Balta1701

Now that was genuinely well done all around.

QUOTE (bmags @ Oct 5, 2014 -> 01:44 PM) That's not true that the other would have single coverage. If 2 receivers go out, 1 is triple covered and 1 is double covered...the entire defensive front would have 6 people left available. That's fewer people than you'd have blockers. Something should have opened up.

QUOTE (bmags @ Oct 5, 2014 -> 01:32 PM) When we only have two routes go out for extra coverage, it's going to be a tight space. We've seen those passes completed a lot. If only 2 routes go out and one guy has triple coverage, then either the other guy has single coverage or its a really poorly designed play because both routes are in the same area. Either that or there should be an open running lane for the QB. Or a running back escaping after blocking, or a TE escaping. Something else had to be open. 3 guys on Marshall leaves only 8 remaining on the defense.

QUOTE (MexSoxFan#1 @ Oct 5, 2014 -> 01:29 PM) But it was pass interfernce! Triple coverage, don't throw, that simple Yeah, that should have been everyone's first reaction. That was a lot of panthers.

Mike Trout is apparently surprisingly weak against high fastballs.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Oct 4, 2014 -> 11:17 PM) Wow. I saw that the game was 1-0 Washington at around 6 and didn't think much of it. Then I looked up the score 10 minutes ago and my jaw just kind of dropped. 17 innings now! I put Captain America 2 on in ~ the 8th evening with Zimmerman dominating. The Giants outlasted 3 helicarriers.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Oct 4, 2014 -> 08:25 PM) I want no part of an 8-10 year contract. This is how the world works these days. If we're comparing offering a guy in his late 20's an 8 year deal and a guy in his late 30's a 3 year deal...I find myself leaning towards the former.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Oct 4, 2014 -> 06:25 PM) A 3-5 year deal takes him right through the prime years. I just wish he was FA this year. Only way he gets a 3-5 year deal is if he puts up a sub-.700 OPS next year or blows out a knee. Even repeats this season and he's in the 8-10 year range, no doubt whatsoever. And I'd do that if we don't fill that corner OF hole this offseason.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 4, 2014 -> 03:51 PM) Another family made their plea to ISIS to let their son go. The family just should have resisted the urge to do this. This is what ISIS wants. More publicity. The family asking for mercy to a group like this just assures their son being beheaded IMO. I can understand why the family did this but you can't reason with individuals who are the scum of the earth. http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/04/world/isis-p....html?hpt=hp_t1 Then stop providing it.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 4, 2014 -> 03:37 PM) If baseball was like football, so many of these guys would be released year after year it'd be remarkable. True, football players get to keep the huge bonuses, but once they become average, they are released so teams don't have to pay the ridiculous contracts they sign the players to. I can't wait to see which team makes the huge blunder on Shields. You're the one who keeps repeating the mantra that you don't care about Jerry Reinsdorf's pocket book, you just care about the team winning, right? That's exactly the attitude that drives those kind of contracts. People have to win now, they don't care about the owner's pocket book.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 4, 2014 -> 03:28 PM) This is just impossible to believe. How can these teams keep signing these guys year after year? Baseball needs a salary cap so badly. Obviously they'll never get one. Baseball's players union is golden. If baseball owners like bears could hibernate in the winter the sport would have been so much better and people could actually afford to go to games. Owners just have to have these big name players even though about 5 percent are worth it. Oh well, just charge more for hot dogs and Cokes and parking. How in the hell can GMs keep their jobs? Bust after bust after bust with these huge contracts. And this offseason somebody's gonna give Shields 20 million a year for 5-6 years. Ha ha. That GM will regret it the day Shields shows up for spring training. What an awful sport. Too bad I'm hooked on it. Albert Pujols's team is also in the postseason.

QUOTE (StRoostifer @ Oct 4, 2014 -> 02:28 PM) Sorry CarGo fans but Joshua is spot on here. CarGo batted .160 away from Coors and batted .336 at Coors. To me that tells the tale right there. Plus, as I pointed out yesterday in this thread, CarGo is owed 16M in 2015, 17M in 2016 and 20M in 2017. Here's the link to baseball reference where I got the CarGo stats from. http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/...shtml#contracts After seeing his splits and salary, there's no way I would take CarGo and dare I say I would rather have Danks as far as bad contracts are concerned. The flip side is that guys often play better at home regardless of where it is, so there's several separate effects we have to untangle. Carlos Gonzalez does not seem likely to be a .160 hitter if he's put in the AL, do you agree? I would say he's probably better than a .160 hitter with any team. He may not put up MVP caliber numbers outside of Coors, but there's still some upside there. The question is...how would he actually play out of that park. I'll agree it's a concern there but it's not "he's a .160 hitter outside of Colorado" dramatic, or at least I'd be stunned if it was.

QUOTE (Tex @ Oct 4, 2014 -> 04:31 AM) We've done some interesting things through the years. Different countries believe different things about their enemies. Our view of Russia during the cold war as this evil country out for world domination certainly wasn't how Russia viewed itself. Of course their view of the US was markedly different than how we viewed ourselves. But stuff like Bay of Pigs shows we do like to meddle in the internal working of countries. In some corners of the world we are the country that dropped the bombs. Would the CIA or military experiment with a biological contaminate? I pray not, and don't know what I would do if I learned we did. Move to Mexico? But I can certainly believe that people in other parts of the world believe it. Isn't the US always around when these diseases break out? We call it humanitarian aid. We're like Jim Cantore, you know your weather is going to suck when you see Jim and TWC show up. Maybe he creates the bad weather. The US got out of the biological warfare game in the late 1960s after signing an agreement with Russia, and for the most part it seems like we lived up to that. There might be a few details buried somewhere but a substantial manufacturing program, with the ability to actually deploy things, that would be very hard to cover up. The Soviets maintained, in violation of that agreement, a substantial biowarfare program until communism collapsed.

