Soxbadger

A lot of people seem to jump off the bridge about young prospects pretty quick. Last year Giolito pitched 173 innings. Prior to that it was 130 and 117 before that. Even veterans sometimes get dead arm, have issues with inning jumps etc. The Sox have the luxury of not being anywhere close to caring about wins and losses. As long as he can work on a regular basis at the major league level, there really isnt a huge need to send him down. When you read some of the arguments for Kopech/Eloy to come up to majors, its because they need to take their lumps now, so that they will be ready to compete in a few years. The same really should apply here. Keep letting him work, hopefully he starts to learn how to pitch when he doesnt have his best stuff, when things arent going his way. The only reason Id send him down is if somehow Cooper thinks he needs a different voice/ change of scenery. But I have a feeling Cooper is listing off names of guys who had bad stats this early and then figured it all out.

Man that is so basic. Its pleb. Are you not keeping up with the Twitch insults that are found on whatever the flavor of the month first person shooter is?

Bernie by his own choice isnt part of the Democratic party so hard to stab him in the back.

We have to start in reality. The system is not likely to dramatically change soon. You are most likely going to have 2 options when youre time to vote comes. The second part is, most candidates are going to be beholden to someone. The real players give money to both sides. Lets look at Sanders: https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/contributors?id=N00000528 Every candidate who gets to that level is going to have corporate masters.

How do you propose to control candidates in other states? You act like its simple to just tell everyone to vote like robots. You also seem to be forgetting the rules of the game that is being played. Even if every Democrat voted no, the bill still would have passed. Look at the states where the "Yes" votes are from, places like ND, MO, IN, AL. These are not exactly Democrat strongholds, so they also have to play the game to try and keep their seats. I get that you want something more, but sometimes you have to be pragmatic.

Obama tried to have some semblance of bipartisanship. He had Republicans in his cabinet, they respected things like "blue slips" for judges etc. The idea was always that you gave some respect to the minority party so that when they were the majority they would grant you the same. But all bets are off now. Republicans caught Democrats flat footed, it happens.

At the highest level its debatable. That being said, I was referring to sponsors and who buys their product. Im not sure that Budweiser et al are targeting the 1%.

The last 2 sentences are what I disagree with. It doesnt matter what the sponsors see, it matters what the ratings and their sales say. If the NFL has lower ratings next year, if the sponsors become targets of boycotts, they will turn on the NFL in a second. They dont care about the NFL, they dont care about kneeling. They care about making money. That is the great risk. The purchasing power of those against Trump far outweighs those who support Trump. Its just a really unpredictable situation, which is why if I was the NFL, Id have just kept the status quo. They were unlikely to lose "more" people from the kneeling anyway.

And therein lies the risk. If more people cause problems because of this new rule, the NFL screwed themselves because sponsors only care about money. Which is why I brought up Papa John. He chose a side, he had to resign. The NFL has chosen a similar side, well see what happens, but Im betting sponsors arent happy that #Takeaknee is a thing today. I will give the NFL credit, they did it so far in advance that they are hoping that by the season no one is talking about it. The problem is that if teams start not coming out for the national anthem at all, the controversy wont go away. It will keep escalating because unfortunately for the NFL, you have Trump/Pence antagonizing the majority of their fan base.

Owners care about money. They are taking a calculated risk that this policy will create or bring back more fans than it loses. I have no idea how it will play out, but all of them care about money the most.

They just have to hope siding with Trump doesnt alienate the larger side of their fan base. The whole Pence "winning" thing makes this become much more risky for the NFL because many NFL teams are located in cities that are not very favorable to Trump. Better policy would have been to not get involved at all. Look what happened to Papa John.

Reading some of this stuff I feel like we are about to have a Hobbes to Locke to Rousseau discussion.

You could be right. I dont watch nearly as much NBA as I do NCAA. When I watched last night, I felt you could pretty much tell exactly what the offense was going to do about 5 seconds into the play. For the most part I saw switches on defense, but nothing really exotic that made me think "Oh wow this is different." Again small sample size, but the same could be said about college basketball depending on the team you watch. Its hard to really tell. Usage rates in NBA (if you only do players who played 1500+ minutes) are around 30%+ for the top players https://stats.nba.com/players/usage/?sort=USG_PCT&dir=-1&Season=2017-18&SeasonType=Regular Season&CF=MIN*GE*1500 In college that number drops a bit, https://www.foxsports.com/college-basketball/stats?season=2017&category=ADVANCED&group=11&sort=3&time=0&pos=0&team=0&qual=1&sortOrder=0&opp=0 So I think that is where the idea of "team" comes in, Sure there is Ethan Happ at 34% on a Wisconsin team that struggled terribly on offense but guys like Ayton, Bagley were closer to 25% then 30%. Another factor is guys in the NBA probably play a higher percentage of the game than college, but not sure I can find that stat easily.

Dont agree with the more pure form of basketball than college. What makes college basketball so great is that you actually see different types of offenses/defenses being run. NBA is dominated by on ball screens, pick & roll and iso. Sure you will see some teams run off the ball screens, but you dont see one time running swing offense while the other team runs motion. NBA is dominated by stars, most teams design their offense around the star dominating the ball or shots in some way. College is more of a team sport, which I really think is the more pure form. Im also confused by the "actually play defense" as if you look at Kenpom adjusted defense many of the top teams are defensive powerhouses https://kenpom.com/ In comparison, NBA teams today arent really that good historically defensively : https://nbamath.com/adjusted-team-ratings/ Only the Spurs in 2016 come in the top 15.

Corrected that for you.

