frostwyrm

they can afford it? If you know the name of the new owner please share it with the rest of us.

I don't see how a team that has an ownership change pending and enormous salary commitments already on the books could possibly hand out a 7/150 contract.

Coffee shop will be best place for a Theriot ad campaign. Coffee will be sold in pound bags as usual, but ground coffee will henceforth be referred to as "therioted" coffee. Bags of whole beans will still be available, but clerks will be instructed to sneer disapprovingly when selling these elitist products.

The rising sun is still displayed by the Japanese navy. It's not a WW2 relic like the swastika flags of Germany. http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/5415/japanflagzb2.jpg

The Ravens showed that the Pats are vulnerable to a power running game, and the Giants have a real good power runner in Brandon Jacobs. I think the NY offense can do enough damage to keep the game respectable but I wouldn't pick them to win. I'll take them on points though. The poll would be more interesting if there were options for the spread. Should be 1)Patriots win 2)Giants win 3)Giants beat spread 4)Giants fail to beat spread

May as well throw in Marshall too if the Pads are offering something good enough. http://www.rotoworld.com/content/clubhouse_news.aspx?sport=MLB&majteam=CHC

I've always thought the rounding is due to 1st basemen having to dig a lot of balls out of the dirt because of low throws from SS and 3B, as well as low pickoff attempts. The rounding lets you block a dirt-level ball a little better, similar to a hockey goalie's glove.

In some of Marquis' crappier games I honestly wished he would have been left in to "take one for the team" and save the bullpen. These would have showed up in the stats as complete games, but not the kind a pitcher would be proud of.

I'd like to ask Hendry how or if opportunity cost figures into his thinking. For example, if you have tradable players like Murton and Marshall whom your manager refuses to use much, a good GM should ask himself if the opportunity cost of NOT trading these guys outweighs what they contribute on the field. I've never seen any evidence that Jim thinks that way. To me it's a no-brainer that Murton/Marshall are more valuable as trading chips than as players, at least while Lou is here.

I wish the guy would have asked if Hendry had learned his lesson about multiyear commitments to relief pitchers. He's handed out so many of them and they've all been disastrous other than Howry. I'd also love to hear how he got the Tigers to take on all the $3M remaining on Neifi's contract.

I like Pedro's 2000 especially. He allowed .167/.213/.259 for the season. That's well down into pitcher level hitting. Essentially Pedro was the equivalent of a normal pitcher pitching to a lineup of 9 pitchers for a whole season.

Eh, so bin Laden was crawling around in the 90's. That kinda sidesteps my point, which is that the 90's were a once-in-a-lifetime set of super favorable circumstances for a president. As presidential assignments go, the 1990's were a hanging curveball over the heart of the plate.

Q: What would it take to pry Rafael Furcal away from LA? A: I think it would take 2 things (assuming they're going with an in-house replacement at SS): - take Juan Pierre off their hands - give them back a 3B If Crede can show he's healthy, I'd still like to see a deal where the Dodgers give Pierre, Furcal and some cash to the Sox for Crede, and then the Sox flip either Cabrera or Furcal to the Cubs for prospects. That only works if Konerko goes to LAA...otherwise no room for Swisher and Quentin. So far, all of the sox moves have been "win now" moves. I really only see them trading Crede for whoever they can get. Sean Marshall can help a team right away and the Cubs don't seem to want him anyway.

What's that exactly? That Marquis and Dempster are going to have to compete for rotation spots with the Seans and Hart. I've criticized Hendry's talk about Dempster going to the rotation because I very much doubt its sincerity and I don't think it's fooling anybody. Telling bad lies just makes the organization look silly and sleazy and it irritates fans.

The Lieber signing make me even more sure that the Cubs just don't like Sean Marshall. I'd love to see what a Murton/Marshall package could get, since both these guys have some trade value and the org. doesn't like either of them.

.790 and .783 OPS allowed for Lieber the past 2 seasons. I like that he's kept his walk rate down but people have been getting SLG in the mid .400's off him for 4 years now.

