caulfield12

If Q was a former first round draft pick from an SEC school instead of coming from Colombia as a FA...and hadn't already been let go by two teams, and didn't have that singular non-steroids PED's, this would be a SLIGHTLY easier trade to make. Cashman has to have a part of him that's unwilling to be burned twice with Q. Once was bad enough. And let's be honest, there are still at least half the GM's in baseball who PERCEIVE Gray and Archer to have the potential to bounce back as aces...they've both been TOR guys in the past...and Q is just never going to be the "sexy" guy who lights up radar guns or has that Sale/Randy Johnson funky wind-up, Johan Santana Change, Liriano slider or Glavine/Buehrle control. He's a combination of all of those guys, with Lester being the best parallel. The other problem is that he hasn't ever had the opportunity to perform in post-season or in front of a rotation (now with Sale gone)...so there are still a few question marks about him in the industry. Undoubtedly, he's a better fit for a team like the Astros that is constructing an above-average offense, as he's the kind of guy who typically gives up a couple of runs, maybe three, but isn't a consistent threat from start to start to go on a run of consecutive shutouts (seemed like 2012 was the year he really did this over a long run of starts). But he definitely keeps an offense within striking distance almost every time out there. And all that said, trading the same or even more talent for Gray/Archer is fraught with risk for those GM's with itchy trigger fingers.

QUOTE (flavum @ Jan 18, 2017 -> 07:04 PM) Andruw doesn't pass the smell test. I know the numbers look great for 10 years and the defense, but, ya know... Vizquel looks like a glove-first Hall of Fame SS. I wouldn't complain if he got in, but the stat nerds are going to be anti-Omar. Easily the best SS since Ozzie Smith, and none have been better since. Not first ballot, but he's the Bill Mazeroski of his generation, plus he played on a number of really good teams during his career, and impacted numerous post-seasons.

QUOTE (flavum @ Jan 18, 2017 -> 05:37 PM) 2018 ballot- Chipper Jones, Jim Thome are locks. Also on- Rolen, Andruw Jones, Johan Santana, Johnny Damon, Omar Vizquel Vizquel is going to be the new Jack Morris. My 2018 ballot- Guerrero, Clemens, Bonds, Mussina, Schilling, Manny, McGriff, Chipper, Thome Only 9, but Hoffman is getting in next year along with Vlad, Chipper, and probably Thome. Vizquel will get in...maybe not next year, but the 2nd/3rd year of eligibility. The interesting question now is whether Edgar Martinez or Mussina can make it. Schilling's done, whether you want to blame it on his political views or his relationship with the media, there will be no Jim Rice redemption for him in the end. Guerrero's that guy that probably everyone has a moment etched in their brains...for me, it was the 1994 South Atlantic League All-Star game. He had a throw from the warning track in RF to 3B on one bounce...the runner coming into 3rd was strolling in like he had the easiest stand-up triple in the history of the game. He suddenly looked up at the last second, the ball was waiting in the third baseman's glove and he (and the crowd) was absolutely stupefied. We couldn't believe what just happened. It was like a Bo Jackson feat. The other thing that stands out about Guerrero is his ability to hit the ball anywhere inside and outside the strike zone....taking the wildest swings you've ever seen, then the next pitch the ball would be a foot outside or at his shoe tops and he'd be standing on 2nd or 3rd base moments later. He just had such a flair for the game before the knee injuries took their tool on his athleticism later in his career.

