Balta1701

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ May 6, 2009 -> 12:52 PM) The Twins don't look like the Twins. There defense has been f***ing horrible outside of Punto. How has Crede's glove been this season?

QUOTE (Kalapse @ May 6, 2009 -> 12:21 PM) Also, Chris Carpenter is supposedly progressing nicely and should throw from the mound on Tuesday. Frankly, I doubt giving him an extra month off to start the season was the worst thing in the world anyway.

Would have worked better if we'd voted in Jerry owens last year. He was our starting LF, after all!

I'll be seriously impressed if the lobbyists don't win and eliminate this...but I like seeing it nonetheless.

QUOTE (scenario @ May 6, 2009 -> 11:29 AM) Player A = Jacoby Ellsbury Player B = Ryan Sweeney Just thought it was relevant given some of the angst about not using our 2005 1st round pick on Ellsbury. You sort of left out Ellsbury's best asset.

QUOTE (The Bones @ May 6, 2009 -> 11:54 AM) "Tarp is on." - Cowley's Twitter Radar doesn't look good.

Book excerpt.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ May 6, 2009 -> 08:35 AM) The pick that people should really gripe about is the Donny Lucy and Kyle McCulloch selections. Those were absolutely horrendous picks, along with the Wes Whisler selection. I still wish we'd drafted the guy who went 2 picks after Casey Rogowski, but every other team in baseball missed on him 14 times too.

QUOTE (ZoomSlowik @ May 6, 2009 -> 06:37 AM) I have a problem with people using the minutes argument as the only thing holding him from being a star, when even if you generously project out his current production he still compares to a good but not great player that has significant flaws. Hell, Luol Deng put up fairly comparable PER's to Josh Smith the previous two years. Tyrus Thomas is not going to be THE reason they are successful, at best he's going to be a role player with other people carrying the bulk of the load. I'm not saying he's going to be a star. He needs a ton of new post moves before that even becomes possible. But I will certainly take a good player out of him if that's all he ever winds up being. The point I keep trying to make is that benching him does not help us. It didn't help us against the Celtics, it hasn't helped us in the 3 years since we drafted him, it won't help us in the future. Edit: Just one more benching TT/Small lineup note. I'm not opposed to the concept of a small lineup as a changeup. It certainly worked in the C's series in at least one game (was that game 4 I think?) The problem is that if you make the 4 guard lineup a standard tactic that you deploy for 10-20 minutes per game, it goes from being a changeup that maybe gives you some extra points to being something the other team can game plan for and adapt to, and it's really easy to beat if you have more than 1 tall guy of your own...you just have to feed that guy in the post and force the defense in to rotations that they can't win on. Which is exactly what the C's did against our 18 minutes straight of the 4 guard lineup in game 4.

QUOTE (scenario @ May 6, 2009 -> 06:01 AM) Yeah the Sox made some bad picks... as did every other organization in MLB. But the reason we have no MLB ready prospects in AAA this year is NOT the result of bad draft choices, it's the result of trades. Imagine how different the world would look if we hadn't traded Chris Young, Aaron Cunningham, and Ryan Sweeney for example. I don't think people would be sitting and asking why we can't find major league ready outfielders in our system. They'd be asking why we held on to guys like Chris Young and Ryan Sweeney for so long when they're putting up the #'s they currently are. "Why can't the Sox ever develop the talent they draft! Our minor league development is terrible!" "Why didn't KW move these guys when they were worth something" they'd say. Greg Walker Delenda Est.

QUOTE (ZoomSlowik @ May 6, 2009 -> 06:19 AM) Did you have fun trying to argue how well Tyrus compares to a guy that would be the third best player on a legit contender? You'd have a problem with TT being the 3rd best player on the Bulls?

QUOTE (ZoomSlowik @ May 5, 2009 -> 07:37 PM) By the way, Tyrus' per 40 minute averages this year are 15.8 points and 9.3 rebounds. Yes, that means that even if he played more minutes than anyone in the league and kept his rates the same he'd be about as productive as Josh Smith is in 35 minutes. Don't you guys know what this baits me to do? It baits me to respond with other ways to look at the data. If you look at the first half of the season, Oct. through the end of January, when TT was still being benched randomly and Drew Gooden gave us our small lineup domination, Tyrus averaged 14.6 p/40, 9.1 reb/40. From Feb 1. on, the time during the season when TT averaged over 30 minutes per game, TT averaged 17.0 p/40, 9.6 reb/40. Josh Smith averaged 15.6 points and 7.2 rebounds in 35.1 minutes last season. Scaled to 35 minutes, Tyrus averaged 14.8 points and 8.4 rebounds per 35 in the 2nd half. Smith had 1 more assist per 35, Tyrus had 1 more block per 35. Turnovers per minute are basically a wash for the entire season (smith is 0.2/35 higher). The only real difference is that TT picks up about 1 more foul per 35 than Smith did last year (and NBA.com didn't have season splits on foul #'s so I can't see if that improved in the 2nd half without looking more).

That Chris Young kid on the Diamondbacks has been terrible, maybe they'd consider moving him.

Jeff Weaver starting for the Dodgers tonight.

Makes sense, why do you need 6 cameras at a press conference by a police detective?

Carlos 3/4 today, now back hitting over .250

Usually when Thome starts taking a bunch of walks it's a good sign, he's usually starting to see the ball well.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 5, 2009 -> 04:19 PM) Any idea of their ability to politic? Here's the official IRS rules, in pdf form. It's designed poorly so I can't excerpt, but go to page 47 for the summary for that one.

Gavin got Teahen swinging on a couple curves.

"I'm going with that not being a sacrifice, because it's not." -insight from DJ.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 5, 2009 -> 04:13 PM) I really wish he'd start using his curveball a lot more often. No reason to not use your #1 pitch (by a mile) more often. The Teahen single was on the 1st pitch, Guillen had a 2-0 count, and Jacobs had a 2-1 count, so he was possibly trying to throw a strike on all of those cases. No curve balls in any of those AB's though.

Alexei is 6/7 on steals so far this year. That's a ton better than last year.

Alexei steals 2nd. Trey Hillman arguing.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 5, 2009 -> 04:08 PM) Has Gavin been giving up hits off of the fastball or offspeed? According to Gameday, all of them were off the fastball.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 5, 2009 -> 04:07 PM) Opposite field hit for Alexei scores a run, and I like the base running. Here comes the squeeze. With AJ Running from 3rd?