jm3319

That's a hell of a dip he's got in his lip for that picture. Twins might wanna chat with him about that.

Forget the dingers, where are the doubles? That's my bigger concern. (For Mauer)

I think you meant central Minnesota, not way up north. Geography tells me Star Lake is central Minnesota, and Minneapolis is in the southern third of Minnesota. (I grew up on the Iron Range and take offense to anyone who says anything 30-90 minutes north of the Twin Cities is way up north!) :-)

You missed a key word from the quote: "vocal" leadership. Everyone knows Mauer isn't a vocal guy. Doesn't mean he isn't a leader.

No surgery is 100% safe or 100% effective. You don't open up bodies and slice and dice unless you absolutely have to. You'd hate to hear of a surgery go wrong when it may not have been 100% necessary in the first place. The lost time really sucks, but it's not the end of the world.

Um, what? Please do explain. I wasn't aware Kirby scored all the teams' runs with solo homeruns to win the World Series. The highlighted pieces of this quote are, by definition, a double-standard. Player A does his job, team fails=Player A's fault. Player B does his job, team does it's job=Player B gets all the credit. Makes no sense.

Honest question: Will people hate on Buxton if his power peaks in the teens for homeruns like they did/do for Mauer? We all know that leading the league in average, OBP, and Gold Glove defense doesn't cut it for some people around here.

I know the play you're talking about it and popped into my head when thinking about overrated Jeter. He catches a foul ball, takes about 6 more full strides, then dives into the stands. And of course it made every highlight reel ever, when he could have caught it and just slowed down and stopped. Pretty much sums up my annoyance with Jeter. Good player, just too much media hype for me to stand him.

I think it's more about budgets and revenue flows....There's just simply no way the Twins can compete with the Uber-markets like New York and LA. Those teams get more in their TV deals than the Twins bring in total per year. It's just simply not a level playing field. I'd love to see a hard salary cap in baseball, but know it has no chance of happening anytime soon.

He got an additional $714K per year, not exactly a hefty raise (in ridiculous baseball money terms). It's basically an extra $5 million thrown in from the Dodgers for not having to risk 10 years on the guy. Great deal for both sides. Fun Fact: This works out to about 75 cents per heartbeat for Kershaw for the next 7 years. (according to Twitter)

The Dodgers have TV money coming out of their ears. This contract could be paid for 100% multiple times over even if the Dodgers decided to LOWER ticket prices. Yes ticket prices have gone up, but salary inflation is much more due to other sources of income for teams other than tickets.

How can they ban Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, etc when MLB didn't even test for steroids when they played? I'm not saying they didn't use steroids, of course they did. But the league didn't have any way of testing or policing the game when these players were playing.

I agree 100%. However, this is the land of sports and public opinion where people are guilty until proven innocent, which is a tough spot considering it's practically impossible to prove someone DIDN'T do something. As much as everyone knows A-Rod was using steroids, 162 games is still unreasonable based on MLB's own rules, not to mention their lack of any solid evidence.

It amazes me how many players are guilty until proven innocent. I really hope none of these writers ever get called for jury duty. "Oh, someone is accusing you of murdering a family of four because you were seen in the same neighborhood that day? Proof enough for me! GUILTY!"

anyone know what a second round draft pick is worth? For example, I believe I've read that a 2nd rounder in the NHL has about a 25% chance of turning into a player that plays at least 82 games (1 season) in the NHL. Anyone know what the odds of a second round pick in MLB of actually turning into a decent player on the MLB level is?