It's very simple. Nobody is going to change their point of view, any more than if you were talking about abortion or the death penalty. The GOP should come right out and say they don't believe it's a fundamental right for all Americans to have health care. Germane to this discussion, assert/claim/argue that it's NO LONGER just or fair to continue Affirmative Action policies...whenever that seemingly arbitrary deadline passed to continue them (realistically, it stopped in the 1980's with the Reagan/Bush years for many African-Americans). Fwiw, I teach in an international school here in China (we just had 9 admitted to Oxford/Cambridge) and we constantly have this discussion about having to be 25% better than African-American, Hispanic and Native American students to receive Ivy League or Top 30-50 US university admission letter. In fact, the State of California system is currently attempting to limit the number of Chinese students admitted (even though their parents subsidize state residents' lower tuition with the highest international tuition expenses) to provide more opportunities (another form of protectionism) for local California residents, even if their test scores don't necessarily merit it. (Another example, the city of Vancouver is now forbidding Chinese from buying property there because it's raising real estate prices too much for locals/Canadians...essentially, they're being discriminated against for being too "successful" economically and trying to get too much money out of the mainland at the same time). At any rate, the students don't get caught up in whether it's right/fair/just, they just work harder and study longer. The competition here in China is already 10X what they'll ever face in the US. In fact, many students here choose international studies just because it's an escape from the GAO KAO, a standardized exam like the SAT except the Grade 12 kids study an ENTIRE year and your entire fate in life (getting into a university or not, what majors you can choose) is based on a single multiple choice exam. Now that's REAL pressure. When I ask them if they feel it's unfair that students from western China (Tibet/Gansu/Xinjiang), where there are many ethnic and religious minority groups, receive full or partial scholarships, they don't even blink or argue against it (it's just a fact of life)...especially if those kids from disadvantaged backgrounds come close to the marks and GAO KAO scores of those growing up in the city with the advantages of specialized training centers, tutors, the best technology/resources/teachers and IB/AP curriculum. They realize they already have a huge advantage, a 5-10 meter head start in a 100M race.

QUOTE (Con te Giolito @ Jan 18, 2017 -> 01:43 PM) I had a conversation via text with a friend of mine who works in baseball and he said what Kopech is doing is almost definitely an abridged offseason program that isn't meant to add much (if any) velocity. These sessions come nowhere near the strain of even a minor league start on a tight pitch count. The guy who owns this facility is running a business and definitely wants HS players to see Kopech hurling 110 mph lasers at his gym and will play up these feats on social media to try and generate buzz. It seems to have worked. Some guys have the Mark Buehrle beer n huntin' offseason regimen, others are workout maniacs. Its different for each guy and as long as Kopech isn't directly disobeying the White Sox doing this stuff its fine. The same one from Jeff Passan's THE ARM (I think it's in the Pacific NW)...Trevor Bauer and the Asian-American analytics kid are involved with?

QUOTE (illinilaw08 @ Jan 18, 2017 -> 05:16 PM) Which part is subjective? It's objective that African-Americans are still discriminated in hiring. It's objectively true that discriminatory policies against African Americans over the last 50 years make it more difficult for African Americans, as a demographic, to obtain the same educational opportunities as their white counterparts. It is objectively true that the dictionary definition of discrimination defines discrimination as "unjust." Not to mention housing discrimination pushing minorities and immigrants/refugees into the most undesirable public housing and, almost invariably, demonstrably inferior public school districts. Mr. Trump's father was acutely aware of this invisible line in the sand...and, of course his son just gave us Dr. Ben Carson, who will surely pull everyone up by the bootstraps.

So now only catchers with PEDs backstories get in because there are just so few deserving candidates at that position...in the future, if Molina doesn't make it, possibly only Posey if he can sustain his production levels another five years? Can't see Mauer now, either. Maybe?

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Jan 18, 2017 -> 05:05 PM) Ends justify the means. Still discrimination. if the government gave every freed person 40 acres and a mule 151 years ago like they had promised (the equivalent of let's say $120-140,000 usd), there would be a stronger basis for your reverse discrimination argument. Instead they got Jim Crow, lynchings and the KKK in the South.

Where are the examples on the macro level that a disproportionate number of powerful white men are not running the US? Well, we could look at the numbers of non white male presidents, and that would be one area. If it weren't for Obama's white maternal grandparents sacrificing financially to send him to Punahou School in Hawaii, nobody would have even heard his name. Now if you want to argue that Occidental, Columbia and HLS gave special treatment to his applications, you're welcome to make that case, but those (if you want to argue he was given preference over more deserving candidates) Affirmative Action policies also just gave us one of the few presidents in modern American history to leave office with a 60% approval rating. Maybe watching Hidden Figures or Fences would help to put words into pictures, or prose into poetry...but that would only lead to the "that was all supposedly solved fifty year ago by JFK, LBJ and MLK" argument.

