caulfield12

Tron soundtrack? I laughed when I heard Journey's "Separate Hearts", thinking back to 2005 again. Actually of all the Journey songs, that's one of the few I actually sort of liked...fast beat, kind of a driving rhythm comparing to their other ballady stuff. More like a STYX song, haha. The other song I remember vividly was Eurythmics...since it was supposed to evoke 1982, those were 2 good choices. I enjoy electronic/techno music, and there were some interesting choices interspersed. Actually, Social Network might have the best soundtrack to fit the film...the Trent Reznor project he worked on for quite some time to get it exactly right.

Don't forget his compelling work in "Dead Man Walking" as Sean Penn's brother, haha. That has to count for something.

QUOTE (Felix @ Dec 23, 2010 -> 03:50 PM) Tropic Thunder was an awesome, awesome movie. Robert Downey Jr is great. I like Academy/Sundance/Cannes movies as much as the next guy, but I really enjoyed this film (like the lines about playing "full retard" I thought that was clever in an "insidery Hollywood" way in that entertainment insiders had to love that movie, like THE PLAYER)...I think there's a certain type of movie that it's popular to dismiss and then people join the bandwagon for or against it based on what critics say. With that movie, it was 'cool' again to appreciate Tom Cruise for making fun of himself, I think it went at least halfway to him rehabilitating his image somewhat in the industry...not sure about most Americans though. No matter what over the top character he plays, he can never beat Frank TJ Mackey from Magnolia. Jay Baruchel is annoying...but usually I find something enjoyable or interesting about any Downey Jr. performance, even though I wouldn't say he's one of my all-time favorites, I guess I appreciate his talent/ability to push the boundaries and limits, both personally and professionally. Even if you don't like him, he's (so far) done a great job of coming back from near death literally and career-wise. Like Pirates with Depp, Iron Man put him on the map for a lot of movie-going fans who weren't so familiar with his entire body of work. For another example, HOT TUB TIME MACHINE. I really enjoyed that too, and yet most "intellectual" critics rejected it for obvious reasons.

Saw Tron... It was about like what the rating at rotten tomatoes is....almost can't give it a thumbs up or thumbs down, in between. I would say, it was worth my time to watch probably. In some ways, the special effects were a little disappointing, although I watched on PC and not in theatre, so that makes a big difference. There were some really cool action sequences and then the move kind of got bogged down in the middle with too much philosophy. I liked Olivia Wilde's character and her futuristic costumes at least. She was more than just eye candy, she was an actual interesting feminine role who was in some ways the centerpiece of the story intellectually and emotionally. Michael Sheen was also excellent.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Dec 23, 2010 -> 03:23 PM) Going to see Black Swan this weekend. Looking forward to it. I've yet to be disappointed by Aranofsky. You honestly liked THE FOUNTAIN? It was ambitious, I'll give him that....and very "interesting" to watch in some parts, but I'd be hard pressed to say it wasn't disappointing on many levels.

What about School of Rock? I thought that was actually a pretty good one...

