Balta1701

QUOTE (G&T @ Dec 8, 2008 -> 01:32 PM) I'd guess that the Cubs are the only team willing to pick up the $22M option for Peavy to waive his NTC. That would limit the suitors real quick. I have no idea where that team could possibly be finding this much money with all the other contracts they have.

QUOTE (scenario @ Dec 8, 2008 -> 01:23 PM) Nah... Towers wants to trade him. No reason to keep an expensive pitcher on a rebuilding team that is going to suck the next couple of years. You're right about the Cubs not having the players. But he knows the Cubs are hot for Peavey, so they have to get other teams involved to get the talent package he wants. There's plenty of reason to hold Peavy right now if you can afford him...he's signed for a number of years, and right now is probably the worst market in recent memory for expensive players because of the economy. If you put Peavy on the market last offseason, same price, you'd have had a number of suitors offering dramatically more than the Cubs possibly could. If the Pads wait a year or two, and the economy does slowly recover, then more teams would likely get in on that action.

QUOTE (103 mph screwball @ Dec 8, 2008 -> 01:13 PM) Fair enough. Point taken. Let him go to Japan. I'm just digging for bargains for the Sox and I really want more team speed. The upside I hoped for was the 2006 season he had with Baltimore where he hit .276 with 45 bags and some pop. The problem with that thinking is...even when he had a reasonable season in 06 with all those steals and a decent average, he still put up a .314 OBP. In other words, Willy Taveras is actually going to be on base more than him by a fair amount. Ditto Jerry Owens. He also can't hit lefties; hit .206 against them that year, so at best he's a platoon player. In his best year, he's a decent #9 hitter in a platoon who can provide good CF defense and a number of stolen bases. Anywhere down from his best year and he's a backup/pinch runner/late inning defensive replacement. If I was convinced that Anderson was a platoon player, the Patterson from 06 would be a good counterpart. On the other hand, I still saw the Anderson of 06 hit righties better than lefties and saw Anderson perform decently against righties for the first part of the year before Wise stepped in (Anderson hit .364 in his limited appearances against Righties in June and .310 against htem in March/April) that I want to see him actually get a shot as a non-platoon player. But I doubt that will ever happen with the Sox.

QUOTE (joesaiditstrue @ Dec 8, 2008 -> 01:17 PM) http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20...8&fext=.jsp Towers saying peavy's only destination would be the cubs, or they are keeping him If they trade him to the Cubs, that must mean the financial pressure on Towers is just ridiculous, because there's no way the Cubs have enough to make that a remotely fair deal

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 8, 2008 -> 12:30 PM) Decline was underway already, as you state. But Zell's buyout accelerated the pressure dramatically, such that TribCo couldn't make the slide gracefully. Now they're bankrupt. And yes Rex, definitely, this is a pre-emptive strike. They owed $70M by EOD today they couldn't make, and they know it will take a while to generate the cash from selling the Cubs. But for all they are saying about this "not effecting operations", they are full of it. Layoffs will occur, paper quality will fall, ad space will increase, column inches will decrease. Stealing from a blog commentary on their status;

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Dec 8, 2008 -> 12:20 PM) The Cubs are not included in the bankruptcy filing. This seems like a preemptive strike - enabling them to sell with less pressure, I'd imagine. I'm guessing we'll see WGN America spin off to someone else, the Cubs sale will help a ton and probably a few other papers as well. I would celebrate if the LA Times wound up being sold of to someone independent.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 8, 2008 -> 12:11 PM) Robinson Cano, Melky Cabrera and Matt Kemp might all be in play...Dodgers/Yankees are discussing a possible deal. Obviously, Cano or Kemp would look mighty nice in Sox uniforms, although our leadoff problem still lingers. And the costs of acquiring either might be more than KW is willing to part with. If we're back to being this concerned about salaries, then Cano's contract is something the Sox will stay a mile away from, regardless of the cost to trade fo rhim.

QUOTE (G&T @ Dec 8, 2008 -> 12:09 PM) Rosenthal has a blog. Not much going on. Remember, it's only noon in Vegas.

QUOTE (Kalapse @ Dec 8, 2008 -> 11:45 AM) Kent retired. He didn't even want to play baseball last year but his option vested and he was guaranteed a nice chunk of change if he just stuck it out for 1 more season. He won't be back with the Dodgers. Kent hasn't yet made it official but isn't sure if he wants to play any more. If for some reason you offered him a decent 1 year deal I get the feeling he'd be open to taking it.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Dec 8, 2008 -> 11:47 AM) Maybe I need to look up his stats but "BA" and "walk" don't go together from what I recall. It's hard to come up with an exact estimate of his patience at the plate because of the fact that he's never gotten to play more than 1/2 a season at a time and his splits always get screwed up because Ozzie loves putting him in against lefties or in situations that don't fit him. In 06, Anderson took roughly 1 walk every 12 PA's. In 08, that number declined to 1 every 19 PA's. Last year, Patterson took 1 walk ever 23.5 PA's. That number hasn't been better than 1 in 22 in any of the last few years that I bothered to check.

