Balta1701

That was unusually quick for Jose.

Jose Quintana rising over Popocatepetl volcano.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 29, 2015 -> 10:34 PM) The police officer had 2 young kids and a wife. Yes I'm upset. That's fine. I'm just sick of telling you how far down violence has gone. Please stop.

QUOTE (oldsox @ Aug 30, 2015 -> 08:43 AM) There are a couple of pretty good articles on the Mariners firing the GM in ESPN.com. I didn't know that they had just extended him last August (2014). Not surprising. They thought they had a team that was right on the edge of competing, invested a lot of money in filling their last couple slots, and then found themselves at the bottom of their division and well out of the race. That's the kind of failure that typically costs people jobs.

QUOTE (Mike F. @ Aug 29, 2015 -> 09:21 PM) I just got mentioned on TV, pretty cool. You like this

I swear we've improved Sucre's average by 40 points over the last week.

QUOTE (SouthSideSale @ Aug 29, 2015 -> 09:13 PM) Keep your hottest bat on the bench, makes sense. Can he pitch?

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Aug 29, 2015 -> 08:50 PM) Yup, without a doubt. 1.20 ERA in 30 innings against the NL this year and of those 4 starts 3 were against NL playoff teams (Cubs and Cards). The numbers Sale would put up in the NL would be video game worthy. He also missed any NL teams when he was in his 2 rough stretches. That can happen by chance too. If he'd hit an NL team in early April or late July his numbers could look a lot worse.

QUOTE (Flash Tizzle @ Aug 29, 2015 -> 08:53 PM) Anytime someone wants to gift wrap an all-star for us would be appreciated Kenny will trade Montas somewhere this offseason and then immediately be hired there. For us to pull off that scam we'd have to hire someone from outside of our organization. Ha.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Aug 29, 2015 -> 08:48 PM) Next to it right now. Jose abreu autograph, Chris sale as well, about 20 other things. His might be worth it. That was the one my eyes lit up on for those autographs, somehow Dan got the best set of those. I don't mind the guys with outdoor or hunting gear and I don't mind the guys with religious stuff some guys added, but Zach Duke gets a specific bleep you for including some Duck Dynasty crap from me.

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ Aug 29, 2015 -> 08:34 PM) Do we know what a QO will be yet? Not exactly but should be just over $16 million.

QUOTE (Flash Tizzle @ Aug 29, 2015 -> 08:33 PM) This embarrassment that is Shark goes to prove we should have dealt him for whatever package we deemed best at the deadline. A huge failure for Hahn/KW, especially if we dont offer a QO or worse off he accepts it. While it was predictable the team would fall apart after the deadline, we didn't anticipate him falling apart like this. Now we're left in a terrible position, and as Balta suggested, we cant even watch Johnson pitch because they'd never sit Shark. Bad season all around. The least they could do is lose and give us some hope for a draft pick The Blue Jays annihilating the Tigers really hurts us on the draft pick front because that's another team with a good chance of dripping behind us, makes top 10 much harder.

QUOTE (SouthSideSale @ Aug 29, 2015 -> 08:29 PM) Just turned game on. Shark still sucking? No more than usual if that helps

15 feet short.

Tie this s*** up Jose

Nice swing Avi.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Aug 29, 2015 -> 07:31 PM) No kidding. If he accepts the QO, hopefully he has a resurgent year and can be traded. Also, I enjoy learning about opposing players when Swirsk announces. Plus it will completely screw up any reasonable chance we have of either playing the FA market or of working EJ into the big leagues.

So, Samardzija on the hill, terrible first inning before I tune in, normal night?

