Balta1701

QUOTE (whtsoxfan @ Dec 13, 2011 -> 07:16 PM) Dunn wasn't traded for, he was a FA....but knittpicking asside....I'm absolutely baffled how anyone, with any baseball knowledge, would sign a player to such an exorbitant contract, to be a DH who strikes out 183 times a year on average. Correct me if I'm wrong, but a DH is supposed to be the RBI guy on a team....which means he is supposed to be able to put the bat on the ball, to drive in runs......how does a hitter do that when he Ks 183 times a year on average ? So why does kenny give him such a monster contract ? Prior to last year, Adam Dunn had driven in 100 runs every full season of his career except for 2006 when he only drove in 92. So if "Driving in runs" is your concern, Adam Dunn is a guy you spend $15 million a year on, he consistently drives in 100+ runs. Every year. Like Clockwork. Until last year.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Dec 11, 2011 -> 05:37 PM) One less place I'll be shopping at. Ironically, this has probably been the best thing the producers fo that show could have asked for, now they're a multi-day political issue.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 13, 2011 -> 05:30 PM) You can see DeAza putting up another 850-900 or completely playing himself off the team when/if he becomes the official starter for Pierre (based on a CQ deal finally happening, maybe after his 2012 salary number is clarified). De Aza will not put up an .850-.900 OPS again in a full season. He could do so in a part season but that's an anomaly. He will not rake for a full year like he did in his brief stint. That doesn't mean his numbers couldn't be very good for a CF/LF who plays good defense and hits leadoff...just that you're going to be very disappointed if you try to pencil in a >.800 OPS for him.

SS, since there's no one really discussing the plan here right now, any chance you'd think that the multiple posts on the topic would fit better in the Dem thread?

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Dec 13, 2011 -> 04:48 PM) Yes. With no legitimate additions, I expect at least semi-regression from the Bulls. Everybody knows they overachieved last year. I expect Rose to continue his natural progression. But where's the upside for the rest of the roster? The Knicks only had Carmelo for 25 games last year. And Tyson is a massive upgrade for them at C. The Bulls missed Noah for 1/2 the year, Boozer for 1/3 of the year, and frankly, never got Noah back healthy after his injury, he was never the same player afterwards. Add in a second year in the system for these guys and there is room for growth there. Adding in depth behind Luol Deng could help Luol Deng become a better player, and frankly, shifting Bogans's minutes to Brewer, Korver, and Hamilton is an upgrade as well. Omer Asik also has substantial room for improvement in his 2nd year and that would give the Bulls both better inside play and potentially a really useful trade asset. The counterpoint of course is that "Boozer and Noah are always hurt!" which is 100% true at this point. Getting them to stay mostly healthy for a season and have it not affect their performance would be impressive. The biggest thing on that line for the Bulls is that if they had the Noah from November last year, instead of the Post March Noah, they'd be a vastly improved team. The early season Noah was a dominator, the late season Noah was pretty darn weak.

I haven't seen anything to suggest that MLB has a mechanism to strip a player of an award earned while using PED's. But if you really want to be technical, the MVP is voted on what he did during the season and he only tested positive during the postseason, so they couldn't even get that accomplished.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 13, 2011 -> 04:08 PM) You made sure to call the line a few times just to confirm right..... Why a few? That would mean I hung up.

Correct. I'm impressed at how I missed that, since I've read this thread. My bad.

Public Policy Polling was out in Iowa over the last 3 days, after showing the Newt Surge like everyone else in their previous poll. This one however finds that Newt's lead has narrowed considerably, and he now leads Ron Paul 22-21, effectively tied within the margin of error. Mittens is still sitting back at 16%. As far as I know, this is the first poll out there showing Newt's rise starting to deflate. The fall in Newt's numbers is correlated with a 10 point decrease in his favorability amongst Republican voters, while Ron Paul saw a similar magnitude spike in his favorability numbers.

When you dial 1-800-REALITY...this is what you get.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Dec 13, 2011 -> 03:37 PM) We might have to hope that Jake Peavy can take over from Buerhle as far as performance. Is that even possible? Jake has never been healthy since he joined this team and the cost to keep him keeps going up. Dunn might perform at the 30-40 plus 100 RBI level again, but if he doesn't .. well what a waste. Rios has a bad year folowed by a good year and then a bad year. KW's move looked pretty good in 2010, but still at what $16M a year? It wasn't such a great move. Sunken costs is right, but really I call it highway robbery by non-performers. This is why being a GM is difficult. You can call it what you wish, but you have to take the emotion out of it. A fan has a right to be pissed off at these guys. If you want to sit here and talk about the best way to get the Sox out of this mess, being pissed off at a guy is the wrong move.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Dec 13, 2011 -> 03:20 PM) I wonder more why Saito only got so little? LaTroy got $3, Rauch got $3.5. He's better than both of them. His highest ERA in a season is 2.83. (I realize relief ERA isn't the best statistic, but it's still impressive) Presumably the fact that he only threw 26 innings last year and didn't pitch much until July has something to do with it.

