bmags

Gonna post my top 5 before I open to see if I'm right 1) LaMarre 2) Fisher 3) Polo 4) Dedelow 5) Rutherford

I like that he's capable of being a corner OFer. Could be a fun signing, if nothing else, would like to see white sox create relationships in that region.

DA - this is a something that has been gnawing at me put perfectly. I am not a pessimist on the future, I think the sox collection of talent is pretty good. But for a while you used to say "Why would you support a rebuild with this same group" and for a while I felt that the sox brass was capable of making the right decisions...they just weren't. But the "half-in/half-out" line is what worries me. It feels like in terms of operating, sox goal is to never be too far behind the best practices, sit comfortably, slightly above average. It has been a long time since I have seen an example of where the sox consistency in personnel has paid off. That, for a while, was pitching and health. But cracks are appearing in the dam.

edit: Deleted post asking who will win tonight. Wow I thought today was thursday. Man.

I can't stop laughing at this:

And zero of those teams did it with the same management staff. The sox model is very strange.

If I ran a team I would make the hitting coach into a traveling fellowship type deal. Each year a new guy comes in, gives different perspectives. The FO/manager/player would track overall progress to ensure nobody is getting completely revamped every year. If players (or specific player) love a guy you keep him on and STILL have a new person come in and have two hitting coaches.

So rebuilds happen and sometimes they are painful, but I still kinda think Steverson should be fired.

I wouldn't hate this but I did mainly want to use money either on short term deals or big money elite talent purchases. A lot of people saved up for this FA period, and I think a team that loses out will pick up Eovaldi for more than Chatwood. But I do think it's an interesting pickup, I'm just not sold on the payoff being that big. But he may very well be the jhoulys chacin of the fa period.

Yeah it was a doppelganger thing but even then, trout seems so much bigger than engel in the batter box. I never really saw it.

It's the offseason.

Bulls fans are gonna be so pumped to find out about our new advertising patch on the uniform!

I hadn't thought about it but I think I'm going to eliminate kickers from my league. There is much more strategy with def than there is with K.

"Have you ever heard of health savings accounts?"

I would be surprised if hawks are better than bulls. Other than that their ranking of the east feels right. I think Orlando/DET are two possible surprise teams. I don't think much of DET longterm, but I like Casey and they have vets that can take care of the trash on most nights.

Right but that's what I'm saying. Baseball isn't impossible to win just because of money deficit, as it was in moneyball. The perspective of the article and of what I"m talking about is around the fan experience. Ignorance was quite frankly more fun. I miss thinking the team could surprise people and pull one off. I love baseball, but I struggle to maintain interest when team is losing. I want that champagne locker room footage. I want playoffs. And it sucks going into season after season knowing how unlikely it is. They are not one player away. They are not 2 players away. It just sucks some of the fun out of the actual season.

The Dolphins secondary is actually very good though. Last two games is easier to swallow than when a 6td game skewed the first 4. The last two games his YPA is over 10. That's what we're hear for when you have a 70% completion percentage, not that 5.5 YPA crap. I also think we are starting to see what chemistry means. He finally seems comfortable with gabriel going long. He was way off to start year. Then started throwing ropes, now is getting more comfortable with loft again. He still has a long way to go, but yesterday actually feels better than TB to me. What hurt the narrative more than anything was the cohen fumble. He was answering TDs with TDs, and he was driving well when cohen fumbled.

Three of the by reputation best defenses in the league have all given up 30 point + games now to pretty meh offenses in the jags, rams and bears. Ravens of course have been pretty suffocating, so have bills.

Rocco Baldelli! That guy was on everyone of my terrible fantasy baseball teams in high school.

We don't really know but Cashman has been incredible with trades so I don't think we should take the price for granted.

No one will let it be an excuse because it clearly shouldn't be, but the d line looked completely gassed starting in the 2nd quarter. It was 100 degree heat with no wind and that d line that pushes oline into the QB was gone, and they were often just standing up and playing run. That shouldn't be an excuse because they are professionals, but I love akiem hicks and it was hard to watch his effort and he was on his knees between every play.

It seems that independents/moderates have platforms that are a mixture of surprisingly liberal along with surprisingly conservative views. They are catered to by the democrats with candidates that offer policies that don't particularly fix anything but make you feel like they are supposed to. "Like you, I think it's terrible that college tuition is skyrocketing year after year. To fix that, I propose a federal savings vehicle that will let families save up to $200, tax free, in order to help mitigate that costs. I believe EVERYONE deserves a chance to go to college." But realistically if you want to get pegged as a moderate you need to just be publicly idiosyncratic about one thing across policy lines. Justin Amash is very conservative, but extends that through positions that put him at odds with his party on foreign policy and it lends him tremendous credibility. All that centrist dems offer is "Hey, don't worry, I won't do that much, so please don't blame me if the party does something you don't like".

yeah, that team was good. That San Diego game the team was on all cylinders and then we had the worst qb ever play rest of season. That denver loss...ugh.

Who is "you" in this scenario? Me, the fan, has no ability to hire a smart ownership. And it is because I'm aware of how the front office of the team I work for has to be progressive that I know the team is not set-up for success in the year and possibly not forward without great luck. And while your NBA analogy is solely based on championships, there is a gigantic difference in leagues in that 16 teams make the NBA playoffs, and only 8 do in baseball, and 1/4 of that group will only have one playoff game. Playoffs are fun! Sure, some moan after years of playoff appearances as "useless" without a championship, they are in face much more fun as a fan than a decade without a playoff appearance. I am not a front office, and it is unlikely I can veer into becoming either an owner or GM in baseball. So it is because I am so aware what is needed to win that it takes a lot out of pre-season excitement knowing that the the team with great luck would probably only get 80-82 wins, and 6-7 teams with much worse luck could still probably hit 84 wins. 2010 was a perfectly fine season for the white sox. 2012 too. They would have been immensely more fun with even just 1 playoff series.

I think one area where it has absolutely had an effect is just overall season excitement. In other sports there just feels like "maybe they can put it all together this year and make playoffs and have a run". The predictive analytics in baseball are not gospel, but they drive home how far off and how lucky your team has to be to make a leap. Baseball seems freakin impossible to win at.