Balta1701

Part of the issue here, and with all these salaries, is the question: what guys do we have that can step in? Right now, we don't have anyone who can step in at either the catcher or Middle Infield spots, and unless Jerry Owens improves more than I expect, it looks like we need another outfielder or 3rd baseman (depending on what we do with Fields). It's not defeatist to want to spend your money in the wisest way possible, it's defeatest to never spend money. The White Sox are currently deep in the minors in pitching and have Fields and Sweeney ready to step in somewhere within a year or two, and maybe another OF on the way up who could be ready around 09. In other words, we can afford to part with our starting pitchers more than guys like Iguchi. The right and smart way to spend money, to my eyes, is to use the money to prevent yourself from having a gaping hole. If you only have 2 starting pitchers, you're screwed. If you have no power, you're in trouble. Etc. The Sox currently have a lot of power at 1b/DH, so we don't need to spend a lot of money on that, but we do need guys in the middle infield, so that's a place to spend money, and we need some guys at the corner outfield spots. If you use your money wisely, there is a successful combination of cheap and smart which can turn a team into a winner every year.

QUOTE(Alpha Dog @ Jan 27, 2007 -> 05:03 PM) I would be happier if that had never happened to begin with, but I guess that is a good start. Well of course, wouldn't we all? But you're harping on the fact that he's a Democrat, and the fact that the national media only considered it a side-note to the story that he's a South Dakota Democrat, so I think the correct response to your issues is to hope that the South Dakota party takes whatever measures are appropriate and receives whatever punishment necessary from the voters in that state. If I were in that state and a voter, I'd care a lot more about the case, but since I'm not, there's not much else for me to say; it certainly doesn't prove that every Democrat is a child molester, or that the national Democratic party covers up for child molesters, or that I should have any reason at all to do anything at all to change my life or my voting patterns.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Jan 27, 2007 -> 04:35 PM) The Red Sox are fierce without Helton. With him, I'd have to pencil them in for first right now in the East, although I'm still weary about that bullpen. At some point the law of diminishing returns takes over. You can only add so much in the way of offense and have it turn into wins. The Yankees, to my eyes, have shown that the last 5 years or so. They keep adding run producer after run producer, yet it just doesn't translate to more wins.

QUOTE(Alpha Dog @ Jan 27, 2007 -> 04:40 PM) No, it isn't the most important part of the story. But to deny that it IS important is simply putting your head in the sand. Cerainly important enough to be mentioned before the last paragraph of the story. I also hope he gets the full punishment allowed. I for one hope that the South Dakota voters take fully into account this politician's behavior and the behavior of anyone in his party who helped cover for him the next time their politicians face the voters. There, happy?

Somehow, it's just my opinion with Kenny that there's always more of a motive to the words he says than just their simple meaning. I'm one of the ones who's become used to him signing a player a few weeks after saying there's nothign going on, or adapting to a situation a week after saying "Oh it's hopeless".

QUOTE(shoota @ Jan 27, 2007 -> 02:06 PM) WMVP played a clip last night of Buehrle stating he wasn't asking for Zito-like money. Buehrle also stated he's willing to take a discount to stay with the Sox. We know Buehrle rejected a 3-year deal at $31 million, and he's open to signing for less than Zito. That means he desires a contract more than $10.33 per year and less than $18 per year. IMO, until KW offers a contract between those two figures, he shouldn't be stating there's no way for him to resign Buehrle. If I'm in Kenny Williams's shoes, the issue for me would not be the amount per year, it would be the duration. If Mark wants to talk about a 5-7 year deal, then anything more than that $10-$11 million would put me on the hook for more than I would want to spend. I'd be willing to push Zito's Yearly numbers...if I could get it over a short term deal. But I consider it insane to give a pitcher $15 million or more a year over 5+ years, regardless of who the pitcher is, if your total team's salary is in the $100 million range or less.

The Rockies and Red Sox are in talks about a potentially gargantuan deal which would send Todd Helton to the Red Sox. ESPN has mentionned Mike Lowell, Reliever Julian Tavarez, and pitching prospects Craig Hansen and Manny Delcarmen as people that the Rockies would be interested in receiving in return (not necessarily people the BoSox would be willing to part with), while on the other side, ESPN is talking about the Rockies paying roughly $40 million of the remaining $90 million left on Helton's 6 year contract.

QUOTE(Rex Kicka** @ Jan 27, 2007 -> 08:45 AM) Ummm, hell yeah this should be investigated. Did these companies that Feinstein had "ins" with get no-bid contracts? Or did they go through the bidding process? That's my big question... Because if they had to go through a bidding process, there may not be much to investigate there. The story seems to show some smoke. If there's fire, I'm all good for removing her chairmanships and kicking her out of the Senate leadership. Did a little checking, and as far as I can tell, it was a contract awarded through the normal bidding process to a company that, unlike KBR, has not been recently fined for the work it has done and continues to do for the government. And it's probably not worth pointing out but I'm gonna do it anyway, that URS company has a chunk of it owned by the Carlyle group, that ol' investment group owned by GWBush, Jim Baker, and a few others, which means that the President also was a potential fiancial beneficiary of this deal. The deal was also cleared by the Senate Ethics committee when it was being run by the Republicans. But I've said it before and I'll say it again; few things would make me happier than to totally remove the influence of money and lobbyists from the entire U.S. government. No lobbying for contracts by spending money, significantly higher wages for elected officials to insulate them against bribery, much more strict controls on investment and lobbying by family members of elected officials, and public financing of campaigns.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 27, 2007 -> 09:38 AM) Passing this message on for Salty99. Jim Thome is in attendance at Soxfest. So, based on how often the statement was repeated last year before the season, I feel compelled to ask....how does his ass look?

