NorthSideSox72

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Oct 17, 2013 -> 02:09 PM) Atlanta has to be one. Who are the other two? Oakland? Tampa? Altanta yes. Dodgers last night, amazingly, I saw multiple tweets saying a few thousand seats remained unsold just prior to the game. Also I believe Cleveland was having a very hard time selling out, and not sure they made it. Tampa also definitely fell short.

It has been interesting to me that at least three playoff teams have had post-season games that didn't sell out. That would never happen in Chicago with either team.

QUOTE (flavum @ Oct 16, 2013 -> 09:27 AM) I still view Zapata (or is it Adolfo) as a lottery ticket. He just turned 17. He shouldn't even be on Kannapolis until 2016, so I kind of just want to forget about him for a couple years and hope there's a baseball player there, come 2016. Hawkins was moved up too soon, but his problem may just be he doesn't have the talent to hit professional curve balls. He can indeed hit curve balls, that isn't really the problem. His problems are pitch recognition (he's guessing right now), too much load and prep action (which he partially alleviated late in the season), and an inability to stay inside pitches on the inner half.

QUOTE (bbilek1 @ Oct 16, 2013 -> 05:15 PM) My comparison would for Bierman would be a lefty Axelrod. Good control, success in the minors, crafty, Jewish, short. Sort of an odd comparison. Axelrod actually threw harder, at least at times in the minors. Also, Axelrod was the opposite of Bieman in terms of ground ball rates - Axel was usually Other than the fact that neither throws much heat, and neither are very tall, I don't see a lot of similarity. QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Oct 16, 2013 -> 06:38 PM) Chances Bierman cracks a top 25 list? I haven't started going through names yet (next list will be in January), but off hand, I'd be shocked if he was in the T25.

FS article on the return on Crain. Also in PHT, but since this article is looking at the minor leagues acquired, thought I'd post it here too for discussion.

FutureSox write-up of the return on Crain.

Nothing official from the Sox yet. Bristol is now definitely a Pirates affiliate. We talked offline with Merkin about the AZ team, all we know at this point is it is a short season rookie affiliate, for 2014, supposedly to be in the "Fire League". Merkin had said it was a NEW team, not a replacement. Maybe that changed? Or maybe these events are unrelated. Hard to tell.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Oct 16, 2013 -> 09:10 AM) I read somewhere this morning that the US has defaulted twice, and in both situations nothing dramatic happened. The first was with Madison in 1813 or 1814, the second was under Carter. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economi...he-printer.html Also, in terms of the doomsday scenario, haven't various states (like Illinois) been defaulting on its debts for years? And we're still around, right? Obviously scales are different and Illinois is the furthest thing from a model government/economy, but still. Well, for one thing, you just cannot compare a state to the feds in this case. Entirely different sets of consequences. As for the default in '79, there was that relatively minimal effect, and that could be what we see here. But the article also states that had a permanent negative effect. And that was just one technical blip that was corrected with interest. I think it is right to say that at 12:01am the world does not end... but things do get very ugly, very quickly.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 16, 2013 -> 08:59 AM) He could also be a guy the Sox look to bring back. Remember we have tons of payroll. Could, but honestly I'd rather spend the money elsewhere. I like some of the young, cheap pen arms we have in play at this point. Having Crain certainly could be helpful, but I'd only do it on a cheap deal.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Oct 15, 2013 -> 11:32 PM) Perhaps it is time that the Senate go on record as not passing these bills that the House sends them, instead of Harry sitting on them. Why is it that the House has to bend to the Senate's wishes? It is time for the Senate to get in line with the house. At least vote on something. Let's see the Senate say no, they won't vote to keep parts of the government open. First of all, the Senate HAS voted down many House efforts, early on in this process. Then the House kept sending the same thing over and over again. I despise Reid, but this is not his fault. Second, previously when the Senate stripped out the amendments and sent it back to the House, the House sat on it. Third, the Senate is actually working a two-party discussion. The House meanwhile is just the GOP arguing with itself. Fourth, if the House is churning out bills that won't pass the Senate and the President won't pass, they are simply wasting time and you know it. This crisis boils down to what I said earlier. The GOP has allowed itself to be scared by a collection of extremists, and now they have lost all control of the beast. Long term, fortunately, this will correct itself politically. Meanwhile, the entire country is being held hostage by these extremists.

