Chisoxfn

They haven't tackled well and have actually looked slow laterally the past few weeks (in the LB corps)...which absolutely shouldn't be the case. Not sure what the deal is but they just look flat. I also think Fangio keeps thinking they'll beat their guys and thus isn't using scheme to an advantage at all. I literally feel like no one has been coaching this d the past few weeks as we presume our talent will carry us and thus we can play pretty "vanilla". I hope Fangio puts the fut on the gas the rest of the season and starts getting creative scheme wise and that it helps maximize the talent.

He came out for the last 3 series. Presume it was due to him reaggravating or just not being effective. I am afraid Bears will have rushed Mack and Robinson and instead of having them miss 1 game, we'll have them ineffective for a game or two and than out for like 3 games.

It is the way the d plays. Soft and pathetic. Fangio has been so weak this season. We have had no creativity, just relying on individual plays. I’m not happy with the softness and way they have closed. James White shredding them for a couple first downs...no bueno. The lack of tackling, inability to generate pass rush lately, just a lot of nothing. Looks like a mel tucker defense with the amount of big plays and missed tackles the past two weeks. And man...no idea what was going on with Mitch’s passes today cause he made a lot of good reads but just had a ball that was floating all over the place today. Wideouts losing balls in the sun didn’t help either. I also think they need to get more creative with Jordan Howard. Dropping back as much as they did concerned me.

Yes, Mitch and the wideouts left a lot of pints on the field but this game is in the defense and special teams. The defense has been very poor technique wise and Fangio has not been creative at all. They will win the next two.

Yep -The concept of a 529 is good but there are other vehicles you want to put your money in first and you certainly have to be cautious of some of the limitations of 529's. The use of 529's to me depends on how much you already put in 401K + other vehicles and what amount of liquidity you need.

I wish that "Illinois" plan existed in California. Great plan (or at least on paper it seems to be). Without that option, I at least use the 529 plan, albeit, being in the state I live in, the benefits are greatly reduced vs. a state that at least gives you a state tax deduction. That said, when each of my kids were born...I set up a monthly direct deposit to feed into each of their plans and hopefully by doing so, the chunk by chunk approach will allow me (and them) to not sweat where they go to college.

Extremely well said Mike!!!

I didn't say he'd be a good defender...he isn't and he will probably never be good, but I'm not ready to write him off for being solid. It takes a few years to really emerge defensively (for many young players...not all, but many). In general though, Lavine has thus far been a net positive (preseason and game 1) in the sense that he looks the real deal offensively.

A team with Lavine, Payne, and Portis in the starting lineup is going to give up a lot of points. Parker is going to give up a lot of points too. Dunn coming back will help and it is only one game as will having Lauri back in time. Plus, your so called 2nd best defender (Carter Jr.) is still a rookie. This is why most of the analytics presume the Bulls will still be bad. I bet you Pax already knows they will be bad, he's just not thinking it is "tanking" because they are playing guys who they expect to be here over the long haul (vs. having more guys who they are trying to literally "bench"). They will try to win...but the massive incapabilities of the team to play defense (due to a heavy combination of youth/inexperience + some just bad defensive players) will very much prevent them from winning a lot of games. It isn't a tank, because I do believe the Bulls front office legitimately thinks Carter Jr, Lavine, Dunn, and Mark are all core building blocks of the franchise (you just aren't going to win yet with them). Note, I didn't say any of them were stars...but core building blocks. Based upon the extension talks, you can probably put Portis in that mix. If you add another high draft pick (which I expect they will get) plus some free agency additions (which I think they'll get some...maybe not a "Durant" but I think in the next 2 years they will spend some money)...than we'll see. Missing Mark for an extended time will also help in terms of maximizing the draft pick.

Lavine is 23 years old. Young players don't play good defense in the NBA. It takes time. Young teams don't win in the NBA either. Those are both very statistical facts.

