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QUOTE (StRoostifer @ Feb 1, 2015 -> 07:26 PM) Comp picks have value but that pick will do nothing in the short term to replace JS if he signs elsewhere. I know this will not be a popular opinion but I think out of the crop of players traded, Bassitt hurts the most. His second outing against the tigers was most impressive and if he learns to be consistent he could be a pretty damn good pitcher that comes with 6 years of control. If he stays healthy he will thrive out there in Oakland long after JS is gone. Same here. I am actually pretty high on Bassitt and Ravelo but I suppose it neither here nor there now. I was really hoping the Sox would have gone after Eovaldi but we all know how that turned out. I don't hate the trade, just not much of a fan of it. Also, Jeff's next contract will be a very costly one and the bidding could very well start around 5/100. I agree that Bassitt will be a decent MLB starter. I saw him pitch in person and liked what I saw. However, he does not have the ceiling to reach what JS is and I think that iit was worth the chance to get him long term.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Jan 31, 2015 -> 11:31 PM) Yes, Hudson was worthless that Future Sox ranked him the #1 prospect in the organization, ahead of Chris Sale. He pitched very well for Az, felled only by injuries. Holmberg, of course, is still around and will vie for a spot in the Reds rotation. Everyone knew hudson would have tjoee problems. It was discussed here at the time. Holmberg may still pitch but is nothing special. The whole trsde was worth when KW thought he was going to get Dunn from washington.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Feb 1, 2015 -> 12:04 AM) What the hell do they do to make 80k? Factory and warehouse work for 70 hours a week. They do that from march to November then live like royalty back in mexico for the winter. These are the patients who want to get back to work asap because they miss overtime.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jan 31, 2015 -> 11:23 PM) So how much do these people make? Just curious. Some of the ones I've worked with said over 80k and they had the worker's comp benefit to see me in the clinic.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jan 31, 2015 -> 11:14 PM) Sure, they don't have to pay taxes, but most people won't even hire them, let alone give them more than minimum wage. And aren't you a doctor? How are they making more than a physician? Are they in the drug trade? No not a doctor. Physcial therapist/athletic trainer. I was just referring to the ones I've worked with who are employed at the warehouses and such where 100's are employed. I'm sure there are plenty that are unemployed but many of them come here because they can get pretty good paying jobs, usually with a family connection.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Jan 31, 2015 -> 07:32 PM) We gave our 2 top pitching prospects for a pitcher with an ERA in excess of 5...plus, Arizona was in salary dump mode. Franchise killer? No Overpay? Without question. Plus, it was a zig zag. Why were we trying to land a 1.5 year rent at that point anyway? . With the state our system was in at the time, the sox top pitching prospects weren't much. However, I'm usually against any trade where the Sox give up more than 1 pitcher. It's just too valuable of a commodity.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 31, 2015 -> 09:28 PM) Yeah, uh, that...actually happened. NYT Yeah, we actually did that. So yeah, that's your intelligence agency, doing things you would otherwise call crazy and inhuman in your name for decades. I'm not saying it didn't happen. I just though it was funny. The whole pseudo-science and fake vaccination combination was funny.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jan 31, 2015 -> 11:55 AM) I have been shocked at how low Anderson is showing up on these lists. I was expecting in the 35-40 range. The really high strikeouts is very concerning. It was the reason I didn't think Joas Fields was going to make it. He still has time but it is going to be tough.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 31, 2015 -> 05:00 PM) Undocumented immigrants have nothing to do with a bunch of upper class mainly white people not vaccinating their children over a bunch of garbage pseudo-science. This combined with your comment about the US stealing DNA covertly really made me laugh.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jan 31, 2015 -> 06:29 PM) Because illegal immigrants can afford to let their kids go to Disneyland and spread Measles...sure. I know some that can. They aren't burdened with many of the same responsibilities and if they have steady employment make a good buck. There are some factories and warehouses in St. Charles/Batavia area where many of them make more than I do.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 31, 2015 -> 04:48 PM) Jesus Christ. Im in favor

