gusguyman

The Cubs faced two of our backups in that inning too

Alright boys, lets put a reaaaaal crooked number on that board now, I want to hear Cubs fans panicking about Yu on talk radio tomorrow EDIT: NOW THAT IS A CROOKED NUMBER BABY

It is so therapeutic to see opposing pitcher's finally getting punished for making mistakes

Are we doing this argument again already? With this lineup you could literally roll dice to set the top 6 every day and you'd be fine. This isn't a debate about batting Engel leadoff anymore, it doesn't really matter at this point.

Well then how am I supposed to prove I am smarter than everyone with reflexive pessimism while also building in a perfect excuse if I am wrong? Poll's rigged man.

I took the under, but partially because I am factoring in that playing all 60 games isn't certain.

To Jerry? I'm sure he sees it as a big deal. But let's put it in perspective. Let's say that he was somehow already broke before COVID, and now he will owe a billion in expenses (obviously ridiculously exaggerated already but ok). Looks like he has to sell his teams. Even if the aggressive estimates in this thread are correct and he would only get 50% of the pre-COVID estimated franchise values, he would walk away, after paying out that billion in expenses, with 1.425 billion dollars. To put that in perspective, a minimum wage worker would have to work 94,496 years to generate that much income. To put that in perspective, experts estimate that 100,000 years ago is when humans first started building our earliest forms of structures. I'm being a bit hand wavy about Jerry vs his ownership group here (He obviously wouldn't get the full 1.4 B but I don't think he is on the hook for the full expenses either), but the point is that the absolute impossible bad worst-case scenario for Jerry here is that he has to sell both teams, and still walks away with an honestly incomprehensible amount of money. Again, I'm sure that would be a gigantic deal to Jerry personally, and that's fair and fine. We all experience emotions relative to our own baseline, and I am not going to use relative privation to try and shame him into not being upset in that scenario. But no, from a wider perspective, I don't consider that a gigantic deal, especially in the midst of a joint pandemic/unemployment crisis. I won't feel bad for him, and I definitely will shit on him for complaining to the media about it.

Wait, are you saying they are going to sign Madrigal to an extension before opening day? Or that they won't but won't play service time games with him?

He would have the best case yet (in this exact scenario) though, right? As SoxFan2014 noted, players lose that grievance because the teams have plausible deniability. The player needs to work on some specific skill, and they do that in the minors, then they get called up. With no minors to play in, how is Madrigal supposed to have proved to the team that whatever skill he is supposedly lacking in has been fixed? They also can't use the vague "he needed seasoning/ to see more AAA at-bats/etc." Maybe they could get away with it if the starting 2B or Cuthbert or whoever plays horribly in the first week, but I think Madrigal would have a far stronger case than any minor leaguer so far.

I spend most of my day bashing other wealthy owners and CEOs of corporations, as well as other officials that keep our society marching towards a dystopian capitalist hellscape. However, since this is a White Sox board, I constrain my criticisms here to the single wealthy owner of the White Sox, and occasionally other wealthy sports teams owners. You can say I'm wrong, but never say I'm inconsistent! And I would say it is weird to use MiLB as a reason to demonize MLB players when MLB owners are the ones refusing to pay MiLB players (or other MiLB staff/employees) a reasonable wage, and when its the MLB owners who have been suppressing MiLB unionization attempts for years, perhaps even decades at this point.

Wow I need to find that animated background to use on zoom meetings

So... not at all like Strasburg except ditching the wind-up?

Robert still showing that sliding is the weakest part of his game

I'm impressed how polished his D already looks in CF in the limited time I've seen him. He's obviously got the tools, but it seems like he's been getting good breaks and taking good routes too. EDIT: Turns out Southsider2k5 already said the exact same thing, that's what I get for responding before catching up to the thread lol

I want to add to this by saying, Kopech has brought a lot of his struggles to the public light in an effort to destigmatize them. While Cooper maybe sort of avoided it, the exact stigma Kopech is fighting is the leap people make from "Person x has mental health issues Y" to "Person X is unreliable/a timebomb/going to crack/weak/etc". People fear to tell their work about their struggles precisely because they don't want their capabilities or loyalty or worth questioned every time they need to call out for a cold. It is important to remember that a huge reason that stigma exists is because of selection bias. Millions of people struggle with mental health issues of varying severity, but we often don't find out until someone's life falls apart from them. The mental health stigma prevents people who are coping just fine from coming forward, and it also prevents people who are not coping just fine from seeking help. We only see the worst cases, so that is what we associate with mental health issues. Again, Coop didn't quite explicitly say anything wrong. But the implications of his pitching coach saying he is concerned about Kopech's mental health to the media are certainly along the lines of the "unreliable" stigma that Kopech is trying to help fight.

Hope everything is fine with Kopech and he comes back strong. But since he is missing the whole season, I am not looking forward to a whole offseason of repeating again the arguments on if we should/shouldn't sit Kopech for the first 3 weeks of 2021.

agreed, I'm not saying the Sox are just slapping a 3B sticker over the 1B sticker and hoping no one notices its the same merchandise lol. I think playing him a whole season at 3B starts with testing him out there during camp though, and the sooner you can start building that reputation in the media the better.

Because of this, I think this move is all about trade value. It is very unlikely that Vaughn would play 3B for the White Sox anytime soon. I think their preference is to keep him, but he is also just about the only legitimate trade piece we have, and if a front-line starter becomes available, it is always nice to at least have options. The Sox believe in Vaughn despite being a 5'10" righty 1B, but other teams might be much more inclined to believe in Vaughn if he can play 3B.

This is a case where the text hidden by the ellipsis could drastically change the implication of the quote.

Lol this was exactly my point though. Everyone in the thread then proceeded to list all the things they are mad at the team for. If Sox don't spend at all this offseason, we would all be mad for decades... mad at the team, and Hahn, and Reinsdorf. Considering that we continue to post rumors from people who were dead wrong on the Machado news, I think it is safe to say this tweet is not going to backfire on Not Steve.

I like Not Steve, he seems at least moderately reliable as a source. But this is a brilliant example of classic pundit BS. If true, he gets to retweet himself months later and look smart. If he is wrong, it will have been so long that no one will remember, and even if they did, they would be too mad at the White Sox to care about it.

For projections, it depends on how they model certain things. Your rate averages should still be pretty consistent, but there will be way more variance on the projections. The other big one could be injuries - it doesn't really make sense to just prorate expected games missed. For season stats, ballpark independent stats may be more important, since park coverage of each team is more biased now.

I'd love to see an all black hat with just the bright red hourglass from a black widow as an alternate uniform hat.

I was too, especially since it seems most players around the league have waived that privacy, and also because it probably is an impossible secret to keep - we are going to know eventually which players have been missing from camp long-term. But considering some of the Indiana/Moncada rumors, I am wondering if both players were taking unnecessary risks and now do not want to face backlash for catching or, even worse, spreading the virus (like Rudy Gobert).

I get where you are coming from, I really do. I also miss being able to check out from life for a while with baseball. But the issue of players getting COVID goes a lot further than how our team does in the standings. Even if every player survives, many may deal with life-altering lung damage, or other long-term complications. If this is the price of baseball, I find it quite callous to say it is a price worth paying so we can unwind after work. Old games exist. Non-team sports that are safer to bring back exist. I really really hope that the MLB finds a way to come back safely, but the safe part is more important than coming back, just like the players' health is more important than the quality of my evening television options.