Balta1701

So, the one issue people are forgetting with regards to Frank's contract status last year is this one: had the White Sox not been able to sign Frank by about December 20th, the White Sox would have had no choice but to either let Frank go or sign him to whatever deal he wanted. Why? Because of the arbitration deadline. Frank made about $10 million in 05, IIRC. If the White Sox offered him arbitration, and Thomas had accepted, then Frank could have held the Sox over a barrel by not signing a contract and just going to arbitration; arbitrators rarely decrease a person's salary by much. Frank wound up not signing anywhere until late January...because until then no team wanted to take the risk on signing him because of his injury history, and because he wanted to wait to see if any offers would come along. So basically, we'd have these 2 options: offer Frank enough money to get him to sign before the arbitration deadline, which would likely have been significantly more than what Oakland offered, or offer Frank arbitration, and wind up being stuck having to pay Frank nearly $10 million this season. Oh, and probably losing Konerko too.

Padilla Panicks.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Oct 3, 2006 -> 12:48 PM) What was the saying about the definition of insanity being you repeat the same action over and over and over again, while expecting a different result? "And my message today to those in Iraq is: We'll stay the course; we'll complete the job." Anyway...flipping subjects here a little bit. On Friday, a previously unnamed person called up ABC News and offered ABC an exclusive on Congressman Foley's resignation if ABC would hold off on publishing the nastiest of the emails/IM's. We've finally learned today who that was...Kirk Fordham, the Chief of Staff to Congressman Tom Reynolds, the head of the NRCC (who's name has come up a couple times in this already.) So...this of course begs the question...were the Republicans in Congress trying to keep this story under wraps as recently as Friday?

QUOTE(Allsox @ Oct 3, 2006 -> 12:32 PM) Any number Bora$$ gives would be laughable as well. Don't get me wrong, I love Joe Crede but he's not A-Rod and this was his first real yr at producing anything at the major league level. To expect to be paid 10 mil annually for one good yr is laughable. So, is he at least 40% as valuable as ARod?

It just keeps getting better and better for the Mets.

I hope he does the same thing to the Yankee staff.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Oct 3, 2006 -> 12:20 PM) The problem becomes if you don't have a primary witness on either side to back up a story, can you ruin someones life/s with the truth? But that's really not the issue here as I see it. The issue is what you do when you have some evidence that there may be a problem but not so much that you'd violate the law by doing nothing? Try to put yourself in those shoes for a moment. You're sitting there reading emails from a Congressman to a 16 year old page asking for a picture and so forth. Emails that many others have described as "Creepy". Now, you're told that the family just wants to keep this quiet. Do you do anything other than talk to the Congressman and say "no more", or do you at least take a step or two to let the page program know there's a problem, or look to see if there's more there than you've been told? The Catholic church seems to have had a more serious problem, where they fully realized how bad their situation was, but instead of doing something about it, they actively ran interference. In this case, if you believe the Congressional leadership...all they did was turn a blind eye. It's not going to be criminal, and probably won't even put them on the hook for civil litigation...but is it really the behavior you expect out of Congressional leadership?

Frank Thomas >> Minnesota pitching. 2 home runs, 3/4, 2 RBI. Why couldn't we see this Frank in 00 and 93?

Why couldn't we see this Frank Thomas in the playoffs in 93 and 00?

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Oct 3, 2006 -> 12:02 PM) Trust me, I am of the vein that if an adult is taking advantage of kids, they need to be taken out back and have a bullet put in their heads. Its not the PC thing to think, but there aren't many things I could think of that are worse. Like I said the problem is, if you don't have a cooperating witness, you don't have a case (like the example of the abused housewife I used early). It sounds like they did take internal steps, at least according to Denny, but until we get more details out, it sounds like they were kind of stuck in the scope of what they could do. See, now that one I think we can actually say isn't true...at least in terms of informing the other Congresspeople who run the page program (one of whom is a Republican). link 1. And here's a brief statement by the 3rd member, the Democrat: Both of the other 2 people running that program, one of whom is a Republican, are very unhappy that they weren't informed. It sure seems to me that if Hastert wanted to do the right thing but the family wanted to keep things quiet...you still have to talk to those 3 so that the page program itself can be protected.

So, it appears I have to correct what I said yesterday. Today the 9/11 commission is mentionning that they knew about this meeting, but they did not include any account of it in their final report. The commission has now admitted not only that they knew about it, but that they received a detailed report about it from Mr. Tenet. So this of course begs the question...if they knew about it, why was it not in the final report? (link).

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Oct 3, 2006 -> 11:54 AM) That's not what I was asking. The family asked for privacy, and I wanted to know if a formal investigation and/or censure would have been a matter of public knowledge. If they could have been doing it in private that changes things vs if it would have had to be a piece of public record. I concur that they should have kept it private to start off...but I think they seem to have overstepped the limits of what most people would consider "Keeping it private". I mean, if nothing else, I think that if you see emails between a Congressman and a 16 year old page asking for photos, you at least have to tell the 3 Congresspeople running the Page program, and maybe do some checking to make sure nothing worse happened? Btw, according to ABC's current reports, it's at least 2 different pages involved in these as well...so even if that particular family didn't want anything to be publically known...it might make some sense to check on what dealings other pages have had with this guy. I mean, that just seems logical to me I guess...the ol' "Where there's smoke there's fire".

