Chicago White Sox

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Dec 9, 2017 -> 03:51 PM) Baseball won't be like the NBA simply because of how random the playoffs are. In the NBA, the best teams almost always win their playoff series, which is how you get CLE vs GS 3 times in a row. In baseball, anyone can win a 7 game series, and that will mix up the finals and World Series winners. It also gives hope to lower level teams, just get in the dance and anything can happen. Baseball will never be like the NBA because it’s far easier to acquire star caliber talent and the fact that salaries aren’t capped removes the incentive for established stars to create superteams. Right now, we just have a lot of teams echoing what the Astros & Cubs successfully did. At some point in the near future some of these rebuilding clubs will join the upper ranks and create more parity across league. Things will never be as bad as the NBA.

Wow, I just saw the actual terms of the trade. What a horrific deal for the Marlins. They’re giving up $30M and the best prospect they get in return is Guzman. They should have waited and hoped Stanton would reconsider other teams eventually.

QUOTE (SonofaRoache @ Dec 9, 2017 -> 12:05 PM) The Yankees were on par with Cleveland and Houston last year, as shown in the playoffs. The real problem is can our rebuild get us past The Yankees, Red Sox, Angels, Indians, Astros. That's gonna be 5 really loaded teams. This is why it is important we have a relatively good season next year. If we look bad again we will not attract top FA's as they'd want to see some progress on the field. Great post. 100% agree. Also part of the reason I want to keep Abreu.

QUOTE (pktmotion @ Dec 9, 2017 -> 11:20 AM) Free Agents Hector Rondon Michael Pineda Jarrod Dyson Trades Abreu to STL for Carson Kelly, Jake Flaherty, Sandy Alcantara, & Jonathan Machado Garcia + Davidson to ARI for Pavin Smith & Anthony Banda Draft Nander De Sedas – SS Roll into the 2018 season with the best farm system in MLB – by a long shot – with strong competition in several key positions. Avi makes a ton of sense for AZ, just wonder if Smith is a little redundant with what already have in the system. I could see something built around Duplantier instead though.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 9, 2017 -> 11:12 AM) If the choice is "more dead police officers" or "More people killed by police officers", we need to be smart enough to find a third option. Your statement could be misinterpreted the same way as "you are quite literally advocating for more people murdered by police officers". I’m still trying to understand if you’re suggesting most police shootings are unwarranted because your use of the word “murder” certainly seems imply that.

QUOTE (fathom @ Dec 9, 2017 -> 08:33 AM) Yolmer makes a lot of sense as a cheap 2b for Yankees to help out Torres He’d definitely make some for them, especially if Andujar is in the Stanton deal. Just don’t see the Yankees giving up the prospect currency is would take though. I still think Sanchez is a better match/fit for the Brewers.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Dec 9, 2017 -> 08:21 AM) Cubs just shredded their biggest competition for Bryce Harper Honest question, but can the Cubs actually add him and stay below the 2019 luxury tax threshold of $206M? The Cubs have nearly $100M committed to six players already (Lester, Quintana, Chatwood, Rizzo, Zobrist, Heyward). Bryant, Russell, & Hendricks will be in their second year of arbitration. Baez & Schwarber will be in their first year of arbitration. Let’s just hypothetically say those five guys earn a combined $40M. That basically puts them at $140M give or take for eleven guys. Even with Contreras & Happ still dirt cheap, they’d have roughly $67M to add Harper and fill all their remaining holes and quite frankly there are quite a few on the pitching side. Unless they’re willing to blow through the luxury tax, I just don’t see how they make Harper’s potential $40M AAV fit into their payroll.

QUOTE (bmags @ Dec 9, 2017 -> 07:50 AM) Depends on money I’ve argued it before, but I think guys like Stanton are undervalued because of their contracts. There simply aren’t a lot of 6 WAR players in baseball so that type of production becomes a scarce resource even it doesn’t come with a ton of surplus value per se. Giants seemed to be offering a pretty serious package despite taking on most of Stanton’s contract. And it sounds like the Cardinals did as well. That kind of proves my point that stars like Stanton are worth more than their traditional surplus value. Unfortunately it sounds like the Yankees are going to get a steal here as the Marlins have no leverage.

