Jake

I have to think if they could do a Cutler deal where they take on no new salary, they'd do it. They might try to hold out for better, but I'd really be surprised if they ultimately walked away from Cutler for anything that isn't some other huge contract.

Marcus Semien hit 20 HR with 20 SB and a .400+ OBP in the high minors as a MIF. He does not have a ceiling of "average." He might be likely to become an average player, but I constantly see people refer to players having ceilings that are really more like "realistic output if things go reasonably well"

I think some of what you see with the reserves is guys executing a really good gameplan. When you have super talented guys, you often will have a harder time getting them to do what you ask of them. To some extent, being a good NBA coach is about having loose enough schemes to keep the free birds happy without them leaving your "cage."

It's like Thibs concedes that E'Twaun deserves more PT, but then that E'Twaun can only play with Kirk on the court so as to nullify the benefit

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 4, 2015 -> 11:35 AM) Wouldn't it be more logical for her to run her own server like a small business versus grabbing a gmail or hotmail account? That way she can control the security as she sees fit (obviously not good enough)? I'm failing to see the big problem here, at least with respect to having her own email server and address. If she's using the private email for her job, obviously that's the huge problem here, not just the fact that she has it in the first place. I mean, I'm the kind of person who has run an email/cloud server from my house for security purposes so I understand the pros of this kind of setup. Still, it's not at all common and could have easily been farmed out to some more trusted third party. It's not in and of itself damning, but it's awfully suspicious given the other context. I think most people like Hillary and generally like the Clinton brand, but I also think most people don't have a ton of trust in Hillary - even if her husband may be to blame for that. I don't think it will take a ton of stuff to get "swing voters" wary of her.

My self-insured, no-subsidy parents have seen their costs drop around 25% and with much better coverage than before. The other thing that we get with the ACA that is harder to articulate is that the average plan is far better. Even when some people pay more, they're a lot more likely to get their medical costs covered by their insurance. A tremendous portion of the people who have huge medical debts are people who were insured at the time but couldn't get procedures covered due to loopholes/coverage caps/etc.

Haven't the Bulls had some turnover in their training staff in the past ~12 months?

This email thing is starting to look like it has legs. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/b78ba433af3...official-emails Basically, it appears she had a server running in her very own home that hosted her email. This is not very common and most people who do this are those who are very concerned about privacy/government surveillance. That doesn't necessarily make it nefarious to do this, since most people who are doing these things are just techies and DIY types that like to have control. But that's not Hillary, obviously. Just having an email that is @myname.com is not the same as this - that's usually hosted on the server of the website host or alternately a common email provider like Google, Microsoft, etc. Apparently, hosting her own email basically weaves right through a loophole in federal law. She does not have to turn over any of her emails because she owns them. I haven't seen anyone say that this broke the law, but it certainly violated the spirit of it. She could very well turn everything over, but it would be very difficult to verify that she has indeed done so since she has access to all of the hardware and software. Somebody very clever was working for her to set this up. She may have wanted her own email address just because she likes to have her own things for continuity's sake or whatever. She's far from the first politician to conduct state business on a private email account. What's different is the server. The problem here is that whoever did it set her up to look very bad. She may have been approached with this idea and said to go ahead, this gives me cover for whatever I'm doing (this would only make sense if looking like she was hiding something was better than someone knowing what she was really doing). Or, someone on her team did this just assuming it was the best way to do it, and has given her a very guilty appearance in return. With all of this said, if you wanted to be evil, this is not a great way to do it. You would simply encrypt the emails you send, making them inaccessible to anyone who doesn't have the password of either you or your recipient. Even better, she wouldn't have done these kinds of communications over email at all since it is an inherently insecure medium. If you want to evade detection, you use the s*** Ed Snowden was using. Highly encrypted, anonymized, ephemeral messaging. If she has done wrong here, she did it sloppily.

Why would there be any doubt about whetehr the lineup will start with Eaton-Cabrera?

