Balta1701

QUOTE (hammerhead johnson @ Jul 3, 2013 -> 02:40 PM) But the Cubs futures squad is still glorious. I know you see that. Not nearly as good as the "Greatest system in a decade" the Royals trotted out there a couple years ago.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 3, 2013 -> 02:36 PM) We were never in running for Harden, I doubt we ever called. The point is 50% roughly of stars that have moved in past 5-6 years have been traded, half thru free agency. When you consistently are only going to make plans for free agency you are removing options from the table. And I would love to see evidence that bulls actually call other GMs about trades because I haven't seen it. IT seemed like Forman didn't even know Dwight Howard was getting traded until reporters were calling him to make sure he was involved, because he's a GM with a basketball team. You're kidding, so the problem is that the GM of a basketball team isn't loud enough while announcing which possibly traded players he might be involved in?

QUOTE (hammerhead johnson @ Jul 3, 2013 -> 02:30 PM) This is the best thread on this site by a very large margin. Futures squad: C: Wellington Castillo 1B: Anthony Rizzo 2B: Starlin Castro SS: Javier Baez 3B: Kris Bryant OF: Albert Almora OF: Jorge Soler OF: Eloy Jimenez Someone post one for the White Sox. No, I'm just kidding. Man, why did they have to sign Edwin Jackson? They could have put that money towards resigning Garza. LOL, yeah, and every one of those guys is going to be an immediate and long-term success, because that's the norm with prospects.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 3, 2013 -> 01:58 PM) I get that, but so far our only ideas for past 15 years have revolved around getting a star in free agency. It hasn't happened and is even less likely in 2014 than it was in 2010, where we have very little leverage to add your #2. I'm happy to admit that if there was a legit trade for a star available in the late 2000's that the Bulls didn't take advantage of because they wanted to hold onto Deng, they made a mistake. But other than that, look how the NBA has gone over the past few years. What stars have been traded? Dwight Howard forced a trade and that was a disaster for the trading team. They're likely now to wind up with jack squat. CP3 was traded, but the Bulls really don't need a point guard. Pau Gasol was traded for scraps, but everyone paying attention knows that 2/3 of the league would have come up with better offers than the Lakers if given the chance to do so. Beyond that, the main movement of the last few years was the Heat being assembled and the Celtics being assembled. The Bulls didn't have the assets for Garnett when he finally was dealt, and the Heat assembly was BS backoom "the league is too hard" crap anyway. It's not like the Bulls can look out there and think "Man we missed out on such a great trade". The things the bulls have missed out on have been dominated by backroom, league-fixing BS.

QUOTE (pettie4sox @ Jul 3, 2013 -> 01:55 PM) s*** just got real. http://news.yahoo.com/bolivian-presidents-...-012100277.html Discuss. I don't think s*** got real, I think the U.S. embarrassed itself. Again.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 3, 2013 -> 01:38 PM) I would like to see the Bulls try and trade for a player. Maybe once they have done this, we won't have to waste our time with these stupid "2010 plan" "2014" plan and try and sign a max player with no leverage. Great. I'd love to see a reasonable way to make the salaries work to bring a player to the Bulls who could put them over the top. The best talk around the draft was Deng for a draft pick or every asset the Bulls have for LaMarcus Aldridge. He's a good player but he's not going to put them over the top if they're not there already.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Jul 3, 2013 -> 01:30 PM) A really nice first step in beating the Heat would be realizing that this core won't get it done. If you have 1 player that can create his own shot, you are not beating Miami anywhere. There is 1 player in the NBA that can shutdown Derrick Rose. Lebron is that player. The Bulls can tinker all they want with a "new bench mob" but until they get better players next to Rose they will not win a title. So what is the answer? Trade Rose and rebuild, wait 3 years until someone helps the Bulls out Gasol-style, or go to the internet and complain that management needs replaced?

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 3, 2013 -> 09:49 AM) A ton of it's not easily measured in stats or box scores but just that general category of mental/physical mistakes and extra outs given up that other teams are taking advantage of. And outside of Konerko hitting the wall, this is what has killed us this year. It's game after game after game. The pitching staff would look a ton better in the stats if the mental mistakes were happening at the same rate they happened last year, and this was something that I don't know how any GM could have predicted in the offseason. This team plays with the level of focus and discipline they had last year, this team is looking to add players in the next month and not subtract, so no, don't tell me "This team in the offseason wasn't set up to compete".

