Balta1701

Unless his team happens to have an in with BP. They don't sponsor anything noteworthy do they?

Someone should make him run for President.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 1, 2011 -> 11:23 AM) Can't really argue with it. I really wonder if the only reason he is in there now is to try to facilitate a waiver deal where we pick up a bad contract in return? I'll hope you're right, but I think the real answer is that our manager automatically assumes every position without one of his guys must be a platoon.

QUOTE (Iwritecode @ Aug 1, 2011 -> 11:55 AM) In fact, I'm guessing no player in the history of baseball has ever gotten on base by watching strike 3 go by without swinging at it. I'd bet this is wrong. Just has to bounce off the catcher's glove.

Not sure which side is the hobbits and which side is the orcs.

Lets hunt down and destroy this Google.

Just stop. Please.

Stress fracture in his lower back for Clay Buchholz, moved to the 60 day DL. Ouch.

Good luck with that.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 1, 2011 -> 10:52 AM) So what do you call hording prospects, but blocking them? Wierd thing is...they usually don't exactly "Block" the prospects with the big money guys they bring in. Most of the prospects wind up being worked in for 2 or 3 years, with a long time to struggle. Aybar and Kendrick, for example, both had 2-3 years where they were part-time players with guys like Cabrera stuck in as well. Ditto for Morales. Also, their high priced OF's usually wind up not being good enough that you want to keep playing them for the 2nd half of their deal.

Stealing a post from myself over at Talkbears. I contend that both of these points are true and this is how to view the Bears' O-Line right now. First, the positive. The Bears offensive line situation is significantly better than it was last year. The weakest point in the Bears O-line last year, by far, and it wasn't even close, was Frank Omiyale. Omiyale is a serviceable backup, but he was an expert at the "Ole!" move of letting the D-line past him last year. Getting him out of the starting lineup, and especially out of the starting left tackle spot, is the single biggest move the Bears could have made to improve that line. Even if he's replaced by a 7th round pick. The Bears have also made other upgrades to their protection. Williams and Webb will be in their 2nd years under Tice, which hopefully will also have improvement. Carimi appears to be a solid building block. The Bears also appear to like Louis. Garza is back, although his health was an issue last year, he was solid when he was in there. Although Kreutz may have been an "emotional leader" or whatever, he was not a strong, effective blocker last year, so replacing him is at worst a lateral move. Furthermore, the Bears have also upgraded their blocking at TE, getting rid of Manumalueuseless, whose failure as a blocker last year caused Olsen to be stuck in as the blocking TE more than necessary. They brought in a blocking TE, and moved Olsen so that the TE can be a mostly blocking position, with Davis used as an occasional receiving threat. All of these moves are upgrades, or at the worst lateral moves. It cannot be said that the Bears made no moves to upgrade the Line this year. Now, onto the 2nd point: The Bears have also done the Bear Minimum that they could do to upgrade that line. No additional high-promise/high money veterans have been brought in. There is no obvious anchor to that line. The Bears have placed a lot of trust in Tice and Martz to be able to use systems and schemes to get guys who haven't been together very long to gel as a solid, effective group. They are still gambling, and the result could still be one of the league's worst lines. If the Bears win a couple of their gambles, they could have a solid line, maybe even one of the leagues' better lines considering that there is a lot of mass on it this year. If the Bears lose a gamble or someone gets hurt, then they're going to regret not having spent more to upgrade that line.

QUOTE (Anderson Cooper's Quivering @ Aug 1, 2011 -> 10:16 AM) We should trade him for David Eckstein. He has short arms, chokes up, and has a really short swing. I think most Sox fans would make this deal.

