Balta1701

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 09:05 PM) I agree. Couldn't she face charges for fabricating a story in an ongoing investigation? I think there's a difference between making public statements and making statements to the police that could matter here.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 09:02 PM) Kane deserves an apology. I'll wait for the police to make a final statement before going as far as you just did.

QUOTE (LDF @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 08:52 PM) well, he is still in his first yr. a good promising start. now compare him to the avg 2b in the league. the starting 2b men. btw, in the bold, i will always give comp for creativity, nice play on words. real subtle snarkiness. i like it. I'm ok with his first year, I'll buy he has promise and is young, but I will counter that to turn him into a "decent baseball player" you've got a lot of work to do. If you play him next year and he hits .230 you can't be surprised. You can't call him hitting .230 next year a "missed opportunity".

Ok, I'll still wait for the police report to come out, but I stand by my statement from yesterday.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 08:49 PM) That is funny. You don't think signing a guy to one of the biggest contracts in team history who has never played a major league game isn't a huge risk, but Players with track records are. Hindsight is a beautiful thing. I'll leave it to the readers to figure out how you went from "I'm willing to gamble" to "isn't a huge risk".

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 07:26 PM) A bold free agent signing. A guy who had never played in the major leagues. The exact kind of signing you said doesn't work. I very very much disagree that this is what I said "doesn't work". The Jose Abreu signing was high risk but it was potentially high reward. There was a solid chance Abreu could massively overperform his deal. He was at a discount relative to "potential performance" due to not being an experienced U.S. big leaguer. He still might underperform that deal in the long run with injury, btw. Compare that to Adam LaRoche, David Robertson, and Melky Cabrera though, there was nothing in their records that said "this guy could solidly overperform their deals". Melky Cabrera put up 2.5 fWAR last year and outside of steroids you'd think that's about as well as he could do - he was paid for about 2 fWAR, so virtually no upside. David Robertson is paid a premium as a closer - he might match that deal but it's almost impossible for a closer to outperform a $10 million/year deal. Adam LaRoche has 1 career season where he was worth >2.2 fWAR and that was while playing 1b, not DH, making him need to hit 50 home runs or something insane like that as a DH to substantially outperform his deal. Throw in Duke for money as a reliever and Samardzija for 4 big-league-caliber players and you've got the exact same mistakes. Jose Abreu had potential substantial value above his deal. Not one of those guys was likely to overperform their deals by much. If they put up their numbers from their best seasons you'd say they were a tiny sliver underpaid. I'm willing to gamble if there's a chance to win. I'm not willing to gamble if the best I can do is break even. Until we figure out that lesson, we should continue being ready for our free agent signings to underperform, because we're paying for the best they've done.

QUOTE (LDF @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 07:38 PM) sanchez as put up numbers, offensive number since his horrible beginning. those number are a fact with many AB's . Rodon number has been shown in a limited games. using part of it as a sure sign of stardom..... no. using your world of pretend of next season, maybe rodon will go 1 - 13. is he still be consider a ace?? yeah saladino offensive stat show he may be nothing more than a utility player. but still those combine makes up forming a nice group of a starting core of a team. to continue to build on. now using the unknown stat to gage a player production, to claim and to justify a statement is silly. really think on the unknown factor of tomorrow. come on, i thought you would go with facts instead of fantasy land stats. Since June 19, basically excluding his first month, Sanchez has hit a whopping .263 with a .697 OPS. You're right, if those numbers are the best he can do, it is offensive to lump him in with Rodon.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 07:22 PM) Dude, nobody but fathom (due to his extreme, wacked out Cubs paranoia) thought the Cubs had a chance in hell of catching the Cardinals. Cubs looked like they had a shot a few days ago of catching the Pirates. Pitt beat Kershaw last week and haven't looked back. (you may take note of whose posts I quoted).

