caulfield12

Luckily former Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Lujack (ND) didn't die jumping into my car and stopping it when I accidentally left it in neutral and it started rolling backwards when I was in high school...and I left Arthur Marshall's non profit in 1996 well before the former NFL WR was remanded to Miami federal prison on real estate fraud charges related to 2007-09 lol. Lastly, Herschel Walker was the keynote speaker at our charity event...jinxed him too, couldn't have plausibly predicted a political turn way back then.

Am I also responsible for Naomi Watts and anyone connected to Mulholland Drive...? That was quite the movie. If I'm so powerful, I can send Sasaki to SD to keep the proper balance in baseball intact and Notre Dame over OSU too, lol. All promised to occur next Monday.

https://www.mlb.com/whitesox/tickets/promotions?utm_source=cws_ticket_news&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Promotions&utm_term=011625&utm_content=Single_Game&partnerId=it-20250116-12329437-cws-1-A&utm_id=it-20250116-12329437-cws-1-A Weather Day sounds pretty much like the least likely to work except it will inevitably get lots of national attention when it's rained out in early May. Something like 9-10 special/themed promotions and eight other traditional ones like Dog Day.

Less politically untenable now than a Cuban academy at least...Venezuela equally dicey despite all the signings in recent years.

Keller comments anywhere on players signed? Any Mets' connections in play here?

Somebody has to have known he was suffering from cancer... This is an odd one...like going to the JFK assassination site last summer and coming out to news that Trump had been shot in the ear in PA. Well maybe it's also tempting Jobu to curse the Sox for emulating "Major League" all the way down on complaints about the team plane, which became my avatar out of fondness for the original movie (and a walk off bunt in the spirit of Sox recent managers.)

Jays fans not optimistic. "Randomly, the Jays are apparently looking at Tim Hill. Lefty groundballer might be a nice fit for an infield with both Gimenez and Clement on defense." source: bluebird banter They're pissed about Guerrero, Jr., likely getting away and then there are rumors of taking on the KeBryan Hayes deal from Pitt after they already got "stuck" with Gimenez from the Guardians, two defense first players with not insiflgnificant salaries. Let's just call them big budget teams' version of Josh Rojas. Almost zero confidence in Sasaki deal after bait and switch with Ohtani a year ago.

Has until 2 PST on the 23rd...exactly one week left. No way he goes back to Japan. The so-called experts/insiders all predicted an announcement on the 20th...giving teams three days to scramble around to pick up more bonus pool money, very "high cost" money at that point since he's arguably worth $300-400 million minimum on the free market. Think NFL All Pro QB on a rookie deal...

Elias playing 5D chess

More like Yellowjackets....

Craig Counsell is overrated...?

Hard to do from China...maybe I sent the Terracotta warrior army (they're SUPPOSED to be on holiday for Chinese New Year's) from here in Xi'an. I mean...can't even protect Caitlin Clark from crazy stalkers or prevent the Hawkeye women from imploding at Carver Hawkeye.

Once you make it to 90, every day is a bonus. Honestly, lots of people lose the will to live at that point unless they're fortunate enough to have a higher quality of life than being confined to a nursing home/assisted living center.

Thought it was easier just to find the answer myself...

Wouldn't it have to be January 14th? Or there's a dead period between the two? "The signing period is now neatly confined to a single calendar year, and runs from Jan. 15 to Dec. 15. To be eligible to sign, players must be at least 16 years old and turn 17 by Sept. 1 of the following year. This year's newly eligible players were born between Sept. 1, 2007, and Aug. 31, 2008." 21 hours ago "None of those three teams have signed anyone for a bonus of over $10,000 per either Baseball America or MLB Pipeline, as they try to keep their bonus pool intact while waiting on Sasaki’s decision. For comparison, as of Wednesday night on Baseball America, the other 27 teams had an average of 14.6 reported international signings, with no other team signing fewer than six players on the first day of the period." https://www.truebluela.com/2025/1/16/24344872/dodgers-roki-sasaki-international-bonus-pool

Everything is for the class that just started WED. 2025. So the White Sox would have to give up $3 million worth of those announced (yesterday) signings to free up that money to send to LA for dePaula...or for someone from the Padres, depending on how this breaks. Just not sure there's an equivalent in the Padres' system after you get past Salas and deVrieze...who are the two linchpins of their future contending plans, along with Merrill/Tatis/Sasaki. But the Padres somehow are going to be able to offer at least $1.5 million more than LA...but really not sure it even matters in the end about accumulating the most money to offer as this deal has never been primarily about that. Basically if both LAD and SDP max out their pools with 60% over starting points...San Diego can offer $1.9 million more, plus opt outs tied to maintaining a floor on SD payrolls/Preller job change/change of ownership.

https://www.mlb.com/news/roki-sasaki-finalists-favorites-to-sign-pitcher Likely down to just Dodgers and Padres... For now, only minor signings of $10,000 or less which don’t count against the team’s international bonus pool can be announced for Padres/Dodgers/Blue Jays. Bonus pool money can be traded in increments of $250,000, and teams can acquire up to an additional 60% of what was in their original allotment, meaning the Dodgers potentially could add just over another $3 million to their bonus pool. It’s likely the Padres and Blue Jays also will explore similar deals. At this stage, however, it’s unclear if such a maneuver will be necessary. Sasaki’s primary motivation isn’t believed to be money. And unless one of Sasaki’s three finalists accrued significantly more bonus pool money than the others, the teams’ final offers likely wouldn’t differ by more than a few million at most. There is also the challenge of valuing what additional bonus pool money is worth on this year’s international market. Dodgers’ meeting with Roki Sasaki didn’t include in-person pitches from Ohtani or Yamamoto Dec. 30, 2024 When Shohei Ohtani came to MLB ahead of the 2018 season — under the same restrictions as Sasaki as someone who also was 23 at the time — the Angels traded their third-round selection from the 2017 draft, outfielder Jacob Pearson, to acquire $1 million in extra bonus pool money from the Twins. The Dodgers made a similar move in 2023 to sign highly-touted South Korean pitcher Hyun-Seok Jang, dealing two lower-level pitching prospects to the White Sox for reportedly $1 million in additional bonus pool money. This time rival clubs could drive a harder bargain for trades involving bonus pool money, especially if it’s seen as a determining factor in Sasaki’s decision. On the other hand, his finalists could be wary of giving up prospects for more bonus pool money if they aren’t certain Sasaki will sign with them. While any additional bonus pool money could be used on other international free agents over the remainder of the signing period, most top-ranked players will be off the market in the next few days. https://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/story/2025-01-15/dodgers-roki-sasaki-international-signing-period

