Balta1701

QUOTE (IowaSoxFan @ Aug 8, 2014 -> 10:04 AM) Thats not true. Beckham - .223/.269/.350 17.1% K Rate and a BABIP of .252 Semien - .218/.287/.327 31.5% K rate and a BABIP of .314 The only way that Semien outperformed Beckham this season was drawing a walk and getting luckier with balls in play. Well that and apparently taking walks/getting onb ase.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 8, 2014 -> 10:12 AM) And we've done great with Quintana and Santos, for example...except for the returns on Santos, and the fact that we held onto Humber beyond his expiration date. Same thing with making Noesi into at least a serviceable/competitive 5th starter. The problem has been a lot of unexpected injuries to Floyd, Crain, Jones and finally Lindstrom. It's true, the Cubs did a good job with Feldman, Garza and then same thing this with Samardzija and Hammel. Arrieta's turned out to be quite the find, and that's to their credit. We were hoping at one point to possibly trade Nate Jones, Lindstrom, Belisario, Boggs, maybe Downs and Paulino, and none of those things worked out. Going back to the beginning of the KW regime, we've always excelled in finding hitters from other organizations, or buying players that were superfluous/injured/undervalued. FWIW, if CJ Edwards is in the starting rotation and Russell's the starting 2B or SS for the Cubs in 2017, then they've done a really good job IMO. I think you seriously need to stop talking about the Cubs. Its becoming like you and Puig.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 8, 2014 -> 10:03 AM) His glove alone is going to get him to AAA and major league call ups. His bat will hold him back from being a starter or not, and that's only if he's putting up sub .600 OPS's. He has to hit like a pitcher to not make appearances in the majors. One thing to remember with a guy like that is that his glove could also be good enough to get him enough time in the bigs to learn how to hit big league pitching. We've seen this happen with guys before like Vizquel, maybe Alcides Escobar; you tolerate a low .600's OPS for a good long time because of great defense and after 2500 PA's a guy starts figuring out how to hit.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Aug 7, 2014 -> 07:42 PM) Why would Be ham's range be declining already? Why? I have no idea. All I know is that it's what both my eyes and the numbers see. He has been living off his reputation as a solid defensive 2b since 2011 and getting worse every single year. Injury? Out of shape? Lack of practice? poor positioning? no clue, but that's what has happened.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Aug 7, 2014 -> 04:30 PM) As much as I'd love to sign Victor, it definitely sounds like he wants to re-sign with Detroit. Not just that, it appears likely the Tigers will offer him a 1 year qualifying offer which would mean that the White Sox would likely forfeit their first round draft pick on a guy who would be here for 1-2 years, which would be a terrible move.

QUOTE (bmags @ Aug 7, 2014 -> 07:59 PM) I don't agree with people that this big 3 is better than the heat big 3, but is unfortunately deeper than the first year Miami had and Lebron is better than the first miami year. I wonder if you'd have said that was true if Haslam hadn't been hurt for a lot of that year.

QUOTE (thxfrthmmrs @ Aug 7, 2014 -> 01:11 PM) So you know how rebounding is one of the few advantages Bulls had over the Heat in the past? Well Varejao averaged 14 rebounds per 40 minutes last year, and Thompson was close to 12 per 40. Love is probably the best rebounder in the league. And now that we effectively replaced Deng with Dunleavy and Mirotic is not much of a rebounder at the 4, we will not even have that advantage against this version of the Cavs. While these pieces fit Lebron differently, I wouldn't say they are worse fit. Mirotic may not be known as much of a defender, but basically the Bulls are replacing Boozer's minutes with a combination of Mirotic, maybe more Gibson, and Gasol. Adding in another 7 footer could certainly fill some of that in.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 7, 2014 -> 01:14 PM) He PH for Nava, and Boegarts was on deck. Still, he wasted Ortiz when there was no chance he was getting pitched to. Was anyone other than Jackie Bradley Jr available to pinch hit for the pitcher? Given that Bradley is hitting close to .200 they probably would have been happy to go after either Nava or Bradley in that situation with the expectation of it being a free out.

QUOTE (thxfrthmmrs @ Aug 7, 2014 -> 11:59 AM) Varejao, Thompson and Waiters are better than any fourth wheel they had in Miami. Cavs are definitely the team to beat in the East, especially if Kyrie takes another step in his natural progression. I am just disappointed that even with the Bulls involved, the Cavs didn't have to give up anymore than the original rumored deal. Losing Thompson would really hurt their front court depth. Well there is an extra first round pick thrown in, but seriously the only way the Bulls offer really would have made a difference is if Minnesota was just dumb enough to believe they could compete this year

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ Aug 7, 2014 -> 11:10 AM) ring chasers like Miami not sure they will like Cleveland Isn't Marion already looking at a contract there?

