Rob

I give TT one more week until he's championing LaHair for Opening Day 1B.

So how many active mods are we down to at this point?

Who is tweeting what now?

Boobs

We should definitely have t-shirts made. We just need a catchy slogan.

Look at me! I'm Raisin! 10/15: Mesa wins 14-3 Box Score SS J. Lake 3/5, 3 R, HR (3), 4 RBI, K, SB (7) 3B DJ LeMahieu 3/5, R, 2 RBI, K, 2 SB (5) RP C Carpenter 1.2 IP, H, 0 BB, 5 K Great day in Arizona. Lake's batting average is up to .333 and his OPS is up to 1.039, while leading the league with 7 SB.

Yeah, Javier Baez would be a great trade target for the Red Sox... if he were eligible to be traded yet. Derp. Looking at that list, while I don't think we should have to, I'd be willing send them any two of Castillo, Rusin, Coleman, Gonzalez, Watkins, Dolis, Cerda, Simpson, and J. Jackson. Maybe Flaherty or LeMahieu. Very torn on Rhee, Ha, Vitters, and Golden. Definite nos on Brett, Szczur, Wells, and McNutt. Just based on Boston's needs, I'd think Castillo, Watkins and Dolis would be an enticing package, along with some cash. All MLB ready and they have questions in the pen, at SS and behind the plate. Watkins is nowhere near MLB ready.

Wow, I did not realize they've got Gameday working for AFL games. Crazy. Anyway, LeMahieu and Lake have got a multi-hit game already and have a couple swipes each. Lake is actually leading the league in steals as of this moment.

Yeah, Javier Baez would be a great trade target for the Red Sox... if he were eligible to be traded yet. Derp. PTBNL! Woot! Can't even do that yet. I believe there's a six month window on naming PTBNL's.

NSBB is convinced that the Cubs have all the leverage, SOSH is convinced that the Red Sox have all of it. As of writing this very sentence, I honestly don't know where I stand on the issue. But I'm tired of wondering and figure my only real chance to figure it out is to consolidate the bargaining positions of each club. So I'm going to examine what each team has to gain and lose from a potential deal... as well as what they stand to gain and lose from this deal falling through. The Red Sox What the Red Sox stand to gain from dealing Theo Epstein: Money - Both from the Cubs and from getting out from under Theo's contract. I've seen differing reports on the contract, but most of them seem to agree that it will cost the Red Sox between $6mil and $7mil to keep Theo around between his salary and his conclusion bonus. Many Red Sox fans are willing to write this off, but I'm sure the Red Sox aren't. I'll touch on why in the next bullet point. Prospects - Both from the Cubs and from the $6mil to $7mil the Red Sox just freed up in their budget. That's enough for some huge overslots in the draft (enough to get better prospects than the Cubs can possibly offer). Employee morale & image - An employee was allowed to change organizations to pursue a promotion, Cherington gets promoted from within, and all is well. What the Red Sox stand to lose from dealing Theo Epstein: Theo Epstein himself - It sucks for them, but he's gone regardless after this season. Relationships were already strained enough he was willing to leave. Taking away the biggest payday of his life wont help matters. What the Red Sox stand to gain from this deal falling through: Theo Epstein - Just for one extra year What the Red Sox stand to lose from this deal falling through: Money - Both from the Cubs and honoring Theo's contract Prospects - Both from the Cubs and not having the leftover money from Theo's contract. Employee morale & image - Theo is around as a lame duck. Best case for the Red Sox, his contract allows him to be put aside twiddling this thumbs somewhere while Cherington takes over as GM. Worst case, he has to be retained as GM and the Red Sox run the risk of Cherington leaving for a GM job elsewhere at his first opportunity. Also, this course of action hurts hiring of potential young executives. The Cubs What the Cubs stand to gain from trading for Theo Epstein: Theo Epstein - Obviously their #1 choice. Public Relations - This move should help sell some tickets. What the Cubs stand to lose from trading for Theo Epstein: Money - And loads of it, at that. Prospects - Whoever in the system the Red Sox are demanding. Randy Bush - Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha What the Cubs stand to gain from this deal falling through: Money - More than enough to hire whoever else they'd like to have. Rick Hahn, Josh Byrnes, etc... Prospects - Keep the guys the Red Sox want. Plus, there's leftover money that would have gone to Epstein's contract and could be spent on prospects What the Cubs stand to lose from this deal falling through: Theo Epstein - Or more accurately, the gap from a Theo Epstein to a Rick Hahn type. For at most one year until Theo becomes available again. Public Relations - Not getting Theo would bite the Cubs in the ass a bit in the press, unless the Cubs made a bigger move (in terms of moves the public cares about) such as signing one of Pujols/Fielder, or bringing in Ryno as manager. Conclusion: Yeah, I don't even know why I had to bother typing that all out to see it. NSBB wins. Cubs have the leverage. There's a legit argument that the Cubs are better off if the deal falls through and they use the money on Rick Hahn and prospects. But the Red Sox take a hit if the deal falls through and there's no debating it. The inner Cubs fan in me that was freaking out about this is now much more calm. Anything more than a couple token minor league prospects or cash should only be available if Theo can bring guys over with him.

