Dick Allen

QUOTE (Jake @ Jan 20, 2017 -> 10:03 AM) A lot of cities that are Chicago's size tax incomes. Found this somewhat outdated article interesting: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/american-cit...-182112538.html The average effective state+local tax rate for Chicagoans making $25k is 15.6% while it is about 10% for people making $150k, which includes the average property taxes paid by someone at that income level. The numbers for both are likely to be a little lower now since those numbers are from the 5% state tax year. I don't know how someone could have a 10% state and local tax rate living in Chicago unless you don't ever have to buy anything. It's at least 10% every time you open your wallet.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 20, 2017 -> 10:12 AM) I know we have gone to the complete and other end of the pendulum, but don't forget that Quintana is signed for the next four years. If you are really looking at a 2019 timeline for being competitive, Q is under contract til 2020. He could still be on your next playoff team if you really believe that is your window. If you don't get an offer that looks to significantly out perform what Q will be able to bring you by the next time you think you will be a playoff team, you sit on him. But he is going to get hurt and/or start to suck this year. They have to get rid of him right now for whatever they can get. Teams will give up a lot for a guy who is just about to get hurt or start to suck.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jan 20, 2017 -> 09:21 AM) Technically Chicago isnt even in the top 30 for murders per capita (last time I looked) so its not extremely violent considering its the 3rd largest city. Gun violence is obviously the largest issue as the other violent crimes are down. There is no reason to live scared. It's still violent and not getting better. Have 4 people shot and 3 women attacked within 2 blocks of where you live in 6 months . I doubt you would think it's not so bad. I live in an upscale neighborhood, and have been here over 2 decades. This crap isn't supposed to happen, and used not happen. It's one reason why my taxes increased. It's not getting better. Hoping for a change, but I have zero confidence in Rahm getting it done. I am a democrat, and think Rahm is an awful mayor.

QUOTE (steveno89 @ Jan 20, 2017 -> 09:28 AM) I'm all for depth, but the smart move is to acquire several elite prospects who have the potential to be game changers for our franchise Suitors top prospects must be on the table or a deal is not getting done (see Eaton and Sale deals for reference) Yes. If you aren't acquiring game changers, what's the purpose of trading him?

I have lived in the Gold Coast for more than 20 years, and the property taxes haven't been outrageous. They did go up about 25% last year and are supposed to keep rising, but getting nickled and dimed for everything is starting to get old. Gas costs more in Chicago because of taxes. If you want a bag at the grocery store now, that will cost you. I am glad I am not a big soda drinker, a penny an ounce tax is coming in 6 months. A co worker drinks 12 diet pepsis a day. That will cost him an additional $1.44 a day or over $500 a year. But all that still isn't enough to get me to move. Public transportation has really improved the last few years. The bike lanes are great. The parks are nice. The city is clean. Around me there seems to be construction every block, but other places obviously, not so much. I know of several people who left after a Chiberia winter a couple of years ago. I don't blame them, that was brutal, and as each year goes by, cold bothers me more and more. But even the cold isn't enough to get me to move. What is scaring the s*** out of me is the violence. 4 people have been shot within 2 blocks of my home the last 6 months.One died in the middle of Clark St. and they didn't even bother washing off the blood. Had to wait a few days for rain to take care of it. 3 women have been attacked. Obviously there are more violent areas in the city, but it is starting to spread. It has gotten to the point where around me some of the wealthier residence have hired private security to work the streets of our neighborhood. On our block that's 3 nights a week. I won't let my wife walk our dogs at night the other 4 nights. I can't imagine how the people who are living in the neighborhoods that make the news every night with shootings cope. 5 years ago, I would have said I am never going to move unless I'm old and need to for health reasons. But it's getting to the point where I don't want to be too late and either get shot or have my wife shot or attacked. I don't want to live scared, and never have, but I'm starting to get a bit nervous.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Jan 20, 2017 -> 07:07 AM) I just find it hard to believe that in this market where there are literally no other TOR alternatives that offers wouldn't be strong. We all say we don't want Hahn to accept a crappy offer, but why do we think teams would allow one of their competitors to get Quintana on the cheap? For example, if the Pirates' best offer was Glasnow, Hayes, & Diaz, do you honestly think the Astros & Braves would stand pat and not top that? The only way we're going to get a crappy offer is if the market is significantly constrained from the buyer's side and demand just isn't there. And that's simply not the case based on everything we know about interest in Q. My concern is that Hahn will wait for the perfect offer, which may or not never happen by. Waiting doesn't guarantee s***, but it does put our most important asset at risk of losing signicant value from a combination of factors including injury, underperformance, & less favorable market conditions. It also pushes back this rebuild most likely due delaying the development time for whatever prospects are acquired and could greatly impact our draft position next year that has some elite talents at the top. Long story short, I simply don't see the potential reward from holding Quintana until July (or longer) worth the inherent risk and opportunity costs. We have no idea what the real offers are. The fact is, if you are scared not trading Quintana this offseason screws everything up, his being just as valuable is probably a better bet than even if they received the exact same package for Sale all working out. I would imagine the Sox have some really nice offers, maybe one or two where they would pull the trigger, but I think they like another team's players even better and may be waiting to see if they will become involved. Ultimately what will matter is how the guys they get actually play, not where BA or Keith Law or BP or MLB.com rank them before they ever play a major league game.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Jan 19, 2017 -> 11:05 PM) Yeah, I'm starting to get worried too. I'm not going to say much more on this because we don't know the offers, but holding onto Quintana into next season scares the s*** out of me. Has the potential to f*** up this rebuild very quickly. Of all the things in a Quintana deal, the surest thing is Q. If you are worried not trading him will screw everything up, you should be more worried trading him asap and just taking what they can get, will screw everything up. All the guys the Wox received for Sale and Eaton look great on paper, but as of now we really don't know if any of them can really play, let alone as well as Sale or Eaton.

