NorthSideSox72

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Apr 27, 2010 -> 02:35 PM) I don't think his case was as bad as Jared Saltalamacchias was last year where it was a serious/mental problem. Eh? I must have missed this. Saltalamachia has a mental problem related to throwing the ball back to the pitcher?

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 4, 2010 -> 11:23 AM) Whatever happened to Omogrosso? I thought he looked really good in ST 2009, and then he's kind of fallen off the map.... I'm guessing it's either injury/ies or non-performance? Sorry, haven't been following the minors as close as some of you on a daily and weekly basis, trying to catch back up to speed these days after the offseason of kind of "tuning out." He had an injury, and surgery, I think on his shoulder. Missed most of a season I believe.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 4, 2010 -> 09:18 AM) The death toll from the storms in TN which had nothing to do with the record temperatures and consequently huge amounts of moisture in the air when a cold front came through is up to 27. It's really remarkable how "Snow" proves that the climate isn't changing and we can report that, but heavy rains associated with record high temperatures across an entire region can't ever be linked to changing climates. I personally find it silly to try to directly link any of those cases to climate change. Its just not possible to say that one particular event occurred, or was worsened, by climate change. It may have been, but we can't know that with anything approaching certainty. Now, if you want to say that increasing temperatures will create certain changes in the atmosphere, which raise the general risk level for certain types of storms in a given region... I could see that as at least believeable.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 4, 2010 -> 08:23 AM) He's what, 24 now, in AA? Bah, that's the kind of guy we do trade, and it's the kind of guy who seems to wind up coming back in a few years as a bullpen guy to hurt us. He's been a starter his whole minor league career, but I do tend to believe he's eventually a reliever. His numbers seem to suggest that he runs out of gas late in the year, and he's highly reliant on his fastball. I'd say his future role is likely as a setup guy.

I've written quite a bit about him, he's my AAP, so you can start with that thread as a research point. Further, he has a profile on futuresox.com. I'v reached out to him to try to do an interview, no response so far. Long story short, Charlie was drafted later than his talent level. He was originally looking like a high round future pick out of Nebraska, with his plus velocity (he can hit 95, though he's more often 92-94) and movement on the fastball. But he had a bad year where he pitched bad enough to get dropped back in N's rotation, and had some personal struggles. But the Sox took a flyer on him, and he bit. As he made his way through the minors, he always but up strong core numbers, with good control and very encouraging ground ball rates, but never struck out a ton of guys. He's often been in the 5-6 K/9 range. Last year he got a mid-season promotion to AA, and his core numbers still looked good, but his K rate dropped a lot. That worried people, and that's why he dropped back a bit on our prospect list (he also gave up a few HR's, more than usual). We said he needed to miss more bats. Well, so far this year, he seems to be doing that.

Shirek is just rolling now. He's got trade bait written all over him. QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 4, 2010 -> 04:18 AM) Brandon Short and Andy Garcia have 21 RBI's each now on the young season. N. Griffith was pretty shaky, Remenowsky continues to pitch well (although I'll never forget the time someone called the post-game last year and wanted him promoted immediately from A ball like he was Scott Radinsky, Boone Logan or Dwight Gooden). Gilmore, Lewis and J. Greene continue to hit well into the mid 300's. Trayce Thompson with .963 OPS, that's wonderful for a player one year removed from HS playing in the SAL... http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/st...&pid=572204 Rem actually isn't pitching that well. He was, but then he had 2 or 3 bad outings in a row at the end of April, which I've never seen him do before. His ERA got up into the mid-3's. But he did calm down nicely in this last outing. He's also walking a few more guys than he did last year. If I had to guess, I think they have worked him into a little bit more velocity, but he's struggling a bit trying to control it. He's not having a bad season, but he's not been quite as dominant as last year, to this point.

QUOTE (Controlled Chaos @ May 3, 2010 -> 02:05 PM) They can revert it back to spouses and minor children only. Pretty much any immediate family member can be sponsored now. Sponsorship? What, for citizenship? If you are here illegally, you shouldn't be able to do any such thing. If you are here legally, fine, sponsor them, within the bounds of the law.

