Balta1701

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 8, 2016 -> 04:24 PM) Voting for the one who isn't a thin-skinned con artist with no apparent grasp on policy at all and is a big racist to boot seems like a pretty easy call? A few weeks ago a guy on NPR (it's the Dem threat, you should expect it) had a nice point. To paraphrase...he is a Republican and thinks that Hillary Clinton is wrong on everything...but he'll be voting for Hillary Clinton because at least if she's wrong, she's wrong within normal parameters. She's not going to suddenly lash out and nuke something. The direct quote was "They've got this button — this briefcase. He's going to find it."

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 8, 2016 -> 04:19 PM) That's right, you haven't been in gamethreads. I'm moving in 2 months and thus didn't spend the money on the MLB tv package this year because hard to watch a game while packing and driving.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jun 8, 2016 -> 03:59 PM) What I would really like to see from Anderson before he comes up is a somewhat extended stretch where his walks go up and strikeouts go down. He's not at full "sound the alarms" level right now, but (for lack of better term) in all probability he has little chance to be more than an average hitter if his plate discipline doesn't improve. And, as we know, it's really hard to improve those aspects of your game in the major leagues. If he's walking 3.5% and striking out 22.5% (roughly) in AAA, you typically expect both of those things to get worse in MLB. They could bounce back and improve over the years a major leaguer, but that requires him to hit well enough to overcome never walking and not making much contact. Timmy did exactly that in 2015. Here's his walks by month once he got promoted to AA: April: 1 May: 4 June: 5 July: 6 August: 8 That was closer to a 6% walk rate in August. Still not great, but he's shown evidence that he improves in this as he adapts to the level. His walk rate is back down at the bottom right now...right after another promotion. I think it makes a great case that you should take your time with Tim right now, let him play out most of the year at AAA, and if he starts in the bigs next year you probably expect him to K a lot and struggle at first, but then start to adapt within a few months.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 8, 2016 -> 04:06 PM) Their "success" was an 86 win season, and a playoff ouster. The unsuccessful, horrible, worst franchise in baseball White Sox have had an unsuccessful 90 win season in 2006, an unsuccessful 88 win season in 2010 and an unsuccessful 85 win season in 2012. Who called them that? There are 3 teams with longer playoff droughts right now that I'd certainly rank as worse franchises, and a couple of the ones who made the playoffs in 2010-2011 don't exactly impress with their current moves.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 8, 2016 -> 03:24 PM) For the small market teams to be successful, they generally have to be bad for a longer period of time., and their windows are probably smaller.Could you imagine Boston or the Yankees stinking it up for 20 plus years like the Pirates or Royals? Slotting and draft pools have at least made the draft pretty fair. Although many teams blow through their international allotment, a loophole I believe needs to be shut. Like I noted in the other thread it shouldn't take a team 20 years to rebuild even if they have an extremely weak farm system. It can take half a decade yes, but if your org can't recover in a 5-ish year period then your org is completely f***ed up and you don't get sympathy from me.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 8, 2016 -> 03:18 PM) Unless you are operating a shoestring budget, there is going to be a lot of dead money paid out. Some people don't like the fact the Sox will be paying James Shields $27 million to pitch the next 2 1/2 years. Theo was able to give Edwin Jackson $26 million to stink up the joint for 2 years, and another $26 million for 2 more to pitch for other teams, all the while having $150 million for Lester, $200 million for Heyward and a bunch of money to Lackey and Zobrist. I do agree with you, we are nowhere near a baseball salary cap and may never be near one, but it would be an entirely different game if there happened to be one. While it would be a different game, I don't think there's any reason to believe it would be a game with "more competitive balance" or a "better game overall" or even a "better league for small market teams" based on the results of the last decade.

