Balta1701

Gameday says injury delay, any details?

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Aug 21, 2007 -> 05:06 PM) Well the twins are pretty much doomed to finish out of the playoffs in this division for awhile, and without Santana they have basically no chance. Its nice that their best players were top draft picks (morneau 3rd round i guess not really a top pick, Mauer #1) and basically no-brainers and all, but without Johan, they are nothing but an average team. That depends...if they were to say, trade Johan, they could essentially rebuild that team in no time. And if Liriano were to somehow come back healthy, and Garza could continue to develop, along with the rest of their young pitching, that team could completely rebuild on the fly if they make the right moves.

Except of course...Medicare already runs with dramatically less than the overhead that we see with private insurers in almost any way you look at it.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Aug 21, 2007 -> 01:58 PM) his production has dropped WAY off. Is there any mystery that he is starting a dramatic decline? Jim Thome, even when healthy, has traditionally been one of the streakiest hitters in baseball. I'll give you hsi splits from 04, when he was healthy, as an example: April/Mar. .364 .456 .714 1.170 May .253 .371 .560 .931 June .306 .430 .816 1.246 July .229 .345 .417 .762 August .264 .412 .560 .972 Sept./Oct .225 .364 .380 .744 Even when he was pretty healthy, in a season where he hit 42 home runs, his numbers swung up and down like crazy. You can look back at earlier seasons and see the same thing (hit .212 in April of 02, etc.) If he's actually hurting, then he's hurting. But just because his numbers are down for a month doesn't necessarily mean he's finished.

QUOTE(knightni @ Aug 21, 2007 -> 01:23 PM) Santana goes to the Mets, Peavy to the Braves. Just watch. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the 1st part of that happens this offseason. In fact, if I was a Twins fan...deep down I'd really want to see that happen.

QUOTE(Alpha Dog @ Aug 21, 2007 -> 12:23 PM) What do you do with all the insurance company people that will be out of work? Do they now become government employees? By those grounds, no business or government institution should ever do anything to make a system or operation more efficient because it could put people out of work. "Whaddya mean these computers are only 6 months old. We have to replace them now to keep the factories open!" Here's the way I look at it; yes...people at insurance companies would be put out of business. But on the other hand...if you are truly moving to a system which provides lower costs for people, then those dollars that were being turned into the 30% overhead costs in our health care system or were being turned into insurance company profits will be spent by people somewhere else, and that money being spent will generate new business opportunities and new jobs in other sectors.

Here's another way to look at it. Take a moment to look at the top teams in the NL. And their pitching staffs. Tom Glavine (L) Oliver Perez (L) Orlando Hernandez ® John Maine ® Brian Lawrence ® Carlos Zambrano ® Ted Lilly (L) Jason Marquis ® Rich Hill (L) Sean Marshall (L) Ben Sheets Dave Bush ® Claudio Vargas ® Jeff Suppan ® Yovani Gallardo ® Derek Lowe ® Brad Penny ® Chad Billingsley ® Brett Tomko ® Eric Stults (L) Brandon Webb ® Livan Hernandez ® Doug Davis (L) Micah Owings ® Yusmeiro Petit ® John Smoltz ® Tim Hudson ® Chuck James (L) Buddy Carlyle ® Lance Cormier ® Cole Hamels (L) Jamie Moyer (L) Kyle Kendrick ® Kyle Lohse ® J.D. Durbin ® Jake Peavy ® Chris Young ® Greg Maddux ® Justin Germano ® Clay Hensley ® The only 2 teams I see out of that entire list where I would think Garland would be a #4 starter would be the Dodgers and possibly the Padres. Now, her'es the next thing to think about; where will teams actually go to find pitching this offseason? Link Heyman gives a list of his top pitchers, and it really isn't loaded. Schilling and Clemens are at the top, and they're moderately old. That's one of the interesting points showing up from the ability of teams to resign their own star talent with the new money in MLB; pitchers aren't hitting the market like they were a couple years ago. Teams are resigning them or dealing them to teams that can sign them. So...unless the Twins put Johan on the market...for teams looking for starting pitching this offseason...and there will be a boatload...there will be 2 options. Trade, or call up. Because there isn't really anything guaranteed showing up on this market this year.

