Balta1701

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 09:06 PM) And which party has the White House, which has endorsed the bill? The Democrats have three choices: 1) Approve the current bill, which sucks 2) Approve a CR and then get faced with a bill in January that sucks worse 3) Don't approve either and get blamed for shutting down the government Why exactly does the party with a minority in the House have to approve the bill? In fact, how could they? They are, by definition, a minority. It is literally impossible for them to pass a bill on their own.

QUOTE (Cknolls @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 08:17 PM) Will the Dems shut down the govt? Which party has a majority of seats in the United States House of Representatives?

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 08:37 PM) Rasmus still has the biggest potential to outperform his contract if he's only paid $8-9 million. There's just no way we're bringing back Rios. And Aoki, while solid, is a lesser version of Markakis and similar to DeAza. That's not worth $7 million. Rasmus also probably has an equally big potential to underperform a contract like that.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 08:26 PM) Bring back Keppinger! Just think that Micah Johnson and Rodon starting the year with the Sox would be a complete shock. In that case, Sanchez is the starting 2b, leaving us still a need of someone with a legit bat who can alternate with LaRoche and Gillaspie. Let's look at it this way...Adam Dunn's OPS was .230 points worse against lefties last year than against righties. Adam LaRoche's OPS was .271 points worse against lefties. He was a better hitter overall...but he had a bigger platoon disadvantage than Dunn, and we carried a backup RH DH because of Dunn's platoon splits.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 08:23 PM) So despite the fact that Hahn said since Day 1 they were looking for a LH outfielder (that was the main reason that Tomas was crossed off the list), the signing of LaRoche now forces us back in the other direction? Doesn't make much sense. Not just that, but subtraction of semien and replacement with Johnson as well.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 05:31 PM) Danks numbers will continue to decline, he is not going improve in 2015. Sox need 1 more solid #4 starter. Why? He didn't improve all that much overall but he didn't decline from 2013 to 2014.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 04:29 PM) Simon: 3.34 ERA/4.33 FIP/196.1 IP Noesi: 4.75 ERA/4.83 FIP/172.1 IP I'm not saying Simon is awesome, but I don't see any argument at all the he didn't have a substantially better 2014 than Noesi. And it's hard to make any sort of positive argument for Noesi outside of 2014. So if you drop the "stretching his arm out to go 6 innings/terrible with the Rangers and Ms" portion, basically Noesi was just about as good as a guy the Tigers had to trade for?

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 04:00 PM) Technically speaking the upside from the trade perspective would be with Marlins. If Rienzo can pan out in the NL into a 4th / 5th starter, probably more valuable than Jennings upside as a reliever. How likli that is is another story but I could see plenty of scenarios where Rienzo contributes a greater WAR long term than Jennings. Jennings happens to be a nice fit for now but comes with his own issues. We aren't talking about some stud reliever here, rather a solid back of the pen guy with really bad lefty splits. But if you've got one guy Coop says "I can work with" and one guy Coop says "I can't work with"....

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 03:57 PM) I geuinely think you are the only White Sox fan who could find anything wrong with this deal at all. I also wouldn't be surprised if Rienzo had a decent career at some point. He has decent stuff, strong fastball and curve ball as well as room to grow on both, but that doesn't mean I have any problem with this deal.

QUOTE (TheTruth05 @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 12:32 PM) Bob Nightengale ‏@BNightengale 35s35 seconds ago The #Royals have their Power hitter in Kendrys Morales, who comes at $17 million over 2 years, $13 million cheaper than Billly Butler lol Jesus that's a lot of money for him.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 12:10 PM) This should mean no relief work for Rodon Thank God. Does Jennings have any options remaining? (Does Surkamp for that matter?)

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 09:17 AM) Just want to point out on the light bulb thing, there are still some devices that simply don't work with CFL's or LED's yet. Like my garage door opener/motor light housing for example. I'd rather not see incandescent bulbs outright banned yet - better to continue helping the transition happen naturally in the business world by continuing incentive programs from utilities (let them write them off in some way), and helping US manufacturers with the cost of build on bulbs. The transition is happening anyway, no need to get into some sort of panic. The lightbulb efficiency standards have actually led to the development of incandescent bulbs that are substantially more efficient than they otherwise would have been and actually meet the efficiency standards. One of those should work just fine in those systems. And to stress, literally the #1 reason why those were developed was to meet the new standards/avoid having those bulb types be phased out. There would have been very little reason for companies to invest in developing them had it not been for that government interference.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 12:02 PM) Scherzer is still the large, multicolored-eyed elephant in the room right now. There were rumblings at the start of winter meetings that he could last until January/February when some GM finally goes to his owner and says "we can win the world series with this guy".

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 11:43 AM) I've long said the Sox need to stop comingling developmental funds with major league contracts. It is just ludicrous. We need to set aside and investment good money into our farm system regardless of what is going on with major league club. With the international and domestic spending limits in place now how does that make sense? They literally can't just go "over slot" and score a huge draft or go spend that $1 million overseas without penalties any more.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 11:49 AM) That is a terrible contract for a guy who can't stay healthy. They are paying him 4 years for a deal they will probably get 2 years worth of pitching out of. As always, the trick is "can he help them win a world series in year 1"?

