Balta1701

QUOTE(Soxnbears01 @ Jul 15, 2005 -> 11:40 AM) is burnett THAT much better than JC? i hate watching JC pitch, but he gets the job done. No. Contreras has an ERA of 3.99 in the AL, Burnett has an ERA of 3.64 in the NL. They have nearly Identical WHIP's. Jose walks more but gives up fewer hits. Jose is also signed for next year, while Burnett is not, and would therefore cost $10 million or greater to keep.

QUOTE(knightni @ Jul 15, 2005 -> 11:17 AM) The FCC won't let them. ESPN.com however...

QUOTE(Finkelstein @ Jul 15, 2005 -> 11:33 AM) I would rather keeps Cotts than Marte. I can't figure out why anyone, and i mean anyone, would consider trading one of our bullpen lefties without getting a lefty in return. I mean, we've seen that Ozzie refuses to hold onto a bullpen without 2 lefties. Does someone here still think Kevin Walker is a suitable replacement lefty? The moment Marte went down, the first move we made was to bring back Walker.

I think anyone who says the words "Kerry Wood" when looking at AJ Burnett may be onto something...not in terms of health but in terms of overall performance. Both have very good arms and good fastballs...both keep their ERA's fairly low by pitching a large number of 1 or 2 run games, but neither one of them is worth the money they're going to get the next time their contract comes up, and neither one of them are winning pitchers. Burnett has been on a team that has been a winner now for basically 3 years...they won the world series 2 years ago. But his overall numbers certainly aren't stellar. 42 and 44 career record. Got shelacked by the Phillies last night - 6 ER in about 5 innings. Has a career ERA of 3.8 in the NL. Has never won 15 games in a season. And he wants to hit the FA market in the fall, which means it'll take a ton of money to get him to sign now. I'm going to react to any deal for Burnett exactly as i would react for any deal for Kerry Wood.

QUOTE(knightni @ Jul 15, 2005 -> 11:22 AM) That Mets rumor has got to be a ruse. The Mets suck and have no shot at the playoffs this year. They have as good a shot this year as they had last year when they moved Kazmir for Zambrano in an absolutely moronic move.

I don't want to quote Juggernaut's big thing, but let me say this re: Griffey. First, grabbing him pushes either Thomas or Everett completely out of the lineup. Why? Because we'd have 3 guys competing for the DH spot, and Griffey would steal Everett's OF time. Griffey also can no longer play every outfield spot. There are many guys who get hurt and who can no longer play RF or LF because of the stress involved on the body in making long throws at those angles. CF is the only OF spot where he can really play.

How do you make a sequel to a movie with an ending like that? "After this, my guess is you'll never hear from him again"

There's also a fair amount of questioning as to who this "Anonymous source" is who leaked this piece to the NYT/WaPo/AP and whether or not they can be trusted or if they are just saying this to try to get a cover story on the front page. Via Talkleft

QUOTE(sec159row2 @ Jul 15, 2005 -> 10:28 AM) yes, we could have a bigger threat... it's called the new york times Well, the fact that they printed Judy Miller's B.S. about Iraq's WMD's really did do some serious damage to this country.

QUOTE(SoxFan101 @ Jul 15, 2005 -> 09:23 AM) I think they have a decent team. The big ? would be Kwame Brown. If Phil can turn him into the player people thought he would be than they can be a very very good team. 2 bad they wasted their draft pick on some garbage.... lol at yahoo they have is upside being Brendon Haywood.... thats a nice ceiling. I also think their C.. Chris Mihm or however you spell it, while not that good is underated by some. He may be underrated, but he was hardly healthy at all last year. And there's always the big question...will Kobe let the ball go down low?

QUOTE(KipWellsFan @ Jul 15, 2005 -> 06:14 AM) I don't even know any more wino. But Peter King said this morning that Wilson is a liar and Rove deserves a medal, he's probably right... "Remove the medal of triumph, and attach the medal of shame" Seriously though, if this story is true, it still raises a huge # of questions. (words stolen from Americablog) 1. A senior Bush administration official with access to the most classified information confirms to a journalist who a CIA agent is. Is he nuts? Again, anyone who's worked with the CIA and their agents (and I have) knows how careful they are - you do NOT confirm who works there, and EVERYONE in town KNOWS that. Why in God's name would Rove do this? It's inexcusable. And he confirmed it to a journalist, no less. If a journalist said "so, I hear we're invading Syria on August 15" would Rove respond, "yeah I heard that too"? No, he wouldn't. This kind of journalist prying happens all the time. But Rove decided to answer this time, putting our national security at risk. 2. It confirms that Scottie McClellan REALLY misled the media when he said that it was "ridiculous" to suggest that Rove had anything to do with the Plame leak. In fact, Rove not only told TIME about Plame, he also confirmed the story for Novak. So, again, why did the White House mislead the media and the American public for two years by denying Rove's involvement? 3. Three days after he confirms the story for Novak, Rove tells TIME magazine about Plame. Rove can try to claim that it was Novak who brought Plame's status as CIA up in the conversation first (which still doesn't excuse Rove confirming it, good God), but Rove can't explain why HE decided to be the guy to offer Plame's CIA status on a silver platter to TIME magazine. That's a pattern of disclosure, rather than a one-time slip-up. 4. So now we have Rove leaking to Novak AND Matt Cooper, and Bush still hasn't fired him, no one has revoked his security clearance, and in fact Rove was walking side by side with Bush today. Could we have a bigger threat to our national security that a walking sieve attached at the hip of our president?

