caulfield12

Greg, in case you missed it...the Republicans are starving the government to death by cutting both tax revenues and government spending (on pretty much everything but the military, which is increasing significantly, even though we already spend more than the 7 countries directly behind us COMBINED.) That means in order to pay for your friend or Bernie Sanders' policies...you're going to have to cut back that military spending by at least 50% and cede the world to the Chinese OR be willing to accept lesser Social Security payouts (and/or work longer and harder for the same retirement the Baby Boomers are now enjoying.) And crappy health insurance which exists on paper but hardly pays for anything but the right you have to claim that you actually have SOME type of health insurance for the purpose of government statistics. The simplest solution to ObamaCare is to FREAKING CLOSE THE LOOPHOLES instead of radically revamping the system (Medicare for ALL, sounds great!) OR swinging the other direction and expecting corporations to pay MORE towards worker retirements/pensions (a trend going the opposite direction the last 20-30 or so years). Good luck with the latter idea.

Yep, $1.35 million to sign for the Rangers...probably another AJ Preller deal, actually

http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?gid=2018_05_03_sanaax_friaax_1&t=g_box 3/7, double and triple, average up to .212, 5 homers, 13 RBI's, 7 BB, 37 K's, OPS climbing slowly towards .700 May 4th, double and a homer, #6, up to .220 and 748 ops

You're over complicating it, unless India is one of those guys (like he claimed Collins and Burger to be) who they saw as the #1 prospect or definitely close to the top of their boards. With the lack of a big-time track record prior to this year...it seems to be too much of a risk for such a high pick. Then again, we were able to get Hansen in the 2nd round (otoh, Adams/Beck were thought to be huge talents in neither of them have blossomed with the Sox).

https://www.diehards.com/oklahoma/kyler-murray-oklahoma-sooners-football-big-12-scouting-report-freakish-athlete-rodney-anderson-cale-gundy An anonymous Big 12 coach had plenty of praise for Murray’s talents. “He’s got some freakish type skills,” the coach said. “He can run so well, he’s so explosive, so fast, but this dude can sling the hell out of it, too.” Murray served as Mayfield’s backup in 2017 after sitting out the 2016 season following his transfer from Texas A&M. He completed 18 of his 21 passes for 359 yards, 3 touchdowns and no interceptions. He also ran for 142 yards (10.1 yards per carry), mostly as a wildcat quarterback. Oklahoma sophomore outfielder Kyler Murray was ranked the No. 36 prospect in the 2018 MLB Draft by ESPN's Keith Law on Thursday. Murray was the highest ranked Big 12 player in the projection of 50 players. Murray is currently averaging .279 batting with five home runs and 28 RBIs. Murray is also currently battling to be the starting quarterback on the football team. Last season Murray threw for 359 yards and three touchdowns as Baker Mayfield's backup quarterback. The 2018 MLB Draft will take place June 4 -- Murray has yet to make a decision if he will enter or not. “Murray is slated to start at quarterback this fall for the Sooners, but if he’s finally ready to play baseball full time, his plus-plus speed and contact-oriented swing would make him a first-round pick — especially since he’s played fairly well since moving into the Sooners’ lineup in the third weekend of the spring.” This season for the Sooners, Murray is batting .279 with five home runs and 28 RBI. One possibility for Murray would be to play professional baseball during the summer before returning to campus to join the football team for the 2018 campaign. “We’ve had some discussions on that,” head coach Lincoln Riley said after the spring game, via NewsOK.com. “We’re open and honest with each other about that and I’m comfortable about where we’re at with it.” Oklahoma opens the 2018 college football season against Florida Atlantic on Sept. 1. https://campussports.net/2018/04/19/oklahoma-football-kyler-murray-could-be-top-mlb-draft-pick/#!

Honel and Jason Stumm were the last two...and I think 50% of Honel was about the hometown/local kid

Did ANYONE on here call Davidson being a core piece of the rebuild two years ago? Especially after he got hurt in his first or second game back up. Crazy. Still not a done deal, but looking really good.

Delmonico needs to improve his situational hitting awareness significantly to be a future contributor...

