Chisoxfn

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 14, 2015 -> 08:45 PM) Hah. Well, I live in an interesting area. Lots of old money. This is where the folks who made Vegas famous once lived. Large lots, lots of privacy, no HOAs, mature trees, grass, etc. Entirely different than anything else in Vegas. You wouldn't even know you were in Vegas, except for that the Strip and the downtown are only 5 minutes away. Additionally, it is located in the middle of the Vegas Valley, and so you're never too far from anything. Really an awesome place to live. And my property taxes are a whopping $1500/yr. The woman I bought this house from is Phyllis McGuire. She is also my neighbor. Google her. Anyways, yeah, for whatever reason, as this is an older area, and there certainly are some shady areas to the north of us, the school district is not good. Everyone in this particular neighborhood/area sends their kids to private schools. The area we would look at is where the new money is. Newer homes, all kinds of crazy development, so every store, restaurant, amenity is nearby. It isn't close to the Strip or Downtown area, but it isn't too far either. Maybe 25 minutes away. Property taxes are much closer to Chicago's. $8-9k year, and then all kinds of other bs as well. HOA's, SIDs and LIDs. Homes are going to be $800k at minimum, with most of them closer to double that. While I am on a pretty good career arc right now, not sure I won't just pay the $10-12k per year for school. What is a SID / LID?

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Dec 14, 2015 -> 04:17 PM) NBA ref Bill Kennedy comes out as gay after Rondo directs gay slurs at him during a game What Rondo said and how he said it was classless. A 1 game suspension doesn't seem right.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Dec 14, 2015 -> 04:16 PM) While some of the logic may be flawed, the underlying principle is what's important. The ownership group must invest in the team now if it's wants to acheive sustainable success. They need to stop blaming the fans for not coming out and supporting a garbage product. Successful organizations (in any line of business) don't blame the consumer for their financial issues, they find a way to invest in their product to generate value. Therefore, spend some money and add an impact free agent or two; go into the red for a few years if need be. Put a quality product on the field for an extended period of time (i.e. more than one year) and the fans & revenue will follow. Half-assing it like we do most years is the worst possible decision we can make. We need a clear direction and if "going for it" isn't a feasible option, then start selling pieces and start from scratch. I agree with everything you said and I think right now, they haven't pigeon holed themselves to one direction vs. the other yet. What they can't do is the status quo or even worse move assets for a half assed contention. Either contend or retool with a longer term plan. That could mean you sign a big name and focus on turning some assets for the future or that just fit better.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Dec 14, 2015 -> 04:08 PM) That's where I'm at. I really think it'll be both or neither. Upton the Sox could do and you don't need to do anything else (as it could be part of a longer term plan of get closer this year with an, if everything goes well, we are their but if not, we are just another year of development, etc away from contending more longer term). However, if you go the Frazier route I think the Sox absolutely need to surround that move with another move to ensure a much higher probability of post-season entrance. I say that because you are actually giving up assets to get Frazier (and I'm not counting a sandwich pick at the same level as real, close major league ready assets such as Anderson +) who is only here for 2 years. If you do that and can't contend, that is extremely disappointing.

Interesting premise but inherently flawed premise to assume you make the playoffs all those years. I think you need to look at the upside and potential downside to better argue why economically it makes sense. I also presume an off-season ago you could have ran this same model with Melky / Robertson / LaRoche and projected playoffs too (doesn't mean you are right). I do agree that on paper if you go with Upton and another above average player (Frazier or someone else) than you are talking about potential playoff team. Same could be said if you went after Upton and say Kendrick.

I am so glad Rose got his haircut and ditched the mask. Now to hope it has a positive impact on his performance.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Dec 14, 2015 -> 01:06 PM) I agree. Swallow hard JR, and be prepared to take a bath if it doesn't work. If he isn't willing, then see what you can get for your players. Half assed doesn't work . Somehow it seems half assed / in between is the direction we are headed. To me, start to rebuild with an eye longer term or go at this thing. One or the other. I'm not saying you need to make your mind up immediately, but then need to be very careful that they don't over commit one way and than it is too late to head the other direction (because the market has tried up).

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Dec 14, 2015 -> 12:56 PM) Dan Hayes seems to think the White Sox won't be signing a big bat free agent, and most likely won't be trading for Frazier. Of course they could be playing with him. To be honest, doing that and just hoping for our vets to improve is better than trading top prospects for Frazier (and I don't like the stand pat plan either). IF we are going to make a run at this, we need to go all in and add Frazier plus an Upton. If you sign Upton, fine, that can be part of a longer term plan, but wasting pieces on Frazier without having an aggressive and legit plan to contend for both of his seasons under team control is just absurd in my eyes...absurd.

