Balta1701

Doug Fister went to the Rangers today I believe.

QUOTE (Tony @ Nov 29, 2017 -> 07:17 PM) As we know, they aren't going to hit on every acquisition. Those misses can also be offset by a move like Q for Eloy, if he all develops like we hope. Not giving the Front Office a pass in anyway, I've been pretty hard on them myself in the past. But just saying... They're not going to hit on every acquisition, but people are making a convincing case that the guy was already underperforming in the minors when we got him, so they did make a strong bet that "we know more about this guy than other teams". I'm not sure I'd say they overpaid, because his ranking was good, but his performance wasn't supporting where he was ranked at the time. We shall see.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Nov 29, 2017 -> 07:03 PM) No kidding. They've earned some patience by acing the first 18 months of the rebuild. There's no grade other than "A" that you could give last year. Hell, maybe give it an A- because they only managed to acquire the 4rd pick. Yea the coursework gets exponentially harder after 2018 (gotta actually start winning not acquiring prospects) but there's almost nothing to critique them on so far and we went over this in the season in review thread and rate the rebuild. If Rutherford isn't as good next year as I'm hoping then I can see the A-/B+ range because that was a supremely valuable asset and they went after their guy, so their scouting on their guy better be right. So far it's concerning.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 29, 2017 -> 07:57 PM) How come Clarence Thomas isn't being revisited? If Al Franken should resign, Long Dong should as well. With some relevance to 2020, Joe Biden was not a particularly decent human being on the day of that testimony.

lolsobbing I wonder if Gage is going to pay up for a Soxtalk fastlane.

Senate tax package passes Filibuster test on 52-48 party line vote.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Nov 29, 2017 -> 06:36 PM) What have they done since 2005 to earn patience from our fan base? I am not of the opinion our young guys have to suck a year or two before we are competitive. So why are you so insistent on the strategy of "Compete and win as much as you can" that we used from 2006-2016?

QUOTE (steveno89 @ Nov 29, 2017 -> 06:37 PM) I'd do it too. I don't think Rodon has much trade value with all the injury issues. Our best bet is to let him rehab and come back. He also hasn't nearly "Broken Out" yet. He's the kind of guy I'd be ok with us acquiring if he wasn't on our roster to give a shot to - big time talent, hasn't put things together yet. No one would be surprised if he came out and dropped a 2.50 ERA some year, but he's not that pitcher yet. I've just got a bad feeling about him not breaking out with us.

QUOTE (35thstreetswarm @ Nov 29, 2017 -> 06:14 PM) ...or our 2015 Astros year -- another playoff team. Again, please feel free to stop me from elevating my expectations. Could be our "2016 Astros Year" too - everyone was up but enough things went wrong that they missed the WC. But on paper, the 2019 White Sox should be as talented as any team in baseball.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 29, 2017 -> 04:01 PM) It is interesting to see people coming around on the idea that the window really isn't going to be there for 2019, but more like 2020 or even 2021 in this case. I think 2019 is our "2015 Cubs" year. They spent some money that year on Lester, basically everyone was called up or arriving, and they wound up being a wild card team because Bryant did a lot of damage and Arrieta broke out as a cy young. 2019 we're not all the way there yet, but the core is up and we should be thinking about putting ourselves in a position where the 2020 offseason we fill the last holes.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Nov 29, 2017 -> 12:11 PM) Agreed. There is something to be said for having a veteran, talented, mature player in the clubhouse when they bring up a bunch of kids. QUOTE (WhiteSoxLifer @ Nov 29, 2017 -> 12:18 PM) The White Sox would love to keep Abreu as a leader . As Jon said they will listen and react if the package is robust with top talent. https://twitter.com/MLBBruceLevine/status/935918427394408453 I think you guys are hinting at an important point here so I'm going to say it explicitly - the Red Sox clubhouse was supposedly a mess last year. Price was apparently the closest thing they had to a clubhouse leader last year and he became that by attacking the media. The Red Sox's young guys like Betts weren't able to step into those roles. So, "Guy who can be a strong clubhouse influence alongside a fairly young team" actually fits the Red Sox's needs quite well. Put him in alongside Alex Cora and you've built a different team right from the start.

