Balta1701

QUOTE (knightni @ Jan 2, 2018 -> 10:15 AM) I'm wondering how a cannon from a Death Star that destroyed an entire planet in IV and Rogue One, barely cut a 6 foot hole in a door. They only referred to it as "Death star technology", so similar design. Much smaller.

This has been an awesome game.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 1, 2018 -> 03:02 PM) While I usually agree with that, it seems like the tide has changed a little recently. Did Jared Goff become a franchise QB overnight or is he getting coached up so well? The Vikings have had Sam Bradford and Case Keenum all year and are the 2 seed. None of the 4 AFC quarterbacks playing this weekend are franchise QBs by any means. From the highlights I watched it seemed like Jared Goff massively improved his mechanics last offseason and that was a key step in what he did this year.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 1, 2018 -> 03:31 PM) Once in a while it works, but to be consistently good, you need a Big time QB. 8-8 isn't a playoff team. At this point, it's better the Bears are 5-11 and not 8-8. If they were 8-8, Fox would still be fired and they would have the same holes in the roster. Why are you basically giving Pace a pass? You are saying a coach should win even with a s***ty roster, but what about the guy responsible for the roster?Considering how high his draft position has been, isn't it a problem the only guys you can definitely say we're hits at this point are Howard 5th round, Cohen 4th round, Jackson 3rd round? Sure Trubisky could be a bit hit, Floyd may become one, but not if he has probable s staying on the field. Everyone else, meh. Hicks was a great signing, but look at all the horrible signings. And I still don't understand the low bid for Jeffery. I don't think making as big of an investment in Trubisky should buy this guy a couple of years. Results better come in 2018. If it is more of the same, he has to go. If the Bears suck because White, Floyd, Long and a few other chronically injured players get hurt, that is no excuse. He's had 3 drafts so far right? Any of them you consider to be a great draft? At some point you should get one just by flipping a coin if you're doing an average job.

Ha! One of my buddies produced that.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 1, 2018 -> 02:15 PM) Also on team: Dunn, Lavine, Lauri, Markannen, Lopez. Obviously not Lauri...but how many of those guys are up for extensions starting next summer?

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 1, 2018 -> 02:10 PM) As much as Fox sucked, I think whoever the Bears hired 3 years ago would have been fired today, especially if their OC was a weak as the one Fox had. It's a catch 22, if your OC is awesome, he gets a HC job. If there is stability, it's better than 50/50 he isn't all that great It would be interesting to see where the Bears would be if Gase was still calling the plays. They had to cut ties with Cutler and find a replacement QB much sooner if they were going to save the job of any HC.

QUOTE (Tex @ Dec 31, 2017 -> 09:08 PM) While that is a nice picture the current reality is coal (dying out), oil, nuclear, and blocking rivers for hydro. I was surprised to learn there are two reactors being built with about twenty more being planned. So while we both will agree that solar and wind is prefered, that may not be reality. Consumers will take cheap electricity being produced any which way when their demands increase. The reactors currently under construction are happening because they have received a huge subsidy from the rate-payers who are paying FAR above market rates to make those reactors come online. None of the other 20 will be built, or if they are built, they will be built at terrible losses. Nuclear power is simply not cost effective, it's so far from cost effective right now that it's barely worth talking about. You're in Texas with a competitive power market - there will never, ever be a nuclear plant constructed in Texas because it can't compete with just adding solar plants on every walmart. This isn't going to change. The cost of building a nuclear plant is rising faster than inflation, while (barring executive action) the cost of wind and solar is going down. Gas is basically staying constant. And that doesn't take into account the huge subsidy the federal government provides - leaving the plants not liable if they explode and paying them huge sums because they haven't figured out how to safely deal with the waste. Nuclear power in this country is either dead or only exists because your local government decided they wanted to give it a huge subsidy.

I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN!!!!!!!!

QUOTE (Tex @ Dec 31, 2017 -> 07:34 PM) I was talking with a couple family members who are buying Teslas and it sparked a few thoughts. One, while the car does not pollute, the generation of the electricity to make it run does pollute. This isn't really a 100% win for the environment. The addition of corn into gasoline eventually caused the price of corn to rise. Basically the people who were putting it in their tanks harmed the people who were putting corn in their bellies with higher prices for corn. So what happens when the demand for electricity to power vehicles rises? With increased demand usually comes increased prices. Migt we all be paying higher rates ten or twenty years down the road whether we have electric cars or not. Another issue, much of how we pay to maintain and add roads his by taxes on gas and diesel. If we see a sizable decline in those tax revenues, how will we adapt to fund roads? 1. I have the outlet in my garage waiting for the car. I'm going solar panel shopping next spring. The US has more than enough sunlight, wind, and hydropower to provide every bit of transit energy we need...IF we can store that energy overnight. And, a car has a battery that can store energy overnight. This can work with a smart enough electric grid. 2. Furthermore, I don't think a world where 75% of the electricity we use is powered by solar, wind, and hydro, while 25% is powered by natural gas, is a very bad world. This planet apparently has an ungodly amount of methane stored in the ground and that's a resource we will still need to pull from the ground to generate fertilizers and plastics. 3. You are 100% right that our method of funding roads needs to change, but this has also been true for the last 20 years because politicians have been generally unwilling to raise gas taxes to keep up with inflation. As a consequence, road construction is becoming a larger general fund expense. This has already been happening, so if we have a problem with that, why haven't we removed the politicians who won't raise the gas taxes to keep up with inflation? At this point, it's just going to transfer to the general fund, paid for by income taxes.

