cabiness42

Salary dump trades generally happen between June 15-July 31. It's going to be a few more weeks before teams figure out what their chances of contending are and what they are willing to give up to fill their needs. Also, the Sox don't really have a lot of salaries they need to dump. Dunn is the obvious one to be shopped, since he's the highest-paid player on the team and has an expiring contract. Danks has the next biggest salary, but also has 2 more years on his deal, so it's not quite clear whether or not trading him makes sense.

I noticed that the Sox have a travel day between playing the Angels and Dodgers. I guess SoCal traffic really is as bad as everybody says it is.

Yes, the White Sox will FINALLY make their 2014 MLBN debut on Saturday, June 7, @LAA. Of course the game is a 10pm ET start. Sox are also scheduled to be on MLBN Saturday, June 28, at 1pm ET @TOR.

Noesi's ERA with the Sox is 4.33, with an ERA+ of 97.

I'm not going to get into his head to try and determine whether or not he was trying to be misleading, but if you want your work to hold any validity in the statistical community, you can't do stuff like that.

After last year, I was ready to trade Alexei, but with the way he's playing now, I have to agree that I think he can be the starting SS when the Sox are contending in 2015 or 2016. That's not to say that there isn't some package that I would take for him, but I'm definitely not looking to do a Rios-type salary dump with him.

Skipping right over the weekend???

Like any improvement, the change will be gradual. However, I think you underestimate the number of parents who will jump at FREE CHILD CARE and have their kids there quite a bit. That's up to five hours after the school day and up to 14 hours a day while the school is on breaks. That's a lot of time off the streets, and that's a lot of time that a lot of kids spend learning things, even if it isn't academically rigorous like regular school.

OK, I followed that link, and my head hurts from reading all the acronyms and restrictions. I'm talking about something much more basic--the school has an adjoining facility that is open 6am-8pm M-F year round. Very simple, basic, on-site registration with no red tape. You don't have kids going home to their "turf" right after school. You have them there until 8pm or whenever a parent can come and get them. No, it's not going to eliminate gang activity, but it's a huge step in the right direction.

Yes, but parents also see the value in not getting harassed by the school constantly. If they know that someone will be pounding on their door or visiting them at work every time the kid is absent, their attitude will start to change quickly. The problem is, schools don't have the resources to do this, so the parents get away with it.

It's not just building new schools--it's putting the people and programs with the schools to change the communities. First of all, every elementary school in disadvantaged areas should have an attached child care/pre-school/tutoring for kids age 3-12 that is open 6am-8pm M-F year round. Attached, but run separately from the school so as not to be an additional burden to the principal/teachers. Cost is free up to whatever parents are deemed to be able to pay. This frees parents up to be able to hold down jobs without having to worry about child care, which is a very big problem in the schools. The second thing this accomplishes is that it gets kids in the habit of being at school every day from an early age. The third thing it accomplishes is that it gets the basics of learning instilled in the kids before they reach kindergarten. Add adult learning opportunities for parents. They can go learn valuable skills in one room while their kids are down the hall learning in another. Secondly, the schools need to be very aggressive in dealing with absences. This requires non-teacher human resources that most schools can't afford. If a kid is absent from school and the parent does not call in the absence, the school tries to call the parent. If the parent can't be reached or is reached but is unaware of the absence, the school goes looking for the kid. An entire department dedicated entirely to making sure that kids are in school. There is a ton more but these are two of the biggest things. The culture change has to happen over generations. Start with the smallest children, and 20+ years from now you will start seeing real progress. One of the problems is that we have no patience and we keep trying to just throw money at quick fixes that don't work.

Well, having an OPS of .781 isn't entirely out of the question, but it's not unreasonable to think that he hangs near .750. The main reason the Sox are .500 right now is the production from 2B-SS-3B. Their primary players at those positions have OPS of .781 .841 and .866. There isn't a team in baseball that wouldn't take that kind of production from those three positions.

Jews in America were never forced into slavery or denied the right to vote, but other than that I agree with you that we can't just single out blacks and hand them cash to "make up" for slavery. The single best way to improve the lives of those living below the poverty level is improving education. I'm talking about billions and billions of dollars worth of investment in infrastructure and people. But nobody wants to do that because for some bizarre reason, we've tied school funding directly to property taxes, whereas money for just about everything else comes out of general income/sales taxes so people don't notice the increases as sharply.

You cite the statistic of batting average and then wonder why people think you're trolling. If you aren't then the alternative is that you haven't the faintest clue how to measure the value of offensive performance. The #1 goal of a hitter is to not make an out, and Dunn is the second best on the team at doing that. Dunn wasn't taking PA away from more deserving players. Before the year, neither De Aza nor Viciedo had proven enough to warrant getting playing time at DH. Even if Garcia doesn't get hurt, do you really think De Aza is playing over Dunn given the way the two have hit so far this year? I wasn't down on Gillaspie. I said that I thought Davidson would eventually become the starter at 3B but that in the short term he was a worst a platoon player there.

I'm fairly certain that Abreu and Tanaka were on the radar when the Sox started shedding salary.

Any player who can put up a 1.7 WAR while pre-arb is a bargain. The problem is that a 1.7 WAR nets a closer a much higher arb salary than a starting pitcher or position player providing the same WAR, and Reed is going to be in that boat at the end of this season.

I agree with this completely, though the bottom 99.99% help the top 0.01% continue to be able to rig the system by continuing to vote for Democrats and/or Republicans.

Yes, anything is possible, but the odds dictate the the Sox should want Detroit to beat any and all potential WC teams.

33 years old and under team control through 2015 vs. 27 years old and under team control through 2019

Detroit should never have been the measuring stick even from the start of the season. This team, at best, is competing for the second Wild Card. As enjoyable as it is to see the Tigers lose, we should be hoping they win every time they play the Angels, Yankees, Orioles, Mariners, Twins, Royals and Indians.

There aren't any pitchers expected back from the DL that soon, are there? Seems like he's a good bet to reach that 12 days and probably more.

Not that I'm advocating a bid, but just pointing out that the US could host a Winter Olympics for far less than $52B.

The return for Alex Rios is wearing #79.

Cleveland's roster is not well-equipped to deal with left-handed pitching. Five lefties and three switch-hitters (who generally hit better lefty) out of 11 position players.