Speaking of India (linked in draft thread as well) No one in this Draft class has improved his stock more than Jonathan India. The Florida Gators infielder wasn't on our Draft Top 50 in December and now he stands at No. 10 overall. India was always a solid player, did the summer showcase circuit in high school and got drafted in the 26th round by the Brewers in 2015. But if anyone saw this coming, I'd like to take them to Vegas. A three-year starter at Florida, India certainly was a competent college performer. He hit .303 and slugged .440 as a freshman, but then managed a .274/.354/.429 line as a sophomore. India's two summers in the Cape Cod League were good, but not extraordinary. So what happened? The biggest thing has been an improvement in India's overall approach. His pitch selection has been so much better and that, in turn, has allowed him to tap into his raw power more consistently on good pitches to drive. India's .401/.546/.810 line matches up with just about anyone's, especially considering he's doing it in the ultra-competitive SEC. He has 14 homers and 10 steals and even with the big uptick in power, he has more walks than strikeouts. Does this huge junior season put India in the top 10? That remains to be seen. He's certainly moved into the conversation. It's not a slam dunk, as I think some teams would prefer a little more track record of this kind of success. A few years ago, another SEC performer had a .701 OPS as a freshman and a 1.205 OPS as a Draft-eligible sophomore. That was Andrew Benintendi. How has that turned out? Now, I don't think India has Benintendi's tools, and it's not entirely clear what position he plays long-term, but it is hard to ignore what he's done. And if there's a team in the top 10 who thinks he has the chance to play shortstop (some do), then that team might very well take him.

Flowers and Phegley come to mind right off the bat...although Tyler's had a longer career than most of would have imagined 5 or 6 years ago. But Hostetler was a Braves scout and covered that region of the country...so if he's SURE Bart is the best choice, but I would take Madrigal and figure his position out later. You can make him a part-time DH and play him all over the field like Zobrist/Baez/Happ if you absolutely have to in order to get his bat in the line-up SOMEWHERE. Even if that means LF.

Elite college hitters make their own way, look at Thomas and Ventura. Heck, look no further than how quickly Beckham came up after being drafted. I would argue 2020 at the latest, not the earliest with such an advanced/refined offensive approach. Still don't understand why we drafted Collins...and then we're going to take Bart too? Seems like a big miss to turn Collins into an "average-ish/fringe-ish" 1B/DH with a draft pick so high in the first round.

https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-draft-prospects-with-highest-ceilings/c-275054666 Dream draft for the White Sox...in terms of "high ceiling" players, Madrigal and then OF Kyler Murray (Oklahoma Sooners) As soon as people find out Murray is a two-sport athlete, all the KW comments will come out, lol.

This type of argument is why America (and our political system as it stands today) are in so much trouble. If we simply divide it into “us versus them,” can’t even have a legitimate discussion on the problematic nature (or responsibility) of actions being taken...then we might as well just divide into GOP and Dem states that follow right or left policies. It’s already happening with California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii, whether the national parties like it or not. Vote with your feet...don’t like high SALT taxes in NYC/NJ and think Texas heat is great, you also don’t get to complain about your son or daughter’s disappointing educational results.

Playing collegiate baseball at Auburn and being signed as a raw 16 year old out of the Dominican are clearly the same backgrounds, not unlike McDowell at Stanford and Ventura at Oklahoma State. By the way, how much did Yoan Moncada bump up attendance last year? The answer is probably not even enough to account for half of Joakim Soria’s salary this season.

The same reason the Cubs have reasonable control of most of their core position players for the next 3-4 years. They didn’t jump the gun, although they did end up shortening the timeframe to get to that contention window by acquiring Lester and getting some unexpected pitching performances out of Arrieta, Hendricks and Hammel.

Two (GOP) politicians just told the truth about taxes and health care https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/02/politics/election-2018-taxes-obamacare-rubio-price/index.html

With more attention being paid to Ohtani (especially by non-sports news sources), the national/international writers covering that story will spread more of their coverage to the appreciation of Trout, imo.

I wouldn't say "upset" is the correct description...rearranging where Call/Fisher potentially end up position-wise is probably issue #38 in all of the things Rick Hahn has to be concerned with as of today.

