Balta1701

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 14, 2012 -> 01:42 PM) Chris De Luca @ChrisDeLuca #Bulls’ Derrick Rose to sit out tonight against Kings Zero good reasons for him to play tonight even if things were improving.

QUOTE (farmteam @ Feb 14, 2012 -> 12:09 PM) Woo hoo! It's the Minnesota chapter, so it's a way for me to money this fall! Side note: This reminds me of the targeted "Minnesota for Marriage" ads I was getting. At least one of those was downright terrible and I was kind of upset it was on the site; what's Soxtalk's ad policy? And I was actually surprised, it's usually hard for vitriolic ads to get any response from me other than laughter. We don't censor or really run the ads at all, they're entirely supplied by the Google Ads program.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 14, 2012 -> 01:18 PM) After he asked to be traded... "asked" isn't exactly strong enough. "Threatened to resign after tampering by another MLB team" is probably more accurate.

QUOTE (sunofgold @ Feb 14, 2012 -> 01:18 PM) I wouldn't bench Beckham. Play him or trade him. Hope that he corrects his hitting woes. If not, there might be a team out there that thinks that they can correct him and he does play stellar defense. Play him the whole year no matter how bad he looks. If he hits like he did last year, he'll be non-tendered and Saladino, Lillibridge, Kuhn, and whoever else wants to can fight for the 2b slot.

QUOTE (sunofgold @ Feb 14, 2012 -> 01:07 PM) I wouldn't trade Lillibridge. I don't think KW will. He spoke praises for Lillibridge after he traded for him. Seems like a player that KW loves. However with KW, you never know. Also, Lillibridge doesn't cost that much and while a lot of teams are interested I don't see us getting a lot back for him. And Lillibridge deserves more playing time to see how well he performs. And since Lillibridge can play so many different positions, it would hurt us to trade him. Hell, if someone's going to give up a quality starting pitching prospect for a guy who might well just be a backup and who starts hitting arbitration soon, whatever, I'm game.

QUOTE (Princess Dye @ Feb 14, 2012 -> 10:27 AM) To be clear, not saying I'm sure it's going to be a great or even good move. But before anyone here calls this reckless Oakland spending, it bears noting that we're hearing they had four or five years worth of scouting done on Cespedes. Oakland is meticulous and it will be interesting to see how a team that does everything in measured fashion handled this one. Honestly, I think that every one of these contracts, and hell I'll lump Darvish in there, seem like panic deals to me. These moves remind me of the White Sox against Johan Santana...they suddenly feel like they have no chance or trick and are now outgunned, so they're swinging as hard as they can at everything just to see if they happen to hit anything. There's a group of GM's that have gotten by and built their reputations by exploiting loopholes, whether it's going over slot in the draft or the international market, and suddenly the new CBA has removed the loopholes. Now, if a GM wants to succeed, he needs to be better at GM things...scouting talent, drafting, developing, making trades, and making intelligent free agent signings (The horror). If a GM can't do that, he won't succeed...and some of these guys are acting like they're the Sox facing Santana...they think they can't succeed without the loopholes, so they're swinging as hard as humanly possible before the loopholes get closed.

QUOTE (robinventura23 @ Feb 14, 2012 -> 01:00 PM) I like the signing. I'm assuming Lilli is the backup 1b, if no Dan Johnson? Adam Dunn?

Rmoney with an anti-bailout, union/Obama piece Op-ed in the Detroit Free Press. I don't know if the Republicans in Michigan are as anti-auto-bailout as Republicans elsewhere, but bringing extra focus on this issue doesn't seem like the best strategy to gain support in that state. Am I wrong?

QUOTE (Brian @ Feb 14, 2012 -> 09:22 AM) That's what I figured. Was curious if the deals the advertise are near as good in reality. Someone is actually going to get the deal on every item they advertise. The problem is it's like getting together 1000 friends to each lay $1 on a 999-1 gamble. Someone's likely to win, but it's very unlikely to be you...and then at some level, the person taking the bet is going to do something to make sure they come out on top.

QUOTE (Brian @ Feb 14, 2012 -> 09:19 AM) AnyOne ever use a site like Quibids.com? Looked into them, realized how they worked, never gave it a 2nd thought. It's basically a casino with the odds of you getting anything for fair value stacked against you.

Apple's stock price hit $500/share yesterday. Corporate earnings growth in the U.S. last quarter is estimated to be about 7%. If you strip out Apple, that number would only be 2.9%.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Feb 13, 2012 -> 07:18 PM) That's an even lower probability move and how long would it take for said player to become am impact bat? They clearly feel Cespedes is ready now or they wouldn't have agreed to a 4 year deal. Between the fact that the As are pretty regularly drafting in the top 10 and all the trades he's made, you'd think he could find some just by luck.

