Balta1701

Richar is definitely best suited for 2nd base. He actually had problems getting down some of the skills at SS according to scouting reports when he was with the D-Backs, especially his footwork, but those issues at SS made him ideally suited for 2nd base, according to those reports again. Uribe is also clearly not as valuable as a 2nd baseman when compared to being a SS, for the reasons you cite. His arm clearly being the best one. That said...if Uribe puts up the whopping sub .700 OPS he put up the last 2 years, there is absolutely no reason for him to take playing time away from Danny. In his first big league season, as an incredibly raw player who is almost certain to improve with time, Richar actually put up a higher OPS than Uribe. I could envision a circumstance where Uribe finally gets the message through his thick skull that his career depends on his performance, but we haven't really seen a solid performance with the bat from Uribe since 2004. If he's putting up an OPS in the neighborhood of .700 like he has the last 3 years, or below .700 like he has the last 2 years, I'd rather let the kid play and see if either he could give us those same numbers and learn something for the future, or perhaps even give us significantly better numbers. If somehow the Uribe from 2004 reemerged for a few months, then that would give us an actual reason to send Danny down to the minors on the other hand. I for one just don't see that happening right now.

QUOTE(rowandrules83 @ Jan 25, 2008 -> 09:40 AM) Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't Mariotti been vocal about how great a manager Tony LaRussa is? I vaguely recall him writing that Ozzie should be fired and LaRussa re-hired (when there were rumors last season that LaRussa would resign as Cards manager). The point is...LaRussa, with guys like Canseco and McGwire, twice in his case, has been one of the biggest steroid enablers in terms of managers. And they just traded for Glaus. Not to mention the whole DUI/player killed DUI incidents from last year.

Russ Feingold (a big name amongst a lot of activists in this party) rips Edwards.

No matter what mistakes they did make, you still have to give the team credit for their behavior during the 2003 tests, and for Frank's behavior in general. I always have wondered whether simply having Frank around the clubhouse might, for the most part, have been enough to keep us clean. Because seriously, do you want to piss off #35?

QUOTE(Athomeboy_2000 @ Jan 24, 2008 -> 07:49 PM) Ok, COMPLETELY random idea / question here. Do you think Obama would have the nuts to run for president even IF he lost the Democratic bid? Maybe team up with a strong independent like Bloomburg (just an example, not a proposal) and run under a new party or as independent? If it's Romney / Clinton... i see a HUGE opening for an independent and with Obama's desire to find the middle and unite America... seems like a nice angle. Not a chance. He's young enough that he'll have a strong chance against President McCain in 2012 if he loses this race. And he's basically already the front runner for that.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 24, 2008 -> 07:25 PM) I knew it!!!!!!!!!!! I was totally going to post something about you seeming to WANT Obama to lose. Then I thought, ya know, he's probably just trying to keep his expectations low. Don't worry, Obama is still a long shot. I really wish he wouldn't lose. But after N.H., I just can't see Clinton being beaten. And it pisses me off.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 24, 2008 -> 07:18 PM) Just wanted to provide a broader picture than the two polls that happen to be best for Hillary (one of which needs a big BS sign on it). Dude, don't you realize I've watched too many damn elections in the past 8 years with high hopes for the results only to have my hopes dashed on virtually every single one other than last year's congressional election and Iowa? At this point, if I wasn't being overly pessimistic, i'd be setting myself up for a nervous breakdown. Stop trying to give me hope, I'd rather be pleasantly surprised.

In a situation eerily mirroring New Hampshire, pollsters are now finding a dramatically tightening race in South Carolina.

NY Times with the half-hearted McCain endorsment

NY Times with the Hillary endorsement

Both the Obama and Clinton campaigns have agreed to pull their negative ads against each other in SC. Bill Clinton himself is now going up on the air with a pro-Hillary ad in that state. Obama's on Letterman for the top 10 list tonight.

QUOTE(StrangeSox @ Jan 24, 2008 -> 01:25 PM) More trash TV. Why can't they ever come up with anything decent? Why does it have to be crappy reality shows or game shows? Because they don't have writers.

How about that.

QUOTE(Soxy @ Jan 24, 2008 -> 01:19 PM) Not to look a gift horse in the mouth but. . . Where are they getting this money? Will this actually help? This will, much like the Iraq war, be paid for by deficit spending. Hence, it will be paid for by selling bonds. I really wouldn't have a problem with that concept if we weren't already running a deficit. IMO, the little I know about this subject suggests that the ideal time for the Federal Government to do things like this, go deeper in to debt, issue more debt, and get more money in to the hands of consumers is when there is an economic downturn, because that can sometimes help alleviate some of the other problems with the downturn. The big problem right now is that for most of the last 30 years, we've been running with a structural deficit, meaning that we have almost never bothered to worry about a balanced federal budget. So with the exception of the Clinton Administration, we haven't taken advantage of the times when there has been growth to restore the taxes that were cut during downturns or cut the spending that was increased during a downturn. So, we've basically been constantly pumping stimulus in, especially for the last few years where we've dumped like $4 trillion or so in to the national debt with the deficits run since the Bush tax cuts and the spending on the Iraq war. I think a decent metaphor might be those commercials where they test the performance of an oil by just slamming on the accelerator in 2 cars to see which one burns out the engine first. If you hit the accelerator when you start slowing down, then it can help you keep a constant speed. If you keep your foot constantly on the gas, eventually it burns out, and when you try hitting the gas more, it doesn't exactly do anything.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 24, 2008 -> 12:02 PM) So yeah, if that is what it would take, I'd trade Fields for Cain. A 2008-2009 rotation consisting of Buehrle, Vaz/Cont, Cain, Danks, Floyd, or one of the other couple guys around there = enough money free to sign Cabrera after 2009. We'd have gone from a $50 million starting rotation in 2006 to a $26 million rotation in only a few years.