QUOTE (BlackSox13 @ Dec 9, 2017 -> 07:46 AM) The Marlins don't have the leverage now that Stanton has rejected STL and SF. Just a guess, but I'm thinking the Yanks will give up less than what SF offered. Man, Stanton really stuck it up Jeter's ass. Just saw a rumored package of Castro, Andujar, & Tate. If true, the Marlins are coming out as big losers and should have just waited.

QUOTE (Joshua Strong @ Dec 9, 2017 -> 07:05 AM) https://twitter.com/jonheyman/status/939477495606366210 Jon Heyman: "sources: Yankees and Marlins have a deal for Giancarlo Stanton" I really hope the Yankees at least gave up a lot of young talent.

QUOTE (fathom @ Dec 8, 2017 -> 09:43 PM) Cough Cubs Cough Just like Otani!

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 8, 2017 -> 07:01 PM) There are cities where the number of police shootings drops dramatically due to a change in administration and a change in training and tactics. Dallas, Salt Lake. 34 states don't require any deescalation training and then places like Chicago make sure to stress "only if it is judged safe to deescalate" while offering that training. And again, that doesn't count "what about the 1/2 of them where the person didn't need to have a gun but did". Let me ask you a question. Do you think someone making advances on a cop with a knife deserves to be shot?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 8, 2017 -> 06:44 PM) I would say - being a police officer is dangerous, but it is not so dangerous as to justify gunning down 1000 people per year. If we cannot face up to that fact, then we are being dishonest. You may not like to hear it, but that doesn't change the reality. We lose way more loggers per year than police officers. We lose more taxi drivers. If we are going to talk about how dangerous being a police officer is every time someone guns down a person, then we should talk about how dangerous it actually is. Furthermore, being a police officer is dangerous, but it is 10x less dangerous in the United Kingdom because the police in the United Kingdom don't have to worry that if they approach someone they will pull a gun. The best thing we could do other than reducing driving/making driving safer, to save officers lives, is have them deal with fewer armed people. But we've made it abundantly clear - having more people armed more often is more important to us, even sometimes over the objections of police. So there's another thing we should talk about - we have other priorities beyond the lives of police, including our precious guns. So let's also talk about what we respect more, the lives of police or our precious guns. Are you actually suggesting that a material amount of those shootings deaths were unnecessary? If so, on what grounds are you basing this on?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 8, 2017 -> 06:13 PM) I see nothing wrong with hating that post. The statement "Being a cop is not as dangerous as we make it sound" is an ugly statement. It makes it sound like you are discrediting the deaths of cops. I know how that sounds to me. If we're going to talk about a cop panicking and shooting someone inappropriately, we should say that as part of it too. Facing reality that isn't pleasant to say is the only way to get to the real problems. Your confusing danger with deadly and ignoring the important fact that police officers are trained for dangerous types of situations which ultimately helps prevent fatalities. To even suggest being a police officer isn’t that dangerous is completely absurd & offensive, but I’m not surprised that you simply used the first article you found on google that had some stats and didn’t even think “does this make sense in terms of my argument”. There are no doubt bad cops and the systems in place do a horrible job of punishing those that deserve punishment, but there is absolutely no reason to discredit the dangers these guys face. Some guys should not be cops because they simply won’t respond correctly in intense situations and we have a find a better way to screen those guys out. Until then, focus on the issue at hand which is holding bad cops accountable for their illegal or unjust actions.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Dec 8, 2017 -> 06:01 PM) ^This one is worse. I got to be honest, I’m sick of people like you and Balta who literally try to s*** on the dangers of being a police officer. The vast majority of police offers are good people that put themselves in harm’s way to keep their communities safe. I find unappreciative social justice warriors like yourself, who constantly try to group all cops as being bad, to be absolutely appalling. Whoever called you a “holier than thou liberal” was dead f***ing right. Rip the bad cops all you like, but show some god damn respect for the good ones.

