Jake

For the record, I would argue that Taj Gibson is not a good trade asset. He is an okay NBA player and is being paid about market value for long term. That's not a great asset in a salary cap league.

If I'm Hahn, I'm asking Jerry for permission to make decisions only based on baseball and not finance. We are not in dire straits with money, lots is coming off the books no matter what we do. This is especially pertinent with Dunn. If we agree that Adam Dunn today is no worse than the guy we've seen for the past two seasons (low, low average but 40 HRs and 100 RBI pace of production), then there should be a nice return in trade. Even if a trade partner this year agrees that Dunn has turned a corner and can be counted on to hit a bunch of homers, I highly doubt we can get enough of a return in baseball terms to make the trade make sense -- because, of course, the other team will leverage the remaining year on his contract as a big risk. On the other hand, imagine Dunn is on a 40+ HR pace at the All-Star break next year. We are either competing due in part to his production (this would assume a couple FA signings and good luck) or...he suddenly has tremendous trade value because his contract no longer carries risk. Likewise, we would have the leverage of potentially getting a draft pick from him if he walks in FA in that scenario. In the worst case, we pay him bad money. We'll have saved so much already, though, that to us (you know, fans that don't fund this payroll) there is no harm. You pay him in hopes of getting some great young baseball players in return. If you dump him now, you've saved money for sure. However, that money is EXTREMELY unlikely to become good baseball players since we are already likely to have 30-60 million dollars off the books by Opening Day next year. Another 15 probably isn't going to become yet another FA signing because I don't see us signing 4 players to big FA contracts in the same offseason because that's crazy.

The story I've always heard on the Kobe trade is that Kobe didn't think the Bulls were worth coming to without Deng and the Lakers didn't think the Bulls were worth trading with unless they received Deng in the trade. Anywho, most of the time star players are traded, they become the only star on their team. Carmelo forces his way to NY, becomes THE star. Don't give me Amar'e bulls***, either. Harden to Houston, only star. Deron Williams to Brooklyn, only star (still is IMO). CP3 to Clips, only star. Howard was the one exception, but with the commonality that he forced his way out of his current situation. Joe Johnson is almost an exception, except he's not really a star but wanted to be treated like one. We were never going to give him $20M a year so that seems like a deal best left undone. When you have one of they very best players in the NBA already on your roster, everything else gets more complicated for both basketball and financial reasons. We are not going to bring a guy onto the Bulls that will become their best player. We cannot bring anyone onto the Bulls that earns more than their best player. We can't trade for a star player that plays the same position as our star. These are complications.

The only player mentioned so far that would have worked in a basketball sense is Harden. Since the Thunder were trying to get out of salary hell, it is very unclear to me how we could have made that work better than Houston did. We didn't have a Kevin Martin or a Doron Lamb, and I'm not sure if our Charlotte pick would have been enticing since it is likely to be deferred fairly far into the future. Sometimes teams can seem to get trades done out of sheer force of will (Lakers and Howard, CP3 and Clips), but we had legitimate competition for Harden and I can't believe we could have matched what Houston offered, not to mention -- is it possible OKC wasn't eager to further bolster a team that was already a title contender?

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jul 3, 2013 -> 11:54 AM) I guess if Im given the choice of: 8 seed fully healthy D-Rose or 1 seed no D-Rose Im going with the 8th seed. You guys keep acting like im talking about absolutes. When it really is discretion. Its about sitting guys when you are up 10 with 1 minute left. When you are up 20 with 4 minutes left. Its about sitting guys when you are down 20 with 2 minutes left. its about sitting an injured guy 1 more game to make sure they are 100%. And if 1 time you happen to lose one of those games, oh f***ing well. Those are absolutes

The regular season does matter. A really nice first step in beating the Heat would be having home court advantage. That isn't something that you haphazardly not care about.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jul 3, 2013 -> 11:43 AM) The Heat won, what, 66 games this year? How many games would they win next year without LeBron? I mean, argue what you will about Thibs overusing his players, but arguing for regression is absolutely ridiculous. You are talking 62 wins, 62 win pace, and 45 wins without a top 3 player in the league. If LeBron didn't play it would be Thibs' fault

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jul 3, 2013 -> 09:11 AM) Google is odd with their version numbers across their software, because Android 4.0 to 4.1 was a MAJOR update. It wasn't a mere point release. Meanwhile, they're on Chrome 27 or something insane already, where major version numbers usually mean minor updates. I don't like the idea of having to wait for legit updates, which is why I'd require a Nexus if/when I move to Android. At least Google makes updates available, you could always have Windows Mobile 8 and get one update a decade. Agreed. 4.0 to 4.1 was a really big deal while 4.1 to 4.2 was not. They did at least change the name, though

Doctor: overuse has nothing to do with ACL tears “In fact, I think if you’re tired, you’re a lot less likely to tear your ACL because you’re not going to be as explosive,” said Altchek, who has operated on players such as Josh Howard, David West and Purdue’s Robbie Hummel, and been a consultant for the NBA.

How long do we think before Micker plays stateside?

I'd say it wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility that we make 3-4 trades and still aren't any further away from the potential goal of contending next year.

While the long-term contracts on the previous CBA were definitely an unfair circumvention of the rules, the penalties that await if the players retire are even more unfair.

You have to think there can be a point where the NFL starts really getting hurt by all this stuff. The NBA was dealing with this a while back. It's hard to cheer for a bunch of murderers (unless you're a Ravens fan)

Derrick has never been a guy to get an obscene amount of minutes, so I don't know how he is the shining example of Thibs overuse. He sits out nearly a quarter per game. Also, he was seen "limping" in LA. I don't know if that's a limp at all, and a commenter says it looks like it's the other leg. Surprised it hasn't been mentioned in here, though.

