Balta1701

QUOTE (KnightsOnMintSt @ Aug 15, 2017 -> 10:07 AM) I think the rotation in 2019 looks something like: 1. Rodon 2. Lopez 3. Kopech 4. Giolito 5. Stephens With Fulmer, Guerrero, Adams, and Danish out of the pen. Then in late 2019, but more likely 2020, we see Hansen added to the rotation for Stephens, sending him and Dunning to the bullpen. I don't know who it'll be, but I'll put a bit of money on the White Sox adding a starting pitcher via the Rule 5 Draft this year. Holland, Pelfrey, and Gonzalez all potentially leaving, even with some of the guys in the minors coming up that's easily the most obvious place where we could "keep a person on the roster the whole year".

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Aug 13, 2017 -> 04:52 PM) Again, I have no idea what you're talking about. The "White Supremacy" thing should have been disqualifying. It wasn't. In other words, it wasn't a big deal. That's not a defense. That's saying "I'm ok with this as long as my other priorities are dealt with". You cannot say "I'm ok with the Klan as long as they support lower taxes on business" and be a decent human being.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Aug 13, 2017 -> 04:35 PM) Balta, I'm really struggling to follow your posts. What did I admit exactly? You said that most people voted along party lines. One of those candidates this time had the enthusiastic support of basically every white supremacist in the country and was happy to reach out to them. That was still not disqualifying. That makes us a terrible people, and every single excuse you give is an example of why they get away with it.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Aug 13, 2017 -> 04:20 PM) Nope, I'm assuming the vast majority of people voted along party lines like they always do. And honestly, blame the Democrats for choosing Hilary as their nominee. Any respectable candidate would have easily beaten Trump. Deserved or not, Clinton's baggage likely gave some Republicans on the bubble in regards to Trump cause for concern. Unfortunately, the sad reality is there are a lot of Greg's out there who think Hilary is as bad as Donald for whatever reason. And by your own admission, "a candidatein bed with white supremacists" is therefore not a disqualifying feature for the people who "voted along party lines". If we were a decent people, if we weren't the terrible people we are, it would have been disqualifying. You just did a "but her emails" about Confederate and Nazi flag bearing marchers.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Aug 13, 2017 -> 03:43 PM) What in the world are you talking about? Someone more concerned about providing for their families than worrying about illegal immigrants being deported does NOT make them a racist. Showing up at a white nationalist event with Nazi flags and screaming Nazi rhetoric DOES make you a racist. StrangeSox is somehow lumping all these people together, which is absolutely terrible. So again, what exactly is your angle here? And that's the basic problem. The Republican Party is ok with this being a key part of their party - they have other priorities. "Sure they may want to lynch black people, but my job was shipped to Mexico so maybe I should hear both sides." The word "complicit" becomes fair.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Aug 13, 2017 -> 03:31 PM) Wow, talk about quite the leap there. People in the rust belt voted for Trump out of pure desperation and not believing a career politician with a shady reputation would actually help them out. These people got conned by a truly despicable person, but them prioritizing the issues that are vastly important to them does not make them racist or racist enablers. It makes them human with their own struggles that they're desperately trying to address. I'm really getting sick of this "my way or the highway" view a lot of liberals have. Just because someone doesn't agree with everything you do does not make them stupid or evil. The Nazis in Virgina yesterday are scumbags they're racist, hate-filled assholes, not because of their political affiliation. "I'm sick of this my way or the highway view of white supremacist rallies. You have to look at both sides of the issue and consider that the white supremacists may have some point."

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Aug 12, 2017 -> 12:07 PM) Semi-related, but I can really see Anthony Swarzak signing here this offseason. He'd also know that if he did so, good chance he has to move in July.

I cannot stand the person I'm taking this quote from but I will still give him the credit as first person I saw it from. Donald Trump's entire plan for defeating ISIS was to call it out publicly. He cannot do so with this group because this is his base. This is the Republican base.

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Aug 11, 2017 -> 01:07 PM) And Hernandez out. MiGo doesn't need to clear waivers for a deal to happen. 8 AL Teams would have to pass on him before the Mariners could win a claim on him. The teams are: Tigers (unlikely), Blue Jays (unlikely), Rangers (unlikely), O's (probably unlikely), Royals (maybe), Angels (probably not), and then Twins. Randomly saw headline speculating on the Orioles interested in either Gonzalez or Holland this morning.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Aug 11, 2017 -> 11:58 AM) Sammy Watkins traded to Rams, Bills then acquire Jordan Matthews from the Eagles. http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2017/...rom-eagles/amp/ I never really thought about this in April when the Bears did their move, but now you've got the Jets, Bills, Browns, and probably a couple other teams (Denver?) who will obviously be chasing QBs this year. The teams trying to get to the top of this draft are going to be crowding each other out. Maybe cashing in on that position in 2017 was not the worst move ever (although still hesitate on saying that trading up made any sense).

