tray

Madrigal over Cuthbert - Mercedes by a mile over Collins. We don't need a third catcher in a short season but Yermin's bat could come in big for us. Fulmer is toast burned over three times. Release him and end the suffering.

Would Ozzie have allowed a guy to have his child on the field and in the clubhouse like Ventura and Hahn did ? What about Sale acting up over the 83 uniform? Or Eaton siding with him and opening his mouth? If Ozzie suspected Houston of cheating do you think he would have remained silent? No one can take 2005 away from Ozzie. He will always be the best manager we ever had, until we win another one with another Manager. Let's win this season and put this issue behind us.

I think Madrigal would scratch out a few more hits than his competitors would. That could be a factor in a 60 game season.

Two years ago? Those were not based on anything but speculation. Robert has raked at every level since the Sox got him.

Robert is who we thought he was. Awesome.

I wish Kopech would have put this to bed by at least sharing what category his reasons were for sitting out this season. "Personal reasons" leaves too much to the imagination. and has created this unnecessary speculation. He doesn't owe us a thing but I hope he comes forward and makes some statement about this.

I am hoping that Rodon surprises us with some degree of durability following his last surgery. If Kopech comes back, I would like to see him in the bullpen rather than as a Starter. Maybe as an eventual Closer if he still has the 100mph gas. Your 5 starting pitchers need to be consistent in all matters, even more so than a reliever, in my opinion.

This may have nothing to do with the current situation, but it is hard to forget his revelations about anxiety and depression at Sox Fest and through other interviews since then.

I like our chances as much as any other team. Our pitching depth is fantastic. Home runs will be huge, maybe huger than they were last year. I know. the frikkin Twins....

The idea of commemorating the Black Sox scandal is foolhardy. How about inviting the Astros and have people bang garbage cans? Some things are best left for history.

If no season do we get to Draft at # 11 again in 2021? Or will that be arranged as a lottery ?

The back and forth between players and owners is not resolving the intractable issues posed by this virus. For that and other reasons I think it is time to bag an abbreviated 2020 baseball season without fans and wait to see how this virus impacts us over the next several months.

The issues in formulating a partial season at this point and in this environment are complex to say the least. There is a lot more to it than player salaries, team owner profit, making up weather delays in an abbreviated schedule, various insurance issues, back-up plans in case of a Covid resurgence, making certain mlb stadiums are staffed and safe, etc.. I don't blame anyone in mlb for the situation we are in.

Crochet pitching videos make me think the Sox made the right call. I think he is from Mississippi so I hope he adjusts well to Chicago.

Howard should choose to go to college.

Kind of a pimpy move by the Cubs.

Fangoul...the Cubz got him.

IMO, church and religion has nothing to do with the Corona virus thread. It seems like it is a sneaky way of inserting something even more divisive than politics into this discussion.

I vehemently disagree with going after conservative churches over their non profit status I don't for several reasons but I am going to heed Kyle's admonitions to stay on topic since we are straying a bit here. Suffice it for me to admit that I prefer public schools (over private or charter schools) for big city (Chicago) neighborhoods and I am something of an agnostic non-church goer. That is enough of a clue as to what my positions would be on that.

That shitstorm is the easiest one to resolve. The Fed should print another shitload of money, send out another round of Stimulus checks, and fund States so they can cover massive unemployment claims. Then start opening businesses as each State's Covid-19 benchmarks are met and continue to require social distancing, masks, and the prohibition of mass gatherings. There was an opportunity to demonstrate leadership during this crisis. Some have taken responsibility for it and risen to the occasion.

Fox News talking heads have been pining to open up the economy. I find that their decision to focus on that in the midst of a pandemic to be kind of strange, especially given the average age of Fox viewers. OTOH maybe old Fox viewers just want the young uns out there working to get their retirement accounts back up and to get Trump elected. Really the focus should be on halting the spread of the pandemic and seeking a vaccine or treatment, but it is an election year so we can't even unite behind a strategy to deal with this.

