Balta1701

QUOTE(LosMediasBlancas @ Mar 31, 2006 -> 07:03 AM) I'd expect retalitaion for the Haffner plunking. Intentional or not, there will be pay back. Thome better wear two elbow guards when facing the Indians. Last year, the inning after Hafner was hit, the Tribe Pitcher got the first 2 outs then plunked Dye. As far as I'm concerned, that's as far as it should ever go. Someone hits you, you hit one of their guys, then it stops. Otherwise you wind up with brawls. Oh, and a stolen base and a hit turned that plunking of Dye into a run.

QUOTE(EvilMonkey @ Mar 30, 2006 -> 06:33 PM) Why should we have to support them at all? How about some of thier rich arab neighbors ponying up some cash for business opportunities. Maybe if the Palastinians made something other than terrorists and car bombs, they might actually have an economy, people might actually have jobs, and just may not want to go and blow themselves up anymore. Instead, they sit there feeling sorry for themselves, playing the victim role perfectly, instead of doing something constructive to help themselves. Here's an idea, grow food! Or quit having kids you can't support! Or move! Quit depending on the world to save your ass. Nice to see Canada having some balls. Way to go, neighbor to the north! I will grant you that you're right on the first part, that the Palestinians do play the victim role quite well, but in terms of an economy, it's also worth noting that since most of their trade actually has to come through Israel, Israel does have some responsibility for the poverty of their people. You can't exactly run an economy when you can't ship things to the sea or to your biggest market. Then again, it's not exactly like you can condemn Israel for shutting it's borders when some portion of the people crossing wind up blowing each other up. This is your textbook "Vicious cycle"...Palestinians blow up Israelis, Israel responds with actions against Palestine, Palestine becomes even more poverty stricken, more people become radicalized and willing to blow up Israelis. And when their "rich arab neighbors" do give cash, guess which organization has been best equipped to distribute that cash to the people through whatever programs have been run? Sadly, it's been Hamas.

Of course, you do have to wonder where we'd stand without B.A. and Jenks being counted. We'll find out next year I'm sure. I hope we get a good draft this year, we could use it. At least we haven't had to sacrifice any picks to sign FA's.

Nice to meet you.

We trade away probably our 2 best prospects, and we're still ahead of team 15.

QUOTE(jphat007 @ Mar 30, 2006 -> 05:42 PM) Yep. looks like Pods is staying back to get as many ABs as possible. Good that he sounds positive about it. He's so cautious about all of his injuries. After last year, I can't blame them for being too cautious with them legs.

Well, the good news is that we now know why Pods isn't tagging along; they want him to get like 12 at bats before hitting the big time, and he can't do that in Atlanta. And it seems that whatever gun people were watching that said Jenks only hit 96 today disagrees with whatever gun they're citing. BA...It's gonna come down to you and Booney for ROY. Go win it. (Liri-who?)

Ben Sheets of the Brewers will start the season on the DL. They want to compete in the NL Central? He MUST stay healthy. Bronson Arroyo threw 7 shutout innings against the BoSox. 23 year old Gavin Floyd has earned a spot in the starting rotation for the Phillies. 33 y ear old Ryan Franklin, a former starter with the Mariners, is headed to their bullpen. Javy Lopez will be starting the season as the Oriole's DH, after struggling with the bat while trying to learn first. Presumably this means more playing time for Kevin Millar.