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! Maybe we'll be lucky and this is just a delay until his rehab assignment ends on Monday...

QUOTE(fathom @ Jul 14, 2005 -> 08:23 PM) Yeah, I was following it online, and then heard the 9th inning on the radio. Why does it seem like every time we face the Indians, Hafner always bats in the 9th inning? I was happy to hear Ozzie was going to let Marte face Hafner, as Hafner just destroys RHP. Apparantely unless they're named Contreras...

QUOTE(S720 @ Jul 14, 2005 -> 07:20 PM) WAY TO GO JOSE. 2 OUT OF 3 MINIMUM! Um, it's a 4 game series.

Jose...DO THIS EVERY DAMN TIME OUT.

Let's hope he's got his control back where it should be.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Jul 14, 2005 -> 02:51 PM) I am not a Lowell fan by any means. But If I remember correctly he does pretty well in the playoffs. And he hit .250 in June and .290 so far in July. He had a terrible April and May. His overly pull hitting doesnt fit in my personal hitting philosophy but he hits very well against lefties(.313 BA with a .903 OPS). I would take AJ over Conteras any day of the week. AJ can be the 4th start in the playoffs and is someone that would give us the best 1-4 in the bigs. He hit pretty well in the playoffs, but that was after he put up monster numbers that season before he was hurt...he literally played so well that year that teams couldn't trade for him. When I look at Lowell, I look at a guy who I'm really starting to wonder if he can find whatever he lost...for whatever reason (take your own guesses) he has plummeted in quality at the plate this year. His numbers right now this season are WORSE than Crede's in every single category except for number of walks. Crede has more RBI, a much better average, higher OPS, more runs scored, in fewer at bats than Lowell. If you're frustrated by our hot and cold 3b, you'd be doubly frustrated by a guy who has basically been cold ALL YEAR. And on top of that, he's a clear downgrade at 3b. This one would be a mistake, I don't care what you say about Burnett making up the difference.

QUOTE(marsh @ Jul 14, 2005 -> 02:45 PM) The one thing that Dye and a lot of other first basemen have on konerko is height. he has to jump up to catch the ball and tag out the runner more than anyone i've ever seen. In terms of 1b next year, let's not forget that if he's healthy, we don't have a bad backup in Ross Gload. The guy played almost half a season for us last year, hit .321, with 7 home runs and 44 driven in over exactly 250 plate appearances. OBP of .375, OPS of .854. These are not bad numbers for a guy making $335,000 a year. And from the left side of the plate as well. Scale that up and we'd be talking about a guy who could drive in nearly 100 runs with nearly 20 home runs, and those were his numbers basically as a rookie. He has put up good numbers at AAA ball this year as well. And he's never made an error in his MLB career at 1b (others have said he's very good over there). For a backup option, he's certainly not a bad one...if he's healthy. If he could run off a whole season with those numbers, he'd be better than anyone on my list of "who could we play there". The shoulder is the whole key, IMO.

There are still several guys on this team who's career numbers are much better than their numbers this year and who (let's hope) will rectify those problems in the 2nd half. Konerko, Uribe, Pierzynski.

Interesting note on the "Security Clearance" topic - apparantely there's an executive order setting precedent on this topic. This is from a letter written by Congressman Henry Waxman to White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card.

QUOTE(Steve9347 @ Jul 14, 2005 -> 11:21 AM) I don't see Burnett costing any more than 10 million a year. With the loss of Konerko (bye-bye) and Frank's restructured contract, I don't see why this won't work out. I see Burnett thinking that right now, with his fastball, if he hit the FA Market he could get a fair amount more than $10 million a year. Pavano got $10 million a year, and that was last year.

The Lakers definately needed some sort of an inside presence to go along with Kobe, and it's clear that they didn't have that last year in Divac, Grant, and Mihm. The one thing they did have is a surplus of guys who can shoot from the outside. It makes sense to try to dump a couple of them. It's truly an awful risk taking on Brown, but if anyone can figure out how to coach him, it could be Jackson. And if Brown doesn't perform, the Lakers have guys who are decent enough to step into the place vacated by Butler and Atkins/George without a major dropoff...and in their backcourt it mostly comes down to whether or not Kobe is healthy anyway.

I don't know how to react to this story other than to say this may be one of the most hideous things I've ever seen.

QUOTE(Punch and Judy Garland @ Jul 14, 2005 -> 10:46 AM) I think the Burnett deal is in serious troubel now that the Jays are heavily involved. I think AJ will end up there. I think the Halladay injury makes the Jays sellers myself...unless they think they can pull off what we did with Freddie and sign Burnett immediately.

QUOTE(RibbieRubarb @ Jul 14, 2005 -> 09:50 AM) My mistake for thinking it was too obvious for green. My mistake in thinking mine was also.