Balta1701

QUOTE (farmteam @ Jul 22, 2013 -> 06:26 PM) Well the point is it's something to think about it before you get intoxicated, like anything else related to being smart about drinking. Though I just got a great mental image of myself walking into Kilroy's and shouting at everyone, thanks for that. It would have been way more fun when it was smaller (Kilroy's has two levels now, they redid it in the Summer of 2010). Presumably you mean on Kirkwood, since Sports was 2 levels long ago.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jul 22, 2013 -> 06:24 PM) I bet you he gets $15m a year. The Sox could afford that easily and I'd bet he gets more than that. It might not be the best use of resources of course, but right now the Sox have $85 million or so committed for next season and a payroll of $116 million this year. Getting back to the same payroll as this season requires spending over $30 million.

I think you guys should go around to intoxicated college students and loudly remind them of these facts.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jul 22, 2013 -> 06:20 PM) That's the problem with the whole thing -- I can't suggest someone. There isn't a legitimate middle of the order left-handed bat that can handle CF other than Choo, who we won;t be able to afford. Why? We've got a ton of money to spend just to get back to this year's payroll, let alone the new revenue from the national TV deal. It might not be the best way to spend that money, particularly if the team wants Thompson taking over CF in 2015 or something like that, but the money is there to do it if that's the way we want to go.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 22, 2013 -> 05:46 PM) Probably because he didn't fight the suspension, this time around anyway. So MLB lets a guy get 35 games off and basically gives him what, a multi-million dollar bribe to drop his appeal?

So why doesn't he get the first 35 games of next year?

QUOTE (Noonskadoodle @ Jul 22, 2013 -> 05:41 PM) Braun suspended rest of the season without pay. Uh oh what does that mean for A-Rod, Nelly Cruz, Bartolo, Peralta, Melky.... Link? Details? By MLB?

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jul 22, 2013 -> 04:43 PM) The difference is that with one you're required to have a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity or possible criminal activity, and in the other you have nothing at all. I read this and thought "I can't tell which one is supposed to have the reasonable suspicion and which one is supposed to have nothing at all". Is that defending the patriot act or stop and frisk? I literally cannot tell.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jul 22, 2013 -> 04:34 PM) Except the period discussed in the NY Post piece is April 1 to June 30th. And the most basic thing that they could have done is compare to "April 1 to June 30th of the previous year" which you ought to note...wasn't done.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jul 22, 2013 -> 04:24 PM) Crime up after Stop and Frisks Decline That also reads quite readily as "Crime increases during summer months", which I'm also pretty sure is true. Conveniently, it took me 1 google search to find that the 12% increase in crime is right in line with the 10-13% increase in crime recorded normally during the summer according to FBI statistics. Now let me tell you what I really think about citing the NY Post after their wondrous performance and hyper-attention to accuracy and detail demonstrated during the boston bombings...

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jul 22, 2013 -> 03:52 PM) I really do agree. Middlebrooks has better power, but to me, it's a coin flip between the two of them. At the very least, it's closer right now than I'd like for it to be for Middlebrooks to be the main return on Crain.

QUOTE (beck72 @ Jul 22, 2013 -> 03:22 PM) Conor has finally had his chance at playing everyday in the bigs and hasn't had the success Middlebrooks had last year. But he's also significantly outperformed Middlebrooks this year. If all you can give me is 286 PA's last year, I'm extremely skeptical about saying Middlebrooks is vastly better than Gillaspie.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Jul 22, 2013 -> 03:07 PM) He may go for sure. I hope not, but using your reasoning we better sell low-low. Not sure what is a fair value for any player we are looking to trade , but I would hope it's top level prospects and not maybes Things that should be understood..."Top level prospects" = "Maybes".

