Jack Parkman

My god, they just keep playing well. Somehow, it seems they made out way too well immediately in the Butler trade, as they traded a top 20 player for 3 solid players, they probably would be a worse team with Butler than without him. Even the scrubs are en fuego, and this winning is really going to mess with things. It would be like if the Sox finished with 78 wins this year.

QUOTE (oldsox @ Dec 31, 2017 -> 12:51 PM) How does Giolito's spin rate compare with others? It was well below average at the beginning of the year, but he sacrificed a bit of velocity for spin and it is working well for him. It is still below average, but he still has a higher perceived than actual velocity, which I'd imagine has to do with him being tall and hiding the ball in his delivery. If he can keep adding spin, and start topping out at 96 again, I think he will be that ace that everyone has talked about. Some were advocating that he add a sinker last year because his FB spin rate was so much lower than the MLB average. If you go to the player page on MLB.com they have this data available for all pitchers. Here's Giolito's- http://m.mlb.com/player/608337/lucas-giolito For comparison's sake, I will add the data pages from the "super aces" that have FB data avaliable so we can see that. Sale- http://m.mlb.com/player/519242/chris-sale Verlander- http://m.mlb.com/player/434378/justin-verlander Scherzer- http://m.mlb.com/player/453286/max-scherzer Kershaw- http://m.mlb.com/player/477132/clayton-kershaw Also will post Sox young pitchers at MLB level Lopez- http://m.mlb.com/player/625643/reynaldo-lopez Fulmer- http://m.mlb.com/player/608334/carson-fulmer Rodon- http://m.mlb.com/player/607074/carlos-rodon

QUOTE (oldsox @ Dec 31, 2017 -> 07:30 AM) Ditto. I have thought the same thing, but you expressed it perfectly. When it comes to velocity and spin rate, 95-96 with above average spin>98-99 with below average spin. High spin makes it harder to pick up the ball to the eye of the hitter, and 96 with above average spin might as well be 100, and 99 with below average spin might as well be 94. You have to use both data points together. Have you ever seen guys throw upper 90s and still get destroyed by hitters? I have, and now we have found that the reason why is they had below average spin.

I don't want to trade Giolito under any circumstances this offseason because I have a sneaky suspicion that he's going to come into spring training throwing 95+ again. He had to rebuild his delivery from scratch after the Nationals messed with it, and I'd imagine that most of the kid's performance in AAA/loss of velocity was due to gaining new muscle memory and repeating his delivery. I find it hard to believe that he has just magically lost 5 mph off his fastball with no injury reported, therefore I think that after a season of the kid gaining comfort with his delivery again, the velocity will return. If it does, he's right there with Kopech and Hansen for stud ace potential.

