Balta1701

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Feb 18, 2009 -> 08:55 AM) I'll run as a member of the SoxTalk.com party. Free advertising What are Illinois's ballot access requirements?

QUOTE (bmags @ Feb 18, 2009 -> 09:13 AM) If you are against the stimulus bill, that's fine, but this is the exact things that it set out to do, find underfunded projects, fund them, create jobs, improve infrastructure. It set out to infuse money in the demand market while trying to do things that improve things for the future. But, lets see, resort to childish cliches within a few posts, yep, this is going to be fun. I can do it to: Oh no, in a massive stimulus package don't infuse money into public projects that create jobs, big brother oh no The other thing to remember is that borrowing money for the federal government is a different beast from the state or local governments doing so. IIRC 98% of the states are required to submit some version of a balanced budget every year. There are shenanigoats that get you around those requirements, like borrowing against lottery profits or selling off highways, whatever, but in an economic downturn, the state and local governments are going to feel their budgets dramatically pinched, because it's much harder for them to borrow thanks to those requirements. Then, throw in a massive credit crisis thanks to the scorched-earth policies of the Banks, and really, there's only 1 borrower right now that anyone has any confidence in, who actually has legal authority to do the borrowing, and that's the federal government. Edit: I will agree with one thing though. I'd rather take a lot of the money being spent on road upgrades and spend it on rail transit and electricity production.

QUOTE (CWSOX45 @ Feb 18, 2009 -> 08:26 AM) Not only that, but they have yet to predict the AL Central champion correctly in the last four years. BP is a good baseball publication, but the media attention it attracts for being a crapshoot is a complete joke. The thing I find interesting about this model is that it doesn't seem to learn/be adapted from year to year based on results. If a team is constantly missed, or hell, if players are constantly missed, then you'd think adapting the model might make sense. You could publish PECOTA's original model and a PECOTA v. 2.0 where the previous year's performance was compared to expectations and used to recalculate things, and that might be a very interesting exercise.

No. Poreda to AAA unless every outing in ST is a no hitter for him. I want him starting. Richard looks like an ideal bullpen guy based on his splits in outings last year.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Feb 18, 2009 -> 08:49 AM) This probably occurred in spring training, but it really is a non story. ARod 6 years ago, now Jenks 7 years ago when he admittedly was not what he was supposed to be. Mickey Mantle was admired for playing hungover. Jenks doesn't get the press for the turnaround in his life that Josh Hamilton had, but Bobby's may be even more impressive. He may not have ever dropped as low as Hamilton, but Bobby didn't start out in a very good place to begin with.

QUOTE (zygoat @ Feb 18, 2009 -> 08:46 AM) That scares me that we're almost relying on jose to be on our opening day rotation. He's getting too old and gets injured too much. I hope he's there but I don't think we can rely on him anymore. The fancy thing about this would be...if either he or Colon gets hurt the first month, we'll have 2 guys down at AAA and a long man (Richard) in the pen who can immediately step in and pick up the slack. As a back end of the rotation, I'll more than take those 2.

QUOTE (DBAHO @ Feb 18, 2009 -> 08:16 AM) Contreras as the 5th starter. Richard as the long-man out of the pen (essentailly replacing Carrasco's role). Poreda as the 2nd lefty out of the pen. Marquez to start the season in AAA. Best scenario is the above I would say. Unless Jose is completely 100% though, let Marquez start the season as the 5th starter, and then let Contreras take over when he is healthy. No way the bullpen works out like that where we're carrying 3 lefties. Much more likely is Richard and Thornton as lefties in the pen, and Poreda right where he should be; starting at AAA and getting innings to work on that 3rd pitch. I was hoping Marquez could make the rotation in ST so that Poreda could go down, because that's where he needs to be. Contreras making the rotation would be even better.

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Feb 18, 2009 -> 01:28 AM) Not that it matters, but supposedly, Chandler was offered back to us before he was dealt. Given the salary issues and Chandler's continuing injury problems, I'd rather have Noah. At least they're trying to move the 2 right guys. I just hope Pax doesn't hold out for too much for them and takes cap space if it's offered.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Feb 18, 2009 -> 08:42 AM) Geezus, we have $6.1M coming to my hometown to fix up about 10 roads, newly pave them, and add/repair curbs and sidewalks. This is needed, but not urgently by any means. This is the type of spending that really has no reason to be in the "stimulus" package. (Not to mention the million dollars we're getting to renovate the elevators in city hall). This is obviously a pet project from our congressmen so i'm sure there are countless others of these around the country too. Do those roads fix themselves or are people hired to do so?

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Feb 17, 2009 -> 06:31 PM) For Shelby III, I meant out of high school. Yes, he MIGHT be the best athlete (along with Jord. Danks) in our system right now. Big year for him. Let's hope he continues to progress and gives us yet another option from our system. At the very least, he could be yet another valuable trade "chip" for KW. In this economy, the value of those guys as trade chips is just going to keep going up too.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Feb 17, 2009 -> 05:56 PM) Chandler fouled a lot when he played for the Bulls. He certainly isn't $9 million a year better than Noah, which is the difference between their total paychecks. I think if Noah added 15-20 pounds of muscle, he could average a double double. He just is not strong enough right now. He clearly had conditioning issues after he essentially took last summer off. If someone can get through his skull and instill some sort of work ethic in him this summer, such that he can perhaps build some muscle and also get some additional defensive skills down, there's no reason why he can't surpass Chandler. I've certainly gotten the impression he's a lot faster than Chandler ever was.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Feb 17, 2009 -> 05:11 PM) Haven't seen it mentioned yet but Palehose 9 has had 3 strips in February so far. http://palehose9.blogspot.com/ The book "3 years on the palehose" containing all the previous strips is also available.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Feb 17, 2009 -> 05:06 PM) He's going to score even less without Paul giving him points, but to be fair to him, he has been injured a lot this season. I think he's played hurt, but really, how much better than Noah is this guy? Right now, still quite a bit. Per minute, Noah rebounds about the same as him, but he shoots a significantly higher %age than Noah on the offensive end. Noah also picks up just about as many fouls in 20 minutes as Chandler does in 30. And I'd add that currently, Noah just can't slow down Centers who are stronger than him. But then again, Noah is in his 2nd year and turns 24 this month, while Chandler is in his 8th season and turns 27 later this year. Noah needs to add some mass (Chandler outweighs him by about 15 pounds) and get the foul trouble under control. Then we can talk.

