Balta1701

QUOTE (Tex @ Oct 25, 2011 -> 01:46 PM) And once the primary season hits and the candidates are forced onto smaller stages in each state, Perry will rebound nicely and pick up momentum against Rom. He's been given up for dead a couple times and is still in the race. He may be the GOP version of Clinton when it comes to feeling our pain. He's been given up for dead a couple times? I count 1...right now...and he's "Still in the race" in the same sense that Jon Huntsman is right now. He definitely has a road to the nomination...but he has to go "All in" on Iowa.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 25, 2011 -> 12:49 PM) Or... They may need to do MORE work than was needed on Fenway, but they are absolutely not moving from that location. They may even be willing to spend part or all of a season playing elsewhere while it is rebuilt in place, or maybe they go 2 or 3 seasons having parts of the park closed at a time... but they will not move. It's also significantly risky to be seen as "Meddling" with that stadium in the eyes of its fanbase...

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Oct 25, 2011 -> 12:24 PM) No he threw the WAR number for Gutierrez, not Danks. There are no WAR numbers for minor leaguers. This. I'm using a major league comparison for a guy who put up a .530 OPS last year. The Position adjustment is huge for CF.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 25, 2011 -> 10:46 AM) Except if he is putting up those numbers in AAA, he is going to be putting up worse in the majors, which means he would have been pretty much the worst hitter in all of baseball. The only reason he gets debated is because he is a Danks. Any other player putting up his numbers would be gone. He put up a .770 OPS in AAA last year. Let's hypothetically say that this translates to a low .600/upper .500's OPS while playing in SD. If he's a legit gold-glove CF, then he's still a 2-3 WAR player in a full season if he's a top defensive CF. The reason this is debateable has nothing to do with his name and everything to do with what defensive metrics are telling me about player value. As I said, 300 at bats last year for Gutierrez, 1 HR, .534 OPS, 1.1 WAR. He put up a .534 OPS, "Worst hitter in all of baseball" level, and still was a valuable player.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 25, 2011 -> 10:39 AM) Steal? lol. If his name weren't Danks, no one would care. I didn't use his name to justify anything, I used the fact that he's supposedly an exceptional defensive player. Starting from a position of weakness in an OF, especially in a big park, if I can steal an exceptional defensive player who is 3 years pre-arb for nothing, why not? It's not like he's going to block some other dynamite player I have on the way up.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 25, 2011 -> 10:32 AM) SD isn't going to tie up a roster spot for a guy with minor league numbers that bad, just for a defensive replacement. They can find another OF who can hit something. Well, if I were SD's GM, and I gave Aaron Cunningham (yes, that one) 101 PA's last year as a corner OF to put up a .624 OPS, and I gave Will Venable 100 innings of crap defense in CF last year, I'd be more than willing to steal a younger player who can field to take that spot. Esp. since Cunningham is arb-eligible this offseason and is probably being cut loose. "Eating up a roster spot" doesn't worry me that much when Aaron Cunningham and Will Venable ate up roster spots last year.

QUOTE (JohnCangelosi @ Oct 25, 2011 -> 10:25 AM) I realize Frasor sucked but his historical pedigree says that $3.75 M for him is worth it, especially now we'll be an arm short in the pen with Sale going to the rotation next year. I'd be shocked if they didn't pick that up, actually... The fact that he's also likely a type B FA should seal it on the Sox letting him go and offering him arbitration.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 25, 2011 -> 10:23 AM) Why? A guy hitting .224 with a .534 OPS for 1/2 the season was still worth 1.1 fWAR in CF this past season. If a CF can cover serious ground while catching the ball, and by all indications D2 can...then even if he can't hit a lick he's worth a shot out there.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Oct 25, 2011 -> 10:21 AM) yeah, that's kinda what i was thinking. if this is gonna cost me 3-4k in cash to refinance, and I end up saving 100 bucks a month, that's not really worth it over 30 years. And I dunno that we've hit the absolute bottom on interest rates yet. A year and half ago I was hearing that 5% was about as low as banks would go. well now they're at 4... There's certainly still room on the downward side if Europe finally breaks open.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 25, 2011 -> 10:18 AM) I don't see anyone out there willing to keep him on the 25 man roster. Why waste the roster spot? No one would take him for a season and stick him as a backup OF/defensive replacement/LH pinch hitter? If I were, say, the Padres, I'd certainly consider that.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 25, 2011 -> 10:15 AM) I don't think I would protect Danks. Crazy? I think you pretty much have to protect him for at least 1 year. Not like we're under a huge need for roster spots here.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 25, 2011 -> 10:06 AM) I see why we should give the government another half of a trillion dollars... they did so well with the first trillions... They spent $2.5 billion on the HAMP program so far. There's another $50 billion or so which simply was never spent. So, yeah, they did exactly waht you wanted with that money...saved it.

