biittner77

Rebuilding or not they still have to try to win games. Marquis can eat innings and buy time for the real prospects that might need it. A complete overhaul makes sense from a fans perspective but teams rarely ever do it to such an extent that they don't have at least a few Vets around. Someone said that Veal and Gallagher were our 2 best pitching prospects. Gallagher by virtue of being close is but the organization seems higher on Ceda and a few others. At this point we don't know if Veal will be pitching out of the pen or starting.

Is Payton in these scenario's part of the Roberts trade? If so, taking him off their hands means less that we have to send the other way. In other words they dump his salary on the Cubs and the Cubs don't have to include say Veal but instead include Les Walrond.

Who's Eb Dawson? I don't get why Fox Moulder was on that list?

Can Preston Wilson play any CF at this point? As a guy that exclusively played against LH pitching he might be worth a look.

Let's say that McCain and Obama win the nomination for their respective parties. Who would you vote for? If you are a Democrat please feel free to participate in the discussion but please don't vote.

Hopefully this isn't one of the legendary "2 deals on the table" that we've been hearing about. Unfortunately Hendry is dumb enough to see Nathan as a priority.

I wish people still watched the original Star Trek. The relationship between Kirk and Spock helped me explain the Enlightenment and the Romantic period. Sadly the statute of limitations has run out on that reference. Where do I vote for Battlestar Galactica?

I know it's against the religion of this board to say anything positive about Andy MacPhail, but perhaps this Bedard thing with Seattle has been drawn out because the Orioles wanted to see what the Twins got for Santana. My thinking is that MacPhail was tipped off by somebody in the league office over the weekend that the Santana trade would be going down soon, so he decided to wait it out. I think we'll see Bedard dealt in the next 48 hours. My gut says Seattle too, but I wouldn't rule out a NL contender seeing as the Mets just improved themselves. Maybe he wants to trade Bedard and Roberts for Santana. :lol: Seriously, that explanation would make sense if they weren't getting some pretty nice prospects in the deal. But it seems like the players they were rumored to be getting from Seattle was about as good as they are going to get for Bedard.

So does this report mean that Clemens will be invoking his 5th amendment rights when he's called before Congress? People that believe he's innoicent could still argue that he never admitted anything. Or will he go with the "I took it to recover from injury because I owed it to my teammates" defense?

A home run isn't a ball in play, so no. So is there a correlation between giving up a lot of HRs and a lower BABIP? Without looking it up, last year seemed like Zambrano gave up a lot of HRs yet his BABIP still went up 10 points.

I can't remember does BABIP include HRs?

Because the Patriots are much better than either of those 2 teams. This game really comes down to the Pats offensive line. If they can give Brady time we will expose the Giants patchwork secondary. If the Giants fall behind early and abandon the run this game will get ugly.

I'm a little surprised that they viewed the prospects of Dopirak and Harvey with anything but sadness.

Is Crede really that old that the Giants would be interested?

I remember a lot of people being upset about trading Willis - The Cubs did not want to trade him but the Marlins would not do the deal w/out him. I agree he would not have made the majors as soon w/ the Cubs as he did with the Marlins. One of them started this website. IIRC, Willis was supposed to start the 2003 season at AA. Well within callup range. I don't see how people that never heard of him before his Marlins debut can say he wasn't on the Cubs' radar except maybe in the sense that the Cubs had a lot of promising arms at the time.

