Balta1701

QUOTE(wcw2323 @ Mar 28, 2007 -> 12:21 PM) Charlie's value is at it's highest right now, who knows how he will do this year. I really disagree with this. Charlie is a knuckleballer. Consequently, his value is a lot lower than what it would be if he put up an ERA of 3 in AAA last year but was throwing 96. Because people don't know how to evaluate knuckleballers, their value is always going to be depressed until they prove themselves against big leaguers. He has plenty of room for his value to go up, by either putting togehter another solid season, cutting down on the walks, or getting some wins at the big leagle level.

Decent job of limiting the damage by John. Hopefully he comes out stronger next inning now.

QUOTE(danman31 @ Mar 28, 2007 -> 01:06 PM) Chris Young leadoff?! It's Spring Training, but damn that's surprising. Do they think he can leadoff this year? There has certainly been a lot of talk about Young leading off for the D-Backs this year. We'll see if it works.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Mar 28, 2007 -> 10:57 AM) *yawn* True but the pessimistic side of me can counter most of those. The pessimistic side of me hears what you're saying and agrees with most of it, except for the Logan/Thor parts. I'm pretty pumped to see Booney back. And I think Danks has a good shot at being a pleasant surprise. But beyond that, the whole Anderson/Erstad thing and the early signs from our pitching staff have me exceptionally worried about this being a down year. But consider that me playing devil's advocate on the positive side on this team.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Mar 28, 2007 -> 11:22 AM) Perhaps I should start listening a bit more when he speaks. If you did you'd think Brian Anderson was starting in CF.

Wow. For once it's not his fault.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 28, 2007 -> 10:58 AM) if he's referring to our "war on terror" in general, he may be right. But if he's equating leaving Iraq with failure, then he needs to get his head out of his butt. Pay attention to the names.

QUOTE(Jenks Heat @ Mar 28, 2007 -> 10:56 AM) Has Angelo ever traded up in a draft? I almost would rather have him have the 31 pick and the extra money. Of the six players you have listed as impact three of them serve no purpose to the Bears (Quinn, Russell and Peterson). You are trading Jones, Briggs and your number one for the 6th pick in the draft and the 2nd round flip of picks. Sounds like a-lot to give up to me. It's entirely possible that the Bears might trade up to the 6th pick and then drop back to pick up 2 more low-first/high-second-round picks. In fact, I believe that was hinted at in a lot of press reports this morning, which would be another very smart thing for the Bears to do. Especially if they could get a pick in the high-20's where they could go after that OLB from Penn State.

I'm finding it interesting how similar I find the arguments of the Loose Change guys to the arguments of the anti-evolution or anti-global warming folks. It's always the argument from Ignorance. There's no footage of this. There's no footage of that. There's no good images of this. Why can't we see the footage of this.

John McCain, yesterday.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Mar 28, 2007 -> 10:27 AM) Is there a single positive for this team going into opening day? It seems every facet of the team is falling apart. Jose Contreras's last outing was a good outing. Javier Vazquez's last outing wasn't bad, IIRC. Some of these guys have histories of performing poorly in the spring and coming out in the regular season performing well. Boone Logan and Matt Thornton have been unbelievably dominant. John Danks has actually earned the 5th starter job. Brian Anderson is on the team. Jermaine Dye, Joe Crede, Jim Thome, AJ Pierzynski, and Paul Konerko are healthy. We have not suffered any serious injuries in our pitching staff or bullpen. We have a deep AAA rotation.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Mar 28, 2007 -> 10:27 AM) The last 10 seconds or so of that...

QUOTE(Alpha Dog @ Mar 28, 2007 -> 10:33 AM) So would have been trying them for espionage, if they tried to do that. So you have a problem in this case with someone being tried on trumped up charges against the Geneva conventions?

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Mar 28, 2007 -> 09:40 AM) I'm still waiting for him to show he has some sort of plate discipline or batter's eye. That 13:4 K:BB is just what you're looking for from a guy at the top of the order right? RIGHT? Even beyond that, he's also 2nd out of the potential regulars in strikeouts/plate appearance. This spring, he's k'd 17% of the time he's come to the plate. Only Uribe and Mackowiak are worse than that, and they're at about 18%. Oh, and has anyone other than me noticed that Podsednik is hitting a whopping .167 so far in his spring?

Iran has aired footage of the prisoners on TV, which as I understand it is a violation of the Geneva Conventions.

