Jake

QUOTE (Dunt @ Jul 13, 2015 -> 04:48 PM) While we would like to consider them competent, the best WAR in the outfield is currently Adam Eaton at 0.0. Additionally, not one of them has a wRC+ over 93 or an ISO over 140. You absolutely need power out of your corner positions and our lack of it is a large reason for why the Sox are dead last in offense in the league. If Bruce were on the Sox right now, he would immediately have the best WAR of any position player. I am trying to think big picture here. This team needs to infuse offense while improving it's defense. Bruce is a massive upgrade offensively over Avi and a slightly better defender. Sure, I would love for the Sox to go after Jason Heyward, someone who provides value both offensively and defensively, but I know the Sox wouldnt go anywhere near that type of contract. Bruce seems like the type of move that would make sense, especially if they could find a taker for LaRoche. Eaton has been a carbon copy of his 2014 self since the beginning of May and I'm making the leap of faith that Melky's recent production is going to become the norm as it has the past few seasons. Avi sticks out here because his defense hurts his value so badly but he is also IMO the highest upside bat as well as the one who could most plausibly take leaps forward. It's not so much that Bruce wouldn't be an improvement, since he probably would be, but the marginal gain compared to getting a lesser player at a different position makes it not worth it to me.

I don't see the point considering we have what appear to be three competent outfielders at this point. Bruce isn't so good that I'd fill what aren't totally gaping holes. I think we'd like to do something about Avi at some point, but you're not going to make a trade this season and bench Avi in his first full year in MLB.

Given our need for a right-handed bat, you have to think we'll end up seeing Matt Davidson at some point this year. Yeah yeah lots of strikeouts disappointing return for Reed, but he there's a decent chance he'll be a really nice option at 3B/DH to cover for those lefties. He ought to take some reps at 2B in MiLB as well

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jul 9, 2015 -> 11:19 AM) (1) all "white" people are not the same. Some "white" people are not privileged and haven't experienced the same privilege as other whites You can, on the whole, have lots of disadvantages yet still have the particular advantage of being white. I'm not bothering to look too much into this documentary but the notion of "white privilege" isn't that every single white person automatically gets ahead of every single black person in all aspects of life. It's that being white is easily one of the single largest advantages you can be afforded in the United States. Not so large that some black people can't have better lives than some white people or that people who happen to be white won't face other challenges that they don't deserve. The idea of pointing out white privilege is to, in part, get white people to recognize that they have a race and theirs has consequences. White is the default race. Some of that can be attributed to a numbers game. In the USA, whites far outnumber everyone else. This allows people to ignore that being white means something. You can see all of your accomplishments as untinged by your race, considering how little of an overt role it played. It's where the criticism of people saying things like they are "color-blind" and that society is "post-racial" comes from. It's easy to say that society is post-racial when you aren't directly or intentionally harming other races and you haven't been held back by yours. And so long as you fail to recognize those benefits, you won't be able to help make a more equitable society. More obviously, if you outright reject the benefits of being white--that is, you claim there are none--you will also reject any efforts to make the world a fairer place. And that doesn't take away from the other privileges a person may not have. You might not be beautiful, smart, born into wealth, have a healthy body, good luck, etc. There is obviously a class privilege, which I think a lot of people start latching onto when they get mad at the notion of white privilege. "I was poor! I had no privilege!" But you did have a privilege, even if you lacked one that is also very important.

Interesting how mixed the opinions are on him. Baseball America ranked 8 different Cubans ahead of him.

I think the organization felt it would have been inappropriate to offer him a contract that was dramatically below his market value. JR is loyal and has certainly gotten guys to accept discounts to stay in Chicago, but if he really cared about Mark as he said he did he wouldn't have allowed him to piss away all that money...and he didn't let him do that.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jul 9, 2015 -> 01:17 PM) He was patently awful last year in the majors at the plate - like, the worst bat in the majors with that many PAs. And frankly I thought his defense, while passable at multiple positions, wasn't great at any of them. I'd much rather see Saladino up. Well, you may not be surprised to hear that I don't mind Leury staying down and maybe finding a half-ass decent gap stroke. I do have worries about whether his defense could be oversold. I don't know what to take away from his MLB numbers beyond what should have been obvious when we called him up: he was in no way prepared to hit MLB pitching.

