Chisoxfn

QUOTE (chw42 @ Mar 27, 2015 -> 12:01 PM) Eh I guess you have somewhat of a point. You have to get through Cleveland one way or another, why not just do it earlier? But you also have to realize Rose needs time to adjust and get his game back. So barring injury, he's better off playing any team other than Cleveland before the CF. Because our team would still likely be in the process of geling. Tough part about 4 seed is you have a much tougher match-up in first round (6 / 7 / 8 seeds are much worse than 5 seed).

QUOTE (tpezz27 @ Mar 26, 2015 -> 04:08 PM) Tommy John for Brady Aiken. http://www.rotoworld.com/headlines/mlb/457...my-john-surgery If you are the White Sox, do you take your chances and draft Aiken in the first after agreeing to a well below slot signing and than from there have cushion to be a little extra aggressive in the later rounds (nabbing some guys who fell). I guess the question is how much less would Aiken take and what are the Sox view of his recovery / med's and overall upside. If we were picking later in the 1st round, I'd say it was an easier decision. I also am not sure if fact we don't have 2nd / 3rd round picks makes situation better or worse.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Mar 26, 2015 -> 01:27 PM) My scenerio is he makes the team, makes 2 starts, gets injured and winds up on the DL for the rest of the season. That would basically cost 2 years. I don't understand these writers, it is 2 weeks as a rookie vs. an entire season when you should be at the peak of your career. Not to mention, if Rodon comes up and is really good, you have a harder time saving him for the latter part of the season due to innings restrictions. Reality is we should have Rodon focusing on developmental pitches and aspects of his game in the minors and than give him a nice adjustment to the major league level while monitoring innings and almost having a built in "break" somewhere in the season to ensure that you can control his innings while building up his durability, etc.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 26, 2015 -> 01:19 PM) Bernie Pleskoff ‏@BerniePleskoff 1h1 hour ago Heard it from scout today: #WhiteSox Carlos Rodon reminds him of "young Steve Carlton." Not too shabby. I love what I've seen of Rodon. I've liked everything I've seen from Rodon, however, I think when he goes to the minors he needs to really focus on throwing his fastball, change and cutter and go a handful of games without throwing more than X sliders (or even throwing the slider at all). It is the development of those other pitches (in addition to the obvious things like health) which will be the driver in whether he can reach his ceiling or not (and that ceiling is very high).

Great road win. Dominate 4th quarter!!! 4-0 against Raptors on the year. Team appears to be gelling a bit. Hopefully we get some good news about Rose this week and maybe late next week we have him back (and everybody else stays healthy...along with Derrick).

QUOTE (bmags @ Mar 25, 2015 -> 10:53 AM) Yeah, luckily he's just a guy that left visible bruises on his pregnant girlfriend. I actually was really down on McDonald but from what I have read, his girlfriend beat him up and he basically put his hands on her to remove her from him. He supposedly did not strike her or anything of the sort, rather removed her from him and given his size vs. hers it left some minor bruising. It doesn't sound as if he struck her. In fact, I thought I had heard something about she had hit him or pointed a gun at him. Not saying the guy is a saint or anything but it appears that most people close to the investigation do not believe he did it. Hub had a good article referencing a close contact he had in the Niners organization who vouched for Ray and said he did not believe the allegations were true.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Mar 25, 2015 -> 10:03 AM) Apparently John Fox said that the team approached him about restructuring his contract. No word on whether he agreed to do it I tend to think that Jay without Marshall will be a good thing. I think Jay probably was in some extremely difficult positions given his friendship with B as to how to handle the whole B being a lockeroom cancer thing. We know Jay has his flaws as a leader but he works hard, etc, and I think being in that position where he isn't a "strong" leader was pretty difficult (in addition to not having someone else in the lockeroom that could control the situation).

Good news on the Rose front.

QUOTE (bmags @ Mar 25, 2015 -> 07:05 AM) His assertion that Pace went about this in a psychotic way...actually, i'm struggling to even see in his debased mind what pace did wrong in the process of this signing. I don't like this signing, i hate the mindset of football organizations that don't care how the employees of their billion dollar product may bulldoze people and use their influence to get out of it, but getting internal buy-in for a move you know is not a run-of-the-mill signing, and getting everyone to stand behind it is a sign of a well-run organization, not a bad one. The idea that this could be a bad sign about pace, and not be referencing judgement in signing McDonald is ridiculous. I agree. I think the way the Bears have handled everything in regards to this was pretty solid. Smells like a well ran organization with strong lines of communication, etc. Plus it was important to be in front of this vs. being behind and I think they basically immediately handled the situation given the background of the player they brought in.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 24, 2015 -> 02:19 PM) Leury ought to work as an actual super-sub. Every one of those guys along with the OFs can sit one day a week. That's 5-6 games Leury could play a week, and that's assuming no one gets hurt which will happen at some poitn. You said it far more elegantly than I did.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 24, 2015 -> 02:08 PM) He is not even going to play every day in the minors. Between Saladino, Sanchez, and Leury there are plenty of at bats to go around (in addition to the DH position and having those guys play in the outfield). The reality is all of them are most likely utility candidates and all have their own unique skillsets. The position Leury was put in was an almost impossible position to succeed in last year but his defensive tools are far greater than Saladino or Sanchez, imo. His bat is behind the others and his speed is better than the others. I see no reason why anyone has a concern. Every guy could split time and there would still be plenty of developmental at bats and consistent play to go around (additionally, injuries happen). Plus Davidson could get his days off as well and open up some more at bats there too. Cutting Leury would be a mistake, imo. I think when it comes to people like this, you see who might be the hot hand at the time and they get the shot should the need at the big league level open up.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Mar 24, 2015 -> 11:11 AM) i dont want distractions(and i dont want McDonald), but I think that Marshall is in a different stratosphere than McDonald in that regard. From a checkered past, if McDonald truly has video evidence proving his innocence, than he isn't even in the same stratosphere as Brandon. Brandon has made significant changes in his life but the guy's rap sheet and his life prior to that was a complete an utter disaster. You think about the stuff people say about Dez and Marshall was probably worse.

