caulfield12

Keystone Kops... Farmer is really pissed now. DJ claims it was 100% impossible for Eaton to see. Two mental mistakes in a row. Can't call it and exoect Cabrera to bail you out and catch it at the last second.

Quintana nearing 100 pitches with his typical lack of run support...what else is new?

Balls gets hit on a line, you figure it's probably not a double play for the Cubs with that crowd reaction. Then you remember it's mostly Cubs' fans. How did Eaton fall down there?

#2 hitters have to figure out a way to move that runner over...

No way you throw a fastball to Schwarber when he just showed no clue against the offspeed stuff. This has to be on the top five most idiotic decision-making sequences all season, and it's not easy to find a place on that list, either.

Brilliant Flowers and Ventura. Horrible pitch call. Horrible tag by Flowers. No wonder this organization sucks.

Fantastic Four wasn't 9% bad, but it's not fixable for a sequel. In my opinion, there were three huge casting mistakes....Jamie Bell as Ben Grimm, Michael B. Jordan (who was great in Fruitvale Station) and Reg Cathey as Dr. Stone, not to mention the actor playing Doom was utterly forgettable. Ben was kind of the anti Chiklis, and came across with this sort of existential angst that drained your energy just listening to him after the transformation. Very discordant reading of that character. Jordan suffered from not having that Chris Evans overconfidence/machisimo...once again, we got more psychology with the father/son relationship but not enough action. Then you have the whole racial dynamic just not hitting the right note. Finally, Reg E Cathey is great on House of Cards but equally too low key...you need an Idris Elba or Morgan Freeman gravitas to play a convincing visionary, not someone you'd expect to see at 2 am on QVC hawking ginsu knives. It was way too much origin story, a forced sense of teamwork thrown in at the end but not really earned (like skipping Hoosiers directly through the regular seasons to the playoffs)...essentially, it tried to follow the Chronicle casting success with a more ethnically diverse group of actors who never jelled together, the action sequences were unsatisfying and the obligatory ending was just kind of slapped on at the end. And that ending made Green Hornet/Green Lantern seem like masterpiece theatre in comparison.

The U.S. has one big advantage over the rest of the world, our university system/higher education. Something like 22-23% of all foreign students choose the U.S., led by Chinese, Indian and South Koreans. Yet you don't hear many besides Thomas Friedman of the NY Times pushing for more "high quality" legal immigration of those students post-graduation, because it's anathema to U.S. workers/labor unions and it's not somewhere the GOP is likely to go either, with all of the anti-China rhetoric. However, losing all of that talent puts more and more pressure on those in their 20's and 30's to work longer and harder. Something has to give eventually, either higher taxes (simply assuming enough revenue from economic productivity/efficiency and GDP growth going from 2 to 3.5/4% won't do it alone), more immigrants entering the country to balance the labor pool's imbalance or "the Baby Boom Generation" showing more willingness to give back to Gen X/Y (rich/elites foregoing social security or having benefits shrunk).

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 15, 2015 -> 09:29 AM) And the end result is going to be...we paid $9 million for him this season, the A's paid $1.5 million, the A's will have those guys for 4-5 more years, and we will keep seeing comments here about how the White Sox minor leagues has no depth while wondering how that could possibly have happened. The White Sox have called up several players this year from their minors and just by having them be non-terrible, they've helped this team to winning streaks (Tyler, Trayce). Depth can be nice too. Counting the draft picks...we gave up 6 players from our minor leagues for the privilege of the 2015 season and we'll be lucky to get 1 back next summer. You can add Sanchez/Micah to that list, although nobody would be surprised if those four (Trayce, Tyler), along with Avi, are basically replacement level players at best. When all is said and done, we really need at least two of them to develop into 2-3 war players or we're just going to end up with castoffs/retreads since they're definitely going to be more hesitant about the free agency pool after being singed twice (not to mention the draft picks). That means the focus is likely to be on 3b and upgrading the catcher's spot (since they also have to wait on Alexei/Anderson), assuming they're content to replace Shark with EJ.

QUOTE (oldsox @ Aug 15, 2015 -> 06:51 AM) And his 5 year control clock will be 2 years old. ?????

For $140 million, Heyward alone probably has us at the .500 mark...not worth it. Especially when you lose another draft pick.

Unless there's proof that PP is "profiting greatly" (and that would have to be defined, which would be hard to do to anyone's satisfaction) from the tissue above and beyond the normal costs/fees that are passed on in similar situations, I'm not sure what the great stink is all about.

Unless there's proof that PP is "profiting greatly" (and that would have to be defined, which would be hard to do to anyone's satisfaction) from the tissue above and beyond the normal costs/fees that are passed on in similar situations, I'm not sure what the great stink is all about. It's not like they are taking eggs away from supermodels/Mensa members without their consent/knowledge and selling them for $50-150,000 each on the black market.

If Shark continues to pitch this poorly and ends up with a 5.2-5.4ish ERA, you're taking a no longer inconsideradable risk that he not only ends up back on the Sox for $16 million, but he soaks up the payroll dollars we need to spend on a hitter and he also ends up blocking the progress of the young starting pitchers we'll need to be ready for Opening Day, 2017.

https://www.yahoo.com/tv/show-me-a-hero-rev...6633359760.html Show Me a Hero, six part mini-series beginning Sunday night, from The Wire's David Simon and Paul Haggis...based on the true story of the youngest mayor in America, and the attempt at public housing/integration in Yonkers, NY about 20 years ago. Timely subject for today, just like Straight Outta Compton

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 14, 2015 -> 07:44 PM) Cant wait to read through the thread. I missed the game today thankfully. Sounds like a game that might have been a bit frustrating when you want the Sox to win. Seems like Shark reeked and LaRoche continues to suck. Just bat LaRoche ninth if you have to play him. We're catching the Cubs at a very poor time, folks. They are red hot. We are red not. Way to get the Trump reference in there at the end...like when Chris Sale had his SAT vocabulary word every post-game interview.

