Balta1701

Harry Reid almost voted no.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Dec 23, 2009 -> 06:51 PM) I have no problem with those that want VDN gone. But it bothers me very much that it seems to be popular opinion that this would be a much better team with a different coach. There's no coach, past or present, that would take this particular team past the first round. Orlando, Cleveland, Boston and Atlanta. We're miles behind any of those 4 teams regardless of who's the coach. The one guy that should really be on the hotseat is John Paxson. But Jerry Reinsdorf is loyal to a fault. Paxson would have to quite before Jerry let him go. We're in good shape for the future if we can get someone to sign here. But I can't imagine why anyone would right now.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Dec 23, 2009 -> 06:34 PM) Whenever you hear someone say "we should start over" that is code for "scrap the whole thing entirely." Ditto any version of "This is being rushed through".

CBS headline: "Del Negro unable to control Bulls"

QUOTE (bmags @ Dec 23, 2009 -> 06:11 PM) Easy: oppression. It only works if the army stays loyal.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Dec 23, 2009 -> 06:06 PM) Didn't know that...so wouldn't we can't sign dye as well im'm assuming? IIRC, we can not offer a contract until like March or April to anyone from our team who we did not offer arbitration to.

QUOTE (Chet Kincaid @ Dec 23, 2009 -> 01:17 PM) The Mets may have reduced interest in Carlos Delgado, according to Marty Noble of MLB.com. The slugger won't start playing baseball in Puerto Rico until mid-January; no reason was given for the delay. Sounds like he's still not fully healthy... Sounds like another reason for him to give a team a discount!

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 23, 2009 -> 01:10 PM) Massive growth continues in manufacturing outsourced to China, as well as tech areas, and their population is still booming. Those things will assure that any fall won't be nearly as bad as the USSR one you describe. I agree they are in for a fall though. But...there's one big issue that can come back there...if there's even a moderate economic contraction...how does the government survive?

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 23, 2009 -> 10:06 AM) Was it a run of incredible bad luck, or something that could actually be looked at from a system-wide standpoint, etc.? I'll bet there's a good chance you could do a similar list with a lot of teams.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 23, 2009 -> 04:32 PM) Our pen right now is pretty damn good. Dotel would have gotten far more than that in arbitration, and since we didn't offer, it might be tough to get him to come back anyway. Tough = it's against the rules for him to sign with us now.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Dec 23, 2009 -> 10:32 AM) Somewhere in the world, Kap just felt a disturbance in the force. "I feel something terrible has happened"

QUOTE (lostfan @ Dec 23, 2009 -> 10:17 AM) Also true... but also things that don't have anything to do with how big our government may or may not be. We could have a 1870-sized government and with the same factors at work we'd still be getting our asses kicked. Agreed that it's off the subject, it's just an important detail when we talk about other countries taking manufacturing jobs.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Dec 23, 2009 -> 10:09 AM) i was being sarcastic, thats been my point all along. We lose jobs to China because of labor costs, not because of some mythical undefined concept of "government" or semantic tax-rate arguments. Unless we wanted to become paid like Chinese workers that isn't going to change, but we blame politicians for this seemingly every day. But let's also note that there's a serious imbalance there...the labor costs issue should in normal times have begun to correct itself by the value of the Yuan increasing relative to the U.S. dollar given the size of the global trade deficit. The Chinese government is actively making sure that doesn't happen.

QUOTE (bighurt4life @ Dec 23, 2009 -> 09:58 AM) although he will still pitch 200 innings and get his 200 K's. One of these years, he is probably going to break down. Probably not yet, but he'll be 34 middle of next year.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Dec 23, 2009 -> 09:56 AM) There hasn't been. All nighters and Christmas Eve all so that an arrogant President can get a 20 minute applause line. If this didn't get passed, what would his SOTU speech even be about? There hasn't been 10 months of straight discussion on Healthcare reform? Hell, this thread alone has been running for 6 1/2!

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Dec 23, 2009 -> 02:36 AM) I just wanna know what would be so awful about having a Rex Kickass 2010. It would put a serious crimp in the ongoing Al Franken Millennium.

