shysocks

But actually I'm bummed to not get Gordon. Would've been fine with 4/80. That's the way it goes. Don't miss on Upton or Cespedes.

Came back after couple week hiatus to check this thread. Read caulfield. Leaving.

QUOTE (BigHurt3515 @ Dec 24, 2015 -> 01:37 PM) Yes, investigator. Silly error to make.

QUOTE (flavum @ Dec 24, 2015 -> 12:29 PM) On episode 4...those Avery's are mental giants, huh? Ha, can't differentiate what happened in different episodes but sadly they are not.

That said Gordon remains my preferred option.

There's evidence that players peak younger now and decline sooner. 28-29 are no longer the golden years. On a phone so I don't wanna link to anything right now, but I'm sure it's easily Googleable.

QUOTE (BigHurt3515 @ Dec 22, 2015 -> 12:00 AM) For those of you who are interested in crime shows, Serial Podcast, stuff like that; you HAVE to check out "Making a Murderer" on Netflix. I need someone to talk to about this. Just watched the whole thing over the last 18 hours or so and I don't know what to do with myself. It's incredibly upsetting.

Fangraphs: Avisail Garcia's Uncomfortable Situation Relevant, because some suggest it would be acceptable to waste more plate appearances and more innings on Avisail Garcia.

Also saw it at the same Icon and had no problem understanding Ren.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 21, 2015 -> 10:08 AM) I heard a clip of this on the radio this morning. When he starts apologizing and says the other woman is the winner, the tone of his voice is like someone trying to get the crowd riled up, not someone who is sorry about what just happened. He also took a lot of "build the suspense" pauses. On that clip alone it sounded 100% planned. I saw a full clip and it struck me how much time was remaining in the broadcast after announcing the wrong winner. The camera just lingered on her for what seemed like an eternity. I avoid these dumb pageants whenever possible so I don't know if that's typical and my expertise is literally zero, but to me if they announced the winner with so much time left, it lends credence to the claim that it was a stunt.

QUOTE (bmags @ Dec 21, 2015 -> 09:54 AM) Yep. I would be interested to know how this movie landed for someone that did not see any previous movies. Don't know anybody like that, but I made my wife watch Episode IV the night prior, she hadn't seen any of them til then but she knew some of the unavoidable plot beats like the Skywalker family tree. She thought it was too slow to build up but ultimately didn't mind the movie. She really liked FA. She loved the three new main characters, she appreciated how funny it was, thought the action was engrossing, and thankfully most of the callbacks to the original trilogy referenced New Hope so she could appreciate it on that level too. So somebody with very little Star Wars background and absolutely no nostalgia found FA considerably better. And she found BB8 adorable, which is a fact.

QUOTE (bmags @ Dec 21, 2015 -> 09:44 AM) With the original trilogy, you really lived in the new planets, learned them like a new character. This hopped around too much, it was just scenery. Same issue with star trek. I don't feel like the Star Wars world has expanded. But yes, he basically cleansed the palette. And it certainly looked beautiful, the action was fantastic. The ty fighter - falcon chase was top notch entertainment. The first longshot of the Resistance X-Wings coming across the water, followed by the shot that Steve is now using as his signature. Oh my god. I thoroughly nerded out.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Dec 20, 2015 -> 04:34 PM) Yeah the demasking was great. If he's another emotionless killing robot, Han goes out there to approach him and just looks like an idiot. He dies, well what did you expect? Instead seeing his face helps give him some humanity. It creates just enough doubt that maybe he will join up with his dad. Makes Hans death all the more shocking. As for Kylo being serverly injured, I did acknowledge that. There's a really out of place scene where Han basically says, hey chewie, your blaster looks cool, let me try it. And he uses it to show off its power. Really served no purpose until Han dies and Chewie shoots Kylo with the same extremely powerful blaster. So you are supposed to get just how injured he is. I get that. I would have just left it up to Rey and Rey alone to save the day. I think Finn put up a better fight then you give him credit for. First bold: You did, sorry. I missed it. I had just gotten home from seeing the movie and this thread had been taunting me, so I probably read through too quick. Second bold: Would have to watch it again, but from what I remember there were a couple token saber clashes, Ren scalded Finn's shoulder, a couple more clashes, and then Ren finishes the job. Seemed to last like forty seconds. Which, to your point, is still probably longer than it should have lasted. I was always under the impression that if you don't have Force attunement and you pick up a lightsaber, you're lucky if you don't maim yourself. Maybe somebody better clued in can correct me on that. And perhaps Finn has the Force, but that seems doubtful.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Dec 19, 2015 -> 11:27 PM) I've heard a theory of Rei being one of the kids that Luke was training along with Kylo, then Luke saved her from Kylo possibly killing all his "classmates" by having her exiled to Jakku and had her mind wiped. She began to have flashbacks of memories she didn't realize she had when she touched the lightsaber again, and the force "awakened" in her. So I'll go ahead and tie that theory in to mine about her being Han's daughter. I just refuse to believe they would be SO heavy-handed about her being Luke's daughter. HAS to be misdirection. I don't understand the outrage about Kylo taking off his mask at all, or taking it off too early. Who the f*** cares? The point was that he so desperately wants to be Vader, but he sucks at it and he can't hold his emotions in. He throws tantrums like he is an emotionally unstable brat. We weren't supposed to be fearful of him so much as we were supposed to recognize how flawed he was and how much of an identity crises he is going through. We saw it with his conversation with Han, we saw it when he questioned his true feelings towards being pulled to the light side, we saw it when Snoke embarrassed him by saying he needs more training. We saw it when the Storm troopers hilariously walked away when they saw him throwing another tantrum. He wasn't supposed to be a badass villain (yet). This is the right take on Kylo Ren. I thought he was great, not every villain has to be an invincible robotic killing machine, and Ren's instability served to make him more frightening anyway, because you weren't quite sure what he'd do. Like the cold-blooded murder of Han. And someone remarked that Ren could barely fight off Finn, but he'd been shot by Chewy and actually took Finn out with ease. Snoke, OTOH, was pretty dumb. Look, a 40-foot-tall hologram with a messed-up face. I almost laughed when they revealed him. I don't think Rey is Luke's daughter, it's just too obvious. Unless we're supposed to think it's so obvious that it throws us off the scent that way, and she's Luke's daughter.

