Taste Chicago

Around midday Wednesday, a tweet from a respected national reporter about free agent Manny Machado was sent out with a specific dollar figure noted:

Buster Olney’s tweet was later quote-tweeted by Bob Nightengale, with a small detail added:

As you no doubt know, this sent almost everyone in baseball-land into a tizzy. $175 million is at least $100 million below the offer that Machado supposedly was looking for this winter, and the overall years/dollar figure amount isn’t that much different than what Jason Heyward received from the Cubs before 2016. At that price, many said, almost every team should be “in” on Machado.

In this era of speedy news cycles, it didn’t take more than a few hours for Machado’s agent to issue a statement:

There are two things in particular from that statement that I want to highlight here. First:

I don’t know if their sources are blatantly violating the Collective Bargaining Agreement by intentionally misleading them to try and affect negotiations through the public or are just flat out lying to them for other reasons.

Whether you believe it or not, this sort of thing happens all the time. “Major league sources,” as they are often called by reporters, tell said reporters things that they want floated as trial balloons. Or they want to try to drive the price up for other teams. Or they have a myriad of other reasons beyond “I want this reporter to tell the truth.” I’m not the only one who noticed this Wednesday:

Second:

I am well aware that the entire baseball universe; fans, players, teams, and media members alike; are starved for information about this free agent market for all players, including Manny. But I am not going to continue to watch the press be manipulated into tampering with, not just my client, but all of these players’ livelihoods as they have been doing this entire offseason. The absence of new information to report is no excuse to fabricate “news” or regurgitate falsehoods without even attempting to confirm their validity and it is a disservice to baseball fans everywhere when the media does just that.

This is exactly correct, and again, it happens all the time. Attachment 49 to the MLB/MLBPA Collective Bargaining Agreement does indeed specifically prohibit these kinds of reports, as Dan Lozano stated:

(1) The Covered Parties may not (i) disclose to the media the substance of contract discussions between a player and a Club (including but not limited to the facts of offers, the substance of offers, or decisions not to make offers or to withdraw offers) until after terms on the contract have been confirmed by the Office of the Commissioner and the Players Association; or (ii) announce an agreement on a contract that is contingent on the player passing a Club-administered physical examination until after the player has passed that physical examination.

(2) Similarly, none of the Covered Parties may make comments to the media about the value of an unsigned free agent, or about possible or contemplated terms for an unsigned free agent, regardless of whether discussions have occurred. The prohibitions apply equally to comments that are on and off the record, as well as to comments that are provided on the condition of anonymity or published without identifying the source (e.g., “an industry source”).

Those two paragraphs would seem to me to indicate that we shouldn’t be hearing anything about player negotiations, offers, etc., much less a specific year/dollar amount of a supposed offer to a specific player.

I’ll just repeat this part of Lozano’s statement, with boldface added by me for emphasis:

I am well aware that the entire baseball universe; fans, players, teams, and media members alike; are starved for information about this free agent market for all players,

Indeed, with the free-agent market as slow as it is, sure, we’re all “starved for information,” but the two paragraphs from the CBA seem pretty clear that these Lozano is correct in stating that “reports” like the ones we saw Wednesday about Machado do a disservice to the player, to teams interested, and to the game, and they cannot be good for the future of these sorts of negotiations or, indeed, for player/management relations in general.

It might be extrapolating a bit too much to say what I’m about to say, given that we don’t yet know where or for how much Machado (or, for that matter, Bryce Harper) is going to sign. But I think that the fact that a player agent had to make such a strong and definitive statement on this topic does not bode well for the next set of labor negotiations.

The current CBA ends after the 2021 season. It’s entirely possible that there won’t be a 2022 MLB season.

About five years ago (I’m too lazy to look it up right now), the City of Chicago adopted an energy benchmarking law. This means that owners of buildings of a certain size would soon be required to report how much energy (electricity, natural gas, district steam, chilled water, and other fuels) their buildings use. Every few years they have to audit their reports.

The city has posted three years of energy reports for the “covered” buildings (the ones of a certain size) on its data portal. I copied the Chicago Energy Benchmarking dataset into the Chicago Cityscape database (for future features) and then loaded it into QGIS so I could analyze the data and find the least efficient buildings in Chicago.

