caulfield12

DP? Well, you just knew it wasn't go to be THAT easy to just expect an XB hit there. For those who've asked, considering rain possibly on way: Postseason games can no longer be rain-shortened. Eventually played to completion. Funny to see national media applauding Castro's defense and turn at 2B. Neighborhood play?

Shouldn't there be a former Sox pitching for the Cubs in the post-season jinx as well? deGrom allowed just 2 HR this season on fastballs located on the outer third of the plate or off the plate away. He's allowed 2 tonight... Trevor Cahill warming up now. If Wright gets going....look out.

In all seriousness, the Cubs can't just get swept. That wouldn't be as interesting or painful as losing it all in the 6th or 7th game of the series. Doesn't fit into the whole Cub Folklore storyline...that's why 2007/08 losses aren't mentioned as much, compared to 1945, 1969, Brant Brown, Bartman/2003 and Leon Durham/1984.

You get two challenges before the 7th inning in the playoffs, so it doesn't hurt to try (the Blue Jays did this early on a play at home where it looked almost impossible to call Cain out earlier). Then Rios was called safe on a steal attempt when he popped up from a slide and took his foot off the bag...challenged and overturned. Opposition hitting .325 third time through the order so that might be it for Hendricks...at best, one more inning to get through the fifth but if another Met reaches he's probably toast (assuming the Cubs don't score 3-5 runs here). I'm pretty sure a White Sox fan, even with the Butterfly Effect in play, can't jinx the Cubs any more than they are already "jinxed" from 15,000 km away, haha. Besides, didn't Greg already jinx them by picking them to get to the World Series? Or did he already change his mind?

Poor Cubs' fans. The curse of Murphy strikes again...it's almost too good to be true that the cursed Billy Goat shares the same name. If they're going to "waste" (since his best year remaining will likely be in a non-contending year) money on a utility player, it better be Zobrist. However, he'll have a ton of interesting offers in terms of dollars and years and definitely pick a playoff-caliber team for 2016. Wouldn't be shocking to see him re-up with the Royals, he seems quite comfortable assuming the veteran "been there, done that" team spokesman role. Makes him an interesting interview because he has a perspective on the team from both the inside and the outside. The Cubs don't have a huge need for Ben unless they are finally willing to start parting ways with Soler, Baez, Castro, etc. Plus, you don't want Zobrist playing CF and surrounded by two offense-first corner guys.

Chris Archer and Longoria not having the worst season of his career could also explain that.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Oct 20, 2015 -> 12:06 PM) I mean, there's no question that 2015 was a terrible year, but that's because outcomes were MUCH worse than anyone expected. If LaRoche puts up anything even close to a career average year, for example, then his one-year, $12m deal for 2016 looks shrewd and low-risk. I'm just trying to illustrate the difference between the ad-hoc and the actual state in which decisions were made (and must be made going forward) Put another way: every time we make an acquisition, there are a range of expected possible outcomes assigned to the player. We improbably saw EVERY 2015 acquisition turn out near the worst possible outcome, and yet we aren't buried. Yes, things obviously look worse than before, but this was almost literally the WORST CASE SCENARIO. And that scenario is one where there's no one making more than $13m at a time, and only one of those guys is even still around after 2017. Bad health...major injuries to key pieces. Basically losing any of six players for significant time would cripple the Sox next year. Knock on wood.

These are the latest playoff/post-season games in the history of Wrigley Field. Not sure if that's worth an extra $5-10 for attendees or not. More relevant than best smile I guess.

Shark or Buehrle come to mind, haha.

Maybe if it's Game 7 at home, but even then...you're talking $3000-5000 instead of $1000 in the secondary market. Nutty. Don't care enough about being there in person to justify that one.

Rich or Edgar Renteria? They hire a veteran guy with former managerial exoerience, it will be a bit of a surprise but nice to put Ventura on notice.

The funny thing is that Young has a 4.9 career era in four starts against TOR and lost to them 6-2 in KC in July. But, Yost trusts him a lot more than Duffy not to get blasted out of the stadium...and his style/mechanics and slow stuff are such a change from the rest of the Royals' starters and Duffy throws mostly in the mid 90s as well.

Greg needs to have a reality show with Bob Dole where they both talk in third person...kind of like that economic conspiracy movie Collapse mixed with SNLish vignettes. With a Wayne's World feel. I know, I know....put down the crack pipe.

Nick Hostetler does have that job for a reason, now. Obviously Buddy Bell is still in his job, so the talent selectors are being blamed more than the coaches/development side, rightly or wrongly, guess we'll know more in 5-7 years what kind of difference it will actually make.

Or perhaps if Appel developed quickly enough to be used in their bullpen... The problem wasn't offense or starting pitching, it was defense and the bullpen having no flamethrowers who could avoid pitching to contact.

Touchdown Jesus! Rudy! Tim Brown! And 1947 Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Lujack once jumped in my car and stopped it from rolling out into traffic when I left it in neutral instead of park. Sadly, his Chevy dealership in the Quad Cities lost its franchise relationship, but that's another story for another day.

