Jake

What sucks the most here is that we don't even know if he's any good. Next year we'll be wanting to put out a playoff-ready team but we'll have to start a 23 year old, iffy-fielding RF that swings at everything and has less than 500 ABs of track record. This was the perfect year to let him fail, but it will be a lot more difficult from here on out. QUOTE (hi8is @ Apr 10, 2014 -> 02:34 PM) Joy. FWIW, labrum repairs have come a really long way since 2004. Beyond that, the kind of labral tear you get from impact like this is a lot more common and straightforward to repair. He should be 100%.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Apr 10, 2014 -> 10:10 AM) Sounds like a perfect tidbit for the catch-all thread. Oh, wait a second... We should have an "interesting stats" catch-all

I think we've all lost our enthusiasm for Trayce Thompson, at least for those of us who ever had it in the first place. Last year was a big year for him and he just didn't quite put everything together. He's still plenty young, but it's tough to see a guy spend 5 years in the minors without doing anything spectacular. There was one particular trend that I find encouraging, though 2009, R (25 games) - 4.3% BB%, 35.5% K% 2010, A (58 games) - 8.9% BB%, 29.4% K% 2011, A (136 games) - 10.1% BB%, 28.8% K% 2012, A+ (116 games) - 8.8% BB%, 28.2% K% 2013, AA (135 games) - 10.2% BB%, 23.6% K% Contact had always been the issue for Trayce. While overall production hasn't been great, he was difficult to project favorably because he struck out so damn much. His only saving grace was that walk rate. Last year he drastically cuts the K rate without hurting his BB rate. He'd been getting pushed up level after level despite not a great deal of success at any of them - certainly not mastering them - so I am very interested in how he does repeating this level where he posted his best contact rates of his career.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 9, 2014 -> 01:30 PM) I'm talking about from the perspective of the player. What good would it have done Kobe to go to Random U and generate a bunch of profits for them and their conference versus going straight to the NBA if some team (really, every team) was willing to pay him millions of dollars right out of HS? There are highly positive intrinsic benefits from going to college that you could argue for. Of course, we could also argue that elite college athletes aren't allowed to experience those intrinsic benefits.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Apr 9, 2014 -> 09:18 AM) So you don't think jerking him from bullpen to starter to bullpen to starter back to bullpen and then back to starter at the peak of his development process was mismanging him? Come on man... In 2011, he learns the screwball. It propels him through the minors, making him an incredibly effective starter. He even comes up to the MLB team and looks pretty damn good while throwing lots of screwballs - 31% of his pitches were screwgies. In 2012, we put him in the bullpen. He quits throwing them. He says multiple times that he needs an extended warmup to find the release on the pitch. He does learn a changeup because he says it is much easier to warm up with it. The changeup sucks, but he adapted. Finishes 2012 having thrown 6.3% of his pitches as screwballs. 2013 - we put him in the f***ing bullpen again because of DYLAN AXELROD! Yep, no more screwballs. Changeup use becomes more prominent. 4.2% screwballs. So you have a guy whose rise from organizational fodder to potential key cog of the starting rotation was precipitated in large part by his learning the screwball. We put him in the bullpen and he can't warm up with it, especially because he just learned the pitch. It's actually quite impressive that he learned yet another pitch and got by without the pitch that seemed to play the biggest role in him becoming a useful baseball player. At this point, it seems he's just never going to throw the screwball again because it is too much of a risk to try to re-learn it. There's no way you can say that the Sox putting him in the bullpen isn't the reason that that happened. Anyway, it's not a big deal. Even if Hector turns into a good starter, which he very well may, we got what we wanted out of that trade. Eaton is awesome. Who cares? Hector's a great guy and I wish him the best. His control may make him marginal for his entire career or he may put things together and be pretty darn good.

O'Leary hasn't been universally well-received

I think the donut contract makes much more sense on both sides for pitchers than position players

QUOTE (Middle Buffalo @ Apr 7, 2014 -> 04:09 PM) Left forearm hair starting to turn gray. Right arm still brunette. The most catch-all post in Soxtalk history

QUOTE (ptatc @ Apr 7, 2014 -> 04:40 PM) Personally, I don't mind the late ER as much. Sale has some of this. It does create some stress. What I don't like is the lack of trunk flexion and hip flexion during the follow through. He stands up too straight after the pitch and wraps his arm around after the pitch. This makes the posterior shoulder absorb the forces that cannot be dissipated through a longer eccentric contraction. thus he gets to the fully cocked position late and doesn't dissipate the forces later. This was always my comment on Peavy. It drives me crazy when pitchers have the poor follow through. This pretty much describes the flaw in my own delivery if I'm following you correctly. I have the SLAP repair, biceps tenodesis, and infraspinatus repair as evidence for your argument

He's too good not to be on the MLB club as soon as we dump the excess (Keppinger) and not good enough to hold him in the minors just to avoid super 2 status

There's plenty of talent in the bullpen, it's just a matter of finding out which roles are right for people and which guys will stick and which have to go. Petricka is a good example of a guy who didn't quite make it out of ST but could very well become a key cog.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Apr 5, 2014 -> 04:50 PM) Isn't this the last year of his contract? Nobody knows how old he really is? I wouldn't think the Sox can get much for him. He's signed through '15 with team option for '16. We know how old he is. Cuba has been keeping very solid records since before he was born.

