Jake

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 12:21 PM) I don't know why people aren't surprised. He hasn't played team basketball in some time (and exhibitions aren't necessarily great indicators). This shouldn't really surprise anyone and with time he'll become a much better facilitator and this offense will start to look a heck of a lot better (and more efficient). If you told me several months ago that he'd struggle out the gate, I wouldn't be surprised. It's surprising that he looked so sharp in the preseason and looks this way now QUOTE (ZoomSlowik @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 12:30 PM) Rose, relatively easily unless you're talking fantasy basketball. Curry is an amazing shooter, but he has several flaws. He's not a big threat on the drive, he's a pretty mediocre ball-handler/passer and he's a bad defender. He's SOOOO good at shooting that he can cover up most of that, but Rose is going to have a bigger impact with a league average cast around him. If salaries count though, I'd be more inclined to take Curry. Rose would cost you $19.5 mil a year for the next 4, Curry is only going to cost you $11 mil a year. That's a pretty sizeable difference if you're trying to put together a contender. So, the alternate question. Is there some roster configuration that would make Steph the better fit?

I should point out, in regards to that list of leaders in fWAR, a just as important group of players are those not listed. The White Sox are remarkably good at not having highly negative value pitchers. We pull them out of the rotation before they really cause them damage, we keep our guys healthy to keep random call-ups out the rotation.

The responsible parties

You are starting a new franchise in Seattle. The NBA, in a strange move, says you can choose one of two players as your franchise cornerstone whose salary won't count against your cap. You can have Derrick Rose or Stephen Curry. You're an expansion team, so you don't have any existing pieces to consider in your choice. Who do you choose?

Very unsavory and we're all bound to lose

QUOTE (Jenksy Cat @ Oct 31, 2013 -> 10:58 PM) What are we thinking we could get trade-wise for him? Think anyone would take that contract though? The White Sox will take on his contract if the Bulls send their top prospects along with him

Derrick can't score, can't get a foul call, and is absolutely not facilitating for his teammates. We looked our best with Hinrich in the game...and he is bad.

Joakim had nothing to do with Chandler falling down

You wonder why I question the league's integrity

Strange stuff with the non-foul calls

Davis would generally fit what we're trying to do, but I wonder how advisable it is to continue adding right handed hitters. We have: Abreu A. Garcia Viciedo Semien as young guys that we think will definitely be long-term pieces, plus Alexei Beckham Keppinger Flowers/Phegley and then our lefties Dunn De Aza Gillaspie Jordan Danks L. Garcia as LHH that have a chance to be on the roster next year. Dunn will be gone in a season at the latest and it seems we're trying to force de Aza out. That leaves us w/ Gillaspie, who might be a serviceable starter but not at the expense of Semien. Danks is fighting for backup time it seems and doesn't look like he is really much of an asset even in a platoon at the plate. Leury...I don't know that which hand he's hitting with really matters. Even if he hits well enough to have around, his value is never going to be his bat. I'm happy for us to pursue the best young guys we can get, but we're looking at having no decent left-handed bats on our roster in the very near future. Micah Johnson is our best lefty in the minors, but he will probably need at least another year of seasoning, if not two. In that case, you're looking at Semien and Johnson potentially competing for a spot. Other than that, the only LHH in the high minors with a remote chance of playing in the bigs are Andy Wilkins (first base/DH), Carlos Sanchez (switch-hitter), Jared Mitchell, Dan Black (first base/DH), Keenyn Walker (switch-hitter). All of these guys either had bad years last year or are playing first base and have low ceiling bats.

Derrick looks like s***

I think Cliff coming to Illinois is all predicated on how he feels about those other guys going to KU. There will be much more legitimate competition for PT and attention at KU. There's no chance someone takes minutes away from Cliff at U of I and no real chance that other star players take the spotlight away or, more importantly, take his share of points and such. He does not want some flukey thing to happen where he needs to stay an extra year because another top guy beat him out for playing time and/or his numbers didn't get him a good enough chance at being a lottery pick

