Chisoxfn

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 15, 2014 -> 06:07 AM) I'm not defending the hospital one bit. I've been saying they f***ed up from basically the beginning. Where did you get that? I'm saying "it's not spreading in any unusual way and there's no reason for this silly panic". People should be losing jobs over this and given there was a positive outbreak and the hospital screwed up, it also blows my mind how long it took the CDC or some other agency to take over from local admin in regards to this. The reality is each and every individual hospital is not going to be experts (or at least I presume they aren't) on these sort of items. They should be prepared. That doesn't mean you throw hundreds of billions at a problem either. There are plenty of other ways to solve things. Simpleton example, I could give 10 different people 1 million dollars and 8 or 9 of them would probably end up losing it all.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Oct 14, 2014 -> 05:07 PM) There are instances where local control is a good idea and instances where it isn't. Can't we stop the partisan bulls*** for one minute and have a discussion that can acknowledge that there are pros and cons to every problem we face? You of all people know better as a scientist. Evidently we can't. I'm more or less pointing out to all these excuses. How about people cut the excuses and deal with the reality of the situation. And if we can't handle this, then what are we going to do when something much more serious comes about. We need to learn our lessons now. That doesn't mean overspend and throw money at a problem either.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Oct 10, 2014 -> 08:51 AM) And yet ALMOST everyone here would be more likely to give a five year deal to Eaton as of today than Avisail Garcia. Four tools or not. To think he's ever going to be a "good or above average" fielder is pushing your luck. He's got good speed, but not in a basestealing or quick outfield jumps type of way...it's more of a 50-80 meters "top speed" after taking a long time to accelerate. In the end, it will come down to plate discipline/contact and hitting 25-35 homers with 30-40 doubles rather than 12-18 homers and 25 doubles. Both would be huge risks, Garcia to bust entirely and Eaton from a health standpoint. If someone told me I had to go long-term with one of them, I'm going with Eaton. He might have a higher injury risk but he plays plus defense, is fast, has a good eye, and is a generally good hitter with far less flaws to his game. I also think he brings a ton of value in this new era of baseball vs. Avisail who quite frankly is going to have to be a pretty good hitter to make up for his defensive shortcomings. And at this point, while I like the tools, he has a whole lot to prove about being able to be the above to well above average hitter he's going to need to be to make up for those defensive issues.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Oct 10, 2014 -> 08:51 AM) I think Eaton would probably get $12-15 mill a year in free agency. He's a similar player to Ellsbury but probably not overall as talented. Ellsbury had more power and had a far more proven track record. Now is a good time to sign Eaton. He's had one year and still hasn't proven that he can consistently stay on the field. Give him that long-term success at the right price. He wins with the long-term security and we have some upside if he stays healthy and produces like we think he can.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Oct 14, 2014 -> 01:26 PM) If I had to put money on who would win the most world series over the next ten years I'd be hard pressed to bet on anyone over the Dodgers. Their system looks outstanding, their international scouting has been of the best and they have a GM with a strong track record and an astute view of both the game and the finances of it. Julio Urias is my favorite pitching prospect in baseball and Seager is another prospect who looks to reach potential. If Kershaw and Kemp hold up that team is a force to be reckoned with. Greinke, Ryu & Puig say hi too.

What we have seen over the past year and a half under Joey D is down right embarrassing. I am not one to throw out a lot of extremes or at least I don't believe I am, however, and to be fair I've been saying this since about week 5 of last year, but I have never seen a stupider worse ran special teams unit in my life and for a full season that was while having Devin Hester and Robbie Gould, who should make almost any special teams coach look decent. It is inexcusable how bad we are from our 3rd phase of the game and how much it kills us. We get destroyed in the field position battle week in and week out and it not only hurts our defense but it hurts our offense as well and I think it plays a large part into why we have had so many yards offensively but not as many points (as we have consistently had to work with long fields). I need both hands and probably feet to count how many times this season (through 6 weeks) that we have backed ourselves between the 0-19 yard line, often times due to us making a penalty and further negating our field position. We honestly would be a better unit if we just stood there and let the other team punt and just had one guy fair catch every time with no one trying to block. I would presume, when you add in penalty yards, we would have a net negative return yards which is just absurdly pathetic. Note: According to footballoutsiders, we are ranked 30th in average starting field position per drive (through Week 5). It will likely be worse through week 6 as our average starting field position was very poor against the Falcons. This is largely driven by our poor special teams and is kind of interesting given the fact that in the Panther game we had a couple turnovers that gave us very short fields yet we still rank this poorly. Also, from the defensive perspective, we rank 31st in average starting field position per drive. Again, much to do with our special teams unit, especially since, contrary to popular belief, we rank right around the league average in turnovers / game.

Dodgers are ran by an extremely shrewd individual by the name of Stan Casten. He gets it.

QUOTE (Swingandalongonetoleft @ Oct 14, 2014 -> 12:48 PM) Depending on how you would classify Detroit, Dombrowski? I don't know that the Marlins were small market in terms of spending during Dombrowski's hayday there. In reality it doesn't happen often. Then again, there isn't exactly an extensive track record of small budget GM's doing really well. The list is extremely short and Friedman / Beane are/were the poster boys. Other small market teams (and I'll say that loosely) who have had extended success are Cardinals / Braves, however, they have had extreme continuity and made sure they spent money to take care of their baseball people. I also am pretty liberal in calling them "small market".