It appears someone is finally going after the Thompson campaign's dirty little secret: it's a campaign. The issue/benefit for Thompson here? He has a few months after he declares to begin meeting disclosure requirements for his campaign donors. Supposedly, if he goes past Sept. 6th without officially announcing, he won't have to meet disclosure requirements until Jan 31st of next year, and thus he won't have to do so until after Iowa, NH, Michigan, South Carolina, Florida, etc.

Crocodiles, cobras found in Saudi Airline passenger's luggage.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Aug 21, 2007 -> 10:59 AM) WIDGER He had a better CERA than AJ that year, by quite a bit IIRC.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Aug 21, 2007 -> 10:52 AM) When is the pitch-calling ever good? 2005?

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Aug 20, 2007 -> 03:50 PM) While those guys may have past him for now, Sweeney is a favorite of both Ozzie and KW. The injury is unfortunate, but unlike some, he'll still get every opportunity to show what he's got. I still think he's going to be a real good player. I think many of us think that...but I still contend that it's fairly important not to push the kid too far too fast, esp. with the injury and swing problems of late.

QUOTE(29andPoplar @ Aug 21, 2007 -> 07:57 AM) Personally I would like both. Richar getting a good chance to play with a veteran to back him up and be a key bat off the bench. A guy who can hit like Grudzelanek (not necessarily him but his profile) would look nice but I don't know if they can devote a roster spot to someone who is solely a 2B. No more Cintron though, they need to do better than him. The only problem is...that based on recent history...if we give Ozzie another decent option, especially a veteran option, we'll wind up seeing that veteran guy in the lineup vastly more than he would deserve based solely on the production of each player.

If Jon Garland could be resigned at $ close to what Vazquez is signed for, I'd hold onto Garland and try my best to deal Javy. I could be wrong in that, but I still just trust Jon more after watching Javy pitch. If that can't happen...then JG must go. Either way, one of these 2 must be moved this offseason to clear some payroll room and make room for at least one of these young guys to come in.

QUOTE(Gene Honda Civic @ Aug 20, 2007 -> 03:40 PM) Sweeney's BA and SLG were essentially exactly the same as '06 in mid-to-late July. he then went on about a 12 game skid where he didn't hit at all before being DLed, and hasn't hit well since. His OBP and walk rate were up at that time.... The walk rate remains improved over last season, and he appeared patient in his time in the bigs. I don't think it's a question of talent with Sweeney. I think we would have seen continued improvement were he healthy. If he hadn't had the injury issue, I'd have probably agreed with you, and I probably wouldn't have a problem with him coming back. But unfortunately, he did get hurt, he has come back according to many reports looking absolutely terrible, and it seems he's made little progress in dealing with the issues even he admitted he had with his swing during his first stint with the big league club. Sweeney may well finally be "ready" sometime next season. But I can't fathom how we could say he's ready now, nor can I say with any confidence that he should have a spot opened for him in the offseason. He has to clearly take another step forwards from this season's numbers before we give him a full time shot.

QUOTE(The Ginger Kid @ Aug 20, 2007 -> 03:12 PM) I hear what you're saying, but Owens didn't look ready to make the jump either. I'm not saying he's going gang busters in the bigs, but he's definitely figuring it out. I guess I'd just like Ryan to get that same shot, despite his performance in AAA. But you're right, if he can bounce back and have a good spring, then he'll improve his chances. There is one big difference between the 2 cases: Owens was at least getting better before he was called up. His OBP in 06 in AAA was .328, it was .361 in Charlotte before his callup. He had his SB %age go from about .75 to about .85 from 06 to 07. Average .260 to .284. Sweeney has gone the opposite direction this year. If he was improving, fine, give him a shot. But he's clearly gone back to the drawing board on a few things, and those things need to be ironed out before you bring him up. And now you throw this wrist injury in on top of things. If nothing else, he's still incredibly young, so we have time with Ryan. Signing JD to an extension bought us at the least 1 more year before we can create an easy opening for him by DHing JD.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Aug 20, 2007 -> 03:07 PM) If he was given a right handed throwing arm, sure he would get a lot of righties out for the whitesox. However he throws from the left side, which means that he will come in to face a lefty. Ozzie usually does matchups based on appendage matchups. Well, historically, that's been the role he's been best at, and in all honesty, can't everyone agree that a Loogy is more valuable than a roogy to a team? We may as well give him a shot trying to get a few lefties out. That's what we'd want him to do anyway. If he can't do that well any more, there's no reason to hold onto him as a Roogy; we have other guys who can do that.

