michelangelosmonkey

If your argument is...President Trump is an asshole. I'm fine with supporting that. Go start a discussion page with that as a title and let free the vitriol. But the rest is utter nonsense. China announced the Virus on December 31st...and by the 3rd of January we were offering experts to Wuhan to help combat it. By January 6th the CDC issued a travel advisory against going to Wuhan. By the 11th they issued a level 1 health advisory against going to Wuhan. By the 20th the NIH began working on a vaccine. Also on the 20th the FIRST American came down with it...an American that had come from Wuhan. The administration declared the Corona virus a national health emergency on January 31st...and started travel restrictions...at that point there were SIX cases in the US. I guess it was when we hit the 7th case that we should have shut down the country??? Study what is happen...the virus is very interesting...but please leave the idiotic hindsight someplace else.

Of course the president made missteps. I guess on a sports talk site where "I can't believe he threw the curve ball with runners on second and third and a pitch to waste" is de rigueur. I also think when the loudest and most energetic voices that come here are Democrats, non-stop criticism about the president crowds out other voices. Still this section was supposed to be about the virus and as I said...it started off interesting but the streams of hurled accusations followed by "I can't believe HE made this political" is "not compelling". As for the government scaling things up...again perfect hindsight. The government should have just taken the government factories and started producing testing immediately. In fact it's amazing that we didn't have an enormous stock pile of tests for this never-before-seen virus in government warehouses someplace. And imagine our incompetence that 60 days after this never-before-seen virus started invading our country that we were not 100% prepared. If you start with the end point..."The President is an idiot" then you fill in the evidence to make it work and throw out evidence that doesn't fit the narrative and then shout it from the rooftops and have it echoed by people that think exactly as you do it may seem as if you have the truth. It just doesn't seem convincing to me. I think the president is an egomaniac and I hate his NYC aggressive style...it offends my Midwest sensibilities. I thought President Obama was one of the most decent men to ever be president...but to say he would have done better is farcical. President Trump is not trying to kill off his voters. He and his advisors are trying to make heroes of themselves...which is exactly what I want my leader to do in a crisis.

Interesting...so you are saying you trade your 6 WAR SS because you have a kid a AAA who will be a 3 WAR and in return you get a 4 WAR outfielder to replace your 0 WAR outfielder? The net result being 7 WAR for your team? Still it seems you could trade your 3 WAR AAA player and get a 3 WAR outfielder and your team is much better. I'm not sure how trading 6 WAR for 4 WAR is ever a good idea even in your scenario because it ignores opportunity costs.

I think that is already been proven about NYC virus coming from two spots. But California is the main entrepot for people coming from China. I think we may find out that it has been circulating in California for six weeks before anyone else. If someone died of flu like symptoms in California mid-December to mid-January no one would even have thought to look if it was Coronavirus. And again...the president did cut off travel from Europe pretty quickly. With perfect hindsight we know that it should have been sooner...but honestly condemning a leader for lacking hindsight on something that has never happened before? I can't recall the US ever quarantining other countries.

Honestly Australia is not like America, it's 8% of the population of US...it is 91% White....three cities have 50% of the population...equivalent to NYC, LA and Chicago each having 50+ million people. It is not a business, tourist or education hub.

US population in 1957 was 1/3 of what it is today....and we were MUCH less mobile. A person in Springfield, Ill in 1957 was unlikely to go to NYC much less Milan or Wuhan. We were also much more rural. I think the 1957 virus is going to be very similar to that one...maybe a bit worse. But we won't know for a while and certainty is a casualty of chaos.

Hydroxycholoquine has been used for a hundred years on patients. It's side effects are well known, it's cheap and easily produced. It would have been great if it was helpful and maybe it is...but it needs to be tested together with Zinc and Arythromyacine and there are still promising results. And really...you don't believe the President says..."ok...stop all fronts...we are going to only devote our time and energy to Hyrdo..."? This thing is coming at us from a hundred directions and we are pushing back in a hundred ways...and to say...Look...he recommended that and it didn't work...he's an idiot....just makes you a partisan with perfect hindsight. There is no country like the US...we have the #1 economy in the world so we have more business travelers coming here from overseas than anywhere else, we are top tourist destination, we are #1 destination for international students our citizens are rich and mobile and travel frequently all over the world. We have unfettered domestic travel...with hundreds of possible destinations for overseas people to come visit...we have massive urban and rural places. We are the oddest country in the world. To think that US wouldn't be the hardest hit is a misunderstanding of what America is. Doing worse than Iran and China? There are no way those are true numbers. Doing worse than India...that is SO weird. Why is California been so lightly hit versus NYC? So many weird things about what is going on with the Virus...making this a political screed is not one of them.

Sigh...so a single British newspaper reports, using a single unnamed source, that the presidents son-in-law said that it could spook the stock market...and you conflate that into conclusive evidence that Trump downplayed this to protect the stock market???? Listen...believe what you want to believe. But please aim for a little self awareness. Your hatred of the president is making YOU turn this into a political thing.

