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QUOTE (shipps @ Jan 19, 2015 -> 02:51 PM) Does this effect the next Samardijza contract in any way good or bad? Hahn would probably think outside the box on this one too. Pay the man in bitcoins.

That's why Chris Sale is near the top of every trade value list. Seriously, imagine what he would be worth in the open market. It's also unfortunately Rodon is a Boras guy. If we could work out an extension for him in a couple of seasons, we would continue to enjoy incredible cap flexibility.

Why the hell did GB call the timeout so soon. Leaving too much time for Seattle.

WAR sometimes doesn't agree with the eye test, but FWIW, Flowers had a 2.3 bWAR and 1.8 fWAR last year, so he's considered to be a league average catcher. $2.7 mil for a $10 mil value ain't bad at all.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 15, 2015 -> 05:15 PM) I actually really liked what I saw from Surkamp out of the pen. I know about his profile but admitted I only watched him pitch maybe twice last season and nothing stood out for me. What did you like about him?

QUOTE (Charlie Haeger's Knuckles @ Jan 15, 2015 -> 04:50 PM) I think I read somewhere he had the worst "inherited runners allowed" stat on the team with Zack Putnam having the best on the team, last season. He might have, but those things varies greatly from season to season. He's pitched respectably 3 of his 4 seasons in the majors, and does have a good fastball. So I wouldn't hold it against him yet. QUOTE (Mike F. @ Jan 15, 2015 -> 04:50 PM) What about Eric Surkamp? Does he not make the team? The guys he's competing against clearly are better or have better track records. With his repertoire, he profiles better as a 6th starter anyways. If we need an emergency starter, he or Beck will get the call from Triple A.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Jan 15, 2015 -> 04:38 PM) I wonder when the last time we actually went to arbitration? I think it's a good thing to settle amicably. But, what role will Guerrra hav with this team? I like it, his arb was projected to be $1.3 mil. He didn't do bad last year, we could do worse with $900K. Robertson, Petricka, Duke, Putnam, Webb, Guerra, Jennings/Garcia. Guerra bumps out Cleto.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 15, 2015 -> 11:42 AM) Jax is obviously terrible, but Bradley deserves 5 years there with the roster they gave him. Put it another way, nothing Bradley has done so far would endorse the hiring of a Seattle assistant based on their success, which I think is attributed to the talent and the competitiveness of the players as much as it's on the assistants themselves.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 15, 2015 -> 11:00 AM) And it has forced Jimmy to play a ton of minutes. Not sure if sarcasm. Jimmy has been playing big minutes all season, he probably played less since Dunleavy went down.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jan 15, 2015 -> 10:45 AM) All of the assistants are a crapshoot. Even experienced head coaches can be one too, depending, but in terms of experienced HC's, unless you are looking at Cowher / Dungy / Gruden, Fox is that next class of experienced coaches (along with Shanny). Shanny should be in the breath of the 1st three coaches, however, the stink that happened in Washington still follows him (and he might actually deserve more credit than he ever got for Washington given what a disaster Snyder is). The reality is, you know what you have and that is a good NFL coach who can hire good assistants on both sides of the ball and help you win football games. He is still going to need talent to win, he can't turn water into wine or part the red sea. He needs talent but if you give him talent, he'll get you their and won't get in the way. At the end of the day, that is a rare commodity and when you have that known, go get it. He instantly establishes a winning culture and overall stability to an organization which has lacked it, really since Lovie got additional roster control after the superbowl (albeit Angelo / Lovie did bring one of the more successful Bear windows and periods...one where we contended every year...didn't make the playoffs as much as we'd like but we contended). Fox is a class above Lovie, mainly because he has demonstrated the ability to hire offensive talent. Fox also has a long history of being able to work with his GM's, etc, which is a really major plus and the way he handled the last year in Denver despite Elway being a prick, is also pretty admirable, imo. Quinn has only been a DC for 4 years, and only 2 years at NFL level. To go from College DC to NFL head coach in a matter of 2 years is a pretty big leap, the skepticism for his ability is not uncalled for. You are right that he needs talent to win, and he was given the best deck of card in Seattle. Those boys in Seattle had the talent and had the drive to win. Sherman is about the most competitive guy out there and Earl Thomas is as hardworking anyone guy you will see in the NFL. The Seattle defense was already top of the line before Quinn took over. (Interestingly, Gus Bradley, the DC Quinn replaced went on to Jacksonville and that's been a failed experience so far) If we are looking for Quinn to do his magic with this Bears team, I am afraid it's going to end up in a disaster because one, we don't have nearly the talent nor the competitiveness or pride in the defensive side of the ball as Seattle does, and two, his track record, especially for other parts of the game is very limited. Unless they see more in him, like you mentioned, the "it" factor, it's hard to not be skeptical about the move.

