Balta1701

So...what would the Angels be willing to give up for Konerko that the Padres would want? Has Brandon Wood fallen that far in their eyes? He seriously comes to mind there, and that's a guy the Padres m ight take a flyer on. I can't see them giving up someone like Hank Conger for him. Maybe they've soured a bit on Jordan walden and there's another hitter that the Padres could grab. That'd leave their OF as Hunter, Abreu, Rivera, with Matthews and Willits as backups, so I guess taht RH hitting 1b might be one way of filling their DH slot. But they'd have a 3b opening.

That's some hot 3 way action.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Nov 16, 2009 -> 08:29 AM) He gets pretty excited after three games of playig time. But, we heard before that maybe Viciedo is better suited for 1B or DH. DV made a lot of errors, but of course experience may change that. The Sox can't see Teahan as the long-long term fix at 3B can they? No. In fact...swapping Getz for Teahen is exactly what you'd do if you thought you had another 3b arriving in 1-2 years. Teahen is only arb-eligibile for 1 more season after this one, and unless he takes a big step forward he'll probably be slightly overpaid next year if you offer him arbitration, but not immensely so. So...if Viciedo or Morel are ready in 2011, then you let Teahen walk after 2010 as a non-tender guy. If you think they need another year, you offer him arbitration, cost yoursefl $5-6 million unless he has a huge season, it costs a little bit but it's not a budget-buster, and then you're ready to insert your young guy in 2012.

Xenophilic much?

QUOTE (lostfan @ Nov 16, 2009 -> 07:56 AM) Except it's not a potential threat, it's completely irrelevant. Unless somebody thinks a terrorist will break out of a maximum security prison and go hitchhike over to a nuclear power plant and umm... break into it and uhh... do... things to make it blow up. Unless one of these guys is in fact Magneto...you're at a much bigger risk from the New Madrid fault system than you are from any of them escaping and pulling off a massive terrorist attack. I'd live near a supermax.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Nov 16, 2009 -> 12:08 AM) I honestly don't know that it would have mattered...they were not particularly stopping the Colts too well anyways at that point... Yeah...even if they'd punted, do you really think that an extra 40 yards would have stopped Manning with that much time on the clock?

QUOTE (FlaSoxxJim @ Nov 15, 2009 -> 07:05 PM) Vacation, all I ever wanted Vacation, had to get away Vacation, meant to be spent alone Well...hoping to try one of those out soon.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Nov 15, 2009 -> 04:09 PM) beyond overblown. But funny.

Is this seriously the Republican line of thinking on Afghanistan? (written by the "dean of the washington press corps")

QUOTE (bmags @ Nov 15, 2009 -> 12:24 PM) Fine. But I don't even know an example of what you are talking about? It involves falafel, I believe.

They couldn't hold Magneto, how can they expect to hold these guys?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 15, 2009 -> 08:22 AM) So you think teaching will give you a regular schedule? Ha. There are worse alternatives.

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Nov 14, 2009 -> 03:10 PM) Ely will probably be in the mix as well if he pitches as well in AAA like he did in AA. Yeah, i figured using the phrase "et al." was about as well as I could do to represent the number of other possible candidates who could step up. There's a few, he's among them, and I didn't want to review our entire minor league roster.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 14, 2009 -> 03:05 PM) I'm with you. Freddy is fine, but expecting big innings with his last 3 seasons plus his advancing age is unrealistic. Maybe he does it, but the odds are against it. To leave yourself with very little alternative after that would probably come back and get you. If our backup options are some version of Torres, perhaps Marquez et al., and Mr. "Offday"...it might be manageable...but if you're going to gamble on that, you better have a really good offense to bail you out if the worst case scenario hits. Defense too.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Nov 14, 2009 -> 02:54 PM) So I'm just curious. What would be the reason, if he is indeed fully healthy, for him to be so limited in terms of IP? Are you suggesting he needs another year to build his arm strength back? Or that he will injure the arm or shoulder again? I think the best example would be a guy going from throwing 100 innings in the minors to trying to throw 200+ in the bigs with no step in-between. It's possible everything could work swimmingly. But it's also very possible, perhaps likely, that he'll reach the middle of the season and hit a dead-arm period because his arm hasn't been used like that before. Or, it's also possible that something that hasn't been worked out in the same way the last few years could go fine for a while and then suddenly snap. So, the answer is; all of the above. Some pitchers come up and can take a huge innings jump right away and never get hurt or really show a dead-arm stretch, but it's pretty darn rare. We can push him as hard as he can go...but if we don't have a backup plan, its a roll of the dice.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 14, 2009 -> 02:03 PM) Burrell is signed only through 2010. If the White Sox don't have the money to consider guys like Figgins, I don't know how they would have the money to pay Crawford, maybe if they didn't owe Alex Rios $60 million, but they unfortunately do. More fascinating stats...while both had a single down year (Rios last year, Crawford in 2008)...if you take a look at their OPS+ numbers, Rios has 2 seasons, 2006 and 2007, that are better than any season Crawford has put up offensively. His kinda down year in 2008 where he put up a 112 OPS+...that would be a pretty good year for Crawford. And Rios is more than likely a better CF to boot. We get the player Toronto had...and that's more production than you'd get from Crawford for less money.

