caulfield12

Everyone before the series began gave the advantage to the Mets' pitching (and they still might win this thing) but beating the Cubs' young hitters and beating a lot of veteran/experienced guys in KC who are the best in the league in general at making contact and specifically at hitting 95+ fastballs is another matter altogether. Not to mention the fact that the Mets' offense is basically dormant so far, and Ventura looming in Game 3 has the best stuff of any of that staff. And you're down to the Mets' third best young pitcher...who has the biggest fastball, which plays right into the Royals' hands.

Greg is smiling somewhere with how many times he criticized Dunn and LaRoche for not going to the opposite field or bunting with the pronounced shift arrayed against them.

Jirschele rewarded for not risking the out at the plate. On second glance, the throw wasn't as bad as thought, but it certainly wasn't the way Lagares used to throw a couple of seasons ago, either. The Wizard of Hos delivers!!! #Royals take a 3-1 lead! #TakeTheCrown REALLY stretching things with nicknames. Dark Knight? Wizard of Hos? Bring back Chris Berman (just not for play by play or any analysis, haha).

Guess the runner would have scored there because the throw from Lagares was too wild...

Escobar’s RBI single third hit in 23 ABs w/ RISP vs deGrom this postseason. #mets Niese quickly warming up. Royals haven't been executing well the first two games but still hanging in there. Mets' offense looks totally lost other than Murphy, Granderson and Duda.

Anti-Yost strategy foiled by Esky's inability to execute a bunt. Sabrematricians everywhere rejoice.

Interesting to see if Yost/Escobar bunt here or play for the big inning instead of the 2-1 lead. What's the situation with the rain/weather forecast?

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Oct 28, 2015 -> 07:22 PM) Wait, what? Dunn and LaRoche are universally recognized as better people than Hosmer and Moustakas. Why do they need more sympathy? Dunn sponsored a dinner for 40 members of Scott Carroll 's family after his MLB debut, doesn't that make him a great person too? I forgot about Dunn. He actually away from his struggles in 2011 performed fairly decently, maybe 15-20% below expectations, but not abysmally bad like that first season that left such a lasting impression. There were a lot of cool things he was doing off the field with his various business interests, particularly in the movie industry. Now Rios and LaRoche are different stories, although Adam seems like a decent enough guy.

https://t.co/TBHCBs4hXs My Twitter feed is blocked at work in China. Where do the White Sox rank in park-adjusted defensive efficiency? Mets are apparently 3rd. I would guess the Royals are 1st or 2nd, although Gordon missed a couple of months in LF and Zobrist was playing so that might have lowered their numbers just a tad. Walks Moustakas to get the R/R match-up with Salvador Perez.

Bud Black named manager of the Nationals. Wasn't Dusty Baker the other one in the running over there? Guess Mattingly's probably going to the Marlins...not sure how long that will last.

I think if Adam Dunn, Adam LaRoche or Alex Rios would have done something similar for White Sox fans, they would have had a bit more sympathy. Just like Cueto had a situation where he blew off a highly-publicized public/charity appearance for "injury treatment" and it really hurt his standing with the fans, especially because of how poorly he was pitching at the time. At any rate, Moustakas made a really good play in the 6th inning last night, but he also couldn't cleanly field D'Arnaud's ball when the Mets scored their first run to tie it (probably couldn't have gotten the runner at the plate, though...maybe), Hosmer's misplay late, now the botched double play ball with the bad throw leading to another run tonight. Uncharacteristic. Then again, the Royals didn't really deserve anything more than a double or perhaps a triple on the Escobar inside-the-park home run to lead off the game.

Probably when Hosmer paid $3000 for a bar bill when drinking with all the Royals' fans in the Power & Light district after the Baltimore series win. http://www.hardballtimes.com/learning-the-...-the-clubhouse/ Part of it's because they mocked a cyber sabre geek who doesn't know how to act around modern day athletes without talking about war and fip and drs. Not surprisingly, the same happened to Lucas Mann when he covered the Clinton Lumber Kings for a year and wrote a book about it.

If the outcomes were clearly better, sure. Maybe 10% of charter schools are much more effective. Many are even worse. That said, if it was KIPP or the Harlem Children's Zone or an innovative new approach that hasn't been tried before, those students deserve the best possible education and not the same tired tenure/anti-labor union/the system can't be changed or improved arguments. Teachers want the best for students as well.

I hated that prick when he worked for Clinton. Great strong armer with bundling money and later enforcing party discipline, but not close to a nice guy by any stretch of the imagination. Smart, driven and ambitious...sure, but those tendencies have brought out an array of other undesirable qualities and tendencies along with it.

Was Iguchi that much more of a star in Japan? Obviously, Japan was/is stronger in terms of overall talent, but the gap is closing year after year. The positional flexibility issue is a big concern, though. We already have Cabrera, Garcia, Abreu, LaRoche, Olt, Davidson, Soto and even Micah that all might be best suited for the DH role.