Quinn seems like an attractive name based on the Seattle connection, but I am not sold he's ready to be a HC.

The Bulls have too many one way players outside of Butler. Every lineup Thibs puts out there there's a weakness that could be exploited by the other teams. The Wizards starting 5 are just more complete than ours at the moment, I think their starters have outscored ours by 40 points the past 2 games. It's not hard to see why, all of them are respectable scorers and are capable defenders. We need Rose to show up on defense, Dunleavy has a lot of value in stretching the defense and he needs to play, we need Noah playing on 2 legs not 1. Even then I am starting to warm up to the Gasol-Gibson front line.

Someone with Synergy subscription can back me up here, the Bulls are just awful this year against the pick and roll plays.

We plateaued after the Rockets win. Everything was downhill from there.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 14, 2015 -> 04:58 PM) Of course no team in NBA history under .500 this far into the season has won an NBA title so....history is against them. Think of all the teams in the east with legit big guys that will destroy them. Wizards, Hawks and Bulls... The thing is you could name weaknesses from all the top teams in the East. Washington doesn't have reliable perimeter scoring, Atlanta lacks rebounding and legit sixth man, Toronto doesn't have front court depth and is 1-4 against Bulls and Cavs, and we all know Bulls have their own issues. OTOH, the Cavs have as much strengths as any teams in the East. I feel like the issue here is there were such high expectations for that team to be good right out of the gate, even taking into account the adjustments they need to make in learning to play in the new system with new players, but no one expected them to fall below .500. If you look at it objectively though, they went through an adjustment period for the first 10 games or so, then went out a 13-4 stretch before Lebron went down. Then they lost Varejao for the season and locker room starts to divide during their losing streak. I feel like a lot of the panic right now is just overreaction. Objectively, they aren't that far from our original predicitions. When healthy, this team is still one of the best teams in the East, and there's no reason to write them off now. P.S. I think Shumpert could be the glue guy for their team. He will bring skills to the 2 guard position that Miller and Marion just doesn't have.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 14, 2015 -> 04:30 PM) Meh, but their offense is better than those teams. Who knows, we're just playing theoretical matchups right now. Until they've proven they can't win when they are healthy, writing them off would be premature.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 14, 2015 -> 04:10 PM) Atlanta's D is pretty damn good. They are good, but they aren't shutting down the firepower of Cleveland for 7 games kind of good. We aren't talking about the Pacers of the past 2 years, the 2011 Bulls, or the great Celtics or Pistons D of the past decade here.

The addition of Mozgov and especially Shunpert will help their defense a lot. With guys like Mike Miller, Marion, Thompson, and JR. coming off the bench, that isn't the definition of "no depth". Locker room is a concern, but winning solves that. Look, if LeBron wasn't injurred the last 10 games or so and they went on to go 1-8, we probably wouldn't be having this conversation. If they continue to fall into mediocrity with a healthy Lebron for an extended period of time, then yea we could write them off.