The big problem with this line of thinking is that it's not what Adam Dunn has been successful doing. He has hit the 2nd most HR in the big leagues in the last decade by always swinging for the fence. He put up 900 OPS numbers by taking pitches and swinging for the fence. It's always worked for him before. Would you be happier with Adam Dunn if he hit 10 HR a year but was hitting .275 or if he hit .230 a year with 35 HR? Yes, he's not doign either of those right now, but at least in terms of Dunn's thinking, that's probably the choice.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Aug 1, 2011 -> 10:06 AM) Money spent wisely is an investment...what you promote here could turn into a gold mine... Or it can turn into a bunch of nothing if the wrong people are in charge of making the decisions. I don't think that spending on future tech is a bad idea...but if the key word you use, wasted, is what they do instead...then they shouldn't bother. 2 points. First, if it's a "Bubble", then that will mean by definition that a bunch of speculative dollars are rushing in, most of which will be lost. In the tech bubble, this was a short term bad thing...all our .com's imploded. In the long term, it also set up the infrastructure on which Google and Facebook are running today. The housing bubble left us with a bunch of decaying homes in the middle of no where that no one wants. The tech bubble at least left some solid leftovers. That's what a "Green energy bubble" would be...even if 95% of the investors got burned, the societal results would be solid. Second...right now a "Bubble" would be a really nice thing in getting an enormous amount of idled capital off of the sidelines and invested in something. Even if it's going to be lost in the end and people are going to flee back to bonds again...this would be a short term boon to the economy when it desperately needs one.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 1, 2011 -> 10:02 AM) He wasn't advocating for the creation of a bubble. Noting that it's the only way for Greenspan's policies to work isn't the same as directly calling for it. I want a green energy bubble. I will directly advocate for an enormous amount of money being wasted on green energy developments, most of which wind up busting. You can quote me on that 10 years from now.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 1, 2011 -> 10:00 AM) Right, from January 2009 he was saying that it'd only help slightly and not lead to a real recovery. We know now that the recession was worse than anyone thought at the time. We know now that the economy keeps stalling as what stimulus we did get is phased out. Hell, the GDP numbers that came out last week show that the actual 12 months of the recession were a full percentage point of GDP worse than they were thought to be beforehand, which would have even made a $1.2 trillion stimulus that wasn't bloated by tax cuts insufficient to fill the gap.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 1, 2011 -> 08:46 AM) Funny how he uses historical confidence to the downside, yet when he talks about spending, he ignores that it really hasn't done much for the economy this time around. And if he really wants to blame all of the spending on the Bush administration, and still claim the economy was really bad during then, that means two recessions in a row that tons of spending didn't fix the economy. It still impresses me how you get 60% of the stimulus turned into tax cuts that people like Krugman say won't work and then bash the concept of "Stimulus spending" in the same breath.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 1, 2011 -> 08:43 AM) That sounds about right to me. The current Federal government is about $3 trillion or so right? So to get to $150 trillion in 10 years the government needs to average spending that is 5x what it currently is? Man, you are expecting some insane inflation. On the bright side, the national debt will drop from 100% of GDP to like 5% of GDP. We could pay it off in 15 minutes.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 1, 2011 -> 02:36 AM) I'm not so sure Kuhn will even get a chance to play for the Sox this year. Probably not. Viciedo, DeAza, Milledge and Jordan Danks will all be given at-bats first. Kuhn has a much better shot to get extended time in the Arizona Fall League to see exactly how legit he is...and what, if any, permanent position he might be best suited for. I could certainly see Kuhn getting some "Beckham Day Off" at bats.

QUOTE (Lillian @ Aug 1, 2011 -> 09:49 AM) Is that really relevant in this discussion? If the PED's helped Bonds maintain bat speed, generate power, and improved vision/reaction time as he aged (and they did), then yes, they're very relevant in the discussion, because those are possible issues that Dunn may be dealing with.

QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ Aug 1, 2011 -> 08:42 AM) And to make matters worse, Ozzie keeps putting him out there. Why did KW even bother saying that they will play the best players? Obviously that's not what's going on. I'm okay with Rios getting a start here and there and being a defensive replacement, but he's not the guy who gives the team the best chance to win. I put that solely on Ozzie's head. I'd be ok with Rios being a platoon guy...but really, not right now. I want a week or two off for him. Especially after his CF performance the last couple days.

QUOTE (Lillian @ Aug 1, 2011 -> 08:45 AM) Barry Bonds choked up, and it didn't seem to stop him from hitting homers at a prodigious rate. Barry Bonds also was composed more of tetrahydrogestrinone than man.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Aug 1, 2011 -> 02:53 AM) BUT ALLEN IS A FUTURE HOF. Really dude, tell me more reasons why Tony Pena is good. I'm anxious to hear them.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 1, 2011 -> 09:09 AM) The Angels are risk averse? Vernon Wells sez hey. Risk averse on trading prospects, not in taking on big money contracts for outfielders.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Jul 31, 2011 -> 10:08 PM) Yea, because government is going to fix it! You need regulations where it matters, not just to cover some Barney's Frank. Oh, so you're in favor of more regulation now. Hippie!