Balta1701

Is Getz ok? Farmer just said he may be hurt.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Apr 10, 2009 -> 06:18 PM) Getz is a f***ing stud. He's gonna have a long career in CHicago. One of our 3 guys up the middle is going to need to be moved somewhere.

Hey! We got runs while I was off drinking! yay!

QUOTE (scenario @ Apr 10, 2009 -> 05:14 PM) I hope Jose starts dialing in the strike zone here. Otherwise he's going to run up alot of pitches early. We're carrying a 7 man bullpen with 2 capable long men for a reason.

Wow, took Gameday until the 4th game of the season to start screwing up. A new best.

QUOTE (CryptviLL @ Apr 10, 2009 -> 05:06 PM) over under contreras 6.0 innings pitched ? They won't let him go more than 6 even if he's rolling.

Twuck the Fins.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Apr 10, 2009 -> 02:54 PM) Wasn't Rachel Maddow pretty "out there" on Air America with some of her views? I like Maddow and I think she's pretty sharp, but just saying I think you may be confusing Rachel Maddow with Randi Rhodes, who's a lot more vehement. Maddow comes at things strongly from the left (i.e. no one else out there has actually questioned whether sending more troops to Afghanistan is the right move), but Rhodes was the firebrand.

QUOTE (G&T @ Apr 10, 2009 -> 04:23 PM) You know what pisses me off? At the beginning of 2006, Ozzie said all BA has to do is play good defense and hit as best he could. He then pulled BA because he wasn't hitting enough and put an incompetent Mackowiak, in center. IMO, that decision cost the Sox a playoff spot (Balta would probably agree ). On that of course I'll agree. But then I'll point out where you're wrong...that Ozzie never had any intention of treating Anderson as a full time player in 2006 (although his attitude may have contributed to that.) Rob Mackowiak was starting in CF in game 2 of the regular season. He got his largest number of at bats of the season in May (although it's hard to disagree with that because he was absolutely raking with the bat). It was a platoon from day 1, and neither the fact that Anderson's bat slightly improved during the season, the fact that Anderson hit righties better than he hit lefties, or the fact that Mack hit .194 in September was going to change that.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Apr 10, 2009 -> 01:56 PM) Didn't Noah and Tyrus Thomas actually start to play good right around the time that there were rumors of the Bulls acquiring Amare and prior to the Miller trade? Luckily after the Miller trade they just kept playing well. Basically Tyrus's minutes started going up in January when Gooden got hurt and leveled off at about 32 in Feb. after the trades and the Deng injury. Noah's minutes shot up in Feb after languishing at a ridiculously low 20 or so through the end of January (Granted he was out of Shape in Nov, which is why we need to hide his weed around the weight room this summer).

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Apr 10, 2009 -> 01:46 PM) Balta, don't you have to give credit to VDN for actually giving Tyrus/Noah/etc the opportunity to play and develop though. In fact, he actually encouraged Tyrus and Noah both to work on there offensive games. But he didn't give them that opportunity until Pax traded away all of the pieces of his precious small lineup, such that he basically had no choice any more. It took Gooden getting hurt and traded, Nocioni getting traded, and Deng getting hurt to finally make it so that his rotation had to include Thomas and Noah. Otherwise, I think we'd still be seeing the Gooden at C, Nocioni/Deng at PF, Hinrich, Gordon, and Rose lineups for 25 minutes a game.

QUOTE (BearSox @ Apr 10, 2009 -> 01:32 PM) But there is a reason why Glenn Beck is one of the most viewed cable news shows right now. Because watching a borderline-crazy man inch closer and closer to completely losing his sanity on the air is solid entertainment?

I'd like to add one other problem to the list, beyond just Glenn Beck being insane, having his own TV show, and using that TV Show to incite people to violence. It's what the next segment on the show was. Normally, a crazy man inciting violence would be viewed as a bad thing. But not any more.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Apr 10, 2009 -> 11:57 AM) A 2% drop is nothing, but I bet it isn't long before the players union starts crying about collusion somehow. Also there's a small amount of inflation in there I believe, so it's a little higher than that in real dollars.

Welcome back, Bronze Titan.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Apr 10, 2009 -> 09:41 AM) I know you didn't say that. Hence the . But yea, your point of equating "Obama" to "socialism" and therefore, "socialism" must be "good", because "Obama is good", is just amazing. I know this is a terrible grammatical sentence... Or it could very well be..."Republicans think Socialism is bad, Republicans were in charge for the last 8 years, Socialism must therefore be good because they screwed everything up." Either way...

