Jake

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.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jul 2, 2013 -> 02:01 PM) Ah, thanks for reminding me why HTC shouldn't be trusted, HTC. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/07/htc...ontent=My+Yahoo I had heard a good response to this, which is that it almost has to be the carrier (T-Mobile has it exclusively) that forced this to happen. HTC is doing the update for the One X, which is incredibly similar and came out at the same time. HTC has pretty much done all of the work to make the update work on the One S, but it's likely that T-Mobile doesn't have enough of them out in the wild for it to be worth finishing the update on their end. Also, these articles keep billing it as a flagship when it was definitely not a flagship device. It was on one carrier and released along with the One X, the actual flagship. It's a concern, but HTC has been better than everybody but Samsung at updates (even though this article argues differently). And Samsung has TouchWiz, which sucks (subjectively speaking) Nexus/Google Edition devices still prevail. HTC One Google Edition is definitely the best phone out there at this point, if I had the upfront $ I would have gotten it. Couldn't bite on Nexus 4, not at all impressed by its hardware. Nexus 5 will release too long after my contract expires, unfortunately.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Jul 2, 2013 -> 02:03 PM) I'm just bothered by committing to Hinrich and Mohammed mostly. Mohammed saw no minutes until the injuries really piled up and Hinrich's value is tied to playing time and if he can't stay healthy he's worthless. Plus if there's one constant criticism of Thib's, who everyone seems to love, it's that he plays a guy like Deng too many minutes which takes a toll eventually and might tie into all the injuries the Bulls had last year. Nazr showed himself to be a more than capable backup C last year, though it was clear he had to earn Thibs' trust at first. Hinrich should be healthier in much lower-usage role and will strengthen both guard spots on the bench. Snell and Dunleavy are both very legitimate options to offer Butler and Deng relief, so neither of Deng/Butler need to have freakish minutes. Taj is Taj, it would be great to see him get back to his pre-contract play this year with a healthier knee. I don't know how much you'll see Teague; I'm guessing you'll see more Snell than Teague. It'll be fine, as it always is. I shall never forget the mass panic about the dismantling of our bench last offseason, so I'm not biting on the panic button now. The players have never been good, that's why they are bench guys. Our coach knows how to coach them and how to use them in a way that hides their weaknesses and I don't expect much to change.

There are so many people that spend their whole youth being told that striking out and pulling the ball is bad that I think it is impossible for some fans to ever like Adam Dunn.

In this thread, the human mind has a better memory and capacity to analyze than statistics. "Adam Dunn sucks in the clutch because I remember him striking out at a time I wanted him to hit, damn it!"

QUOTE (balfanman @ Jul 2, 2013 -> 01:07 PM) I thought our defense was pretty bad now, but if thats the case, its going to get worse. With how Alexei has been playing (error city), I have to wonder if we are actually worse off defensively in that case even with the drastic loss of talent.

QUOTE (flippedoutpunk @ Jul 2, 2013 -> 11:04 AM) Ouch those are a pain! I accrued those from being in the army and doing idiotic 12 mile runs every friday on treacherous terrain. I first got them in 2006 and to this day I havent completely got rid of them. Ive accepted the fact that if I want to run, its just going to hurt no matter what. I'm hoping I caught them early enough in my training that they have been able to heal up as I recover from the shoulder surgery, but I suppose I won't know for sure until I get back to running.

This place is always rocking when the rumors start, that's for sure. I remember being in a car trying to refresh soxtalk from my cell phone with terrible signal in the rocky mountains last year on deadline, knowing that I could get the fastest and best info here on that front.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Jul 2, 2013 -> 10:56 AM) I think Korver is getting the same price. Would rather have him than Dunleavy. Korver is a better shooter, but I f***ing hated that guy by the time he left. He folds like a cheap suit the instant the pressure is on. I don't just mean missing shots, which can happen by bad luck, but I'm talking about how he couldn't be an effective basketball player in crunch time. Gives up the ball, can't pass, and can't play defense. How many times did we see the Heat rip the ball right out of his hands at clutch time? I'm happy to go in a different direction and let Dunleavy be a bit more well-rounded, even if he sacrifice a bit of shooting (which is debatable, I suppose)

I've gotten the feeling that Stalberg really doesn't want to be back, even with fair compensation. I don't think he enjoyed the Q doghouse very much.

If we trade Alexei, I have a feeling we'll see Gordon at SS and Kep at 2B. Morel would probably be in the mix as a platoon partner at 3B for Gillaspie in that case.

Is it just me or is that not a good return?