QUOTE (bmags @ Dec 22, 2017 -> 10:07 AM) Yeah. I’m honestly just feels weird to trade Eaton only to trade for a controlled OFer with talent (meaning prospects) a year later Eaton is 29, Yelich is 25. Those 4 years make a huge difference.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 20, 2017 -> 09:28 PM) Yet you couldn't handle him telling you what he thought... I mean if you are free to have your opinions, why isn't he free to have opinions about your opinions? Your logic is so faulty. Well, he is. It is ok to bring them up every once in a while in casual conversation but the constant barrage of snide comments, if you're doing it in a logical, constructive conversation it is one thing, but trying to antagonize me by making snide comments constantly shows a lack of respect. A workplace is supposed to be a team, the way I look at it is the people that are being paid more or are in higher positions than you are there because they have been doing it longer. Everyone is there because they bring something different to the table. I'm there to learn and do the tasks assigned. I guess I don't look at my boss, or anyone in that matter as an authority figure, but someone who is there because they have more knowledge than I do on the subject. If somehow the members of the team are not allowed to constructively criticize each other because there is some sort of pecking order, then the world is more f***ed than I gave it credit for. Everyone is supposed to be working toward a common goal, right? If I have valid, evidence-based reasons to disagree with someone(I'm talking about actually doing the job here, not politics), and it is good for the team/organization why should I keep my mouth shut, and let the team fail? If someone is so insecure that they can't take being made to look stupid when they have a stupid idea or process to get a job done, then they probably shouldn't be working. You brush it off and take it as a learning experience. I'm sure that everyone has been made to look stupid at one point or another at work, right?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 20, 2017 -> 09:22 PM) You absolutely did. You first said never, then you started making exceptions. So you are OK with exceptions but only if you deem them OK. That would be contradictory. The reality is that you 100% don't under the idea behind freedom of speech. There is no where in our constitution that protects you from the consequences of your own actions. No one else is obligated to suffer because of your beliefs. What you are asking for is the right to be an asshole, and then everyone else has to accept the consequences of your assholery. That isn't how this works. I don't have to suffer loss because of your recklessness and stupidity on social media, and neither does anyone else. It doesn't stop your right to be stupid, only the rights of others to not have to suffer because of it. Your leap from the private sector to the public sector is a whole other ball of wrong. I completely disagree with that. It absolutely does move from the private to the public sector, because the private sector can indirectly control political discourse and opinion by socioeconomic ostracism. The private sector can make it nearly impossible to support oneself and provide basic needs for one's family based on political views/affiliation. If you may starve to death if you don't comply with what "the machine" wants you to believe, then you are more likely to adopt those beliefs. Mind control by socioeconomic ostracism. If people aren't allowed to exchange ideas because people could lose their job, then it becomes a form of censorship. I disagree with the bolded. I have to deal with the consequences of "stupid people" voting all of the time, and you do too. You and I probably have different ideas on who the "stupid people" are, and that is my point. People suffer because of other people's stupidity at the ballot box. But if you start to weed out "stupid people" voting only the people in power will vote so I hope you get where I'm going with this. This is no different than the above.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Dec 20, 2017 -> 07:45 PM) I can't imagine talking to my boss like that. I did get "my contract not renewed" by an MLB team when I drunkenly teased a superior (in position only) at a company picnic. OMFG, if a boss is such a flake that they can't handle that without wielding their authority, then they have insecurity problems, need to see a shrink and probably shouldn't be in management. Is there no place for common sense and free exchange of ideas in the workplace? If that is how workplace culture is I can't imagine fitting in with anyone. No wonder I haven't been able to hold a job other than the specialized one I have. If that is how superiors expect you to treat them(like their s*** doesn't stink) then I don't know if I'll ever fit in.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Dec 20, 2017 -> 07:58 PM) How was your boss harassing you exactly? He was purposely antagonizing me by making disparaging comments about politicians he thought I liked, and views that I may have agreed with. He was trying to bait me. I didn't think I did anything wrong by asking if he could leave politics out of it and let me do my job. I was getting these snide comments during almost every interaction with the guy.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 20, 2017 -> 08:38 PM) Way to contradict yourself. Again. I never contradicted myself. Mainstream politics =/=Hate Speech. If you don't understand that I can't help you. I believe they are two separate things, hate speech is unacceptable under every circumstance; in that aspect I don't believe I am contradicting myself.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Dec 20, 2017 -> 10:26 AM) Look at who was playing during that initial stretch. A lot of the guys contributing right now were hurt / not playing. Dunn had a stretch where he was injured, Nwaba was out for a while, Niko (obviously out), Portis (suspended). You had utter crap getting significant minutes and that has drastically shifted. I said it back then and I will continue to say it...this team is too good to be a bottom 3 team in the NBA (as currently constructed). In fact, if they were 100% healthy, I think they are a playoff team (I wouldn't have said that in the off-season but Lauri and Dunn are much better then I expected them to be at this stage of the season). I agree with this. They are too good to be a bottom 3 team, and they probably are a fringe playoff team as currently constructed. The East sucks, so you have to wonder if ownership is counting money with regard to a couple potential playoff games.

