caulfield12

QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Dec 16, 2017 -> 10:09 PM) I actually think Kylo is an excellent character, but they've hardly spent any time fleshing him out. I don't really know his motivations, but the emo thing is actually intriguing to me. It seems human and relatable. The problem is that he hasn't had enough screen time and he's been pretty one dimensional. He's like a little kid with the temper tantrums. I see where they're going with him, but it's been executed poorly. Okay, most potentially interesting but not fleshed out yet. I think everyone would be hard-pressed to name 1-2, let alone 3-4, characters that they are invested in and really care about. At this point, some of the Rogue 1 cast still resonate more. Even R2-D2 and 3-CPO are just window dressing now. Put it this way, whose action figure would you actually want to collect after this one? One would guess kids would say Rey, Finn and Poe, but why? Maybe we just can’t see it due to the impossible task of those characters measuring up to the original cast in terms of memorability. Is it simply irreplaceable memories from youth? I guess this is one area it’s impossible for someone who saw the 3 original films in the theatres with their family to be completely objective about.

Well, yeah, you obviously have to know your risk tolerance. Jerusalem/Palestine, Iran, Saudia Arabia, the Korean Peninsula, terrorism and European refugees...there’s a million potential powderkegs outside of Trump’s direct influence alone. Well, that first one was partly self-inflicted.

QUOTE (Lip Man 1 @ Dec 17, 2017 -> 01:00 AM) Interesting story on how MLB is making money hand over fist...but not spending as much on players...and it is the MLBPA that is partially to blame for it: www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/the-mlbpa-has-a-big-problem-to-address-as-dodgers-yankees-marlins-dump-salary/ This just mirrors the trend in the US economy since the 1980’s. Corporations making record profits, with unions/labor organizations weakening and the spread between executive/ownership compensation diverging increasing from workers. Of course, the major difference is the labor supply of workers can’t as easily be outsourced or replaced with all Foreign players. Of course, if we have robot players imbued with realistic AI qualities in the future, we’ll have to revisit. In all seriousness, you've got more rebuilding teams trying to dump salaries or situations like the Marlins...because there’s closer than ever before to 6-8 superteams that have appreciably higher odds of winning. Cubs, Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, Astros, Angels, Indians (for two more years), Nats Everyone else in that “middle tier” like the Cards, Giants, M’s, Blue Jays, Mets...even with more financial resources, is it really worth it for them to be all in? That leaves the White Sox, Royals, Tigers, Rays, Orioles, Braves, Reds, A’s, Marlins, Padres all cutting...that’s 1/3rd of MLB. Brewers, DBacks, Phillies, Rangers, Twins, Rockies and Pirates will spend...? Hard decisions for some of those franchises in the same divisions with superteams.

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Dec 16, 2017 -> 10:03 PM) Dodgers willing to trade prospect(s) to unload 2 years of Kemp. Depending on who they would offer, I'd want the Sox to look into this. Do you really want Kemp on a team learning how to win together for the first time?

The tone and humor were completely off. It’s like going from “dark/brooding” Bond/Bourne/Batman the last 10-15 years back to 60’s Sean Connery Bond. Too jarring. It started with the idiotic face off between Poe and Hux and went downhill from there. It wasn’t terrible, you had fan service in the appearances of Yoda and Luke’s melding with the force. The scenes with Like and Rey were fine, albeit predictable. It just wasn’t in the same class as the other four...with the last one really being a remake. Rogue One was good, so 2/3 isn’t bad. I guess compared to Lucas’ 0/3 in the middle. Somehow, they have to find a creative way to reboot the story and get audiences to care again. It needs a new director. There’s only so many ways to do good and evil before running out of steam. The story is lacking a character as complex/compelling as Vader, and Rey is a solid/earnest character but can’t hold up the whole series on her own unless there’s something we are still missing about her family background. Chewie without Han just reminds us of the loss of another charismatic character, and Finn/Poe can’t cover for that. How did this movie get a 93% RT rating across so many critics, that’s what is really hard to fathom. The other problem is the Disney side killed us with so many cute moments and Happy Meal toys. Maybe that works with the under 12 audience, idk. The bombers looked like they were leftovers from a bad episode of Stargate or Battlestar Gallactaca.

