Balta1701

QUOTE (Tex @ Feb 10, 2010 -> 08:08 AM) Quick, we need a massive food drive! Call in the reserves! Stop the toursist cruise ships from docking . . . Too soon to make jokes about events that killed 230,000 people.

Link

QUOTE (Tex @ Feb 9, 2010 -> 06:26 PM) Really? I am thinking once wide spread here, the Enquirer would have a photo in their next edition. Exactly. They're not even close to widespread.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Feb 9, 2010 -> 08:03 PM) Tehan is gonna have a big year. He loves hitting in our park, so his home splits alone should allow for him to breakout. Are you sure he just doesn't love hitting Sox pitching?

QUOTE (rowand's rowdies @ Feb 9, 2010 -> 06:21 PM) how are brian anderson and frank not on this? not active? they were still on the team. neither of them were on the 25 man playoff roster. Anderson was left off of it and Frank was on the DL.

How could you ever omit him?

That was faster than I expected.

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ Feb 9, 2010 -> 04:41 PM) Me too, because he was listed under relievers. World Series Roster.

I don't know whether to laugh or be offended by the man in his position doing this. His list says "Eggs, milk, bread, hope, change".

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Feb 9, 2010 -> 02:24 PM) Note: It's funny how evil things are even when people are in those areas of expertise say it's not so. We gotta keep blasting those "corporations are evil" lines. Carry on. Notice how the only people of expertise who count to you as having expertise are the ones who agree with you.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 9, 2010 -> 01:58 PM) Offensively (small improvement overall): --Teahen replaces Getz (significant improvement) --Pierre replaces Pods (probably break even, but less health risk) --Quentin, if healthy, replaces Dye (if he's healthy, probably TCQ out-hits Dye in 2010) --Kotsay/Jones replaces Thome (NOT an improvement, at all, in fact a serious downgrade) Hopefully you can also add normal Rios replaces Sucky Rios plus Wise plus Anderson plus Pods plus whoever else we threw out there in CF last year.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 9, 2010 -> 02:00 PM) So... you think people should only be allowed to make bets on markets going up? Doesn't really work as a model. Didn't the banks keep trying to ban short selling on bank stocks in late 2008?

QUOTE (bucket-of-suck @ Feb 9, 2010 -> 01:35 PM) The biggest problem for the 2009 White Sox was terrible DEFENSE. You're asking us to pick which was the worst problem, the defense with the 2nd most errors in the AL or the offense with the 3rd fewest runs scored in the AL. The only realistic choice there is death.

As my last comment, I'd like to note that the NYT article gives a strong impression that this is not the case, and also cites a number of sources on this. Here's some selections. Note, that article answered the question I posed earlier but I missed it...yes, the GS/AIG contracts did have clauses allowing for outside arbitration, but GS refused it.

I'm finding it interesting how this latest aspect of the "financial troubles" appears to involve nation-scale debt bailouts moving from one spot to another. Just a month ago we had Dubai, now we have Greece, with others like Spain and maybe even Italy or Britain looking troublesome at some point int he future. Wonder what happens when one of these countries winds up large enough that its creditors are unable/unwilling to do something to keep the system running as-is.

The one time I ate there in Pasadena I was unimpressed. Worth noting right now, Restaurant.com is running one of their "80% off sales" and so you can get say a $25 credit at a number of restaurants for say $2. The code is PAYPAL. Might involve some searching based on distance/zip code, but a lot of them will have menus online also.