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Dec 22, 2010 -> 05:43 PM) That doesn't matter. Having all one thing or all the other, or some of this and some of that - as has been the case in Kansas City for decades - doesn't matter. You still don't have enough to win unless you have enough to win. And even if you were to do something pretty incredible, like have Mike Sweeney, Carlos Beltran, Jermaine Dye, and Johnny Damon all young, productive, and under contract, it doesn't mean you'll get enough around them to do anything. You're straight up BSing when you say they've never had talent like that before. Check that paragraph above the one I'm writing now. You are overrating the holy s*** out of their prospects if you're going to look at some of the players who have gone through that organization during all that losing and say a few unproven prospects that they have now are going to be better. They will likely produce some guys who were supposed to be good, others will get hurt or bust out, others will come from nowhere and end up overachievers, others will end up decent bench pieces. Mark Teahen is garbage and he was there future. Alex Gordon isn't anything and he was there future. Prospects who haven't proven anything haven't proven anything. Just because one prospect didn't make it doesn't mean another one won't either, but you can't assume a high success rate when there is none. I do agree with you on the last part though. The only way the Royals will ever do jack s*** in their division is if they identify core pieces and then make deals for proven MLB players to complement what they have. Until they show the desire to spend in FA and move their great prospects they're going to suck. And the good or great players that they do produce are going to come through a losing environment and end up shipped off for very little in return. Nothing about Dayton Moore however tells me he is capable of building a solid cast of MLB regulars to support a strong core on a budget. He makes some of the dumbest moves you see in the entire division, year after year. Assuming Dayton Moore can do anything at all for that franchise is an assumption more or less based on nothing IMO. Lots of guys come out of great systems and still can't do s*** with what they inherit. The Fields+Getz for Teahen move is the last KC move I can remember that I actually liked for the Royals. The Royals really did a crappy job of maximizing the returns on Beltran, Damon and Dye...and they held on to Mike Sweeney past the expiration date (because he WAS the franchise and favorite son, more popular in KC than Konerko in Chicago even) and didn't get anything for him in return. Of course, you can look at their list of first round draft pick busts since the late 80/early 90's and you start to see a terrifying (for Royals' fans) trend emerging, especially with high draft picks going on pitchers who ultimately would make the 1998-2000 White Sox draft classes look like they produced a veritable bounty of quality contributors. The other thing that really hurt them was the complete disintegration of Angel Berroa and Carlos Febles (one half of "Dos Carlos") up the middle. And, one of the few starters they did actually did develop internally, Jose Rosado, became an All-Star and then saw his career self-destruct due to injuries.

I think Winter's Bone and True Grit (from everything I've read) both deserve acting nominations for their youngish heroines. When you watch Winter's Bone, you might as well be watching The Road or Book of Eli, but the characters in that story are incredibly vivid. They really stay with you...as opposed to movies like Red, for example. Monsters=Thumbs up, not as great as some have written, but definitely made the wise choice of not overposing the "creatures" until closer to the end...but nothing like Signs in terms of a hokey/outlandish ending

Or Sergio Santos, we go with the more traditional RH closer...and keep Thornton/Sale as our own two-headed version of Joel Zumaya that can be used in high leverage situations anytime between the 6th and 8th.

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010...ball&st=cse I tried to download part of the "case study" that's linked here, but my ADOBE/PDF has a bug....maybe someone else can post anything germane to Ozzie from that article?

I know I will watch Black Swan again....not just for the two "bed" scenes (lol) but because I think I must have missed out on a lot of "was it real or wasn't it?" that will make complete sense the 2nd time around knowing where the ending is going from the beginning. It's not like Inception or Memento, but it is the type of movie you could watch many times over and over in future years, and not simply because Natalie Portman is beautiful in it (or in anything she does for that matter).

Where does Ozzie rank with that Bill James model? I think with Pythagorean (which is another very questionable and simplistic model) he and Gardenhire are almost the same...at least until the last couple of seasons. I would imagine a lot of Sox fans would rather have Gardenhire, and at least 50% of Twins' fans think Gardy isn't the guy "to get to the next level" but that's he is a very good manager, overall.