Various entertaining reactions:

17,000 or so more troops for Afghanistan by the summer. The military there had requested 20-30,000 more, so it's undershooting their requested number. The administration made a point today of saying that this move does not override their strategic review of Afghanistan, which is still in progress, so it's possible more could come or other noteworthy things could change, but they're probably putting this out now to get the deployments scheduled. In other Afghanistan news, the UN today released a report on civilian casualties in country last year. The death toll counted as over 2100 related to combat, an increase of 40% over the year before. The worrisome part to my eyes was that about 55% of those casualties were caused by the Taliban. That means the international forces in that country killed almost as many civilians as the Taliban did. That should be a major strategic concern; the people aren't going to like you that much if they have as much of a chance from dying due to your missiles fired from aircraft as they do from an IED.

Recovery.gov is now up and running. This site is supposed to be the hosting point for all the publicly released data on the stimulus package. It includes outlines of what we currently know. Not much data yet, but then again, the bill was just signed today, so very little has been decided/spent yet.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 17, 2009 -> 10:11 AM) The SEC today filed charges against Texas Banker R. Allen Stanford for committing what they're calling "Massive fraud." Basically, it appears that he may have been running a $10 billion or so ponzi scheme. He's also very, very politically connected. Hanging out with people like Pelosi and Bill Clinton at the DNC last year, giving big time to both parties, etc. Gotta love fraudsters with balls. The 2001-2002 political cycle was when the Stanford group gave its largest contributions to Congress (Largest recipient: Sen Nelson, D-FL, chair of the DSCC at the time). In 2001-2002, Congress was debating the "Financial Services Antifraud Network Act" which would have spent some money to create a computerized nationwide system with the goal of detecting securities fraud. The bill passed the House but died in the Senate.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 12, 2009 -> 12:25 PM) So the Dow has traded as low as 7693 today. This is interesting because the next long term low level is 7591, which is the lows from the post 9-11/bubble recession in 2002. If they manage to go lower than that, the Dow will be looking at levels it hasn't seen since 1997-1998. Done.

QUOTE (bmags @ Feb 17, 2009 -> 02:20 PM) There is going to be a lot happening these next 21 months, and I don't want the intellectual and moral lightweight wasting one percent of the spots in the Senate. Unless he's indicted for perjury or resigns, I really don't think you have a choice.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 17, 2009 -> 02:13 PM) Got anything to back that up? Because that would be news to me. Not to say it isn't true, just that I haven't seen anything about that.

QUOTE (Stan Bahnsen @ Feb 17, 2009 -> 02:08 PM) Not to beat a dead horse, but I wouldn't rule out Abreu as an acquisition down the road. He's one a one year deal, Vlad may soon require a graceful transition to the Angels' DH, and we'll need him even more post-Thome. Maybe there will be better options in the next two FA classes. With Contreras, possibly Dye, and Thome coming off the books at the end of this season, even with raises for people and the shaky economy I think next year we'll be in a position to spend more than we were this year.

QUOTE (SouthsideDon48 @ Feb 17, 2009 -> 01:34 PM) Oh really? darn, I didn't see that mentioned anywhere on this site. It's not official yet, Griffey still reportedly mulling offers from Braves and Mariners (that linked article is disputing an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article from about an hour beforehand saying that Griffey had picked the braves).

QUOTE (shipps @ Feb 17, 2009 -> 01:19 PM) I too think that the Thunder can be a decent team next year but dont you guys think that Chandler's numbers will drop off dramatically? Paul was the best thing that ever happened to Chandler. Trouble is, his numbers have already dropped off dramatically this season. That's part of the reason why this trade is happening...if the Hornets hadn't had the injury bug all year and people had played to expectations and they hadn't wasted money stupidly on a guy like Posey, they'd be right back up challenging for the top spot, and much more willing to go in to tax territory if needbe. Chandler is pulling down 8.3 rebounds per game this year. That's his worst # since the 2003-2004 season with the Bulls when he was playing 22 minutes per game and played only 35 games. His scoring has dropped from 11.8 to 8.8 ppg this year, and his FG %age has dropped from 62% each of the last 2 years to 56% this year.

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ Feb 17, 2009 -> 12:54 PM) You think they talked for the good of the game? No. But the point I'm making is...a decade ago, guys like Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, they were heroes to a lot of people. At the same time, guys like Radomski and McNamee, who actually dealt with them, knew that they were such scumbags that they kept documents and even blood stained needles so that they wouldn't be the one caught without a chair when the music stopped. So, who comes out of this looking better...the guys who typically you'd call scumbags, illegal drug dealers...realized who the real nasty people were. If nothing else, they look better by comparison, because they didn't trust the real villains.

Radomski and McNamee. They got reduced sentences by naming names and realizing that the guys using the stuff in baseball were bigger scum than they were.