Balta1701

Very little mistletoe above my TV.

Theismann has told me way too much about his prostate.

Really love laying pipe.

Happy Birthday to my standard password!

Last week was a decent environmental week.

QUOTE (bmags @ Dec 27, 2011 -> 12:10 PM) I'm surprised that our team, which has been largely the saame for 3 years, is the team that looks so out of synch, but west coast trips have always had the tendency to do that to us. They were solidly in sync for the circus trip last year, but that was after 1.5 months of practice/games, not 2 weeks.

QUOTE (JPN366 @ Dec 27, 2011 -> 02:11 AM) It ain't "bad makeup" if that's an allusion to his character. Could mean that they are coming off as guys who are difficult to coach too.

QUOTE (gatnom @ Dec 27, 2011 -> 01:36 AM) All you had to do was non tender Frasor, and you would have a spot for Reed in the pen, which would mean a better bullpen from top to bottom for approximately the same price (I think actually less). This sends me a pretty clear message that there are priorities higher than fielding the best team this year. Once again, this doesn't exactly mean they are going to trade people away if they feel they are getting inadequate value. Quentin is the only person I think they HAVE to trade at this point. We need to be able to see what both De Aza and Viciedo can do at the major league level this year. Heck, moving Sale to the rotation opened a bullpen spot for Reed even if Frasor was retained.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 08:07 PM) CUBS signed Andy Sonnanstine on the cheap. With Wood and now this recent acquisition, looking to rebuild their starting pitching depth chart a bit. If we're really going to deal Floyd, Sonnanstine would have been decent filler for 1/2+ season, although he's probably too homer prone for USCF. I know he pitched for the Rays in that great 08 season, but there's just really not much to him. Spent a good chunk of several seasons down at AAA, never really put up great #'s there either. I'd rather see what Axelrod can bring in a 1/2 season if we need that.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 07:43 PM) That's just confusing. That my teacher would say that or that it's factual and that made a mess of things? (I really don't know the Civil War all that well so I don't know if it's right).

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 07:19 PM) It was certainly more fashionable than the drab uniforms of the South. One of the things my teacher told me was that even though they tried originally to produce uniforms for each side, the uniforms didn't last very long, and usually a unit anywhere near the front would be wearing some mixture of everything, including the other side's uniforms, pretty quick.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 05:10 PM) The other "win now" move was bringing back a seemingly overpriced Frasor on a questionable deal that reeks of KW's penchant for proving himself right and justifying a past trade. Now Danks' deal. Curious, have these White Sox been, this offseason. Yeah...that move followed by trading Floyd would be exceptionally odd.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 05:07 PM) Or we push Crain and/or Thornton on a team desperate enough for relief pitching they'll give you the equivalent of another Stewart or Molina. But of course that pushes Stewart more into that relief role in the dreaded "must win now" and field the most competitive big league roster possible mode. There's some good things there though. If you move one of those relievers and you get back another starting pitcher prospect...yes, that might move Stewart into the pen, but then we have a replacement starting pitching prospect. That's what we need! Looking long term, that gives you Danks, Humber, Sale, Molina, and then "New starting pitching prospect x" as your guys under control for 5+ years. If Stewart goes to the bullpen because there's someone else to take his place as a starter, that's more liveable to me, with the current situation, than "Stewart went to the bullpen because we wanted to win in 2012".

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 05:00 PM) Bottom line, I don't think we can expect to win the division whether Floyd is traded or not. So if Floyd is traded, as long as we get back a promising piece or two, I'll have no problem watching Stew straighten out the kinks next year. I like his arm and I enjoy watching him pitch. I won't have any problems with it either. I just focus on the rest of the roster. There's very little reason to keep Quentin around if you're not looking to compete, for example; in fact it's counterproductive, since he continues blocking Viciedo. There's little reason to keep Ohman and Thornton around if you can get anything for them. IMO, you really have to try to give PK14 a chance to move, with his age and him being a 2013 FA again. I just really dislike the 1/2 measure rebuilding, where you eat another year of Konerko, Quentin, and Thornton's contracts but you start off 7-8 WAR behind where we were last year with a pretty bad team.