QUOTE (cjgalloway @ Nov 29, 2017 -> 10:44 AM) Here's another fun one... Rodon for Bradley Jr. I'm in.

QUOTE (KagakuOtoko @ Nov 29, 2017 -> 11:27 AM) Yeah... I have zero confidence. I feel like they will try to protect him. Instead of being human beings, you are blue or red; everything else be damned. The Ethics Committees were supposed to be 1/2 Dems and 1/2 Reps last time I looked at the rules. So, I'm not as worried about one party covering for themselves as I am either one party stymieing all ethics investigations or the 2 parties working together to "make sure these kinds of investigations go away permanently". There used to be a set of rules where if one party triggered an ethics investigation, the other party could do nothing to stop it. They partially got rid of that to try to protect Tom Delay, but I haven't looked into the committee rules recently enough to know how that would proceed. The other thing that worries me is that these aren't fast. This could be "NFL investigating Ezekiel Elliott" pace and that's not acceptable to me, but I also can't suggest another body other than the Senate Ethics committee that could provide due process, and if there is no due process then this type of allegation becomes open to abuse in a way that discredits people who come forwards after actually being abused.

I don't disagree with some of those reform concepts. University charges keep going up and that's driven in part by people's ability to take out larger loans - you have to do that setup delicately so that it doesn't wind up making elite schools "rich white people only" because no one who isn't a legacy at Harvard can afford to get in there, but something does need done about that because the schools are taking advantage of it. The For profit schools stuff is the expected garbage you figure the Republicans will do. It's a great way to rip off lower income people.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Nov 29, 2017 -> 10:14 AM) Good, later creep. At least networks and cable companies hold their employees to higher standards than we hold our president So everyone remembers when Matt Lauer moderated a candidate forum and spent 1/2 his time asking someone about emails right? Birds of a feather.

QUOTE (KagakuOtoko @ Nov 29, 2017 -> 11:12 AM) Democrats should oust him then. They can't peddle they are anti this behavior but when one of their own gets caught with with their hand in the cookie jar, they say, "whooooa wait a second..." I think you're right, but my question in reply is should the Dems wait until the ethics committee conducts an investigation? I kinda feel like there should be some version of due process available here, but then I'm also not confident in the Senate Ethics Committee to work promptly.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Nov 29, 2017 -> 10:59 AM) He just called for investigation into another conspiracy theory, this time that there was murder on Morning Joe. QUOTE (KagakuOtoko @ Nov 29, 2017 -> 11:11 AM) A murder? What on earth? The dead intern in Scarborough's congressional office?

QUOTE (ptatc @ Nov 28, 2017 -> 07:58 PM) It only looks at what happened in relation to the expectancy for him to score. It doesn't look at should he have done those things when he should have have or shouldn't have. It doesn't take into account how often he made the correct decision or not. It only looks at the results based on the averages of the results of everyone else in the league. Being a good base runner is not just about how often you are expected to score. Literally yes it is. If you get to 2nd base, that is a move that increases your chance to score a run. If you are thrown out, that removes your chance to score a run. For you to be a good baserunner, you have to get to 2nd base enough times successfully that it overwhelms any reduction in the runs lost due to the times you get thrown out. If he makes it there it was a correct decision, if he gets thrown out it was a wrong decision. That is how you assess this on a statistical basis - does the 5 times he gets to 2nd base mean that he generates more runs than what is cost the 2 times he gets thrown out.

Gotta try harder than that.

Xavier Rathan-Mayes is probably better than any other guard on the Bulls roster.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Nov 28, 2017 -> 03:14 PM) This stats looks at base running as a pure run expectancy as the only relevant base running plays. I would disagree that it looks at all of base running in general. Knowing how to stretch a single to a double or take an extra base isn't really considered. Neither is stealing a base. I would classify those as part of base running. QUOTE (Lip Man 1 @ Nov 28, 2017 -> 03:28 PM) Agree. So guys, this stuff is actually detailed in there. From the linked article here's what goes into UBR: So yeah, winding up at 2nd base when an average player would wind up at 1b is in there, including the extra run chances of a guy scoring from second. And...

