Balta1701

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 26, 2010 -> 12:07 PM) that oughta be pretty rad. I can't wait for the videos.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jul 26, 2010 -> 12:51 PM) Aside from helicopters, I don't think there's anything we're flying over there that a SAM could hit. Transport and civilian jets?

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jul 26, 2010 -> 12:02 PM) They also saved 33M in cash. Saunders hits his arbitration years next year, so they actually saved quite a bit less than that if they hold onto Saunders for the duration of his arb years. More like $15-20 mil or so. Maybe less.

QUOTE (SoxFan562004 @ Jul 26, 2010 -> 11:25 AM) Honestly, if he stands pat Dayan needs to DH everyday IMO. I'm starting to think the only way this happens is if Teahen comes back and KW decides to force the issue by replacing Kotsay on the roster with him.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 26, 2010 -> 11:18 AM) He has really good stuff. Nothing he throws goes straight. To me, it looks like he is afraid to get hit, so he is trying to nibble the corners with the perfect pitch. Because of this he is pitching from behind a lot. Which is exactly what we see from 95% of the rookie pitchers that enter the league.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 26, 2010 -> 11:15 AM) [insertpitchingcoach] can fix him? In all reality the arm is still there. I could see a team taking a chance on him simply because he would be way better than anything else out there. Even with that though, he's either a 2 month rental or a $10 million+ bill for next year. Take a look at what the Dodgers gave up for Sherrill last year. It wasn't exactly what I'd call "Pieces that you could turn around and swap for Prince Fielder".

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 26, 2010 -> 11:00 AM) And keep in mind they have pretty much publicly said that they are going to call up Sale. If they trade Jenks, they just opened up a spot for this kid. Plus if they can do it to get players to get Fielder or Dunn? Wow. That would be incredible. Even if we paid his entire salary, I can't fathom how any team would be silly enough to give up anything of Legit value for Jenks.

Well, guess someone ought to post this. Massive leak of about 5 years of Afghan war documents through Wikileaks. The NYTimes and the Guardian have had access to the 80k or so documents for a couple weeks and were allowed to start writing about them today after an embargo ended and they were posted publicly online. Overall I'm underwhelmed. Lots of seemingly big important details about how everyone's being driven crazy by the Pakistani intelligence services and their open support of the Taliban. Lots of details about how there have been large numbers of civilian casualties that haven't been discussed publicly or admitted to. The one seemingly genuinely new detail is that the Taliban has acquired and used heat seaking surface to air missiles against the coalition in that conflict. Didn't knwo that. Overall, I think it's more illuminating for what isn't there. There's no report saying "we need to stay in Afghanistan to secure our mineral wealth future" or "we can't have the press figure out that we're lying on this". Basically, it seems like a nearly intractable, seething, local conflict with no obvious path to victory and every path leading to something bad, which is sorta what we have heard for years now. If nothing else, I think it makes a strong case that Bush was right. That is...candidate Bush was right and candidate Gore was flat out wrong...using the military for Nation-Building is a very, very difficult endeavour and you better make bloody well sure you've got everything in order before you try it.

RNC to hold California fundraising event with confirmed guests: Michael Steele, Brian Sandoval, Dana Rohrabacher, Abel Maldonado, Steve Forbes, Wally Herger, David Marmer, Damon Dun, Jeff Denham, and Andrew Breitbart. It opens on Thursday August 12th. The welcome reception features Andrew Breitbart and RNC Chairman Michael Steele.

QUOTE (spiderman @ Jul 26, 2010 -> 10:25 AM) I think it would have to be a move for Fielder or Dunn. I'm not sure I'd call trading for a guy like Ted Lilly significant. I think we'd win more games with Hudson out there as the 5th starter than Lilly this year.

"The greatest trade rumor in baseball history"

I've seen most of these "the Middle Class has lost the class war" stats before but this one caught me by surprise. Part of me is amazed that it could possibly be that concentrated. Then I go back to the inequality graphs, and yeah, it makes sense.

Well, we have no Mr. Offday to use as the 5th starter this week, so if Hudson is the trade bait, it'd be nice to wait until after Friday so that we can at least get another 5-6 starter innings from him.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 26, 2010 -> 01:57 AM) Some great insight about the draft on tonight's show. Sounds like KW was dead right on B. Loux and his injury issues. Sounds like with the first pick, out of the 6 possible players they were interested in, it was Grandal, Eibner, Workman, Loux, and Sale. KW was very interested in making Eibner a 2-way player. Last night's episode was spectacular to watch as a Sox fan. Here's my Soxnet.net commentary.

Didn't the Cubs hire the same company that was running the Sox's food service about a year or two ago?