QUOTE(WCSox @ Aug 20, 2007 -> 02:20 PM) If Crawford has a problem with fans being allowed to vote 25 times each with as many fake e-mail addresses as they have time to create (as I do), he should complain to Selig for implementing such a ridiculous voting system, rather than taking it out on the fans. That vote it was unlimited. You didn't need to create fake email addy's to vote for the final slot, only for the game itself.

QUOTE(Frankensteiner @ Aug 20, 2007 -> 02:13 PM) I disagree with you here because we have the 2005 White Sox as an example. IIRC Dye, AJP, Gooch, Hermanson, Politte, and Duque were all acquired in free agency. So we filled multiple holes instead of signing just one "last, single piece." Well, the question is...has the market changed since then? My contention is that it certainly has. Pre 2005, we were still on the back side of a few years of lagging salaries on the FA market. Beltran was the big FA signing then, and he was still a few million dollars down from where teams were about 2-3 years before that, when ARod, Manny, and a few others cashed in. And because the market exploded around 2000 and these huge, stupid deals were handed out, there was some number of actual bargains available on the FA market that offseason, in the guys you mention. Several of those guys were coming off of injuries, AJ had the whole reputation thing, and Kaz Matsui had depressed the market for Japanese infielders. These days, all 3 of those things have changed. Guys coming off injuries or down years are still getting $10 mil a year + deals on the hope that they'll turn things around, because teams have more money to spend. Teams aren't letting as many Japanese bargains slip past them. And every team out there seems to have more money to spend; hence the change from Beltran's level to Soriano's level in just about 2 years. This is a new market, and if we keep trying to treat it like the old one, and figuring "Hey, there's a guy who's had success in the past, but he was hurt last yera, let's sign him and hope for luck...welcome to the party Mr. Erstad!" then we're just going to keep scraping the bottom.

QUOTE(The Ginger Kid @ Aug 20, 2007 -> 02:05 PM) I'd like to give Ryan Sweeney the same shot as Jerry Owens has gotten. Too bad. Unfortunately...Ryan Sweeney has simply shown that right now, he is not ready to be an everyday big league player with his performance this season. Between the recurrence of his wrist problems and the fact that he's actually performing significantly worse this year than last (802 OPS down to 735 this season) he just can't be looked at as ready. If either he or Anderson go play winterball and have some success, go to ST and have success, and then have at least a month or two of success in AAA next year, and I'm talking real good success, high OPS, batting around .300, then maybe you consider giving them a shot if you still have an opening or you can create one (i.e. moving Fields from LF to 3rd if that's where he starts the season). But right now, we do not have another ML ready outfielder in our organization, and it's going to take significant improvement from one of those 2 guys for that to change.

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Aug 20, 2007 -> 01:54 PM) I like bologna sandwiches. I do a fairly mean bologna/grilled cheese combo sometimes that I enjoy thoroughly. Man, I could go for one of them right now.

Scott Rolen is now my friend.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Aug 20, 2007 -> 12:04 PM) Uribe is a SS. His replacement's OPS probably won't be that high either. While one would think Fields would improve there is no guarantee. I'm not arguing Fields vs. Uribe per se, I just have a hard time figuring out why one is a lock to be a star while the other one is garbage. Look at Uribe's first 275 abs There are 26 SS's in baseball with a qualifying number of at bats. Juan Uribe is 24th out of those 26 in OPS. Tony Pena Jr. and Omar Vizquel are the only 2 worse than him in all of baseball with the bat. There are 37 3rd basemen in baseball who have had over 250 plate appearances at that position. Josh Fields' OPS is 21nd out of those. At the worst, therefore, Josh has put up average offensive #'s for a 3rd baseman this season, in his first 1/2 season in the bigs.

Bobby Thigpen is managing @ Bristol? Wow, never knew that.

Zumaya back tomorrow