QUOTE (fathom @ Dec 14, 2015 -> 12:21 PM) Amazing how bad the Dodgers personnel decisions have been going back to last year's trade deadline. Its hard to blame them, since they have a fantastic farm system that should help them, but Andrew and the GM are clearly putting a ton of faith in the develoment of those kids. If they don't pan out, they are done. Trading them for vets would have been the safer move, especially given the payroll they have to work with. That said, I think they are under somewhat of an order to minimize future payroll. They will always spend but I don't think they will have the blank check they did when they first jumped in. The company that owns them, owns them to make money.

Geeze...Dodgers have stood pat (and really got worse with the loss of Greinke) while Dbacks and Giants have aggressively made moves. Tough division. A year ago Pads failed but went aggressive too. Everyone in that division (but Rocks) seems to want it.

The guy is the biggest liar in the history of the game. He waved his hand and continued to lie and even when he "came clean" he was still lying and lying. Unless you open up a wing for cheaters, Rose should never be admitted into the hall of fame and he absolutely should be banned from the game.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 14, 2015 -> 08:38 AM) Thanks Jason, that is very helpful. The cost is indeed ridiculous. It's going to make me think about just moving to a different part of town and taking advantage of the public schools, as much as that will be a difficult decision to make. Yeah - The city we live in has fantastic public schools, so once they are old enough to transition, they will (so in my eyes, this is a temporary cost, of course some of that cost will transition to other things as the kids get older and more expensive, whether sporting activities, gymnastics, etc). This is more of the education/daycare before you can get into public school. I think it isn't until like 5 that you can send your kids to public school (or something like that). We probably will keep our child in the program for an extra year (when public opens) but that will be more because the school is only a few hours that first year so you'd have to pay for a 2nd form of daycare anyway so at that point, we'd rather her just stay in the same school for a little longer. LDF said it more concise, but I am a big believer in socialization and independence/independent play time.

So shack, our close to 2.5 year old started at a montesorri school when she got around 20 months (in what I think most schools call a "Toddler" program). Prior to that she was watched by a combination of my mom and mother/father in-law and once we had our 2nd, we knew it was time to send our little one to school (otherwise too much to ask for our parents). We had already been researching schools and found one in our area that we liked a ton. The difference in cost in our area was very minimal so no matter the school/daycare (full day), you were looking at somewhere between $1000 - 1500 / month. We went to quite a few and than picked the one we ultimately felt most comfortable with (helped that we knew some people who had used the school). Combination of recommendations and our gut feel were helpful and we also did a once a week mommy / daddy & me class at the facility, which firmed our thoughts. The big goal for us was obviously a combination of alleviating the parents, but also it was for our daughter. We wanted her to benefit from the social interactions she didn't get as much of staying at home and also just the overall enrichment in terms of activities (while we would try we couldn't make our house be like a school...just harder and grandparents don't want to be the disciplinarians either so while they were watching, we had to deal with the inconsistent discipline which would be frustrating. Since our daughter as started, the only real downside I can see (other than the cost) is the colds that come with it (But it strengthen's the immune system). She has a ton of fun and is excited every morning for school. She's also became far more independent and self confident. All that said, the cost is absurd and it took me a long time to get comfortable with it (afterall, it was more than my tuition and cost of books for a semester at college when I started college), but at the end of the day, we couldn't be happier with our decision. We love her teacher and the assistant teachers and we've gotten a little parent / kid group together for other activities as well (which was nice since most of our friends haven't had kids yet..at least the ones that live around us). Now our daughter gets the involvement from us (and we are super involved), plus time with her grandparents (goes their when school ends so she can play with her cousin and see her lil brother who gets watched). I'm just not looking forward to when our son starts in a bit and we are doubling down on those payments. The whole sibling 10% off discount isn't super helpful, haha. Oh and one of the reasons we went with the 5 day vs. the 3 day is we read and talked to people and kind of determined that ultimately the more consistent the routine for the young child the better. Given our daughter, I think if we had done a 3 day program, she'd still be adjusting (she was super clingy to her mom and especially me). On the grand scheme of things though, I think the key is parental invovlement and early education. Ultimately as long as they are in a "safe" place and get parental involvement and access to learning, that is huge. It is also important that they are encouraged to do/try to do things on their own (they quickly become little people and as they learn to do things on their own and you see how proud they are and confident, you can't help but smile).

