Balta1701

Link

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 12, 2010 -> 05:02 PM) The last act of a desperate man? Seemingly worked for Damon

QUOTE (WCSox @ Feb 12, 2010 -> 04:11 PM) Indeed. He has the range to play LF, but his arm is in Pods territory. Unless there are inferior options for LF, he's a DH now. Actually, according to UZR, Damon's range in LF cost the Yankees 3.7 runs last year compared to the average LF as well. Not just his arm.

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Feb 12, 2010 -> 03:57 PM) Which is why I said Damon makes the most sense shake. He can hit, underrated in LF (minus the arm) Johnny Damon is not underrated in LF. The very fact that anyone would say that means he's still overrated.

Olney includes the phrase "I'm gonna vote for him" so this got posted.

QUOTE (bucket-of-suck @ Feb 12, 2010 -> 12:45 PM) No, I mean the guy that led the league in getting thrown off the team. I love how your Sox DH rotation never includes Konerko, Quentin, Nix or AJ. It really builds your case. AJ will never DH for ozzie, not if he only has 1 backup catcher. Nix shouldn't be DHing either unless he becomes a totally new hitter this year.

QUOTE (bucket-of-suck @ Feb 12, 2010 -> 12:35 PM) That is a pretty shallow definition of DH. BTW, the Sox have a guy who put up 21 Hrs in less than 100 games last season and a guy who put up an .842 OPS, in the spot as well. Huh? Who are you talking about? Quentin put up 21 HR's in 99 games but didn't put an .842 OPS in any split. Neither Jones nor Kotsay put up those numbers in any of their splits either.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Feb 12, 2010 -> 12:26 PM) That's highly debatable. I'd agree. The issue isn't that we have a question mark at the DH spot, the issue IMO is how many other question marks we have on the team. If some of those question marks with the bat turn into bad answers, then as it stands now we won't have anyone picking up the slack. Improving the DH is an obvious way to help, and if KW chooses not to do so (and in the case of Thome, it's obvious he chose not to do so since money wasn't the issue), then yeah, he should be putting himself on the hot seat.

This image makes me seethe with anger.

2/$23 deal for Lincecum, buying out this year and next year's Arb years. That will leave the Giants 1 arbitration year during which they could reach a longer-deal or trade him. He stays healthy for the next 2 years and he's going to be talking about a $200 million+ deal when he becomes a Yankee.

2 issues. 1. The Sox organization and Delgado have not gotten along in the past after he vetoed a trade to us. 2. The Delgado Retirement talk going on seems directly related to the fact that they're saying he hasn't 100% recovered from the hip surgery.

Yay, got tix for the game I'll be in town for. My work is done.

You know who actually does a decent job defending Lebron? Tyrus Thomas. I think you should trade for him.

Vancouver just finished the warmest January on record, and they're literally having to airlift in snow using a helicopter to prepare for the olympics.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Feb 11, 2010 -> 09:18 PM) + 3 other players. If we pay the Minimum to those 3 other players to have at least 12 players, we would be in the luxury tax easily. Heck, I think it works even if we don't trade Ty and just flat out renounce him, but I could be wrong. Unless the cap drops to $40 million, that'd be no where near the luxury tax threshold. The fact that all of those guys together come to $52 million is actually a good sign, because it's possible this year's cap could be in that range.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Feb 11, 2010 -> 07:36 PM) I'll stop short of predicting civil war, but if the Ayatollah is actually deposed there will be a huge power vacuum both in governing a state that huge and drafting a new constitution. Typically when those sorts of things happen in the world, the people who wind up taking power are the army leaders.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 11, 2010 -> 05:26 PM) And also not counting opportunity costs of "what else could that $60B have done?" Frankly, with how bad the employment situation in this country would have been had the entire auto manufacturing industry and all its supports gone down, and thus everyone would have been stuck buying Toyotas and dying...that's probably as good of a jobs program as we've had anywhere outside of the renewable energy parts of the stimulus. And there's a real decent, logical shot that in the long term, the government could at least come close to breaking even on the thing.

