Balta1701

QUOTE (Joshua Strong @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 12:49 AM) If anyone lives in the L.A area, I'm trying to move out to the area for an internship and wanted to speak to someone about living in the area. I spent 6.5 years there, Chisoxfn lives there now.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 10:51 AM) My parents were on a Mediterranean cruise last week. When they booked it over the winter, Tunis was one of the stops. After the first terrorist attack on the museum in March, the cruise company completely removed Tunisia from all itineraries, and just added another stop in Europe. Tunisia was for a while the "shining example" of a country where the "Arab spring" government overthrows had actually produced benefits for the people but the ongoing instability in the countries next door, a direct legacy of our bombing of Libya, is coming across the border.

QUOTE (shysocks @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 10:15 AM) Which major free agents were the Indians banking on? Their expectations were based on growth from starting pitching. Unless you're not counting them among the four teams that had expectations. Actually I was going with Oakland there since they signed Butler to a multi-year deal.

QUOTE (flavum @ Jun 28, 2015 -> 09:45 PM) Bottom 5 in the AL... Indians 33-41 Mariners 34-42 Red Sox 34-43 A's 34-44 White Sox 32-42 5 teams out of it before the break, and 4 of these teams had real expectations going into the season. And all 4 based those expectations on major free agent signings. Maybe that's worth noting?

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Jun 28, 2015 -> 08:43 PM) Disappears even more I guess? Which is already going to happen next year. I can't tell whether the fan base is best described as disappointed, angry, disillusioned, or just doesn't care. I think it's a bit of all of them - some people who bought in this year are sad, some are disappointed, some are furious with themselves for having bought into this mess. We might have actually made out better with a rebuild.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Jun 28, 2015 -> 07:17 PM) It's not cheating, but the Cubs are the only ones who could pull this off. The Sox have to basically go for it every year or the fanbase disappears. It just sucks that everything is going wrong this year. People keep saying how terrible it would be for the White Sox to rebuild...and they're about to finish 4 terrible seasons out of 5 and be in a far worse position overall than the Cubs were after their 5 losing seasons.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Jun 28, 2015 -> 05:23 PM) That's all I could think of too. You have a fellow pitching that is a #1 or #2 starter on about any team and it's like with the snap of a finger he disintegrated. With a 4 run lead and the 8th inning/>90 pitches, someone ought to have been warming up to start the inning just in case. With that pitch count he wasn't likely to take the full 9th inning especially when Cabrera would have been up in the 9th even if the 8th was an easy inning. Warming a guy up to start the 8th would have been a smart precaution and the pitcher would almost certainly have been used in the 9th if Samardzija had an easy inning.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Jun 28, 2015 -> 04:43 PM) It was a sad display. I was following it the best I could via Gameday and the Shark was dealing. But, all of sudden there in the 8th he put the first two runners on and I was thinking we were going to lose it. It might have been a proper call to take him out, but I know he had been dominant up to that point so those decisions are tough ones. From watching the game it turned so quickly that I don't think they had anyone ready to come in until after Miggy's at bat. That's a comment on both the preparation of the coaching staff and just the reality of how it went. He was pitching to VMart with 108 pitches and it would have been a really good place to bring in Petricka to try to get the GIDP.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jun 28, 2015 -> 04:18 PM) That win might again wake up the Tigers. Just as the Sox wake up the Indians and Twins. What a disgusting baseball team. How could anybody in their right mind pay to go to a Sox game the rest of the season? I'd puke handing over the money for parking or a 10 dollar burger at this point. Hey, going out to a baseball game is still a fun day. You just have to go expecting that the team will lose and not be mad if they do.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Jun 28, 2015 -> 04:11 PM) Do you have confidence in the White Sox evaluating players? I don't. I haven't see anything from this organization over the last decade to believe they are good talent evaluators. Now, a lot of the Latin American evaluation was stunted because of the Wilder Scandal. But I won't give this organization the benefit of the doubt until I see talent emerged from Latin America. An important note here though is that when you're signing 15-16 year old latin american kids, it could be a decade before they hit the big leagues and they'd still be pretty young. The new setup started in the 2013 signing season right? Even if we did everything right, it could be 4-5 years before we start really seeing anything out of that setup from the first couple years. Regardless of whether or not we're able to develop these players, that's got to be kept in mind for evaluating the White Sox and the international signing work.

It took some real skill, some real determination to lose this ballgame. You have to be impressed by this one. They stared a win straight in the face and said "We will NOT."

