bmags

QUOTE (Ranger @ Dec 2, 2009 -> 08:08 AM) Eh. I'm not sure that excuses it. They won 90 games in 2006...it's not like they had a terrible year. Disappointing, but not terrible. Regardless of the situation of the team, the trade itself was blasted as being a horrible trade when people clearly didn't know anything about what was going on. They didn't know that Floyd struggled because Philly horribly mishandled him. They didn't know that Garcia's arm was about to fall off and that getting anything at all for him was a steal. They terribly overvalued him in that trade market and many people behaved as if they were absolutely positive the Sox were doing the wrong thing. And up until now, they've gotten a better pitcher in John Danks over McCarthy and, unless something changes, they will prove that they knew what they were doing in trading for him. The point is that sometimes we should concede that we don't know nearly half of what we think we know about player value and player potential, and we shouldn't be so confident in some of our opinions when we usually don't know the whole story about certain players. People were calling for teh Gm to be fired because of that rade alone. I'm sorry, but there is absolutely no defense for that. And I don't agree with you at all that the Sox will be hard-pressed to win the Central next year. They will have an excellent chance, and may even be the favorite based on their rotation alone. Every team in the central has an excellent chance to win the central, it's just not good. The fact that we are going to try and do it without fixing serious flaws (BP, Power) means I won't hold my breath that we can overtake the absolute force of dominance that is the twins But as for the Garcia trade, you really aren't giving anyone the benefit of the doubt in terms of context. For one, this is a message board and when breaking news happens, it is straight up knee-jerk, as we often don't know the amount of players and info until hours later, when you start to see consensus. That doesn't mean it makes people's opinions stupid at the time, but we're all aware they are pretty flawed in the beginning. But no one is just going to post "We should wait until we have all info!"... And once again, no, 2006 wasn't a bad year, but the second half was a slow, brutal disappointment. As it ended we realized that a) that '05 rotation we were so excited to keep looked now old and decrepit. B) this was lining up to be a good sellers market for pitchers. And in that off-season, nothing good in terms of improving '07 happened. Nothing. We had probably the worst OF in the history of baseball with Pods in left and Erstad in Center, Crede's back began to show again in the 2nd half, Uribe's 06 was unbearable. And both those broke in 07, and the lineups we had to watch I wouldn't wish on anyone. Andy Gonzalez at SS and Ozuna at 3rd. Jesus. In short, we all knew we were going to be terrible in 07, and we were. And so when you are selling off the pieces of your championship team and all you are getting back is a failed prospect and a marginal prospect, and then trade off your major league ready talent for a good prospect, and nothing is really replenishing your farm in terms of knocking lance broadway out of your top 5 prospects, then you can see what fueled everyone to be really pissed off. Williams has probably gathered himself more leeway now than he had in the 07 off-season because of his ability to execute replenishing the farm on the run in just 2 years and his few excellent trades. But when he has off-seasons like 06 and 08, where we are coming off good teams and all they do is cry poor and don't do anything to win now, it's hard to keep long term perspective, because losing is awful as a baseball fan. It's too long of a season to suck the whole time.

In defense of everyone in that thread, not making the playoffs in 2006 was very depressing, and the off-season that followed was borderline suicidal. 2 years removed from a World Series, we got a project pitcher and a AA pitcher, traded away the pitcher we thought was the future (McCarthy) for no sure thing to start (Danks), signed Erstad. Nothing we did that offseason was loading up to win the division again THAT YEAR. Now, the Floyd/Danks trades obviously worked out well, and that brutal year allowed us to get Beckham. BUt with all of this, it's still pretty discouraging to think we are going to be hardpressed to win a crap division with a damn near 100 mill. payroll and the best rotation in baseball.

