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QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 11, 2017 -> 05:01 PM) Strap in. I would be surprised if this was done a month from now. It's funny but it's only been 5 days since morosi's astros tweets and us lining up astros offers then the rumbunter tweets and its back to pirates. Best/most annoying part about all of this is the shifting every five days to a new headliner.

Derek Holland is a an ace

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 11, 2017 -> 02:46 PM) I believe framing is a real stat unlike some, but I do wonder if it gets to a point where an umpire will see a catcher always posting good framing numbers, and start to use it against him. They are human. I am sure they see these lists. If Tyler Flowers always gets balls called strikes, couldn't it eventually lead to an umpire calling what he considers borderline pitches thrown to him balls because they figured his framing has given them an illusion? On the flip side of this, there were articles this year that this has actually gotten a lot better league wide so it's likely that teams focus on it and eliminate the variance. Umpires would probably prefer a smoothing out of catching styles. The white sox were the huge low end, but as a whole the distance between best and worst has tightened, one of the reasons you see Lucroy go from amazing to average.

Seattle has quietly been the most entertaining part about this offseason outside of our megatrades.

QUOTE (Username @ Jan 11, 2017 -> 02:00 PM) Probably unrelated, but the Braves just traded Mallex Smith and a bullpen piece for two class A pitchers. One of which is a pretty well-regarded lefty. Would make sense if they're about to unload some young pitching for a front-line starter, like a bunch of people have been speculating recently (Justice, Bowman, etc.). Then again, could be absolutely nothing. Edit: Crasnick is now reporting another trade is coming, but from the Mariner's side. I kept thinking mariners could be in on our bullpen pieces. But I doubt its us.

QUOTE (Frank_Thomas35 @ Jan 11, 2017 -> 01:25 PM) Agreed I was warming to the idea but after reading that it worrys me. Even their write up on Glasnow mentioned there is a chance he could end up as a reliever. I just don't see any of these teams willing to budge at this point. I really think this plays out through spring training (baring an injury) and up though the trade deadline. And I'm okay with that Hahn needs to maximize value with Q and really all the remain trade assets. This rebuild needs to be done throughly and patiently. I'm okay with them holding out to get the guys on their board, it just worrys me the Q is slated to pitch the WBC, and although he is not injury prone that's my main concern with not pulling the trigger before spring training, the WBC, and the regular season. Fangraphs writeups are much more conservative than say, MLB pipelines, and so it's good to give yourself some context by reading some of other top prospects from them. They are still prospects and prospects fail. For example, Max Scherzer also had questions about whether they would be a starter or reliever. So did Chris Sale. But yes, these are great and should be a bucket of water that indeed some of these players will fial. And same goes for meadows, he may have constant hamstring issues like we dealt with from Pods after 06 and he never plays.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 11, 2017 -> 12:53 PM) It is amazing that he went from such a determined bad ass to a complete pile of jello. I hate armchair sports psychology but that sounds a lot like depression.

QUOTE (PolishPrince34 @ Jan 11, 2017 -> 12:28 PM) http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/top-21-pros...sburgh-pirates/ Pittsburgh Pirates TOP 21 prospects on Fangraphs They do such a good job. MLB Pipeline is a nice reference but it has every player of the white sox in the top 30 as a 45, that's just too samey. Fangraphs does a better job of tiering.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 11, 2017 -> 11:54 AM) lets see what his policies look like, though. give him a chance. Hans Von Spakovsky is a horrible man, who has been an incredibly useful idiot, posting flawed study after flawed study to be used by AGs to restrict voter id http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/al-...-id-stats-video

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/key-gop-ch...-replace-o-care Lamar Alexander is proposing a realistic alternative. It will not cover as many people and leaves itself open to cost spirals, but mostly just shifts around a bunch of "aesthetic" objections. I will give him credit, it is more serious than most of their proposals. It recognizes that getting more people treatment is a worthwhile goal.

In general though I think we are putting way too much stock in what a non-org member is saying re-who is "untouchable". No Boston blogger was saying that Moncada would be available for Sale. That said, every team in on Q to this point accurately believes that no top position player has been offered yet for Q, so why be the first? There are no deadlines so they may as well see if they can wear out the sox.

It almost seems like something you would start a congressional investigation over.

QUOTE (steveno89 @ Jan 11, 2017 -> 09:41 AM) Meadows, glasnow, bell, newman and keller is insane to even suggest. Pirates aren't offering that much short of trout Liriano's 13 million dollar salary forced them two top twenty TEAM prospects but sending bastardo's 6 million dollar salary going into the deal forces them to include a top 20 prospect? Like you said, that is a Mike Trout package, not a Quintana plus Petricka

Love that Merkin went there. Nice to soak in some info.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 11, 2017 -> 08:51 AM) Look at this from the opposite perspective (and ignore the fact that what I'm going to say also is stateable about the presidential election, that's unavoidable because of what the FBI did). Hypothetically say that this material is fabricated, or at least the Buzzfeed content. Hypothetically say that even some of the material that CNN reported on, the 2 page summary given to the President Elect, is incorrect and false. That material was leaked to CNN within a week and they were able to basically confirm it is the material given to the President Elect. In that case, do you not have an intelligence organization that is intervening in politics to discredit the President Elect for reasons unknown and using material that the general public can't verify or see in order to do so (yeah, that part)? Yes it makes sense given that the only thing in the universe he hasn't insulted is anything Russian, but do you put it past America's intelligence agencies to smear a politician for their own reasons (quite obviously no)? Can't help but read this and realize if this is fabricated info it will serve russian interests in that he will continue to believe any info from them over our own intel.

Yeah i don't know how to fix that so I made it a link.

That, that is very large.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jan 10, 2017 -> 09:57 PM) So, is this the point where the unholy Trump/Democratic alliance forms? Because I have to imagine there are some Republican's out there who could possibly see it as advantageous to get rid of Trump in favor of Pence. I kid, but still scary to think about. Pence becoming pres much less scary than current circumstance.

The cohen stuff is the most damning but also should be so easy to verify. Why would it take months for FBI to verify that?

I am actually surprised Sox don't take a salary dump for drob.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 10, 2017 -> 07:45 PM) Not necessarily. Per the CNN report, the Intelligence community presented Trump with a 2 page summary of documents that they believe are legitimate and derived from the investigation of someone from MI6 over a number of years. That summary was supposedly based on a number of different reports. This dump by Buzzfeed may or may not include some or all of those specific reports, and it may also potentially include fabricated ones - since we have no way currently to verify the chain of documents and per their statement they cannot verify that these are all the same documents that the intel report was based on, it would be entirely possible for some portion of this to have been invented by someone online and wound up added to their document dump. Yes this was better put.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 10, 2017 -> 07:37 PM) It's the dossier the intelligence community has already presented to Trump, a man who spent years as the leader of the idiot birther brigade. Either way, this is another win for Russia, though. Not even in office yet, and Trump's legitimacy is deeply suspicious. The problem is context. You don't know what from the document they have presented, it was gathered from elsewhere. And absent that context, it will all be taken equally. If the lighter claims get shot down, it won't matter if any is true. The CNN report was much better reporting.

https://lawfareblog.com/about-explosive-tru...ake-deep-breath Well reasoned assessment.

I saw their statement, but publishing a dossier like that and admitting you can't verify is dangerous. There is certainly some false stuff in there (conservatively) and if so that will be used to discredit all info in future.

I'm not sure buzzfeed made the right move but not sure "everyone knows about something but nobody talks about it" is good either.