Balta1701

QUOTE (chw42 @ May 19, 2010 -> 05:58 PM) Sizemore and Cabrera to the DL. It's too bad that we've already played the Indians 6 times... Now Grady Sizemore, that's a guy who's career has hit a rough patch.

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QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 19, 2010 -> 05:10 PM) Which I would argue is due to millions of people being here to take their jobs cheaper. Which others might argue is due to elimination of barriers that protect low-education jobs from being sent overseas while maintaining the barriers to protect high-education jobs. Or because low education jobs cost less to remove because they don't require much training. Or because the impact of this recession has been the largest by far in the industries associated with the housing bubble, like construction, which isn't a high education industry. Or because education has been correlated with unemployment for years and it'd be surprising if a recession somehow undid that.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ May 19, 2010 -> 04:49 PM) Yep, like the one going around that this law is going to objectify every brown person because every AZ officer is a racist asshole. Or like the one that its possible to enforce this law without being that.

QUOTE (Tex @ May 19, 2010 -> 04:43 PM) A better slump buster is sticking bats in an inflatible doll. With the offense running so smoothly, I'm surprised anyone would risk upsetting that apple cart. Ozzie has sent some strange messages to players before, telling them they all suck and putting him in is just another one of those messages. As long as Oz is managing, we'll see one or two of those per season, and they will get increasingly strange. So...wait...did you just call Omar Vizquel a fat woman?

QUOTE (SoxAce @ May 19, 2010 -> 04:32 PM) Wall + Arenas isn't "terrible," but it is pretty bad. Wall will improve defensively as he matures, but Arenas has no desire to do so in that area. I will say this about Wall, that kid is very smart and will play the passing lanes very well. (wouldn't be surprised to see him average 1+ steals a game as a rookie) Arenas will have alot to prove next year, so I expect him to be pretty good offensively for the Wiz. There's a big difference between averaging a lot of steals and being a good defender.

QUOTE (WCSox @ May 19, 2010 -> 04:20 PM) Nice straw man argument. I can play too: What examples of successful, sustainable, fourth-place $100M rosters can you give who don't regularly draw 35,000+ per game? One thing worth pointing out...the "$100 million" level really doesn't mean as much as it did a couple years ago, especially with the fact that the Sox always have someone else kicking in to pay part of the bill for a player or two. Right now, 14 teams are at $92 million or better.

QUOTE (SoxAce @ May 19, 2010 -> 04:18 PM) No doubt, but Agent 0 is better offensively. Wall already is like Rose with his defense, not to mention the Wiz are still rebuilding. So, you're saying that the Wiz will have a terrible defensive backcourt, or am I misunderstanding?

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 19, 2010 -> 03:39 PM) That's almost $40 million tied up in 3 underperforming pitchers. That's your black hole right now. Granted, our offense sucks raw eggs. The part of the offense sucking raw eggs, though, remains the very cheap part that no one in their right mind would want to replace or get rid of. That's the catch 22 we're running into here. You're happy to say that Pierre, Teahen, Linebrink should be replaced, because they're underperforming their contracts...but overall, they're underperforming what we're paying them by frankly only a little bit, if you go by the Fangraphs numbers. Linebrink by about $3 million. Pierre by only a tad, if at all after his recent hot streak. If we had anyone out there out-performing their contracts, it really woudln't matter if we had a few people slightly underperforming. What does matter is a couple expensive people big-time underperforming, and no one other than Jones and Garcia stepping up to out-perform them.

As always, it's ok if you're a Republican. Democrat makes a misleading statement about Vietnam war service? Could cost him the election. Republican makes misleading statemetn about his Gulf War service? Oh, he should just call himself a "Gulf War Era veteran".