Apparently he was also very cold to Mara (preferred a different actress) and almost came to blows with Miles Teller. https://www.yahoo.com/movies/fantastic-four...6670602777.html

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Aug 14, 2015 -> 03:08 PM) You know what I have a problem with...the government sector. And this is unfair and I realize many in the government sector took the jobs they did because of the benefits available, but it seems crazy to me when I pay the taxes I do and work in the private sector, yet, the public sector has benefits that people in the private sector could only dream of, and the reality is, the best thing for the economy is when private sector jobs grow (in my humble opinion). I know their is not a fair way of doing it and unions have gotten control of anything, but how about that as a real issue in this country. Cost of college tuition skyrockets every time lending on student loans get higher. Education doesn't improve and I don't know that teachers even necessarily get more...money just gets "poured" into new facilities that probably weren't necessary. What this government needs is a real shrewd like me who is overly stingy with money. Think of all the money that gets "spent" that never turns into anything. 10 billion dollar to study impacts of X / Y. If you could just cut government waste by a small percentage and adjust the entitlement program, we'd have quality programs for the poor and lower taxes. Of course you'd never get elected. Every year, it's the same thing. Cut government waste. Cut foreign aid. Help our own people, etc. The fact of the matter is that numbers aren't going to be adding up over the next 15-25 years with entitlement programs. Other than raising taxes or raising retirement ages, how are you going to control costs when a higher percentage are retired than working? There's a saying, reforming entitlements is the third rail of American politics...and anyone who runs on raising taxes (Mondale/Dukakis) or actually does it (Bush Sr.) gets crucified eventually. Lots of super rich people think it's basically ridiculous they still receive social security, but try taking it away. Indexing that in terms of net worth would be one step, but even progressive moves like that aren't palatable. Obamacare was our effort to reign in medical care costs, which continue to skyrocket (especially compared to countries like Norway, Finland and Sweden that do it much more cost-effectively with outcomes that are often better despite our spending 2-3x as much.) As far as government workers vs. private, how do you propose to find a balance when so much of compensation is tied to stock options/ipos/capital gains....often for financial services companies/banks that bring about moral hazard with their reckless behavior, and who are eventually bailed out by those same middle class workers who pay higher tax rates than Warren Buffett. So they want to take away pensions from government workers...what are private workers willing to surrender? High risk, high reward. Is it fair that the private sector never seems to pay the consequences for risky behavior...that the Enrons of the world are few and far between, and, even then, most high level officials escape any real consequences (Mozilo/Countrywide Loans, for example) over abd over again. If you want to cut waste, why don't you take on all the churches/charities/501 c 3's who take in billions of dollars and spend it on executive salaries, fundraising, posh dinners and congratulating themselves when the lion's share of money isn't going into direct services that are beneficial to everyday people? If you held them accountable and actually withdrew their tax exempt status in the case of poorly run organizations, you'd probably be more effective than trying to reform the government.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Aug 14, 2015 -> 05:53 PM) Dude, there is no chance of this happening. Scouts love the arm, someone will give up the pick for him a multi-year deal. Sounds like Javy or Edwin Jackson... He can join Jake Peavy in the non big game pitcher category. Hopefully we get to see if Sale can get it done in meaningful September games at some point before we all start to receive circulars from AARP.

Who would have thought six months ago the future would actually look brighter for John Danks than LaRoche, Shark and Tiger Woods? Well, at any rate, thanks Cubs fans for showing up to USCF so we can afford the next Bonifacio/Keppinger this offseason.

Sanchez just isn't that fast....no matter how much we expect him to run better. Good execution there at least. Venezuelan players tend to have better bunting skills, for some reason.

QUOTE (Saufley @ Aug 14, 2015 -> 04:55 PM) Rongey says no. He's a veteran and making $12.5 mil. Rongey said this on the radio within the last week, when someone called in. Rongey=greg these days about playing high-salaried guys. Bonifacio, apparently we don't care about $4-5 million.

Good luck selling any tickets for next season with Shark and LaRoche both coming back next year. That would be the ultimate backfire...right now, the odds are against it still, but with the draft pick compensation attached, you wonder who would have been willing to give James Shields that deal if the Padres didn't, for example. I'm not even sure Shark would be viewed as favorably coming into this particular market as Shields, with the likes of Price and Cueto not costing acquiring teams a pick and a bundle of other names like Iwakuma and Latos at the same tier or higher because of lower financial demands.

Sigh.

QUOTE (daa84 @ Aug 14, 2015 -> 03:35 PM) Oh man josh fogg is a name I haven't thought about in a long time. I don't care how much of a bust fogg and wells were, trading them (who were both good prospects at the time) for Todd Ritchie was just a god awful trade Don't forget the inimitable Sean Lowe. Quite a character, and one of the better long men/spot starters we had during that era of play. Three starters for 1/2 year of Ritchie, who had 3-4 good months his entire Twins career.