Balta1701

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 02:12 PM) Posner addresses #2 and #3 in his opinion. Essentially, avoiding places where guns are banned, when the bans are limited, does not present a substantial burden. Most people can generally avoid those places. Not so when they're banned everywhere but your own house. Which of course...leaves me zero ability to avoid places where people are carrying weapons.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 10:04 AM) And its not even close. To be fair, Roger Gooddell just climbed up the list a lot a few hours ago.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 01:16 PM) The Mark Anderson signing was the weird one in that the Bills seemed to believe he was a 3 down player when he is nothing more than a pass rush specialist. So long as he is used solely as a pass rusher, he's a very valuable player. I could swear I remember another team having this exact same problem with this exact same player. I wonder who that was, my memory is just a little hazy. What other teams has he played for? The Patriots figured out how to use him, yet the Bills cant, and some other team never could either. The Patriots clearly know how to handle their players better than the Bills, who is that other team? It can't be nice for them to be lumped in with a poorly coached and poorly managed team like the Bills.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 01:31 PM) There is going to be a book written about this sometime, and I want to know what happened here. Goodells case must have really been built on a bunch of heresay The book will be written after Vilma's defamation lawsuit is settled out of court for a substantial sum.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 11:34 AM) Yeah, I don't get it. They should do it just to appease the fanbase. They are a large market team that has done a s***ty job of roster management and isn't very close to competing. Suddenly, a Cy Young winner falls in your lap, he's a great story, and fun to watch to pitch. It's not like he's asking for a potentially cripping Johan-type extension. The problem with Dickey (ok, I'm going to give up and snicker) is that there are legitimately no comparisons for him. He doesn't throw like anyone else, so you can't project him...and normally, pitchers at his age would be looking at a precipitous falloff in the near future.

QUOTE (flavum @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 12:57 PM) It seems like the Rangers are too busy with the Upton, Hamilton, and pitching concerns, but they'll eventually get around to getting a catcher. I think AJ goes to the Rangers for two years....maybe 5-6 mil/year. Compared to what I thought he'd get at the start of the year, if the Rangers can get AJ for 2/$10, I have no idea why they wouldn't.

How to make the royals competitive in the AL Central using WAR numbers. It's not wholly unreasonable...it winds up requiring their young guys to get better somewhat and no one to fall flat/get hurt, which puts them above .500...and then basically needs 1 or 2 guys to take a major step forward.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 10:33 AM) Ill give you WR, I didnt think DE was a huge need especially with Wooten coming back. I thought LB was a larger need. With his injury history, I thought there was a decent chance Wooten wouldn't be with the team coming out of TC.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 10:29 AM) Yes but still we took a 3-4 rush end for a 4-3 defense when our biggest need was OL. That's flat out bad drafting. It depends on if you bought into the "Martz's system" explanation for the struggles of the Bears O-line. I did, and frankly still do somewhat (although my belief in Tice has declined precipitously since the offense looks to have the exact same structure), and if you buy into that, then the Bears' biggest needs were DE and WR.

QUOTE (Jake @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 10:22 AM) Not to mention that in this day and age, you have to take all public statements with a grain of salt. What was he supposed to say, Mackowiak sucks and I am certain my manager will use him to royally f*** over Brian Anderson? If he phrased it as "This guy can really play some CF" that really sounds like a terrible scouting evaluation, so that would be worth hanging on him. If he phrased it as "we thought he could cover 3b and the corner positions, but we could use him elsewhere in a pinch, even CF", that's something even I could live with as accurate, and I think I'm still the angriest person here about that CF platoon.

