Chisoxfn

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 30, 2018 -> 03:38 PM) We just booked our room to do Disney this summer. God help me. I LOL'd at your facebook post on the pool. I really wanted to reply, "after you threw the chicken bones in the pool, did you ask for a discount" haha.

QUOTE (WBWSF @ Mar 30, 2018 -> 04:04 PM) The Sun Times had a list of MLB team payrolls for 2018 in todays paper. The White Sox were listed as being 28th with a team payroll of $73 million dollars. Obviously they can spend some money if they want to. We shall see if they actually do that. How is the teams payroll even that high? Shields obviously is a huge part of that.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 30, 2018 -> 02:19 PM) Avi was an above average defender during 2017 by most metrics. It is why I have become much more pro Avi. In the past, Avi was so freaking bad defensively, he'd have to mash to be somewhat serviceable. Now he's become respectable in the field, which means if he hits well, you really get a quality player. One thing about Avi is, he has a phenomenal work ethic. I'm a believer in Avi at this point (amazing since I was one of his biggest detractors a few years back).

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Apr 4, 2018 -> 10:28 AM) There is always a Hornets/Kings/Magic GM out there willing to make a splash Given how few teams have money, I'd really be shocked if anyone gave Lavine a max deal.

And I can't blame anyone in the Bulls front office for the last 3 wins. They are clearly attempting to tank. The bright side is Lauri is finishing the year off strong.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Apr 4, 2018 -> 07:42 AM) So, how many of you are willing to give Lavine the max? I don't even know what to think of Lavine. Hard to count much anything in terms of his overall performance this year. Coming off of injury, etc...hard to evaluate. I certainly wouldn't give him a max deal, but I am intrigued by his talent.

QUOTE (bmags @ Apr 4, 2018 -> 07:33 AM) Are any other Bears fans sorta unexcited about this draft? Like there's one scenario where it goes great (Chubb), then probably good (Fitzpatrick), then okay, I guess (Nelson), then well if we have to (Smith, Edmunds). Add to that the Bears are once again not the "fulcrum" pick. Though there are teams that are keen to trade up, the bears are not the team ahead of teams that people worry about. Boring. If Mayfield is on the board when we are picking and the Bills haven't moved up more, it will be interesting to see if we are getting calls from the Bills / Cardinals. I don't see Nelson / Chubb being available, however, I think there is nice depth at the LB spot, which is also a major position of need. I'm a big proponent of moving down a few spots (unless Chubb is there). I actually could see Pace moving up in the draft, either for Chubb or Barkley (with the Colts being the most likely trade partner). That said, Chubb may not be the bets fit for our system, so you have to take that into account.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Apr 3, 2018 -> 12:05 PM) Bears signed OL Earl Watford Quality depth signing. Can play every position on the line.

I think for the purposes of replacing a typical "whistle" great, however, I kind of don't like it when used during the game and in advance of at bats. Maybe it was all in good fun, I just don't know, but I think Boston should be careful.

I don't know that we will get 6. Need to pretty much lose out. I'm hoping we get lucky and Michael Porter magically falls to us and is magically healthy and becomes amazing or that we get lucky with the lottery odds.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Apr 2, 2018 -> 06:16 AM) But, again, that was not the suggestion. The suggestion was that Thomas says he wants to go to college and does not want to be drafted as a ruse to have him last until the second round when the Sox draft him. That is quite different from your scenario. And, I guarantee you if something like this happens where the Sox take him in the second round and he told teams not to draft him because he wanted to play in college, MLB would investigate immediately and the Sox would be punished heavily for doing something like that. How is it much different than an Eli Manning or John Elway making very public statements around what team drafts him. Ultimately in the draft, I think teams can do all kinds of work around deals, etc. I mean you have pre-draft deals agreed to, so I don't see how this would actually be a violation of the rules. The reality is it is up to teams to call Thomas bluff or any other player who pulls that sort of card.

QUOTE (ron883 @ Apr 1, 2018 -> 08:49 PM) Truth. White Sox used this same trick to dupe teams into not drafting Kenny William's son. They swooped in like bandits and stole him in the later rounds. Oh man...this post cracked me up. Hilarious.

The final four wasn't as good as I'd have liked, but as a whole, it really was an incredible tourney. One of the best tournaments in years. Lots of great stories, great games, Cinderella's, etc.

So I got to admit, when I turned the game on, I immediately thought of Brian and said, crap, I hope he hedged his tourney bracket and put down at least a sizeable bet on Nova to ensure that even in the event of a Michigan loss, he at least got "paid". So Brian...I hope you at least did that so you won some money vs. getting punched in the gut and than kicked in the balls.