I've seen conflicting reports of whether or not the final player involved is coming TO the Sox, or going FROM the Sox. We supposedly will find out today. FS will get something up when we have both names. Any return for Crain is good, really. 25 year old control master in A/A+, former 10th round pick... fringe guy at best, but still good to add him to the system. I know nothing about his stuff at this point. It should be noted, everyone has a different definition of "prospect". To me, any player in the minors getting starting innings/games, who isn't multiple years older than level average... is a prospect. They are a prospect because those players have SOME prospect of becoming major leaguers. Guys who are minor league bench players, or 27 year olds in A ball, or ringers who move system to system each year, etc. - those are who I'd call non-prospects. But others have different definitions. It is subjective.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Oct 15, 2013 -> 04:41 PM) Fitch has put the US on notice regarding its credit rating. Headline: Congress Fitch-Slapped

Best part is when any of these dopes start talking about Reagan. The one they've created that has no basis in reality. Real Reagan, policy-wise, would be laughed off the GOP stage as a liberal today.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 15, 2013 -> 04:37 PM) I have to laugh that about a year ago people were trying to paint John McCain as a radical. And he still is - by people to his right.

Adding to what was pointed out earlier, these minority of the GOP house that are extremists who live in districts who love this.... another key factor is, much of their electorate (and the electorate in general) has nearly no clue what the debt ceiling means and therefore think this is a good thing. Also, the whole GOP run-to-the-right primary elections thing is why the party at large is held hostage by the Tea Partiers. That will end eventually of course, and in fact their influence has been waning for some time. Meanwhile, what is essentially happening here is, a small segment of the US population who is angry, ignorant of how government works, has no knowledge of history or economics, and who are scared to death of actual freedoms (meaning, protecting all freedoms) have temporarily won a lottery ticket to push the government around over the objections of the majority. We can all only hope that ends soon. The ironic part of the beliefs of those extremists, to me, is that they want majority rule on the one subject area that cannot be majority rule (civil rights issues), but want their minority to rule on everything else.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 15, 2013 -> 02:46 PM) Just so it's noted, this was the exact scenario they were doing on September 31, the House passed a bill with things they knew wouldn't pass the Senate, the Senate stripped them out and sent them back to the House, the House then refused to bring the altered bills to the floor. But you know this isn't September 31. It is different. If the house goes absentee on this, literally or figuratively, the GOP pays the bulk of the price politically. And EVERYONE ELSE IN THE COUNTRY pays the literal tab. I would love to see legislation that says, if at any time Congress goes into shutdown or default, ALL chairs in both chambers automatically come up for election the next cycle AND none of the current reps or Senators can run. Never happen, but would be great.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 15, 2013 -> 01:50 PM) The House Republican leadership are now talking about passing their bill and then leaving town to prevent the House from even considering any legislation that will/could possibly pass the Senate. Oops, didn't see this before that last post. If they do pull an O'Hare option here, that would be devastating, and incredibly stupid on so many levels. Even purely politically, the GOP is shooting themselves in both feet by doing that.