Two of the country's foremost researchers on race and capital punishment, law professor David Baldus and statistician George Woodworth, along with colleagues in Philadelphia, have conducted a careful analysis of race and the death penalty in Philadelphia which reveals that the odds of receiving a death sentence are nearly four times (3.9) higher if the defendant is black. These results were obtained after analyzing and controlling for case differences such as the severity of the crime and the background of the defendant. The data were subjected to various forms of analysis, but the conclusion was clear: blacks were being sentenced to death far in excess of other defendants for similar crimes. A second study by Professor Jeffrey Pokorak and researchers at St. Mary's University Law School in Texas provides part of the explanation for why the application of the death penalty remains racially skewed. Their study found that the key decision makers in death cases around the country are almost exclusively white men. Of the chief District Attorneys in counties using the death penalty in the United States, nearly 98% are white and only 1% are African-American. These new empirical studies underscore a persistent pattern of racial disparities which has appeared throughout the country over the past twenty years. Examinations of the relationship between race and the death penalty, with varying levels of thoroughness and sophistication, have now been conducted in every major death penalty state. In 96% of these reviews, there was a pattern of either race-of-victim or race-of-defendant discrimination, or both. The gravity of the close connection between race and the death penalty is shown when compared to studies in other fields. Race is more likely to affect death sentencing than smoking affects the likelihood of dying from heart disease. The latter evidence has produced enormous changes in law and societal practice, while racism in the death penalty has been largely ignored. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/death-pena...ies-who-decides That's not even mentioning all the studies showing a black person killing a white person is 8-12X more likely to be executed than when the opposite occurs. I'm sure there will be some explanation given for this which makes perfectly logical sense.

You'd also have to look at how many times Mr. Long had confrontations over cell phones with white and black students, and if he ever called security on a white student. If the student was white, most would be saying that level of physicality is completely unnecessary or warranted in terms of cell phone usage in class. It would have been easier to first call the student's parent or guardian and threaten to have the daughter suspended for 3-5 days if she wouldn't surrender it. Looks like he was hoping for an excuse to escalate the situation.

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Oct 28, 2015 -> 10:25 AM) Interested to see how much Greinke gets paid this offseason. Given his age though I think he'll easily be the worst contract handed out this year when it's all said and done. Has to be $175-200 million. Price might be a tick higher due to his being relatively younger and LH and has also experienced success in AL more recently. Albeit not the post-season. Cueto should be $145-165 for an NL team, particularly if he pitches at least one superb game against the Mets. Zimmermann in the same vicinity. Wouldn't be shocked if he got more than Cueto, especially if Johnny gets rocked once or twice more under glare of the bright lights.

Correlation would be the word here.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Oct 28, 2015 -> 10:07 AM) I'd still take the chance on Puig. I just read Molly Knight's book "The Best Team Money Can Buy" about the Dodgers. It's really good and there is tons of Puig stuff in there. It talks about how the White Sox were one of the few teams that scouted him and really wanted him. Part of the reason why Dodgers offered so much money at the time. Not surprising. I wanted Hector Olivera, too. Moncada was always going to be unrealistic. Fwiw, that book's on my reading list. I think she writes for the LA Times. Seems the Dodgers are really hitting the pitching market and realize paying Greinke even with his smooth, repeatable delivery into his late 30's isn't very wise even for a $300 million payroll team. Any reason to think Hanley Ramirez would work out better with us than the Red Sox?

That’s when Fields called for his partner to “get her black ass,” Martin said. The officer grabbed her phone and deleted the photos. During the arrest, Martin told Fields the rough arrest would lead to a lawsuit. “I’m glad Johnny Cochran is dead,” Fields shot back, according to Martin. The officer also told Martin as he was cuffed that “you’re just another notch in my belt,” according to court documents. So that's al least four other incidents with black students/couples...in addition to this recent one, that makes five. None involve a single white person.

Statistically, do roughly 35-40% of his problems involve white students? That should be the case proportionately based on the school's demographic make-up.

Trial is set for January in the case of an expelled student who claims Fields targeted black students and falsely accused him of being a gang member in 2013. In another case, a federal jury sided with Fields after a black couple accused him of excessive force and battery during a noise complaint arrest in 2005. A third lawsuit, dismissed in 2009, involved a woman who accused him of battery and violating her rights during a 2006 arrest. He also attacked a veteran and his wife. Smoke, meet fire. http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2015/10/27/sh...oor/#more-28388

But he's dating a black woman so he can't be all that evil or racist. http://heavy.com/news/2015/10/ben-fields-r...deo-complaints/ You can't just intimate there is a video exonerating him and then fire the guy at the same time. Johnson said, “When I asked (their teacher) Mr. Long if he felt bad for what happened to her … his reply was ‘she should have cooperated.'” Great role model, that teacher...

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Oct 28, 2015 -> 08:52 AM) I'm not looking to trade any of them. SP is a strength, but the "depth" is overstated, IMO. Sale is elite, Quintana is a great #2, Rodon is a 3 with big upside, Danks is an overpaid #5 man in our #4 hole, and Johnson is a 4/5 with the upside of a 3. Behind that, we have Fulmer and some prospects that certainly have upside but that look like they are most likely going to be relievers. 1. You cannot assume Fulmer is ready as quickly as Rodon was, and even if you DO, you have to remember that Rodon pitched like a back-end guy most of the season. 2. If you remove Quintana from that #2 slot due to a trade, the whole thing suddenly looks very shaky. I think Rodon will become a strong #2 at some point, but it's very much a question mark if that happens this year -- he still struggle with command frequently and control almost as often, and he needs to learn to trust his fastball. And until he does learn to trust his fastball, we're not going to know if it has enough movement to be a big pitch. If it doesn't his control suddenly has to get really good. He's got work to do. 3. Remove ANY of them for a significant injury -- even Danks -- and you're in trouble quickly. You could argue we need to ADD a starter or two, at least of the "one-year pillow contract" type. Estrada, Gallardo, Fister, Kazmir, Iwakuma, Latos