QUOTE (Fantl916 @ Apr 10, 2009 -> 09:33 AM) I dont think he is, I think he's implying that Texas is kinda becoming the new Coors Field. I think the ballpark in Arlington inflates his numbers a bit. that said, i would like Bryd for CF for the WS Well, I have no idea whether he is or not, I'm just saying...don't compare people to Gary Matthews Jr. unless you think they're on HGH. Because its very clear he had more help than just the ballpark in putting up his numbers.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Apr 10, 2009 -> 09:32 AM) I saw this, and it's absolutely pathetic. It tells me that the GOP is totally screwed up in the head, and if they would EVER get a real leader to explain why capitalism is the engine that made this country great, that it would finally stop this nonsense. As I've said before, GWB's biggest legacy was to start us down the path of this nonsense, Obama's just finishing it off. After all, it's what the people want. By the way, thanks for clarifying the point that Obama's a "socialist". I never said that. I just said that because the Republicans are trying to apply the word to him...it's improving the popularity of the word. Doesn't mean he actually is one. Key note of that data is that Ras didn't define Socialism, so it was entirely a question of how people were viewing the word, not necessarily whether they agree with the policies it would entail.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Apr 10, 2009 -> 09:29 AM) Byrd, maybe...but how much of his offensive output (or Milton Bradley, or Michael Young) is due to playing in Texas? Byrd struggled for many seasons (kind of like GMJ) and then seemed to find himself the last year or so, but that doesn't mean it would automatically translate to USCF. You're alleging he's on HGH?

This is a fascinating and unexpected result. For months now, the Republicans have decided to tar a popular president with the label "Socialist!", clearly setting up themselves as opposing socialism (by, conveniently, sounding exactly like the previous President). Instead of this hurting the President with anyone except the Bush 24%...President Obama's popularity is actually improving the popularity of Socialism.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Apr 9, 2009 -> 10:28 PM) For those who wanted VDN run out of town after, I don't know, 20 games or so. What's your opinion of him now? What coach, and please don't say Mike D'Antoni, could've done more with this team than VDN has? And don't give me the ",Well, I just don't think VDN can lead us to a championship" or "I think we just need a more experienced head coach," fluff. When you consider what a disaster last season was, how imbalanced the roster was/is, the injuries, ect - what's your opinion of the job he's done for THIS season? I still feel like every game I've watched, we've been outcoached, outschemed, outplanned, outthought. Poorly constructed plays, people constantly out of position on defense, ridiculous and totally inexplicable rotations, every time there's a timeout and a play drawn up, the other team has the better setup. I feel like any warm body could have done as well in-game as VDN, and to my eyes, the turnaround in the 2nd half was forced upon him by Pax and fate, after Gooden got hurt (thus forcing him to actually play Thomas/Noah more) and Pax made some very intelligent trades to take away his ridiculous small lineups. The one thing I can't speak to is his performance off the court. The Locker room hasn't imploded like it did last year, which is a point for him. And I can't speak to how much credit he gets for the development of Rose, Thomas, Noah. Some of that, frankly, I thought would have happened last year or 2 years ago if the big guys had just gotten actual minutes rather than being benched for the SMALL LINEUP DOMINATION!

QUOTE (EvilJester99 @ Apr 10, 2009 -> 08:20 AM) I wonder if Zona would be interested in deal Eric Byrnes?? I have been a big fan of how he plays... absolute "grinder". I'm sure they'd be happy to take back the prospect that they dealt away after they signed Byrnes to that extension.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Apr 10, 2009 -> 05:30 AM) As a fan, I'm sick of Thome not learning to go the other way, since the Thome shift works...a LOT. And I know we don't pay him for base hits, and he's there to pull the ball, but come on -- they're cutting off a ton of his hitting area with this shift, while leaving the ENTIRE left side open. Big Jim is going to the Hall of Fame and people have been shifting him for well over a decade.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Apr 9, 2009 -> 07:00 PM) This is the same feast or famine built offense we jettisoned after 2004 (Magglio, Lee, Valentine, Thomas, etc.) where we went with more defense/speed in 05, won the World Series, and gradually returned to that same offense, some due to age (Dye has slowed considerably), injuries, etc. My point is, we are right back where we started in 2004. Station to station softball where we will go through spurts of scoring 4-5 runs in 3 games, and then we'll score 15 runs in 1 game, even though scoring 2 would have sufficed. I know it's only been three games, and I do hope they proove me wrong/dumb, but I see no consistency coming from this team. We will either rake, or we will do #@$!. If we can pitch, we can still win a lot of games this way.