Jake

Most of us don't know Native Americans, so we don't realize what things do or do not bother them

QUOTE (Feeky Magee @ Jun 3, 2014 -> 09:46 PM) By far the biggest factor, perhaps the only one, was the Sox having the highest bid The key is knowing that the bid will be worth it.

Sale looked really f***ing bad with that beard. For that reason alone, I'm glad to see it go. I don't want to watch the kid go through puberty on TV

Abreu really makes you feel like you're watching something special in progress. How can someone hit homers on a pace like this? It's crazy to think that it's been done before.

26.6% K% for Kris Bryant could stand to go significantly down. No need to rush him when he has an obvious thing to work on.

Maybe I'm just being a non sequitur, but I just can't get myself excited about Aiken the way I can for Rodon and Kolek. Must be a preference for upside - not to say Aiken has low upside, but he doesn't have the wow physical traits nor the MLB ready repertoire. You see Rodon's talent and success and you know you not only have a guy with a pretty high floor, you also have Chris Sale upside. Kolek has a lower floor, but has arm talent velocity-wise to go with a big body like we haven't really seen, especially for someone his age. Aiken is more of a classic "really talented, pretty refined, could be an ace but more of a sure thing for mid-rotation" guy.

Yeah, that's a big joke. You can have Andrelton Simmons, I'll have Abreu. I'll also have Sale. I'd probably take Quintana over several guys on that list.

Nobody's given up on Semien except Soxtalk. It was clear as day before the season that he needed more than a 30-day trial in AAA and that remains true today.

It isn't like we haven't given up the responsibility to find that this guy did desert. The fact is that we don't know and it's probably better not to err on the side of "this guy is going to be mutilated by terrorists"

The original "blame Seth Rogen" editorial was a hell of a lot more nuanced

Semien was rushed up here. It was obvious from his time in AAA and MLB last year that he wasn't quite ready for the big time. That's okay, most players need more than a handful of games at AAA before they can hit big league pitching. This will be good for him and should provide a chance for the Sox to assess his accumen at SS.

It's a beautiful thing that it shouldn't be too difficult to put a really great team out there again for next year

I was ready for us to lose when we were down 3-1 because we just appeared to be the inferior team. It's frustrating to look so good over the next 3 games but still lose.

Gangs really benefit from straw purchasing and gun shows. You should go to a gun show in my old town, Memphis. Holy crap is it terrifying.

I think Hillary is wisely being as quiet as possible on most substantive issues and questions like her "plan" but it's easy to have an ass made of you over the course of two years. Wait to see what matters, what people want, etc. when it's closer to time to actually run

QUOTE (Soxfest @ May 30, 2014 -> 06:16 PM) Looks like I will not see many Sox games. It is a joke to live 90 miles south of Chicago and no way to see Sox play many games on tv. And it will probably be impossible to stream those games, even if you're willing to pay

There's a lot of money to be made being good at what you do. The guy who comes up with the way to prevent pitching injuries is going to make a bunch of money

I've gotta say, it's been several years now where every game the Hawks play, the story is about how good the other goalie is. Our goalie very often surrenders fewer goals than opposing super-goalie. Not a peep. Crawford isn't always great and we're going to hate that contract, but the broadcasting tandem had the Hawks losing Game 5 when we were up 3-1. Tuuka, Quick, Howard, Miller, whoever. I've seen our guy beat 'em. I'd like to see someone talk about Crawford as if he's not a swinging door for once. It's one of those deals where every goal allowed confirms that he sucks and no great game or series or playoffs ever matters. I hope he saves the end of our series like he did in Minnesota

That makes zero things I'll watch on WGN

I think we know that there is very little definitively known, at least on a grand scale, about pitching. We do know that doing more of a damaging thing tends to be more damaging and that expert surgeons tend to be better at guessing than random ex-ballplayers

Hard for me to pass on Rodon, but people are not giving Kolek nearly enough credit. You're not just drafting a 102 mph fastball - we've done that before, it was in the late rounds, his name was Jeff Soptic. Kolek has good command, a very good breaking ball, and overall solid pitchability. He's very refined for an 18 year old. There's still plenty of work to do, but he'd be a first rounder if he could only hit 96. QUOTE (bmags @ May 29, 2014 -> 09:49 AM) Yeah he was a really young pitcher that relied on sliders and horrible mechanics. His slider was very much a tertiary pitch in college. He was a plus changeup guy all the way and didn't mess with slider much until we put him in relief as a pro.

Yeah he's looked fine. Sample sizes, people.

Yes, I believe that was Ozney. The allegation is that nobody wanted to draft him since it was common knowledge that we were going to draft him. When we "waited" until the 20th round to pick him, that was not indicative of his true value because if his last name was not Guillen he would have been taken much higher. That's what they said, at least.

I think the Cubs should have to see the consequences of their bad business decision rather than have the rules rewritten for them

When Noesi is on, not only is he good, but he's efficient. Not all guys get efficient just because they're going good.