Balta1701

QUOTE (WCSox @ Sep 8, 2009 -> 01:01 PM) Assuming that Kenny's financially able to keep Jenks, of course. I like Carrasco for long relief, but don't have much faith in Linebrink (or Pena, for that matter). I'd rather fill the 7th inning role with Hudson or somebody who has pitched effectively in the majors previously than an unknown from our farm system. I might be tempted to gamble a bit on the second lefty. Duh, I totally spaced Pena. Jenks Thor Linebrink Carrasco Pena That's a fairly good start. We need clearly 1 more LHP there and it'd be an obvious failure to go in to the season with Williams in that role. I don't think we have anyone obvious in our minor leagues who fills that slot either. That might be a place to legitimately spend a couple million this offseason. Who's available? Casey Fossum, Joe Beimel, Scott Eyre (not coming here), John Grabow, Trever Miller, Darren Oliver, Billy Wagner are some LHP who have put up decent numbers and are FA after this season. Linebrink, we may not have confidence in him, but he's going to be there. Pena, we might not have confidence in him but he's going to be there, and if he develops then suddenly our pen looks really good. If we carry 12 pitchers (With our 5 starters, there's no guarantee we'll do that), then there's room for either Hudson or Nunez to pitch their way in there. But again, with our starters, you could probably get by with an 11 man pen if either Linebrink or Pena can step up.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Sep 8, 2009 -> 12:55 PM) Is that a gamble that you want to make when you've just invested in Jake Peavy and have what is arguably the best rotation in the majors? If I'm Kenny, I look to protect my investment and make an effort to field a solid bullpen. That doesn't necessarily exclude guys in our farm system, but you certainly don't want as many unknowns in the bullpen next year as Kenny had in 2007. If you're starting with Jenks and Thornton, that's not a bad set of building blocks. We can assume Linebrink and Carrasco are going to be there as well. That leaves the 2nd lefty and at least 1 RHP, if not 2 spots.

QUOTE (joeynach @ Sep 8, 2009 -> 12:38 PM) We went through 2007 with essentially unproben no name cheap arms in the bullpen. It was disaster, the scrubs couldnt throw strikes and couldn't be relied on for anything. Therefore in 2008 KW goes out and gets go to guys in the pen, Dotel and Linebrink, that yes cost some $$. Do you really think KW is now in 2010 going to go back to let the bullpen be "cheap no names", I dont think so. I think 2007 was so embarassing, as it should be, there is no way Kenny builds any bullpen without proven "go to" guys. The fact that a few hard throwing, fairly no-name guys didn't work out in 2007 doesn't mean that a different batch of no-name guys, maybe hard throwing maybe not, won't work out 3 years later. It could well depend more on who the actual guys are and whether or not they fit the mold of what we try to do with pitchers that we bring in.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Sep 8, 2009 -> 12:33 PM) greg, what part arent you understanding. He played his entire career on grass, and he screwed up his back. Heck, you could argue the grass doesnt make a difference for him because no matter what, he is playing on hard dirt wherever he goes, wether it be Minnesota or Chicago. The likelihood of him incurring a back injury this year was pretty good, no matter what he did, his back injury wasnt Boras' fault. His swing, his all out diving style are not conducive to him staying healthy. He is just one of those players who cant stay healthy at the position he excels. End of story. How about we say it this way...the turf probably didn't help, but there's no reason to think that if he wasn't playing on turf his problems wouldn't have cropped back up?

QUOTE (kane0730 @ Sep 8, 2009 -> 10:26 AM) AJ/Tomko match-up should be fun. Think anyone is going to have a $100 bill in their locker at the end of this game?

Unless Greinke has a couple of 10 ER outings, anyone winning the award other than him at this point is a joke.

If we're talking next season, we may as well specifically ask about Corner OF, because that's where we need a player.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 8, 2009 -> 09:39 AM) Outside of that, we should be running a zero sum game at the federal level. Depends on what you mean by "Zero sum".

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 8, 2009 -> 09:34 AM) Trib is reporting Gordo could be in the line up tonight. History says that if there's any doubt at all at this point during the day Ozzie will give him the extra day. And that usually has been the right move.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 8, 2009 -> 09:36 AM) War, disaster, and recession are my three big circumstances Pretty much hard to disagree there, that's when I'd say you want the feds running a deficit.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 8, 2009 -> 09:32 AM) Lightning is going to strike me, but I agree with Balta. There are times where, as a country, we need to run a deficit. We just need to clean up our act when times are good and shrink the government accordingly. Zap. Agreed. We'll probably disagree about the circumstances and I wouldn't include the "Shrink the government accordingly" line, but on principle, yeah.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Sep 8, 2009 -> 09:24 AM) There needs to be a balanced budget amendment to the constitution. Terrible idea. A balanced budget amendment would have pushed this country flat-out in to a depression this year.

And Karzai has reportedly passed 50% of the ballots thanks to his gigantic fraud. That means the election commission will basically need to overturn the results and order a new election, since there won't be a runoff unless the whole thing is thrown out.

This would be an interesting variety of fire sale.

And Dotel won't be offered arbitration.

Keep up the good work Carlos.

The team's AFL roster was announced 2 weeks ago. Viciedo, Danks, Justin Cassel, Jonnie Long, Henry Mabee and Jacob Rasner and infielder C.J. Retherford.

Just a reminder...there was a report that Freddy has a cheap (like $1 mil) option for next year. $2 million in bonuses for innings pitched.

Ok, that's pretty good.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Sep 7, 2009 -> 07:57 PM) ^^^ Fearmongering. Yup. About my life. And a whole lot of others'.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Sep 7, 2009 -> 06:57 PM) LMAO. He sounds like a freaking used car salesman. PRICE YOU CAN AFFORD. QUALITY YOU CAN COUNT ON. BUY YOUR HEALTHCARE HERE (you stupid f'in Americans who don't know what we do!!). The Republican plan for health care. Prices you can't afford, and health care quality you can't count on. Pretty much sums up the last 16 years or so quite well.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Sep 7, 2009 -> 06:10 PM) Let Freddy start out as the 5th starter. He won't be needed a ton in the first 5-6 weeks, which is fine. I hate using the offday as the 5th starter. Especially early in the season.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 7, 2009 -> 07:47 AM) It ought to be interesting to see if Ichiro can make it to 3000 hits in the MLB alone. If he does that, he'll have more hits between MLB and Japan than Rose.

The Sooners have gone from saying that it'd be a week or two before Bradford's condition was even known to now saying he'll be out for 2-4 weeks. That's less than a day of development there.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Sep 7, 2009 -> 05:40 PM) As I see it, 2010 is when the window of contention that we've been building for officially opens. IMO, Freddy in the rotation with Huddy in the pen gives us the best chance of winning in 2010. And I'm not sure that it doesn't give us the best chance of winning in 2011 too.