Balta1701

Last night's dinner consisted of a portion of a bag of Doritos, 2/3 of a liter of Dr. Pepper, and a final exam. Tonight...leftover chicken alfredo. And maybe a grilled cheese. If I ever finish this mapping project.

QUOTE(Reddy @ Dec 9, 2005 -> 01:51 PM) thing is, using didnt specifically change his stats - they've been consistant throughout - even this past year when, if he was smart, he wasnt using. (ok their down a bit, but not the way we've seen with the other players) Are you sure about that? Look at his 2nd half numbers...they horrid. They look like Machowiak's. One of the realities with steroids is that we really don't have good info on how long it takes every person to start backsliding after they come off the stuff. Giambi could have lost power rapidly, but that may have been to a lax weight lifting schedule or something like that. Bonds may have lost it less rapidly. Who knows? Each body likely does something different when you stick the stuff into it, and each body probably responds differently when you stop the supply. Of course, I'll toss in that none of this is proof he did anything, I'm merely trying to add to the discussion, and I don't have a clue whether I think he did or not.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Dec 9, 2005 -> 02:26 PM) The A's supposedly are the frontrunners to deal for David Wells. If they signed Frank Thomas, it could make for a pretty interesting scenerio considering Wells' comments the first time they were teammates. While we're at it, the A's have been in the running for Milton Bradley as well. Which, if it all were to happen, would provide easily the most entertaining clubhouse in years. The only question would be which ones would survive.

Dad - house in Florida with a large indoor hot tub. Can't tell you how many times he's asked me to buy him one. Oh, and it has to be near a golf course. Mom...you know, I've never been able to have a clue what I'd get for my mom. The only time I ever know is when she tells me what to get.

QUOTE(Flash Tizzle @ Dec 9, 2005 -> 03:21 PM) I intended for my post to satirize the issue. I've felt similar sentiments regarding people drawing politics into a fictionalized movie. Specifically, boards on IMDB highlight the odd obsession some have with media outlets heavily publicizing a movie featuring subtle, religious elements. None of which openly promote Christianity. I don't think it's just been media outlets...Disney produced the movie, and they've quite actively encouraged the marketing of this movie directly through churches as a Christian allegory. They've hired the same publicity group that Mel Gibson used to market "The Passion" through churches, they've conducted private advanced screenings of the film through churches, tried to convince church leaders to tell people to go to the film, that sort of thing. Yahoo news. None of that, of course, means that it will be a bad movie, nor does it necessarily mean that it's going to be overly preachy, nor does it mean that you shouldn't see it if you go to church less than 1 time per week. I'm sure I'll see it at some point...probably wait for DVD (didn't even see Fellowship in theaters, don't know why I'd see this one there if I didn't see that one there, it's so much cheaper, and this month's film dollars will probably go to Kong.)

Christ starting pitching is expensive. We better sell a hell of a lot more tickets next year.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Dec 9, 2005 -> 11:44 AM) And wasnt he on the same team as Canseco??? And Giambi. And across the bay from a guy named Bonds. And on the same team as Billy Koch, for that matter.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Dec 9, 2005 -> 11:40 AM) That's what was said about Cleveland's bats last off season. Young guys that have "career years" usually are at the beginning of an upswing in their production. Actually, I would even say that several of Cleveland's guys had fairly poor years last year compared to what we might expect of them. Hafner may well hit 40+ home runs next year. Aaron Boone hit under .200 the first 2 months of the season, and put up numbers well below his career ones. Victor Martinez hit under .215 the first 2 months of the season. There's no great reason to assume that those guys will get off to a hot start next year, but there's also no wonderful reason to assume that they won't either.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Dec 9, 2005 -> 11:31 AM) I also think Borchard will be moved in some way. Though, I really would like to see the Sox give him one more shot. I believe Harris and Timo are as good as gone. I agree with you to a point...but it all depends on what Borchard could be moved for. If he's what it takes to bring in the quality lefty reliever KW has in mind, I could live with that. I still think he'll somehow find a way to put up enough power numbers in the big leagues either this year or next to make him worth the cash to someone.