QUOTE (kjshoe04 @ Dec 8, 2008 -> 11:41 AM) True, Never did, Never will The person below me has never read To Kill a Mockingbird. False. The person below me has never killed a mockingbird.

But then I'd have to divorce my wife because my marriage would have no meaning. That has to be bad for the country.

For what it's worth, this has been a long time coming for the newspaper industry. They have been very, very slow to adapt to new media and it is costing them. There will always be a demand for newspapers for a variety of reasons (People like them, they are useful, they supply useful ads/coupons, they give me something to read during coffee, they fund better investigative reporting than most any of the tv networks). But there needs to be significant reorganizing of the entire industry to reflect the fact that they all don't need the structure they currently have, and they need to adapt to making a profit in both the digital and hard copy forms. The hard copy form is going to decline for some time, and then probably level off. Any business that sees that sort of a decline in its chief product will probably need some version of bankruptcy. Of course...the other option is we could just let themselves declare themselves banks, and then they'd get bailouts, no questions asked.

I have to go with the Clippers and the Expos. The Clippers are just legendary in their silly decisions. The Expos meanwhile, were so badly run that they no longer exist.

QUOTE (fathom @ Dec 8, 2008 -> 11:33 AM) Patterson's defense seems like it should be much better, but he doesn't always take the best angles. I'd much rather have Anderson. Wise is better than Patterson. Of course, we all know that if we give Ozzie any other option other than Anderson, then Anderson will be a backup, no matter how crappy the other option is. Especially if the other guy is kind of fast. You sign Patterson he immediately becomes your starting CF.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Dec 8, 2008 -> 11:29 AM) Corey Patterson is basically a black Brian Anderson IMO. More steals, fewer walks, several years older (and less chance of developing further), I'd say less power.

QUOTE (kyyle23 @ Dec 8, 2008 -> 11:23 AM) I dont know about that. If they were that confident in DeWitt, then they really shouldnt of had to trade for Casey Blake last year. Also, Kent isnt getting any younger DeWitt was struggling at the time the Dodgers made that trade, and sent to the minors to make room for Blake. But, he came back in September after getting past his slump and put up an .872 OPS for them playing mainly 2b in September. He started every one of their playoff games I believe.

Yay!

QUOTE (DrunkBomber @ Dec 6, 2008 -> 04:02 PM) I hated him as a player here but he didnt say anything bad. Im glad hes gone, but his comments dont warrant anything. I think I'm just disappointed that he seems to have forgotten how positive many of us tried to be behind him.

This is non-Sox related, I'm moving this to the Diamond Club.

QUOTE (Disco72 @ Dec 6, 2008 -> 10:26 AM) Or they (incorrectly) believe that these "can't miss" players really can't miss or that some high percentage of them will pan out. Either way, the Sox need major league caliber players back in any other deals this offseason. You know, again, I think I disagree with this statement...I'd say there's more than a few ways we could make deals that didn't require us to get back major league talent (i.e. moving someone from the bullpen other than Jenks or moving someone from AAA), but if we're going to trade one of our bigger names, JD, Jenks, Etc., then in that case it has to be for a major leaguer.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 6, 2008 -> 07:47 AM) They babied him the whole time he was here until the very last week of the regular season. The only negativity was from his preformances. Am I the only one who remembers how big of a positive reaction he seemed to get back in 2006 when he put together a really good game late in the season against Toronto? And there was this moment when we thought he might finally have found that groove, so everyone was cheering him on?

QUOTE (Wanne @ Dec 6, 2008 -> 10:06 AM) I personally think we've taken the closer's role for granted the past 2-3 years or so since we've had a very good one in place. If Bobby's gone...it could end up being a circus to end games...regardless of who we get back. Just sayin.... Like I keep saying, if you trade Bobby, it has to be in a deal that has the likelihood of making this team significantly better next season. Not somewhere down the road. If we're downgrading from him at the Closer's spot, we better get a significant upgrade at another spot.

QUOTE (R.J. @ Dec 6, 2008 -> 12:06 AM) You should all cross Gallardo, Escobar, and Hart off your wish lists. Each has more value than Jenks. Then there's nothing to talk about with the Brewers.

QUOTE (knightni @ Dec 6, 2008 -> 01:13 AM) "Hath not a dude, eyes? If you prick us, do we not get bummed? If we eat bad guacamole, do we not blow chunks?" You know the scary thing? His response was actually "If you prick me do I not bleed?". I was wondering if I was the only one in the audience who remembered that Critic quote at that point.