WrigleyField 22

A lot depends on Lavine, but they should be able to still get a max player in 2018 or 19 I think.

Favorite pronoun: You Favorite President Yulsseys S Grant

Niko sitting through trade deadline. Down 2-20 against Portland right now lol. *granted they're without their 3 best plays as Lauriis also not with the team.

Unless they literally want to try him out/salvage the playoff run with Cousins out and still have the ability to decide on next year? I'd almost prefer the pick be heavily protected, as long as it eventually pays out without restrictions (and doesn't just turn into a second rounder or something). Protect it out for like 5 years and then wait for them to lose Davis, suck, and pick up a top 5 pick exactly the time well need good, affordable players to plug holes.

There is definitely a romantic mysticism associated with American Indian culture, for better or for worse. I mean, even in the entire context it's a little weird that we have mascots at all right, it's just a lot are furry creatures instead of racially simplistic/offensive charictures. But outside of sports, yea there is a mysticism with Native Americans which is why the military has Black Hawk and Apache helicopters, tomahawk missiles, etc.

you would front load as an incentive to a player to take a lower over AAV to protect you from the tax hit. He gets more money sooner, which has more value, while you avoid tax hit.Yeah, that’s what I was getting at. If they are fine going to 6/150+ outside of the LT ramifications just go to 8/160. He gets his 25-30 a year for the first few years, but for that we get to tack 1-3 years on to lower the AAV for LT purposes. Hell, even give him an opt out after 3-4 years. Also paying more now in real cash helps a bit in future cash outlays with arbitration raises/Bryce (though obviously I get the time value aspect of that by paying more now than later but it’s a trade off). That seems like a structure bound to test the limits of MLB and the lux tax rules.

you backload them too. if you can backload, all else equal, you should. All else equal is kind of the big deal. If you could actually get players to adjust their total contract by frontloading, why would you ever backload? Even if you are using somewhat conservative time value returns, a bunch of half million, million AAV increments could end up adding up when it comes to trying to time your tax overages/under. Eta, actually there could be a lot of reasons to backload still, but not from a lux tax calc perspective.

Highly doubt that and if it is go to 8/160 to lessen the LT hit and front load it. Who cares if we’re paying him $10 mil a year 5+ years from now unless there's some mlb rule/tax implication i'm overlooking (which i don't think bc it's all based on AAV anyway), there's no good reason to frontload when you can backload. money now >>>>>> money later Hmmm... if I can get a player to agree to a lower AAV contract that's frontloaded because he understands time value of money, isn't that potentially a very big deal in determining the tax base?

That dudes face... he knows it ain't even his time... just a straight up dafuq face.

Wait. I thought I was pretty up to speed on weird and outrageous Illinois high school mascots. What school is this?!

This was a local town's mascot until the '80s: They're still the dragons I think.

Well one is literally a racial slur so, while certainly insensitive, I'm not sure Illini and Blackhawks belong in the same sentence chief illiniwek (the actual mascot guy, that is - i just realized you meant the character/logo) is/was definitely a goofy caricature of native americans. the blackhawks logo/name seems far less disrespectful than the other teams mentioned, but what do i know. Yea, that and they've limited any imagery to just that and the C logo. No Indian mascot, tomahawk chops, etc. And I think the org has done their part to try and do outreach and activism with local Native American groups, PR motivated or not. Combination of all those things has let them avoid too much controversy, I think. They probably get a little leeway around it also indirectly being fonspired from an actual historical person (really named after a military unit which is named after the person), but probably allows them a little more leeway, even if the depiction of that person isn't actually an accurate representation.

It's pretty old, but I got a Cubs cookbook for Xmas one year. I'll report back if there's any slow cooker recipes (note that this won't include any current Cubs, but if Koyie Hill has a killer recipe it will be in there)

