Chisoxfn

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 20, 2011 -> 09:10 AM) So you guys who are expressing doubts...Bill James is likely basing these numbers on some sort of historic average for how far guys' performance drops from coming up 1 level to the big leagues at his age. If there aren't guys who come up and immediately rake, then where would those numbers come from? There are clearly some guys who would drag it down horribly (Brian Anderson) by coming up and sucking immediately, his prediction has to be somewhere in-between the good and the bad right? Historically he has always been highly optimistic on prospects first seasons. That is the case of most fans too. They expect guys to be superstars or the best player at there respected position. Basically they look at all the upside instead of focusing in on the reality of the situation. And those projections are incredibly difficult to determine since some guys just project to be better offensive players. Take a guy like Howie Kendrick. He hit at every level and I mean he hit. He gets to the majors and he still hits and part of his blame is injury, but this guy was one of the best pure hitters in the past 10 years down in the minors and he hasn't exactly dominated at the major league level (note, I'd still take a flyer on him). And yes, injuries are a major factor to it and this is just one example.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 20, 2011 -> 08:57 AM) How many rookies come up after hitting around .330 at every level they've played at? That's the real question regarding these projections...how much does the batting average drop going from AA and AAA to the bigs? There is a decent population of minor league guys that hit in the minors at high clips and don't hit immediately in the majors and we can't pretend that Morel is a top 10 prospect in baseball or something. He's a guy that misses out on the typical prospect rankings because his upside isn't that high, but what he does, he does very well and really has the ability to be that propsect that no one got excited about but that just does his thing and does everything average offensively for his position and hopefully will be above average defensively. I think Morel will be able to handle his own but I'm not going to pretend there won't be a learning curve. I think at his best he could be a .280 to .310 hitter with 10-15 hr's, quite a few doubles, all while playing above average defense. But that won't happen overnight. However, he could also be a guy that once you get to the big leagues his lack of true athletism gets in the way and prevents him from being able to hit for as high of an average. Fundementally he is very sound though and I think he has enough talent to be productive.

Also, I'm going to create some referrals in here in the future for various websites people might purchase for. That way if you purchase, Soxtalk will get a small percentage as the referring party and be able to utilize it through server costs. If other people have referrals they would like to recommend or suggest, put them on here. Than when a member is in need, they can post it or PM the appropriate party. If this is just a terrible idea, let me know, haha.

Some companies have some pretty sweet referral deals that can benefit both parties. If that is the case and someone doesn't know anyone (personally) to use as a referral I thought people could take advantage of it through here. Additionally, sometimes there are some pretty crazy online deals out there that might pop up (say from a site like slickdeals or whatever). I thought we could utilize this thread as a way to share referrals or great deals that we stumble across that we feel others might enjoy! For example, DirectTV has a deal that if a new customer is referred, than both the new customer and the referring customer get $100 credits to there account (10 per month for 10 months). This deal is on top of any special deal the new customer can negotiate. So if anyone is planning on signing up for DirectTV and wants to save themselves $100 bucks and myself $100 bucks, let me know, LOL!

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 20, 2011 -> 05:48 AM) Seems totally reasonable based on his minor league stats. Might get a slightly higher OBP if he adjusts faster. Reasonable? Not many rookies are going to hit .291 in their first season (I'm not even going to count that brief cup of coffee he got last year). I find those projections pure crapola. I hope they are true, but probably pure crap.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 20, 2011 -> 05:52 AM) But behind the scenes...the question about who he'll sign a contract extension with is what is driving all of this. He wants an extension. The reason he's pushing a trade is so he can sign with the team he wants to now, as opposed to waiting for the collective bargaining agreement. I don't blame him if he doesn't want to go to the Nets. Carmelo has said and done all the right things as far as I'm concerned thus far and I'd love to have him on the Bulls.

QUOTE (Felix @ Jan 19, 2011 -> 09:56 PM) Blake Griffin's double-double streak is over. Kevin Love's streak, however, continues, despite entering the second half with 0 rebounds. Griffin with the better game though.

Happy Belated Bday!

Ya, my only fear would be if you messed up, some serious damage to your body could happen. Thankfully I have a buddy who works at a dealer and can use the dealer on weekends and help work on his friends cars. I'll pay him what is fair (always told him he deserves to get paid) but at least you know you aren't getting raped or lied to.

QUOTE (DBAHO @ Jan 17, 2011 -> 05:11 PM) I just feel with the Bulls because they haven't been in the thick of it all at the business end of the playoffs for a while, that is going to hurt them in the playoffs, while teams like Boston and Orlando know what it's all about there. Miami I'll give a pass to, because of Lebron etc. I feel Orlando are usually underrated by the national media especially when compared to Boston and Miami, when they've made the conference finals the last 2 seasons in a row. And if anything, I'm more confident in the team that I was at any point last season because of the trade we made. The Bulls have been in the playoffs pretty consistently since Skiles took over the show. On top of that, they've had some pretty quality playoff series, even though some of them resulted in losses (2 years ago to Boston and this past year to Cleveland). I realize they might not have been deep, but they have playoff experience.

