Jake

QUOTE (MexSoxFan#1 @ Jul 8, 2014 -> 03:41 PM) LeBron to soon anounce his decision... Warning: The Borowitz Report is satire

Broussard on SC: I have word that Melo wants to make his decision by the latter part of this week *laughs*

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Jul 8, 2014 -> 01:15 PM) I'm upset we aren't courting Bosh. You never know if we aren't. I don't think I'd really want to do a S&T for him though

There's a lot of smoke to the Lebron to CLE stuff, but I don't see any reason to believe there's something done. Both Melo and LBJ seem to have the leaks on lockdown.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 8, 2014 -> 10:54 AM) So a guy on July 8th hitting .200 with 101 strikeouts has conquered AAA. I realize the Sox minor league system has been weak, but this shows just how bad it is. Has he conquered the International League? Perhaps not. The facts are he was 18% more productive than the average hitter in the PCL last year and then he went up and played a month in the bigs in which he appeared plenty prepared as well. Everything about this season screams "external factors" and that now appears to be the case as he is figuring things out. I continue to think as I did before the season that the next logical step in his development is to play in the big leagues. Does that mean that he can't continue development in AAA? No. You can get better at baseball anywhere. Dealing with this adversity has already paid off, if you believe some of the things he's been saying. QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 8, 2014 -> 11:04 AM) yep, and his numbers were inflated playing in a hitter's paradise last year in the PCL. This is why we have league-adjusted statistics.

Yeah, no thanks

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 8, 2014 -> 09:32 AM) So in one thread you blast the White Sox for "rushing" Mitchell, mentioning his k-rate. Davidson has a 31% k-rate and a .200 batting average and you want to see him up. This doesn't make any sense. QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 8, 2014 -> 10:09 AM) If you accept that the start of this season was an aberration for him and his June performance, which is much more in line with his career numbers, is him, then I would start being willing to see him up in August. Depends on what he does for July of course. Ding ding ding. I don't see his start to the year as a logical part of his development and I think what we've seen lately is more like the real guy. Remember, Jared Mitchell hadn't been productive with a serviceable contact rate in AAA and MLB before he was promoted. Davidson has conquered every minor league level. It isn't a matter of his development at this point, but rather whether he has snapped out of his slump.

FWIW, if I want to spend $10 million on FA and it's down to Lance Stephenson and Chandler Parsons, I'm going Parsons every time

Javier Baez at this point is vastly, vastly overrated. Highly questionable whether he can play MLB infield, very questionable if he can make enough contact to be anything but a late career Alfonso Soriano. Complete s***head on top of that. BA needs to temper their enthusiasm. Being in the presence of Kris Bryant doesn't cover up a player's flaws

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Jul 8, 2014 -> 12:07 AM) Did both you guys just completely ignore what I wrote? Firing them is the FIRST step. You can't fix it if you don't know what is wrong, because they are lying and covering it up.Then you put someone in there who WANTS to fix things, and doesn't give a s*** what group they piss off in doing so, be it unions or white collar management ( who can be made into ex-management). And then you fix it Fire people, reorganize, close certain buildings if needed. Money should not be the problem. Culture and a too large contingent of people not providing medical care most likely are. Money is clearly one of the problems and likely the driving force behind the toxic culture. There's no reason to lie about wait times if you have the resources to accomplish low wait times easily. There's no order of things. You fire people, you find new leadership, you find new mid-level people, you find new low-level people, you finally fund it, and you come up with contingency plans (vouchers?) during the phase-in of reforms. It doesn't matter what order you do them. Just do them.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jul 8, 2014 -> 12:13 AM) Mike McGraw seems to think the lack of any word from Melo means a S&T is being worked on with the Bulls. http://www.dailyherald.com/article/2014070..._medium=twitter Da f***? This guy is stealing my ideas

QUOTE (lostfan @ Jul 7, 2014 -> 09:45 PM) While I don't necessarily have a problem with these free agents taking their time with significantly important career and potentially life-changing decisions, the excessive media coverage is... ummm I think the Melo saga in particular has taken several turns based on absolutely nothing. Not a mis/overinterpretation of an event, but just speculation building off of itself

You're definitely right that the Bulls have relatively fixed costs due to salary cap. They profit so much they'd have to have been something like $25-$30 million past tax threshold to fail to turn a profit, in which case they'd probably have a team so good that profits would have gone up. It's also worth mentioning that while this information is technically secret, it's widely believed that Reinsdorf's stake in the Bulls is far more significant than his stake in the Sox. With that said, I believe Jerry has been buying out some of the Sox's investors so that may not be as true as it once was. People need to think of the teams as companies. If you owned two businesses, chances are you wouldn't risk the good fortune of one by pouring its profits into the other. Likewise, if one was failing, you would just let the failing one die knowing your other was on solid ground. There aren't many good reasons for double-dipping like this. You can also mention how unbelievably low our payroll is compared to past years and our low future payroll commitments.

