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Let's not go overboard, I don't think Houston's rotation is horrid.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Mar 28, 2017 -> 02:43 PM) I just hope we get Wizards/Cavs at some point. LeBron wouldn't even be the show in that one. Wall/Irving for a potential 7 games is box office. just please no toronto/cavs ECF.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Mar 28, 2017 -> 02:15 PM) bmags, you a fan of Keatts? Because I respect my readers I did some reformatting that, ahem, caused a duplication.

So as most of the coaching areas have settled, have to say this was one hell of a coaching class. Losers: KSU - saw two former coaches in the final four (that they let go) and one former asst. coach become a hot name and leave for U of I while keeping Bruce Weber. I think it's true that Underwood would have been difficult to get with his big 12 buyout, but bleh. OSU - what in god's name are they doing Cal - I just think they always have a tough job and it sucks when the coaches leave there, but on other hand they don't care that much about basketball Dayton - Maybe they find a great coach but OTOH they got a lot out of Miller. I left UW off that list. Yeah, they lost a top 5 recruiting class, but I think they made a decent hire and hard to keep Romar after last few years. VCU will find another good coach. That program is solid. Winners: Indiana - Upgraded Uof I - love Underwood Mizzou - hard to overstate how different and much positive energy there is compared to Haith/Anderson hires NC State - love Keatts LSU - I'm neutral on Wade but hard not to improve over Jones. WSU/Butler - For keeping their coaches again

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 28, 2017 -> 01:58 PM) The thing is no matter how decent he is, he will be out of a job in five years at UCLA. That is just the way UCLA is. They go through coaches like... [insert crude joke here]. That is the big reason I can kind of surprised Alford didn't push harder for IU. You have to wonder then if it was Alford's camp creating most of the noise.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Mar 28, 2017 -> 01:52 PM) 2nd worst defense in the nba since the all-star break and 22nd overall. LeBron gets the benefit of the doubt as he's made the finals every year since the decision. But this is looking like it's going to be A LOT more difficult than it's been for any of his teams during this run. Eh, I don't know. Then Lebron turns into a center fielder roaming the defense and wreaking havoc in passing lanes and blocking shots and suddenly teams can't score. Maybe this is the year he falls off but I'm not betting on it. It's hard, cavs have been working on the art of winning enough in the regular season. Lakers in early 2000s did this but it did eventually catch up to them, when they couldn't turn it on anymore.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 28, 2017 -> 01:40 PM) A 31 year old with a velocity jump? Sounds suspicious to me. It happened to Dennis Quaid.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Mar 27, 2017 -> 10:45 PM) Alford really isn't that great. He's just hot right now. He hit the lottery being at UCLA because the school can pretty much sell itself with all the resources and location. While mostly true UCLA has had a lot of trouble finding coaches that can fit with that program (not unlike Texas with football/basketball).

Yep. His huge jump in velo is something to watch. Could be a big trade piece if it translates to outs.

QUOTE (Tex @ Mar 14, 2017 -> 08:48 AM) I don't pick a venue based on the food or beverages, but I enjoy an event if they have the beverages and food I like. And that is the trend in stadiums. Get this reasonable and sensible take OUTTA HERE

I mean, I think if you polled everyone they liked Austin Jackson in CF more than Shuck. I'm pretty sure May can match Austin Jackson's stats until Tilson is better.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Mar 28, 2017 -> 09:03 AM) The point being, take away games that don't count, he's been far less interesting. Maybe he figured something out, or maybe he will be back in Charlotte quickly, but it isn't like they have a ton of better options. Maybe one of May, Engel and perhaps Leury will step up and show they belong in Chicago. They probably all will be flying a lot between the cities this summer. One thing here, the most likely young contributors we will see this year are pitchers. I'm glad all of the lower level prospects we are trying out in outfield are defensive studs or fast. I would want them to have as good of a defense as possible. Melky wasn't terrible last year but Avi needs to be hidden and having all of these super fast good CF types is the rebuilding with longshots I prefer.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Mar 28, 2017 -> 08:53 AM) He makes Darrin Erstad look useful. Actually that was the name that I thought of as they described him, except the grounders are hit weakly to the SS instead of 2b.

Saladinos bat was supposed to be terrible too. But if he can somehow scrape out a .720 Ops like Salad with plus plus OF defense then congrats we don't need to buy that on the open market. Something we have spent a lot on with players like bonifacio.

Man there is a lot of indignation in this thread. Glad Bourjos is gone. I had a feeling he would be my least favorite rebuilding player after talking to my philly fan friends.

Seeing on Twitter that Virginia and Kansas now look likely to take Medicaid expansion. edit: said Nebraska meant kansas.

So, Mirotic with a nice march again.