I am so happy, sanity returns. LOL.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Dec 20, 2017 -> 05:54 PM) Sorry, that's just the way it is. If it gets back to your employers you will get in trouble. In the old days when people actually talked, someone just leaked it out to the company and it was a rumor. Your facebook is not just between you and your friends (unless one of them sent it to your company). Obviously, someone else was able to see it. Now, they can provide proof you said it because it's in writing. If you don't want it to get back to the boss, don't write it. You can discuss politics but don't berate your boss or your company. I don't you would have gotten fired if it was a general political comment. Bringing in the employer was the issue. What actually happened to me was an indirect firing; My boss somehow found out my political views and started harassing me about them, I spoke up and said: "Can we just leave politics out of this, it has zero to do with my ability to do a job for you." My boss then chewed me out and I was subsequently dismissed.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Dec 20, 2017 -> 05:48 PM) Jack, what exactly did you do on social media that caused you to get fired? Did you rip your company or bosses at all? No. I made a post, that I thought was among my friends only, that grilled corporations for not paying living wages to their employees, elaborating that government assistance is paying for corporate profits off the taxpayers backs, and that whatever welfare was worth in a state was the minimum amount needed to survive due to cost of living in that state, so therefore the state minimum wage should be slightly more that whatever government assistance is worth. I named no names of individuals and businesses, just a general sweeping statement. I wasn't even criticizing my boss, I was criticizing retail chains/big banks but didn't clarify.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Dec 20, 2017 -> 05:38 PM) This is where you are wrong. Anytime you do anything public you are representing everything about you, including work and family. The first thing all employers, for me it's applicants to school, do is look at facebook twitter and all forms of public representation to see if you will represent well. It's not an invasion of privacy if you put it out for the public to see. If you are at home and shooting the s*** with your buddies you're good. But as soon as you make it public, you're not. You can't honestly expect to blast and criticize your employers and expect their to be no consequences. Social media is a form of communication now, where most people converse and discuss ideas. I try to keep my facebook account private, but I have no idea how my boss got into it. I don't post stuff on twitter other than what I want my public image to be. There have to be public/private groups. I know that the world works this way but I think it is bulls***. My facebook is between me and my friends, or at least I try to keep it that way with privacy settings. People don't discuss things in person as much anymore, but they converse every day online. People shouldn't have to go to anonymity among their friends to discuss politics online.

