Jake

I'm guessing that winning a playoff series is a more likely outcome than missing the playoffs at this point

The whole thing is illegitimate without a playoff, and a playoff that has more than 4 teams in it

Also, I liked Teague tonight. Looked competent

Any game in which Jennings shoots like this, you'll lose

QUOTE (scs787 @ Dec 7, 2013 -> 07:22 PM) Also worth noting that Nate Jones has been better against LH hitters than he is against RH hitters so he might as well be considered a LH reliever. Nate had always been better against RHH in the minors, so I think there is a sample issue here. I'm guessing it is because we would never let him see a decent LHH in an MLB game, except under extenuating circumstances

Also, I feel like "boom goes the dynamite" is a phrase designed for Mike Dunleavy

Do you think him lasting so long in Chicago was just us tolerating him to get his production? Did Ozzie have some kind of magic to keep him under control?

So (humble brag, btw) Ohio State is offering me a funded position into a PhD program there and when I told my dad the good news, the first thing he says is "now you can finally get that tattoo you wanted"

I love this lineup Chicago is running out there. Our bigs are athletic enough that having Taj-Boozer-Noah out there at the same time doesn't really hurt us defensively, especially with a 3 that is non-elite athletically. Of course, since Taj guards LBJ on occasion, I don't see why we can't try it in more situations.

Capitalistic impulses made the European goal quite a bit different from Native American goals in war-making. Europeans, even before Manifest Destiny, were interested in wealth accumulation in a way that almost no Native American societies were. It would have been quite hard to learn the lesson that Europeans would take more land and goods than what was necessary for sustenance and some symbolic uses (I say this since Native Americans had "nice things" as you might say, they just paled in comparison to the type of hoarding that we like to do)

QUOTE (StRoostifer @ Dec 7, 2013 -> 06:47 PM) Abreu says hello. Abreu says "I am the reason that statement is true"

am I an idiot for not seeing the problem? is the flag too "Iwo Jima"?

The worst position to sign somebody at is 1B

We should sign Thornton every year before flipping him for an okay prospect

Do bars have interns?

Frank Thomas was probably the only player that had enough sway yet cared little enough about the respect of his peers to bring it up. He knew that his legacy was being damaged and that was all that mattered to him. Griffey was another player that could have spoken up, but unlike Frank I think he was very concerned with the way he was viewed by peers, having grown up in an MLB clubhouse

QUOTE (Tex @ Dec 7, 2013 -> 08:31 AM) I see an issue if I understand the proposed process. Three teams all post $20 mil. The player begins negotiations with the team with the worst record. What happens if they cannot agree to a deal? Does the next team have a chance? If that is the case, then the player can basically say no and wait for the Yankees / Red Sox / Dodgers / etc. If the team with the worst record is the only team the player can negotiate with, that's a losing deal for the player. The player is already restricted to negotiating with one team. I'd break ties with the worst record, restricting negotiations for that season with the winning team. However, you put every team on hook for 25% of their bid. This keeps teams from bidding just for s***s and giggles, knowing they won't get it but another team will have to pay more. You don't make it the whole bid because you'll be killing every losing team in a system that isn't unassailable in terms of its fairness. This should help the Japanese teams sign on as well, since they'll be getting more money than the actual bidding cap.

Where are these two lefties coming from? Wouldn't shock me if we only have one.

I think Gordon's talent may be what was overestimated.

Andro hardly did anything and was legal at the time. I would guess that McGwire was using actual steroids and had the Andro around as a distraction as if to say "I got huge like this legally"

What kind of team would look at Beckham and Semien as relatively equal options?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 7, 2013 -> 11:01 AM) WTF? What civilization on Earth are we talking about that "has no understanding of war"? They certainly needed some time to understand what kind of war it was they were fighting. Tribal conflict was just that -- tribal. They didn't realize that this other enemy (or, for a while in some circumstances an ally) from across the ocean would look at every human being on this continent as an enemy. They're thinking that Tribe X, Y, Z are all sovereign entities and not unlike the Europeans. Europeans just saw "Indians." I think if Native Americans had some way of perceiving that the goal of Europeans was total conquest of lands more numerous than they could have fathomed, things might have been different. So while Native American groups knew all about fighting "wars," there was nothing so imperial before. I don't believe they could have guessed what kind of goal was being pursued by Europeans nor could they have collectively realized that they needed each other, all of each other, to oppose this group.

I'd really like Castro and would easily part with either Santiago or Quintana to get him. He doesn't have to hit as well as he did last year to be really worth it. Have Flowers back him up and you have a really nice catching tandem. Castro would catch a bunch and you let Flowers go against the toughest lefties, where he should have some success. If Houston doesn't think they can compete before Castro hits FA or not until he's about to become a FA, send him over here. The marginal gain at the C position would be astronomical. Having a young lefty bat in the middle of the order for the next several years would make the lineup really quite scary. Imagine having a middle of the lineup is some order including: -Abreu -Avisail -Castro -Viciedo and then, you're looking at guys like Alexei, ADA, and Semien for the top/bottom in the near term. A lot of talent and not very much age among that crew.

To quote Adam Dunn when asked if AJP is an asshole, "no more of an asshole than anyone else"

I'm all for covering the desert in the southwest with solar panels and redoing the power grid to accommodate the new power source