Balta1701

QUOTE(Flash Tizzle @ Aug 15, 2007 -> 07:55 PM) No question the International League is pathetic. Floyd rates second overall in ERA if anyone needed proof. Richar struggling immediately is more of the same with prospects and this team. Richar was having quite a bit of success with the D-Backs AAA affiliate also. Look, the kid's raw, he's been raw at every level, he has taken some time to adapt to every level. But at least he has some talent. There was nothing that anyone in the minors was going to be able to teach him that could have avoided this. He is just going to have to learn how to hit big league pitching, but he certainly has the ability to do so.

QUOTE(fathom @ Aug 15, 2007 -> 07:25 PM) Richar doesn't seem to be ready for the majors. There is simply nothing else he's going to learn in the minors right now. He's very raw, and has been at every level, but as he's grown into each level, his numbers have gone up. He's going to struggle for a while, but at least we have the option for him to struggle in the big leagues while we're not in a pennant chase.

QUOTE(Flash Tizzle @ Aug 15, 2007 -> 07:15 PM) Do I understand this correctly -- if any of the remaining teams are unable to sign their first selection, they're guaranteed the same spot next season minus one slot? What I want to know is, if the Royals are the worst team in baseball concluding this season, would the first and third selection for next season's draft be guaranteed for them? If this is true, then it's really going to effect our draft position. We could potentially have the third worst record and not pick until seventh. Whatever the process, it's better for everyone if every player signs. Although it would make sense that the one season where we're in position to draft in the top 10 we're screwed somehow. Yes, if the Royals can not sign their guy, they would get the #3 pick next year. However, that would not be the case next year; you can't carry the pick over 2 years in a row, so the Royals would have to take someone they thought they could sign in that slot.

QUOTE(Greg The Bull Luzinski @ Aug 15, 2007 -> 06:09 PM) That might still win the NL Central, though I am hoping the Cards are ready to ride a hot streak for the next 40-some days. After tonight, they will be 3.5 games out.

QUOTE(fathom @ Aug 15, 2007 -> 06:50 PM) Agreed, no reason to play him every game the rest of the way. However, it would be a lot smarter to sit him against a lefty starter. Dude, that would make Erstad look bad because he'd have to face the lefty.

QUOTE(fathom @ Aug 15, 2007 -> 06:49 PM) Well said! Ozzie doesn't want an OBP guy as a leadoff hitter....he wants one of his slappy speedsters instead. A slappy speedster is not a bad thing! That can win a hell of a lot of games for a team. A bad slappy speedster or a slappy speedster who loses his speed due to a long series of injuries is a bad thing, and that's been our problem at the top the last 2 years.

QUOTE(kwolf68 @ Aug 15, 2007 -> 06:42 PM) Not sure. Just didn't see him in the lineup. Paulie is DH. Grinderstand is at 1st. Erstad must get his at bats somewhere. I'm sure Jim's fine. (Actually, it's really not a bad idea for Jim to sit for a game a week to 10 days or so just to try to keep him a little healthier anyway. That would be especially important if we ever could make a playoff run)

QUOTE(vandy125 @ Aug 15, 2007 -> 04:56 PM) Just throwing this out there, I don't know how true it is, but weren't there stories out there about death counts being artificially inflated by the "insurrectionists" (I think that is what we are calling them now). They were having people report more dead than actually occurred to make it seem worse and to try and get us out of there. Anyone else remember this, or do I need to grab a tinfoil too? The number at that article is the official government count, and the people in that government who are coming up with that number are people we're working with. The real number is almost certainly significantly higher, because there are probably thousands and thousands of bodies who don't get processed by the morgues.

So how are people who know more than me reacting to breaking through 13k?

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 15, 2007 -> 11:40 AM) I do take his pieces into account, along with a couple other people I know who spend time over there (one military, one journalist). And I guess I don't see Nuke's saying that one sector is quieter, at night, to be much of an indication. Especially when the other two say it hasn't changed. I want to read that NYT piece you are all referring to, and the salon.com follow up, and see what it says. I'd also be curious to see what the civilian death rates have been doing the last couple months. I haven't seen those numbers lately. Yahoo for the official version McClatchey for the usually more correct challenge of the official version:

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Aug 15, 2007 -> 11:29 AM) And that is the issue... all we can do is provide the platform - THEY have to do it. But look, even if I were to accept the claim that the military situation was improving (I don't, and could spend time backing that claim up if I had the time), what in the world even suggests that the political situation is even close to improving? The Shi'ite groups in the south are basically already starting up a civil war in anticipation of the British leaving. Half of Mailiki's cabinet and a huge chunk of parliament are boycotting the government. The U.S. had to stretch more than an olympic gymnast just to try to say their govenrment was meeting a few of its benchmarks. Reconstruction continues to go backwards, not forwards. More and more of the country's infrastructure is being blown up (they had another MInnesota yesterday) and their power grid is on the verge of collapse. The U.S. is no longer saying it has confidence in the Maliki government. And when Maliki took a visit to Iran a few days ago, the U.S. used that as an opportunity to do an end-run aorund him and bomb Sadr city. There has not been any political progress at all in the last few months, or even really in the past few years. The situation is simply becoming more factionalized as each group prepares for the inevitable civil war. Even if the military situation was making progress, the political situation, which so many people seem to agree is more important, is simply getting worse.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 15, 2007 -> 10:48 AM) I'm not sure I've seen that. But I'd like to (unless Pollack and O'Hanlan are just Bushie hacks). It was an NYT piece a week or so ago that got heavy publicity in the media where 2 Brookings institute guys spent 7 days in Iraq and came back & started saying everything was great, and naturally Brookings is the only well known left leaning think tank so therefore they must have been war critics. Glenn Greenwald @ Salon.com absolutely demolished it here.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 15, 2007 -> 10:46 AM) By all accounts? I have seen no accounts saying its more secure. IN fact, every story I've read says its pretty much the same old story. Can you provide some "accounts" saying that it is somehow safer or more secure? Money says we're about to see a link to the Pollack/O'Hanlon piece.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Aug 15, 2007 -> 10:36 AM) This is what I love about you liberals. Thanks Balta. This is what I love about you conservatives. Thinking it's a bad thing for a person to complain about civilian casualties.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Aug 14, 2007 -> 06:45 PM) So who in the heck hired John Kerry as Obama's speechwriter lately? People talk about the stupid things that Bush saids, but wow. http://time-blog.com/real_clear_politics/2...re_yesterd.html AP Fact Check: Obama on Afghanistan

