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I really hope they don't do any moves at the deadline. There aren't any huge positions of need outside of third base, and we need to find out what we have in Morel.

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ May 31, 2012 -> 01:14 AM) The ad at the top of the website is currently for Guess wrist-watches. I have a Guess wrist-watch that I wear ever day. The internet scares me. Did you buy it online?

QUOTE (Jake @ May 30, 2012 -> 06:05 PM) You realize Sale pitching less is what we need to happen. 200 innings from him is potentially disastrous and reckless on our part. If we can limit his innings without making his individual starts shorter and without making him stop permanently in the middle of a pennant run, that'd be perfect. Peavy likely falls into this category too, along with Humber. I'd support having Quintana pitch a few games for Sale to give him extra rest. If we're going to be in contention, we're probably going to need Sale to be able to contribute late in the season. I think we have to play it by ear for awhile, though.

QUOTE (Jake @ May 30, 2012 -> 05:05 PM) I was thinking of a modified 6 man rotation. You give everyone periodic breaks for 1-2 starts with Quintana taking those starts. You keep everyone that is pitching on a 5 day schedule with one guy getting time off. You'd have to let go of Ohman or option Santana/Stewart to do it. Might be too hard to do or not worth f***ing around with Quintana. Let's not get ahead of ourselves here... It's been what, three starts? Granted, I haven't been able to watch any of them (turned the game on today right as he was making the pitch that got him thrown out), but there's no need to hamstring our roster because of three starts.

We sure do like to bait here at Soxtalk. But, you absolutely send him down. With how fragile our starters are, we need somebody in the minors to be ready to step in for a spot start.

Really like the quotes from Robin.

QUOTE (zenryan @ May 26, 2012 -> 11:28 PM) what are the signs of someone who probably wont be leaving a tip at the bar? If somebody doesn't tip within 2 drinks, I treat them as if they won't be tipping me.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 26, 2012 -> 04:52 PM) What kind of tips do bartenders feel are appropriate? It really sort of depends on what you're ordering. Using the beer example from earlier, I'd be happy with a dollar every other beer. If you want me to make you several mixed drinks or shots, I would expect more because of the time I would have to spend making the drinks. Mostly, I just like to see some sort of an effort from a customer. So often the biggest assholes are the worst tippers, and that's really just not a good combination. Plus you'll always get the people who run up a $98.75 tab and tip you 25 cents so their bank accounts are even. That's just insulting. QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 26, 2012 -> 04:52 PM) I'm sure you also remember the people who don't give you anything. Yeah, if I feel like you're not going to tip me any money, I have no problem not serving you until I have no other options. It's nothing personal. There's just zero incentive to serving you if you don't tip.

As a bartender myself, I know I always serve the people who tip well first. On a busier night, I might not actually get around to serving you after your first few if you don't tip because it's a financially stupid decision for me to do so. I get paid minimum serving wage. If you don't tip me, I don't make minimum wage. Obviously, I'm not going to perfectly remember who tipped what, but I definitely remember who tips well. And, I always serve them first and hook them up when I can. I agree that it's a stupid system, and it's your right to tip as you see fit. But, all you're really doing is screwing the bartender, and some take it a little more personally than others.

QUOTE (chw42 @ May 21, 2012 -> 02:36 PM) You have high standards my friend. I wrote something similar in the Avengers thread. For a 2.5 hour long movie, it either needed more action in the middle or a more interesting plot.

Loved this part.

I kind of agree with Alexei. The plot of The Avengers left a lot to be desired for me. I don't really have much of anything specific to cite as for why it didn't seem special, other than the fact that it never really built any suspense, mystery, or even a "wow I really couldn't have seen that coming" type moment. Obviously, generating suspense is tough to do when everybody knows how the movie will end, but it's something that made the Nolan Batman movies particularly good, in my opinion. Now, don't get me wrong. I enjoyed The Avengers for what it was--a mostly mindless action movie with surprisingly good humor. But, I was never really interested in the story line much at all, and for a 2.5 hour long movie, that's kind of a problem. It was an entertaining movie, but for me it definitely did not live up to the hype (though still good).

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 6, 2012 -> 03:25 PM) And no one here knows all of the information that the Sox are privy too. Just sayin. I keep seeing posts like this, and I keep wondering to myself, what information could the Sox be privy to that would allow this decision to make any sense? If Sale is feeling sore, put him on the DL for awhile and see where he is afterwards. If at that point you feel like it's in his best interest to make him a reliever, do so, but claiming that he will be able to avoid the injury just by moving to the pen is dubious at best.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Apr 27, 2012 -> 09:16 PM) Alright, its impossible to like this pick. Unless you the world's biggest homer you cannot agree with drafting a guy who hasn't played competitive football in more than a year and a half over a bunch of guys who could've helped Jay Cutler's head stay on straight. I don't exactly love the most recent pick either, but you do realize that the Bears' defense is about 1-2 seasons away from terrible, right?