Q.The highest-paid managers get paid multiples less than the highest-paid players. J.C., do you come up with estimates on the value of managers? More specifically, if you were the agent for the best manager in MLB (whomever you think that is), could you argue that manager pay should be doubled? – Barbara A.If I had added another chapter to the book, it would have been on the value of managers. In fact, my most recent project involved quantifying the impact that managers have on players, looking at how player performance changed under different managers. Though I found a few managers who had “statistically significant” effects on their players (positive and negative), no manager helped both hitters and pitchers. I estimated the impact of several factors on performance, and when I compared models that included managers versus those that did not, there was very little impact. In summary, managers appear to have very little effect on baseball player performance, and this really shouldn’t be surprising given that most of baseball involves one-on-one contests between hitters and pitchers. This then leads to the question: why do some teams pay managers big salaries if they are not important? I have a theory that teams use managers to signal to fans that they are improving. If your team is struggling, you can’t quickly replace a roster of 25 guys and improve overnight. Managers can be quickly replaced; thus, if fans perceive that managers do impact performance — even if they don’t — then teams can falsely signal improvement to fans. Fans who would otherwise stay at home now go to the ballpark. I tested this hypothesis for the past three decades by examining how attendance changed after replacing a manager. In the 2000s, I found that managerial replacements led to an increased attendance of about 1,000 fans per game. I did not observe similar effects in the 1990s and 1980s, though. It’s unclear why the effect is observed more recently, but not in the past. Maybe the growth in fandom in the present has produced more sensitive fans, but it’s hard to know. You can read my working paper here. Q.I’m having more and more trouble nowadays discussing baseball with my cousin, as he’s the type who would hear the words “valuation model” and immediate attempt to dismiss any of the following points. I’m sure you encounter this too. How do you react to this? – Katie A.Well, I understand this reaction, and though I think about baseball a little more intensely than most of my baseball-fan friends, I find most people are just as interested in the same issues I am. The difference is the language that stat-savvy (or sabermetric) fans often try to force on others. While I use terms like marginal revenue product and OPS in my own work, I also try and explain these concepts in a familiar lexicon. For example, let’s say your grandfather complains about Adam Dunn’s .250 batting average, high strikeouts and horrible defense. If you respond, well he’s got a .900 OPS, which more than makes up for his strikeouts and bad defense, and his MRP is $12 million, he’ll spit tobacco in your eye (or at least mine would). Instead, you could say, “Well, while he doesn’t hit for average, he gets on base a lot with walks, and when he does get on he normally gets further than first base. When you look at all the things he does and how that translates into winning, and the revenue that teams get from winning, his worth is about $12 million to the bottom line.” You just explained OPS and MRP without the terms. There is nothing in sabermetrics than cannot be explained in everyday baseball language. Q.The Mets’ poor performance each of the past few years can’t be blamed on a low payroll, as they are almost always at the top of the list in terms of team payroll. They have to be at the top of your list of the most poorly run franchises in Chapter 6, right? I haven’t read the book yet but had to ask. – Mitch A.Right at the top of the list of the worst-managed teams of the 2000s. Not only did the Mets spend a lot, they didn’t win much either. The Mets problem is easy to identify: The Mets have a habit of signing high-dollar stars rather than focusing on building a better internal scouting structure. The Mets have developed some good prospects, but they have a penchant for buying players when they are expensive. Some examples of bad contracts include signing Oliver Perez to a three-year, $36 million contract in 2009, signing Francisco Rodriguez to a three-year, $37 million contract in 2009, and signing Luis Castillo to a four-year, $25 million contract in 2008. In 2010, the team was not ready to contend yet signed Jason Bay to a four-year, $66 million deal. Both Bay and Rodriguez were also huge disappointments in 2010. I think it’s fun to compare the strategies of the Mets and the Twins, whom I find to be the second best-managed team in the 2000s (the best was the Oakland A’s, but I think that team has been covered enough). During the last decade, the Twins averaged $32 million more in playing value than they doled out in player salaries, while the Mets paid out an average of $25 million more than they received in playing value. Before the 2008 season, the Mets acquired via trade and then signed former Twins star Johan Santanta when his performance was at its peak. Though he has been quite good for the Mets, the Twins had no problem winning and avoided paying the ace starter almost $23 million/year for six years. In the three seasons since, the Twins have made the playoffs twice, and the Mets have missed the post-season every year. How did the Twins do it? The key to success lies in acquiring young talent when the collective bargaining rules allow teams to pay players far less than their market value. For their first six years of big-league service, the salaries that players receive are restricted by MLB’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. The Twins exploited these rules by developing talent within their organization, while the Mets concentrated on bringing already-developed talent in. Comparing their 2010 rosters, the Twins drafted 21 of their players, which is equal to the number of players the Mets had signed as free agents. By building a strong farm system, the Twins have been able to survive with young and cheap talent. The Mets’ market size ought to give them an advantage that allows them to sign better players, but the spending strategy the club has adopted clearly hasn’t worked. If the Mets had adopted the Twins’ method of operation — spending far less for players than they receive in playing value — they might be the most valuable franchise in sports. I thought this was interesting, although pretty basic analysis. Coming into 2011, we'll have Morel, Viciedo (maybe), Beckham, Ramirez, Buehrle, Sale, maybe a reliever like Infante...so maybe just 5 players we drafted ourselves and then Viciedo/Ramirez. nytimes.com (freakonomics)

