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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.

QUOTE (MexSoxFan#1 @ Oct 5, 2014 -> 11:29 PM) Admittedly I was a bit drunk and angry during the second half of the Packers game but I do stand by my words. There isn't much seperation physical tools wise between Jay and Aaron, albeit Rodgers is the more accurate passer. What seperates the two is football IQ, you can watch several Packers games and not once see Rodgers throw a 'WTF were you thinking throw', with Jay, it's a given he'll have 2-3 of those kinds of throws a game, case in point, his first INT, I don't care if there was a PI during the play, you don't throw into triple coverage, I don't care who the WR is, you just don't. Frankly, I've underwhelmed by Jay's tenure as the Bears' QB. He's finally got weapons, a decent offensive line and an offensive minded HC, so why is he still making the same stupid mistakes? For the Cutler Crowd, it's always someone else's fault, at exactly what point are we going to start to realize that it just might be Jay? Rodgers also has much better pocket presence than Jay. He's willing roll out of pocket to let the play breakdown and buy more time. Cutler panics when the pocket collapses and fires that patented off the backfoot throw that misses the receiver by a mile.

He gets spoiled by the catching radius of Jeffery, Marshall and Bennett. Every now and then, he will try to force something when there's nothing there, and hope that his big receivers will somehow get to the ball. I think he will be a much better quarterback if he learns to just throw the ball away, and move out of pocket more often. Historically, his out of pocket QBR is over 100, and he's definitely agile enough to buy more time with his feet.

Of course not this year. Their attendance this year has nothing to do with their opening day payroll.

Worth pointing out that KC has a higher opening day ($92M vs $91M) and end of season payroll ($94M vs $87M) than the Sox. We have slightly better attendance than them in recent years. This day and age, having an $100M payroll would be considered below league average.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 5, 2014 -> 09:35 PM) Shields with six nice, albeit not dominant, innings. Couple questions ... 1.) Do you start Shields in Game One on Friday if you are Ned/Dayton Moore? 2.) What kind of contract has Shields earned with his postseason performance. Again, very beautiful pitching, but does it project to him being great in 3, 4 5 years? Would you say someone is gonna give him six years 25 mill a year? 3.) Butler has looked pretty good this postseason. Has he earned himself a 4-5 year deal from somebody for 15-20 million a year? Appears to me he's back from the dead. KC fans can say what they want on banners. They wanted to run him out of town a few weeks ago. Thanks in advance for the answers. Did we watched the same postseason? He's 2/13 with 0 XBH and 2 RBI's. That's even worse than his regular season slash. he'd be lucky to get 3/$30. EDIT: I am going to assume you've mistaken Hosmer as Butler, lol

QUOTE (Jake @ Oct 5, 2014 -> 03:25 PM) Mike Shannahan Rick Dennison Ron Turner Mike Martz Mike Tice Lovie Smith Jerry Angelo Marc Trestman? Aaron Kromer? How long before we consider firing the QB? Can you also list the linemen and WR's we have put around him to save his ass?

Someone mentioned last week that Cutler is a dumb QB, I don't think we can deny it at this point. You can surround him with a better line and more weapons, he can put up more yards and throw more touchdown. But he will never stop making dumb mistakes and causing turnovers.

Why is this even thread worthy? Do we post a new thread every time a biased fan from another team post their "rumors" about a Sox player? The title says Red Sox rumor, but nowhere in the article states where the said "rumor" came from. It's cute how he thinks Owens and Vazquez alone is good for Sale. They would need to add Bogaerts, JBJ, and Betts to start the conversation.

Brace yourself for a KC - STL World Series

Danks should be a D-. Expected to be a number 3 starter and gets paid $14 mil a year, but ends up with the same ERA and WHIP as Carroll. Worst of all, he bombed around the trade deadline and we couldn't move his dead weight contract.

Nitpicking on Sale and Quintana here, but this number has to get better next year. http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/pitching/_/so...type/expanded-2

Pretty incredible 2 months for Chris Bassitt. He went from injured in the minors to rehabbing in the Rookies League to making ML debut and now shutting down one of the best offenses. He deserves a chance to battle for the 5th spot next ST.

