounds for punishment, censure or a total severing of ties. She could not stop herself. She did not want to stop herself. As tipping point tweets go, this was a worthy one. There's no ambiguity. I don't think it was the first tweet that met that threshold and ABC's statement on Tuesday treats it as a single killshot, not as a straw that broke a camel's back or anything cumulative or confirmatory of long-term questionable behavior. This. Was. Inevitable. ABC shouldn't be expressing outrage at one tweet. The network should be expressing disappointment at an employee who cost the company millions and cost dozens of extremely talented co-workers their livelihoods by not being able to resist being reprehensibly racist, when merely being tangentially gross was apparently condoned. This is way too late to count as the frog (ABC) refusing to give passage to this scorpion (Barr). Heck, the frog booked a return engagement. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/fien-print/critics-notebook-abcs-roseanne-cancellation-a-predictable-tale-frog-scorpion-1115530

It's all about the ORDER of those three starts....in combination with a low 2's ERA in AAA and pick up in velocity. If Palka makes that catch, he's in position for the win (STILL). If the first two errors weren't made in the bottom of the 5th, he gets through that inning with only 2 runs given up in 5 IP and might even have gotten a quality start. It's really hard to jump all over Covey when your defense starts out an inning in that fashion...against the best team in your division playing on their home field. Compared to Giolito and Fulmer starts, he was downright decent.

Looks like the Bulls responded with an invite...sounds like a subject for the next Benetti podcast, him traipsing around the Berto Center with TA (and trying to get quotes from Bulls' players about Anderson's hoop game.)

Leury Garcia has a ton of flexibility and we control his rights through 2020...Cordell MIGHT have the ability to play 3B as well as all the outfield positions. This is (also) another argument for either Madrigal (or India) over Bohm...that they're capable of playing multiple positions on the field. I guess it also depends on how confident we are in Davidson playing extensively at 3B (or 1B). But having Anderson, Moncada, Madrigal/India, Yolmer and Leury Garcia all being able to play 3+ positions would be tremendously helpful in terms of roster construction. From your list of names (mostly offense, limited defense), you could reasonably add Seby Zavala as well. So that's a total of eight names for DH...and doesn't even include Micker Adolfo, who's yet another name that fits there (depending ultimately on how his elbow rehab turns out.) So NINE.

Young in terms of total big league innings for someone that age, lol?

https://reason.com/blog/2018/05/29/roseanne-barr-valerie-jarrett-cancelled/ It was a vile thing to say, though no one has any right to be surprised that Barr said it. The notoriously pro-Trump comedian—who is otherwise something of an ardent leftist—has a long history of offensive, nonsensical utterances. She once said Wall Street bankers should be executed via guillotine, has flirted with 9/11 trutherism, and claimed the Boston Marathon bombing was a false flag operation. She doxed George Zimmerman's parents, and suggested people should go to their homes unless Zimmerman was arrested for killing Trayvon Martin. In March 2018, she falsely accused Parkland survivor and activist David Hogg of making a Nazi salute; it was Roseanne herself, of course, who posed as Adolph Hitler for a satirical magazine in 2009, holding a tray of overbaked gingerbread men labelled "burnt Jew cookies." Roseanne is crazy, and her disgusting remark about Jarrett is perfectly in character. No one is allowed to pretend that Roseanne finally went too far, or some such nonsense: the Jarrett comment—for which she swiftly apologized, to no avail—is hardly more offensive than any number of things she has said over the years. If people who say very bad things do not deserve to work in television, then Roseanne should never have been rebooted in the first place. ... And yet I think we ought to be a little worried about what will come of this. Roseanne was by some accounts an interesting show that offered insights into the kind of Trump-voting working class American family that doesn't often grace our TV screens. "Like most of us, they live, and live through, their differences, an accomplishment the show's more ideological critics don't seem to give people much credit for," wrote Reason's Scott Shackford in a review of the show for the July issue of Reason. Can a person find Roseanne interesting without endorsing Roseanne the person? If so, why was that possible yesterday, but not today—given that nothing about Roseanne's nature has fundamentally changed? Many conservatives are already criticizing what they will undoubtedly view as ABC's capitulation to political-correctness-run-amok, and it's easy to see how this could play directly into the right's narrative that the left is determined to silence everybody who says the wrong thing. In response to left-of-center pundit Toure calling on ABC to address the fact that "millions are hurt, offended, and traumatized by Roseanne's racist comments," conservative commentator Jesse Kelly tweeted the following: Jesse Kelly® ✔ @JesseKellyDC REMINDER:Liberals will come for your career for wrong-think. People on the Right have had about enough of it and will start returning the favor And that's (part of) the problem. Conservatives won't watch football unless all the players comport themselves perfectly, rigidly adhering to the right's version of patriotic correctness. How dare you disrespect the flag, they say. Liberals don't think a television show should continue to exist if somebody central to its production does or says something super bad. How dare you traumatize our marginalized communities, they say. This race to find more things to be offended about and more reasons to start lynch mobs doesn't seem particularly healthy for the fabric of American society, especially if right and left are determined to one-up each other on the outrage front. Many media companies will attempt to appease viewers on both sides of the ideological spectrum, and their output will be that much less interesting. I won't particularly miss Roseanne, but I do miss being able to appreciate a television show, book, or work of art, even if I thought the artist was a lunatic.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/29/roseanne-abc-canceled-boycotts-trump-611593 Why ABC had no choice but to dump Roseanne..The threat of massive advertiser boycotts outweighs any fear of stoking Trump’s fury, experts say. Beckman said that may well have been the case, but added, “ABC did the math.” A boycott campaign might have started with just “Roseanne,” he said, but could have easily spread to the rest of ABC, as well as Disney’s many other properties, including ESPN, the "Star Wars" franchise, and, as he put it, “every fricking superhero movie there is.” ... That is a risk for ABC, Bonner said, but in the end, the outrage prompted by doing nothing would be worse for the network than being forced to weather a series of presidential tweets. “You can’t have the star of a major sitcom making racist comments. You can’t do that. It’s not done. Not in this day and age,” he said. “I think the blowback from Trump, it doesn’t seem to last, it’s ephemeral, where having a long-lasting boycott, or movement, would be a lot worse.” Bonner also noted that, most likely, ABC had not yet sold advertising for the show’s second season, which would now be a tall task. “They’re probably in negotiation as we speak. Normally they wrap up in early June,” he said. http://variety.com/2018/tv/news/roseanne-schedule-cancellation-abc-1202824475/ Losing Roseanne leaves a gaping hole in the reinvigorated ABC Tuesday line-up At its upfront presentation to advertisers two weeks ago, ABC unveiled a fall schedule that boasted “Roseanne” leading off the Tuesday-night prime-time lineup. The revived multi-camera sitcom had just secured its place as the 2017-18 season’s No. 1 scripted show in Nielsen’s 18-49 demo. Heading into the upfront, ABC had positioned the show as the long-sought answer to the network’s Tuesday-night woes and the new face of its comedy brand. http://www.businessinsider.com/cancelling-roseanne-may-have-cost-abc-100-million-but-saved-parent-company-disney-a-whole-lot-more-2018-5

You better be sure he's the "next Aaron Nola" when you draft a Singer. We can't afford to whiff twice in five years on Top 10 draft picks spent on pitching, not to mention the still (relatively) uncertain future of Rodon for 2020 and 2021.