Black Swan....really called to mind Requiem for a Dream and Pi, where someone is straddling the boundaries between greatness and insanity, a wonderful picture that was beautiful to watch, Natalie Portman definitely deserves all the praise she's getting for this role. I also thought Barbara Hershey in the "Mommie Dearest" role brought a lot to her role, you could definitely understand having a mother living out her dreams through her child, the pressure to be the prima ballerina and stay on top, the juxtaposition of the Winona Ryder character with Lilly rising from seemingly out of nowhere to challenge her after Nina put years into the company. I'm not a huge ballet fan, or opera for that matter, it's something I've learned to appreciate rather than love innately, but Aronofsky made ballet interesting, which isn't easy to do, to take a classical ballet and make it accessible from a "behind the scenes POV" to a mainstream audience.

LOL. I'm going to watch Black Swan this morning on the computer, although the scenes with Amanda Seyfried and Julianne Moore in CHLOE were pretty hot too...not quite like Naomi Watts and Laura Harring in Mulholland Drive. That's still the best all-time "mainstream" girl-girl make out, although Neve Campbell-Denise Richards probably rates as the most famous in Wild Things. Should we have a poll? Joking...I'm trying to think of any other possible contenders. Maybe it's because I just saw Forgetting Sarah Marshall for the first time, but Mila Kunis is one of those actresses that just seem like they would actually be really cool and not all diva-ish and b****y in real life. I know one thing, she's super short...plus I have a weak spot for the Russian/Ukrainian look. Or Demi Moore in Striptease? Was there a scene like that with Gina Gerson? Can't remember anymore. SOLITARY MAN--Michael Douglas, another great movie, kind of startling to see Jesse Eisenberg as an introverted geek NOT named Mark Zuckerberg in this one

And Dye, and El Duque....amazing to think back that Takatsu was a closer at the start of that season with his "frisbee"

Chloe....3.5/4.0 stars, wow, Amanda Seyfreid like you've never seen her b4, in the beginning of the movie, she looks like spitting image of Scarlett Johansson, it's the first time she's really played an "adult" role like Anne Hathaway did at a similar point in her career Chronicles of Narnia....2.50/4 very very blah, missed Peter and Susan's character, this series has gotten progressively worse...the second movie was "okay" but this one just didn't do it for me, the best acting might have been done by a talking mouse and the new snotty English lad was the worst since Jar-Jar Binks Due Date....just a major misfire, 2.25/4.0, laughs were few and far between for me That's two movies (Chloe and The Kids Are All Right) that Julianne Moore was just spot-on....she's an incredible actress, she gets compared to Tilda Swinton sometimes but I think she's even better

Why Jonah Hex? That movie's supposed to be one of the worst of the year. Just for Megan Fox? Scott Pilgrim's a bit like a tamer version of Kick-Ass...I like both, about equally, although Pilgrim is definitely more creative/imaginative/humorous.

QUOTE (IamtheHBOMB @ Dec 19, 2010 -> 06:44 PM) Why would you watch that unless you were being forced to? I just like travel movies....and the Indian/ashram/chanting part was underplayed, which they really had no choice without coming across as totally hokey. Living in Asia, I've never gone to Bali and maybe this gives me more incentive or inducement finally. When I went to Mount Everest/Tibet a couple of months ago, I met a bunch of Indonesians on the trip and they were very kind and welcoming, especially the ones from the Bali/Lombok area of the country. Finally, Richard Jenkins is one of my favorite character actors, and The Visitor one of my all-time faves for underappreciated movies that are nearly great. As far as THE BOOK OF ELI goes, I have seen, I think, probably 90-95% of Denzel Washington's movies since his career began...one of the best actors of his generation, since he was on a tv show called St. Elsewhere. Owen Gleiberman from EW.com had this as the worst movie of the year, and it actually kept my interest for most of the time. I already knew the "twist" going in as well (not unlike 127 Hours, if you can even call it a twist)...it was very similar in feeling to THE ROAD, both of them were watchable but not anything I would care to see again for the rest of my life.