We don't know anything. We think we know things. The data is evolving at light speed. There are a thousand variables. The 1957 and 1968 viruses killed millions...and President Trump acted WAY more aggressively than Eisenhower or Nixon. He hasn't been perfect but to use this as a not stop smear campaign just seems like you are pointing a finger at someone for not being able to know what no one else knows.

I didn't say China flight ban. How could he stop US citizens from coming home? And again...WE DIDN'T KNOW how bad it was...we still don't. We are beginning to understand. Pushing for an easy cheap, readily available solution to the problem (hydroxocholorquine) that many doctors in the field were recommending and seemed to have positive results...was wrong? An he's an idiot for saying it? We also pushed hard at the beginning for ventilators and the country responded and now we have way more than we need...but not enough test kits...and that's the presidents fault. As for taking countries that are completely unlike the US, comparing them to the US in examples that help your argument, and then calling the President an asshole because some other experiments in different situations had more favorable outcomes? That is 100% political. At the beginning I liked to come to this sight because a lot of you were reading a lot about the virus, were synthesizing it down into good and bad news and offering interesting insight which was great...and now it has been taken over as a "Trump is a Monster and its all his fault" which is idiotic.

Can you sight your source material for where he said he ignored the virus because it would spook the stock market...or is this just you reading his mind? Again...we had NO IDEA about the seriousness of this thing (China lied and continues to lie). Need I remind you that the Swine Flu struck America when Obama was President and...HE DIDN'T SHUT DOWN THE COUNTRY AND PEOPLE DIED. He has blood on his hands!!! Please stop. This isn't political. This is an unknown virus and the president and the rest of us are doing the best that we can. I think sitting on the sidelines and shouting out criticisms every step a blind man takes is kind of nasty behavior. And the golf stuff is just stupid. This is supposed to be the virus page...go start a "Trump sucks page" and put the golf stuff there....I'd probably agree with you there.

Honestly Trump has spoken two hours every day about the virus for months. If you want to take out a few snippets here and there...you can weave a narrative to make it political...just understand what you are doing. As for you perpetuating the "hoax" story...https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/democratic-ad-twists-trumps-hoax-comment/. I know...now you will say factcheck.org is a Fox News puppet...whatever...this is what the world has become.

He made it that? You are a Democrat, fine...but also a mind reader? You know why he "ignored" the virus...which he didn't do...just acted in a way to an unprecedented situation which was guaranteed to be wrong in certain ways...as every other president would have done? I bring up the fact that the Virus is a non-political issue and your response is...Trump golfs too much? And all the problems are with the president?

I'm bothered by all the blaming. This is NOT Trump's fault...or the governors. This is nature that has come up with a new pitch that the batters haven't been able to figure out yet. Fernando Valenzuela's screwball in 1981. To listen to the president'S advice to "try to swing late" and shout WHAT AN ASSHOLE...then he says "go the other way with the pitch" and you shout "IDIOT...don't you know batting coaches agree that is the dumbest thing ever". Though really the batting coaches have no real answer either. I hate Trump's style but I'm also so sick of everything he does being criticized. 90% of all news stories since his inauguration?? A virus comes along and you guys with perfect hindsight says "we should have done this" or "we should have done that". But who knew that this wasn't SARS or MERS or Swine Flu? It was outrageous to put major travel restrictions on China in early February but that proved correct. His being positive in press conferences in a very scary situation for the simple folks is not a bad decision even if in retrospect some of the words sound stupid. Pushing things to the states...so we have 50 little labs trying to come up with a solution that balances outcomes makes some sense to me...I agree with Jerksticks that the economic ramifications for millions has to be considered. As for his defying the experts...you know for every expert telling the President...this is the worst thing to ever happen...there's another expert saying..."this is like the SARS scare. It will be gone in a month." And we still don't know. Ferguson's College of London model that showed 2.2 million US dead has now been discredited as bad math...but could we ignore that at the time? This clearly is a bad disease but we don't have an answer...we could wait for the vaccine just like we are waiting for the Cold vaccine. Everyone has an opinion no one has an answer. Just lots and lots of guesses. Honestly if there was a lottery system...everyone lines up and gets a ticket. You have a 1/1000 chance of instantly dying (330,000 dead in the US) but the other 999 get to go on with their normal lives and see Kopeck starting on Saturday...I would be first in line...especially given the other option...living under my bed with a 1/10,000 chance of dying...no baseball, no bars, no friends, no happiness?

She had a nice idea but she didn't follow through. Maybe it was too hard to follow through...I mean easy enough to find Lou Brock's 45 WAR after Cubs traded him or Bagwell's 80 WAR after Boston traded him. But what do you do when Tommy John who started with Cleveland, went to Sox for seven years and then other teams...If he had 24 WAR in those years but then was included in another trade...do you count the players the Sox got back in the second trade (residual John value)...and if there were multiple players in the trade you how much value is counted for John versus others. OK...it's impossible. Easy is best... at least it's baseball talk.

This is an idiotic and lazy way of calculating top trades by WAR. In a related note, Boston Braves have the greatest free agent signing by WAR of all time. Braves signed free agent Babe Ruth in 1935 and he put up a career 162.1 WAR (note...0.1 while playing with Braves).

