Balta1701

He left something?

Really weird word.

Ironically, I made that post giving McConnell some credit, and today he backtracked on previous statements that Moore should drop out of the race, and he's now up to "The voters of Alabama should decide". Sigh.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Dec 3, 2017 -> 01:30 AM) To me it's fun even more so now than when I was challenging everyone about Avi. At least now a few have converted. Next year if he doesn't get traded a few more probably twice as many with 2 good seasons in a row. Even if that was gobbledygook to those who don't speak standard deviations, the conclusion is "you have a 1/1000 or worse chance of putting up that kind of season if you're not actually a really good hitter". Summary enough?

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Dec 3, 2017 -> 01:23 AM) I feel bad for Flynn. Seems like he lives by a good code and is one hell of a patriot. He got screwed. His own doing it seems, but the smear after just seems distasteful. Dude served his country for a long time and held his ground to the previous administration til he got pushed out. Politics aside, he's got a big set of American-loving balls. He was totally willing to betray our country for money, to alter our foreign policy based on who was paying him. If you're a Trump fan, he was lying to your President about his motivations in exchange for $15 million. He's a f***ing traitor.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Dec 2, 2017 -> 10:50 PM) They are going to argue its not illegal. If you look around, Trump's base is already of the opinion there is nothing wrong with Trump's people trying to undermine Obama while Obama was still in office. If that was all it was then they are right. If Donald Trump falls as president it is because he coordinated with a foreign power to commit a crime on United States soil to win an election. Not because they were talking to a foreign power during the transition. That's to be expected, frankly. It's so minor that there's no reason that Flynn should have lied about it...unless his lie was covering up something much, much bigger. That's the rule with these. "The coverup is worse than the crime" is false - what happens is that the normal players know everything about a major crime, but that major crime affects a ton of issues. The normal players in that crime feel compelled to lie about everything, even the minor things nearly unrelated to the actual crime, to try to cover up the big and real crime. Those lies are easily exposed. Flynn lying about a conversation that he knew was on tape. Sessions lying to Congress about the existence of a conversation he knew would be exposed. The only reason you lie about these things, when you know that their existence can be proven, is that you know you were talking about crimes during the conversation. You are lying about the minor, easily disproven details to cover up the real crime. The coverup is the part that incriminates everyone, because they have to lie about every detail and some of those lies are easily disproven. They lie to the FBI about something that doesn't matter - "I spoke to a Russian ambassador about sanctions 2 weeks before we could do something about them" - that lie is totally unimportant. But it's so easily disproven, it's on the record, it's recorded, there's a FISA warrant, It's admissible in court, they can play the f***ing tape in front of you of you saying those things then testifying to the FBI 3 weeks later that you didn't say those things and ask you why you lied to the FBI. So you then agree to testify to the minor crime, to the thing you lied about, and you give up the guys who ordered the major crime. If all Michael Flynn had done was lie about this conversation then frankly I would not have cared. He wouldn't have faced any charges. He lied about this conversation to cover up a much bigger crime committed by someone in a position of much greater importance. The National Security Advisor only has so many people of higher rank that they can give up - the President, Vice President, and Cabinet Secretaries outrank him. The only reason he gets off with "lying about something inconsequential and 6 months" is he gave up one or more of those as involved in a much bigger crime - much bigger than just lying to the FBI about a transition team conversation. The next one up might well only wind up with charges for lying to the FBI also. But if they do, it's because they told the story of the highest authority agreeing with a foreign power to commit a crime on US soil to support their election campaign. If whoever Flynn gave up doesn't wind up facing enormous charges it's because they gave up the President.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Dec 2, 2017 -> 10:18 PM) It tells more than a small part of the story. The last time someone ran a BABIP as high as Avisail's was Chris Johnson in 2013. He finished with the 5th highest batting average at .321. His career average was .275. Garcia made legitimate changes to his game for the best, but to suggest that much of his season last year was not derived from incredible batted ball luck is frankly ignorant. It's probably safe to figure him as a 2 WAR player unless the power starts to blossom, because he will not be running a .392 BABIP again. It takes approximately 800 balls in play to figure statistical significance of BABIP for a hitter. Garcia put 389 balls in play last year. He didn't even reach the halfway point of statistical significance. There is nothing you can determine by his BABIP last year, and we might not discover anything till the end of next season. So, this isn't how statistics works. There isn't an "on-off" switch for statistical significance. The more contact is made the more likely it is for things to approach a natural value, but 400 PAs will produce only a slightly smaller variance than 800 PAs will. For a comparable example - if you are doing a standard, randomized poll - if you poll 800 or so respondents you will get a margin of error of plus or minus 3%. If you only poll 400 respondents, your margin of error rises