QUOTE (LDF @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 07:14 PM) i guess but i thought it would be explain by the poster own thoughts process. wasted opportunity is in ref to a group of players who fell into the sox lap. like sale, q, jose a, eaton and yes i consider the few promising young players / prospect on the team like rodon, sanchez, and those that on the verge like MJ saladino. this is the opportunity wasted. None of those guys will be gone in 2017-2018 unless we think it is the right move. Yes, this team has some talented players, but almost every team even at the bottom of the league can say that - a few talented guys doesn't put you anywhere near the rosters that are at the top of the league this year. And throwing "Saladino" and "Sanchez" in with Rodon is just silly - those 2 are very much a wild card who could be nothing better than utility players if that. That you have to include those guys in your "wasted opportunity" statement just shows how innaccurate it is...if those guys hit .200 next year no one would be surprised and they'd be the reason your opportunity was wasted...which goes to show how silly it would be to look at 2016 as a "Wasted opportunity".

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 07:16 PM) How did they get Abreu? They signed a guy that was exempt from the international signing bonus penalties due to 5+ years of playing in a professional league.

QUOTE (LDF @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 06:59 PM) and a waste of an opportunity . Just because "There's baseball during a season" doesn't mean it's an opportunity if your big league squad is very weak.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 05:14 PM) This conversation has been had in other places. Rodon's ceiling is a workhorse version of Chris Sale. Fulmer's is probably more like Jose Quintana. While I think Fulmer has a chance to be very good, Rodon has a chance to be a star. I think Fulmer has a chance to be a star. I think Rodon will be a star.

I am one of Fulmer's biggest cheerleaders based on conversations in some of the other threads and I voted Carlos without any hesitation.

QUOTE (LDF @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 03:34 PM) and this will go back to what i still maintain, no matter what you dug up. the sox does have the money. the owner treat us like a freaking dog. give a little pat and we the fans will be happy. they are still now more holes but the FO has to acknowledge that their has to be an aggressive approach this offseason. no matter how much more will be needed ..... to find doable pieces. I continue to expect that they'll do what you think, try to be "aggressive" and "win now", and you'll be equally disappointed by the results because that type of plan is extremely high risk, much higher risk than even the organization wants to admit, as we've seen this year. I continue to think "Being aggressive" is exactly the wrong approach with where this organization is. We were way too aggressive last year and it led directly to this season. Being aggressive was a major part of what went wrong. When you're close to a competitive team, being aggressive can make sense. When your organization is this weak, and you try to be aggressive, good chance you hurt yourself for the following seasons.

QUOTE (LDF @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 03:26 PM) you make a compelling counter, but i really don't agree. there were too many holes and poor judgement from the FO. wrong direction on how they went about to work fix with too much hope in doing minimum repairs and expecting a lot. last off season, this team, mostly the fans brought into the bulls*** that came from the FO. And there remain "too many holes", and now there is less money to fill those holes.