Jake Odorizzi Born: 3/27/1990 Height: 6'2" Weight: 175 lbs Throws: R With the 32nd pick of the 2008 First Year Player Draft, the Milwaukee Brewers took the right-handed Jake Odorizzi to improve the pitching depth in the minor leagues. It is extremely easy to see why the Crew selected the youngster so high in the draft. Not even 19-years old at this point, Jake has a repetoire of three (potentially four) pitches that project to be league-average or better. He throws a fastball that sits comfortably in the low-90s, but Brewerfan.net reports it can run up to 95-96 MPH. The right-hander also features a two-plane slider that serves as his out pitch and projects to be a plus-pitch and a diving curveball he can throw for strikes. As with all young Brewers pitchers, he is developing a change-up. It is a promising pitch, he does not quite have the feel for it yet. It could potentially be a fourth league-average pitch in his already impressive arsenal. A high-school pitcher with four relatively established pitches is very difficult to find, and many scouts believe Odorizzi could turn out to be one of the best pitchers of the draft.[/i] Milwaukee JS

Former Cy Young Award winner Zack Greinke has been traded to the Milwaukee Brewers, sources told ESPN The Magazine's Buster Olney on Sunday morning. In the deal, the Royals are reportedly acquiring Brewers outfielder Lorenzo Cain, shortstop Alcides Escobar and pitching prospects Jake Odorizzi and Jeremy Jeffress for the 27-year-old Greinke, 10-14 with a 4.17 ERA in 2010 after winning the 2009 Cy Young. Royals general manager Dayton Moore had been actively shopping for major league-ready, up-the-middle position players for Greinke. Zack Greinke #23 SP Kansas City Royals 2010 STATS GM 33 W 10 L 14 BB 55 K 181 ERA 4.17 The Brewers were expected to receive another major leaguer in the deal. Jim Breem of the blog "Bernie's Crew" reported that player to be shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt.

The Kids Are All Right...excellent Red...surprisingly better than I expected, certainly a lot better than Expendables, although that movie had its moment as well Legend of the Guardians....somewhere between so-so and fairly good, from what I read the 3-D experience was what made it worthwhile and I just saw it on a PC Invictus...excellent, it's unfortunate they couldn't do a movie like Gandhi about Mandela though, he's (Morgan Freeman) the central theme of the story, but he doesn't quite carry the movie 100% Still want to see Conviction (H. Swank), 127 Hours, True Grit, The King's Speech, Inside Job, The Black Swan, The Fighter, The Company Men and Blue Valentine....I guess Love and Other Drugs just for gratuitous Anne Hathayway scenes, not unlike that Eva Green movie that was NC-17 way back when. If it's not worth the time to watch LaOD, just warn me. Will also try to wade through Eat Pray Love and Due Date. Has anyone seen Wendy and Lucy (Michelle Williams), A Single Man (Colin Firth), Secretariat or the Diving Bell and the Butterfly? Thumbs up or down?

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Dec 18, 2010 -> 11:54 PM) I really don't believe it's just a numbers game, it's the philosophy of how the team drafts that makes the biggest impact. Of course every team will encounter flameouts, but when you draft high risk, high reward (which is what Boston and other top drafters do) than that is expected. The Sox don't do this (they are starting to more but still take many "safe" picks that turn out to be jsut as risky), and they do get a few good prospects coming up and making contributions but they haven't produced a superstar in years. They have some guys who could be continual All-stars (Beckham, Sale) but really the impact of these guys haven't been enough. It's not just getting players to the majors, but what they do at the majors or what you can acquire for them. Look at the Phillies, their best bats were through their system, and you're talking about perennial MVP candidates. It is so hard to trade for those caliber players or get them on decent FA contracts so developing them from within is basically a necessity when running a franchise. At his best, Beckham could be Chase Utley-Lite or Dustin Pedroia. Not an MVP, but definitely a high impact player. Trayce Thompson is one of those rare athletes that could flame out like 90% of them, but he could also be our next superstar, you never know...the more darts you throw at the wall (with $100,000+ price tags), the higher your chances some of them will work out. Ramirez and Viciedo, Takatsu and Iguchi proved we can tap other markets....but we've been handicapped in the DR and amazingly, Venezuela, which makes absolutely no sense to me. We'll see how long it takes before Jerry Krause's efforts bear some fruit. It's definitely too early to determine Sale's potential until we see him in the starting rotation (where his raw stuff only is behind A. Chapman in the majors for lefties). If Santos becomes our next closer, there's a good chance that will provide the impetus to send him back to the rotation. I also think Dayan can still become a huge impact player, the name that comes to mind the more I think about it is Bobby Bonilla.