QUOTE (ozzfest @ Nov 14, 2009 -> 01:41 PM) Joe Smith of the St. Petersburg Times doesn't think a report from Mike Silva's New York Baseball Digest that suggests Carl Crawford wants out of Tampa Bay has any merit. While Smith didn't get an official word from the team, he writes that the unattributed report doesn't match up with what both sides have been saying all along. "I hope we can get something done, but if not I'll just go into next season, do what I have to do and try to help the team win and go from there," Crawford said in September. As recently as this week, Crawford's agent Brian Peters said that they were still looking forward to a potential long-term deal, while Rays executive VP Andrew Friedman said both sides were "very interested" in an extension when they picked up Crawford's $10 million option on Monday. It won't take long for this rumor to get thoroughly and thankfully debunked. Nov. 14 - 3:30 pm et I seriously can't believe the Rays have the resources to commit to Crawford for a multi-year extension, esp. if they're still holding Burrell's contract the next couple years. They sold Kazmir this season already, for example.

QUOTE (GreatScott82 @ Nov 14, 2009 -> 01:20 PM) Hmm seems like a trick question. I'm going to go with Crawford. He came up at a very young age. Yup. Crawford at age 28 has played more MLB Ball than Figgins by age 32. Stolen more bases too. I only bring this up because with these speedy guys...the punishment of playing the game that way sometimes seems to be cumulative.

QUOTE (GreatScott82 @ Nov 14, 2009 -> 01:15 PM) He is 28. So by the time his next contract ends he will be 33. He will slow down with age- but not that much. Look at Chone Figgins- he was faster when he was younger, but the dude can still steal bases and is a great contact hitter. IMO $75 million for Crawford would be a huge bargain. Here's a shocker as a comeback...which guy do you think has played more MLB games? Crawford or Figgins?

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Nov 14, 2009 -> 08:19 AM) Do you think he still might be a possibility or is he done? Well, he's still on the 40-man, so they haven't totally given up on him yet. Beyond that though, I have no idea exactly what the details of his injury are or whether or not it's something he can recover from. People have come back from bone spurs before, but like I said, it usually seems to wind up involving surgery, and as far as I know he hasn't had that. I certainly wouldn't trade Hudson and expect that I can count on him as a 6th starter option next year.

QUOTE (GreatScott82 @ Nov 14, 2009 -> 01:10 PM) Yes. So you can guarantee me that a speed guy isn't going to lose his speed or that a guy who missed a good chunk of last year won't start getting hurt?

(Quietly resumes pumping out CO2 so that he gets that island anyway)

Is Crawford going to be worth the 5/$75 or more he gets as an extension?

Obviously then it should be flooded.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Nov 13, 2009 -> 08:16 PM) I thought we weren't even going to offer him arb? We won't. It would cost us $6.5 million + next year minimum to offer him arbitration, unless he signs with somewhere else first. That's 2-3 times the amount you'd pay for him right now otherwise. Offer him arbitration and Viciedo is our DH next year, potentially.