QUOTE (LDF @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 03:17 PM) you know, thinking of this all morning, i just came to one important part. the sox owner's will need to pony up and spend and invest in money to minimize the impact of this season, but announcing they will be buyers in the fa. it doesn't mean that they will get players like heyward or players like that, but to get players who can fix the pieces. then maybe just maybe the sox can improve on the increase fans buying tickets from last yr to get more increases. build on the little positive while acknowledging that this season didn't pan out as hope. use aggressive language of "the fo office had to huddle up all the personnel and dictated the orders to improve the team or their career working for he sox will come to end." put that to the press and hopefully the owners will mean it. This is exactly what failed to work last offseason.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 01:53 PM) I would disagree that everyone thought the moves were good -- there were a lot of writers on the sabermetric side that saw it as lipstick on a pig, that the product still wasn't good enough to justify the investment. What I think we need to avoid, as fans, is the trap that what happened was what was ALWAYS going to happen -- the idea that a perfect plan equals perfect results. If you played this season out again, it wouldn't end the same way. It's possible to have a team that is perfectly capable of winning, but just doesn't. MOST teams fail. If we think the FO needs to be axed after a few consecutive bad years, than we must think that half or more of all the FOs also need to be axed. This is a game where it's really difficult to get to the top. Failing to do it doesn't necessarily mean you're on the wrong track. The Sox have had four of the 15 worst player performances in the majors this year by fWAR -- Adam LaRoche, Avisail Garcia, Alexei Ramirez, and Melky Cabrera. Had those four even turned in career average seasons, the Sox would most likely be a WC team. Of course things are going to go wrong, but was it not fair to project average performances for them? Was there a problem in the process there? Unless you think there were OBVIOUS signs of impending decline that the Sox missed, the answer is no. They were all coming of decent to good seasons. It just didn't work out; the players failed. On some level, it happens to every team except one every year. The counterpoint I've been making is...yes, you couldn't predict that the White Sox's signings were going to fail so specifically, but you could absolutely predict that some of them would. In the range of players the White Sox are in play for - guys who are *not* the top tier free agents but who are high priced, middle-tier guys, there is an extremely high failure rate. These are guys who virtually all teams have the money to sign well in advance and choose not to sign. If you are playing that part of the market, the risk of failure is much higher than we've been willing to admit and that is a fundamental flaw. If you are buying more than 1 guy in the free agent market, you have to expect that more than 1/2 the guys you sign will signifciantly underperform and >1/4 will be a complete and utter bust. Furthermore, there were other obvious logical issues, you point out Avisail Garcia for example - can anyone truly be surprised that he wasn't an all star? There were glaring issues with him coming into the year, but people thought he had a decent chance of growing out of them. He didn't...but seriously how shocking is that? A 24 year old with flaws in his game fails to improve at them. Should that be the kind of thing that totally sabotages a season? If you're spending $50+ million in new money during an offseason and your plan relies on "my 24 year old RF who has been a negative player the last 2 years is going to take a huge step forwards", there is a solid likelihood that your plan has a fundamental flaw. What are you going to do if that happens? And then of course that's still not even considering that although the White Sox were unlucky in some performances this year...they've been extremely, almost unbelievably lucky on health. They're generally a pretty healthy team but we haven't even gotten any freak injuries to our major players this year other than Chris Sale missing 1 start. No one broke a bone while being hit by a pitch. No one was knocked out after being spiked at 2b or 1b. No one was seriously injured by a bat or a ball. No outfield collisions. We've lost bullpen guys and a couple bench guys to the DL and that's it. The health of this team has been almost unbelievable. So while they've gotten unlucky on their player choices, imagine how bad this team could look if it had an "average" number of days lost to the DL? That could easily have offset several of these guys performing to the levels that they bet so heavily on. This team was built on a platform of "completely misunderstanding risk". No depth, no expectation that some of the guys might underperform, no assessment of what would happen if some things did go wrong.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 01:33 PM) No, I don't think there's even a legal mechanism in place to do something like that. But the excessive pollution, particularly NOx, is known to cause serious respiratory problems in some people up to and including death. You can't show direct causality, but I think it'd be like the long effort to show the harm of lead in gasoline or tobacco. Another comparison would be the estimates that the EPA and other agencies put out for things like how many people die each year due to coal plant emissions--hard to prove for an individual death, but a much stronger case in the aggregate. By case note that you mean "scientific case" and not "legal case" because it would be virtually impossible to make that legal case since you couldn't directly connect any specific death to the fraud - you can't prove it was the emissions from this one car that caused a fatal asthma attack rather than general emissions in the area from the other 10 million cars.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 01:32 PM) I agree -- at some point, he's going to have to do it so that we know he CAN do it again. Conditioning is everything. One caveat: If the White Sox thought there was a >50% chance Sale was traded during the offseason then shutting him down would be the correct move.

