Chisoxfn

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.

You have to hope the Bulls can use Parker's expiring contract during the season to facilitate a move for the long-term. I.e., Parker + a young piece or two for a very good player. Parker will not be on the Bulls long-term. I could be wrong, but you can just see he isn't a LT fit (unless they move other parts).

I watched a good chunk of last night's game. Lavine looks different this year (in a good way). Much more efficient scorer and much better movement without the ball. Plus he's finishing in the paint (something he was off with last year). Looks freaking explosive. He's going to have a massive year scoring the basketball. Hard to judge the defensive improvement this early in the season and I'll also warn all of this judgement is off a very small sample size.

I seriously wonder what people's views of Portis would be if he was a higher pick. The dude can flat out score. I got to hand it to the Bulls, him, etc on his overall development. He's a weapon. Prefer him off the bench because I don't know how well his game plays over a full game vs. more limited spurts. Plus, defensively he has certain challenges, but he's a pretty darn dynamic scorer. His advanced metrics were pretty solid too. PER was on the up-tick and solid win-shares. Not sure what he does with more minutes, but he turned into a pretty good 1st round pick. Of course pretty good doesn't mean squat without elite players. So freaking hard to find those "elite" guys.

I am not saying he's handling this properly. I think he needs to have someone get in his head as there is a much better approach/tact. That said, sometimes it helps to understand where others are coming from in those situations and I can see things from Jimmy's shoes, albeit, if I were in those shoes I would handle it much differently.

Oh, I agree, I think Thibs heard Jimmy's press conference and heard..."your telling me their's a chance".

The on the court stats with Butler were pretty staggering, in terms of how much better the Wolves were with him vs. without him. I don't believe that is purely on Butler's individual play, but also his ability to make others better. I think you have to understand how Jimmy operates. He was someone who made himself great and with that, I think he genuinely believes players can make themselves great, if they work, so he is disgusted when guys don't put in the work. He wants nothing to do with it. He also wants to be pushed because he thinks it makes him and others better and sometimes what he says is about him wanting to get pushed more. Interesting interview with Nichols which confirmed my speculation...that the request didn't just emerge this year and dated all the way back to last year. Whether you believe the comments from the interview or not is a whole separate story...but I think Thibbs thought time would heal all wounds and that ignoring it would make things better...but it didn't. I would love him on the Bulls...I'll trade Portis and Parker for him and than sign him to an extension and make a run at Kyrie or someone else in the off-season. Carter Jr, Mark, Buckets, Lavine, and Kryie with Dunn coming off the bench. Note: Wolves aren't trading him to Chicago and Bulls aren't trading for him.

This, exactly this.

But I think Glen Taylor is strongly in KAT's camp, hence him getting the big contract, etc.

There were reports right after the season ended that he wasn't happy with Wiggins / Towns. I think he probably wasn't "strong" enough in those intents and Thibs assumed he could smooth it over. Instead everyone just thought time would heal all wounds and Jimmy decided (not the best timing) that he was going to strong-arm the organization to go somewhere else (technically by making the move when he did...he certainly gave himself all of the leverage).