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Dec 31, 2017 -> 07:12 PM) I wonder if this becomes an era of 6 or so super teams every year, then does that hurt the trade market? Once the super teams have what they need are the rebuilding teams really going to be casting off prospects for Chris Archers? Maybe adding more wild cards would help that. The White Sox pulled off 2 enormous trades last offseason in an era of 3 100-win teams. The Yankees made a trade for Sonny Gray this year. The Yankees have that much to trade because they traded Chapman and Miller the year before and that pair of trades defined the world series. We had the NL home run champ traded. We had an all star/silver slugger winner traded. I think all we're missing this year is a "Sale" like deal, and that's in part because of the superteams and in part because of the weak FA market. The big guys are holding back this offseason to get under the luxury tax multi-year penalties because they know what is available on the FA market next year and we're going to have a Yankees/Dodgers fight over Harper. The Red Sox are going to add a bigger bat, but both Hosmer and Martinez are still on the FA market and that has turned into a buyers market with the Yankees and Dodgers sitting out. The Luxury Tax penalties are working and the FA market has saturated this year. This is clearly a 1 year thing. Next year is "Can the White Sox sign Machado before there's a loser in the Harper sweepstakes?", and then that will open some floodgates.

QUOTE (Jack Parkman @ Dec 31, 2017 -> 04:09 PM) My god, they just keep playing well. Somehow, it seems they made out way too well immediately in the Butler trade, as they traded a top 20 player for 3 solid players, they probably would be a worse team with Butler than without him. Even the scrubs are en fuego, and this winning is really going to mess with things. It would be like if the Sox finished with 78 wins this year. I'd be ok with that. The White Sox are already swimming in talent. If they get a #12 draft pick this year instead of #8, I don't think that changes my goal of 100+ wins in 2020 one bit. Very different from the Bulls, where they need to find top flight talent, likely in the draft, and these wins are in the way.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Dec 30, 2017 -> 06:09 PM) 100% this. Failure to land a star in this next draft will have epic consequences for us long-term. We need to draft & develop one ASAP and then find a way to acquire a second one using our cap space or other assets, which will be a challenge for our front office. With the approach GarPax took with the rebuild (trading Butler for solid players but not getting a single potential star back), time is of the essence because we have enough talent (especially once Lavine is healthy) to quickly blow our draft position and enter NBA hell for the foreseeable future. And the scary part is I wouldn’t be shocked if Michael Reinsdorf was ok was with that as long as we were consistently a 7/8 seed and got him some playoff revenue. As of right now, the Bulls are not on a path to get a "Star" in this draft or any in the near future, unless they find someone who dramatically overplays their draft slot. This can, of course, happen, but that's what it requires.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 30, 2017 -> 02:40 PM) Uh, god no. This team has zero superstar potential players on it. You aren't winning a damned thing in the NBA without at least two of those guys on your team. This team would be the very definition of NBA hell just like the last decade. 2nd round playoff team at best. Free agents don't come to Chicago anyway, they sure aren't coming here for this trash, when they have other way better options. Well, there really aren't many "way better options" this year - at least in terms of teams that can offer a max deal. There's only a couple that have enough space as of now.

QUOTE (bmags @ Dec 30, 2017 -> 02:38 PM) Would be nice if he could spell 1b as well Yeah I totally read this and thought "what's so hard about spelling first base"?

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Dec 30, 2017 -> 01:05 AM) You don't need THAT many WR's. Sign one of those FA guys, draft a Will Fuller type burner in the draft (preferably later round) and let Meredith (who alot of us, including the Bears, like alot) come back and be a #2 type. I wouldn't be opposed to resigning Wright and have him be your #4 either, depending on what people think of Kevin White ever being healthy.. Bears really need to protect Mitch. Gotta get OL addressed as well as help for Floyd at DE. Probably CB with one of Fuller and/or Prince walking and LB. We need OL, DE, CB with WR of course and then hope Shaheen takes a big step next season. Were people really thinking Meredith would be back? I thought there was talk of his injury being career threatening or ending.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 29, 2017 -> 09:36 PM) In the end, the government always has tried to set that inflation band at 2%...doubling it to 4% would be a pretty radical departure and have mostly negative consequences for the economy. Seriously, you provided a bunch of random blurbs without numbers or support that didn't address my argument at all. I totally agree it would be a radical departure - in favor of workers and in opposition to the financial industry. And anything that is slightly in that direction is something I think would be a general benefit over the next few years.

