Balta1701

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Aug 6, 2010 -> 03:41 AM) I have to go see this thing now. No ride I've ever been on has made me feel an extreme adrenaline rush...minor ones, but nothing great. It's almost a curse. My favorite coaster all around is Rock N' Roller Coaster at Disney's Hollywood Studios. Aerosmith blasting when going from 0 to 60 in 3 seconds in the dark and being unsure of everything makes it a blast. The Raging Bull is quite fun too. I like doing marketing for Cedar point. Want to know where to find admissions coupons? The other thing I'd say about Cedar point is that they have probably 7-8 different rides that, if you took them and put them in a different park...that ride would be the feature attraction at that park, but at Cedar Point, they can almost be walkons.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Aug 6, 2010 -> 11:03 AM) I don't think Garcia will be sticking around. The Sox, I believe, will try to extend Jackson (giving him maybe an extra 2 to 3 years). If not, they might keep him they might trade him. And of course there is Chris Sale waiting in the wings as well. Just my 2 cents. Keep in mind, Jackson remains a Scott Boras client. Especially if Jackson is effective for the White Sox, the only way he would be "extended" is if he changed agents. Otherwise, he's going to be looking to hit the FA market after 2011 with a consistent 96 mph fastball and whatever line Cooper can get him to put up the next 1.3 years. If he's good enough that the Sox would want him back, he'll get a fortune on the open market.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Aug 6, 2010 -> 10:56 AM) I wouldn't be surprised if a team like the Angels signed him. Everybody needs decent back-of-the-rotation pitching, and history has shown that they'll over-pay (within reason) for it. I don't know how much money each team will have to spend, but half the NL teams out there wind up looking for middle of the rotation starters every year, and Freddy is def. one of those. The Mets, Cardinals, Phillies (probably not), Dodgers, Brewers, maybe the Padres, Rockies, etc., all might pony up the money on a starter like freddy.

QUOTE (Chet Kincaid @ Aug 6, 2010 -> 10:52 AM) Eh... I ain't scared. The Showalter effect will eventually wear off. Is it so much the "Showalter" effect as the "Angels Bullpen" effect?

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Aug 6, 2010 -> 10:49 AM) I think that's a mistake, but Im biased. Which site was better? I can't think of another domed stadium anywhere in Big 10 12 country except Detroit.

Lucas Oil stadium gets the Big 10 (12) championship game.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Aug 6, 2010 -> 10:18 AM) They didn't need to waste any of the money they used on those terrible veteran players, such as Ankiel and Jason Kendall. Did I mention anything about Yuniesky Betancourt? You'll note though...Ankiel...got traded! The deal didn't bring back a top of the league prospect, but it did bring back some guys who might be MLB caliber filler players at some point, and even that can be valuable. If I were sitting in Moore's chair, I'd be trying to draft as well as I can, develop guys in the minors as much as I can...but then I'd also be taking some money and signing some guys in FA to fill things I considered obvious holes or places where I'd rather not bring up my young talent just yet (develop them more in the minors and push back their Arb years). I'd go after guys that aren't hugely expensive, even if I have to overpay a little to get them to KC, and I'd go after guys that for whatever reason might be able to play well enough to turn themselves into trade-bait. That way, maybe I sign one guy and he winds up being a complete waste, but maybe I sign an Ankiel/Podsednik, get a couple wins out of them, and then deal them for more young roster filler pieces to a desperate team at the deadline. If I draft well and can fill in top line players through the draft, I can round out my roster with other cheap guys by that technique.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Aug 6, 2010 -> 09:46 AM) Even though Teahen will be back? You know this how? You don't believe he will?

Thankfully, we know that there are no economic consequences to a changing climate, only consequences to doing something about it. I can't insert it but the graph of wheat prices doubling in 1 month is quite impressive. Russia is also dealing with some monster wildfires...of the scale that the U.S. is getting some of the soot. Some of the fires are threatening the Chernobyl forests. Edit: Ah, someone else posted the graph.

I'm pretty sure I've been told the $6 million figure several times in this thread and told that Manram doesn't have an NTC.

QUOTE (Lemon_44 @ Aug 6, 2010 -> 09:26 AM) Of the top 15 players in saves, the least amount of blown saves is 2(Soria, Soriano, Fleiz, Rivera). Jenks has 3,so it's not like has hasn't been doing his job at a pretty good rate. Capps, the supposed savior for Minny, has 5 already. Again...the game against Minnesota where Jenks came in, gave up 2 runs, and loaded the bases without retiring anyone does not count as a blown save for Jenks because he was pulled before giving up the lead. He took the loss in that game by putting the winning run on base, it was 100% his fault...but Santos took the Blown Save. This point should do nothing more than illustrate the futility of quoting "blown saves". Bobby single-handedly blew the game with an epic meltdown, but he did not take the blown save.

To steal a line from Timothy Geithner...Welcome to the recovery! Worth noting...the Private sector added some 75,000 jobs. The job losses were entirely due to government cutbacks...2/3 of them were Census jobs, but another 50,000 public employees were laid off.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 6, 2010 -> 08:38 AM) The more control over "local" law a place has, the higher the occurrence of grievous civil rights breaches. Let's put a concrete example on that. Brown V. Board of education is a 14th amendment/equal protection under the law decision. If a bunch of racists got together and migrated to South Carolina (I pick that state because they actually tried to do that like 5 years ago) and decided to reinstitute Jim Crow laws...Kap, the Federal government doesn't often take to enforcing things like local property disputes, small time thefts, etc. Either I'm going to force you into a position here where you're going to defend Jim Crow laws on state's rights grounds, or you need to tell me how the Federal government desegregating a private/state school or private business is ok, but the federal government stepping in on marriage is not. Hell, go for the exact parallel...if a state banned inter-racial marriage...could the Federal Government step in on an equal protection case, or is that fully within a state's rights to do?