QUOTE (bmags @ Dec 14, 2015 -> 07:23 AM) I'm fine with this season. Next year everyone will say "man the bears performed poorly in one score games, they should see a regression", and they are probably right! The real issue to clean up next year, assuming kicker returns to normal, is penalties. Upgrading at guard seems like it should kill two birds with one stone there. Yeah - Gould is an issue that will get addressed. Either we'll see him correct / clean-up his mechanics or we won't and they'll make changes. The penalties and poor oline play (that sack leading to a fumble in first half was brutal and it wasn't the only lets get Jay killed moment by the oline). You realize our play calling has masked what is still a really horrific unit.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Dec 13, 2015 -> 08:48 PM) The play calling could have been better, but let's not kid ourselves. This one is on Gould. We were in position to tie and he failed. Okay I realize part of this is cause he missed the easy ones a week before. But 50 yards in those conditions is no gimme. I really don't understand what the hell we were doing with the playcalling, etc. That said, our oline played like ass. I didn't even know how Jay was walking after that first half.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Dec 8, 2015 -> 12:17 PM) Saw them all in the theater. Original trilogy in 98 or so when they relaunched as special editions (had obviously already watched on VHS) and the second trilogy on opening nights. Ditto...and somehow I'll continue that tradition on Friday when I see it in non 3D.

Agree, I think Jim does an excellent job. That said, the discussion is awful their (maybe because I'm too old school and can't possibly figure out how to even follow their conversations). I pretty much stick to this forum...any other I find the actual discussion horrible. Just a bunch of people making absurd comments. I know people think Soxtalkers make absurd comments, but damn, some other sites (which are popular) are beyond crazy at how uncivil and terrible the discussion is. For example, chicitysports...my god, I can't even read more than a a few posts. It is pathetic. Sad cause they do get some good discussion on the Bears but too many people just want to say their name associated with a post or something.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 11, 2015 -> 12:43 PM) Iowa State doing their thing again. Were down 20 to Iowa in the 2nd half, closed on a 9 point run to win 83-82. This won't work in B12 play. More like Iowa doing their thing. Seems like they consistently are blowing wins against ISU. Damn that was disappointing.

QUOTE (bmags @ Dec 11, 2015 -> 11:53 AM) Yeah, I have some hope that his vision really is messing things up considering he wasn't this bad in playoffs last year, but his complete inability to finish in a crowded space is just heartbreaking. Rose is done. Noah's done. We went from a young, explosive athletic team, to a slow plodding group. Not fun to watch. Yeah - Their is zero reason for him to be worse this season than last season. His passing has taken a step forward, which you would have expected. I didn't expect his shooting to regress from what was already poor though. In his defense, defensively, he's been pretty good the last few nights. Mentally he doesn't have that offensive edge, but the Bulls offense looks pretty s***ty most times anyway of late (no one looks like they know what they want to do). And if we are going to be run and gun, Gasol certainly isn't a fit. I honestly don't think we are a team that should be playing with crazy pace. It doesn't suit a lot of our lineup.

Where is Cheat / Gene Honda?

QUOTE (Baron @ Dec 11, 2015 -> 11:39 AM) Ofcourse they get a ton of credit. But if we're doing about player comparisons I'm not taking Eaton over Jason Heyward. I think comparing their contract status is silly. The circumstances are completely different for each player. They all fit in a 25 man roster with payroll constraints. I want the best roster of talent per $ spent I could put together. If I only had 125M to spend, I could build a better team if I had 5 Adam Eaton's, etc. If I am the Dodgers, I might have a slightly different opinion as the extent I need to have surplus talent is minimized as the payroll capabilities grow higher. When I think about Eaton or Hayward, who is the better player, it is Heyward. When I think of who I'd rather have on the Sox from a building of the franchise perspective, I think they are pretty close. You absolutely can't ignore contracts.

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ Dec 11, 2015 -> 11:36 AM) Orioles pulled it. Mixed reports to whether it was ever out their.

QUOTE (Baron @ Dec 11, 2015 -> 11:31 AM) I love when people throw the 4 times number out there without context. If Adam Eaton hit the open market today you think he would be signing for a reasonable deal after what Heyward just signed for? No. Heyward hit the market at 26(1 day younger than Rizzo btw). That almost never happens. It's a fairly poor comparison and done without thinking about the situation both are in. You have to give the White Sox credit for trading for Eaton and recognizing the value to lock him up longer term. They get blame when they screw up, but this was a very good thing. Having Eaton on this roster, not only makes the team better (as he's a good player) but it allows the franchise to spend additional resources addressing other needs (similar to say Q or Sale). Heyward is the better player and ultimately on a winning club you need a combination of guys like eaton (who have surplus value vs. their actual contract) and actual star / good players who may not have "surplus" value but are just good / solid all around players (or even stars that are paid to be stars).

Their is a place for both. I think Eaton's contract provides nice surplus value and he's an above average player at his position. I'd like to see him take the next step from a consistency perspective and ideally see him revert back to being an above average fielder. Eaton absolutely has a place in this game and so does Heyward. I am very happy we have an asset like Eaton around for the next few years.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 11, 2015 -> 11:20 AM) I lot of it for me is his inability to finish. He gets close to the rim, but he's not trying to dunk on people like he used to. He's going through the motions and you can tell on just about every play. And I think it is totally mental at this point. Its the only reason I still have hope that at some point he just gets that swagger back and realizes he needs to play that way. He plays afraid now.