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 7, 2014 -> 11:13 AM) Yes, I agree, they should trade Addison Russell and Kris Bryant for Cole Hamels. More seriously, what would you say if the Phils asked for Starlin Castro back for him? That clears some money to offset whats being taken on in Hamels's deal and clears SS for Russell if the team has confidence in him.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Aug 7, 2014 -> 12:35 AM) None of those guys are tearing up AAA except for A Garcia and some of the AAAA outfielders. I don't see a major sense of urgency in moving JOhnson/Sanchez/Semien up - they can learn more in AAA. Outside of an injury in July I'm not sure what else you expect to see from Sanchez. He's hit over .290 in every month of the year consistently. He's put up solid OBP's and overall batting numbers the full year. Unless he's going to magically inflate and become a muscle man where he develops more power I'm not sure what else he can do. He's not going to be Alex Roidriguez, but everything in his splits this season says he's shown what he needs to show. Micah can definitely stay in AAA for a while longer, he's only been there a short time and also had some injury time.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Aug 7, 2014 -> 10:33 AM) They've proposed land swaps. So yes, they'll take the settlement areas out of the West Bank, but they'll also give land back in return. http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-report...o-palestinians/ It's entirely possibly that's worthless land, I have no idea. If you actually go into that article it makes clear how hesitant the current Israeli leadership would be to accept any deal that could even be framed as fair...it stresses Netanyahu wants to gain extra territory in any swap and maintain a lot of the territory that has been developed over the last 14 years since Arafat said no to the last real shot at a negotiated settlement. That fits into the Problem. Israel wants to keep basically everything they've annexed, which requires them giving the Palestinian Authority basically nothing in negotiations. They can't have territorial integrity, they can't have statehood, they can't have military or strong security forces, they can't travel freely, they can't build an economy. They're not being offered anything that would be worth accepting, and thus there's no reason for the people to care about them.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Aug 7, 2014 -> 10:16 AM) Aren't they going to run into the same problems as in Miami? 3 max/near max guys and then a bunch of scrubs. I would guess Cleveland becomes the favorite in the East, although I still don't know who can play defense on that team other than Lebron. Maybe they just score 120 a game and don't need to worry about it. My money is still on the Spurs to repeat. Spurs, Thunder, Cleveland, Chicago. But they'll also still have the same solution as Miami...lots of ring-hunting veterans willing to take limited contracts combined with every reason to go over the cap/tax every year to keep adding players. They'll also be helped by a rapidly increasing salary cap. I will definitely agree with you that the Cavs still would appear underwhelming if they were in the West. They'd be in a dogfight somewhere within the top 4-5 spots, but unless the Bulls can pull off a miracle they're clearly the favorites in the East.

Apparently Cliff Lee is out for the season after restraining his elbow.

QUOTE (Feeky Magee @ Aug 6, 2014 -> 10:04 PM) Do people still think Leury Garcia is worthy of a roster spot for next year? .182/.216/.236. You just can't carry that from someone who's not a pitcher. Not with the amount of middle infield depth the White Sox appear to have. The only reason why it made sense to carry him this year was that we insisted we needed to carry an extra backup DH and that left us needing a very flexible utility guy. Leury really should have been in AAA this year if there was room and you could make a case for AA.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Aug 6, 2014 -> 09:00 PM) Gordon Beckham is one of the best defensive 2bmen in the AL. Yes he is struggling with the bat, but he isn't afraid to work through his offensive issues. I also think the guy it a tough luck hitter. Now if you don't see the value of a defensive 2Bman then you need to study up on the game some Which is only true if you ignore the fact that he's quite poor on defense and has gotten worse every single year of his career. I'd very much appreciate the value of a solid defensive 2b if the White Sox had one. They do not. Gordon Beckham is a weak fielder. 3 years ago he was a solid 2b and he has gotten worse every year. He commits a lot of errors and does not have good range.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 6, 2014 -> 06:51 PM) 2012 and 2010 say "HELLO!" If Jose Abreu's the 2nd best player in the major leagues right now, and Chris Sale's a Top 5-7 pitcher and that's attracting a crowd of 19,000+ on a perfectly comfortable August day when then the Sox are still only 5 1/2 games back in the Wild Card race, something's got to be done besides simply discounting tickets. Hahn needs to make another big bet or two of Adam Dunn proportions, and he has to hit on both of them (along with hitting on the trade return for Alexei, if he decides ultimately to go in that direction). This team isn't even pretending to be competitive and everyone knows that. GMAB. This team is 5 1/2 games out of the wild card race and has spent the whole season 5 games under .500. I don't care who he brings back, Adam Dunn didn't sell tickets in 2011 because the team was trash and the manager didn't care.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 6, 2014 -> 06:32 PM) It's certainly not going to encourage any fans to buy season tickets, and that's half the battle for the organization, building up excitement for the team like the Cubs have now with Baez/Soler and then the addition of Bryant in 2015. Ugh, I leave for a week, move 8 hours, and you're still on this schtick? WIN BALLGAMES AND PEOPLE COME. NO ONE CARE WHO YOU HAVE IF YOU NO WIN.

