jackie hayes

These weren't small flaws with Wright. When you say he may have been our best option, do you mean our best option at a price we could have signed him at, or at a theoretical lower price that we thought would be the going rate?

I never thought either Pavano or Clement would happen, anyway. I don't think this'll launch the cost of other pitchers much higher. The reason these guys signed huge deals early is that 2 deep-pocket teams identified these pitchers as high priorities. To the Mets and Yanks, these weren't fringe pitchers at all. There isn't an unlimited number of rotation spots open on deep-pocket teams.

What the heck? One guy only that we were interested in signs for a ridiculous amount of money, that's ALL. Some people jumping to the conclusion, oh, this is a sign that we won't sign anyone. What kind of logic is that? If you wanted us to sign Wright for $9 mil per, say so. O/w, what's the problem?

$2.5 mil may be steep. But I think he's got a lot more value than you're suggesting. He's likely to have an obp of .300-.350. Since he managed a .330 obp over a full season (>600 abs), I don't think the upper end of that is implausible. Plus he was inconsistent last season, good at the beginning and end, bad around the injury -- which makes the injury a plausible excuse. And he's a left-handed batter with some power, something the Sox have sorely needed. I think he could be a good pickup. Worst case scenario, he's an upgrade over Borchard.

Unless the doctors know something I don't, I do hope that's with the Sox. He's one of those pitchers (Lieber's another) that's worth the risk.

Kolb's not a big name b/c he's in Milwaukee, but he pitched as well last season as any "name" closer. And I think a full season of Prior, if he's healthy, would close the rest of the gap. I hope not, but that's what I'm thinking if I'm the Cubs.

That's not what he's saying. The only way SS could do that is through the "Trust Fund", and it's known that the Fund will go bust eventually (and that "Fund" is really just an accounting gimmick, anyway). That's why he says the 0.54% of GDP would be "additional revenues", that is, above and beyond what the payroll tax brings in.

Yes, they have special (nontradeable) government debt. So all the assets of one part of government is made up of another part's debt. The government as a whole has already spent all the surplus from SS.

The CBO doesn't change its methods based on the party in power. They are largely independant, with strict rules regarding what can and cannot be considered in making projections. Unless Congress changed the rules, and I don't recall anything like that happening, I doubt their models changed very much. Gore may well have been working off of different projections, but I'd have to see the details.

What? Numbers are not conservative or liberal in a political sense. The CBO is well-respected largely b/c it's nonpartisan. Their projections are probably too optimistic, but they're not extreme in any sense. His main point is that we could, by changing fiscal plans (taxes and spending), support Social Security much longer than Bush wants anyone to believe. Which is true, flat-out true. Whether that means 2150 or 2100, or whether small changes in the program might be a better option (spreading a decline in benefits over many generations, instead of heaping all the crap on one generation), these are minor details -- he never says that we should leave SS totally unchanged, just that doing so, if we wanted to, wouldn't be the cataclysm some have predicted. The Bush admin will respond that SS should stand on its own legs -- but they haven't been saying that as they've been borrowing excess SS revenue and then citing the government's unified budget deficit. (And Krugman rightly points out this inconsistency.)

Please. Krugman goes more than a little overboard on politics, but when it comes to economics he's as good as anyone. His analysis here is impeccable. The federal government has used SS revenues to finance spending, claiming that it was okay since the government as a whole wasn't in deficit. But now the SS Admin is looking at a shortfall in the foreseeable future, that's a totally different system.... Bush certainly hasn't helped SS. He hasn't done anything about SS in particular yet, and he's made the ex-SS budget picture much worse.

You're right, but I don't think they stand much of a chance to recoup that money. I liked Rotoworld's take on this:

Maybe it's obvious, but there's a 29,000 gram brown elephant in the room...

Beltre won't be all that, but he won't be that bad. You're right about the O's.

And Dallas wins. Hell, that's a microcosm of Seattle's season. I really was pulling for Seattle, but I have more than a little pleasure in seeing Jones play well. I don't watch much college football, but I did watch a lot of ND last season (mainly to see how Quinn looked). And I always liked Jones -- I don't have any expertise, but everyone gets lucky once in a while. He makes great cuts, he's quick, he's a fun player to watch.

Kind of gives the lie to all those "walk-year" arguments, doesn't he? Has his best year ever in the first year of a multi-year deal. The Orioles got a damn good player, they make the first step towards rebuilding -- then they fail to look at serious pitching. What a waste -- but, hey, ya got Matt Riley.

Jeremy Giambi basically admitted he took them. (It's just that noone cares.) Tejada I doubt. He always had pretty good power.

Like today, who? Last signing I heard of was Todd Pratt. That's the difference? Free agents don't know the market very well until after the arbitration deadline. Jaret Wright has been linked to the Mariners ($80 mil payroll) and the Yankees ($1 bajillion payroll). The Sox offer $6 mil, or heck, say $6.5 mil. Why would you not wait? It doesn't mean the Sox won't end up as the highest bidder. But maybe we don't pay $7.5 mil to a very injury-prone starter. Patience is a virtue, man.

A lot depends on how hard he was working out, at what time. It's possible that he tried it, but just didn't care enough to keep it up. I'm not convinced either way on Anderson, but it does sound like a plausible story.

Yeah, now that you mention it... But you'd have to cover a couple of her statements. Yada yada yada doesn't quite cut it. Still, you have to admire the equipment of the team. Kris is the master of an enviable domain. Not that there's anything wrong with that. What can I say? She's built, and I've always wanted to tell people I'm an architect.

My biggest regret from college is that I didn't enjoy it more (the academics I mean -- take a class a couple years after leaving, you'll be amazed how much fun it is). Don't stress, just stretch yourself.

Not to mention the assistant to the traveling secretary. Whaaaa...? No roommate? I understand, I'm a star now, after all. Though it will get lonely at times....

Just for giggles, I looked him up. Never realized he was all of 5'-7", 155 pounds. The mf was RIPPED!

Boone I don't know. Valentin, I doubt it -- any evidence? Kapler -- he is such a weight-room freak, I think that's about all. He's famous throughout the ML for that. If he was using, he'd be enormous.

I agree. I think we're just very lucky to be able to watch Pujols. He could be one of the very great players. How quickly he replaced ARod as the best player in the game -- it was astonishing.