Jake

Jimmy's back! Bravo to GarPax and Thibs for drafting and developing Jimmy. He's such a nice piece and it cost us no resources to have him/acquire him. He, Taj, Omer, Thabo are great examples of our late draft drafting

PEACE

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 22, 2013 -> 08:35 PM) Anyone disagree that Erik Johnson is making himself into a top 100 prospect? Seems to be. Most of the pre-season buzz I heard about him was positive from national scouts, so I can only assume that this type of production should get him recognition.

Your White Sox starting pitcher, Dylan Matsuzaka

Hector > all

Dylan Axelrod, master of pitch efficiency.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Apr 22, 2013 -> 08:12 PM) How close was Dunn's ball to going out? Did Harrelson give it the obligatory "stretch" even? On the computer, it simply reads "flew out to deep center." No, Hawk knew it wasn't out. It had more of a line drive trajectory. Didn't even take him to warning track. Caught it a little towards the handle.

I always feel like a small battle has been won when Adam doesn't strike out.

Axelrod is just about the most boring pitcher. Not bad enough to be interesting, not good enough to be interesting. Bad stuff, inefficient, no strikeouts. Where's Arnie Munoz when you need him?

I don't miss Bogans or Watson at all. Or Brewer, for that matter. The only players of value on last year's bench were Asik and Korver. Both are overpaid and Asik was unfathomably bad when we gave him extended minutes.

FWIW, if we're going to freak out about some of our early season performances, let's lump Gillaspie in there. He could be the answer at 3B. Very solid player so far.

There is an underlying assumption here that being bad gains you something. It doesn't. There is no reason to give up good players for the sake of doing it. If, in July, we're out of contention, you deal the people that certainly won't be a part of your squad when you expect to be peaking. Paulie, sayonara if that is the case. If Dunn plays well enough to become movable, he'd be gone. Gavin, goodbye. Peavy is signed affordably for the next 2-3 years. You want to be in the playoffs again before that contract ends. Same with Rios. We have money coming off the books with PK and Gavin leaving, a good core of pitching under contract for a while, and a 5-tool OF under contract to build around. Viciedo looks like he should be part of future clubs for years. Alexei is here to stay and appears to be in the midst of a bounceback year. Flowers is probably the C of the next few years and has a decently high ceiling. ADA should be a mainstay, it seems. We have some OF prospects that may come into the fold in the next couple years. Like I said earlier in this thread, it only takes some clever moves to turn you into a contender. We were rebuilding on the fly in '05. We made some savvy moves and won a World Series. A full rebuild that year, which would not have seemed entirely unwarranted, would have made those value pickups moot. IMO, you don't give up good players just for s***s and giggles. "oooo, we could have a top 10 draft pick!" Keep your team as good as you can get it. The key differences are where you big expenditures of money are. You won't sign a Dunn if you don't think you're on the verge of competing; you won't let PK play out this contract if you're not on the verge of competing. However, Rios should be one that stays in the fold regardless. That is, unless you are absolutely blown away in young MLB talent in trade. Then, of course, anyone is fair game.

This is the reason it is so difficult for a short term in prison not to be a de facto lifetime punishment. Go to prison, be raped and beaten, nobody cares, get out, lose all of your rights, have everyone ask why you won't be a productive citizen.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Apr 22, 2013 -> 08:25 AM) But he can just opt out. And then he goes to the Brooklyn...wait, no. He won't be going where he wants. This is a bit out of date, but here's a look at some teams who could have salary cap room this offseason.

I know we've talked about this in the 'Buster before, but there's something very odd about wishing someone to be prison raped.

