Chisoxfn

I don't think I realized that Melky was still a free agent. Who are the current free agents out there? I had casually forgotten how many guys were unsigned heading into spring training, etc, this year.

Haha - Hillarious. I think that is because with the new software, certain fields were removed so people may revert back to their legacy usernames. Odd that the avatar was different.

Solid move; I was listening to the local sports talk in SoCal on my way into work this morning and Mychael Thompson (Trayce's dad was on) and talked about how dissapointed he was for Trayce when the White Sox originally traded him to the Dodgers. The family was excited he would be coming back to SoCal, but ultimately Trayce felt very comfortable in the Sox organization and his dad said Trayce was exstatic that he is finally coming back home to Chicago, where he is so much more comfortable with the people, coaches, organization, etc. Mychael Thompson was extremely complimentary of the Sox org and Trayce recongizes this was about the perfect landing spot for him. Hopefully he can make the most of his opportunity. Tools have always been there, albeit, it is certainly an uphill battle that he puts it all together offensively. Really high character / good kid though and I'll be pulling for him.

The functionality on the phone / tablet is probably the biggest single enhancement I think each user will experience. That and I know for a long time people wanted the ability to embed twitter posts and you can now do that.

All - As I had previously mentioned, the site was down for the last 24-48 hours as we completed our final upgrade onto the new forum software. In the past two months, we have moved the site to a significantly faster server, upgraded the skeleton behind the databases, and moved our forum software to the latest version of our platform. While there are kinks we will have to work out, mainly around fine-tuning the look and feel of the site, I'm excited to say that Soxtalk is now back on a state of the art platform and well prepared for the rest of the season. Additionally, we were able to go down and get back online without missing a game (which was the plan and despite some points where I thought the plan was in jeapoardy, we were able to execute through things). Appreciate everyone's patience. If anyone notices any issues/glitches, let me know. Please note that there are still things that are "updating" in the background so you might see some funky quote features or some images that haven't came back yet, but those should come back as the database continues to restore over the next 24-72 hours. Appreciate everyone's patience.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Apr 18, 2018 -> 03:33 PM) Nobody believes that I take that as a challenge

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Apr 18, 2018 -> 03:08 PM) Too early to start thinking about another Top 3-5 pick in 2019? Moncada finally made an out. If that crazy ball Granderson trapped against the wall went out in TOR, he’d have two grand salamis already and 4 homers...not to mention just missing a couple due to the wind in KC. With this pitching staff, we are going to be pretty bad. Your best two pitchers are Lopez and Giolito, who are both young and unproven. Shields / Migo / Fulmer aren't very good, imo, with only one of those guys possessing any upside (and most of that upside is because he was a high pick so we all just hope and wish that at some point his plus stuff will arrive). You are going to lose a lot of games throwing Shields / Migo / Fullmer out there 3 out of every 5 games.

As a heads up, we will be completing the next portion of our upgrade later today and into tomorrow. Possibility that it could spill into Friday but the hope is we will be back up in action for the next game. When the site goes down, we will post a link to the temporary forum, which can be found at http://www.soxtalk.freeforums.net/ ; Site will likely go down in the next couple of hours. After this upgrade is done, that should do it in terms of heavy lifting (as we'll be on the latest version of the software). In the weeks that follow, we will be doing work to enhance the design from the more standard look and feel, but that will occur in the background and will not cause any outages. Appreciate everyone's patience!!!

QUOTE (Scoots @ Apr 18, 2018 -> 01:08 PM) That's kind of what I was thinking. He doesn't have an overpowering fastball, and his offspeed pitches aren't very deceptive. Which suggests to me he should have pinpoint control then, but that isn't there either. What am I missing? Nothing; He hasn't passed the eye test much at all. The only thing that gave me some hope was that little run (which was totally unexpected) he had to finish last year. Outside of that, not much to like about Fulmer's performance.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Apr 18, 2018 -> 12:55 PM) this pitching staff will shorten all of our lives. The staff is really bad.

With any luck I'm going to start the upgrade later tonight and we'll be back in action on Friday. In the meantime, there will be a temporary link pointing people to a different site. After getting comfortable with the software on talkbears, I want to get us onto the better platform for mobile / tablets sooner vs. later. Not to mention embedding twitter, etc. We will clean-up design as needed, but that is purely visual.

