Hairyducked Idiot

Yay, an outfielder. That's exactly where our top priority should be. It's Phil Rogers saying he "could" become their priority "if" the homework checks out. Calm down. I didn't exactly go on a rant there.

Nothing that happens in ST, other than injuries, should change your opinion on a player. Either he's your best starter at the position in February or he isn't.

Yay, an outfielder. That's exactly where our top priority should be. Depends on how ready you feel Brett Jackson is for mlb. More ready than our 1b prospects.

Yay, an outfielder. That's exactly where our top priority should be.

Venezuelan kidnappers are apparently lazy and unreliable. They don't do the little things to get the job done right.

Some rumors going around now that he may not be posted after all, especially because it's taking so long. The posting process can take awhile, so waiting too long means teams may have already spent their money.

Not sticking up for Dusty at all, but the scenario you just suggested is one where Mike Maddux may leave his pitcher in. He was the pitching coach for Nolan Ryan's team who was very open about ignoring pitch counts. Now would Maddux have let Prior stay out there during that inning without so much as a mound visit? I doubt it. Just saying, Maddux isn't going to make that decision based on pitch count. As someone posted, they were very good about not abusing pitchers though. So while they build up arm strength thru conditioning, Maddux isn't likely to have guys throwing 130+ pitches all the time. Yeah, Dusty had Prior throwing 120+ with regularity as a kid throwing more innings than he ever had before (not to mention after he had a collision with Marcus Giles where he landed on his shoulder). CJ Wilson went over 120 twice this year. Prior went over 130 three times in September alone, and again in his first postseason start. The big three averaged 113, 111 and 107 pitches per start in 2003 (Prior was the most), while CJ averaged 105 this year and the next two highest were at 100. Don't mistake coaches willing to build up arm strength with what Dusty did to his pitchers. He abused the crap out of them and should never be excused for his ignorance. http://espn.go.com/mlb/team/stats/pitching/_/name/tex/seasontype/2/cat/pitchesPerStart/order/true/texas-rangers http://espn.go.com/mlb/team/stats/pitching/_/name/chc/year/2003/seasontype/2/cat/pitchesPerStart/order/true/chicago-cubs http://espn.go.com/mlb/player/gamelog/_/id/4936/year/2003/mark-prior Thanks Dusty, you despicable human being. I hate how pretty much every manager ever gets run out of every town, because it obscures how truly awful Dusty Baker was. I am neutral on Quade, thought we overpaid for Piniella, didn't care for Baylor and thought Riggleman was probably a bit underrated. But Dusty Baker actively shredded the Cubs's arms that season through willful, stubborn ignorance. The young pitchers on that staff threw workloads that no other pitcher in baseball matched, and they did it in games where the Cubs had large leads and it was completely unnecessary. Dusty Baker can die in a fire.

The only answer I would accept from Dusty Baker to that question is "I'd eat it and die."

Okay, what I meant was I'd be disappointed because I wanted something shiny and new.

I think people would understand that Francona is a very well known entity to Epstein & Hoyer. Then they should know if they want to hire him before starting the process.

Flying a bunch of candidates in, making them go through a bunch of hoops and tests, and then hiring Francona without an interview? That'd probably leave a bad taste in some people's mouths. It's kind of a jerk move, and I hope Epstein doesn't do it.

I think the most likely outcome is that the Cubs try to work things out. If a trade does happen, what does everyone see as the most likely trade partner for Z? I'm thinking Marlins due to the Guillen connection + opening a new stadium. You can rule out any smart AL team and most of the dumb ones.

That Howard is a poorer bet going forward. And oh, look, he did have a major offensive collapse.

Value and predictiveness are not the same thing. Strikeouts and other outs are fairly close in value. They are not fairly close in predictiveness.

And yet it's a big ol' happy coincidence that all those "playing the game the right way" players are white.

I'm not saying it's likely that Cal Ripken was actually mind-controlling Sandusky to do all those things. I'm just saying you have to brace yourself for that possibility.

But it's not in the slightest way racially tinged that people assume that he's a selfish, outspoken player.

If Ramirez was the only example, sure. But that's the reason you keep trying to pick out individual players to argue about. Because you don't want to face the larger pattern. The lazy, selfish players: Ramirez, Zambrano, Castro, Soriano, Pie, Cedeno, Sosa, Soto The scrappy, gamer players: Theriot, Fontenot, Miles You have to dig hard to find the very rare exceptions, like references to Wells "losing focus," but the color-coding pattern is clear. I don't see a single reference to Cutler being lazy in any of those articles.

Though I have to say, I think The Score had this guy on this morning and he is making a lot of allegations in his column, on twitter and now on the radio. If none of this ends up being true, this guy is opening himself to some liable suites. He better be going off more than just speculation. At this point, Sandusky is libel-proof because his reputation can't get lower (yes, that's a valid legal defense) and Penn State University is a government agency so they'd have to prove actual malice in a libel suit.

How do you feel about Ron Santo? It's not an awful job in the sense that they failed to do what they wanted. They *wanted* this stuff to come out to deflect attention away from the failures of the team.

http://audio.weei.com/a/48513317/mark-madden-talks-about-the-penn-state-scandal-and-drops-a-new-bomb-about-jerry-sandusky.htm?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter Here's the interview. I'm listening to it now, but haven't gotten to the accusation yet.

Okay, last night I agreed with everyone who said nothing would shock them at this point. I was wrong.

Trick? Na, I posted facts. Your fact is the implication that a person can't be racist if they've ever said something nice about a minority. Your really stretching there. No, that was actually his argument. He said that when he defended Castro against Quade's tirade, that should "put away the race card" discussion.

Trick? Na, I posted facts. Your fact is the implication that a person can't be racist if they've ever said something nice about a minority.

Cutler's a good example of the same tendency born out in a slightly different way. It's the media relying on stereotypes to "tell a story" rather than reporting facts. In this case, the stereotype isn't racial, it's the idea of quarterbacks needing to be All-American Winners and Leaders of Men.