The Otani thing is hard to figure. It is almost irresponsible given what he could earn at age 25 to come over 2 (3?) years earlier and get 5-6 million. BUT - he wants to play in MLB and he will primarily be a pitcher. I do wonder if cases like Kenta Maeda are what is driving this. The usage of pitchers in Japan has been heavy, and has hurt their physical outlook. I wonder if that is why he wants to get over more quickly.

I do think it will come down to costs, however. Signing Robert in the 2016-17 signing period means going to Jerry asking him to take on a certain amount of tax. I think Robert salary will be depressed a bit due to the constraints of when he's signing and the all you can eat buffet so many of those teams went on. If it's close to 10-12 mill, that's 19-23 million total for the Sox. That seems reasonable. But obviously much beyond that it becomes untenable. No, I can't see the sox paying $30 million total with $14 mill in tax for Robert.

I used to think Padres were favorites if it's pre 15 because of low payroll, now I'd say Braves/Sox/Cardinals.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 27, 2017 -> 09:34 AM) The Padres have a $55 million payroll for 2017. The White Sox have a $90 million payroll. It would be very easy to argue that the Padres should be the early signing favorite for a few reason. #1 they already have gone over the caps this session, and literally have nothing to lose and everything to gain by bringing in every single player they can before June 15. They also have a lot less payroll spent in this period giving them the ability to spend a bit more than the white Sox have. According to the Forbes list, the Padres actually have a slight overall revenue advantage as of 2016, so the $35 million difference in payroll is significant as to their relative spending abilities. But they spent a crapton in taxes already. Signing Robert to 10 million would be an additional $20 million to that franchise, one that already spent $30 mill (this is Jimmys article isn't it? http://www.chicagonow.com/future-sox/2017/...e-sox-preview/) So you are talking about a $50 million investment into the riskiest pool of talent for the Padres. I just don't buy it anymore. Still think Cards could, and others, but I'm not buying the Padres would go that deep in.

So i think with the Kushner news about him leading a SWAT force of CEOs to fix the government, I think it cements those Trump as Carter analogies. I don't think Trump is eager to go back to the Congressional fray. He's just going to stick to exec orders and exec branch stuff he kind of can control. Of course, he could just choose to nominate a bunch of employees to enforce the laws in his preferred fashion. But that requires a competent staff and work. So instead he will just get a bunch of rich friends to sit in meetings and come up with ideas that would certainly not benefit the men in the room.

QUOTE (kwill @ Mar 27, 2017 -> 01:26 AM) I wanted to see what others thought of Jacob May. He like Tilson has an injury riddled past but is having a solid spring training. I know Spring Training are tainted given the small sample size and pitchers are often working on certain things. He is a 25 year old prospect that has some very good tools. He has never really put up the stats to be given a shot at a major league spot but who are we kidding, what is the downside of giving him the nod at centerfield? If this season has anything going for it is that you afforded to give opportunities to guys who normally would be stuck as career minor leaguers. Peter Bourjos is not exactly a viable long term solution. What is amazing about May is that he has never had any power to his game. He plays solid defense and can steal some bases. He does not have terrible strikeout numbers in the minor leagues sporting a 22.4% K percentage last year. The real knock on his game is that he just has no power with only 3 home runs in 750 at bats the past 2 season. I look at his size 5-10/180 according to Fangraphs which this would make sense given his low power numbers. I decided to take a look at his twitter page and some of the pictures out of camp. May looks pretty solidly built with muscle. It could be his swing path is more for grounders given his speed. I was wondering has anybody seen May up-close to see if he listed wrong. https://twitter.com/Jacob_May1?ref_src=twsr...7Ctwgr%5Eauthor My hope is that in the process the Sox are able find a few regular major leaguers who could be starters in the future. Would love to hear some other Soxtalk thoughts on him. Not a bad idea. Especially a guy like him with speed was probably told to just make contact. If he can get some lift though, he would be much more valuable.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Mar 27, 2017 -> 09:05 AM) This isn't really true. Most of the other guys already have agreements in place with teams. It pretty much seems like Robert or bust at this point which is why I think they end up with him. I am certainly open to idea I'm putting my fan hat on and ignoring more compelling evidence, but to me that Badler article is still reassuring to me. It reads like "they don't seem like the obvious candidate since they didn't already spend over limit but the white sox keep coming up". It could be a case where we "pursue" with a lowercase p, and fool ourselves to thinking we can land Robert with whatever available funds are left in 2016-17 period, but I think the sox are preparing themselves to be contenders no matter what. I think the main part of it to me is they just seem like an org that is much more comfortable buying into paying a bunch for an 18-19 year old talent than betting on 16 year old ones. Especially ones that had been playing professionally, even if a light league.

One takeaway from me is that pitch from Abreu on Cuban players really seemed to effect Yoan and may come into play with Robert if we spend comparably.