but only to 5% assuming that your respondents are randomly sampled. For BABIP, there is going to be a larger variance for 400 PAs, but it is cut by less than 1/2 if you move up to 800 PAs. I did a quick google search on people talking about this issue and found this discussion of the stats: In other words, from 400 PAs, if Avi's BABIP last year was .395, then if you replayed the 2017 season 100 times, 70 times out of that 100 his BABIP should be within 20 points of what he put up this year if the events were randomly distributed. In other words, if he played out this season 100 times, his expected BABIP is way above .350. It might be below .395, but it isn't anywhere close to .300. Whatever he was doing, he maximized his chances of balls falling for hits and over 400 balls in play, the odds of this happening for a .275 hitter are extremely low. If his BABIP over 400 PAs is 395, then if you replayed this season several thousand times, then you'd be seriously surprised if overall it wound up less than .375, and there's an equal chance that it's .375 and .415. Edit: this is also my current version of drunken statistics. I think my BAC is still low enough to drive legally, but I wanted to throw that in.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Dec 2, 2017 -> 09:29 PM) Then just prove the haters wrong. I'm rather amazed that the Republican party has shifted so rapidly into "14 year olds are so sexy how can you resist" mode, and I'm not going to drop that. But if he gets to the Senate then I don't know how else you deal with Moore other than an ethics investigation. And creepily, the Franken allegations are easier to prove than the Moore ones. Franken has admitted wrongoing while Moore has Denied it. The Franken allegations are more recent and some of them might have even occurred while he was a Senate candidate. There's a good chance the ethics committee will decide that the Franken allegations are provable and the Moore allegations, even though there are more of them, are older and won't stand up in court. I really wish there was a strong ethics committee in Congress. This is like my 7th post saying I wish I had confidence in that committee. The good news is that McConnell has said that he will face an ethics investigation immediately but I'm still not confident in any of it. If they find the allegations credible, the Republicans should expel him from the Senate, but I don't have any confidence in that since I don't have confidence in the ethics committee. There's going to be a child rapist in the Senate and we have to just kind of be ok with that. At least I don't have to look a 14 year old daughter in the eye about this. At this point, Al Franken deserves his investigation but he should resign. I will wait until the ethics committee does something but there's no excuse for them not finding the other allegations credible. The last one even had photos again. The ethics committee should expel him if he doesn't resign. He should not run for reelection and if he does the Democrats should endorse his primary challenger. Roy Moore should remove himself from his election but he won't. The voters in Alabama should reject him but they won't. The ethics committee should expel him but I have no confidence they will. I don't know what else to say other than that. Whichever of these things does not happen - judge the people involved based on that. That includes the voters who say that child rape is ok if they say that.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Dec 2, 2017 -> 09:57 PM) It's sort of funny how a guy who hit .330 with near 20 HR's and 80 RBI improved his defense , his speed, his base running , cut down on his K's , had career highs in doubles , triples, HR, WAR, OBP, wRC+, OPS, OPS+, Total bases and was an All Star is treated with such disdain ,as if all those things just magically appeared without dedication and hard work to actually improve himself. Will he ever have such a high BABIP again ? Probably not but give the guy some credit. Hitting.330 and the rest of it is not just some result of the stars aligning right or making a deal with the devil . The biggest problem for me remains - everyone said he couldn't do his first 2 months again on June 1. They said the same thing about his first 3 months on July 1. They said the same thing on August 1. He somehow then kept doing it. I don't know about .390, but there are levels of bat control and skill that can let guys have high BABIP. Derek Jeter's career BABIP was .350 and that is weighed down by his last 5 seasons when he started getting old. I'd be far more convinced if Avi had hit 35 HR this year, but Avi's career number is .340 and he was driving the ball better last year. He has always had strong bat control, he just never drove the ball until this year. Here's the basic trade off. This year, there are only a tiny handful of outfielders on the FA market. You've got JD Martinez at big money, a big trade price for Stanton, or the huge dropoffs to Bruce and Cargo. If you are needing to fill an outfield spot on a competing team and you can't afford the dollar amounts for Stanton or Martinez, Avi is a risk but he looks like as good of an option as Bruce, and maybe better.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Dec 2, 2017 -> 07:00 PM) The thing with Cruz is everyone knows if the people switched letters after their names he would feel the exact opposite. I feel quite confident that there are people reading this thread thinking the same thing about me. Pretty sure they just said so.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 2, 2017 -> 04:28 PM) It’s too late. Where was CWS when Trump started using the moniker Lyin’ Ted Cruz in the first place? The reality of the situation is that nobody likes Ted Cruz, even his own party. Smart guy, head of the Harvard Law Review, talented debater, he might be all of those things. Fair and balanced instead of blatantly partisan? Impossible. Can’t change the narrative now with this guy. Even Cruz knows he’s coming across as hypocritical...hence, his chuckle before arguing Franken should be grilled over the coals. Huh?