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 11, 2015 -> 11:10 PM) On pace for best 2nd half ERA in MLB history. Just have to hope Cardinals hold them off forNL Central crown. QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 12, 2015 -> 09:38 AM) 6. games. back. Not even in 2nd place. QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 12, 2015 -> 12:53 PM) Cardinals about to lose the suspended game also. Lost 7 of 9 and looking awful. I don't get why Broxton is getting important innings for him, he was freaking awful in Milwaukee. QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 12, 2015 -> 12:55 PM) The Cardinals have lost 7 of 9. I guess that clearly invalidates 5 months of a .650 winning percentage. They're totally losing that division. They should have sold at the trade deadline. Like how when the White Sox won 7 straight it propelled them to the best record in baseball and clearly established they were the best team. That winning streak still hasn't ended. All right, I'm bumping this. Despite everything above...on September 12 the Cardinals lead was 6 games. On September 24, the Cardinals lead is 7 games. The Cardinals elimination number for knocking the Cubs out of the division is 4. The Cubs are on their way to the playoffs and about to clinch the wild card, but the Pirates lead on them has held steady and is up to 3 - the 2 teams have a 3 game series this weekend and unless the Cubs sweep or the Pirates fall apart the Cubs are likely to have to go to PNC park for the Wild Card.

QUOTE (SCCWS @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 01:13 PM) But I also worry that a pitcher w a dead arm is more susceptible to over-throwing and getting hurt. But I am not a medical person and there may be no danger. While that's true, if Chris Sale is going to get hurt during his last 14 innings this season because he's overworked, then he'll never be able to be a full time starter. What are we going to do to avoid that next year if he can't get to 200 innings this year? Go back to the "one start off per month" rule? Shut him down every July so that he has enough left in the tank to pitch down the stretch? Limit him to 180 innings just in case this org ever reaches the playoffs again? I can't find any way to make that make sense to me.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 01:13 PM) I dont think its lawful to suspend anyone if they arent actually charged with a crime. Other leagues have done that and I don't see why it wouldn't be lawful (again, see the Roethlisberger case for a relevant example).

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 10:55 AM) I think whoever said yesterday that they officially had no idea what to think anymore was spot on. This case went from pretty traditional, to completely unique in one press conference. At this point, who knows what is reality and what is fiction. For reference, that was me, and even as of today I'll stand by "I'm going to just mildly cheer for and watch the Hawks as usual and wait for if and when any official details are released". Does anyone know if NY is able to or required to issue a summary report of the investigation if they don't bring charges? I'm thinking of something like the DA's "I can't prove a rape happened but I think something really bad happened or nearly happened" report in the Roethlisberger case.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 12:59 PM) Agreed. Shutting down pitchers should only be a thing when they're sore and the team is out of the race, they're recovering from a major injury and the team is out of the race, they're rookies not used to throwing so many innings. As far as I know, Sale isn't sore or pitching through an injury, so we should let him pitch. Endurance training, like you said. They never said it but the "giving him extra rest and begging the AL All stars not to pitch him" sure made it sound like he was tired and dead-armed at that point, and a couple weeks later he had the worst stretch of his career. If we want him to win a cy young or compete with the rest of the league, that dead arm can't happen, and he's going to have to pitch >200 innings of high quality ball for either of those to happen.

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Sep 24, 2015 -> 12:53 PM) Regarding this, our pitchers are actually have the 2nd lowest hard-hit% of all teams in the MLB behind only the Astros. We're also 3rd in soft-hit% behind the Pirates and Astros. The Astros are the only team ahead of us in both, so in terms of quality of contact given up, our pitching staff is 2nd-best in the MLB this year (unless the hard-hit contact our pitchers give up is several degrees worse than the hard-hit contact other teams give up). Hard-hit% rankings: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=...0&sort=19,a Soft-hit% rankings: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=...0&sort=17,d Thanks. Let's rephrase that then to "The White Sox are unusually bad at giving up poorly positioned or poorly timed hits". Because somehow, we're giving up way more hits and runs than we should even factoring in that our defense isn't good.