QUOTE (SCCWS @ Oct 4, 2014 -> 01:38 PM) I think Abreu is -11 not -17. Did I read right that "1b" is -17? Because that would make sense with Abreu being -11, Konerko and Dunn played there sometimes too and they're awful. Also worth adding...Abreu started off terribly and nearly got himself killed a couple times in the field early in the year and definitely improved as the year went along (just getting the footwork down was a big step).

QUOTE (Joshua Strong @ Oct 4, 2014 -> 01:40 PM) Heyward is not that young, he's going to be 26 at the start of the season. And if the Sox just play solid and competitive baseball, the fans will come back, albeit slowly. If we're looking at guys who are long term options, a guy who is going to be 27 when he hits free agency seems like about the most sensible one we could make. I am not going to complain if we're being bottom feeders, but if I'm comparing whether we should spend money on pitchers in their mid 30s and DHs in their late 30s or a 27 year old OF, I lean strongly towards the latter. None of them are going to be fair contracts, but the guy who is 27 seems a whole lot more likely to perform well during most of his huge contract.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Oct 4, 2014 -> 06:25 AM) I think he'll be too expensive, as his "down" year was still incredibly valuable due to his defense (if you believe those metrics). I'd much rather target Jay Bruce, because his price will definitely be down and he offers three years of team control vs. one. Now, if Heyward does reach free agency next offseason, he's one of the few free agents I'd spend a boatload of money on. Depending on what we see on the trade market this offseason...Heyward is the guy I've got in the corner of my eye next offseason. He would be a long term fit because he's so long, he's a guy who covers lots of ground on defense and has plenty of offensive ceiling, he'll be extremely expensive but that's the one big money FA who could be an ideal fit with our needs. If we haven't solved that corner OF spot by next offseason and we have the ability to offer big deal....I'd be intrigued.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 4, 2014 -> 02:46 AM) Do you think Detroit's latest choke job will bring them back to earth during the regular season? Are they going to finally turn into the Rangers? How many years can you fail in the postseason without it affecting players' confidence and regular season results? Confidence has very little to do with it. Victor Martinez being less than super human or even not there next year, Miguel Cabrera being a year older, and perhaps most importantly Scherzer being gone are their worries for next year. On top of that, Nathan and Hunter are free agents and are quite old. Just to stay treading water will cost that team like $40 million+ next offseason. JD Martinez helps them a ton, Castellanos playing well in his 2nd year would help, but that is an old, expensive team with just about as many needs as us.

So who had money on 18+ runs in a Kershaw/Wainright game?

Wow, that was, wow. That's why you watch baseball.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Oct 3, 2014 -> 08:51 PM) Lots of things to be excited about. Already hear there is movement in the front office which is good. I believe they have a plan. I feel like if they can solve one of these major issues through trade they can pull of the rest in a sensible way (and don't have to lose their 1st round pick if they sign someone), but the key step is they need a major trade to fill 1+ of these holes.

QUOTE (Vance Law @ Oct 3, 2014 -> 07:24 PM) A question about Viciedo's contract: How did he end up with the same salary in 2013 and 2014? Doesn't that virtually never happen in arbitration? Even if a player absolutely sucks, they generally get some kind of raise if they're actually put in the lineup to play the games. IIRC his contract specified his 2013 salary and his 2014 salary was mostly compared to comparable salaries, not his previous salary.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Oct 3, 2014 -> 08:05 PM) I would just say that given our park, we need a certain level of power. We have no choice, really, if we want to win. And we are sitting here with Jose Abreu and hopefully Avi Garcia. The heart of our order should already be power loaded. We have the power component already and we're going to keep going with that. Give me hitters not bellyitchers right now.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 3, 2014 -> 07:06 PM) How well do you know Rich Daley? Yeah, I figured things had this "extra issue" there. Then again, I don't know the background in Pittsburgh so I'd actually be surprised if there wasn't a strong Union legacy here that had its hands in lots of things...but yeah, that's still not the Daley dynasty.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Oct 3, 2014 -> 05:47 PM) Did you guys see this? http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/p...1001-story.html I don't know how things are going in Chicago but I've been impressed at the public/private agreements for development of beaten down areas taking place in Pittsburgh since I arrived here. There's been one major deal completed in the last 2 months and another is processing to redevelop very large areas, including the former hockey arena site. Like 20 year commitments with tax dollars going certain places to certain committees. The quoted redevelopment cost to the city here has been far less than what it actually was and they turned the money into private investment in the area that is going to make a huge dent in that region. Again, no idea how that compares to Chicago but in the sense of urban redevelopment, you can look at those costs as a negative or as a long term opportunity. Some might even use the word crisatunity.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Oct 3, 2014 -> 05:56 PM) I feel enlightened. Sage and Thyme here I come. i got through #5 and had to take a drink.