LouisEly

Last I heard the food stipend was only something like $20/day. Maybe that was a few years ago, but I doubt that it is a lot more than that.

He was also signed out of high school and was consistently 2-3 years younger than league average. He made the majors at the age of 22. Glad someone else realizes this. 1st half: 19 G, 5 GS, 42.2 IP, 1.453 WHIP, 9.9 K/9, 2.47 K/BB, .796 OPS-A 2nd half: 16 G, 13 GS, 68.2 IP, 1.107 WHIP, 9.2 K/9, 3.89 K/BB, .656 OPS-A And in his 3 relief appearances in the 2nd half he had a 3.60 ERA and gave up a home run, so it's not like they made his 2nd half numbers better.

I was making two points: 1) YG1 said he had a "hard time seeing" Watkins getting cut - I was saying it's almost certain that he gets cut because of his cap hit. 2) If/when he does get cut, he's not someone I'd give a lot of money to. It would have to be a one-year prove-it, less than $10M deal.

Watkins has a $21M cap hit in 2020 and hasn't had more than 700 yards receiving in a season since 2015. He's not much more than a name only, Randall Cobb in another uniform. It's a no-brainer that he gets cut, and not someone I'd give a big contract to.

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mlb-to-raise-minor-league-salaries-in-2021-season-per-report/ "Players at rookie and short-season levels will see their minimum weekly pay raised from $290 to $400, and players at Class A will go from $290 to $500. Double-A will jump from $350 to $600, and Triple-A from $502 to $700." Long overdue. Would have liked to see a little bigger jump for rookie and short-season; not sure what you are supposed to do with $1600/month. But a nice jump for AA; encourages guys to stick it out a little longer being so close to the show.

Raptors have won 15 in a row. But are still 6.5 games back of the Bucks.

Sometimes those dogs know when they have it good. We had a dog that my dad found as a puppy in the town dump and brought her home. Never had to put her on a leash - she never left the yard. And we lived across the street from the biggest, and busiest, park in town.

He went eight picks before Jenkins in the 2nd round. Tough call, but an OL who only gave up a handful of pressures all season is pretty hard to pass up. It was a loaded 2nd round - 12 guys put up a FB-R.com AV of 6 or more that season, which is pretty darned good for a rookie. For reference, Savage put up an AV of 5.

Good Lord, whatever they do, don't draft a receiver in the 4th round. They drafted better in the 7th than the 4th. Just imagine if they had listened to scout that recommended Thielen instead of Dorsey.

I was just going to put up an offseason needs by position thread, so perhaps you can change the title of the thread. Number in parenthesis is the need on a 0-10 scale. Quarterback (4): Need for a starter - 0. Need for a backup - 9. Time to start developing a legitimate backup. Running back (1): Jones has become a legitimate star, Williams a high quality backup, and the addition of Ervin as a gadget player makes this one of the best backfields the Packers have had since the 60's. Tight end (5): I'm pretty high on Sternberger, hard to tell what they have in him because of the injuries, but Graham is all but certain to get cut and Lewis is on the twilight of his career. They could stand to bring in a developmental guy. They moved James Looney from DL to TE as he looked good at TE on the scout team; maybe he can develop into a good blocking TE to replace Lewis. Wide receiver (9): The young guys haven't developed, and it's past time to invest here. It's the right time too, as 55(!) wide receivers were invited to the NFL combine. They don't need to invest a 1st, as there will be talented WRs available in the 2nd and 3rd round, maybe later. Good chance they will double-dip at WR in the draft. Tackle (8): Bulaga is a FA, and Bak will be after next year. They'll need to draft one this year, because even if Bulaga is back, he doesn't have a lot of years left and usually only plays about 80% of the teams snaps because of various injuries. Guard (5): Taylor likely is a cap casualty, and who knows when Madison will be ready to return, so depth is needed. If Bulaga isn't back and Turner slides out to RT, then this becomes an 8. Linsley is a FA after next season, and Jenkins could slide back to center if Linsley moves on. Center (4): Linsley had one of the best pass block win rates for centers in the league last year, if not the best, but he is due $10.6M this year and is a FA after next year. Defensive line (7): Clark is a FA after next year, Adams hasn't developed, and we saw what a dominant defensive line can do in the games against San Francisco. I like Keke as a developmental guy, Lowry is underrated, and Lancaster is a decent two-down run stuffer, but another disruptor on the line is needed. OLB (2): If someone signs away Fackrell they will need another backup, but they are pretty well set here for the next three years. ILB (10): Martinez is a FA and if he leaves I have no idea what they will do as Burks hasn't developed. Unfortunately, this isn't a good year for ILBs in the draft. Likely a very high priority for a FA signing with what few FA dollars they will have left after (hopefully) extending Clark and Bak. Corner (4): King finally started to show what he can do when healthy, but he hasn't been healthy. Alexander is a budding star, they found a gem in Sullivan, and they were so deep here they let Tony Brown go. That being said, cornerbacks are like starting pitchers, you can never have too many good ones. Safety (4): Like QB, the need for starters is zero, but they need to upgrade backups here as Will Redmond wasn't cutting it and Tramon Williams is a free agent. Campbell and Greene are just guys. Maybe it's time to move Josh Jackson to safety. Kicker (9): While Crosby is likely to be back, he is a free agent. Punter (2): While inconsistent, Scott has a big leg and should be given more time to develop. Need for a better special teams coach - 9. Long snapper (1): I don't recall hearing Bradley's name being called once in the last two years, and for a long snapper that is a very good thing.