Basabe might SNIFF the back end of the Top 100 (85-100) if he can sustain this pace statistically for a full season (and stay healthy)... But he's not going to be passing Jimenez/Robert anytime soon.

I'm simply responding to the suggestion earlier in the thread of moving one of them to 1B. The end.

Fisher/Call SHOULD THEORETICALLY have more value as "trade bait" to other organizations playing their natural positions...rather than trying to fit a square peg into a round hole of creating yet more 1B/DH types in this organization.

Except we've got how many of those guys already? Delmonico, Davidson, Skole, Palka, Zavala/Collins...that's the ONE position on most MILB depth charts that's not difficult to fill. You better be able to hit 30+ homers, play Gold Glove level defense or hit like John Olerud to hold down that position as an everyday player.

https://eand.co/why-american-collapse-is-only-just-beginning-not-ending-21cac6b14533 And I thought Trump's inaugural address was bleak, lol...at any rate, REDDY, the 30-40% of America who reads this essays and nods their head over and over again, they are the ones the Democratic Party has to figure out how to speak to (again) because they've been taken for granted for 25+ years by the national party. It's also right in line with a Greg775 "humanity is collapsing" rant. There are many beliefs America holds that the rest of the world finds gruesome and strange: guns, capitalism, greed, cruelty. But among these is a new one: that this dark period in American history is an anomaly — and therefore, things will revert to normal. Sorry. American collapse is not an anomaly — it is the very opposite: the culmination of decades-long trends. Those trends, which I’ll discuss in this essay, have not ended — and so collapse has barely only really begun. Let me begin by dashing your hopes. There’s much talk of a “Blue Wave” — excited and hopeful talk. Alas, when we look closely at the wave of politicians that are to turn the country around, it’s all too easy to see that there is no transformative agenda that unites them — mostly, they stand for minor incremental changes, not exactly a New Bill of Rights. And as they are elected, they will quickly meet the reality of American politics: lobbying dollars which control a two-party system that offers the barest illusion of choice. Would you prefer armed teachers — or merely armies at school? Would you like greed with a sugarcoating — or lethally savage capitalism? And so on. The Blue Wave has as little chance of turning America around as Houdini might actually turning water into wine. So the longest-running trend in America — that its democracy has long been broken (or never really been much of one at all, if you want to count the inconvenient fact that it was a segregated nation until 1971, which is usually too much reality for most Americans to bear) — can only continue. Today’s noble Blue Wave idealist is tomorrow’s capitulating Obamacrat — they must either compromise, toeing the party line, or they will quickly find themselves powerless, unheard, and invisible. So Blue Wave or no Blue wave — it is quite irrelevant — American political reality means it will simply go on having little chance of gaining working healthcare, higher education, public media, safety nets, or retirement, because it lacks the capacity to create it — though that is precisely what most Americans, by many measures, want. But they do not just want it. They need it. The average American’s plight is so desperate that people in other rich countries can scarcely comprehend it. Dying from a lack of insulin? The elderly working at Walmart? Less than a week’s pay in savings? It sounds like a dystopian film, not reality. Yet this points to my second megatrend. American incomes have been flat since the 70s — but all the while, the basics of life, all the things above, from retirement to healthcare, have grown in price. First creeping up, and now skyrocketing. Of course, this shatters the average person economic hopes — but it makes those at the top ultra-wealthy. So America’s two great economic megatrends — rising inequality, growing poverty, and an imploding middle class, are likely to bite harder as well. People who must choose between food and healthcare, of course, enjoy poorer and poorer standards of living. And that is America’s third big trend — a declining real quality of life. America yesterday was an optimistic nation — perhaps falsely so — yet still, there was the sense that eventually, life would get better for “all”, as each generation outdid the last. But now that hope is gone. Life is not getting better — it is getting worse, by the day. Life, however you would like to define it. Life expectancy? Shrinking. Infant mortality? Rising. Loneliness, despair, depression? Spiking. Trust, bonds, relationships? Imploding. American life will go on getting harder, meaner, nastier, crueller, and more dismal in every way — because a decent life, at least to the rest of the world, has become an unaffordable luxury. What do people whose lives are falling apart do? Well, the first thing they usually do is take it out on each other. Americans have been doing that for a long time now, so much that it is a way of life. This is my fourth megatrend — it is an emotional one: rage, despair, and anxiety as a way of life. Americans will go on taking the bitter anger and grim despair of living in a collapsing society out on each other. After all, they have no way not to — no mental healthcare, universal education, functioning media, or even norms of basic decency anymore. They will go on hurting one another in every imaginable way — destroying each other in hard and soft ways, denying one another retirement, degrading and bullying each other at work and school and play, refusing to invest in the barest bits of society, walking around with machine guns, building tomorrow’s predatory systems, whether Ubers or hedge funds — precisely because there is no way to aspire to anything better, since the political system is broken, and the economy is irreparable. Because it all seems so hopeless, societies governed by rage and despair also give up on democracy. So we are likely to see a constant “tussle” between authoritarians and the comic Marco Rubio-esque charade that passes for American leadership. But I put “tussle” in quotes for a reason. Authoritarians don’t need a majority — they never have, and that is foolish myth promoted by American intellectuals. It’s enough for fascists and tyrants to capture perhaps 30–40% of a nation to take over its institutions, norms, and future — because that 30% is like a wrecking ball, that can be used to intimidate, bluster, threaten, and bully (as long as the rest is split). That fringe, lunatic 30% now controls America wholesale — not just making any kind of progress not just impossible, but demanding wholesale regress: banning books, taking science out of schools, putting fundamentalist religion into public life, and so forth. That is my fifth megatrend, authoritarianism, and I am sorry to have to tell you that it will not stop with this President — it will continue, gain strength, and shape America for the foreseeable future. I am sure that by now, perhaps, you find all this quite unbelievable. Ah, but wouldn’t you yourself have said where America is today was absurdly, absolutely impossible even two years ago? Wouldn’t you have laughed if someone had read you today’s headlines then, and cried, “LOL. Get real, dude. No way!!!!!”?