QUOTE (DBAHO @ Jan 17, 2011 -> 04:11 PM) Q-Rich is a pretty decent perimeter defender still (albeit he doesn't offer much on the offensive end). I think we'll still try to pick someone up as a big, we've got Ryan Anderson (who's been playing very well lately) and Malik Allen as our 2 backup bigs ATM. Against Boston, I'd be worried. Against Chicago and Miami, I don't think it's that big of an issue (as neither team are exactly stocked down low either). The Bulls biggest strength (outside of DRose), when healthy, is there low post depth. The Bulls can put out Noah, Boozer, Taj, Kurt Thomas, and Omer Asik. I can't think of many teams with that kind of depth, especially considering two of the guys are probably all stars at there respected positions (Noah @ C and Boozer @ PF).

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jan 17, 2011 -> 01:06 PM) Bears are generally one of the most viewed teams. Packers-Bears match up will be generally one of the most viewed, Bears v anyone is generally highly rated. Bears have the largest undivided market, if you want money you want the Bears on your tv. I don't think the general public or networks wanted New Orleans or Atlanta in before Chicago. NFL has to be excited as well. Best possible matchup for them and the Jets being in over the Patriots isn't a negative either (probably a wash, both are huge markets with large fan bases). NFL is going to have a great matchup for the superbowl no matter what happens (from a pure public interest perspective).

Good game so far. Man, I want to fast-forward to next weekend. Hopefully the Bears can take care of business and play there best game of the season and beat the Packers!!!

QUOTE (Palehosefan @ Jan 14, 2011 -> 05:03 PM) I love XM radio, I bought a subscription after my free year ended. It was a huge help in two road-trips to California we made in the past year and a half. Typically I just listen to Pandora or Rhapsody at work, but it's always XM in my car. As for Navigation, I just went with Google maps on my Droid and it was also a huge help in the road trips and driving around unfamiliar areas in Cali for my wedding a few months ago. Where'd you end up getting married? Man, that brings me way back. Crazy how we all grow up. Been years since the days we'd chat on AIM, haha.

On a random sidenote, probably the coolest feature I've had on a car in years is bluetooth. My old car was just before the generation of vehicles that came with it standard (2005) and having it while talking on the phone for work/personal use is just amazing convenient. I don't use a lot of the fancy features that come with it (all of the voice dialing and stuff) but either way it works pretty cool. Plus I love the whole streaming pandora through bluetooth via the radio. Stuff I'm less than intrigued about on my new car: XM - I just can't get all that into it whenever I use it. After my free trial I'm pretty sure I won't be signing up. I could see using it if you live in areas without an ample amount of stations, but where I am there are just a lot of great options on free radio. I wouldn't know about navigation because I refuse to pay like 2600 dollars for a navigation package when all of the garmins, etc, are cheap, plus a lot of PDA's have turn by turn directions for free.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 14, 2011 -> 08:06 AM) I laughed out loud at Lost's incredulousness. So my company has a 6% match, as well as a separate retirement plan. It's one of the things they do pretty well for us on. I joined the company in July of 08', and it took a few months to get things all set up with my 401k and everything, so basically, I started buying mutual funds right around when everything hit bottom. So I've been pretty lucky. My company uses Vanguard. Anyways, since I may be in the market for a car, and especially a used car, I was thinking of taking a loan out of my 401k as opposed to a standard auto loan, since the loan on my 401k would be a 4.0 % or so, and from what I understand, I'd basically be paying the interest back to myself. My plan allows me to continue contributing and getting my company match while paying back the loan. Good idea? Not a good idea? Bad idea. By and large every investment person out there will tell you not to borrow against your 401K unless you are in a dire situation. You lose out on the multiplier effect and by and large a good percentage of people never end up repaying it or struggle to repay it (no saying you would, but its something easily forgotten in general). However, I would point out that if you are a member of a credit union and have good credit (700 +) you might be surprised at the type of rates out there. I know for me, my bank was ready to give me 2.9% on a used car for up to 60 months. Note: Nevermind, as I go forward, I'm pretty much agreeing with Matt

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Jan 14, 2011 -> 08:04 AM) Eh, it's really f'n close. I agree. I love em both, but I think this is debatable as to who is better.

For work purposes, after one day, the iphone seems to be doing a solid job. I still prefer my Blackberry physical keyboard but in time that could change. No denying how easy this freaking iphone is to use though.

Was Taurus, Now Aieres. Don't pay any iota to this crap though.

My blackberry works great. But I was also traveling a lot internationall for business at the time so the Blackberry offered some great stuff in regards to International coverage.

Congrats Sqwert!!

My wife and I have a 2005 Honda Pilot (been paid off for 2 years or so) and we just purchased a 2011 Toyota Highlander which replaced a 2000 Isuzu Rodeo. Pilot has about 115K on it and we hope to keep it for another few years. Assuming the cars hold up as planned, we plan on owning each of them for around 10 years in total. If I could get any car I'd want, within reason, I'd probably go Range Rover or 5 series BMW.

It became time for me to unpin everything again.

I just got a new work phone and decided to go with the ATT Iphone versus the Verizon one for my work phone. Still keeping my blackberry for my personal phone.

Just an FYI, but technically, you are still responsible to pay taxes on the goods purchased from Amazon. It is a "Use Tax" of sorts. However, no general consumer actually follows that rule. Businesses aren't quite as lucky as the IRS tends to audit there use tax. So if you purchased from Amazon in New York, but are using it in Indiana and thus didn't pay tax in New York, you'd be responsible for the portion in Indiana.