bmags

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 4, 2011 -> 06:29 PM) So of course, the earlier story that Manto doesn't like walks because they set up a double play was nowhere near what was actually said. I'm shocked. I actually agree with this quote anyway. Guy on third with less than two outs, I want people swinging the bat too, if it is a hittable pitch. but that's a terrible teaching method. And that quote that he doesn't like walks because it sets up double plays was quite accurate.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Nov 4, 2011 -> 05:38 PM) Oh man, I thought Community was the best it's been since season 1 last night. I loved it. Parks & Rec. That show is so f***ing good. I did NOT watch The Office for the 2nd consecutive week and feel really good about that. We watched 10 minutes then i had to stop.

Some quotes (I may be off) "We're going to swing until it's not a ball" srry: we're going to swing until it's a ball? i don't know about this quote, couldn't hear. "Any statistics we bring up are a by product of a good at bat" "Do we want adam dunn taking a ball off the plate with a man on third and justin verlander pitching?" "why wouldn't you want that" "It sets up a double play, he can drive that run in...it's not going to be a high scoring play anyway" seems like this is over...but yeah..........sigh

My friend from Cleveland won't watch Hottub time machine, not because it's awful, but because it's too painful to see the alternative history of the browns game.

It was awful because the players were also exhausted playing so many games back to back to back.

Oh I definitely upgraded from "Boy, this sucks laying pipes and connecting water to suburbia" to "man it's fun killing people with vikings".

I found sim city incredibly boring as a kid. Who wants to lay down infrastructure for 4 hours?

So they kick the can down the road, hoping that growth will catch up...sounds familiar.

So what? You'd prefer the shockwave here, eh? Well you can tell the unemployed here what a better deal it was for the Greeks.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 3, 2011 -> 03:29 PM) Fortunately for Greece, Europe and everyone else, Greece has decided not to have the referendum after all. And the opposition party agrees. So, looks like Greece will take the deal. I can't tell if this was just incredibly shrewd by the Greece PM or just dumb luck. But I'm glad it worked out.

Franklin also wrangled French support.

Goldline is different than investing in Gold. http://www.goldline.com/testimonials-glenn-beck

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Nov 3, 2011 -> 01:22 PM) The Eagles spread has always seemed high this season. I think people believe in the "Dream Team" hype and always bet them, so they have to move the spread in their favor. They were like 3 or 4 point favorites at Buffalo, when it was obvious which team was playing better. Of course the Bills won. plus vegas hates the bears.

QUOTE (Kalapse @ Nov 2, 2011 -> 10:25 PM) So Jeff Manto's silly little stat -- (R+RBI-HR)/G -- tweaked to account for the fact that a HR earns you both a run and an RBI as opposed to just one or the other -- (R+RBI-(HR*2))/G -- when calculated for last year's team looks something like this: 0.815 De Aza 0.797 Pierre 0.766 Ramirez 0.752 Konerko 0.695 Quentin 0.566 Rios 0.560 Beckham 0.543 Pierzynski 0.517 Viciedo 0.516 Morel 0.500 Flowers 0.459 Dunn 0.448 Vizquel 0.423 Lillibridge 0.314 Teahen Now, what have we learned? Absolutely nothing. We've learned what the batting order was last year. And that Dunn was awful.

I found the len bias one very disappointing, but the 2 Escobars was unreal good. I'm excited for this one.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Nov 2, 2011 -> 07:16 PM) unless something drastically changes I am willing to admit I was very wrong on Carcillo. I guess Q and Bowman were able to squeeze only the good stuff out of him so far. You know, all my friends from philly said that we would end up loving him.

Ginn was drafted that high because of devin hester.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Nov 2, 2011 -> 05:37 PM) Raines protected everyone. Except hiimself

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Nov 2, 2011 -> 03:26 AM) It's nice to finally be on the receiving end of one of those Gold Gloves for life thing. haha