QUOTE (Quin @ Nov 28, 2017 -> 01:32 PM) Infinity War trailer coming tomorrow Here is a trailer for the trailer of people watching the trailer:

QUOTE (Jack Parkman @ Nov 28, 2017 -> 12:38 PM) Actually I'm against signing Free Agents to big deals in almost all cases except for the special ones like Harper/Machado or using past cases that I would have been ok with at the time, Manny Ramirez and A-Rod. The huge thing with those guys is that they are in their mid-20s and you don't get the decline years, and if you have to give them a few extra years at the end, you can make them like 12-15MM years, and balance it out by front loading it. For me, value shopping in FA only, 4 year or less contracts, build from within as best as you can. If the "window" is short, so be it. Better to have that flexibility than to have a bunch of money tied up in aging former stars, and be rebuilding anyway. See Detroit for a contrast. Big FA contracts almost always end up badly. My perspective on the current FA market is a little different. Based on my view of the last few years, I think you need to understand that any free agent signing is a huge gamble, and this totally includes guys who are in their 20s who you would think have many productive years left. Jayson Heyward, Chris Davis have been utter and complete busts despite signing contracts at age 27 and 29. The difference is - if you offered both of those teams a guaranteed chance to undo every move they made since the start of the 2016 offseason, one of them would say yes and one would say "no we like this trophy". Take a look at what the Cubs did, what the Astros did. They started off by building loaded rosters from within. Multiple, home grown, young all stars on each squad. They then went out to the FA market in strong positions, looking to fill a handful of pieces rather than needing to reshape their club. The Cubs signed Lester, Heyward, and Zobrist. Out of those 3, Heyward has been a serious disappointment, Zobrist had one decent year and flopped in the 2nd year of a 4 year deal, Lester has been the best of them but he now looks like a pitcher who might be declining and he has 3 more years and $75 million more guaranteed. The Astros signed Beltran, Reddick, and Charlie Morton. Reddick and Morton probably overperformed and Beltran Underperformed. What is in common? Each of those teams was ready to go and filling holes. They were strong enough that if the guy they brought in wasn't the best in baseball, it didn't cost them a title. The Giants wasted a lot of money on a poor Hunter Pence this year, they suffered through a rough season, but you think they like that 2014 trophy? Contrast that with what the Tigers did. The Tigers were signing big money FAs as a way to stay relevant and maybe increase their window. Or the Orioles or Mariners - they're always signing big money FAs to try to fight against the tide. They don't want to wait to be competitive, they think they're just 3-4 players away from being competitive. But, if you have to go out and sign 3-4 players, you better have an answer for how you'll win if 2 of them bust. If you're trying to extend your window a-la the Tigers, you better be ready for the guys you sign to be dragging you down in only a couple years. That was the lesson of the 2015-2016 white sox. They were teams trying to piece together a contender out of one or two good players and a whole bunch of FA signings. With such a weak core to the team, they couldn't even sustain .500 records if any of the guys they signed underperformed. Melky Cabrera comes out magically weaker in 2015 after signing his contract, LaRoche flops, and all of a sudden their offense is flat and they have no solutions to how to fix it. If you want to play this FA market, you have to understand you're playing a sucker's bet. If you are going after Harper, great, but understand that you have to have a team around him ready to go. The modern FA market will not build your team, things are too expensive and there is too little value. You have to not care if you lose money on the deal, you have to expect it. If you're signing Harper, you have to expect that the last 5 years could be a complete flop and NOT CARE. If you're signing Machado, and he hits a wall at age 29, you have to NOT CARE. That is the only way to win this market if you're bidding for guys. Be ready to win a world series without them and have them be the icing on the cake. It's the only way.

QUOTE (hi8is @ Nov 28, 2017 -> 11:49 AM) Yea, I just think that JBJ is the safe bet to be a 2 or 3 WAR guy over the next 3 years where as with Garcia I could see him being anywhere from a replacement level guy to a 5+ guy. So for me, Avi is the higher risk higher reward asset and I'd personally hold onto him to let my chips ride. I don't agree that Garcia is a "Higher reward" guy as JBJ was a 5 win player 2 years ago. With his defense and the position he plays, he does not have to be an elite hitter to be a 5 win player. I would agree that Garcia is "higher risk" because Garcia has been a solid player for 1 season in his career while JBJ has been a solid player for more than 1 year. If Garcia is an elite offensive player the next 2 years, then you're convinced he's actually an elite offensive player and has broken out.