It depends when you actually need the money. The simple plan is to allocate by age, if you’re 25, should be 75% stocks/25% bonds and vice versa at 75, moving to protect your returns. Timing or predicting the market is impossible. Some very smart people here thought Trump winning would instantly signal disaster, and exiting led them to lose huge returns that might take another decade to equal. There’s all kinds of different ways to go...REITs, hedge funds, international/emerging markets, small and mid cap stocks...generally, it’s best to have your eggs in as many baskets as possible. That diversification limits the upside but protects you as well on the downside. In general, with interest rates rising again and close to full employment and historically high PE’s, most economists would predict 3-5% rates of return the next decade, assuming at least one major recessionary period will hit again and cutbacks in SS, Medicare and Medicaid will eventually depress aggregate demand in the economy. So that leaves it up to Silicon Valley (AI, AR, VR) and alternative energy strategies....and our export economy to sustain the US. How confident should we be in beating China AND that the world economy will continue to grow at a 10% rate the next decade, especially SE Asia and India? I have been adding Chinese stocks like baba, tcehy, tsm, zto, jd, ping an...to protect from a US collapse.

QUOTE (Brian @ Dec 16, 2017 -> 12:34 PM) I'm on the underwhelmed side. It's good but I think mostly forgettable. Also felt like it kept going and going. Why was Rose in this movie? Leia using the force to survive space was a tad dumb as well. Hope Benicio comes back back in Ep IX somehow. The answer to Rose is obvious. Changing Demographics. Sometime between now and 2021, China will be the biggest worldwide box office. Chinese weren’t invested in the first three SW films because theatres weren’t so common in the post-Mao era. They jammed two Chinese action stars in Jiang Wen and Donnie Yuen into Rogue 1. Didn’t muster much of a response. Now they’re playing to a younger, female audience (supposedly). Reading comments online, there are quite a few out there who resent “minority” characters like Finn and Rose being injected into “their” Star Wars universe and consider it political correctness run amok. Interestingly, research seems to indicate John Boyega playing such a large role seems to have turned off Chinese filmgoers...you would be shocked how he was underplayed in all the promotional materials for AFA. And audiences are now smartening up to the fact of when they’re obviously being pandered to. It did work for one of the Transformers films...because the setting was 1/4th China and all the product placements in the version shown over here. But putting famous Chinese actresses like Li Bing Bing into comic movies for cameo doesn’t work anymore, or Angelababy into ID4.

Yankees and Dodgers both under the luxury tax threshold makes Sox pursuit of a headline superstar acquisition all the more difficult. Of course, 75+% of the time, that works out to be a good thing...it’s how Alex Gordon almost falls into your lap. On the flip side, it’s also what allows you to sneak in there and sign an Abreu when there’s no positional needs in certain areas for those big spending teams. Personally, I’d rather have the equivalent of 3-4 Christian Yelich’s acquired at different spots on the roster and mitigate the risk of the “lot of eggs in one basket” approach. Somehow, Sox versions of Harper or Machado would end up missing 2/3rd’s of their playing time with injuries.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/15/opinions/tru...nion/index.html Trump’s judge pick had a very bad day (at the hands of a Republican)

QUOTE (SonofaRoache @ Dec 15, 2017 -> 06:51 PM) Yeah because they are gonna be so happy that we faked helped them so we could get them to consider us. Let's also pay the rent for poor families in Chicago to get elite talent to want to play on the Bulls. It’s called enlightened self-interest and corporate social responsibility. Every Fortune 500 company does the exact same thing. There’s a clearer connection between athletes and their home countries (see Cuba and White Sox) is 10x stronger than the generic idea of helping the inner cities and having that pay off.