They have no reason to RUSH Jimenez, especially with him having his season debut delayed 2-3 weeks. He'll be there in BIRM at least until the middle of June. Polo has always profiled more as a 4th/5th outfielder, last guy off the bench at the next level type...he will be pushed out of the way for Booker, and Fisher/Call will have to sort themselves out by their play on the field. Booker and Basabe have the advantage here because they have the tools to play all three outfield positions...with Rutherford (hitting for average/OBP/doubles) and Adolfo (pure power/plus arm when healthy) having more specialized skill sets for a corner spot or DH. Then you have Robert.

Then you have to deal with the gerrymandering on a state by state level...the huge losses in governorships, state legislature control, school boards/city councils over the last decade or so. (They're already making inroads in states like PA and WI, fwiw.) That was "papered over" by the fact that Obama won twice, but for the state and local parties, it was a disaster. As far as writing legislation to undo Citizens' United, to what end? Hoping Gorsuch is going to be party to upholding it? If anything, with one or possible two more justices likely to change before the Republicans give up power (at the very least, they can hope to delay until the last few months of 2019 when they can then use the "Merrick Garland Run Out the Clock Tactic"), and that's even more complicated to prevent if they don't flip the Senate, which is still looking like a 25% proposition at best. The Democratic Party has been okay for decades with doing very little for minority communities while expecting their votes, why is it suddenly a problem now that a large block of the base sees a problem with the strategy and messaging and wants to change it in the hopes of making some actual progress? (quote) Exactly right. It's hard to name many SUBSTANTIVE policy changes that the Republicans have put into place that support the Christian Conservative/Fundamentalist/Moral Majority/Christian Coalition vote...sure, that effort at the beginning with stopping NGO's outside of the US from using funding for abortions, a few grenades tossed around about transgender military service, but it's almost all been lip service and PR spin. Yet those particular voters are trapped with nowhere else to go, not until/unless another party or the Dem's provide them a better voting option. Trump couldn't be MORE the opposite of 1976 Jimmy Carter, the closest we've ever had in the last 50 years to a legitimate "moral" leader as president...yet his support levels are way through the roof, even vis a vis the "compassionate conservatism" movement of George W. Bush in 2004.