Outshined_One

If I owned a team, I'd basically hire a limo/personal driver service. Any time any of my players went out on the town, all they'd have to do would be to make a phone call and someone would be there to pick them up in style and drive them either around town, back to their hotel, or back home. It'd be expensive, but it'd be worthwhile.

Little bit from Column A, little bit from Column B.

Quite frankly, I have a hard time buying into the problems of having a team that has too many RH/LH bats in a given lineup. As long as the guys you have on your team are capable of hitting righties and lefties on the mound, I don't think that really matters.

Only this time, the offense pulled the defense and special teams out of the fryer.

I'd think about it, as they have some similar tools, but I have more hope for Pie than I do for Rios. Rios probably won't be a high K guy, but his IsoD numbers in the majors and minors have been mediocre to abysmal. He'll probably give you 25-30 HRs in his peak. However, his OBP is strongly tied to his AVG; he'll have to be able to maintain good BABIP and LD percentages over his career to be a productive hitter. If he goes into a slump where he can't hit his way out of a paper bag, he won't have patience to pick up the slack. I don't know if Rios has the speed and instincts to play CF. If he doesn't, then I'd shy away from dealing Pie for him.

The secondary needs to be addressed in the offseason. Vasher, Johnson, and Brown are all out and Peanut is clearly dinged up while the DL is short-handed, but everyone on the field right now has plenty of issues.

&^&*#^*$!

We're making this game way closer than it has any right it has to be.

Craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap.

That was definitely an interesting fumble.

The fact that he never touched a down lineman made that even funnier.

Much like Superman, the best martial artists must know when to pull their punches. ;) Why do you think Sisco only ended up with a broken hand? :D (Although, I heard Sisco took a swing at Ryu and missed pretty badly, hence the broken hand.)

Yep. He was reportedly massively overweight while pitching for Daytona at the start of their season a couple of years back. He also broke his non-pitching hand. One account was that he was really frustrated with an outing and punched a wall out of anger. Another account was that he got into a fight with JK Ryu over who had a larger signing bonus. Ryu apparently won that fight on both accounts. This could turn out to be a Bobby Jenks-like move for the Sox in having an overweight guy with attitude problems finally reach his upside. Or he could end up being an enormous headache and eat himself out of baseball. Either way, I'm impressed the White Sox actually got something of value for Gload.

Pima was where Donald Veal attended CC, unless I'm mistaken.

That game can really cramp your hands up if you play it too long.

That .335 SLG is Pierre-like.

At first I thought Brady Clark could be a decent stopgap if the Cubs picked him up for a B-level prospect, but then I looked at his numbers last year. Egad.

I can play a competent LF. That'd make me good for about $125,000.

I can see the arguments in favor of privatizing a player's salary, but I honestly don't think it's feasible. There are simply too many problems that could come up under this system. For one, how private should it be? Part of the importance of this system is that it makes everything highly visible. Player's contracts are easily accessible for the public and any authoritative bodies who would have an interest in their contracts. Moreover, the players themselves know what everyone else makes. Let's say David Wright hits free agency next offseason. He's going to want fair market value for his services, meaning that he'll want to be paid comparably to other guys at his position who put up similar production. He'll also want similar merchandising rights, incentives, bonuses, and so on. If he has no access to these contracts, the teams he bargains with will be in an unfair position. So, why not only let teams, players, and agents know about contract numbers? Well, the more people who know about this stuff, the harder it will be to keep under wraps. It'll be pretty freakin' obvious that teams like the Royals won't be spending as much money as the Red Sox or Yankees. "Inside sources" will be happy to give out contract information to sources like ESPN since fans will always be clamoring for this stuff. There's also the matter of accountability to the fans. We as fans invest a lot of money into their products. You can make the argument that we deserve to know how our money is being spent. These players would not be getting paid millions upon millions of dollars if it were not for us, much less might not even be playing baseball. If they are not performing up to our expectations and our dollars, we can hold them accountable accordingly. Heck, more than that, it makes teams accountable to their fans. It's bad faith for teams to claim to be competitive and spending money when in fact they aren't spending squat on their team. Again, we spend money on our teams; we should know that teams aren't pocketing it all for themselves. At least with this level of visibility, teams have to answer to their fans. So, that's some of the flip side of that argument.

Remember how, coming into the last offseason, Jerome Williams seemed to have a spot "locked down"? I'm not saying, I'm just saying.

Hendry's edging closer and closer to "Drunk Guy on eBay" status these days...

Buehrle's contracts is up after this year, to boot.

I think he's stocking up to make a threeway trade for A-Rod. I don't see the Yankees letting go of A-Rod unless they get some one like Cabrera, Willis, Bay, or some comparable hotshot young player in return. I don't think the White Sox have anyone who fits the bill.

I'll believe it when I see it.

I can't wait for Bill Plaschke to write another love letter column. It's been too long since I've laughed that hard.