Balta1701

Teddy Kennedy went on El Pioin's radio show today, advertising for BO in the L.A. area to the nation's largest radio audience. Here's an interesting one for the economic policy wonks out there. Paul Volcker, the guy who was the Fed before Greenspan and who is probably best known for ending the inflation crisis in the early 80's, endorsed Obama today.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jan 31, 2008 -> 11:57 AM) So you'd actually be in favor of adding a second low OBP hitter to the top of the lineup? People sure are confident that Crisp's last 1000 major league ABs have been an aberration. The only way I'd be in favor of adding Crisp is if he were acquired in a 1-1 swap for MacDougal and if he's placed in the 8th or 9th spot in the batting order. There's still no place to play him unless we move someone else. Basically, you want Crisp, we've got to move Konerko, IMO. Because Quentin isn't spending several years down at the minors waiting for an OF spot to open and we're not trading him again without playing him to push his value back up, we're not trading Swisher without playing him, and I don't see us moving Dye right now after a down season and a new contract. Basically, you must move Konerko to go after Crisp, and move Swisher to 1b.

QUOTE(Jenks Heat @ Jan 31, 2008 -> 09:52 AM) How are his stats from last year looked at and can an arbitrator take injury into account? The arbitrator would only take injury into account in the sense that the injury had hurt his stats the year before and he hadn't performed well. I think a good reference point is this guy on the north side you might have heard of, Mark Prior. Coming in to 07, he was arb-eligible and the Cubs offered arbitration. His salary in 2006 was $3.65 million. The Cubs that offseason offered arbitration, and when the 2 sides submitted their numbers to the arbitrator, Prior asked for a slight salary increase, the Cubs asked for a slight salary decrease from the year before, which actually made press reports because it's so rare for a club to ask for a player's salary to be cut at all. Prior wound up signing for $3.575 million, a very slight cut from his $3.65 million the year before. This is pretty much the same boat the White Sox were in. Crede's folks probably would have asked for a slight pay increase, the Sox probably would have asked for a slight pay cut, and from that point it's 50/50 on how the arbitrator decides if it gets that far, and it makes more sense for the team to just sign him rather than gamble on the arbitrator upping his salary by $250k or so. Because even if the team were to win, they probably wouldn't win more than that amount.

On another note, BO just broke another fundraising record. In 2007, John McCain's campaign took in $29 million. In 2004, Howard Dean's campaign took in $45 million total. Obama beat McCain's entire total from last year in January. $32 million in 1 month. For reference, that total is 1/1000th of Shell Oil's profit in the 4th quarter of 2007.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 31, 2008 -> 09:36 AM) I don't agree on that assessment of the absentee voting. For one thing, remember the demographics... people who vote early are usually more involved politically, and have higher-end daytime jobs - thus probably more educated on the whole. The former factor, involvement, tends towards those not leading the pack. The latter, education level, according to the polls, tends to favor Obama pretty consistently. I'd say the absentee thing would be pretty close to even, with a slight edge to Obama, all things considered. Well, let's put it this way...it's a wildcard. Absentee ballots went out 2-3 weeks ago, before Obama's big boost started. So we have a variety of factors in play that could push them strongly one way or another.

The biggest piece of the pie... Taken after Florida but before Edwards dropped out, according to Rasmussen. Problem to remember...something like 20% of California (including me) is going to have already voted before super tuesday comes around, and it's pretty likely Clinton's early lead will carry through to a lot of those. So Obama needs to be more than slightly ahead on the day of the election to win it, more than likely.

QUOTE(Jenks Heat @ Jan 31, 2008 -> 08:18 AM) Can I ask a question and I pointed this out in an other thread... Why did the White Sox sign Joe Crede to a $5M contract when they could have waited and possibly have gone to arbitration and force his hand? I assume they have seen hium work-out and he would have had to have passed aphysical before the contract could be signed correct? At some point there would have had to have been a medical evaluation, no? The White Sox had to decide whether or not to offer Crede arbitration by early December. In the arbitration process, I believe it's actually impossible for salaries to decrease from one year to another. Last year, Joe Crede made $4.94 million. If the White Sox hadn't offered Crede arbitration, they would have lost him for nothing in early December. When the Sox did offer Joe arbitration, they guaranteed Joe $4.94 million. Signing him for $5 million is just an expression of that. So the only physical that would have mattered would have been any one that would have been given to Joe in Early December/late November. There was no way that the Sox could offer him arbitration and then avoid paying him $4.94 million or more by giving him a physical in January or February.

