Balta1701

QUOTE (shipps @ Dec 17, 2014 -> 05:08 PM) True dat. But they might have viewed him as the possible 35 HR potential guy. You still could view him as that but you're not going to pay $4 million+ for the privilege when he's probably going to be cut and claimable for much less than that at the end of ST.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 17, 2014 -> 05:11 PM) I think that response of his is just typical meat-head, cop speak though. If Brown and Garner were white and there was an uproar over police brutality/killings, the response from cops would be the same. The whole "don't do anything illegal and it won't be a problem" has been a long-time justification for police action/intrusion. I get you, but you gotta admit to some people it wouldn't come off that way. Similar example - how well does "Sports locker room" talk go when it is taken out into the public? Suddenly the kinds of things people say jokingly behind closed doors start getting people fined or fired because a specific group will not take things the same way. The problem here would be that he has to work with these people, he's armed and they're required to work with him on any number of levels. The community he's serving could just chalk this up as yet another reason not to trust their own police force, and "communities not trusting the local police force" is literally at the heart of all these topics.

Sony has postponed the release of the film.

QUOTE (shipps @ Dec 17, 2014 -> 05:03 PM) Man, if the sabes didnt exist it would have been so easy to trade Tank for something good! I bet 10 years ago you could have gotten a nice return for a guy like him. 10 years ago there was so much offense that people wouldn't care that much about a guy who hits 25 home runs but under .250 with a sub.750 OPS in his best year.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 17, 2014 -> 04:58 PM) It's not advocating action. It's not promising action. It's providing a "response" to the "I can't breathe" message. That's it. If you think that's a legitimate threat, literally anything can be a threat. It does seem like a reasonable standard to hold a law enforcement officer to in their contract would be that they're not allowed to publicly endorse things that a reasonably large number of people they have jurisdiction over would find personally intimidating. So whether you personally would think it's a threat or not, if you were an african american in that community, I think you'd take a different message from it, and that's the important point, it's another aspect of breaching the community's trust. That said, I doubt most local police contracts are all that well thought out to hit exact standards and legal language.

Am I reading this right, so you guys are saying this is ok because of free speech? I'm not even sure whether it's as intimidating as SS says...but free speech = an employer cannot limit your ability to say certain things a condition of employment?

QUOTE (Lemon_44 @ Dec 17, 2014 -> 03:24 PM) Why is Castro, who is 2 years older and, other than 1 year, been a worse offensive player than Dayan a bounce back candidate but Viciedo is not? Can't have a bounce back season until you have a breakout season.

QUOTE (SCCWS @ Dec 17, 2014 -> 02:12 PM) Last year they projected Boston with a 43 for 2014 and they had one of the worst records in baeball. Fun to look at but a Fortune Teller working the subway station imay be ust as accurate. A single bad miss I can live with, but one thing really bothering me now that people are putting so much weight on these predictions this offseason is that there's an accuracy rate and a margin of error that they're not sharing. If 10% of them are off by 20 wins and 25% are off by 5 wins, then they're pretty darn useful. If 50% of them are off by 20 wins, you're almost better off flipping a coin.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Dec 17, 2014 -> 12:20 PM) but the information that these use is the statistics and it's incredible how much correlates year to year based on that information alone. Have you actually seen a good presentation/plot of how well these prediction systems do at predicting people's actual performance?

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Dec 17, 2014 -> 09:40 AM) Why in the world would we acquire Cole Hammels? ALL. THE. LEFTIES.

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Dec 16, 2014 -> 04:16 PM) If I didn't like Comic book movies I wouldn't go see them. There are hundreds of movies that come out every year. 3 to 5 are based on comics. I don't like Pixar movies, so I don't go see them. No big deal. I get one complaint - there's definitely a resource issue here, if you're a fan of big-budget, action blockbusters that aren't comic book movies or are standalone, that does seem to have been crowded out a bit by studios unwilling to take risks.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 16, 2014 -> 03:22 PM) Again assuming that the guy who you put into the leadoff spot doesn't mentally zone out because he isn't in his usual spot. And the bench player who already isn't a good hitter who is forced into the leadoff spot? What happens to him?

QUOTE (peppers312 @ Dec 16, 2014 -> 10:20 AM) the Yankees who paid Alex Rodriguez $252.87M sure don't have a problem signing roiders and getting to the playoffs all the time. not sure why White Sox fans have a problem with supporting a team that signed a guy who got caught and served his time. to me, it's old news and everyone deserves a second chance to redeem themselves. So your point is in part based on the sentiment that "Alex Rodriguez's contract is a solid one"?

