Chisoxfn

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 20, 2014 -> 02:54 PM) Rick Hahn also noted that next year, a group of college and high-school aged players will be made available to the White Sox through a process he described as a draft. However, he cautioned that those players might not be ready for big league level competition and thus might be sent to other teams filled with young and non-big-league-quality baseball players to practice and improve at the game prior to arrival on the White Sox. The fact that he happened to specifically comment on a trade, is news worthy and could be an indicator something might just happen. Albeit, probably something minimal like the Sox saving one months worth of Beckham or Dunn's pay.

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Aug 20, 2014 -> 02:52 PM) Anybody think Hahn has talked to Konerko about going to a contender for his last hurray? No.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 20, 2014 -> 02:03 PM) You're also right, there are people who don't give a s***. What you need to find instead is the strong supporters who aren't white males. Something tells me those will be more rare. http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redsk...66a1_story.html I have no earthly idea what the breakout of this poll was and I realize it was in 2013, but you had a majority supporting. I presume, given the diversity of DC, that not all of the people who supported were "white males".

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 20, 2014 -> 01:51 PM) This is being vastly over-complicated. Redskin was, for a few hundred years, and still is, a racist insult. Just like "the N word". And, just like that word, the name was more flippantly and callously applied some time ago. So we have a football team with that name. The people who are targets of it - as well as people who feel that they've gotten a pretty s***ty shaft already from this country - are offended. Lots of them. In fact from what I've read, just about every AmerInd person or leader that's been asked is offended. To me, that is plenty enough to make a change. An insulting, racist name that offends most of a group? Change it. Finally, as for the whole "PC Police" argument, that always cracks me up. What you are seeing here - people putting pressure on a business to make a positive change - is a great and quite American thing. It's cool to watch, and it symbolizes one of the positives of both capitalism and free speech. I hope the name changes, and I think it will, probably pretty soon. Really at this point it's just the owner (who has been shown to be quite the model citizen) holding out, and I think he eventually caves to that economic pressure. That will be a good day. All good points. One thing I will point out is, last I heard, I thought the fan base was fairly outspokenly in favor of what the owner was doing in support of the name. That said, I am not arguing for keeping, but agree with the concept if everyone in a certain race is offended by it (that said, I have never seen an actual poll other then from people involved in the primary groups that have been protesting this for years), it isn't a good idea. I do think their is a difference between the use of Redskin and a term like the Tribe for the Indians or names like the Braves or Seminoles. Those are not derogatory in nature, imo. Note: I'm specifically talking names, not mascots, etc.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 20, 2014 -> 01:26 PM) "Fixing the Native American situation" is a pretty huge, complex problem. One piece of that problem is the continued use and defense of racial slurs targeted at that group, despite the requests of Native Americans. Changing the racist name of the team does not impede progress in other areas. If anything, the ongoing resistance to changing to something other than a racial slur means that attention has to be continually focused on that issue. I'm not really following your 2nd point. I don't see how the ongoing resistance to changing the name has any impact on native Americans improving their lives. If you are suggesting, that a bunch of native americans are sitting around saying, we won't better ourselves until you take away the name, well then shame on the native americans for not taking things into their own power and well shame on you for making such a foolish statement. I won't get into any depth on fixing the problem as I don't pretend to know all the in's and out's of the problem, other then the various videos I watched back in high school when my school was thinking about changing its name (which it didn't and to my knowledge still hasn't). We had multiple native americans come speak about it to our classes as well. Although focus was on some that thought the name was inappropriate and others who thought it wasn't. The name of our school was Warriors. Note: And maybe the krux of the problem is everyone has been educated on the Redskin being a derogatory term instead of focusing on how to help native americans overcome the poverty and problems that those who live on the reservations face.