QUOTE(lvjeremylv @ Jan 31, 2008 -> 06:45 AM) I seem to recall Erstad had a good start. But it seems so long ago.... I harped on this during the season, and I'll repeat it now. Erstad did not have a good start (aside from the first day, where he had a home run). He hit .261 in April and .266 in May. It only appeared he had a good start because 2/3 of our lineup was hitting around .200 for that first month. He hit .260 but seemed to be doing well because no one else in the lineup was hitting .260 or above. He did however have a great July. Put up an OPS of 2.000. Dominated. In that one at bat.

The general feeling I'm getting from the press appears to be that McCain performed fairly poorly, although not so horrendously bad as to hurt anything. Sandwiched between winning Florida, being endorsed by Rudy, and being endorsed by Governor A**-grabber tomorrow, it probably won't make a difference.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Jan 30, 2008 -> 07:08 PM) *smells pants* Damn, it stinks. I don't recall saying anyone would win the GOP nomination (I honestly don't remember, I could have, but I don't remember saying it), but I have certainly said since oh, about 2005 that Hillarity is going to be our next president. No you wouldn't have. You stole that nickname from me!

Video @ TMZ. Dude...you lost. Stop stealing our song. We won, you lost, it's our song.

QUOTE(Athomeboy_2000 @ Jan 30, 2008 -> 05:21 PM) was this planned? or is this a recent decision? If it wasnt planned prior to today... it's Richardson. "a special rally in the Witter Fitness Center Gymnasium at the Santa Fe Community College" special seems like an odd choice of words for a regular event. I havent kept up with the Obama events page to know how they word their events. If that was what was happening, I think it'd be useful, but I think that the couple weeks since he dropped out have muted the effect if that was the case.

QUOTE(peanut33tillman @ Jan 30, 2008 -> 04:47 PM) Qwerty do u really believe O-Cab would be better suited as a 8 or 9 hole hitter honestly? How do you figure? Cabrera hit over 300 last year with over 600 ABs in the 2 slot, granted his OBP I believe was somewhere around .350 but this kid is the ideal 2 hole hitter for this ball club.... Unfortunately, the problem isn't that he's not an ideal 2 hole hitter...he certainly is. Good bat control, decent speed, just kinda fits that role well. The problem is we don't have an obvious person to hit in front of him, and it seems to make more sense to go Cabrera/Swisher than it does Swisher/Cabrera, because Swisher would be expected to put up better power numbers and you kinda want that guy with a chance hitting in front of Thome and with a chance to have someone on base in front of him. I still think it's possible something will work out where Owens gets a decent chunk of AB's and actually gives us a .350ish OBP and solves this problem for a bunch of games, but the problem with that is we have no where to play him right now.