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Dec 15, 2014 -> 06:59 PM) If you oppose nuclear energy, you really don't care about the environment, or so says a bunch of climate scientists. http://bravenewclimate.com/2014/12/15/an-o...nuclear-energy/ Of course, there's one key thing they buried in there, "advanced nuclear power systems with complete fuel recycling". Complete fuel recycling is currently not done really anywhere, when accomplished its a major step on the path towards weaponizing nuclear material, it would be an additional cost on top of current operation, and it still leaves no answer to what happens with the large stockpiles of waste that the US taxpayer is currently paying to manage. IMO it's like saying "If you aren't in favor of coal burning with complete carbon capture and storage you don't care about the environment." Great, but no one is doing that right now for good reasons, its expensive, no one will pay those costs unless governments force them to, and there are downsides that people have only begun dealing with.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Dec 16, 2014 -> 08:35 AM) Not zero punishment! He was left off the Giants playoff roster once reinstated, and he was ruled ineligible to win the batting title. So....... You done yet? And people have thought that "but the Giants would have wanted him back" is a defense of him. See how every one of these defenses turns back so easily?

QUOTE (LDF @ Dec 16, 2014 -> 06:47 AM) and so did Melky. the rules were broken and he paid the piper. there is no degrees of of breaking the rules, 1 infraction 1 punishment. And lying to investigators = 0 punishment.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 15, 2014 -> 07:48 PM) Sox already working to convince Samardjiza to extend. http://www.csnchicago.com/white-sox/white-...-stick-around-0 "Here is a pile of money and many beautiful ladies."

If that system is projecting the White Sox to be down 10.6 wins and they're over 28 wins in what it currently counts... Then if the White Sox players basically wind up approximately doing what they did last year (obviously with some guys up and some guys down), that puts them close to 40 fWAR and should put them almost certainly in the playoffs. of course that would mean the "projection" of team-wide declines was wrong, but a "guys generally do what they did last year on average" projection isn't obviously that much more invalid.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Dec 15, 2014 -> 07:06 PM) I see us as the exact opposite. If we make the playoffs, I think we are as good as anyone else, since two of our biggest flaws, are the 4th and 5th starter spot, which go away when you make the playoffs. I think we are, in our current construction, built to have playoff success. However, while I think we can be a playoff team, I don't think we are necessarily someone I would project as making the playoffs. There was a bit of sarcasm in my reply that I'm not sure was caught.

QUOTE (Mike F. @ Dec 15, 2014 -> 06:24 PM) I don't see the Sox as a World Series contending team as this point, but they are definitely in contention for the division. Detroit didn't get any better and KC won't be as good as they were last year. I see the Sox and KC fighting for 1st place next season. I agree, the White Sox are probably division title contenders but not world series contenders. This is of course based on noting that last year, the 2 teams in the world series were both teams that failed to win their division and assuming that trend continues.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Dec 15, 2014 -> 04:16 PM) Why? Keith Law doesn't hate the White Sox, never has, and previously was calling it liked he saw it. He didn't see Sale as anything other than a potential reliever and then stated that he never saw Sale's slider turning into a plus-plus pitch, like it has. He saw him as fastball-change. Frankly, what the Sox have been able to do with Sale is incredible. There is no way any team other than the Sox saw him like this or he would have gone #1 overall. Plus Montas is practically a Red Sox prospect anyways. That's a pretty bizarre scouting report for Chris Sale based solely on what we saw him throwing in 2010 when he was drafted and came up, which was fastball-slider according to both my memory and Pitch-F/X. He gradually added in the change later.

QUOTE (South Side Fireworks Man @ Dec 15, 2014 -> 05:24 PM) As the team stands now, 80 - 82. Although much improved, they still have holes at 2B, RF, 3B, C, and 4th SP. If they can improve at two or three of those positions they can be a serious contender. Melky Cabrera is a hole?

QUOTE (thxfrthmmrs @ Dec 15, 2014 -> 05:05 PM) At the end of the year, the difference in total WAR value between the best team and the worst team will be a lot greater than 10, because the number of minor/major positive outliers on a team does not equal to its minor/major negative outliers. I think the Sox would be one of those teams that will have more positive outliers than negative ones. I plotted this up at the end of last season. If your team was in the range of 40 WAR you were extremely likely to be a playoff team. If your team was in the range of 20 WAR you were about the worst in the league. So...by my count, if we were at 28+ in a setup that seems extremely likely to underestimate where the team actually sits...that's a solid place to be.

Lowrie to the Astros, 3/$23.

QUOTE (WhiteSoxLifer @ Dec 15, 2014 -> 03:51 PM) Technically it wouldn't stop the sox from trying to extend sale or abreu. Both of their contracts come up at the 2019. Quintana comes up at the end of the 2018 season. The way hahn has added the free agents so far this offseason has all of their contracts coming off at the end of 2018. If danks, Laroche and ramirez all come off their contracts when they are supposed to that's 37+ million coming off at the end of 2016 season. If they get ride of some of them sooner then we save sooner. Duke and cabrera come off the books then at the end 2017 season with 19+ million. Add in the 13 for Robertson coming of at the end of 2018 that's basically 70 million coming off the books between the end of the 2016 season till 2018. Sox will have money then That's not true. Quintana has options that will take him through the end of 2020.