Jake

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 10, 2014 -> 10:42 AM) See, I don't necessarily agree with this, because I think this was something Williams wanted too. I just don't think he had or has the patience Hahn does. If the Sox thought Williams did a poor job, he would have been fired. Instead, he was promoted or, at the very least, re-assigned to a still very prestigious position. My main problem with the Williams era is that the Sox simply didn't have depth. Depth affords you the opportunity to make moves either internally or externally. There have been articles about KW going to JR after 2010 and 2011 and proposing that they do a rebuild, but he was told to keep pushing

You have to wonder what it would mean for LeBron's legacy to switch teams again. A lot of the mystique of great players comes with the idea of a city and the team's fans coming to love the player over the presumably long time that the player is there. A team's fans can really like any good player, but especially if he changes again, who will feel that real attachment to LeBron? Who will feel like he built something? Anyway, while I've always believed he'd better off with the Bulls, I don't see a good reason for him to come here. Sure, we're younger, but especially after losing Deng there are a thousand and one question marks on this team. You have Joakim, Taj, and...Jimmy. I'm pleased with some of the talent on the team, I think we could be relatively close to having another good team, but there is a bunch of uncertainty. Why would LBJ go to a team whose second and third most reliable players are Taj Gibson and Jimmy Butler? With a healthy Rose, sure -- you have an amazing big three. Subtract just one superstar, though, and who knows what you have.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jan 10, 2014 -> 10:16 AM) The Sox apparently have earmarked some money for him if its in the right arena. They had a budget meeting weeks ago and apparently have had the calculator nerds in there all week. I wonder if that means "if he goes for much less than anticipated, we can get him!" or if we're really going to try to roll with the big boys. I suppose we could also try to do something funny with the contract terms to make it work, as well

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 10, 2014 -> 09:59 AM) I'm no expert on WAR, but from what I can understand off FanGraphs, I believe his defense was rated so badly over that time, that it more than negated all of his offensive production. In '07 he had a .869 OPS with 30 HR, 6 SB, yet had a -0.7 WAR? His defensive rating was -35.4 (whatever that exactly means) It means he was 35 runs worse than the average CF that year. He was once one of the greatest CF ever, but somewhere around the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th hamstring tear, he got really god damn slow. I'm not sure what the replacement level CF defense was at that point, but from the looks of it replacement level was maybe -10 or so. Contrast that to the season where he was positive 33 runs, before all the injuries.

Why do I constantly feel like we're going to be looking at the Crawford and Bickell deals as the reasons why we lose a guy like Patrick Sharp?

Looking ahead to the candidacy of my other childhood favorite player, it's really astonishing to look at the career stats of Ken Griffey Jr. 1989-2000, ages 19-30 = 73.8 WAR, 140g/year 2001-2010, ages 31-40 = 3.5 WAR, 99g/year Sad.

That scouting report from Rizzo had a huge flaw on it, honestly. Giving the Big Hurt's hit tool a ceiling of 50 turned out to be way, way off -- it's hard to argue that it was anything but an 80 when all was said and done. It was a better tool than his power tool throughout his prime. His overall approach at the plate was simply unbelievable and his ability to execute that approach was just as stellar.

I didn't necessarily mean that as a bad thing. I think he was a very good GM and that fact is being reflected in the current work of the FO. I also think that Hahn had much to do with the good run that KW had, so not all that much has changed. Their "new" roles may be bringing out the best in each one, as KW all but admitted that the stress of all the day-to-day tasks of the GM were getting to him and making it more difficult to make sound personnel decisions

MJ fell short of sainthood, but gambling and extramarital sex are not exactly the most serious charges for a professional athlete. MJ's issues related to his ultra-competitiveness are something people would have loved to see from LeBron. One guy lashes out in anger, the other flops when pushed by Nazr Mohammed. I wish MJ didn't dress like a confused 15 year old from 1999, though. But, of course, my young non-sequitor self always was a bigger fan of Grant Hill. Something disturbingly familiar about this Derrick Rose business...

A vote for Hahn is a vote for KW

LeBron has never cheated on his girlfriend

Chris Christie sucks. I'm probably not going to shout and scream about this "scandal," but maybe it will make people actually think about him in some other context beyond "he was nice to Obama!"

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 8, 2014 -> 09:47 PM) Can someone let me know when hangouts can actually handle MMS and isn't a garbage app. Seems like carrier/model makes a huge difference here. My ATT HTC One has been working great from the get-go, my girlfriend's Sprint Samsung Galaxy S3 hasn't been figured out across several updates

I don't think I can even root for the guy

I wonder if he's still a little heavy and a step slow, like John Manuel was saying

QUOTE (scs787 @ Jan 8, 2014 -> 04:20 PM) 9.8M in cap room is substantial cap money. That very well could be enough to upgrade over Peppers, and add another piece to the defense. Right - the question is whether you would rather have an extra 10 million in cap room and no Julius peppers or an extra 8 million in cap room and have Julius Peppers. I was not aware of this June 1 business -- if we're only eating 4 million to send him away, that changes things substantially.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jan 9, 2014 -> 11:18 AM) Sox are owned by a bunch of people, their combined assets likely is equal to or exceeds the Ricketts family. Reinsdorf is a figurehead, he (unless its changed) is not even the single biggest owner. As someone else said, the word has always been that he owns about 5%. It could be the case that he has bought/inherited stake from owners that have bowed out or died. QUOTE (pettie4sox @ Jan 9, 2014 -> 11:21 AM) Same with the Bulls or is JR the sole proprietor of that? I believe JR owns a much heftier portion of the Bulls, somewhere in the stratosphere of 65%

I would obviously get excited about signing Tanaka, but I can't say I mind missing out on him. Giving even the best pitchers the kind of contract terms we're talking about frightens me. We don't even know if this guy can cut it. Would it be a good idea to commit upwards of $200M to two players who have never seen an inning of MLB or even American playing time?

As I had some once-in-a-lifetime crazy work commitments in the past few months, I basically abandoned all exercise. My diet was absolutely horrible, but my overall calorie intake was often quite low, which kept my weight gain to just about 10 pounds (if I wasn't exercising under normal circumstances, I'd expect I would have eaten a lot more and gained a lot more). Now is time to get back to it. I have to take things really slow because, of course, this all happened about 3 months after my shoulder surgery, meaning my right shoulder/arm/chest are super weak. I'm going to get back to running here shortly, but our weather is so nasty right now that I'm going to wait for the first day that is both dry and above freezing. I've been doing some real basic stuff in my apartment to get things going. It's sad how much really simple exercises can cause me fatigue and soreness, but it's nice to at least be making some progress. One step at a time.

I think a lot of people will relate to the idea that many times when we read a book, your memory of it is more like a movie than it is a collection of words. When I first saw the Harry Potter movies, I was astounded at how closely they matched my "mental movie" from reading them.

Kyle Lowry is quietly putting up a really nice season - 15.9 ppg, 7.5 AST, .576 TS%, 4.0 RPG (which is somehow a career low, he averaged 5.6 last year and has been over 6 before, stellar for a PG)

DNP-CD = genius Spo saving that player for the playoffs

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 8, 2014 -> 04:55 PM) So some performance enhancing drugs are OK, just as long as they weren't too strong? I didn't say they were okay, I just said they should not be lumped together as if they are the same thing. The effects they would have on outcomes are much, much different

Groce did not have this team ready to play. Also, Egwu sucks

amphetamines and andro do not belong in the same category as AAS