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QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Oct 10, 2014 -> 08:09 AM) Eddie Royal is not a red zone threat. It's an aberration. He does this to everyone every couple of years in the early part of the season. Just want to point out both Gates and Royal had touchdowns today and Keenan continues to be invisible. BTW that's 13 TD's for Royal in the past 21 games. At some point it's more of reality than aberration.

I've been picking the QB going against the Bears 3 of the last 4 weeks in my Fanduel survivor tournament, so I will be happy regardless of the outcome. Yes, I have Matt Ryan as my QB this week.

Meanwhile Durant after skipping FIBA last month fractures foot and is expected to be out 6-8 weeks.

Yes, the block shots are a bonus, but I'm just very satisfied that both of our PF's will put a hand up and challenge shots. It's a nice thing to have for a change.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Oct 12, 2014 -> 12:30 AM) Rodon, Anderson, Montas, and Danish I am 99% certain is Micah. He did play in the Futures game this year and wow'd many scouts in the process.

Things I like so far: Taj working the post a lot more and holding off that less than stellar mid range jumpshot. Mirotic has really active hands on defense, leading to a few steals. As I type this, Noah hasn't shown much so far, Larry Sanders just jumped over him for 3 offensive boards.

QUOTE (kev211 @ Oct 11, 2014 -> 07:48 AM) Lol. No we wouldn't. We won the bidding war, why bid more than what you need? The bids were not blind. Unless you can find proof that they were ready to pay more than 6/$68 mil, which still means KW didn't expect this production from him.

QUOTE (LDF @ Oct 10, 2014 -> 08:02 PM) let be honest, the signing of Jose A was a huge surprise and a very pleasant one. no one and I mean no one would have imagine Jose A would be a huge success. now If I remember correctly, KW saw him, liked him and then called JR. now here is the wildcard. why did JR take it upon himself to go and outbid everyone to sign him. also didn't he outbid by 10 mil. the sox got very lucky, plain and simple. This is just not true. While many scouts and people around baseball questioned Abreu's bat speed and athleticism, there are also some who compared him to Pujols and Cabrera. Looking in the predictions thread on this forum, even some folks came close in their Abreu projections. Let's be honest here, KW does not have psychic ability, even he didn't see this coming from Jose. If he did, our bid would be much higher. The contract we are paying him is that of an above average first basemen.

If I would have to bet on one of the three to live up to the close to the value that we are paying for them for the rest of their contract, it would be Danks. Also, a part of me thinks that with Danks performing well in the final 4 starts of the season, they will roll the dice with him being a high potential 5th starter and trade him mid season of next off season.

You can 99% pencil in Noesi and Danks in the rotation next year. At this point, Dank is your 5th starter. Other than his salary, I can live with that. Noesi is also a 5th starter material as well. So if you have 2 weak pitchers at the end of your rotation, you need a couple of solid mid rotation arms. If we trade Q for Puig, we basically need to bring in a pitcher on the high end side if we want to compete, i.e. someone like Shields, which most of the board would hate to bring in. I am not convinced Masterson can be your #2 starter if you are looking to compete.

So it sounds like his delivery and command is hurting his the effectiveness of his fastball. Command is still at 40-45 for other pitches. I do not know what his command was coming into this year, but it doesn't sound like he made much improvement. Losing half of the season to injury definitely hurts. And this is also just 1 start in AFL, hopefully he makes adjustments rest of the way.

QUOTE (Brian @ Oct 9, 2014 -> 09:52 AM) Don't think you can go wrong either way, but Keenan is a must start every week IMO. I'm playing Wayne in flex this week. I will disagree. Keenan has been bad this year. He's had 4 good to great matchups in 5 games , yet only 1 game over 55 yards. On top of that, Gates and Royal will get most of the red zone targets in that system. I am starting Marshall, and Steve Smith with Benjamin over Keenan as my flex this week.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Oct 9, 2014 -> 11:06 AM) No one meaning former AL MVP George Bell or Alvarez/Sosa/Fletcher for Baines? No point of arguing here. Would you say we made amazing acquisitions by picking up the ghosts of Manny Ramirez or Ken Griffey Jr.? Bell's OPS with Sox was in the .650's and was out of baseball in 2 years. Sammy was one of the most feared Juicers for 10+ years. Point still stands.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Oct 8, 2014 -> 08:13 PM) Other than Phillips (who did his damage for Cincy, not CLE)/Sizemore/Lee for Colon and the Rangers/Texeira deal to the Braves, how often have these 2-3 "top" prospects for an established All-Star level or slightly below player worked out well for the team acquiring the prospects? I guess Bonser/Liriano/Joe Nathan for AJ would rank up there as well, especially the first 2-3 years of that trade for Minny. Getting Escobar, Cain, Odorizzi (used as part of the Myers deal to acquire Shields, who's been Greinke-Lite) and J.Jeffress (who was another fireballing reliever they gave up on and sent to the Blue Jays for cash)...that's another example where the team getting prospects back did pretty well. It's usually not the case, but it happens more often than you think. Right on top of my head, the Haren trade, Teixeira to Braves trade, Padres trading Adam Eaton (pitcher) for A Gon and Chris Young. Dating back further. Sox traded Sosa + for no one, and Mariners traded Varitek and Lowe to Red Sox for Slocumb. Even the Peavy trade could work out handsomely for us if Montas can stick as a starter and Rondon could just be a defensive utility guy in the majors.

