Balta1701

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Sep 22, 2010 -> 09:24 PM) I truly believe that if the sox had sustained success like the Phillies have had, and now with the Cubs faltering, maybe we wouldn't have a $140 mill payroll but we could probably have $120-130mill payroll. Obviously I don't have the balance sheets of both teams but essentially I see us at similar levels if we had the same success as the Phillies. Really though...after the W.S., we won 90+ games in 2006 and the division in 2008. Do you think that the bad season in 2007 did that much damage?

QUOTE (11and1 @ Sep 23, 2010 -> 12:41 AM) The Twins can be beat, just not by us. The potentially career-ending beaning of Konerko required, in my opinion, nothing less than a bench clearing brawl in response. We had nothing to lose and everything to prove by kicking some serious A**--as a team. Instead, after letting these guys embarass us all season, we wimp out. WTF? That's actually the one time this season we actually responded by hitting one of their guys back.

QUOTE (scenario @ Sep 23, 2010 -> 08:51 AM) Smart move. KW shows Ozzie respect, thus covering his *** while opening the door to other teams wanting to negotiate with Ozzie. Next moves: - Somebody offers Ozzie a longer deal - The Sox want to wait until the end of next year before talking contract - Ozzie says he loves the Sox but has to think of his family first - Hello Miami Really...if Ozzie's 1/4 as smart as everyone wants us to think he is...Miami isn't exactly a destination slot for head coaches. They're likely to be better next year as Stanton grows up...but playing before 18,000 fans at home on a good night isn't exactly exciting...and no matter how many homophobic remarks Ozzie makes, he's not going to be any better than #3 on the list of sports teams in Miami and number 8-10 in Sports Icons.

Holy Hell...that post is actually on topic!

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Sep 22, 2010 -> 06:23 PM) Also, Melo is less of a dbag than LeBron. I'm not sure that I believe this 100% yet. Melo didn't screw over a city...but he hasn't had the chance.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Sep 22, 2010 -> 06:20 PM) Jenks won't be back. I can almost guarantee it. I'd expect Sale to close before Bobby with the White Sox. I could see it possible that the Sox decide they have no other closer option and offer Jenks like $2 million to come back...but frankly...this has more hallmarks of a breakup than Ozzie and Kenny do.

QUOTE (sin city sox fan @ Sep 22, 2010 -> 06:18 PM) Agreed. If we are to bounce back and contend in 2011, Bobby is going to have to be a force next season. You really think Bobby Jenks will be back with the White Sox next season?

QUOTE (elgonzo4sox @ Sep 22, 2010 -> 06:14 PM) Doesn't matter much today, since the next game is not until Friday night. Thornton will get rest, and since the games don't matter too much now anyway, he's not critically needed on Friday or any other game for the rest of the year. The worry isn't that he won't be available for a day or two, the worry is that he'll be out there for a 2nd inning in a meaningless game and feel something pop in that elbow.

This must fit into this discussion somehow.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Sep 22, 2010 -> 05:56 PM) Honestly, I would not give him more than the 12 million per year. Heck, I'm not sure I would've offered that. Here's the way to look at it...he's not worth $12 million per year under the current cap...but he's at that level where a lot of teams would jump at paying him $12 million per year if he hit the open market (see; this year's FA period). Therefore, your choices are to pay him that much, trade him, or let him walk for nothing. I've cared about the Bulls keeping salary under control for too long to really care any more about whether or not JR winds up paying the luxury tax. If he doesn't think that this team right now is championship-caliber and at the level that he'd go into the tax for...then he's not going to ever go into tax territory for a team until the Heat are dismantled. He'd probably have gotten close to $75 million or so had he hit the FA market this season, because that's just the way things have been going. A new CBA will change those things. If the Bulls are willing to go to 5/$60, they'll get it done, because between injuries and the new CBA that's an enormous amount of security they'd be offering to Noah.

The Eagles are at least getting calls on Kevin Kolb. A backup QB and a 3rd round pick to the Eagles, Kolb to the Bills?

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Sep 22, 2010 -> 05:40 PM) http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/chicago-bu...60-million.html Alex Kennedy originally reported it on his twitter. Nothing there says that he turned it down. In fact, Kennedy speculated that it's a sign the Bulls are really serious about keeping him. I'd guess that the deeper meaning is "The Bulls and Noah's camp have been talking for a while and that's somewhere in the neighborhood of the number they're talking about".

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ Sep 22, 2010 -> 05:34 PM) http://blogs.suntimes.com/whitesox/2010/09...o_walk_awa.html Paulie hints here that he wants to play about 3 more years. READ he wants a 3 year deal to finish white the White Sox. Verducci posted an article earlier where he asked a couple agents to predict where the top FA's contracts would wind up.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Sep 22, 2010 -> 05:29 PM) And yet Boozer's entire offensive game the last few years has been the high pick and roll with Dwill. There's nothing wrong with the high pick and roll if you have the horse to finish on the "roll" part. Ideally on the pick and roll, the guy setting the screen is the guy who should get open for the shot; his man has to take the penetrator and he's matched up against the smaller defender. No one on the Bulls could handle that job though. Rose had to be the scorer because even if both defenders involved collapsed on him, he could beat them while the uncovered guy couldn't do anything.

