iamshack

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 6, 2016 -> 08:35 PM) Yes it was a bulls*** hilarious moment from a front office full of them, like when they set out to get younger and more athletic and then signed wade and rondo. Shack wins again! The point is not whether the signing was the correct move; the point is you went on tilt because they pushed back the meeting, claiming they had just botched one of the most important meetings of the year and went on and on about their incompetence. Then like 2 hours later they had a commitment to sign the guy.

It's obvious the Bulls' FO screwed this whole mess up as a result of not being able to make it to the meeting in NY.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 5, 2016 -> 01:38 PM) My prediction: It will not be that bad once games start, some references (as there were in Sochi), but not the forefront of the games Brazil will pull together just enough for it to be competent and everyone that goes there will say it was not that bad. Rio, for all of its faults, is a great city that is hard not to love. Yeah, I agree. I remember Sochi reports days before the game saying the facilities weren't completed, and yet, after the games began, there was not a peep about it. The press will cover it in a way that you won't hear anything about the issues.

Spent this holiday weekend cleaning up after Mother Nature took down 3 trees in my yard early last week. Purchased my first chainsaw, and really had no clue what I was doing. Figured it out pretty quickly though and made mincemeat out of these trees that came down. Was pretty pleased with myself. Even buying a new chainsaw, figure I probably saved myself several hundred dollars versus calling a tree company to haul them off for me. Funny thing is, to a man, like every person I mentioned this too was very concerned about my safety...they all know me quite well Managed to complete the job with all appendages intact.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Jun 29, 2016 -> 08:10 AM) It was fine though. Shields got rocked in 1 start, the one prior to the deal. They didn't give up anything and they are paying below market value for what they thought they were getting. Shields obviously has to be better. I mean that's the way I like to think about it when I go to sleep every night, but honestly, they gave up $25 million. I'm hard-pressed to believe his performance with the White Sox over the remainder of the deal could not have been duplicated by someone basically making the minimum.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Jun 29, 2016 -> 07:43 AM) Tim Anderson was never discussed for James Shields. I mean I'm sure the Padres asked but GTFOH. Barstool Dave DM'ed me the trade details a week prior to it actually happening on twitter. Erik Johnson and Fernando Tatis were the names I heard from the inception. That's the sick thing...they thought about this trade for weeks and still f***ing did it.

I currently spend about 30 minutes every Sunday morning picking up dog s*** so my landscaper doesn't curse at me for stepping in it when he mows. I suspect with the right equipment, such as a medium-duty zero turn radius riding mower, I could get through my 1 acre parcel in about an hour. I actually looked into the electric versions of the mower, but it doesn't appear to be sold anywhere near the Las Vegas area (not surprising, I suppose). Given that I can't fix anything, I was encouraged by the notion of having no gas, no oil, no pulleys, etc. But I suspect I will go with a gas model if I do indeed decided to purchase equipment. Anyways, in regards to the requirements of taking care of the property a bit more myself, I actually think it will help me get to appreciate my property a bit more and get to understanding it a bit more, which ultimately will lead to increased enjoyment of it. And hell, I figure in over a 3-year period, even splurging on the equipment a bit, I can save $8-10k on what it would have cost to pay someone else.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Jun 27, 2016 -> 05:07 PM) Shack you've been looking at possibly moving right? May want to hold off on buying equipment unless you plan on doing the maintenance yourself at the new place, just a thought that it may not be worth the hassle quite yet. Yeah, I am aware...I'm just always shaking s*** up looking for the next move. Waiting on this damn appraiser so we have some kind of idea what we are looking at with our property, particularly after doing the reno work last year.

Fired my landscaper yesterday. Just wasn't getting the job done. Considering taking over the job myself on a weekly basis, but hiring someone to come in once a quarter or something to sort of "clean things up." Property is about an acre. Priced out some riding mowers and other tools and I honestly think I could buy all the equipment and it would pay itself back within a year, given what I pay to have the work done for me. Anyone here have one of those zero turn mowers? I have a crapload of trees so this looks like the best option.

