Balta1701

The Update is actually incorrect. A 1% tip on $134.87 would not be $1.34, it would be $1.35 since the 0.87 would round up.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Feb 25, 2012 -> 02:10 AM) I know I shouldn't fall in to the fluff, but I am REALLY started to get excited about Chris Sale. Him saying he wants to pitch 200 innings scares me, but every quote I have seen is just gushing over him. Still say he has the best pure LH stuff I've seen since Liriano 06. Which scares me in itself.

QUOTE (MexSoxFan#1 @ Feb 24, 2012 -> 06:10 PM) If Lin becomes a 12/7 PG, a lot of people will be disappointed and it's not even his fault. Well, considering he's the first player ever to average 20/8 over his first 10 starts, yeah it kinda would be his fault.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Feb 24, 2012 -> 08:41 PM) The Twins have Mauer and Morneau (two former MVP's), they definitely have a right to feel more snubbed than the White Sox, because they're also only 1 1/2 years removed from the playoff series against the Yankees. Except for that whole finishing at te bottom of the league problem.

Wait, does his Jersey say Mami?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 24, 2012 -> 05:35 PM) He just openly said he "used to be a conservative" and essentially trashed movement conservatives who are driving their party off of a cliff. I doubt it. Like when John McCain ruined his Republican career during his brief flirtation with being a centrist.

QUOTE (OldSmoky2 @ Feb 24, 2012 -> 04:28 PM) Lol... just got the MLB.TV offer: "Watch over 150 spring training games LIVE." But when you check out their schedule, there are 22 Angels games, 20 Phillies games, 20 Yankees games, 17 Dodgers games, 16 Red Sox games and just 9 White Sox games. Poor Twins fans (no, I don't say that often) get only 5 games. It turns out it's not just a spring training offer - there wouldn't be much reason for someone who doesn't live on the coasts to buy it at all if that were the case. Rather it's a pitch to get people to buy the MLB.TV regular season packages, which of course doesn't include White Sox games if you live in Chicago. Nah, think I'll pass. Then the White Sox should make the playoffs, at elast barely miss the playoffs, sign the best player in baseball, or have both a clean MVP and a Cy Young award winner on their roster.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Feb 24, 2012 -> 04:15 PM) Right, so get too big to fail, the government will bail you out, a select few will get filthy rich in the process and the whole thing starts over again. Here's the remarkable thing though...GM is not too big to fail. If GM went into bankruptcy 6 months from now, or in February of 2008, etc., GM would be able to proceed through normal bankruptcy proceedings, and everything 2k5 has said would happen in 2008 would actually happen. The thing that was different about 2008 was the credit freezeup. In that case, resources that would normally be available to manage funding vanished, and were completely replaced by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 24, 2012 -> 04:52 PM) I still think we should have allowed the industry to consolidate down a bit. Specifically, let Chrysler go under, for the long-term betterment of GM and Ford. But that wasn't going to happen for a variety of reasons. It pretty much did consolidate a lot. GM's production capacity went down by what, 25% or so? And it shut what, 15% or so of its dealerships?

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Feb 24, 2012 -> 03:10 PM) None of this matters. The procedure wasnt followed, the test results are moot. We can all speculate as to whether there was actual tampering or not, but it really doesnt matter. If you believe that he is guilty, I doubt any of this will change your mind. Of course not, because there's no obvious reason to believe tampering happened.

Steven Rattner:

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Feb 24, 2012 -> 02:26 PM) If Morel becomes even close to a 30 HR guy and Beckham returns to his projections, we'd have a very, very nice middle of the order punch with Beckham, Viciedo, Morel. Brent Morel is not a 30 HR guy unless his urine got switched with Braun's.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 24, 2012 -> 02:21 PM) What a coincidence, because he didn't pass the piss test either. Hi-O! (/rimshot)

QUOTE (flavum @ Feb 24, 2012 -> 01:57 PM) If he's lying, he's a good liar. He seemed pretty convincing today.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Feb 24, 2012 -> 01:43 PM) He just doesn't fit the profile whatsoever. How so?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 24, 2012 -> 01:34 PM) Victor Conte ‏ @VictorConte The test collector watched Braun pee in the container and it was sealed. Both A & B tested positive for testosterone plus CIR confirmation. This will of course be ignored by his defenders.

You're already posting non-official event images though.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Feb 24, 2012 -> 12:31 PM) The way Morel was driving the ball the final 6 weeks, do we want him to go back to the "contact" hitter he was the first 2/3rd's of the season? A lot of people have argued he was worried about his job and wasn't able to relax until near the end of the season. Putting him back in that spot might end up with a return of the "bad" Morel offensively. The problem is that Beckham and Ramirez aren't great alternatives, either, but Rios definitely isn't suited for that spot. Yes, he's not going to be a 30 home run hitter, and he only hit like .230 during September. The power surge was nice but he needs to achieve some balance.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 24, 2012 -> 09:47 AM) Page 38 http://mlbplayers.mlb.com/pa/pdf/jda.pdf From reading that, it seems like by the time it reaches the point its being shipped it should already be an anonymous sample (or samples), such that the person shipping it couldn't have known whose sample they were dealing with, am I reading that correctly?

QUOTE (iamshack @ Feb 24, 2012 -> 09:52 AM) I understand what you're trying to say, but it really doesn't matter. The procedure does not exclude gaps in the chain of custody as long as "no obvious contamination" is present. The people who wrote the procedure determined that it was enough to disqualify the results if the sample didn't follow a specific chain of custody, and this sample did not. I could just as easily say that this guy's "I thought the FedEx was closed" excuse is nonsense and he tampered with the sample as you could say there was "no obvious" signs of contamination. I understand what the rules of the procedure are and why they exist...and I repeat, MLB can't suspend him if they didn't follow their own rules. All I'm trying to say is that there's every reason for an outside observer to judge him as a juicer.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Feb 24, 2012 -> 09:37 AM) As to your "no obvious reason" point about the contamination, this is entirely irrelevant. Whether some contamination occurred that was obvious or completely impossible to prove, the possible effect is the same. Hopefully Pt can chime in on this one...at what point was the sample supposed to be mailed...was it before it was tested at all, or was it after an initial test had already shown it was positive and it was to be sent off for further confirmation?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 24, 2012 -> 09:36 AM) They also find you not guilty when that happens... No, they don't find you "Not guilty", they find that they are unable to bring the charges and drop them. If, however, an appropriately filled out version of the document were to be produced in some legal way (and not just fabricated), then the charges/ticket could be refiled.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Feb 24, 2012 -> 09:32 AM) Ok, but it also means that he wasn't found guilty. But a rational outside observer, based on these reports, really ought to conclude that he's guilty as sin.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Feb 24, 2012 -> 09:30 AM) What I was getting at is the quality control procedure exists for a reason - because without such a procedure it is possible a sample could produce unreliable results - how do you know something didn't honestly happen to the sample? Because there's every reason to believe that an acceptable chain of custody was still maintained throughout the process. This may not meet the high legal standard demanded by the players association, but their job of "protecting their players" is different from the standard that an outside observer can use. There's really no obvious reason to think that this sample was any more likely to have been contaminated than any other positive test MLB has done. The speeding ticket example is a great one...if the cop fails to fill out the ticket properly, it doesn't mean you weren't speeding, everyone knows you were speeding, the judge knows you were speeding, the cop knows you were speeding, you know you were speeding, but they can't follow through with the punishment.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Feb 24, 2012 -> 09:23 AM) Therefore, he decided that Braun must be cleared of the allegation. But that does not mean he was found not guilty.