Jake

Samardzija's sinking K rate, velocity, and release point worries me as far as an extension goes.

Always assumed that was a self portrait

Are you guys having fun or what? ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?

QUOTE (reiks12 @ Jul 28, 2015 -> 09:05 PM) Why did Betts jump over the fence? He had no reason to and could have stopped himself or crashed into the wall. I'm so tired of these hotshots trying to get their exposure on Baseball Tonight's web gem segment. If I was the pitcher I'd be LIVID if an outfielder did that to me. I'm pretty sure he did it to avoid crashing into the wall

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Jul 28, 2015 -> 09:03 PM) What are their fans chanting? "Bulls***"

I honestly don't see any reason to call this a non-catch.

The point of jumping into the bullpen was to avoid running full-speed into the wall. Pretty clever.

Drug testers stay away, if his play is any indication the results will be HOT

They're doing so much crazy s*** after getting a hit that the broadcast can't even show it all

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Jul 28, 2015 -> 03:05 PM) Goodell said 4 days ago he was not aware of any appeal by Bell yet rules on it today what a liar. The NFL has reduced Le'Veon Bell's suspension for violating the league's substance-abuse policy from three games to two. That sound you hear is Bell racing back to the top of draft boards. Including the Steelers' bye, Bell is still ticketed to miss 23 percent of the fantasy regular season, but he's a dual-threat difference maker who provides a weekly edge in all formats of fantasy. That's especially true in PPR leagues, where Bell is a no-brainer at No. 1 overall. Bell is the goal-line back and primary checkdown target for an offense that wants to score 30 points per game this season. DeAngelo Williams will get the start in Weeks 1 and 2, where Pittsburgh is facing New England and San Francisco. Source: Jarrett Bell on Twitter Why the hell would you include that?

I'd be happy to give up Spencer Adams for CarGo, quite honestly.

I'd want to walk away with Stroman as well.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 28, 2015 -> 11:27 AM) The changes really started to happen once the defense solidified. Alexei and Eaton started fielding like themselves again, Gillaspie and Johnson were banished, and everyone else stayed OK. This team has been a lot more competitive with each notch the defense has gotten better. I think one of the key things is we had bad defense guys in there--Gillaspie the poster boy and Micah for the first month--and they weren't really hitting. No use having no defense, no hit players. And I think Robin in particular felt that poor defense had a demoralizing effect on the team.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 27, 2015 -> 02:45 PM) One thing I hate about the WAR stat is the idea that one guy who has a 3.0 WAR is somehow equal to 3 guys who have 1.0 WARs. Needing 3 different guys to make up what one guy is doing, puts the one team at an advantage because they are only needing one guy to get those numbers, allowing gains from the other players that aren't being accounted for. For the record, that isn't necessarily what the stat is designed to do. More WAR at one position is typically better, since you could have a 3 WAR player and three 1/3 WAR players and be ahead of a team with four players combining for 4 WAR. The main exception to this is if you can't come up with replacement level players -- you could make some argument in that vein about the Samardzija deal since our 2B position in particular has been so rotten this season

The team is definitely flawed and I'm not placing any bets, but they have been SO much more watchable in the past month. I like watching them, which as a fan is my most immediate need.

JP Morosi said he could see Sox going after Tulo earlier today on MLBN

Good thing they dropped EJax for Soriano

Let them have Shields

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 27, 2015 -> 09:12 PM) It's amazing how poorly is walk numbers in the minors have translated to the majors I have to think that by now everything about his approach has changed, mentally and physically

Dan Hayes doesn't get paid to provide biting commentary on the White Sox, cut the guy some slack for Christ's sake

I've come to accept that Danks is not horrible, but is going to play at the absolute lowest level you'll tolerate from a regular starter. Now we don't have to tolerate it if we think we have a better option, but to speak generally I think he's a high 4s ERA guy that can eat up some innings but provide little value beyond reliably going out there every 5th day

I think there is not necessarily a clear dividing line of "good people" and "bad people" or criminals vs. non-criminals nor should there be. And there is also a vast spectrum of ability to make snap judgments, competence using a weapon, etc. When we hear about things like police violence, it is not always necessarily the issue that the cops in question are bad people, but that they made bad judgments (sometimes on bad premises) which had an irrevocable effect. Guns are really good at making temporary lapses have permanent consequences. See our suicide rates in the US for more details. Most wouldn't deny that there are specific situations in which a private citizen would be safer because they have a gun. After all, most of us know that the people who treasure their right to own a gun are not insane. There is a logical reason that is very compelling -> if I have a gun and someone tries to kill me, I have a weapon that is probably just as or more lethal than what my foe has. Others dwell on the "I need this to keep big government in check" argument, but I think that is not nearly as much of a driving force behind the sentiment. What I and many others would argue is that it is hard to use a gun effectively in self-defense, that even during justified self-defensive use there are serious risks to others, and that the individual need for a privately owned gun has on the whole created a far less safe environment due to how difficult it is to control who has those guns and what they do with them. Many others have rightly mentioned that there is basically no guarantee that a "good person" or non-criminal who buys a gun has any clue how to operate it, which is sad and should be seen by responsible gun owners as a serious threat to their own rights. And I don't want to neglect to mention that not all guns are the same. Lots of shotguns and rifles held by private citizens are a lot less likely to lead to harm for the general public than are lots of handguns. If everyone with a weapon had essentially no ability to conceal them just due to the sheer size, it'd be a lot easier to figure out who is dangerous. But as long as there are guns that more or less fit into a pants pocket or otherwise holstered out of sight, the "common" gun criminal will have a lot of success. Of course when we talk about the calculated mass shooting scenario, handguns would have their drawbacks for those kinds of perpetrators and thus we have things like assault weapons bans (which aren't inherently wrong, just fail to address the type of firearm used in most murders). Lastly I'm going to say again that we could have a much more sensible conversation about these issues if the federal government were allowed to fund/perform research on gun violence, but the insane fear of a gun registry has prevented that from happening. For something with so much import to our society, there is astonishingly little that we have clarified scientifically about what is going on. I'd be happy to live in a mostly gun-free society, but I understand that so long as I live in this society, there will probably be 300 million or more guns around. So from a pragmatic standpoint I'd love to know as much as I can about gun crime so I can think about what solutions can best make a dent in gun violence while giving as much freedom to own and use firearms as possible. We of course know that economic prosperity is a really good way to prevent it, which is why we have observed a downward trend in the problem over the years (that and the elimination of unleaded paint and better resources for family planning). We can do better, though.

There's something weird going on with Semien's defense this year, but I have no reason to believe he'd bad at 3B or 2B. He's definitely in one hell of a slump right now, though. We'll see where he is at the end of the year.

Flowers has certainly played about as badly as humanly possible, at least at the plate, for the past 2 or 3 weeks. Soto has been gradually getting more time and it's fair to keep ramping it up. Is anyone aware of whether there's a health concern keeping him from an everyday role?

Don't forget that the owner plays a role in the direction the FO takes. Kenny has said there were multiple times in the past 10 years that he has proposed tearing things down and was convinced/ordered by Reinsdorf to instead focus on short-term win-loss scenarios. I think the team's focus now is once again to avoid moves that are likely to have an adverse effect on our record that would extend into next season, but at the same time I think they want to avoid moves that will hurt us in the long term too. "Win more now and in the future" is an easier philosophy to talk about than to achieve of course, but the main way you would achieve this is to do a lot of standing pat when it comes to trades.