Heh. Maybe the Senate leaders have the same fears we do... Senate have temporarily halted further work, to let the House finish their bill. House sources are saying their bill will allow for a simple majority vote in the Senate after amendment changes. So, the house can send a bill with whatever garbage amendments they want, the Senate can then do simply majority votes to strip certain aspects and pass the rest. This avoids the Cruz scenario. Also allows the house to say they "tried", and the house full vote will likely pass a relatively "clean" bill.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 15, 2013 -> 01:19 PM) It's worth noting that since a bill isn't already on the floor, if Ted Cruz or another senator wants to single-handedly delay the Senate acting on a bill for several days until after the debt limit deadline is breached, he can do so at this point. There are multiple steps where he can request 30 hours of debate; bringing the bill to the floor, actually acting on the bill, and a third I can't remember right now. Those delays can easily push past the Oct. 17th reported deadline for the Senate to take its initial vote on any bill. True. Then that senator would wholly own the consequences in the media. Cruz might like that, though it essentially destroys any chance the GOP has of taking the Senate in 2014, and may even lose them the house.

So it now appears it will go down something like this... --Senate is putting together a deal, to hit the floor Wednesday, being crafted by people from both parties. Sounds like extending gov't funding and debt ceiling to Jan/Feb period, adding income verification to ObamaCare, --House is saying they are working on something, but apparently it is just the Republicans, and will include yet more ObamaCare stuff. --Senate will pass their bill, and send it to the house late Wednesday, with Obama's pre-stamp of approval. It will probably pass with relatively bipartisan support. --House may not even get a bill done, and if they do, it will be fully GOP-led, with little or no Dem support. This will put the issue squarely in Boehner's lap as we hit the deadline. He'll have a very difficult decision to make, whether or not to buck his own party core. What will he do?

Arguing specific flaws or shortcomings of specific statistical tests is fun, but the dismissal of others is just annoying. SS2K5, the idea that stats need to be tweaked doesn't mean they aren't good measures. It means they are improving measures, with flaws - like every statistic in any sport. That doesn't make them worthless. And yes, one can be a bad baserunner (which DeAza was this year at least), but have enough speed to make an overall positive impact on the bases. But on the flip side, people got hugely frustrated with DeAza, and the mistakes are more amplified than the successes. Furthermore, the value within any equation of a given event is not not an exact science. So there is no need to dismiss people's frustrations at them. It also can be an indicator of future problems, because as DeAza ages, he can lean on that speed less, and has to have better instincts. Why is that differentiation so hard for people? Why does this stat have to be useless or perfect?

QUOTE (bmags @ Oct 15, 2013 -> 09:23 AM) The report that the specifications for the site weren't handed out until spring, meaning that build was only 6 months ago for this massive site is ridiculous. Napolitano absolutely should be canned for that, especially that they decided to have no real backup beside the site. Yeah that's stupid. Regardless of how much it cost, the idea of getting a site like this and ALL the servers, software and data behind it, up and running within 6 months is absurd.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 15, 2013 -> 09:11 AM) More at link http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/...ans-true-costs/ Poor planning. It makes perfect sense that they would want people to see their actual cost, not naked cost without adjustments. The "true cost" is irrelevant anyway. The problem is that they decided to have a browsing feature without giving initial parameters in the first place, when obviously that wouldn't work.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Oct 14, 2013 -> 11:08 AM) If it would have been written by myself of Jenks, SS would be screaming for links right about now. Valid question, sorry I didn't provide them earlier. I still have some up here... For total federal employment, I used this. I felt Total Federal Employment was more accurate than direct federal employees, because the measure I chose was more all-encompassing for total effect. Here is the spending graph, from the source indicated earlier. Now I can't find the total revenue link, I'll have to re-search for it and get back to you, sorry. But I am sure you could find it if you wanted to look, these are public numbers.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 14, 2013 -> 10:39 AM) Thanks for this post. Glad someone read it. I suspect some folks would prefer not to face the actual data. And the data doesn't necessarily mean there isn't some increase in federal control going on - it just isn't about the size, or financial impact, of that federal government. For example, one might argue the feds are trying to regulate a lot more different things than they used to - and I'd tend to agree. But they are doing it with fewer resources, so they probably aren't as effective at any of them. One might also argue over privacy, which is another matter. But the idea that the US economy is more dependent on the federal government now versus 10, 30 or 50 years ago, is just not founded in fact.