The funny thing though is that it's difficult to really argue we developed Sale or Beckham...their maturation has occured more at the major league level. Santos was a lot like the Jenks situation...where we identified talent, but it's hard to say we "incubated" it from start to finish. With the regressions of Flowers, Jordan Danks, Retherford, injuries to the likes of Mitchell, Phegley and Omogrosso, the record is spotty, at best. However, if you start adding names like Viciedo (and Ramirez), Hudson, Chris Young, Brandon Allen, Chris Carter, etc., it's not quite so terrible at all. I remember reading back about five years that the White Sox were actually something like 10-12th in terms of developing players who actually ended up playing in the major leagues, it's just that very few of them have been high impact players or superstars. Unfortunately, they're usually players like Chris Getz or Josh Fields or Brian Anderson or various other first round flameouts like Royce Ring who have little to no impact. But, as someone pointed out, Mitchell/Danks not ready=Pierre, Flowers not ready, forced to re-sign AJ, no adequate bullpen pitchers have been developed, we're forced to sign the likes of Dotel, Linebrink and Crain. The glaring area that's hurt us a bit, though, was giving Teahen that money...Morel really came on last year and opened some eyes. I think, of all the moves (Swisher and Javy) that have been dissected over the last 2-3 years, the Teahen move is the one that must really keep Williams up at night. But I'm not going to recommend any of those names until we're sure they're in line for consistent save opportunities. Instead, the player I'll push is Sergio Santos(notes), a reliever who (like Thornton) can help you regardless of his real-life responsibilities. In Chicago, Santos isn't really considered a "dark horse" closer candidate, as he's often described in the fantasy community. He appears to simply be the future closer … but we don't know if that era begins tomorrow, or in 2011. Like a few other successful closers (Rafael Soriano(notes) and Carlos Marmol(notes), for example), Santos is a converted position player with a mid to high-90s fastball. He gets serious movement on his pitches, he's struck out 16 hitters in 12.1 innings, and he's held opposing batters to one of the lowest contact-percentages in baseball. (Link to sortable leader board. The only names ahead of Santos on the list are Marmol, Jose Contreras(notes) and Carlos Villanueva(notes)). His stuff is of the highest quality; his current ratios are ridiculous (0.73 ERA, 0.81 WHIP). Santos may not inherit the ninth inning this week, but the 26-year-old right-hander fits the profile and he can assist a fantasy rotation whether he's saving games or not. The Sox haven't used him in many high-leverage situations, which means he'd have to leapfrog several vets in the bullpen hierarchy to get the closing gig. yahoo.com/sports (roto)

Comparing St. Louis to KC is like comparing the Cubs/Sox or Giants/A's. St. Louis is a MUCH bigger overall market, significantly bigger population base, much more loyal (the Royals and White Sox both suffered dramatic fanbase drops after the strike compared to other markets), they also had the McGwire years to hold them over...just look at the playoff appearances for the last 20 years. The Twins have done a great job but come up to their limits in the playoffs, and obviously PART of that is about payroll. When you start spending $140 million and up, you have the cushion of having 2-3 more star players on your roster, and also the cushion to go out and get talent every year at mid-season, to correct your mistakes. By and large, even at $90-110 million, a lot of those teams have to have almost everything go right in terms of performance and health. Obviously, that happened in 2005 with a $65 million dollar roster. So you have the Twins, the A's to a lesser extent, the Rays recently and we can throw the Marlins out there because they were able to use their minor league systems and/or cash and KW-like player procurement (in 1997) to win. Of course, both those models were quickly dismantled when they became prohibitively expensive, as we're seeing right now with the Rays. I would really love to see what Epstein/James would do with a team like the Brewers or Reds or Mariners (who ten years ago would have been placed on the list of model organizations, although their payroll spending was like a major market team). Weren't the Brewers #1 in terms of their minor league system not so long ago, too? Then there's the health and "luck" issue, if you go back to our 1999-2000 prospects, a majority of them were pitchers who were injured or would be injured shortly, although some simply didn't perform. Borchard/Crede/Rowand were the only real position player prospects around that time.