QUOTE(max power @ Jan 30, 2008 -> 03:43 PM) Yeah I like it too with the current roster. And if richar pans out to what he can be you stick him first. That's assuming danny gets on at a higher obp. One interesting thing about Danny, for a guy without big time power his walk rate wasn't that bad last year. In his first stint in the majors, while being pretty raw, he had a bb/ab rate of .085, which over a full season would come to around 45 walks and which, if he hit .300, would put him with a .350 OBP. His numbers in the minors for walks/ab were actually better than that and he could potentially push those numbers higher simply by adapting to the league better. He's not going to give us a .380 OBP or anything like that though if his historical numbers are any guide...and personally, I think from looking at their stats, Owens is more likely to give us a .350 + OBP next year than Danny.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Jan 30, 2008 -> 03:13 PM) So what's the impact if Edwards nominates Obama as his preferred candidate in terms of support and delegates? And what difference does it make if he does it before or after Super Dooper Tuesday? If he does it before does it give Obama a lot more momentum, which translates into more votes across the states? Edwards has been polling at roughly 10-15% in most states. The LA Times a week or so ago did a bit of polling and asked Edwards supporters who they would be more likely to support if Edwards dropped out, and Clinton had a slight lead in that regard. Moving those voters in bulk to either one or the other would make a big difference. In the national tracking polls, Obama's moved within single digits of Hillary since South Carolina (Florida clearly not included yet) so that might be enough to put him over the top, and it'd clearly make Hillary's lead insurmountable in 6 days barring her repeating those remarks she made that one time about a gas station. Demographically, the Edwards supporters were often more white and more elderly than the average voter, which is the demographic set that would be expected to fall more towards Hillary. Currently, Edwards has 62 delegates, 26 pledged and 36 superdelegates. I think the pledged delegates would probably consider following him if he endorsed. The Superdelegates would likely do so, but there might be some stragglers. FWIW, Obama now totally dominates the online communities.

QUOTE(Benchwarmerjim @ Jan 30, 2008 -> 02:48 PM) I dont think Cuddyer wants to move back to third. From what I remember, the idea was toyed with last year (along with playing Mauer at 1B for a few games) but was shot down This year, you might see Mauer at 1b for a few games. I guess he is going to put in some work at spring training for that scenerio Why would you spend all that money to re-sign Morneau then try moving Mauer to 1b? If he needs time off more often, DH him.

QUOTE(Athomeboy_2000 @ Jan 30, 2008 -> 01:48 PM) this thread The 2000 election...if you fix a few of the phrases (i.e. get rid of the co-presidency part, change the sex of the person it's directed at, etc.)

QUOTE(ptatc @ Jan 30, 2008 -> 12:32 PM) This is true depending on the difference between the two players. Is a .05 better OBP worth having the slower guy on base? Here's a thought. How many GIDP did PK have with Pods on in front of him vs. having slower player in front? A faster runner will cause PK's horrible GIDP numbers to be lower, which again only helps the team. Currently, I don't know who is the better player JO or CQ. Obviously, if one is far ahead of the other you pick that one but so far I'm not sure either has. The problem of course is that the OBP isn't the only part of the equation. If you give me 2 guys with identical slugging numbers, one steals 50 bases at an 80% clip but has a .1 lower OBP than a guy who steals 2, of course you take the 50 steals guy. But if the guy with the higher OBP also has a significantly higher slugging percentage and hits a lot more home runs...well, if Konerko and Owens had identical OBP's, Owens stole 60 bases, Konerko bopped 40 home runs, which one would you pick?

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 30, 2008 -> 12:21 PM) Heck, the Edwards campaign has actually said pretty much that, in public. They have both made overtures. I believe I posted the link to Trippi, a top Edwards advisor, saying so about 3 hours ago in this thread

QUOTE(Heads22 @ Jan 30, 2008 -> 11:02 AM) If you can at all do it without "someone like Egbert or Broadway", that'd be better. You still have someone in Egbert who is perfectly tailored with his pitches for the South Side, while Broadway showed some pretty impressive flashes last year. LOL, you just don't want to give up Egbert. Look, you stick Cain in this rotation, and your top 3 are Buehrle, Vazquez, Cain, all under your control for a long time, you have Contreras for 2 years, followed by Floyd and Danks. That gives you 6 pitchers, 5 if you can move Contreras, 3 of whom are very cheap, and you still have Sisco or Broadway/Egbert hanging out down at AAA for 1 more year. If you could move Contreras somehow, then you have literally a $27 million rotation 2 years after you spent almost 2x that on your rotation.

Hoping against hope...

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jan 30, 2008 -> 10:31 AM) Just a point of reference: Buehrle makes $14M a year, $15M if said team trades for him. Ooops. Make it a $2 million first baseman and the math still ads up.

Link. Haven't yet seen a statement by the Clintons.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 30, 2008 -> 10:05 AM) Al Gore, you say? I figured it was implied and I didn't need to point it out. After the last year or two of work he's done, if Gore endorsed, I think that ends the discussion for either of these 2.