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 3, 2013 -> 09:39 AM) I was under the assumption we'd be blowing another spot in the rotation by trading Jake Peavy before the deadline. Maybe Hahn holds onto him and they TRY to market 2014 as a competitive season, we'll see. Great. We have 5 starters right now with Peavy on the DL. We have #6 sitting at Charlotte in Johnson and if there's an opening this year I think he gets first dibs on the grounds he's actually earned it. So basically, for anyone other than Johnson to get a start this year, 2 starters need to be moved and then there needs to be a reason to give someone else a spot start. I mean, sure, maybe a double header happens or something like that, but as part of the plan this year that seems unlikely to me.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 3, 2013 -> 09:28 AM) But your argument sounds like a Chris Rongey "spin" argument, not one that most Sox fans would bite on. Like I said, this white sox team could very readily have been competitive this year even with Flowers not putting up AJ's numbers last year. They were a disaster at 3b last year. Keppinger was supposed to improve on that. Their pitching has been better than last year (same ERA with a much worse defense). A lot of things have gone bad, injuries and guys not developing, but the combination of the defense/pathetically embarrasing sloppy play and Konerko finally getting old are the 2 that I point to as really killing this team. If you put those 2 things back where they were last year, IMO this team has a winning record right now and is hoping Peavy comes back to make a solid run to push them into contention.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 3, 2013 -> 09:26 AM) Since this thing's basically over, there's no reason they shouldn't give Rienzo and Simon Castro some spot stats in July/August, and Erik Johnson in September, unless they decide his workload's been increased too much and shut him down. There's a very good set of reasons why the White Sox shouldn't be mixing in other guys getting starts. They have a number of guys on the big league roster who need innings. Santiago, Quintana, Danks all absolutely need innings. Like him or not, Axelrod could benefit from more MLB level work as well. All of those guys could use additional innings this year to get stretched out and prepared for next year. Sale, yes we have to be careful with him, I totally agree, but if we want him to turn into a 200 inning+ a year pitcher, he's going to have to pitch some innings too. Don't want to cut him back too much; his arm needs to get used to a good workload.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jul 3, 2013 -> 09:27 AM) Im not doubting his process, Im just not expecting Thibs to give Snell minutes that he gave Ronnie Brewer. Well I wouldn't expect that either, but not because of anything bad about Snell, instead because Ronnie Brewer was getting almost starters minutes by default because of the lack of a starting shooting guard.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jul 3, 2013 -> 09:24 AM) Jake Arrieta is gold? I knew the economy was bad, but wow! He's now a cub. That makes him golden.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 3, 2013 -> 09:24 AM) Semantics, Balta. A lot of automatic salary increases kicked in, like John Danks, for example. If you walked around the stadium and asked 1000 fans randomly did the White Sox improve themselves, what would they have said? Well, we added that Jeff Keppinger fellow (he's not even really a starter, is he?) and we re-upped Jake Peavy to a fair salary (lower than before) and finally, we didn't want to pay AJ at his age and coming for the anomalous 2012 season so we finally decided it was right and fair to give Tyler Flowers a shot.... Well, we can go player by player and look at WHY the payroll increased, but nobody believed the talent or the ability to compete vis a vis the Tigers had increased, and that's the only thing that really matters, perception. I tell you what, you give me 20% of your yearly earnings and I'll agree that $20 million+ payroll is just a semantic difference.

QUOTE (2nd_city_saint787 @ Jul 3, 2013 -> 01:26 AM) Has Thibs ever publicly said anything about not wanting to play rookies or has it just been coincidental these last few years that those guys didn't get a lot of playing time? I really wanna see Snell take on the Ronnie Brewer role. They seem like very similar players. I'd also really love to see Murphy push Nazr for some playing time (with Taj manning the 5 spot). Having Rose on the court with Dunleavy, Murphy, and Snell all standing around the 3 point line could be a pretty good lineup. Assuming of course that Snell and Murphys 3 point game can convert to the NBA. My memory says Thibs gets incredibly defensive any time he is asked about lineups, rotations, or minutes, whether it's the overuse of Deng/Rose/Noah or minutes for the rookies. He goes into Ozzie "I make the lineups" mode.

QUOTE (winninguglyin83 @ Jul 2, 2013 -> 11:13 PM) I expect Rienzo will be seen in Chicago after a few pitchers are seen on departing flights. Only if they think of him as a bullpen candidate.