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Nov 1, 2011 -> 09:38 PM) Oh god. Dude, really? The value of the walk is not JUST getting on base, it's having the plate discipline to only swing at good pitches. You want a case study on this? Watch 35 yo Paul Konerko hit. Bat speed diminished, and it doesn't matter because he never swings at anything except the pitch he wants to hit. The only time he ever even swings at a breaking ball is when it hangs or when it fools him. The idea behind the 'Moneyball' approach is to not make stupid outs by swinging at bad pitches just because you're Jason Bay and there's a man on third. Guess what? I'll take a walk over a broken bad drippler or a K in absolutely every situation. If you show you're willing to take your base, the pitcher has no choice but to throw you strikes, and THAT's when guys mash. Why do all the elite hitters have high OBPs? Because they know which pitches to swing at and aren't afraid to let the pitcher put them on if they won't throw it. This in turn forces the pitcher to put on down Main Street when he gets behind in the count. If you get aggressive because of the situation, the pitcher can just throw you sliders and let you get yourself out. I'm sick of the BS Ozzie Guillen-style ego-ball. Yeah, let's tell Adam Dunn to swing at MORE bad pitches because he's a 'run producer.' The reason he sucked last year was because he couldn't even hit GOOD pitches. His plate discipline is what made him awesome and preserving it is his only hope at bouncing back. This was feisty. I liked it.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 1, 2011 -> 09:15 PM) Also, this latest Greece episode is laughable. The Euro zone decides to give Greece a whole bunch of money, and cut their debt in half, in exchange for further austerity and tax measures. Greek leadership says OK. Then Greek President goes on TV and says he wants to put it to a vote with his people. Oops. Greece may decide to vote itself into financial oblivion. It would be laughable if it didn't affect more than greece.

I don't know, seems like a convoluted message. Do we want them to be so aggressive they'll swing at a bad pitch instead of getting on the base paths and prolonging the inning?

so he's a mathematician?

If they wanted grinders why not bring in Daren Erstad??!??!?!?!?!?

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Nov 1, 2011 -> 07:03 PM) I have a few problems with hard slotting. At what point do you stop the slotting process? Do you have a hard slot through the first 10 rounds perhaps and then set a maximum salary and signing bonus that players can sign for beyond that? The NFL has gone to a hard slot and, as far as I was aware, there were no real holdouts from anyone and the NFL only had a month or so to negotiate contracts whereas in years past, they've had 4 months to do so and still have had holdouts. But there are only 7 rounds in the NFL, compared to 50 in baseball. On top of that, you can only enter the NFL and NBA drafts once (EDIT: correction, you can enter the NBA draft multiple times, but you have a set date to pull out by and if you sign with an agent, you can not go back to college), whereas in the MLB, you can enter the draft 3 times (and there may be exceptions to the rules where you can enter more than that, though I'm not perfectly clear on the rules). So what happens if you draft Bob Pole 1st overall as a junior in college and he simply doesn't want to sign for the hard slot? That's a pretty impossible situation for that team. Drawing from that, how are you going to prevent a player from simply turning down the hard slot money? You could simply have said player be assigned to that team for the rest of his career or for a year or whatever, but if he doesn't want to play with that team for that money, he's not going to. And then he's just going to re-enter the draft the following season and small-market teams will avoid him like the plague, but then he's going to get less money while having a year wasted in his development as a player. And, seriously, how many times are you going to be able to enter the draft? You almost have to limit it to once, but then you will get fewer high schoolers involved, which means less development from a team standpoint and more from whatever college said player attends, which may not be what MLB teams want. That's not to say college players don't develop into superstars...the greatest player in White Sox history went to Auburn...just that there are teams that prefer to develop their own players. On top of all of that, the MLB draft is still an absolute crapshoot, even more than the NBA and NFL. In both of those, you have a failure of a draft if you don't develop a superstar or like 50% starters or extremely valuable role players within those. If you got any of that in an MLB draft - one superstar or even 25% of your draft becoming valuable role players - you are already having an incredible draft and if those role players turn into good starters, one of the best drafts of the past 5-10 years. I don't see any way that hard slotting is somehow going to improve the 50+% bust rate of 1st round picks while very possibly not significantly cutting 1st round costs (except in the case of a Stephen Strasburg type). There is also the argument that some teams would rather build their team in the middle rounds as opposed to the higher rounds because it is cheaper and they have enough faith in their developmental system that they can afford to. The best pitching prospect in the game right now was drafted in the 8th round and one of the best hitting prospects was a 20th round draft pick, and for years Brian Sabean would sign guys before there were even offered arbitration, signifying to the former team that they could offer arbitration freely because he did not want his first round pick (the best example I can think of with regards to this is Ray Durham, and I recall reading several articles at the time citing the exact thing I just said). And, in the end, player compensation through Type A and B statuses will either be eliminated or significantly reduced because you will have to allow for the trading of draft picks...I don't see any way you can do this without having the ability to trade draft picks, just as in the NBA and NFL. I see far too many problems with hard slotting right now to allow it. The best bet is to simply go with the soft slot and hard luxury tax for the time being and if the need arises 5-10 years from now to tackle it then. What if you created a total draft budget, for all teams, with a hard luxury tax on any salary on the draft over that budget. That would allow teams to spend a little more to get that high schooler to sign, but it would come at the expense of some later picks, whom may be drafted based on signability.