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 10:06 AM) I was talking to an NFL head coach this summer, odd circumstance, and he was pretty candid about the Bears. He was not a fan of Martz, Tice or Lovie. He also said that they had Shea as a third round talent and without a position in the NFL. His thought on the OC position was that Lovie really did not knwo what he wanted and could not make a decision on that position to save his life. Teams were not letting him interview guys anymore for that position which is why Tice was handed the job. Some things on Lovie. He is abysmal at evaluating and developing talent. My feeling is that he has a say in the draft and roster moreso than we are lead to believe. I find it odd that after Lovie got his deal after the Super Bowl all of a sudden Jerry Angelo could not draft any longer. I also think the McClellan pick has Lovie written all over it to replace Urlacher at middle linebacker. Lovie inherited three pro bowl defenders and was handed a DE with hall of fame talent and he is incapable of building on that. If you wanted to argue in favor of this...the fact that the Bears offense this year looks exactly like the Bears offense last year, despite the supposed statements about how they were going to be smarter about their protections and use more quick routes and rollouts to keep the pressure off Cutler...is about the best bit of evidence I've seen. After the Packers Shellacking earlier this year I was starting to wonder if maybe the offensive problem is that Cutler really likes looking down the field and is unwilling to adapt to any other system, because things were so similar.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 10:06 AM) that sound you just heard was Balta exploding in white hot rage I actually gave a job interview talk in a room last summer with a full-sized mockup of the Voyager spacecraft in it.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 09:47 AM) You can also use it to pretend you're going to balance the budget, too...so long as nothing changes for 14 years after you leave office. What this truly is...is political brilliance. It's a built in excuse for every politician so when nothing comes to fruition that they've promised...they can just say, well...if nobody ever did anything in the 20 years after I left office it would have worked! Blame the people before you while you're in office. Blame the people after you when you're out of office. And the people will let you. Brilliant. Nobody really cares about balancing the budget. Not even the people who make their political lives on calling for one. That's why the 2001 tax cuts happened in the first place...the people who had been calling for a balanced budget as a cudgel against Clinton got a balanced budget...and immediately realized that it was the perfect excuse for an upper income tax cut. It's actually a political failure, honestly...not political brilliance. No politician will gain anything from balancing the budget unless it leads to lower interest rates and higher investment rates, which at the present it will not do. But that same politician will gain tremendously if he's able to present his financial backers with a 4% cut in the top tier tax rates paid for by whatever cuts in spending on poor people he can extract.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 09:39 AM) Exactly. So why did it become ok for them to talk about 20 years from now, when they have absolutely zero control over 20 years from now? Because then you can use 30 year projections which assume continuing unsustainable health care cost growth throughout the economy as a reason to cut Social Security and Medicare today, and if you can cut social security and medicare today, then you can use that money to fund upper income tax cuts.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 10, 2012 -> 02:27 PM) Disappointed to hear that Zero Dark Thirty perpetuates the awful lie that torture was critical to finding Bin Laden. Spencer Ackerman, who usually is on point, has a much more nuanced discussion of the role it plays in the movie. It seems like it doesn't show torture as being incredibly helpful, but it does depict the CIA as a disgusting torture house...which is, sadly, probably pretty true.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 09:04 AM) If the Sox are interested in bringing back AJ, I doubt they would pay him less than they paid him last season. $6 million a year can be construed as both a bargain and fair. We went into last season trying to move AJ because that seemed like a lot of money for what AJ would produce. 1 year, $4 million or so would have been a fair expectation for AJ had he not destroyed the league last year, and that's the range that the Sox would probably be in.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 08:53 AM) Saban might end up heading to Cleveland... http://network.yardbarker.com/nfl/article_...efsrc=foxsports I can't believe that a professional NFL franchise would even consider hiring him, and the guy who bought the Browns isn't that bad of a businessman.

QUOTE (VAfan @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 01:03 AM) I disagree. I posted something awhile back arguing that the bullpen is likely the place where the Sox could make the biggest difference between 2012 and 2013. I think our bullpen lost 23 games, 10 by Thornton alone. The Tigers were almost as bad, but Oakland, Baltimore, NY, and Texas were all far better. You could argue that the difference between the Oakland and Baltimore pens and the Los Angeles and Tampa pens put the former in the playoffs and kept the latter two teams out. Most of the rest of the team is set at this point. If you added a veteran arm who might close, you could jettison Thornton and use the young guys to set up, especially now that they have a year under their belts. I think you're completely right that the Bullpen is a place where the Sox can seriously improve their year over year performance. I disagree with you that the Sox are going to significantly improve the performance of their bullpen by trading away a piece like Thornton and then spending his money on the FA market. Even though Thornton was at best iffy last year...$5-7 million for 1 year buys you a reliever who is occasionally iffy these days. If you want to spend >$10 million on Soriano, then you're talking a serious upgrade...but that's just not in the cards. If the Sox are going to significantly improve the bullpen, it will happen because guys like Reed, Jones, Veal, Omo, etc., are no longer rookies.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 01:37 AM) By using said prospects and freed money to acquire other talents. Or by putting together a team that, if everything falls together, can compete in 2013 with an eye towards 2014 and beyond. If I'd have said that the Sox could trade Rios for a prospect at all after last season, there would have been any number of people saying to jump at it before the other team changed their mind. He is maddeningly inconsistent and could just as easily put up a sub-.700 OPS as he could to repeat last year's season. The problem with dealing Rios and trying to contend next year is...the Sox are already looking to spend their resources on bats. If they trade Rios, they're taking Rios's money and trying to find...offensive production to replace Rios. So...whatever team is trading for Rios would get a better deal just trying to find that same production on the free agent market themselves. It's a big reason why a lot of these "we should move player x for prospects and then have money to spend" setups don't work...you're asking the trade partner to give up both prospects and money when they can just go spend money. The teams in this league are too evenly matched on the scouting tools available and the money available for that to work.