Jesus christ, you did? Can you name what fringe ideas I'm talking about? Can you ever figure out anything without them walking you through it, hand in hand, cow-says-moo type s***? Remarkable. Let's look at this "takeover" of healthcare, that is more leftwing than a single payer system for all citizens over 65 and all children. A public option that likely won't make the cut, which is limited to about 1-3 million people. 10 million at best. But it's not likely to get through. On the other hand, they are getting millions and millions of new customers. What a takeover. This is almost as leftist as when the government took over the schools system. This is almost as leftist as when the government started taking 10% of peoples paychecks to save until they were 65. This is almost as leftist using public funds to give to people out of work. This is way more leftist than giving people below the poverty line a monthly check for food and living. I really don't know if the healthcare companies can survive taking on millions of new customers. God knows the banks didn't when the government ushered bunches of money into them. My god, this is exactly what Eugene Debbs would've done. How will the country recover from this leftist takeover. I'm so mad I should threaten to kill the president.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Nov 26, 2009 -> 04:36 PM) There's the first correlation or insinuation. There you go again. You want to act like you're not insinuating Glenn Beck is adding to the death threats, but it's pretty damn veiled. It is mainstream, huh, but you're not throwing conservatives together in one lump? Ok. Make up your mind. Then you put me in the "mainstream" by your circular logic. Then in your last post you say "no I'm not". BS. Fox is a mainstream news network, it is the highest rated cable news network, yes, it is mainstream. That's what is mainstream. That has nothing to do with whether or not the people I'm talking about is mainstream. That's the entire point, kap, and not that hard to figure out from the reading, these fringe ideas are getting mainstream airplay. Is that plain enough for you. I'm reading it over to see if you can misconstrue this, but that seems basic enough. FRINGE IDEAS are getting MAINSTREAM AIRPLAY. And yes, I do think Glenn Beck/Michelle Bachmann/Orly Taits/The churches praying for Obama's death, yes I think all of these are adding to the death threats. I don't think the death threats just spontaneously jumped because it was an odd year.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Nov 27, 2009 -> 12:20 AM) Subjective? That doesnt make any sense at all. How do you make a team appear to be playing with passion? The team either performs or it does not. There is nothing Ozzie can do to make his players do anything while on the field, he puts them in position to succeed and once the first pitch is thrown it is up to them to perform up to their abilities. maybe the can do cartwheels after catches.

though, yes, I don´t think we actually are going to rotate that trash as DH. BUT, i will say recently in offseasons things like jerry owens as CF have been said by KW, and I laughed it off. And then they really didn´t replace CF and we had DeWayne Wise. So I do worry. But yeah, one of these DH´s will be had for cheap.

Haha, if this happened I´d fully support it. Lets have him lead off, too.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Nov 26, 2009 -> 04:24 PM) Yea, I do outright dismiss these lunatic s***bags because the numbers of them are so small they aren't worth talking about. Yet, you're the one that lumps them all into the "conservative base", which is why I point out your fallacies and extreme generalizations. No, I don't. You take what I say, and act like I'm talking about all conservatives. I'm not. I didn't make an extreme generalization in this thread. I didn't even make lie. granted, I thought the guy was murdered, but the point the entire time was that the s*** that Bachmann/Beck/Dobbs/Malkin etc. in terms of conspiracies and inciteful language have come with consequences in the past. But apparently that is WHACKO and I'm saying that all conservatives are racists that want to kill Obama. Just once Kap, I'd like you to meet someone who argues exactly like you. It would be a miracle if the world didn't collapse into itself.

Me. But then again, it's not thanksgiving here.

Cabrera? Really?

I didn't read all of your post shack, it was long, but my point, in addition, is yes they could've continued using linebrink. BUt no, they didn't have to use him in the 8th so much.

holy crap! I tried to watch but fell asleep (it actually came on at 130)...woke up and 7-3 against the sharks! This team is unreal.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Nov 26, 2009 -> 03:32 AM) WTF? You're the one that posted that. I have never said that. You correlated Glenn Beck with the presidential death threats and I think you're nuts. But then you call me out and say that you might be talking about me? What the hell are you talking about that I can't remember? No Kap, not really. Everytime someone has said that the RW fringe has been capable of violence and the conspiracy talks getting unchallenged and widely distributed is a bad thing, you took it personally and acted as if we were talking about you. It's not that I'm unused to you missing the point of an argument this much, you always do this no matter what the topic. You misconstrue what is said and blow it out of proportion so you can easily dismiss it. But yes, I'd imagine hate threats to president would be lower if it wasn't seriously considered that our president wasn't a citizen, is now responsible for Ft. Hood b/c he's hell bent on protecting muslims and not whites, is racist and is muslim. Also, since we missed them, the Michigan Militia is growing in members again.

you are the ones lumping conservatives with crazy people, not me. I've never indicated that it was you that I'm talking about, it is you that continues to think I'm talking about you. And if the shoe fits, then fine.

