Chisoxfn

QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ Jun 17, 2010 -> 08:32 AM) Question is...are they cutting a major deal to buy? I doubt it. The team is capped up financially and has been far too inconsistent for Kenny to be willing to sell minor league talent for major leaguers. I could see him buying on a young player that he thought fit long-term, but even than I doubt it will happen because the Sox flat out can't afford to give up what little upper level talent they have (Viciedo, Flowers, Danks, Morel, and Huddy). And of that talent, it is Viciedo/Huddy/Morel I am most confident in. I still like Danks more than most and think he needs more time. He's a plus defensive player and hits the ball hard and has made some adjustments to his swing that haven't quite clicked. Flowers is a guy I probably will never love, but he has a shot to be a nice OPS type of player at a premium position.

QUOTE (docsox24 @ Jun 17, 2010 -> 08:52 AM) My theory is guys made a heck of a lot less money and didnt have the long term contracts so they knew that they had to pitch or get lost. The owners controlled so much before free agency so guys had to tough it out. Plus the DL rules were a lot less flexible back then. I think it is also a bit of a misconcieved notion that pitchers didn't get hurt in the past. I believe a lot of them got hurt but its hard to remember it because those that did never made it back. I have no statistics to back it up, but I remember hearing that from a few old time players. Now there were clearly guys with rubber arms, but injuries still happened back in the days. I also think hitters are in general better now and pitchers in general throw harder now than ever before. So because hitters are better, you see pitchers have to throw far more high stress pitches and with pitchers throwing faster and being stronger, the ligaments and muscles are more likely to pop-etc. These are all complete, factless theories I personally have. I'm not a doctor and I haven't done a lick of actual statistical research on the # of injuries that happened in the old days vs now. But in the past, if you got hurt, you gutted it out until you couldn't do it anymore because there wasn't a procedure that could fix you magically. Now, you don't keep gutting it out, you undergo surgery because after surgery you have a pretty good shot at a full recovery.

Kalapse has been hard at work on what will be the next badass banner of Soxtalk

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jun 17, 2010 -> 06:54 AM) Though Notre Dame is stronger in basketball, and is worlds better academically. Not that any seems to give a s*** about the academics in all this. I don't get it. Notre Dame's academic standards really aren't that amazing. I might offend some ND grads here, but they are the midwest version of USC. It is an expensive school but much easier to get into than some of the good and even decent public institutions. And there MBA program in terms of the grades/etc you need to get in is a joke.

QUOTE (MexSoxFan#1 @ Jun 16, 2010 -> 05:22 PM) Spain losing today doesn't help their reputation as WC underachievers... I don't see Mexico beating France, I predict a 2-1 French win but I would love to be proven wrong. France can't score 2 goals. They will be lucky to get one and they will go down. France ain't advancing.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 16, 2010 -> 04:33 PM) What makes Ichiro amazing is that he avoided the absolute burn out that so many Japanese players have in the majors. Guys like Shingo, Iguchi, that Mariners closer, etc. have all faded so fast, just like Iwamura has. Shingo faded because he was old. And the Mariners closer also faded because he was old.

White Sox aren't cutting a major deal to sell right now.

QUOTE (Kalapse @ Jun 16, 2010 -> 06:53 PM) Peavy's MRI came back clean and the ailment is now being described as an "achy shoulder". His next start -- which was supposed to be tomorrow -- WILL be pushed back to either Friday or Saturday in Washington. Probably more to do with his body not used to be pitching in a full season given that he missed a hefty chunk of last season.

He did a great job in Birmingham.

This could be good or could be bad. Part of me would like to know there was a reason for his strugglse, but the other part of me thinks he's been much better than his numbers indicated, was rusty, and is getting better and it would suck that he'd be hurt. I'm going to say I hope it is nothing. I got a lot of faith in Peavy turning his s*** around, assuming he's healthy.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 16, 2010 -> 10:47 AM) No one watches MLB Network....it's been a huge bust in the ratings. No one will care about this show, so a "scripted" fight between KW and Ozzie makes no sense. Did anyone even watch the show last year about the Phillies bullpen? They didn't suggest that Chan Ho Park sleep with Scott Eyre's wife or anything like that. Well I love the show.

