caulfield12

QUOTE (Tex @ Jul 30, 2015 -> 08:35 PM) I don't believe we can have people shooting down drones, that's crazy and unsafe almost everywhere. Instead we will start down ways of tracking drones and identifying where they fly, etc. Lots of government regulations, etc. I'd like to here a small government solution. How will they identify stolen/rogue/ill-intentioned drones from the "good" or seemingly harmless ones? Basically the same issues as handguns, albeit even more difficult to track...do we have radar all across the US in less densely-populated areas capable of tracking them effectively? How much would that cost? Seems prohibitively expensive, and if you take the FAA or air traffic control people and mix in drones with their work...or retask the military to it, you're wasting lots of money/valuable resources.

Not much drama early tonight with the Twins leading Sea 5-2 in the 1st, Tigers over Orioles and Jays over Royals big.... Ackley to the Yankees for two AAers. Might supplant Drew at 2B? Or more likely bench guy.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Jul 30, 2015 -> 05:49 PM) You're young, fixed income (like dividends) are not as important for you. Don't buy bonds now, they are terrible. Inflation is higher than most bond interest rates. But instead of focusing on fixed income, you should focus on growth. Index funds are generally good for young people with limited investing experience. Depending on the fund, the expenses should be low and you in theory own a piece of a lot, which is the diversification you want. The simplest thing is just to hold the market, and hopefully not pay upfront loads/fees with your funds. Then you want to have some international exposure, as well as small and mid cap stocks (not just large cap growth)...but the simplest thing is just to hold the market. VTSMX or VFINX (500 Index) are two good choices. You can enter those names at yahoo.com/finance and start looking at their charts to get an idea of how they've done...basically, they go up and down with the market, because they essentially are the entire stock market. Just depends on which mutual funds are available to you to invest in...you can also do a little research online about Jack Bogle/Vanguard Funds and Index Investing. If you want a more conservative fund, try VIVAX, which is more value-oriented stocks, the kind that Warren Buffett would hold. OAKLX and OAKMX are two other choices. Oakmark Funds have been very successful over the years.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Jul 30, 2015 -> 05:49 PM) You're young, fixed income (like dividends) are not as important for you. Don't buy bonds now, they are terrible. Inflation is higher than most bond interest rates. But instead of focusing on fixed income, you should focus on growth. Index funds are generally good for young people with limited investing experience. Depending on the fund, the expenses should be low and you in theory own a piece of a lot, which is the diversification you want. The general rule used to be the opposite of your age in growth stocks, the remainder in bonds. Let's say you're 20, so that would be 80% in stocks, 20% in bonds....and then becoming more and more conservative as you get older, a 65 year old would be 35% in stocks and 65% in bonds. That rule sort of works still as a concept...but most advisors with the bond markets being so bad (as long as the Fed keeps rates at 0) will argue it should be 90-95% in stocks if you're looking long-term and then you can gradually start adding some more conservative investments when the interest rates make bonds more palatable as a hedge. Considering capital gains and taxes, you're aiming hopefully for a 6-12% rate of return per year, so the bond funds will give you protection on the downside when the market dips but they're not going to lead your porfolio to stellar results unless everything just goes sideways in the world.

3-2 Blue Jays in the bottom of the 2nd. You know things are going your way when Dioner Navarro homers.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 30, 2015 -> 05:44 PM) Astros fans freaking out they gave up Phillips Astros trade rumors include players such as Brett Phillips, A.J. Reed, Josh Hader, and Joe Musgrove. Who are the other four?

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 30, 2015 -> 05:38 PM) Ugh, AL has gotten much tougher in the last 24 hours We are 5-1 against that sorry Astros team, haha. It's not always who you play, it's when you play 'em. Certainly the case for White Sox opponents in the last month. They also announced Jed Lowrie is returning and will start at 3B, so that pushes out Valbuena/Marwin Gonzalez but provides you much better defense and more of a contact hitter to go with all those boppers.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Jul 30, 2015 -> 05:24 PM) If anybody other than his mom said they saw this from Morales they gotta be lying. About the only thing you can say is that he was coming into the season with a full year to get back his health and also joining a team filled with a core of players where he wasn't expected to be anything but a complementary piece. That and the fact that joining one of the better teams in either league tends to bring out the best in a player, like when seemingly any journeyman joined the Twins a decade ago, or the Cardinals/Giants/Yankees, etc.