QUOTE (WBWSF @ Dec 29, 2017 -> 07:11 PM) Looks like another season "Mired in Mediocrity". As long as you don't mind the 102-60 in 2020. Because my goal is to beat that, so I expect some people to be disappointed if that's all we do.

QUOTE (soxfan49 @ Dec 29, 2017 -> 07:48 PM) Landry, Robinson, Lee, Richardson, and Watkins are all good options still Ideally on the FA market you sign your #2 and #3 receivers. Your first round draft pick should be the best receiver available, and you should consider another receiver in round 3 or 4 with where this roster is. If some of that works out, by 2020 you've fully rebuilt this corps, but it's going to take time and coaching.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 29, 2017 -> 06:11 PM) It’s going to dramatically increase US debt payments (one of the reasons $600-700 billion budget deficits have been sustainable for the last decade)...and hurt seniors who are living on fixed incomes if they don’t receive COLA increases (unlikely), and we know basic wages for workers aren’t going to keep up, either. So if the middle class and poor are going to even worse off in terms of buying power, where’s that additional aggregate demand coming from when the corporations are getting 2/3rds of tax cut benefits? And won’t some businesses also cut back employee numbers in reaction to increased minimum wages in 18 states...so that the net overall wage gains are muted? It’s beneficial to borrowers with fixed lower rates, though. You are completely backwards. The US Debt is a certain dollar amount. If you allow a run of 4% inflation it actually cuts the net value of the US Debt. Similarly, inflation reduces the total dollar value of a wage, so it would make higher minimum wages less of an impact on businesses. You're conflating inflation due to a growing economy with "The Republican business tax cuts". The tax cuts will be one contributing factor to inflation but not nearly as large as "an economy close to full employment".

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 29, 2017 -> 04:33 PM) https://finance.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump...-142233815.html Or that dramatically and intentionally raising inflation won’t lead to a recession I do not believe that dramatically raising inflation rates would lead to a recession and I think there's a strong economic argument for running it at 4% for the next 5 years. I believe that the Federal Reserve deciding to fight inflation too hard next year to avoid wages going up is what will cause the next recession - have the Fed cut back on that and I would call it an economic positive. It would lead to the first real wage growth since the late 1990s and counteract the fact that inflation was "Far under the 2% a year goal" for the last 5 years. It would also give the Federal Reserve more space above the "0 interest rate bound" that we hit during the 2009 collapse. The fact that a run of inflation would directly and hugely benefit me as a new homeowner is worth adding.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Dec 29, 2017 -> 05:53 PM) I’m less certain of how our pitching staff will do next year and clearly there are some major holes on that end, but the projected positional WAR is way too light IMO. I feel pretty good about Abreu & Moncada being around 3.5 WAR players. I think Sanchez, Anderson, Leury, & Delmonico will combine for 8 WAR or so in some fashion. If Avi is around, I see an easy 2 WAR from him. That would be about 17 WAR excluding our catcher spot & DH and not including any potential benefit from Jimenez coming up mid-season. ZIPS seems way too conservative on almost all of these guys. My biggest issue with your whole comment is that it lists 10 guys who you project to be better and doesn't project anyone to implode. That was the game I was playing with these projections to convince myself in 2015 that this team would be better than they were on paper, and I realized what I was missing was "you can't project all your guys to be better than the computers think they will be". Someone's going to get hurt, someone's going to implode and wind up back in the minors. Moncada might have his "2017 Anderson" year. Maybe Leury or Sanchez pull off a 2017 Saladino. Abreu could get hurt. Whatever. If you predict "these 10 guys will all be better than their projections", somewhere a couple guys will seriously disappoint.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 29, 2017 -> 05:28 PM) The other side of the question is if players decide to rise up, how much damage are the owners willing to risk to their golden goose to keep the players from getting a bigger share? If the players pushed it in the next CBA I think the owners would be pretty happy overall and willing to give up a slightly higher revenue fraction, if there's no other major asks. They've had their share go up enough I can't imagine they're willing to risk that kind of revenue growth over a minor share.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Dec 29, 2017 -> 05:15 PM) Like a 65 win team. Can you find 15 WAR somewhere that ZIPS doesn't see? To get the Sox to 80 and ready to compete in 2019? Probably the biggest delta I see is between the IF projections and my own expectations. ZIPS sees 6.9 WAR between Yolmer, Jose, Yoan and Timmy. I could see that group putting up 10-12. It's going to take some improvement that ZIPS doesn't see from the young guys but hey that's why they play the games. Can I find 15 WAR by 2019 or 2018? 2018 I agree with your skepticism, I just want a baseline to look at because this does feel like something > a 65 win team right now, based on what we saw last August. When we swap in 3s for Kopech and Jiminez and 5 for Machado, plus maybe get more from a developed DH spot? 2019 I can totally see that level of a boost.