QUOTE (Controlled Chaos @ May 3, 2010 -> 01:54 PM) Chain migration also needs to be addressed. Not sure what you'd do specifically about that, and I don't think you need to worry about it if you can shore up border controls and dry up the demand.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 3, 2010 -> 01:41 PM) Remember when I laughed at the figures being accurate for the health plan? What do we think 15,000,000 or so non-payers will do to the system? It was the same reaction as when Obama tried to tell us that illegals weren't going to be covered. Make them all citizens and wa-la, they are all covered, along with free welfare, social security, food stamps, etc. Great incentive there to not break the law, just like after the great amnesty of 1986 which was supposed to fix everything. I suppose I should have mentioned this, I think it was obvious, but... the immigrant worker program or anything like it must require taxes to be paid like any other worker.

Well since I asked the question, I suppose I should give a response. The NSS Immigration Plan... --Immigrant worker program tied in an agile way to job needs in the US. Visa programs work this way but are slow and cumbersome - need to devise a faster, more efficient way to implement it. Restrictions need to be automated and audited, instead of involving numerous peoples' manual time. This database can then be used to determine the true needs of industry. --The immigrant worker program should reach out to nations with high levels of immigration (legal and illegal) to not only provide them with data on needs, but also to help them reach out to their residents to try to at least partially get the flow under some sort of control and documentation. --The immigrant worker program should have a timetable for making their way towards citizenship, based on clean criminal record, ability to stay employed, etc. --Anyone caught committing any crime in the US that is here illegally, is to be deported, no exceptions. --Put serious money into enforcement of laws about hiring illegals by businesses and individuals, and further, but bigger "teeth" into the penalties in existing laws. You can't just pass laws, you need boots on the ground to go out there and root this out. Businesses that hire illegals should be fined the equivalent of the pay a worker would receive for each job they filled illegally, at the prevailing rate of pay. Multiple offending businesses can be seized by the government. --Systems for checking worker status need to be automated and centrailized, with good data checking to ferret out signals that lead to potential violations. --Information systems provided to state and local law enforcement need upgrades to be able to access and read the databases where they can determine status for a suspect. This can then be documented IF they are arrested or detained, for further action. --Border controls on the southern border should include the electronic barrier system, coupled with a phalanx of response units. This project, just as a wall would, will run over budget - but it will cost a small fraction of a physical wall, and not have the negative environmental impact of the wall. Dense urban areas may require an actual wall, however. --Harbors in the US need to have better transit control to check for illegal immigrants (this is complicated, and I admit I am not 100% sure how to do it). --Any government agency that provides product or assistance to the legal residents of the US needs to verify identification thoroughly, and turn down anyone illegal, period. No exceptions. --Any organization that provides services like health care can do whatever they want to, in so far as it pertains to their own money. Any support they expect to get from the government, they need to document status and justify, and if they cannot, they will get no reimbursement, except in the case of true emergency care. --Individual people hiring illegals will face stiff fines just as businesses do, and be prosecuted for doing it multiple times, with potential jail time. --National Guard units in border states should be deployed as part of the border control - this is far more valuable to the US than having them somewhere like Iraq. --Finally, the biggest, toughest aspect - what to do with illegals already here that have avoided law enforcement. IMO, those people should be able to apply for the immigrant worker program THROUGH THEIR COUNTRY'S SYSTEM. Basically, go to the back of the line. If you do this, and everything else above, demand for illegals will dry up, many of these people will go back to their home countries, and we can get things back in order. The small number who are left here do still represent a problem - as they may become vagrants lost in American society. But this problem will be much smaller than it is now. Maybe not the perfect solution, but, that's what I'd do at this point in time.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 3, 2010 -> 10:32 AM) Oh, and it seems, thanks to an obscure law that creates a general fund that oil companies can pay into to cover claims...after paying cleanup costs, BP will be on the hook for no more than $75 million in punitive liabilities. This is flawed in that, much like the bad setup with health care as it stands, that it removes any incentive to perform. The oil companies are backed up by tax money they ALL pay in, so what incentive is there on each oil company to avoid these things?