Biden isn't hated or despised. He did run for president in 1988 and was largely disqualified because of plagiarism accusations at that time. He's a loyal foot soldier, very bright albeit long winded and a pretty astute guy but probably a bit too old now...and I'll say the same about either Clinton at this point in their lives. You need a younger candidate with energy and stamina to deal with the constantly evolving world today. I'd rather have Rubio than Clinton, Biden or Sanders....if he's actually able to free himself from the Tea Party and govern from the middle and propose a real solution on immigration that will unite the country.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 20, 2015 -> 07:09 AM) Nice move of the goal posts + name drops. No, plenty of other teams go underslot with their top picks. Yeah, like the Cubs with Schwarber. Let's see what happens to the 3-4 young pitchers they were consequently able to afford in the first ten rounds and compare it with Spencer Adams in three seasons.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 20, 2015 -> 06:01 AM) Carlos Rodon. Aka 1 Keppinger or Bonifacio at $800k x 5-6 Rodon overages. Color me blown away. Was there any other choice dealing with Boras where they would dare not sign him? Just the cost of doing business at the top of the draft and not some radical or newfangled trend. And Abreu or Rodon have little or nothing to do with investing in guys like Yoan Moncada or Eloy Jimenez or Eddy Julio Ramirez that are under the age limit.

Cueto was terrible. Worse than terrible, really. Baseball-Reference's database goes back to 1903, and includes no record of a starting pitcher ever giving up eight or more earned runs while collecting six or fewer outs in a playoff game before Cueto. The man made history here. Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-colum...l#storylink=cpy TORONTO A stadium full of rowdy Canadians scream out more than two decades of baseball frustration, presumably fueled by Molson, the energy coming first as heckles, then with mockery, and finally with heckling mockery and a touch of humor. This is what Johnny Cueto's failures sound like, the voices reverberating around this strange old dome: WE WANT KWEY-TO... WE WANT KWEY-TO... WE WANT KWEY-TO... They chanted this after Cueto had left the game, his night finished, by any measure turning in one of the worst starts in more than 100 years of playoff baseball. They wanted him back on the mound here, and who could blame them? Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-colum...l#storylink=cpy

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Oct 19, 2015 -> 05:22 PM) When I see posts like this I wonder what "real middle class" means...I consider myself middle class and I'm able to do all of these things, and the only debit I have is my mortgage. I don't know, maybe I'm upper middle class and I don't know it...is there some sort of number that defines these classes? Some have argued $50,000 per year for a single person, some $75-100,000 for a married couple with kids. Of course, it depends on which city/market you live in, cost of living, etc. A teacher's salary of $44,000 in Kansas City, Missouri, is much different than Chicago, LA, SF, NYC or Boston, for example. I make about $3200 after tax per month here in China (international school) and my wife earns somewhere between $800-1600 USD per month (pre-tax) working for an insurance company (she gets sales commissions randomly). I guess we're upper middle class, but we don't own a house of our own or have a car (take the subway or private taxi). It would be something like $5500-6000 USD per month pre-tax. Of course, having a 7 month old baby is very expensive in China....on average, we spend $1250 per month on milk powder, diapers, special foods/fruits, clothing, etc. Those are the two highest salaries I've ever made (that and teaching in KCMO). I don't consider myself "upper middle class," although I suppose I should because of traveling to 30+ countries in my lifetime. We had this debate before (with my young co-teachers when I worked in Colombia), anyone who has enough disposable income to do that theoretically is upper middle class. Of course, it's different when you're single. Back then, I didn't spend much at all on clothing or really anything for myself beyond food, travel and entertainment costs. Others might say I have to classify myself as "upper" because of having two Master's degrees, but that's pretty ridiculous just to equate a Master's/MBA or PhD with upper class. Kind of snobby or elitist.

As Donald Trump would say, about declaring bankruptcy 3 or 4 times, he was only taking advantage of the system as it was constituted. Now, of course, the system often works to the advantage of the large market teams, just as it does to the billionaires who can hire lobbyists to influence the legislation that eventually protects them. Did he break the rules? Of course not. As long as the consequence for declaring bankruptcy or overspending on Latin American talent isn't too onerous, teams will continue to do so. Is it immoral or unethical or somehow inherently "unfair"? Well, that's a much tougher question to answer. Just like giving teams like the Tigers and Cardinals competitive balance picks when they both operate much more like a large market team than the Sox over the last decade or so.

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If Perez doubles there or homers, things suddenly get REALLY interesting. As it is, that's definitely game, set, match. Nice comeback game from Goins after being the #1 goat of Game 2.

They need a CF. If they want to play Bryant/Schwarber or Baez/Schwarber at the corners, they need a premiere defender in center. Just depends on who they want to play 3B, and how long they want to hold onto Castro and Baez. They don't have to trade any of them yet, they could go with many different infield and outfield combinations. However, in the end, they're going to have to trade either Baez or Soler if they want to go with the approach of loading the outfield with offense first players...unless they want to take the chance of selling high on Schwarber right now and hope it doesn't come back to bite them. Theoretically, paying Castro that much to play 2B doesn't make sense...but they don't have to trade him until they find a better replacement, and it's nice to have two back-ups for Russell in both Baez and Castro.