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Aug 11, 2017 -> 12:21 PM) Here is the full disciplinary report the league issued to Elliott regarding the suspension. http://static.nfl.com/static/content/publi...00000828569.pdf 404 file not found. Anyway, according to press, the league has "Photographic and digital" evidence in this case. They also state that he presented no evidence on his side. If that's the case, then the appeal could be considerably weaker than you folks are thinking.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Aug 11, 2017 -> 10:21 AM) Moncadas follow through on his homerun last night was awesome. You could tell he knew he got it

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QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Aug 10, 2017 -> 04:29 PM) I don't remember the Sale signing looking bad for Chris at all. Given how worried everyone always has been about his arm falling off, it was a very wise move for him too. And Adam Eaton's looks pretty good on his end today, he just happens to be on a different team. Out of all of them, Quintana's was the one where I vaguely recall sitting back and saying "That's all?". But Jose seemed really happy that day, so why not. He went from being released in A-ball to having $25 million in the bank.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Aug 10, 2017 -> 03:30 PM) Rick has received a lot of credit before, then all his moves that were praised were blamed on KW. Might want to wait it out before he is anointed a baseball genius. I will continue to have no confidence that Rick Hahn can actually put together a winning baseball team until I see it. However, if I were a franchise where say, the Padres or the Giants are right now...I would absolutely hire Rick Hahn if he were available.

QUOTE (Lemon_44 @ Aug 10, 2017 -> 03:13 PM) While also turning one the best pitching staffs in baseball into one of the worst. 6th in the AL in ERA in 2016, 10th in 2017, for a quick comp. I would not agree with the statement that the White Sox had "one of the best pitching staffs in baseball". It was slightly above average at best.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Aug 10, 2017 -> 11:37 AM) I thought it was hillarious and I don't understand why Joe West was suspended for this. I don't believe he should be suspended for tossing Beltre. I believe he should be suspended for publicly commenting negatively on a single player. That step is the one that challenges the umpire's objectivity.

QUOTE (Jake @ Aug 10, 2017 -> 03:01 PM) But it isn't clear that there is anything they'd trade the nukes away for now. The question is whether we're willing to negotiate without a promise that the nukes eventually get traded away rather than a suspension of certain programs. Compared to Iran, this regime is less trustworthy, less sensitive to internal pressure from its citizens in response to sanctions, and has more leverage thanks to the credible threats they pose to our allies, especially Seoul. They would not trade them away nor should they. They would be at risk of the United States deciding that a few shells lobbed into Seoul while we destroyed their conventional positions from the air was an acceptable loss. Eventually, if they didn't have those bombs, the U.S. would probably decide exactly that. The only way you'd ever get rid of the nuclear weapons under the current regime is to have them trust our word enough that they'd believe a non-aggression pact if signed. The only way to get to that point would be to negotiate with them and keep our word over decades, or to have the regime collapse. The best way to achieve the latter - the Soviet strategy. Containment and negotiation.

QUOTE (steveno89 @ Aug 10, 2017 -> 02:48 PM) Houston knew the price to acquire a cost controlled starter like Quintana, Gray or even Chris Sale for that matter. They decided to stand pat, hoard prospects and only time will tell if that was a wise decision. My response now is the same as it was in the offseason when neither them nor Pitt came forward with a deal for Quintana when both had the ammo: "Good luck with that".

