bigruss

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 23, 2011 -> 09:45 AM) Knowing the way things have gone this season....they'd finally bench Dunn, ruining him forever (according to Rongey) and then Thome would go all Manny Ramirez 2010 on the White Sox. .750 OPS? I'll take that out of my DH right now.

It's crazy to think that this is my last year of undergrad!

I love Hyundais, very dependable and the new styles look great, and the price can't be beat.

We threw our first party at our apartment last night, got ridiculous. Me and one of the roommates were hooking up with girls, and the two others were blacked out, so no one really remembers what happened but there were 3 pizza boxes in our kitchen in the morning. Not really sure at all who bought/ate them, not even sure if it was one of the roommates.

QUOTE (flavum @ Aug 19, 2011 -> 10:12 AM) Jim Hendry is out as GM. Officially? Did not think that would happen so soon.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Aug 19, 2011 -> 09:55 AM) Good catch. I apparently suck at reading comprehension Although I did find the top 5 in a separate article so who knows Well one could read it as if they just meant the list order, and not really mean the release. But if they did post the top 5 then that's real screwy.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Aug 19, 2011 -> 09:49 AM) So they clearly made a whole list but I can't find it anywhere on that site Took it as if they meant they would release a few at a time.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Aug 19, 2011 -> 09:05 AM) Dunn had two hits in Thursdays game. What I want to see is some RBI's RBI's depend on the situations that are presented to the batter. The job of the batter is not to record an out.

The episode where Ralph wins the science fair or something like that. "My cat's breath smells like catfood!"

QUOTE (buhbuhburrrrlz @ Aug 19, 2011 -> 04:58 AM) Division is still wide open. Detroit plays Cleveland now. They also have 2 more series with them after that. If we don't start playing better at home. GG tho. Also hearing if Dunn gets hot he could carry us the rest of the way is getting on my nerves. He hasn't been hot all season and it's almost OVA. Well then you clearly don't understand the word "if".

QUOTE (SoxFanForever @ Aug 18, 2011 -> 08:46 PM) I've definitely been looking to have a little more control of my own accounts and do it through a discount broker. I emailed the guy this evening trying to find out what penalties, if any, I would incur for closing out my accounts. Hopefully I'll have a better idea of the direction I want to move tomorrow. Thanks for your advice. Any suggestions as far as alternatives to full service brokers? For mutual funds/ETFs I suggest Vanguard. I know a few others on this site also use them. For my own actual trading, I use Optionshouse. It's a decent service (gives me everything I need, actually is better than Schwab imo) while only costing you about $4 a trade (which is like half the price of any other big name place).

Moving back to campus for my last year, first time in an apartment, I couldn't be more excited! Just wish I got all of tomorrow off from the internship and not just half a day.

QUOTE (SoxFanForever @ Aug 18, 2011 -> 07:14 PM) Well, I'm definitely not trying to be reactionary I made the bright idea of investing in the late spring/early summer of 2008 right before the market took a crap. I decided to not move any of my assets as the market bombed and things rebounded to basically back where they were when I began investing earlier this year. Obviously now those numbers are a bit down. My interest in pulling out is two-fold. One, I'd like to possibly buy a place in the near-term and would prefer to not lose any more of my funds with a market tank job. The second reason is that I really don't trust my investment adviser. I met with him a few months ago to get suggestions on what we can do with my funds for the future. He suggested moving into a number of other funds through Oppenheimer. I have kept an eye on them over the past two months. If I had listened to him I would have taken a much larger hit. This is after he gave very little advice during the downturn and basically went into duck and cover mode. I suggest moving them into another fund, such as Vanguard; they have low fees and really have been one of the best performers. That said, if you get a big tax hit it may not be worth moving them at all, and using other sources of funds for a large purchase may be incredibly smarter.

Quote of the summer for me, from my company's chief architect: "Is it a workflow problem or is it a user genetic problem?"