Well, this doesn't seem good. Of course, if the author had actually known how to write the article, the next question to ask (or the next bit of data to supply) is how big 8 million tonnes a year is compared to the global methane release, and what happens if you multiply those emissions by factors of 10 and 100. After checking, Livestock farming is believed to be the largest current source of methane, contributing on the order of ~120+ million metric tonnes per year to the atmosphere. Which means that these plumes, if they're as large as he seems to be suggesting they are, could suggest methane releases that would be large enough to be a major factor in building up atmospheric methane.

Donald Trump has pulled out of moderating a GOP debate.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Dec 13, 2011 -> 02:31 PM) I'm kinda hoping that the part before the first blue line represents Adam Dunn's production in 2011, the part between the blue lines his production in 2012, and the part after the second blue line is his production in 2013. Unfortunately that would mean Adam Dunn's 2012 production was still incredibly bad.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 13, 2011 -> 02:40 PM) I think I have a very vague idea of what it's showing. The green band is 1-sigma and the yellow band is 2-sigma confidence levels, and it plots expected vs. observed energy? Actually, I got that part, but the energy region being discussed for the "possible Higgs" is in the range of 125 GEV, and there is no peak highlighted on there. There are 2 vertical blue bars, one of which seems to show a discontinuity in the LHC spectrum at ~220 GEV which is predicted, and a small but possibly significant outside the margin of error peak around 160 GEV...neither of which are in the range of the supposed "possible Higgs".

QUOTE (flavum @ Dec 13, 2011 -> 02:32 PM) I agree, but if they think Reed can do the job now, then I'd rather see them just play it out with what they have. If they trade Danks and Floyd, then they should go all the way---that means Konerko, AJ, Alexei, Thornton, Crain go now too. The last thing I want to see is they trade Danks, Floyd, and Thornton, and then the season starts and Dunn hits 7 bombs in April, Peavy pitches like an ace, Sale pitches like an ace of the future, and Beckham and Rios are fine too. But Stewart and Axelrod are the 4th and 5th starters and the bullpen is short without Thornton, and they wish they had those pitchers back. In short, go for it with what you have or blow it up beyond recognition right now. Going with a Rookie Closer, or Crain, or Thornton, from day 1, is incredibly risky at best and foolhardy at worst. Even if Serg came out and struggled, it would give Reed a couple weeks to get into a groove before being moved into that role. And it would give you 3 very solid RH arms in your bullpen, which is the kind of setup that can actually help win a division because you can use 1 of them early when your starter actually gets in trouble. Trading Sergio was moronic if there's any effort made at "Winning now". We could have gotten Mike Trout back and I'd say the exact same thing. Sergio being traded means everything has to go.

Ok, even I don't know what I'm supposed to see in that graph.

So, here's a more specific, much more vague sounding statement out of CERN, not nearly as confident as people were predicting they'd be.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 13, 2011 -> 01:59 PM) They can't hold all of that this year...and they're going to have this Deron Williams guy to deal with. $30 mil in cap space isn't enough to max-offer both of them. I should also add that the new CBA does appear to make it much harder to fill out a roster around 2 recently signed big salaries like that.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Dec 13, 2011 -> 01:51 PM) smd ? I'm hoping this isn't meant to be what I think it's meant to say.

QUOTE (ZoomSlowik @ Dec 13, 2011 -> 01:58 PM) The Nets are currently on track to have almost $30 million in cap space if (more like when) they anmesty Travis Outlaw. They can't hold all of that this year...and they're going to have this Deron Williams guy to deal with. $30 mil in cap space isn't enough to max-offer both of them.

QUOTE (The Baconator @ Dec 13, 2011 -> 12:10 PM) 146 home runs out of the starting nine seems pretty low, doesn't it? I feel like the estimates for Morel, Beckham, and De Aza are a bit conservative. Also note they have Lillibridge with more HR/AB than anyone else on the team again. They only hit 154 last year.

QUOTE (flavum @ Dec 13, 2011 -> 11:50 AM) I'd rather they just move Quentin for whatever, and stand pat with the rest of the team....all of which have had some success in their careers. Baseball is a funny game. Career years happen. Injuries plague other teams. I'd rather they just play it out, and see where they're at at the all-star break. If that means they don't get as much for Danks and Floyd, so be it. At least they tried to win in 2012. If they go with a rotation with Axelrod and Stewart in it, then they really don't stand a chance. If they were going to "Try to win in 2012", Sergio Santos was the last guy they should have considered trading.