Rob

You didn't actually respond to anything I posted. The issues of whether or not the human aspect makes a difference is a contributing factor to the question of "should we keep him?". It has no value in determining whether or not we are able to, which was the crux of my post. Asserting that he has "nuked bridges and burned the blueprints" would seemingly imply that there is no possible way he can make a return... and that's simply not the case at all. He hasn't done a thing that the team cannot forgive him for. There are plenty of players in MLB who have done much worse things and their teammates have forgiven them. Hell, Zambrano has done worse things by actually assaulting a teammate and he's still on the team. You can say you don't think it's a good idea to bring him back. And I'm sure you can make an argument for it like you tried to above. But when people here are asserting the he burned bridges to the point that there's no way he can possibly return to the team, they're quite wrong. And please, when I say in the post itself that something is a horrible argument for certain things, don't go ahead and assume that I wanted you to respond to it as if I meant it for that. The "watching games" is simply a way to refute "all you stats geeks do is play video games." Nothing more. I said that in the previous post, but apparently that was lost on you.

It's mindboggling to me that anybody would be behind Miles at this point. ](*,) Agreed. That does not compute. That's like saying somebody was behind Neifi and Macias a few years ago. Blanco, maybe. Miles, no way. I'm not saying that he poses a significant roadblock. But if Theriot goes down and is only expected to be out about 3 weeks, I don't see us starting Castro's arby clock. Lou likes Blanco enough he'd be willing to keep him the lineup and make due with Miles as the backup.

I think drafting Sonny was more to build a connection to the team in case we try to draft him in the future. Maybe get us a bit of a deal. Plus the extremely minor chance he would change his mind when we put the money on the table.

This kind of sentiment is beyond absurd. He nuked bridges and burned blueprints? Just what exactly did he do? Did he beat his wife? Kill somebody while driving intoxicated? Is he raping the other players dogs? No. He's just a bit of a dick. If he made a nice little apology in the locker room and meant a word of it, the team would forgive him in a second. And for god's sake, please stop the "you'd only think that from playing video games" argument. Most of the people making the argument that he can still stay are some of the more passionate fans on this board, the ones that watch every single game (which is another bad argument to make, but probably neutralizes the stupid video game thing).

Realistically, if Theriot goes down for an extended period with an injury, he's still behind Miles and Blanco at this point. He needs to have a hell of an AFL, maybe some winter league action, and a very nice spring training for any of that to change. Though I think given the way he's forcing the issue, he may have guaranteed himself a ST invite. That's a great start.

Gaub gave up 4 ER in 1+ IP today. Ouchies. Castro was 1-4 with a double and a strikeout. Castillo was 0-3 with two strikeouts.

Yeah, Lou totally gets the credit for ARod. Lou got very upset with the front office for drafting ARod in the first place. He wanted bullpen help and Darren Dreifort was supposed to be able to slot in at the major league level almost immediately after signing. If memory serves, his quote was something to the effect of "why is this even a discussion?"

I remember when Soriano's road beef was posted up here and everybody was all "I could do better than that" and I didn't believe half of them... If anybody wants to say it now, I'll believe them.

Buzz is an idiot. I'll never forget him launching into Will Leitch on some tangent about how his website was condoning all sorts of horrible acts... and to prove his point, he was reading the comments of the posters on deadspin. If Tim were judged by the posts on this board, he'd be in jail.

Aramis Ramirez, though I don't see him developing the patience Aramis has in the last few years.

Castro does a much better job of staying back on the ball than Theriot does. I have no reason to doubt he'll end up with better power.

http://www.baseballamerica.com/online/majors/espn-chat/2009/268994.html I guess on talent/ability, Vitters is more likely, but one of the shortstops will have to definitely switch a position if they develop. It does make me wonder on the potential for one of the shortstops to go to 3rd, although I still think it's more likely that one of them goes to either 2nd (Castro) or CF (Lee). I wouldn't move Lee to 2nd as I think he can be better utilized in CF. If Castro makes it to the bigs as a SS and it looks like he's gonna be able to stay there, I wouldn't be surprised for Lee to turn into trade bait.

