Balta1701

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Jul 4, 2014 -> 11:50 AM) Because teams still see potential in him. He's only 25. Just a matter of figuring it out like some of us have said the whole time. I get that too, but I'm looking at his 2nd year arbitration status next year and realizing that the time it might take for him to figure it out will start getting a lot more expensive soon.

I don't know what kind of stuff Maurer has, but he's clearly been pushed hard upwards by the Ms as he made the big leagues by 22. If they think there's anything there and that guy is on the table then Viciedo should already be in the other dugout.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 3, 2014 -> 08:35 PM) I do think it is funny how these polls are now meaningless. I'm actually impressed how well the last guy has held up. It's always the current guy who tops this poll, but in 2006, Bush was at 34%, and he's only dropped to 28% 6 years after our long national nightmare ended. In that same 2006 poll, Clinton was at 16%. Bush has barely eroded at all while Clinton dropped into the middle of the pack.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jul 4, 2014 -> 12:45 AM) It's been discussed before that Abreu (rightly) feels that playing every day that he is physically able is an important part of his leadership activityAnd IMO, an important job of the guy who is actually supposed to be leading the team, the manager, it to stand up once a month and say things like "Jose, take a day". Because it's a good thing for the team and the player both. He even keeps saying he's going to and then not doing so.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Jul 3, 2014 -> 06:22 PM) How are all of these pitchers more deserving than Sale? I think he'd be a better pick than Lester, Kazmir, Richards, and Price. Maybe Felix, too. Go look at their numbers this year. There is absolutely no way you can make a case that Sale is more deserving than Felix. Both advanced and regular stats agree on this one, he's been ridiculous. The other guys are earning it too.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 3, 2014 -> 05:57 PM) It's weird to have a starter as good as sale on a last place team. It begs the question ... why should Sale pitch this September if we are still way out of the race? Isn't it dumb to pitch him much until the season we can contend? Just asking, but what does the team have to prove sending him out there the last 4-6 weeks if we are buried in the standings? Sox aren't selling tickets this season, so ... explain it to me. He already missed a month of this season. Our goal for him should be to get his arm adapted to 200-ish innings. I don't want him dropping to 140 innings because he misses both May and september and then having to jump up to 200+ next year if they put a better team around him and actually do sniff the wild card race.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jul 3, 2014 -> 04:45 PM) Apparently Dirk signing with Mavs (3 year deal). I heard on radio Bosh @ 18M per year to Heat. Not sure who reported that but was on ESPN 710 LA. Evidently Kobe will have a seperate meeting w/Melo after Melo's meeting with Knicks (per reporter on ESPN 710 AM). Presume Dirk's signing means Melo has informed Dallas he is not going there. It's 3/$30ish for Dirk. That could still leave them with about $18-20m to spend. I'm not seeing anyone saying anything remotely official about Bosh but the twitter is buzzing that $18m is his ask.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Jul 3, 2014 -> 04:26 PM) Rosenthal selected 9 starters, and my only argument was that he is CLEARLY better than Richards. Richards is just very good at avoiding the longball this year. Chris Sale is a better pitcher than Richards but Richards is, right now, a more deserving all star if you base it solely on his performance this season thanks to the extra 30 innings.

Worth noting that Chris Sale is 14th in the AL in fWAR among pitchers, tied with Anibal Sanchez (who also has missed some time). He's also slightly ahead of Mark Buehrle, who seems like a likely candidate anyway. I'm hard pressed, looking at this list, to say that he's one of the most deserving 6-7 starters in the AL for the All Star team this year.

QUOTE (TRU @ Jul 3, 2014 -> 04:06 PM) Why? He plays first base. He spend the majority of the game standing around doing not much of anything, and when he hits half the time he just gets to jog slowly around the bases. There's no reason he ever needs a day off. And yet we already watched him play his way into an injury and a DL trip once this season.

Thabo Sefalosha to the hawks, 3/$12. Darren Collison to the Kings, 3/$15 (Hope he's good enough to win them 10 more games next year).