QUOTE (gatnom @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 04:53 PM) Therein lies the problem. I really don't think that is the main focus of the organization right now, and I think the Santos trade proves it. "All in" teams don't trade their closer to put a prospect into the role. Obviously, they aren't going to trade Floyd for the sake of trading Floyd, but if a few guys they want become available for him, I doubt they would hesitate to trade him. What I'm saying is...if that's the case, then there are other moves that need to be made soon (i.e. moving Quentin, moving Matty, taking calls on Konerko and AJ) that need to happen in conjunction. If you move Floyd,on top of what this team has already lost, you've taken such a big bite out of this team's chances that even if some things went right (Dunn, Rios, Beckham recoveries) they would just be offsetting what we lost.

Cutler having pins removed from his hands today, still unlikely to play. Lovie sounds like he's expecting Bell to take over the #2 RB spot from Barber and McCown has a shot to take the backup QB spot next year if he puts together another good game.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 03:52 PM) I just don't see an argument for why it is inconceivable for him to start the season as the 5th starter and have success. He does have 4 pitches, including a good fastball, a good slider, a decent curveball and a decent change. Could he benefit from some more seasoning in Charlotte? Sure. Is he capable of getting out MLB hitters? Yes. Is he capable of dealing with being thrown into the fire and not losing confidence in himself? My guess is yes, considering he was left in to take one for the team a few times before pitching a CG one-hitter that very easily could have been a perfect game in early September. I don't understand how you could be so worried about him getting jettisoned for nothing when earlier your stance seemed to be that letting him start in 2012 could very well help him in 2013, as it did Danks in 2007 and then 2008... Here's my thinking Shack...if we're trying to win this division in 2012, and he puts up a 1.50 WHIP and an ERA in the 5.50-6.00 range, how long are we going to stick with him? We stuck with Danks in 2007 because we were out of the race, we were 8 games under and 12.5 games out by July 1. We were able to give him the chance to slog thorugh his issues. Take a look at Stewart's numbers last year. He put up a 4.2 ERA and a 1.42 WHIP at AA, then followed that up by a 1.5 WHIP and an ERA over 6 at the big league level. Those numbers are pretty darn consistent with what he looked like at the bigs...he has talent, but not a lot of consistency. For him to be a 4.5 ERA pitcher in the bigs, he's going to have to make a huge leap beyond what he did at AA last year. If we're trying to win this division in 2012, are we going to put up with him losing 6 starts in a row, badly? Giving up 8 runs and being pulled in the 3rd inning 4-5 times in a row and taxing the bullpen heavily? If we're going strongly for 2013, then we might just let him pitch through that. If we're trying to win in 2012, hes' going to wind up in AAA or the bullpen and we're going to be throwing someone else into the fire who isn't ready. And worse yet, if we put him in the bullpen, he's very unlikely ever to leave that spot. We cannot expect to win this division if we're putting Zach Stewart in the rotation in April next year. I can't see any way around that conclusion.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 02:59 PM) Which I already mentioned. However, Balta, in his infinite and superior wisdom, has already explained that away for us. You know what really bugs me about when people try to say "we can start Stewart in the rotation this year and still be competitive"? It's that I'm one of Stewart's defenders. I liked the trade to get him, I still want to see him get a chance to start th is year even if Cooper says he's meant for the bullpen, and I'm one of the ones defending his offspeed stuff when people say he has none. The thing that bugs me on this one is that I think I've been one of his defenders, but I think if you put him in this role, he's going to struggle, and he's going to struggle badly enough that it'll really hurt him long term, either by getting him dumped into the bullpen or by having the team sour on him enough that he gets jettisoned for nothing. I tend to like the young guys that we do have, but I've seen what happens when we put a guy into a role he needs time to move into, and it isn't pretty.