Morales barely misses a homer, then doubles and drives in two runs with yet another two out hit. Now leading the AL in RBI's with 69/70. One of the best signings of the off-season and likely the AL Comeback Player of the Year. 2-0 KC going to the bottom of the 1st. Just as importantly, DET up 2-0 over the Orioles early and still hitting. Just as quickly, Tulo walked and Donaldson ripped a double, so 2nd/3rd, no outs....probably a tie or worse like that. 2-1, sac fly for Bautista, RBI 68. Scored on one of those plays at the plate where the catcher couldn't block the plate...and couldn't make the sweep tag in time.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Jul 30, 2015 -> 05:12 PM) Another milestone! (lol) Carlos Sanchez has been worth roughly .8 fWAR over the last 4 weeks and is back up to replacement level on the year! Seriously though, Sanchez and the Melkman have been critical in this run, hopefully they can keep it up as both are assets not just this year but hopefully the next couple. Hopefully. Listening to the Blue Jays game, it's crazy to think with Tulo, Donaldson and Price, they have probably now have 3 of the top 10-15 players in the majors (Tulo not quite as good as early 2014) and that's not even including Joey Bats and Edwin Encarnacion. And, it being baseball, nothing is ever guaranteed. In fact, the baseball fates might conspire against AA and Jordan4Life just like they did with Beane last season.

The worst thing that could happen would be starting Sale and then having a two-hour delay and him losing the start completely...so that's the only thing we can really root against happening. Having to come back to Boston for yet another off-day or one day trip would suck with our schedule already being pretty full for the final two months. Is there an open day around a series in NY?

The worst thing that could happen would be starting Sale and then having a two-hour delay and him losing the start completely...so that's the only thing we can really root against happening. Having to come back to Boston for yet another off-day or one day trip would suck with our schedule already being pretty full for the final two months. Is there an open day around a series in NY?

The worst thing that could happen would be starting Sale and then having a two-hour delay and him losing the start completely...so that's the only thing we can really root against happening. Having to come back to Boston for yet another off-day or one day trip would suck with our schedule already being pretty full for the final two months. Is there an open day around a series in NY?

Getting Ross is going to cost us a significant amount of prospects, especially in combination with Upton. Maybe if Price had gone to another team than the Blue Jays, but Toronto has a lot of advantages now in fighting for that spot that simply aren't worth making a desperation (see KW) bid to outdo them from a PR perspective. If they're going to do anything, it's jettison Shields and Upton. Does anyone want that contract, which would certainly preclude any talk of Shark or another big name pitcher in the offseason?

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ Jul 30, 2015 -> 01:16 PM) Since its all speculation, who would you peg as in Camp Buy or Camp Sell? Speculating on that possibility I would bet that Hahn sees this an offensive outburst, an anomaly in the season and would lean toward selling. KW would be all in, on the other hand. Except the story was that he wanted to sell on Samardzija and reboot/retool about 4-6 weeks ago, before there was any evidence whatsoever of the team coming together, basically the 9-3 run before the All-Star break, and the current winning streak...

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 30, 2015 -> 01:13 PM) Not worth it. He'll either get hurt like they all do, or he'll lose it. They'll be trying to dump the salary next season probably. Haha, this is your automatic response to every new/big pitcher's contract, you should just write the same sentence over and over again and copyright it. This could be your issue, along with encroaching danger from police, random acts of violence, firearms and Trump Mania.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 30, 2015 -> 01:02 PM) How can TV afford to pay these fees? Seems like no matter how bad the economy, TV rights deals as well as sports players salaries continue to skyrocket. What would happen if advertisers gave up on TV as they have on magazines, newspapers, etc.? Live sports events are much cheaper to produce than movies/dramas, so that's one thing. The problem is situations like the Dodgers' one, where the rights fees are so astronomical, a majority of people in Southern California can't even access their games even though LA keeps getting paid. Ultimately, that's not good for the game. For a long time, cable companies forced bundling (you have to take 120 channels or 30 or nothing) but it's heading more and more to a model where you can pick and choose the ones you want and networks like ESPN can't continue to up their rates or they'll continue to lose viewers and eventually be cut out. Kind of a tricky situation, where the short-term is great for the early teams to sign deals but where the rights fees environment is rapidly changing as a result of situations like in LA and with the Astros/Rockets in Houston, where you had a bankruptcy declared because the agreement worked out to be so disadvantageous and both those teams were struggling mightly to draw viewers 2-3 seasons ago.

