Jack Parkman

They're sitting change. Therefore, the A's hitters are getting blown away by the fastball.

Forgot about them for a minute. Even if you count arb players it only gets them up to 40-45M. Not spending more than that would be unacceptable. Next year the only players under definite contract that aren't pre-arb are Jimenez and Herrera.

That's ridiculous. The Sox have like $20 M committed to payroll next year. Yolmer Sanchez is the only arbitration eligible player on their books and everyone else is still pre-Arb. Signing only one of them would be beyond cheap.

I think that most think that Cole or Strasburg isn't realistic anymore.

If they're still able to nab Wheeler, sure. Cole and Strasburg are going to be hard, Bumgarner might stay put. They need to make sure they make upgrades at a few spots and then go after Cole or Strasburg. Hahn can't go all in again and be left holding Mr Johnson in February. If they blow their entire wad this offseason, so be it.

If Herrera is healthy, he's still good as he was good in April and May. Healthy Herrera>Ruiz AINEC. I have to believe that Herrera has been bothered by something since he got kilt around Memorial Day.

I didnt know that about wRC+. I thought it was a completely different stat. Yup, if that's the case, wRC+ is better than wOBA.

Eloy!!!

I'm here right now too. I'm at the point where I don't think they have enough internally to get the job done. I'm also not sure they have enough payroll flexibility to get everything they need. This is starting to look like a roster that's going to end up like the 2018-19 Nationals. Just not quite good enough to make the playoffs.

It's foul.

This lineup blows chunks without Moncada. If this stretch doesn't tell you he is unquestionably the the best offensive player on the team I don't know what would.

Lopez has electric stuff tonight

lol.

This is what happens when the Cubs are good and the Sox suck for a half decade. The only thing that was keeping the Sox relevant in Chicago for years was the Cubs ineptitude. Now that the people running the Cubs are no longer blithering idiots, the Sox have a hell of an uphill battle just to get coverage and airtime. I'm pretty convinced that the Sox have a really small diehard fanbase, possibly only dwarfed by the Rays, and the majority of Sox fans are casual baseball fans. The Cubs have a much larger fanbase in general, and a significantly larger group of loyal diehards. Why? I have no idea. I also think that optimists tended to gravitate toward the Cubs, and pessimists the Sox. Same with people with a more short term viewpoint vs. long term viewpoint. I can probably tell a lot about you by what baseball team you root for.

I've come to think that OBP doesn't tell the whole story, and wOBA is a better judge of a player's skills. OBP treats a walk and HR the same, while wOBA doesn't. The only thing that OBP is good for is telling you the percentage of non-outs a hitter makes. I'd like to have a discussion.

No, I do that because I don't fit the stereotype of an autistic individual. Most people think that autism=ID and I do that just to remind people that it isn't always true. Does it impair my functioning? Yeah, but not because I can't learn. I pick up stuff pretty quickly. My issues have to do with social skills and failure to grasp gray areas in life. I don't brag about my intelligence because I'm arrogant or anything like that. I let people know that I'm actually pretty damn smart but they'res other shit that makes me look worse than that. Imagine if humans were given ratings like sports players on madden video games. I'd have a 93 on "book smarts" and 20 or less in a lot of other areas.

Honestly I'd prefer that the Sox let the big boys duke it out for Cole while the they go under the radar and get something done for Strasburg/Bumgarner/Wheeler. Honestly if the Sox could swing it I'd like them to grab Bumgarner and Wheeler, and trade Lopez for a LH RF. I think they're either going to get Strasburg or Bumgarner and another back end pitcher.

I might let them back in but at the very least I hope I've sent them a warning shot.

I forgot about that. I haven't seen the movie in a few years

I don't understand why they're playing the Yankees and not the Red Sox. Fenway Park was featured prominently in that film.

It was hard. I decided to look past it because I finally felt accepted by someone relatively close to my own age. I'm autistic, and have trouble making and keeping friends. I can be really grating and annoying. I didn't have enough confidence in myself to go out and find someone else. I was troubled, but was willing to look past it because I wanted some sort of social life. It's really easy for me to fall into the status quo and not shake things up. One of the things that happened is that I felt like I needed to talk like that in front of them in order to be accepted. That isn't who I am and it isn't what I want to be. I used to only let that happen in their presence. The thing that happened that made me tell them off is that I made some racist jokes in front of someone else. I did a lot of self reflection and soul searching and finally, I decided that I couldn't do that anymore. I was being fake and living a lie. I needed to be true to myself. I'd always been super uncomfortable around them, and even more uncomfortable saying those horrible things in their presence just to fit in. I had enough. When I lost the ability to regulate my filter and the El Paso thing, ended up putting me over the edge. EDIT: after some time has passed, we're having a discussion about the whole thing. It's interesting, and I'm going to keep it private. We'll see what happens, if it's over or if we can patch things up. The big thing is that I've definitely answered the question in the thread title, and the answer is a resounding yes.

This is the type of thing I hear every day. Great to hear I'm not way off base. People are afraid to b**** about it. They're told to shut up because they're lucky to even have a job. I can't believe that there was ever a time where people were so lazy at work that they needed to go this far in the other direction.

I struggled with it the entire time. What changed is that I met these guys through a mutual friend, and because I'm autistic and they treated me well, I felt like punting them was was really dangerous. It took me a while to build up enough confidence in making friends to do it. Also, when I met these guys they were 17 years old and we live in an area that is whiter than sour cream. I gave them a chance to grow out of it. I chalked it up to immaturity and lack of exposure to diversity. When they reached their mid 20s I was tired of it and was struggling for 2.5 years to decide to cut them off. I didn't have as much confidence to make new friends. I got really close multiple times, but now my confidence is there, my social skills are a lot better, and I think I can handle it now, which I didn't then. Also, I've probably matured myself over that time and I finally said enough. The complications that led me to wait so long were: 1. Lack of confidence in my own social ability 2. Their youth, immaturity and lack of exposure to diversity 3. My own immaturity. I've made huge strides over the last 2 years or so.

Dude I'm honestly embarrassed that I didn't do it much earlier. They're in their late 20s. I believe that everyone has dignity and need to be treated accordingly.

No they're not friends worth having. I didn't want to do it in person because I felt that was more awkward. Their reaction to the whole they didn't even try to get me tonchange my mind, which was shocking. I was hoping to have a discussion about it first, but they didn't even go there. They just said fine, dont talk to me anymore.