Balta1701

QUOTE (lasttriptotulsa @ Jan 22, 2014 -> 10:14 AM) Tanaka is supposedly a step below Darvish. Darvish put up a 5 WAR season last year. The two Cy Young winners were 6.5 and 6.4 WAR pitchers. You really believe that Tanaka is going to be significantly better than Darvish in his first year in MLB and pitch at basically a Cy Young level? I really doubt it. Tanaka may be a step below Darvish right now but there's an age difference between when the 2 pitchers came over.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 22, 2014 -> 10:04 AM) Like they are content with Arod's contract? Until they forfeit their 2009 trophy, I don't think they're all that angry.

That should have been expected by everyone.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 22, 2014 -> 10:01 AM) Have fun with that Yankees. A world series appearance this year and they'll be completely content.

Completely the right place and correct matchup.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 22, 2014 -> 08:51 AM) Can teams still change their contract offers or are they set in stone from when you bid on him? Is it just posturing now or can there be contract negotiation still going on right now? According to this thread teams can continue changing their offer and negotiating until he signs.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Jan 22, 2014 -> 01:13 AM) Agreed. I know the West is tough but I'd be kinda surprised if they didn't make it out of the bottom 12(meaning the Bulls get their pick). Esp with Landry coming back What happened to Marcus Thornton though??? For a few years he was one of the better scorers in the league. They'd be in the #8 slot right now if the season ended. They've got 15 wins, teams 12 and 13 are Charlotte and New Jersey with 18.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Jan 21, 2014 -> 07:12 PM) You are going to trade a pitcher like Danks/Quintana because we could fathomably replace them with what we have already in our system. There is not a pitcher in our organization, aside from Sale of course, that sniffs the pitching ability of either Bailey or Shields. Pairing one of those guys up with Chris Sale would be a magnificent stride for our rotation. That's really interesting because Quintana put up a better ERA+ than Bailey last year and a similar fWAR (3.7 fWAR for each of them). Shields was only a tick higher at 4.5. And Jose, of course, was doing that at age 24, whereas the others are much more experienced and in/at the end of their prime years.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Jan 21, 2014 -> 06:31 PM) If the Sox get him, then MLB Network might actually have to show a Sox game or two. Oh come on, give them some credit, that joke works for ESPN.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jan 21, 2014 -> 06:14 PM) So now the media cant present evidence and let the reader come to their own conclusion? So I assume that there are no articles suggesting Barry Bonds was better with steroids unless the author was able to answer the question "yes" before he wrote it? Come on Balta, freedom of the press is one of the most important things in America. Telling the truth is almost always okay. The author presented zero evidence that it was relevant to his story except for the fact that it made finding the person's degrees harder, but the author himself acknowledges that people change their names and that would do the exact same thing. And yet, the discovery that she hadn't just changed her name was basically the entire thrust of the article.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jan 21, 2014 -> 06:06 PM) And that brings us to the ultimate question, was her scam in any way assisted by the fact she was a woman instead of a man? I cant answer that question, but I also dont want the media to take away my ability to think about it. But if the author wanted to bring it up...he needed to be able to answer that quesiton with a yes. There is zero evidence in the article presented that it was the case. The writer could, for example, have spelled out how the gender change helped her hide her identity from the investor, the only real victim discussed in the article. He did not do this and he also didn't ask questions along that line, the outing was done trivially and presented as such. (We also never learn many details of who this investor was, what the deal was, why we should trust him, what documents he has to back up his claims, and so forth).

QUOTE (illinilaw08 @ Jan 21, 2014 -> 05:54 PM) And yeah, if I'm reading an article about Madoff, why is the fact that he is Jewish even remotely relevant? Why should that be a part of any article on Madoff unless it's a biography of the dude? With Mr. Madoff, he was actively using the fact that he was Jewish to reach out to Jewish communities to gain more investors in his ponzi scheme. The fact that he was Jewish was used as part of the confidence scam directly. The fact that he was jewish directly relates to why so many people trusted him, why they didn't do more homework, and why folks who lost money were involved in that scheme in the first place.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jan 21, 2014 -> 04:57 PM) Yep, especially when you take into account his work load the last few years. If this franchise is ok with spending a certain amount on him over a certain time period, I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt on knowing the kinds of pitchers they can work with and maintain.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jan 21, 2014 -> 04:34 PM) Im pretty sure most of the people in this thread would struggle to get a 3.7 at Stanford regardless of major. I dont know how smart or dumb he is, grades dont really mean s*** for that, but he got a Stanford degree and not many people can say that. And Im pretty sure not many of us have "Stanford" grads working for us. Suppressing urge to go off on Stanford...