Leury doesn't get a lot of love around here and, I mean, that's not an insane stance to take. The thing I thought about since we traded for him is that, looking at his MiLB career, he always appeared to be promoted too aggressively. I wonder if there are some reasons for optimism. I've annotated his FanGraphs profile to kind of illustrate my argument. You can click to embiggen. Basically, Leury was rushed through the minors, being promoted in spite poor production, often high K rates, and always playing young for the level. Even so, he did hold his own in AA as a 21 year old, which probably convinced the Rangers to keep pushing. And we're not talking about a low talent player here. Here's a snapshot of his Baseball America "awards": We're talking about a big time guy when it comes to speed, arm, and defense. We saw these things when he played for the Sox. Of course, we also saw two glaring deficiencies: contact and power at the plate. And, at least as far as contact is concerned, I think the Rangers and to a lesser extent White Sox failed him. My personal, I'm-not-a-baseball-executive-just-a-guy-on-the-internet philosophy with prospects is that you can't expect a guy to succeed on a high level if you haven't permitted him to excel at lower levels. His career stats make it clear that for the majority of his career, he's been just trying to survive at the plate. The guy is 5'8" and has never really shown any flashes of power, so it would be way too optimistic to say he'd find his power stroke if treated correctly. But with that said, his other tools are good enough that he doesn't need to be a great hitter, just an adequate one. We're seeing some of what might be the "real" Leury in AAA this year. .291 AVG/.339 OBP/.361 SLG (.070 ISO) - 1 HR, 33 R, 17 RBI, 23/33 SB, 103 wRC+. Maybe most important is this single stat: 16.9% K%. Compare to the 30.8% K% in MLB and 25.5% the last time he was in AAA, two years ago. It's relatively simple: if he is putting the ball in play, he's going to be at least okay. At the AAA level, he's not only making more contact but making higher quality contact. His AAA numbers in isolation aren't amazing, but this is a guy who can play nearly any position and appears to be a pretty good defender in several of them. If he could post something like an 80-85 wRC+ in MLB, he'll play for 10 years. So I just wanted to start a discussion and see if anyone else saw reason for optimism with Leury. I'm not talking about a guy who we should envisioning as a surefire part of the future, but moreso a guy who shouldn't be written off. Look at what a guy like Jarrod Dyson has meant to the Royals after spending years on their bench as the no-hit pinch-running guy. Leury isn't as much of an ace base stealer but also plays more defensive positions (even pitcher! ).

I'm not sure what to think of the DeAndre Jordan business. It sounds to me like he probably never wanted to go anywhere else but his agent led him to believe he had no choice. Then he finds out he did have a choice.

No better time than now to get hot Mr. Sanchez

Don't know what's up with Carlos, but you certainly can't blame anyone if management makes a change. He at least needed to clear the low bar of out-hitting Alexei and he hasn't even done that. It's hard for me to believe that we've seen the "real" Carlos Sanchez, but I'm not sure if it's doing him a ton of good to keep hitting this poorly.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jul 8, 2015 -> 12:17 PM) Recap posted Sorry for the delay, but you should read it - it's amazing how many of the affiliates are in or near first place right now. Haven't seen this in a long, long time. Is that generally a sign of anything in particular in terms of whether the system is talented? When I see a MiLB team has a winning record, I always think about the Chris Curleys of the world rather than the Tim Andersons, etc.