QUOTE (vandy125 @ Feb 11, 2010 -> 09:37 PM) Yeah, not very good. The plans out there are still not attacking the issue though. Insurance companies are just the part that everyone sees because they deal with the patient payments directly. If nothing is done about unnecessary procedures and the rising costs of drugs and procedures, the patient payments will still go up and it doesn't matter whether the government or an insurance company is collecting. And, according to more than a few analysts, the House and Senate Health care bills would, through a number of economic mechanisms (penalties for high payments, encouraging cheaper options like estate planning/death panels, etc.), have exactly that effect, esp. 10+ years out. The only thing that would make the Senate bill stronger is a strong public option, or even better, allowing everyone to buy into Medicare. It's also worth noting this insurer's specific explanation for this rate increase: This is of course exactly what some of us say is the inherent problem with a non-universal private system; there's a built-in death spiral. As costs go up, the healthy tend to leave the insurance pool, which pushes costs up even more. It's designed to break, and the end result is that no one except the very wealthy can afford insurance.

QUOTE (Jenksy Cat @ Feb 11, 2010 -> 09:17 PM) He is better than Kotsay and Vizquel. Argument ends there I'm just worried that a lot of that better-ness may be related to the Yankee stadium. Like it or not, he's actually quite a bit older than Kotsay.

Statue. Frank standing there, bouncing bat on shoulder, staring at pitcher. Now.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Feb 11, 2010 -> 05:13 PM) Either that HR total is off or your numbers are. Just being nitpicky. You're correct. He hit 7 on the road and 17 at Yankee Stadium. Typo on my part. Makes my point even stronger. He's not going to hit 20 HR without that ballpark, IMO. Also worth noting...he put up a .795 OPS on the road last year an da .915 OPS at home. Now, lots of guys do better at home than on the road after a plane flight, but remember, this is a unique stadium effect there too.

QUOTE (striker @ Feb 11, 2010 -> 03:34 PM) Any guesses as to what his numbers would be with the Sox? I'm thinking .280/.350/20hr/65rbi All of those numbers are consistent with his recent year's performance save 1; the HR number. That 24 HR he put up last year was by being a Yankee Stadium hitter. He hit 7 HR on the Road and 14 at Yankee Stadium. I don't think he touches 20+ HR outside of that stadium.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 11, 2010 -> 03:41 PM) As usual, you've turned the argument into exactly what you wanted to. It is impossible to have any kind of intelligent conversation with you. This is exactly why people give up and start throwing talking points around. Anything else is a waste of time. What question did you think we were discussing? The specific claim I was challenging was pretty simple; the government is guaranteed to take a big loss on the GM bailout because GM's market cap has never been high enough to make up the difference.

Let's also note 1 specific thing here, and that's what you and CK are arguing. CK is arguing that it is 100% impossible under any circumstances for the government to recoup its investment of $60 billion in GM because its market cap has never been high enough for that to happen. The point I made in response is yes, its market cap has never been that high, but the problem nearly vanishes when you adjust for inflation, and furthermore other automakers have reached profitability levels in recent years that would be above what it would take for the government to recoup its investment. You responded by noting difficulties. Legacy costs because GM's plants are built in the US and not in Canada where they'd save 50% on their health care bills, whatever. Yes, these could be issues. However, your argument, IMO, rises no where near the level of demonstrating that it's 100% impossible for the government to recoup its investment. If all GM does is reach the point where it is 25% as profitable as Toyota was in 2007, then the government will have at least nearly recouped its investment. Basically, your argument implies that it is 100% impossible under any circumstances for a U.S. automaker, which has to deal with paying US health care bills, to turn a reasonable profit. I don't think that saying "but their legacy costs are higher" comes close to meeting the standard of the argument you need to make here.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 11, 2010 -> 01:07 PM) Except that legacy costs were the biggest single determining factor in the direction that management felt that had to go to maintain profitability. Instead of anticipating changes, they were pretty much stuck into staying with the most profitable lines to maintain their existence. They couldn't afford to get into lines of product that didn't afford them those same margins. The other thing you're doing is defining legacy costs in a certain way to ignore the reality. First, the unions have been broken repeatedly over the last decade and you know that. Second, legit health care reform would eliminate a large portion of the difference also, but that's socialist. Third, personnel costs can be defined in other ways. For example, to sell roughly the same number of vehicles as Toyota, GM was operating at the time of the government seizure something like 4x the total number of dealerships. Including sales, service, management staff, there's hundreds of millions in additional salary solely because Toyota is outperforming GM on a dealer by dealer basis. In other words, those legacy costs you refer to also directly relate to the desirability of their vehicles. Finally, there's the fact that GM's cars were so undesirable that the profit margins on the average Toyota sale were much, much larger, by upwards of $800/unit, than those recorded at GM. In other words, their vehicles were undesirable to the point that Toyota could sell the same vehicle for a higher price because no one believed in GM. Improve the actual vehicles and it's entirely plausible for the government to at least break even.