iamshack

QUOTE (Con te Giolito @ Jan 17, 2017 -> 08:22 PM) Jose Quintana is 200 very solid, occasionally brilliant, left-handed innings. His WAR slightly overrates him, though he is obviously not an overrated player around the league. He is not Chris Sale. He is not a potential hall of famer nor generational talent. He is not particularly unique or rare, there are Jose Quintana's in the league every year going back forever. Maybe not a giant pile of them, but there have always been guys pitching as well as Jose Quintana has pitched for the White Sox. This isn't meant to disparage or belittle how good Q has been, its just an honest appraisal of him. He's still a fantastic pitcher who just turned 28 and figures to keep doing what he's been doing. Jose Quintana's are the locomotives that drive a team to a division championship. The contract is not as important as people make it out to be. Its nice, it definitely helps more than it hurts, but really its only a deal breaker to the real cheap franchises like Pittsburgh and you've seen how incredibly frustrating their cowardice to step up and make a move for fear of being wrong they can be. The teams willing to give up prospects for Quintana are giving up prospects for Quintana so he can help them win their divisions this year and next year*. If he comes cheaper that's great. *this also hampers his deadline value because teams are going to want the 120 IP he'll have accumulated by the team the deadline rolls around. Jose suffers from knowing how to pitch so well that he makes it look ordinary and effortless. He convinces you that anyone can do what he does. The reality is there are maybe 15 guys in all of baseball who pitch as many innings he does every year with the kind of results that he does. You are right in saying he is a locomotive that drives a team to a division championship. How many of those locomotives hit the market? How many of them hit the market with 4 years of control for less than $10 million/year? You are selling Jose Quintana short, and you're selling him short because he isn't flashy. No, he isn't Chris Sale. But he produces results like Chris Sale without looking like he's trying nearly as hard. I believe it was the Braves' GM who mentioned he's not Chris Sale as well. This is the trap these teams would like us to fall into. To be convinced that the outs Quintana records are somehow less valuable than the outs Chris Sale records because they don't come via 96 mph fastballs or 91 mph sliders. But the bottom line is, an out is an out is an out, and Quintana has shown he can record outs with just about the same effectiveness as a man with a vastly more impressive to the eye repertoire. Guess what? I give zero f***s what it looks like to my eye. I care about what the results are. Hahn is correctly not falling victim to this line of bulls*** and is holding out to get appropriate value for an extremely rare asset because there simply is no reason to rush.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Jan 17, 2017 -> 07:53 PM) I don't think Hahn perceives his current ask to be fair value. I think he's simply testing how desperate teams are in the off chance someone will do a Shelby Miller 2.0 trade. Right now, he's the only seller in town and he can take his time without worrying too much about teams moving on to other alternatives. But the reality is at some point he needs to come off these purposely exaggerated demands and try to get a deal done. There is no doubt in my mind he's sitting on some pretty nice offers. And honestly, the best way for him to improve those offers is being prepared to accept one and force another team to top it or lose out of Quintana for good. I generally love your insight, but lately you seem to be allowing impatience to cloud your judgment. This post is entirely speculation (albeit perhaps informed).

QUOTE (Con te Giolito @ Jan 17, 2017 -> 07:51 PM) Jose Quintana the pitcher is a commodity and like any commodity he is worth what the market will pay. If Coppopela, Luhnow, Huntington and Cashman are all not willing to meet Hahn's price then Hahn's price is too high. That is how a market works. I dont know how much more this has to be explained. Compromise is an essential part of doing business and it is not shameful for the White Sox to meet a potential buyer somewhere in the middle for Quintana. Right now appears clear that Hahn is refusing to budge from outrageous demands, demands that wont be met now nor at the deadline nor next offseason. The risk of keeping Quintana for even spring training far outweighs any benefit. The deadline is not magic. It will not miraculously boost Quintana's value. Its time for the Sox to quit dipping their toes in the pool and get on with the rebuild. Hahn has gone through his salesmanship and assembled interested parties, take the best offer and move on to dealing Frazier, Robertson and (if possible) Melky. That is what is best for the White Sox now. I hate to break it to you, but that is not how a market works. Jose Quintana is not a fungible good or a widget. He is not a barrel of oil or a bail of hay or a megawatt of electricity or a british thermal unit of natural gas. He is a unique and rare asset and sometimes such assets require time to find the right buyer. Such an asset necessarily is expensive and thus the number of buyers is lower than less expensive assets. There is no rush here. There is only impatience.