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 29, 2015 -> 03:56 PM) On a police related note, some lowlife piece of s*** gunned down a police officer Friday night while he was walking out of a gas station's convenience store in Texas. This is unacceptable as a society ... again. I would think we are going to look back at 2015 as the year things started to spiral out of control violence wise and never ever get better. The poor kids being brought into this violent pathetic world. Please just stop.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Aug 29, 2015 -> 02:00 PM) Melky also has a .242 BABIP in August, which perfectly explains his below average performance. Tell me the reasoning for him posting ISOs below .042 for two straight months to start the season? And his BABIP in August was .442 and his ISO that month was about .260. Clearly that's more relevant right? His June numbers, overall, are a weak ISO, .700 OPS, .320 BABIP, and that's disturbingly close to his full season averages. Yet we're supposed to give more weight to his July than his full season. His ISO for the season is .115 and in the 2nd half it's .120. His July basically balances out his first 2 months and you get that weak, poor overall season.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Aug 29, 2015 -> 01:10 PM) Someone wil be glad to take Laroche. He has a good hitting history before 2015 and has a gold glove defense. We took a chance on him and I am sure someone else would too. Now saying that if we keep him that's fine with me too Speechless. I've got nothing.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Aug 29, 2015 -> 01:05 PM) Maybe next year it's Thompson in the OF and Cabrera at DH? Laroche is a gold glove 1Bman but we have Abreu so Adam may be the odd man out in 2016 and dealt this off season Why on Earth would anyone "deal" for LaRoche? The only way he's not on the White Sox in 2016 is if the White Sox eat his entire contract and put him on waivers. And of course, the next time the White Sox eat a 1 year contract as large as LaRoche's will be the first. Adam LaRoche will be their DH and backup 1b next year.

QUOTE (pettie4sox @ Aug 29, 2015 -> 12:06 PM) It was more of a point that the Cubs hitters are good in the sense they destroy s***ty pitching like they should. But they are too young to be considered an elite offense. Throw Bum or Kershaw at the Blue Jays... most likely different results. Really? I had to reread this a few times. The Blue Jays aren't some historically unbeatable offense. You throw Kershaw or Bumgarner or Sale at them and it's still going to be a tough day for the Jays. Plus there are some weaker pitchers, like Samardzija, they just match up with poorly for whatever reason.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Aug 29, 2015 -> 11:27 AM) Seriously. I'm not too worried about Melky going forward. Think his 1st half was just one of those bizarre stretches that can never be explained but ultimately mean nothing in terms of future performance. Hitting .242 with a .646 OPS in August. He had a ridiculous July, but as soon as he no longer had the Red Sox pitching staff to hit he swung back the other way. His July seems accurately described as "one of those bizarre stretches that can never be explained but ultimately mean nothing in terms of future performance" just as fairly. Overall, his full season numbers with a .704 OPS seem like they do a good job of reflecting what he did this year.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Aug 29, 2015 -> 11:21 AM) I'm going to disagree with most of what you say here. There are plenty of reasons guys reach free agency and most don't have to do with an expected immediete & complete decline in production. Pretty sure the Nationals didn't bring back Adam because they wanted to shift Zimmerman to 1B. Not sure about Cabrera, but it's possible that wanted him at less years and/or money or simply preferred the comp pick and filling the whole in a less expensive way. Let's not pretend that players have no say in reaching free agency. And the problem with free agency is the premium you pay for production and the risk at the end of contracts (typically the long-term ones). For short-term deals, it's usually more of resource efficiency issue. The most likely expectation should never be they'll under-perform their recent production substantially in year one Their production should be expected to decrease some due to age, and as a ratio to their pay perhaps quite a bit due to the premium paid, but you can't tell me with a straight you should expect these guys to fall off the earth simply because they reached free agency. And quite frankly, that's exactly what happened with LaRoche & Melky. No doubt it was possible with Adam, but still a low probability outcome. Melky even less so, unless you believe PED usage is the reason for the sudden drop-off (I don't). Again, sign two different free agents and perhaps this season has a better outcome. The bolded - that's the case when you're signing the top-level guys and that's been the case for a long time. But I think we've entered a different era now- an era where there is now so much extra money that teams who aren't willing to compete for the 8 year contract guys are now bidding up the moderate-level FAs to the point that there is now a very large, substantial, downside risk for all of them. The teams that used to be unable to bid for the big time FAs now have plenty of money to hold onto their own guys if they want and they have plenty of money to play for moderate level free agents. The Blue Jays were also willing to let Melky go because they put Russell Martin as a higher priority. They knew him and they were willing to let him walk even though they had the money to sign him. In the big deals, now you're both paying the long-term deals to offset hopefully performance from year 1-2 and you're also overpaying given the risk that they'll underperform (see Boston this year). In the middle guys, you're overpaying for them in the first place because there's so many teams competing for so few guys and then you have to ignore the risk of guys underperforming as well. We brought in 3 big-money free agents and per the fWAR numbers 1 of the 3 has performed where he should. That's not an unreasonable ratio when there is this much money chasing so few players.