QUOTE(Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 28, 2007 -> 07:08 AM) They've been talking about that for years. Not sure of any date though. I'm still waiting for the History Channel to be in HD and then I'd be set. The goal DirecTV has published is to have 100 HD channels by the end of 2007. The History Channel is on that list. They also have a goal of 150 HD channels by the end of 08, I believe. The key satellite for the 100 project is supposed to launch in June, but after an explosion of a Dutch satellite in late January they may have some additional delays.

QUOTE(CanOfCorn @ Mar 28, 2007 -> 08:47 AM) I remember that day. Scary stuff. Is Three Mile Island still up and running? Although I believe the reactor which partially melted down was shut down and has not been rebuilt or restarted, there were 2 reactors at the site. Reactor 1 has been operating without incident since it was started, and according to Wiki Gonzalez, it's lifetime is supposed to be through 2014.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Mar 28, 2007 -> 08:27 AM) It isn't a total gain, petroleum in used in the cutting down of trees and processing them into paper bags. I try and use reusable bags whenever possible, but some stores make it so damn impossible to bring your own bags in. Interesting note...a large majority of the wood pulp used in making most paper products in this country does not come from trees any more. Most of the paper goods you buy are made of some combination of recycled paper and scrap from cutting wood to make products out of lumber (furniture, homes, etc.).

QUOTE(beck72 @ Mar 28, 2007 -> 03:02 AM) Erstad hit .300 in 70 ab's --by far the most on the team this spring. A case can be made for Pods being handed a job but Erstad proved himself. And yet, even with hitting .300, and getting the most at bats of anyone in the big leagues in ST I believe...he still can't post a .700 OPS.

QUOTE(fathom @ Mar 28, 2007 -> 09:26 AM) We're not going to be trading for a back-up catcher until we know Hall is out for the year. Oh, I could add that I would be much happier to see Heath Phillips moved for a backup catcher than Charlie. Heath is nearly out of options I'm told, so it would be nice to get something for him before the start of next season.

I think I understand every ranking in the top 15 except # 13.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Mar 28, 2007 -> 09:07 AM) Yorvit Torrealba? He's 28 years old and hits lefties at about the same clip as Hall, they're actually very similar players. I would really dislike the concept of dealing away Charlie and only getting a backup catcher in return. I know Knuckleballers don't have a very high value in trades...but that's why I think trading him before he does anything in the big leagues is a bad idea.

QUOTE(ScottyDo @ Mar 27, 2007 -> 11:32 PM) I'll tell you what I think's not quite right: the pitching staff. If I saw a fastball hit 93 mph this spring, I wouldn't give a crap about Eduardo Perez. But seeing as our pitching staff shows no signs of turning over a new leaf, these little moves are amplified. Right now I'm inches away from panicking about our rotation, particularly Buehrle who appears to have zero stuff and still gets the ball up. There we go. That's what's giving me the bad feeling as well. None of the 5th starter candidates really stepped up and impressed the way BMac did 2 years ago in ST. Even Danks has looked hittable, even if he looked good compared to Floyd and Haeger. Garland has arm issues, MB is being knocked around like he was in the 2nd half of last year, Vazquez is still totally hit and miss, Jose hopefully is looking better, but 3 out of the 5 guys have ERA's between 8.5 and 9. And on top of that, Jenks and MMac have ERA's hanging out at around 9. Who would have thought that the only pitcher who's performance this ST excited me was the man, the myth, the Legend of Boone Logan? And even beyond that, I'm still worried about our defense, since it sure looks like we've taken almost no steps to improve over last year beyond taking Mack out of CF. Pods is still in LF despite having a better defensive option, and Anderson could be seeing even fewer games out there. Combine that with everyone being a year older, and Crede's back, and yeesh. I hope these pitchers have just been screwing with our minds this ST. The offense will be ok even without Hall, but we need to get some pitching out of these guys.

So, assuming Logan is a lock, i base my decision on what's best for the team in the future. What's best for Sisco in the future? IMO, it's best if he gets stretched out for a season in AAA and has a chance to get some outs, throw some strikes, and get regular work. What's best for Floyd in the future? Bigger question here...is he better served by facing ML hitters or by getting 200 innigns? My gut says 200 innings to keep working on stuff with a different pitching coach. I'd rather him start in AAA as a starter, along with Sisco. What's best for Aardsma? Well, he also has a lot of work to do, but in this bullpen, he can be somewhat hidden. He's already seen the big leagues, and may just need to get into a grove. Working junk innings against big league hitters might be the best thing for him. He'll get the same amount of work either way since he's a natural reliever. I think I just convinced myself to give it to Aardsma so that the other 2 can work as starters.