Well, if you google that phrase, nothing pops up quite obviously, so he doesn't seem to have been anyone we'd have heard of a lot before this, I figure even if the phrase "Butcher of Ramadi" wound up on one of the playing cards it would show up under Google

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Dec 9, 2005 -> 11:02 AM) Becuase those are the players who filled in for us as 5th starter when we didnt think it was important. Then we finished in 2nd place. Then we put together a rotation with 5 proven starters, got rid of boppers and brought in defensive players, including Uribe who is underrated at this point, and we won the world series. Now people are drooling at the prospect of trading a little pitching to bring back those boppers again. I say why go in reverse to the way that didnt work? Actually...we filled it in with not only 5 proven starters, but we also made sure to have a very, very solid kid to back them up. So we had 6 starters total.

QUOTE(Reddy @ Dec 9, 2005 -> 10:58 AM) didnt know the exact splits. i dont want you guys thinking i'm a duque backer cuz honestly i think he blows - but if it came down to who would be the 5th starter, it would be him until he couldnt possibly do it any longer I think he could be used as a 5th starter effectively for maybe 2 months this season...and that's if we spaced those months out. He was 2 years off of surgery last year and still couldn't hold things together for more than a month or so at a time. If we were to decide to use a 6th starter for a few stretches just to give MB and FG some extra rest because of the World Baseball thingy, he could do nicely for that, and I think he'd do well in the long-relief "Pitch every 8-10 days" role that we seem to give to our 12th bullpen guy, but I just can't imagine a scenario where you could count on him to be a starting pitcher for a full season unless basically Jesus comes back and touches his arm. His body just doesn't seem strong enough any more.

QUOTE(Reddy @ Dec 9, 2005 -> 10:23 AM) A) never said he held together WELL - i said well enough B ) His ERA was under 3 for the first couple months of the season. C) Never said Duque and Counts numbers were reversable and i never said they were similar. I said essentially that if you put Duques numbers at about a 4-5 ERA for the whole season and Counts at his 2-3, it evens out over the course of a year Yes, his ERA was under 3 in April. However, his ERA in May was 6.19. And in April, when he posted that lower ERA, he still tossed up a WHIP of about 1.65. His ERA in June ballooned over 7. His lowest after that was during his 3 starts in July, right after he had a month or so off on the DL to rest, and in that month for 3 starts his ERA was 3.86. After that, his monthly ERA's went right through the roof again. He got through the month of April strictly on guile, he had a decent fastball for a month right after he came back from the DL, but then he wore right out again.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Dec 9, 2005 -> 08:54 AM) The more I read - the more I'm glad Alfonso Sorryass Soriano (A.S.S) is gone. f***wad. Play where-ever you can to help your team win. Oh wait, it's aaaaaaaaaaall about meeeeeeee... (come on, won't you sing along...) aaaaaalllll about meeeeee... You know what the best theory I've heard about the reasons why he only wants to play 2nd? Because there are so few other "Big bats" who play 2nd base. Jeff Kent is the all time HR leader for 2nd basemen, so it wouldn't be hard at all for him to become the all time HR leader as a 2nd baseman. He also is almost always a guaranteed All-star starter at 2nd base, which probably helps either his contract or him while negotiating his next contract.

QUOTE(WilliamTell @ Dec 8, 2005 -> 10:41 PM) I'd say it's pretty close to being even aslong as Lowell would produce. That, however, is a big if. It also requires one of the rookies to produce, another potential "if", since you never know if a kid is going to have a great year his first year out of the gates or struggle mightily for a few months against ML pitching.

Ok, I think that for a day or two I should be casually worried about this, as I have family who literally live right across the street from Midway. I'll just hope that none of them were in those cars. I'm sure parents will let me know by tomorrow if they were.