Well I'm paranoid at the things I said Wonderin what's the penalty from day to day, I'm hangin out partyin with girls that never die, you see I was pickin on the small fries, my campaign tellin lies Was just spreadin my love, didn't know my love was the one holdin the gun and the glove But it's all good as long as it's understand It's all together now, in the hooooooooooooood Ghetto superstar, that is what you are Comin from afar, reachin for the stars Run away with me, to another place We can rely on each other, uh-huh From one corner, to another, uh-huh

I don't know how he does it, but somehow Morse always manages to dodge the PED questions despite having been suspended for them in the past. Crazy.

Permanent. I feel like 2/3rds of the top 25 non-mod posters on NSBB would be disqualified if you counted temporary bans. Who among us hasn't enjoyed a temporary ban at some point in NSBB's history? :bye: Me. Keep the insults veiled and sarcastic and you're good. Or just be like me and suck at insulting people. I'm assuming that's the biggest reason for my lack of temp ban thus far. I just know imb is gonna do it better in an hour anyways. Kinda takes the fun out of even trying.

smashing pumpkins are my all-time favorite band, but he needs to stfu and get a better drummer and stop writing gay lyrics. Gay lyrics? have you heard any of the new stuff? Last I heard was Machina. And while that was a better album than it got credit for, it was definitely trending towards gay. "Raaaaaiiiiiinnnnn falls on everyone..." C'mon. Rain is obviously code for semen. And everyone is just the guys. "Stand inside your love"? Buttsex. The list goes on and on.

There's almost no spread at all between ~6-30. Most of the guys that fall in that range are gonna be pretty comparable to Candelario. Good tools, but haven't faced any advanced enough pitching for us to know what we've really got. Marco Hernandez, Gioskar Amaya, Dan Vogelbach, Shawon Dunston Jr., Mark Malave, etc... any one of those guys could rocket up the list with a good full season debut. (not to say they'll all get to full season ball this year).

It would be really hard to explain it properly, but basically you need (or at least I use) a combination of Total Video Converter, Photoshop CS3, and Fireworks CS4. There is a ton of trial and error involved and its taken me quite a while to get really proficient at it, but the basic steps are - convert a vid clip into a gif via TVC (you can also use Photoshop I think, but I don't use it as I think the gif it outputs is pretty heavy as far as MB go) - open the source gif in Fireworks - open a picture that has the headshot you want in Photoshop. Then use the magic wand tool to highlight your head. Click copy. Then click paste (so it makes a new layer that is just the cropped head). Then immediately save it as a .psd (should do that automatically) - open the .psd in fireworks. click on the head, copy, then paste it into your .gif that you also have opened in fireworks. Your .gif will be split into frames and you'll have to individually place each head into each frame (most gifs that I make have about 90 frames). So it's kinda time intensive sometimes. For example, I consider the one that I made for Saints Report this week to be pretty much my magnum opus of .gifs. I can't imagine I'll ever do a better one and I certainly won't ever do one that took that long to make again. It took about 4 hours to do. I didn't realize how long it was going to take me until I was about a quarter of the way into it, but once I was that far...I figured I'd go ahead and finish it regardless of how long it took. ... ... ... Wanna make some .gifs for me?

He's 22 and struggled at Daytona. I imagine plenty of folk will jump to the conclusion he's a bit fringy. Those people are probably forgetting he hasn't really focused on baseball till this year. And of course, Daytona was only 40 some games and his BABIP was around .270 (which is a good deal lower than I'd expect given his skillset). The walk rate dropping there is a bit scary, but he could have just been pressing after a slow start. At any rate so as long as he continues to do a good job of avoiding strikeouts, he should hit for average. Between that and his defensive skills and speed, I'd say the only way he's "fringy" is if there's no power. That said, the power to this point in his career has been more than adequate, and it's more likely to get better than regress.

HE'S ALIVE!!!

Seconded.

A million internet points to the man who puts Theo's and Hendry's faces in all the right spots in this:

After it's all over, there's gonna be a lottery to see who Theo gets to take with him.

Chipper Jones? Don't know if he's got that kind of power though.

Vitters walk!!! WOOOOOO

I had always just assumed that was me. I comma the [expletive] out of my posts.