Y2HH

QUOTE (pettie4sox @ Apr 21, 2015 -> 02:38 PM) That was a fun game. I forgot who K'ed to end that game but it was borderline. Ryan. And I don't care if it's close, if you checkswing on that pitch, most MLB umps are ringing you up.

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Apr 21, 2015 -> 01:52 PM) It would never happen but say Noesi and Danks suddenly start pitching lights out for the next two months, do you keep Rodon in the pen or send him down in that situation? It's more realistic that Rodon and Noesi start pitching lights out, and when that happens, you send Vince McMahon out and have him fire Danks as only McMahon could fire someone. And I'd pay to see it.

Ok, my Sox negativity has hit an impasse, so I've decided to hit reset. Tonight marks the first game on their quest to be the team they SHOULD be on the field, at the plate, and on the bump.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Apr 21, 2015 -> 09:28 AM) When clicking on this thread all I saw was "And that's a White Sox Com".....I fully expected it to be a thread bashing the Sox and titled "And that's a White Sox Complete Failure/s***show".....I of course didnt watch the 9th. Kudos White Sox. To be fair to us negative nelly's, it was a complete failure/s***show for 8 innings.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Apr 21, 2015 -> 09:18 AM) lol. I think even PK would have made it home with ease in that situation. Aviles wasnt going to morph into Bo Jackson Making it home wouldn't have been the issue, Flowers would have took off early and been force tagged at 3rd. ;D

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Apr 21, 2015 -> 08:19 AM) So far, that's how it's gone. I don't think it will continue for much longer. It was nice of the Cleveland OF to let Melky's ball drop for a hit instead of a SF. I keep telling myself, there is no way this can continue, not to mention the season is young, but they keep doing it...meanwhile the early success of the Royals and Tigers are magnifying the issues.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Apr 21, 2015 -> 09:06 AM) no they were playing in, they dont have the arms for the outfield and the only chance was for a shallow fly and quick throw home. Where Melky hit it, there was no way they were throwing out Flowers there It's Flowers were talking about here. And while I admit I'm probably the biggest Flowers hater in the world, I truly believe he'd find a way to mess that up and he'd get thrown out...somehow.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Apr 21, 2015 -> 07:59 AM) I think the bullpen is nails now. The offense can't possibly continue to be as bad as it's been. Q and Samardzija have to be better. Rodon will eventually move into the rotation. The defense is a huge concern. IMO the Sox worst defenders are Gillaspie, Avi, and Micah, and it seems the opposition hits a lot of balls their way. I have no idea what the pump fake from Avi was last night. I have never seen it, but when he was acquired less than 2 years ago, it was thought he could be a CF. His defense is definitely trending down. Hopefuly these guys can step it up and be adequate. Just seems to me that when this team can make a mistake, it does. And seeing them on paper versus how its translating to on field play is frustrating.

QUOTE (3GamesToLove @ Apr 21, 2015 -> 08:01 AM) 26 Major League teams have allowed more walks than the White Sox so far this year. The difference is when the WS walk people they almost always become runs. And if other bad teams do this too, then why the comparison? This team is better on paper than it is on the field.

While it was nice to see them win, I still have little faith in this team. Innings 1-8 were an absolute mess, and if they think they can put together that 1 solid inning to save them every day, they have another thing coming...not to mention, try that against the Royals and see how many runs you score through that pen. Happy they won...but still not believing. This team still can't field for s***, constantly giving other teams 4 outs per inning, walking batters left and right. Yea, I'm raining on your little parade here.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 20, 2015 -> 04:39 PM) here's the census data on firm size and number of employees: http://www.census.gov/econ/smallbus.html A slight majority (61M out of 120M) of all employees work for firms of 500 employees or more. Firms with 1-19 employees account for about 5.3M of all firms (out of 6M) but less than 18% of actual employees. Ok, so only half the people are f***ed.

QUOTE (Tex @ Apr 20, 2015 -> 03:49 PM) I'm just suggesting the all cops are corrupt in Mexico may not be accurate. We had 400 employees that classified as us a large employer. I think a lot of people work for companies of that size. One doctor 8 hours per day, 6 days per week. Plus a nurse the rest of the time. Anything they couldn't handle was paid for at the hospital. For accurate comparison only. Use the facts as you wish. Oh, no, I did not mean to insinuate that ALL cops in Mexico are corrupt, however, the Mexican police are pretty well known for corruption from the top down, complete with cartel involvement. For a country that has a complete ban on guns, they seem to have just as many as we do. And from everything I know, most people work for small companies (with less than ~25 people). While I don't know the numbers for Mexico, here are the US numbers as of 2011: In 2011, according to U.S. Census Bureau data, there were 5.68 million employer firms in the United States. Firms with fewer than 500 workers accounted for 99.7 percent of those businesses, and businesses with less than 20 workers made up 89.8 percent.

QUOTE (Tex @ Apr 20, 2015 -> 02:23 PM) The cost increases have been horrible since the mid 1980s. The education and certifications required to become a doctor in the US carry significant cost, as well as the malpractice insurance they carry, as well as how much they end up making 10 years after they're "established". Those things, in combination, put an automatic upward pressure on cost. I don't know many doctors, but I do know one and he makes over 280k per year, NOT counting perks/401k/vacation/benefits/etc.