QUOTE(Heads22 @ Jan 26, 2007 -> 08:02 PM) Seriously, the hair bothers me. Perhaps the added mass will prevent his head from flying open on swings on pitches outside.

Mariners sign Arthur Rhodes, close in on deal with Jeff Weaver.

At this point, the Bulls have so much depth that they can afford to dump 3-4 players in a single deal and still be all right. They'd be sacrificing depth in exchange for impact, which is a deal they should make. Khryapa, Sweetney, etc., don't do much to help this team when they sit on the bench or are inactive for weeks in a row

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Jan 26, 2007 -> 09:19 AM) Why should we fear that. Erstad has proven in the past he can be a fully capable player and if Anderson plays like s*** he doesn't deserve to start. If Erstad is healthy (and I don't know if he is) than he is worthy of starting for the Chicago White Sox (and 90% of major league teams). I think I'll take a second and chime in here...from the perspective of a lot of the stat-guys, Erstad even when healthy has been a terrific drag on the offense of the Angels the last few years. He simply does not contribute much with the bat at all and has not done so for several years. He's been tolerable for that team because of his defensive performances, but he's also been a big part of the reason why they haven't been able to put together an offense around Vlad since their WS run. Erstad in 2000 could start and play for 90% of major league teams. Erstad from 01-05 could start and play for a few ML teams, those that had holes and needed a guy to play solid defense. Erstad after his injuries...probably even less.

QUOTE(Heads22 @ Jan 26, 2007 -> 08:49 AM) So it's all up to us corn-growers, eh? My first choice is still Richardson. But since Iowa is a series of caucuses and not a single vote...you should know quite well that your 2nd and 3rd choices can be very important.

Last night on Sportscenter, Luol Deng, Timo Perez, and AJ Pierzysnki all made it into the top 10 plays.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Jan 25, 2007 -> 07:08 PM) Trust me, when a mushroom cloud is going off over Tehran I dont think that other governments in the middle east will be willing to run into the frey. What I was saying was that if one goes off over Tehran, then I would expect the next step to be one going off in Tel Aviv, at which point, israel just turns the whole middle east into glass.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Jan 25, 2007 -> 07:03 PM) How long do you think that Israel exists the minute Iran can get the weapons over to Israel. Drive them into the sea, scatter their electrons to the 4 corners of the world...what does it matter. I believe that the minute Iran tests a nuclear weapon, Israel is at war with Iran and will use whatever means necessary to stop the threat. Which means that if that moment comes, the entire middle east will cease to exist.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Jan 25, 2007 -> 06:58 PM) Well if they have an underground test in Tehran, we wont have to negotiate. Because Israel will take some of their fusion based weapons and turn Iran into glass. Do you really think Israel would launch a war with an unprovoked nuclear strike?

Miller is through with their Man Law ad campaign.

Joe Crede. Not just Joe Crede...but the way Hawk said it after the game against the Tribe in 05.

QUOTE(Rex Kicka** @ Jan 25, 2007 -> 05:06 PM) Polls in Jan 07 mean that more people know who Hillary is. I think the 100 million is a bit overestimated to be honest, and I think that there's plenty of money to go around. Beyond that and probably more importantly, there is no national primary, which is what that poll would measure. There are a series of state-by-state primaries. John Kerry was not winning any of the national polls IIRC until after he won Iowa. But anyway, it at least is measuring something, and useful or not, data is data.

QUOTE(3E8 @ Jan 25, 2007 -> 05:00 PM) I do not want Haeger anywhere near this rotation. Gavin Floyd will surprise you all. I have a feeling that both of them will be surprisingly good. All things considered I'm probably rooting for Charlie this year, but I think both of them have it in them to turn out darn good.

Very interesting and worth-while article. I certainly think that some of their points are completely correct, and I think there are other circumstances we can apply it to as well. Many other problematic issues follow a power-law distribution, such that they can be fixed by just cracking down on the worst of the bunch. For 2 more examples: 1; pollution from power plants. Most of the new power plants are no where nearly as polluting as older ones. But the older ones stay online, because it is cheaper to buy a lot of lobbyists than it is to upgrade the plants. So we spend years haggling over legislation requiring improvements to new plants, while the big polluting older plants fail to be upgraded, and then every time the deadline comes up for them to be upgraded, we come up with some sort of "New Source Review" policy letting them off the hook. 2. Medical malpractice. Big one here; a huge majority of malpractice complaints come from patiets of doctors who have multiple complaints. But to this day, the public does not receive full access to that sort of information, and it's not something a lot of people disclose. So in other words, the people with the most malpractice suits against them just keep going on practicing medicine and racking up the lawsuits. If there were some method of disciplining poor performing doctors, the malpractice problem in this country could be dramatically cut. Instead however the policy currently is to limit malpractice lawsuit claims, punishing the victims instead of punishing the one making the mistakes.

"The OC" will be filming in my building next Tuesday. Not nearly as interesting as the time ER filmed here with James Woods, IMO.

QUOTE(hi8is @ Jan 25, 2007 -> 02:24 PM) i just found this out and figured it was note worthy.... last year he got paid 8.75 million. For his production, the last few years his contract has been awful.