Balta1701

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Dec 8, 2010 -> 12:29 PM) Dayan's value is going to be pretty high I think. The question is if we want to make him an OF or not. If not, then he's probably gone. The Sox, if they trade him, aren't going to trade him because they think he sucks or they've given up on him, they'll trade him because he can get them a very good baseball player. I could see the Sox holding on to him this year as insurance though, because if the Sox fail to make the playoffs this year then we probably blow it all up and Paulie and/or Dunn may be gone, opening a spot for Viciedo again. I don't think his trade value is as high as we'd like to think. He's so far pretty much limited to 1b based on everything we've seen, and while he's shown extreme power, the saber-side will note his total lack of OBP skills.

I don't see him netting more than a single, high-level reliever. I could still see a Viciedo for Heath bell swap.

Well, I'll add in and say I'm content with the lineup now. Hopefully Viciedo doesn't turn into Miguel Cabrera when he's traded away.

QUOTE (chisox2334 @ Dec 8, 2010 -> 09:33 AM) this might be what is going on and I haven't heard anyone being to the point of being aggressive with Konerko than white sox. Every reporter thinks hes still coming back except for mainly cowley but nightengale, rosenthal, heyman all believe he will be back with w sox. Didn't all the others make those statements before last night though? Last night appears to have been when the Sox hit their "Time to walk away" point.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 8, 2010 -> 09:31 AM) I think Baltimore would give Pauly more than $12 million per year. But he just has absolutely no interest in playing there, and is too classy to pretend he is just to drive his price up. I really think he'll wind up there if he doesn't accept the last offer the Sox have on the table.

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ Dec 8, 2010 -> 09:23 AM) Enought said, neither Rangers nor Orioles will give Paulie anything above 12M a year, I'm pretty convinced. I hope Kenny/JR play this smart. So far, I don't see any sign that they haven't played this smart. They appear to be willing to walk away if they don't get a decent enough deal for themselves, and they appear to have shown their cards.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 8, 2010 -> 09:06 AM) Who is he going to get that from, the Angels? I can't see him getting this deal now that the Red Sox and Yankees are both out of the picture. If I were Crawford, I'd just sign a 1-year deal with one of NYY or Bos and go try and win a ring while putting up huge numbers and try this again next year. Why exactly are both the Red Sox and Yankees out of the picture? The Yankees have been believed to salivate over him for years, and have a habit of jumping in late in negotiations with huge offers (that's what happened in the Teixeira deal. Especially if they lose out on Lee). The Red Sox have another LH bat now, true, but their OF is still full of holes. Ellsbury, Cameron, and Drew are their current starters, and between them, that was only about 205 starts last year for 3 positions, which means they used their backups a ton. Heyman this morning still says the Yankees and Red Sox are in the picture, along with the Angels, Ligers, and Rangers (most of those names are also in on the Lee deal and suggest to me that Crawford may be becoming the consolation prize)

QUOTE (balfanman @ Dec 8, 2010 -> 09:02 AM) Is there any possibility that the Twins could be that "mystery team"? Really, no, their total salary already takes a very large jump next year due to the expansion of Mauer's contract.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Dec 7, 2010 -> 07:03 PM) Eh, I think I still would show up. But you sure as f*** wouldn't buy a luxury box or any merchandise.

QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ Dec 8, 2010 -> 08:39 AM) Yeah, Crawford will most likely get north of 6/$132 million. Especially after the ridiculous Werth signing. The LA Times floated 8/$180 as a possible.

QUOTE (Tex @ Dec 8, 2010 -> 08:17 AM) I forgot, how was it the Soviet Union collapsed again? Wasn't it something about spending themselves into oblivion and not having the cashflow to support it? Tex, I'm having difficulty figuring out if you're just going for Kaperbole here or if you're actually forcing yourself to ignore challenges to the slogans. If it's the former it's not worth me continuing to reply to these.

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Dec 8, 2010 -> 02:35 AM) Can we just give Crawford 5yrs 100M and call it an offseason? Sure looks like a HOFer That would be a very large discount given to us by Crawford.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Dec 8, 2010 -> 08:23 AM) Certainly the exception and not the norm. Only because people define the term "Signed" so narrowly as to ignore all the other big contracts handed out to guys we already have or guys acquired through trades.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Dec 7, 2010 -> 06:56 PM) Yes. And I attribute the success moreso to Garza coming back, not Martz changing his schemes. The Bears were unable to do certain things in the beginning and nothing at all against the Giants. But they tried. Mike Tice had the toughest job of all. And trust me, I love me some Martz. He didn't change his runblocking or his passblocking schemes. He didn't change routes. He didn't change the gaps. However, hasn't he changed the rate at which he was calling the run, the types of runs he was calling, and the types of passes/drops that he was calling?