QUOTE (chw42 @ Apr 25, 2012 -> 02:56 AM) If you want value, get AMD. If you want the performance and don't really care for the price, get Intel. I'm guessing you're not going to build this computer since you don't plan on doing anything exhaustive on it, so you might as well just buy the computer you're talking about. Just keep in mind that the stuff big manufacturers put into your PC might not be of the highest quality. From what I've experienced, they usually tend to cheap out on vital things like your power supply. I've been building computers since I was in high school, so I'm biased. I've never bought a pre-built computer myself. Agree with this. Building a computer is a lot easier than people perceive it to be, and you get much better value as well.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Apr 7, 2012 -> 11:05 AM) If we don't compete it is because the team that KW assembled isn't very good. I don't see how he his job status can be thought of as safe. His job status is safe for a couple years probably. The reason is that they could have fired him after last season, but decided to keep him on. It would make little sense to fire a guy one year into his rebuilding/retooling plan. If they thought he wasn't capable of handling the job, the time to fire him was last season.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Mar 29, 2012 -> 02:13 PM) Forget office pools. I'm a greedy bastard, I want it to myself! Ok, but seriously, $12.5 million is a nice return on $2. If I had $12.5 million for every time I invested $2, I'd be a rich man.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 08:46 PM) You are right in saying we need to recruit our own, especially in Illinois. I don't believe Groce is that guy to do that. There's nobody Illinois could hire to win over the people who control the fate of the elite talent in the CPL. Many of these quotes saying Chicago would not take kindly to Groce are nearly the same as the quotes about Jerrance Howard when he was first hired. The reality is that there's a good portion of Chicago which just flat out does not like Illinois, and no hiring was going to change that.

If there were any doubt about the coaching search being an embarrassment before, I think this erases it. Sounds like the Board of Trustees would only be satisfied with the hiring process if they hired a black candidate. That's not racist or anything.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 01:58 PM) Nebraska picked Tim Miles over Groce as well. I don't think Theus was ever considered for that position. Actually, Groce turned them down. QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 02:55 PM) This is very true. My problem is the conference is bad, and he hasn't yet managed to finish better than 3rd in it. That leads me to have doubts about his coaching. He's also coaching at a bottom feeder among bottom feeders. I see where you are coming from. He hasn't exactly accomplished a whole lot outside of tournaments (sound kind of like the opposite of a certain coach, of late?). You can point to his mediocre record, and say he won't be good. I can point to the context of that record, the current trend of the program, and his abilities as a recruiter as reasons why he might be a good coach. In the end, it is about projections, and the Peter Principle applies. Just because he wasn't the greatest MAC coach, doesn't mean he won't be a good Big Ten coach. Neither of us can really say for sure whether or not he would be a good or bad coach should he be hired. I think the reasons above are better methods for projection than just blindly looking at a conference record, but we just have to trust our AD's judgement should he be hired because he's the one we hired to make that decision. The AD, by the way, has a pretty decent track record for hiring good coaches. As for the Bill Self stuff I was talking about earlier, Self had a .505 winning percentage in his first 4 years with 1 NIT appearance. Groce has a .603 winning percentage in his first 4 years with 2 NCAA tournament appearances. I'm not trying to say that Groce is at all better than Self because the two situations are obviously not equal, but you can't write off Groce because of the first four years. And, if you want him to be more "proven" than he is now, who exactly do you want us to hire that is better?

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 01:56 PM) I'm not asking for a splashy hire. If you have a big name, great. If not, well, you better have a track record as a good coach. And outside of a three game sample size, he doesn't. 34-30 in the lowly MAC and never finished better than 3rd (Bill Self won 71% of his conference games at Tulsa, Bruce Weber won 69% of his games at SIU). Overall, he won just 60% of his games. Who cares what he has coming back to Ohio next year? We're going to base this hire around what he might do in the future in a bad basketball conference? Tom Izzo coached at MSU before. Groce has no ties to the state of Illinois. What is this Chicago track record? He obviously did a great job making DJ Cooper out of South Holland come to Ohio, but out side of that I do not see much. I'm in class right now, so I can't really do the research right now, but it took Bill Self a good 4-5 years before he started winning with any regularity, with the last year being a particularly high outlier. An outlier that Groce should also roughly have next year since his entire team is coming back.

Also, Theus wasn't good enough for DePaul or Nebraska, why does anybody want him at U of I?

It's amazing how much the media can influence people's opinions on the AD and the probable coaching hire. What exactly is it that makes it Thomas's fault that none of the "big splash" hires came to Illinois? I'm sure this will be an easy answer because you were all present for the negotiations. And, since when did "overtures" to coaches start counting as misses for the AD? I would think that if a coach denies interest in a job offering immediately kind of implies that there was no amount of negotiating that would change their mind about it. What exactly is it that makes Groce a bad hire? Is it his track record of being a good recruiter, including actual Chicago recruiting experience, something that the aforementioned "big splash" hires do not have? Is it his ability to win games of actual importance, giving him the majority of Ohio's NCAA victories as well as 2 MAC Championships, something his predecessor could not do despite the better record in the regular season? Did I mention that his entire current team is returning for next year, which would likely mean that we are hiring him a year before he becomes a "rising star," which would give him a very similar track record to one Bill Self? Does he just need a big name to be a good hire? How is that working for Minnesota? Similarly, Tom Izzo wasn't exactly a flashy hire and look how that turned out for Michigan State. Is Groce my first choice? No, but that doesn't mean he is a bad choice.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 4, 2012 -> 01:47 PM) I've defended Webb and wouldn't be surprised if they gave him another shot, but I have to say..."Regressing at tackle" would be pretty darn difficult. Hell, the fact that Omiyale will not play there is automatically an upgrade. If Webb takes the Tackle spot, then worst case scenario he's about where he was last year, and Carimi hopefully comes back on the other side. If Williams takes that spot, he's taking it hopefully because he's outplaying webb, and then the interior is hopefully shored up. I think you're making my point for me here. The only place on the line that we really need an upgrade is LT, and signing a guard so that one of your current guards, whom you moved to guard in the first place, can move back over to tackle is not exactly a great plan for upgrading.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 4, 2012 -> 01:12 PM) If the Bears spend a lot of money on a guard, it's probably because they decided to move Williams back to tackle. Possible, but dunno if Tice is up for that kind of shift. Fair point, but they would have to be pretty sure that he is a surefire left tackle to take on that risk. Improving at guard only to regress at tackle seems like a net loss to me.