Jake

That Ray Rice guy looks good, he must be having a great year

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Nov 17, 2013 -> 12:13 AM) So what you're saying is no player, not just LeBron, would be successful against the bad boys? What would Rose do? Rose would have had a tougher time in that era since he thrives on getting to the rack, but he doesn't act like a whiney b**** when people knock him down, so I don't know that it would be such a huge deal. D And yeah, I've always liked DeAndre. I don't know that I think he'll be the second-best C in the league, but he's definitely thriving under Doc and he is an absolute gamechanger when he's away from that free throw line.

I'd say the most optimistic projection/ceiling would be 20-25, with the likely projection more like 10-15.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Nov 16, 2013 -> 11:59 PM) Sure he would. LeBron's got 3 inches and 50 pounds on MJ. He'd be fine. Laimbeer, Edwards, Salley, and Rodman would not be afraid of LeBron. LBJ gets bent out of shape by Nazr Mohammed and cries foul when anyone shows the slightest aggression towards him. Teams like Detroit in the early late 80s/early 90s would have LeBron permanently on his ass and he has shown no ability to handle people getting physical with him. He can play through some contact, but he can't deal with people actually bodying up and clearing him out if necessary No. I love DeAndre. He's on my fantasy team and he sure isn't there for points. Dude's a beast

Just another day at the office for DeAndre Jordan - 3 points, 14 boards, 5 blocks midway through the 4th quarter

I'd love to see LeBron play 10 minutes against the bad boy Pistons. He'd quit basketball

I don't care what part of his game is better. I just want better. He's a lot better.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 16, 2013 -> 03:16 PM) If Cano's contract somehow falls into the same range as Ellsbury, absolutely count me in. Based on my standard that "no top level player on the FA market gets less than I think he will", I would be stunned if Cano wasn't a lot higher than those 2. It's more that we could see Ellsbury get up into the $120M range and Cano more like $175M - whereas 12 months ago it looked like it might be more like $75M and $250M

Yeah, I'm not worried about Hibbert when we have a healthy Noah, Boozer, Gibson, Mohammed. We've done pretty damn well with George and I don't generally expect to be beaten by good wings with Jimmy/Luol guarding guys like that. As far as their depth goes, I think Lance Stephenson f***ing sucks. CJ Watson is also not a good NBA basketball player and shouldn't be in the rotation for a title contender. Look at the minutes he was getting on the offense-starved Bulls during the 2010-11 playoff run. George Hill sucks. He's basically a poor man's young Kirk Hinrich. Plays point guard but doesn't point guard all that well, doesn't score all that efficiently, and is an overrated defender. Lance Stephenson seems to have some breakout potential but really doesn't pass the eye test for me. That dude went off a couple times in the playoffs last year and it looked like one of the flukiest things ever. I think his strong start to the season is more of a blip on the radar than anything else, but we shall see. It's not that the Pacers suck, I just don't think they're actually this amazing team that's going to go win the East

I'm going to go back to my original assertion that this Indiana team isn't that f***ing good. You have Paul George, who is great, plus no guards. Hibbert is breaking out and is a great piece. I feel like West never ends up playing up to his ability on that team, for a whatever reason. Maybe I just overrate West. No depth IMO on Indiana. A resurgent Granger could make them quite a bit formidable, though, if that ever exists. Not sure how well he and George would share the floor though.

Yeah I don't use Hangouts to chat with people since most of my (small amount of) IM occurs via Facebook. I have to think that the integration of SMS/IM will come at some point. I've heard of some people having issues with MMS/Group messaging, but luckily that hasn't been the case for me; of course, I had to wait a bit longer than a lot of users to get the update through the Play Store. I had sideloaded the Nexus 5 build and it wasn't working well at all on my One. The Play Store version is working perfectly. Patience is clearly the key

Really enjoying Hangouts w/ SMS. Nice, snappy interface. Will be even better in 4.4, when it (and other third party texting clients) are even more integrated into the OS

Once I used a razor once, I could never be satisfied with an electric shave again. An electric shave leaves me with a 12-24 hour longer hair than a razor.