Yes but what about the NBA players...a bunch got it back in February and now they are piling their corpses up like cord wood...oh wait. We are, right now at about 1 in 4,000 Americans dead from this...Italy during the plaque had 2,400 dead out of 4,000 and THEY didn't cancel baseball. I'm tired of hiding under my bed and I want to see Robert and Moncada and Jimenez hitting.

You do know Babe Ruth was one of the best pitchers in baseball while also being one of the best hitters. This idea that he was just a slow fat guy is from the pictures of him at the end of his career. He was 6'2 215 with amazing hand/eye coordination. I think historical basketball comparisons don't work...but baseball I think you can. I also don't think the science of throwing hard is new to this age. If we are going to discount all players before the 1970's...well then its a different thing. But it does seem that if someone is 3 deviations above the mean in 1907 we can't with confidence say that in 2020 the mean is now where three deviations above was in 1907 so bring Big Ed in the time machine and he's just a guy.

Allen had a 8.6 WAR in 1972 for the Sox...but I think the same for him and Belle...they only had a few years with the White Sox so can you really consider them part of your ALL TIME team? I mention Gossage who had an amazing year for the Sox as a reliever but most of his greatness was on another team...can you really include him on our team's all time list? If you went with greatest seasons ever you'd sure have Dick Allen on the team (and Wilbur Wood...who had 22.5 WAR over two year 71-72 seasons).

What is realistic about an all-time team? Walsh dramatically out pitched Cy Young in 1908. He had one of the greatest seasons ever by any player. He pitched 460 innings with a WHIP of .86. I mean just because it's a long time ago doesn't mean we should ignore him as part of our team's history. Most of Ty Cobb's greatness was more than 100 years ago. Should Detroit not have him as part of their ALL TIME team because it was really just too long ago?

Wait...are you being reasonable? This is SOXTALK...you make a claim and then defend it to the death in the face of all evidence. My dad loved Billy Pierce too he's not a bad choice...if I said you were an idiot for liking Scarlett Johansonn over Natalie Portman...I could support your idiocy with facts but it's really just a matter of taste. I love a bullpen of Foulke followed by Gossage with Thornton as your lefty specialist. Foulke was amazing.

Honestly you can't leave Ed Walsh off the list if it's a serious list. He averaged 9+ War over a six year period...including winning FORTY games one year. He had more WAR in a six year stretch than Billy Pierce had in 18 seasons. BP was a fine player but he never got more than 2% of required HOF voting while Walsh is a Hall of famer. Thornton had 13.5 War in his career...Goose Gossage had an 8.2 WAR in 1975 for the White Sox. I can see why he's not considered a White Sox...but he came up through their system and spent five years with them...before Bill Veeck traded him rather than pay him in free agency.

If you're serious about making a list you want to be objective right? You just about have to put in the hall of famers. The team has a 120 year history so it would be a bit weird to have too many from the last 20 years...especially because those were not particularly their greatest years...just the years that we remember the best. I think any serious person would put Thomas, Ventura, Fisk and Konerko on the starting list and I said by definition Baines has to be on the list as he's a HOF. That's more than fifty percent of your position players (and DH) from recent times. Dick Allen was amazing but only played three years with the Sox. If you go more than that you are denying the past. As for starters...Faber-Walsh-Lyons you just can't argue with based on WAR. Sale in a five year stretch had a 25 WAR which might be the greatest stretch in White Sox history (too lazy to check). Buerhle was uniquely great. So now you have 40% of the starters from recent times. I'm not sure you can really give the relief pitcher to Wilhelm who I don't think every pitched for the White Sox before he was forty. But ace is a weird as it wasn't really much of thing before 1970. I loved Goose Gossage...and he had a EIGHT WAR at 23 as a relief pitcher before those idiotic 70's Sox switched him to a starter and then lost him over money. The franchise has not been gloriously blessed with talent over 120 years...but half before 1970 and half after would make sense to me.

This is just not true. Rod Carew average 5.7 WAR over a ten year period and Nellie Fox averaged a 4.5 WAR over a ten year period...both second basemen with similar profile. Good defense, good base running, solid single hitting is worth a lot. Not every player has to be a power hitter. However...if you are without power one better be a + defender, a +fielder and have a plus +batting average or you end up being Willie Harris.

I'm not saying he's going to be Rod Carew...i'm saying that is the ceiling. Rod Carew was not a great hitter in the minors...hovering around .300 with .750 OPS in 1000 at bats. Nellie Fox was NOT a good base runner...stealing an average of 5 bases per year and being thrown out 5 times a year. Rod Carew was a much better base stealer. Nellie was a much better defensive player. Carew walked a lot more. Both were second basemen that basically hit singles (81% for Nellie, 79% for Carew, 58% for Frank Thomas for comparison sake). Best 10 year war for Fox was 4.5 per year. Best 10 year war for Carew was 5.7 per year. I think Nick will be a better defender than either. Better base stealer than Fox. Worse hitter than Carew. So I think a 10 year WAR of 5 average for his ceiling?