PseudoSABR

Like I said rare. I can't imagine anyone whose watched you debate with others over the years would disagree. It's fine dude, you're conservative, but you're reasonable, so it's interesting to debate with you. (And really calling out the crazies from either side, does nothing to diminish one's own bias). Dude, you're coming at me! You trying to call me out for being rude and dismissive of other points of view, and you're doing exactly that. You consistently use the word Lefty as a pejorative and rudely try to frame my thinking as some liberal heathen hell bent on finding racism in everyone. I think my tone and my reasoning has been pretty diplomatic, even if you don't agree with them. Honestly, you haven't showed me the same courtesy. And really, do you think I'm so dull-witted to let the media shape my point view so thoroughly, I can see through the media sensationalism and still believe this is an incident of racial injustice--and that race played a role, as you said. (Certainty, aside, which as I said, was more a figure of speech about the the confidence in my opinion). Like Smerf said, which I agreed with! That doesn't mean that race wasn't involved in what happened that night and the following days. And to say the 'real' source of the problem is exactly the kind of rhetoric that should bother you. There is no one 'real' problem; it's absurd to rank the problems in terms of realness. I realize that your use of real is a colloquial as my use of certainly; but the irony here is palatable. It's fine that you disagree about whether or not race was involved that night (and I'm not even sure that you do), but to suggest I am trying to shape the terms (by using the term 'certainly' as opposed to 'real) so the debate favors me is totally false and does me a disservice. And if I remember correctly you thought Zimmerman was going to be found guilty of manslaughter--now that he wasn't you don't see some injustice in that? I just don't really understand why you're coming at me so hard.

Don't get me wrong, Arod is a total punk.

Ryan Braun is a piece of ****. The Lance of Armstrong of baseball. Even Arod has more class.

Dude, I'd have a lot more respect for your point if you showed the same investment in policing conservative assumptions/terms (which are littered throughout this thread and the forum in general), which you rarely do if at all. I mean you're acting like your approaching the conversation from objective point of view. You're not. No, it got national intention because of public outcry--the sensationalism came later. And, no, I didn't ignore the facts of the case I drew different conclusions from those facts. I don't want to get into arguing about the case again. And how the heck to did I "come after" Smerf--who was pretty aggressive in his response to Shane for pete's sake. The first sentence of my post responding to Smerf was "I agree with this."

I think that's pretty fair, and it's why I'm not so worked up about this issue. While they could have done better than Pelfry and Harden and while it stinks to suck now--I think there's a better time to invest a lot of money in pitching, when we're actually about to compete--which could be next year if the Twins are aggressive with their prospects.

Woodson's article also says the Twins had interest in Arrieta before he was traded to the Cubs.

I'd prefer Gallardo if we go this route, but it's encouraging that they are taking advantage of available pitching--which is something we complain that they don't do enough.

So snarky. Well let's look at your specifics here. On Saunders: I've mentioned him, specifically as well. We can agree that the Twins were in on him and lost out, we don't know if they were given the opportunity to outbid the Mariners, perhaps they should have offered him more money in the first place. TR didn't get the job done here. But bleh it's still just Saunders. On Kuroda, Dempster: Both are over 35 and signed with contenders/big markets. I don't think there's enough Pohlad money to get them to play for the last place Minnesota Twins. On Colon: He's forty years old, likely a cheater, and resigned with the playoff As. Again, I don't think he'd sign with a last place team, when his current, contending team brought him back. On Villanueva, Feldman, and Bedard: now we're using hindsight, here, and I think this speaks to how much FA can be a crapshoot--we might as well add in the names of players who have had similar careers and are not working out (Blanton, McCarthy, Marcum, Haren). The parenthetical four were far more championed around here, than these three. On Santana: Hindsight again. He was awful last year and expensive, that he came so cheap speaks to how highly he was thought of. Sure you're recommendations are possible--in that they could have happened, but I don't think they were plausible. I think you're expecting clairvoyance on the GMs part (to know that Villanueva/Feldman/Bedard/Correia would work out and Blanton/McCarthy/Marcum/Haren would not--the later four have a much better track record after all.) Really, you're just casting wide net and hitting on every single pitcher. This is another version of: well TR should have signed all the cheap pitchers that are doing well, and doesn't really address how such pitchers are identified much less acquired. To diverge a bit from the conversation, but I think a relevant point: The real problem with the rotation is Worley and Diamond (and maybe we can include Gibson here, but I'm not quite ready too), the extent their failures weren't foreseen by anyone here (though we all expected Diamond to regress, but not this much). Those were two (maybe three) spots that were supposed to be hammered down.

