iamshack

Even after last year, I really didn't think Alexei was very coveted by other teams. I doubt there were any offers which gave them much reason to even consider moving him.

FIRE THE COACHING STAFF

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Jun 11, 2015 -> 09:07 PM) From other stories I read about it, that was the case. The cop hid and watched until it was over. The issue I see is what if a citizen makes some silly and ill-fated attempt to be the hero while the police are present. Are the police now obligated to intervene on this guy's behalf? I could see how this would be problematic.

QUOTE (Condor13 @ Jun 10, 2015 -> 05:22 PM) I can agree with that, it just seems like he just let's it go, maybe he does get on the players ass about crap like that Regardless of what he is doing, the defensive lapses continue out of the gate, game after game after game.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jun 7, 2015 -> 05:39 AM) I believe it's also the mercury content, but that said, while my wife was pregnant, her doctor told her it's fine to eat sushi in moderation, just as it was fine to have a glass of wine in moderation. The myth is that you can't have these things at all during pregnancy. It's simply untrue. This is more about medical professionals becoming afraid of their own shadows, than it is about facts. As you said, it's always dangerous to eat raw or undercooked food, not only while pregnant. The risks remain the same. This is about protecting themselves from malpractice. It's much easier for them to tell women not to eat these things at all than to explain all the caveats or variables. Hell, our mothers drank and especially smoked with much more regularity than women do today, and with the exception of maybe Rock, most of us turned out ok. Ultimately, you can do whatever the hell you want. It's just a question of which risks you are comfortable with and which you are not.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jun 5, 2015 -> 09:06 PM) The Royals hitters stopped drawing walks and the lineup on cue went to garbage in a hurry. Like you said the starters have sucked without an anchor that the players all trust (Shields). Now if you want to add psychology bulls***, they played like every game was a WS game for the first six weeks, causing fights; throwing at opposing hitters; acting like dickheads after they got hits, even meaningless hits so finally they are a bit 'weary' if you will as the dog days of the season near. Their defense should keep them in it all year, but they are struggling! Detroit sucks ... yes they do. Minnie is not going to keep winning. The Sox turned their season around by losing four straight and six of seven to that lousy team in a span of two weeks. Cleveland also sucks and had its season turned around by the Sox. As Rongey said tonight, Sox are still going nowhere until they can play good ball for a solid two week stretch. One win tonigiht doesn't mean s*** if Detroit, as they probably will, take the next two. That said ... GO SOX! Wake up SOX! o.s. Can you believe we have Sale, Rodon, Shark and Q, four amazing starters, plus the best closer in perhaps Sox history, and we aren't even .500. LOL worthy. Greg, you have never said something so true as the bolded. I heard Hosmer say they were going to try and maintain this type of intensity from day 1, and wondered how long they could sustain it.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jun 2, 2015 -> 09:03 AM) Thats one of the main reasons I bought a digital thermometer, my wife is super paranoid about chicken being done. I always show her when its taken off the grill. My wife tries to make me use one. The problem is, she also seemingly uses the most conservative temperatures (the highest) that she can find. While she has been pregnant, it's been even more of an issue. Luckily, we have limited our grilling mostly to burgers lately because we figure it's a waste to grill any steaks since they have to be cooked through entirely for her to eat them.

If you want to be entirely honest about this club, we have a pitching staff with the potential to be top3-4 in the AL. If the offense can be a little more consistent, and not run into outs on the base paths, they could certainly be in the running for a wild card. Thats really all there is to say. Now i they would just fire this coaching staff...

QUOTE (fathom @ May 29, 2015 -> 07:29 PM) How can a team that has so few offensive threats also be so bad on defense? It's a lineup with 5 guys who could be number 9 hitters. I don't see how firing a coach fixes that this year. Just a bad team IT'S EVERY YEAR. Is it just a bad team every year?

QUOTE (RockRaines @ May 29, 2015 -> 07:25 PM) Agreed but I'm not sure how that's their fault. Abreu sucked on two plays and Rodon on the last Abreu has to give him a firm toss, not that loopy s***. I understand these guys are professionals, but is the coaching staff not at all accountable the lack of improvement? And if guys continue to not improve, why the f*** are we still playing hacks like Gillaspie and Abreu in the field? To quote the great Mike Singletary, you can't win with it.