Sigh

it is an extremely complicated trade deal currently being negotiated between the United States and 12 countries throughout the Pacific rim. Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam. There have been several dozen formal negotiating rounds. Negotiations on the treaty began sometime in 2005 so it has been going on for literally a decade. If signed and approved, the trade deal is expected to lower restrictions on the trade of some goods such as manufactured goods and raise them on other goods such as intellectual property that the U.S. tries to protect. That's the basics. There are then many, many complexities. The negotiations are being conducted in secret to allow countries more negotiating freedom but it is felt that many corporate interests have been able to gain specific access to the negotiations to lobby for inclusion of clauses they like. Wikileaks has released some significant portions of the previously negotiated text. The end result would probably be comparable to how NAFTA has impacted the North AMerican trade area. Manufacturing jobs would be easier to ship overseas due to lower trade amounts, leading to lower cost goods and also lower wages. The U.S. would have a stronger case to make in copyright infringement cases which is something the US constantly stands up for since we have big media companies. There would also be some weakening and some strengthening of environmental regulations, probably overall weakening based on the current text which would create new mechanisms by which environmental regulations could be challenged. There would be some additional weak controls on currency manipulation amongst the countries. Because it is expected to generally benefit corporate interests while hurting workers, Unions and Democrats generally are opposed to it while Republicans are in favor of it. This setup was expressed strongly in the votes in Congress - the major difference is that the President, a Democrat, is pushing for it. In order for final negotiations to be completed, Congress was asked to pass something called "Trade Promotion Authority" which says that if the President completes a trade agreement, Congress will only vote on it yes or no, they will not attach amendments. For negotiation this is important as "President reaches agreement but Congress amends agreement afterwards" would kill an agreement. That was one part of the votes happening last week, to allow the President that authority. Along with these bills there is some additional federal assistance typically given to workers who lose their jobs directly because they're outsourced (that's right, your government uses your taxes to offset losses from when they make it cheaper to send jobs overseas.). That assistance is generally attached to the negotiating authority so that some Democrats will go along with it. That is one of the other bills that Congress has dealt with - if you kill that part then it's expected there won't be enough Democrats voting for it for it to pass, so there has been a complicated series of votes in Congress for various pieces of this authority trying to get it through.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 28, 2015 -> 03:49 PM) What a freaking joke. Should have never been left in to face Kinsler. How does a Robin continue to keep his job? FWIW, I'm pretty sure they didn't have any relievers ready when Kinsler came up. I think the earliest they woudl have had someone ready was Martinez. (No that is not a defense of the manager).

108 pitches, bases loaded, hit a guy to drive in a run after loading the bases with 0 outs, why would you ever think that the pitcher needs to be pulled?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 28, 2015 -> 03:47 PM) I'd prefer Petricka for Martinez here, better shot at the DP. Just to note I had this sent before the bases clearing game tying double.

I'd prefer Petricka for Martinez here, better shot at the DP.

QUOTE (BigHurt3515 @ Jun 28, 2015 -> 03:43 PM) WHERE IS PUTNAM!!??! Eh, Petricka is a better chance for a double play. Samardzija falling apart, tying run on 1b with Miguel up.

Petricka loosening up "in a hurry" because he wasn't up at the start of the 8th inning. Sigh.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Jun 28, 2015 -> 03:28 PM) I've noticed a trend where you post on a topic and talk about how topic X is a major failure. You don't have answers to any of these said failures, but you do acknowledge that they are failures over and over again. I don't know if Avisail Garcia can be turned into a successful ballplayer or not, but this is the mess the white sox are in. They have a roster no where near strong enough to compete even for a wild card even with significant extra spending and that isn't going to change any time soon. First they need to overhaul their player scouting. They can't keep acquiring these high risk players who don't contribute on defense and have poor approaches at the plate unless they develop a newly-found ability to coach those guys into hitters. That's on both scouting and development. They're doing terrible at it. Beyond that, they need to start over. Get rid of as much veteran payroll as they can. These guys are literally useless to this franchise. If all they turn into is guys who are relievers for Charlotte in 3 years, that's ok, it's better than what we have now. Next, they need to acquire as many Avisail Garcia like guys as they can and give them playing time as long as they're cheap. Guys with talent but who will need several years, at the least, to see if they can learn how to become big leaguers. The key for guys like this is "don't rely on them in the least". If they put up sub .700 OPS numbers for multiple years in a row, you cast them aside when they become expensive, and maybe you keep the solid contributor or two. Meanwhile, continue making picks at the top of the draft, and for gosh sake please don't give away any more 2nd and 3rd round picks for garbage like what we brought in this year until we actually have a roster around them. Stop trying for the quick fix, realize what kind of mess we've made, and act like it. The way out requires patience, coaching, and rebuilding the organization up and down. No more quick fixes. No more gambling $50 million payroll increases on highly questionable players.

QUOTE (Heads22 @ Jun 28, 2015 -> 02:40 PM) Devils advocate, but do you consider him a finished product? No, but the front office gambled a pretty penny this year on guys like him being ready to be major contributors to a competitive team, so that's a pretty major failure...and he's a first year arb-eligible person this year, so the clock on "turning him into a ballplayer worth keeping on your roster" is now running.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 28, 2015 -> 02:18 PM) Just Peavy. Unless you want to put Myles Jaye and Daniel Webb in that same category... And you're happy calling Avisail Garcia a success?

QUOTE (Joshua Strong @ Jun 28, 2015 -> 12:06 PM) The Sox INTL dept. has spent the fifth most money since the new CBA came into effect, which is impressive when you consider that they don't overspend. So they spend every dollar that they have available to them, its even more impressive when you have teams like the Yankees, Cubs amd Dodgers going over every chance they get. I know that this has been a disappointing season, but there some things that the team does well and this is one of them. OF course, that also means that they're below .500 and getting large available bonus pools every single year.

Hawk talking about how great the 3 way trade was and includes Avi as working out great for the White Sox. "Good scouting all the way around."

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Jun 28, 2015 -> 12:15 PM) The quick fix was last off season as Sox management saw that as a way to get back into contention right away. It has not worked well yet but it still might with some more tweaks. Any rebound will be more than trading one player or tearing this team apart, whichever is your pleasure. I think we keep most of what we have and fine tune. We have talent and it is proven talent for the most part. Look at 2015 as an anomaly so far. "The short definition of insanity".