caulfield12

QUOTE (greg775 @ Feb 7, 2016 -> 02:08 PM) ABC is a joke. How can they not have a producer or intern or somebody in the hallway during the introductions and not make Carson look like a zombie? That was terrible. There are just horrible horrible candidates on the Republican side. Is Rubio serious about repeating the same lines four times in the debate? That's insane. He comes across as glass eyed and a nutjob, sort of. Cruz is just bizarre and abrasive to the ears needs to go away. By the end, people are going to be so sick of Trump it would be the biggest landslide in history if he runs against Hillary. Obviously I hate Hillary but her one saving grace is she has Bill hovering in the background and Bill is entertaining/cool, whatever the word you want to use. Carson is great but doesn't come across well on TV. Christie is like having Mike Ditka as president; won't fly. What a sorry cast of characters. Out of all of them you'd have to pick Trump as most electable still but again, his supporters are too vocal in a meanish way. But ABC ... did they try to embarrass the Rebulicans with that introduction? Was it deliberate? Sanders actually polls much better against Trump nationally than Hillary does fwiw.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Feb 7, 2016 -> 02:16 PM) No I don't like that. And Balta, you are a smart person. You know little things like how a person looks or sounds means a TON in Presidential elections. Nixon losing to Kennedy because of the way he sweat on TV. Humphrey's looks and voice. You don't think superficiial things like looks and screaming matter? I'd say 30 percent of all voters vote on likeability. In our superficial country?? Of course they do. I despise Hillary for a lot of reasons but yes I wonder how Hillary supporters can stand listening to her scream out cliches? I notice you didn't answer my specific question but effectively changed the subject to screaming at me. It's scarier to think Rubio might be our next president not having the ability to do anything but repeat himself...four consecutive times...even when he's being directly ridiculed for it by Christie.

The counterpoint is how mamy MLB teams have 100% privately financed stadiums? That said, it sucks when the owner is threatening to move your favorite team halfway across the country. That's not easy to overlook for some fans.

Hasn't that same exact statement been made about 10-12 times this offseason...that Hahn was just craftily playing some version of poker under his own unique set of rules? Otherwise, why take the risk from the fallout if you had little to no intention of actually pulling the trigger on a significant acquisition?

Hernandez, at best, is months away from playing in the big leagues... They need to be looking at Jackson, Fowler, Jennings, Victorino, Guerrero/Hernandez, etc. And/or Ian Desmond.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article....articleid=28379 http://mlb.nbcsports.com/2016/02/06/stick-...list-manifesto/ Reaction to first article...

It's a lot easier to see Bush clan backing Kasich imo. Christie is too aggressive for their taste. And he's tainted by the association/cooperation with Obama still.

With the Jays, 2b if Travis is out and SS for Tulowitzki. Also DH, with Colabello far from a sure repeater performance-wise. Have said all along he would be a decent or potentially above-average outfielder if he had enough time to prepare. With the White Sox, he would provide insurance at 2b, SS, DH and relegate Saladino to a bench role. If they can't afford Austin Jackson or Desmond Jennings, I'm coming around on Shane Victorino because he can hit lefties and has been a valuable performer on a string of playoff/World Series teams. Guerrero or Kiki Hernandez, they need to improve that bench somehow. Cards have been considering moving Peralta from SS for awhile now, fwiw. http://www.rotochamp.com/baseball/PlayerRa...spx?Position=SS

Christie and Kasich won that debate and it wasn't close. Rubio took a lot of shots and didn't have any ability to shift on his feet and adjust his tone away from repeating the same attack on Obama over and over. Now the biggest question is how much of a surge do the governors get...? Can both Kasich and Christie make it to South Carolina? Donald Trump had a pretty good night and didn't do anything to lose his position in NH.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/player/splits/_/id/...shane-victorino Shane Victorino to hit against lefties...just because our sights keep getting set lower. Supposedly he's in very good shape, of course his agent wouldn't lie.

http://www.salon.com/2016/02/05/dems_stop_...ious_s_that_is/ This is the best and most detailed article so far that explains why 84-86% of women under thirty are currently supporting Bernie Sanders...

http://www.ehow.com/facts_7815788_steepest...ted-states.html The only MLB stadium that has the same rake or slant is Kauffman...which makes sense since that was the principal HOK model minus the fountains/outfield bleachers and concourse. http://baseball-fever.com/archive/index.php/t-80181.html

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-11...e-soldier-field See second and last paragraphs...

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-11...e-soldier-field See second and last paragraphs...

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/14724005...angeles-dodgers Puig finally turning over a new leaf?

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/how-the-teams-were-built/ A couple of things stick out. We have the second most players acquired by waivers (6) to the Blue Jays (7) and we are tied for 25th with the Brewers for fewest number of international signings with two. Only TB (0) and LAA, Oakland and Toronto are worse (1 each). It's interesting to note TB went over their cap in the most recent signing period for Latin America. Also, Jose Quintana is technically counted as a free agent rather than a waiver claim here, but he's clearly not the typical big ticket free agent signing.