Letting Kirk run the show some of the time is a nice move. Derrick was hurting the flow of the offense too much when he was pressing. If you let Kirk run things, the offense moves along while Derrick lets the scoring chances come to him.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Nov 16, 2013 -> 07:46 PM) Since the end of 2013: 1. Abreau signed 2. Payroll expected to be less than last year's $109M. 3. Sale, Quintana, Garcia said to be untouchable. 4. Per chairman Reinsdorf money available for another signing (presumably impact.) Given the points above do you feel better about the Sox direction now than at the end of the year? I have mixed feelings. I think the Abreau signing was a must, but the signing itself isn't enough. They have to be right about him to restore faith in their scouting operation. I'm disappointed that the payroll will be lower and that Sale and Quintana are untouchable. Fortunately, I think Hahn is employing some gamesmanship with the availability of players. If the payroll is indeed going to be lower given the state of the Sox farm system Sale and Quintana should not be untouchable. I think the payroll is low because we don't have players worth investing in and there are not free agents we feel are worth investing in rather than a budgetary necessity. I think there is a general feeling that there isn't enough worthy talent out there to have it make sense to blow up our payroll higher than last year. We have many question marks on our roster - some starters, every outfielder, second and third basemen, back end of the bullpen. I don't mean that in the sense that it is a question whether all of those players are worth a s***, but the question is how good are they? It's tough to say what position or positions we should focus our spending on. You don't really want to buy a corner outfielder, for instance, if Dayan and Avisail have monster seasons; and since they're both going to be here next year, you don't want to sign one even if you know there is a good chance this player makes you better. Same way with the infield positions, to a lesser extent. With young guys like Gordon (should we even say he's still young?) and Gillaspie with Semien, Leury Garcia, and maybe Carlos Sanchez in the wings, you might not want to go blow your wad acquiring a 2B/SS/3B until you have more clarity in terms of what those players are going to give you. I might advocate going for a 3B if there was one available, since Conor has limited ceiling and I don't thin Semien is a longterm 3B nor is any other MLB-ready player in our minor leagues. In general, yes I feel good about the direction of things. I feel like the real question is whether we feel better than we did on July 25th or so.

Jason Dellaero. Saw one of his jerseys at a game this summer. Must have been his dad or something

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 13, 2013 -> 03:45 PM) At the end of the day, I will be interested to see how Ellsbury and Choo do in terms of total contract, versus how Robinson Cano does. Good point. Unless the Yankees decide to go much higher than the field, it seems like Cano will get way underpaid compared to the anticipated contracts for Ellsbury and Choo

QUOTE (Tex @ Nov 16, 2013 -> 01:50 PM) 5 blades for a $1 plus shipping. I went with the four blade model at $6 a month. That's less than what I was paying. That's what I went with. I have never used a two blade razor and I don't think it would end well if I did. I don't really spend 6 bucks a month on shaving, but I also really overuse the s***ty disposables I get. I think my face will benefit from using fresh razors more often. With this thing, I can literally change cartridges every week. Sweet!

This seems like a big question to me and I see a lot of folks that seem to think they know the answer, but the assumed answers are all over the chart. There are several plausible outcomes to start the season: -Starting third baseman in MLB -Starting second baseman in MLB -Swing infielder/super utility in MLB, playing nearly every day with the position depending on matchups -SS in AAA -2B in AAA -3B in AAA -Utility in AAA I think that what he needs is more time in AAA. I'm not sure if that means he will get it or not. In AA last year, his first year at the level, he walked 17% of the time versus 14% strikeouts. He had a solid-not-great .750ish OPS until he exploded midseason, as one might expect for a good player adjusting to a new level. In his 32 games in AAA, he walked just 9.9% of the time versus 16.9% strikeouts, quite the swing. His wRC+ went from an eye-popping 163 in AA to a still-good 123 in AAA. In the majors, over 21 games and 71 plate appearances, he walked 1.4% of the time and struck out 31% of the time. He showed some encouraging flashes and had some qualitatively good looking games, but over a pretty long stretch MLB competition nullified his greatest strength, his high walks and low strikeouts. In the AFL, has walked 11.2% compared to 25.8% strikeouts with a career-low .117 ISO (isolated power=slugging percentage minus batting average). His wRC+ over these 89 plate appearances and 21 games was a paltry 49, though it is worth noting that his BABIP was very low at .189. Given the bad strikeout and walk rates, it is hard to prognosticate as to whether he was the victim of bad luck or was actually just hitting pretty damn poorly down there. What I see is a guy with just about 300 PA above AA, most of which haven't been too good. He had zero experience above A+ entering last year and has taken about half a season to adjust to competition at each level. This time, he really lost his best weapon in his walk and K rates as he moved up in level. I would really like to see him get significant time in AAA this season. If he really kicks ass out of the gate, you can think about plugging him in the MLB lineup if one of our infielders is struggling. Otherwise, I think we make the wrong decision by putting him on the MLB club straightaway. If we push him too hard, he may lose the good habits that led to his on base prowess because he is just trying to survive. He might never get those back if he is constantly struggling to stay alive in the MLB. What do you guys think? MLB or AAA? What position? Is there something he could do in Spring Training that would change your mind?

QUOTE (ZoomSlowik @ Nov 15, 2013 -> 08:30 PM) Rudy will probably be on a new team before long. I'm ready for everyone to call for the Bulls to get him

QUOTE (fathom @ Nov 14, 2013 -> 03:07 PM) Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Sox would be losing a lot of their draft allotment money if they lose their 2nd round pick. You'd lose a second rounder amount

DeMar and Rudy are going to ruin Valanciunas

Yeah and my experience is that updates have a lot fewer quirks/unforeseen bugs than my iPhone's - I'm guessing it's because each update gets looked at by so many parties before going through to each phone

I am not happy with this optical illusion on the Toronto floor

I'm much more partial to BA