QUOTE (Cknolls @ Dec 23, 2009 -> 07:42 AM) There has never been a piece of legislation ram rodded through like this one. Oh what the hell, its only 16-17% of our economy. The 10 months of debate since the Stimulus plan passed and the entire 2008 Presidential Campaign, of course, don't count. Ramrod!

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Dec 22, 2009 -> 11:05 PM) Leave it to an unemployed conservative to root for a douche that received a $73M bonus for doing nothing to better society. Less than nothing.

QUOTE (DBAHO @ Dec 22, 2009 -> 10:42 PM) That may be it for VDN. 10 ASS's and 15 TO's, only getting to the line 12 times and shooting 40% = a mess offensively. And it's the right time of year too. There's 3 offdays now, so there's a couple days to do it.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Dec 22, 2009 -> 10:36 PM) Evil mother f'er. Cigna is also the company that denied that 17 year old girl's transplant in California until approving it after she was dead a year or two ago.

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Dec 22, 2009 -> 10:30 PM) The numbers don't back that mentality up. Look, I’m glad Javy is gone, he was a p****, a whiner, and Ozzie and he will never see eye to eye. But I can't question that he produced for us, and he's a definite improvement for the Yankees considering the other options were Joba, Mitre, and Gaudin. Javy took us pretty far in his three years here. The problem was that once he got us there he bailed the hell off that train, and descended into a s***-storm of mediocrity, His total numbers in 3 years in Chicago: 38-36, 4.40 ERA, 1.25 WHIP. On an average team, those are middle of the rotation numbers. The one thing that Javy does is give you innings. Can't dispute that. He fills a back end of the rotation hole. But I just can't buy him being able to hang with the big boys.

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Dec 22, 2009 -> 10:18 PM) I saw a guy who struck out 184-213-200 in 3 years,while averaging 208 innings and 33 starts per year. I saw a guy who did all of that and got traded because he crapped the bed in a couple of stretch games and had a falling out with his manager. What did you see? I saw a guy who got benched in 2004 and gave up 6 runs in less than 2 innings when he was put out there in the playoffs. A guy who really wasn't that great in 2005 in the NL, who then really wasn't that great again in 2006 when he came back to the AL. put up 1 or 2 games, and regularly fell apart on a team in a pennant chase. A guy who was legitimately really good on a terrible team in 2007, and a guy who was frankly, worse than you say in 2008 on another team in a pennant chase. Finally, he was very good again back in the junior league in 2009. If the comparison is Javy versus Hughes and Joba...ok, Javy probably is an upgrade. But this guy frustrated us for so long, this guy was an inadequate option for even a 4th starter for 2/3 years with us, and there's plenty of reason for the people here to think he just isn't going to do anything impressive for the Yankees.

Sigh

QUOTE (wilmot825 @ Dec 22, 2009 -> 10:00 PM) Am I the only person who thinks that the Red Sox are so overrated every year with their team. The pitching staff is decent, John Lackey really isn't a STUD pitcher like they paid him. I think Dice-K had one good year since no hitter in the AL was familar with him, thats why his stats sucked this past season. The East-Coast bias is amazing every single season. If everyone stays healthy, look at the top 3 in the Red Sox rotation now. Beckett, Lester, Lackey. Lackey doesn't need to be a #1, but they have 2 really good #2 starters behind Beckett. Matsuzaka fits in spot #4, which could be pretty good for a number 4. Lackey/Lester being a #3 is really where that rotation could shine. Who would you take for a full season, Lackey/Lester or Burnett/Pettitte, for example? The back end of their rotation could be solid or it could be a surprising weakness, but that top 3 should be really good. But...I'm not sure I call it the best in baseball.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 22, 2009 -> 04:49 PM) Exactly. Having a brilliant financial mind doesn't mean you are never wrong. But you know...it might mean that you ought to be amongst the group that says something is amiss in the housing market. To use the comparison to me again...if I could say something was screwy with that market, without knowing all the details about lending standards...then people who's job it is to get it right should be able to do at least as well as me (Note; I actually considered buying a condo when I started grad school in 03, and I decided against it entirely because I figured that there was a housing bubble that was eventually going to burst and I'd wind up losing a lot on my investment and being caught with the property, so I legitimately put a bet on the existence of a housing bubble).