Balta1701

QUOTE (JPN366 @ May 29, 2008 -> 09:56 AM) Not even Evan Longoria, a big time prospect who obviously was on a fast track to the majors, was promoted through the minors at times when it would hurt the teams he played for. From A ball to AA at the end of 2006. From AA to AAA in July of 2007. And, from AAA to Tampa back in April. The minors may not be about winning, but it is far from irrelevant. It's also worth noting that Tampa has other motives that might cause them to hold a person back...like $.

QUOTE (ChWRoCk2 @ May 29, 2008 -> 09:35 AM) So if hot chicks wins, I for one am not voting for any dudes in my list. Taylor Hanson?

Yesterday, the UK Broke with the U.S. and announced that it would begin supporting a ban on cluster bomb munitions.

QUOTE (Cknolls @ May 13, 2008 -> 05:44 AM) What happens when the Fed uses up their entire balance sheet buying sh**** assets from banks and brokers? We're 1/2 way there. The first half was a failure. If you are going to take risk, MAKE SURE YOU GET PAID. Another $75 billion coming in June. This is certainly an interesting situation. The fed seems to basically be doing anything it can to delay a complete collapse, and is willing to put its entire reserve of cash on the line to do so. The question is...will it be enough to buy the country's way out of this, and if not, what does happen when they run out?

QUOTE (sircaffey @ May 28, 2008 -> 10:44 PM) Why do people take offense to describing the current lineup as aging? The meat of this lineup is very much on the decline. The vast majority of the offensive production, or what we normally would be counting on, comes from declining veterans. Just because there are some young backups, doesn't evade the fact the current lineup is aging. Only taking offense because I'm tired of hearing things I don't consider to be true. Yes, a significant chunk of our current offensive production comes from vets, but most of that is coming from vets that we have replacements lined up for! Crede, Uribe, Cabrera, Dye...there is a replacement sitting right in the system for each of them. And even then, it's not like we've gotten extraordinary production from these vets anyway, it's turned out so far that the most effective thing in our lineup has been a young guy.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ May 29, 2008 -> 09:13 AM) My biggest concern with Uribe as a utility guy on the bench is that he would bring nothing to the table as a pinch hitter. You cant bring pinch hit him when you need a bunt, or if you need to move the runner over, or even just a sac fly cause chances are he'll strike out. IIRC, there was a period in 2005 when Uribe was actually leading the league in sac flies.

QUOTE (Jenks Heat @ May 29, 2008 -> 05:57 AM) I do not know what it is but teams seem to forget how to hit when they play the cubs. Teams just have terrible AB after terrible AB. That's the NL style of ball right now.

QUOTE (YASNY @ May 29, 2008 -> 08:49 AM) I've thought about this scenario before and have come up with this. A woman gets the first two shots, if she attempts a third one she has no intention of stopping. I'll stop her some way. I won't stand there and take a beating from anyone. Learn how to block a punch.

QUOTE (Brian @ May 29, 2008 -> 09:05 AM) Interesting. The more I think about it the more I like it. Track record is there. Glad we didn't hire a guy for their first head coaching gig. Actually, I'm kind of disappointed we didn't hire a guy for his first head coaching gig, but I will add my voice to the chorus of people hoping Pax brings in an assistant who qualifies as the "coach in training" for when Collins steps out. Probably not a bad choice to deal with the young guys we've got, but I'd probably think of him as sort of a transitional, teach the kids guy, and not as the guy we'll need to make the last step.

Based on both my vote, and the results so far... History's Greatest Monster > Bacon.

QUOTE (Brian @ May 28, 2008 -> 07:04 PM) When do we play the Dodgers? We could probably shut them out the whole series. Down the middle, not much on it, swing and a miss. June 24-26. I'll be there.