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jul 3, 2014 -> 03:06 PM) I just dont think it is that simple. Does today count as a day off to you? Or is it only when he doesnt play a game, that it is counted as a day off? Obviously he hasn't played every single day because there are off days in the schedule, but I think that long-term, giving a guy a tiny bit of extra rest over 162 is incredibly wise.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jul 3, 2014 -> 02:57 PM) My cousin decided after one kid she wanted to have another one. So she did what typical parents do. She quit her job and became a stay at home mom receiving government aid. And on top of that, my uncle is a long time national guard/army guy so she also gets some kind of military family aid as well. All so she could have another kid and not work a job. 'merica. Yeah, those piece of s*** military families. We're way too generous to them.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jul 3, 2014 -> 02:51 PM) I know you are under the assumption that playing many games = DL, but it isnt always the case. The guy seems to be past his ankle issue right now, i dont see him limping, he is hustling down the line, making diving plays at first. If you start to see the guys production dip and he starts showing signs of his ankles bothering him, of course he needs a breather, but he is getting better as the month has gone along. I just don't think "1 extra day off every 3-4 weeks" is in any way ridiculous or excessive, and especially for a guy who has never played 150 games seems like a really smart precaution. Especially with the sheer number of 1b we're carrying on this roster.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jul 3, 2014 -> 02:40 PM) They're still years away. What FA is available next year that would make them instant contenders? Maybe Lebron if he signs a two year deal with one year opt out. Speaking of Lebron, the rumor mill is so quiet right now with him and the Heat guys. Wonder what's going on. Kevin Love is probably the top name next year, and 2016 is Durant. Dragic and Aldridge also caught my eye as unrestricted FA's in 2015. Just to note, Jimmy Butler is a restricted FA in 2015, so if the Knicks were to trade for him, he would have to sit there as a $3million cap hold, eating cap space they could use on other guys that year, which is why he makes very little sense for them. They'd also have to extend him before 2016 and, if they did that, they'd probably kill any chance they had at Durant.