QUOTE (Princess Dye @ Feb 13, 2012 -> 05:44 PM) Moneyball is not as some purport (not you) solely about OBP. It's about exploiting market inefficiencies. So no matter how much A's payroll goes to one player is immaterial. What it's about is getting bargain buys, and what Beane is betting on is that right now major league teams are undervaluing Cuban players. It's a Beane move, in that it's taking a new trend by the horns and looking for an advantage through it. The sheer dollars isn't anything crazy, because Oakland's payroll isn't $1M per player or something crazy like that. There's a total amount he gets to spend, and it looks like from here on in a lot of it will just happen to go to one player. But obviously this contract isn't Pujolsian. Do you really think that $9 million a year for a guy who has effectively never played above A ball is exploting a market inefficiency? Especially given where the A's are in terms of who they already have in their OF and the number of players they have sold in recent years. This is only a "New trend" in that the new trend is spending a fortune on these kind of guys from Cuba. Kenny Williams clearly pulled off the moneyball here in finding the market inefficiency, then Beane came in with big money later once the inefficiency had ironed out. And in fact, he may have paid a premium, given that the international-cap takes effect in only a few months and that has pushed this price up.

QUOTE (Springfield SoxFan @ Feb 13, 2012 -> 05:24 PM) To agree with others, that is not kidding, that is Beane's MO. That is exactly how he approached this. Is Oakland supposed to get a new stadium soon? They're trying but there's no agreement in place, so if they manage to get one, it would only really have a shot at happening in the last year of this deal, if that.

QUOTE (Brian @ Feb 13, 2012 -> 04:46 PM) A's probably signed him so they can trade him for more parts at some point....I kid...kinda.... I don't think you're kidding.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Feb 13, 2012 -> 04:13 PM) I saw the movie! And your suggestion may not really be all that far fetched. Trade Cespedes for younger talent would be a Billy Beane move But spending $36 million on him (and winding up in a position where he is forced to trade him because there can be no arbitration/compensation) is not a Billy Beane move.

QUOTE (ScottyDo @ Feb 13, 2012 -> 03:51 PM) I'm also not sure that the contention that "Crisp can't be a corner OF" makes a lot of sense...if you think Cespedes is an impact bat, you regain the on-field value lost by Crisp's transition by placing offense at a spot where it is not commonly found. Then, Crisp moves on in two years and you have Cespedes with a couple of seasons under his belt and, potentially, a more valuable corner player. I don't think Crisp enters the equation that much. The sense that Crisp enters the equation is that the Oakland A's are now paying what, $50 million, for 2 CF's to cover the next 4 seasons? If you're Billy Beane and you've got $7 million to spend after signing Cespedes, would you spend it on a CF?

QUOTE (ScottyDo @ Feb 13, 2012 -> 03:45 PM) It has been suggested that Cespedes was destined for a corner spot anyway, so maybe it's not all that odd. If he can't come in as a plus-defense-CF, then this money is even riskier.

The House GOP has apparently raised a white flag and has expressed a willingness to pass a 10 month extension of the payroll tax cut in a clean bill.

One other bit.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 13, 2012 -> 03:34 PM) Count towards HAMP? This is a legal settlement, not a piece of legislation. If the money being settled on against the banks requires added or re-used government funding, that would take an act of Congress to make work. And that won't happen. Why? This is TARP money. The White House basically can do whatever it wants with that money. It wouldn't be anything newly appropriated.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 13, 2012 -> 03:17 PM) Except the Marlins can't do that now. Look at their backloaded deals. Tell me how they are getting rid of those guys? My answer is still "do waht they did with Lowell/Delgado". Package a guy with him that the trading team really wants...they're the only ones who legitimately pulled it off. Stanton + Buehrle to the Yankees, Johnson + Reyes to Boston.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 13, 2012 -> 02:49 PM) And his opponent will be well-funded for the same reasons. I argued previously that Democratic Super-PAC's supporting Obama hadn't really begun fundraising yet and that was why they were out-gunned by 10 to 1 or worse, and that in that case the gap would close. For the Presidential race, they might be able to match it. I have no confidence in that happening at the state level. The unions just don't have the money to come anywhere close to what wall street can pump in to break them.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 13, 2012 -> 02:48 PM) The loans would be crammed down if they become part of the settlement. Then, HAMP won't work for those loans. Alternately, if they HAMP a loan, it is no longer going to make it into the settlement. There is no scenario I can think of in which you could apply HAMP and the settlement to the same loan - they are really almost competitive, or at least additive, programs. Then all it takes is for the settlement rules, which still aren't out btw, to say that loans for the settlement could count towards HAMP, for that to happen. You're assuming that someone will write a rule in a way that will be bad for financial institutions, when they can write that same rule in a way to be less useful to homeowners and good for financial institutions. I'll hope you're right, but having the HAMP program pick up most of the cost seems like how I'd expect this kind of thing to work out.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 13, 2012 -> 02:42 PM) The fact that there is no clear opponent yet means those numbers are pretty irrelevant. What is relevant is the current feeling of people in the state against Walker. But of course it is true, this will depend on who runs against him. If the opponent turns out to be a complete disaster, then Walker gets to stay. Walker is also going to have an enormous Citizens United warchest backing him thanks to it being a nationally publicized race.