Balta1701

QUOTE (Special K @ Dec 6, 2012 -> 09:56 AM) Morel is the worst starting positional player I have seen on the Sox in the past decade. This includes a list of Josh Fields, Brian Anderson, Juan Pierre and I'm sure many others of whom I can't remember due to selective memory loss. That being said, this is a solid move; I am happy we did not overpay for Youkilis whose numbers I'm sure will not be overwhelmingly better. If we do end up signing AJ back, the question, in my opinion, is how do you significantly upgrade this team with seemingly all of the positions set right now. We could use Floyd as a trade chip, but what do we go after? The Sox were 9th in the AL in ERA last year, both their starters and their bullpen overall put up numbers that were average. If Sale stays healthier and doesn't need to be as worried about innings load, ditto with Quintana and Peavy, and Danks comes back to add another guy who can give an ERA in the 3's...and the Sox don't wind up needing to blow as many games with struggling rookies as they did last year...then that is several games of upgrade. Sox were #4 in the AL in runs scored last year. They could still see offensive improvement from guys like Viciedo, Beckham, Flowers, having ADA not get hurt, and Ramirez...and this signing hopefully keeps 3b from being a 2 month black hole. The same lineup could get extra wins...but the biggest place to improve remains the pitching staff.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Dec 6, 2012 -> 12:48 AM) Why has chavez played in so few games the past few years? Because his back is much more likely to give out than Morel's.

So if anyone else is interested in this, let me know in a day or two and I can pass along more backstory as I unearth it.

QUOTE (Jose Paniagua @ Dec 4, 2012 -> 09:56 PM) I suppose. Career years from CF, RF, C spots. Sort of a career year from LF, and an aging 1B. We absolutely have to see 3B as a place to make some hey for whatever dropoffs are expected in those slots. Really I just see SS as the place to get some bounce back from '12-- but not a ton. If this team is gonna compete barring a major move, 2b, the bullpen, and te starting pitching are where they can get better.

Wtf? Just sat down at a bar, and Washington is beating Miami? What have I been drinking?

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 4, 2012 -> 11:02 AM) Back in April, the US House passed HR 4089. Purports to help support hunters, fishermen and shooters. In reality, if you read the bill, it completely guts the Wilderness Act. Ugh. Fortunately the Senate buried it in committee, but still, even the threat of something like that passing is enough to make me ill. And why the hell is recreational shooting, in wilderness areas, being championed anyway? Not hunting mind you - just shooting. Why would you want to do that specifically in a wilderness area? You know the answer to this. Because any restriction on where people can have a gun and use a gun is evil socialism, because guns are *always* good. Take a year and live in a state where they want to put guns on your college campus and force employers to allow people to carry guns onto their property whether they want it or not. That's where this comes from.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Dec 3, 2012 -> 10:45 AM) Ok, I see we are still banging this drum. It seems to me that has become about proclaiming, "my side was right", at this point...but offering nothing of substance beyond that. These last few posts highlight exactly what I'm talking about. Congratulations, you've won bragging rights. It's time to move on to solutions, now, no? We get it, 30 quadrillion papers have peer reviewed, only 13 of those peer reviewed disagree with some minor aspects of climate change. Now, what do we actually do about it? More importantly, can it be done in a feasible way? I can pose solutions that are easy to talk about, but impossible to implement, too...but they solve nothing. First and foremost, people need to accept the word 'global' in this climate change discussion, and one country will not be able to make so much as a dent on it's own...everyone the world over has to not only agree on the science, but implement the same restrictions and safeguards, otherwise we're just wasting everyone's time. For the interest of conversation, let's move beyond the fact that AGW exists...and let's hear some solutions. This is the point where I expect to start hearing crickets chirping, or a few of you sound off and suggestions that are pure fantasy and could/would never get implemented for a multitude of reasons, be they political or otherwise. So, let's hear some realistic solutions. As long as our political priorities are set by the people who have the most money. Nothing. The answer is going to be we're going to keep paying $100 billion to repair from the next Katrina, $60 billion to repair from the next Sandy, $100 billion to cover the next dust bowl, and we'll pretend that the people raking in piles of cash off of fossil fuels aren't making that money and leaving the taxpayer with that bill.