Where are all the people of Arab or Middle Eastern descent who have flown up into the top ranks of Fortune or Forbes companies in the last 15 years? Where are all the women and Asians being allowed to lead VC firms and investment banks? Indian-Americans? What about their representation in Congress, where the real power is? The fact of the matter is that it's still the top 3-5% of wage earners in the US controlling the power, and that group is disproportionately Caucasian. They may allow Chinese and Indians a stable/upper middle income existence, but the historical record shows that Silicon Valley traditionally has hired more qualified IT workers from those two areas of the world and paid them 40-60% of their white counterparts. At any rate, it's interesting that the one thing holding a lot of Middle Eastern-Arab countries back economically is that women aren't allowed an opportunity to receive an education or become independent financially. Doesn't it make sense for the US as well as the rest of the world to prioritize making that happen? And that still doesn't come close to rebalancing the fact that 80-85% of those living on less than $2 per day are from sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. But let's turn back to the US. If I want to work in the front office of any professional or even minor league sports team, my chances are 10x better as a white than a minority (or a sportswriter for that matter)...so I'll throw that NBA analogy back, just like my chances of making partner with a big name law or accounting firm, VC firm, high tech start up, K Street lobbying group or think tank, etc., are exponentially higher. On a lesser level, compare the number of minorities with scholarships for softball, tennis, water polo, field hockey, swimming and diving, lacrosse, etc. I bet you'll find it's disproportionately white again.

Those crazy Wyoming grizzlies have everyone on the lookout. Can they now see Alaska or Russia from there? Speaking of Palin, how is she NOT a nominee for something? If Carson and DeVos can do it...

QUOTE (CyAcosta41 @ Jan 17, 2017 -> 11:39 PM) You go, Shack! I've been tempted to say almost exactly this over and over again the past few weeks, but never got around to it. Perhaps a different analogy may persuade some of the naysayers. Let's talk real estate. So many starters are little more than interchangeable houses in a cookie-cutter subdivision -- there are always plenty available in any given market, many buyers looking at most of them, and comps that any realtor can produce that ultimately demonstrate a narrow range of offer and acceptance pricing. Jose Quintana ain't no subdivision. He's custom-built, all the upgrades, built-to-last, and sitting on a premium lot with a one-of-a-kind view. There is little in the way of true comps and a deal is ultimately struck when the buyer who must have that particular house ultimately ponies up enough so that the current owner is willing to let it go. Back to baseball -- depending on the metrics you choose to emphasize, Q is a top 10-20 starter in ALL OF BASEBALL, he's likely a surer bet for 200 IP with outstanding traditional and advanced metric numbers as anyone, he's seemingly a pitching machine with as little risk of injury as anyone, and he's locked up for another 4 years under a contract that provides the kind of surplus value that happens a couple of times a decade! Perhaps Rick won't get the Sale or Eaton deal, but he's looking to get darned close to that. And he should. No way do we sell the Q with a view dream home without getting back a couple of top prospects who we are going to feel real good about (I'm talking Meadows/Keller ... or Frazier/Mateo/Rutherford). If posters don't accept that Jose Quintana is EASILY the best starter available this offseason, then we're not talking the same language. For once, we're holding the cards. You play it hard; you play it strong; you extract maximum value. Rick Hahn has had a masterful offseason to date -- a strong Sale deal, followed by a near brilliant Eaton deal. I see it as a good sign that our own posters are getting antsy. There's a good chance the same is happening with many of our potential trading partners, whether the known suspects like the Astros, Pirates, Yanks, Braves, and Rangers, or with some other potential partners who are feigning disinterest, but are ready to swoop in at the last minute to avoid bidding against themselves (I'm thinking Rockies, Dodgers, and maybe even Red Sox / Nats here). It's only the middle of January. Why in the world should be worrying NOW that Hahn is "overplaying" his hand and needs to ratchet down his demands? Why in the world would he do that now? Instead, it's exactly the time where a frustrated potential partner may have his Tom Cruise in Risky Business moment -- sometimes, you just gotta say "what the f*ck," and maybe we have a third great deal in this offseason. If we're May/June and Q is still here and we start hearing about teams starting to auction off TOR-type pitchers to the 2017 crop of contenders, then hit me with all of the Hahn overplayed his hand arguments. But we're a long way from then. In fact, for the next couple of weeks we're arguably exactly at the time when our suddenly astute (or perhaps, suddenly "freed") GM can generate max value. Can I quote you? There is no rush here. There is only impatience. You are spot-on! Spot on. It's even riskier for teams to provide the same package (or even more than they're currently willing to offer for Q) for either Gray or Archer. Those are the types (I know better than every GM!!) of moves that either work out spectacularly and get epic books like Moneyball II written about you or end up (the more likely scenario) similar to the LaRussa/Dave Stewart saga in Arizona. One of the reasons Luhnow MIGHT be hesitating is he already feels burned by the Ken Giles deal...and is fearful of committing the same mistake, hoping he can "slog" through the first half with that rotation sprinkled in with 2-3 youngsters and stay close enough in the playoff race to reassess at the trade deadline.