I'm just going to keep rooting for Adam for now and hope something clicks. I feel like hating him is a bad investment of my emotions since it is unlikely to change anything. Hate Donnie Veal, instead. You won't have to hate him long before he's sent to AAA or released (don't know if he has options)

QUOTE (southsideirish71 @ Apr 21, 2013 -> 11:33 PM) I have a military style backpack 5.11 rush 24 with honor patches one being the punisher because I happen to like the punisher. The other patch is an american flag. The backpacks prove nothing except they like well made backpacks. Hence the reason I bought mine. My 9 year old is rocking a camo rush 12 with a spiderman honor patch and a zombie patch. I will have to alert the tinfoil society. Welcome to Lindsay Graham's watchlist

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Apr 21, 2013 -> 11:29 PM) If rebuilding is what the Sox have to do then let Hahn do it, no more Kenny Williams veto power BS. Kenny needs to go and give Hahn a real chance to clean up mess Williams left. I don't think Hahn is the right one to clean house, if for whatever reason the organization wanted to do some extensive rebuilding/retooling. I'm sure he is different from Kenny, but he has been a willing participant in the current state of the organization, for better and worse. KW was the boss, but it had always been clear that Hahn had very important input. It is hard to say exactly how much of the roster is the way it is because of Rick, but we can certainly say that it has much to do with him. He will have the same sunk-cost fallacy type of biases and the like that KW would have. That said, let's have this season play out a bit more before we go straight to the rebuild option.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Apr 21, 2013 -> 11:08 PM) Tinfoil is a bit tight I don't see why military personnel being present is proof of guilt. I also don't see the part where those two are without backpacks because they blew them up. Or why all the lines from the two pictures of them mean anything other than that those are both pictures of them.

I think clever GM'ing rebuilds just fine. There is no advantage in being bad. You can rebuild without losing a million games, you just quit spending bad money. We have the payroll and the market to always be somewhat competitive. We can buy superstars if we want to. This isn't the NBA, there is no cap space to clear, Derrick Rose isn't waiting with the number 1 pick.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Apr 21, 2013 -> 10:58 PM) If it hasn't been posted already, http://imgur.com/a/Nx8EU Sigh None of the different theories really fit together very well

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Apr 16, 2013 -> 11:20 AM) I feel like Mad Men is just set on repeat, especially the Pete/Don storylines. Didn't we see the same type of scenes 2-3 seasons ago? Although the Trudy/Pete scene was pretty epic. QUOTE (Brian @ Apr 16, 2013 -> 02:19 PM) I told my mom the same thing. The best stuff so far for me has been the Peggy work stuff. Don is becoming Roger and both Pete and Peggy are becoming Don. Will be interesting to see if and how those characters can divert those paths. Also, is anyone more awesome than Roger Sterling? I f***ing love that guy. QUOTE (bmags @ Apr 16, 2013 -> 02:24 PM) I decided I was done after the opener. I am not interested anymore in a dark take of people never change and redemption doesn't exist. I used to be fine with don's cheating, thinking it was part of his need to keep secrets because of his past. But now his past is pretty much settled, and so it's just that don's a sleezebag except this time he's hurting someone who is a good person and treats him well. I don't find that entertaining. I have a feeling we may get to a more complicated understanding of whether Megan is wholly good or not. One thing about Mad Men is that you will never have a guiltless character. Nobody is supposed to be the hero. There are no heroes.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Apr 21, 2013 -> 06:21 PM) Boozer was very good offensively yesterday. His help defense and positioning was terrible. I'm a pretty big fan of Boozer's and I have to say his defense was bad, even for him, last night. He was not alone in the least, though. Hinrich was god awful and he's usually decent to good.

QUOTE (Elgin Slim @ Apr 21, 2013 -> 04:32 PM) Maybe seeing his team play without him made him realize how "bad" the team is. I think that the Howard situation is just the beginning. These guys think their s*** doesn't stink, which is part of what makes them so good. They see LeBron and what he did and say, "I can do that too." Though Howard got lots of flak for what he did, it is going to take a huge backlash from the fans for these guys to realize that that is a bad idea. Carmelo did it, LeBron did it, Howard did it, they all got flak but in the end they ended up at THEIR CHOICE OF TEAM with better talent than what they had around them at their first team. Whether it works chemistry wise or not is a different story. I think Howard is the cautionary tale, here. He didn't want LA and now he's involved in that complete clusterf*** over there.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 21, 2013 -> 04:24 PM) People have said the same thing about KLove in Minnesota. Of course, he's willing to keep playing and accumulating injuries