I see no reason to take Hoffman at 3 and if it is with Rodon on the board, it is unconscionable

Don't know if it has been said, but the sample size that led to the conclusion that his defense was poor was woefully small. You need at least a full season of reps to even begin to get a valid sample size and you won't know the true value of the defender until you have multiple full seasons of data.

http://hamptonroads.com/2014/04/nc-probes-...s-2012-election Elections Director Kim Strach told state lawmakers at an oversight hearing Wednesday that her staff has identified 765 registered North Carolina voters whose first names, last names, birthdates and last four digits of their Social Security numbers appear to match information for voters in another state. Each case will now require further investigation to determine whether voter fraud occurred. "Could it be voter fraud? Sure, it could be voter fraud," Strach said. "Could it be an error on the part of a precinct person choosing the wrong person's name in the first place? It could be. We're looking at each of these individual cases." ... Strach said there could also be about 50 people statewide who died before election day but were recorded as casting a ballot. In several past cases, instances of so-called zombie voters turned out to be the result of clerical errors. ... However, other states using the cross-check system have yielded relatively few criminal prosecutions for voter fraud once the cases were thoroughly investigated. Only 11 people were prosecuted on allegations of double-voting as a result of the 15 states that performed similar database checks following the 2010 elections, according to data compiled by elections officials in Kansas, where the cross-check program originated. Bob Hall, director of the non-profit group Democracy North Carolina, cautioned officials not to jump to conclusions based on the preliminary database check. "I know there is more than one Bob Hall with my birth date who lives among the 28 states researched," Hall said. "There may be cases of fraud, but the true scale and conspiracy involved need to be examined more closely before those with political agendas claim they've proven guilt beyond a reasonable doubt."

Semien doesn't look like he's ready at the plate. No big deal, just more time in AAA needed.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 2, 2014 -> 06:21 PM) They may largely agree with the candidate already, but what about the specific example that Balta brought up with Adelson, Romney and a bill to outlaw online gambling. It's a good point - these guys have lots of things they don't really give a f*** about, so they don't have to face cognitive dissonance when they stand to benefit from something like that. I'd also probably mention that a lot of these guys don't know a thing about certain policy issues and end up being easily convinced of anything when lobbyists visit them. The money follows.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 2, 2014 -> 06:05 PM) They've out-dumbed the "corruption or appearance of corruption" line from Citizens United with this gem: It's not corruption unless you are literally and explicitly buying votes and access, apparently. There are two things: 1. It's true. They don't donate to change your mind. They donate because you already agreed with them. It doesn't meet the standard for corruption. All it does is make political positions inaccessible for people who hold less "profitable" political leanings. 2. When politicians change their minds, they can't change their minds. The money will stop if you change your mind. The main exception is if suddenly the money is behind some other position. It's one of the reasons I don't want term limits, because a well-entrenched politician might be the only person who can act in a way that pisses off the deep pocketed influences. Mitch McConnell, for instance, has dared cooperate a little bit because he thought he had a little bit of wiggle room against the primary people. Of course, we more often see people acting in a way that might not raise money in places where the elections aren't competitive.

We live in a time where it has never been more technologically or intellectually feasible for people's voices to become relevant in politics without being rich, but we of course don't see a problem with allowing political speech to become a market just like everything else. The question continues to be: how many different parts of your life should be determined solely by your personal wealth? Education is getting further and further from something that is experienced in a common way. Affecting politics? Nope. Hmm...waiting in line to see a Supreme Court case? Nope, lobbyists are paying people to stand in line for days on end.

I think Leury put himself ahead of Semien for the role of super sub when Gordon returns

Fun Noah stat from NBA.com player tracking: He averages more passes per game than everyone in the NBA other than Kemba Walker, Rajon Rondo, Chris Paul, John Wall, Kyle Lowry, Ricky Rubio, and Josh McRoberts (the official poor man's Joakim Noah)

Filtered out people who play less than 20 min/game, less than 40 total games, and have fewer than 3 at the rim attempts per game. That leaves 92 players, so it seems like a fair enough sampling. So the one factor from which we can argue Hibbert is better, he's not really leaps and bounds better. Unbelievable how many more steals Noah gets than his peers at the center position.

I think some might argue it isn't necessarily part of defense, but it's hard for me to promote a center that averages less than 7 boards a game for DPOY

Yeah, it has been widely suggested that cancer contributed to this. I found it quite upsetting - not so much because of how gruesome the end product was, but how fun that moment should have been, how simple a task he was doing, and the reason it all fell apart.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Mar 31, 2014 -> 09:39 AM) One of those paid top-notch sportswriters need to know that slide shows suck and cause people to avoid reading your articles. One of those top notch forum posters needs to know that slideshows are absolutely money for generating clicks and their format gets your ads about [insert amount of slides here] more impressions than a straightforward, text-only piece. People want lists and slideshows on the internet and B/R was smart enough to jump on that gravy train before the rest of the sports media jumped on board