QUOTE (CB2.0 @ Jun 8, 2016 -> 03:14 PM) I'll say this with 20/20 hindsight: If 3 straight 105 season losses accelerates and/or increases the frequency of playoff trips vs 9 seasons at or near .500 ball, I'd rather have the 3 miserable seasons. Because really - what's the difference if you're not making the playoffs anyway? Sure as s*** isn't about putting butts in seats or this would be a very differently run organization.... The reason to highlight the Astros is - 2 of those 3 seasons, they didn't get the thing that comes with 105 losses that is supposed to make you better - a successful #1 pick. Yeah they had a larger international signing pool but what have they gotten from that so far? Out of those 3 seasons, they got "Carlos Correa and a draft as good as the one they'd have gotten if they'd won the world series". That's why they can be called "what should be the worst case scenario". Your franchise has no excuse if it can't do better than that.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 8, 2016 -> 02:39 PM) So the Sox should make the playoffs by 2018. If they don't, then they've pulled off "more incompetent than a team that blew 2 #1 picks" and that's one heckuva job.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jun 8, 2016 -> 02:15 PM) It's still not as effective as leagues with a salary cap. Anyway the point was the poster was trying to make it sound like JR wanted his heirs to sell the Sox and keep the Bulls because he doesn't care about the Sox as much. Which is actually the opposite because of the huge baseball fan he is. The true reason he told them to keep the Bulls is 1. He actually owns the Bulls whereas he owns a small portion of the sox and 2. It's much easier to compete in the NBA due to the salary cap structure. I really do disagree. Take a look here - the leagues with the salary caps at best have "as much" competitive balance as MLB and in many ways MLB has more. MLB has more teams with titles in the past 10 years, similar numbers of teams finishing in the top 2, top 4, and top 8 (NBA top 4 almost never turns over). Each league has 4-7 franchises that haven't had a top 8 finish in a decade. MLB's system may not be as "effective" as a salary cap, but because of the way the draft and development system works in MLB and how random it is, and how bad of an investment the FA market is, teams can get around the money if they manage their org correctly.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 8, 2016 -> 02:14 PM) Try 30. What's really amazing today is that we have the example of the Astros...a team that got the top pick 3 times in a row and completely blew 2 of them, and they were able to rebuild to a playoff team within 6 years of their last winning season. A team doing literally everything possible to f*** up a rebuild managed to get it done in 6 years. They may not turn into a title contender ever, they may miss the playoffs again this year, etc, but "we blew 2 of our 3 top picks and still made the playoffs within 6 years" is a nice lesson. The level of front office incompetence that the teams that are below .500 for longer than that have to display really must be remarkable.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jun 8, 2016 -> 02:02 PM) Because of the awful imbalance in the salary structure with no salary cap that makes it difficult for teams to compete with the "richest" owners. JR has said many times that it's mostly who spends the most money has the best chance of winning. He has fought against that for decades. But by fighting against that, JRs made this league reach a state where teams that don't have the highest payroll regularly make the playoffs and win the world series. MLB has, thanks to the structure they've built, much more turnover in their playoff teams and much better competitive balance than happens in the other 2 major sports (I don't remember if I've seen similar numbers for Hockey or not). The big market teams have something of an advantage, but the world series winner has been a top 5 payroll team only 3 times out of the last 10 years. It's an obstacle, if you're a team like the Padres or D-Backs or Orioles or Rays you can't make bad decisions because those high payroll teams will be in the way, but it's no where near an obstacle that can't be overcome.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jun 8, 2016 -> 01:47 PM) Sure, unless you realize that their being inclusive enraged Republicans into being intolerant and they had to nominate Trumjp. So...unclean hands. The other party can try to blame mine for their nominee all they want, I can simply nod. As long as our nominee doesn't let that disaster happen.

QUOTE (captain54 @ Jun 8, 2016 -> 01:40 PM) I think this is one of the most accurate insights I have read on this forum…Nobody knows exactly what is going on behind the velvet curtain at 35th and Shields..For all we know, JR has sent out his axe collection for sharpening, preparing for multiple heads to roll… Also keep in mind, KW made his splashy move in late 2011 hiring the anti-Ozzie, and proclaiming that he was absolutely the right man for the job…Hahn, in 2015, amid the angst and outcry for a new manager, firmly stated that the problem was absolutely not Ventura… Doesn't look too good when you can the guy that you went out on a limb to publicly endorse... There is absolutely no worse sign for a manager than having a GM give a public statement of support.

