Jake

His velocity averaged over 93, I'm not seeing this "way down" unless you kept seeing his cutters at 88-90 and thinking they were slow fastballs.

QUOTE (miracleon35th @ Aug 19, 2016 -> 12:47 PM) Hawk has to drive for about two hours to and from home games, which is why he decided to only do away games. However, getting to and from airports, staying at hotels and being away from home for several weeks during the season is also not that easy for him. It's too bad he can't rent or buy a condo in Chicago to stay at during the season or at least during home stands. I never understood why he chose to do that drive every day in past years. So now he only does away games but why is staying in a downtown Chicago Condo during a home stand any different than staying at a hotel in another city (unless he wouldn't get lodging/meals in Chicago paid for as a travel expense)? Edited to add - I'd rather see Hawk do our home games and someone else (please no more Benetti) do the play-by-play for away games. Hawk makes that commute not because Indiana is just a super awesome place, but because he treasures being able to go home and see his children and grandchildren is so important that he just couldn't bear to set up shop in Chicago full time for the entire season.

Regarding Hansen, I have to take a college pitcher's rookie league production with a huge grain of salt.

I wouldn't mind seeing Avila back next year. No need to see Navarro around here again, though. Narvaez seems a capable backup.

Given how little he walked and how little time he had in AAA, his current run isn't too surprising. We've seen the good and the bad. One thing that's important to me is that I think by the eye test he looks like he has a lot more baseball aptitude than the stats and description of "raw" would suggest. Even when he's missing at a good slider for a strikeout, he often shows that he does indeed have recognition of the pitch, just not the discipline to deal with it. And of course his defense has been much better than I expected, especially for a guy with a sub-.900 fielding percentage two years ago. I don't think he'll become a player with high walk totals, but he seems to have the natural abilities to be within normal levels, especially for a shortstop.

Typo: Hansen's draft year is listed as 2014 Also: "6. Trey Michalczewski, 3B [Previous: 6th, -2]"

He's perfectly able to let management know that the jerseys are terrible. He can b**** and moan a lot if he wants. But he has to go out and pitch regardless. He also has to not stab the jerseys with a knife as a form of sabotage. I almost wonder if he thought he could get away with it without anyone knowing who did it. Either way he thought he could ruin the jerseys to get his way and the Sox had no choice but to nip it in the bud.

Okay good, now we can blame the management again

Why do my spidey senses tell me this somehow involved poop

Only trade him if you get what you were looking for before this. Sox have the leverage over Sale.

Seems like this story sets the Sox up for leaking a narrative that Sale forced their hand

Anyone who fails to see that Sale is a big baby has blinders over their eyes. I still like him, but the guy throws temper tantrums and it's a character flaw that might just be getting him booted out of here now.

QUOTE (NCsoxfan @ Jul 23, 2016 -> 06:48 PM) Way to hit his trade value Hahn? At least make it sound better! For all we know, the truth may be way, way worse

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jul 23, 2016 -> 12:21 AM) Really? I'm honestly kind of horrified about the debates. Trump plays by different rules than anyone else. He could call her a dumb c***, lose no votes, and nothing Hillary could do or say would make her look okay. I just have no clue what stuff could happen on the debate stage and if Trump mistakes would be received as such.

We're far from backed into a corner where we need to trade Q/Sale

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 22, 2016 -> 09:18 PM) Yep, and he's been an amazing member of the Sox in terms of not complaining about the talent around him and/or demanding a trade. And a not amazing member in terms of publicly calling for the ouster of the team's VP

Profar has the same amount of team control as Sale and less than Quintana. Would have to be a secondary piece.

Thought that factoid that Griffey is the first #1 draft pick to go to the HoF was fascinating. Seems to undermine the idea that there are really big payoffs for a full-on tanking approach. Note that I am not saying the draft is a 100% crap shoot and that higher picks aren't better. But one must admit it makes far more sense to undertake such a strategy in the NBA, where 19 number 1s will be Hall of Famers starting in 1958 (Elgin Baylor) through 2003 (LeBron James, making an assumption here). After Griffey, the only surefire HoF caliber player is Alex Rodriguez who clearly won't get in and then you have the fringey Chipper Jones who may make it in. No obvious HoFers after that, though Bryce Harper is on a promising path and David Price is haivng a great career.

Putting aside all else with Trump's speech tonight, it is bothersome that it was based on several false premises: 1. The country is suffering from greater rates of crime (false in all but the most absurd readings of crime statistics). 2. We're dealing with an influx of illegal immigrants, mostly from Mexico (net migration from Mexico to the US is negative, more people are going from US to Mexico than vice versa). 3. Immigrants are dangerous (less likely to commit crime than citizens). 4. Illegal immigrants are primarily coming to us across an unsecured border (most overstay legal visas). I do wonder, for all that rank and file Republicans may agree about with Trump, are they nearly as interested in these immigration and crime issues that this speech focused on so much? Sure, they may generally favor the idea of the need to crack down on crime and on immigration, but I've never had the sense that these are the top issues for average conservatives. And, if I'm right about that, it's because the world most of us live in is not characterized by unprecedented crime and immigration. My read is that conservatives are generally either concerned with big changes to our social world—like gay marriage—or the way our economy is run, the role the government should serve in reducing poverty, etc. because those are more clearly problems and ones that affect people's day to day lives. I just wonder whether conservatives in general are in agreement on what the major issues are and, after that, whether Republicans and Democrats are at all close in diagnosing the problems that they should be seeking to fix (with the assumption that the proposed solutions will generally be different).

To be completely honest, if we traded Sale and Quintana, there's almost no return that wouldn't still have me much less interested in following the team for the foreseeable future. It would absolutely be a punt to a few years from now hoping that we at least walk away with a couple of guys as good as the ones we lost.

People are so fearful of losing favor with their party's leader and potential POTUS that nobody in the party really wants to oppose him at this point. It's really a structural problem that would happen to the Dems too if they had a candidate they hated. Your political career rests too much on the ensuring the party leadership likes you...unless you want to just become rich and famous and jump in later in life ala Trump. But then you become the kingmaker, the problem continues.

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Jul 21, 2016 -> 07:18 PM) Govenor Rauner continues to bury himself a deeper grave. Looks like he will be a single term governor at this rate. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/p...0721-story.html QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 21, 2016 -> 07:33 PM) That is awful, but I will say at the very least this is an actual apology: ""Significant change can be frustratingly slow; this is especially true in public education. Many of us, at one time or another, have sent hastily crafted emails containing inaccurate or intemperate statements," Trover's statement said in part. "This particular email was sent out of frustration at the pace of change in our public school system. The governor regrets writing it and apologizes to CPS educators for making an unfair, untrue comment."" To me, this doesn't qualify as a particularly interesting controversy. For one, as bmags said his people have apologized and disavowed the comment. It's also a bit old. And perhaps most importantly, the people that like Rauner would agree with his statement.

Spencer Adams strikeouts by month: April – 8.0/9IP May – 6.5/9IP June – 4.9/9IP July – 4.5/9IP That is an odd trend to reward with a promotion

You know, there's a good argument for moving Sale over Quintana. My main thought is you can keep Quintana longer at less per year and he is only barely worse than Sale as a player. But I think other teams would be willing to trade MUCH more for Sale due to his name recognition.

Worth noting that Jose Quintana has more years of team control than Jurickson Profar.