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 20, 2014 -> 01:20 PM) It is a cause du jour. It is way for someone to claim victory over someone else, and achieve literally nothing that makes the daily life of someone a better thing. Reframing this into something that can be won as an argument achieves even less. There is a greater problem that is being ignored in favor of winning a meme. Congrats, you win the meme. In other words...shouldn't we first try to fix the Native American situation vs. focus on the name of the football team. Or at least that is my interpretation of what you are saying.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 20, 2014 -> 11:09 AM) He was also barely able to walk in some of those seasons. Barely able to walk. He had plantar fasciatis bouts but he was able to play and capable of playing. Unless you are proposing he should have taken a few months off cause limiting the minutes (which they tried on multiple occasions) didn't have much of an impact. Your minutes / rest shtick is completely unfounded and unsubstantiated. Rose was extremely well managed last season too and got hurt.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Aug 20, 2014 -> 11:04 AM) Thibs was doing fine with Rose last year so hopefully he keeps it that way. But Noah and Deng when he was here were always playing way too much when they were both always hurt, can't have that. You can't compare their minutes to LeBron and Durant because those two really haven't had too many injuries they've been battling through. Other then last year, Noah has never gotten very significant minutes. That is a myth. Twice in his career has he averaged over 35 MPG. Even last year, it isn't as if he led the league in minutes. Heck, his career MPG is just under 30 MPG and in 9 / 10 / 11 he average 30, 32, and 30 MPG.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 20, 2014 -> 10:00 AM) Really? Last year, counting Deng the Bulls had 3 guys in the top 30 in minutes per game including the #2 guy in the league. Deng's minutes per game dropped by 4 after he was traded. Deng was at the top of the league in both 2011-2012 and 2012-2013. Rose was injured for half of the lockout season but the games he played he was still over 35 minutes per game. Butler, Noah, Rose, and Deng have all appeared in the top 15 in minutes per game under Thibs and they've had a guy in the top 2 each of the last 3 years. Did you read my post. I said you have to throw out last year where they had massive injuries and no depth. The year of the bench mob, the Bulls were not overused, with the exception of Deng. And if you look across the non Spurs NBA, you'll see most teams have one guy who tends to be a minute workhorse. Additionally, while Deng might have been a horse, so has Durant / Lebron / etc. Heck, Blake Griffin in his first year back from injury played 38MPG and in the top 10 in the league. Good players get a lot of minutes. That is generally the norm. Pau was amongst the top 10 guys in MPG some of those years too. 2010 - 2011 That team had 2 guys who averaged over 35 MPG, Deng and Rose. Rose was at 37.4 and Deng at 39.1 2011 - 2012 Same story as 10-11. 2 guys who averaged over 35 MPG, Deng and Rose. Deng was at 35.3 and Deng at 39.4. As I mentioned, the Bulls in that era, never had really great options for Deng. Deng also saw reduced minutes in Cleveland because he didn't really earn the minutes and Cleveland wasn't playing for much anything either (and had more wing depth / guys they were trying to develop). Bottom line, when the Bulls have had depth, minutes played has not been a major issue. Oh and Deng was just slightly ahead of Kevin Durant and Lebron James in MPG. So lets not pretend that other stars don't play a lot and Rose was largely used less then most stars, even at the 37.4 MPG useage in 10/11.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 20, 2014 -> 07:05 AM) The next player Thibs gives regularly scheduled rest to in order to keep him healthy will be the first. These Thibbs comments get old. The Bulls didn't play heavy minutes to their guys when they had the bench mob, with the exception of Deng, and at that point, they really didn't have another guy like Deng on the roster. Last year they played a lot of minutes to some of their top guys, but even then, a lot of that was driven by constant injuries more then anything else.

