NorthSideSox72

I always thought that HQ2 didn't make sense for a New York or other super-large city. It just doesn't move the needle enough, with all the incentives they have to throw at it. On the other hand, if this was for a city in like the just below to just above a million range for the metro - that's your Indianapolis, El Paso, Albuquerque, Memphis, Rochester, New Orleans range - it could be much better for all involved. Large enough to have a major airport and a decent population to draw at least some locals from, but small enough that it helps in a bigger way %-wise and sort of puts it "on the map" for other large businesses that add value beyond the direct stuff. Plus less worry there about traffic, housing price issues, etc. And for Amazon, everything there would be immensely cheaper.

From what I gather, it was not only cold, but they weren't on the mound and the ground was slick too. Add that to no warm-ups and mid-70's winning starts to make sense.

This ISU team plays really young. I mean they also are pretty young, but perhaps they play even more so due to a couple key guys being out in the early going.

Well that didn't work out so well. This team is frustrating. Just when they look like they should make a run at the top 10, they lose at HOME to TCU. And the game wasn't even all that close until near the end.

Yeah there is really no winning there. Best case you make things slightly less bad, and still get hammered over it. Preckwinkle is an interesting example of this. Not that she's been spectacular for Cook County, but she has made things better financially and did it without massive tax hikes. That is a small win, but even that is difficult to achieve with what she was given. I know people will likely take this opportunity to scoff at her, and I'm not really a fan either, but small wins are about the best we can expect at this point.

Just 73 to win? I mean I am sure I couldn't hit that now (haven't been able to throw that hard since my 20's), and I get there are no warm-ups. Just surprised there weren't people higher than that from a group as big as I assume this was.

For Mike Rankin's second article on FutureSox, he takes a look at the "next up" catchers in the organization with a focus on Seby Zavala as the likely next prospect to get a shot on the MLB club. Do you agree? Or do you think Collins gets there first? Do you agree with Collins and Zavala being together at AAA to start the year? Who will ultimately be the better player? Will Collins even stick at C?

That would seem to be ideal - have loans go out as interbank rate plus the very small default risk component, which usually will make it right around inflation-neutral. Student Loans have a relatively low default rate in part because they are almost impossible to clear in a bankruptcy - they stick.

I'll try to get this back on the tracks... For us, we had expensive Day Care / Preschool bills, until they started Kindergarten at public school. So what worked really nicely was, as soon as that fell off for each kid, we immediately put a chunk of that each month into a 529 instead. Still got to save some bucks, because the 529 amount was much less than the school was. And we never missed it that way. I am not sure why, but the interest rates on my wife's student loans (finished PhD in 2004) were only like 2%. And after we paid on time for like 2 years straight, it went down to 1.75%. On in inflationary basis that was like free money. Never re-financed, it just came that way. Was through Great Lakes Credit Union, then the debt was bought by Nelnet.

I mean, I'm on just about all of them, haha. That said, my biggest focus is on the guys who were injured: Kopech (though he won't pitch, more on rehab), Robert, Madrigal, Dunning, Adolfo, Hansen, Burdi, Burger, Walker, Zavala, Lambert, McClure, Puckett... I mean that's an insanely long list of guys who dealt with injuries in 2018. How they recover is huge for the system. And I'll put my stake now on a couple sleeper guys, like deep sleepers: Ty Greene and Amado Nunez.

I mean let's be honest, NO ONE reads the full text of the laws, including the people who vote on it in Congress.

From what I understand, the main reason many people are seeing much lower refunds is not because they paid less taxes during the year (though that is true for many or most), but because the tax law went into effect so late in the game that the projection models used to advise on auto-deductions by employers didn't have a chance to be very accurate. They misfired.

I agree. Number one is the best. I would argue that. I did look up both Sagarin and KenPom the other day and saw them in the 12-14 range on both. Yet AP still had them like 17 or 19 at the time. Anyway, this is a high ceiling team that could, if they keep a hot hand, make a deep run in March.

I've been very impressed with the recruiting. Again, I admit i am not a deep expert in this stuff and I've only watched a handful of the games this year, but... I was worried after the last of Hoiberg's recruits were leaving and ISU was falling back, that there just wouldn't be much of a bounceback. Clearly I was wrong. There's a lot of talent on this team and a lot of it is in the underclassmen, which is encouraging too.

Looking at the remaining schedules for the teams in the mix, if I had to put down money on one team, I'd buy ISU. But its messy enough I'd take The Field if that were an option. Clones are hitting a stride which is great, but they are still so young and inconsistent. Fun season so far though.

Maybe I wasn't clear what I meant. I am not say 70 wins is right or wrong - in fact I think it's close. It's that by nature, any statistically-based system to evaluate a player or a team if that team is heavily populated with players having minimal MLB time is just not going to work well. It just can't know what it needs to know, good or bad, when it comes to players on that cusp. And this team will be loaded with guys on the cusp.

Does anyone actually put any value in PECOTA? Just seems like it is a highly inaccurate model, and the further a team roster is away from veteran-laden, the less accurate it is. Not meant as a slight to the poster, honestly wondering if people think there's any accuracy or meaning to this model's projections. For me, the answer is no.

lol HOW DO YOU KNOW MAN DON'T PUT WORDS IN MY MOUTH

If he could play even reasonably competent defense in center field at the highest levels, he is a top 100 prospect IMO even without a big bump in power. But right now it looks like he's a corner guy, probably.

Clint did the 4th FS podcast of 2019 from the studios of 670 The Score. Session included Herb Lawrence, Shane Riordan and Chris Tannehill. Get all the details, listen, download, etc. from here.

Sort of surprisingly, it was boiler plate SOTU. All the usual ingredients: flowery prose about coming together, list of perceived accomplishments, emphasis of general priorities, citation of stats that back their approach (though Trump's were inaccurate more often than others' before), guests meant to tug at heartstrings, and performative audience reactions. Honestly the surprise to me was that it was an entirely boring, typical SOTU, which I would not have bet on from numbnuts. In the end, like with most SOTU's, it won't change anything.

Our Ken takes a look at five outfield prospects in the White Sox system who are all crammed into the 7 to 15 range of the Top 30. Includes ranks by not just our own but other services too, and talks about ceilings/floors and trajectories. How would you rank the five?

Catch up on the many transactions, links on recent off-season news and activity, and an intro about a pitcher that maybe we shouldn't give up on just yet. All here in the News and Notes.

I haven't watched a lot of ball this year so far, and most of it is Iowa State games. But I happened to catch part of St Johns vs Duke and oh my lord, Zion Williamson. That dude isn't just good or really good, he's a beast. Just doesn't even belong on a college court.

Approach is part of the problem, but I also think his swing is an issue. That said, what's funny about this discussion is that I am also pretty optimistic on Collins. And you are right that catchers do develop funny and it's hard to do both well, but that only adds yet more reason not to rush the guy up when it's pretty clear to me he hasn't mastered that level of pitching yet (on either side of the ball).