Here's something else for Greg to consider: The President-elect, however, considers NATO "obsolete" largely because he believes it is not doing enough to deal with terrorism, despite the fact that the only time that NATO's Article 5 mutual defense provision has ever been invoked was after a terrorist attack — on September 11, 2001. Since then, thousands of NATO troops have served in Afghanistan, fighting to stop the war-ravaged country from again becoming a haven for extremist groups like al Qaeda. "We were attacked on 9/11, and not any of these countries and they sent their young men and women to serve in Afghanistan, and over 1,000 were killed in Afghanistan," Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain said on CNN's "New Day" on Tuesday. "Not because they were attacked but because we were attacked." Former Sen. and Middle East peace negotiator George Mitchell, meanwhile, argued that Trump risked subverting one of America's great achievements: the building of a new transatlantic order from the rubble of two world wars in which 68 million people died. "I believe historians will judge that to be one of America's finest hours," said Mitchell on CNN Tuesday. http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/17/politics/don...licy/index.html Trump's New World DISorder

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 17, 2017 -> 10:37 PM) 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 somehow 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. Not to mention the Q comparisons to Lester/Buehrle/Glavine...all pitchers that had LONG and HOF-ish careers. Sale might last longer than Q without a major surgery, sure, anything's possible, but anyone who throws 94-98 and has so much torque on his sliders would seemingly have a higher likelihood of going down to injury. And with 4 years of control, even a Q injury gives him 2 1/2 years to rebound, versus the 1 1/2 years in Sale's deal (assuming a 1 1/2 year time frame before the pitcher would be back to 100%).

Putin says the Obama administration is "worse than prostitutes" and maintains Russia did not collect compromising information on Trump when he visited Moscow for the Miss Universe Pageant. Of course they didn't!!!! https://www.yahoo.com/news/video/putin-accu...-021151552.html Oh, and I forgot Obama's admin being termed "geopolitical bullies," and yet we're still defending Vladimir Putin while our other primary foe is quoting Abraham Lincoln and Charles Dickens at DAVOS? Things that make you go hmmmmm. 2012 “Although President Vladimir Putin recently thanked Romney for his openness regarding the ‘No.1 foe’ comment, he also indicated that it would be hard for the Kremlin to work with Romney as president, especially on sensitive security issues such as the missile defense system. During Putin’s interview with RT state television, he also called Obama an ‘honest man who really wants to change much for the better.’ This comment was widely viewed as Putin’s most direct endorsement of Obama in the presidential race.” http://russia-insider.com/en/time-vladimir...k-obama/ri11964

QUOTE (miracleon35th @ Jan 17, 2017 -> 10:21 PM) Yes, you are right on the money. I get the thirst for trade rumors or trade news but this is a rebuild that is supposed to take 2-3 years, not 2-3 months. The Q trade is absolutely critical to this rebuild. I don't care if it takes until next off-season and I would take the risk of Q having a bad season given his proven durability. I don't see Detroit unloading Verlander for a basketful of prospects. Remember, Theo got Addison Russell for Shark, a premier elite position player for a middle of rotation pitcher. Hahn has to win this trade and that requires patience. Except holding onto him for 2017 probably pushes our 1st round draft pick in 2018 to #6-8 from #3-5. Not a deal breaker, but the closer you get to the Top 5 and especially Top 3, the better off you TRADITIONALLY are (waits as everyone throws out the names Aiken/Kolek/Appel, etc.) from a future WAR standpoint. Plus, the odds are pretty darned high we're going after a collegiate hitter again...so the odds of a complete miss there are noticeably lower.