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Oct 3, 2006 -> 11:38 AM) What about the formal investigation and censure? That part certainly didn't happen until after the press exposed him...and even then, the letters Hastert wrote to the AG requesting the investigation casually suggest that they should avoid investigating what the House leadership did in response to the information they had, but should only focus on who knew about the more sinister stuff...i.e. And the hits just keep on coming.

QUOTE(cuddlyboy26 @ Oct 3, 2006 -> 11:29 AM) Will Uribe be back? How much will he sign for and how long if he does return? Juan Uribe is already signed. He is under contract for $4.5 million in 2007, and the team holds an option for $5.5 million or so in 2008.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Oct 3, 2006 -> 10:12 AM) That's exactly what should be happening. The rank and file need to demand changes when something like this happens. Let the Dems spew all they want, do the right thing and the American public will respond favorably. Wouldn't "Doing the right thing" have involved not letting it get to this point?

QUOTE(T R U @ Oct 3, 2006 -> 09:33 AM) More like drugs.. if you dont abuse steroids you will not die from them We should see if we can sign Bonds to play LF for us, hopefully he takes a pay cut!! A lot of people wind up "Dying" from steroids, in the same way that people wind up Dying from AIDS. They are terrible for the body...especially in doses that athletes take. They don't kill you directly, and neither does AIDS. But they weaken the body tremendously, such that its much easier for something else to come along and kill.

QUOTE(ptatc @ Oct 3, 2006 -> 09:55 AM) Confucious say "beware of power hitting 3B with back problem when offering long term deal." The stress on a good defensive player's back is tremendous. A long term may be unwise if he doesn't have surgery. The disc could go at anytime then you have a 3-6 month rehab. Which is exactly the reason we're talking about trade options right now if Mr. Crede does not wish to have things corrected.

QUOTE(EvilMonkey @ Oct 3, 2006 -> 09:50 AM) While Hastert may want to consider resigning his leadership post, because quite frankly, he sucks, general calls for resignations are standard practice from the left leaning politicians. And in this case, the Washington Times.

Part 1: Part 2:

QUOTE(Allsox @ Oct 3, 2006 -> 09:21 AM) Dunno if JR would go 5 yrs. I'd start at 3 yrs, 24 mil with incentives to protect myself against his back. 1st yr: 6 mil guaranteed, another mil in performance bonuses 2nd yr: 7 mil guar, another mil in perf bonuses 3rd yr: 8 mil gua, another mil in perf bonuses Fair offer to me but to Bora$$, I'm sure he'd tell me his client couldn't live on that considering he's curing cancer, I mean, playing baseball At his current performance level, he would get more than that each of those years just going through arbitration.

QUOTE(jackie hayes @ Oct 3, 2006 -> 09:28 AM) Really? If I'm him, I take a team with a large payroll and Zambrano, Hill, Lee, and (maybe) Ramirez over the Nats or the San Fran AARP. But I do hope you're right. But you also have to consider the history of management quality and decisions. Dusty Baker is coming out of Chicago looking like a disaster, in part because of poor decisions above his head. Girardi can look at that system, see that Hendry is still there for several more years, and note that the new guy they stuck in there is another Tribune guy with no baseball experience, and he should immediately wonder whether or not the next set of deals is going to be any better. On top of that, the Cubs minor league organization looks pretty bare right now, since a lot of its quality is now in Florida. If Girardi could turn that around, he'd be a bit of a legend. But if he came in and failed, it could wind up being his last head coaching job for many years.

QUOTE(Rex Kicka** @ Oct 3, 2006 -> 07:03 AM) Here's the thing, if the Dems were in this situation, I'd tear up my nonexistent Democrat card. What it appears the leadership did - protect one of their own who is a sexual predator rather than even so much as investigate it when they knew something was up in 2001 - this is the whole party. And I wish it wasn't. At least based on the suggestion of ABC News last night, it doesn't seem out of the question that other names could be coming out in the near future as having done something similar with other pages, so I wouldn't rule out anything.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Oct 3, 2006 -> 08:29 AM) Terrible move. But even a worse move for him if he goes to the cubs. When he gets his NL Manager of the year trophy, I would imagine he'll be able to pick whichever job opening he wants, so he can probably just wait around to see what situations are actually available.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Oct 3, 2006 -> 05:03 AM) 5 years $50 million is a good place to start. All depends on his back.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Oct 3, 2006 -> 03:12 AM) Right now if you were offered Howie Kendrick, Ervin Santana and a prospect for Joe Crede, would you do that deal? Yes, I do that deal. I probably don't even need the prospect. I then turn around and try to deal Santana + someone (maybe even Iguchi) to Tampa for Crawford.