Balta1701

This is making the rounds today.

QUOTE (PorkChopExpress @ Jan 7, 2013 -> 04:49 PM) But they didn't split with the Royals and they weren't only somewhat under .500 against the Tigers. And now the Royals and Tigers have both arguably gotten better, while all we can say is we added Keppinger (career - .288/.337/.396 with a career .733 OPS), lost AJ (not that I disagree with that, but he was one of our top hitters last year), and we may or may not have Danks back to start the season and even if we do, we don't know how he will perform. Yeah, there's time before the season starts, but free agents are dwindling and there's not many left that are all that enticing or would seem to provide what this team needs, and we don't have much, if anything, to trade for an impact player. We've basically got Gavin Floyd to deal with reliever-type minor leaguers, minor league spare parts, or someone like Viciedo or Beckham which just opens up other holes/questions in the roster. Now don't get me wrong, I'm open to dealing just about anybody on this team, but if we're going to start trading away our current starting players, we need to get back players that can fill those positions. With just over a month until pitchers and catchers start reporting for spring training, I don't foresee a lot more happening with this team. That is why I am concerned right now so far before the season begins. Take a look at how that .733 OPS compares to the production the White Sox got out of 3b, on the whole, for last year. The White Sox got a .201/.286/.314/.600 line out of 3b, with poor defense to boot. Yes, that's including Youkilis's contribution. If Keppinger gives a .700 OPS and stability at 3b, that is effectively an additional impact player for this team compared to last year.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 7, 2013 -> 04:24 PM) Don Drysdale & Gaylord Perry openly cheated, yet ethics were ignored with their election. The voters change with time, so IMO, the voters have a right to change how they evaluate things with time. There's no absolute standard for admission into the HOF anyway. It's a judgment call about how big what they were caught doing was.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jan 7, 2013 -> 04:00 PM) Sounds like he's probably not having issues, but they have to be tempted to have both Q and Santiago on the Opening Day roster. You can play it safe with John while figuring out who your fifth starter is by having a 2-4 start tryout. This is assuming we don't move Gavin. It sounds like they're trying to be a little vague just in case someone comes in with a new offer for Floyd, they can attempt to negotiate from a position of seeming strength

QUOTE (TomSeaverFan @ Jan 7, 2013 -> 03:18 PM) It's natural to be a bit concerned at this point. Can we expect a huge deal or two before the start of spring training? I would doubt that. The changes are Keppinger at 3B and Flowers at catcher. Also, Peavy is back meaning the Sox are going to try to win a division again with the current pitching staff. And Danks is presumably back also, a possible addition of a #2 starter.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 7, 2013 -> 03:16 PM) Except that the stated purpose for many is the elimination of the second amendment. No, the stated purpose is reducing the insane number of shootings in this country. Eliminating the 2nd amendment is one possible mechanism.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Jan 7, 2013 -> 03:07 PM) I do not care at all about that. Seriously, I wear a seatbelt because I'm not stupid... if stupid people want to not wear them then they can go off and get themselves killed. The statistics might not look as good, but the reality behind them is more-or-less unchanged. Were getting off topic btw. And yet, if the statistics say that you and your family are vastly less safe when owning a gun, you don't care. I could thus take that exact same first phrase and replace "wear a seatbelt" with "own a gun" and it would fit perfectly.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Jan 7, 2013 -> 03:02 PM) However seatbelt laws did go from being a mere request to a finable offense. And at the same time, there's been a substantial decrease in traffic fatalities and an increase in seatbelt usage. Great.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Jan 7, 2013 -> 02:57 PM) If that's the attitude were going to have might as well ban half the food we eat, any car with over 75 horsepower, crosswalks, building homes on the Gulf Coast... Not every argument must be a slippery slope. If something can be improved somewhat with laws, that doesn't mean that every law in the world must happen. We do this all the time. We didn't ban cars over 75 horsepower as a consequence of seatbelt laws.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Jan 7, 2013 -> 02:54 PM) Accidents happen, were just going to have to learn to deal with that as a country. Not just with guns but with everything. Planes can crash, boats can sink, catwalks can fall... just because someone makes a mistake at a range doesn't mean they meant to hurt anyone. Great. So let's regulate gun sales as strongly as we regulate airplane sales or industrial construction. Fair?

QUOTE (flavum @ Jan 7, 2013 -> 02:50 PM) You can think that way if you want, but the 2012 White Sox didn't cross the finish line in first. To me, with the extra wildcard, my standard for the Sox is, "How do we get to 90 wins?" Right now, I don't see it with this team. Even if the Sox have a 5 game lead on July 4th, they really haven't earned our trust that they can beat the Tigers head-to-head. The Sox don't play the Tigers until July 9th, and then they play 19 games. For me, I'll try to enjoy the Sox season if they play good baseball, but as far as trusting that they'll cross the finish line in first place or with 90 wins, I'll believe it when I see it. The other side though...is that last year's Sox team could have won that division if they'd simply split with the Royals and been only somewhat under .500 against the Tigers. There are a lot of ways this team can get to 90 wins as constructed right now. Will they? No clue, a lot depends on how healthy and strong the arms are in the rotation.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 7, 2013 -> 02:44 PM) What are you saying with that, though? What's your point? If More Guns = less crime, and african americans have much higher rates of gun violence than other races, does that mean the problem is that african american communities don't have enough guns?