No surprise here... In a Washington Post story on Tuesday, freelance stylist Tricia Kelly of Randolph Cree Salon in Washington, D.C., claimed Marla Maples, ex-wife of President-elect Donald Trump, tried to avoid paying for hairstyling services for her daughter, Tiffany Trump, and herself on Inauguration Day. After expressing interest in styling their locks for the big day, Kelly said she was connected to Maples’s assistant through a client. She outlined her rate — $150 for traveling expenses in addition to the cost for her styling services — to Maples’s assistant, which led to bargaining over the price between the parties. “I was told they had a $300 budget for both of them for hair and makeup,” Kelly told the Washington Post. The two parties eventually agreed on a flat fee of $200 for Kelly’s services and $150 for a makeup artist’s services for Maples and Trump, according to Kelly. However, Maples’s assistant then suggested the stylist waive her fee in exchange for promotion on Maples’s social media account, according to Kelly. “I was stunned. I told them . . . I work for a fee, not for free,” she said, offended by the offer. Considering Maples has about 43,700 followers on Instagram, many stylists would love the opportunity to be promoted. However, Kelly prefers to keep her work with political types under the radar so that she doesn’t seem biased when working with clients of different political parties.

Unless it's Bellinger, almost everyone seems to be totally against the idea of acquiring anyone who will end up at 1B/DH/corner outfield. Whether it's Josh Bell, AJ Reed, Gallo, Judge...the pendulum has almost swung back too far the other way and needs to correct a bit again. Of course, when you look at DH/LF/RF results for much of the last decade, the White Sox have been bottom feeders. It's not THAT easy to find elite or even very good hitters, even if they are relatively one-dimensional.

QUOTE (flavum @ Jan 17, 2017 -> 02:37 PM) Sponsored by Total Lubricants. WTF. I sincerely hope that has something to do with automotive needs and not a sex toy shop. We're really scratching the bottom of the barrel on corporate/giveaway sponsors these days.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 17, 2017 -> 08:17 PM) Franken did a good job of exposing her incompetence. https://twitter.com/keithboykin/status/8215...src=twsrc%5Etfw There's a 0% chance she's the nominee if she wasn't a huge Republican donor. Read Elizabeth Warren's full 16 page dressing down of DeVos... https://www.warren.senate.gov/files/documen...eVos_Letter.pdf

QUOTE (JRL @ Jan 17, 2017 -> 08:37 PM) I tend to agree. This is certainly a very real possibility. It's a possibility most people have ignored, by just repeating the refrain that "his value will never be higher", so we must trade Quintana right now. I've spelled out a ton of reasons at length why his value could very realistically increase, and even more likely that it certainly won't decrease, if Sox hold on to him. There is no deadline to trade him or anyone else. The Sox should make the move when they think the return is likely to be at it's optimal point period. One thing none of the "Code-Red, trade Quintana in the next 10 seconds!" camp seems to have thought about is that if it is absolutely undeniable that once the season begins Quintana's value cannot possibly ever get any higher than it is at this very second, because of an imagined glut of impending FA pitchers available at the deadline this year, and is most likely to decrease, how is it possible that his value will increase over the course of the current offseason, from now until the start of the season? Why would it be that Quintana could net a better return in a week than he did a week ago? You can phrase it differently, as there being more available pitchers at the deadline or whatever, but the bottom line is that the sentiment that we have to trade Quintana now, lies in the assumption that as time goes on, the only thing that can change re Quintana, is that potential suitors will have moved on to other options (e.g. pending FAs available at the deadline). It may not be quite the furious swap market that it will be at the deadline, but still, over the course of the offseason the same should hold true, if you believe that. That is, the only thing that can happen re Quintana's value as the offseason moves from today to tomorrow to next week, is that teams could pursue other options and the Sox are left holding Quintana and trading him for even less than they turned down a week ago. I'm not saying Quintana's value certainly has increased over the course of the offseason and/or that it will continue to increase, but if the Sox didn't think was the strongest possibility they obviously would have dealt him a week ago. Obviously, they could end up having made the wrong decision. That's a possibility. But, even if we think they are a bad front office, they wouldn't hold him as long as they have if it were so in your face obvious as everyone likes to make it seem that every day he's held his value can only go down and will not possibly go up. Obviously, there are very real reasons why the Sox have decided that his value was likely to increase even as they have held on to him or they wouldn't have done so. Again, they may end up being wrong, but to paint it as so obvious a decision in disregard of that fact, is a bit ignorant. Not to mention "adding that key impact player" would provide a huge boost (despite it being after Christmas) to a lot of team's season ticket marketing plans... How many seats he would sell, hard to say, but it's not an insignificant consideration for teams thinking about striking now instead of waiting to see what their own internal prospects can produce in the first 2-3 months of the season.