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ May 3, 2010 -> 10:03 AM) Yeah that is one of my big rules for excitement over a prospect: age relative to league. He is way too old for A-ball, so I really don't put stock in his numbers. Well its not on and off. At 24, his numbers mean X, at 23 they might mean X+1, etc. They aren't meaningless, they just don't inspire quite as much as if he was 22. Keep in mind too, he was a walk-on at a small college, so he was drafted late in terms of position and age. Guys like that, I like to see challenged, to see if he's for real. I'd love to see him in AA.

QUOTE (FlaSoxxJim @ May 3, 2010 -> 07:02 AM) He was good in Gods and Monsters, although not as god Ian McKellen was. He was fine in Encino Man and Air Heads as well because the roles suited his relative lack of acting ability. And he was good in the first Mummy film because it was fun and campy on purpose. I I also liked Monkeybone because it was a quirky film, but Fraser was not all that good in it. Yeah I was going to say, I think he was pretty ideal in the Mummy movies.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 3, 2010 -> 09:21 AM) Ideal plan in a hypothetical world or taking into reality the current situation of 15 million or so illegal residents already in country. Deal in the current reality as a starting point, but feel free to branch off into politically acceptable vs ideal from this point forward.

OK, if you were tasked with writing up a plan for dealing with illegal immigration and border control... considering all positive and negative consequences... what would you want to see done? What is the ideal plan here?

Back in like 2007, I started a thread about W of this same ilk. Many GOP'ers were complaining that the Dems, or otherwise anti-Bush crowd, were simply disagreeing with everything Bush did, and making it out to be cartoonishly stupid, unable to show any sort of objectivity. So I asked what the anti-Bush crowd actually DID like that Bush had done. I challenged everyone to try to come up with at least one or two, even if they despised him. This is much earlier in the administration (1 year and 3-4 months) for Obama, but, I wanted to try the same thing. What have you see Obama do, or be a major part of, that you agreed with? I am particularly interested in responses from people who tend to bash Obama a lot. Can you find something? Discuss...

QUOTE (Y2HH @ May 3, 2010 -> 07:41 AM) No, we shouldn't. It's ours now. I'm pretty sure he was joking. We won most of that land in wars, and then bought the final piece (Gadsden Purchase) some time in the 1880's I believe. Gadsden was done in order to put a railroad through - needed to get south of the mountainous areas of the Gila to make a line to SoCal, so we bought a sliver of land from the Gila River south to the current NM/AZ border. if we hadn't done that, we'd just be having the same problem further north.

He looks really awkward out there, with the glove and the footwork. He is able to make up for some of that with a plus arm, but not all of it. If he calms down a bit out there and gets some rhythm going, he'll be better, but still no better than average at the position. Probably below average.

QUOTE (Ozzie Ball @ May 2, 2010 -> 09:23 PM) Greene needs a promotion. He's clearly too good for this level and is quite old already. Yeah, at 24 he'd be a little more appropriate at AA. If he could put up solid numbers there at 24, I'd start to REALLY take notice.

So, I have followed Donny as an AAP for years, and I'm one of his biggest fans. I'm upset in a way that he's going back down, as I do believe he can be a good backup C. In fact, I'd bet even money that if Lucy can look decent playing every third day behind Flowers in AAA, that he may very well be the backup C next season. Also, some background for those who don't know - Lucy disappointed with the bat over the years in the minors, while excelling at every other aspect of catching. Despite this, it looked in early 2008 as if he was ready too take on the backup role, but he had a major knee injury. 2008 was over, 2009 was spent recovering and he didn't hit for crap. Now he appears to be back, but he's 28. That all said, the Sox signed Castro for $1M, and even though I personally think that was wasted money, they aren't going to bench him. Only way he's not the backup now is if he's hurt again.

Winston-Salem's offense is teh awesome. Puts up a 14 spot, seems like they put up double digits a few times in the past week. Justin Greene making me take notice.

LOL, everyone knew that this would happen. Cowley makes fun of someone because he didn't get the scoop, then months later inserts said scoop into his article as if he was breaking a story. Real pro, this guy. On the rumor... this team has played lots of very close games, so I'm in the camp that believes a small change could make a big difference. I hope we get this done.

John Doyle, old for his level, but he sure has looked impressive.

Serafin having another nice year, so far. Just keeps defying the odds.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 30, 2010 -> 04:38 PM) He said exactly that. Are you trolling? He said nothing of the sort, you're just making s*** up now.