Trading Robertson would do a tremendous amount of damage to the bullpen. It might not ruin it, but it would turn it into a weakness. Before the Frazier trade it was something that made sense. Now, I don't think so.

Urge to read through the Star Wars thread... before seeing movie... rising...

*waits for people to call this low-risk, high-reward*

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Dec 18, 2015 -> 10:47 AM) Nevermind I found it. Looks like they bought out 2 arb years and added 1 season of control. I like it. Plus apparently multiple options are involved. Probably two team options, Hahn likes that structure. Maybe in the $5-$7 million range each?

QUOTE (blackmooncreeping @ Dec 18, 2015 -> 09:49 AM) Agreed. Sale, Quintana, Rodon...and then basically keep you fingers crossed as a below average lefty and a pretty much unknown righty take their turn. Salad at SS is fine, the Sox should go grab a righty to start. And I don't even mean a starting pitcher specifically. The amount of money Alexei would be paid might not get us a starter who's demonstrably better than Danks or EJ, but right now both the pen and rotation lack a lot of depth. One or more depth signings would help and I think those are the team's greatest needs besides outfield right now.

QUOTE (JRL @ Dec 17, 2015 -> 08:38 PM) Not really sure how Cespedes is more "dynamic and exciting" and a more "natural companion piece to Abreu in terms of teammates/camaraderie and marketing." Are you just trying to say that they are both Cuban? That would have been easier. Cespedes' defense, even as a corner outfielder (much less the center fielder you suggest he could competently be) has declined in recent seasons and Upton's has improved to the point where the metrics say they're about the same (Upton was actually slightly better in 2015, but only negligibly so). 200 ABs is not a significant sample size, especially when those ABs are randomly dispersed and not on a consistent basis. For any player we can pick out even the best of hitters we could go through all their ABs and find 200 of them over which they hit around 207. I'm not sure why Upton's 2015 performance against the AL should be viewed any differently, especially since he's a career 276 hitter vs the AL. For that matter I'm not sure why anyone's uncharacteristically good or bad performance vs the AL or NL specifically should be viewed differently than the result of randomness. People always cite those numbers, but is there some type of statistic I'm missing showing AL pitching to be, on the whole, substantially more difficult to hit against? Cespedes' clearly outlier 2015 season and his very good rookie year sandwiched 2 pretty unimpressive seasons. No, it's just that a whole bunch of people here attribute any hitter coming from the NL to the AL and declining to the league switch. Because reasons.

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Dec 18, 2015 -> 08:31 AM) Then how do you explain all the opportunities Beckham and Viciedo got to turn it around? Also Hahn already said Saladino was going to be the SS, you're making s*** up again. Plus this thread seems pretty well split between signing Alexei / playing Saladino, so I don't see much "absolute disdain." QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Dec 17, 2015 -> 04:05 PM) I'd rather sign Alexei and have Saladino as the super sub / defensive replacement / base runner. Saladino is way better suited for that role vs. Sanchez. It's true that Saladino would be a better sub than Sanchez, but there's also a chance he'll just have a better than Alexei. All the projections I've seen have Saladino and Alexei's batting lines very close, and while Saladino's floor is lower, at their respective ages his glove will have the edge. I don't think spending the extra millions on Alexei is worth the bench upgrade. I'd rather get a pitcher.

Started to make a post about how I wouldn't be at all disappointed by Ethier. Great OBP guy, presumably cheap to acquire, fits this two-year timetable thing we've got going. If you want a candidate for somebody to hit in front of Abreu, there's a candidate. But he's so one-dimensional. He has to be kept out against lefties and we already have one guy like that. On top of that, he's old. Ethier could work but we'd need a very strong right-handed bench.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Dec 16, 2015 -> 04:21 PM) Not sure how plugged in Frank is but he thinks the sox are going to grab Upton. He better stay outta White Sox business.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Dec 16, 2015 -> 03:45 PM) Just want to say again giving up your second pick should barely be even a footnote when you're handing out 9 figure contracts. Don't risk f***ing up the future roster and payroll flexibility on a stupid draft pick. Very true. The picks involved with the QO guys have a dollar value - let's say it's around $10 million just for argument's sake. This is why you see the market suffer for mid-level guys like James Shields or Ervin Santana. $10M is a bigger chunk of their worth. It's negligible when you get to the premier guys.

QUOTE (venom4789 @ Dec 16, 2015 -> 03:45 PM) So does trace even get playing time with all the outfielders on the dodgers. Still think this is a great trade for the white sox. I saw some speculation on twitter earlier that they're still trying to get Jose Fernandez, and if they have to move outfielders for that effort, this trade was a part of it.