Balta1701

Anderson takes his 3rd walk of the game.

Full count to BA...

Crede out to CF, 2 down.

G*d flies out to left, one out.

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ Aug 25, 2008 -> 02:10 PM) Who will walk it off, Q, Crede, BA? I have this odd feeling we'll still pinch hit for BA. This is too close to him getting a start.

Lance Cormier in for the O's.

Ok, I sort of like how Gameday is actually showing what our guys' numbers were on the day this game happened. Alexei was hitting .121.

Montanez grounds out, 3 out, Sox coming up.

Cintron walked, then forced at 2nd on a Luke Scott grounder, 2 out.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Aug 25, 2008 -> 02:46 PM) I can't figure the direction of your post here... are you pushing to or away from my post? I'm just thinking...it seems like every time there's an even remotely close race, I hear "If only they'd been like they were during the concession speech" in the campaign part they might have won. We heard it with Hilrod's speech in early June, we heard it a ton with Gore in 2000, you just gave it to Romney, etc.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 25, 2008 -> 01:34 PM) The fact we're pitching Ramirez instead of Thornton makes me think that Thornton asked for another day off. That's the only possible reason I could think of. Maybe they figure they're more likely to want him in the 2nd game?

QUOTE (lostfan @ Aug 25, 2008 -> 02:38 PM) You know, I watched his concession speech. He did a complete 180 from how he conducted his campaign. If he had not acted like such a self-serving slimeball he could've won the nomination. Slightly OT...when is the last time someone didn't come out looking better after a concession speech than they did before?

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Aug 25, 2008 -> 12:47 PM) Mitt Romney about makes me want to puke. Who out of the Republican VP field doesn't?

QUOTE (Jimbo's Drinker @ Aug 25, 2008 -> 01:52 PM) Hypothetically speaking, where would they play baseball, the cell or boys town's finest. Barring a major change, baseball is no longer an olympic sport starting in 2012 I believe.

"I say f*** you Jobu. I do it myself".

QUOTE (RME JICO @ Aug 25, 2008 -> 11:20 AM) So doesn't that make the cutoff after 2010? So you lock him up after 2009 and still won't have to worry about outrageous contracts yet and can actually buy out some of his first few years of free agency with a 5 year deal. A deal buying out his first few years of FA will probably push 5/$75 or 5/$80 if you don't do it this offseason. That's the reality of the numbers he's looking at.

QUOTE (vandy125 @ Aug 25, 2008 -> 09:45 AM) Crede just needs to work on that twist away where you actually stick more of your body out over the plate then. I don't think Joe should be twisting his back that much these days....

QUOTE (vandy125 @ Aug 25, 2008 -> 09:39 AM) I really don't see it as being much different from a batter who sticks his elbow out on purpose to get hit by a pitch. That happens all the time, and I don't think I've ever seen an ump not award 1st base. I believe it happened to Crede once in Oakland back in 05 I think. Twas pretty darn obvious when he did it.

QUOTE (RME JICO @ Aug 25, 2008 -> 09:30 AM) I think you wait one more year. If there is no regression in 2009, you lock him up for the long term. However, you definitely need to take advantage of his arb years to maximize the payroll flexibility of the team. According to our beautiful contract sheet, 2009 is Q's last Pre-arb year. Which means that if you plan on trying to lock him up long term after 2009, you may as well expect to give him 5/75 or something in that range, because that's what he'll be getting anyway.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 25, 2008 -> 10:08 AM) The moves they made by flooding the commodities markets finished off the USSR. They took away their only flow of hard currency. If commodities prices didn't bottom out during the 80's, the Soviet Union would be here today. If just being a bad form of government was enough, China would have gone away a long time ago. Same with trying to manage too much area under one empire. And so now our plan to deal with the current threats we face is to drive commodity prices up through the roof so that they have so much money they all bury themselves in gold coins and drown in them, and that's the end of the threats from Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Russia?

QUOTE (lostfan @ Aug 25, 2008 -> 08:54 AM) Yeah... I mean if you're serious about politics (and if you're a lifelong Democrat who is registered and is a loyal supporter of a prominent Democrat, I think that qualifies) I just can't understand how spite could be that strong unless you're just uneducated, ignorant, or otherwise don't care. I think some of those 26% will stop and think about what they're doing, and realize they are voting the exact opposite views of the candidate they supposedly support so strongly. I can understand abstaining from voting (or even better, writing in for Clinton), but don't vote AGAINST what you and your candidate believe in. That is like me getting pissed off at Jesse Jackson for saying he wants to cut Obama's nuts off and then declaring I'm going to a KKK rally next week. There's one thing you're missing though...for about 2 months, Hillary spent her time saying why John McCain was better than Barack Obama. He'd "Passed the commander in chief test" and so forth. She already did some of McCain's campaign work for him, that's part of the reason why that chunk is still out there. I think the convention will probably help, and having the Obama campaign genuinely turn up the heat on the McCain campaign will probably help more.

LOL

QUOTE (shipps @ Aug 25, 2008 -> 09:16 AM) Isnt the point of managing a roster is too have players on that roster that are successful at a great price?It seems people want the sox to dish out a ton of money right now to the guy just because we love him so much.I realize we want to make him happy but on some levels I want to say tough s*** we will give you what we want. The problem is those arbitration and FA years. There's no reason to think that if he stays healthy he won't go $11 million, $14 million, $16 million (or more) through those years and then have someone push him a $20 million a year offer when he hits FA. Howard and a couple other guys are still blazing the arbitration trail and blowing out the numbers before him. Saying we'll pay him what we want is fine for next year...but not when we lose control of it. If you can give us some cost certainty against future arbitration price explosions and at the same time buy out a year or two of FA, then this team has to do it.

For an alternate reference point...how many Spurs fans are angry with Ginobili for being a legendary flopper? How many of them would give back their trophies?

The reason why all these people started getting these rapid contracts is Ryan Howard. The dude won $10 mil in arbitration his first year. Right after that we saw that surge of Ramirez, Longoria, etc., all being locked up for years, because those teams were smart enough to realize that Howard's deal set a new bar. G*d will probably be in that same ballpark for his first arbitration year if you don't lock him up soon. Shoot for an $8-$9 million a year average and try to get an option year on the end to buy out a FA year, and hope he is willing to sign because you're taking the risk on his injury history