Balta1701

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jan 21, 2011 -> 03:29 PM) Sureeeeeee. And why the f*** would the A's be a possible destination when they already have a premier closer in Andrew Bailey, who's dirt cheap and not eligible for FA until 2015? Wonder if they'd have gambled on trying him as a starter?

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Jan 21, 2011 -> 03:16 PM) I'm pretty sure that we'll see and hear the last of Jordan Danks as soon as John Danks is traded or leaves via free agency. It seems to me that he's only being kept in the mix to try to sway his older brother into sticking around. Why? There's zero reason to get rid of him right now. He's not making much money, he still has years left before he would need to be added to the 40 man, and even though he got hurt the year before and struggled mightily last year, there's still a non-zero chance that he'll make a major improvement in the next couple years. The Sox would be crazy to just pretend that they've heard the last of him.

Everyone uses that term? Sigh.

Can't we just make sure the field is in good condition then?

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jan 21, 2011 -> 12:51 PM) 2) Having said that, I think my favorite role for Teahen is backup RF for CQ. Since CQ is obviously not going to be DH this year with any regularity, he's going to need significant rest if he's going to stay off the DL. Not sure what CQ's platoon splits are like, but I would definitely be in favor of throwing Teahen in RF against some tough righties, esp. if CQ is in a slump, and esp. now that a CQ/Teahen platoon will never need to bat higher than 6th in the order. Teahen is bad in RF too, but he's not as bad as CQ, and he's not as bad as he is at 3B. Thing about Quentin's splits are...he's backwards. He has a career .857 OPS against righties and .773 against lefties. Teahen was almost Kotsay-like against lefties last year. Although Quentin hits right handed, he's a bad guy to put in a righty/lefty platoon.

Hoping no one here took too much from the SMH article, but just in case they did.

It's "Hire a former Bears coach" day.

Awesome football weather.

QUOTE (Chet Kincaid @ Jan 21, 2011 -> 11:44 AM) So, if the star is only 640 light years away, why would it form a black hole 1300 light years away? The distance to this star is actually quite poorly known. Calculating distances in space is a difficult process sometimes. You sorta do it by measuring the angle to the star from 2 different points in Earth's orbit and doing some geometry. But, this star is troublesome because it has an odd shape (possibly due to a very large and persistent sunspot), because it appears to have a very large velocity in an odd direction, and because its size actually appears to be varying with time. The difference between 640 light years and 1300 light years is who's estimate for the distance is being used.

Link

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Jan 21, 2011 -> 11:12 AM) But seriously, I'd put Adrian Gonzalez there. People know he's good, but people on the east coast have no clue just how good he is. He's on Boston now, if that hasn't changed, it will by May 1.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 21, 2011 -> 10:44 AM) Oh I really don't care. Yesterday his opening topic was that the home field advantage doesn't mean much in football anymore because of all the corporate season ticket holders. At some level, this is probably true. It still matters, but it doesn't matter as much as it used to. The 2nd round of the playoffs used to feature the home team winning about 75% of the time or more...at home off of a bye week...I think it's been down closer to 50% the last few years (and no I don't recall where I saw this data).

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 21, 2011 -> 10:08 AM) Balta, what you fail to grasp in these arguments is that these decisions don't happen in a vaccum. It's not just cutting or freezing spending and then stepping away. That's one step out of many. Unlike the morons in Illinois, you pass legislation to deal with the spending and THEN you figure out a way to work going forward.This has never worked and will never work. It's pretending. You can't cut something if you're not willing to say what you're cutting. It's like when Bush cut taxes dramatically and how that effectively starved the beast and forced all sorts of cuts (that never actually happened). Of course...somehow, you have to enforce these rules. Which is where a lot of the new spending went...employment enforcement efforts. So, you want to cut back on the enforcement efforts and expand the enforcement efforts.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 21, 2011 -> 09:46 AM) I bet the last name had a lot to do with the hype. I wouldn't say that. He's a kid who spent 3 years at the University of Texas putting up legitimate numbers... .300 average+ every year, .900+ OPS every year, 1.008 OPS his final year. He also was raking at the lower levels of the Sox org, and so they pushed him up aggressively. His strikeout rate has gone up from 1/4.75 at bats to 1/3 at bats since he got to AA. Some of this was predictable, just facing better competition, some of it is him genuinely failing to adapt. The kid has a ton of talent but hasn't been able to improve his approach at the plate. He didn't belong as a first round draft pick, which is what a lot of us were scared the Sox would do, but the hype was legitimate based on his performance.