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 14, 2014 -> 11:54 AM) Just to point out...the CDC is not the point person on those decisions. They can advise but they aren't in control, those decisions are only made by state and local level health departments. They're the ones who have direct control over those decisions, the federal government as it stands now is not built to be able to do that. I realize CDC can't control a lot but you act like everything is hunky dory when a lot of this is up to unique individual locations / locals and that is extremely difficult to control / manage. The real saving grace we seem to have is the current fact pattern that in general, the virus is not extremely contagious. However, what we should be doing, which is easier to control, is to control protocols of people coming into the country from regions with high risk of ebola. That is much easier to control / manage then all of these individual facilities who may / may not ultimately be prepared. CDC can post and do all it wants, it may not matter at the end of the day. And if we can't be prepared to handle this, I don't even want to think how unprepared we are as a country for something much more contagious and/or unexpected.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 14, 2014 -> 11:29 AM) I was actually trying to remember, the last time a small market exec who had successes with a small resource team, took over a big market team and had success again? I can't think of many small market GM's who had success and left their teams.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Oct 14, 2014 -> 11:27 AM) The one thing that may eliminate that is Coletti technically didn't get fired, and maybe he was on board with it. But the one thing I read was this was going on way before the elimination. I could have seen if Colletti was promoted but he was made an advisor.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Oct 14, 2014 -> 11:24 AM) Well, with more money comes more opportunity...and more opportunity to f*** up on a larger scale. A lot more pressure too. No money excuse to fall back on.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Oct 14, 2014 -> 11:20 AM) They said they have been talking for weeks. Talking about another GMs job while that GM is still employed my make him a bit of an outsider to other GMs. You still have to do what's best for your team and if that is dealing with the Dodgers, you still do it, but I bet there are more than a couple of GMs that don't think too highly of what he's done. Disrespectful on all sides of true. I could see if they meant for the past week, since the Dodgers were eliminated but prior to that is just nuts.

Does Joe Madden follow?

Great hire.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Oct 14, 2014 -> 09:54 AM) I still consider him a prospect in the sense that he's got quite a bit of talent, but you need to see some kind of sign this year to even consider him a possibility moving forward. I look at Davidson right now as I did Hawkins in 2013, but there's less time for him to turn it around. One was playing his first full season in A ball and extremely young. The other was in AAA. Guys don't regularly have those type of numbers in AAA and regain their form. I'd have more faith if there was some sort of underlying issue and Sox had some form of track record at helping hitters with his issues. I agree he has some tools but he's lousy defensively, strikes out a lot and does not appear to be capable of hitting for much of an average, nor does he appear to be much of a OBP guy. In general, I find it extremely unlikely that he will provide anything but negative value.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Oct 14, 2014 -> 09:42 AM) http://www.chicagonow.com/future-sox/2014/...dseason-top-25/ Ummmmmmm, we kinda disagree with that. Haha - That was in early August when he had a little run of productivity. I'd put the odds of him making it on the pretty low end. Plus I recall in all of the discussions pretty much every one of us throwing up at the notion with Davidson.

I think this has been beaten to death here on Soxtalk. To sum it up, I don't know that anyone thinks Davidson is a prospect anymore (Maybe 2 people). I don't think anyone thinks Reed is a great closer. Logically I think the majority felt that it made sense to trade Reed for a 3B prospect, problem was the Sox didn't target the right 3B prospect. I think there are some, a smaller percentage but not a minimal number, who thought they should have kept Reed given he was still cost effective and still solid and while he may not have been a great closer, could still have been a valuable member. In hindsight, while you can argue the theory behind the trade, I don't think anyone can really argue the results. At this point, Reed has more trade value then Davidson. We can debate Reed's value but we've already done that to death as we have Davidson and the trade so my vote is for the time being to let this argument die. Its ran its path here at Soxtalk.

Perfect. Thanks Hickory. If there are other key dates people have, post them in here and I'll add it to the top.

Closing this thread as it has become far too much of a catch all and is capturing news that should be split out for easier identification.

Splitting this into a separate thread and I'm closing the massive catch all thread.

5th day after end of World Series - Deadline for teams to tender qualifying offers to their own free agents/Start of free agency 12th day after end of World Series - Deadline for free agents to accept or reject qualifying offers November 10-12 - GM meetings November 20 - Deadline to add players to 40-man roster to protect them from Rule 5 Draft December 2 - Deadline to tender offers to arbitration-eligible players December 8-11 - Winter meetings/ Rule 5 Draft

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Oct 14, 2014 -> 04:46 AM) The best part about this post is I have no idea what that song is. Give it a few more months (not sure when the due date is) because you'll start rocking out to disneysong pandora with your little one, haha. I'll be at work and all of a sudden I'll be singing...winnie the pooh bear winning the pooh in my head.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Oct 14, 2014 -> 08:35 AM) Oh yes. He hated Colon. I don't understand why either, Colon was a good pitcher for the Sox his first go around, and they got him for essentially nothing. Was one of the best trades you could make for an ace. I still have no idea how that team, with all the talent, didn't go anywhere. I remember Colon was just filthy down the stretch that year.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Oct 14, 2014 -> 08:39 AM) Thinking about hitting up my boss for this for my office.... I wouldn't be surprised if in 5-10 years that is pretty common place in the work environment. I'd take one although I'd also want a regular desk in my office too.