QUOTE (JRL @ Jan 17, 2017 -> 08:08 PM) It doesn't seem to make sense that the Sox are in a particular position to take the risk of trading a hugely valuable asset for less projectable high-upside players that also have a good chance of not panning out altogether. If anything, the fact that the Sox are in full rebuild mode for at least next 2-3 years, and selling off their valuable major assets makes them less well-positioned to take such a risk. A team with a plethora of young players who are eminently projectable would be the one better positioned to take a risk. You know you have the core of a succesful team going forward anyway, and if a high-upside guy pans out, it's all gravy. For the Sox who are trying to rebuil, when they don't really yet have a ton of young players further toward the "sure thing" end of the projectability continuum, you really want to make sure you acquire critical number of players you can count on to form the core of a succesful team down the road when you're ready to contend, and you certainly don't want to trade hugely valuable major league assets for packages with stronger chances of amounting to absolutely nothing, even if they have higher upside. This is likely why the rumors were that the Sox were trying really hard to get major league ready guys/guys who even have some level of major league experience (Bregman, Benintendi, Turner, Swanson, Dahl etc...) in spite of the fact that those guys would be lingering in the majors for 2-3 years with their service time clocks running while the Sox have zero chance of contending. Yes, the ship on getting a guy as far along on the projectability continuum as one of the aforementioned players has long ago sailed, but it's really not an all or nothing strategy. The reasoning still holds, even if the Bregmans and Swansons of the world are not happening that you want to make sure you add pieces that they can have a greater degree of confidence will be able to contribute at a major league level, even if their top-end upside may not be as quite as high as a toolsy A-ball outfielder from Houston. Therein lies the conundrum. You have to get at least TWO 3-4 WAR guys for it to make any sense, or you're better not trading him. The odds aren't great that you can put all your eggs in one basket if it's closer to a one for one trade. For every Seager, there's a 10-20 Joc Pederson's who's very solid but won't give you Q's numbers. If you were to put Turner, Benintendi, Swanson, Moncada, Torres, Gary Sanchez, Bregman, Meadows, Rodgers/Dahl, etc., into a time machine, how many of those guys are going to beat Q's WAR over the next four years in 6-7 years? 1/3rd of them? 25%? Like you said, if you extend it out over 4-5 players instead of going for 2-3 REALLY solid ones, there's no doubt there are two sides to both approaches. The best all-time version of this trade is something between Colon for Cliff Lee/Sizemore/B. Phillips and Greinke (much less control at the time of trade, but an unquestioned ace) for Cain/Escobar. The Hamels to the Rangers trade would be another to look at, moreso than Shelby Miller to the DBacks (because it's now one of the barriers to another "steal" of a trade like Eaton to the DBacks is perceived to be in the industry). At any rate, it feels like the best strategy is to make a mixture of these deals and pray your scouting is spot on. Kopech/Basabe and starting pitching always is going to have a high bust rate, so position players SEEM like safer bets. The problem the White Sox are in right now as it almost feels like they HAVE to get position prospects back for Q, and that's eliminating a number of possible trades, along with this "untouchables" prevailing storyline about the players listed above. There's no doubt the White Sox have been terrible developing hitters, there's also no doubt "offense sells at USCF over defense/pitching" (if both result in .500ish teams) and that this team has BEEN DYING for a young hitting star. For fifteen years, we've only produced Rowand/Crede....and I won't list the flameouts because we all know them forwards and backwards. So maybe taking a step back would be the best thing for all parties at the moment....rather than "forcing" a trade to happen because of arbitrary deadlines like Sox Fest, the start of the WBC, Spring Training report dates, etc.