QUOTE (TheFutureIsNear @ Jan 19, 2017 -> 05:50 PM) Only $12M per for Trumbo...crazy, 5 years ago he probably gets a contract bordering on $100M. I think it might be real tough to get anything other than a couple lotto ticket 19 year olds for Frazier and Melky if/when they do get moved. Frazier put up a 2.4 WAR in 2016 a down year for him. It would be a career high for Trumbo. Napoli was a 1.0 WAR guy. Chances are Baltimore still overpaid. It seems contenders aren't looking for a 3B right now. Eventually at least a couple will be through injury or poor performance. Frazier improves his BABIP, and keeps his career best walk rate up, he should be a coveted guy during the season. Melky, the Sox will probably have to eat some cash unless he is just smoking the ball.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 19, 2017 -> 11:28 AM) The one thing is when companies like HBO have been asked about this they really don't care that people share. They can more accurately report on numbers for people logged in watching, and they can still generate detailed reports for ad revenue then. I'm sure they'll end up about the same. Yes. HBO once tweeted a password.

QUOTE (3GamesToLove @ Jan 19, 2017 -> 10:47 AM) Surely if you travel out of market, you won't be able to watch, right? According to Crain's, you can. Maybe I should put my password on Ebay and screw some Cubs fans.

QUOTE (Dam8610 @ Jan 19, 2017 -> 10:22 AM) It's not good to count on the teams in front of you to be stupid. I argued the Cubs were lucky Houston picked Appel before Bryant. I was told Appel was the clear #1 choice. Beer might be a HOFer. We won't know for a while, but those thinking if the Sox tank and get the #1 pick the next 2 seasons, those guys will be the baseball version of Michael and Lebron, and will almost immediately be stars, are probably reaching

QUOTE (steveno89 @ Jan 19, 2017 -> 09:04 AM) I also don't buy the Sonny Gray and Chris Archer rumors for the Astros. Frankly, Quintana is their only choice left this offseason if they want to acquire a TOR starter. A's aren't selling low on Gray and the Rays are not dealing 5 years of Archer for anything less than a monster haul. Plus the Rays already dumped a pitcher. They don't appear to be going into full rebuild mode. It's Q or bust for these guys. At the deadline if he isn't traded yet, chances are he is the best option. Next winter, Arrieta is a free agent, maybe Tanaka and a 33 year old Cueto. Given Q's contract, do you want to give up prospects or an extra $100 million? He still is looking good. Getting Q for 4 years offsets a good portion of the 6 years of control for a top prospect. The White Sox should be asking for the moon because eventually some team will pay it.

If you take Levine at face value, teams have recently upped their offers, so apparently not trading him previously was pretty wise.

QUOTE (ChiSox59 @ Jan 18, 2017 -> 02:19 PM) Thing is, you'll have absolutely zero clue if his value actually dropped, unless he has a catastrophic injury, or turns into a little league pitching machine next season. Teams are only willing to give up so much. Just look at the Sale trade. If the Sox traded him last winter, I doubt they do any better than they did in December. Assuming Q goes out and does his thing (lets remember that he has historically gotten some of the worst run support in the league and poor defense - really cant get much worse in that regard), his value is going nowhere. That is a much safer bet than acquiring Martes, Tucker and Paulino and hoping like hell one or more of those guys actually turn into a meaningful asset. Plus, you have to also recognize that the Sox really need an infusion of position player talent, and to this point, it seems like the available packages are pitching focused. I tend to agree that you take the best package available and sort it out later, but in this case, acquiring hitting is obviously hte priority. Those of us in the patience crowd are all about trading Q if the price is right - I assure you of that. But the aforementioned package, or even then the supposedly rumored package of Martes, Tucker and Musgrove doesn't exactly get me all warm and fuzzy. I think the assumption is that if the Astros really turned that down, they're offering something significantly less, that is going to be very underwhelming. That's a good question to ask for all those so worried Q won't be worth anything if the Sox don't trade him in the next 24 hours. How much ddi the ultimate package for Sale and/or Eaton deteriorate by the White Sox not trading either of them a year sooner? I am with you, Sale's, I am not guessing much if anything at all, and Eaton's certainly went up. There is a limit on what teams will give up. TOR guys with 4 years or even 3 years of cheap control are hardly ever traded. One reason is because either teams don't have the prospects, or they have to give up so many. Q is in that boat. He will be at just about max price if they wait another year as long as he performs and is healthy.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 18, 2017 -> 12:35 PM) Seeing as Q is still signed for 4 more years, losing a year isn't going to hurt his value that much. This isn't a guy hitting free agency in 1 or 2 years. I think Q is the last big chip we have. Losing him for an inferior return will hurt this rebuild way worse than holding on to him for another year would. I totally agree with this. And "value" is also something where the needle moves daily. You never know what will happen. In a year, they may trade him for guys ranked lower than what they could trade him for today, and they may all be better ballplayers. It's nice to win the trade the day the trade is made. It's more important to win it in the future. They can't screw this one up. If the guys they traded for Q today wind up sucking, no one here will remember they loved prospect xxx. It will be Rick and Kenny and Jerry are total idiots, they should have traded for xxx, who they easily could have received because they weren't ranked as high.