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 07:56 AM) You do realize you can nitpick ANY bill passed in the last 30 years, whether written by Democrats or Republicans in this exact manner. And we should.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 08:22 AM) That's true and we have zero use for a DH currently, or at least zero use for a $4 million platoon DH. (And he hasn't even hit lefties that well the past two seasons.) Given his age, I'm not ready to declare him a bust, but he might have to break out somewhere else if it happens. One other remarkable thing about our lineup is that we actually do have use for a platoon righty right now. As it stands now, our lineup pencils in 4 lefties if you count Micah: Johnson, Eaton, Gillaspie, LaRoche. If Sanchez takes the 2b spot to start the year, that still holds since he switch hits. I don't know how Micah's platoon splits will look in the big leagues, but I do know that two of those bats are garbage against lefties - LaRoche and Gillaspie. They're bad enough that Viciedo, as terrible as he is, would be an offensive upgrade from LaRoche at the DH spot. Before trading Semien this didn't look like that big of an issue to me because Marcus's bat could have slotted in nicely against any LHP as both a starter and a pinch hitter, but instead now we're looking at a bench maybe holding Sanchez, Saladino/Leury, Danks2, and a LH hitting catcher. Maybe Sanchez hits well enough to take some ABs from Gillaspie but its hard to see him taking ABs away from LaRoche, and plus Micah might benefit from some time on the bench against lefties as well. Suddenly we've gone from a place where our lineup needed lefties to a place where our bench is fairly lefty-strong but what we're missing is a solid RH hitting bat somewhere.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 08:16 AM) I think with the way advanced metrics have changed how we value defense, Viciedo can't hit enough to justify keeping him in LF. Of course, this is true in large part because he's done the opposite of what people are supposed to do with coaching and gotten worse out there every year. He put up a -3.0 UZR/150 (UZR over a season) in 2012, which isn't great but is entirely tolerable if a guy is hitting decently. He then put up a -9.7 in 2013 and a -13.8 in 2014. He's genuinely going backwards, by a ton, for no obvious physical reason. He's not old, he's not obviously in worse shape, he's not obviously getting slower, he's just getting sloppier.

QUOTE (SoCalSox @ Dec 10, 2014 -> 10:06 PM) THIS is exactly why I think Robertson makes this a .500 team last year and why I'm so excited he's a part of this team. So the Yankees lost 0 games leading when going into the 9th?

QUOTE (kwill @ Dec 10, 2014 -> 08:35 PM) I would trade for Crawford then have Viciedo platoon for Larouche and Crawford. I don't want to give up on him yet. Crawford is still a very good fielder, could deepen the lineup and add some speed to the bottom of the lineup. Plus, he seems like a great guy in the clubhouse. He is not too old to be productive throughout the rest of the contract. I really think there is not much difference between Crawford and Melky. So, Hahn said in his interview today he's very close to his money limit. Crawford has 3 years and $62 million on his deal - $20 mil per year. Even if we sent along Danks, the Dodgers would have to send back a good amount of money to limit the payroll hit to the Sox if he's being truthful with that statement.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 10, 2014 -> 07:52 PM) Jenks, you also didn't explain why who the CIA was torturing matters. Eh, we only tortured 26 innocent people. That's a solid accuracy rate right? I mean it's not like the CIA tortured their own informants because they didn't know which side was which and just said F*** it lets torture everyone, right?

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Dec 10, 2014 -> 07:36 PM) Athletics nation is hilarious. In their opinion semien is an above avg ss for the next decade, phegley is a promising "mlb ready catcher" (lol ok he is literally the definition of aaaa) and bassitt and ravelo will contribute with long mlb careers. Get real guys it was a very avg haul with Semien keying the deal. Them talking about phegley is especially lol worthy. Come on man. Phegley is one of those guys who strikes as a plausible Beane success story. Hitting in the minors but doesn't seem to be responding well to our coaching staff due to some unspecified "attitude problems", not learning well how to handle pitchers but plausibly correctible with coaching and playing time. Certainly not a guaranteed success but I totally get why Beane would want him. Wore out his welcome with the White Sox, the White Sox have a lot of catchers including RH catchers so there isn't really room for him, maybe a fresh start and new coaching staff turns thing around.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 10, 2014 -> 06:07 PM) And there are people that are concerned that terrorists will be motivated even more by this, as if terrorists who are already beyond this point morally by beheading random, innocent people, aren't already at an incredibly hateful/immoral place. It's like complaining about throwing a can of gas on a 5 alarm fire. Dude, you have your talking points wrong. The people saying that right now are the ones saying that releasing this report will cause that, not that it happened in the first place. We're supposed to keep it secret because that will motivate them. That's the pro-torturer's side.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 10, 2014 -> 03:32 PM) Because members of the Taliban who capture American soldiers wouldn't do worse things? I'm not ok'ing the torture or justifying it. But let's have some perspective here. We're not fighting a country. We're not fighting members of an organized military. We're fighting a bunch of randoms who live in the hills/mountains. Randoms that behead people. On the list of terrible things, sleep deprivation and forced rectal feeding is at least a smidge better than cutting off someone's head. I'm struggling to figure out how beheading someone is worse than repeatedly rectally force-feeding someone while they're strapped down. I mean, if you gave me the choice I legitimately do not know which one I'd choose. Would probably depend on hope of escape/release. If I was stuck in the middle of a US Gulag and being waterboarded and rectally force-fed with no charges filed or hope of release...well...

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Dec 10, 2014 -> 02:48 PM) And the Robertson signing isn't official yet. They said it would be a couple of days. Seems to me they have their eye on someone, either in this draft or some sort of trade. The Sox just sent out an email saying that singing was now official.