Balta1701

QUOTE(Punch and Judy Garland @ Dec 8, 2005 -> 02:07 PM) Renteria for five million a year is pretty nice, even if it cost them a good prospect. I am surprised they wouldn't live with Wilson Betemit as their SS. THey know their system better than I do though Actually according to ESPN.com, Renteria has $26 million left on his deal, the Red Sox are responsible for $8 million of it, plus his $3 million buyout at the end of the deal, so it's basically $6 million a year. Either way, it's a lot better for the Braves than Renteria for Marte straight up.

QUOTE(redandwhite @ Dec 8, 2005 -> 02:04 PM) i take it back, rotoworld speculated that nathan should be traded before rincon whom the red sox asked for. the twins actually offered jc romero and kyle lohse according to star tribune.. my apologies tony. Well, that makes a little more sense than Rincon or Nathan...still a little bit of a high price for Lowell IMO though. I thought the Red Sox were talking about something involving Mueller for Romero last year, and based on recent performance Mueller was clearly playing better than Lowell for a lower price. Again, that's a deal that makes sense if Lowell can put up his 2002-2004 numbers, and 2005 is only an aberration. At this point, I don't think anyone could say that for sure. Of course, the Red sox might be willing to pay almost Lowell's entire deal to clear space for Marte, which could make it worth the deal for the Twins.

QUOTE(Milkman delivers @ Dec 8, 2005 -> 01:43 PM) Willie helped us win a WS title. He's golden in my books. If he's gone, I'll remember him fondly for that. That idea about Villone might actually be realistic. They probably can use a cheap, speedster 2B now that Castillo is gone. What are Villone's splits against lefties? Last year: AVG OBP Slug OPS .222 .324 .256 .580

QUOTE(Sox Hustler @ Dec 8, 2005 -> 01:38 PM) Kelly Wunsch? He was actually doing a decent job out of the bullpen for the Dodgers last year... (before he hurt himself coming down the stairs in the bullpen)

QUOTE(redandwhite @ Dec 8, 2005 -> 01:35 PM) thats what has reportedly been offered, my freind. Ok, Minny would have to be either out of their minds or expecting Nathan's contract to rapidly balloon to make a deal like that. With BJ Ryan getting $55 million, Nathan, who's a significantly better closer, had sure better be able to fetch a lot more than Lowell. Wow.

QUOTE(redandwhite @ Dec 8, 2005 -> 01:32 PM) it will be interesting to see if lowell is shipped off to minnesota for romero or nathan. That would be absolutely insane on the part of Minnesota...until they see for certain that Lowell is going to be the hitter of a few years ago and not the hitter from last year. He comes out hitting .300 with 10 home runs in April, you might be able to pull that off. But I can't imagine the Twins weakening that bullpen for such a huge question mark. Unless the Red Sox gave them something else to go along with it.

QUOTE(Yoda @ Dec 8, 2005 -> 01:14 PM) Wow. Now I’m pretty much speechless. Hopefully KW knows who to go to since Marte is no longer with us. The piece @ Whitesox.com alleges that KW has his eye on some other young lefty somewhere. No idea who.

QUOTE(bulokis @ Dec 8, 2005 -> 01:20 PM) Its pretty tough to lose Gio. I thought PTBNL usually are not prospects? They called him a PTBNL until after the Rule 5 draft...the White Sox held onto him so that the Phillies wouldn't have to find other people to remove from their list of "protected" folks, or however that works. (The Phils got 3 players while the Sox only got 1, so that would have required the Phils to have 2 open slots for those 2 players or they'd be at risk from the draft).

Man, I get the feeling I'm being told to shut my mouth.

QUOTE(CanOfCorn @ Dec 8, 2005 -> 12:44 PM) Maybe he should be called Dr. Detroit? Wasn't Kevorkian from Michigan?

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Dec 8, 2005 -> 12:17 PM) Perhaps you are projecting onto me as someone who subscribes blindly to one line of political thought, but I never said the US was innocent here, or should be standing on the sidelines in this. I think Bush is wrong for letting the Sudanese be slaughtered in 2005, just like I think Clinton was wrong for letting Rwandans be slaughtered in 1994. Genocide is bigger than Democrat or Republician to me. IIRC, there was more than one country that was holding up the original UN resolutions back when the US was pusing for them. I'd have to go back and look, but it seems like at least China, and maybe a European Country or two was also involved. Of course there were other countries (China, Russia, and Algeria), siding with us to block that last set of resolutions. But you know as well as I do that if the U.S. decides it is going to block a resolution, it gives other countries cover to block it as well, just as before the Iraq war China and Russia didn't want to say they'd veto the final resolution, but when France said they would use their Veto China and Russia supported them. But even though the genocide is clearly not as bad as the one in Rwanda in temrs of scale, I think it's different now in that the U.S. is almost actively encouraging the regime in the Sudan. Did you, for example, know that we just Re-established diplomatic ties with their government, ties which were pulled in protest of their work in Darfur? There is also 1 key point which is being missed...it's been estimated that if the international community wanted to stop what was happening in Darfur, it would take something like 15,000 troops, if the Sudanese government didn't resist. If they did resist, it would take more. Would you care to guess why so many nations in the western world don't have the troops available to pull that off?