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 26, 2010 -> 07:55 AM) If the Bulls signed TMac and he won that award, it would probably mean DRose got hurt. They are a huge mismatch playing together. TMac is a half court player. Rose is going to have to be able to control the ball in the half court game this year too, and he ought to be able to be. You put him out in front in the half court game and whoever is defending him, Rose can beat off the dribble... and this year, if a big man tries to double team down on DR1, he can drop it off to Boozer for easy points, or if they try to double him from the guard position, that opens up the outside where we now have people who can actually score alongside him.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 26, 2010 -> 07:52 AM) You do realize, his top destination, Orlando, is way over the cap, into luxury tax. He won't be able to sign there either. This is the NBA, when he becomes a FA, his options, if he wants to get paid, will be extremely limited. Vince Carter's somewhat close to expiring contract though can turn into a piece like that, depending on how the lockout winds up working out. All that matters is that he has to tell the team that wants to trade for them that he won't sign with them. That's really the only thing worth considering.

QUOTE (chunk23 @ Jul 26, 2010 -> 02:52 AM) Wins are not an effective measure of a pitcher. That said this trade pretty much starts off Dipoti or howeveer you spell it as the worst gm out there. What an awful package for such a valuable player. It's entirely possible that their scouts may be telling them that Corbin and their PTBNL are within a year or two going to be tearing it up in the big leagues and that they just robbed the Angels blind. The Marlins have gotten away with making trades like that for years, and have been effective at it because their scouts keep nailing things. The Dodgers pulled off a fast one like that stealing that Ethier kid from the A's in a Milton bradley dump based on the word of one of their scouts. That said...if you're going to do that kind of move with a guy like Haren...you're putting your job on the line based on the reports about the prospects you're getting. If any of them bust, you ought to be fired.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 26, 2010 -> 09:09 AM) It's not like he's getting hit hard by big league hitters. There's a few mechanical adjustments that need to be made, and hopefully he gets confidence in his slider. He's going to be a huge part of this franchise going forward. I realized this last night after signing off...the guy who would have been calling for his slider couldn't stop anything in the dirt yesterday.

As I said in my Soxnet.net game writeup...it's not that he has no control, it's that he hasn't had to pitch to selective big league hitters yet. Unless you're a Straslike pitcher, coming through the minor leagues, it's been somewhat easy to get people out with stuff if you've got good stuff. Hitters will swing at things just off the corner and you'll be able to get ahead of them. Then, you hit the big leagues, and suddenly those pitches that you were getting swings and misses on to get ahead of guys are now being taken for balls, especially if there's a tight strike zone like Hudson got yesterday, and it takes pitchers a while to adapt. They start pressing and try to throw a perfect pitch right on the corner every time, and it winds up either drifting off the plate or drifting over the middle and getting hit. The things you legitimately need to watch on Hudson are things like...how is his stuff in general? Overall, he's got a good fastball that isn't always straight, and he snapped off some real good changeups yesterday. He didn't throw much of any other offspeed stuff, but part of that is the catcher calling the game (and you'll note that AJ flat out couldn't catch anything yesterday in the dirt, so why would he want to call for a breaking ball) and part of that is that the pitcher couldn't get ahead of batters with his fastball so the offspeed stuff wasn't set up. The other thing to look at is the repeatability of his delivery and how much of an injury risk that might put him at. He's got that snappy changeup we've seen some righties throw, and only some of them have stayed healthy throwing it. He's gotten a good number of innings so far in the minors and Coop does a very good job of keeping his pitchers healthy. When you bring up a rookie pitcher, there's always going to be an adjustment period like this. Hudson has the stuff to make it. You saw that beautifully in the 5th inning yesterday. He was already at 100 pitches, he knew that first baserunner he was out of the game, so he just went out there and threw whatever he had left, and bang, 123 inning. With a rookie like this, you get some good starts against teams he can handle (i.e. Seattle last week), some weak starts against teams that he doesn't match up well against or where he isn't feeling good, and the occasional dominating start where everything comes together. If you want to have him in your rotation in the playoff hunt, it's perfectly doable and it's a great thing for his career. Only problem is...you need to have an offense that can bail him out occasionally.

I feel the need already to suggest that people should try to keep it less than personal in this thread.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Jul 25, 2010 -> 07:58 PM) You defend everything the government does and hate everything the private sector does. I've seen hate ons before, but not like you. Did I just defend the government energy subsidies or complain about them? Or does it only count that I don't defend stuff you like.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jul 25, 2010 -> 07:53 PM) We got the Noah pick in the trade with the Knicks right? Through a pick-swap.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 25, 2010 -> 07:34 PM) And yet the government has no interest in hundreds of billions of dollars, lol. Clearly not, they dump a hundred billion or so in subsidies on dirty energy companies every decade, and they're more than willing to pay the few billion dollars every time there's a disastrous flood or storm event or monster drought.

QUOTE (knightni @ Jul 25, 2010 -> 07:32 PM) Nitpicking? The man was a 500 HR lock before his knees killed his career. The Astroturf in Montreal just cut his time short. If Jim Rice is a HOFer, then so is Dawson. Sure, different styles of player, but they both have the same reason for not having great career numbers.