QUOTE (Tex @ Nov 26, 2009 -> 01:32 AM) Which was kind of my point, he is a defensive upgrade, and there aren't too many teams that can say that sorry tex, i'm not going to submit to your pity party while we still don't know who our R or LF will be.

if I would be watching on my laptop though would PAL work/

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 10:28 PM) So HOssa debuts tonight, and they don't drop the puck until after 9:30... I hate the circus trip. could be worse, a nine-thirty puck drop is 1230 in brazil. Assuming by 930 you meant central.

I'm typically underwhelmed with excitement for bench signings, Tex. I'm not sure we have an accurate measure for Jones defense. BUt he's probably better than Dye, I'd bet with one hamstring he'd be better than Dye. And he may still be good at D. Otherwise it's a power bat off the bench. For 500,000. I wouldn't really care all that much except for the fact that in 2 out of the last 3 years our bench was absolutely horrid.

QUOTE (Tex @ Nov 26, 2009 -> 12:53 AM) Sadly, with our current line up, he could be a late inning defensive sub. what's sad about this?

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 09:18 PM) No there is a problem with the means as well. The best way to use the Scientific method is to isolate a single variable(s) so that the data is meaningful. If you have innumerable variables the experiment is not really worthwhile because you can never be sure what caused that specific result. At least that is my opinion. I agree. I'm so glad I won't have to read another political science study again. They can really only analyze the past, cannot predict the future at all, and their analysis is never definable.

QUOTE (Cknolls @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 03:02 PM) Wow. FOX NEWS is now mainstream. I like the new bmags. It is mainstream. It may not be news, but this isn't Al-Jazeera English or anything. (which is surprisingly not radical, they tame down the English version.) Apparently it is abhorrent to claim that radical, conspiracist, hate speech on a network watched by millions could lead to bad things. Even though there are many cases in history where it has. And, even more strangely, is a tendency of kap to defend, join, and mold himself into being one of the people I'm talking about. He posts that the conspiracy theories are stupid, and crazy, but trips over himself to act like any criticism of them, is directed at him, and if so, I guess that means Kap is exactly the person I'm talking about. If that professor from Colorado calling 9/11 victims little eichmanns was given legitimacy in a movement and had a lot of followers (not comparing him to Beck), I'd think you'd call it concerning. BUt apparently incredibly infused, hateful, bats*** crazy language used by this current set of crazy people getting far too much press is not a concern. In this thread, I never called for Beck to be put in prison, though that's responses they would argue against that very point no one ever made, I didn't even call for him to be taken off the air, (though, again, the same), and I think it's well within reason for me to criticize and caution against conspiracist, inciteful speech, because it can, and has, led to violence. But, continue arguing that you guys hate you can't criticize the president without being called racist. It never gets old, and your victim hood still has a new level to aspire to.

I see it was natural and encouraged to destroy our dixie chicks cds after saying the inflammatory "we aren't proud of our president" statement. But criticizing someone for perpetrating mass conspiracy theories on a mainstream news network to an audience of milliions and contributing to a high charged atmospher, that's just crazy bulls***! Words don't matter, they're just blowing off steam. (unless they're muslims)

from Yglesias: http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives...ster-is-bad.php

And uhhh George Tiller, one specific case. I don't take anything I said in this thread. This doesn't change that I think Beck, et al are being incredibly irresponsible for money, and the ridiculous # of death threats needing to be checked out by the President are one example.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 01:02 AM) Who do you think was doing the Filibustering from 2006-2008? hahaha