chirp

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 21, 2011 -> 09:32 AM) I'm a big fan of Danks, but I have a feeling whoever signs him is gonna extremely overpay for him and not get their money's worth. It kinda depends on what the team signing him is expecting. If they're expecting what appears to be a very durable #2-ish starter, who might well snap off a top of the league season at some point if he ever has a stretch where control of his changeup doesn't leave him, then they're right on. If they're signing him expecting to be their Roy Halladay, they might not get that. I think he ought to be looking at maybe a little longer of a contract than John Lackey got from Boston, similar money per year though. He hasn't yet been a true ace, so breaking $20 million would be silly, but if you got him at about $15 per year for a while, you might well get 200 innings a year of an ERA in the high 3's, and for a high spending team, that'd be totally acceptable. Plus, so far, there's really no reason to be concerned about his health, which is the biggest positive; if you get him pitching every year of his contract, you're gold.

I found this an interesting bit of research from Forbes.

QUOTE (since56 @ Jan 21, 2011 -> 09:22 AM) If you are going to play a defensive liability at third base then it should probably be Viciedo. Teahan is a good left handed bat off the bench, and versatile enough to sub at several positions. Unless Morel turns out to be simply overmatched at the big league level he gets the nod. If not I would play Visquel there again. You need defense if you want good pitching. The big problem comes around if Morel comes up and hits like Brandon Wood. If Morel's hitting ok, then we're in fine shape, Vizquel can be his main backup, and Teahen can jump in occasionally if someone is hurt for a day or two. If Morel has to be sent back down (or gets hurt), then we're left with Vizquel and Teahen, and Vizquel really shouldn't be a near-everyday starter, even though he was able to take it last year.

QUOTE (Chet Kincaid @ Jan 21, 2011 -> 09:16 AM) And who is going to be the back up outfielder now that Andruw Jones is gone? DeAza? Either De Aza or Lillibridge. If De Aza is healthy, he's shown a lot of signs that he's a reasonable option; he's just been prevented from being one by injuries. Lillibridge is out of options though, while De Aza supposedly has 1 left, so that could make a big difference as well.

As part of its efforts to fill its budget gap without tax hikes, Arizona has gone from letting people die because they couldn't get an organ transplant (casualties; at laest a couple) to instead cutting back significantly on Medicaid. The reason why I might find this latter move ironic? I for one can't think of anything that could go wrong there.

Interesting

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 21, 2011 -> 07:00 AM) As bad as Luol Deng is according to just about everyone, and as great as Carmelo Anthony is according to just about everyone, its shocking to note Deng actually has a higher FG and 3 pt FG pct this season and averages about 6 points and 2 rebounds less than Anthony. Don't think I don't know Anthony is the better player, but for as much as Deng gets blasted, it would be nice if once in a while, some people realize he really isn't the stiff he's portrayed to be. Deng is having a remarkable season this year. He's been marginally ineffective the last few years because of injury and because of the fact that the team was totally uncoached. This year, they have a coach who knows how to use his assets on defense. Last night, Deng was guarding Dirk on the outside, which was wonderful since the Bulls were depleted inside. He didn't have a great scoring night personally, but he kept Dirk to 6 of 16 shooting, 19 points, 2 rebounds, 4 assists, and a -19. Deng also hauled in 12 rebounds and once again logged heavy minutes. With the frontcourt injuries this team has had, Deng has done a wonderful job at filling in.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 20, 2011 -> 05:21 PM) We had an audio baby monitor, thought about the video, but my wife got spooked by the stories out there of the signal being unencrypted and available to anyone nearby to pick up. Probably nothing worth worrying about though. Just get the baby an iPhone 4 and start up the video chat.

QUOTE (FlaSoxxJim @ Jan 21, 2011 -> 01:08 AM) I believe you are correct, and the explosion will witness at some point in the future may well have happened centuries ago. There is no "I believe" about it. If that star is 640 light years away, then we're observing things that happened 640 years ago.