Balta1701

Raul Ibanez to the Yankees.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Feb 19, 2012 -> 11:41 PM) Kobe would retire on the spot. Link

QUOTE (Heads22 @ Feb 20, 2012 -> 08:23 AM) I can't sleep. Saturday night I got real drunk and slept til about 2 PM on Sunday. That being said, I've been laying in bed since 2 AM and cannot sleep. I've got my alarm set for noon. I have to be up by 6:30 AM on Tuesday because I have a doctor's appointment. This sucks. QUOTE (lostfan @ Feb 20, 2012 -> 08:44 AM) I'd hate the thought of my cats going out like that. Hopefully no offense is taken...but my morning brain decided these 2 posts were connected.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 19, 2012 -> 07:44 PM) Edit: Any chance that doing that deal would take the Lakers out of luxury tax territory, where there would be big savings for them? After checking, no the Lakers would still be in luxury tax territory the next 2 years, and so that deal would keep them as repeat offenders.

QUOTE (farmteam @ Feb 19, 2012 -> 07:32 PM) Hey IU, stop sucking. No energy at all today. No excuse for this kind of performance.

QUOTE (Felix @ Feb 19, 2012 -> 07:42 PM) That reads like something out of the Onion. That's a horribly awful deal for the Lakers. Well, maybe since the Lakers had Gasol given to them for nothing, they're required to give him away 5 years later. Either that or maybe CJ's value has somehow gone through the roof. Edit: Any chance that doing that deal would take the Lakers out of luxury tax territory, where there would be big savings for them?

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ Feb 19, 2012 -> 06:43 PM) Please clean up your drool after you post. They played the Magic. If the Bulls can't get healthy, it won't even be a question.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Feb 19, 2012 -> 06:01 PM) Time will tell it was not a sexy offseason as far as free agents go. The one thing we can say is that outside of the "back of the bullpen", every position has someone there to fill it. We have an obvious starting lineup, rotation, and relief, so there's no place where a big time FA signing would clearly help, and there's no place save Sergio where trading a person away clearly created a hole that we couldn't fill. Now the question is whether we'll have success filling those holes. Or, more specifically, can we grow the guys we have into quality players to fill those holes. That's why development right now has to be the #1 priority. We have to develop what we have. It's the only way we're going to be competitive for the next few years.

Mike Cameron to retire. Thanks for that trade!

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Feb 19, 2012 -> 05:40 PM) Obviously, the same goes with Stewart. There's just no compelling reason to rush him, other than to justify that trade immediately. If it were up to me, Stewart starts next season as Charlotte's top starter, and we see where we go from there, which could include a midseason callup if he earns it and a slot opens up (i.e. by a Peavy/Floyd deadline trade). I think he's still got a future as a starter...but then, even Cooper seems to disagree with me and says he's gonna be in the pen.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Feb 19, 2012 -> 05:02 PM) If he blows through AA with zero problem, a September call up could be in order, but I agree with you. This is a guy like Santos who was originally signed as a position player. His lack of experience on the mound isn't just with his lack of minor league innings. Calling him up too soon is setting him up for disaster. I will wish no ill will towards Sergio Santos, he seems like a great guy, but IMO, the best thing that could happen to Molina is for Santos to struggle. The one thing about Sergio is he was only a few pitches away from being an All Star quality closer. There are a lot of guys who can probably say that, but if somehow he figures out how to make those pitches and in June or July has great numbers, the spotlight and pressure on Molina to be something quickly just grows. I hear exactly what you're saying about Santos. I just really hope that the org ignores it. These guys need to feel secure in their jobs, to the point where they can say "Whatever Santos does, we have the guy we wanted, now we need to give him time to develop". "We need to give him what he needs to develop" needs to be the most important saying of the season. We need to answer every question with that. Even "What is the bullpen sports bar serving this week?". If everything goes right we can see where we are, but the most important thing we can do is look at those 10 or so young guys we have on the roster and give them what they need to develop.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Feb 19, 2012 -> 04:54 PM) So there is no right/wrong answer. Bringing up Molina this year is the wrong answer. Bringing up Molina before the middle of next year is probably the wrong answer. But again, that requires admitting that we're not going all-in this year and that we have to look towards the future...including with the job status of the people in the front office.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Feb 19, 2012 -> 04:45 PM) By April of 2014 which is when you want to see Molina in the rotation he will be 25 and have 500+ minor league innings. Mark Buehrle by comparison had 208 total innings in the minors (none above AA) and was 21 when he made his debut. John Danks had 426 minor league innings when he came up, and even then, John Danks struggled some when he came up and really wore down in August to the point that he was shut down for a couple weeks. And that team wound up being terrible and at the bottom of the division, so it gave him an opportunity to actually do that struggling. 500 minor league innings, especially for a guy who didn't pitch until he was 19 and already in the minors, is not by any means unreasonable. 600 minor league innings might not be bad.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 19, 2012 -> 04:29 PM) What I haven't really seen are contemporaneous claims that gm would be perfectly fine with zero government intervention and that of course tens of billions in private equity are available, which is ss's and kap's claim. That pretty much sounds like exactly the claim the Economist apologized for.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Feb 19, 2012 -> 04:28 PM) Williams doesn't have the luxury to wait due to mistakes in previous years. Then his resignation should have been accepted last offseason, because taking time now to develop and rebuild is a must. Pushing Molina upwards hard right now to satisfy the "Compete now or fire KW"! brigade is lunacy.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Feb 19, 2012 -> 04:20 PM) Yeah, which is why D'Antoni's teams never got past the conference finals, even when he had Nash, Amare, Joe Johnson, and Marion (when he was still pretty good). One of those teams would have gotten past the conference finals if it actually had Amare (instead of a suspension).