Another version of that:

QUOTE (J.Reedfan8 @ Sep 22, 2010 -> 05:20 PM) He isn't ready OBP wise, but hitting for average, I don't see how he isn't ready. Has he shown any ability to adapt to people giving him high and tight fastballs? In his first stint that was the weakness that got him exposed; it was a pitch he couldn't lay off of and couldn't get around fast enough on.

One other thing worth noting...Thibodeau supposedly clinched the job with his discussion of how he would employ a Drive and Kick style of offense with the DR1 field and Brush Mower. VDN, on the other hand, as we all know, employed an offense heavily reliant on the pick and roll. In particular, it used the high pick and roll, with Noah usually heading out front to set a screen for Rose. Rose was fast enough that from the outside if you gave him separation he could still break down into the lane, but the fact that you're starting high and taking Noah out away from the basket meant that the only guy left down low who could be an option to dish the ball was Taj Gibson/Brad Miller/whoever else was in the game. ON top of that, the guys that were outside of the lane (Deng, etc.) weren't either outside shooters nor were they in position to take advantage of Rose's penetration with an open shot if he did break down the defense (This is why Deng's hanging out by the 3 point line without moving was so frustrating). Without an outside threat, the high pick and roll basically gave Rose 1 option; drive and try to score. He needed to be better about drawing contact, everyone ought to be able to agree on that, but it's worth stressing that ball movement wasn't going to be a practical result of VDN's offense. The Drive and Kick style combined with some level of (less formulaic) pick and roll, along with a better set of outside threats and a legitimate inside scoring threat ought to improve those assist options substantially.

QUOTE (South Side Fireworks Man @ Sep 22, 2010 -> 04:51 PM) Could that be considerd tampering? I'm sure they all signed agreements before appearing on that show that the stuff in the show wouldn't violate those MLB rules.

QUOTE (thxfrthmmrs @ Sep 22, 2010 -> 05:00 PM) really, the offense around him is THAT bad which lead to him having the 3rd worst ast/usg rate in the league? you can't possibly justifying in saying Rose is a great playmaker, just can't If we're asking was the Bulls offense bad...yes, absolutely...it was really bad. If you go by Offensive efficiency as defined by the NBA version of B-R, the Bulls were 27th out of 30 teams (points per 100 possessions). If you go simply by scoring, the Bulls were 24th of 30. That doesn't mean that Rose didn't have room for improvement on his passing...but the Bulls offense really was dreadful. One other thing worth noting in terms solely of assist percentage...a lot of the time Rose spent on the floor last year there was another PG on the floor as well. Rose assisted on about 30% of his team's baskets, Hinrich assisted on 20%. Nash, for example, assisted on 50%.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Sep 22, 2010 -> 04:28 PM) I'd trade Noah for Melo, if for nothing else, the contracts. Noah turned down 12 mil a year already. By the way...I'd like to add here...I haven't seen the explicit reports that "Noah turned down a $12 million a year contract" and if you have a link saying that I'd like to see it. Most of what I've read has been along these lines...they've been talking for a while, there seems to be agreement that something will get done, but it hasn't gotten 100% serious yet.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Sep 22, 2010 -> 04:33 PM) So draft an O-Line. Trade down and grab McCoy or Claussen and also a lineman. I don't think Edwards has anything other than backup QB written on him. I think Clausen will be better than him. Only thing is Clausen is a dbag. "Better than Edwards" doesn't really matter unless you have a loaded team around him. Drafting an O-line rich draft would have been the right move. May as well just go with Edwards until they wind up with the #1-#2 pick and can draft a top flight QB.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Sep 22, 2010 -> 03:49 PM) Philly: 1.54 million Chicago: 2.8 milllion Even if we are splitting a city it is about even. Factor in more corporate sponsor opportunities being in a large international and national market, the Sox are in just as good, if not a better position than the Phillies if they got their s*** together. It's worth counting the full metropolitan area as well. People who grew up in the Suburbs can go to the ballpark too. Chicago comes in around 9.5 million, Philly at 6 million. So if the Cubs and Sox split evenly, Philly has about a 25% population advantage...and go figure, we're talking about Philly holding about a 25% advantage over the Sox in their ticket sales right after their W.S. year.,

So, I see the White Sox have 4 hits and 1 walk in 4 innings and zero runs to show for it, while the A's have 1 hit and 1 run to show for it.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Sep 22, 2010 -> 03:34 PM) Is the poop deck really what I think it is? Quack quack quack.

QUOTE (J.Reedfan8 @ Sep 22, 2010 -> 03:15 PM) I was 90/10 on getting Melo for Noah 2 weeks ago. Now re-evaluating it.. I'm more like 60/40. Just something about Melo who "could not" be that great of a fit. (unlike a guy like LeBron who is more of a distributor, plays better D, and can score) I'd be shocked if he doesn't average 18-25(depending on Melo)/3-5/8-10 with a steal and a half and better shooting % from the three. Wow...that's some lack of paragraphs. I want to see how this season goes for the first half before I'd do that deal frankly. It's possible that any of Gibson, Noah, Johnson, Asik, or even others could make big steps forwards this year on a much deeper, better coached, and better constructed team. Remember, we've had Noah playing for VDN the last 2 years; if that doesn't hurt development I don't know what will. See how everything goes before the deadline. If Gibson and Asik play well enough to convince the Bulls that they can be a legitimate C position rotation, and Noah's numbers are similar to last year's...I'd be willing to swap. The Bulls shouldn't be too aggressive here though; not after the overhaul their team has already done.