Sox pitchers are 9th in WAR in MLB (#3 in past 30 days). Sox starters are 6th in WAR in MLB (#2 in past 30 days). The difference between our ERA and our fielding independent metrics are consistent with playing in the AL, playing at US Cellular Field, and having what is by far the worst defense in MLB.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Jul 7, 2015 -> 09:53 PM) Yeah, that's the app I used to determine the best location for our booster, which does a great job extending our signal, but at the cost of speed. I also used the Ookla Speed Test to see what kinds of speeds I was getting with our current set up and with a Netgear AC1750 Nighthawk I bought last week just as a test. With our regular Linksys G-300 (Yes, G!!) I was getting 0.06 MB/S on my phone, and 0.3 MB/S on my PS4 in my room, which is located about 12 feet away from the router (up 1 floor, couple feet to the right). Even with the Nighthawk, I was only getting 2.1 MB/S on my PS4 and 1.1 MB/S on my phone. We are paying for 50 MB/S (but I assume that's only realistic on a hardwired connection). EDIT: I should mention I am converting the mbps reading that the Ookla app gives in to MB/S, which is 1/8th the number. Routers are rated for mbps, even though internet companies sell it in MB/S. It's kind of tricky. Every ISP I've ever patronized markets in Mbps, not MBps. For instance, TWC, my current provider...

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 6, 2015 -> 09:28 PM) when Reynolds was 24 he hit 28 homers in the big leagues. Maybe Davidson would do that if we gave him a shot!

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Jul 6, 2015 -> 08:40 PM) Equally as unimpressive is his 112 Ks in 83 games. Contact issues are usually exacerbated in the Major Leagues, so I am pretty much resigned to Davidson never reaching the potential the Sox saw in him when they traded for him. Mark Reynolds is the kind of profile to look for at this point. Can he develop that level of power in his mid-20s, though?

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jul 6, 2015 -> 04:52 PM) Given some of the scandals though, from Whitewater to foundation donations, to the email scandal, isn't some of that explanation self explanatory? She's got some dirt on her and everyone knows it. Of course reporters want to be the one that finds it. And of course Republicans are chomping at the bit because the country has been told for nearly two decades that she'll be the first female president. QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 6, 2015 -> 05:06 PM) See the problem is...everything you mentioned was pretty much BS as a "Scandal". Some of them are "poor optics", but they're labeled as "scandals" even when they're not. My general takeaway on that stuff was that it was mostly the result of shaking the Clinton tree to see what people latched onto. I don't hold Hillary or Bill in especially high esteem as people, but I'm not so sure that they are outside whatever the moral norm is for national politics.

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Jul 6, 2015 -> 04:11 PM) Brewers now just 1 game under .500 under Counsell. White Sox also now just 1 game under .500 since the day Ron Roenicke was fired. Welp, lucky for Robin, firing Ron Roenicke fixes everything!

Just makes concrete that in Donald's mind, Mexican illegals and just Mexicans are basically indistinguishable

There does seem to be something about the Clintons that really brings out the worst in journalists. I think everyone knew that Bill was a philanderer from the get-go, which probably led to such intense interest, and the Lewinsky relationship just sealed the deal. The Republican surge after his election led to all kinds of other pseudo-scandals as well, which showed there was lots of public interest in shaking the Clinton tree to see what falls out.

I think the 3 year plan is more like "I told Jerry that we'd be a great team again by year 3 or I'd quit my job"

Penny with a CG and 0 strikeouts. Weird.

LaMarcus isn't anywhere near good enough for me to complain about him switching teams. On which recent champion would he have been the best player?

Sox pitching staff 3rd in AL/9th in MLB in WAR, Sox starters 2nd in AL/6th in MLB in WAR. Staff is 1st in AL/2nd in MLB in WAR over last 30 days, starters are 1st in AL/2nd in MLB over last 30 days.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Jun 28, 2015 -> 01:20 PM) Question to those who track mileage on their tax returns. Does the mileage include the trip to and from work as well? To keep track I should be able to just attach my route sheet (it has all the locations I hit) to a mapquest print out that includes how many miles right? Some may remember I posted about working as a sub contractor and my employer doesn't take taxes out. I asked the boss if I'm gonna have to pay taxes and he said not if I track my miles and write those off. Ask Aaron Schock for more details