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 21, 2014 -> 04:35 PM) Well, agree to disagree. I don't think someone can just change the past because of their gender issues. She lived a period of her life as a man. That's a fact. To claim in the same period of time that she was female is not telling the truth. It was all part of the fabricated back story that she created. There are a number of Trans people who would say that the time of their life when they were lying was the part before the gender-change.

QUOTE (timbo @ Jan 21, 2014 -> 04:25 PM) this person is fake because this person just changed his name it something different before I have an urge to post a "tanaka signs with Cubs" message on the feed of the geology-based twitter I participate in to see if we get a good boost of followers.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 21, 2014 -> 04:25 PM) I think if he's actively going around telling people lies about his past, yes, anything someone finds in trying to verify that past is fair game. So if someone asks where he's from in passing conversation, what should he do?

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ Jan 21, 2014 -> 03:49 PM) This type of player may not be around for a while. What makes you say that? You mean a player like Tanaka? In recent history there are 2 major Japanese posted FA signings in the last what, 3 offseasons? And 3 in the last 8 if you throw in Matsuzaka? I feel like Japan is regularly starting to turn out this caliber of talent.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 21, 2014 -> 03:23 PM) This. He is of course a huge wildcard, and he may never get above A ball. But his raw power potential, athleticism, plus arm strength and decent speed make for a very nice tool kit. Huge potential, huge questions. My ranking for him (actually making the list this time when I didn't put him on my list last summer) was based a lot on what I heard while at Bristol. Even though he wasn't on their official roster, they had him traveling with the team for several weeks, taking batting and fielding practice with the team, getting used to the minor league schedule. And they raved about his BP - that ballpark was huge, it was like >375 with a 25 foot fence in LF and supposedly he was regularly crushing things out of there. Combine those set of comments together and he fell somewhere in the middle of my list. Potential to, in a few years, be at the top of one of those lists and the ability to impress the actual org was enough to push him on and ahead of guys who I have less confidence in as contributores.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jan 21, 2014 -> 03:18 PM) That's the thing though, it started like that. You are acting as if the author found out first that Essay was transgendered and attacked it immediately. It was uncovered on the way to trying to uncover the truth about the persons credentials, accidentally. Exposing it to business partners was wrong, but finding it out wasn't wrong. The paragraph I just wrote said nothing of that. It asked whether the writer could have written a perfectly solid expose on the putter without the gender issues coming up at all. Frankly, yes he could have. I'd have to find the link again but I already saw a version of that where someone else had rewritten it in that way.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 21, 2014 -> 03:16 PM) Another interesting thing to note is that 3 of the NRI's are non-prospect guys who can play 1B. Covering their butts in case of Konerko problems? HOW MANY BACKUP 1B DOES THIS ROSTER NEED AAAIIIEIEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jan 21, 2014 -> 03:15 PM) Why does the media have to lie about a fact? There are consequences for being deceptive. Well never know how differently this had gone if Dr V had sent an email that said: "Dear Grantland, thanks for your interest in my product. Id love to talk to you about it, but I want to first have you sign a NDA about certain issues. They will not be related at all to golf, the putter etc. If this is acceptable Id gladly discuss anything youd want." Instead she sent a bulls*** email about classified nonsense. Basically she wanted the press, she just hoped that she could control the exposure. Thats extremely stupid, you dont cover the truth with a lie, it ends poorly. People already said in this thread that no reporter would agree to that, and a version of that was supposedly offered by Ms. Vanderbilt during their last conversation.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jan 21, 2014 -> 03:11 PM) Thered be a lot more issues if everything else was true and the only secret was transgender. Then maybe there should have been some discretion that Dr v is hiding her identity. If the author had written the article about how this person had been hiding details from their background, fabricated potentially their education, wouldn't respond to questions about their education, and came up with credentials that couldn't be checked...would that not have been a quality article?

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 21, 2014 -> 03:09 PM) Frankly I don't see a problem with that. That's the truth. And I don't remember since I read the story a few days ago, but wasn't it in the context of "hey btw did you know your business partner doesn't have the degrees/job history she said she did? Oh and speaking of the "she" part of that..." It's not like he called the guy up and said "that woman is a man, hold onto your balls!" Frankly, I'm not sure I see how those 2 versions of the outing are different in the least beyond your choice of more vulgar language in the 2nd. If the 2nd is inappropriate then so is the first.

QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ Jan 21, 2014 -> 03:05 PM) The last bit of info I can find on Robles is that he was granted free agency in November. Phillies brought him up in September, gave him a couple quick innings, then wanted his 40 man roster spot in October and he had enough time to become a minor league FA I'm guessing?