QUOTE (Tex @ Jun 8, 2016 -> 10:25 AM) The idea that it could have been consensual is just ridiculous. Dad's letter was horrible. The sentence is a throw back to the 1950s and the judge made a huge mistake. There is an issue here that isn't neat and tidy. It is obvious that at some point a woman has had too much to drink and can't consent. And we really should not hold her responsible for drinking too much and having something bad happen. We also shouldn't treat people differently based on sex. If a guy is raped by another guy or a woman, the same consequences should apply to the rapist. The issue that I struggle with is at some point is the other person too drunk to be responsible for their actions? Being drunk shouldn't be an excuse for rape. Not in this case but given an example of two drunks having sex, who has raped who? Who says no in the case that you're giving? Are both parties actually able to give or deny consent? Hypothetically its whoever says no. In a solely legal sense what you present is a tough case because at some point both parties could be intoxicated enough to be unable to actually consent. In that case now you have to figure out whether someone actually denied consent with very little evidence and probably no one able to testify about how things actually happened unless there was some other witness.

The daughter of the first African American president will get to cast her first vote for the first female presidential candidate. (Stolen from a tweet). I think this party can be fairly content with that.

QUOTE (Tex @ Jun 8, 2016 -> 12:49 PM) Will they allow the next manager to bring in an entirely new coaching staff? Some of these guys have been around since Ozzie. Isn't it time to really clean house? Who has been around since that regime other than Cooper? (the answer would be yes btw, just don't know who else counts). Minor league people?

Soler to the DL, Almora called up.

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Jun 7, 2016 -> 06:13 PM) Compensation or compensation pick? There's a difference. THAT makes more sense.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jun 7, 2016 -> 06:07 PM) Could this be another reason why they traded for Shields so soon? Rodon last pitched on Friday night and the trade was done Saturday afternoon. That timeline doesn't seem to work mentally for me since he wasn't pulled out of the game. With the offday, wouldn't yesterday or today have been his normal throwing day? Seems to fit more naturally that "this cropped up and now it's a problem once we're at his normal throwing day, so let's be cautious since we already have the extra pitcher".

QUOTE (maxjusttyped @ Jun 7, 2016 -> 05:21 PM) I'm digging online to try and find something right now. They played a soundbite on The Score a few minutes ago where Hahn specifically mentioned receiving compensation if Shields were to opt out. Well, let's say it this way - there's nothing I can find in the CBA that supports what RH said and the text I read quite clearly disagrees. There could be something buried somewhere in there, but I checked the sections that seem relevant to me.

QUOTE (ChiSox59 @ Jun 7, 2016 -> 05:12 PM) I get it - my point is that if Rick were wrong about that I'd be blown away. Do you have a link to that text by Hahn?

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jun 7, 2016 -> 05:10 PM) Is there any other paragraph that maybe indicates something different for a player who opts out of a contract. I don't know the answer (knew of the 1 year for impending FA's, just wasn't sure if opt-outs were somehow treated differently?). I skimmed and didn't see anything. As far as I can tell from the section on player and team option years there is no distinction. The QO process is not mentioned there and nothing about player/team options is included in the QO section. It's Opening Day.

The CBA states that to be eligible to receive a qualifying offer a player must have been with the same Club at the major or minor league level since Opening Day of the last completed season. Ergo, the Sox could not offer him a qualifying offer. Text from page 87:

Neat, just checked and found out that I had a guy with a first ground MLB Draft grade as a student last year .

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jun 7, 2016 -> 01:51 PM) Yes, but is no fun in watching the game unless the team you are rooting for wins? Again, it's obviously more fun when the team wins but no fun in a game even if they lose? That's sounds more like a fan of winning not a team or the game. Of course there's disappointment when you lose a game, but as long as it doesn't build up too much, every year, I've managed to endure that.