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QUOTE (Quinarvy @ May 29, 2015 -> 10:05 AM) If Tate is available I would all aboard that train. I think I'd take Fulmer over him, but that'd be it. Tate would be my #1. He has good size, velocity, two plus pitches and athleticism without some of the concerns over Jay / Fullmer. Basically Tate has proven he can become a starter (after pitching out of pen past two seasons) and still maintained his velocity, etc, until past few weeks where he has tired out (which is to be expected and something I hope Sox are all over and are prepared to give him rest). Fullmer has more concerns over his mechanics, etc and Jay is nice but again, we don't know how his velocity will maintain as a starter, etc. Tate would be such a good value get at the 8 spot. Jay might have higher upside then Tate though (more polish around his secondary stuff).

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 29, 2015 -> 10:14 AM) Coaches should coach. GMs should GM. That's how I see it. The Bulls PR department is doing a good job making Thibs the bad guy here, but if he was so horrible and played guys too much, why did he last 5 seasons? Why did he get a very lucrative contract extension which still has 2 years to go? You yourself are using a quote from a writer that stated he never got any info from Thibs as proof Thibs gave him info. Isn't it at least slightly possible the Van Gundy comments weren't coming from Thibs? He was speaking from common knowledge. We all knew the stories. The fact is GarPax hasn't yet shown they are any better at their jobs than the guys they fired. I hope someone with the Bulls realizes that. I think the problem is the Bulls had one of the best front offices in the league at collecting talent and one of the best coaching staffs in the league as well. Blowing both of those up would be the bigger mistake as it would leave you starting 100% from scratch. Clearly this got bad enough that JR, who was one of Tom's staunches advocates, even got off the bandwagon and decided it was time. It seems like the reality was JR would have allowed the issues to continue to go together if things were kept internally better and probably more importantly if the players didn't start to grow weary of Tom.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ May 29, 2015 -> 10:08 AM) Don't the GM and president meddle by nature...? They build the roster. We've seen the opposite. When coaches get to meddle in GM affairs like Ozzie getting Kotsay over Thome. Supposedly Thibs was the biggest supporter of drafting McDermott as well. I think the key from Reinsdor's message was in his eye, the coach and GM each have say in their world but they have to be able to work together as well. Any good organization has strong cross functional relationships built and the Bulls were lacking that. I presume Hoiberg has enough clout that he isn't taking a job to be a "yes" man, rather he is taking a job with a great roster with the chance to take this team to the next level and has a comfort that he can work well with the front office and communicate, etc.

Tate would be a great get. Easily the guy I would be most excited about falling to the sox pick.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 29, 2015 -> 08:53 AM) Skiles does have a track record of making bad teams decent, but eventually you will fire him with at least a couple of million on his contract. He is a poor man version of Thibs and a very good guy to help change the culture of the organization. He will also be reunited with Ben Gordon, haha.

I want to thank Thibs for making basketball in Chicago fun for the last 5 years and wish him the best in the future. Whoever gets him is going to get a really good coach and I hope he's learned a bit from his experience here. At the same time, I hope Hoiberg is the guy that can take the Bulls to the next level and that Doug Collins will be seated next to him. Reading Woj's article and who Forman wanted to hire instead of Thibs has me worried. I'd have been fine if they went with Pax's guy (Doug Collins) but if they hired Lawrence Frank or Mike Brown, oh my.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 28, 2015 -> 01:26 PM) Dan Bernstein @dan_bernstein · 1h 1 hour ago #Bulls sources: at least three starters ripped Thibs in exit interview, said they'd avoid team facility this summer if he were still there. Very interesting. Wonder how much truth their is to this. I presume Gasol would have been one of them.

QUOTE (bmags @ May 28, 2015 -> 11:25 AM) There have been very few changes from successful coach that ended up in elite coach. Collins to Phil, Jackson (if you could call him that) to Kerr. I don't trust Gar to do anything except look up names in an iowa phone book. Lakers did that when they moved to Phil as well. Del Harris had been a very successful coach (massing a .659 winning %)

Nike is going to be in deep trouble.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ May 27, 2015 -> 10:42 AM) Has anybody watched The Last Ship? I caught about 10 minutes of a random episode, it intrigued me. Watched last season and enjoyed it quite a bit. Looking forward to this season (whenever it starts).

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ May 26, 2015 -> 10:23 AM) My wife and I used to have a DVD player we strapped to the back of our car headrests for our kids to watch movies while we are on long drives. It died about a year ago and we never replaced it. I'd like to get something a little more "modern" than a DVD player. Ideally, I'd like either a monitor I can plug a SD card into with 20+ movies already stored on it. Or, dumb monitors I can plug an iPod touch or Android tablet into. I do not want the monitors built into the headrests. Any suggestions? I havent found anything that I like yet. Do you have an ipad or something along those lines or even just a cheap tablet? Why not just use that and then just have a contraption that works with the seats (I presume they probably exist).

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 26, 2015 -> 12:32 PM) If Rose gets hurt again this team as constructed should still make the playoffs and probably be a first round exit in the East. If the front office doesn't get the Bulls a solid back-up, ball distributing point guard who could start in a pinch, then this off-season would be a failure. In fact, I would expect a healthy Rose to get plenty of minutes next to someone who can ease his load and be a primary point guard at times. It is a huge need. There is a time and a place for guys like Aaron Brooks but their is also a time and a place for a real point guard and with Rose's health issues we need that. If we had a decent, league average distributing PG (or even slightly below league average), then I still think this team is a 2nd round playoff team without Rose.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 26, 2015 -> 11:18 AM) The Ray Rice video changed everything for wife beaters. I just saw a neighbor of mine taken away in handcuffs after choking his girlfriend a couple of weeks ago. I would hope that pre ray rice that same neighbor would have still been taken away in handcuffs and presume he would have been. I just think now the tolerance given to NFL players has grown smaller, to the point where people probably looked the other way more when it came to NFL players then normal humans but now the line has shifted to where these issues get more focus then would be from a regular "Joe or Jane".