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 20, 2014 -> 11:00 AM) Sorry, I meant the last few weeks it seems he's not chasing pitches as much. When he returned from the injury, his timing was so off he was swinging at everything. Are there stats to show his swing percentage by month? QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Sep 20, 2014 -> 04:30 PM) Good question, I'm not aware of how to do it, but I'll dig around and try to find something. Swing rate in September He tends to lay off pitches on the interior and is aggressive on anything that's down the middle and out. Whiff rate in September He gets the bat on the ball on most of his swings, but pitches low and outside seem to be his weakness.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Sep 20, 2014 -> 12:00 PM) Has anyone ever messed with fanduel? How long is the "pending bonus" pending? Deposited $25 last week and got that amount in the pending bonus as well. But only $0.60 was awarded to me while the rest is still in pending after spending $15 in leagues last week.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 17, 2014 -> 01:22 PM) Added together, trading away Sale for a package, even a top flight package, does two things; it dramatically decreases our near-term performance and it dramatically increases our long-term risk. That's a hard pair to stomach, hence why I can't come up with any conceivable package that works. Every time someone has said we should trade Sale I've responded "Mike Trout's available"? I think that's a fair point. 2 years ago Bryce Harper was on that list with Trout, but he isn't there yet either and there's an injury worry. Taveras, Wacha, Martinez, and Wong (or Adams). All of which are performing at ML level at this point. Had we made the trade last year, it would have been impressive as rarely would you yield 100% major leaguers in a trade package. Wong/Adams, and Wacha are all 3 WAR players if they played a full season this year. Taveras has progressed in the second half this year and still looks like he can win a batting title in 2 years. Martinez, if nothing else, can throw 100 mph and is a future closer candidate if not a mid rotation starter. I would argue the long term risk of this deal is fairly low compared to other trade packages, and at the same time, I would come back to the health of Chris Sale being a bigger long term risk.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Sep 17, 2014 -> 10:50 AM) Ok, this is where I struggle to understand the outrage when the mere mention of trading Sale is raised. If we can go to market and buy 1 if not 2 aces, why is the idea met with such universal disdain? Chris Sale is making 1/5th of what he'd be worth in the open market between now and 2019. For me, the logic is, if Sale couldn't make it through a season healthy at this stage of his career, throwing for as hard as he throws for 200 innings a year for the next 3 years of .500 baseball is going to be a huge risk for the Sox. Therefore I will capitalize on his team friendly contract and let a team pay a boatload of prospects for him. But others prefer an ace with a team friendly contract and also a question mark that hasn't gone away.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Sep 17, 2014 -> 09:50 AM) Well, I admitted it would be unpopular, and I certainly don't mind getting bashed. As you alluded to, I think it is important to consider things like this, despite their unpopularity. One thing I will say is that the "bashers" don't usually come back and admit they were wrong when the minority opinion was correct. As for Sale, a trade would not necessarily have to be entirely for prospects, per se. Honestly, what if the deal was Sale for Rizzo/Bryant/High ceiling A-ball prospect? Doubtful the Cubs would consider that, but I don't think that is soooo incredibly out of the realm of possibilities if another team were to put together some pieces like that... I commend you for going against the popular believe. For the record, I start a thread on this last year and was bashed pretty bad as well. http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=89048 Being where we are at now, I'd still do Taveras, Wacha, Martinez and Wong for Sale.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Sep 17, 2014 -> 10:02 AM) I think the Sox would want an elite level pitching prospect, but you're right that it doesn't have to necessarily just be prospects and Rizzo is a guy that would be attractive. Frankly, I think Rizzo, Bryant, and Edwards is pretty damn close. Highly doubt Cubs would do that. FWIW I think Rizzo has the more team friendly contract as he is signed through 2019 for $35 mil total, with $14.5 team options in 2020 and 2021. They wouldn't trade their 2 best position players for a pitcher when they have the money to go out and buy 1 if not 2 aces if needed.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Sep 16, 2014 -> 03:22 PM) What does everyone make of the relationship between HR/FB%, HR/9 and really any other statistics used for measuring HR. There doesn't seem to be a lot of common ground, at least in my scant rummages, in the statistic community. A lot of people think that HR/FB% has a lot to do with luck but obviously it is a skill for certain pitchers who limit HRs like sinkerballers but with neither of Quintana or Sale being sinkerballers, the improvement is jarring. Sure, Sale is straight-up filthy and Quintana works all parts of the plate/changes eye levels like no other, but this was true prior to this year. Their stats this year are true outliers. Our two studs are 7th and 9th in fWAR for the AL largely because Quintana is 3rd in HR/FB% and Sale is 12th (4.4% and 6.9% respectively). It's even more incredible considering the ballpark they call home. Quintana HR/FB% 2012 10.5% 2013 10.2% 2014 4.4% Career 8.3% Sale HR/FB% 2010 11.1% 2011 10.9% 2012 11.6% 2013 12.9% 2014 6.9% Career 10.5% Is this something they have worked on with Coop and the coaching staff? That would definitely jive with organizational philosophy of sinkerballers/ground ball inducing pitchers. Is it a matter of younger pitchers become more polished and learning from past mistakes? Or is it that they both have had nearly identical improvements that should regress towards the mean next year? Very curious to where everyone sits on this, but regardless, I just love to talk about our two cost-controlled, front-line left-handed starting pitchers. Especially considering both have improved for the third straight year. I think fWAR is calculated with FIP instead of xFIP, which only looks at their overall HR allowed. If fWAR used xFIP instead, it would certainly penalize their value because their HR/FB is relatively low. To answer your question without actually getting insights from the coaching staff, I would say on surface this has a lot to do with both pitchers relying on their off speed stuff alot more. In Quintana's case, out of the 400+ changeups he's thrown, he's yet to allow a HR. Here's a good look at each's pitches thrown vs results for the past two years. Sale 2013 Sale 2014 Q 2013 Q 2014 In the case of Sale, he cut down opponent's ISO against his FB by more than half this season, which is pretty remarkable. In 2013, he has allowed 12 HR off his FB, while only allowing 2 so far in 2014. Looking at his fastball velocity in between the past two years, the velocity difference isn't significant enough to suggest such improvement. This could all be a fluke, but it could be not. Digging deeper, I found on Fangraphs his fastball vertical movement went from 4" and 4.1" in 2012 and 2013, respectively, to 6.3" in 2014, making it that much harder for hitters to put good wood on the ball and hit it far. This, by no means, is conclusive evidence or tells the whole story of his development, by it is a good place to start.