QUOTE (Baron @ Jan 17, 2017 -> 07:46 PM) I think if your discussing anybody in AAA or in the Majors that's going to fall on deaf ears with alot of these teams. Even though the prospect rankings will change. There will be A and AA players that take significant steps forward in the next 6 months.

QUOTE (Con te Giolito @ Jan 17, 2017 -> 07:16 PM) The only reason Hahn hasn't been burned by refusing to back off what are surely ridiculous demands is because there are no other options out there. Trust me, if Houston or Pittsburgh could find a good lefty elsewhere they would've done that by now. They know they need to shore up their rotations if they want to seriously compete this year and they need to go after Q unless they are willing to deal with an even more ridiculously stubborn Rays front office. It was fine that Hahn started with a really high ask for Quintana but now its time to back off a little and meet these teams halfway. I dont understand the enthusiasm for waiting. That above dynamic that has bailed Hahn out will be gone soon, I really dont know what else to say to those who refuse to believe that. How long have you guys followed baseball? Have you ever seen a pitching market as barren as this one? It wont last, and if you think it will you are letting stubborness cloud your judgment. Why? Explain to me why Hahn's perception of Quintana's value is wrong and Luhnow or Huntington's perception of Quintana's value is right? Why should we compromise? In regards to a barren pitching market, how many assets have you seen become available like Q before? Irregardless of how many other SP's might come on the market in the next 6-18 months, how many do you suppose will provide the surplus value that Quintana does, especially if teams aren't showing a willingness to liquidate their prospects for such assets? This notion that some influx of other reasonable arms coming on the market is somehow going to water down Quintana's market is pure horses***. You don't think those pitchers are truly available today, as potential tradeable assets rather than free agents? You don't think the Tigers would trade Verlander? It's not a question of a barren market, it's question of an asset being so valuable that teams are hesitant to liquidate assets for them. That shouldn't cause us to lower our price. What that requires is patience. Finding the "right" buyer isn't always a fast process, but that buyer does exist. Hahn will find them.

QUOTE (Baron @ Jan 17, 2017 -> 07:25 PM) I think the point that is missing from the rebuttal of people like me who dont support waiting is Hahn would be deliberately reducing who he could acquire at the deadline. Lets say the Pirates say screw you White Sox we're going with what we have. They bring up Meadows and Glasnow who are both contributing to a team fighting for a playoff spot. You think they are going to be traded now? Nope. Same goes for Houston. They bring up Martes and Tucker moves up a few levels as he's almost ready. You think they are going to get traded? No. White Sox have acquired guys so far that arent far away. Your reducing these teams assets that they need to go fight for a playoff spot. They are going to probably offer you prospects in the lower levels of the farm system. What are the chances another team fighting for that spot sacrifices major league ready talent in the middle of the season? If the answer to that question is unlikely then you have a problem. That's where I'm at...I just dont see a good outcome if he's still on the roster by Spring Training other than him contributing to the team. Don't you think there will be other guys that make a move between now and the deadline that we will want?

QUOTE (Brian @ Jan 17, 2017 -> 12:23 PM) I've looked into getting an elliptical machine for home. I may after I save up a bit. Brian, my unsolicited advice would be to either invest in a Beachbody type program rather than purchase an expensive piece of equipment. These things almost always turn into an additional piece of furniture to dust. I will say that the future for home exercise equipment is likely equipment which allows you to stream workouts to the equipment. As you probably are annoyed from me posting, I recently purchased a Peloton stationary bike and I can't speak highly enough about it. The combination of high quality machine, constant new programming (10 classes streamed daily and over 3,000 on demand classes), and an online community providing for almost unlimited support and accountability (a closed Facebook group of some 20,000 members) has for me, proven to be an amazing combination that fits the bill perfectly for a lot of my workout needs.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Jan 17, 2017 -> 12:01 PM) Not a ton of them in the chicagoland area for most of these folks. For me personally, it's a little out of my price range with the other stuff I do and Club is right by work, Life is not. I see. I despise going to the gym, so I've always invested in working out at home.

No Lifetime Fitness folks?

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 16, 2017 -> 03:26 PM) I always despised Favre with a passion, but I just love watching Rodgers play despite that ugly, ugly, ugly uniform he wears. Why do you think you despised Favre? Just because you were younger?