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Oct 31, 2013 -> 04:51 PM) I think Ellsbury is a great fit. Great baserunner/stealer, solid defense , hits for a decent average. Just a heady pro for CF or even LF if the Sox pick up someone like Bourjos in a trade. Saves his legs which are his greatest asset if you stick him in a corner . I can always hope no matter what Merkin writes or Hahn says in public . You sign Ellsbury, trade for Kendrick and Bourjos then the lineup starts looking very solid with good speed and defense and probably with a payroll not any higher than last year if we can avoid giving Konerko any money. Pick up a cheap switch hitting catcher like Brayan Pena to add to the Cuban Connection or Dioner Navarro who would be a pretty reasonable free agent pickup . I think he is going to be a ton more expensive and a good deal more risk, so I didn't mention him. He would obviously look nice on our team in the near term, or sure

Soxfest, I agree with the general sentiment that none of those guys probably deserve to "lose" to Gavin; definitely seems contrary to the direction we're going in. With that said, there is little to lose and a fair amount to gain if we give Gavin a $1M deal at some point. We could potentially get nice production from him if we need as there are several guys that might not cut it, plus injuries are always a wildcard...that's how we got here in the first place. If Gavin rolls off a few really good starts when he returns, he might become a really nice trade piece for us. Probably aren't going to get another Avisail Garcia, but probably something that makes our organization better than we otherwise would be.

That's what we'd say if we weren't and it's what we'd say if we were. With that said, with the possible exception of McCann who will probably be too expensive and too much of a risk, there aren't a ton of great fits for us among the best free agents

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Oct 31, 2013 -> 01:24 PM) BTW Tex, I forgot to add one of the "minimums" I don't agree with in this law is that plans have to include mental health services and pregnancy/maternity/newborn services. That applies even if you are buying an individual policy for a male. Why on earth would a male need to pay for pregnancy/maternity services? Why should he have to pay for something he will literally never, ever use? Why should someone be forced to buy mental health services if they've never had a history of any kind of mental health problem? SS said it yesterday - technically people are going to pay more for better policies with better coverage, but maybe people don't need that coverage? Maybe they don't want to spend the extra money on those things, so why are we taking that choice away? The babies born into our society are your concern. If they aren't properly cared for, they pose a substantial burden on society. This applies not just to disabilities or sicknesses related to the birth process. I suppose you were an infant once, and you probably lacked choice in terms of who you were coming out of and into what circumstances you'd find yourself in. I have no idea how you feel on this issue, but I'd like to evoke the abortion argument for an example. Liberals like myself like to say that conservatives care a whole hell of a lot about fetuses until they are born: this is EXACTLY what we're talking about! The general conservative (I'm not sure about you, in particular, in this case) demands that a baby be born but doesn't give a flying s*** about the circumstances of its eventual birth and upbringing. Helping maternity services is an incredibly efficient investment for our society. Not only does it reflect an interest in our fellow humans, it allows for a greater chance of a healthy birth (mother and child). An insufficiently cared-for mother jeopardizes the existence of her child, who will burden society with more harmful things than negligibly higher insurance premiums. A mother/family that is incredibly financially burdened by the costs of child birth will likewise be less able to adequately raise a child. You can say what you want about individual accountability (though in the case of a pro-life person, they will have prevented a potentially responsible action of ending the pregnancy long beforehand), but these things easily become public problems. I'm honestly sad that I even have to explain this in mostly utilitarian terms as if it isn't on its face an offensive proposition. I'm not sure that I even want to get into the inherent biases in evaluating this from a male point of view. Given that men need less gender-specific healthcare, who gives a f*** about taking care of women? Women have nothing to do with us men, after all. Our outcomes are separate. I suppose you also wouldn't like to have your insurance dollars help out black people with sickle cell, women with breast cancer, etc. Likewise, your prostate cancer is your problem and they should have nothing to do with that. These attitudes certainly couldn't have anything to do with why black infant deaths outnumber whites 2.5:1, which has been increasing in the past decade. ACA spending reducing overall infant mortality by over 7% can't be related either. Of course, this just makes the point about mental health even more hilarious. What the f*** is the point of insurance if you are only paying for things you have a history of? It used to be the opposite. I know you think you are immune to mental illness, but mental health is simply a part of overall health. Mental health issues are biological and the fact that the ACA has started to bring mental health into the same sphere as everything else is a huge public health accomplishment. This is another case where you benefit substantially by being in a society in which people's mental illnesses are treated instead of denied, suppressed, or simply unseen. Soon, there will be another gun thread, and the thread will fill up with people not wanting any restrictions on guns and thus interpret mass shootings to be an unequivocal failure of the mental health system. These people will also be very pissed off that their insurance covers EXTREMELY basic mental health screenings. The general issue here is coercion. There is no choice here. Consumers can choose how much to spend on healthcare in a free market, but for the vast majority, their life is priceless. They will not elect to die when crisis hits and their insurance (or lack of it) is insufficient. Our society rightfully doesn't like the idea of people simply dying because they ran out of money. I'm not going to bother explaining this, because folks don't seem to listen. Instead, I'll pass it off to Friedrich Hayek. Hayek is the most important free market libertarian, ever. He has influenced our understanding of the free market and his understanding of economics and philosophy of governance define libertarian and fiscally conservative political philosophy. Folks like Milton Friedman, who is similarly well-regarded and still alive today, acknowledge him as their primary influence. Let's see what Hayek said about this whole health, insurance, public goods issue: Why? We are not actually FREE to make choices under certain conditions - virtually any regarding health. We try to hedge bets, but there is no recourse if we miscalculate. His other examples are just as pertinent: a free market doesn't consist of free actors making rational choices if they lack a minimum of resources.