QUOTE (bighurt4life @ May 28, 2008 -> 08:04 PM) this team has a weak farm system and an aging lineup. that is not the recipe for prolonged success as an organization, just look at how horrible the SF Giants are this season. They had the same combo of aging lineup and barren minors a couple of years ago and now they're terrible with no end in sight. I think that we could make any of the aforementioned moves without sacrificing the current season while still improving the overall health of the organization in preparation for future seasons. The White Sox do NOT have an aging lineup, nor do they have no young talent and no end in sight in their lineup. Look at our roster next year. There are, by my count, 3 positions out of nine where we don't have a young guy that we could put in to the lineup if we chose not to upgrade. Catcher, 1b, and DH. We have 3+ young outfielders in SuperQ, Anderson, Swisher, and Owens if you want to count him. We have a young 3rd baseman in Fields. In the middle infield, we have Ramirez, Richar, and Getz who can all fill holes. On top of that, our starting rotation right now has 2 young guys, a 3rd pretty close to ready in Broadway, we've got a young closer, and we keep developing decent young relief pitchers in addition to the couple guys we signed.

Despite Hudson's request to leave Arizona...somehow I doubt a 1st place team is going to be willing to trade their starting .870 OPS solid defensive 2nd baseman for anything other than a king's ransom. Danny Richar hit a HR today in Charlotte. If Danny can put up a good week or two, then a Richar/Ramirez platoon with Uribe playing super-sub could certainly work.

QUOTE (BearSox @ May 28, 2008 -> 04:59 PM) Richar 1 for 2 tonight with a homer, rbi, and walk. Fields 1-3 with a K. Eldred continues to rake with homerun number 19 and rbi number 50. Picking up right where he left off last time he was in Charlotte. Bring it Danny. Richar and Alexei pick it up, and it opens up a lot more options for the Sox. 2b platoon to get them both AB's comes to mind. Could clear out Uribe or Ozuna if they wanted, put a LH bat on the bench permanently with Danny.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ May 28, 2008 -> 06:36 PM) That would actually be kind of cool! On a HIRISE image, each pixel is about .3 meters (about 1 foot, for those of you using crap units). Something a couple meters across would certainly stand out. That camera has easily photographed the other rovers and their tracks as they've driven around.

QUOTE (RME JICO @ May 28, 2008 -> 03:05 PM) I don't think Cleveland's bullpen is anywhere close to ours with or without Borowski. Linebrink and Jenks alone trump anything the Indians can throw out there in the 8th and 9th. I haven't checked after the game today, but coming in to today, Cleveland's had the 2nd worst bullpen ERA in MLB.

QUOTE (Texsox @ May 28, 2008 -> 04:25 PM) In another thread around here, Kap, and I think we all can agree Kap is an intelligent, well read man, mentioned that there had to be reasons regarding the Iraq war we'll never know about. I agree and some of those may make us feel better, others may make us want to barf. Bottom line, I could believe he sat there thinking this has to be true, he's the President of the US. We do trust our leaders most of the time, and on the big stuff. I'd cut him some slack for slowly coming to that realization. What, the realization that this was one President you couldn't trust?

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ May 28, 2008 -> 02:29 PM) But you really do, because a lot of Americans may only drive 40 miles on a random basis, but we also like to be able to make weekend trips or extended drives and having a car that only goes 40 miles can severly hamper/limit Americans (to the point that we won't buy the car). I would never consider buying a car with a range of 200 miles a day, never. You get that range to a more reasonable amount and than I'd consider and I'm guessing there are a chunk of Americans who feel the same way I do. I agree that if everyone bought that car, you would be talking about a major dent and I do agree with your last statement (supplanting a battery that goes about ~40Miles without using any gas and at that point it just turns back to a hybrid vehicle (still averaging a good amount of MPG). It removes any long term restrictions while still putting a major savings on gas (although at one point we will have to figure out a way not to use gas in general and I think that will come via battery power or hydrogen (battery seems more reasonable in the sense that it would appear easier to recharge/refill than hydrogen). The idea is not just a 40 mile per day car, the idea is a 40 mile per day car with a standard, but fairly small, gasoline engine, so that when the battery for the day has run nearly dry, you can switch to the gasoline system to run for the day. So, hence, the plug-in-hybrid system I keep hoping we'll actually be able to set up. There are already more than a few places that have sprung up that do those sorts of conversions on Priuses. If you can get that system running, then you can kill off a huge chunk of this country's oil production. The key is getting the battery to the 30-40 mile per day, 5-10 year lifespan point. That's a useful threshold, because you're not demanding something unreasonable like 200 miles per day from a small battery, but you're also not so small that everyone has to flip to the gas system on their normal commute.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ May 27, 2008 -> 09:14 PM) The Reds have a potential juggernaut offensive club. I didn't realize they were so good as far as drafting/developing talent. They're loaded. Like I said when they replaced Krivsky with Jocketty...Krivsky might have made a couple mistakes, like the Kearns trade...but that team is really set to make some noise these next few years, and he won't get any of the credit.