Probably the enormous paycheck he's going to get. But I would roll the dice just because Stanton will put more people in the seats.

I just realized that there are a lot of white players on the Bulls. Maybe at some point we will see an all white team of Gasol Mirotic Dougie MDJ and Kirk. And Thibs gets suspended for 5 games after.

No thanks. He's old and fragile, and also won't come cheap. If Boston let you beat their offer, that means they also don't trust his health.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Oct 7, 2014 -> 03:17 AM) Ew, no thanks on that front. If Q is going to the Marlins, give me 3B Colin Moran, SP Anthony DeSclafani, C J.T. Realmuto, and C/2B/3B Austin Barnes. Q was a top 10 WAR pitcher this season, and signed to a very nice, long deal. His value should be huge, and those are 4 potential top 10 players in the Marlins system. You do realize that Yelich is a 4 WAR player this year and was the 6th best prospect last year. I think the kid can be a 20/20, 6 WAR player in a year or two, while providing good walk rate and good defense in LF. While Cishek is a closer in his prime who does hit free agency till 2018. I doubt Marlins would even do that trade, but if they offer, I'd consider.

I think it's a statement to the Bulls and want to continue to build the rivalry between the 2 teams. Wizards think they deserve respect as the number 2 banana in the East after beating the Bulls last year. Or like you said, Pierce is just being a punk.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 6, 2014 -> 10:24 PM) I hear he wears his sunglasses at night. This team does need more swag after getting rid of the Slayer

QUOTE (BigHurt3515 @ Oct 6, 2014 -> 07:21 PM) Pierce is a b****.. Second this. Never liked the guy. He always have either a tough guy look or an are-you-f***ing-kidding-me look on his face.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Oct 6, 2014 -> 10:10 AM) I don't think Jay is dumb or does dumb things. I think Jay is incredibly confident, to the point of arrogance, and perhaps selfishness, in his abilities. The bad interception that was intended for Holmes was not a "dumb" throw, btw. It was an errant throw, yes, but he was open. Up until that point Jay had been extremely accurate (granted, the emphasis was on short passes yesterday), and that one just got away. You can't just look at passes that were actually intercepted, but the passes that are almost intercepted as well. Admittedly, I didn't watch the full game yesterday, but I did see Cutler wasn't as aggressive and used a stable of check down passes to Forte. But if you want to go back to the GB and the Jets game, I counted that he made at least 5 throws that could've or should've been intercepted if the defender held on to the ball or reached out a little further. You are sitting there and think WTF is Jay thinking?? Yes, those passes will turn into turnovers over time. It seems like he constantly plays with fire, or he would panic and throw an off the back foot pass under pressure instead of just simply throwing the ball away or scrambling out of pocket. If that's not dumb, then I don't know what is.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 6, 2014 -> 10:01 AM) If you want to say that the game yesterday is the fluke that teams commonly lose during the season, fine, I'm ok with that. That definitely happens. But that game just continued a trend of being a middle-of-the-road team on offense, scoring in the low/mid 20's, that has continued all season. The Bears offense has fallen from #2 in the league to #17 as of now. They're at the top of the NFC North easily if their offense was #5 in the league right now. I give the yardage a pass because both Jeffery and Marshall were banged up for 3 games or so, and the defenses played to stuff the run against Forte. Rushing has definitely gotten better the past 2 games. The stat that is inexcusable is we are 3rd in the league with 10 giveaways, and yes, Cutler is responsible for 9 of those. If we stop turning the ball over so damn much, it will help both the offense and defense.

I don't think anyone can blame Jay alone for the loss yesterday, our defense is still banged up and Carolina woke up in the second half. The bigger issue and it's also something that will never change about Jay is he constantly making dumb mistakes, and he is just bad at running a 2 minute offense, it offsets the value he provides to the offense, and it doesn't put us in good position to win games. Mind you this is one of the highest paying QB's in the league. (Part of it in the FO's fault for trust in him) Yes, Gould missed a field goal yesterday and Forte had a fumble. But Gould is the 3rd most accurate kicker in NFL history, and Forte is one of the in the league at protecting the ball. Those guys RARELY make mistakes. By the way, the fact that McCown went from looking like a Pro Bowler in 6 games last year to looking like a scrub again in TB this year says something about the talents we have surrounded Cutler with on offense.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Oct 5, 2014 -> 11:41 PM) He is what he is at this point. I like Jay and think he's a good(not great) QB but he's not going to improve dramatically at this stage of his career. He has the physical ability to play out of pocket, and he can always throw the ball away if nothing else. I think it's more so habits rather than ability that's keeping into from being a great quarterback. As to why he wouldn't change those habits, casual observers like me will never understand.