QUOTE (Paulstar @ Jun 29, 2013 -> 07:29 PM) I see people throwing around Lind and Morales names as 1B/DH, but I haven't seen anyone really mention Morneau. The Twins are likely to let Morneau go and convert Mauer to full time 1B, and if Morneau finds that power stroke again, he can be one of the top 1B in the league for another 3-4 years. I think he would be a phenomenal signing if you can get him without breaking the bank. Morneau would probably be affordable and if we don't want to bite on the higher dollar guys like Morales and Lind (doesn't Lind have a cheap team option for next season?), Morneau is the type of guy that could just happen to find it again and turn into a tremendous value. On the other hand, we'd never win a game against a left-handed pitcher with him and Dunn batting 3-4 or 4-5. That's one of the reasons I like Morales, the switch-hitting is tremendously useful. QUOTE (The Ultimate Champion @ Jul 1, 2013 -> 02:30 PM) I firmly believe that going to a 4-lefty rotation would negatively affect the development of both Q & Santiago. I would rather have both over Danks due to the mon ey & the uncertainty on Danks. Also, any team taking on Danks would believe they could get something out of him, so the second player's value shouldn't be hurt too much. Let's say Peavy/Rios gets you 2 good looking prospects/unproven MLB guys plus 1 further away piece that has talent & is more of a longshot. I would add Danks, take the same deal, and let them keep 1 of the prospects as payment for assuming the risk associated with Danks & paying him. Of course if the organization feels it's probably a 70% chance or better than Danks makes a full recovery, I do none of that, and instead look to deal one of Q/Santiago ideally for a position player. Santiago and Danks both get righties out better than lefties. Q is roughly equally effective against righties as lefties. I would just cease stressing about the handedness of our pitchers. I also have no idea why the presence of other lefties or righties in the rotation would have any effect on the other pitchers.

Thinking about it more, it's pretty much crap for crap. The international $ is nice, but it is unclear to me how much it is (anyone have this info?). The super-geniuses over in Cub-land would have had us believe their precious trade pieces would have netted them more than some reclamation projects, though. I guess the trade market hasn't lost its mind yet.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 3, 2013 -> 12:24 AM) A rare 0-7 night, this time for Trayce. He has drastic home/road splits this year. Weird. I know they supposedly made Birmingham a little more hitter-friendly, but I don't think it's enough to explain that. He must have a horrible prep routine or something. Approaching the size of sample and drastic-ness of difference that means something has to be up.

QUOTE (2nd_city_saint787 @ Jul 3, 2013 -> 12:26 AM) Has Thibs ever publicly said anything about not wanting to play rookies or has it just been coincidental these last few years that those guys didn't get a lot of playing time? I really wanna see Snell take on the Ronnie Brewer role. They seem like very similar players. I'd also really love to see Murphy push Nazr for some playing time (with Taj manning the 5 spot). Having Rose on the court with Dunleavy, Murphy, and Snell all standing around the 3 point line could be a pretty good lineup. Assuming of course that Snell and Murphys 3 point game can convert to the NBA. Snell could make more jumpshots blindfolded than Ronnie Brewer does in NBA games. Likewise, I'd venture to guess that Ronnie does most everything else better than Snell. I don't think they are similar players.

A huge part of managing the cap is doing the other parts of general management well. For instance, getting cheap production from your drafts -- see Saad, Brandon and Shaw, Andrew. You'll always be looking great in terms of cap space if you can habitually let guys walk when they first reach free agency and replace them with rookie contract guys.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 3, 2013 -> 12:09 AM) http://www.csnchicago.com/article/shoulder...sidelines-crain He hopes it's day-to-day, but who knows. It's just one of those jinxed seasons. I, the optimist, will jump off a bridge if he becomes untradeable Also, I can't even swim

Can't get excited about Gordon until he hits for some power. Getting hot with slap singles isn't going to impress me. If he could become a good player, though...what a lift that would be for our franchise.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jul 2, 2013 -> 08:56 PM) Those Google edition phones won't get updated as fast as the Nexus devices, Google has said. Probably a net win anyway, unless the next Nexus device comes out with more competitive hardware. I'm willing to be patient for updates, but there is some chance I end up rooting my One to move up in OS one day. For incremental updates like 4.1 to 4.2 or what 4.2 to 4.3 is likely to be, I don't really care. If KLP turns into a major update, though, I won't wait a year to get it. Google has been doing most of its substantial updates through the individual apps rather than the OS lately though, which is brilliant.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 2, 2013 -> 09:04 PM) Not to be a smart aleck, but this is Adam Dunn we're talking about. Why pitch around him in any circumstance despite his nice total of bombs? I think he answered that for you, did he not?

QUOTE (GreatScott82 @ Jul 2, 2013 -> 04:50 PM) Agreed. At this point we might as well let Ventura finish this disaster of a season out though. If Hahn doesn't wake up soon and make some deals to beef up the farm, shed salary and position his team to be competitive in the next couple years- his job needs to be evaluated as well. The dude has done NOTHING. And signing a 16 year old kid still hasn't changed my view on Hahn. How you could even begin to evaluate Hahn is beyond me. Give him the next offseason, at least.

I don't know what you could learn from a manager in the second half of this season. You won't know anything until you start off the season with a guy, where the direction of the team is absolutely clear from the get-go. The second half of this season will be a throw away - not yet rebuilding, but not contending and definitely not winning. The veterans will be gone but reinforcements won't really arrive. Next year, camp will break either in full rebuild mode or in a sort of transitional mode and everyone will know the score and there is a particular way to manage those situations.