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ May 28, 2008 -> 02:18 PM) has he every played a full season without injury, drug abuse aside? I think he'll be on the DL soon. Well, like prior to 2002, prior to his drug abuse, I think he did, but that was back when he was just out of high school, so it really tells you nothing. He's had 1.25 seasons since coming back from the drug problems, one of which was spent partially injured. No idea how his conditioning now compares to last year, but it's highly likely it's improved since his body is farther removed from its problems.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ May 28, 2008 -> 01:48 PM) You cannot compare the experiences of you or I, to his, in this instance. While you and I may both have seen what we felt was the real reason for war, and seen how weak the evidence was, that was based on information we had available too us. McClellan had all that info, but also probably, was given a lot more. And that more part may have been info that led him to believe that it was the right move. All I am saying is, we can't know if that was the case or not - until more facts come out. It is not entirely out of the realm of possibility that McClellan was misled. In McClellan's case, regarding the war itself...I'm willing to give him a pass for the information he had, because, quite frankly, it wasn't his job to be the one searching out all of the alternate possibilities. It wasn't his job to be determining whether or not they were lying or simply weren't gathering the correct information, that's the job of the President and the people working for him. If you want to hold him to account for something, there seems to be plenty of admission in the Rove case where he seemed to know he was being lied to and did nothing about it, and in the fact that he never judged how bad the quality of the people above him truly was.

QUOTE (kyyle23 @ May 28, 2008 -> 09:10 AM) Maybe its the mars lander that crashed and never was heard from again Actually there are a couple of those. At least one was shot to this same general area of the planet, so debris might not be impossible. It's also possible that it's simply an optical illusion effect created by light bouncing in some crazy fashion. If it was something really big, like a fragment of an old lander, it might well be big enough to show up in a MRO image when they start getting good passes over the current position of this lander.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ May 28, 2008 -> 12:14 PM) The problem with the 2nd generation Prius is that 100MPG hype is just that. I've read numerous articles that the 100MPG ratings are based on an outdated rating system and the reality is your talking about a 46-60 MPG automobile. Again, that is great mileage, but it isn't a significant improvement over the first generation. The better idea is to start getting these rolled out in all the product lines to the point that the companies can reach economy of scale which lowers the payback period of these vehicles (as a lot of hybrids still aren't wise fiscal purchases for those that don't plan on keeping a car for 5 or 6 years). In addition, I don't want a f***ing Prius, so if I have the option to get that sort of milegae in a car I like, good. GM does this with the Hybrid Tahoe, but again, it is so much more than the standard one. I think Hybrid will be the gap until we develop good battery power and at that point, we won't need filling stations or anything (we'll have batteries which can power a vehicle for hundreds of miles at a time and take very little time to recharge). Again, this is a bit into the future, but a lot of the capabilities are there. You really don't need 100's of miles to put a major dent in the U.S. oil consumption. Most people drive 40 miles per day or less. If you can get a battery that can last 5-10 years and run 40 miles on a 1 nighttime charge combined with hybrid recharge systems, you're pushing hundreds of MPG for the average driver.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ May 28, 2008 -> 12:05 PM) You know, it is sad that Palastinians can be undersold by the Chinese. Maybe they can blame their unions? Their problem is shipping. Israel makes it very difficult to move supplies, raw materials, and products between their territory and the sea or airports. About the only things that seem to get in are, well, weapons.

A good starting point. Somehow, I don't think that if they're losing now, they're going to turn it around in CA by the November election.