QUOTE (ScottyDo @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 02:56 PM) To your point, I remember some very damning quotes about ever depending on Humber for any stretch of time. The thought was that if we started him more than five times in a season, our season would be over. While that turned out to be true, it certainly wasn't because of Humber. Stewart could do the same thing. He wasn't a first-rounder like Humber, but he also didn't have as long a track record of failure as Humber did. And I'll bet you the "If Humber starts more than 5 times this season..." line wasn't me, either. If someone out there wants to tell me why he is ready right now, I'm ready to listen, but the pitcher i saw last year still needs work. His offspeed stuff was too inconsistent, and he didn't have the kind of downward sink on his sinker I want to see from a guy throwing a 2 seamer in the Cell. I actually defended Stewart quite a bit last year from the people who said he has no offspeed stuff, which we still hear...he has offspeed stuff, he has 2 offspeed pitches, but he needs work on the control of it...which is not where you want to be starting off at the big league level. And worse, that's typically not something you come up with during the offseason...that's a "Repetition" fix...that's somethign he could get better at with innings. I can actually see a role for Stewart this season as a starter, but that role is starter #6. If he's going to be a long term starter, then he ought to start at AAA and get 2 months or so of work in. THen, maybe if his numbers bear things out, he'll be ready to take over if Peavy is traded at the deadline for whatever we can get, or to take over for Sale when Sale's arm gets tired.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 02:41 PM) Good luck with that. If you have something to say to me then say it.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 02:40 PM) Give it up, there are plenty of scenarios whereby trading Floyd could result in a high-reward, even from your goofy 2012 in a vacuum perspective. Goofy 2012 in a vacuum perspective? This whole conversation was started because I insisted that if you want Zach Stewart in the 2012 rotation, you write off competiting in 2012. The entire conversation is built on that perspective. It might well be the right move to do those things, but you better understand what it is doing to 2012. That goofy perspective is what you're trying to defend the importance of at every step.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 02:25 PM) So let me get this straight...in your "2012 in a vacuum" kind of way, if we make a trade of Gavin that nets us an RP and a slightly lesser SP to rplace him, meanwhile getting a talented prospect or two and salary relief, that is not a high reward for 2012? Getting almost the same performance, saving money, and banking a prospect or two? Oh, and in terms of 2012, the reason why other teams might want Floyd is that his $7 million salary is still somewhat affordable. That means though the savings from trading him are limited in 2012 to that $7 million. And if you take back a veteran reliever, then you may cut that to $5 million or so. So, in the 2012 being competitive sense, the salary savings are pretty limited and we've probably already spent them in extending John.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 02:25 PM) What if we use the savings from trading Floyd to make a deadline acquisition for the 2012 season? Would that count? Using what talent from our system? The stuff acquired from Floyd and Santos, basically, right? Unless you see something else worth trading. Thus, we'd have sent away Floyd and Santos, building up the system, having a weaker roster for the first 1/2 of the season, to have the stuff we could trade at the deadline to repair our roster for August and September. See the problem here?

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 02:14 PM) I honestly doubt it. But Gavin put up a 4.37 ERA last year. What if you trade Floyd and get a young solid pen arm and a SP prospect, and then Stewart puts up an ERA in the 4.3-46 range, which certainly isn't out of the realm of possibility for him. You gain a RP, an SP prospect, and approximately $7 million in salary relief. I'd say that's a moderately high-reward. But you ignored my actual words. That's high reward when your SP prospect is ready. I said "you may be making a move that will be high reward in terms of 2013...but in 2012, it is a very low reward, very high risk set of moves." A relief pitcher in exchange for Floyd is not making a big 2012 impact. That means that the ceiling for the performance is what you get out of Stewart + relief pticher, which as you said...is basically what Gavin Floyd would give you. In 2012, that's a low-reward, high risk move. In 2013, it could produce very high rewards, but its the kind of move that if you make it, you do so with the understanding that it is very likely to break apart any chance you have for competing in 2012. And if you're going to make that move...you ought to commit to focusing on 2013 with the rest of the roster too.

QUOTE (gatnom @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 02:12 PM) Balta, you may be right about Stewart not being ready, but you're also not considering how we are retooling, rebuilding, whatever. Kenny is trying to put together the best roster he can while still positioning himself to be "rebuilt" in a year or two. If we were trying to compete in the sense that we wouldn't want to risk throwing Stewart to the wolves, we wouldn't have traded Sergio. What many people have told me already is that we might well be still able to be competitive without Sergio, because we have a guy who might be ready to step in and do the exact same job in Reed. Personally I think that's a mistake, but that's a mistake we already made if so. If we make a move for the 2012 roster that basically replaces Floyd with Stewart, it's an even bigger step back. Santos, I can buy he's replaceable because he's a closer and closers are more replaceable than we think. We just have to replace 1.6 WAR there. Ok, I can live with that. The rotation is already iffy. We're already trying to replace 3.5 WAR in the loss of Mark. Ok, maybe Sale + a better Peavy + a Humber who threw 150 innings last year can cover that. Maybe. But then you trade away Gavin Floyd...there's another 3.6 WAR gone from the rotation. And we're already already trying to replace Mark, so now we need to replace 7 WAR from the rotation, 3 WAR from the bullpen (counting Sale). And this wasn't exactly a first place team last year.