Read BIG DATA BASEBALL if you want a more detailed and nuanced explanation of pitch framing and why the Pirates believe it's so important. You can probably also search online and find some articles written by Pitt beat writers about why they targeted Russell Martin and Cervelli, since that was the main reason in the case of both guys...

QUOTE (Lip Man 1 @ Jul 30, 2015 -> 12:43 PM) That certainly was an issue for the Sox in 2008. Because they almost completely folded the last week and had to fight for their lives to get to the playoff game to actually get into the playoffs, their rotation was a mess against Tampa Bay. Mark Yep, they were forced to throw Javy, for one thing...which didn't go very well, not surprisingly. You had that three game stretch of "win or dye trying" games, so there was simply no way to adjust anything at that point, it was just day to day survival with three different teams in a row if I remember correctly.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 30, 2015 -> 12:14 PM) http://www.forbes.com/sites/christinasetti...illion-tv-deal/ One thing is clear, now is NOT the time for the White Sox to begin thinking about getting the most favorable tv package in the world with their ratings being so abysmal this season. Are the Sox rights expiring after the 2018 or after the 2019 season? I'm pretty sure it's the latter. Same for the Cubs. So we still aren't going to see any new monies until 2018/19 at the earliest (which is a good thing, because you'd hope we were a perennial AL Central contender by then, at least theoretically). And I don't get how they can say it's one of the most "valuable" deals when almost every team in baseball that has signed a new one in the last 3-4 seasons is getting more per year than the Cardinals....maybe the total number is higher because it's for 15 years rather than 10, but it's not the best reporting just to throw out a word valuable and not define it. Valuable per year? Per game? Most valuable based on local metropolitan area size vs. other deals? Because of the team ownership stake in the network?

It's also going to be an issue with paparazzi photogs and what are their rights to fly them over celebrity weddings and the like to get photos/videos? Not only is there the spying/privacy issue, one can imagine the next set of "celeb sex videos" coming with accompanying claims that "they were droned" from outside their window. So there's going to have to be a negotiation about "air rights" and how far above a house is a reasonable standard of height...just like we have international waters/flight zones for airlines. The problem is let's say it's 50 feet or 75 or 100 feet over a house, how in God's name are you going to prove you're in the right or the wrong if you shoot it down? Are we going to have 3D/holographic grids with lasers projected above our houses or some type of electromagnetic jammers/EMP's that would knock the drones out the sky once they flew too low over a house? If you start doing that, what's the odds you also interfere with a helicopter or low flying commercial aircraft on a landing run...not just a weather helicopter, perhaps, but also police helicopters, etc.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Jul 30, 2015 -> 12:29 PM) Josh Reddick is another guy who is absolutely atrocious against lefty pitching. He is a platoon hitter . He's also having a career year. Whether he can repeat it is far from a sure thing. Lawrie - well he would add to the team's tat collection. Revere is Shuck Pitch framing is absolutely a legitimate skill. Revere's got a very good WAR number this year because of his stellar defensive numbers. He was basically Shuck when he left the Twins, but he's a MUCH better player than that now. Worth the demand price, probably not...the only reason to acquire him is to improve the defense in the outfield over Avi and give those DH AB's against lefties to him (Garcia). In the "defense never slumps" way of thinking, it's not the worst under the radar move possible out there.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 30, 2015 -> 10:52 AM) I'd rather they get that versus Urias from LAD or McCullers + from Houston. McCullers can go to head to head with almost anyone already. No way they would trade him for even two months of Trout/Harper.

No point in even worrying about who's starting a possible one game playoff game until around September 15th or so.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 30, 2015 -> 10:24 AM) 1 billion for 15 years is about $67 million a year. Is that really that much these days? It's a little more than 400k a game. Isn't that what the Sox get now on CSN? Well, the Mariners just signed a new one and theirs is around $110-115 million per season.