Stark

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Aug 6, 2014 -> 04:50 PM) Right, that's why I put "state" in quotes - they want a lot of control over a supposedly independent nation. But they do at least acknowledge that Palestinians have a claim to land there. And they keep offering them that land. Well, if you really get into the issues in the West Bank of settlements, I see very little evidence that "They keep offering them that land" is accurate. Israel has absolutely been attempting to annex as much of the west bank as possible and I don't know how that could be denied. In fact, it plays into the Gaza problem as well. The fact that Israel is taking all this land is one major component about why the the Palestinian Authority has no respect of the people. They can't get any concessions whatsoever from Israel and Israel continues taking that land, so why should anyone respect that government instead of turning to Hamas? It is a major issue in preventing the establishment of any alternative government. It's not the only issue and the PA has long had major corruption issues of its own, but that part plays a major role.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 6, 2014 -> 05:00 PM) Judging by what Hawk has said, they know he has no clue at the plate. He has talent but he really should be at AA right now if you look at his minor league career. The fact that he plays multiple positions seems like it's been a major reason for 2 different franchises to push him rapidly upwards.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Aug 6, 2014 -> 04:25 PM) Yeah, they were elected, but they're also a terrorist organization. They don't recognize Israel. They publicly call for the annihilation of Israel and the Jews that live there. They've started 2 wars and invaded Israel twice in the last 70 years. I think Israel sorta is in the right in defending itself as it does. It would suck to be a young Palestinian as you've outlined. I'd probably feel the same way. But, ya know, take out your anger out on the older generation and the religious leaders that are continuing the conflict, not the country that is acting in a pretty reasonable manner given the situation. Maybe if Hamas actually cared, they'd tell the North Koreans and Iranians to provide them with food and money and a basis for an economy instead of rockets and guns. And again, what good is food and money and the basis for an economy if those basic necessities cannot legally enter the area? And if I'm in an area being bombed and starved I'm not going to con side fit a "pretty reasonable response". Also, what two wars have they started? This one and 2009? That seems like an awful stretch to say that Hamas has invaded israel twice in 70 years. Israel has some right to defend itself in this way, but the real problem is that what may be right for their short term defense ensures that this problem cannot and will not be solved by destroying the chances for a positive life.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Aug 6, 2014 -> 04:08 PM) We're talking about a terrorist organization holding weapons (and using weapons), not a peaceful sovereign government. Because of that I don't think they should have any military, at least not until they can show that they're not going to provoke violent conflicts again. Also, instead of wasting money on their military, why not try to do SOMETHING for the people there? Well, first of all, they were legitimately elected as the leadership of the territory in an election the last US President pushed hard for at the time. But seriously let's just ignore that and focus on another point. You've now outlined a major problem and another Catch-22. To keep these areas from having anything that could possibly be used as a component in a weapon, Israel keeps such a tight blockade on civilian supplies and equipment that the area is in a constant state of complete economic starvation. Unemployment rates sit at about 40%. Even construction supplies, things that would "do something for the people there" can't get in because heavy construction equipment has clear military uses. Any time I try to put myself in those shoes...try to imagine being a young male with literally no opportunity to improve the lives of myself or my family as long as the Israeli blockade exists, and no hope of having the Israeli blockade lifted, I ask myself what I would do and my answer winds up being that I'd try to fight in any way I could. To keep weapons out of the hands of willing fighters, the blockade has to be so formidable as to deny basic human dignity, and the denial of basic human dignity creates an army of young men willing to do whatever they can to fight back.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 6, 2014 -> 02:54 PM) Really? Watch the replays of those 3 bombs he hit that everybody's been talking about. Sports are supposed to be fun and with this team you have to enjoy certain things as they come. How do you feel about Adam Dunn?