QUOTE (Palehosefan @ Jun 15, 2010 -> 06:31 PM) Beebe's dumbass said that the Big 12 won't be expanding teams. Basically we have a group of teams that doesn't want to be together, has no TV contract set in stone, and only has one teams interest at heart. There's no chance this conference will be around past 2 years. The ONLY reason the league was saved is because UT got everything they wanted. If the Pac 10 offers Texas Tech or the Big 10 offers Mizzou, it's over. Why doesn't OU have more power? Why does Texas control all. It isn't like they are some small school. They have an exceptional football program (oen of the best in college football history) and recently a pretty strong basketball program.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jun 15, 2010 -> 06:32 PM) You and Jas are just off your rockers on this. Seriously. You've seen me post here that ObamaCo is pretty much as bad as BushCo was on Katrina... but criminally negligent? The President? Just as responsible? Not enough LOL'ers in the world for that. BP was indeed criminally negligent, as we have clearly seen. What ObamaCo has been, much like BushCo after Katrina, is managerially and administratively inept in the extreme. That, I don't see how anyone could argue. When did I say they were criminally negligent? They f***ed up majorly.

Who did you use to be?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 22, 2010 -> 04:17 PM) Mine's $16,000/year, and that's because I'm in a large group plan, not in the individual market. f***, thats expensive. Mine is 960 a year and once I switch over and add my wife to the plan it will go to 1400 a year. Holy s***, I never knew insurance could cost that much when you get your benefits through a company/government entity. I know my parents pay a crapload since they are self-employed and don't really get the benefit of group plans and because of there age and no group plans they get ass-raped. s***, Balta, that is just ridiculous. That freaking sucks.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Jun 15, 2010 -> 03:03 PM) Greg Walker should still be out of a job. Agreed. Regardless of what he preaches (and I think he's a good hitting coach), the results haven't been there and no matter how good you are, eventually you need results. Since it is easier to switch coaches than players, the coach should have gone a long-time ago.

QUOTE (DBAHO @ Jun 15, 2010 -> 03:07 PM) Steve Kerr leaving the Suns. Sarver certainly is quite the tight-arse owner. I'm sure Kerr will get another GM job if he wants it. He'll probably replace Doug Collins on TNT though for next season. Also probably improves the chances of Amare leaving I'd say. Kerr didn't want to take a pay cut in his newest extension and when the Analyst job opened up he doesn't he'd go back into that. He'll be back into the booth for at least next season.

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ Jun 15, 2010 -> 03:27 PM) Rumor is Tom Izzo is staying with Michigan State, FWIW. Now will Cleveland hiring Byron Scott over Izzo help or hurt the Bulls chances. Sam Smith thinks it hurts the Bulls chances because of the way Scott treats his star players. I have inside info on Scott which is why I constantly bash him. The guy is a POS of a head coach, imo. Just doesn't possess the communication ability to be an elite head coach. And as a coach he ain't all that great either.