The dataset has all three years so I started the analysis by filtering only for the latest year, 2016. I first visualized the data using the “ghg_intensity_kg_co2e_sq_ft” column, which is “greenhouse gas intensity, measured in kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent per square foot”. In other words, how much carbon does the building cause to be emitted based on its energy usage and normalized by its size.

In QGIS, to symbolize this kind of quantitative data, it helps to show them in groups. Here are “small fry” emitters, medium emitters, and bad emitters. I used the “Graduated” option in the Symbology setting and chose the Natural Breaks (Jenks) mode of dividing the greenhouse gas intensity values into four groups.

There are four groups, divided using the Natural Breaks (Jenks) method. There’s only one building in the “worst” energy users group, which is Salem Baptist Church, marked by a large red dot. The darker red the dot, the more energy per square foot that building consumes.

Among the four groups, only one building in Chicago that reported in 2016 was in the “worst emitters” group: Salem Baptist Church of Chicago at 10909 S Cottage Grove Avenue in Pullman.

The Salem Baptist Church building was built in 1960, has a gross floor area of 91,800 square feet, and an Energy Star rating of 1 because it emits 304.6 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent per square foot (kgco2esf). (The Energy Star rating scale is from 1 to 100.)

The next “worse” emitter in the same “Worship Facility” category as Salem Baptist Church is several magnitudes of order lower. That’s St. Peter’s Church at 110 W Madison Street in the Loop, built in 1900, which emits 11.7 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent per square foot (but which also has an Energy Star rating of 1).

The vast difference is concerning: Did the church report its energy usage correctly, or are they not maintaining their HVAC equipment or the building and it’s leaking so much air?

A different building was in the “worst” emitter category in 2015 but improved something about the building by 2016 to use a lot less energy. Looking deeper at the data for Piper’s Alley, however, something else happened.

In 2015, Piper’s Alley reported a single building with 137,176 gross square feet of floor area. The building’s owner also reported 5,869,902 kBTUs of electricity usage and 1,099,712,681 kBTUs of natural gas usage. Since these are reported in kilo-BTUs that means that you multiply each number by 1,000. Piper’s Alley reported using 1 trillion BTUs of natural gas. Which seems like an insane amount of energy usage, but could be totally reasonable – I’m not familiar with data on how much energy a “typical” large building uses.

Piper’s Alley in Old Town is the building that reported two different floor areas and vastly different energy usage in 2015 and 2016. The building’s owner didn’t report data for 2014 (although it may not have been required to).

There’s another problem with the reporting for Piper’s Alley, however: For 2016, it reported a gross floor area of 217,250 square feet, which is 36 percent larger than the area it reported in 2015. The building reported using significantly more electricity (58 percent more) and significantly less natural gas (137 percent less), for a vastly lowered kgco2esf value.

I think the energy benchmarking data set needs more eyes on it. Discuss in the comments below, or reply to my Twitter thread.

BCB’s David Sameshima visited Wrigley Field Sunday and sent me the 66 photos you see above.

There’s been quite a bit of progress on the 1060 Project. You can see in the area near the former Gate D/Wintrust Gate that the terra cotta look that surrounded Wrigley in the 1930s has been restored. I think it looks great. Incidentally, the gate designation I mention above is going to change. By Opening Day all gates at Wrigley will be numbered instead of lettered. That’s also the way things were in the 1930s. You can see that best in this image from the 1935 World Series:

When the bleachers re-opened in 2015 after reconstruction, that gate was numbered “Gate 10.” Presumably, the other gates will follow a similar pattern to what you see above in order to get to “Gate 10” in numerical order.

Speaking of gates, you can also see the near-completion of the Waveland Avenue gate, rebuilt over the winter, in photos 51-53. That’s a similar look to what they had over the last couple of years, only closer to the street.

Other items of note in this gallery:

• Photo 1 is for those of you who miss Taco Bell on Addison.
• You can see a few of the leftover signs in the neighborhood from St. Patrick’s Day celebrations.
• There’s ongoing work on the Addison Red Line stop which is supposed to be done before the Cubs home opener.
• The progress of the upper-deck patios is becoming more evident.

The home opener at Wrigley Field, Cubs vs. Pirates on April 8, is now just three weeks from today.

More than half of all registered voters got to the polls citywide, with 57.15% showing up.

But y'all... wow.