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/i...cubs-and-astros Cubs and Astros success not a product of tanking

The irony here is that fans would be more willing to excuse all that if he hadn't followed Selig's wishes in 1994 against the interests of his own team, about holding down spending for free agents/collusion (Belle for one year was one of the few exceptions), about not overspending on the draft, and now it would be pretty surprising if we went over the cap for intl. spending as well when smaller budget iteams like the Rays, Royals, Braves and DBacks have gone over or currently are planning to do so. He was on the inside with Selig all that time, the definition of the establishment...until he lost the power struggle which ended up with Manfred as commissioner and broke from Selig in favor of trying to form his own cabal. So whatever invisible advantages we had from aligning with Bud all that time have been lost. In the meantime, a not insignificant percentage of the White Sox fanbase at least partially blames the other half for the failures of the franchise. It's a pretty amazing trick to pull off, from a public relations standpoint.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Feb 5, 2016 -> 09:33 PM) Because now they have a closer and a young pitcher. They made a crafty decision using their depth. They thought a couple of moves ahead. Would be nice if the Sox would do that instead of going paycheck to paycheck with zero depth. The Sox reportedly want a lefty; why didn't they look at Parra themselves? Look at Parra's trendline offensively and defensively over the last couple of seasons. You'll find another version of Austin Jackson with no clear case of regression (especially from a Gold Glove level of play) at his young age. Two enigmas...although Parra was never a great hitter in the first place.

Look at her wavering on trade agreements when the political winds shift. Her bringing up the derivatives/swaps legislation that came from her hisband's administration...why didn't Sanders turn around and come back at her with "if it was good enough for your husband and greenspan and rubin, what evidence exists that you were you against it at that time?" She took forever on Keystone waiting to see which way it would play out. She's now anti state death penalty when her husband had the highest execution rate of any state governed by a Democrat in the 1980's and early 90's precisely because Dukakis, Mondale, McGovern and liberals in general got hammered for being soft on crime (see Lee Atwater/Bush/Willie Horton). Most cynics believe it was purely politics...anticipating weaknesses that could be eliminated for a potential presidential campaign.

If you do think about it objectively, and remove the White Sox being your favorite team from the equation...it's pretty hard to look at the politics of it as well as the cost to taxpayers (especially in light of current budget problems) and feel it was a good deal in terms of the overall public interest of all residents of the State of Illinois. In that sense, this is just what the rich people in our country do...take advantage of tax loopholes, social connections, political donations, bankruptcy law, tax havens. Do you blame the system itself or primarily the individual actors within that system? In this case, the ballclub (increasing valuation/ROI) itself has certainly accrued more benefits than the public. So it comes down to putting a dollar figure on 2005 whether that was worth it for the city and state. Florida taxpayers would undoubtedly disagree their two World Series winners in Miami were worth it, overall. Or football fans in St. Louis.

It seems one of Parra's main motivations for going to Colorado was to play with CarGo. Might have been like Upton there was no mutual interest? The weird part is the Rockies seemingly lowered Dickerson's value by forcing a move with him or Blackmon. Why they would want to get more expensive with at best an incremental upgrade seems bizarre for a rebuilding team. And it's not like Parra has been playing great defense recently...if that was the primary consideration over Dickerson it would make SOME sense at least.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 5, 2016 -> 04:47 PM) You can't tell the difference between being intentionally bad, and being bad? If you are going to be intentionally bad, why should the rest of baseball have to subsidize you while you wait half a decade, or more, to maybe be good again? But there are almost always shades of grey...which would you penalize of those six NL teams? The Brewers, Reds, Rockies, Padres, Braves and Phillies? What about the Marlins when they fired Guillen and traded half their expensive new acquisitions to Toronto? The Cubs, Astros, Twins and Mets should be penalized as well when their efforts were largely successful? Let's not forget the Red Sox in last place 3/4 years, the Padres, the Mariners, etc. I imagine most here could never come close to an agreement...and, for as many fans who are discouraged by games against no-name lesser competition, just as many love it when the White Sox beat up on teams and put up huge offensive numbers in those games.

But who determines which teams aren't competitive enough? What if their spending/trading is clearly inefficient but not evidence of deliberate sabotage? For example, the Mariners, Padres or White Sox in the last couple of seasons. The Twins were over .500 but hardly spent a dime this offseason...or the Yankees. The Marlins? They would counter with Stanton and Wei Yin Chen. Can you blame the A's because ownership erred in letting SF take the territorial rights to San Jose? What should or could the Reds or Brewers realistically do in the face of three superteams in their own division? Can you force the Phillies to spend FA money a year or two earlier because of their new media rights deal payments already kicking in?

When you think about it, Sanders has become a one-man version of Occupy Wall Street. It's forcing Hillary to tack to the left because her pragmatic/realistic/moderate/progressive side isn't going to motivate anyone, no matter how many times she mentions the Children's Legal Defense fund, CHIP, the fight over Hillary Care, etc. The Clintons made so much of the fact they were supposedly broke when they left the White House (that was quickly remedied by book deals)...but I don't feel many young people get a sense that Hillary cares about poor people. From reading about all the deals and sources of money for the Clinton Foundation (they can locate it in Harlem, but their hearts are in Westchester), the picture of what they've actually accomplished for all the millions of dollars "invested" gets murkier and murkier. Heck, the left wing of the Democratic party doesn't 100% believe the Obamas really care about the issues Sanders is directly taking on, either. Only Bill had that seemingly magical ability to connect to people and no matter how earnestly she endeavors, it's just lacking in her...that genuineness or authenticity, it's clear she's always going to be arguing the Presidency is something she has earned and has the right to but she doesn't know how to win it or exactly why. It's that tone-deafness which already destroyed Jeb Bush.