Balta1701

QUOTE (Princess Dye @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 03:45 PM) There are sooo many other things to go after besides Alexei. Alexei's fine. PK and a few starters. The rest of it is botched. If saying that Alexei could and should have done better on offense last year is "Going after him", then fine, I'm going after him, but then I think I'm "Going after" at least 20+ members of last year's team.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 03:25 PM) Alexei posted the highest WAR of his career (4.9) and the highest on our team by a lot (Konerko 2nd with 3.1). It was actually his career year so far. But he also posted his 2nd lowest OPS of his career (.727), the lowest batting average of his career, most strikeouts of his career, tied for the fewest HR of his career, and most double plays of his career. If you switch to bWAR, his 2010 season was a higher bWAR than 2011, despite him taking a ton more walks, because everything else he did with the bats got worse.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 02:52 PM) To an extent sure. But if you are good and a championship caliber team, you are going to be seeded in the top 6 or 7 and at that point you should have a good chance. If you aren't, quite frankly, you probably aren't that good of a team either way. It isn't like we are talking about home-court advantage, etc. Outside of the 16/1 and 15/2 matchups, once you're in the tourney, the odds are you're going to get whatever the best game is your opponent can give and it will be a challenge to win.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 02:37 PM) You are right. He lumped them in with the Kings & Wizards and threw me off. Yes, maybe LeBron should work on his low post game a little more. But you don't get in that type of physical shape/endurance and put up those numbers with a lack of effort. And with the way Wade throws himself in the lane and has played injured, I don't know how he can be considered lazy. I threw them in half as an insult and half because that team doesn't get assembled in the first place if they're not trying to do the NBA version of Calipari-ing the system.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 02:39 PM) There were eight years of negative campaigning. But of course if Balta moves the goalposts around to the right angle, it wasn't done. I see, so the 2010 election was won thanks to negative campaigning also? Because by that standard, that's all the Tea Party was. And man, we won th e 2008 election based on negative campaigning in 2003? Man, wish that would have prevented the Iraq war instead.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 02:32 PM) It got Obama elected. Link.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 02:30 PM) And, as the Romney campaign told us, there's nothing dishonest or unethical about using a politician's words verbatim but out-of-context. Very true. Mitt has reminded us that we don't even need to stop at punctuation points to take things out of context.

Jesus, this is remarkable. Mittens ran 8000 ads in Florida over the last week...~30 of which were positive.

QUOTE (JPN366 @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 02:09 PM) Man, they're really setting up Charlotte for a title run. The Knights are gonna be loaded with AAAA talent. Not a bad thing if you have guys like Castro and maybe later in the season Molina who you're trying to develop/turn around.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 02:10 PM) The headline is terribly misleading, but the quote is total bulls*** anyway. Whats Romney going to do for the middle 90% income levels? Nothing, but maybe shift the tax burden onto them as much as possible Actually if you read his plans, they'd get a small tax cut also. But as he'd cap federal spending at 20% of GDP while increasing defense spending, they'd get enormous cuts to Social Security and Health Care spending. (Edit: This would also be terrible for that lower 5% that he says is doing fine with the safety net).

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 02:01 PM) Anybody who says that NCAA players try harder didn't watch Illinois basketball last year. McCamey had legit NBA aspirations and didn't give a s*** about it. Davis & Tisdale also half-assed it most of the time. One thing you can say about college BB is that because there are so many more programs/teams, any generalization you want to make is probably true. There are probably plenty of teams of incredibly motivated, hard workers, and just as many teams who want to party. In the NBA, you have only a handful of teams like the Bulls/Spurs who are legendary already for work ethic, while on the other side you also only have a handful of teams like the Heat/Kings/Wizards who come to mind when you think "the effort of these guys is kinda lacking".

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 01:48 PM) SPIN!@ If he's not concerned about the top 5%, why do they get such a huge tax cut in his plan?

The bottom 5%, they're not the heart of America.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 01:45 PM) In terms of the whole NBA/College thing, it seems that people who were fans of college basketball when they were in college, still enjoy it. Those who werent really fans during college, mainly care about NBA or NCAA tournament. I just kinda wish we didn't always have this fight. There's so many things to enjoy/hate about both games. I can't remember the last time I cheered as loudly as I did for Watford's 3 in December, but I'm betting it was in that Bulls/Celtics series.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 01:13 PM) Well done to leave out the next line. "I'm not concerned about the bottom 95%, I'm concerned about the middle" is a pretty s***ty thing to say anyway. Yeah, you're the worst off. **** you.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 01:40 PM) If I have learned anything from you, only five people breaking a law doesn't matter. Heck even hundreds doesn't matter. Honestly, my instinct would have said that you're right, that it should be nearly impossible for a handful of guys to seriously impact the global price of oil, but the CFTC indictment there argued differently. Has that case moved forward at all? It has gotten no press whatsoever since last may.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 01:38 PM) Johnson would be our only lefty off the bench and can only play 1B. I just don't see how that works with six right-handed regulars. If we didn't have anyone else who could cover 1b I'd be more interested, but we can stick either Dunn or Lillibridge there and still survive when PK14 needs a day.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 11:11 AM) If someone out there really did control a significant portion of the marketplace, the CFTC would know about it, plus it would have been splattered all over the news. Link. At least in the case of oil, the CFTC has alleged that these guys were pretty easily able to knock enough production offline to seriously impact the price.

QUOTE (DirtySox @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 10:47 AM) No. Then that's a very good reason why the Sox might not be pursuing him yet.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 01:10 PM) Santos? Santos excelled early in the season but he wore down late again, had a terrible september. He was also somewhat inconsistent, had a really bad june. Greg isn't lying when he says Serg blew more saves than you'd like out of a closer, especially one who didn't have the job the full year.

QUOTE (Princess Dye @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 01:13 PM) Who's Martinez, I'm embarassed to ask The Ozzie we traded Ozzie for.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 10:33 AM) Wait, I was with you until that last part... Adam Schefter was my latest one, he was on the radio this morning trying to figure out if he should cancel his post-super-bowl vacation in order to cover the Peyton Manning is a free agent! story.

Let me throw one more version out there. If I were Peyton Manning, and March came along, and I found myself a free agent, but I also knew I was 6 months or more away from being ready for football action...I wouldn't sign a contract until I could go out and practice. Teams would clearly be more willing to pony up for me if I could go out on a practice field with them and start completing throws, and it's just guaranteed that teams will still have QB needs in training camp and afterwards.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 10:20 AM) I think it is sort of due diligence to at least explore it. And I think ultimately someone will probably pay up for him. But the fact that we are reading that they are considering releasing him sort of belies all the points you are making, does it not? And that's what I can't figure out. If the guy is pretty likely to play next season, he's more than worth anything you'd give up in a reasonable trade. But I consume enough media to know that the reporters are salivating over covering the "Peyton Manning free agent pursuit!" story here in a week or two, and I can't figure out how it makes a lick of sense.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 10:17 AM) Romney says he's "not concerned about the very poor" He's going to keep giving these lines all year, isn't he. He's really got some "Joe Biden if he were really really rich" in him.