Balta1701

QUOTE (flavum @ Aug 23, 2012 -> 10:38 AM) Why is that? They could have used a 6 man the past 10 days, and instead pitched Sale on 4 days rest twice. This is the final push, with 39 games left. The rotation is set up for Sale to pitch Game 163/WC/Gm 1 ALDS. Unless they really blow it open (unlikely), they're probably sticking with the rotation they have and not skipping anyone. Honestly, it's because I'll be shocked if we get through the next 5+ weeks without Sale having another tired arm/89 mph fastball day.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 23, 2012 -> 10:00 AM) Jon Heyman ‏@JonHeymanCBS Josh Beckett is on trade waivers now. Competing execs don't expect him to be claimed. #redsox Jon Heyman ‏@JonHeymanCBS adrian gonzalez also on trade waivers, as @Sean_McAdam said. decent chance hed be claimed. cant see #redsox trading him tho Dude's got 6 years and $21 million per year remaining on that contract. I dunno, if someone claimed Gonzalez, I'd think long and hard about letting him walk. Especially since Boston is already fighting the luxury tax.

QUOTE (flavum @ Aug 22, 2012 -> 11:31 PM) He's got 7 more starts. 8-28 at Bal 9-2 at Det (Sunday night vs verlander) 9-8 vs KC 9-13 vs Det (verlander again) 9-19 at KC 9-24 vs Cle 9-29 vs TB Got to figure they'll rest him for one of those somewhere. 3 of those are on 5 day's rest, the remainder are normal.

QUOTE (RZZZA @ Aug 23, 2012 -> 12:43 AM) Gordon hit the ball hard 3 times tonight. He looked a lot better offensively in this entire series against the Yanks Nothing we haven't seen before yet. We're probably about 4 days from the tribune "Beckhams swinging the bat better, changed part x of his swing/did drill y, and is finally on track" article.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Aug 22, 2012 -> 10:24 PM) Would not have minded a pr for youk instead of paulie To put Hudson at 3rd?

Great work Chris... Now Robin...take him out!

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 22, 2012 -> 09:57 PM) Got to keep Martin in the park here, as he'll be swinging for the fences. He was bailing to cover the outer half on that first pitch and got a fastball up and in.

Hughes keeps putting that fastball in Viciedos wheelhouse but he can't stay balanced.

Pitch to Jeter was up too.

Sale a little up here to Ichiro.

5 ip, 7 k's, 2 hits against the Yankees. That's tolerable.

QUOTE (TitoMB @ Aug 22, 2012 -> 09:04 PM) Sale's ERA+ is nearly 20 points higher than Weaver's, but yeah. I figure the top 4 are Verlander, Price, Sale, and Weaver, but not necessarily in that order. The ballpark factor will always hurt sale if he's in Chicago. He needs to be up on innings and strikeouts to make up for that if it's close.

You misspelled buffoon.

Viciedo should have kilt that ball.

Wonder if he was juicing with us. Was coming back from injury. And did that Wierd midseason disappearing thing.

So that's what a 123 first inning against the Yankees looks like. Unfair.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Aug 22, 2012 -> 06:29 PM) Deutsche Bank executive, high on bath salts, gets arrested. http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2012/08/21/...-on-bath-salts/ lol Did they catch him because he was eating someone's face? Or because eating people alive is his day job, and he looked suspicious when he stopped?

Johan Santana is 3-7 with an 8.27 ERA since he threw 134 pitches in his no-hitter. The Mets will shut him down for the season.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Aug 22, 2012 -> 06:11 PM) grats He knew you were going to say that.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 22, 2012 -> 05:50 PM) The media reports don't clarify on this, unfortunately. Does not finding these signs on the initial autopsy mean it's likely he didn't have brain damage, or does it just mean that further investigation is needed because it's unlikely to see this in an initial autopsy? I'd assume it's the latter, otherwise there'd be no reason to send brains off for additional testing.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 22, 2012 -> 05:09 PM) The initial autopsy report for Junior Seau shows no signs of drugs or brain damage. If a standard autopsy could check for the kinds of deterioration that has been established for other NFL players, why do they send off for the more detailed analysis?