If Conor goes down, a large part of me wants Davidson up. However, I can imagine they might want to let him keep working down there since he's just started to turn around. I have the most interest otherwise in seeing Carlos Sanchez. He is not getting much love despite doing pretty well at a level where he remains one of the youngest players at a premium position and now showing flashes of power QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 7, 2014 -> 06:33 PM) Something I hadn't realized before until checking out his stats, but this is Jordan Danks' 5th season in Charlotte. You don't see that too often with the same organization. Check out Zaleski's stats

There has been no more defining moment in Steve's posting career than Rose's first knee injury

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Jul 7, 2014 -> 09:10 PM) NY Dailey news reported it I guess. Yeah I see it there. Says a personal friend is their source. If I wasn't wanting to leak to my friends, that's what I'd tell them too.

There aren't many situations in which I'd trade Q. I would definitely be receiving MLB player(s) in return who have proven as much as he has.

I'm all for firing them as long as that isn't all that's done. Fire the unethical people, certainly, but if that's all you do you're just getting a symbolic gesture while continuing to f*** veterans to whom we've promised more care. We will have to spend money on it, for certain. I wouldn't even be against a voucher program for when legitimate wait times are above a certain amount.

The stalling would lend some credence to the idea that a sign and trade is being worked out. A sign and trade would rule out LA and NY as options.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Jul 7, 2014 -> 06:08 PM) That would suck. It'd be like overpaying Luol Deng all over again. If Luol Deng had the kind of skillset that can help a championship offense

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jul 7, 2014 -> 09:26 AM) Concealed carry probably saved some lives in Chicago: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/b...0,5324984.story Also Greg/others, 60 people shot in the city over the weekend. 7 killed. Where's Nancy Grace and the faux outrage? edit: Let's update that. 14 killed, 82 shot. http://gawker.com/horror-in-chicago-as-82-...h-of-1601170588 Looks like we should think about the Swiss law in which you can only legally own a gun as a "perk" of military/reserve service. They keep their service tools in their home, which would jibe much more with the original meaning of the second amendment, empowering the populace to be active members of a militia. QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jul 7, 2014 -> 03:31 PM) I think his argument is that if the s***ty neighborhoods in Chicago that account for 95% (guesstimate) of the violent crime had some sort of culture or community of good, e.g. a church community, maybe the violence wouldn't be as bad as it is. I somewhat agree with him. The idea being that these neighborhoods are just lawless places with morally bankrupt people. Religion specifically isn't the answer, but some kind of community of people with some morals sure would help. I remember a CPD buddy of mine telling me that in these neighborhoods the kids know nothing of the real world. It's all about the street. They have no morals or ethics. They have nothing to live for. They're all certain they'll be dead before they are 25. And they live that way. He had one kid tell him once that he'd kill all the cops in Chicago if he could get away with it, but he knew he couldn't, so he doesn't try. How f***ed up do you have to be to TELL someone that? Let's not forget about the wonderful ability of religion, of all kinds (no "my religion doesn't do that" BS), to encourage violence as well. It can especially encourage the kind of disdain for one's neighbor that we see leading to the problems that plague Chicago - ie, who gives a s*** when it happens in neighborhoods that aren't "normal?" Some legitimate institutions and economic opportunities would help these neighborhoods. Not getting a bunch of hopeless people to go to church and remain hopeless. You can't hope away crushing poverty, no matter how constructive your social clubs are

Dunn has had a good season so far, but for several weeks he's been nothing but a hollow-but-solid OBP, which won't be enough over the long haul. Will he be the early season Dunn or the guy we saw over the next few weeks? I don't know. Just remember that not doing something (like hitting a HR or driving in a run) for a long time does not a bad season make. It makes a bad period of time, which you can argue constitutes a worrisome trend.

It would be interesting to see how playing time is managed if he comes back to a roster that looks like this one

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 7, 2014 -> 05:14 PM) I'm not sure I want a $12mil/yr Chandler Parsons. I like him though. I'd do it. I would really like how young our team is. You have Rose, Noah, and Taj who we could call the "old" guard (the latter are 29 and Rose gets the "old" designation for knees). Dunleavy is clearly a veteran presence. Then you have McDermott, Butler, Mirotic, Snell, and Parsons? I love that young, projectable core.

fWAR for pitchers is definitely going to be better to evaluate pitchers in a small sample (like a partial or single season) because FIP is much less influenced by luck and is otherwise more stable. Over the long run, a runs allowed-based statistic might be better for evaluating the careers of pitchers. For position players, fWAR is always better but the differences aren't always so glaring like they are with pitchers.