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Dec 2, 2017 -> 03:21 PM) He should have been traded, that’s all. No asset like that should just walk away Would he have even garnered a 7th rounder if he was on the 2nd year WR franchise tag? He got $27 million guaranteed in this deal, he would have been getting >$18 million this year under the 2nd year tag.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Dec 2, 2017 -> 04:15 PM) If that is what it took, that is what should have been done. Yes, maybe he didn't deserve it, but the Bears were well under the cap, profits were already locked in, and they needed a lot of receiving help. No brainer. It was a Pace fail. He wouldn't have signed with the Bears and I think you know that.

QUOTE (CrimsonWeltall @ Dec 2, 2017 -> 12:00 PM) So....is now the time to throw more money into the stock market? The answer is "maybe". 1. Some of the "upcoming wealth for wealthy shareholders" has already been priced in so that will limit the effects 2. There is still some room for the economy to heat up. When the government prints money, it does push the economy to heat up. This bill will do that to some extent, but.... 3. The economy heating up will drive inflation. The Federal Reserve reacts rapidly to prevent inflation - they have been raising rates for the last year+ to prevent that. Actions by the Fed will gradually restrict demand, counteracting #2. Eventually, this will probably trigger the next recession, which will probably get worse when whatever frauds have been covered up by the last 8 years of growth start imploding, as we saw in 2002 and 2008. OH, and long term, the dismantling of higher education that is in this bill will be a disaster for so many industries it is hard to believe. Technology, biotech, mining/oil/gas, they are going to be crippled by this bill in a few years.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Dec 2, 2017 -> 01:40 AM) Are you disagreeing with me that StrangeSox didn’t quite accurately depict what Cruz said? I'm open to a different transcript if one exists. The video sure looked like he went from one statement defending Moore to one condemning Franken. You have more? Did I miss something?

QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ Dec 1, 2017 -> 11:20 AM) And he has expressed interest in playing for the White Sox for his career. I really like the idea of a 4-5 year extension, and I believe that he'd take a little less money to stay. I wouldn't argue against $20-$22 million a year average. Until 2017 I would not have offered him an extension. He went from a .964 OPS guy to a .850 OPS guy to a .820 OPS guy over 3 years. Until his resurgence in 2017 he looked like he'd be finished by age 32.

Perhaps we can trade Jose Abreu for someone who is. That's important.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Dec 1, 2017 -> 10:55 PM) Not that I agree with what he said, but could you actually take his comments out of context any further? Please continue, governor.

QUOTE (bmags @ Dec 1, 2017 -> 05:16 PM) Please, has he even denied any of the claims? As far as I know he only responded to the first of them, he did not confirm or deny the last ones.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 1, 2017 -> 10:13 PM) No one should be in favor of rewriting the tax code of the biggest economy in earth in a few hours. They stopped caring. Haven't you noticed that by their silence here? As soon as no demycrat was in power they didn't care about any of this. deficits, procedure, all the important things we couldn't do with that thing in office.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 1, 2017 -> 11:54 PM) It’s pretty pathetic when Marco Rubio starts to sound reasonable wanting to reallocate less than 1% of that 15% business tax reduction to middle class families with three or more children....you would think ALL Americans would consider that preferable to big corporations being taxed a lower rate than our six biggest competitors internationally. But a 20% statutory tax rate is higher than our competitors - even if only small businesses pay that. That's the scam. Large businesses pay 0%, high income taxpayers categorize themselves as businesses and pay 0%, small businesses pay 20%, the middle class pays 15-20% counting the payroll tax. That's the point. Small businesses can't grow larger even if they have good ideas because they are overtaxed.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Dec 2, 2017 -> 12:26 AM) I didn't like the wild celebrating of the successful launch. I hope China is noticing. Our racist president stopped taunting China because North Korean taunts were more ballsy and they noticed. If you have a problem with this maybe you should have voted against it.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Dec 2, 2017 -> 12:30 AM) Occasionally a post reveals that some people read what I'm saying. Nice. I normally think I'm ignored. He's laughing at you for supporting a standard, multiply divorced, sexual harassed and being ok with that. You're a laughingstock.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Dec 1, 2017 -> 09:29 PM) Slot money for the Ohtani push ! If we acquired extra international money I don't think we could spend it on him? $200k is "max per player" for us right? I'd take some A-ball reliever for Smith. He's a nonterrible backup catcher. Unless we're carrying him as a DH he'll have to be moved, and there's always a dearth of positive cheap backup catchers.

QUOTE (hi8is @ Dec 2, 2017 -> 12:04 AM) I've been a supporter of his since he was in the minors Move our current 1b and we'll talk?