NorthSideSox72

QUOTE (Stan Bahnsen @ Apr 28, 2015 -> 01:02 PM) And this is part of the grim reality of the situation. You simply aren't going to get the "best and brightest" risking their lives on a daily basis for $35K a year. Paying more means raising taxes locally - good luck with that. That's why I said before, I think the model of fewer officers you pay and train more is better than just pouring more blue on the street. Let me illustrate another way... Chicago: 2.8M people, 12k sworn officers (1 per 233), pay once on force is 43,100/year New Orleans: 365k people, 1300 sworn officers (1 per 281), pay once on force is 39,000/year (higher than I thought - new push maybe) Denver: 650k people, 1500 sworn officers (1 per 433), pay once on force is 51,600/year Now of course, there is more to that than just a choice along the continuum of number of officers vs quality of said officers. But it gives you an idea what I am talking about. And the salaries need to be conditioned to cost of living, which is higher in Chicago than the others - so effectively the Denver rate is much higher than the others. Plus the departmental contract work in Denver might (not sure) provide them better extra money opportunities.

QUOTE (illinilaw08 @ Apr 28, 2015 -> 12:56 PM) I live in Denver - while I won't opine on the quality of the police force here (no complaints from my end), or its reputation nationally, I do know that they only require a high school diploma or GED to get on the force. http://denvergov.org/Portals/590/documents...203%20Final.pdf Whoa - they must have had a hard time hiring, because that has changed since the late 90s (OK so I'm old). They were also paying a starting salary back then in the low 40s, and it hit 50s at some point - not sure where it is now. Its an interesting discussion itself. Lots of affluent suburban departments require degrees, some cities, but it does make it harder to recruit.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 28, 2015 -> 12:44 PM) What rules allow police to engage in criminal violence against citizens? Stop playing dumb. You know no one means that. It is the rules that come into play when someone does act badly, after the fact to protect them.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 28, 2015 -> 12:32 PM) But that seems more like a problem with what the rank-and-file cops actually think, not a problem over rules. Rules that allow the behavior.

Recap Posted. Sorry for the delay! Lots of outfielders having good Aprils - Thompson, Engel, May, Coats.

BHAM is TBD but should be Recchia based on turn.

QUOTE (Tex @ Apr 28, 2015 -> 11:29 AM) Who in their right mind would want to be a cop in this environment? Now take away any job protections. What mythical person are we left with to take the job? And that IS a problem. By making the job attractive for a quality candidate, you also leave open the poor candidate to stay. I'm not certain there is an easy solution. But making the job less appealing to quality candidates doesn't seem like a step in the correct direction. Also, have we now set a pattern that any event like this must must be met with a violent protest bigger than the previous? This is not a good path either. It's dangerous for everyone. There was a great point that I think was kind of tossed aside earlier in the thread. When we think that the protesters are protesting white power we tend to over simplify. This also points to people who do have power versus the powerless. Money = power in America. When there are no legitimate and useful means for average citizens to see results they take to methods outside the "system". So we have looting and violence. There are lots of problems here that all need to be addressed. There are lots of ways to address that problem - of the right people wanting to become cops. Let's tell a story of two departments I happen to know some things about: New Orleans and Denver. Even before Katrina, New Orleans was generally recoginized as the most poorly-run and corrupt large city department in the country (or among them anyway). Now let's look at their hiring and training practices. Their qualifications are (or at least were, haven't checked lately) basically 21 years old, high school diploma, no felony or serious misdemeanor convictions, and physically able to do the job. And their pay? Just above minimum wage. Officers usually make more money working private security off duty with no controls to speak of. Now look at Denver, generally considered one of the best departments in the country and with among the highest rates of citizen happiness with their performance. They require a degree (2 or 4 year, or 2 years' worth towards one if former military), no criminal convictions whatsoever (traffic violations are OK to a limited extent). They also are known for doing more in-service training than most departments. And they are paid better than almost all their cohort cities, with cops starting (last I checked) somewhere in the 50's per year or maybe 60k. They offer tuition reimbursement for graduate school or finishing bachelors, and they only allow outside contract work via their own internal agency. Now that's expensive of course - their approach is to have fewer officers per capita than other departments, but better ones. They get much better candidates that way. And by being business-smart and internalizing overtime and outside private work, they get more revenue too. That's just one parallel example. You can make things better if you want to. When you talk to Denver cops about why they like that department, the union doesn't even come up.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 28, 2015 -> 10:45 AM) No, the assumption is implicit. If these rules are part of the problem of police violence, then they must be protecting these cops from something. If management doesn't actually view this sort of behavior as "bad" policing and doesn't actually want to fire or discipline these cops, then these rules aren't protecting them from anything on this issue. Changing them wouldn't make a difference unless management actually would like to do something about it. You're making a strange leap here. You seem to be saying the rules are not part of the problem? The rules that are there in part to do exactly what you are railing against? You've lost me.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 28, 2015 -> 10:20 AM) This assumes that police management would label police who 'rough up' people as "bad cops" and would get rid of them if it weren't for the unions. I don't see any evidence for that. It does no such thing. You made that assumption. Read my post again. I said those rules protecting cops in ways that aren't good, are PART of the problem. And they are.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Apr 28, 2015 -> 09:55 AM) Maybe if the police union wasn't so strong, they could get rid of bad cops... QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 28, 2015 -> 09:56 AM) lol, yes clearly the problem here is unionization. It is part of the problem, sort of. The rules negotiated with the unions. But the departments and their municipalities are equally responsible for allowing those rules. So even that part of the problem is 50/50.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 28, 2015 -> 09:36 AM) I would say that the person using the authority of the state to inflict violence on citizens is much, much worse. Individual vs individual? Totally agree! Never said otherwise. Abusive cop is worse than simple thief. Definitely.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 28, 2015 -> 09:26 AM) Because the police are supposed to be better than criminals on the street. That's why they're the police. That's why the "this is so uncivilized" and "these are thugs" rings hollow because you won't apply that same standard to police who beat and kill people and then settle things out of court or get this a covered up because they're the police. As soon as you describe the police as thugs for dozens of cases of abuse of power the. You can do the same. While I agree that police should be held to a higher standard, I have to disagree strongly with your obvious attempts to somehow make them the same as people rioting and looting. Yes, a cop beating a subject and a dude stealing from a broken into store are both violating the law. But the similarity ends there, for better or worse. As far as I can see, you are ready to indict all police for the acts of a few, while vehemently disagreeing with the characterization of looters as the criminals they are. You're doing it by referring to anger as a motivation or reason. If you want to do that, then why not excuse abusive police officers for their anger? How about neither are OK or justified?