Dealership called me yesterday telling me that they know I have a car on order, but they got one in a dealer trade that is basically the same car with the exception of the exterior color. The one I ordered is black with black trim, this one was white with aluminum trim. I figured what the hell, I'll go test drive it. The good news is, since that is pretty much the same car I had built, and I loved the test drive, I suspect I'll be very pleased with the vehicle I ordered when it gets here. It's currently on a boat somewhere in the Atlantic. The tough part about this decision is that I ordered a vehicle right when a certain trim option became available, so I ordered it basically sight unseen. I was a little concerned about how it might look, which is why I considered this white vehicle. In the end, while this car was beautiful, I didn't want to be kicking myself for not sticking with the entire ordering process and waiting for the car I built to get here. I've waited this long - I may as well wait the remaining 3 weeks or so until it arrives. Pretty stoked though!

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jun 24, 2016 -> 05:41 AM) I mean, am i really reading an argument about the validity of a bet(and the qualifications of said bet) that ends in someone eating a hat? message boards ftw now and forever. CB2.0 wouldnt have eaten the hat anyways Thank you. For the love of Christ, guys

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jun 23, 2016 -> 05:59 PM) This will be worse than when the bulls thought they'd get wade and ended up with hinrich. Unless they get kat or Wiggins That was painful.

QUOTE (SouthSideSale @ Jun 23, 2016 -> 05:09 PM) No kidding. I'm shocked they didn't pull the trigger. Nothing says they still can't do it.

How about we quit whining and moaning about it and come back and win this one.

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Jun 22, 2016 -> 01:51 PM) Because I still can't think of an example where W-L record actually adds to the discussion. Looking at W-L record tells you nothing about how good a pitcher is. Yes, the good pitchers tend to have good records and the bad pitchers tend to have bad records, but there's way too many examples where it lies to be meaningful. Shelby Miller led the MLB in losses last year at 6-17 and yet was one of the best pitchers in baseball. Drew Hutchison had the 7th worst ERA last year among SP with at least 100 IP yet he had a 13-5 record. All the variables pointed out in this thread (how deep a pitcher goes into games, how he pitches in close games/high leverage situations, etc.) are important but can't be gleaned from a pitcher's W-L record (and for every example of a pitcher who didn't get wins because he didn't go deep enough into games or pitched poorly in close games, there's a counter-example of a pitcher who did the same but was bailed out by their offense). If a pitchers' W-L record tells me nothing about how well a pitcher pitched, then why bother with it? A pitcher can get spotted a 5-run lead, then immediately give up 6 runs the next inning, but then be bailed out by the offense and still get the win. On the other hand, a pitcher can throw a no-hitter and give up runs due to 2 errors by the defense and take a loss. It provides zero context. Give me a specific example where it provides meaningful discussion about a pitcher, because there haven't been any in this thread to this point. That is the point you aren't seeing. If you dismiss the ability to "win" as a skill than there will be no context we can provide that you simply won't either attribute to other factors or dismiss as not meaningful. Are there not some pitchers whose W-L record would belie some other more "contextual" stats which one could study to determine if they possessed some sort of inherent ability to retain a lead or simply to win?

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Jun 22, 2016 -> 12:31 PM) Aren't we all the judges in this competition? There's so much we don't know. We weren't in Javy's head, we have no idea what he went through on his path to the big leagues, what adversity he had to overcome, what days he had to pitch over discomfort or some kind of physical ailment or when he was feeling 100% healthy. I watched him pitch too, he was as frustrating as anyone, because it was clear he had a talented arm, but there are dozens of examples of pitchers nearly every year with talented arms who also never live up to their potentials. Since there's so much we don't know, we can only make judgments on the information we do know, like the judge had to. Well, again, to Tony's point, I'll take all available data points from which to make judgments, not just the most mathematically-oriented ones.

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Jun 22, 2016 -> 11:40 AM) I'm not exactly sure what you mean here. Is the argument that Vazquez didn't live up to his talent level? I think everyone would agree there, but that happens to most pitchers, so I'm not sure how looking at win-loss record is a good indicator of this. Have you ever watched the show Cutthroat Kitchen? Where the contestants start out with an amount of money which they then use to bid for the opportunity to make their opponents deal with all sorts of disadvantages or handicaps? For example, you can make your opponent cook his meal over candlelight as opposed to the professional range that you are allowed to utilize. Or perhaps your opponent has to cook his meal while riding a tricycle while you are allowed to cook entirely unencumbered. At the end of the allotted cooking time, a judge comes in, and, completely unaware of what took place in regards to who bid what or who had to cook with what disadvantages, they simply judge the the final dishes, as if all things were completely equal. You are essentially playing the role of judge in this competition, and you're only viewing the final dishes. You aren't considering what went in to actually producing the outcomes you are evaluating. You're simply tasting the dish afterwards and saying, "Yes, it makes sense that he lost because this dish is pretty mediocre." What Tony is saying is that he actually watched Javy pitch. And in this analogy, Javy had all kinds of chances to cook without riding the f***ing tricycle and still managed to lose all the time.