On the bright side, this team is absurdly deep. Unfortunately, we're the thinnest at PG.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Feb 27, 2015 -> 10:35 AM) The reloading of tabs occurs if the device is out of memory (not storage), but actual RAM. Because Apple cuts corners on only putting 1GB of memory in their phones (2GB exists in the iPad air2), whether it be for their battery power excuse or not, that's why browsers often reload tabs. The entire OS and every background task on iOS devices is running off of 1GB of memory...which while impressive...it's past time they up it to 2gb. Yeah, I don't know why they insist on doing that. Excellent memory management doesn't mean you intentionally put insufficient hardware in the device.

I think baseball has gotten better at understanding the value of SBs. For instance, it is so rarely worth it to steal 3B even if you are going to have a high success rate. Nowadays, guys just aren't trying for that second SB.

I disagree with the idea that Micah has a high floor. He's a guy with a questionable bat, bad defense, and constant injury concerns. He isn't exactly stuffed to the gills with MLB skills, at least as far as we can tell. I think Sanchez is the higher floor player for sure, which may be why he wins the job.

I love Thibs, but if I have to pick between them I'm keeping Gar/Pax. I don't trust a different front office to put this much talent on the court, but I do think we can get someone to utilize the talent similarly well.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Feb 25, 2015 -> 03:45 PM) I doubt anyone could help, but it's worth a try. So my university has a strong stance against violating copyright laws, torrents, etc. Anyways, I was watching a movie last Monday night and I passed out. Tuesday morning I grabbed my laptop and brought to school and when I opened it up I still had the torrent host (Popcorn-Time) open. All of a sudden I wasn't able to get onto the wifi and realized my account has probably been barred as a result of using Popcorn-Time. So I called the IT department, they confirmed that was the issue and I set up an appointment with the assistant dean. She says I have to remove all torrenting programs from my computer or else I could receive a penalty. The thing is, I've had Popcorn-Time on my computer all year I just haven't opened it up while using the school wifi. Am I safe to keep the program on my computer or could the outsourced internet security agency pick it up when the application is inactive? I don't see how they could see the software on your PC w/o you accessing the Internet with it. With that said, get yourself a VPN. They won't know what you're doing.

QUOTE (MurcieOne @ Feb 25, 2015 -> 12:27 PM) Agree, this injury isn't significant enough to end Derrick's career. However, I don't think we're going to see Derrick play at the levels we're hoping could/would. I think this will be the final nail in Thibs tenure as HC. I don't think Derrick will be on the roster after his contract expires. I think the Bulls will be mired in mediocrity for the foreseeable future. I think lots of things. My opinion is that the biggest battle for Derrick now is getting good at basketball. In the NBA, especially as a guard, you can only do so much with athleticism (and it's making a bold assumption to say he'll continue to stand out in that regard). It takes sustained work at your craft to be good in every aspect of the game, from your ballhandling to your shooting and most importantly your brain. The constant and very long lulls in his ability to play are going to make it extremely difficult for him to come back and be great just for the sole fact of it keeping him from playing basketball. He may well lose all the progress he gained in terms of getting his skills and awareness of the games back by losing ~6 weeks. And if we assume he's just going to continue having health troubles, this will continue cropping up. Start finding a rhythm, then lose it because of some pain, then totally lose it because you have to sit out for a month or more. QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Feb 25, 2015 -> 12:31 PM) I agree with most everything you said, however, I've long pointed to 2016 as the year Rose regains his all star status (and that is still in reach if he can come back and play this season, imo). I think the worst thing for him would be not getting back this season and having a long off-season. If he comes back and plays this season, he can have a normal off-season, played in at least a decent chunk of this season, playoffs, etc, and be in a position to move forward in 16. The piece I don't understand is how is Rose's injury a nail in Thibbs tenure? What did Tom do to drive or lead to this injury. The Bulls and Rose couldn't have been more conservative with Rose (since his initial injury) and this is what has happened. How can a finger for any of these more recent injuries be put in Thibbs direction? Rose isn't playing heavy minutes. In fact, he's largely been babied since his first injury. I'd argue he might have been better off had they pushed things more (look at Westbrook). All this said, lets not forget that the reinjury of the meniscus is relatively common and not overly serious (look at Westbrook). If you want hope, you at least have Westbrook to look at. He's better than ever. I think Thibs is facing what several other fairly successful coaches have. For instance, George Karl. Well, it's not really your fault by any objective measure that we haven't succeeded, but we have to change something eventually. Also, we won't be firing ourselves. So, coach, you've gotta go. QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Feb 25, 2015 -> 01:11 PM) That's what grinds my gears. It was the right surgery then. He was so young and it was seemingly unrelated to his one other major injury. There was much to be gained from him doing the repair, though I have to say it shouldn't have been out of the question for him to return by the end of the year. Not that big of a deal though. Now, things are different. He needs to play just to keep sharp and it is unlikely that a meniscus repair will actually do all that much good for his long-term future. There's no good option for his long-term future, he (we) just has to hope everything holds together. QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Feb 25, 2015 -> 04:01 PM) The teams inherited couldn't be more different, come on now Look at this pile of garbage http://m.bkref.com/m?p=XXteamsXXCHIXX1999....mp;t=all_roster Floyd was also given some say in personnel that no coach would be given now. We have a ton of talent and it is thanks in large part to our front office. With that said, I honestly don't have a clue if there's anything special about Fred Hoiberg. The ghost of Tim Floyd wouldn't scare me away though.