I personally would have greatly preferred Mizzou over Nebraska, I think there would have been some absolutely great rivals coming from that, not only with Illinois but also Iowa. They also have a good basketball program, it's no contest compared to Nebraska in that department. Plus the academics from what I know are better there. I just felt like it was a better fit. That said, I do wish the B10 held out for schools more like Texas, where it covers all 3: great sports, big money, top academics.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Aug 18, 2011 -> 01:56 PM) If you have a good team that may be one piece away from a playoff run, you can't add that player to the payroll cause it would affect your draft budget? Forget making the playoffs, we may able to draft that one guy who 3 years from now has a 50/50 chance of playing for the Sox. No thanks to that logic. These expenses should be in place before the team should even be in that scenario. Really, a team should be spending about 90% of their maximum payroll, giving a small number to upgrade at the deadline or sign a player here or there for injuries. And honestly, what signing bonus would the Sox have to pay that would kill our chances to go after a guy? You'd be talking top 5 or so draft picks at that point, and the Sox haven't been selecting there. QUOTE (oldsox @ Aug 18, 2011 -> 02:26 PM) But we spent $14,000,000 on Dunn in 2011. Market value, c'mon. It's very simple, it required that much to sign him away from other teams. He was one of the top FA out there and was, on paper, a great fit for the team while also being known as a good clubhouse guy. Unfortunately, he's been miserable. I won't ever fault KW for that move.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 18, 2011 -> 01:29 PM) The cost for trading for that type of player is enormous and they can still be risky. See: Ubaldo Jiminez. It's a situation by situation basis, personally I wouldn't have touched Ubaldo for the asking price the Rockies had, not with the year he has had.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 18, 2011 -> 12:07 PM) I agree with Shack in that if you can trade unproven prospects for proven big league players, that's a good business strategy. The issue has been that KW and company have completely whiffed on these proven guys for quite a while now (Javy, Swisher, Pena, etc). I have no problem trading for younger guys (25-28) that are mroe proven MLB players with some cost control to them. Those types of acquisitions can still sustain a consistent winner, a balanced budget, and is less risky.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Aug 18, 2011 -> 11:47 AM) Well, I agree that a weak farm system limits the moves available to the big league club. In an ideal world, you'd like to have a strong farm system, and a high payroll, and be able to do whatever you possibly can because of a tremendous level of resources, both personnel and finance-based. Ultimately, I feel like we have made additions when we needed to and have given this coaching staff more than enough talent to win this division at a much higher rate, and they just haven't been able to squeeze the results out of that talent. Well I think the Sox have opened way too many seasons with more than a few holes that should've had more young depth or pieces to trade to fill those holes. QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Aug 18, 2011 -> 11:49 AM) It's not a copout, it's a true statement. The team is obviously losing money this year, so that probably limits their draft budget as compared to other teams. If they choose to spend even less than their draft budget allows, then yes, that's a whole different issue. It's a copout because the team should have a dedicated amount to spend on the draft, their MLB payroll should not impact this part. In fact, it should be the other way, they make so and so amount of money each year and have so and so expenses (including the draft and development), then whatever is leftover is what they should be pulling the payroll from. QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Aug 18, 2011 -> 12:23 PM) I agree with this. How many of these draft picks are even gonna sniff the major leagues, let alone be productive? That's not the point, prospects are not only there to become productive major leaguers, but they are there as trade chips, they are a resource you can trade for young, talented, cost controlled MLB players. So in essence, you are drafting and spending on a young player so you can raise his value to buy something you really want. You raise a young calf to up it's value, sell it at a higher point and go buy other supplies that you need more with that money.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 18, 2011 -> 11:45 AM) Talent= GM's job (Is it too late to switch from the Ninja to the Assassin for Kenny? I like that better) Production=Manager's job Not always, getting the right players into place is up to the GM, and having talented but unproductive players on the team is sometimes an impossible situation for a manager. There are a ton of talented but unproductive players in the past few years that would bounce from team to team because the GM would always think they've got a home run out of nothing coming in, only to ship them out in a few months. Though I do agree that most of the production of the players will/should fall upon the manager, I just think that the GM has to identify players that will succeed in the environment that they place them into (like Grienke probably wouldn't be a smart acquisition for NYY).

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 18, 2011 -> 11:40 AM) Bingo. If there wasn't that idea annually, you could indict The Ninja Williams. Instead the players fail, you need to start talking about Hollywood Guillen. Talent doesnt always mean production though. Would you say that the Sox have had the most productive teams in the past 5 years or so? I would easily say no.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Aug 18, 2011 -> 11:37 AM) Most of them outside of 2007 and possibly last season, due to Ozzie's hairbrained decision. We also have one of the highest payrolls if not the highest payroll in the division every year, so yea we should be more talented on the major league level. But when you are missing that piece because of mistakes (every team makes mistakes), injuries, etc, and you don't have the resources to make a change, then you shouldn't expect that team to really be able to close out the season as well.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Aug 18, 2011 -> 11:34 AM) Well, up until this year, I'd argue our payroll was pretty manageable. And I have never viewed our failures to win this division as a lack of talent, which is what this complaint is all about. I view it as a lack of execution. That falls more on the coaching of the players we do have than on the GM and FO for acquiring the players they have. See I view it as a lack of talent too, we always seem to be a player or two short of really being a complete team, and the draft/deep farm system would help with that (D Wise, Kotsay, etc) without putting the team at risk of losing millions of dollars from big contracts. To me, it's all intangled, there is an impact in the players you have at the major league level from your prospects, whether it be what FA's you go after, extensions, or your ability to trade for/away players. So not being able to trade away expensive players or prospects for relief/help because your farm system is lacking is part of the lack execution.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Aug 18, 2011 -> 11:27 AM) I'm not going to argue that this is acceptable, but I still contend that we do add enough impact players on the cheap through other avenues. We just do things a bit unorthodox. I agree that we find quality players in ways that other teams don't, but it hasn't led us to consistent winners and a manageable payroll with those winners.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 18, 2011 -> 11:24 AM) When you should get mad is if he's obviously blocking one of their up and coming young guys in the next year (a-la our OF with Viciedo). If that's not happening, then a few million won't hurt. They had a $4 million option on him for 2012 which was almost certain to be picked up after the year he's had anyway. We'll agree to disagree then, because I think it's a wasted resource unless they truly think he is in their future plans (which would be pretty scary).