I would be very curious if you polled america and asked them what they think of first when you say redskin. I bet the vast majority would say a football team and would not say a derogatory term.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 04:32 PM) If the plan is to start him in the minors next year the Sox shouldn't be calling him up in September this year. I would agree with that and to that matter, I don't really like the idea of bringing him up to the majors this year.

Just to curb things a bit. There is a difference between 3 inning games / outings and a typical start. Guys seeing your more times, etc. You can excel out of the pen quicker and easier then you can out of the rotation. Even if he is lights out in the pen in September, there could be many reasons to have him start next year in the minors to continue to actually work on secondary pitches, etc, so that he's capable of excelling deep into games, etc.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 04:01 PM) More base runners also leads to more chances for said base runners to be eliminated on double plays for a ground ball pitcher. We're also talking about a guy with a 3.66 ERA and 3.48 FIP during his career over 400+ innings. My point was that judging a player based on a stat that depends on luck over a 60-70 inning sample size isn't enough. Baseball is about run prevention, not technically base-runner prevention. Over the course of Lindstrom's career, he's been good at limiting runs, yet not so good at limiting base runners. His ability to do the former has kept him in the league for 8 years. I'm not saying he's good - he's mediocre at best now, but he's clearly been an effective pitcher in the past despite allowing a decent amount of runners on base. And what I've been saying is that he is not a very good or above average reliever. He's average and yet we looked at him to be our best or 2nd best reliever to start the season. No bullpen with Lindstrom as your #1 / #2 is going to be very good. ERA is something that relievers don't control as well as other pitchers, since often times, they aren't around for the other guys, so I do in fact look at WHIP more significantly then ERA. For example, Lindstrom comes in with runners on, gives up more baserunners and lets runs score which weren't his. I think WHIP / Inherited runner statistics are going to be more valuable then ERA when it comes to judging relievers. Starters, ERA is still a pretty solid stat as they have a bigger sample size and they have greater control for the runs they allow, etc. Lindstrom was 154th in inherited runs statistics in 2013 out of 294 AL relievers. That puts him slightly below average at best. He ranked similarly in 2012 (again, slightly below league average). 2011 was more of the same. Edit: As I continued to query some of the inherited runner stats, I noticed some slight differences between sites and I didn't want to pay to filter, long story short though, by sheer math, he ranked at least slightly below average in 13, 12, and 11. Which I would expect, given his below average WHIP.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 03:13 PM) One of the reasons people even use FIP is because over small sample sizes, hits can be due to luck. For relief pitchers, this is even more evident since they only pitch 60-70 innings a year if they're lucky. A coupe of dinkers in a bad spot can raise their ERA by half a run. That can also raise their WHIP by about .1 or maybe even .2. WHIP is a nice simple stat to look at to see how many base runners a pitcher gives up. The less the better obviously. But at the same time, it's too simplistic for its own good and it definitely shouldn't be used as an end-all-be-all stat to evaluate relievers. For instance, a ground ball pitcher may give up more hits than a strike-out pitcher, yet their ERAs may actually be similar because the ground ball pitcher has a better chance of inducing double plays to reduce the damage in any situation with runners on. Case and point: Matt Lindstrom (also, Jake Petricka). And honestly, what you're saying about FIP making no sense since it doesn't match with WHIP also doesn't make a lot of sense. WHIP measures base runners. FIP measures runs. Those two things measure different things. Just because one is higher does not necessarily mean the other one has to be high. Yes, I get that more base runners = more likely to give up more runs, but it's not a perfect 1-to-1 relationship and it differs for different pitchers. And more baserunners tend to lead to more runs. Its pretty simple. I agree with you on WHIP and there are other things to look at from a pitchers perspective, but we are talking about a guy with a WHIP at 1.4 over an 8 year career. That is no longer a sample size issue in total.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 02:47 PM) FIP and WHIP are almost completely independent stats. FIP weights home runs, walks, and strike outs. WHIP only takes walks and hits into account. One says a hit is all the pitcher's fault while another says only hits that are home runs are the pitcher's fault (and they really screw up his FIP). FIP cannot predict WHIP because it's not what it's trying to predict. It's supposed to project ERA, which it does a decent job of doing. My point is, his WHIP sucked, yet his FIP indicates he would be good. That makes zero sense. And when I look at relievers, one of the biggest things to focus on, imo, is his WHIP as an ERA/FIP can be a pretty bad indicator. You could be a pretty crappy reliever and have a good ERA because the guy behind you is really good and bails you out a lot, etc. Everyone talks about relievers FIP this and FIP that...just go back to a really simple stat...WHIP. He gives up a lot of hits and walks per nine innings and has over a long career. Last year's numbers were pretty much in-line with his career numbers and while the ERA might have been solid, the WHIP wasn't, and he is not a good reliever.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 01:26 PM) C'mon now, not YOU too! This shouldn't be new. I've been saying this since the original bullpen thread. Don't get me started on FIP and what a great predictor it is. FIP indicated decent numbers for Lindstrom even last year, when he posted a pretty garbage WHIP for a reliever. How are you projecting good / solid ERA results when you have a WHIP over 1.4? That really doesn't make much sense to me. His career WHIP is over 1.4 too.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 01:27 PM) Lindstrom still isn't healthy IMO. His velocity is WAY below last year. His fastball velocity is down 1.9 mph over last year. Even worse his change is only down .2, which means there is 2mph less difference between his fastball and change. His slider velco is also down 0.6mph He would have been a perfectly good setup guy if healthy, and probably as a fill in closer. We will have to disagree there. A year ago, Lindstrom was our fourth best reliever (behind Reed, Jones, & Crain) and then a year later, we expect him to be our best / 2nd best. And this is an older guy we are talking about, not a young player who we would expect to grow / get better. Lindstrom was one of the worst opening day closers in the league (if not the worst) and if you say it should have been Nate, I'd still argue Lindstrom was a below average primary set-up guy. ATake a look at his WHIP, it has been consistently bad throughout his career. Dude has a career 1.4 WHIP over 8 seasons. That is pretty bad.