QUOTE (shakes @ Feb 9, 2010 -> 12:31 PM) The Twins haven't addressed their biggest weakness which is the starting pitching, and their defense may be weaker. The offense is improved, but that was a strength already. Why are so many people ignoring their starting pitching? It was one of the worst staffs in the AL, and has done nothing to improve. They also lose the advantage over visiting hitters in the dome, and have question marks with their defense. Unfortunately, I can also argue against this, although this will be why they play the games. There are a number of issues one can bring up that are decent arguments for why the Twins rotation this year will be better than last year. 1. Injury. They lost Slowey after 90 innings last year. He's expected to be ready for ST. 2. Duensing, who was their best pitcher overall in the innings he pitched, was a mid-season callup last year and will be there for a full season this year. He put up their best ERA in their rotation, 3.64, but only got 84 innings. 3. Pavano will be there for a full year, if he stays healthy. This isn't like adding a Cy Young winner, but if he simply repeats his last season, that adds depth to their rotation that it didn't have to start last year. 4. The dome actually didn't help the Twins last year. Most teams put up better ERA's at home than on the road. The Twins had virtually the same ERA on the road and at home. The Twins starting rotation had one of the best ERA's in the league on the road and one of the worst ERA's in in the league at home. It's entirely possible that moving out of the dome could therefore bring benefits to the Twins rotation rather than harm. These points may all be proven wrong easily by another injury or a struggling pitcher and I'm not 100% convinced by any of them. But just as there are reasons to think the Sox offense underperformed last year, one can argue that the Twins starters underperformed last year.

QUOTE (PlaySumFnJurny @ Feb 9, 2010 -> 12:10 PM) I don't know whether they will be enough, but to say we haven't improved seems wrong. And if we could get a Healthy Carlos Quentin, that's adding an MVP candidate right there.

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Feb 9, 2010 -> 11:28 AM) It's very simple. It's not about the weather, it's not about the dome. It's two things. The Twins have improved their team, we haven't. The Twins won the division last year, we didn't. It's not 100% impossible that the Sox have improved their team. It's also not 100% impossible that the Twins played over their heads last season and the Sox played well under them.

QUOTE (Pants Rowland @ Feb 9, 2010 -> 10:27 AM) Thanks for ruining it for me, Tex. Funny thing is, the reason I never watched it has nothing to do with knowing how it ends. The film was so hyped and EVERYONE just loved it that I suspected it was going to be a big letdown and really not that good a film beyond the special effects. I decided the chances of it being good were too low to risk wasting 3 hours of my life on it. I'll always remember that movie as the time when one of my friends discovered that just because the movie theater allows you to personally dispense as much butter flavored topping onto popcorn as you want, it's not always a good idea to continue adding it to the popcorn. Your digestive system may eventually disagree.

Oh, and I should edit one sentence but I want to do so clearly...change "Paulson" in the last line, to "Paulson and others, likely including Geithner".

There are a number of issues that you're not addressing there. First is the valuation issue. G.S. was pushing AIG for higher payments, as it should for its shareholders. Without knowing their contracts, it's difficult to evaluate the propriety of everything they did, but it seems astonishing that the contracts would be set up in such a way that G.S. was allowed on their own to decide how much those contracts were worth with no independent evaluation possible. If AIG wrote and accepted contracts that way then they're obviously idiots...but why should the U.S. taxpayer then be paying out 100% on idiotically written contracts that allow GS to determine the valuation? Secondly, there's the hostage-taking version here...by being able to write reports that publicly effect the value of AIG's stock, GS is able to manipulate any price negotiations in a way that can benefit itself. They basically set things up where if AIG didn't give in to GS's demands, GS could produce the equivalent of a modern day bank run by suggesting the company was unsound and driving all of AIG's other creditors to demand payment simultaneously. That's a hell of a negotiating tactic...pay what we're demanding or we can destroy your company through the other arms of our business. There's been behind-the-scenes but never really investigated accusations that similar runs have played important roles in the other big failures we've seen, Bearsterns, Lehman, Indymac, etc. AIG was definitely a mess and I'm not trying to excuse them, I'm trying to note several of the behaviors of GS which are legal but which destabilize the entire system by their legality, and to note how badly Paulson ripped off the US taxpayer.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Feb 9, 2010 -> 09:53 AM) So as long as you don't mind carrying a .220 average with little pop you are money. 17 HR and 71 RBI in a bad year is little pop? Anyway, I guess it depends on how the fantasy league you're in values SB's.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Feb 9, 2010 -> 09:57 AM) He was on the roster for 68 minutes. Um, that game lasted a lot longer than 68 minutes. Even the West Coasters were staying up late that night.

Took me a couple minutes to remember