Chisoxfn

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.

I'm not surprised at all. I suppose I could have seen them making a move with their hitting coach, if they really thought it was necessary, but it has long seemed they believe in Sverson and I think they recognize shifting a hitting coach probably does nothing anyway. I don't have any major concerns with this coaching staff. They aren't the best in baseball, but they are far from the worst, and I do think that overall Renteria is a solid manager. Whether he's the long term guy to take the franchise to the next level, I don't know, but I'll wait until the team has some actual talent before I make any harsh conclusions on Renteria's ability to take a team to the next level.

Yeah. Twice now that the D was gassed/out of shape. Shouldn't happen as much as it has, but I believe they will clean it up. 280 yards or something after the catch. Just crazy. Fangio has plenty of film to leverage. I think we'll see a strong performance next week. Unfortunately, we've put a lot of film out there on how to potentially beat this defense, so you know the Pats and Brady will be all over that. All that said, I'm excited we had another good effort out of Mitch. The key to the franchises LT success is his growth and I'm much more encouraged now than I've been at any point (sans that 1st pre-season game). Hopefully that trend continues.

I always wonder what happens to the Bears if that didn't happen. Jay was in a groove in that Martz offense and that team looked phenomenal. Was so fired up after we crush the Chargers. Remember getting a text that evening from "Shipps" saying something about Cutler being hurt and I was like WTF is he talking about. Of course the text was true and the franchise path was altered from there.

I'd rather have lost this way than with the D playing stellar and Biscuit laying an egg. The defense is better than this and they will clean it up. Trubisky still left plays on the field but you can see real progress out of him. They freaking left 2 TD's on the field (the OPI followed by the pick) and the Howard fumble (he had a TD if he doesn't fumble). Than there was the Cohen play. Just a mess of a game, but if they execute they are putting up at least another 2 TD's (and I'm ignoring the couple missed plays in the first half). I didn't see much of the game (had a kids event) but the D clearly read too much of its press clippings and played real bad. They were pantsed and they better step up from it. Great defenses don't give up as many big plays as this defense has. They need to clean it up.

They will beat the Pats.

Time to move on. Horrible performance by the D. I think they came out of the bye week thinking they were amazing. On the bright side, Trubisky is showing a lot more life. Look on the bright side...last two times Bears lost in south beach they ended up playing in the Super Bowl

I'm presuming this is an easy ask, but I'm going to be out of pocket on Sunday during the Bears game and have NFL Sunday Ticket (online version). Is there an easy way to have the file open and record my browser so I can watch when I get home?

I'm just going to mention that I have not heard one thing about this story living out in Socal.

I don't think Portis is as bad as everyone else seems to say he is. But I don't have a good gauge since he hasn't started a lot. In the old NBA, I'd say Portis would get exposed a lot as he isn't strong enough to play down low on the block but he has the skill set to be a solid switch / pick and roll defender, imo. Will be interesting to see how the Bulls d evolves over time to the new defensive strategy they will be applying. My guess is they will have pretty severe growing pains, but long term, they have some of the athletes that should be good fits for the style/system. They also are extremely young and as I've said many times over...young teams (even with good defensive minded young players) tend to be a hot mess on defense.

Agree. RIP.