Jake

Why do I constantly feel like we're going to be looking at the Crawford and Bickell deals as the reasons why we lose a guy like Patrick Sharp?

Looking ahead to the candidacy of my other childhood favorite player, it's really astonishing to look at the career stats of Ken Griffey Jr. 1989-2000, ages 19-30 = 73.8 WAR, 140g/year 2001-2010, ages 31-40 = 3.5 WAR, 99g/year Sad.

That scouting report from Rizzo had a huge flaw on it, honestly. Giving the Big Hurt's hit tool a ceiling of 50 turned out to be way, way off -- it's hard to argue that it was anything but an 80 when all was said and done. It was a better tool than his power tool throughout his prime. His overall approach at the plate was simply unbelievable and his ability to execute that approach was just as stellar.

I didn't necessarily mean that as a bad thing. I think he was a very good GM and that fact is being reflected in the current work of the FO. I also think that Hahn had much to do with the good run that KW had, so not all that much has changed. Their "new" roles may be bringing out the best in each one, as KW all but admitted that the stress of all the day-to-day tasks of the GM were getting to him and making it more difficult to make sound personnel decisions

MJ fell short of sainthood, but gambling and extramarital sex are not exactly the most serious charges for a professional athlete. MJ's issues related to his ultra-competitiveness are something people would have loved to see from LeBron. One guy lashes out in anger, the other flops when pushed by Nazr Mohammed. I wish MJ didn't dress like a confused 15 year old from 1999, though. But, of course, my young non-sequitor self always was a bigger fan of Grant Hill. Something disturbingly familiar about this Derrick Rose business...

A vote for Hahn is a vote for KW

LeBron has never cheated on his girlfriend

Chris Christie sucks. I'm probably not going to shout and scream about this "scandal," but maybe it will make people actually think about him in some other context beyond "he was nice to Obama!"

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 8, 2014 -> 09:47 PM) Can someone let me know when hangouts can actually handle MMS and isn't a garbage app. Seems like carrier/model makes a huge difference here. My ATT HTC One has been working great from the get-go, my girlfriend's Sprint Samsung Galaxy S3 hasn't been figured out across several updates

I don't think I can even root for the guy

I wonder if he's still a little heavy and a step slow, like John Manuel was saying

QUOTE (scs787 @ Jan 8, 2014 -> 04:20 PM) 9.8M in cap room is substantial cap money. That very well could be enough to upgrade over Peppers, and add another piece to the defense. Right - the question is whether you would rather have an extra 10 million in cap room and no Julius peppers or an extra 8 million in cap room and have Julius Peppers. I was not aware of this June 1 business -- if we're only eating 4 million to send him away, that changes things substantially.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jan 9, 2014 -> 11:18 AM) Sox are owned by a bunch of people, their combined assets likely is equal to or exceeds the Ricketts family. Reinsdorf is a figurehead, he (unless its changed) is not even the single biggest owner. As someone else said, the word has always been that he owns about 5%. It could be the case that he has bought/inherited stake from owners that have bowed out or died. QUOTE (pettie4sox @ Jan 9, 2014 -> 11:21 AM) Same with the Bulls or is JR the sole proprietor of that? I believe JR owns a much heftier portion of the Bulls, somewhere in the stratosphere of 65%

I would obviously get excited about signing Tanaka, but I can't say I mind missing out on him. Giving even the best pitchers the kind of contract terms we're talking about frightens me. We don't even know if this guy can cut it. Would it be a good idea to commit upwards of $200M to two players who have never seen an inning of MLB or even American playing time?

As I had some once-in-a-lifetime crazy work commitments in the past few months, I basically abandoned all exercise. My diet was absolutely horrible, but my overall calorie intake was often quite low, which kept my weight gain to just about 10 pounds (if I wasn't exercising under normal circumstances, I'd expect I would have eaten a lot more and gained a lot more). Now is time to get back to it. I have to take things really slow because, of course, this all happened about 3 months after my shoulder surgery, meaning my right shoulder/arm/chest are super weak. I'm going to get back to running here shortly, but our weather is so nasty right now that I'm going to wait for the first day that is both dry and above freezing. I've been doing some real basic stuff in my apartment to get things going. It's sad how much really simple exercises can cause me fatigue and soreness, but it's nice to at least be making some progress. One step at a time.

I think a lot of people will relate to the idea that many times when we read a book, your memory of it is more like a movie than it is a collection of words. When I first saw the Harry Potter movies, I was astounded at how closely they matched my "mental movie" from reading them.

Kyle Lowry is quietly putting up a really nice season - 15.9 ppg, 7.5 AST, .576 TS%, 4.0 RPG (which is somehow a career low, he averaged 5.6 last year and has been over 6 before, stellar for a PG)

DNP-CD = genius Spo saving that player for the playoffs

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 8, 2014 -> 04:55 PM) So some performance enhancing drugs are OK, just as long as they weren't too strong? I didn't say they were okay, I just said they should not be lumped together as if they are the same thing. The effects they would have on outcomes are much, much different

Groce did not have this team ready to play. Also, Egwu sucks

amphetamines and andro do not belong in the same category as AAS

Really irritating to hear people b**** about how it is unfair to assume the Big Hurt didn't use steroids when we are just assuming about everyone else. Get your head out of your ass and do some research. This guy spent much of his career talking about PED use and even tried to game the system to force testing to start happening. There is literally nobody that would surprise me more to find out that he used steroids than Frank Thomas, including my boyhood hero Ken Griffey Jr.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Jan 8, 2014 -> 12:49 PM) I'm not sure if we can discount having his brother on the team. It won't be a HUGE discount, but I can see him taking less money to play with Martellus, who has already talked about "recruiting" him. That would mean a 6M cap hit each year? If so I think I'd pass. Last 2 years he's been extremely inconsistent. He'll have games where he still goes off, but he's been a non factor more often than not. He really went off in the nasty Baltimore game, and against Minnesota, in those 2 games he had 19 tackles and 4.5 sacks...In his other 14 games?? 28 and 3....That's scary low for a guy who plays a lot of snaps. Jake, you might have this info available on PFF or might know where to find it, how often were teams running away from Peppers? Is it clear he was making an impact in that regard? It would mean $10M each year if he is kept or $10 million this year and $6 million next year if he is cut. The real question (for this season) is do you want to pay $2 million to have Julius on the team? You're paying him $8 million to go away regardless.

"Breaking news today in baseball, a pair of Braves are voted into the Hall of Fame with their manager, Bobby Cox. Among the others voted in was the slugger Frank Thomas."

QUOTE (flavum @ Jan 8, 2014 -> 01:27 PM) Epic fail on Whitesox.com not having Frank there already. KW's final revenge!