The thing ignored here is...if you want to generate significant revenue from a consumption tax, it needs to go down to levels like "$1000 in Jewelry, $20k cars". If you go to $40k cars, suddenly only a very small portion of the country is paying that tax, and it starts failing as a reasonable revenue generation system unless the tax rate rapidly shoots up to 75%, at which point no one buys the car.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 4, 2012 -> 07:13 PM) Honestly, if you are that freaking trigger-happy around black teenagers, or anything that scares you in general, why not just go to a different gas station? Let's not pretend as if obnoxious teenagers or adolescents of any race don't loiter in public places or intimidate others by congregating near the entrances of all kinds of different businesses. They do. It is annoying and it is frustrating. We shouldn't have to feel threatened or go elsewhere. But pulling a gun and shooting them is clearly not an alternative. The state of Florida has decided that a person intimidated by scary looking (blackity black black) teenagers at a gas station has every right to defend himself as long as a reasonable person would also be intimidated by those people.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 4, 2012 -> 03:00 PM) There was substantial opposition to the creation of the CFPB, which she basically created, and to her appointment as head of it. That was circa 2010, this was about her being appointed to the Senate Banking Committee. I see no reason to believe in shadow conspiracy theories in the face of the loud, frequent and expensive efforts to block her and the CFPB at every turn. She didn't make her $14M by taking advantage of the banking system but in academia and the legal world fighting against banks, including fighting against the disastrous 2005 bankruptcy reform bill. The reality is, it's not the 1% who are the problem, except at the level of being undertaxed. They didn't blow up the world. If a 1%er is foreclosed on, or goes bankrupt, the government doesn't bail them out. There is nothing wrong with being wealthy as long as you're paying te admissions price. It's the ones who are so far beyond rich that they've taken over the government and get bailed out that are te real systematic problem. 1% is a good slogan, but really there need to be more zeroes, the real issue is the 0.01% or so. They're the ones who can buy a senator and their own law/loophole/bailout.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 3, 2012 -> 02:39 PM) Jayson Stark ‏@jaysonst Sources say #Mets have gotten "serious" about trading R.A. Dickey as soon as this week. #Rangers & #Royals seen as most logical fits. Wonder how the knuckler would play in Texas

Actually, for the economy as a whole, encouraging spending of large inheritance sums rather than keepin them sequestered as assets almost certainly would e a good thing unless you're in an economy starved for investment capital, which we most certainly are not.

Hamilton injures foot, MRI scheduled.

QUOTE (knightni @ Dec 1, 2012 -> 08:02 PM) I didn't watch the game very closely; where did all of Georgia's timeouts go? Had to stop the clock after punting the ball back to Alabama.

Well that was an impressively crappy final play after a great game.

QUOTE (Carter224 @ Dec 1, 2012 -> 07:45 PM) Oh STFU, excuse me for not caring about a murderer who killed himself. The people who you are allowed to care about are the other people involved, the families who lost people, the team that has to figure out a way to process the act committed by a person they may have considered a friend...the coaches/mentors who watched a guy shoot himself.

