Balta1701

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Nov 11, 2010 -> 05:21 PM) And the Brewers might as well go into full rebuilding mode, because if they trade Braun on top of losing Fielder at the end of next year, they won't be competing for a very long time. There ya go. Fielder leaving hurts them badly, and they don't have the horses to make a run this year or next, barring a miracle. However, if they moved both Fielder and Braun to restock right now, picked up serious pieces (especially pitching) for them, they could look at being a contender maybe 1-2 years down the road with a core still anchored by guys like Escobar, Gamel, Lawrie, Lucroy, and Gallardo.

Sundown? What band are we talking about?

However, my jaw will drop if that treaty is officially ratified any time in the next 2 years.

Perhaps you should have used the green.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 11, 2010 -> 03:25 PM) Lawsuits aren't really the problem in my opinion. It's the crazy billing. Another part is that we actually have a ridiculously high rate of actual malpractice in the first place.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Nov 11, 2010 -> 03:22 PM) Don't get me wrong. I've never advocated trading Beckham. I think (or hope) that he'll be that 'true' superstar this organization hasn't had since Frank. But c'mon, the hype last year was ridiculous. I remember even Kalapse saying it worried him some. And unless I'm reading your earlier post wrong, Beckham didn't sport anywhere near an .808 OPS last year. It was under .700 I believe. Edit: Yeah, I misunderstood. You confused me when you said at 2B. You're right, he put up a .695 last year. My mistake, I put in his 2009 OPS there. He still put up a .890-ish OPS after June though. That one I got right.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Nov 11, 2010 -> 03:09 PM) Let's just say he's a lot less 'untouchable' now than he was last year. If he is, then the Sox know something behind the scenes about him that we don't.

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Nov 11, 2010 -> 03:05 PM) I'd rather have Beckham and Viciedo. Isn't AGon hurt for a while anyway? And he wants a ton of money..pass on that overpay. Yes, Gonzalez isn't likely to swing a bat until March.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Nov 11, 2010 -> 02:54 PM) Meh, kinda easy to say that now. I'm pretty sure 95% of Sox fans wanted no part of dealing Beckham this time last year. Beckham overall put up an .808 OPS on the season in his first year at 2b and as a 23 year old. From the end of June on, once he snapped out of that early funk, he hit .310 with an .885 OPS. I'm pretty sure 95% of Sox fans want no part of dealing Beckham right now either.

QUOTE (GreatScott82 @ Nov 11, 2010 -> 02:56 PM) I am not sure what it would cost to get A Gonz- but the GM has came out and said he will be listening to offers. Starts with Beckham and goes from there. Perhaps Beckham + Viciedo might be enough.

Must you always focus on the skin-colored parts of people's body?

Kind of weird looking pink hair she's sporting in her wikipedia photo.

Heaven help our image hosting services.

Done banning Chinese spammers for the day, now what.

Chris Bosh's usage numbers have gone through the floor now that he's just a 3rd option.

Bandwith Exceeded. Upgrade to photobucket pro today!

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Nov 11, 2010 -> 01:29 PM) Chris Christie calls oout the head of Parisippany NJ district by name as an example of someone gaming the system for their own benefit. I like it. Chris Christie gets called out by the U.S. DOJ's Inspector General's office as an example of someone gaming the system for his own benefit.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Nov 11, 2010 -> 12:08 PM) ONLY? Is that not a living wage? That comes to approximately $33k per year on a 40 hour a week basis. That is a decent wage for an unskilled worker, but it's a poor wage if significant training or skills or experience are required.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Nov 11, 2010 -> 11:55 AM) Well, there was also a tremendous amount of revenue coming in from capital gains taxes during those years too...and I think the defense spending levelled off (remember the idea of a "peace dividend" at the end of Cold War?), but I'd have to look at the actual figures again, seems like they went down or at least didn't continue their previous 1981-1992 rate of increase but I could be wrong. Yes, there was also significant expansion of other taxes, that wasn't the whole part of the surplus by any means and I apologize if I gave that impression. it was, however, a substantial part. The Social Security trust fund currently holds $2.5 trillion in assets. $1.5 trillion of that has been accumulated since the year 2001. Therefore, the general fund has picked up an additional $1.5 trillion in fungible assets since 2001 solely out of Social Security taxes. Given that the 10 year projected cost of the first Bush Tax cut package when it was passed was $1.3 trillion, I hope I'm effectively illustrating why those 2 issues are linked in terms of revenue/future deficits/lockboxes!

I'm impressed. I got the impression from press reports and from the public statements of the people in Congress who were holding out to try to keep DADT on the books that they were expecting this survey to come back showing that the armed forces wanted DADT kept in place.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Nov 11, 2010 -> 11:28 AM) So the Baby Boomers aging over the last 30 years is the cause of the deficit? More specifically, baby boomers aging and retiring over the next 20 years is the cause of the deficit in Social Security intake/outlays over the next 50 years. Of course, one might note that we actually mostly solved this problem in the early 1980's...the Baby Boomers agreed to pay a higher tax rate and to have their money built up as a Social Security Trust Fund, which would be drawn down as the baby boom retirement happened. At current projections, this trust fund satisfies all Social Security outlays until at least 2037, and significantly longer if the economy over the next 30 years doesn't underperform the economy of the last 30 years. The problem of course is what happened to the trust fund moneys. They were used to buy Treasury Bonds...which essentially meant that the money became fungible, and that surplus could be spent out of the general fund if you had a President and Congress who were willing to ignore the fact that eventually it was going to have to be paid back. Thus, in the late 1990's, there was in general a government surplus that existed in part because Social Security was running a deliberate surplus. Since Social Security is somewhat regressive (due to the income cap NSS refers to), this was in effect a regressive tax surplus. The Bush tax cuts come into this discussion because that is what we did with the general fund excess; fund top level tax cuts.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Nov 11, 2010 -> 09:40 AM) So are we submitting Sam Adams or the particular type of Sam Adams I have 2 New Belgium Varieties and 2 Sam Adams varieties in my list.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Nov 11, 2010 -> 10:42 AM) You make a good point. But isn't that fraud? Zemnis could spot that in a second.

QUOTE (Chet Kincaid @ Nov 11, 2010 -> 11:10 AM) How good is DeJesus in the field? Last year I thought I read somewhere that he wasn't that good defensively. He's had some very good years, some ok years, and some iffy years, depending on how healthy he is and where he gets moved around to. In general, if you buy Fangraphs, if you put him at a position and keep him there the whole year, he'll be somewhat above average. That includes CF, although the last time he spent a lot of time in CF was a couple years ago.

QUOTE (Lemon_44 @ Nov 11, 2010 -> 09:59 AM) I think the offseaon is going to more simple than a bunch of trading. I think Konerko will be with another team and Dunn brought in. AJ comes back at a reduced salary and I wouldn't be surprised to see Berkman brought in on the cheap to be the DH/1b. That still leaves us with significant bullpen issues and Quentin as an incredibly weak defensive RF.