Balta1701

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Sep 13, 2011 -> 04:24 PM) Oy, imagine how much better we'd look going forward if that trade hadn't been made. I mean...I get it, Hudson doing what he did for us this year would have really made up for a lot...and maybe spending that $8 million might have helped... But when you add the phrase "going forward"...I think Zach Stewart will be a legitimately valuable piece for us. Very few people looked at Hudson and said "This guy is the next Verlander". He can be an upper part of a rotation pitcher, but he's not going to be the best ever. Stewart still is a work in progress...but he has legitimate upper part of a rotation ability. Sinkerballer who also can be effective with his offspeed stuff.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Sep 13, 2011 -> 04:10 PM) The difference here is that we're stuck with Dunn, Rios and Konerko. Flowers/Morel have no trade value. You couldn't get a can of SPAM for Beckham right now. At least with a couple of our pitchers you could get some good value for them before it's too late. I bet you that you could get something decent for Morel right now. He's a legit rookie and he hit .273 with a .327 OBP and a .783 OPS in the 2nd half this year and he plays good defense. That's starting to establish himself.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 13, 2011 -> 04:02 PM) And the offense has way more question than that, especially if you assume a low case scenario like you did for pitching. Konerko gone, AJ gone, Flowers and Dunn K machines. Rios lazy and uncaring. Beckham struggling, Ramirez plateaued. Morel no power etc, etc. Here's a different way to look at it. Both of these are likely to change, but if we're trying to say whihc side of the ball is in worse shape, I like it. The pitching staff in 2013 is relying on 3 guys who are either young or somewhat unproven (Humber, Sale, Stewart). The offense in 2013 is relying on 5 guys who are either young or somewhat unproven (Viciedo, De Aza, Morel, Beckham, Flowers) Both sides have a lot of unproven guys and need of development, but both sides have a fair amount of talent as well. There's what, 3 first round picks in there and a guy who got $10 million+ coming out of Cuba.

You cheat.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Sep 13, 2011 -> 03:57 PM) That's assuming Sale can hang as a starter and at least one of Humber/Stewart can prove to be at least a rotation back-end. Mark is a FA. Danks will be a FA. Peavy is hopefully gone after 2012. That leaves Floyd for 2013 and nothing in the pipeline. I can see where Marty is coming from. Floyd, Humber, Stewart, and Sale is a 4 man rotation under team control for 2 more seasons, and pretty cheap to boot. Buehrle added in would mean that we still had a fairly affordable rotation under team control for that whole time.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Sep 13, 2011 -> 03:45 PM) No. Right now, if you're looking past 2013, Paul Konerko has departed this offense unless he's reupped again. That's 2 years away. Dude's not a spring chicken anyway. Morel, Flowers, Beckham, Viciedo, and De Aza can still be under team control then, along with (Shudder) Dunn and Rios. Alexei is also under contract, just more expensive. If all of those guys develop to their potential...then you're right, the offense won't be much of a concern. That's a number of guys who can give solid production and hopefully a 25 year old monster. Even if we don't get much from the Walker/Mitchell picks, that's 5 spots filled with guys who are just beginning to hit their arb years. 1b would be the only spot where we'd really be missing a guy, and the money would be there to do that. The big if there though is we need some development from the young guys and performance from Dunn and Rios. Morel doing what he is doing now is very encouraging. Beckham has not been encouraging at all, he's almost the key guy in that setup.

Mariano Rivera is at 599.

Very much not.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 13, 2011 -> 03:42 PM) If you are focused on 3-4 years down the road, you are still going to be more worried about the offense. "In the long run, we're all dead."

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Sep 13, 2011 -> 03:26 PM) I just think this pitching staff as presently constituted has run its course. It's not an elite staff. In hindsight it was a staff put together predicated on Peavy being a #1 guy. When that didn't happen the rest of the group just wasn't good enough to pick up the slack. It's not an elite staff, but that doesn't change the fact that it was an above average staff.

That does not.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Sep 13, 2011 -> 03:04 PM) You trust him? Really? The guy who said Clemens didn't uses steroids and is one guy who would never cheat on his wife? Then its later revealed Clemens gave him hush money. Canseco is a whore. You can have lunch with him for $100. (read the date on the post and note the thread bump on new news).