QUOTE (MurcieOne @ Dec 7, 2010 -> 06:48 PM) I didn't mean to imply that he Bears should change from a 4-3 to a 3-4. What I was trying to say is that the Bears should not have played so much of their base cover-2 when they didn't have a pass rush, didn't have Urlacher to swallow up tackles and cover the deep middle, Briggs missed time, and had shoddy secondary play. There are teams that experience injuries and do a better job of adapting to them. Lovie was the play caller last year and the defense was a stanch 17th in total defense (an imperfect stat). What you probably missed last year though was that the Bears did try to work around this. In fact, the Bears for the last couple years have had one of the highest rates in the NFL of sending extra guys; LB's and DB's, on the blitz to try to get to the QB. That was the only way that they could get pressure on the QB, because their front 4 wasn't doing it. But, because they were blitzing so often, to the point the defense knew it was coming, the secondary was regularly getting exposed. Because their D-Line horses stopped doing the job, they couldn't get pressure without the blitz, but if they blitzed their secondary gave up the first-down pass. They didn't play the base cover 2 when they didn't have those guys...you just didn't notice, because all you saw was the Bears' defense getting picked apart.

Somewhere here there's a joke about Obama Folding while Reid is holding a Jack high...

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ Dec 7, 2010 -> 06:37 PM) Santos did quite well for a newbie, and another off-season and ST as a reliever can't hurt. Sale was awesome and there's a reason he went so high in the draft. Pena was below average overall, but he was HUGE for us in an unexpected long relief role. And there's no denying he has great stuff. If you look at these last 2 posts, you can find reason for optimism and reason for a lot of worry both. If nothing else, hopefully you can see a little why people would be concerned about the bullpen as is; even with everything you've said, there's no sure thing anywhere other than Matt, and Matty's elbow started acting up too much for comfort last year.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Dec 7, 2010 -> 06:36 PM) Does Ray Lewis count? Yeah, that's a good one. Thanks, I knew I had to be missing someone.

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ Dec 7, 2010 -> 06:32 PM) The bullpen panic is funny to me. We have 3 legitimate relief options in Thornton, Santos, and Pena, and a 4th in Sale. Yet people are saying we have 1 reliever. Well, I can find objections to 3 of those. Santos is still something of a newbie at this, as is Sale, and Pena has been below average.

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ Dec 7, 2010 -> 06:33 PM) IN MY WORLD! where i misread his stats Which is why we jumped on you when you said that Lee was an injury waiting to happen but Konerko wasn't.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Dec 7, 2010 -> 06:30 PM) BTW, Murcie, what scheme can you run if you don't have the players for it? That's a weak argument IMO. Would the Bears not need to get a NT and new OLBs if they switched to a 3-4? And considering that they have perhaps the best 4-3 middle linebacker of the last 15+ years, that might not be the wisest move (seriously, I'm trying to think of who else has played that position recently and even been close to 54's level, can anyone give me a name or two?)

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ Dec 7, 2010 -> 06:27 PM) in the last two years PK has more than twice the number of plate appearances. Who cares about early in their careers? DLee is injury prone, PK is not WTF? Lee has 1241 plate appearances in 2009 and 2010, Konerko has 1252. In what world is 1252 = twice 1241?

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ Dec 7, 2010 -> 06:22 PM) DLee is an injury waiting to happen. Lee is younger than Konerko and has had nearly 200 more plate appearances than PK14 over the last 4 years, with the difference being that PK14 missed more due to injury.

QUOTE (South Side Fireworks Man @ Dec 7, 2010 -> 06:21 PM) But if you go by actually watching them play baseball, Dunn is a complete butcher in the field and Paulie is pretty decent. How much of Adam Dunn at 1b did you honestly watch last year?

QUOTE (lostfan @ Dec 7, 2010 -> 06:19 PM) Huge game here coming up. Not so much in terms of the standings or being a do-or-die game, but in terms of the matchups against the Patriots. The Bears aren't New England, they don't blitz and gamble to let Brady burn them, they play mostly zone defenses. Hopefully Marinelli is ready to mix up the coverages a little. Brady will get his, he'll do the 7-12 yard gain thing and exploit the seams like every team tries to do (but better), so the D-line has to be on fire. If that doesn't happen we're f***ed, they can blitz but that comes with a price against this kind of offense. The s***ty turf should slow down Welker and Woodhead a little, but the Bears are a fast defense. They just have to tackle and keep the runners in front of them. The last time the Bears played the Patriots 4 years ago it was an ugly game for both teams, and mostly ugly on the Bears' end because Grossman looked like s***. Obviously Cutler >>> Grossman. If the Bears go into the Patriots game with the same game-plan, letting the opponent hit those 5-10 yard passes and stopping them there, they're going to get eaten alive. The Patriots have come out and said that's their game now without randy Moss; they hit those shorter passes and have become a run after the catch team. If they try to re-do the Packers game earlier this year, they'll get eaten for lunch.