caulfield12

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Jan 9, 2017 -> 08:21 PM) Kristen Wiig and Steve Carrell's bit was pretty amazing actually about the first time they ever saw an animated film in the theater. Am kinda bummed that LA LA LAND did so well. I really enjoyed the film, but I thought Ryan Gosling was terrible in it, and so wooden and lacked any chemistry with Emma Stone whatsoever. But it makes those elite Streepists in Hollywood feel so danged proud of their aspirational product...

The Indians were considering flipping Miller again this offseason. There's no reason they couldn't accomplish the same thing with Q two years from now when $200 million is the average top 50 starter's price in the free agent market. A mid to low budget team will have to blink with that 2-3 year contention window wide open. Can anyone count more than 8-10 teams willing to give out a $200+ million contract for pitching? Thought not.

That darned Obama still (not so) secretly hates the Clintons and deliberately let the FBI and Russia steal the election so that he could rally the country around Obamacare as a private citizen and be a hero again!

Somehow I have a feeling Tomi Lahren will be even more famous than Chelsea Clinton four years from now...

Or let's say the Yankees are in first place at the All-Star Break but obviously need starting pitching and Torres/Frazier etc., are struggling a bit in the minor leagues. Prospect values are changing constantly. We've seen it with Moncada, Giolito, Benintendi, Glasnow and all the other "untouchables" in the last calendar year. It's not impossible to imagine holding onto Q for 2019/20 if we're just not getting a "fair" value in return...not to mention we'll theoretically have Rodon to trade as well, although what the values of each are entering next off-season, it's obviously quite hard to predict. Maybe another team will bowl us over with a Shelby Miller-like deal after falling in love with Rodon's stuff. Wouldn't be any more surprising than it taking this long to get the best return for Quintana.

Q is probably the ONE guy on the team you could feel 100% comfortable with explaining the situation (which he already knows through his agent), and getting nothing less than his best performance during the season up until the time he's traded. That's also a quite plausible reason they weren't as concerned with dealing him first, along with the fact that he was always going to be the most "undervalued/underappreciated," along with Eaton (who clearly had at least one big fan in the GM ranks). Or you can go with the Sale/Eaton/Duke conspiracy theories.

QUOTE (WhiteSoxLifer @ Jan 9, 2017 -> 07:50 PM) The problem is we've seen the sox try buying position players and were its gotten them. Having pitching helps but if you cant put together the position side then you are right back where you started. Sox need to be working on getting position players back with the rest of the chips they have. They have no future 3rd baseman, 1st baseman, dh, and need more outfield depth. They dont have much catching until collins gets here which is a couple years away and thats if he fully stcks. Yes, but those are mostly 30+ FA "money-based" acquisitions. Trading pitching talent for positional talent isn't impossible. See Eaton for Santiago, or acquiring Carlos Quentin for another younger hitter. Theoretically, they also could have used Addison Reed and Sergio Santos to acquire positional talent back as well, but we know what happened there. Then there's Abreu and Alexei Ramirez, not to mention Japanese/Korean players. As far as Collins goes, they don't need to really begin to think about the catching situation until one year from now...depending on how close they are to fielding a competitive team in 2018. They've already addressed the veteran/pitch framer issue by bringing back Soto for one season. We just have to be patient.

QUOTE (Con te Giolito @ Jan 9, 2017 -> 07:35 PM) WORDING CAULFIELD, WORDING Good thing I'm not doing the Academy Award presentations for Fences, Hidden Figures and Moonlight. OTOH, I'm pretty sure that I'm the only white person not in the film industry to have watched all three of those movies...!!! Plus, Concepcion is Cuban, which makes him non-white Hispanic and not African-American/black. So I guess I can throw Ian Stewart in there to balance things out and be politically correct.

QUOTE (CWSpalehoseCWS @ Jan 9, 2017 -> 07:28 PM) They're honestly the exact opposite of each other. The Cubs had and still have an over abundance of positional talent and had to buy pitching. The Sox are acquiring an over abundance of pitching talent and will most likely need to buy positional talent. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. They are adding talented players and playing into their strength - developing pitching. Cubs did the same thing only reverse and played into what they felt they were better at. They ALSO did a great job (at least for 2016) going after Fowler and Zobrist, which looked like a questionable deal for his age at the time. The irony is that the two most obvious FA targets after Cespedes last year (Heyward and Upton) were incredible disappointments, although Upton rallied in the second half to put up seemingly respectable numbers, but too little too late. To date, Heyward and Edwin Jackson are the only huge black marks on Epstein, unless you start criticizing some of his Cuban spending, like the LHP Gerardo Concepcion (and he made the big leagues last year). AND BACK TO Q TALK...