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 19, 2012 -> 04:13 PM) Why did barely anyone, including conservatives, agree with this position at the time? Why do many people, including conservatives, still think that this idea of yours is a "fantasy?" I'd say a lot of people agreed with that position at the time. A number of them have recanted, even apologized for it. There could have been slight tweaks to how the final deal went down that might have been more fair in one way or the other, but the principle of doing the bailout and having it work is the right one.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Feb 19, 2012 -> 04:12 PM) Without looking at numbers, I'd say D'Antoni's teams historically have trouble against strong halfcourt teams, i.e., the ones you find in the playoffs. They put up great regular season numbers, but the playoffs have a different focus to them. I'd think that too...but wouldn't the Mavericks qualify as a strong halfcourt team? Thats why I feel baffled by what I was just watching. To really dismantle the Mavs defense, I feel like you should see a very crisp, efficient, solid offensive effort. I don't feel like I saw that, I feel like I saw a very weak defensive effort.

QUOTE (DirtySox @ Feb 19, 2012 -> 04:11 PM) This. It's ridiculous that people are okay with it other than perhaps a September call-up. Hopefully Kenny is just blowing smoke. Let these prospects develop in the minors. No need to continue to rush prospects, especially in a rebuilding year. Calling him up this year would be exactly what you'd do if you were all-in, trying to compete this year. Some people here continue to insist we are, which is why they're going with that. I hope you're right and KW was blowing smoke to try to cut into the "Rebuilding year' anger.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Feb 19, 2012 -> 03:59 PM) I agree, but the more closely you look at Molina's "experience", the more you would think, its going to be a while before he could remain in a major league rotation for an entire season. It will be interesting to see how his workload last year affects him this season. I hope he's not Dexter Carter II. Like i said, I'd really like to wait until the 2nd half of 2013 for them to even consider having him make an MLB debut, and that's if everything goes right. Preferable would be that he's a candidate for the rotation in 2014, so that he gets a full year in AA this year and then at least a good portion of the year next year in AAA to prove he's ready to move up. That also gives his arm 1.5 more years to build strength before he gets pushed into facing big league hitters, which would be another plus. Of course, that path would be at odds with what the Sox have typically done with guys, which is pushing them as rapidly as possible up to the bigs, and it's also somethign that coudl hurt the chances of the Sox winning the next 2 years (which they shouldn't be caring about right now anyway, except for the people insisting that this isn't a rebuilding year).

