Jake

It's worth bearing in mind that while you hear about most foreign aid as a dollar figure, much of it is actually distributed as American-made goods. For instance, there was a lot of chatter about American funding of Egypt a few years ago and how it should stop. The fact was that the $X we were "giving" Egypt came in the form of tanks made by a private contractor in the US, meaning the money was going to support a US company and the government was just deciding what to do with the goods produced from that support. With that said, that doesn't mean it's a bad idea to reconsider some of the funds. The jobs justification only kind of works, since for the amount of money being spent in the previous example you were getting a tiny number of jobs compared to what you'd have if you specifically earmarked the same dollar amount for creating middle class jobs from public works projects or some such. At the same time, it's worth bearing in mind that you can buy compliance and to a lesser extent good will in foreign countries and you can do so with amounts of money that seem tiny in the context of the federal budget. So you have to consider what sorts of foreign policy implications you'd face and whether it's a better idea to just throw a little money away in the name of stability. Every situation is so unique and idiosyncratic that there's no way to say that all of the aid or none of the aid should be cut.

My general take is that we don't need to be rushing to replace him out there, but I wouldn't decide to avoid an opportunity to get an excellent defensive CF just because we have Adam. He could potentially be a really good LF and definitely has the bat to play a corner.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 18, 2015 -> 09:04 AM) This isn't accurate. I can tell you without a doubt that he had a different approach and swing early this year, versus 2014. Saw it myself, talked with him about it, talked with a scout about it. At least in May anyway, he was aiming RCF, had changed his hands in his stance and stride, changed his location in the box. And it occasionally flashed success, but now he's either slid back into bad habits, and/or pitchers have the book on him and he can't adjust. Changes were made. They haven't worked. Happens a lot, sadly. Glad to hear they were working with him.

At least he didn't pretend his account was hacked again

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 17, 2015 -> 07:44 PM) He is just a bad hitter. I doubt anyone has ever turned it around to be a productive MLB player after hitting as poorly as he has the last two years repeating AAA. Something did change when he got traded to us, though. He was flawed when we got him to be sure, but he regressed majorly while repeating a level and in ways that aren't league dependent (contact rate). When we traded for him, there was no good reason to think he wouldn't stick as a major league player, even if there were reasonable doubts as to whether he'd be a long-term starting caliber player. I don't know if he's got some mental stuff going as some suggested, or he's had some sort of physical regression, or he just caught some of the White Sox black magic that makes perfectly okay players forget how to hit.

One thing of interest is that if Biden did catch on in the Dem race, it would probably have the effect of making Sanders's candidacy much more legitimate. From the looks of things when it comes to polling, Biden is most liked by the most centrist/conservative liberals. Those people currently go for Clinton (or in some cases, they say they will vote Biden even though he hasn't announced). There's a non-insane scenario in which Biden making a serious bid and Sanders continuing to get a little momentum makes it a competitive three-person race

Can't believe you'd let the kid play like absolute dogs*** for two straight years before even considering making big changes to his swing

The mistake some are making is assuming that the very limited sample of offensive numbers we have from Saladino are very informative. That first callup usually generates some really strange hitting numbers at some point in time. I would especially shy away from assuming we know if he's this bad or this good in terms of overall production. If he hits well or badly for a week it will drastically change his season numbers. With that said, some of the same goes for the defense. He's clearly good over there, but we don't have good evidence that he's really something like one of the few best defensive 3B in the game. There's lot to be encouraged about, though, because regardless of the statistics the eye test tells us that he's at least an above average defender over there.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Aug 17, 2015 -> 08:46 AM) I think a lot of this is coming in light of the story that PP story and he says there is a difference in using tissue donated that wasn't "harvested" for that specific purpose vs tissue that exists and it's better to perform research it than to throw it away. Also, he didn't conduct the entire study we are all talking about, many people were involved and I think he's being credited with things he didn't actually perform in that experiment simply because it helps paint the picture of him the media wanted. I believe his claim is that, just because my name is on a study doesn't mean I carried out every action taken during that study. Also, I don't care about Ben Carson, but I believe this is why. Ethically speaking, scientists are expected to only allow their name to be listed as author of a publication if they are prepared to stand by its findings, etc. That doesn't mean they're signing a pledge to never change their mind about any conclusions or anything like that, but it does mean you are telling the world that you made important intellectual and substantive contributions to the piece and are responsible for the end product. Some fields do play pretty fast and loose in terms of what constitutes a large enough contribution, though.

We also rushed Mitchell quite a bit IMO, trying to get him to an age-appropriate level without regard for his serious contact issues at lower ones

You have to bear in mind with Eaton that last season he put up a 110 wRC+ against lefties.

I would have just cut Gordon.

Total s*** show per usual

He's likely to recover to some extent, but while I normally see things pretty optimistically, I really hated the trade we made for him.

In the run game, you basically want one of your ILBs to do nothing but be blocked

Wow, he's been in a tailspin offensively. Just a month or so ago he was having a productive season in spite of still-alarming strikeout numbers.