QUOTE (Boogua @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 01:33 PM) If MSU beats Oregon early on it is very likely that there will be no undefeated Pac 12 team. Even if Oregon wins that game they could still easily lose a regular season game. I would actually bet that there is no undefeated pac 12 team this year. If PAC 10 / SEC have multiple one loss teams, those teams are getting in over a 1 loss big team. I presume you will have 3 0 to 1 loss teams within the SEC / PAC at a minimum and then I expect FSU to be in that same scenario and would then have all of those teams going over a 1 loss MSU team. I technically think you could have scenarios where BIG school would have the stronger schedule over FSU, but being defending champs would give them a nudge over the Big team.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 01:12 PM) I saw Mark Prior do this in a spring game against the white sox. He struck out the first nine guys in a lineup including Durham, Thomas and Ventura. It was the single best pitching performance I have ever seen live. As a fan of pitching, it really is sad what happened to Prior. He was so fun to watch. Of all the pitchers I've seen, Prior in his prime, was one of the best. Nobody tops Pedro for me though.

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 01:13 PM) Not with 4 teams, you don't. I don't know if a 1 loss Big 10 team is getting in over what I presume will be a couple 1 loss SEC / PAC 12 teams / FSU. I am going to presume, unless FSU loses more then 1 game, that they will be in the final 4 (with their schedule and the health of Winston pretty decent chance they lose 0 to 1 games). I can't see a Big team getting in under most scenarios, unless of course the PAC / SEC really beat each other up and a bunch of 2 loss teams emerge.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Aug 12, 2014 -> 11:12 AM) Friendly reminder. Lindstrom, while better then a lot of the guys in our pen, is still not a very good reliever. By the way, I just want to bring this back up. I still would argue that anyone that defends Hahn and the design of this bullpen would be mistaken. This pen was set-up to be a disaster from the beginning of the season. I think the goal, from Hahn's perspective, was that some of the young guys would have taken steps forward and given him some cost controlled pieces to utilize in the future when the team was more capable and ready to contend. This pen would have been atrocious from the start. Lindstrom, while a decent middle of the pen guy, is not a closer or set-up guy and that is what the Sox wanted him to be. Yes, Nate's injury has hurt, but this pen is bad because it consisted of by and large not very good relievers, and I think Hahn was okay with that cause he figured he'd be able to use the spots for developmental purposes. Problem is, very few guys who you could probably project to be quality relievers, have stepped up. Putnam has been a surprise but I don't think I'd expect him to keep doing this. Petricka is nice and I won't give up on Webb but that is literally it. Maybe we'll see a few guys emerge late but the farm system has completely failed to provide us with any quality relievers this year.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 12:14 PM) i like Patrick Mannelly and I like his contributions in his small time at the score, but i think that would be a tremendous mistake in an important timeslot. You simply cannot replace Mac with a guy who has been doing the job for less than 3 months. Actually, he really has never done the job. He has been an analyst on a few shows and sat in with Spiegel a few times, but he has absolutely no experience in that job. that would be Hamp & Holmes disaster part 2 I disagree. I don't get into this mix much but all I can say is you are severely underscoring Mannely's smarts and ability to speak and handle the role. Will there be growing pains, certainly, but guy has loads of potential and brings a lot of real insights and articulate conversation to the mix.

Big 10 should be interesting in the wake of this injury. Quite a few teams who should contend for the top spots. That said, none of the teams will contend for a NC or at least I don't expect them to. Quality of league is well behind Pac 10 and SEC. Still expect OSU to be one of the top teams, given the strengths of their defense, however, they were the only team that would have had some shot at the NC, imo, and those chances are gone, barring the injury not being as serious as all of us believe it is.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 11:37 AM) And the anger and frustration was based on unknown information. The people in the neighborhood saw "black kid shot dead by cop" and immediately concluded it was unjustified murder. The news media grabbed ahold of that narrative and ran with it. Never once have I read or heard anyone from the media say "that's just what one witness says, we don't actually know the full story yet." Exactly. It seems to me that the police, media, everyone should have been jumping to the fact that none of the information was confirmed, etc. Instead it was encouraged and created a gigantic fire. Note: Who knows, maybe that happens anyway, and I'm not blaming the media for what ultimately happened and the rioting as the rioting was a problem of the people and the police had initial major issues in how they handled the response to what happened. Again though, so many areas to point fingers at and so many places where things were poorly handled.