Please fire this coaching staff.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 28, 2015 -> 04:13 PM) This team just makes way too many dumb decisions. That's on the players, not the coaches. I guess we just must target dumb players, because it happens again and again no matter how much roster turnover we have.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ May 28, 2015 -> 03:06 PM) Eh, both were projects, Teague more so. He had potential, just never got there. Green has clearly overachieved. It's their jobs to determine which "projects" will reach their potential.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ May 27, 2015 -> 10:45 AM) Balta, I love you man, but this response completely missed the entire point of the part you bolded in my post. When it comes to roster moves, a GM makes his money by making predictive decisions. The reality is that every decision you make that is predictive needs to be viewed, essentially, as a probability. For example, every player in baseball, in a given season, comes with a small chance of becoming the best player in the entire league. They also come with higher likelihoods of being average or whatever, but there's no way to prognositcate what is going to happen ahead of time. It's all a deal from the deck, and the GM's job is to stack that deck in his favor as much as possible. So let's take Chris Sale, who has posted a 4.29 ERA so far. Heading into this season, we could expect that there's a tiny chance he'd bust and be the worst pitcher in the league, a larger but still small chance he'd win the CY Young, a larger chance he'd hit the DL for the whole year, a and so on with other outcomes -- but the most likely single outcome was that he'd put out a star-level season as one of the top 20 or so pitchers around. That is the outcome that Hahn expected and should be judged on putting out. Unless you think Chris Sale is a true talent 4.29 ERA pitcher and shouldn't have been considered the ace of a contender, you have to be comfortable with Hahn expecting more. Yet, here we are. Our ace has, on average, pitched like a #4 guy. That's how the cookie crumbles, though, there was ALWAYS a chance that would happen. When you look around the roster, you see a LOT of that to varying degrees. A ton of dudes who are performing below what consensus expected. But the only thing strange about is that it's all happening at once. Individually, they're all realistic, if not necessarily the most likely outcome. And then, when you look around the league and realize that half the teams have to lose every day, even that it's all happening at once doesn't seem strange. Yes, it MIGHT be a coaching problem or a player dev problem or something else that is theoretically fixable -- but from where you and I sit, we have NO evidence to suggest that or anything else in particular. Occam's Razor demands that the most likely outcome is the dudes are just s***ting the bed. Half the guys in the league do it every year. I disagree strongly with the desperation that everyone is feeling regarding the roster. If you look at the preseason predictions thread, you'll see me predicting a roughly .500 record, and yet I adored the offseason that Hahn had. This is because I think he did an EXCELLENT job of balancing short and long-term interests. When I look at the 25 man, the only boat anchor I see is John Danks. I see a team that's due for some bounceback in a lot of areas and is going to retain long-term flexibility in others. Yeah, Samardzija is likely not going to provide value going forward, but that's the cost of doing business. There's no point in running a team if you aren't going to try to win, and the cost was very reasonable. Again, I think we can all agree that the most likely outcome for Semien was much worse than reality and the most likely outcome for Samardzija was a much better one -- but there was ALWAYS a chance it would turn out this way. He traded a guy with a 10% chance of hitting like a star for a guy who had maybe a 50-60% chance of remaining one. Those are rough, oversimplified estimates, but you get my point. If you want to claim the GM failed, you have to judge him on the decisions he made at the time he made them. When the outcomes all fall in the realistic range, sometimes it's just the luck of the draw. You can make a claim about a systemic problem with coaching or scouting, but you need some real good evidence to back it up, and it's very difficult to come up with any from where you and I sit. I agree with most of your points as usual. I have no problem with what Hahn has done. The crying about the roster is ridiculous. The roster is fine. I do have a problem with what Robin has done, or perhaps what he hasn't done.

Interesting timing for this thread. I think this thread would have been more apropos after the 2012 season. Much of what the OP stated he admired about the Cubs has been happening, perhaps on a slightly smaller scale, or with a slightly different recipe, on the South Side. Rick Hahn has been purging the organization of the ghosts of the failed '06-'12 seasons. The old stench has been aired out and swept out. What we're seeing now is a breath of fresh air relative to the last 5 years. I'm not a fan of RV or his coaching staff (outside of Cooper), but with Sale, Q, Rodon, Abreu, Eaton, et al, I think there is much to be excited about. While I'll concede I agree with your point in regards to the Cubs baseball operations, I think you're underestimating the changes that have been occurring in plain view with the White Sox. Anyways, I guess the morale of the story is hang in there; I think you'll be pleasantly surprised in short order.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ May 22, 2015 -> 07:46 PM) HI What's the drink of choice tonight? Port!

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ May 16, 2015 -> 10:51 AM) Oh, and for the "nobody can hit a mid-range shot" and "guys just chuck threes now" crowd.. The 5 remaining teams in this year's playoffs just happen to be the top 5 teams in 3 point makes this year. Suck on that Phil and Charles. It's a new game/age/era. If you don't like it, you can always youtube 1994 nba. But J4L, that's because NOBODY can hit the mid-range shots now. If there were some teams that could, it might disprove what you're saying.

Eric Chavez on the Oakland broadcast keeps insisting that we like Sanchez because of his offense, even while Glen Kuiper keeps saying we like his defense.

A's are 1-13 in 1-run games. 1-14 now

QUOTE (chw42 @ May 16, 2015 -> 09:03 PM) .370 OBP. If this is him in a slump, I'll take it. He's always been a second half hitter. What is he hitting with men in scoring position though? Seems like he's the rallykiller quite often.

So LaRoche is going to start hitting in July or so, right?

The Oakland pitcher even apologized to Jose as he was walking to first.

QUOTE (chw42 @ May 16, 2015 -> 08:56 PM) Robertson's fastball velocity seemed a bit low in that sequence to Lowrie. What are they showing on the Chicago broadcast? The Oakland gun was showing him at 90, but it was also only showing Danksy around 86-88, so I figured it might be a bit on the slow side.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 16, 2015 -> 08:43 PM) I just don't think he has enough power to be anything more than a slap hitter. He'll get a lot of hits on bloopers and liners, but that slugging pct. is going to be mediocre That doesn't even matter. If he can just reach base at a reasonable clip that is enough to be serviceable there.

Nice job Zach/Carlos/Alexi.