I still maintain that Mirotic makes almost zero sense for New York (same with Butler potentially) because those two guys would majorly eat into the 2015-2016 cap space that the Knicks supposedly want to open. Snell, Dunleavy, future draft picks are much better fits for that reason.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 3, 2014 -> 09:32 AM) I believed that for -.1 but 2.9 is huge, and that also wouldn't account for exports declining that quarter, either. One other thing buried in those GDP numbers is that health care spending was reported to surge in Q4 and actually declined in Q1 according to the numbers, but if you average those 2 quarters together, the growth in health care spending across those 2 quarters was similar to what it was the previous year. In other words, Health care spending was a big boost to the reported GDP number in Q4 and a big drag on it in Q1. At the same time, health care providers were actually making major changes due to the PPACA actually coming online, so its entirely possible that because of the changes, either companies spent extra in Q4 to get things online and working, or IMO more likely (since the average over those 2 quarters resembles the long-term average), the government just had difficulties figuring out how to count the GDP from that sector during the changes.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jul 3, 2014 -> 02:20 PM) and his numbers show he is obviously suffering for it. I just can't figure out why its impossible to have a middle ground. We play him every day so much so that he struggles for a week and then hits the disabled list, basically costing him 2/3 of the month of May. He then resumes playing every day in June. I'll admit I was wrong coming into this season, I thought Robin would wind up playing Konerko too often to get the veteran playing time. Instead we play Abreu until he breaks down and winds up on the DL because off days are for the weak.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 3, 2014 -> 02:14 PM) I'm sure if you pulled up the interest rates/inflation numbers for Japan from 1983-1993, they'd be elevated. Yes, maybe the terminology is wrong since Japan, with their guaranteed lifetime employment in many sectors, doesn't ever see the high unemployment numbers witnessed in the US or Europe. Whatever the opposite of stagflation is....where you have zero or stagnant growth and the economy essentially running along in neutral without any forward progress...which would describe the US situation as well except for the fact that unemployment/underemployment has spiked higher here than in Japan. The collapse of the housing bubble there had an even more profound impact than our own US crisis...one they have yet to recover from. In recent years, they've taken to quantitative easing, just like the US and some European countries in order to inject more capital into the system to kick-start it somehow. You're somewhat getting it now. Interest rates for Japan were elevated in the late 80s and they burst a bubble. That left them with over-capacity in their economy, driving their currency to actually deflate and leaving them with 2 decades of inflation rates below goals. Yes, that is very similar to what happened in the U.S. although the U.S. fought it somewhat harder in 2009 than Japan did.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Jun 23, 2014 -> 11:47 PM) If he stays on this pace and plays in 140 games (has played in 63 of our 77, and likely will receive 7-10 off days), then he'll go 49/133. Has anyone else ever had those exact HR/RBI numbers? I thought Pujols, but he was 49/137. QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 24, 2014 -> 09:25 AM) Ha! QUOTE (lasttriptotulsa @ Jun 24, 2014 -> 11:36 AM) Hasn't he only had one off day the entire season? I believe when he was slumping and even then he pinch hit. I highly, highly doubt he gets 7-10 off days the rest of the season unless he gets some sort of nagging injury. They will give him days off from playing 1st, but he will still DH. If you assume he plays every day the rest of the season he is on a 52/141 pace (would have been 57/154 without the DL stint). Pretty ridiculous. QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Jun 24, 2014 -> 12:28 PM) The days off would be due to ankle injuries or whatever problem he's been having. Plus, RV said he will get a day off this week. QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jun 24, 2014 -> 12:55 PM) Last time he said that, Abreu never got the day off, then he went on the DL. (Yes, I realize he was going on the DL either way, but my point remains) Just to point out...as of yesterday, the White Sox have played 28 games since Jose Abreu came off the disabled list. Since coming off the disabled list, Jose Abreu has played 28 complete games. That "day off" someone said he would get? Yup.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 3, 2014 -> 01:57 PM) I meant to say HIGH INFLATION under Carter. My mistake. Yes, high interest rates are not always bad, in and of themselves...of course, it's bad if you are buying a car or house or have an ARM, but in general, if there's a sound fiscal policy paired with monetary policy, it can lead to lowered inflation without bringing on STAGFLATION, which is the worst of both worlds, and essentially what the Japanese have been going through for 20 years now after their housing bubble burst. Of course, those fiscal/tax policies, in the form of supply side/Stockman economics have been debunked over and over again by the likes of Krugman and even Gregory Mankiw. You're crossing up your terms if you think stagflation is what the Japanese have had for the last 20 years. Stagflation is high interest rates combined with high unemployment rates, whereas Japan has had low/zero interest rates for the majority of that time. That setup would be more accurately termed a deflationary spiral or something like that. Thank you for the correction on your interest rate/inflation statement however.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 3, 2014 -> 01:51 PM) They just don't have that electric stuff. Which means they really have to be command and control guys, like lesser versions of Danks. The margin of error for those kind of pitchers is almost zero. Sure, they can be successful, but the odds of them doing it consistently like a Marte or Thornton for 3-5 consective years are pretty darned low. Out of the bullpen? So what? Scott Downs's fastball sat in the high 80's and barely touched 90 in the last few seasons. Since coming back from an injury in 2004 up until this year when he finally may have gotten old, he put up a 3.14 ERA over nearly a decade's worth of work. From age 31-37, without anything like a dominating fastball, he put up a 2.33 ERA. Throw strikes, have an off speed pitch, be left handed, and you can make $30 million over the next 10 years. The formula has been the same all of my life.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 3, 2014 -> 01:15 PM) God help us if Surkamp and Snodgress are the two best lefties in the bullpen coming into 2015. JCINAA except in Greg's book. Why? Seriously, you can get a really solid reliever out of a guy who throws 90 from the LH side, throws strikes, and has some sort of off speed pitch. That can give a guy a 10+ year career. Those 2 could make a fairly solid contribution to a much improved bullpen if they are able to do that. Will they? I dunno, but Surkamp has been really good at his role so far.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 3, 2014 -> 01:18 PM) I even forgot to add MacDougal's name to the list. Fine, we are amassing/accumulating "high level arms" that have failed to realize their potential. However you want to put it. The main difference is those guys in 2006-07 had a lot better records on the back of their baseball cards before they came to the Sox, except for Masset. And of course, we paid a helluva lot more to get some of those guys.