QUOTE (Tex @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 08:46 AM) I am sitting here wondering what the level of interest is from the Sox. We want him back at any price (Definately not IMHO) We want him back at a fair price (Doesn't seem likely at this point) We want him back at a bargain price (Seems likely) We don't want him back at any price (unlikely) How do you define a "Fair price"? If it's based of his career numbers and age, that's probably a number the Sox would be interested in. If it's based off his career year numbers last year, then the same number would be a bargain.

QUOTE (Sox1 @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 08:44 AM) Andruw Jones is heading to Japan. That's one ignominious downfall for a guy who seemed like one of the all time greats.

QUOTE (GoodAsGould @ Dec 10, 2012 -> 09:18 PM) I don't know how a major sport organization has two lost seasons so close to one another. The implication therefore is that they're no longer a major sports organization. And I'm not sure I can disagree. QUOTE (EvilJester99 @ Dec 10, 2012 -> 09:23 PM) NHL was just coming back from the last time they pulled this s***.. you'd think they would learn by now only way they stay relevant is to be playing.. Sadly, the lesson they probably learned is that it's easier to come back from that lockout than they thought, since they were doing better than beforehand, overall.

QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Dec 10, 2012 -> 06:39 PM) Was the juice increasing his velocity, or was he only completely healthy for a very short time in his career? Clemens always threw hard. Pitcher's take PEDs for the same reasons cyclists do, recovery. Gagne is the best example I can give of a guy who was incredible on the juice and seemingly flamed out right afterwards. If that's just improvement in his workouts, that's fine, whatever the mechanism is, that's a guy who came out of no where, threw 100, then flamed out. Clemens is an interesting case and if we had the same data now as then I bet it would actually show up if you plotted his average velocity...because if he's recovering better, getting better workouts in-between outings, and in the offseason, it might not have made him throw hard on a single pitch, but it could have given him a higher average velocity by allowing him to endure better. Imagine Verlander except it doesn't tire him out to throw 100 all the time so he doesn't need to save anything.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Dec 10, 2012 -> 06:27 PM) Part of the reason behind this is there is no correlation between shoulder muscle strength and your velocity. The strength needed for a pitcher is to have the shoulder remain stable through the pitching motion. This is the job of the rotator cuff and biceps tendon. It may be that the overall strength of the body makes your velocity increase as most of the power from a pitch really comes from the legs and back. However there are so many muscles and thus variables that it would be difficult to show a correlation. Pitchers generally don't lift weights like a hitter to put on mass. This will decrease the flexibility no matter how much you stretch. They strengthen for endurance (lower weights higher reps) or with therabands. This allows them to keep the flexibility necessary to keep the large range needed to perform the pitching motion. This does not produce the massive increase in strength from PEDs but more endurance and recovery. The primary purpose of PEDs really is to allow the body to work out harder and more often. If you took PEDs but didn't workout it wouldn't be nearly as effective. In the 80's powerlifters at the Olympic level would lift a body segment 3x/wk. Today most of them are clean and only lift hard 1x/wk for a body segment. I get that you have to do the workouts...but a lot of the justifications for how steroids fail to impact those certain joints sounds a lot to me like the excuses people gave for why steroids wouldn't help people hit a baseball farther. You are probably doing so more accurately than those and with a better understanding of the actual mechanics...but the tests of guys like Clemens and Gagne are the counter-evidence. These guys built themselves bigger and their pitching performances got stronger. Eric Gagne on the juice threw 100, off of it threw low-90's.

QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Dec 10, 2012 -> 05:08 PM) I think the juiced ball was a bigger issue than PEDs. Regarding Pedro, people equate size with steroids. Pedro was a tiny guy. Steroids don't really benefit a pitcher's velocity as much as they improve recovery and allow a pitcher to bring his A game during every outing. If the juice didn't impact someone's velocity, then I struggle to explain a lot of things like the Gagne run.