QUOTE(nitetrain8601 @ Dec 8, 2005 -> 12:02 PM) I'd bet my kidney that Timo is here next year. I know a few dealers who'll take you up on that.

So can anyone tell me what the rules are on this part as compared to the Major league phase? Do we have to keep these guys at a certain level or anything?

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Dec 8, 2005 -> 11:31 AM) Supposedly that is what we pay the UN tons of money in dues for, but they were too worried about the wording of a resolution being "too harsh". I doubt that is much consolation to the dead people in the Sudan though. Dude, who exactly do you think is slowing the U.N. Down on any action against Sudan? The most recent attempt to hold any sort of hearings on new activity over there was blocked in part by, you guessed it, Ambassador Bolton. Yes, the U.N. has been inactive, but some of that inactivity finds its root not just in the U.N., but in this country as well. Furthermore, there are bills that have been sitting before Congress untouched for months which would place sanctions on the Sudanese government if it continues its actions in Darfur...those bills have done nothing. Meanwhile, our government is actually softening some of its criticisms at the same time. And the reason Congress isn't acting? The White House told them not to.

All of our broadcast staff are now in jeopardy every time we go to Detroit....

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Dec 8, 2005 -> 11:27 AM) Yes.....we got rid of a mental midget for one of the best super subs in the game, and a guy we needed with Blum gone (and Rob is WAY better than Blum). When we get a lefty, either Villone in a trade or sign Myers....this will look even better. Where is Villone even playing at these days? Any chance he'd be available in a trade? (Maybe for a former top draft pick with a lot of power but a lot of strikeouts?)

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Dec 8, 2005 -> 11:11 AM) I guess I tend to think that human life is priceless, especially when you times that times millions of people, but that is just me. I understand the need to quantify and detail everything for some, but for me millions of people dead simply because of a race, ethnicity, religion etc, is just screaming for someone to help them out. It becomes bigger than dollar signs and lost GDP. I would agree with you on principle, but then there comes in that nasty question...what happens when there are 4-5 "genocides" of equal size happening everywhere on the planet at once, like there is at almost any given time (what was happening in Iraq in 2002 was no different from what is happening in probably a couple dozen other countries around the world.) If you choose to intervene, how do you decide where to intervene? It seems clear to me that you just can't intervene everywhere...there's simply not enough troops available to do it, nor is there enough money. I pointed out one case earlier...if we took all of the money spent on Iraq, you could probably save 30 million or more human lives in the next 10 years just by providing the entire world with clean, disease-free drinking water. That's the equivalent of the entire population of Iraq. If I have to choose between overthrowing Saddam and providing clean drinking water for the rest of mankind, clearly overthrowing Saddam would save a few lives, but it would also cost a huge number of lives, and it would come no where close to saving as many lives as providing clean drinking water would. So how do you decide which place to intervene?

QUOTE(White Sox Josh @ Dec 8, 2005 -> 10:40 AM) i would rather have Javy catch. He is MUCH BETTER at handling a pitching staff. I think you can credit some of the success of the Braves pitching staff to him being the catcher. I would say that the identity of the person behind the plate should probably depend on which one of them can stay healthy. Both have had severe injury issues in recent years. It might not be a bad idea to have each of them catch for 81 games, and DH for a significant portion of the other ones.

Here is the official link, now that it's working.

By the way, Here's a very interesting piece on Dean's remarks from the New Republic...and how almost every one of his other supposed "Gaffe's" on the Iraq war has turned out to have been almost exactly correct.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Dec 8, 2005 -> 09:51 AM) That's where I was going with that. There are millions upon millions upon millions (etc, etc) victims of genocide that we let die because the wars weren't good enough for us to fight. There are plenty of places in the last 60 years we should have stepped into, but didn't, including going on right now. The question of course is..."How much should we 'step in'"? Should we invade the Sudan and spend $400 billion dollars to rebuild the place because there is a genocide going on there? Or pick any other "Genocide"? Can you name any place where the benefits of "stepping in" would be such as to justify that huge expenditure?

This is supposedly posted @ ESPN.com somewhere but I can't get the link to work...the Orioles have signed former Padre catcher Ramon Hernandez to a 4 year deal worth $27.25 million. Great deal if the guy can stay healthy. Gigantic if. Lopez will presumably move to DH most of the time.

Is there any way that the Red Sox could put together an infield of Youkilis, Marte, and Loretta in some combination? I have no idea how versatile any of those 3 guys are.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Dec 8, 2005 -> 09:50 AM) Seems to me, as much as I like him, his stuff doesnt translate to the bigs. Can you give a reason why this seems to be the case? I'm just trying to guess what he'd do if he got real playing time. Is his fastball too slow? Too straight? Does he not have a large enough selection of pitches? Is there one that he just can't throw (like he hangs his curve ball every time)? Does he have problems throwing strikes? Is there something with him that can be worked on to adapt him to a big league bullpen, or is he just destined to go down with Billy Koch as a guy who's fastball is just not fast enough and too straight?

Do you guys think he will ever be able to put up decent big league numbers? Even in limited action last year, he gave up 2 home runs in 4 innings, and that still improved his career ERA.