Balta1701

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 02:05 PM) The last statewide election got about 20% turnout (which is a measure of only registered voters even) in the state of Indiana. The disenfranchisement argument is garbage in reality. So, if 20% of the possible voters actually vote, every additional vote for the opposite party you can prevent through legal means is magnified hugely.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 02:06 PM) If it's anything, the move would be moderately high-risk/moderately high reward. High-reward? So Zach Stewart is going to come out next year and be better than Gavin Floyd?

Not fully confirmed yet, but we might well be seeing a Santorum surge in Iowa (no, someone else used the phrase first.) Rasmussen's latest poll has him pushing up to 10%, up from 6% 2 weeks ago during the Newtlet. And national polling seems to have him doing slightly better than that.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 01:38 PM) That guy also never had an outlier season like 2000. He put up career highs in every single category. Hell, he never hit over .295 in any other season. That doesn't mean the answer is "Steroids". Although, it certainly could be thanks Mr. Selig and Fehr.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 01:13 PM) I was not talking about any particular scouts or any scout's opinion on Stewart in particular. I was commenting on the fact that scouting is more of an art than a science, and there are guys that prove scouts wrong all the time. I'm pretty sure you're just missing the entire pont altogether though, because you seem hell bent on the notion that baseball (and the players) is something that you can predict with some high level of certainty. It's not. That doesn't mean that high-risk, low reward moves are a good strategy. Zach Stewart has a very low probability of being a decent pitcher in the big leagues this year, especially compared with Gavin Floyd. If we're planning on trading Gavin Floyd...at this point, it seems incredibly unlikely that the return is going to improve the MLB Ballclub this year. That means if you trade Floyd and go with Stewart as starter 5 for this season, 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.

QUOTE (beck72 @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 12:59 PM) Those numbers don't include Stewart's 3 years of college numbers. Danks came right out of high school. I'm not saying he's the answer at the 5th spot. But he should be in the picture. Stewart does remind me a bit of Floyd. When he doesn't hit his spots, or the occasional rolling breaking ball, he gets hit hard. Whether that's correctable for Coop remains to be seen. Floyd is an interesting Comp. Pre-07, Floyd had to get his brain back together, He did that in 2007, mostly in Charlotte, but a little bit in the bigs. Pre-08, I was one of Floyd's biggest backers, and most people here doubted me because his only good games had come against Detroit and he gave up a number of fly balls that would have left the Cell. Stewart is quite a bit more raw than Floyd was. He's not going to live and die based on the offspeed stuff like Floyd, but his offspeed stuff is also less developed than G's was. If he's in the picture, that means to me that we went "much harsher rebuild" and we should think that way with the rest of the roster.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 12:54 PM) The only non-private scout? So are the non-private scouts usually more accurate than the private scouts? I know Alex Anthopolous stated that our scouts have been really high on Stewart for a while now, so my guess is some of the "private" scouts did actually like Stewart. Regardless, who are you putting ahead of him at this point that you feel so incredible with? I assumed that you had to be saying that the Sox's private scouts were the ones saying he was going to be fine this year, since there's no one else out there saying that.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 12:40 PM) Yes, you're probably correct that he needs more seasoning, but if you think you can suddenly predict things that MLB scouts can't predict, you need to take a step back and not be so condescending. The only non-private scout who really thought Stewart might be a useful guy in the future was Keith Law, and even he said he was a couple years out and needed time to grow as a starter. If you pencil in Zach Stewart into the 5th starter role, you are making a more that is very, very likely to cost you any chance of competing this season. There is no other way around it. If you are going to plan for Zach Stewart to be your 5th starter, and you want to compete, you better also plan to have the best offense and best bullpen in the AL. If he does better than that, great, but that's winning a sucker bet in Vegas. It might happen, but it's not a winning strategy.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 12:33 PM) What makes you so qualified all the sudden to tell us all when a young pitcher is ready to make the leap to success as a MLB starter? I'm no less qualified than you are. The kid's stuff just wasn't there. He's raw. I could defer to others, but I don't need to, what he showed us in the bigs bore it out. His offspeed stuff is solid but very inconsistent at best for now. His 2 seamer got ground balls, but was still too hittable. He couldn't control stuff consistently. He had all the earmarks of a guy who needs to get innings consistently, and he hasn't quite gotten that yet. He has never spent more than a couple games at AAA. With seasoning, he might well get there soon, but he's not going to step in and be a quality starter at the end of the line this year.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 12:21 PM) And this is probably the same s*** you'd say about Danks prior to the 2008 season. John Danks prior to 2008: Minor league innings 435.1 Major League innings: 139 Zach Stewart prior to 2012: Minor league innings: 375 Major League innigns: 67 (50 with the Sox last year). See the difference? Stewart is basically right where Danks was starting 07, maybe even behind him because of the amount of time spent as a reliever.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 12:15 PM) It sure didn't stop Alexi Ogondo from pretty well pitching Texas into the world series. If Zach Stewart takes 3 years in South America pitching, then comes back and spends a year in the bullpen and puts up an ERA in the 1's, I will be fully content to move him to the rotation at that point and hope for success.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 12:15 PM) How do you know that a full year is some magical number that is required by every young pitcher in order to succeed? I can't say this any more clearly: The odds are he would struggle a bit if we inserted him as a full-time starter right out of the gate, but for you to claim that there is simply no chance whatsoever that we could compete for the division with him as our 5th starter is just nonsense. "Struggle a bit"? Not the guy I watched last year. He will struggle a lot.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 12:03 PM) How can you be sure that the learning experience Danks had between 07' and 08' can't occur this offseason for Stewart? Because he hasn't had the "2007" experience of pitching nearly an entire year in the big leagues that Danks had, and that was when he really got the experience he needed?