Prospects are so over-valued this days that I fundamentally believe a team should pivot and leverage the overvaluation of prospects. I do agree with you that player development is key. However, the Brewers were not a well thought of farm system (look back the last couple years at the BA ratings). The Rockies as well; heck the Rockies literally went bullpen spending and FA dumpster diving this past off-season. The Braves did a full rebuild and its taken time, but I'll give you that. The Cubs, Dodgers, Yankees, and Red Sox all have good farm systems, but they also have deep pockets that help cover up warts as well. Astros don't have the deep pockets, but are clearly extremely well ran. There is a reason all of those teams will be in the playoffs for the foreseeable future. Indians seem to have had a good culture for a while now and have the mgr that Sox should have hired when they got rid of Ozzie.

The Sox don't have a fan base to be scared of. In no way do I think Sox management makes it strategic actions with our limited fan base in mind. Maybe if you had 3 million fans coming to the games you could think about it...but not with this limited of a fan base, imo.

There were other avenues than just free agency. I'm not saying it would have been easy, but I do agree with the general premise that the guys who made the mess being allowed to clean it up, in an area where they had shown zero track record at (i.e., player development), could be a very flawed strategy. By the way, I think you have proven one thing Balta...that the path to free agency would not have worked during that window or would have been extremely unlikely to have worked. That could just be bad luck vs. another window where it is out there, but it is still reflective of a bad strategy set forth by the management team now deemed to have the "right" strategy now. KW bought a lot of freedom with that World Series title.

As a data point, if you are in a 401k, which I presume you are, I have seen a lot of analysis done that indicate the target funds (ie vanguard target fund) typically outperform an individual who picks and chooses a variety of portfolios within the 401k. Additionally, while past performance is not an indicator of future success, an investment strategy with some form of fixed income plus equities (when factoring in reinvestments etc) have actually outperformed pure stock indexes when looking back over very large durations. I’m generalizing here but some weighting of fixed income, historically hasn’t been bad (past tense speaking). One major caveat I have is that same performance might not repeat in a rising rate environment. By and large, low cost index is very good, but can be very volatile, so like anything it depends on your overall tolerance for risk and duration requirements. I should point out in the above context the concept and metrics I’m discussing are focused on risk adjusted returns vs pure returns.

My view is in line with this. I want to accumulate enough so that I always have that financial comfort to be able to do what I want. I don't want to be "forced" to deal with a horrific situation just because I need it to make ends meet. Too many times have I seen people put up with miserable bosses / people, etc, purely because they had to do it (and these were people who were old enough and had done well enough in their careers where they shouldn't have had to do so). My goal is to be in a position that when I'm 50, I could comfortably walk away from it all. I don't actually intend to, but I want to know that I have the luxury and freedom to make a change and that I can make the decisions professionally that make me the happiest. *Knock on wood* I'm very lucky and quite happy with my current situation and have been truly blessed thus far in my career, but I also know that can change at any moment (or health or something else can get in the way). *knock on wood*. Note: I don't consider "enough" or financial flexibility being able to walk away and live out of a truck having to eat McDonalds every day. I also have a view that you need to make sure you decision based upon a significantly "shocked" portion of your assets. Especially if someone were making that decision today, I'd tell them they are probably making that decision at a "high point" in their asset valuation and it is one that will likely experience some short-term shocks. If they can't stomach what the "annual" income would be post "shock", than they probably need to rethink their decision. After the run up in the markets the past few years and the general long recovery process, way more people feel good....but we are all probably feeling a little too good right now and are in for an asset shock (sometime in the next 6-24 months).

Over the long haul it should...if it doesn't, we have way bigger problems. You obviously want to have some liquidity because you don't want to be a "forced" seller, however, when you invest long, low cost target date / index funds are the way to go. The biggest part is putting it away. The sooner you can do it the better and if you can only afford so much in year 1, no matter how small, do it, and than try to auto bump up your deferral rate so that over time you are socking more aside. But the more you can (to extent it is at all possible) live below your means when you are young, the better and quicker you can build up / accumulate enough assets that can work for you. I'm not saying crawl up into a hole and don't live, you need to live and you need to splurge from time to time, but if you can get ahead and accumulate assets...time will work in your favor and you will start generating nice amounts of "passive" window that can either enable you to be more independent or to splurge on more things (knowing that you've built up that steady annuity stream).