QUOTE(SSH2005 @ Mar 30, 2006 -> 05:08 PM) Now Ryan Wagner is the perfect guy to acquire. He's still young (23), has a lot of talent and potential, still has options left so he could be stashed at Charlotte, and he might come cheap because the Reds seem to be down on him. Acquire him, let him pitch at Charlotte, and he could make a great midseason callup if he succeeds at AAA. He also could be a great addition for next season -- McCarthy will probably be in our rotation, Hermanson will probably be retiring, and Politte will be a free agent. I don't know much at all about Wagner but it looks like he barely pitched in the minors. http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/W/ryan-wagner.shtml Did the Reds screw up with him? Probably. See, now that's the sort of move that makes vastly more sense than most of the stuff we've seen proposed over the last few weeks. Since people started looking at our bullpen, we've seen name after name of people who maybe we could pick up who could maybe put together a season with an ERA under 4. Problem I see is...right now we already have a bullpen full of guys who could maybe do that. So, we don't exactly have a place to stick an extra guy on the big league squad without someone losing their spot first, and that just isn't happening. So, that leaves the option of sticking a few guys at AAA and seeing if they work out. Problem with this is...not every team is going to be as loaded in their roster as we are, where they're trying to find that last 5th or 6th reliever out of their bullpen; lots of teams could genuinely use a low-salary setup guy. So if there's someone out there who has a legit shot at putting up an ERA of 3 out of the bullpen this year, he's not going to find himself languishing at AAA for our club waiting for someone to fail...some team with an opening will give him a major league slot. We are simply not going to be able to find a decent vet out there who's going to give us anything. Hell, if guys like Joe Borowski can wind up in big league bullpens, we're just not going to find some diamond 33 year old right out there who's going to come in right now after screwing up the spring and put up 35 scoreless innings in a row. It's just not going to happen. If we want a bullpen guy...we need to find someone like that guy, someone that a team has soured on (Matt Thornton?) who we can acquire for next to nothing who still has options left who we can put in AAA. That's at least possible, and it's a hell of a lot more likely than finding a vet who we can guarantee will outperform someone else on our staff.

I wonder if Pods has tried wearing these...

Keep him away from George Clooney's academy award speech

Decent Verducci interview @ SI...he seems to think the investigation has more teeth than what he expected from MLB a few days ago.

Good...no "I may retire if we win another one" talk at the end of this year.

GM is a major funding source for the Safe Kids program, a 501© non-profit group which has advocated for stricter child safety seat laws. (For comparison, the NRA is also a 501© - that tax category is allowed to spend money on advocacy). So they do have input, but beyond that I'm uncertain.

QUOTE(GoSox05 @ Mar 30, 2006 -> 02:01 PM) theres alot of closers struggling this spring. I think its a closer thing. It was equally bad last year...lots of really good closers struggling out of the gate...most notably Rivera. Some of them just didn't get enough work in during the spring, and it took them a while to get back into "a warmup and an inning every day" shape.

Adam Eaton will be out a month. This really hurts the Rangers.

QUOTE(SHAFTR @ Mar 30, 2006 -> 01:03 PM) The fact that Thornton struck out Helton is a big deal. A bigger deal is that Thornton pitched 2 innings with 0 walks.

Did Thornton come out for the 7th? He used to start, be nice if we could see him throwing 2+ innings for us.

As far as I know, this is incorrect.

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Mar 30, 2006 -> 12:36 PM) I was not aware of the SB% in ST, but I think we should be ok in the speed department. Maybe im wrong... Well, let's look at the details. Brian Anderson is 1/5 in ST in SB. That's pretty ugly, but the rest: Crede 0/1 Ozuna 1/1 AJ 0/1 Mack 1/1 Valido 1/3 The Widge 0/1 Blakely 1/1 Owens 2/2 Pods 0/3 The guys who will be doing most of the running...have either very few or none. AJ and the Widge are running. ST at its finest.

QUOTE(Controlled Chaos @ Mar 30, 2006 -> 12:39 PM) What kind of sick demented person did that study?? Bill Frist.

QUOTE(JimH @ Mar 30, 2006 -> 12:31 PM) DJ just mentioned the lack of stolen bases in ST. They've stolen only 7 bases and have gotten caught 12 times. I would love to have more speed on this team. Scott Podsednik has had 22 at bats.

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Mar 30, 2006 -> 12:28 PM) Unless some BIG MONEY gets thrown at him, I cant see Coop leaving anytime soon. When the Yanks came a' calling, he pretty much put to rest any sort of notion of him leaving. Who the Hell cares what happened in the past...get his contract extended and let's make it so we don't have to think about it until the end of this decade.

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Mar 30, 2006 -> 12:26 PM) Thornton. Im starting to buy into Coop ALOT more..... Somebody needs to get his contract extended.

You know what might be a really nice result of this sort of investigation? Actually learning who the 5-7% (or more) of players who tested positive in 2003 despite months of warning actually were.