Balta1701

QUOTE (oldsox @ Sep 15, 2017 -> 07:11 PM) Agree. Why did we draft him so high? Same criticism back then. Because he was also the best college pitcher in the draft in 2015.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Sep 15, 2017 -> 07:09 PM) What are you talking about and who are you talking about? DFA candidate? Garcia. Avi Garcia looked like a non-tender candidate coming into this season (not DFA, but close enough). The argument is: Avi has done this for 1 year after looking like a non-tender candidate Avi is 2 years away from FA and if we're not trading him, the time to extend him is now. Extending him now is a very high risk move as 1 year ago he looked like a non-tender candidate. Extending him mid-rebuild could "cripple" the rebuild in his words. Not sure I agree with several parts of that, but that's the statemetn.

So Fulmer has what 5 Ks in 3 innings now?

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Sep 15, 2017 -> 06:53 PM) Moncada now has his iso up to .198. That is a reason to get very excited. He's flashing this power this early, the sky is the limit. He's hitting .230 and his OPS is somewhere near .770. Once things get to normal with him and hits falling/getting comfortable within the strike zone, he's already on a path to being a top 3 2b in the AL soon.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Sep 15, 2017 -> 03:04 PM) Perfect example of what I was saying about poster arrogance. Perfect comp is Melky ,PERIOD. So cocksure yet ignored defense you know, the other half of the game besides offense. Melky Cabrera is a terrible comp for him. His all star, high batting average season was entirely driven by illegal behavior. Melky Cabrera was only a .330 hitter by breaking the rules. Unless Avi's breakout as a .330 hitter is due to the same reason, Melky Cabrera's dropoff after getting caught says nothing about whether Avi Garcia will drop off.

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Sep 14, 2017 -> 04:42 PM) Given the value that Indiana got for George and Cleveland got for Kyrie, I'm not sure how anyone can say that the Bulls "blew" the deal. If the argument is they should not have dealt him in the first place, fine, but the return was good, if not great in comparison. By the bolded you mean "a package far better than what the Bulls got for Butler"? The George deal, yeah that was comparable to the return the Bulls got. The other? Vastly better.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Sep 14, 2017 -> 05:58 PM) I just don't see how they ever get two stars. They'll tank this year, get one high draft pick, and immediately sign B tier free agents and be stuck in NBA hell for the foreseeable future. Maybe if GarPax wasn't around I'd more faith. I know it's not going to happen, but the Bulls are actually in a really, really good position for the FA market next year. The Salary Cap in 2016 was expected to balloon again in 2017 and that didn't happen - as a consequence all those 2016 deals are extra terrible and that has knocked a bunch of teams out of having cap space. It's not going to happen because of the FO, but a competent front office would be in a spectacular position to compete for a star next year.

That Indians team is still going to be a monster next year. The only guy of any real value to them they lose as a FA is Santana, they have still got talent on the way up and resources to trade, and if they make some minor moves they should have the money to spend to replace Santana. They apparently will tease the rest of the central for at least a month or two and then win all their games in one ridiculous stretch in order to put everyone else away, but we aren't going to be anywhere close to them.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 12, 2017 -> 01:05 PM) Except I want to say the Sox were still playing about .500 ball during that stretch. They got almost caught because Cleveland went nuts. The Dodgers are actually collapsing. We had an 8 game losing skid in there somewhere.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Sep 12, 2017 -> 07:59 PM) This is my thinking as well. MRIs are fairly routine, but they still cost real money and real time and aren't exactly fun things to go through as a player. They scheduled one so quickly (noting it in the press release), shut him down so quickly (again, noted it in the press release...he won't pitch again in '17) and sought a 2nd opinion so quickly -- it scares me. Based on ptatc's usual responses I think the answer is going to be "there's so much muscle it's hard to perfectly see everything and that means they'd look twice just to be sure they didn't see anything", but I also think that it might struggle to make out tiny bits of actual damage for the same reason.

QUOTE (Jenksy Cat @ Sep 12, 2017 -> 07:49 PM) It's somewhere in the middle. He probably had some minor soreness that in a playoff race is something you play through, but when your 30 games back and trying to get a better draft pick you shut him down - both to help the draft & to not take even the slightest risk. Basic question in reply and I don't know the answer to - do you really have 2 MRIs with inconclusive results if it's "soreness you'd have pitched through if it were the playoffs"? That sounds like the same question we'd have asked at the start of the season for him when there was nothing wrong but soreness and he missed half the season for that. So at least color me skeptical, but maybe?

Now that I think about it, one downside of any idea that we could have rebuilt in 16 and been ready this year is Cleveland. A far better built ballclub than we could have hoped to be, we'd have been in that wildcard pileup at best compared to them. We'd have been pounded by better royals team in 2015 or better Cleveland team in 16-18. Come back with the best team in baseball in 2020 and make this not a concern.