QUOTE (Jack Parkman @ Dec 20, 2017 -> 01:18 PM) This is inherently wrong. You should be able to voice your private political views, when not at work, without being fearful that you could lose your job. This is thought control to the nth degree. If organizations are so incredibly "image concious" that speaking publicly( whether on social media or calling into a political show on the radio) about politics, when not at work, is such a workplace "no-no" that you can lose your job there is something really really wrong with US corporate culture in general. The ramifications are incredible. The only thing that should matter is whether or not you are doing your job, not political ideology when off the job. I mean, this is your employer saying "shut up and do what you're told, otherwise starve to death" The only thing that should matter is whether or not you do your job. Obviously, extremely hateful ideology is an exception,(think Nazis) but just voicing reasonable political viewpoints on the web and losing your job is a slippery slope that leads to bad places, somewhere that we don't want to go in this country. My first post in the thread. I already spoke about my feelings.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Dec 20, 2017 -> 05:27 PM) So you’d be ok with your employees posting hateful rhetoric on social media? Lone exception to the rule, see post above yours. I wouldn't really care about anything else. That is the one line that one shouldn't cross, other than that, have at it.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Dec 20, 2017 -> 05:13 PM) Going online and talking politics isn’t shooting s*** with your buddies. If someone I worked with went home and was a white supremacist on his own time and talked about ethnic cleansing on twitter I wouldn’t be like “OMG THE USA IS FASCIST BECAUSE THAT GUY GOT FIRED AFTER TALKING ABOUT REMOVING ALL PEOPLE OF COLOR FROM THE UNITED STATES”. Preaching hate =/= mainstream politics. I already said that preaching hate is the lone exception that I thought it was ok to fire someone for their beliefs. That isn't ok under any circumstances. There are certain lines you don't cross, and that is one of them.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 20, 2017 -> 05:06 PM) A bunch of the torch carrying guys in the Charlottesville rally got fired afterwards because they weren't smart enough to wear white hoods while doing it. Nazis are unacceptable to 99.99% of people. That is a different case all together. Nazism has no place in a just society.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 20, 2017 -> 04:51 PM) This is a candyland answer for those who want to live in anarchy with no consequences. The first thing you teach a child is that their actions have consequences. The attempt to try to link the private sector to government here is almost as bad. Where did I say that there are no consequences for one's actions? Of course I know that actions have consequences, whether positive or negative. You don't mess with people's livelihood over petty s*** like political disagreement. Laws are there for a reason. If you're not breaking laws, there is zero reason for one to be fired for having personal beliefs. If businesses can't separate a person's personal and professional life, and you think it is okay to not have them be two completely separate entities, then I can't help you. What my employees do in their free time is none of my business.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Dec 20, 2017 -> 04:48 PM) This is where you are getting s*** all messed up. The government didn’t force ESPN to fire him, nor did they do it to your employer. They did it of their own volition because they didn’t like how their company was being represented. I have a problem with this statement. You only represent your company when you are performing your job, at work or a business meeting or whatever. If companies think that every aspect of a person that they hire "represents their values" when not on the job then that is an invasion of privacy and opens up a whole new can of worms. Your job is your means of providing yourself income. It is not your entire existence. The fact that companies may believe this is, again mind control. When you're in your suit handing out your business card, yeah, you're representing your company. When you're at home shooting the s*** with your buddies, you're not representing anyone but yourself.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Dec 20, 2017 -> 04:38 PM) I work at a Fortune 500 bank, and we are trained that our online opinions and actions can have consequences at our job, including termination. I’m sorry you feel this is fascist but no company is required to plug their ears and ignore an employees life outside of work. Finfer was clearly representing ESPN on twitter, there was no ifs ands or buts about it. I think it can be used as a tool to silence political dissent vs the status quo via socioeconomic pressure. If he was representing ESPN on twitter, then fine. Otherwise it is bulls***, dangerous and a slippery slope to fascism. You The very definition of fascism is the merger of business and government interests. The government's job is to protect people from business abusing them. Business, in general, should be apolitical. It operates to provide goods and services to consumers for a profit. Nothing more. If a business is apolitical, then it should not care what political views its employees have.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 20, 2017 -> 03:54 PM) Nothing about our freedoms protects you from the consequences of your own actions. That is a bulls*** excuse authoritarian leaders of whatever organization/government use to wield power and control the masses. It is mind control/brainwashing. The fact that most people actually believe the above post is and indictment on the amount of critical thinking that people use. It is used to bring normalcy to an unjust economic/political system.

I wasn't talking about Finfer's joke directly, but more to the idea that personal politics can cost you your job, if you make it public. I lost a job because I posted my own political views online and because my boss was disagreed with my post he fired me. It had zero to do with whether or not I did my job well, he didn't like that I called out corporate CEOs for lining their pockets instead of paying a living wage to their employees. That kind of behavior is dangerous.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 20, 2017 -> 01:26 PM) In the 21st century when people lead full on boycotts over who an employer employs, this is a complete fantasy land. We live in a society of social warriors, and expecting a company to take a hit because of who their employees are outside of work isn't realistic at all. We have gone there long ago... especially since you contradict your own words by creating exceptions. I'm sorry, I completely disagree. This kind of MO is what leads to fascist dictatorial takeovers of government, by putting pressure on the citizens for compliance by socioeconomic ostracism.