He's my current flavor of the week for the 8th pick. He could be Anthony Barr. Same type of size and it appears athletic ability on tape. He and a healthy Trevathan would be fun inside. Kwit in nickel with Edmunds potentially rushing off the edge or blitzing could be great. He's kinda opposite Floyd in that Floyd is a pass rusher that can do so much more that you don't want to limit him to just rushing off the edge. Edmunds is an off-ball, sideline to sideline LB that can do so much more that you don't want to limit him to just running and chasing RBs and TEs. I don't know if Fangio can make the most of him (he is kind of structured as a DC), but if he feel he can I'd be very interested in this pick. I also kinda feel like Pace could really go for the absolute best athlete on the board regardless of position. The big needs for the Bears are OLB, WR, CB, and OL depth. But I expect him to go heavy in free agency to the point where he isn't desperate for any particular position (kinda how he's done the last 3 years). Plus, the guys likely on the board at 8 at those positions are probably reaches (OLB, CB) or not top 10 values (Ridley, Nelson). In general, the Bears need to get faster and more athletic, and we know Pace likes athletic specimen. 2015 1st- Kevin White- ran a 4.35 at 6'3", 215 2016- 1st- Leonard Floyd- ran a 4.6 at 6'6", 244 (fastest time of any pass rusher) Obviously he picked a QB last year. But Shaheen was kind of a huge athletic freak also. Yea, I think it's pretty fair to say Pace values athleticism, especially at the top of the draft.

Or pulled chicken tacos. Ribs are actually pretty good too. A beef roast (as a stroganoff or bolognese, perhaps) All great slow cooking methods and I don't have to be at home to accomplish with a slow cooker.

i legitimately laughed at this i wonder if that's what he thinks sous vide is too Looks yummy, I’m sure. Here’s about 150 better ways to cook a shoulder or stake for that matter. https://www.google.com/search?q=smoker&rlz=1CDGOYI Anyway, twitter is no better than this thread at giving me Darvish information. Smoking meat is awesome, obviouusly, but if I want some pulled pork on a random Tuesday, it's obviously not gonna happen. But I can get that nice low and slow cooking minus the smoke and still go to work that day. It's like 75% as good with approx 10% the effort.

I haven't followed this too closely. What exactly did MSU do or not do, cover up, etc?

They should just straight up let the fans decide the nickname for each player via online voting. "Boaty McBoatFace with the TD!" /slash every name from the Key and Peele sketches.

Oh come on. It will be the Dixies v the Rebels.

Luka Doncic plays for Real Madrid and could go #1 overall, so he's definitely being included. The consensus seems to be fixating on a top 5 or 6 (Doncic, Porter, Ayton, Bagley, and Young and/or Bamba). I don't know enough about the prospects to say what the drop off is, but after the top 2 or 3 of draft slots, I'd say historically the drop off of a couple picks isn't worth a tank effort that requires just dumping assets. I'm not even sure a top 3 pick is worth that, frankly.

9 or 10 is still the most likely place they end up, IMO. Is the incremental value to say 6 really worth not maximizing your assets? I don't think history tells you it is. You only get there by talking yourself into the bad logic of "this is a 6 man draft". In reality, if you can maximize your value for Niko, Holiday, and Lopez in the off-season to a significant degree, you should do so. Granted that's a risk that the value never materializes, but dumping solely for the tank would be a bad idea.

I assume that there are still a lot of roadblocks with the streaming services airing sports events, with blackout rules in place? Is there any roadmap for a local simulcast + streaming service add-on for national distribution for a single team sports network?

Even that might be pushing it. With the current market, and the ability for all teams to air some games on WGN and WCIU, 4 teams with equal partnership in one network is a pretty good setup. Now granted, WGN is not as attractive as it used to be, but those teams basically never need to worry about airing their games, and with 4 teams to the network there's plenty of supplemental programming available. Hockey/baseball and basketball/baseball are at least decent matches with not a lot of overlap in seasons, but you'd need some type of WGN/WCIU still for overflow when those seasons overlap, and those networks would have the task of still doubling Comcast Sports non-game programming.

Trying to wrap up another tank L with 49 points from Grant, Lopez, Holiday and 6 minutes left. :|

A really confusing guy. I don't follow the NBA much, but it's weird to see a 6'10" PG who doesn't shoot 3's or FT's. Well, most players 6'10" play PF and/or SF so it's just weird seeing someone so tall initiating the offense while playing PG. Simmons honestly could play 4 positions (PG, SF, PF and C) with SG being the exception because he can't shoot lol. M. Fultz was suppose to be the perfect complement to Simmons, but his shot is even worse and he can't even make shots in practice now. I kind of get your point, but he really needs to learn to shoot more 3s than he does now, at least if he is going to reach that superstar potential. I mean imo guess he's establishing a pretty good floor without having any 3 game, but it's not gonna win them a championship.