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Jul 2, 2013 -> 11:59 PM) Didn't they send a message this off season they weren't out to win this division? Most fans feel that way. The players probably feel that way as well and it shows on the field. We know guys like Tyler Flowers suck, so I wouldn't be surprised if players fell the same way. It's not any different at our jobs when we know coworkers are incompetent. They upped the payroll by more than $20 million over last season.

Boooooooom.

QUOTE (ZoomSlowik @ Jul 2, 2013 -> 10:46 AM) So the Knicks got Andrea Bargnani. Just what they needed: another overpaid player that barely plays defense and loves to jack 3's... The Knicks gave up Novak in that deal? Man I hated facing that guy, seemed like he'd never miss. He scared me more than Bargnani.

Holy Brian Roberts

“@MLBastian: Kipnis, on his June: "Any time you're in the same sentence as Ty Cobb it's a good thing. Well, more often than not, it's a good thing."”

QUOTE (Brian @ Jul 2, 2013 -> 06:44 PM) If Westbrook is 100% and Howard goes to Houston and is like Orlando Dwight, I like them both better. And Memphis. Will Blake start hitting mid rangers? They lost in the first round. Does this move put them from that to favs in West? Let's assume for starters that "Not being coached by Vinny Del Negro" is worth at least 1 round in the playoffs, maybe 2.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 2, 2013 -> 06:18 PM) And Viciedo regressing, the Beckham injury hurting the defense, Floyd/Peavy injured and Keppinger falling flat on his face the first couple of months (although that was somewhat predictable, but just the extent of fail)... Some of those we could have worked through, but they did kinda pile up all at once too. I still think we'd be in this race if: Konerko was hitting like he did to open last year and the team was playing defense like it did last year. We probably wouldn't be in first but I bet we'd have a fighting chance at it.

QUOTE (GreatScott82 @ Jul 2, 2013 -> 06:11 PM) He already has had one winter to piece together a winning team. Lets not forget this team was close to winning the AL Central last year. His job was to maintain talent and to give the team enough to get over that Detroit hump. All he did was sign Keppinger and let Pierzynski walk. Not a very productive winter to say the least. Especially coming off of a relatively successful 2012 campaign. Should we give Mr. Hahn some extra time before we give him a full blown evaluation? YES. However, he has been wayyy too conservative thusfar. Hopefully he can make some moves near the deadline that can help us in the future. So far, Hahn has yet to make his big statement for the team. Yes, he re-signed Peavy but that was a KW inherited player. Its time to be BOLD! Lets move on from the past and set the team up nicely for the future, while at the same time setting themselves up for more financial flexibility to perhaps make a free agent splash or two next winter. If all you told me last offseason was that Konerko was going to implode and finally show his age, I'd have admitted the Sox wouldn't be competing for the Central this year. Hahn wasn't going to be able to replace him or trade him and no one was benching a 15 year veteran for a free agent signing. If Hahn had some idea that this level of sloppy, ridiculous, unfocused play was going to happen and did nothing about it then I'd endorse his immediate resignation, but I'm hanging that on the managerial staff.

QUOTE (ZoomSlowik @ Jul 2, 2013 -> 05:58 PM) I don't really see their backcourt depth being that great. Right now they have two decent options with Dunleavy and Hinrich, a rookie wing that may or may not be useful, and Teague, who probably won't have much of an impact unless Rose has injury issues again. The 2011 group had three useful veterans with Watson, Korver and Brewer. Given that they had two options at center instead of one, the 2011 group was deeper and more versatile. I do agree that it helps that Butler is starting instead of Bogans. However, they need at least one more useful big and it probably wouldn't hurt to have one more veteran wing in case of emergency. Butler/Deng/Dunleavy can handle pretty much every minute if they're healthy, but Snell probably isn't ready for the load if something happens to one of them. Just match up the backcourts and why I think they're deeper shows up (not just in number of bodies) Rose Watson Korver Brewer Bogans Rose Hinrich Butler Dunleavy Snell Teague If it wasn't for Butler in there, yes it would be less deep because one of the guys would be shoved into a starting role. Instead, the bench is shifted back a slot. There are now more than 1 guy who can shoot the 3, and at least 1 guy who can shoot the 3 ball isn't a complete liability on the defensive end. There are a couple defensive guys (hinrich and Butler) but they're better scorers already than the guys on the 2011 squad (and we all know that if he's healthy Hinrich can handle some of the duties at the 2) And to top that off, there's a backup PG wild card thrown in who might be able to develop into more of a slasher/driver/creator than the guys on the 2011 team if he's pushed.