Baseball America’s top-100 international board currently links the Padres to Dominican shortstop Jhoan De La Cruz (No. 43), Venezuelan shortstop Deivid Coronil (No. 50), Dominican left-hander Carlos Alvarez (No. 69) and Venezuelan outfielder Sebastian Peña (No. 77). The Padres could attempt to push their handshake deals into the 2026 window, but that’s more complicated than it seems. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2025/01/14/as-international-signing-period-opens-padres-await-roki-sasakis-decision/ https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2025/01/14/tom-krasovic-padres-standing-with-roki-sasaki-a-credit-to-a-j-preller-peter-seidler/

Hopefully, the 2025 MLB international signing class will turn out much happier. https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckmurr/2025/01/15/2025-mlb-international-signing-class-likely-more-bust-than-bonanza/

$3 million from another team in cap space for dePaula seems pretty much insane, especially after the Dodgers have already lost three more guys. Basically, LAD would have to KNOW they're getting Sasaki, and then there's a ticking tock until JAN 23rd to get as much money as possible to give to Sasaki (it's going to be $8-8.5 million range), plus 20% surcharge on top of that for the posting fee to the Chiba Lotte Marines, so the total cost to LAD would still only be less than $10, or less than one year of TOMMY EDMAN. It is hard to believe the hype on this kid could grow any bigger from Padre's media sources. I hope he does come here, but his decision is still very unclear. I am sure the Dodgers are doing their song and dance to sign him, which is probably just as large as ours with more Japanese names to back them up. They have also been pushing the 6-man rotation idea, which might be of interest to him. The Dodgers would actually have a 7 man rotation with Sasaki...and that doesn't even account for the possibility of another Clayton Kershaw return. gaslampball.com

Well, that's the rub. Almost any team in baseball would CANCEL/VOID roughly 1/2 their entire 2025 international signing class for Josue de Paula ALONE. Wouldn't even have to think twice. As it stands now, the Dodgers have already sacrificed that amount from their earlier projected class with the losses of those three players to the Sox, Pirates and Twins.

And now back to regularly-schedule programming... Eric Longenhagen at Fangraphs said there's a RUMOR that Dodgers have a deal to acquire $3M international space for Josue De Paula. Dodgers: Josue De Paula, OF (No. 2/MLB No. 48) Few players in the Minors can match De Paula's combination of hitting ability, power potential and plate discipline, and he slashed .268/.404/.405 with 10 homers and 27 steals in 107 games between two Single-A levels at age 19. The second cousin of former NBA guards Stephon Marbury and Sebastian Telfair, he was born in Brooklyn but signed out of the Dominican Republic for $397,500 in 2022. That would be nuts if the White Sox could pull that one off...pretty much anyone would trade the entire Sox signing group as it stands today for De Paula individually.

When you're 55 years old and had four mini-strokes last year...you suddenly start noticing these little things in a way that people in their 30's and 40's don't yet quite fathom.

Cris Rodriguez, OF, Tigers: Rodriguez receives a $3.2MM bonus from Detroit, per Badler. Already 6’4″ and 200 pounds with his 17th birthday still two weeks away, Rodriguez stands out for his bat speed and raw power. Badler calls him a potential 30-homer slugger who’ll probably settle into a corner but for the time being runs well enough to have a chance in center. MLB.com’s report calls Rodriguez a “near carbon copy” of Eloy Jimenez at this same age, even down to hailing from the same city in the Dominican Republic and possessing a similarly aggressive approach. The Tigers will hope Rodriguez can do a better job of avoiding injuries, but Rodriguez possesses thunderous power — more so than any other player in this class. Damning with faint praise. Turning back to the rest of the class, Badler has a team-by-team breakdown of the most prominent signings over at Baseball America, as well as scouting reports and (in some cases) projected bonuses for as many as 100 players. Longenhagen runs through his own list of 50 international prospects with their expected team and signing bonus over at FanGraphs, as well as a detailed look at some of intricacies and idiosyncrasies of Sasaki’s unique free agent saga. Romero runs through 35 high-profile international talents and their expected team/signing bonus at his site as well. At MLB.com, Jesse Sanchez and Jesse Borek have their own ranking of the top 50 in the class, with scouting reports on each. Those interested in the finer details of this year’s collection of international amateurs are highly encouraged to check out those resources in full. Badler, Longenhagen, Romero, Sanchez and many others around the baseball world dedicate enormous portions of their time and efforts to covering this topic to the fullest. mlbtraderumors.com

Apparently you've never seen the movie MAJOR LEAGUE, nor are familiar with the legendary slugger Pedro Serrano who struggles with off speed stuff about as much as Andrew (not Ricky "Wild Thing") Vaughn and Luis Robert. And talks like 1990's Sammy Sosa... Is very bad to steal Jobu's rum. Is very bad.