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Aug 22, 2012 -> 04:23 PM) Well that and the dude takes a walk. He has a .365 OBP with us. I've actually been a bit stunned with how low that number has been...(for him). that .365 OBP, if done for a full year, would be the lowest OBP in Youk's career. Mostly low batting average...but basically, despite his batting average and OBP being really bad for him, he's been huge for us because he's having such a good slugging %age with us.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 22, 2012 -> 04:12 PM) Opinions can be wrong, I hate that idiom. edit: maybe it's better to say that they can be completely unsupported, unjustified, contradictory to known facts, etc. but someone can still irrationally believe that Tim Tebow is the best QB ever. I don't know if they're "wrong" or just dumb. Strangely, that question appears on the ESPN employment application...

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Aug 22, 2012 -> 04:09 PM) You make great points above. None of them, however, disparage the notion that Gordon Beckham sucks. WOW! 5 2b's with Lower OPS (one was just optioned to the minors, Jemile Weeks). What about the 24 in the league who are better. He sucks, it's plain and simple. Sorry about the joke about you disappearing. You've certainly done that before, but this time you at least took the time to craft a very long response that didn't really prove you correct. And yes - Ian Stewart, Yunel Escobar, Justin Smoak, and Johnny Damon suck fat balls. Again, notice the last point. Gordon Beckham is at the very least still out-performing his salary. You can put together a winning team with the #4 offense in the AL with Gordon Beckham at 2b (and that's with the 1/3 of a season debacle we had at 3b as well). If your definition of saying that a player sucks includes that level of performance, then to me, your definition of suckiness has no meaning. Rather, it's just getting used on a guy you're frustrated with for his lack of development. If this is who Gordon Beckham is, then it's tolerable. We can win with Gordon Beckham being the #9 hitter and doing this. He'd actually be a better-than-average #9 hitter in the AL these days. I can live with that for another year. We have other needs that are bigger.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Aug 22, 2012 -> 03:44 PM) (This is the portion of the argument where Balta disappears. I've seen it before. We call this the "Balta Bail".) Will bite tongue on responding to this the way it deserves, which involves a whole lot of profanity. If you just want to go to the basics...right now, fWAR has Gordon Beckham as a...replacement level player. That makes him below average yes...but as I keep pointing out, replacement level players have their utility. In the bWAR world, Beckham has been slightly below average, but that's because of the defensive metric already referred to in this thread, defensive runs saved, whcih no one is buying. He's actually slightly above replacement player level in bWAR at his position with the bats. There are currently 5 2b in the bigs with >250 PA's who have produced lower OPS numbers than Beckham. 3 of them are currently on contending teams. 2 of them are guys who I listed out of people being paid more than 2x what Beckham is being paid who were available as free agents earlier this year. Yes, better options than Beckham have been available. However, they've either been part timers who have had great seasons, or they've cost more than Beckham, and thus would have required shedding additional salary (bye AJ). If this is who Gordon Beckham is, he will have another year with the Sox after this one and he'll wind up as a journeyman/part timer. If your guys standard for players who suck is that, then I contend you have a wide standard for players who suck. I count 31 regular players, with >250 PA's, who have lower OPS values than Beckham, again including guys who would have been available as his likely replacement. There are some solid names in there, names people have floated as guys the Sox could look at for other positions, like Olivo, Ian Stewart, Yunel Escobar, Damon, Justin Smoak, Kurt Suzuki. If your standard for guys who suck includes that whole list of players, that's fine, but it's become a useless definition born not out of the guy's actual performance, but out of the fact that you wanted better from him and didn't get it. And I'm sorry if "typing more than a sentence long insult" takes more time than you have available in your day.