Marky Mark

Holy cow. Just looked at his transaction history. Its almost like MLB is playing a joke on him.

Better power than both. Hit for a bit better average than Basabe this year. A year younger than Gonzalez. But its not like he's light-years ahead of those 2, just has the edge by a bit.

This is the same as when Hahn expressed frustration publicly about a week ago with false rumors. Now they're doing it on Lozano's end, that's all. We're even now.

I Lol'd at this.

What upside? He's 27 and has never hit higher than .264 outside of rookie ball.

The only thing I've been concerned about is that we are desperate enough to get him that we promise him SS opposed to 3B. But as someone pointed out earlier, he was probably only going for SS last year because he thought that would get him more money in free agency.

Come on guys, don't be so sensitive. This was actually kind of funny.

Because we have already won the WS in recent enough memory, I would say number one. The excitement of a playoff hunt for half a decade where we would be known as a dominant team would be stronger than a season of championship that may be called a fluke. Now if we didn't win in 05, my answer would be different.

I would imagine that in certain time periods, the strong majority of the Sox [and every other team] were using PEDs. Hating on the guys who got caught or were suspicious isn't worth it.

Andy Gonzalez. Still stunned and confused as to why he got over 200 PAs with us.

100% agree.

I feel like most reports sound as if Giolito is definitely pencil'd into the 2019 starting rotation. Obviously we're all hoping he turns it around, but if 2019 looks exactly like 2018, how long do the Sox allow him to stay in the rotation? The answer probably relies heavily on offseason acquisitions and milb SP performance, but I can't imagine they'd go through the entire 2019 season with him in the rotation if he repeats his 2018 numbers. Your thoughts?

I was going to say, at backup catcher for Seby's opportunity, I feel like that position has the lowest expectations for performance on a 25 man roster.

Colome's picture on baseball reference makes him look like a really scary angry dude.

I think this was done for the opening of Zavala and Collins if he can someday figure it out behind the plate.

As great as Frank was...Pujols pretty easily. Only thing Frank had on him was BBs, but its not like Albert didn't do that.

He tends to do best in August and September and didn't get many PAs in those months due to his busted nut. Probably wouldn't have been that bad looking of a year if that didn't happen.

What makes you think he won't repeat? He's had one of the most consistent OBPs/AVE on the Sox in the past 3 seasons. Or you just mean the power he showed this year?

Exactly. I can't believe how many people on hear are foaming at the mouth over the idea of Harper. He has the ceiling as the best player in baseball each year, but he is not consistent. Pujols and Cabrera were very consistently MVP caliber players when they got their big contracts. Even though he's younger, I do not feel good about the idea of bringing him in for a record breaking contract. If he repeated his performances from 2013-2018 in 2019-2024 would that be worth 40M a year to you all? To me, I don't think I'd be happy with that at 30M a year.

529s that are withdrawn and not used for college expenses: -Your principle isn't affected -Your gained interest is taxed and you'd have a 10% penalty.

Yep, whatever balance works best for you in both the long and short term.

If there's one thing to learn from the responses in this thread....its place less pressure on your kids to go to college and more pressure on them to be learning job skills while they're young (whether it be software engineering, plumbing, etc.) College does not appear to have helped some of the people in this thread. I've got 529's for my kids, but I hope they never use them. I know personally that I did not learn 1 thing in the classrooms of college that has helped my career today and I'm betting a lot of others could say something similar. Ok aside from that...My wife and I were trying to get to the point of early retirement by age 45. As some on here have said, I would imagine it to be very difficult if you don't have 2 incomes and dealing with student debt. However, I think the important lesson [even if this FIRE thing is overly idealistic], you can set yourself up in a much much much better financial position in life if you minimize your spending, maximize your investing/saving. If you go over to bogleheads you might be inspired. Our plan has definitely took a hit when our daughter had a medical issue that caused my wife to quit her job over a year ago. Looking to get her back in the workforce and get back to a 60-70% saving rate and maybe we can still retire fairly early or at least have some nice $ to rely on. For those who say its impossible to save, that may definitely be true for a while. Just do everything you can to find extra income in the meantime. Otherwise, if you aren't doing this, you aren't trying that hard with saving. Make a budget and live by it. You should always know where your money is going each month. Shop Aldis or the lowest possible priced grocery store If you shop at Whole Foods and complain about not being able to save....you're a super confusing individual. Never ever spend money going out to lunch during work week (unless its a special occasion that requires it) Always bring a lunch. If you forgot to, your punishment is hunger for lunch. Take pride in driving the crappiest car at work [or having no car]. The idea of taking out a car loan should be unfathomable to you. Drive that thing into the ground until the engine or transmission goes out. Buy new clothes as rarely as needed. Unless you're a lawyer or something high profile job, no dude's going to know that you bought your clothes at Target vs some expensive place. Learn how to fix things yourself (housework/car maintenance). The internet has blessed us with information (yes you may be like me and screw some stuff up in the process). If you pay over $75 a month for internet, get it cheaper. Keep calling your provider with threats to leave them until they give in. They will. Or do you even need internet? Can you use your phone? Or library internet? If you don't have the ability to pay off your credit card bill for the month, then do not use your credit card. Eat free samples at grocery stores until you can pay off that bill. [Half joking on that one] View your saving goals as must dos. Look at where you spend your money each month and if you aren't able to do these things below, but your spending on things you value less, ask yourself why? If you aren't maxing out your companies 401k match, do everything in your power to match it. Then do everything in your power to max out your Roth IRA contributions. Then do everything in your power to max out your 401k contributions for the year. Then do everything in your power to investing your money in index funds. Learn to be ok being known as cheap when it come to spending on yourself. If spending money on others is important to you, than don't let up there. Now how people who retire early deal with medical care....that will be tricky.

What an outrage! We still have a shot at the division! We could be in the playoffs then!

Photoshopped! Original picture was him on the toilet.