QUOTE (Brian @ Dec 1, 2012 -> 04:06 PM) What would it matter if they played Mon or Tues? For the city, delaying a game by a day or so would be very difficult. Tourism, business, moving police shifts around, etc., all quite tough.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 1, 2012 -> 03:34 PM) Well, last season a lot of things went right for us...Dunn bounced back, Rios had a career year, Konerko carried us for 2 months, Sale and Peavy had outstanding seasons, a lot of our young bullpen guys came up big for us, Q had a great few months, AJ had a career year, etc., and it still wasn't enough. Now I understand that we will get some unexpected positives this season too. Maybe Danks comes back and pitches well. Maybe Viciedo takes the next step and puts up some Carlos Lee type numbers. Maybe Gordon finally makes a reappearance. But I think a lot of guys will have lesser years than last, and quite frankly, the rest of our division has to get better than they were last year. The Twins will be better, the Tigers will be better, the Royals and Indians will probably be better. I just think this will be a down year for us, fairly similar to '07. And that's fine, as long as we use it wisely to develop some players, move some guys in-season to trim some payroll, and start focusing on our next window, which will most likely be '15 and beyond. I'm not going to go as far as shack here because I don't know where the roster will turn out, but the one thing shack didn't note here is the thing that worries me the most; the Verducci effect, or whatever you want to call it. Quintana increased his innings load by 82 innings last year over the year before. Sale threw 121 more innings than the year before. Peavy threw 108 more innings than the year before. Jones and Reed seemed like they'd been basically bled dry down the stretch last year. Those innings increases and heavy usages early in their careers really do have the habit of catching up with guys, either through struggling or injury. If Sale has a Verlander/2008 type season, there's not much the team would be able to do to overcome that.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Dec 1, 2012 -> 02:54 PM) Well, you'd obviously not like to have two guys who can set the single season strikeout record in the same lineup...but Mark Reynolds got non-tendered. His defense sucks and he's the right handed version of Adam Dunn...but he's better than anything we have right now. With how scarce 3B are on the FA market, Reynolds may be a viable option if we can't bring back Youk. He made $7 million last year so he'd have been up for a raise if they'd offered arbitration. He's another 3b option. $9-15 million player in fWAR value with the D-Backs, but only a ~0.5-1 WAR/$1-2 million player with the Orioles. He's probably out there for a similar cost to Youk, honestly...a couple million dollars.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Dec 1, 2012 -> 02:47 PM) You don't respect the other players for not offing themselves? Weird. I can't reply appropriately to how disgusting this is without violating every site rule.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Nov 20, 2012 -> 12:45 PM) Big News From Mars? Rover Scientists Mum For Now QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 23, 2012 -> 02:04 PM) Just FWIW, we can't figure out what this might be. SAM can give some interesting data but none of us can figure out what groin-grabbingly amazing result they might have gotten out that would justify this level of hype... Which makes me at least concerned that they're overhyping a result that won't be easily communicated to the public. But if nothing else, I'll be in Grotz's talk on Monday the 3rd and I'll let y'all know. QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Nov 26, 2012 -> 10:10 AM) Any guesses? QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 26, 2012 -> 02:55 PM) Honestly, every guess we have winds up being something that doesn't live up to the hype. SAM is capable of isolating, identifying, and doing isotopic analyses of light elements and organic molecules, but "Finding an interesting organic molecule with a unique isotopic signature" doesn't measure up to the hype of teasing this story weeks in advance. If you're going to tease something like this 2 weeks in advance, it better be big and easily communicated publicly. Organic goop that could be produced a number of ways with depleted carbon isotopic signatures isn't that kind of story...but that's the data that SAM is capable of returning. The capabilities of SAM can produce some really cool data, but we've been struggling to figure out how it could give anything that would justify this kind of tease story. Our best guess is that it has come up with a really unique and totally unexpected chemistry in the soil that can be produced by very few mechanisms other than biology, but even that's a stretch for the instrument being used, and the guy who runs that part of the instrument seems to have no idea what Grotz was talking about. SMBC has about summed up this whole thing. (Seems like it was totally overblown and Grotz really needs to learn how to give a press conference.)

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 1, 2012 -> 02:22 PM) I'd rather just go with Sale/Peavy/Danks/Santiago/Quintana if we were to trade Floyd. My biggest worry with that rotation is the same one as last year...durability. 3 of those guys pitched vastly more innings last year than they did the couple years beforehand, which is always a red flag, one of them was hurt the whole year, and one is almost a rookie. I like our depth overall, but that's because I think we have more minor league options who could step in. If you think a couple guys could use more time in the minors, then spending a million to have a guy be the long man in the bullpen with experience and ready to step in...that's reasonable.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Nov 30, 2012 -> 12:30 PM) Asking for any portion of your SSN is a red flag. I've interviewed for lots of jobs and never had that asked. I get asked for things like that all the f***ing time, but that's when I'm applying at universities and government facilities.

QUOTE (2nd_city_saint787 @ Dec 1, 2012 -> 12:47 AM) Looks like Pietrus is headin to Toronto. I wanted him as the Bulls 14th man. I wonder if the Bulls still plan on bringing in a 14th man. I remember reading about them being allowed to around this time and how they were "actively looking" for the guy. I'd love JuJuan Johnson. I think they'll wait until they actually need that position because someone gets hurt or released or something like that. It's not like Thibs is playing his 6th man all that much at this point.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Dec 1, 2012 -> 12:23 PM) I think it was the GM Pioli and the head coach Crennel. Yes, that part is confirmed, the GM and head coach watched him do it. ESPN also reported that he apologized to them.