No individual post; It's been a discussion point among the mods for a few months and I believe I had even posed the question to the general board a couple months back as well.

I don't think it is purely attention spans...it is more that there is a plethora of potential entertainment options out there. Baseball isn't the only ticket in town or on the television.

The Cubs rebuilt for 100 years. Tanking didn't support that much. They just had better baseball people making better decisions during this rebuild and they spent money on international signings (arbatraging existing rules, etc). They rebuilt quickly because they made amazing draft decisions, lucked out on a trade (Arrietta) and spent money on many solid FA acquisitions + international FA signings and combined it with an improved developmental team + coaching staff.

The best thing about Paulie was that magical "hip" injury he had for his entire career. Yes he was slow, but man, I always wonder how that internet rumor started, but if you were a heavy fan of the Sox and followed Paulie you knew / theorized that he was going to have a short career because of some degenerative hip issue. I presume none of that was actually factual given how long of a career he had. And yes, Paulie was a great trade. Cameron also had some good news and became much better appreciated as advanced metrics came about, but Paulie was very good. We can really thank the Dodgers who panicked and traded him for Jeff Shaw in a deadline deal.

I agree with this and it is hard to have revionist history, but it really was an inept failure by the existing management team to not be able to build around the trio of players you mentioned under those affordable contracts. They tried to win and go for it, etc, but they flat out made the wrong moves. Period. It isn't as if you couldn't have made the right moves. Now I'm not saying I would have done better or it would have been easy, but the outcome could have been much different. Even now, I laugh at how easy everyone thinks a rebuild is. Blow it up and miraculously get better. Yes, a few teams have hit the reset button recently with pretty immediate success, but a long term historical view of the baseball world indicates to me that such an outcome isn't necessarily as likely.

Its a low cost online provider. Supposed to be pretty good. Is tonight the big game or tomorrow?

No experience with the car, but I've always liked TSX's.

Thread to discuss the latest happenings around the market.

Given the current political climate, Soxtalk has decided to close ( filibuster forum. This move was not taken lightly by the admins/moderators (and for transparency, not everyone agreed with this move), however, given the current political climate, and how that climate can become so toxic (on both sides of the aisle), we have decided it is in the best interest of the forum to remove the "no holds bar" filibuster in an attempt to ensure increased civility on Soxtalk. Please note that while Filibuster has been closed, we are not banning "news" type stories from being posted. There are many topics discussed within the filibuster which can now be discussed within SLAP, however, the flexibility to be "less civil" will not exist. If you want to make posts, you need to stick 100% to the news. There will be no "slinging of mud" tolerated. Posts will be removed and suspensions will be levied. Purely "by the aisle" threads (republican vs. democrat) will not be tolerated, however, we do intend to have pinned threads around shortly before / after the election, to enable healthy dialogue around the elections (again, adherence to the rules will be key). Similarly, financial threads, etc, are all fair game (and those threads have been moved to SLAM), however, again, the focus should not be on the partisianism of the topic, but the facts. This change is one that we will continually evaluate in the best interest of the board and certainly look at all the members for various feedback in terms of how its going and ways to make it better. Similarly, when it comes to the rest of the site, we always look for similar feedback to help ensure we are having effective discussions and cordial communications. We are going to give everyone a "clean slate" from any past issues/run-ins on the political front, but on a go-forward basis heed the strong warning and remember, if you want to purely talk politics, there are other avenues to have more heated discussions and debate (whether you want to debate the other party or prefer to live in your own "ecco" chamber). The threads that evolve into "light political" talk can remain, however, follow the rules. Do not make blanked comments around "republican are X or democrats are Y", etc. If you want to have those discussions, you can take those to a forum focused on that. This is a White Sox site first and foremast which has evolved into so much more. It truly is a community, one in which has new faces emerge and old faces sometimes depart (or go on hiatus before re-emerging). It started in the days before smart phones and has survived friendster, myspace, facebook, twitter, instagram, etc. Remember that "unity" we all have in common and treat people with respect. If you have questions feel free to post. We've always embraced open dialogue and feedback, but please remember the golden rule and think of the below quotes when you post on the site.