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 15, 2007 -> 09:13 AM) He can play plus defense in all three OF positions, and has the talent to maybe be able to hit well in the future. Therefore, he does have value. It may be he is a backup OF on the 2008 team. But he would have to play the entire season in Mexico, AND make a show of being early AND late at spring training. No way he should start 08 with the big league team. The way I do it, I start off with Crede @ 3rd and Fields in the OF, and if either Crede struggles or Crede is traded mid-season, then you bring up the better of Anderson/Sweeney when you move Josh back to 3rd. I just can't see how either of Anderson and Sweeney have shown nearly enough to justify starting them off with the big league team next year, nor do I see how either of them would benefit from playing 1 time per week.

Still several times better than Glenn Beck's ratings. And CNN keeps giving him more time, not less.

Well, this would be good news. I'm probably still the only one holding out hope for Anderson out of the entire Chicago fan base. Sounds like Guillen might be a bit impressed if BA actually did play in Mexico. If somehow that kid could turn his career around, that would be an enormous help to this team.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Aug 14, 2007 -> 11:29 PM) All I can say to the Brewers and Cubs is to beware, because that object with red feathers in the rear-view mirror is closer than it appears, and getting closer by the day. I have a sneaking suspecion those 2 clubs will regret letting the defending champs hang around. If the Cards had Carpenter they'd have that division locke dup.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 15, 2007 -> 05:20 AM) And hey, good to see Heath Phillips getting his 2006 form back. Last 10 games, he is 6-1 with a 2.54 ERA. It is really, really sucky that the Sox have so d*mn many pitchers next year who are out of options. Sisco, Floyd, Phillips, Masset. That's a real mess we've put ourselves in with some of those guys, because I really don't want to see any of them walk for nothing, and some of them almost certainly will.

QUOTE(BearSox @ Aug 15, 2007 -> 08:11 AM) what about Edgar Renteria in the offseason? Braves will be looking to unload him and his salary and to make room for Yunel. Well, it depends on the price. At the trading deadline, the price they were talking about for ERent-a-player was Garland. And at least to my eyes, a SS with 1 year on his contract at $10 mil a year (assuming the Braves keep Boston's money) has a much lower value than a similarly priced quality starting pitcher.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Aug 14, 2007 -> 12:55 PM) Does this hold true for all the US supervolcanoes? There is, as far as I'm concerned, no other volcano in the U.S. which poses the threat of a gargantuan eruption as Yellowstone. There are plenty that could do a lot of local, regional, or even worldwide damage on the scale of the 1815 year without a summer (due to an eruption in Indonesia I believe), but in terms of ones we should actually be concerned about doing worldwide harm on the scale of Toba, Yellowstone is the only one that can really do it.

QUOTE(vandy125 @ Aug 14, 2007 -> 02:05 PM) As you keep going, more unknown variables enter the equation. We were not around at the beginning of time or even a billion years ago. So, we can only come up with theories. I think that many of those types of theories (they may even be good ones) are often passed around as fact today, and that is where I wish there was some sort of qualification. That is JMHO. You may disagree with that. The question then becomes...how do you evaluate the theories and evidence you do have? Because there are some items we simply don't know a lot about, and others we have lots of information about, and it's not always how old an event is that determines how much evidence we have about it.

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Aug 14, 2007 -> 03:32 PM) Some good discussion in here. Depending on the cost, Dunn is a guy I have thought about as well. Aside from Bailey(who all the sudden isn't a sure thing) I believe Cinny is thin in pitching. If you could get some nice prospects back for Thome, then turn Gio and someone else for Dunn, I would be all over it. Dunn is still under Cinci's control next season. I'm not sure exactly how his contract works, but at least this year, if he was traded, he became a Free Agent at the end of this year. I have no idea how that translates next year, but he's certainly not a FA this offseason, and thus, would probably cost Gio + additional.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 14, 2007 -> 01:56 PM) With all the shortstop talk... am I the only one who thinks that priorities number 1 through 3 are the outfield positions? With shortstop being behind them? Uribe is painful, but he is a stellar defender and does bring some power to the table (as well as a relatively cheap option). I don't want to see him next year, but on a relative basis, the OF scares me a lot more right now. Quite frankly, I would rather go with Owens, Fields, and Sweeney, with Anderson as a backup option, in the OF for $1.3 million next year than Juan Uribe at SS for $5.5 mil. Neither is a good idea...but given the dollar figures involved and the ability for the guys in the OF to at least improve...I'd rather go with the youth than another year with Juan. Fix that damn SS spot.