I never liked Francona as an option all that much, and would have said absolutely not to Cooper. Martinez and Alomar were 2 guys I at least wanted to see interviewed. If they screwed the interview or clearly were unprepared...fine, then move on...but there's every reason to expect those guys to be effective managers from day 1 right now, and with Ventura I'd call it a roll of the dice. We didn't even do the due diligence on them.

QUOTE (GoodAsGould @ Oct 25, 2011 -> 09:56 AM) Or maybe factors exist in our solar system that aren't typical from the usual? And thanks to the Kepler space telescope...we can already say no, that isn't the case. Our solar system appears to be just another of trillions. Planetary systems with rocky inner worlds in the habitable zone seem pretty much the norm for 2nd and 3rd generation stars.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Oct 25, 2011 -> 09:50 AM) A year and a half ago I bought a house that was appraised for about 30-40k more than it's worth and got a good interest rate (5%). I'm kinda in the same boat here. I dunno if it's worth looking into refinancing or not. Just did some math to check. If you're at exactly 5.00% right now, and you have a mortgage for ~$165k, and you can refinance your way down to 4.2% (sorta close to where things are now), and both are 30 year fixed...then you save yourself ~$30k in interest over the full lifetime of the loan.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Oct 25, 2011 -> 09:45 AM) OK, I took it to mean currently existing, observable life. Of course there has been other life out there, but it's not a given that any of it still exists and is close enough that we will ever see it. The reason I said that we'll figure it out in my lifetime is...I think there probably is life in the oceans on some of the Galilean/Saturnian satellites, and there probably was life existing at one point on Mars. Just a question of getting there and finding the evidence. 2-3-4 occurrences of independent "Life" in one solar system makes a pretty compelling case that it's not very unique, if you can find them.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 25, 2011 -> 09:39 AM) It wasn't really a problem until the federal government incentivized making bad loans. At least you're consistent, I will give you that.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Oct 25, 2011 -> 09:38 AM) I'm not certain of that. There are an awful lot of conditions that need to be within very small specifications for life to exist to begin with, and then that life has to be able to survive for 4+ billion years without getting wiped out. Add on top of that the very minute percentage of the universe that we are yet able to observe and I really don't think that the discovery of other life is at all certain. Now wait...he didn't say "Intelligent" life, or highly evolved life, or an ything like that...he said "Life" coming into existence. There's a real good chance that it's happened more than once in this solar system. As far as we can tell...the specific conditions requried for the presence of life are...the existence of liquid water and a contact between the liquid water and rocks. There are at least 4-5 places in this solar system alone that meet or did meet that standard.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 25, 2011 -> 09:23 AM) That rings a bell, but I don't remember why. Demon sheep? Seriously...all you need to do is Google the phrase "Demon Sheep." The ad pops right up...it's that infamous.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 25, 2011 -> 09:21 AM) As I said on FB, this is probably the 2nd most WTF political ad I've seen. The whole thing is bizarre, but the smoking is probably the most bizarre. Nothing tops Mike Gravel throwing a rock in a lake though. I'll stick with the Demon Sheep thank you very much.

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Oct 25, 2011 -> 09:15 AM) This is a real campaign ad. PS - its really all about the last 20 seconds or so. Herman Cain's smirk....

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Oct 24, 2011 -> 04:03 PM) OK, I have an odd question. I got the idea from Futurama. What do you think is the least likely thing to have ever happened? Life itself is probably the best answer, but I'm thinking about one particular event. There's good reason to believe that by the time my generation passes away...we'll think that the existence of life in the universe is rather ordinary.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 24, 2011 -> 11:29 PM) Costofwar.com pant the only cost estimate out there, btw. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010...f-the-wars.html That is of course the real rub when I put that number out there...The DOD direct war appropriations are only a slice of the total war costs. The retirement benefits, health benefits, etc., count also. Hell, the Foreign Aid budget is >1/3 made up of aid to Iraq and Afghanistan that isn't counted in the military budget.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 17, 2011 -> 06:11 PM) Can't believe I have to drive around a f***ing Durango this week. It's f***ing remarkable how much gas this thing blows through just doing normal city driving.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 25, 2011 -> 07:52 AM) EPA to regulate fracking http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/0...525792F00542001 twas bound to happen eventually.