That's the thing - the numbers that show up aren't actually the number they are calling from. They are the either the "name" that is programmed into caller ID to look like a number (duh - don't allow more than 3 numbers in a call ID name, simple rule to enforce) or some other made up number. Just scan the text and if it is a number that matches a legitimate phone number, or if it even looks like a phone number, kill it. It shouldn't be on 3rd party apps to detect this. You can program the number into the app, but they just change it, and like this example, it could be a legitimate number. The phone companies can do this, it's just that they don't want to spend the money because cellular service is such a cut-throat, low-margin business.

We're not even at the All-Star break and the Bucks have a 13.5 game lead in their division and a 6.5 game lead in the East.

This is one thing that I don't understand how the telecom companies haven't developed technology to counter. The calls are not coming from the U.S., and that can't be that hard to detect even if it is through a VPN - there has to be a list of VPN IP numbers somewhere that it can block. Maybe it's such a cutthroat business that they don't have the margins and profits to put into the research, but you'd think that if they developed that technology they'd capture the market overnight. The funny thing is that a few months ago I realized that if your call ID shows an 800/888/866 number, it is probably a legitimate business trying to get a hold of you for a legitimate reason.

I don't know how King can say with a straight face that what the coach said is the reason for leaving, because King said the issues go back several years and this event happened several months ago. Unless King has a crystal ball that can see several years into the future, he is opportunistically using it to get a waiver.

Might have been Riley Nowakowski, the PWO OLB who had a bunch of lower-level D1 offers.

From what I can tell, most major cable companies (including Charter Spectrum) offer cellular service now as a part of their offering, so I would think that most people would have that option. Part of the problem is living in Chicago*. What I want to watch the most are the Badgers games (football, basketball, hockey), but now those are pretty much split evenly between ESPN, BTN, and Fox/FS1, and it seems like every streaming service is missing one of those. In order to watch the Brewers here I need the MLB channel; not sure how the Cubs new TV network will work as they don't have a deal with Comcast yet as far as I know, but that was 18 games a year I got to watch. This past season I think the Packers were only blacked out once or twice here because of conflicts with Bears games - that was luck, but you have Thursday night and Monday night games that are on ESPN and the NFL network. Marquette basketball is split between FS1, CBS Sports, and some other obscure network. The Bucks are sometimes on TBS/TNT/NBA, so I might as well get cable so I have all of those sports channels. One of the other benefits of cable is that if you miss a game (NFL, BTN, sometimes ESPN) there are often replays of the game that are on later. (*Don't get me started on the taxes and fees here.)

The only significant contract the Red Sox unload after this season are Rusney Castillo ($14.25M) and Jackie Bradley, Jr. ($11M), and Bradley isn't a bad contract. But then you have Devers hitting Arby-1, Benintendi hitting Arby-2, and Eduardo Rodriguez hitting Arby-3. It will likely be a major luxury tax hit to resign him.

Yup, this is a great deal for the Red Sox. No guarantee that Betts doesn't leave in free agency. They get Verdugo and Graterol for a (great) player who only has one year of control left and a (good) 34-year-old pitcher who has missed significant portions of two of the last three years and is still owed $96M over the next three years. It cost them $48M, but they save $59M in salary this year and get two good young players.

xFinity (a.k.a. Comcast)

I'm paying about a combined $200/month for cable TV (including all ESPN channels, FS1, CBS Sports, BTN, MLB/NFL/NBA networks - no FSWI in Chicago), cloud DVR, internet, and cell phone service and that includes all taxes, fees, and $25/mo for a new phone, as well as free access to thousands of WiFi hotspots. If you add up what you're paying for each of those things individually, including taxes and fees, I'll bet it's pretty close to $200/month.

From what I'm reading here, it sounds like you get what you pay for.

Wisconsin now playing with eight healthy, eligible scholarship players. Marquette was playing the past two weeks with eight healthy, eligible scholarship players (now nine with Elliot back, but still not 100% on that ankle). Both teams gutting out some tough wins with a short bench.

I was thinking this too watching how dominant they were in the first half. Maybe he was more of a distraction to the team and causing some issues within the clubhouse. It’ll be interesting to see how they play the next couple weeks. Could be pretty telling. They played a lot better at Iowa without him that at Purdue with him, and Iowa arguably is a better team than Purdue.

Houser should be a 5+ IP guy every five games.

Interesting. In general, I support it, but I'm concerned that it could be abused. For example, a school could over-recruit a class (cough... Alabama... cough.... Ohio State... cough... Kentucky) and say we don't have a scholarship for you this year but we will next year, that kid goes to another school for a year, but then leaves to go to the other school after one year. The school he left probably hadn't recruited to fill that scholarship, and then they're short a scholarship player. Not so impactful in football, but could have a big effect on basketball. You could just gut a basketball team with transfers. I'm also concerned about transferring within the same conference. I might be more in favor of they can transfer once without sitting out, but a) have to spend at least two years at the first school, b) have to sit out a year if it's to a school in the same conference, and c) the exception to a) and b) is if the school they transfer to is within a certain radius (200 miles?) of what is considered their "home". There might also have to be a limit on the number of kids who could transfer into a school in a year to prevent abuse.