https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-01-17/chin...e-globalization Kind of amusing that Xi Jinping is more likely to be quoting Abraham Lincoln these days than our own president "Pursuing protectionism is like locking oneself in a dark room. Wind and rain may be kept outside, but so is light and air," Xi said in a speech that took in references to Chinese folklore, Charles Dickens and Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. It is simply "not possible" to reverse the flow of global capital, technology, goods and people, Xi said in the heart of a continent where Britain is plotting its exit from the European Union and far-right parties are on the rise. He insisted China was committed to "opening up" and stood by globalization's gains for emerging economies — as well as defending the Paris accord on climate change, which is also in Trump's sights. And he said there is "no point in blaming economic globalization for the world's problems," highlighting China's view that catastrophically weak regulation rather than free trade lay behind the West's 2008 financial crisis. His message was met with acclaim from many in a hall packed with government leaders, captains of industry, stars of entertainment and agenda-setting thinkers. Former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt noted that a century ago, Russian Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin was plotting world revolution in Zurich, a couple of hours' train ride from Davos. "And now, 100 years later we have the leader of the largest communist party in the world coming to the leading meeting of global capitalists to preach the virtues of globalization," he told AFP. "Lenin is dead." http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/17/its-pretty-...a-ceo-says.html "Xi spoke earlier this morning, and he's quoting Abraham Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address about development being 'for the people, by the people'," Moynihan said on "Squawk Box" from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "You start to say this is a pretty interesting world where you have the president of China quoting the great American president," he added. In his speech, Xi said: "It is true that economic globalization created new problems, but this is no justification to write off economic globalization altogether." He also warned that populist approaches could lead to war and poverty. Moynihan, who had lunch with Xi, reported the Chinese president is "very much concerned that there will be a retraction from trade, and the ability of trade to help the world grow, and the ability rebalance the imbalances in economies." As one of the five co-chairs of the World Economic Forum, Moynihan said: "That's the fear out there."

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/201...are-act-tax-cut The "hidden" reason Republicans are so eager to repeal Obamacare The two big relevant taxes, according to the TPC’s Howard Gleckman, are “a 0.9 percent payroll surtax on earnings and a 3.8 percent tax on net investment income for individuals with incomes exceeding $200,000 ($250,000 for couples).” That payroll tax hike hits a reasonably broad swath of affluent individuals, but in a relatively minor way. The 3.8 percent tax on net investment income (money made from owning or selling stocks and other financial instruments rather than working), by contrast, is a pretty hefty tax, but one that falls overwhelmingly on the small number of people who have hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in investment income. For the bottom 60 percent of the population — that is, households earning less than about $67,000 a year — repeal of the ACA would end up meaning an increase in taxes due to the loss of ACA tax credits. But people in the top 1 percent of the income distribution — those with incomes of over about $430,000 — would see their taxes fall by an average of $25,000 a year. And for the true elite in the top 0.1 percent — people like designated White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, and many major campaign donors — the tax cut is truly enormous. Households with incomes of more than $1.9 million would get an extra $165,000 a year in take-home pay. That’s obviously more than enough money to make these hyper-elite families come out ahead regardless of what happens to health insurance markets. By contrast, upper-middle-class families would get an extra $110 a year in after-tax income. That’s nice, but it isn’t going to replace a health insurance plan. Phil Klein, a top conservative health policy journalist, has urged Republicans to solve their overpromising problem by “stating a simple truth, which goes something like this: ‘We don't believe that it is the job of the federal government to guarantee that everybody has health insurance.’”

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/trumps-tweet...=3Gw92UR1PtATA1 Trump's tweets, good politics but poor economics Written by Harvard Business School prof No real Republican can counter this argument logically...because it's impossible. There are countless ways to force (maybe push is a better word, or influence) China to comply with fair trade practices without imposing tariffs that wouldn't seriously impact both American consumers and workers so negatively.