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 26, 2015 -> 11:13 AM) Because they got burned. If you really think George McCaskey will approve a similar case in the future, I totally disagree, and good for him. I think teams can still win wife beater-free. Depends...does he look at what happened w/Bmarsh and consider that a success or not. Marshall seemed to by and large be a good community citizen with the Bears. Sure he had his issues in the clubhouse but his laundry list of problems went away or seemed to.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 26, 2015 -> 11:11 AM) Predicting it is also a part of it. There is a reason the 49ers cut him. If they didn't think he would be any more trouble, he probably still is with them. I think their is a thing to be said about moving to a new organization. Niners were in a position where they had to act, just like the Bears are in this situation now. The chargers could all turn out to be nothing but poor allegations (again I have no idea) but just as the Niners had to at some point move on, the Bears had to now and no organization is going to touch him now unless he's proven innocent in all situations and even then it is a stretch.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 26, 2015 -> 11:09 AM) I agree the PR is a huge part of this. And everyone seems to be ignoring that yes there are bad guys in every locker room, and some day, when the Bears actually have a shot of winning something, one of these guys will be available to help them, and the answer from George McCaskey will be undoubtedly be no. Happens with big organizations too, everyone remembers things that blow up or don't go well, especially when you make an exception. Whether it is a company that made an exception for someone to work at home and an employee took advantage of it or anything else. People remember mistakes more than successes.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 26, 2015 -> 10:52 AM) It's kinda someone's job to make sure you can predict those things. I'm sorry man, but no one predicts successes 100% of the time. Should every GM be fired for a bad draft choice? If you play with guys who had character issues, you are going to get burned...no doubt about it. If you want to beat up the Bears, beat them up for taking the chance and instead of a stance that they shouldn't take a chance. Don't beat them up because you want them to take a chance but they need to be right 100% of the time they do take that chance. It is an impossible bogie. From an internal perspective, you should do your diligence up to that extent if you are going to take a chance, but you should also know that no matter what, if they had past issues, future problems are a possibility and probably a probability.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ May 26, 2015 -> 10:18 AM) I guess I should have included facility specifications along with scheduling as reasons that the top seed doesn't play at home. Still, my point is that the NCAA does not arbitrarily award regionals to teams other than the top seed. I've been to games too where Fullerton has benefited (a lot of the schools on the west coast struggled to meet those requirements and Fullerton has benefited from this in the past). However, RPI outside of the top 20 and to get the top seed was fantastic for Titans. Nice late season push. They were looking much more like a 2 or even more likely a 3 seed about a month ago.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ May 26, 2015 -> 09:54 AM) Unless you have a scheduling conflict with your home stadium, those two things are a package deal. The top seeds all get to host. Actually the top seeds don't always host. There are certain requirements necessary to host and sometimes the top seed doesn't meet those requirements. It isn't just scheduling. For example, look at where the Santa Barbara regional is being played (Lake Elsinore, Ca, which is nowhere close to Santa Barbara). IIRC, the discrepancies tend to happen more with super regionals then with regionals.

I am stunned the Titans ended up hosting their regional and getting the top seed in their regional. Had a strong finish (similar to last year). Hopefully unlike last year, they can keep riding their hot streak to a title!!!

QUOTE (IowaSoxFan @ May 26, 2015 -> 07:38 AM) Thompson does not have a long term home in the organization right now, with no path to the majors. I think keeping him in AAA where he can be a force ups his trade value when the Sox need to make a move to address other areas of the ML roster. Thompson plays defense, so he should at least have some pathway to the majors because almost no one in our outfield does it very well (except for Eaton, presuming he gets back to playing D like he can).

I am 100% on board for taking Aiken.

I wonder if the Bulls bring in someone like Doug Collins to help groom Hoiberg and I wonder if Collins would have any desire. If he ever did, I have to presume the Bulls and Reinsdorf would be the one franchise he'd be willing to do it for.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ May 21, 2015 -> 03:08 PM) I went there hopeful, but Danks' Fangraphs page offers nothing exciting or encouraging. His velocity is the exact same it's been post injury, almost two full MPH lower on his heater, down to 88.4, his peripherals are slightly better than last year, but as he was bottom 5 in qualified starters last year in both xFIP and FIP, simply moving up to bottom 1/3 isn't very exciting. If anything he's now pitching like a decent 5th starter instead of an awful one. He is what he is. I don't think any of the quotes above were about him throwing harder, rather he feels he has better command and is able to get some more of his pitches to the right spot. He also seems to indicate that he might have some different deception based upon the changes (so guys aren't picking up stuff as well). I am not saying whether that is actually true or not, just stating that looking at velocity from fangraphs won't be able to validate what JD is crediting for his improvement.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 21, 2015 -> 12:11 PM) I did the independent contractor thing on a summer job in HS, no taxes were taken out initially but my employment was still IRS reported by the owner and I still had to pay them at the end of the year if income got high enough, so that's my version of it. Yeah, the employer has to 1099 you for anything you make in (as long as you make at least X amount...what that amount is I don't remember anymore). Unless of course they are doing it all under the table (which would be illegal) but that doesn't sound like the case. Their are also specific definitions as what defines a contractor, etc, but I'm not going to get into that either.