QUOTE(knightni @ Jan 24, 2008 -> 11:46 AM) Crede won't re-sign long term. He's a Boras client. He'll elect to go to free agency. And if you trade Josh, when Joe winds up walking as a FA, we're left scrambling to sign Uribe to play 3rd for us, or going without a 3rd baseman for a year until Cabrera is available.

It also depends on who I'm going with. For example, it might be significantly more enjoyable to spend a week in the middle of no where in a bunch of national parks if I was going with a bunch of other geologists and a large cooler of beer, while the wife might not be up for that, on the other hand, some of the city stuff, or even hotels (i.e. the Old Faithful lodge, which someday I will stay @) in the more wild areas might work better with her.

QUOTE(Athomeboy_2000 @ Jan 24, 2008 -> 11:31 AM) A GOP ace in the hole? Dude, after all the invective that those people have thrown at the Clintons over the years, from accusing them of murder to extortion to the impeachment hearings, do you think that there's any serious thing they could throw at them that is even believable any more? Especially coming from the Washington Times?

And if you don't believe my contentions about Romney being a far superior President...I submit this video as proof. Best response I've read on a blog went something like this: "Can't you just picture Romney's Brain, a-la Homer Simpson's, telling him, 'Come on, say something street, say something to fit in', his mouth producing that line, and then his brain responding with 'That's it I'm out of here'...walking away and then shutting the door on its way out."

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 24, 2008 -> 10:23 AM) Romney's core beliefs have completely changed since he was Gov. I hate that. That isn't realistic. That is pandering to the extreme as far as I am concerned. And in 2004, McCain was saying that it was a mistake to extend the tax cuts that he refused to vote for and now supports. And McCain was for all those campaign finance provisions until he was running for office and needed to ignore them. And McCain was strongly opposed to the influence that Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson had on the party until he needed that wing of the party's support and was off giving the commencement address at liberty university and praising those folks. And McCain is giving you straight talk about how those jobs aren't coming back to Michigan, the day before he promises to help bring jobs back to Michigan. The remarkable thing is not that he's changed positions all over, I'm sure you could come up with a list like that for every politician. The remarkable thing is that the media narrative of him being a straight talker has become so ingrained that even when he flip-flops from one day to another, he doesn't get called on it, while the media doesn't like Romney so he gets called on every one. The only thing McCain hasn't had his core beliefs change on is the use of the military, which, while consistent, are pretty much as silly as GW's.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Jan 24, 2008 -> 10:14 AM) He's an easy guy to respect. Much more loyal to his party than most people would be. I just hope he's more than a Bob Dole kind of candidate. Um, am I the only one who remembers all the talk of him considering flipping parties in the early part of this decade, or the talk of him being Kerry's VP candidate, or all the campaign events he's doing with Lieberman?

Personally, I absolutely detest arguments for how a person is ready to be President because of their "experience". It's not experience that determines policy. It's the policies themselves, the type of people they are, etc. Once a person has reached a certain point in their career where they are able to run for that office and not be laughed at, then I think the whole experience matter is a wash. There simply is no level of experience that can prepare a person for that job, either they have the judgement and policy work to do it or they don't.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 24, 2008 -> 10:12 AM) McCain I at least have some respect for... And I'm the exact opposite. I at least feel some respect for Romney in that I think he did a decent job as governor up in MA and his record shows that, while I have essentially lost all respect I used to have for McCain in how amazingly pandering he's been over the last 7 years.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 24, 2008 -> 10:02 AM) I would say it would be like buying a cellphone and getting a rebate. You pay your 07 taxes, then they send you a rebate based on their formula. I'll have to hit the newswires to be sure. Ok, so this would be the equivalent of a 1 time tax cut of $1200...and so if I were to say, have already been planning to take a honeymoon this summer on my 1 year anniversary, I might just think that it's paid for by that rebate. (Not that I mind paying the taxes of course, as the communist hippy that I am. I'll just stick myself into the Ron Paul wing of saying "Ok, if they're giving it to me I'll take it")

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 24, 2008 -> 09:57 AM) It looks to me like it is just a rebate, nothing permanent. So basically they're giving you $1200 early, with the expectation that you'll owe an additional $1200 next year when you pay your taxes?