Pipelines go on land too. And if we go around national parks, that costs money and jobs.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 11:58 AM) You probably would have sent Johnny Danks back to Charlotte after struggling in 2007 with us because you were worried about him being "torn apart." You just made my point for me though by comparing to 2007. We all saw exactly what happened that year. The end result of putting Danks in the rotation in 2007 was that he was much more ready for 2008. However...we had to entirely sacrifice 2007 to do so. If we're willing to go into this season expecting 3rd place if we're lucky, then by all means, give Zach Stewart the 5th spot and see what he can do. Especially if you get a decent return for Floyd. Putting Zach Stewart in the rotation this year is doing exactly what we did in 2007...losing the year, but building for the future. If we think we are still making moves to try to compete for 1st place, then Zach Stewart needs to start at AAA.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 11:31 AM) I'm just wondering who the hell you are that you can be so sure of this...the odds are probably with you that Zach needs more seasoning, but there is no way to be sure when the light might go on that makes things click for him and results in the consistency that is necessary for him to be successful. I'm sure we could substitute Phillip Humber's name and 2011 in this post and you would have said the same thing last year. No I wouldn't have. I would have said "Counting on Philip Humber is a huge gamble. He might have had a good stretch to finish for the Royals, but you don't want him as your only 5th option." And you know what? I'd have been right. His arm had some skill in it but 4 years of bullpen work had left it not stretched out enough to endure a season. If we were counting on him, we needed a 6th starter. Stewart not only has that issue, having been a starter for only 2 years, but he's also quite a bit younger, and his stuff simply wasn't ready for the big leagues. His offspeed stuff is simply not consistent enough, and his sinker didn't strike me as nearly as "Heavy" as it needs to be. He has never started a season at AAA. You put him in the big leagues, people are going to hate him for 3 months as he struggles and tries to adapt to jumping over 2 levels. We've seen guys torn apart by that permanently. We've seen guys be given that chance but then not adapt mentally and wind up given away for nothing. The odds of that working are terrible.

Now all we need to improve that trip is a nice oil spill.

QUOTE (beck72 @ Dec 26, 2011 -> 09:45 AM) Trading Gavin for younger players wouldn't mean the sox are "out" for 2012. Depending on the deal, the sox could have players who could contribute now. And the other SP's--Peavy, Sale, Humber, Danks, Stewart/ Axelrod, et al--could pick up the slack left by Gavin. I can't say this any more clearly. Zach Stewart is not ready to be a starting pitcher in the big leagues in 2012. If you put him there, it might be ok for his development, but it is not a path to a winning record.

1 possession game handed to the D, they hold and this is a ballgame.

Bears have actually outgained the Pack for the first 17:30, winning time of possession too. Just losing on the scoreboard.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Dec 25, 2011 -> 08:03 PM) How you could watch those last 2 minutes then say Luol Deng isn't athletic is beyond me. Bad trolling J4L, 0/10. And Joakim Noah is clearly not athletic.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Dec 25, 2011 -> 08:01 PM) MV f***in P Seriously, he was 9/13 from the field on the day, and the team was this bad from the field in the 2nd half?

Yeah, that's what happens when you know that Kobe is not going to give the ball up. Triple team turns into a GW block.

I don't know how they didn't call a travel on Deng.

Bulls shooting 18% in the 2nd half.