The problem with assuming people will act like rational consumers, as Duke said long ago in this thread, is one's life doesn't have a price. My parents, who are still several years away from Medicare, have to have medical insurance. The risk is way too great to go without. In the past 10 years, the price they've paid for this coverage has tripled while their deductibles (they're on separate plans because that ended up being cheaper) went from 1000 to 5000 dollars. They pay out of pocket for routine checkups and preventative care like colonoscopies, mammograms, etc. where those used to be covered like anything else. Pretty much the only aspect that hasn't gotten worse is the prescription plan, but only one of them takes medicine regularly and it is a single, inexpensive generic. I'm thrilled for them that they'll be spending much less now. One had been on a casualty plan for a long time because they had a pre-existing condition (being around 60 years old and being overweight with a bout of high blood pressure in the past that has since dissipated). I'm glad the other one quit smoking 15 years ago or they'd be completely f***ed

I'm interested in how good the BoSox are going to be next year. Have a lot of expired contracts as well as guys that seemed to play over their heads last year

Just heard him called "Michael Williams-Carter" on ESPN close enough!

I appreciate it everyone!

I'm much less interesting, but I had a similar experience on a smaller scale playing college ball. I was falling in love with my studies and other new interests while injuries and a massive time commitment was making me resent playing the game I love. It was hard to go through. I eventually quit; in hindsight, my injuries were worse than I originally knew but I know that some of my teammates probably would have tried to come back or pull off a position change (I was converted to pitcher-only as a freshman when it was clear I was more advanced on the hill than at the plate). I realized that I could still love baseball and have it play a pretty huge role in my life and identity without playing it. It had never really occurred to me until then how much White Sox baseball was an important thing that brings my dad and I together. I'm glad I've been able to appreciate that instead of coming to that realization too late.

Watched my WS DVD last night. It's interesting how, after well over 120 days of inactivity, Frank still called the World Series the best moment of his life. Maybe I'm just selfish or something, but it's somewhat hard for me to comprehend. I have to think there was some bittersweetness to it. In hindsight, I even feel some of that. Weird that the best player in our franchise history, who was on this team, had a fairly minor contribution to our only WS since 1917

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Oct 31, 2013 -> 07:47 AM) I do hope you know I was playing contrarian regarding Thome and TWTW. People had the same thoughts about Thome during his time here as they do about Dunn now. I absolutely loved when Thome was here. It's too early for me to be reading sarcasm!!! Serious question I've been thinking about: can we, in good conscience, consider the Big Hurt a WS winner?

Big Jim in high, medium, and low leverage situations had negligibly different production numbers. 117 wRC+ in high leverage is pretty damn impressive considering how much more likely he was to see a LHP in those situations. In all postseason games before turning 37, Jim posted an .842 OPS over 55 games with 17 dingers. His overall postseason numbers are heavily skewed by bad performances at ages 37, 40, and 42. At age 42, he went 0 for 16. I won't hold it against him that he stayed in the game a little too long.