QUOTE (chw42 @ Aug 5, 2010 -> 06:20 PM) Any word on who they plan to donate this money to? Probably something along the lines of the Gates foundation. The last time we were in a Gilded age, guys like Carnegie and the Rockerfellers set up foundations that are operating to this day based on the returns on their investments. A lot of it will be given to things like charitable companies, when there's a disaster they'll fund relief operations, they'll fund development programs around the globe, some of which will be controversial, they'll fund arts-houses (think Carnegie Hall or NPR), I'm sure they'll find ways to get in on African AIDS/Malaria relief, etc.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 5, 2010 -> 07:25 PM) I wonder if that helps us in the pursuit of Fernandez? Can't be bad to remove the competition.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Aug 5, 2010 -> 11:58 PM) Zack should have flat out said something like - "fire Dayton Moore already, he doesn't know how to build a team". You can make some legit complaints about keeping guys in the minors for too long...but really, there's a lot to like with how they've operated this season. Their minors suddenly look nearly loaded with talented guys They signed guys who blocked their young players...then dealt those guys for additional youth They held onto the guys under their control and waited for a great offer (Which they didn't get). Legitimately they need to start looking to move Greinke this offseason or next season.

QUOTE (smalls2598 @ Aug 6, 2010 -> 08:22 AM) That was a horrible call; had he actually followed the ball down the line, he would have seen it was clearly fair. If anyone saw MLBnetwork last night, Harold Reynolds had it right...the ball took a weird shorthop right in front of 3b and literally curved around the base in the air. It was going foul after the last hop in front of the bag (which is when the ump called it foul) then it curved back fair before landing. The ball landed fair at almost the exact spot the ump had been standing before it forced him to jump out of the way. That was a damn near impossible call for him to get right. The Marlins got hosed, but only because there was no replay.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Aug 6, 2010 -> 04:14 AM) So then a player is just given to a team, right? Since the team who placed him on waivers has NO leverage in the deal at all, he is just given to the team then yes? Unless the team receiving him wants to throw the other team a crappy prospect just in good faith, right? Or they want to turn that prospect into cash.

QUOTE (scenario @ Aug 5, 2010 -> 09:58 PM) Let's get down to the real issue... What the hell is Jenks doing throwing weak *** offspeed **** to Ramon Santiago and Ryan Rayburn? We're not talking Miguel Cabrera here... what deception was required? Neither one of those guys is capable of getting around on his fastball! Blow them away 1-2-3. Over. Anything else is a freaking waste of time... and improves their chances of getting on base. Bottom line: it was a pitch selection problem. I think if that is addressed, most of Jenks' "problems" go away. There was a long stretch of time where I think most everyone would have agreed that Bobby's best pitch, his out pitch...was that curveball.

Destroy them.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Aug 6, 2010 -> 12:25 AM) It'd be awesome if he got hot for, say, the next 3 months (that'd carry us through october) but I'm not holding my breath. Even if he didn't get "Hot", a .750ish OPS the rest of the way would be a huge difference.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Aug 6, 2010 -> 04:10 AM) Now that's a very CRUDE way to add and subtract payroll, as there is much more to that (bonuses, minor league players contract, arbitration, raises, ect), but at the bare minimum of cost, we have around $23M to get ALL that done. So I really can't see us keeping Peavy, Buehrle, Floyd, Danks, and Jackson together. At least 1 of them is gone, with Freddy taking the 5th spot, or Chris Sale if he does well in Arizona Fall League + Spring Training. If we wind up with $20 million in spending room this offseason...that's actually a lot of money and it's a recovery from the situation we were in earlier this year. With an injection of youth (Viciedo, Infante and Santos in the bullpen, the Stealth Elf locking up a bench/utility spot...and Lord only knows with Tyler Flowers at this point)...we're much farther from panic mode than we were earlier this year. There's room there to extend Konerko and AJ if we want, in addition to adding a bullpen arm or two.

QUOTE (since56 @ Aug 6, 2010 -> 08:15 AM) I think a hitting coach goes over opposing ptchers and preps hitters as to what to expect from them. Makes sure they know the dimensions and ground rules in all ballparks. Advises them as the team approach& how to respond to hitting in situations that call for placement of ball. I'm sure they do some tutoring on a guy's swing but who would make it all the way to the bigs with their swing and then change it? I don't think he deserved much blame early or a whole lot of credit now. I'll bet he is doing nothing different than he has always done. You know, I feel like the number of "bad approach/obvious weakness on low and away offspeed pitches" games that we've seen recently has declined dramatically.

QUOTE (Paint it Black @ Aug 5, 2010 -> 06:01 PM) 3 blown saves is sabotaging the season? I'm not defending Bobby here, I mean he has been pretty bad. But seriously, lets turn down the rhetoric down a tad. Please keep in mind, the BS against the Twins went to Santos even though Jenks took the loss.

QUOTE (J.Reedfan8 @ Aug 5, 2010 -> 05:54 PM) You obviously don't remember his 2008 year. I think I pretty vividly remember his popouts.