• In the 46th Ward, 72.46% of registered voters voted.
• In the 47th Ward, 76.20% of registered voters voted (highest turnout in the city!)
• In the 48th Ward, 71.60% of registered voters voted.

As an assistant coach, Matt Nagy grew up under the Andy Reid learning tree, and Reid is one of the most forward thinking offensive minds of all time. Reid’s roots are squarely in the west coast offense, but he’s shown an ability to adapt and to learn other concepts to keep things fresh for his teams. Nagy’s first year running the offense with the Chicago Bears wasn’t record setting, but we saw innovation for the first time in a long time, and the groundwork was laid to what should be a breakout in 2019.

Part of that breakout will center around the new faces his team added in free agency. This team will still only go as far as Mitchell Trubisky will take them, but with a new running back and a new play-maker (WR/KR/RB) joining Allen Robinson II, Tarik Cohen, Anthony Miller, Trey Burton, Taylor Gabriel, and for now, Jordan Howard, the offense has a multitude of weapons that defenses will need to scheme against.

Nagy’s new tailback, former Seattle Seahawk Mike Davis, has never been the number one option, but he had a mini-breakout last year averaging a career high 4.6 yards per carry (514 yards). He also hauled in 34 receptions, and he did so while playing only 37% of the offensive snaps. He’s not a burner, but there’s a suddenness to his game that will add a dimension to the offense in 2019. “He was a guy that can make you miss between the tackles.” Nagy said from the NFL owners meetings on Tuesday. “He has that in him. We liked that. We thought that would be a good addition to our side of the ball on offense.”

Adding a play-maker like Cordarrelle Patterson to the mix also has Nagy excited.

“You see what he did in New England with the jet sweeps, the [end] arounds, the screens, and I think that’s a good fit for him,” Nagy said. “For me it’s kind of like a kid in a candy store. You get to kind of pick which candy you like best, put it together and figure out what he does best. When he gets here and he starts getting on the field and we see what he can do mentally and physically, that’s when we start formulating it all and putting together some things that we’d like him to do within our offense.”

Patterson is one of the best kick returners in the history of the NFL, but he’s going to have a versatile role all over the offense with the Bears. He only played about 20% of the offensive snaps last year for the Patriots, with another 16% on special teams, but he made the most of his 5.7 touches per game by returning kicks and lining up everywhere on offense. He racked up 76 all-purpose yards per game and 5 total touchdowns last year.

Nagy also weighed in on his defense’s new safety and nickleback. The Bears didn’t re-sign Adrian Amos or Bryce Callahan, two popular and productive players, but they both moved on to big paydays with the Packers and Broncos respectively.

Ha Ha Clinton-Dix and Buster Skrine will try to fill the shoes of those two players, but the Bears are confident they can do it.

I don’t think it was a coincidence that Amos’ production picked up once he was paired with Eddie Jackson the last two seasons, so now that Clinton-Dix will slide into the role next to an All-Pro in Jackson, we’ll have to see if he can bounce back to his Pro Bowl form.

“We just felt like here’s a great opportunity for him coming to this defense and this city and this organization. And it’s a great opportunity for us where it could fill a role at that spot—two guys that played together at Alabama with Ha Ha and Eddie [Jackson]—and it could be a win-win situation. That’s what we feel like we’re going to get from Ha Ha joining our culture and our group of guys. He’s super excited to do that.”

I think Amos is a solid football player, and will be fine in Green Bay, but I also think Clinton-Dix is a good fit for the Bears defense. He’s a different type of safety, but with the way Chicago’s offense should be able to score points, Chicago will need a guy that can cover, and that’s where he has the edge over Amos.

And speaking of covering, Nagy believes their new nickle can do that as well.

“He’s one of those guys where he’s always around the football,” Nagy said. “He’s feisty. He’ll stick his nose in there on a nickel slot blitz. He’ll go in there and take your legs out. He plays the game hard, and he’s not a big guy. I always thought he was just kind of sticky. That slot receiver, if you were running a corner or a post route, he was always right on your hip.”

That description reminds me of their old nickle corner, Callahan, whom I do think is a better player. Part of the reason the Bears went with Skrine is his relative good health throughout his career. Callahan’s injury history had to be considered, and he’s still not cleared to workout and will probably miss minicamp for Denver.