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 10, 2017 -> 01:32 PM) lol. The Koreans just moved their program underground during this time. They never really stopped working on the nuke. They just lied about it. And we spent nearly a decade trying to reward them for that. https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/dprkchron Apparently i need to back off on this and go to the basics because you posted something that literally agrees with this phrase in what I wrote: . Uranium has 2 radioactive isotopes. Uranium occurs naturally on Earth, and decays over time. Uranium 235 is much more rare than Uranium 238. It has fewer neutrons and is less stable than Uranium 238 - it decays more rapidly so there is less of it on Earth. To build a bomb with Uranium requires isotope separation. This process is extremely complicated. It took the U.S. the construction of the entire Oak Ridge laboratory to do it - we had huge rooms built to gassify the stuff and then separate it gradually. In the modern age, this can be done in smaller facilities using centrifuges, but that technology must be extremely precise. You have to take 2 things that have the exact same chemistry and separate them quantitatively by mass. If you have a single centrifuge out of alignment that could be enough to make your bomb fizzle and you may not be able to tell you had an error. The materials the Pakistanis were hawking was expertise on how to build those centrifuges, but those efforts took them decades. Look at Iran - they were accused of having a bomb program for 20 years and because they were building a uranium bomb they were still years away when the deal was signed with them. Uranium processing is exceptionally difficult. Saying "they just went back to work" pretends that this is not the case. They did work on this path, but don't forget that at the same time the U.S. also had failed to keep up its part of the 1994 framework. Furthermore, the nonproliferation treaty gives countries a right to enrich uranium to low degrees to operate nuclear power plant facilities - lowly enriched uranium and highly enriched uranium start at the same place. Now, let's go to plutonium. Plutonium is a different element than Uranium. It does not occur naturally on Earth. The only place it is found is created in nuclear reactions starting with lowly-enriched uranium. But, because it is chemically different from uranium, it is comparatively easy to separate. The hard part is generating it - to do that, you need a running nuclear power plant. The North Koreans had that. They had the plutonium in fuel rods. Those things should have never been allowed to be touched, but hey, it's partisan to note that we let that happen while we were invading Iraq and that's still the greatest idea ever. North Korea had the hard part done. They had a working nuclear reactor. They could do the work of building a plutonium bomb that way in a year, or they could do the work of building a uranium bomb by the time global temperatures have risen enough to make North Korea uninhabitable. We were close enough to an agreement to get their fuel rods out of the country that we could have stopped this, but we got "distracted". How did that happen? It happened literally because we refused to negotiate. They were "Evildoers" and you can't talk to people like that. We see the same rhetoric here - you can't talk to people who are bad people. The exact end result of that mistake, of refusing to understand this situation and declaring that negotiations with bad people were also bad, is where we are right now. So now we have a choice again. They are not going to give up their nuclear weapons. They shouldn't. I wouldn't in their case, there is no reason at all to trust the United States not to invade if they don't have the deterrent. What would the red line be now? Their missile technology. That is what sparked this latest round. No one will like it. You will be negotiating with "evildoers" rather than heroically making the world a better place. It will make you less of a man. But you sit down and say "This is our red line. What will it take for us to get you to give up this missile program, to crush the ones you have, and to allow inspections to verify it". You then bribe the suckers and walk away alive. Yes, it strengthens their regime. Their regime is likely to last decades anyway. Yes they will continue causing problems the rest of the time. They will occasionally rattle the saber with the south for domestic consumption or to extract more concessions. We are sending billions of dollars in military aid to a military dictatorship in Egypt right now that they use to then jail their own people and somehow that's ok, but we can't send food and oil to north korea because oh they're actually the bad ones? That is how the game is played. Understand the issue, identify what your side needs, and it doesn't matter if they are standing in the U.N. hitting a shoe on the table saying "We will bury you!", you make deals to keep everyone alive and then work to bend the arc of history towards justice in other ways.

QUOTE (steveno89 @ Aug 10, 2017 -> 11:47 AM) I really think the Astros are going to regret not making a big move for pitching and choosing to hold onto prospects. They have a legitimate world series roster this year, but I question whether the pitching staff is deep enough to win in the playoffs. Keuchel is good, but his 3.66 FIP suggests regression is coming from his sub 3.00 ERA. McCullers just cannot stay healthy enough to be trusted in the post season Morton has been solid McHugh has been mediocre, same goes for Fiers. Not making a big move for bullpen and starting rotation help will be what costs them, because the offense is deep and solid, especially once Correa comes back Keuchel still hasn't been right since spending 2 months on the DL, so it's not just regression with him, it's legit "will he even get back to form". Both Fiers and McHugh have had good stretches, but you can't count on your #3 starter turning it on in September by luck.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 10, 2017 -> 12:33 PM) And on top of that, if you look at especially the timing of the deadline deals over July and what other teams got for similar players, Rick Hahn did a pretty fabulous job. Look at what other position players and relievers got at the deadline, and compare that to what the Sox got for their players. Compare the Melky deal to the JD Martinez deal. Same with Jennings and Swarzak. I mean a lot of people could have extracted value for a guy like Q, but Hahn did work on his second and third tier guys. The Mets got something like the Indians #30 prospect back for Jay Bruce. Compare that to the cleaning of our franchise of Cabrera.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 10, 2017 -> 12:36 PM) I will be the one to say it... the Moncada walk rate isn't going to continue. In the minors he averaged a walk every 7.45 ABs. He is now at 5.45. It just isn't realistic. I agree. I find it unlikely that Moncada will continue to put up a .600 OBP as he has the last few games.