QUOTE (Jake @ Jan 31, 2015 -> 02:00 PM) We have all the tools to inform people, but those same tools can misinform. While some people used to be underinformed, now they have all the information and then some - and choose wrongly. I research communication and science/risk communication is one of the field's biggest growing areas. Can't tell you how many patients come to the clinic with poor information from webMD or other web sources. I spend more time telling them why they are wrong in what they think they need to do as oppsed to treting them. The other problem is workers comp patients. They can do so much research on what a problem should look like that it is getting tougher to pick them out.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 31, 2015 -> 01:01 PM) Kill all anti-vaxxers, banish their children from society. It may keep the rest healthy.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Jan 30, 2015 -> 03:43 PM) From my reading of Nassim Taleb part of this is just the inherent problems in using regression to model a complex, multivariate system -- MLB team win totals. Making a prediction of a player's stats is child's play compared to trying to model league win totals. It is. There are many factors that need to go into the decision if a regression is even appropriate. You really need to determine the correlations first and really should throw out any variable with a low correlation, which sometimes leaves you with no data to run the regression. I'm not sure if they did this but with all of the values being so low, I would questions it.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 30, 2015 -> 03:06 PM) To be fair, the entire house buying business is just utter nonsense. I'm a lawyer and read contracts all the time. I didn't read through the mortgage/closing documents when I bought my house because it would have taken me a week to get through. You sign 50 documents. And it's not like you're going to not agree to certain items and have someone there at the closing negotiate with you about that change. You take it or leave it. Right but you know the amount you will pay per month and your income per month. The monthly payment is written in a little box. You don't need to read everthing to know that.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Jan 30, 2015 -> 03:21 PM) Look at these r2 values: http://www.hardballtimes.com/evaluating-th...ection-systems/ ZIPS 0.330 Steamer 0.316 PECOTA 0.304 Oliver 0.307 Marcel 0.240 Average 0.318 Nothing to write home about, that's for sure. Basically (in my limited stats 101 knowledge) the r2 is simply "the variance explained in the model". You are correct in your interpretation of linear regression model. The take home message from this is that none of the models predict the actual number of wins very well. For example I do the linear regressions yearly on trying to predict how our graduate will perform on the license exam. I use admisson aswell as program variable and I can get a r2 vaule of around 75% Which pretty good.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 30, 2015 -> 01:25 PM) But who are the educated, knowledgeable professionals here? Who are the ones that are supposed to be experts at evaluating loan risks? It's not like there's a shortage of stories/lawsuits over banks pushing people to lie on the applications in order to qualify or simply changing the numbers on the applications themselves. Think of high-pressure car salesmen. They're just looking to squeeze the absolute most out of you. When I was buying a car back in May, I overheard the deal going down next to me as I waited on paperwork. It was a younger kid, early 20's, looking at buying a new Toyota FR-S. Only problem was, he couldn't actually afford it. Within 20 minutes, the sales guy had talked him into an "affordable" lease and then he could just buy the car outright in 3 years! It's a high-pressure situation with lots of emotion involved (you really do like that car/house, and you do need something to drive/live in). One side of the table is highly incentivized to get that deal closed, and they've got a lot of experience in negotiating. They'll lie to you, their boss and anyone else to get the deal closed. They'll use well-worn but effective tactics ("four squares) to get you focused on the "right" numbers. Now one critical difference there is that most people view car salesmen pretty skeptically, but even with that they're pretty successful. I don't have data, but I'd imagine that people are generally a lot less skeptical towards the loan officer at their local bank branch, and that they'd trust these people to give them sound financial guidance. But that's not what they were getting. They were getting mortgage brokers looking to push as many people into the most profitable loans they could regardless of the actual financial circumstances. Why should we more heavily blame the people emotionally invested in one of the biggest decisions of their lives (buying a home) instead of the people who churn out mortgages every day and are looking to make as much money as possible? The bankers are the people who are supposed to have seriously and legitimately evaluated the financial capabilities of the mortgagee and determined that they could repay this loan. I understand your concept. However, I guess it doesn't make sense to listen to just one person on anything regardless of their education and their profession. Why would borrow so much money that when you look at your paycheck would be limit anything else you could do? They should look at it in the big picture. The people still had to sign on the dotted line and agree to borrow that money. Anytime you buy anything especially in the thousands and 100's thousands dollars you would think that people would look at it more closely and not just listen to one person trying to sell you something. I guess it's just a different point of view. I can't imagine just signing it know it would take too much of the paycheck. Now if you lose your job or something drastic like that happens, it's a different story.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jan 30, 2015 -> 01:06 PM) It IS open for debate. That's what we're doing. No one is holding anything up to a pedestal! In your issue of BP, does it say anything at all about how these projections are so accurate we don't even need to play the games? Or, instead, does it say something about how they provide a useful and interesting frame of reference and then go onto cite its shortcomings? They DO matter. The number they land on doesn't matter, but that number in context of the other tell us things about our team. Every week, some random sap wins the freaking lottery, even though his odds were one in 2,000,000. He didn't actually buy 2,000,000 tickets to ensure a victory. But the odds were the odds. I would disagree with this based on the concept that the algorithm is biased. Their results over the past few years show how inaccurate they are. They only thing they really matter for is to create discussion, which they've done.