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Sep 13, 2011 -> 03:03 PM) I'm confident the lineup and staff have enough major pieces to be effective next year, provided they perform, provided that we have new leadership, and provided we obtain some better complimentary pieces. I dunno...I think that the complimentary pieces we have aren't half bad. AJ and Flowers have provided acceptable offense from the catcher's spot, the bullpen has been good to very good for most of the season and would look better if Juan pierre could catch, De Aza has looked like a solid complimentary piece...Alexei appears really good as a "Complimentary" bat... In terms of complimentary pieces...the thing we really need is for Morel and Beckham to develop. Morel's showing signs this month, and he was a rookie this year so I was giving him more of a pass the whole time. If we could get OPS numbers in the .700's from them, then I'd say that every "Complimentary piece" on this team was performing.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 13, 2011 -> 02:48 PM) Missed as in I forgot it in my response. I understand the preponderance of benevolence assumptions in the Democrats actions here, but with a significant number of dead Muslims out there as a direct results of the Democrats policies why is it so crazy to assume that the significant portion of the Democrats who hold "anti-Muslim views" aren't the one influencing policy to the point where these dead Muslims are the results, yet the Tea Party, who has no power or party of their own, is apparently instituting "anti-Muslim policies"? Those two beliefs aren't very consistent together. If that's your argument...do you really want us to do body counts of dead muslims under each of the last 2 administrations? Because it's not even close.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Sep 13, 2011 -> 02:41 PM) Has he said anything about wanting to be back recently? Depends on your definition of recently. How's July?

Carlos Quentin is back, but you'd never know it. You know who needs playing time? Alex Rios.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Sep 13, 2011 -> 02:37 PM) Why do a lot of people assume Buehrle will be back? I'm confused on that point. If he wants to be back, I seriously doubt the Chairman will say "No" for financial reasons. That makes it quite likely that he would be back.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Sep 13, 2011 -> 02:31 PM) Can Sale be a #1 starter in a couple of years? If so maybe they don't have to go after as many of the highest ceiling guys. I have a sneaking suspicion that the A's will put Gonzalez on the market which would further diminish Danks value. Depends on a lot of things. IMO, he has #1 starter stuff. He's got Liriano pre-injury stuff. Can he stay healthy, and can he throw enough strikes with his secondary stuff, to become a true legit "#1"? I dunno. But with the contracts this team has...and with the lack of anyone obviously better in the minors...we need to try.

1995-2000, Dollar index increases in value by 30%, gas prices increase by 50%. Damn you Clinton!

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 13, 2011 -> 02:02 PM) So the dollar falls, and gas doubles. Thanks again.Dollar rises by 15%, gas prices fall by 70%. Dollar decreases by 15%, gas prices jump by 60%. Damn you Obama!

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 13, 2011 -> 01:58 PM) Right. I forgot, this wasn't Obama's fault.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 13, 2011 -> 01:56 PM) We saw a doubling of energy prices in a couple of years with no inflation, according to your numbers. Having entirely to do with a lack of supply relative to demand, not due to currency issues.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 13, 2011 -> 01:55 PM) Great. So there is no need for more stimulus. People can just move. Now you're just being deliberately silly. When the economy of the full country is, on average, depressed, then where do you move to? There is going to be a net migration to low-unemployment states if you give it time, hell the data probably shows its already happening, but the slump is so large that there aren't enough good areas to absorb the unemployment from the bad areas.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 13, 2011 -> 01:49 PM) And as much as you celebrate $4 gas, I know you can't wait for $10. And for that kind of erosion of the dollar, there is going to have to be substantial wage growth, and a Federal Reserve that decides it has no interest in fighting inflation despite the fact that its sitting on 0% interest rates and what, $3-4 trillion in excess reserves? This is the "In the long run we're all dead" issue. We have so much ammunition to fight inflation right now it isn't funny. If somehow we overheated the economy so much that the Federal Reserve ran out of inflation-fighting ammunition...well, yeah that would be bad, but compared to where we are now, a "Massively overheated economy" sounds like a wonderful thing.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 13, 2011 -> 01:27 PM) I won't argue with the second part, but the beginning is just hyperbole. In the case of Europe, they don't really have a choice. In our case, we don't have to add to the spending we already have. They don't have a choice because of how the Euro is structured. If part of the U.S. is performing poorly economically, there can be migration and movement of business to that area to take advantage of the cheap workforce. There are language and trade barriers in Europe that prevent that. So, if one corner of Europe goes bad, that corner is stuck unless it can drag down the whole continent with it.