QUOTE (beck72 @ Jul 22, 2013 -> 02:56 PM) I agree, the sox shouldn't use up key trade pieces for Middlebrooks, if higher prospects were/ are available. I should have said this offseason take a chance, as he Red sox impatience with players makes them expendable. But if the sox don't improve at 3b and fix other positions this deadline, they will need to find value players in the offseason at spots they didn't upgrade at. That means finding young guys who can rebound from poor 2013 seasons via trade or finding hidden gems in free agency. Middlebrooks may not be a guy to build around. But he's likely to be a guy on the outs with the Red Sox, and can be had for less than his true worth. One legit question with Middlebrooks is...is his upside significantly greater than Gillaspie? I don't know their histories that well but a moment at the B-R page didn't convince me he obviously was better than Connor. Their minor league careers show similar overall OPS numbers, Gillaspie with higher batting average and more walks, less home runs but many fewer strikeouts. About the only thing that obviously stands out is that he seems to have been a year younger than Conor at every level, which I'll grant does say something, but I'm not very much convinced. Can someone tell me where I should be looking to be convinced that Middlebrooks is head and shoulders above Conor?

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jul 22, 2013 -> 02:02 PM) I thought recreational drug suspensions were smaller For alcohol it's "First violation is treatment and entry into league's substance abuse program with continuing treatment and more common testing, second offense is 4 games".

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jul 22, 2013 -> 02:31 PM) I understand that this is just trade value and isn't based on anything contractual, but most of the top 10 are there simply because they are good young players. What this tells me is that FanGraphs believes McCutcheon has the best contract in the game and, as I seem to recall, Sale has the best contract among pitchers in the game. I think that's right where Sale should fit in, and I'd bet that the only things holding Sale back are "not pitching in a major market" and "being quite skinny", which may or may not translate to an injury risk.

Unclear as to the reason since it's on appeal but Von Miller is facing a 4 game suspension (I do note that's the "PED length).

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Jul 22, 2013 -> 11:22 AM) That's nice. But that's pretty much what likely happened. Williams wanted Swisher, and Beane kept asking for more, and Williams gave in. I can't think of another example of a team giving up 3 of its top 5 prospects for a decent but non-all star hitter like Swisher. We did a similar thing when trading for Edwin Jackson.......Hopefully we can score a similar deal for Peavy. "3 of its top 5 prospects" really is a silly way to describe the trade for Peavy because 1 of those prospects was actually a close to MLB-ready guy, but the others were "guys buried deep in the minors who were only our top prospects because there wasn't much in the system".

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Jul 22, 2013 -> 11:24 AM) But I just don't see us scoring a top 50 for Peavy. I hope I'm wrong. Then I wouldn't trade him, and I'm one of the ones who thinks he really should be traded.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jul 22, 2013 -> 09:41 AM) Hahaha I thought the Grady Sizemore thing was finally over. That's from 2 days ago. He's able to work out now! I mean, come on, if a guy can work out he could have played 3 months ago.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jul 22, 2013 -> 06:31 AM) You can never have too many bullpen arms. It still doesn't clinch a pennant. The most basic thing that everyone should understand about baseball is that the best, deepest, most complete team isn't guaranteed squat, not even in the regular season. I have no clue how anyone could believe otherwise after having paid any attention whatsoever to this game.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Jul 22, 2013 -> 09:19 AM) I think he should be given a look in September. In a season where there's literally nothing to lose, his performance this year has been intriguing enough to see how he might handle ML pitching. Depends on the situation with Dunn and Konerko. If one of them is moved or on the DL, sure. Otherwise you start asking questions about roster spots. Is Wilkins going to need to be protected from the Rule-5 this offseason? If so, then it makes more sense to add him to the 40 man and call him up. If not, then that roster spot could be useful.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 21, 2013 -> 06:28 PM) He is really hitting it hard lately, and his strikeouts seem to have really dropped off. For a while, he looked like 200 ks was more probability than possibility if he continued to get the AB. He has still been brutal defensively, and has made some boneheaded blunders,but for $2 million a year, he's not a bad player. Fangraphs thinks he was worth $12 million a year in 2011 and 2012 and has been worth ~$6 million so far this year. Despite the horrid start to the year, hes on pace to put up a similar overall season as last year in terms of WAR if he doesn't get hurt.

@BristolSox 5h New @whitesox signee Micker Adolpho Zapata takes a round of BP in Bluefield pic.twitter.com/zTtdBkg8iA

Morel optioned to Charlotte, Konerko to be recalled tomorrow.