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 30, 2015 -> 12:04 PM) Then I will rephrase, what SHOULD have happened, and what a guy like Harold Reynolds who obviously doesn't have a big fanbase thinks WAS going to happen, wasn't so different accuracy-wise. I also think most if pressed to be accurate with predictions, will use what SHOULD happen vs. what they hope or think will happen most times. Another view would be that people look at these projections (which are biased as I've said) and pay for this company to exist. It's kind of like weather personalities. They know they are most likely wrong but people still like them. If I can be 7 games off and still have a company that gets paid to do it, I'm going to say that the teams who are going to finish in the bottom half will win 75, that gives me 68-82 as a range. Teams that look good I'm going to say 82, that gives me 75-89 range. I will be right most often and be correct as PECOTA and weather personalities, although I don't look as good as Cheryl Scott and I'm not as accurate as Tom Skilling.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 30, 2015 -> 01:02 PM) That, plus the securitization/"risk-spreading" stuff that Y2HH covered. Though I might frame it as banks lending more than they should have as they're supposed to be the financial professionals. That's an interesting point of view. Not knowing the financial world much, I bet this was a huge debate. Who is more at fault the banks for taking the risk or the people who accepted the loans taking the risk. From a societal stand point I guess I would lean toward the people taking the money shouldn't have taken it and agreed to pay it back as opposed to the ones offering it trying to make the money. Kind of like the State of Illinois. Don't spend more than you have. (but I'm a little bias on this one being a state employee)

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Jan 30, 2015 -> 12:50 PM) 30 is way too much. I say 26 at most. But honestly would just rather see it stay. Game will become way too specialized if it gets any bigger. Not only that but it inherently raises the payroll. The game would see even more players that don't belong in the MLB especially pitching.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 30, 2015 -> 10:20 AM) This makes me smile. Freep Sports ‏@freepsports 9m9 minutes ago Victor Martinez could be in the mix at catcher early in the season for the #Tigers. http://on.freep.com/1yeI6YZ That would be really nice. Wear those legs out early.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 30, 2015 -> 11:04 AM) Just to add to that a bit, the banks and mortgage brokers would also knowingly and willingly lie on the paperwork or encourage the borrow to lie, or they'd simply hand out money with no verification whatsoever in NINJA loans. But the big investment banks also started to believe in their own MBS snake-oil and held on to a later of the paper themselves. Or maybe they knew it was garbage but didn't care because they were making huge fortunes every year and knew that, even when it all hit the fan, they'd still be walking away with millions. This is where the buyer should realize how much they can spend without over extending themselves? It's the whole "house poor" scenario. Everyone wants a bigger house so they push it and don't make it.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 30, 2015 -> 10:41 AM) While not everyone might want to go to college, I don't think "how much money your parents have" is one of the hurdles they should have to clear if they want to. Actually, going through this right now, the more money your parents have the less likely you are to get money and must incur more debt. Unless the parent are willingly to borrow money as well. The middle class gets stuck here. You make decent money but not enough to pay a extra 20,000 a year for school and your child cannot get government money so they must go to the private lenders.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 30, 2015 -> 10:25 AM) Depending on how you read your first sentence with the third, not exactly. There have been numerous studies looking into the causes, trends, etc. and there really isn't much evidence poorer borrowers being the primary cause. The third sentence in isolation is more less or correct in that too many people at too great of a risk of not paying it back were loaned too much money, but what this most recent study found is that people were overextending themselves across the income scale: http://www.vox.com/2015/1/26/7897035/poor-...crisis-mortgage and then of course what could have been a relatively isolated mortgage default problem was hugely amplified by all sorts of "AAA rated" mortgage-backed securities and credit default swaps. So, generally speaking, yes, the root of the problem was banks/mortgage brokers telling people they could take out loans much larger than they could actually afford because the banks were just going to securitize or sell those mortgages right away anyway and people taking these loans that the banks assured them they were qualified for. But if by "those who really need it" you mean people with lower incomes, then no, they weren't more of a cause than any other income group. Got it. That makes more sense. It was everyone who borrowed more than they should have regardless of current income. Is that more accurate? Again in a simplistic manner.