QUOTE (Jack Parkman @ Apr 14, 2018 -> 05:02 PM) Not enough upside in a guard to take one top 10. He could be Steve Hutchinson, and make 12 pro bowls and still not be worth a top 10 pick. Once you get to around 18-20 it is ok, but not until then. Everyone seems to be guaranteeing Nelson is Hutchinson. No one knows whether that will be true or not and there is a lot more risk projecting olinemen than there was 10 years ago. College blocking schemes differ so much now from the pro game that there is a lot more guesswork in the projection to the NFL. That said, if Nelson ended up being Hutchinson, I'd take that out of the #8 pick all day and every day.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Apr 13, 2018 -> 08:25 AM) TIFWIW, Bernstein opened the show saying that his Bears source said that the decision was completely medical. He said Meredith didn?€™t get his procedure done by Bears team doctors, and when they evaluated the knee, they were not comfortable giving Pace the OK. And concerning the depth of WRs, there will be additions. This isn?€™t the final depth chart, players will be added. Fretting about it now is worthless. I actually feel a bit better about this, if that is the reason. That said, if you were so worried about medicals and not worried about his capabilities, is $1M really enough to walk away from this (i.e., tendering him at 2.9 vs. the 1.9)? I presume this is more that even if he played well, than at that point, the Bears wouldn't be able to pay him anyway (cause you can't pay him and Robinson) so they figured they had to move on.

QUOTE (2005thxfrthmmrs @ Apr 13, 2018 -> 12:01 PM) There are people who are hesitant about MPJ even at 6 because of the injury and the missed time. Reality is if he was fully healthy, he wouldn't have falling to us. Simmons missed a year of pro ball and dominated in his 2nd year. MPJ missed a year of college ball, I think he could be one of the top young players by his second season. I don't think Porter will fall to 6. Unless his physicals don't work, he'll be fine.

QUOTE (SleepyWhiteSox @ Apr 13, 2018 -> 11:09 AM) Don't care what anybody says. I'm gonna let myself enjoy the MPJ to Bulls gossip at the moment. That is Porter Jr right? If so, that is who I have high on my list. I really like him and the Euro. Not sure if we have a shot at either if we stay at 6, but if we jump to 3 probably looking good after Ayton / Bagley.

This was a mistake (the use of the tag). I suppose it was a calculated mistake, but a mistake nonetheless.

So maybe they split the odds. Interesting, that means each team could pick at 6 or 7? I had read a few spots that there is a coinflip but maybe that coinflip plays some other small role in the lottery (or works for the 2nd round pick)?

QUOTE (Tex @ Apr 10, 2018 -> 05:59 PM) They ship two weeks ahead of the date and anything that doesn't fit they overnight a replacement. I decide to give it a go. I know most of my sizes, so this will be interesting. I asked around school, this is prom season and a few had good experiences with the service. The biggest drawback I see is not seeing the actual style, color, etc. 2 weeks in advance...that is a good deal. You should wear that tux every day of the week haha. Maximize the value proposition!

If you are tied in the lottery, there is a coin flip to determine who gets the higher "odds". At least I believe that is how it works. Below is a link to a site that has all the current odds. It is a very big deal Bulls don't somehow move down from where they are. Would be great to move up somehow (ahead of the Kings). If we were our odds of moving up to a top 3 pick would be about 20% (vs. 15% at the current 7 position). A reminder on how the lottery works, but if we pick at 7, we can either pick at 7-10 (almost impossible to be at 10) or we could move up to 1-3. There is no ability for the Bulls to pick in the 4-6 range. http://www.tankathon.com/pick_odds

True story...when my dad got remarried, I landed on the day of the wedding and arrived (and my dad had picked up my tux so it was waiting)....well, it turns out I had a "capri" tux because they had totally botched the measurements. Literally, the pants were like 8 inches off of my shoe. It was horrible (but hillarious). It was just a small wedding with only family so not a huge deal (only money spent was on a local photographer and food), but all pictures (except a few funny ones) had to be taken from the waist up. But I would had to have the situation reversed and that happen at like my daughters wedding or something. So basically...just don't be the goofball that doesn't try on a tux in advance to make sure nothing is wrong the day of the event. Haha.

I count nothing until it happened. Whether it is us getting the 7th pick or 6th pick or 8th pick. Who knows. Hopefully the lottery works in the Bulls favor! More importantly, hopefully we make the right picks.

Said another way, look at Paulie's stats. They were very good as well, obviously more seasons, etc, but good OPS, lots of HR's, etc. Paulie has zero chance of being a hall of famer. He's in the hall of very good and very far away from being a HOFer.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Apr 10, 2018 -> 10:33 AM) http://www.espn.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/...-in-cooperstown This article on ESPN today gives no mention of Jose Abreu. Yes, yes - I know - it's ESPN, and they love ignoring the White Sox at every turn. I also know that Abreu started old, and has borderline numbers with an expected dropoff as he gets older. Nevertheless, I think this is an interesting question - if Jose has 6 more years identical to the average of the previous 4, how borderline is he then? I don't think that's necessary unrealistic. An .882 OPS puts him in the top 100 all time in that category, and he'd have 300 homers, 350 doubles and a .300 batting average with 1000 RBIs. Would he be close? Or just in the hall of "very good"? I don't think he would be even close. I think his coming over at an older age would have impacted him. Counting stats just aren't good enough.

QUOTE (bmags @ Apr 10, 2018 -> 09:36 AM) Having just finished it hot damn that would have been awesome. Yeah - I got excited just thinking about it.

Crazy that basically 2 games separate the 3rd seed from the potential 9 seed in the west.