QUOTE (MexSoxFan#1 @ Feb 19, 2012 -> 03:47 PM) You take what the defense gives you? Next week we'll see how the Knicks fare against Miami, but it seems we are trying to downplay what the Lin led Knicks offense has done by saying "they haven't faced a real D yet", but the Knicks just beat the champs and Lin had a nice game except for the 7 TOs...28 pts, +50% fg, 14 asts, 4 rebs... I'm not saying it will happen but if Lin plays well against Miami, you might have people saying, "I bet he wouldn't do that vs the 1989 Detroit Pistons team"... I think we are seeing a backlash on all the Lin hype but the kid keeps proving the naysayers wrong...I think he's legit, will he regress?I think he will because he's putting up All Star stats and that can't continue, can it? I mean, I didn't say any of the "he hasn't played a real defense" statements because I hadn't seen him. Then I watched some of that game today, and I was blown away by how bad the Mavericks looked. It was really lackadaisical. Then they'd give a stretch of really good defense, and they'd go on a 10-2 run or something like that, but then they'd build a small lead or tie the game and then you could just see their press back off. Like, to start the 4th quarter, Novak just kept getting open 3 after open 3. It was ridiculous. You're not supposed to be able to get those kind of shots against a team that plays decent defense, and they weren't off of drive and kick moves, they just seemed to be off of really poor rotations. The only thing I can guess is that the movement off the ball in D'Antoni's system is just so good that you can't even keep track of everyone while watching the game, and that even a good defense is getting confused. It's not just the numbers...Dallas didn't look like an effective defense today, except for some stretches where they put the effor tin.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Feb 19, 2012 -> 03:34 PM) I'm thinking KW would take Molina becoming a pretty good releiver. Unless he becomes a pretty good reliever because other guys (Sale, Humber, Castro, Danks, Stewart, etc.) fill out the rotation to the point he's not needed...Molina becoming a pretty good reliever would be a major, major failure. That'd be a Hudson/Jackson level failure IMO...basically, you'd be getting exactly waht you already have in Santos, except you'd be delaying it by 2-3 years, and opening up a hole that doesn't need to be opened up now. I'd call that a fireable offense again. Molina needs to be starting in the bigs sometime around the start of 2014, and setbacks reflect directly onto the guy(s) who pulled the trigger. That deal only makes sense if you're getting a really good starting pitcher.

So, I'm trying not to be the hater here, but I'm watching this Knicks/Mavs game, and this Knicks team just isn't scaring me. They've made some runs here, but just from picturing that Miami/Chicago playoff series last year, I feel like you put this Knicks offense up against a legit defense and they're going to be dismantled. Both the big runs that I saw the Knicks make were keyed by Dallas obviously backing off on the defensive pressure. They started giving space to both Lin and their shooters, and suddenly both Novak and JR SMith were making big, open shots that just should never have been that open. I know that generating space for open shots is what D'Antoni's offense is supposed to do, but it wasn't off of either penetration or off of a lot of movement in a lot of cases, it seemed like it kept being just blatant miscues by the Mavs on rotation. Novak and JR Smith shouldn't be shooting 7/14 from 3 unless they're getting really open shots. And then on top of that, there's Lin hitting 3's that really aren't smart shots, he's making the kind of shots we get annoyed when Rose takes them. When the Mavs pressure him and force the ball out front, he takes a shot I wouldn't want Rose taking, and hits it. Over a bigger guy than him, 2-3 feet behidn the 3 line with the time running down is not a good shot. This is driving me nuts. Dallas is one of the top defensive FG %age teams out there, but they're not putting together anything that I'd say is a quality defensive game here. They've put together quality defensive bursts, but way too many breakdowns and stretches where the effort drops off. And when they're putting together those defensive bursts, Lin winds up making a ridiculous shot that can't be a high-percentage look by any stretch of the imagination. You put this team against the defense the Heat put against the Bulls last year and I feel like they'd struggle to score 70 just like the Bulls did. Yet they just pulled out a win over the Mavs, the Mavs beat that same Heat team, and I just don't know how to react to this. Is D'Antoni's system just this good at creating open shots that they're able to break down the Mavs and make the Mavs look like amateurs?

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Feb 19, 2012 -> 03:08 PM) AJ showed his experience Actually, when Flowers came in and started just hammering people with the Slider, I kinda liked it. People couldn't hit it. The numbers kinda back me up here. AJ went on the disabled list in August, missed about 3 weeks, from August 11 to September 2. In August, Sergio gave up a .297 OPS (.097 slugging) and a split OPS of -15 (where 100 is league-average). Yes, Flowers kept going in September even with AJ back, and htat was Santos's terrible month, and correlation isn't causation, but when Flowers got in there and started clearly using the slider as a setup pitch in addition to as a strikeout pitch, Santos put up unbelievable numbers.

QUOTE (Big Hurtin @ Feb 19, 2012 -> 03:17 PM) Has anyone else seen the preview for the next Mac OS, Mountain Lion. I'm not sure how I feel about the continued immersion of IOS and Mac OS. I think that bringing the phone and system OS's together seems to be the trend for both Apple and Microsoft. Not sure about the Googles.