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jan 9, 2017 -> 04:54 PM) I do believe they could have gotten a similar result and not had to cross that line. IE Everyone's taxes were raised by $700 and those with health insurance were given a $700 tax credit. Also even under Obamacare you dont HAVE to get health insurance. You just have to pay approximately $700 for the privilege of not being covered. There are a million ways to frame it, but at the end of the day its actually less intrusive than car insurance laws. But we frame those as "driving is a privilege", so we could have done something really draconian and said that receiving emergency care is a "privilege" and therefore if you dont have insurance something is put on your drivers license, etc, that indicates to the EMT/Hospital/Dr. that you cant receive emergency healthcare. Again I understand why the Democrats didnt want to go down this road as it seems somewhat opposed to the idea that "everyone deserves healthcare." But at least that way we would have preserved the "personal freedom" of not having to pay for services that are rendered. Right, it's 100% a perception/framing problem. The Republicans (more specifically, their corporate lobbyists) have been MUCH better at scaring people. We'll see how well the Dems can do in terms of their own scare tactics defending ObamaCare. If the GOP succeeds there, history has shown they'll overreach (see 1995-1996, or 2006) and try to privatize Social Security or Medicare/Medicaid and get slapped back down.

Not to belabour the Cubs' stocking up of talent point: But they turned Soler at least into Wade Davis for a one year rental Vogelbach to the Mariners for Montgomery The Chapman trade for Torres/McKinney So why is the White Sox "pitching depth" actually a problem? The Cubs STILL have Happ and Jimenez, not to mention Candelario with no clear path to the majors. Schwarber/Baez all have playing time limitations due to TOO MUCH DEPTH...we'll see with Contreras, but he looks like he'll get at least 130-140 games at catcher. At any rate, they'll address their pitching weaknesses as needed. As long as they keep producing position players who make valuable contributions at the big league level, they'll continue to find trading partners for pitching help.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 9, 2017 -> 03:33 PM) There is a line here that was crossed. You don't HAVE to drive a car, if you don't want to wear a seatbelt. You don't HAVE to work if you don't want to pay taxes. Don't want health insurance? Too bad. It is really scary to cross that line. But who ends up subsidizing all those negative externalities created by those NOT covered by health insurance (but are forced to seek medical attention) in emergency situations? Haven't hundreds of studies shown that preventive treatment/checkups are much more cost-effective than crisis management? It's obvious a system where going to the doctor as only a last resort creates lots of terrible outcomes for families. It's just not as obvious as a direct bill in our inbox, right? Another thing is everyone argues we are larger than Canada, Australia or Norway/Finland/Sweden...their systems are unique and not replicable. So how they manage to do it here in China when the population is five times larger? Sure, you might have to wait an hour or two for a doctor unless you go right away in the morning or at lunchtime...but I have NEVER had to wait more than 90 minues for a doctor, and the cost is infinitesimal compared to the US. The only area where costs are increasing (to me) is foreign-manufactured prescription medicines...as well as preventitive herbal medicines. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ready-pay-50...-090016482.html 12 million are already in line to pay $500 or more in additional taxes this year...

https://gma.yahoo.com/trump-expected-name-j...opstories.html# Kushner named senior advisor. No conflict of interest. Greg's publicity campaign for Ivanka replacing Chelsea in 2020 or 2024 can officially commence.

Moonlight is an excellent film but it's way too heavy for the Academy Awards to bless with LA LA Land out there. At least Elle and Nocturnal Animals got some attention, two more hard films to watch that pushed boundaries, Elle in particular. Also, did anyone see the stories from the Golden Globes about Hidden Figures and Fences getting mixed together at least twice last night? Pretty poor. Streep's anti-Trump speech carried the news, perhaps with Hiddleston's praise for himself taking second place and Viola Davis 3rd. That and Mandy Moore's "dress."

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 9, 2017 -> 12:58 PM) The mandate is by far the largest loss of personal freedoms since imminent domain was expanded to include pretty much anything commercial at the expense of pretty much anyone. Seat belt laws?