You have to wonder about Byrd's attitude if he's relegated to just facing lefties. He'd probably have a new low in plate appearances, which would be particularly annoying immeditely after having a career season. I'd be a little steamed myself if I just had my best season and then get sent someplace where I'm downgraded to sitting on the bench most of the time.

Melky is Jose Macias with more walks and less versatility. Don't want him.

His presence could also very easily undermine her presidency. I have a hard time believing that Bill Clinton is going to sit in the backround and stay out of his wife's way. Regardless, there will always be questions about how much influence he has over policy decisions. Again, I don't think this would be a bad thing. If Bill Clinton ran again right now, he'd win easily. Aside from far-right nut jobs who consider tomcatting around to be a worse offense than flushing your country down the toilet, most still respect him for the job he did running the nation. No sane person can honestly say they prefer things now to the way they were 10 years ago. Will Hillary's election turn back the clock? Probably not, but people will associate Bill and Hillary with better times, and for good reason (remember when the biggest worry the country had was Bill's sex life?). And as petty as that sounds, it will make a difference. People are fickle, and are swayed by their feelings and perceptions more often than not. I also think he would be a great diplomatic asset. Having maybe the most internationally liked and respected U.S. ex-president as the first husband has to be a net benefit. History won't be nearly as kind to Bill Clinton as Democrats would like. He didn't create the tech boom/bubble and the resultant huge windfall in capital gains taxes and he didn't cause the collapse of communism and the resultant peace dividend. China and India were still years away from being the oil-swilling job-stealing economic behemoths they are now, the Euro was not yet a strong competitor for the dollar, and nobody had heard of bin Laden. The 90's presented easily the single most favorable set of circumstances any president has had since the 1920's. All Clinton had to do was not screw it up. I'll give him credit for that. By contrast, Bush has been dealt some horrible cards, but he's found ways to make bad situations worse than they needed to be, so I'll say Clinton was a better president, but Clinton was also a much much luckier president.

I really think we need Gallagher and Marshall. I have a feeling that Dempster and Marquis are both going to flop fast and hard. Worst thing would be another desperate scramble to acquire more trash like Steve Trachsel.

The average leadoff hitter had a 759 OPS last year, if that stays the average the next 8 years, Soriano has a good chance of remaining average for his position. I'm pretty sure you're joking, but in case you're not, I'd like to point out that leadoff hitter isn't a position. LF is a position. Well, then if he does fall below average for leadoff hitters, they can just move him to 7th or 8th, where he'll have a better chance of actually being well above average for his position. Problem solved. Dude, good thinking! The Dodgers could move Juan Pierre to 8th and make a weakness into a strength. Why aren't we GM's yet?

The average leadoff hitter had a 759 OPS last year, if that stays the average the next 8 years, Soriano has a good chance of remaining average for his position. I'm pretty sure you're joking, but in case you're not, I'd like to point out that leadoff hitter isn't a position. LF is a position. Really a debate of semantics? I'm pretty sure the term they use for the person who bats first in the lineup is "leadoff hitter". And the person that bats in the first position in the batting order is the "leadoff hitter". Nah, it's not semantics. When you talk about a player's postion it's understood you mean his defensive position and not his spot in the batting order, though it is true you meet people who will talk about leadoff hitter as if it's a position. These people generally have some experience riding buses of below average length.

The average leadoff hitter had a 759 OPS last year, if that stays the average the next 8 years, Soriano has a good chance of remaining average for his position. I'm pretty sure you're joking, but in case you're not, I'd like to point out that leadoff hitter isn't a position. LF is a position.

With Fukudome and Pie in the OF Soriano might actually deserve some kudos for his arm. In 2007 he only had the best arm for his position because his team was dumb enough to put their most athletic outfielder in the position that requires the least athleticism. The Mariners could have put Ichiro in LF and had the best arm, but they weren't that stupid.

We're already well past it. Check the Soriano thread in this board format. It's 91 pages and 2270 posts long. This thread is 100 pages and 2490 posts long. I still can't believe he got 8 freaking years. Unbelievable. You agree? It's gonna be nice having Soriano at like 50 bajillion dollars in 2014. $19M per year for the back half of the 8-year contract, for a player whose production probably won't even be average for his position.