David

Wasn't Ortiz only listed on the 2003 "anonymous" test that has been picked apart and legitimacy questioned? ARod was suspended twice and admitted to taking PEDs so he was a blatant violator. But yeah if Ortiz avoids getting dinged for only being on that 2003 report and strongly denying it, why isn't Sammy afforded the same courtesy? Sosa's career WAR is slightly higher, played a position his entire career and all his HOF markers are higher than Ortiz's. And if Ortiz really was juicing in 2003, that coincides with his career taking off. Who knows when Sosa might have started taking PEDs but he was an All Star and finished in the top 20 of MVP voting 3 times before the 1998 season. I guess the biggest differences are 1) the corked bat establishes a pattern of cheating for Sosa, 2) By being part of the peak steroid era and one of the people involved in the 98 HR race Sosa will always be looked at as one of the main faces of that era and 3) Ortiz is widely considered a good guy that sportswriters love. also uh ortiz is known as like the most clutch postseason hitter of his era and one of the best of all time and has a seemingly endless highlight reel of huge playoff (and regular season) hits. whether clutch is real or not, that matters.

i'm just waiting for logan to come in here and lose his horsefeathers over the mcrae inclusions

I imagine most of ours will look pretty similar, at least on a few key seasons. That said, here goes... I'm gonna go 26 man too. I'm not going to pick a bunch of relievers. horsefeathers that. Starting position players become bench players and starting pitchers can be relievers just like in the All Star game. 1994 - Glenallen Hill 1995 - Mark Grace 1996 - Brian McRae 1997 - Terry Mulholland 1998 - Mickey Morandini 1999 - Henry Rodriguez 2000 - Jon Lieber 2001 - Sammy Sosa 2002 - Kerry Wood 2003 - Mark Prior 2004 - Carlos Zambrano 2005 - Derrek Lee 2006 - Michael Barrett 2007 - Ted Lilly 2008 - Ryan Dempster 2009 - Randy Wells 2010 - Carlos Marmol 2011 - Starlin Castro 2012 - David DeJesus 2013 - Travis Wood 2014 - Anthony Rizzo 2015 - Jake Arrieta 2016 - Kris Bryant 2017 - Willson Contreras 2018 - Javier Baez 2019 - Kyle Hendricks SP - Jake Arrieta 2015 SP - Mark Prior 2003 SP - Carlos Zambrano 2004 SP - Kerry Wood 2002 SP - Ryan Dempster 2008 RP - Carlos Marmol 2010 RP - Kyle Hendricks 2019 RP - Travis Wood 2013 RP - Ted Lilly 2007 RP - Randy Wells 2009 RP - Terry Mulholland 1997 C - Willson Contreras 2017 1B - Derrek Lee 2005 2B - Mickey Morandini 1998 3B - Kris Bryant 2016 SS - Javier Baez 2018 LF - Henry Rodriguez 1999 CF - Brian McRae 1996 RF - Sammy Sosa 2001 Bench - Mark Grace 1995 Bench - Anthony Rizzo 2014 Bench - Starlin Castro 2011 Bench - David DeJesus 2012 Bench - Glenallen Hill 1994 Bench - Michael Barrett 2006 Mannnnn it hurt picking someone from the 97 team lol And yeah, I have two guys who can only play 1B on the bench. That's fine. As much as I kinda hate Mark Grace, having two guys like that who always had/have good PAs on the bench is pretty great. 2012 Darwin Barney had to go for someone who could at least sorta play CF in DeJesus.

in light of them even considering trading him like 6 months after he signed the deal, it kinda seems like they threw that player opt out (which he didn't even want) in in hopes of him actually taking it. get the positive PR of extending him and then he's the bad guy when he opts out after he continues to be awesome for a couple years.

Not saying he should’ve taken less or it’s on players to take less to win. But when signing a deal of that size, if winning is still a very important thing, I think the player should do (or agents on their behalf) some basic due diligence to asses if the team they’re signing with really can compete or add as much or as soon as they want to be whatever they think “competitive” is. It’s not hard to see “oh they’re paying these bad players almost $60 million this year, a declining Charlie Blackmon is also owed $70+ million over the next 4 years (and $60+ in next 3), Trevor Strory is a pending FA so maybe they’re holding out money to re-sign him. If I sign up for almost $40 million a year maybe they won’t spend a lot more over the next few years and if competing at a high level is still important to me maybe I should go to FA and see where else I can go to be in a better spot to do that. Where I’ll still have a 9 figure contact available to me.” at the very least, that sort of thing should be a very big part of his agent's job

I'll expand my point then. If we've only got a couple million to spend, I'd prioritize the bullpen instead of the bench at this point. Obviously, if we've got more to spend, then let's go nuts. Who is or was a bullpen arm to spend on that would’ve made you feel good? This FA bullpen class sucked. I’m fine going with the cheap, volume approach and still maybe bringing Strop or some cheap vet in closer to ST. yeah i'd rather go with a bunch of cheap plays on upside than pay up for the type of "proven" reliever you get by spending a couple million. that's how you get dudes like kintzler and duensing.

damn it's kind of amazing how spot on consistent that "a cycle is about as rare as a no-hitter" thing seems to be.

matty v is the man. Second this. I like Matt V. Damn it. I forgot he was on there now. I was thinking of the other guy. I love vasgersian

i enjoyed Mendoza's commentary on ESPN but her worst characteristic was trying to co-opt red-ass viewpoints to earn her insider credibility and this is a real bad case of it Mendoza has always sucked just like every other national color commentator. This cements that she still sucks. nah. she sucks for this but she does a good job on tv and is the only good thing about that booth.

ok i am totally here for this

[tweet] [/tweet]

i'm not sure even the 2016 team had a majority going into the season. who the hell would be saying that?

Wow... no more Bourbonnais EDIT - They're saying there will still be activities open to the public at Halas Hall, though.

between this and the loney comp i'm getting mark grace vibes

[tweet] [/tweet]

that's definitely favre post wooton slamming him into the frozen field in minnesota

yeah the cubs always wanted that to be open and the neighborhood bars fought it. the original plan was for it to be open and then there were meetings with tunney and the neighborhood and crap and it came out that it would have to be closed to ticketholders only.

Don't reply to my posts or else

hey guys can we get a function so nobody can reply to my posts? that would be really useful

man you know someone is horsefeathering setting new boundaries of weird when gato suddenly looks like he's on the normal spectrum by a wide margin

dude what the horsefeathers is wrong with you

I have no idea who 70% of even the regular posters here are, but I do know that was a heaping unmistakable pile of sarcasm. Yes that was sarcasm. The Convention should be a disaster this year. Yes I used to and still post once in a while on PSD. I'm curious to see what, if anything, is said about Marquee.

I don't even remember... is the Marlin Bystro here the PSD one or a joke parody? iirc he was the good insider from psd and abty was full of horsefeathers I have no idea who 70% of even the regular posters here are, but I do know that was a heaping unmistakable pile of sarcasm. There's basically one poster I'd give like a 2% chance of that not being sarcasm to, and it's that guy. And he almost never used to post at PSD unless he had some sort of info. Yes I'm fully aware that PTR is a miserable ghoul and in full effect right now but let me have my faint wishful thinking that a KB extension or something would be announced, damnit. Granted, that still doesn't qualify it as a blast bc it's what any big market org that isn't a joke should be expected to do but yeah.

From any other poster, I'd assume sarcasm. Are you implying some sort of announcement? I don't even remember... is the Marlin Bystro here the PSD one or a joke parody? iirc he was the good insider from psd and abty was full of horsefeathers

From any other poster, I'd assume sarcasm. Are you implying some sort of announcement?