QUOTE(redandwhite @ Dec 8, 2005 -> 10:33 PM) that infield is better than last years opening day infield and the red sox offense was the best in baseball. You know as well as anyone else here that saying the Red Sox offense was the "Best in baseball" says almost nothing about how their infield performed for the simple reason that the key run producers in their offense were their left fielder, their DH, their center fielder, and their catcher. The infield was average at best with the bat with Mueller, Renteria, xxxx, and Millar.Your offense was dominant because of Manny, Ortiz, Varitek, and Damon. I'm currently convinced that Loretta is either equal to or a significant downgrade from Renteria, Youkilis and Marte would be very young, Mike Lowell couldn't hit jack squat last year, and Alex Cora hit like .230. That infield is dominant if somehow Alex Cora can hit for a decent average, Mike Lowell returns to his 30 home run, nearly .300 form from 2 years ago, Loretta hits .300, and one of the young guys has a very good year. But that is an enormous number of assumptions. If your team trades manny without getting a guy like Tejada back, I will bet you that at some point, your team will be trading for an infield bat just to try to get more runs out of that infield.

QUOTE(Fingish @ Dec 8, 2005 -> 08:24 PM) why would the O's trade him to a team in their own division? doesn't make sense... If they were getting back a Manny Ramirez...I bet they'd do it. Ditto Boston.

QUOTE(forrestg @ Dec 8, 2005 -> 07:19 PM) wasn't it tejada that Palmeiro said injected him with the steroids ? Tejada admits he gave Palmeir a B-12 vitamin shot, but says that he had it checked out by MLB first and MLB said it was clean. Believe who you will. I don't know if I believe either of them.

QUOTE(Punch and Judy Garland @ Dec 8, 2005 -> 07:07 PM) I mean other articles, quotes from people around the organization. If you base it just on his play, then a lot of guys can be accused of a lot of things that aren't true, thats all I'm saying The WaPo reported that there was an enormous amount of tension in the O's clubhouse last year, including players who were set to go to florida for Burnett, and specifically tension between Sosa and Tejada. That's at least something.

QUOTE(knightni @ Dec 8, 2005 -> 07:05 PM) Were they? I never saw anything on it. I believe that was only the "Soxtalk Hall of Fame" inductions. When I checked the 2004 awards, it looked to me like they happened @ the end of the year.

QUOTE(Punch and Judy Garland @ Dec 8, 2005 -> 06:59 PM) Players have bad halfs, players wear down. Todd Helton had a bad first half. Was it because he quit? I am not familiar enough with the day-to-day operations of the Orioles but unless someone here can find some real proof other than declining numbers or Rotoworlds blurb-then you guys are jumping all over a guy based on speculation How exactly would you prove that other than looking at the numbers? Are you expecting a guy to come out and publically say he wasn't trying hard? (well, could happen, Vince Carter did it, but only after he was out of Toronto).

QUOTE(Punch and Judy Garland @ Dec 8, 2005 -> 06:51 PM) What f***in proof is there that he didn't try in the second half? Because rotoworld says so? THats not enough If he was trying his hardest and still putting up those numbers...then there was something SERIOUSLY wrong with him in the 2nd half last year. Either he was playing hurt or he stopped taking his B-12 shots or something. His numbers are ridiculously bad after the AS Break last year. I believe someone in this thread compared his 2nd half numbers to Machowiak's.

QUOTE(SoxFan562004 @ Dec 8, 2005 -> 06:21 PM) LOL, as a side note, I was talking to my Cubs fan about something and brought this up just to hear what he would say, and he said Patterson and Wood should get it done. I laughed. I did post elsewhere that the Cubs will go hard after him, but it's going to cost a lot. Dang, if only we still had Marte, he and Timo should be able to beat that offer!

Flight 1248 from Baltimore in case anyone needed to know.