MacDougal and JD have zero to do with next year's salaries, those hits have already been taken. We're probably looking at committed salary in the $80-$85 million range after arbitration hits for Quentin and D1: the throwing Danks. And in terms of next year, Jenks and AJ are gone. Linebrink, Pierre, and Teahen all earn basically a pittance, less than $5 million; even if they're just part time players, that doesn't hurt you. Hell, even AJ sucking really doesn't take that much of a hit, because he's still a fairly low salary. The problem happens if all of those suck...and then you combine that sucking with one of the other 2 big contracts, and then you have no young guys producing to make up the gap. You've nailed the 2 real big contracts there though. Buehrle and Peavy. Those guys eat up nearly $30 million between the two.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 19, 2010 -> 09:53 AM) The good news, in my world? Blanche Lincoln's been pushing for harder and harder financial reform regulation ever since she got Halter challenging her, because he was hammering her on being in the pocket of Wall Street and that was her way out. There have been more than whispers saying that once that election was over, her votes might completely shift on the Financial Reform bill, or that Harry Reid was keeping things on the floor and up in the air that made it look like she was fighting for a stronger bill, but then they might pull some of the strength back once that election was over. Now, the cloture vote has been filed, and her seat is still up in the air. That primary challenge alone appears to have significantly strengthened the financial reform bill. Ha, that didn't take long to have an effect at all.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ May 19, 2010 -> 03:23 PM) Dem Presidents, all other things equal, will tend to be elected more often when the economy is in the s***ter, because of the perception that they will deliver more to the people effected by that s***ty economy. When things are good, people focus more on not letting government grow out of control, so you get the opposite effect. I think these numbers say more about that, than they do about the actual economic policies each President enacted. So, what you're saying is that every time the Republicans get in office they break the economy and we need a Democrat to fix it.

Really, those are the 3 players you think we most need to trade? At this point, I'm not sure why I should care. If they can't pull off a winning streak before June 13th, I definitely won't care about AJ being gone and replaced by flowers, and if they can't get anywhere close to the race by mid July, why should I be angry about trades that hurt this year's ballclub?

Kiki Vandeweghe is out as Nets GM.

I think it's worth noting that the combined annual costs of all the screwups you mention are less than the annual cost of Alex Rios, for example. If you're going to screw up and overpay somewhat for guys that fill holes that you have on your team, but you keep that cost down to a couple million per player per season, that really isn't going to be the reason why you lose if you have a $100 million payroll.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 19, 2010 -> 02:58 PM) Dick Allen? Your comments are sought. Really?

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 19, 2010 -> 02:54 PM) The only way this whole thing works is: 1) Viciedo, Hudson and Flowers are all legit and adequately replace Paulie, Freddy and AJ 2) Quentin, Beckham and Ramirez play up to their potential, at least what MOST think they can do, especially from an offensive standpoint There's one other way to work it. Steal a piece or two with a couple of solid trades this year before the deadline to add to the list of Viciedo, Hudson, and Flowers, and then use the $15 million or so you have left to plug the remaining gaps. Really, there's no getting around requirement 2 though.

QUOTE (thedoctor @ May 19, 2010 -> 02:46 PM) fair point, and if i felt four million was the difference between us being a contending team and not, i'd likely be more enthusiastic about the idea. And if I thought AJ was the difference between us being in the race and out of the race this year, I wouldn't think about trading him at all.

QUOTE (thedoctor @ May 19, 2010 -> 02:41 PM) still, if i thought the four million we could save was going to spell the difference going forward, perhaps i'd be more excited about the idea. unfortunately, none of us can claim to know that those savings are going to be poured back into improving the club. I know this...they're a lot more likely to be poured back into the club if they do exist.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 19, 2010 -> 01:41 PM) Why is Thornton likely to leave? Because 10 teams will be out there willing to pay him closer money if he's healthy.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ May 19, 2010 -> 12:24 PM) So what? A state FINALLY grows some balls and acts for their (its citizens) interests. I like it. Every state should be that way. Acting in its citizens interest = closing down a large number of electricity generating plants to spite L.A. Shipping jobs to California and Nevada, that'll show those hippy angelinos!

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ May 19, 2010 -> 11:53 AM) Good for them You really think there wouldn't be other utilities more than happy to make up the difference to the city?

It's AT&T's world, we all just rent space in it.