QUOTE (Tex @ Apr 20, 2015 -> 02:22 PM) I worked in Mexico for three years. I've been pulled over by cops in Mexico and in the US. The experiences were about the same. As a large employer we were required to provide a doctor on staff to treat the employee and their families. Much cheaper than providing insurance and more convenient for the workers, less so for the families. I spoke with the doctor a number of times, he was educated in the Caribbean. Seemed like the employees were well cared for. That's like saying health care is perfectly fine in the US because I work for Blue Cross Blue Shield, and we have a number of doctors/nurses on staff and a clinic in the basement of our offices. That doesn't mean everyone else does. Unfortunately, MOST people don't work for large employers, not the US, and not in Mexico. And one doctor for an entire "large company and their families" doesn't sound all that amazing, to be perfectly honest.

QUOTE (Jake @ Apr 18, 2015 -> 09:01 PM) Even if a person wanted to, they would have a hard time grasping what is and isn't covered. The vast majority just aren't going to go through what is necessary to get the best possible handle on things. More convincing to me, though, is that the entire field of behavioral economics is basically designed to tell us why the government has a justifiable role in the health market. People are terrible at judging individual risk, even when the odds are laid out plainly in front of them. Even when they judge their risk correctly, they tend to make the wrong bet anyway. Personal health is incredibly difficult to judge pre-emptively. People won't get it right. Non-behavioral economics would simply suggest that the private healthcare market is alarmingly inefficient in comparison to largely public-controlled health systems around the globe. Here are a couple charts measuring total (public+private) healthcare spending per capita on the x-axis and estimated years of life lost per 100,000 people. The first is for men, the second is for women. It's insane that we spend at least 8x as much as Mexico on healthcare and collectively have gained nothing in terms of loss of life for women. And this isn't like many other sorts of choices people might make that include risk. When you buy spotty insurance, you've put yourself in a position where if any of a certain set of things happen to you, you're automatically either going bankrupt or going to die before you otherwise would (so in this set of choices, if they let you take enough debt to go bankrupt, you've benefited!). The stakes are really high. Remember, upwards of 65% of bankruptcies in the USA are driven by medical debt. Of those with medical debt-induced bankruptcy, 75% have insurance. Between 800k and 1.5 million people file for bankruptcy every year. I hear people repeat stuff like this all the time...insert Mexico, Cuba, or some other 2nd/3rd world nation, and compare them to the US. I don't, for a single second, believe statistics coming out of corrupt ass countries like that, and if you've ever gone to any of these places, and actually left a protected tourist zones, you'd quickly realize that's a load of crap. Hell, get pulled over by a cop there (off the reservation), and you'll quickly realize it's nothing more than a shakedown where you have two choices, you either give them all the money you have, or you get to go to Mexican jail for a day and see how that works out. They're great at reporting stats from the areas they want to report them from, but ignoring poor/troubled areas, and then showing "their healthcare is as good as any other countries". That'd be like Chicago ignoring the south side gun violence "because it's just poor people killing poor people", and reporting there were just 15 murders for all of 2014, and then proclaiming, "Look, Chicago is just as safe as Sweden!"

Robin is terrible.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Apr 17, 2015 -> 02:07 PM) I think you aren't being reasonable. Maybe 14ks and one hit. I have extreme expectations. Take Abreu, the complete bust, for example. He's had ~33 AB this season, should have 30 HR by now.

Way to take a pitch.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Apr 17, 2015 -> 02:03 PM) Just awful. I know, right? He should have 18K's through 6...this Shark stat line sucks.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 15, 2015 -> 08:23 AM) If the economy is still doing as decently as it is today or better, the democratic nominee (probably Hillary) will stand a really good shot at winning. If not, the Republican will. It's more about that than any individual personality. When speaking of the economy, in generalized terms, yea, it's doing decently. That is, if you happen to be upper middle class or rich and involved in the stock market. The median income for middle class and lower has actually dropped during this recovery, so for those people, I'm betting they don't see the economy as doing all that decently.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 14, 2015 -> 08:24 AM) I'm not sure how your getting to that conclusion. Before the aca, premiums increased at am average of x% every year. Since the aca started to take effect, premiums are increasing at less than x%. That's saving money. I posted a study from kaiser permanente a couple of pages back that actually found overall premium decreases over the last year in many states for individual plans. They're using a lot of statistical twisting to come to these favorable conclusions in a LOT of cases. Such as devoting a study to "individual" plans, and undoubtedly targeting a specific age range within that limited group. Anecdotal, I know, but I don't know a single person, be they single, married, with kids, without kids, young, middle aged or old that has seen their premiums decrease from what they were paying before the ACA. And I'm betting most people here haven't, either.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 13, 2015 -> 05:33 PM) It's definitely possible but the fatal flaw in 2008,her Iraq war vote, isn't a big deal in 2015/2016. I don't know who's going to really step up and challenge from within the Democratic party. I think her fatal flaw, right now, is that her last name is Clinton. Just as Jeb's is Bush. They're the Yankees...and only Yankee fans like to see the Yankees win.

QUOTE (farmteam @ Apr 13, 2015 -> 09:19 PM) Everyone always says this, but is it really true? Hilary was certainly the leader at the start, but Obama didn't exactly come out of nowhere when the '08 election cycle began-- he'd been the hotshot Senator with a lot of national pub, and it wasn't surprising he ran for President. In my personal opinion, it's true. I wouldn't call a guy that's had hardly been in office a "hotshot senator". The only reason most of us had ever heard of him was because we're from Chicago, but he burst onto the national scene seemingly overnight to secure a primary victory and then the presidency.

I'm heading out to the Smoky Mountains in July...looking forward too it.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Apr 13, 2015 -> 02:09 PM) Unless there is some ultra-super-mega damaging information that the Republicans are just sitting on and waiting until next September to let out, there's no chance Hillary loses. People were saying that last time, too. Then, Obama came out of nowhere and demolished.