QUOTE (MexSoxFan#1 @ Jan 14, 2015 -> 02:04 PM) No they won't. A healthy LeBron can't change the fact that the Cavs have weak bigs, a healthy LeBron won't help Kyrie and KLove not suck on defense, a healthy LeBron can't change the fact that the East top teams are actually good this year... They won't be winning playoff series with their defense, but their offense had a chance to be best in the league, and still does. It isn't like any of the top teams in the East are defensive juggernauts and could shut down their offense. Let's not forget they went on a 13-4 run before Lebron went down 2 weeks ago. Counting out a team with that much talent while they are just going through injuries is a little premature.

QUOTE (MexSoxFan#1 @ Jan 14, 2015 -> 11:59 AM) But they are going to the ECFs! I don't look like quite the idiot now when I kept saying during the summer that they wouldn't be that good this year Chill out dude. The Bulls aren't the lock you think they would be as well. The Cavs will be in the thick and thin of the road to ECF with a healthy Lebron.

The Hawks rested 3 starters tonight (their coach Mike Budenholzer is a Popovich guy) and still had 34 assists on 42 made baskets. That's frankly astounding. Budenholzer might be one of NBA's best kept secrets.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 13, 2015 -> 09:43 AM) Three big things holding this team down: Rose, Noah and Thibs. Which is crazy to say but it's true. Rose's defense is atrocious, as is his jumpshot. Teams are going under the pick and roll so he'll shoot, and Rose is taking them for some stupid reason. He's hurting the offensive flow when he's in the game, and his defense, well, is just terrible. Noah. I love the guy, but he's either hurting our out of place or something. He looks terrible. He still makes the occasional great play, but on defense he and Pau are not communicating enough. And his offense game is non-existent. Thibs. Tough to criticize the man, but his substitutions are terrible. He keeps defensive guys in there (sans-Taj) when they're down 15. What they really need is their explosive offensive group out there - Pau, Mirotic, Butler, Snell/Moore/Rose and Brooks. Let them run and gun. And it so happens that Mirotic, Snell and Moore, along with Butler, have been playing some fantastic defensive minutes the last 2 weeks. I don't understand why Moore isn't playing over Hinrich at this point. He's looked really good all season. There's been nothing I've seen that indicates that Hinrich is a better option at this point. Moore is younger, more athletic, more explosive and has a better get-to-the-rim game. I don't agree with this. Defense is this team's identity and they have always relied on defense to win games. And guess what, their defense was awful last night (has been for a while now), you can't blame the guy for trying to enforce better defense with that lineup. Run and gun is not Bull's strong suit, you can't beat Orlando in their own game, especially when Gasol was the slowest guy out there and was beat on numerous occasions getting back on defense. I think the blame on Thibs is he didn't put a different look on defense when Vucevic was just abusing Gasol out there. We played too much man to man and there was no way Gasol could have stopped him. In games like this, you'd like to see more traps, double teams, or even some zones. We just let their offense get too comfortable out there, as evident by only forcing 10 turnovers. If fact, we're 29th in the league in opponent turnovers, that has been one of our biggest weaknesses this season.

I like this forum because there is something for everyone. Heck, there are even guys who post exclusively on Slam or the NBA thread and you aren't sure if they are actually Sox fans

QUOTE (LDF @ Jan 12, 2015 -> 03:45 PM) and i am not disputing you or your hard work to present this. all i am saying is i think it would behoove him to get that extra work in the minors. if the coaches who really know more than i would ever gather, if they say he is ready to move to the majors. then so be it. i just don't want anyone to rush him. second, the sox had him work on other pitches and to forgo the slider. so it is obvious that they, the sox, wanted him to work on his other pitches. next yr for the sox is going to be great, i would like the sox to have the starters ready to carry the load. not to have the wheel fall off. I agree with everything you said about his current development status and his need for work in the minors, I am not pushing him to the bullpen if that's what you're thinking. When I talked about floor in the original post, I was talking about his worst likely outcome, not current prospect profile. Unless you are debating whether or not Rodon has a floor of a league average starter and the ceiling of an ace, then I think we are talking about different things lol.

He penciled Detroit in at #6. He must be betting on Verlander returning to form this season, because as of now, Tigers' playoff rotation is two deep, and Sanchez's health is always question mark.