It doesnt matter to me what gender your candidate is. And I guess the difference between you and I, is that whatever happened in the last election is the past. If Sanders won the Democratic nomination, Id support him and I would hope that others who may not believe he is their "best" champion, would understand that he is a far "better" champion than the other side. The next Presidential election is going to come down to a few states. The candidate I feel is best able to win those states is the one Id likely go with. At certain times in history ends have to justify the means. I hope that our country can return to some bipartisan normalcy, but until that day, I will play to win. Youre right I am privileged, but you would be incorrect in your belief that I cannot understand a run in with police. I have had plenty, I have been the target of fake police nonsense that resulted in something far worse than an hour bad experience. I help people who are being arrested while they are being arrested. I get emergency phone calls while the police are there, and one time I actually believed I was going to be on the phone when someone was going to be shot by the police, while I was screaming at them to calm down. Maybe thats not good enough, maybe my "privileged position" makes me incapable of determining a strategy for permanent change. But you also have to be a realist. While I would love to imagine a day where I wake up and everyone is cool to everyone else, that just is not going to happen in my lifetime. Ive had clients ask me to "jew" down the side and other equally ignorant things. But youre right, I can never put myself in anyone elses shoes, just like they could never put themselves in mine. All I can say is, if you want any change, you need to win. And maybe it will come faster than you thought, but most of the time it will be slower. Because the reality is at this point its the future generations that I fight for. I dont want them to look back and think that some previous time was the golden ages, I want them to believe that they are living in them.

I honestly believe that there are people out there like Greg, who really would be Democrats, but they get worried that if you give Democrats control they are going to go insane on social issues. At some point people need to realize social progress takes a long time and you cant fix it overnight. Its my belief that the country is becoming more socially progressive every day, but you cant just expect people to accept huge societal social change over night. 3 elections ago we had the first black president. The first woman to run for President came damn close to winning it. There are still people alive who were born before Born vs the Board of Education.

I think strategically you need to focus on winning the election and not whatever ideals you may bring to the table. Calling people racists, complaining about KKK, white supremacy, etc did not bring a victory in the last election. Im not sure why anyone thinks that focusing on that is somehow going to move the needle this time. If Democrats want to make a serious dent in Republican power, their message needs to be about how Trump failed them. How the Republicans betrayed them. We can disagree on policy, we can disagree on trickle down economy, we can disagree on TPP/NAFTA, etc, whatever. Disagreements are what made this country. But America first, means that you dont sell your soul to protect a guy who is grifting our country. Putting your son in law at the negotiation table, having your daughter play pseudo ambassador, not divesting ownership, the list goes on. Having people in advisory roles who use the American tax payer dollar as their own vacation fund. I dont care if your Democrat, Republican or Independent, that shit needs to stop. I dont even have to get into controversial issues, attacks on the judiciary, attacks on the FBI, attacks on people. Reddy I know you work on campaigns. If youre candidate focuses on the paragraph above, hell win. People are tired of all the bullshit, tired of the labels, each party claiming they have the moral high ground. So focus on what everyone agrees is nonsense bullshit.

Anyone know the ramifications of not keeping a promise? IE A player the Bulls never thought would be there is at 22 so they take that player.

Really depends on what your medical team says. Unless Mize is completely red flagged (imo) the Sox should take him if Bohm/Madrigal/Bart are all gone. I personally think for the Sox best case is one of Bohm or Madrigal (I prefer Madrigal), but It would take major concerns to pass on Mize. The reality is that many players with no risks get injured or never pan out, so its hard to justify passing on the guy that supposedly has 1-1 talent.

As to the first part, its just the system we have play in. When the party loses, the policy loses. As for the second part, I cant speak for anyone else. But you generally dont become a Senator or high ranking politician if you dont use every advantage you can. In VT it seems that both sides agreed it was mutually beneficial. Which goes back to the party over policy. Why Sanders isnt a Democrat, who knows. But its not hard to understand why VT Dem party would agree to this. If Bernie was not going to run as a Dem under any circumstances, then a potential outcome of having a Democrat running against Bernie, would be that they split votes and a Republican wins.

"The MSM suppressing conservative thought is fascism." Is not fascism. In fact the MSM going after Trump is the exact opposite of fascism. Free speech does not mean that private entities are required to give equal coverage. Free speech means that the GOVERNMENT does not use its power or influence to prevent people (corporations if you want to use the newest definitions) from being able to freely speak their opinion. If you want an example of fascism in media, it is when the govt begins to take sides and prevents the opposition from being able to write critical pieces. http://money.cnn.com/2018/05/22/media/epa-cnn-associated-press-blocked/index.html These type of actions are the beginning of fascism, and hopefully all sides condemn these type of actions and hold the current administration accountable.

These arguments really seem to be pointless. If Bernie supporters cant understand why the DNC isnt gung ho about a guy who refuses to commit to their party, there is no amount of words that will change their mind. Its really no different than anything else that involves membership. Lets say there is a Club and the Club is picking a President. Do you think the club will want the President to be a member or someone who only shows up when its convenient for them? Do you think the Club is going to try and persuade other members to support the guy who is a member? These arent really hard questions. Bernie may have the greatest policies, he may be the best person in the world, but none of that really matters when it comes to the DNC. The DNC has to protect their members, because otherwise what is the point of the DNC.

Who cares? A lot of Bernie supporters seemed to care that the Democratic party wasnt rolling out the red carpet for him. He can do whatever he wants, but there are consequences for his decisions.

My cousin married a girl with a family from the middle east. When her father found out that they were engaged he attempted to commit suicide. I think that things have normalized somewhat, but I have never met a single member of her family.