QUOTE (LDF @ Apr 28, 2015 -> 09:07 AM) a very good response. let me ask this, cops in situations, you can see on tv, not shows but in real life. if the prep gives up, raises their hand, why is it necessary to really use force to take that person down. i see several cops hands swinging. that is really out of line and can be construe as excessive force. Force is not on or off. It is a continuum. The first level of force is presence - simply being present in a situation as a police officer. Next is uniformed/identified presence. Next is verbal contact, which has a range of its own. Then it becomes hands-on. That works its way through direct contact, various weapons and on to deadly force of various types. Point of that is, the level of force needs to match the situation. Not all situations with a guy standing there hands up are the same. None should justify deadly force certainly, but points between depend on the situation. Is he armed? Might he be, reasonably? What did he do before he got to that point? Does he have a history? What and who else are around him? Is he a flight risk? It's just not simple.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Apr 28, 2015 -> 08:34 AM) The guy at one time was thought to be a potential top 5 round pick, struggled, got drafted in round 12 and then got hurt and fell to 29. There's definite talent there. He may never be a star but he could have himself a long career in some capacity. He also lost his draft year without playing, which has an effect on age. I do think he's a legit prospect.

1. The police breaking the rules and beating suspects is absolutely not new. In fact, in the modern day surveillance society, I can guarantee you it is substantially less now than it was. It's still bad and needs to be fixed, but people have this weird idea that it is a new phenomenon. It's not. You just hear about it now. 2. Similar trend, people with the whole "society is in so much trouble now" thing. Crime rates have been in general decline for a few decades now, and though there are blips, they still are. Again, you're just seeing it more now. 3. Bad acts by bad actors do not mean other actors can become bad actors in response. That is a spiral of violence. What the cops are doing does not justify violence and looting. Full stop. 4. Police departments in the US are generally far less trained on sub-weapon force and general situational tactics than their bretheren in the rest of the first world. That's part of the issue here. Many large city departments are also far, far less stringent on who they let in in terms of qualifications and testing than the others.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Apr 27, 2015 -> 06:47 PM) Why does it seem we always tend to have the streakiest of streaky hitters in our minor league system? Too many "all or nothing" players and not enough Ravelos who are more consistent and patient hitters with a higher OBP/contact rate. Take a look at the Dash - they actually have a bunch of guys with much lower K rates than previously (guys like Engel, Barnum, Walker are lower), plus guys like Peter and Narvaez that are high contact guys anyway. Not sure if one of their coaches hit on something or what, but it's apparent with that team. QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 27, 2015 -> 06:49 PM) Usually what happens when you go after super toolsy guys that need a lot of refining (Thompson, Anderson, Hawkins). High ceiling, very low floors for all 3 of them when they were drafted. Sure, and I'd rather they did that a lot anyway. Better chance of significant players down the line. QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Apr 27, 2015 -> 08:13 PM) Jaye has been pretty fantastic so far in AA. Beck ended up with 7 Ks, just gave up some runs tonight. Revamped slider this year. Already had a very good sinking fastball and OK curve. QUOTE (flavum @ Apr 27, 2015 -> 09:31 PM) 2-out triple for Thompson in the 10th, Coats drove him in to win it. Coats doing just fine in AAA.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Apr 27, 2015 -> 08:12 PM) You're saying the ballpark factor at Charlotte isn't that significant or that ballpark factors in general aren't? I'm saying ballpark factors on a specific player tend to get overblown, and their effect in a single season is often pretty small or negligible. You have to look at splits too, but even then it may not be as reliable an indicator as people make it. But mostly what I'm getting at is, even if ballpark factor for a specific park is significant across a season on a player, it sure as heck doesn't mean much in 6 games. In fact I'd say it means nothing in that scale.