Greg, were you swarmed over by fast zombies or at least brain-eating worms last night in Kansas? There has to be some explanation.

http://www.inc.com/suzanne-lucas/san-franc...ul.html?ref=yfp SF Tech CEO declares war on Middle America...accidentally puts herself on the radar for employment discrimination in the process. Providing yet more reasons Trump won.

The suicide rate will definitely climb if we have to watch Florence Foster Jenkins and Mama Mia 24 hours per day. https://www.yahoo.com/news/mcconnell-dems-g...--election.html Whatever McConnell thinks should go...let's all grow up and not do anything to obstruct the GOPers who are suddenly on a mission to change the world in their own image.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Jan 8, 2017 -> 01:22 PM) Per MLB's Rankings 2015: Anderson #38, Fulmer #42 2014: Rodon #19, Anderson #81 2013: Davidson #64 Basabe would have been top in 2012...man, our MLB.com Top 5 was Trayce, Hawkins, Charle Leesman, Nestor Molina and Keenyn Walker. Keep in mind we had Quintana and Santiago coming out of nowhere that season. Nate Jones and Addison Reed. What did we use, something like 13 rookies over the course of the entire year, mostly in the bullpen.

http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/01/08/judg...-closed?ref=yfp I dearly miss these type of articles from before the election. Can't blame the Russians here, one would think.

D'Angelo Jimenez II

https://www.yahoo.com/news/report-election-...--election.html Now we're just supposed to take Trump's astute foreign policy advice that having a positive relationship with Russia and completely ignoring the corruption of the Yeltsin/Putin oligarchy is somehow going to work out well for the world?

QUOTE (BlackSox13 @ Jan 7, 2017 -> 06:45 PM) I think the Astros are pushing things one year ahead of time. They really should have used the '17 season as a development year to see how young pitchers like McCullers, Musgrove, Paulino, Martes and hitters Bregman, Gurriel, Reed, Fisher, Hernandez progress. Then they would know what they had going into next winter when there will be plenty of FA pitching and hitting available and could dangle P.Tucker and Springer to get them some pitching. With what they have on their 40 man roster now along with what they have on the farm that could come up this season, they could have a wicked young core of hitters and pitchers for many years to come. Signing Reddick and Beltran took ab's away from hitters they are reluctant to trade. But hey, cheers to the Astros going for it because I think they know they need stability in their rotation so in the end they really have to part with a few pieces they may not want to part with to get Q. Now that I think about it, all that s*** can be said about the Pirates and their young talent so cheers to them for being in need of pitching too. Now, would one of those teams drop their knickers already and give it up. Except Preston Tucker, Reed and Marisnick all have lower value now...and there's no clear CFer. Singleton and Grossman were flops with Houston. That has been determined, at least. If anything, 2015 pushed the 2017 Astros/Cubs timetable up by one year. But yeah, they're short at least one quality pitcher, and two if McCullers can't stay healthy. They look a lot like the 2016 Blue Jays right now.

Ths is where we wait for another version of the 2016 White Sox starting off hot...and getting desperate to acquire James Shields. The difference being Q will still be the biggest asset out there, unless Archer, Sonny Gray or Duffy are put on the market again, assuming they're pitching extremely well for teams out of the playoff race. Bac to the Astros. AJ Reed is surely blocked now. Sox scouts agree on him as the third piece, they still should be able to get a deal done. Four players in total. Tucker as the centerpiece, once again the scouts are making the call on him.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 7, 2017 -> 05:10 PM) I wouldn't necessarily say that either. You could have easily said something similar to that about the 2015 Kansas City Royals, what with Ventura, Volquez, Cueto, and Young. That was not a super strong rotation either, but they made it work. Bottom line, they can probably afford to be patient. Quintana will be moved in time. As long as there are multiple teams bidding, one of those teams will blink at some point soon. And they also started a critical World Series game with a dude now pitching for the Melbourne Aces in Jeremy Guthrie. As to an earlier comment about the Pitching Death Star. The White Sox minor league system was even stronger from 1998-2001. Of that group, only Garland and Buehrle made it to 2005. Contreras and Garcia came via trades, along with El Duque. Then you had McCarthy emerge for ten starts. But essentially only 2/6 from best minor league pitching class the Sox ever assembled. That same timeline would be 2021 for us, although the 2003 White Sox got there in just three years (albeit different situations).