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Jun 22, 2016 -> 11:15 AM) Curiosity got the best of me so I looked it up. Vazquez had a career 105 ERA+, so he was 5% better than the average pitcher. Over his career, the average runs scored/game in the league he pitched in was 4.67 runs/game, while the average run support he received was 4.49 runs/game, or 4% less than the league average. He ended up 165-160, which is pretty much exactly what you would expect from those numbers. Yes it seems obvious and needless to point out, as it would be difficult for his W-L record to turn out a different way given those numbers, I'm just illustrating a point. There's nothing strange in Vazquez's W-L record, it's exactly what it should be. I don't believe you are looking at this correctly. I don't believe he is arguing that Javy's body of work is not representative of his actual win-loss record. What I believe is being argued is that Javy's statistical body of work and win-loss record is not representative of his actual pitching ability.

QUOTE (Tony @ Jun 22, 2016 -> 10:06 AM) HOT TAKE ALERT. Jesus. Of course that's not the case. Nearly every analytic will show he is very strong starting pitcher that has been snake bit the last few years. And no where will see you see me arguing that wins are an important stat. But I'm also not going to totally throw the W statistic out the window just because some feel it's outdated. It has a use, and it's up to user reading the stats to decide what value he wants to put on that stat. That make sense, Skip? Agreed. Although analytics are starting to get better at identifying some of the things that I feel are part and parcel to what makes wins somewhat valuable as a point of reference. One thought that comes to mind is holding an offense scoreless immediately following your own offense scoring runs.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 21, 2016 -> 06:31 PM) Still, nobody can come up with anything that Hahn does well. Very telling. The Indians actually were one of the pioneers of this type of strategy, and have been doing it since the Mark Shapiro days.

QUOTE (ChiSox59 @ Jun 21, 2016 -> 12:53 PM) Not sure if it's what you're insinuating, but I don't think Sale said anything dumb in that article. The man wants to pitch in the playoffs. Can you blame him? I want to watch him pitch in the playoffs. It'd be a thing of beauty. Think Bumgarner last year but even more dominant. I hope he gets that opportunity in a Sox uni. The title of the article seemed a bit deceiving.

QUOTE (flavum @ Jun 21, 2016 -> 12:41 PM) http://sports.yahoo.com/news/how-the-best-...931973-mlb.html That was an incredibly pointless article.

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Jun 21, 2016 -> 08:39 AM) Disagee. You can deal guys you've added as well (Melky, Robertson, Frazier). That would be an incredibly inefficient use of resources.

I must say, I really don't understand the logic around here. If you were going to trade Chris Sale, the time to do that was BEFORE you went and made 12 other moves in an attempt to compete with this core. The time was to build a new core once you realized you couldn't assemble a competitive enough team in time to coincide with Sale's peak years. The time is not AFTER you've gone and tried to build around THIS core. We've since signed multiple free agents, made multiple trades, etc. You've come this far. Now you've got no choice but to keep trying. They need to keep adding to the core now, not selling it off.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 20, 2016 -> 05:11 PM) I don't know why anyone can hate LeBron. He seems like a good guy. He is an amazing player, obviously the best in the business. Of course anyone saying he has now exceeded Jordan is laughable, but LeBron is a likable guy. There was the whole taking my talents to South Beach, but even he sort of apologized for that later. The other thing is, for how huge of a douche he could be, given his fame and access to the media, he's actually a pretty humble guy. Yes, he has his moments, but hard to really blame him for that. In regards to this comparison to LeBron versus Michael, its not close. The type of pressure Michael wore on a daily basis was so much greater than LeBron, particularly in the playoffs, and particularly in his era and against those types of playoff defenses. Imagine trying to play the defense Mike did when he had to carry the scoring load so often.