I still think this is idiotic. There are better ways to think outside the box. If the White Sox wanted to be more strategic, they would reinvest some of JR’s money into rebuilding Puerto Rico, working with an unimpeachable non profit like Habitat for Humanity. Send some of the players and coaches down on a goodwill tour, especially anyone with family ties to PR. Or even a low interest loans/micro finance approach. https://www.lavidabaseball.com/puerto-rico-...nte-needs-help/ They could help to finance the restoration and completion of Roberto Clemente Sports City, for example. Hire Javy Vasquez, Roberto Alomar, Jose Valentin, Roberto Hernandez and one of the Molina’s (can also work with the catchers as a coach for part of the year) as Sox Ambassadors. Dennis Martinez probably has too many ties to Orioles, but he would be the best. They could even buy these two houses in San Juan that are currently worth way less than $840,000 combined (after the earthquake) in order to alleviate financial stress on the Clemente family. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/36-Calle...id/?view=public 36-B, adjoining property, also for sale. Make them the HQ of a new Sox Baseball Academy in PR. Invest less than $15 million, which has to be lower than the opportunity cost of surrendering Cease and Fulmer, you have X percentage higher probability of signing any Puerto Rican player and you also have an “in” with potential PR draft picks. In fact, Nolan Arenado’s mother is Puerto Rican...father is Cuban. Do all the things as outlined, we have a much better shot at Arenado than we do being the highest bidder for Machado.

What tangible links are there to Machado and his agent within the Sox organization? Just Renteria and some of their support staff as the pied piper to all Latin American talent?

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Dec 15, 2017 -> 11:59 AM) First of all he's not an executive, he's an on-air talent, just like her, only more senior. Second, age shouldn't matter here. They're consenting adults. Third, the problem is that at no point is she saying stop. She's not even giving a hint that she doesn't like it. She's repeatedly asking him out to dinner or to go to a concert together. Not only is she not resisting, she's actively INVITING his communications. also, the "risk" you speak of is being falsely accused of harassment. If we're going this far with it, then I have to teach my sons to basically never talk to women unless it's recorded and/or you get a consent form signed, because at anytime a woman can claim that despite her actions, she really didn't want X (sex, a photo, talking in a flirty way, etc) This second part might be the direction things are going...just like another version of pre-nuptial agreements. Of course, NDA’s are on the way out, so not sure what someone with significant assets should do if women in cases like this can win financial awards via civil litigation. http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/15/entertainmen...ions/index.html Dustin Hoffman is taking more hits

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Dec 15, 2017 -> 04:24 PM) People from KC apparently http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=104407 Edit: I'm sorry, I meant the "baseball world." This is like Harrelson raving about the future Royals teams in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013...he was on their bandwagon four years early.

Is he sure those tweets were actually real and not Russian bots in Moldova? Were they bused in by George Soros operatives in the dead of night from Mississippi...on buses equipped with WiFi so that they could try to influence the Net Neutrality debate simultaneously, killing two birds with one stone? Two Separate Studies Show That The Vast Majority Of People Who Said They Support Ajit Pai's Plan... Were Fake from the fake-news dept The fact that the FCC comments for Ajit Pai's net neutrality repeal were stuffed with fake comments is nothing new at all. We first reported on it back in May, and reports of comments from totally fake people or long dead people continue to pop up. Even worse are multiple stories of people having their own identities used to file comments, often opposed to their own views. The FCC has consistently responded that it doesn't care. New York's Attorney General has been investigating this as fraud, and asked the FCC to delay its net neutrality repeal until after the investigation was complete -- a request the FCC completely ignored. And, as we just noted a little while ago, Schneiderman recently announced that he's found over 2 million fake comments. But it's easy to say "well, all these fake comments mean all the comments can be ignored." But it's important to look at the source of these fake comments and on which side they ended up. And just this week two new studies have come out, both taking a really deep dive into the fake comments. The Wall Street Journal did an investigation and reached out to 2,757 people who had supposedly commented. 72% of them said they had not posted the comments. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171214/...were-fake.shtml

If we can get to 100 pages about Jesse Chavez, SoxTalk should get some type of reward.

