southsider2k5

Spot on mate, spot on. No worries

Damn my 15 win prediction might be too high. Can they at least win more than 9 games

Who, TO?

What would you like? Your request is my demand

Peep the new member titles

Wow. I am glad Guzman is out of the AL now. He'll have some bulletion board material with the "pathetic" comment.

She also was married to a Muslim and converted to Islam. The murder was even condemned by Al Zaqaui.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=1925075 The Tigers are probably going to look to trade Urbina, as was first theorized by moi.

Let me try this again. 2000 payroll $31 million 2004 payroll $65 million

That is quite a leap to conclusions you just made there...

Oh crap Me :dips*** Is there a recall button on emails?

There is no "rigid steadfast refusal to sign free agents". KW called Borass and found out all of the guys he was interested in were out of his price range. They tried to sign Omar and got outbid. We are 5 days into free agency, and just because we haven't signed someone yet, doesn't mean there is somekind of a Kennedyesque conspriracy to cover up the horrible truth.

I had to drop most of my tickets, because I can't afford them to be quite honest. In 2004 I saw the least games I have seen in a year since 1996, as a direct result of ticket prices. Sure I would love JR and company to spend $100 million and me not have to finance it, but that ain't reality. Reality is two car payments, student loans, food, and debt come first, then what is left over could be used for extras like baseball.

Well we have two.... BTW I'll be forwarding this to Brooks so that he can adjust your season ticket package accordingly

The payroll has more than doubled since 2000. Its not like they are pocketing the money. The Sox are bringing in players.

But the thing is will you put your money where your mouth is. Are you willing to pay much higher ticket prices, and keep paying them even when that large payroll doesn't pay off? Keep in mind a $90 million payroll is about 50% higher than the 2003 payroll. Are you willing to pay 50% more for everything at the ballpark to get to a $90 million payroll? Just judging by the complaining in the ticket price thread I would doubt many are, even though payroll has increased by way more than ticket prices. The Sox average ticket was $14.30 in 2000 and was $21.56 in 2004 for an increase of almost exactly 50%, while payroll has gone from $31mil to $65 mil or an increase of about 110%. Seriously, how many people out there would be willing to spend $40-$50 a ticket like Cubs, Yankees, and Red Sox fans do, while still going to the same amound of games, in exchange for a $90-100 million payroll?

So it isn't enough to sign free agents we have to resign all of our guys too, or we have to replace them with another free agent? Free agents are implicitly more expensive than trading for exsisting contracts, or keeping players who will sign longer term contracts. If we go out and spend $10 on a pitcher when we could have traded for someone and paid them $7 million, you can bet that means there will be $3 million cut somewhere else. Unless we have a $100 million payroll we aren't going to be able to go out and sign new players while resigning all of ours every year. And you think ticket prices are back now, add 50% to them to them to pay for all of these new players. See how many people will go to a game when the average ticket price is $50 a seat. It is real easy to say the team needs to spend more money, when it isn't your money. I would much rather see them put together a team a piece at a time then to have one shot at glory followed by 10 years of the Orioles because we were stupid with our money.

I doubt he will be happy about that. Has he exercized his option year yet?

I wonder if this puts Urbina on the block?

Also are you talking about someone else's FA's or ours? Remember last year we offered Colon a $50 million contract while he was an FA. We have offered Maggs a $70 mil contract. They resigned Jose Valentin from FA a few years back on a 3 year $15 mil contract. They offered ARod a deal that they were led to believe was competitive. They signed Jaime Navarro to a huge deal in 1999. They resigned Frank Thomas as a FA after he opted out of his contract.

What do you mean by significant? If you mean the highest contract in the game, yeah Albert Belle was the last one. If you mean starters it hasn't been nearly that long.

We obviously aren't ignoring it completely. They are out there bidding on players, they just aren't looking to do something stupid while doing it. They had a bid out for Omar, they just weren't willing to give a 38 year old a 3 year contract. Just because they winning, doesn't mean they aren't trying. I'd much rather see Omar go to SF for 3 years, than here, and I would much rather see Washington sign Guzman for almost $17 million than us.

Plenty of people complain about those, yourself included.

Because of the attendance, we can't afford to go out and sign big name guys. It is that simple. We can't afford to spend rediculous amounts of money on players. I know it is easy to say sign this guy or that guy, but especially when it comes to Borass, there is a history of those players being way overpaid. Go back and look at the contracts that this guy has gotten his players. Go look at teams like the Mets, the Orioles, the Rockies, the Diamondbacks, the Tigers, etc and tell me what their stupid spending in FA has gotten them. The only remote success story is AZ and they have $300 million in debt and a fire sale to show for it. That team won't be good again for decades because they handed out huge contracts that they couldn't afford. Obsessing about free agency like it is the be all end all of building a team is incredibly short sighted.

That joke isn't funny anymore.