Stretch, you can put it on the board yes, rack em up, mercy, he gone, and this ballgame is ova. Per Merkin.

With the HOF announcement tomorrow, I suppose if nothing happens today, we have to wait until at least Thursday for anything. So the Q to Houston, Q to Pittsburgh, Q to the Yankees talk can take a day off.

I'm getting one for sure.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jan 17, 2017 -> 01:46 PM) He wasnt top ten in any category for QB's his senior year. He was pretty pedestrian and tested like s*** at the combine. Thats why he was drafted where he was drafted. its the outlier of all outliers. He was also running Lloyd Carr's offense. It was a different game back then. Obviously if anyone thought he would be half as good as he's been, he wouldn't have gone #199, but the guy was pretty good at Michigan with what he had to work with. I won a Big 10 fantasy football league with him as my QB.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jan 17, 2017 -> 01:04 PM) Brady is literally the ultimate outlier in the history of drafts. It proves nothing whatsoever. A guy who wasnt all that great in college ends up being drafted about where his performance and athletic appearance dictated, and then became an all-timer. If I put his stats next to JT Barrett's for example, you would probably pick JT Of course he was an outlier, but he was pretty good in college. He led the Big 10 in passing efficiency and completion percentage. He did alternate for a while with Drew Henson. Who knows, maybe the Bears can draft an outlier.

QUOTE (zenryan @ Jan 17, 2017 -> 12:51 PM) And the Bucs picked Cadillac Williams and decided to roll the dice with Brian Griese and Chris Simms as their QBs. Thanks a lot Gruden.... Gruden said the other day the reason he isn't coaching Oakland was because he picked a kicker in round 1 and a punter in round 5 the draft Brady went in round 6.

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Jan 17, 2017 -> 12:50 PM) They believed Rex was their guy. Noone thought Rodgers would fall into the Packers lap, which helped coincide with Favre getting up there in age. You gotta remember even with injuries, Rex was only 2 years removed from being drafted in the 1st round by the Bears. They just didn't know what they had in him since he got injured his first couple of years there. Favre was with GB for 3 more seasons. Rodgers only threw 59 passes total his first 3 years. So maybe there is something to he's as good as he is because he had that opportunity to develop. I have no idea. But there are many teams that wish they had their pick before him back.

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Jan 17, 2017 -> 12:41 PM) I'll bet the house the 49ers are still regretting passing on him. Lets just leave it at that. Some teams also drafted on need at that time, not BPA. Hell, some still do. The Bears spent the 4th pick on Ced Benson. It would have been doubly good if they drafted Rodgers because not only would they have him, the Packers would not.

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Jan 17, 2017 -> 12:30 PM) Rodgers was a consensus top 3-5 pick in that draft. Hell, Kiper Jr. had him only slightly behind Alex Smith in that draft and that was only because he felt Smith was more NFL ready off the bat. Rodgers just happened to slip in the draft because every other team was set (or believed they were) at QB. (Kind of like Greg Olsen falling to the Bears lap and other players as well) And guys like Brady and Brees are not the usual standard. Noone and I mean noone would've predicted Brady to be the player that he is. One of the rare players who was way better in the NFL than in college. And Brees had questions about his height which was very common during that time. He went 24th. If teams had a top 3-5 grade on him he would have gone a lot sooner. Kiper loved him, there is no question about that, but teams don't listen to him. Sometimes they should, sometimes they are probably happy they don't.

At the time of their drafts, Brady, Rodgers, and Brees would have been considered pretty big reaches at pick #3. If everyone performs to their pre draft ranking, then the Bears shouldn't take a QB at 3. One thing is for sure, they can make the playoffs with a game manager, but for some sustained success, they need a star.