Balta1701

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Oct 17, 2011 -> 01:32 PM) Brandon Lloyd cost all of a 6th round pick. He's got a shot at earning the Rams a 5th round compensatory pick.

QUOTE (danman31 @ Oct 17, 2011 -> 01:24 PM) I found this interesting, although a bit shortsighted. As a stand alone, yes the drafts have actually been pretty good, especially when you factor in the limited draft budget the scouting department is working with. However, I don't think drafting has been the problem in recent years. The problem is that there's very little supplement from the foreign markets and player development has been a bit below par IMO. You're starting with average to good drafts, but not adding enough quality foreign players like most other teams and don't seem to be getting the most out of your talent. That turns into a below average system. The way I look at it...there are 9 starting position players, 5 starting pitchers, and 3+ key bullpen spots on an AL roster, along with a few key backup spots. Although the roster is 25 deep, you sorta need 18 ish key guys and then some depth that can be found cheaply. If you turn out 2-3 players a year from your minor leagues to fill those spots...then you're in real good shape, because you hold onto those guys for 6.5 years (and longer if you can pull off the early extension). The last couple years...Santos, Viciedo, Beckham, Morel, hopefully soon Flowers and Reed...we're pretty close to that pace. We haven't had a big score from certain areas, but we've had the Cuban success to balance that. But what has really hurt us is the fact that we've lost a couple key guys in trades for big money players...You add in 2 more starting pitchers to that list of players and suddenly it looks like we've had stellar recent draft performance.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 17, 2011 -> 01:25 PM) I will? Not sure I've even seen Origins. Is that different than First Class? Or is that the same movie? If it is, then I didn't like it, but it was the dialogue and story that killed it for me. Not the acting. Yeah, I meant First Class.

The McCourts have reportedly reached a divorce agreement that gives Frank McCourt full control of the team and gives Jamie McCourt a ton of money.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Oct 17, 2011 -> 01:17 PM) Good point, I'll look into that. Recently I have noticed their DVDs have been strictly for rental, which restricts you from watching any of the extras on the DVD, I wonder if that could have had an effect. There were few/no extras on the DVD version of X:0, short video snippet thing, most of the actual extras were only available on the blu-ray version.

Yeah, short of getting caught with the powder again or getting Hamilton re-hooked, it'd be crazy to fire a manager for taking this type of team to the Series 2 years in a row.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Oct 17, 2011 -> 12:55 PM) Interesting. I guess that was one advantage to my busted DVD, I noticed that immediately since I was listening, not reading. But yeah, you should have had subtitles. Shoot Redbox an email, I have no idea what their customer service is like, but maybe you'll pull off one of their many free rentals.

QUOTE (fathom @ Oct 17, 2011 -> 12:48 PM) Pujols was talking about how awful the clubhouse was prior to that trade. He said all the new relievers helped loosen it up. St. Louis and Texas both have pushed 42 innings out of their bullpen in 10 games in the playoffs, nearly 5 innings a game on average. It's no exaggeration to say that they're in the Series in part because of that bullpen.

/thread.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Oct 17, 2011 -> 12:34 PM) Don't they learn all about the babies stuff when they are trying to teach them sex-ed in grade school? Or do they just concentrate on how to put a condom on cucumbers? They certainly didn't cover how traits are inherited in my Health Class.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Oct 17, 2011 -> 12:38 PM) Watched X-Men First Class this weekend as well, very enjoyable. All the scenes in foreign languages had no subtitles, I had to try to guess as to what they heck they were talking about. Is that how the movie was made or was there something wrong with my Redbox DVD? There was something wrong with your DVD. Mine had subtitles the whole way through.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 17, 2011 -> 12:36 PM) I'm actually amazed that you're such a staunch defender of the Ricketts.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 17, 2011 -> 12:09 PM) You are making all sides of the argument. You can't be wrong. Yes I can...please prove to me that the Rickett's finances have been affected heavily by something that was totally unpredictable in August 2008...especially in terms of the baseball product. That was your claim...that they're in trouble because of the recession, not because they failed to understand their purchas.e

Not going to disagree there.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 17, 2011 -> 12:04 PM) Keep spinning... Ok, please, give me your defense of the Ricketts. Jesus Christ, yeah, it's completely shocking that Soriano and Zambrano's deals became albatrosses.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Oct 17, 2011 -> 12:06 PM) The only kicking butt stuff for Rios is out the door. He should be traded and we keep Quentin, who doesn't need any butt kicking to perform Yeah, if you kick Quentin in the butt he'll hit the 15 day DL. And no one is trading for Rios. Repeating it doesn't somehow hypnotize other teams.

