BigbadB

I always enjoy these, but I had to read the title of your thread a few times before it clicked.

It probably has a lot to do with the travel and training regimine's that don't follow the ballclubs policies. Besides the risk of getting injured, which you are probably right that if they get injured there, it was bound to happen with their own club, but that's for your basic baseball injury. It does not necessarily follow the same line of a freak injury, where someone rips one back up the middle off of the pitcher's forehead. Would someone hit one off the pitcher's forehead? Who knows. Could someone hit one off the pitcher's forehead? Sure. How often does it happen? Not that much. But, the risk of something like that is there because they are in that environment, just not with the club that's paying the big contract.

I can understand why the clubs who are paying them the big bucks would be upset if players played in the WBC. It's their dime someone else is toying with.

I read something about it here yesterday, but don't remember where it was. I think what I read yesterday said something like: Z decided not to pitch in the WBC this year because he didn't like how he pitched in the regular season after appearing in the WBC the last time. I'd say let the thread stand for now.

Stay on topic, please! :thumbsup:

Hmm. What's going on in here? Hockey is cool!

Well, these are the guys I'm letting go of: C Ramon Hernandez 1B Mike Jacobs 3B Edwin Encarnacion 3B/OF Mark Teahan SS Michael Young OF Luke Scott SP Gil Meche SP Paul Maholm RP Brian Wilson Great! A steaming pile of crap. Thanks for that! Remember, these guys are clutch and they are winners. But not gritty? I rest my case.

Well, these are the guys I'm letting go of: C Ramon Hernandez 1B Mike Jacobs 3B Edwin Encarnacion 3B/OF Mark Teahan SS Michael Young OF Luke Scott SP Gil Meche SP Paul Maholm RP Brian Wilson Great! A steaming pile of crap. Thanks for that!

I have indeed marked my keepers, so that's good. Others have claimed to have the same problem. Juan did give me admin powers, so maybe that's why I was able to drop my players while others cannot. On a related note, I've been peeking at transactions wondering why no one was dropping their players. I'm anxious to see what kind of player pool we will have for the draft. I'm guessing it will be stronger this year than in past years.

I'm guessing, and I've been too lazy to actually look, that Juan can remove all non-keepers from all teams with the push of a button.

I was able to drop players using the add/drop function. I hit control + players to drop them all at the same time. I believe Juan said that as long as you mark your keepers, he's going to drop anyone who isn't marked, so if you are having trouble, he can do them all at one time on the morning of the 15th. Speaking of Juan, I was just looking over his team. He's got a pretty good corps of players he's keeping this offseason.

Do teams get to keep all that money? I know apparel revenue is tricky, some of it the teams keep and some is split. Probably not. Merchandising and video gaming is where the NFL gets a lot of it's money to cover expenses for player's unions, pensions, etc......, which is probably somewhat the same for MLB. Also, fat cats like Selig and all of his cronies probably draw their salaries on these types of revenues.

Someone needs to teach the folks at the CDC about reducing fractions. Someone already did. How do you think it went down from 50 in 100,000?

Looks like she'll be the one who has to leave town. He's got a full no trade clause.

$5.5 million seems steep for a backup who can only really play 1B What if traded Luis Vizcaino (3.5) + prospect for Johnson (5.5). After adding in the 500K buyout for Vizcaino, the Cubs would only be taking on 1.5 million for Johnson. That's a deal I'd do if you could get Bowden to bite on it. Johnson would at least give us a decent bat on the bench, and allow Lou to comfortably give Lee an off day every now and then. Also, I think Johnson (while he's never played there) could be just as passable in LF/RF as Hoffpauir. I'm sure a rebuilding team would love to have a 34 year old declining reliever making nearly four million. Jim Bowden isn't a bad enough GM to make that move. That's Dave Littlefield level of ineptitude. Even though Adam Dunn is easily worth 20 million I don't understand why the Nationals signed him. They aren't contending with or without Dunn for atleast another few seasons. I'd invest that 20 million into the draft and international free agent market. Washington's farm system could really use the upgrade that strategy would provide. They would actually be freeing up money by trading Johnson for Vizcaino. Are they really rebuilding? It seems to me that if they could find some takers for their plethora of outfielders, they could have a halfway solid team full of veterans. Also, considering they were willing to give Teixiera a huge contract, they probably have the money to spend for O-Dog. Put him in the line up, and I think they have a very competitive team. Pretending that Adam Dunn would play 1b, they have: OF- Kearns/Pena OF- Milledge/Dukes OF- Willingham 3b- Zimmerman SS- Christian Guzman 2b- Orlando Hudson 1b- Adam Dunn C- Jesus Flores SP- Scott Olsen SP- Daniel Cabrera SP- John Lannan SP- Collin Balester SP- Bergmann, Hill, Detwieler, Shell What they need at this point is pitching, and they still have plenty of outfield depth to trade.

Oh, and they offered Willie Harris some sort of contract, and he's an outfielder, too.

Didn't they trade for Willingham, also?

If the question is whether I would rather have Aaron Miles, Milton Bradley and Aaron Heilman as my 5th starter or Bobby Abreu and Jake Peavy, I think I'd take Abreu and Peavy.

Not that Ryan Leaf was a good pick, but I'm pretty sure he was the second overall pick not the #1 pick. Yeah, you got me there. However, he was the 2nd pick to some guy no one has ever heard of. :) :)

Don't worry. Ticketmaster's latest merger should kill concert ticket sales once and for all. The monopoly is in place.

Is he that much better than Bay in a full season in Boston? I don't know. I haven't made the comparisons.

To me, the obvious choices are Berkman and Wright, while the last two are difficult between Sizemore, Bay, Kinsler and Martin. I see value in keeping Kinsler and Martin due to the lack of talent at those two positions. At the same time, I can't decide who I would value more between Sizemore and Bay, as either one would be tough for me to let go. So, I'll trust your instincts. Just don't do me wrong!

They took Bush because they knew the local high school boy would sign. But, how much difference in money is there really between what Bush got and what a top rated college player would get with the first overall pick. And I wonder if they still think it was worth it? His wiki page makes him look like the worst #1 pick in the history of the game, which then makes San Diego own the worst of all time in baseball and football (Ryan Leif). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Bush

Well, I've trimmed my list down to my keepers. I had to get rid of some talented players that I would have loved to keep, but oh well..... C- Geovany Soto (exempt) 1b- 2b- Alexei Ramirez (exempt) SS- Stephen Drew (exempt) 3b- Alex Gordon (exempt) OF- Matt Holliday (555 points) OF- Jacoby Ellsbury (exempt) OF- U- Ian Stewart (exempt) SP- Brandon Webb (614 points) SP- Roy Oswalt (528.5 points) SP- James Shields (exempt) SP- SP- RP- RP- Minors Kyle Blanks Nick Weglarz Engel Beltre Matt Dominguez Max Scherzer Adam Miller Neftali Feliz David Huff Carlos Carrasco Humberto Sanchez

After 2003 was when they started using the more undetectable stuff.