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Sep 12, 2017 -> 09:47 AM) I'm not saying it would have worked differently but we had just signed Quintana and Eaton to extensions and they hadn't really established themselves as much yet, why would we have traded them? And I don't really see us trading Sale at that point either. I also agree with you that Sale would not have gotten that much more either, there were still a lot of GMs probably worried that his arm was going to explode at any second. A couple more healthy seasons probably quelled a lot of those fears. It is interesting to think about where the roster would be at this point, though the only player we traded that I would have any interest in getting back is Semien, and even then he's looking like just a league average player. They were able to add solid chunks to a terrible team between 2013 and 2014 by looking more than a year ahead and targeting guys with that in mind. They had the same resource they used this year for Kahnle - playing time - that they could have used to develop guys or target undervalued guys in 2015 and 2016. Target guys who were blocked or whose teams had otherwise soured on them. How many guys have had breakout seasons this year after some playing time in recent seasons? That was the other stuff we gave away in addition to players - time and money.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Sep 9, 2017 -> 12:54 AM) Rand Paul proposed a bill that would pay for the Hurricane relief fund with money allocated to financial aid of countries with evil dictators. The Senate voted against the bill 87-10. Please tell me he included an explicit standard through which "evil" is evaluated.

QUOTE (BlackSox13 @ Sep 10, 2017 -> 04:28 PM) Good. I'm going to chuckle if Boston faces Cleveland in the ALCS. I think Boston would prefer that to Cleveland in the ALDS - Sale has been iffy against Cleveland, so packing him in 2x in a 5 game series leaves little margin for error.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Sep 10, 2017 -> 04:48 PM) Did most evacuate? Seems like it's not living up to the hype, thank god. A lot of people did but we have no idea how many people are left. There are hundreds of businesses that wouldn't let their employees leave, much of the peninsula ran out of gas on Thursday, and if people couldn't afford to leave or find gas they would have been stuck in place. A lot of people have been sharing photographs taken from the exposed beaches when the first half of the storm surge has lowered the ocean by 3-4 feet. If they're still near that beach when it comes back in on the other side of the eye, they're goign to die.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Sep 8, 2017 -> 05:17 PM) Plenty of execs at publicly traded companies have 10b5-1 plans that make it so they sell their shares on a scheduled basis. I'm not sure if that is the case here or not. If they don't have a 10b5-1 in place or these sales weren't planned, Im interested in how the SEC handles this. It might be difficult to ascertain when knowledge of the breach became available to the executives. They'll walk away scot free and laughing.

QUOTE (GermanSock @ Sep 9, 2017 -> 03:35 PM) I agree. I would trade abreu for a really good offer but davidson doesn't have a good profile. Plus power but unlike adam dunn he doesn't just strike out but he doesn't walk. Low walks and high Ks just don't work in almost all cases. I wouldn't write davidson off but he dramatically needs to improve either plate discipline or contact ability. You can't chase pitches and also miss pitches over the plate at that level. Just to stress - "Low walks" did not describe Davidson when he was in the minors. It's genuinely surprising that he's walking so few times right now as that wasn't him before he came up. Hopefully this is a step in his development.

Whatever label you're applying to Anderson - "Questionable whether he'll contribute when we're ready", "Has some issues we need to fix", "on notice", I think it's fair to tag Rodon with that same label.

No, Moncada shouldn't be in the big leagues right now and that's my only worry - that being up causes him to get into some bad habits.

@scottmerkin Carlos Rodon has been placed on 10 day DL with left shoulder inflammation and will not pitch again in 2017 @scottmerkin The plan is for him to be further evaluated next week.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Sep 8, 2017 -> 06:55 PM) Lol, I've always been consistent with my views on partinsanship and on the apartheid Israel has put on the Palestinians. Don't judge me on the corners others try to paint me in. Had not seen that one from you before and find self fully in agreement that is what it should be called.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Sep 8, 2017 -> 05:01 PM) I don't think it's exclusive to either party, but the guy should've known better. No matter what team you play for in American politics you can't speak out against the apartheid Israel has imposed on Palestine. I'm sitting here rather impressed at how much I agree with your language choices.

The Atlantic Ocean has generated more "Accumulated Cyclone Energy" (Measure of the energy being expended by storms) today than on any day in recorded history. Irma appears to be developing a larger eyewall and completing an eyewall replacement cycle. Most recent hurricane hunters pass indicated decreasing central pressures. Storm may be about to strengthen one last time before landfall.

QUOTE (BlackSox13 @ Sep 8, 2017 -> 01:13 PM) Yeah, my bad. Yesterday I posted how I think Delmonico becomes the DH, which is why I left him out of the discussion. Guessing here - we'll see some OBP improvement from Davidson next year and some defensive improvement from Delmonico. How that will shake out in the end? Dunno.