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Apr 2, 2018 -> 02:04 PM) This x1000000 And it is why I don't see "tanking" being a long-term big issue in baseball. You flat out don't get magically better based upon a couple years of draft picks. Baseball's draft and the way the game works is just so so much different than basketball. Basketball has a tanking problem...baseball might have too many teams trying to rebuild at the moment, but I don't think it has a "tanking" problem. I never have viewed the Sox rebuild strategy as being highly contingent on them getting a top X pick...now I do think the rebuilding strategy is aided by good drafting, but I think good teams draft well and how high you pick doesn't have near the correlation it does in other sports (not to mention in baseball..it is so hard for one player to carry a team...case in point, Mike Trout). I do think we will see many teams "humbled" by how difficult it is to tank/rebuild because everyone thinks because the Cubs / Astros did it, it is just so easy. The reality is that it isn't and older, more veteran players are the new "moneyball" as they have ultimately been devalued for the much more attractive, cost controlled young player? Just my two cents...we'll see longer term if I'm right.

QUOTE (Tony @ Apr 2, 2018 -> 12:55 PM) Social Media is able to create a snowball effect that is unlike anything we've ever seen in our culture, in terms of how quick it can happen and take on a life of its own. Ultimately social media is not good or healthy. It will be interesting to see what happens with it over time, especially as more studies are done and as more linkage comes out related to increased suicide rates (especially in youths), etc. There are pluses to social media, but my personal opinion is there are a heck of a lot of negatives. Of course that comes from someone who largely stays away from social media (so I might be a bit biased / jaded).

As a heads up, I am tentatively planning for the new phase of the upgrade to occur on the next day off for the Sox.

QUOTE (Knuckles @ Mar 28, 2018 -> 02:05 PM) Gage, When do you anticipate the upgrade to take place? Is talkbears alrso run by you? Yep (talkbears is ran by me plus the other admins) - Final talkbears upgrade will happen tomorrow. Than reskinning talkbears (and at the same time designing a Soxtalk skin) and based upon how painful that whole process is...will than develop a roadmap for Soxtalk.

QUOTE (mac9001 @ Mar 28, 2018 -> 12:45 PM) People put way too much stock into spring training. He's got a long way to go. But I expect he'll be in AA at some point this year. With pitchers you can at least get an idea about how good the "stuff" is. Obviously a lot more to succeeding at the big league level, but I look more at young pitchers "stuff" during spring training than anything else. Whether they have good results or bad results, less important...the kid is young and obviously has a lot of things to work on, but nice to see when they show that the stuff plays at least.

I am pretty excited to have a mobile supported platform. Will be quite nice. I will say though, the new forum software is so weird and talkbears isn't even a good example (yet) cause it is still one full cycle behind the state of the art platform. By EOD tomorrow, talkbears.com will be there and than I have to asses the path to getting Soxtalk fully there (mainly in terms of when to plan outages, etc). I can take a similar approach to talkbears where I will try to do work late at night in between the upgrades to minimize downtime ("if all goes well") and I'll ensure ample back-ups, but Soxtalk's database is so large that some of the queries I'll have to run will likely take significant time. Before anything happens, I'll make sure to have posts up and can ensure people (outside of the server blowing up, which I DO NOT EXPECT related to this work) that even if the main forum is down, there will be a redirect link taking them to a temporary forum. Will try to target the upgrades during off-days.

QUOTE (Jake @ Mar 28, 2018 -> 11:54 AM) I've always had a fear that at some point things would change with our browsers, the web, the underlying software, etc. and it would lead ST to not really work...and perhaps it would be too hard by then to upgrade. Glad to see we're going to be brought up to date. One day there will probably be a time where invision doesn't exist or some other tool is ultimately necessary to move...but damn it, as long as I'm standing (or breathing), I'll do my very best to ensure the Soxtalk legacy stays around and my wife knows that it is important so if something were to happen to me, it wouldn't just "dissapear".

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Mar 28, 2018 -> 09:26 AM) I know that the upcoming upgrade to the new Invision forum is more than just layout, but man, the current layout of this site is much better looking than the new ones such as talkbears I agree with you. That is why we are working to see how we can customize / tailor it to look prettier.

I suspect it will be Kopech. Jimenez has crushed, but he still has extremely limited experience above A ball.

If people want to see some of the functionality, feel free to check out www.talkbears.com which was upgraded one version up (still one version away from where Soxtalk will ultimately be). You just have to ignore the fact that none of the "skins" are customized.

One other major enhancement of the new forum will be a mobile interface so that everyone can post from their phones with far more ease.