But Nagy and the Bears have moved on from 2018 and they expect their new faces to help them build off their 12 win, NFC North championship, and get even further this season.

Which of these four do you think will make the biggest impact?

* Press release…

Today, Betsy Dirksen Londrigan’s campaign released the second of its closing ads, titled “Learned.” The spot tells the story of the last 15 months of her campaign for Illinois’ 13th congressional district. It underscores the importance of health care in this race, and highlights the miles Betsy has traveled, and the stories that she has heard in the last year. The ad began airing across the district today.

* The ad…

Her other closing ad, which started last week, is here.

* Script…

I’ve shared my story with you, about how we almost lost our son, Jack. And you’ve shared your stories with me. About premiums that are too high, prescription drugs that cost too much, and yes, politicians who just don’t care. I’ve put 60,000 miles on my car, meeting with neighbors, asking questions, and listening. And I hear you. You need good health care at a price you can afford. I’m Betsy Dirksen Londrigan and I approve this message, because you deserve leaders who listen to you, and fight all of us.

* Press release…

Today Rodney Davis released a new TV ad titled “Baseball.” The ad features Rodney and Shannon Davis speaking about the day a gunman shot at Republicans practicing for the Congressional Baseball Game and how it changed his life and job forever. Davis was up to bat when the gunman from Belleville, IL started firing.

* The ad…

* Script…

Rodney: I never thought that my friends and I would have to dodge bullets from somebody who just disagreed with us politically. I made a decision that day to talk about what I’d seen.

TV clip of Rodney from day of shooting plays: “This hatefulness that we see in this country over policy differences has got to stop.”

Shannon: It’s so important to come forward and say enough. It’s going to take both parties to bring that level of rhetoric and hate-speech down.

Rodney: Let’s expect people to work together and find solutions.

Though Amazon officially passed on Chicago for its heavily-hyped HQ2 second headquarters, the Seattle-based company’s decision expand elsewhere has done little to derail Related Midwest’s plans to build a sprawling riverfront campus known as “The 78.”

The prominent local developer presented its proposed mixed-use megaproject to city officials on Thursday and walked away with a thumbs up from the Chicago Plan Commission. The vote brings the massive undertaking—slated for a vacant 62-acre parcel between Chicago’s South Loop and Chinatown neighborhoods—one step closer to reality.

While it’s difficult to visualize the enormity of the Near South Side project, the numbers tossed around at Thursday’s meeting shed some light on the The 78’s superlative scope: 13 million square feet of buildable space, 10,000 residential units, 24,000 on-site jobs, and a $7 billion price tag.

The master plan from Chicago-based architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill calls for numerous buildings—some as tall as 950 feet—set among 11 acres of public open space including a 100-foot-wide riverwalk and a seven-acre crescent-shaped park that shadows the original course of the Chicago River prior to its 1929 straightening.

When completed, the multiphase development will essentially increase Chicago’s count of 77 official community areas by one—hence the numerical name. The site will also be home to a state-funded, university-affiliated innovation center known as the Discovery Partners Institute.

To help pay for it all, the city is exploring the creation of new Roosevelt/Clark tax increment financing (TIF) district. The funding mechanism will support the construction of vital infrastructure like a new CTA Red Line station, an extended 15th Street, and the relocation of Metra tracks, said an earlier report by Crain’s.

Although securing preliminary zoning approval and the future promise of TIF money represents key steps forward, the most vital piece of The 78 puzzle will be landing an Amazon-style corporate anchor to kick-off construction. Who that might be remains a mystery.

“The 78 was a final contender in Amazon’s HQ2 because it contains all the ingredients forward-thinking companies are seeking to attract and retain talent,” said Related Midwest boss Curt Bailey in a statement. “We have had tremendous interest in this compelling new neighborhood from major corporations, cultural institutions, and retailers who share our vision for Chicago’s next great neighborhood.”

The 78’s full Plan Commission presentation can be viewed here.

Yeah, I still watch Grey’s Anatomy.

I caught up on last Thursday’s episode this morning, watching via an app on my phone, while getting things done around the house.

Side note: How futuristic would that sound to teenage me, who made mixtapes to listen to on my boom box and Walkman?!

Once again, the writers worked their magic and gave an analogy that really spoke to me. This time is was about our role as parents, especially when our children get older.