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Jan 7, 2013 -> 02:41 PM) Stupid image didn't work. I know I was b****ing about race being brought into this earlier, but blacks die from guns at 5 times the rate of whites. And if you'd care to suggest policies to ameliorate those problems, we'd be happy to listen. So far, your only answer, as far as I can tell, is more guns.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Jan 7, 2013 -> 02:39 PM) There's no rebuilding going on. Why should fans be excited about bringing last years team back? Because last year's team spent a majority of the season in first place?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 7, 2013 -> 02:36 PM) Face it, there are numerous factors to play into any (city/state/nation)'s crime rates. The fact that Chicago has very tight handgun laws yet still sees a lot of gun violence does not prove that all attempts at gun control are doomed to failure. I've readily acknowledged that a city-level ban is not going to be very effective, so pointing out instances of city-level bans not working particularly well doesn't really do anything. Let's be more clear...a city level ban is ineffective when there are other states and the federal government preventing it from being effective. When you can't even trace guns back to dealers to see if certain dealers are providing large fractions of the weapons used in crimes because the FBI is forbidden from keeping those statistics by Congress...then nothing is going to be effective. That is Congress literally making sure it undermines any such ban.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Jan 7, 2013 -> 02:25 PM) Try jumping through the necessary hoops with the CPD to get on their database. Better yet, trying getting a CC in IL (last state in the USA where you cannot). Chicago, even after the courts shot down some of the laws, is still has by far the nation's toughest gun laws. This line of though will graduate from "City bans aren't enough, we need state bans!", "State bans aren't enough now, we need a nationwide ban!", "The nationwide ban isn't working, we need a global ban!", "The global ban isn't working!! We need to ban guns on Mars and the Moon!"... forever and ever and even as nothing gets solved we'll keep thinking legislation will fix all of our problems. Face it, Chicago has the nation's toughest gun laws and also the nation's most homicides. Which proves that (1) Nobody gives a f*** if you ban guns, except law abiding citizens (2) Fewer guns do not make people safer. I'm sure you're going to run and grab your statistics about Europe, but I'm taking a glaring example in THIS country where Americans kill other Americans on average more than once a day. Acutally I'll just run and grab statistics from the U.S., where on average, the gun-riddled south blows the rest of the country away in homicides.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Jan 7, 2013 -> 02:07 PM) Sure, then every city in the country can be just like Chicago with 500+ homicides a year (got over 800 more than a couple times during the AWB even!) and your dream will be complete. But Chicago's handgun ban was struck down over 2 years ago. By now it should be just as safe as any other city.

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ Jan 7, 2013 -> 02:06 PM) Is the Hall of Fame a baseball entity or run by the NBWA. I love how people think baseball is supposed to be so pure while every other sport does little to monitor the things baseball gets black eyes for. The NHL, NBA or NFL are not held to a standard near MLB when it comes to drug testing. The National baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is an independent entity. It contracts with the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) to obtain membership votes. They set their own rules, so the bans on admission of people banned by baseball is their choice.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Jan 7, 2013 -> 02:05 PM) Ban those too then, right? Can we please? Or at least allow major cities to do so?

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Jan 7, 2013 -> 12:01 PM) Earlier in the thread you were complaining about how deadly guns are, now you're backtracking? I dont get it. What happened to 5.56 rounds being the bringers of doom to anything they touch? ~75% of shootings use handguns.

QUOTE (SOXOBAMA @ Jan 7, 2013 -> 10:05 AM) What did Bears fans think when Cutler sat out in the playoff game, when he was injured? A lot of 49ers fans are torn, if Justin Smith should play this weekend If the coach is making decisions to keep an injured player on the field because of what the fans think...he doesn't deserve to be the coach.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jan 7, 2013 -> 10:01 AM) The team obviously did not think he was 100% ready for the full workload otherwise they wouldn't have stopped his season. The whole point being that the Nats were concerned about the long term health of the player not the short term gain of having him play. The Redskins on the other hand were more concerned about the short term gain not his long term health and if he tore his ACL, they could pay for it. The sad thing is, by the 2nd/3rd quarter, they weren't getting short term gains from playing him either, which makes the issue of leaving him in there even more frustrating.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jan 7, 2013 -> 09:07 AM) He wouldn't go into surgery right away. There is usually a 1-3 week waiting period after the injury to allow the swelling to go down and to regain full ROM. The rehab will be easier and he would return to sport faster if this is done. You know better than I do though that the waiting period for this surgery is supposed to be for the swelling to go down.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jan 7, 2013 -> 09:01 AM) This is true. However, it is more difficult to determine an ACL tear on a previously reconstructed knee. The tests aren't as accurate and it doesn't swell up the same. He probably didn't tear it because they let him walk around out there but I wouldn't totally rule it out either. He was also examined by Dr. James Andrews on the sidelines. I cannot believe they wouldn't immobilize him if he was en route to surgery.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jan 6, 2013 -> 09:36 PM) He was making the point the the Nats kept a player coming off an injury off the field when he was could play but was at risk for further injury. While the Redskins took a player coming off an injury c and played him when there was a risk of further injury and it happened. The drive the Redskins should have pulled him at was the one where he limped to the sidelines for an 8 yard scamper. Healthy he'd have turned that upfield for maybe 20 yards, maybe more. He followed that by a couple of poorly placed throws, IIRC, one of which went well over the receiver's head, which made me really start thinking he couldn't plant with the foot to throw accurately either. I mean, this guy threw for a 65% completion in the regular season and 52% yesterday. He couldn't help them by running and he couldn't throw the ball accurately. I have no issue with them starting him, but by that point, mid-3rd quarter, you have to say "The Seahawks are coming back in this game and no matter whether or not he got me here, I need someone who gives me a chance at points today". It's a ballsy move to take him out when he can still walk, I'll grant, but it was the move that gave the Skins the best chance to win.