There wasn't really a "lock down"in Illinois . People have been out shopping like crazy at Lowes, Home Depot, Walmart, Target.... Fast food places (other than Chinese ) and restaurants that remained open for carry out are screaming busy. Other businesses will gradually open, but they will have to adhere to sanitation standards to prevent the spreading of the disease. What is and should remain closed or prohibited are large public gatherings. This doesn't have to be a big divisive issue or a blame game.

clipped from another forum and pasted here. This is for those who equate the standard flu bug to Covid-19:-------- For anyone who knows that one person who just can’t seem to get on board with this- feel free to share. ***Let me introduce myself: I am a practicing ER doctor with a Bachelors degree in cell and molecular biology/genetics and a Masters degree in public health in addition to my doctorate. COVID is not a flu. Not even a little. Here are reasons why: 1. It is a separate species. It is no more like influenza than you are like a hippo. DIFFERENT SPECIES. 2. It is an airborne virus. This means the tiny droplets can stay in the air for a full 2 hours. So if a person coughed in aisle 4 of Target 1.5 hours ago, they may be home now but their covid cloud is still hanging there just waiting for you to walk by and take a breath. Influenza is not an airborne virus. It is droplet spread- meaning someone has to directly crop dust you with their sneeze to get you sick. Covid is much more contagious. 3. Covid is more virulent. Virulence factor is a measure of how catchy something is. For example, the flu is like beer. It takes a bunch to get you drunk. Covid is more like tequila - A little goes a long way. You need to suck up a lot of flu particles to actually catch the flu; with covid, even a few particles is enough to infect you. 4. Covid has a longer incubation than the flu. When you catch the flu, you typically get sick in the next 1-2 days. This is awesome because it means you stay at home while contagious because you feel like a heap of fried garbage. Covid has a blissful 5-9 days of symptom free time during which you are well enough to head to the movies, gym or mar-a-lago while also being contagious enough to infect everyone you encounter. 5. Covid has a longer duration of illness than flu. With covid, you have a 5-9 days of blissful asymptomatic contagiousness. This then turns into about 1 week of cough and overall feeling like hell but still surviving. Week 2 is when things hit the fan and people end up unable to breathe and on a ventilator. Many stay on the vent for up to 15 days. 5 days incubating+7 kinda sick days + 15 days on a ventilator makes for 27 days of virus spreading illness, (assuming you don’t just die of massive asphyxiation and body-wide collapse from overwhelming infection somewhere in that last week).The flu has an average incubation of 1-2 days and sick time of 7 days for a total of 9 infectious days. In the world of deadly viruses, that 18 extra days might as well be a millennia. 6. Covid is more deadly. A LOT more deadly. The flu has about a 0.2% mortality rate, meaning 2 of every thousand people who get sick with flu will die. On the contrary, the death rate from covid is reportedly 2%, so 10 times more deadly than flu. Ten times more death seems like a lot more death to me. Whats more worrisome is that 2% is actually incorrect because it doesn’t usually kill kids so that skews the average. With covid, age is a major factor in survival. If we don’t include people under 30, the death rate for adults is on average 4.5%. 9 out of every 200 adults that get this will die from it. Do you know 200 adults? Do you think losing 9 of them is no big deal? Since mortality increases with age in covid, the risk gets worse as you get older so if we put 100 grannies in a room with covid, only 85 would make it out alive to make pies and tell great stories of the old days... and that just sucks. I hope that helps to clarify why covid is in no way a flu, why you are in no way a hippo, and why staying home is the only way for non-essential people to do their part while I spend my days at work covered in a plastic poncho, sucking air through a stuffy respirator mask, leaving my scrubs in my driveway, showering the covid off at 4am when I get in, and thinking to myself “now do u still think it was just a flu?” as I risk my own life with my face 2 inches from their highly contagious, gasping mouth while I slide the plastic tube down their throat and start up the ventilator.

2020 line-up may have been better than all of them.

2005 by a mile because of clutch hits (Iguchi, AJ, Dye), clutch home runs (Crede, Konerko, Pods and Blum), incredible defensive plays (Uribe in Game 4), key starts (Garland, Fast Freddie, etc), bull pen performances (Big Bad, Buehrle, Cotts, El Duque etc) and Ozzie.