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Dec 15, 2017 -> 11:41 AM) This is actually a pretty perfect example of the "witch hunt" fear that people have on this issue. http://thebiglead.com/2017/12/15/espn-text...ohn-buccigross/ ESPN produced the entire text message exchanged between the two, and while the photos were sent, and he used terms like #dollface and #longlegs, it's absolutely clear she was flirting with him non-stop and in no way provided even a hint that she was uncomfortable with how they communicated. At the end of the day she's pissed that she didn't get her contract renewed so she's filing her claim. This is the dilemma men are in. You have a woman of consenting age actively flirting with you, showing no sign that she finds what you say improper/unprofessional/unwanted, and then 2 years later she can complain about it and in the current climate you're automatically deemed guilty of harassment. He was also nearly twice her age. This smacks of using your power/influence to get what you want...perception is just as important as reality in this environment. If they were both at the same level in the organization, it would be easier to agree. Then you have another overlapping cultural issue...the white exec flirting with a young African-American woman in a completely make-dominated industry. Once you reach a certain status/stature, you need to be increasingly cognizant of the risks you take when you flirt with a woman, especially when you have three younger children. Why does an older guy need to send a shirtless picture, anyway? It seems to happen all the time with politicians and pseudo-celebs.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Dec 15, 2017 -> 11:33 AM) Too early to be drinking, even in China. You apparently have forgotten the bullpen nightmares of 2006 and 2007. Just wait until we have to watch Nate Jones for a half season, if he doesn’t fall apart again. Count me skeptical about how easy it will be to put together a competent bullpen without spending a lot of money to do it. It’s easy to say Fulmer/López/Cease/Burdi/Stephens...someone has to make it and eventually stick. It’s just a lot easier said than done. Look at all the Cubs problems despite their abundant resources. If they didn’t get the Royals to bite on Soler, they would have been totally screwed this year.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 15, 2017 -> 11:26 AM) I'll still offer them a trade of all the money back after ARod's opt out in exchange for them giving up the 2009 world series title. Do you think they take it? Nope, unless Rick Pitino was their manager that year. Looking at the Cubs being stuck with Heyward is scary...though. Unless you’re the Tigers and can magically dump Fielder, Kinsler, Verlander and Upton. Not so easy with Miggy and Victor Martinez, though. On the other hand, the Sox have made so many bad FA deals, one of them has to go right eventually. We’re also quite lucky not to be stuck with Alex Gordon’s deal. Back and forth with arguments and counter arguments. It’s so easy to be gun shy/risk averse, but that went out the window when you traded Eaton/Sale/Q and signed Robert.

Wouldn’t holding onto Kahnle have given them just as good a shot at signing Machado after 2018 (at least they’d have a legit closer) than trying to convince him now? Next offseason, Hahn’s going to have to get all of those weak spots covered (similar to the strategy of signing Cabrera, LaRoche and Robertson) right on top of each other...before he can get a commitment from a legit Top 5-10 FA. Or Kopech, Jimenez, Moncada, etc., are all going to have to play like monsters and the real Rodon is going to need to show up finally.

That’s the normal White Sox move. Bring in Donaldson or Turner a year or two late...stay out of the Arenado and Machado sweepstakes. Of course, Dunn and Robertson were big dollars at their respective positions, but not anywhere close to $300 million plus contracts. We shall see.

NY is a much bigger media market, and the Cubs completely own Chicago right now. This is more of a move you see when the results on the field push the window of competition up by one year...but a Heyward or Machado type doesn’t start the bandwagon, they join one that has already demonstrated a certain amount of success to push them over the top. (The same principle the M’s we’re trying to follow with Cano/Cruz, but they seemingly jumped the gun. In retrospect, their younger core players weren’t ready, and weren’t deep enough...especially with Felix fading.) IMO, it would make more sense if we knew we could rely on Rodon at all.

Trump judicial nominee struggles to answer basic legal questions at hearing http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/15/politics/jud...flub/index.html From the DeVos files...

Hahn loves to win the offseason, lol...maybe it’s just all PR spin, knowing there’s nothing to lose by throwing our hat in the ring. We don’t have any obvious in’s with Machado like we did with F.Garcia (Ozzie) or even Luis Robert, unless we’re going with this every Latino player would love to suit up for Renteria storyline.

We're going to have to do our "due diligence" on Machado vs. Nolan Arenado. And hopefully we pick the right one and don't have another FA bust with such a huge franchise-altering acquisition. There seems to be more risk with any player leaving Colorado, but I haven't looked closely at Arenado's splits (plus the whole NL to AL issue, maybe KW can try with CarGo first, haha). You put any line-up with those two, Luis Robert, Moncada, Abreu and Jimenez, that's as solid as it gets 1-5. Catcher is a hard area to improve. So that means one of the corner OF spots (2nd easiest to fill), Tim Anderson and DH (easiest spot to fill) are the biggest areas for potential improvement. Of course, the Sox playbook has always been to get three or four 2.0-2.5 WAR guys and hope they all succeed instead of investing all that money into one megastud player.