QUOTE (chimpy2121 @ Jun 15, 2010 -> 03:35 PM) Well, if it makes you feel any better, 2B Rahmatulla broke his wrist celebrating the victory. It doesn't. I root for Socal teams to kick ass. Bummed out about Fullerton. But I'm proud that my program consistently dominates to the effect that I expect greatness each and every season. We'll be contending again next year, I'm sure of it. But this really was our best team since our National Champ team.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jun 15, 2010 -> 03:46 PM) Imo Obama was damned if he did, damned if he didnt. He uses the US govt, spends tax payers money, people are complaining that he spent their tax dollars on BP's mess. He lets BP clean it up, it doesnt get done quickly, people complain. I just hope they figure out a solution, instead of worrying who to blame. The reailty is there are some things that are bigger. When big s*** happens that needs massive resources the government typcially needs to be invovled because private business don't necessarily have the pull to make it all happen. Sometimes they do, but often times they don't. In this case, it is our governments job to protect our country and this spill harmed our country, so they needed to get involved. I feel the government shoudl do very little other than intervene and try and act as a 3rd party consultant at times to ensure appropriate resources are applied, ensure appropriate funding of roads and infastructure within our country, ensure a minimal life-style for people (i.e., help the poor to an extent by putting programs and assisting people when they are done), oversea education, and of course ensure national defense.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 15, 2010 -> 03:30 PM) I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for them. The US government isn't even asking for enough at this point IMO ($20B isn't going to cover everything). Investing is inherently risky, and when you invest in a company with transparently awful practices, well, you risk getting burned. Remember, the US ain't the only country in the world and foreign relations matter. You can't just s*** on everyone. This is a foreign owned entity that we contracted out to and with that we can't just be the be all, tell all, overpowering monopoly we typically act like. While in general most local conglomerates have foreign impacts as well, we still are the governing country but in this case the US really isn't. Sure we can swing a stick, but thing of the british who are seeing there company go to tanks and get thrown to the wovles because of statements of policticans, etc (or at least there is there feeling) who are basically trying to save there ass because they have made the situation worse by not helping BP and not supporting the company. And now we are telling a foreign owned company what they can and can't do. I certainly can feel for them. Think if China told Microsoft that it was going to have talks and recommend that they shouldn't pay dividends becayse of some massive virus that hit Chinese computers through some hole in microsofts OS. We'd be in an uproar and would tell China to go f*** itself.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Jun 15, 2010 -> 03:34 PM) Obama is just as negligent and criminally liable (yea, I know, can't happen, but in reality this is true) in this as BP now. It is absurd what this guy has gotten away with. Ya he's smooth on camera, but outside of that he is worthless. Basically that has been my opinion of Barack from the get-go. He just isn't seasoned enough to be president and the gist I get from the international arena (reading FT, watching BBC, etc) is that there opinion is pretty similar. Now for the most part the oval office runs itself but in certain times you need to have the president influence the way something is handled and this was one of those times, much like 9/11 and Katrina were. Bush handled 9/11 superbly, Katrina (not so much) but as far as I'm concerned this has been 10 times the f***-up Katrina was. Our response was slow but our failure was because we relied heavily on our state legislation and it was compounded because our state govenrment was completely ignorant. President Bush did't step in quick enough from the federal perspective but he got involved a f***load faster than Obama has. The main difference is obviously on the loss of lives in Katrina vs the oil spill but the long-term impacts of this environmental disaster are HUGE.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 15, 2010 -> 03:32 PM) It's another "too big to fail." It doesn't matter how awful they ran their business and how many risks they took; their collapse would effect too many people and so we have to prop them up. There is a legitimate argument for BP sticking around so they can continue to pay for cleanup costs and (lifetime) loss-of-wages damages. Not to mention they aren't a bad company. We put Arthur Anderson out of business because of one f*** up (and it was later found out that they should have never failed). We can't put BP out of business because of one f***-up, albeit a pretty massive one. Especially since everyone was well aware that eventually something like this was bound to happen. Clearly BP has failed and this will be something that all oil companies learn from but the blame is shared with our own federal governments complete ignorance in handling the situation. It is embarassing what our government has done to deal with this mess. And again, I don't think our government would have fixed the problem but they certainly have the power to ensure more resources are poured into a crisis and they completely f***ed up in that. Institutions, other countries aid/resources (which our administration turned down due to a bulls***, outdated law), forcing BP to allow independent consultants to perform there own assessments of the leaks (no way should something like this have been left just to BP's statements. BP clearly isn't independent of the situation and would most likely be best suited by putting out their most beneficial estimates). I'm just really dissatisifed with the way everything has been handled. BP f***ed up, but our government majorly f***ed up too in the handling of a crisis and helped perpetuate the situation.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 15, 2010 -> 03:30 PM) I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for them. The US government isn't even asking for enough at this point IMO ($20B isn't going to cover everything). Investing is inherently risky, and when you invest in a company with transparently awful practices, well, you risk getting burned. I never said it was a safe investment, but I think that people are over-reacting from a business perspective and the assumption that BP can't afford this mess is most likely incorrect. Now it could get a whole lot worse, but the US is going to bear some of this burden as well and I don't believe BP will be allowed to fail. The British government certainly wouldn't stand for it and regardless of what we believe the US isn't going to ignore the criticisms from our largest allies and one of the more powerful nations in the world. I would also say that the fiasco was intensifed by our own governments ignorance and unwillingness to step in. BP also f***ed up but this would be a much less of a mess of Obama even did a deplorable job. And I'm not saying the government would solve anything as I tend to believe the governmetn is worthelss, but the government does have more power than BP when it comes to working with other countries, institutions, etc, to ensure that all of the resources possible are involved in a clean-up. This mess was too big for just BP to clean up and the government was completely worthless in the way it has handled this mess. Obama's legacy is heading straight into the s***ter as far as I'm concerned (and he's pretty much been a gigantic failure in my book prior to this and I had been pretty willing to give the guy a chance becasue I won't deny that my republicans f***ed up immensly in the way they behaved during the 2nd half of Bushs' adminastration).

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 12, 2010 -> 09:23 AM) Well, first point...it's in U.S. waters, it is a U.S. licensed rig, the U.S. owns the mineral rights, and the U.S. would be taking royalties on the oil that was sold. It is a U.S. problem involving a multi-national company that the U.S. licensed to do the drilling. Second point; as I noted a few pages ago; other nations with expertise in these areas have offered help. The U.S. turned them down. It was because of an old ass rule indicating something along the lines of how we don't allow foreign ships to do some sort of random business in US waters. I dont' have it exactly but it was some outdated legislation if I ever heard of it and it should have been immediately looked past given the state of the oil spill.