Its not impossible he gets traded, but no way the Sox get something as valuable as a comp/balance pick. More like they have to ship some money with him and still get just a roll-the-dice A-ball reliever.

I guess those Davenport projections weren't too far off after all. He good.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Apr 27, 2015 -> 11:32 AM) I think he fans way too much to be much of a major league player. Hopefully he puts up numbers big enough to where the Sox could trade him to a team doing a salary dump willing to take the longshot odds and making it look to their fanbase like they got something pretty legitimate. That's the bigger problem - the swing and miss in his game. Thing is, until yesterday at least, he had been making some progress at the plate - striking out less, and working to go oppo and to center field. And it was working for him. He had not only posted a .300/.378/.500 line from the 4th game until last night (11 games), but he'd also "only" struck out in 22% of his plate appearances, which is actually close to a mid-line rate. Then last night he grabbed the golden sombrero. I've also seen people talking about positive changes on defense. At this point his chances of becoming a MLB starter are pretty slim, but they aren't zero, and I'm not ready to write him off just yet. He's got next to no trade value, so he's more valuable to the team as a guy trying to turn it around. I'd keep him right where he is for a while.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Apr 27, 2015 -> 09:20 AM) With a BB% of 10.7%. Engel is slashing .308/.387/.431 after going 4-26 (.154) out of the gate. It's still a SSS but he's on an absolute tear .410/.452/.590/1.042 over his last ten games. I still think he should be in AA soon. Needs to be challenged and get age appropriate. It would be awesome if he put it together this season, I liken his game as a Craig Gentry type. Given the age he is, I'm not concerned about the age appropriateness at this point. If he moves up to AA at some point this year, that's fine, as he'd be younger than average and about right for AA at 23. As I said before though, there is essentially an open slot in BHAM, so Engel should really get up there soon for that reason and that he seems to be handling A+ so well. One piece of bad news - he's really a CF, and he'll have to alternate with Jacob May if he's going to get time there.

Please let's stop using ballpark factor as if it is meaningful in 2 weeks' worth of games. The effect isn't even all that huge over a full season, let alone such a short sample.

Recap posted. Nice to see that start from Luis Martinez. And I like that Engel is doing this damage while only striking out 12% of the time.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Apr 27, 2015 -> 07:02 AM) http://www.gocards.com/sports/m-basebl/mtt/engel_adam00.html He definitely has the neck to match him. That said, he's going to have to maintain that 800 OPS until the Carolina League All-Star break in all likelihood. It's quite possible they dump Mitchell, soon, and promote a AA outfielder, creating a vacancy in need of filling....but he's (Adam) only had around 150 AB's at High A, and he didn't exactly light Kannapolis on fire (he had a "solid" season there, but far from dominant). Work in progress. That said, his K's seem to be coming down to a more manageable level considering he's hit only 12 homers from Louisville through this minor league season. They already did the latter of the bolded (Coats), the former is likely coming soon. I also think it's possible in a few months that Jason Coats takes over the top slot for an outfielder ready to be promoted should a need arise. He doesn't have the ceiling Thompson does, but I think he's got just as much likelihood to be a useful major leaguer, maybe even more.

Recap posted.