Jake

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!

I've heard almost no discussion of Thomas on ESPN

If Peppers would agree to restructure his deal to 2/$20M but with a $6M guarantee in each season, would you do it?

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Jan 7, 2014 -> 04:35 PM) Wow. I sold my wife's s***ty year-old Kindle Fire HD 8.9 and was able to get the new model Nexus 7 for her for not much more. People are dumb. Why would anyone drop $190 on a year-old Kindle Fire HD. The f***ing thing is $229 brand new. eBay buyers have to be some of the most stupid people ever. I frequently see things going for more than their retail price.

Bynum had a pretty great opportunity here and blew it. I'm not sure that a team like the Heat is going to want a guy like him to rock the boat. I could be wrong, but why bring a total cancer to the absolute, odds-on favorite to win the title? Seems like the risk is way too high for the potential payoff of...winning again.

Could just be a case of finding out if his price is really that high. You also never know how far a good impression can go. Maybe we can have Shingo and Iguchi stop by. Maybe we want to enter a bidding war, too. I'd be surprised, though.

Grandal is a huge question mark to me. Are his previous successes from the juice? Can he still catch after injury? Would he have been a good major leaguer anyway? Makes little sense to give anything up for him and even less for San Diego to trade him for anything less than top dollar.

There is some point at which Mirotic will no longer be Bulls property if he is not signed, FWIW

Safety is by far the most pressing need. By the end of the season, our DL was the second best position on the D after the corners. Now, most of our interior DL (the part that was playing borderline adequate) is not under contract. But if we can bring some of them back, I'd certainly pay more attention to safety if all else is equal. With that said, I'll take the best players I can get at any defensive position.

What I really don't get is why the pick would get protected from 56-60

ss2k5 said it best -- if they think Castro is going to be great but see some flukiness in Quintana, they'll deal. If they feel really strongly in just one of those directions, they'll try to swing a deal. If they think both are going to be 4 WAR players for the foreseeable future, they probably won't do it.