QUOTE (Middle Buffalo @ Jan 16, 2017 -> 12:42 PM) They showed the huddle before the last play, and Rodgers was talking to one of the receivers and using his arm to illustrate the route. I'm a Bears fan, but I have always had a hard time rooting against both Favre and Rodgers. I was hoping KC would win so I'd have a team to pull for (something about the Falcons I've never liked), but I guess I have to root for the Falcons from this point. I couldn't agree more. Always respected both immensely, despite wanting to beat them.

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Jan 16, 2017 -> 06:39 AM) @RobertKlemko Cobb said the final play was not an actual playcall. Rodgers just told each receiver what to do, like a kid drawing in the dirt. Seriously. Wut? He alluded to it in the interview on the field with Erin Andrews...he said something like "At times we were just going with schoolyard stuff out there" or something to that effect.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 16, 2017 -> 10:51 AM) IIRC most information security people suggest coming up with a longish but comprehensible and memorable phrase rather than a bunch of random characters. Something like "MyD0gRuns!Fast" is pretty secure from brute force attacks and you're not going to forget it like you would "09xhBtla=#" Our corporate folks just went to 15 digit passwords requiring at least the use of 3 of 4 different characters (numbers, special characters, lower case and upper case letters). At our corporate leadership conference it took them 45 minutes to brute force hack just 1 password from our entire corporate roster of passwords. All the other subsidiaries got multiple hacks almost immediately.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 16, 2017 -> 10:30 AM) Feels like people take these rumors personally. Why wouldn't the Astros monitor the Gray situation? If you could get him for .50 on the dollar wouldn't you call? As if they haven't been talking to them since November? The rumors are so redundant they really offer little else but perhaps a posturing motive.

Week 2 in the books: 8 rides, 7. 5 hours on the bike, 140.85 miles, 6,342 calories burned.

QUOTE (Con te Giolito @ Jan 15, 2017 -> 08:17 PM) Refs took two points off the board and the team you know the league would rather match up with NE moves on. NFL can be really shady sometimes. A clear hold.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jan 14, 2017 -> 04:04 PM) Yes, as a general rule -- except it turns out we have four serious suitors anyway. We are not suffering from a lack of demand. Ok, challenge it. But you'll need to provide evidence against the universal economic adage that "price sits where supply meets demand." I am not challenging the laws of supply and demand. I am, however, challenging your qualification of the return as "far less." The supply of SPs who provide the type of surplus value that Quintana does will simply never be significantly more than it is now. Instead of 1-2, maybe there will be 2-3? That will not have a significant impact on demand. I suppose the return could be SLIGHTLY less, however it won't be significantly less.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jan 14, 2017 -> 02:14 PM) Even if you operate under the assumption that the Cubs are cost-conscious enough to avoid a market in which abundant supply is likely to bring costs down, they'll still be able to give up far less for Quintana in a flooded market and they won't simply be upgrading their 5 slot. I'm losing faith in this argument. First of all, part of the reason that the market is thin is because a lot of SPs are under contract with other teams. That lessens demand. I just want to make that clear. Secondly, I challenge the notion that Quintana would bring back "far less" in a flooded market. Nonsense.

Who is this Brian Bilek clown?

33 miles today. Good s***.

Steve, that is quite mature of you! Congratulations on 52 days! I find that my alcoholism tends to be contained when I am at home. If I am out and about, particularly with the guys or down on the Strip, watch out. But at home, I generally can have a nice few ounces of bourbon and call it a night. Or often my wife and I will have a late lunch with friends over at Twin Peaks (my kid loves the place, and I don't find it so bad either) and I will have a few Knotty Brunettes. It seems as though the devils of my worse nature are brought out by my male co-conspirators and the thought of table games or sports gambling. For a dude living in Vegas within 5 miles of the Strip, I think I do fairly well.

Peloton worked pretty well.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 11, 2017 -> 08:19 PM) I was really confused by the way you started off, then I realized that you were the person soxpride was referring to as having talked to. Well anyway, thanks for sharing. Always fun to hear this stuff. Me too...I was like.. "Wow, that is the exact same s*** that other dude said!" #toomuchbourbon

Did my first day of back 2 back rides tonight. Did a 45 minute endurance ride, which turned out to be fairly easy, so then followed it up with a 30 minute ride. So far, I can't get enough of the bike. Highly recommended.

QUOTE (OklahomaBrave @ Jan 10, 2017 -> 07:29 PM) Richard Justice on his talk show today reported the Braves are the most agressive for both Quintana and Archer. Almost simultaneously Bowman reported Braves still pursuing an Ace. Just food for thought/fuel for the flame from a bored Braves fan. Appreciate your input! Keep it coming!