Jake

Buying top-of-the-market starting pitchers is literally one of the worst ways to spend money. It not only is often not worth the money, it very often totally blows up in the team's face in short order, leaving them with a pitcher they'd just assume not have on the roster at all.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Jul 22, 2014 -> 03:27 PM) Chicago has 'loose' gun laws? The United States does. The ease with which a person can buy a gun from someone with no questions asked is a huge problem here. The gang problem in Chicago predates the rather restrictive gun laws as well. I would be remiss to neglect the fact that while the ease of gun ownership enabled this problem, it probably would have been avoided if not for rampant and persistent housing discrimination that remains as bad today as it was 40 years ago. Proactive implementation of anti-housing discrimination legislation could very well have helped us avoid the problem, at least as severe as we know it today. People would have been able to enjoy greater freedom to own firearms as a result as well.

It's too bad that GWB is one of the least popular presidents of all time because he'd probably make an excellent commish.

Even Italy only has a fourth of the gun murders per capita that the USA does. You're literally more likely to die by gun homicide in the USA than you are in Palestine (we're a lot less likely to get killed by missiles, though, so there's always that). Twice as likely to die by gun homicide here than in the Congo. No two places are directly comparable, but we are a buttload more violent (particularly, violent w/ guns) than anywhere else that fancies itself as "developed" or "modern" in the world. Our loose gun laws are the very reason that people can say gangs are some strange, incomprehensible, not worth including in any estimate thing because they just always have guns.

If we gut the core to get Love, the team won't be any good. Rose-Love-Noah-Gasol does not a good team make

I'm glad our franchise was smart enough not to sell the farm to get Chase Headley. I never wanted any piece of the guy at the price he supposedly commanded

If it reeks of anything, it reeks of Minnesota making a last ditch effort at pressuring CLE

It seems at this point that Klay Thompson has never been formally offered to the TWolves.

If we're trading Jimmy, we really need to get Kevin Martin back (which the T'Wolves will like too). We're short on bodies, let alone talent at the 2.

Cue the Coolio - Livin' in a lefties' paradise

While Davidson has never been a low strikeout player, there's no good reason to think the AAA version we've seen this year is the real thing. He has played better in the majors than he has played most of the year in the minors. FWIW, since the time Thome arrived (~June 19th), he's struck out 23.9% of the time with a .267/.367/.533 slash line. That includes the recent spike, which IMO still looks like nothing more than statistical noise given that his power also went up along with his average while his OBP went down...lots of conflicting info in that sample.

QUOTE (zenryan @ Jul 21, 2014 -> 09:56 PM) well your knowledge cant be that great since he told Bob Costas that he'd have a gay player if he was good enough. Ahh, so the bar is just higher for gay folks. Hey, at least there's a bar!

There are a whole bunch of positives that come along with being the team to allow the first gay player ever on their team. It is true cowardice that someone would let anticipated awkwardness with a few powerless individuals in their midst get in the way of the tremendous good that will come to the organization for being perceived as a trendsetter. Since we've talked about Jackie Robinson a lot, does anyone not remember what team he played for? Who the GM was who signed him? As for fans, they'll get over anything. They'll get over black players, criminals, weirdos, you name it.

lol, my boy Wilkins is ridiculously hot. Or he's what others might call a "Kris Bryant slump"

Another way to think about it is: if you think both were worth the room exception (what was used on Hinrich), which of the two would have been easier to replace at the minimum? I don't see Aaron Brooks being appreciably worse than DJ Augustin. With that said, part of having a coach who is supposed to be excellent is buying in when he says that [x player] needs to be on the team for a couple million per year

By and large, playing for the draft is a ridiculously bad bet. Just do your job and take the picks you get.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 20, 2014 -> 06:29 PM) The game thread is a lot like listening to Hawk. It is the same people, saying the same things over, and over, and over.... Except Hawk cheers for the White Sox

This is a good new wrinkle - what's more relevant: the accumulation of runs lost on the bases or the runs lost per time spent on base? PK isn't quite the worst when you're looking at a per-baserunning situation.

QUOTE (Brian @ Jul 20, 2014 -> 05:11 PM) Would the Knicks do Butler for Shumpert? I'm sure they would. That'd be an awful deal for us.

I actually think it's a very valid question - is Konerko the worst baserunner of all time or just one of the worst? Well, he's the worst.

I was surprised to see Aramis so high. That has to be laziness more than anything else.

Nightmarish defense from HOU today, but our baserunning has been absolutely excellent

I looked at the baserunning component of fWAR, which is calculated via a stat called Ultimate Baserunning (UBR). I wanted to know - who are the least valuable (or most harmful) baserunners of all time? The results didn't disappoint: UBR is calculated simply based on whether you advance the amount of bases that would be expected in a given situation. The run value is derived from how different the likelihood of a run scoring is based on where you ended up (say standing on second base vs. advancing to third on a single from first base). It isn't necessarily anti-slow guy and doesn't even account for missed opportunities to leg out force outs at first. But, still, PK and several other recent Sox were really bad on the basepaths.

It was only a matter of time before that lucky run caught up with Danksy. I hope he figures out how to strike out an acceptable amount of hitters and keep the ball in the ballpark

Semien is the classic "gets a cup of coffee in MLB and now everybody thinks he sucks" guy. Marcus has accomplished far more than Micah at this point and the only tool where Micah beats him is speed. Marcus, at present, is clearly a better bet on defense, for power, for plate discipline, and hit tool in general. It isn't so far apart that Micah can't pass him up, but that's how it is.