FWIW, there's no reason to believe that Sanchez isn't ready. He's repeated AAA and did very well there last year. There's reason to believe he's not going to be a very good major leaguer, but I'd be shocked if he isn't at least competent and probably slightly more valuable than Beckham ever was over a full season. Micah has a much higher bust potential, because he really hasn't been any good in AAA yet. But, that's why he probably won't break camp with the team.

Dude on ESPN says it is usually difficult to repair an already-repaired meniscus, because there are already sutures in there in your way.

I have a feeling they try to get him back on the court as soon as possible. This team has had a habit of falling apart in response to Rose injuries. If Thibs does feel heat, that will be why. He will rightfully be expected to keep this team going and at a better clip than they have the past few weeks. They need to win a couple of playoff series, Rose or not. Also, while it's probably not his fault, might be worth trying a different surgeon this time around.

QUOTE (buhbuhburrrrlz @ Feb 23, 2015 -> 05:03 PM) K.C. Johnson @KCJHoop · 4h 4 hours ago Michael Carter-Williams will not make his Bucks debut vs. Bulls. Will dress but not play. What's the point of doing that? Make sure the uni fits?

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Feb 23, 2015 -> 02:25 PM) I don't like it in April. There are a couple of built in off days. The weather usually washes out another game or 2. Maybe later on in the season it makes some sense, but at the beginning, I would rather see at least some flexibility if you need pinch hitters and runners, especially when a couple of defensive players are pretty weak with the glove. Yeah and I've had the feeling that we've had some relievers over the years who struggled in large part due to how infrequently they were used. I felt that way about Dan Webb. Enough innings, but lots of days off in between appearances.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Feb 23, 2015 -> 01:52 PM) You're not TRULY a member of the board until you've gotten an official misconduct warning from a moderator based on a conversation you've had with greg. I've been waiting 11 years for official membership

I think Illinois isn't 100% sold on Lovett - and rightly so - and that very well could be why he doesn't come.

Let's not freak out about his "target" number. Do you walk into these negotiations with a super reasonable number? Probably not. You want the Sox to think that a $110M/5 year deal feels like a huge sacrifice to you. With that said, I'm not very confident in throwing anywhere in the stratosphere of that kind of money at him.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Feb 21, 2015 -> 01:50 PM) To put it in perspective, the difference from 2005 (and our overachieving bullpen) and 2006 (bullpen regression to the mean) was 9 wins. That's the kind of output we'd need this year to hit 90 wins based on our players' track records IMO. 2006 was more about terrible years from the rotation than it was about the bullpen, IMO. Of course, we had truly fabulous years from our offense in 2006, too.