It was such a confusing play that it made sense to give him explanation, but it didn't take long before it became clear he was just killing time out there

The national polls don't mean anything anyway. The primary process is very undemocratic. Of course, Trump is winning each of the first three primary states, too... Then again, these things have a tendency to change a lot before the elections. Here's a quick blow-by-blow of national GOP polling from 2012 nomination fight. Romney leads early, until September, hovering around 20-25%. In September, Rick Perry surges to 30+%. He falls and in October Herman Cain takes the lead with 25-27%. He falls and by mid-December Newt Gingrich is leading with 35%. Once the actual voting starts in January, Romney and Gingrich go back and forth a few times. By mid-February, Gingrich has fallen out of favor and Rick Santorum takes Romney's brief lead, Santorum getting about 35%. It's not until March that Romney gets the lead and keeps it as much of the rest of his competition drops out of the race.

The beautiful thing about talent is that you can't measure it so you can say pretty much whatever you want about it

"Meeting at the mind of the mounds"

Conor taketh, Conor giveth away

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 12, 2015 -> 07:32 PM) If you delve a little deeper into his stats than this article it becomes even more confusing. Yes, his GB% age is way down, but what counters that is not hard-hit balls or line drives, it's fly balls, specifically a certain type of fly ball that you don't want to hit. His Fly Ball rate has gone up by 8% and his infield popup rate has gone up by 7% - so almost all of the additional fly balls he's hitting are popups. He's not noticeably pulling the ball any more, he's not noticeably hitting more balls hard, he is hitting slightly more line drives (2%) but not nearly as big as the change in fly balls. Basically Adam Eaton is popping the ball up a lot more. He's getting vastly fewer groundball and infield hits, those ground balls are now turning into popups. However one thing is offsetting that - he hit HR on only 1% of his fly balls last year. This year his HR/FB rate has gone from an insanely low 1% to a much more normal for baseball players 9%. Eaton is actually doing fewer good things with the bat...popping the ball up weakly more and hitting fewer ground balls that could turn into hits....except for he's suddenly showing the power of a normal hitter and additional power is really good. So, batting average down, OBP down, but almost the same overall hitter because he's hitting with a more normal amount of power. The question remaining is...how much of that is sustainable. If he keeps this higher rate of IF popups and his HR rate drops somewhat next year...then he really hurts his game. If he could keep this rate of HR/FB and cut that rate of IF popups back down, then he could become an exceptional player again. I can help solve one part of this mystery. IFFB% is popups as a percentage of fly balls, not all batted balls. A little deceptive given the way it is presented alongside a bunch of other percentages using total batted balls as denominator.

I think their pitching staff could very realistically let them down in the stretch run. 1 and 2 are top notch in the rotation, but there is no guaranteeing they get great production from 3-5. Rondon and Grimm are pretty much nails but neither is experienced as a closer and they are fairly soft beyond those two. Their success can be mostly attributed to the pitching staff but it isn't exactly loaded with talent nor is it loaded with guys that have track records of consistent performance. With that said, they're all on fire right now.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Aug 12, 2015 -> 01:51 PM) I see. I don't really concern myself with things that don't affect me when it comes to this incident. Obviously there is some interest to the story, but ultimately, this impacts me in one way: how will it affect my enjoyment of watching the Blackhawks. For the vast majority of fans, the impact on the Blackhawks, is, in my opinion, the most pertinent outcome of this incident. I'm not trying to make myself out as some special person who is interested in this story because I have an uncommon level of empathy/concern/whatever. I am paying attention to this particular allegation because I have always liked Patrick Kane and, moreso, the Blackhawks. I don't want to pretend this isn't because of the Blackhawks. I care about these issues in general, for sure, but I can't possibly follow every investigation that happens. But my enjoyment of the Blackhawks is very much related to the amount of rapists on the ice for them. I don't want to be fanatical about the most obviously morally dubious people (I put it that way since I can't expect everyone to be a great person nor can I reasonably police every aspect of their lives).

QUOTE (iamshack @ Aug 12, 2015 -> 12:43 PM) The last sentence is interesting to me. Why is what happened "more pertinent?" Well, there are a couple of reasons. First, there is just the issue of putting the cart before the horse. Talking about the salary cap is leaping ahead of several mysteries: what happened that night, what will come of the legal side of things, and what the league or team will do. All of those things depend on one another. Knowing more about what happened will give insight into each of the following steps in the process and is probably the order in which we find out. At this point, our speculation about Kane's contract will have as much structural integrity as a house of cards. The second reason is the moral decision-making we have to do. The legal outcome of the investigation will of course be in large part determined by "the truth," but we know through experience that there is nothing nearing a guarantee that justice is done. That's just how the world works, for better or worse. The legal system tries to err on the side of innocence, procedural minutiae can become big factors, and there is of course the looming potential for a settlement that can be an attempt to hide the facts from view. One of my priorities as a fan is to be able to figure out what I think of this situation so I can interpret developments properly. If I think Kane is victim to a shakedown, I'm not going to support punishment. If I think Kane is a criminal, I'll be upset if he is unpunished.