Balta1701

Even as a person who wanted to see Fields get the job...the 6 k's in his first 8 AB's at AAA this season aren't anything to write home about yet. Maybe he does have some stuff to work on there, even if it's just brief.

Well, maybe josh did have a few things still to work on at the minor league level.

Justin Duchscherer gets a start tonight. Hiroki Kuroda making his debut for the Dodgers. Dustin Moseley gets the start for the Halos.

QUOTE(Athomeboy_2000 @ Apr 4, 2008 -> 06:42 PM) Here is my take. Normally Friday is a good dump day if it's a quick hit story. This one, however, requires research, cross checks, ect. I think by the time all the proper research is done, this will hit hard Monday morning and give it momentum into next week. We are also in a blog / community journalism culture now. News stories like this have more "average person" research and stories can carry on until the MSM finally picks it up. I knew about the whole Rev. Wright thing about a week before it MSM. This does take a lot of work. But the problem is...it's work that has to be done over the weekend when people aren't watching, and the fact is, the Bush administration wouldn't do all their document dumps on Friday afternoons if there wasn't something to gain from it. And on top of that, Saint Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker will be testifying before Congress next week, so there's another element of the fog to get lost in.

The Blue Jays signed Alex Rios and Aaron Hill to extensions over 6 and 4 years, Rios worth $64 million and a $13.5 million option year.

QUOTE(BearSox @ Apr 4, 2008 -> 06:10 PM) If getting Crisp would mean Owens would not be anywhere near the MLB roster, I'd be for it... as long as Crisp didn't cost us anything of value. Also, our offseason acquisitions of Swisher and Cabrera have yet to impress me. But, it's still early. The 3 walks in 5 AB's for Swisher don't do anything for you? Yeah, they're a bit cold, but you could say that about our whole 1-4. I don't have a problem with Thome hitting .188 right now and you shouldn't have a problem with Swisher right now. Even if he's struggling with the bat, he's still going to get on base, which is a luxury we haven't had in recent years.

QUOTE(BearSox @ Apr 4, 2008 -> 06:07 PM) Pierzynski is on a tear right now, and I am loving. Our pen pitched great, for the most part. I am worried about the fact that Jenks could barely get up to 93 though. When his fastball is as straight as his, it better be really fast or you better have pinpoint accuracy with it. How many times have we heard exactly the same thing about Bobby and Velocity to start a season now? And each time we hear it he seems to get better. He's throwing right where he was last year as far as I can tell, and from what I've seen his fastball seems to have a lot more bite/movement on it than it used to when he was throwing 102 and straight.

I'll outsource my response to Dean Baker, from the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Showing me that BearStearns needed to be bailed out is not the point I'm making. The point I'm trying to make is that this is a landmine in the economy that will detonate bigger than Bear in the future if not fixed. The issue to me is not whether or not Bear should have been bailed out, nor is it whether or not bailing out Bear saved the banking system. The issue is whether or not the taxpayer bailout of a company is setting us up for worse in the future, which I would say is the obvious end result. If you've got a 5% chance of making a big profit, but a 50% chance of taking a big loss, normally that's nto a good bet, but if Ben Bernake sits behind you and says he'll pick up the tab if you lose, suddenly that 5% chance of the big profit looks a lot better because you can't lose! So, therefore, if a homeowner makes a bad bet on a house, he or she is SOL, because we can't get rid of the penalties for making bad bets. But if a banker makes a bad set of bets, we have to bail them out because it kills the economy. So what's to stop the banker from making bad bets in the future, just like they KEEP DOING!

QUOTE(StrangeSox @ Apr 4, 2008 -> 05:14 PM) If the entire banking system collapses, we can all lose our homes. So why are entities like banks allowed to make decisions on their own that can lead to the total collapse of the American economy if the taxpayer doesn't bail them out?

Heyman

QUOTE(santo=dorf @ Apr 4, 2008 -> 02:30 PM) That's good. Think KW is pissed because Ozzie's won't play one of his former first round picks? Quentin hit a 2 run homer today, Dye is suddenly on fire (man and I was worried about him at the end of ST) and Swisher took a couple walks even though he's not hitting. I doubt Kenny's that pissed. If he wants Anderson to play he needs to clear him a position to play at.

Here's an interesting one. Might be just a mistake by a sloppy, not ready to take a phone call at 3 a.m. staff, but there's about $18 million in income in those returns that is unaccounted for in their summary, according to the Politico (Just go to Drudge and do the math at the top of his page, add in the book deals, salaries, and speaking engagements, and you come up short by about that much)

By the way, I'd like to note for the record, such as it is, that the Clinton campaign did the classic Friday Afternoon bad news document dump that we've seen so often from the current administration with its tax returns. Because fewer people watch the evening news on Friday or pay attention on Friday and Saturday to the news shows than they do early in the week.

QUOTE(Athomeboy_2000 @ Apr 4, 2008 -> 01:33 PM) In 2005, the Clintons had $5 million of income form Yucaipa Global holdings and $2.6 million in 2006. UH OH! Huh?

QUOTE(SoxFan562004 @ Apr 4, 2008 -> 12:48 PM) this question is late but I was ridiculously held up for no good reason this morning and had a lunch appointment, so what's up with Granderson? Is he hurt? Broken right hand on a HBP on March 22nd. On the DL all year so far.

Glenn Beck and James Inhofe go off on a rant, I kid you not...about how evil POLAR BEARS are!

How bad of a state does your bullpen have to be in for you to bring in a RHP to face Thome?

Here comes Denny Bautista. Let's keep their bullpen ERA going up.

QUOTE(Capn12 @ Apr 4, 2008 -> 12:42 PM) We should maybe.....think a bit more long term for a guy with a robotic(surgically repaired) arm like Dotel. He has great stuff, lets maybe...not use all of it up in April? He threw one inning, 15 pitches today? Yes, he threw yesterday also, but he faced what, 1 batter? And that was after a couple of off days beforehand? We probably shouldn't use him tomorrow unless it goes in to extras, but it's not like that's a heavy workload.

Oh, but it's ok for the Federal Reserve to step in and tell all of those banks that made hundreds of billions of dollars worth of bad loans and purchases that they don't have to worry because the Federal Reserve will bail them out? Isn't that EXACTLY the same thing, and can't the exact argument be made about that? If bailing out people who took out bad loans is bad policy because it's putting trust in people who have already engaged in risky behavior, why should we put so much faith in bankers?

QUOTE(chisoxfan79 @ Apr 4, 2008 -> 12:27 PM) wHAT do we do with Quentin when Owens comes back? Hopefully Carlos plays well enough that it's not even a question, and the only question winds up being who do we trade to open up another OF spot or two next year.

That will work.

Come on AJ, Carlos. Make em pay for having a crappy pen.

And that's why we're playing Carlos Quentin. Whether or not Anderson is good...Quentin is.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Apr 4, 2008 -> 10:31 AM) Pujols, Hafner and Thome are all up there especially Pujols and his calm "I know I'm better than you but I don't feel the need to show it with theatrics" demeanor. While Hafner may kill us, after his down season last year he's fallen out of the top of that list for me. He could easily pick it back up this year though.