IF the Marlins are smart, they’ll keep him for a year and hope he gets sick of the losing and reconsiders teams like SFG & STL.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 8, 2017 -> 05:23 PM) Just so someone points it out, police officer is the 15th deadliest occupation in the United States. Being a Taxi driver is more dangerous. And FWIW, I think removing any chance that the officer has to worry about a person having a gun is a great way to reduce the number of officers killed on duty. Let's get those kill machines off the streets too and that will save a ton more police lives. Final note: The person that cop murdered was a close friend of a colleague/co-author of mine. She's rather upset. God I hate this post.

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Dec 8, 2017 -> 04:47 PM) This is nonsense. They're not just civilians. They're asked to do things civilians would never do. Hence, they get some leeway in their decision making. The key word here is “some”. I agree that cops deserve some leeway when dealing with potentially life or death situations, but that does not apply to this particular case. This kid had done NOTHING to suggest he was a threat. He was trying his best to follow the officer’s insane requests. He was already on the ground with his hands in front of him. The officer in question had body armor, an assault rifle, and multiple units of backup. There is zero excuse whatsoever for not just approaching this guy and frisking him. None whatsoever. This officer was simply another John Rambo wanna-be and it shows in how he handled the situation and by the complete lack of emotion/reaction after gunning this poor guy down.

QUOTE (bmags @ Dec 8, 2017 -> 04:13 PM) I first read this story last week from Connor Friedersdorf and I'll never watch the video. I cannot believe he was acquitted. This was not a "snap decision". They had this guy here following orders MULTIPLE times. And now the family will go to civil court, certainly get restitution from the tax payers. I honestly was nervous for the guy just watching the video. The cop basically tells him “if you f*** up at all I’m going to shoot you” and then proceeds to play the craziest game of Simon Says ever all while having an assault rifle pointed at the suspect. I honestly think a lot of people would have been shot in that situation which to me proves the cop is to blame for this guy losing his life.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 8, 2017 -> 02:10 PM) He could publicly tell McConnell that he won't vote for a single Republican agenda item as long as Moore's in the Senate. No offense but that’s absurd and a disservice to his constituents who had nothing to do with Moore getting voted in.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 8, 2017 -> 12:50 PM) I am guessing they mean in the international market. The other side is that it would also set Ohtani free again. Is a one year ban in the international market that big of a deal if there’s a good chance you won’t caught? I would hope they have something bigger in mind if they’re trying a “scared straight” approach here.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 8, 2017 -> 12:46 PM) Jeff Passan‏Verified account @JeffPassan 1h1 hour ago Jeff Passan Retweeted Buster Olney Multiple officials have talked specifically about a one-year ban for any Ohtani malfeasance. And between that and the reputation hit that accompanies, the league expects it to be an effective scared-straight tactic. With upward of $200M in marginal value available, we shall see. One year ban for the GM?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 7, 2017 -> 07:33 PM) Here is conscientious objector Jeff Flake who totally announced a month ago "I will not be complicit!" proudly on the Senate floor photographed 2 days ago sitting next to accused sexual assaulter Donald Trump while Donald Trump defended Roy Moore. Complicitly. Trump is already elected, Moore is not. Not much Flake can do about Donald that he hasn’t already done.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 8, 2017 -> 11:39 AM) Police murdering citizens and facing no consequences can happen to white people, too. https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/939014...src=twsrc%5Etfw Don't watch unless you want to see a man murdered while crying for his life and crawling towards the police as instructed. The officer was just acquitted. I think people occasionally give the police too much s*** over these shootings, but this one and the Minnesota one are simply unbelievable. Why couldn’t they just handcuff this dude? Why did they force him to crawl to them? They’re carrying assault rifles, if he pulled out a weapon while they approached him they would have been able to unload multiple shots before the suspect could even fire one. This guy definitely deserves a murder charge IMO.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 8, 2017 -> 12:01 PM) Yeah he pretty much would need to be active on the 25 man roster by July 1, give or take a couple of days. I love the idea of taking him personally. Maybe I’m reading it wrong, but I think it implies as long as he ends the season on the 25 man roster the 90 day rule would rollover into 2019.