And in rewinding and transcribing, as I do, when parts of episodes move me, I noticed that this theme, of the advice that our mothers and others’ mother give us, ran throughout the show, not just the scene I am going to share about.

This scene took place with Lexi, Meredith Grey’s sister-in-law, and Owen’s (her ex-husband, who she is kind of back together with now) mom.

For those who don’t watch the show, Lexi and Owen are helping to raise a baby and his teenage mother, who is a recovering drug addict. The young woman lives with them and earlier in the episode Lexi and Owen discussed how they were raised differently by their single mothers, after both of their fathers died unexpectedly young.

Lexi shared that her mom coped with her grief by letting her do whatever she wanted and Owen said that his mom ran a tight ship and didn’t let him get away with anything. Lexi commented how well Owen turned out and then she apparently called his mom and asked for a visit, so they could chat.

In this scene they are talking about how Lexi is struggling in her role as guardian to the young woman/mother, who she thinks had a relapse and did some drugs.

Lexi: I’m trying to be whatever she needs.

Owen’s Mom: She needs a damn mother, sounds like.

Lexi: So I should push it.

Owen’s Mom: You’re building a boat.

Lexi: A boat.

Owen’s Mom: It’s what I used to tell Owen’s dad. They’re gonna sail away from us, I said, its inevitable. Our job is to build a boat strong enough that, when they decide to, they can get back to us safely.

As Bob and I do our best to navigate parenting 15-year-old Sean and 9-year-old Abby, I found inspiration in that image.

After Bob and I had been dating for a while, we began discussing getting engaged and what our marriage/raising a family might be like together. I also happened to be in grad school at U of I and so we were in a distance relationship, though Champaign isn’t that far from Chicago, and were able to see each other often on the weekends.

Many weeknights or weekends, when we weren’t in the same city, we’d talk for hours over the phone. We covered a lot of ground, including various scenarios related to how we might approach parenting. I wanted to be sure we were mostly on the same page, when it came to many of the issues I felt were important, before taking the leap of faith that is engagement and marriage.

One night, after I had given Bob another, “If this happened or they (our hypothetical children) did that, what would you do?” question to ponder and answer, he paused. Then he replied, something to the effect of, what’s really important is not that we know exactly how we might handle any given sticky situation our kids might get themselves into. What matters, he said, is they know how much we love them and that they can come to us under any circumstances and we will help/be there for them.

Yeah, you can see one of the many reasons I wanted to marry and spend my life with this guy.

I’ve always kept that wisdom in mind, especially during the moments when I know I am not making the best choices as a mom, in my efforts to help Sean and Abby become the best versions of themselves.

Bob’s advice back then is similar to Owen’s mom’s about building a strong enough boat, so our children know they can always come back to us safely for support.

Parenting and building boats isn’t easy. I hope where ever this finds you, if you are raising a child(ren), at any age and stage of life, that you find some comfort and inspiration in this analogy too.

I wish you well on your parenting journey. I also hope and pray that all of our offspring have the strength to know they can return to us any time they want or need our love and support.

The Bears don’t have a history of great quarterbacks, so it’s unsurprising that their franchise records for passing yards and passing touchdowns aren’t too impressive. But it’s still surprising that Mitchell Trubisky, in only his second NFL season, is on pace to break those records.

Erik Kramer owns the Chicago Bears franchise records for passing yards in a season, with 3,838, and for passing touchdowns in a season, with 29. He set both of those records in 1995, and the Bears haven’t been able to find a better quarterback since. Trubisky may finally break those records since then.

Through nine games this season, Trubisky has 2,304 passing yards, which puts him on pace to finish this season with 4,096 yards. And he has 19 passing touchdowns, which puts him on pace to finish this season with 34 touchdowns. Trubisky is actually ahead of pace and would break the touchdown record in the Bears’ 14th game and the yardage record in the Bears’ 15th game if he continues at his current pace.

There are still those who have doubts about Trubisky, and who question whether it was really wise for G.M. Ryan Pace to trade up for Trubisky in last year’s draft, when he could have stayed put or even traded down and drafted Patrick Mahomes or Deshaun Watson. But Trubisky is starting to put the doubts about him to rest. He’s been playing his best football recently, and playing some of the best football Chicago has ever seen from a quarterback.