caulfield12

Basabe 6 for his last 26 before tonight...hardly en fuego.

At least one cause for celebration...but Basabe cooling off.

76ers teaching everyone the fragility of the rebuild process...Cubs and Astros made it look too easy.

Tied with Royals for third in tankathon...now, how to catch Cincy and Balt?

Especially with continuing uncertainty about Anderson...

The 2012 team was in first place for most of the year, but most knowleadgeable Sox fans knew deep down the Tigers were better. Tepid support even then...part of it due to Dunn’s 2011 and Buehrle departing.

At least that makes more sense than original joke by Benetti

Anderson can’t hit again...Escobar must be hitting .400 career wise against Sox

Call 3rd homer, Adolfo double (10) and a walk

Something off with the Cubs this year. Obviously, Baez, Schwarber and Almora are doing well...but the bullpen, Quintana, Rizzo (Parkland shooting effects?), it’s just incredibly difficult to sustain a World Series level team.

AJ Pollock is continuing to look like the most attractive option after Harper, Machado, Donaldson and Arenado (2019-20 class).

Cubs, Twins, Tigers/Indians (tie)

That completely depends on the second wave of talent now at W-S, Kopech, Jimenez, Cease, Hansen, Robert, Collins, Burger...these next two years of years of high draft picks.

Narvaez needs to get that tag lower on the body...

Narvaez has had an ungodly number of PB’s

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/week-trumponomics-workers-disappear-173826715.html Economists struggle to explain two oddities in the current labor market. The first is the relatively low portion of working-age Americans who have a job or are looking for one. The so-called labor-force participation rate is 62.8%, a level it has generally been stuck at since 2014. The peak was 67.3% in 2000. So while the unemployment rate is back to the low levels of 2000, the portion of Americans working or looking for work is considerably lower. An aging labor force might explain part of the problem, since workers aged 55 to 64 — a bracket that is swelling, as the baby boomers age — are less likely to work than younger folks. The opioid epidemic might keep some people who would otherwise have a job from working. Recent research from the Conference Board suggests more people consider themselves disabled these days, a third possible explanation for the low participation rate. The other oddity is weak wage growth, with wages rising just 2.6% during the last 12 months. Ordinarily, employers hike pay as unemployment drops and workers become scarce. There are 6.5 million unfilled jobs in America, and there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence that a lot of employers can’t find workers. But if they’re paying more to get the people they need, it’s not showing up in the data. These two factors—weak wage growth and low worker participation—are a drag on economic growth, and they seem out of sync with an unemployment rate that’s historically low. Trump’s main economic policy is tax cuts, which are supposed to leave workers and businesses with more after-tax income to spend and invest. But it’s not clear tax cuts will do anything to pull more workers into the labor force, or boost basic pay.

White Sox OF Eloy Jimenez, Double-A Birmingham: The thought of arguably the game's most powerful prospect moving to Triple-A Charlotte's BB&T Ballpark -- the International League's most hitter-friendly stadium -- is incredibly enticing. A move to the Knights, however, might have been delayed by a strained left pectoral that kept Jimenez from making his season debut until April 19. No matter, MLB.com's No. 4 overall prospect has picked up where he left off from a slugging standpoint, hitting four homers in his first 13 games with the Barons -- one more than he hit in five fewer contests with the same club in 2017. He's showing serious signs of heating up as well. Including Thursday's 2-for-5 game at Tennessee, Jimenez has hits in seven straight games and is 11-for-33 (.333) with two homers, three doubles and nine RBIs in that span. He's got a .544 slugging percentage and .892 OPS in 32 career games at Double-A, and both are certainly trending up with the more experience he gets at the level. Jimenez played only 71 games at Class A Advanced before moving up last season, and the White Sox could make his Double-A timeline even shorter if he continues to mash like this. milb.com prospect hot sheet

Yankees, Red Sox, Angels, Dodgers, Indians in the beginning, Astros, Cubs, Braves, Phillies, Padres

Lester to the Cubs, although there was already the Epstein connection. Still, everyone in baseball can see the potential in the organization and project it.

Adolfo isn’t getting a bit slower? He’s a really big dude.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/04/us/colorado-state-university-racial-profiling-trnd/index.html Racial profiling incidents picking up on college tours (“threatening” Native Americans at CSU), golf courses, fitness clubs, etc. Coincidence? Of course not...

One of the co—hosts of The View, liberal usually

A lot of scouts think India’s best position in the pros will be second base.

Average fell under 15,000 and back into 28th, just behind the Rays Should be back over that number on the weekend, heading for 1.212 million on the season without factoring in summer bump up. Of course, team winning percentage is 27th as well.

As much as we'd like to dump Engel/Thompson (right now, game-winning HR notwithstanding)...when you have Robert and Basabe behind them, that makes little to no sense (other than getting a veteran place-holder for one or two years that can play well above MLB-average defense in order to protect the young pitching staff).