Those are gross generalizations and doesn't help this discussion at all. If anyone truly questions the difference between Republicans and Democrats, this link gives a good overview of the views that each party traditionally holds. Yes, electable candidates need to stay close to the center. That's true. But that doesn't mean there isn't a difference. I think our last two Presidents illustrate that as much as anything. The US had huge deficit (and debt) from the Reagan and the first Bush administration. When Clinton left office, he had a $127 billion surplus. Last year, Bush had a $163 billion deficit and that was the lowest that it's been in 5 years, and that's with the war being "off budget". http://www.eriposte.com/economy/other/demovsrep.htm Yearly budget deficit: 1962-2001 Democrats: $36 billion Republicans: $190 billion Increase in National Debt:1962-2001 Democrats: Total debt increased by $.72 trillion Republicans: Total debt increased by $3.8 trillion Inflation is increased under Republicans, GDP growth is down under Republicans, and unemployment is higher under Republicans. A the risk of actually contributing to the discussion, look at these figures: http://www.miseryindex.us/urbyyear.asp unemployment figures are fairly level Since Carter left office. The lowest level under Carter was about the highest level under current Bush. They have alot more to do with a lot of other things that have nothing to do with who's president. You mentioned the budget surplus as if it were a good thing. All that meant was they collected too much tax money. The government should never collect more revenue than it needs. They also shouldn't brag about having done so. Speaking of taxes, why is it that the government on the state level keeps raising regressive taxes like sales tax, cigarette tax, gasoline tax etc. and no one complains? In fact, these very people who vote for these taxes that genuinely hurt poor people run and win on the premise of being the party that cares about the people. These numbers with all the bad things that happen "under Republicans" does that mean a Republican President? Republican control of the House? The Senate? All 3? If we're talking about the Presidency then perhaps we should consider the fact that the Republicans have been President 10 more years than the Democrats have. That would kinda explain why they spent more money wouldn't it? Especially considering that 10 of the 18 years of Democratic control were before 1976 at a time when we weren't competing with China for oil. Before NAFTA and before giving China favored Nation status. It was also before we spent the USSR into submission. That's not even the point. They both spend more of our money than we'd like them too. That is why Republicans would love to have an actual fiscal conservative candidate instead of the current administration which has been on the worst spending spree since Marie Antoinette. It's too bad that no more than 3 people are still reading at this point because that was actually a pretty good line if you know anything about Marie Antoinette.

Except for a couple issues most Dem and Rep. are alike. Part of getting elected is having to appeal to the swing vote. So most candidates stay close to the center. Granted there are extremes on both ends that are markedly different. Which party wastefully spends the most of our money? both of them. Which party actually does anything to help people? Neither of them. Which party's wackos are likely to do more harm? That's how people decide to be Republicans or Democrats. The reason why it seems like there are a lot more Liberal Democrats here is because there are a lot of 20 somethings here from the Chicago area. They tend to be more vocal ie post more often. There are lots of members that rarely post. Also, if you're a conservative there's little point in discussing politics on a message board. If I want the Democratic party's talking points for the week I know where to find them online.

Rich Hill goes from solid middle of the rotation guy to ace of the staff?

I heard that it was 20 prisoners. I don't believe it because he gave them smokes first. Wait, I think I'm in the wrong thread.

Yes. This. How many toner cartridges would it take? I'll put the over under at 1.5

He has logged time there in the minors IIRC. But he wouldn't be able to add enough power to play him there even occassionally- at least that's the sense I'm getting. Given Hendry's LH fettish I could see him making the team as the 25th man since Derosa can back up SS.

I doubt we'll see anything significant until either The Twins trade Santana or Spring Training. Even though there are only a couple of teams interested other teams probably want to see what happens there and who is now available. Historically, I can't remember the Cubs making very many trades between New Years and ST. Some FA signings maybe but the trade talk starts to heat up again in ST when teams have a better idea of what they have and what they still need.

Roberts didn't make the Delmarva Shorebirds Ten Year anniversary team. He got beat out by, get this, Gary Cates. Fan opinion of a player's value is almost completely meaningless.

I'm going to list as many as I can in 2 minutes time 1 allowed Maddux to walk so they could sign 2 lesser pitchers 2. traded at least 2 HOF level players for quick fixes 3. routinely try to "catch lightning in a bottle" by signing players like Cliff Floyd 4. Overpay for high priced/ not very talented veterans 5. Routinely bring in players via trade or FA that are 5 years removed from being good (Jason Kendall) 6. haven't been able to develop a good position player in recent memory and I ran out of time because I'm a slow typist

What you're forgetting is that the Clinton's get to go first. I would also argue that the Swiftboat stuff probably didn't change anybody's mind about Kerry. I actually read Unfit for Command predisposed to not liking Kerry and came away unimpressed with the case against Kerry.