Balta1701

If this memo has been out for "Years", then you guys have a source the NYT isn't citing, and I'd like to know what it is. This quote is from the same block @ the top. In other words, this particular memo has been available only for 2 months, and vastly less time than that for the NYT, so yeah, they just got their hands on the thing.

Well, you do gotta say he earned it. Hopefully, Lopez will tear it up at AAA, and we'll have no need of him in the big leagues because our 3 other lefties will each figure out whatever they need. Boone Logan for ROY...the campaign starts here.

QUOTE(nitetrain8601 @ Mar 26, 2006 -> 09:23 PM) Actually it will. At the 8th spot, I think the best pick we could get is 14. Not making the playoffs puts us at around 10(in my projections), 11 at the highest. That could mean the difference between a Ronnie Brewer and a Maurice Ager. I rather have Brewer. If we miss the playoffs, we have a legit shot at as high as the 7th pick. Right now, we're somewhere between 11-12. It would only take a couple of consecutive losses by us and wins by other teams to push us up to 7. But that'd also push us out of the playoffs pretty darn quick too...there's a big logjam right there.

Well, here's another one.

100% Healthy and in their primes...Frank Thomas without a second thought of any sort. Probably every year before 2001 I'd make the same choice. Right now, I think Thome's injury is something he's much more likely to recover from. He's also younger. He's just got a much better chance to contribute for a full season than Frank.

QUOTE(Jeckle2000 @ Mar 26, 2006 -> 06:03 PM) Thornton = Marte's white twin brother... If he can give us 2 seasons like Marte gave us when he first hit Chicago...yeah, I could live with that.

Well, at least Thornton seems like he has some confidence in what he's doing. That's usually a good sign. If he somehow comes around to "Decent", our bullpen concerns will be completely over.

It's very impolite of you to have forgotten Clifford. Took me a minute to figure out why it seemed like you could keep both Logan and Lopez.

No matter what Frank Does to change things, I don't think his body will hold up to baseball this whole year. Just that swing of his puts a ton of pressure on that body.

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Mar 26, 2006 -> 03:53 PM) You guys are going a little overboard with Mac. I understand the concern, but if you actually are watching Brandon during the games, and not just going by the stat sheet, he seems to focus on one or two pitches an inning. On top of that, his body has never gone threw the day in and day out work of being in a bullpen. That's sort of why I was asking what he was throwing. Last year, he was going out and trying to beat everyone in ST and doing so very well, the times I've seen him pitch this spring its seemed more like he's been working specific things, like spending whole innings throwing nothing except the 2 seamer. So Thornton at least looked decent today btw right?

What sort of mix of pitches was BMac throwing?

There's probably a hundred jokes I could come up with on this one...but Hell, they're not really needed.

So, presumably, all that's left for Mr. Putin now is to be hired by the Washington Post to provide balance.

FWIW, Russia is denying the report. Details.

QUOTE(SSH2005 @ Mar 25, 2006 -> 01:27 PM) Thornton is out of options. He would have to clear waivers to be sent to AAA which is unlikely because he's a lefty who throws 96 MPH. Unfortunately, I think he will make our opening day roster and they may try to slip him through waivers to Charlotte later in the season. I know Thornton is out of options. I'm asking about Lopez. He's clearly been better than Thornton this spring, but Thornton will make the team by default to give Cooper a better chance with him. If Lopez doesn't make the big league team, will he hit the waiver wires, or can we send him to AAA? Edit: Just saw your edit. Thanks. At least we have 1 decent LOOGY sitting at AAA if Thornton can't figure things out in a few months.

So what happens to Lopez if Logan and Thornton wind up making the team? Can we send him to AAA for a few months while they try messing with Thornton, or do we have to get him through waivers?

QUOTE(SSH2005 @ Mar 25, 2006 -> 01:20 PM) How sad is it that we have more confidence in a guy with 5.1 IP at Single A over Thornton? If KW makes a trade to bring in a decent righty reliever to replace Thornton and Jenks starts throwing strikes, our bullpen will look damn good. Do we expect Thornton pitching anywhere today? Our bullpen wouuld look damn good if they could get Thornton's ERA under 5 also.

QUOTE(jphat007 @ Mar 25, 2006 -> 01:03 PM) He said he'll be ready so I'm assuming that he'll be ready utnil I see him look like crap in a game that matters. It's not like it matters though. What I think isn't going to change anything. So instead of worrying about it, I'll just assume they'll be ready. BUt that's 1 out of 25. The fact that most of the rest of them look good at this point is encouraging. Last season, there were a lot of really good closers who got off to sh*tty starts to the season & took a few games/a week or two to really get into things. The God of Closers they have in NY blew like 2 saves in a row against the Red Sox to start the season. It may take him a little while once the season starts too, but it seemed to take that for a lot of closers last year too.

Earlier this week, Mr. Bush once again presented the Iraqi City of Tall Afar as a success story...a place where the U.S. forces had launched a major operation and where the Iraqi Security forces were making this safe. Reuters managed to get a guy there without having him wind up dead, and while things have improved marginally since the last U.S. assault, the city is still in pretty bad shape.

SB, the other side is that by filing and seemingly losing the lawsuit on the very day the book came out, it gave a ton of extra publicity to the book that it would not have had, and it gave the news media extra reason to remind everyone that "Hey that book is out today". If their only goal was to protect Bonds, and they felt they didn't have a good shot at winning, the last thing they'd want to do is give everyone a reminder the day that the book comes out.

QUOTE(jackie hayes @ Mar 24, 2006 -> 03:03 PM) Why do we need a "100% guarantee" for this to be a good argument? Sure, there are other factors, but if this one is important (plausible), it will influence elections, at least if it's independent of those other factors (also plausible). This sounds like one of those arguments that dismisses all statistical theory with the answer, 'Well, it doesn't ALWAYS happen that way.' And I'm surprised you'd make that argument... Ok, so it's level of importance may be non-zero. But if I had to list my top 20 concerns about things which would have the ability to swing elections in the next 30-40 years, this concern would not even make the list. I'm not trying to dismiss all statistical theory, I just think that this is such a minor component that it's not even worth spending effort to think about. If I did a principal component analysis, it would be one of the components barely above the noise. There are plenty of other reasons why trends may be trending democratic even beyond this one, single metric. Hell, there was a decent book about that a few years ago. If nothing else, think about this...how logical does it seem to draw conclusions based only on population growth within a state, without considering the groups of people who are growing, those who are stagnant, which regions are growing, how each of them vote, etc. Simply drawing lines at the states is how the electoral college does things, but it's not always the best way to analyze things. You want a demographic trend that will be of vital importance to the next 30 years of elections? Watch the Hispanic vote. Highly volatile, no firm party affiliation, lots of ability to change.

QUOTE(fathom @ Mar 24, 2006 -> 01:09 PM) Why get Juan Cruz when we have Tim Redding, Dustin Hermanson, and Matt Thornton? "WHERE WOULD HE PITCH"? Based on his numbers last year, that's actually a very fair question.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Mar 24, 2006 -> 12:51 PM) I think i've already handled this issue. Hes not noticably heavier, hes still fat if thats what you mean. Maybe the pin stripes will make him look the same size to you. Second, his velocity is down because he is building arm strength. Just like many of the pitchers on the list. Look at D Turnbow, he throws that hard, and is struggling not only with location, but with his velocity as well. It takes time people. According to SI, Turnbow is currently throwing around 96.

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There was actually already some talk of Borchard starting against lefties, this'll just give him more of a chance.