QUOTE (shipps @ Mar 24, 2015 -> 07:54 AM) Are you guys disliking a McDonald signing because of his off the field stuff or the on the field play? The real question to me is what is the true story behind his off the field stuff. From an on the field perspective, it is a great signing. Off the field, I think it comes down to what the real story was.

Great stuff Q. Some awesome pictures in there. What kind of camera were you using?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 23, 2015 -> 11:13 AM) The Zags have looked great so far. Much better than I thought they would. If I redid my bracket, I'd have Gonzaga advancing all the way to till they play Kentucky. I'm 10th in my work pool (out of ~400 participants). Problem is, I had ISU and Virginia in finals (so realistically I have almost zero chance at winning it). Kills me cause I had originally had MSU going into elite 8 and backed away from it. PS: It is also the only pool I am playing in. I'm not one of those chumps who has practically every scenario imaginable and 18 different final 4 possibilities.

Gonzaga looked really really good. I was impressed. Now watch them go lose to Iowa.

I like Eaton a lot. He does a lot of things right on the baseball field. Now he just needs to stay on the baseball field and keep developing!!!

Love it...enjoy tonight but than refocus on the next one. Lets take down them Zags!!!

Evidently Cowley was on some show and indicated there is a good chance Thibbs / Front Office are able to mend things up in the off-season. I think a lot of people, including Friedell, have indicated that unless we win it all, Thibbs is gone. However, it sounds like JR and Pax are big proponents of Thibbs and there is beginning to be more sentiment to have everyone get together in the off-season (and ideally level heads will prevail). Personally I hope it is true (I also hope we win it all). Also pointed out it is unlikely Bulls will move Taj (to create minutes for Nik) as they view Taj as protection for Noah departing in 2016. Also indicated org is very confident of an early April return of Rose.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Mar 20, 2015 -> 06:51 AM) You let him make the decision for you. There are still a couple of weeks left. If he continues to play well, you give him a shot. There are a lot of players that never played AAA. There are some that played very little. When Gordon Beckham came up, he had 7 games in AAA, and was a star like performer. The one thing you have to consider is how he will deal with failure, which occurs with everyone. It ate Beckham up. Micah is supposed to be hard on himself. There could be an argument that Beckham should have spent more time in AAA, but he certainly looked ready the first 100 games on the major league level, so I don't know how those games being in AAA would have made him better. I don't think Micah necessarily needs to play more in AAA if he continues to do what he's doing. But I do think the big test is going to be when things aren't going his way. And that happens to everyone. Beckham's problem happened after that successful off-season where he made significant adjustments to his swing, etc, because he ultimately lacked confidence in what he was doing and thought he needed to do more and was making the necessary adjustments to get better. As a result, the mental game took a serious toll on Gordon as after that point, he has really struggled being able to put together a consistent swing. He's swing is in constant flux and was lengthened from where it was early in his career.

QUOTE (Palehosefan @ Mar 19, 2015 -> 08:32 PM) Awesome little boy joined our lives 8 months ago, so I have been relegated to reading the board when I have time :-). Awesome news. Congrats!!!

By the way heads...thanks for ending my bracket about as quickly as it started. I was a total turd for having ISU in the final.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 18, 2015 -> 09:04 AM) Going off of fangraphs, I think he must be about where he was during the season last year. They had his average fastball at 91.7, which if a guy is "touching 94" sitting at 91-92 makes sense to me. http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playe...&position=P Now he is he touching 94 now, does that mean he has room to move up as he gets into shape this year? I have no idea. See this is where facts get in the way with my memory. I remember him being much more of a junkballer late in his career (not like Weaver or Buehrle) but not like he used to be. In reality, his FB velocity in his earlier days was much lower than I recalled. We are talking pretty small sample sizes though and we are comparing statistics of him pitching largely out of the pen vs. rotation. Given that since 2012 (MLB appearances only), he's played in just 37 games and of those games, only 11 starts.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 18, 2015 -> 07:44 AM) We've seen these reports for a couple years now. His mistakes on defense were usually a lack of focus or trying to get to cute. Those are very much fixable. What I like about Micah is not only does he have some nice tools, he seems to have a really solid head on his shoulders and in baseball, more than any other sport, I think that is critical. Failures mount up in baseball and it takes serious adversity and mental fortitude to make it through it (along with hard work, skills, ability to adjust, etc).

QUOTE (LDF @ Mar 18, 2015 -> 07:48 AM) many thanks for this. i really thought he was better than 94 mph fastball. If you had seen Penny during the last 3-4 years, I don't know if he was sitting in the low 90's. I'd be impressed if he was sitting in the low 90's (would mean he's healthier and stronger), let alone if he's hitting 94. I presume he won't be able to sustain that over a long season but the goal of the 5th spot is probably a stop gap until Rodon is ready so I could see where Sox could say, Brad, let her fly and than we'll move you into the pen when its done (obviously he'll say, I'll fight and fight to keep the spot and Noesi will battle it out as well). Of course, a lot of this is a moot point anyway as Penny really is pitching in the "6th" spot as we really are talking about 1 to 2 starts until Sale steps back in the rotation. However, if Noesi falters, I suppose it is nice to know their is a veteran there that maybe you can get a few games out of. Expecting anything more than that would be crazy, imo.