Last MLB game of the season for his team?

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Oct 17, 2011 -> 11:59 AM) well.......it WAS the origin story of Thor. Arrogant, Cocky young God cast out of Asgard in order to prove himself to his father. We could say all of the comic book movies are predictable. Good guy awesome, Good guy falls due to bad guy, Bad guy reigns supreme, Good guy saves day. Yeah...but there was something else about the predictability level in that one. Maybe it was just that the actor didn't sell me very well on any part of the story, that could certainly play into it. Watched X:0 over the weekend again. The story itself was predictable in the sense that we knew how every bit of it had to end up, but still I thought the actors other than Mystique did an excellent job of drawing in. NSS of course will disagree, but I think that's a solid comp.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 17, 2011 -> 11:56 AM) Nice way to contradict yourself. Again... 1. If the Ricketts couldn't see the Cubs future contract issues coming when they purchased the team, they're fools. 2. The recession didn't impact the Cubs revenue figures all that much. If it affected the family's finances...their financial position was probably at its worst in March, 2009; 2 months after they were announced as the winning bid. As wealthy investors, their assets should have recovered significantly in value from that point. 3. If their finances were significantly eroded during the collapse, I can't imagine they'd have completed the purchase process. MLB wouldn't let that happen.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 17, 2011 -> 11:48 AM) Which is when their bid was picked as the winner. Bids were due in September 08, which means that the recession didn't really factor into the actual work put in for the bidding process. It was just starting to happen when bids were due. Based on the Forbes numbers, the Cubs Revenue in 2009 was up substantially from 2008. $239 million in 2009, $214 million 2008, $246 million in 2010. Obviously 2011 numbers aren't published, but the Revenue "Contraction" would be significantly delayed from the start of the recession based on those numbers...they still showed a 2.9% revenue increase from 2009-2010 in the Forbes world. The problem would be if they were expecting 10% yearly revenue increases when they made their bid, or if they didn't anticipate the growth of outflows due to contracts already on the books. A weakening in revenue associated with worsening contract status was evident the moment Hendry signed most of those deals, especially Soriano.

Just because of a little sulfur?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 17, 2011 -> 11:36 AM) The recession said hello. The Ricketts offer seems to have gone through in January, 2009.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 17, 2011 -> 11:30 AM) I don't get the impression that the Bears worry a whole lot about the off of the field stuff. But they do care about having guys who are good "Company men" and keep stuff in house. They hate it when people try to negotiate or pressure them for things in public or complain about PT in public.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Oct 17, 2011 -> 11:27 AM) Rios played like garbage all year, but he's been much better in the past. Plus let's not forget JP's error streak in the beginning of this year, and the fact that he can barely throw it to the cutoff man. Until his great 2010, everyone considered JP to be a bad LF. I think Rios has a chance to be a significant upgrade, if he decides to try. Today we've gotten the "Ventura needs to work with Beckham" article and the "KW is kicking the Central American Scouts butts" articles. It shouldn't be long before we get the "Ventura is Hugging Dunn and Kicking Rios's tail" articles.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 17, 2011 -> 11:25 AM) It wouldn't have been just 2008. Yeah, but that was the "All in" time, in the common parlance. Anyone with 1/2 of an idea how the business of baseball worked could see that the Cubs would have long term payroll issues and might not sustain the playoff-season revenue estimates. I've sorta implied it too when I said that the reason the Cubs had those contracts was that Tribune Co. wanted to maximize revenue and that's what Hendry did...that does sorta suggest that they were hoping the people buying the team didn't really understand their own numbers.