I really wish people would stop suggesting Brad Hawpe. His defense is so bad that if there were a Hall of Fame for terrible defenders, he'd be an inner-circle first ballot king of the freaking Hall. I would legitimately rather run Fuld out there every single day.

Burke probably does have bad range if you're looking at him as a CF.

He had to rack up 682 PA to put up those numbers. And he ranked 10th in the league in outs.

Soriano was bad in Texas, especially considering the ballpark.

An AFL MVP would work wonders towards Castro going from one of the great unheralded prospects to simply a top prospect.

I posted this elsewhere, but I think it needs pointed out again here. Roy Halladay's contract pays $15,750,000 next season. Vernon Wells' salary is "only" $12,500,000... but his contract stipulates his signing bonus was split into 3 $8,500,000 chunks, one of which is due this March. Even if we can get the Jays to pick up all of Bradly's contract, we cant add $26,416,667 to next years payroll... we can barely afford to pay the arbitration eligible players.

The easiest way to quantify a GM would be team salary minus league minimum x 25 divided by marginal wins over replacement. You should probably include investments into the farm system into that too, but that'd get messy. It might not be fair to some GMs who know they're overpaying for reasons other than baseball (i.e. Jeter's contract), but all in all it would do a good job of showing who does the best job of squeezing wins out of their money.

You really didn't get the point of that, did you? I'm saying it's possible. You're saying it's true... and not only did it have an effect, but it was a significant one. And you make this proclamation without any sort of proof. That's the crux of the argument. This isn't Cubs.com. Your opinions here have to be backed up with proof, and you have none.

Nobody is saying it has no effect. We're withholding judgment on the matter until some evidence is presented. You are the one passing judgment. You are the one with the burden of proof. If it's as obvious as you act like it is, you should have no problem finding a scientific study by a sports psychologist or even a stats guy who wants to crunch the numbers of individual players with Bradley there and without.

Who is debating the chemistry was worse? I'm just askng for some proof that bad chemistry negatively impacts team performance. And it'd be swell if somebody could give an estimate of how much of a difference it makes. Nobody has offered anything of the sort to back up their opinion that his attitude hurt us.

What bothers me are the people that continue to believe this game is played on their Xbox 360 and the players are robots or machines that will not be affected by any outside influences other than the 3 hours of the players play a baseball game. Where have I ever said anything of the sort? I'm saying that people need some sort of proof to back up their claims... especially the over the top ones by people like back2banks who have suggested that his performance on the field was totally wiped out by his negative attitude. If there's one thing I really truly pride myself on, it's the fact that I'm willing to look over all the evidence and admit when I'm wrong. All I've gotten to this point is flawed anecdotal evidence comparing baseball players to a bunch of white collar guys working in an office, or simply saying that Bradley keeps getting moved. There hasn't been a single person here who has been able to even prove that pissing off all the players in the locker room wasn't helpful, let alone that it actively detracted from the performance of the team. Has anybody linked to anything from a sports psychologist suggesting happy players play better than pissed off ones? No. Has anybody compared offensive performance of players on the same team as Bradley in years where he was there and years where he wasn't? No. Has anybody done anything at all to back up their opinion with fact? No. People are simply making up crap as they go along. Until people offer some degree of proof that his attitude impacted the performance of the team, the only rational thing to do is assume it made no noticeable impact at all.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I wouldn't begrudge anybody here if they said, "I know Bradley makes this team better, but I dislike him so much that I'd rather see this team lose an extra couple games if it means being rid of him." What bothers me are the people who are trying to rationalize their hatred of him by creating a fantasy world where he somehow negatively impacts our chances to win. They just cant stand the thought they're rooting for us to do something against the best interests of the team, and make up ridiculous claims to defend themselves. It's extremely dishonest.

Obviously it wasn't all the losing that effected the chemistry. It was Bradley.