Also, if we're going to criticize TR for not signing Grienke or Sanchez, we can probably give him credit for not signing Marcum, Blanton, McCarthy, Jackson, Haren--all names that many here (including me) championed in the offseason.

Well let's define what was really possible with specifics. Signing Saunders, imho, was the only additional move that seemed plausible to me. It seems intentionally obtuse to say the Twins could have signed Grienke or Sanchez--there's no indication that either player would want to come here, and if they did we'd probably have to significantly overpay. Let's face it, it's pretty rare for last place teams to sign marquee FAs, and when such teams do they over pay and have varying results. It'd actually be an interesting exercise to see a list of such players.

Who?

You're right in the abstract, John; but beyond Saunders, I'm not sure there really were other viable options on the market, given how thin the pitching class was. His strategy of casting a wide net and hoping to catch something good is flawed, but so is putting all of your resources into one pitcher (like Edwin Jackson). Again, people are measuring TR's offseason against the ideal not against the possible. People like to rail against how bad starting pitching is, but when asked for what specifically they would have done, the same people go quite. I think the real debate is beyond the first tier of FA pitchers (Sanchez/Grienke) is the free agent pitching class a crapshoot or not. I believe that it is, and casting a wide net is the only viable alternative to signing a top tier pitcher.

So what should Terry Ryan have done, exactly? Give up Sano for Sheilds? Sign Scott Baker? Edwin Jackson? Build an ace out of playdough? Oh, he should have signed and traded for all the pitchers that ended up doing well. Duh.

Wimmers went three and third innings, struck out four with no walks and one run allowed (five hits though).

Again you're being idealistic. Debating the terms of the debate can be as endless and fruitless as the debate itself. While I do agree with you in the abstract, in this instance, I'm not sure how helpful you've been in engendering a fruitful discussion. The distinctions/terms you are making seem awfully petty in light of your murder/abortion analogy. My larger point is that, without incidents like Zimmerman-Martin, people just don't have this conversation, and you're totally dismissing that point. While their might be better examples of racial and social injustice, this case provides a common touchstone for us to have an actual conversation.

I like this exercise. I still think too many are judging TR against the ideal as opposed to the possible. It's only in hindsight that we can say with a straight face that TR should have gone after some one like Colon. For what the Twins were in the market for, it was a poor pitching class in terms of identifying value.

Sure there's thousands of better examples, but none have the exposure or the culture resonance to spur a meaningful debate. It's a bit maddening that debate with you is so often about the terms of the debate rather than debate itself. (Don't use this example, you can't be so certain, etc.) It's wishful thinking to suggest the cultural debate should rally around the best and most precise instances of social injustice. Even with poor examples, we can reveal meaningful social truths (as I tried to point out above); in my opinion any which way a debate about social injustice can happen at public level is a good one, and one that we'd be foolish to pass up.

Oh the ole hoodie condemnation!! How thoughtful of you, Geraldo Rivera. Good thing white people never wear hoodies in the rain. Zimmerman did lie over and over. Maybe that was out of fear of injustice, but it's pretty clear he lied when talking to investigators, but you probably know that with how much homework you've done on the issue, being so unfoolish.

Huh? Are you implying that my reply to smerf was a personal jab? You can't give me heck for certitude and then express certitude about the reverse opinion. Come on. I'm not sure what's gained by minimizing the race component. Do you really think Zimmerman and the cops (and even Martin himself) would have behaved in exactly the same manner if Martin had not been Black? I guess you're entitled to that opinion but it seems awfully forced to me. The inability to discern whether or not the cops or Zimmerman behaved differently because Martin was Black doesn't minimize the impact on racial politics and culture. Questlove from The Roots puts it into perspective here. And of course, Obama's impromptu speech does as well [video=youtube;2PTb30JPAQQ]

If i would have said "surely" instead of "certainly" would that be okay? It's a figure of speech really, which speaks to the confidence I have in my opinion. What's counter productive is your bullying about semantics. Anyone reading this forum realizes that I realize that I can't be completely certain of damn near anything. I'm not trumpeting anything. However, I think you're totally wrong. I think Martin's death, the Zimmerman trial, the media coverage, and the reaction to the verdict permeate with latent racism. Even if you disagree, it's hardly a piss-poor example.

Are you really splicing "playing a role" and "certainly involved"--they seem a matter of emphasis to me. If race played a role, it was certainly involved then... Look, do I know for a fact that Zimmerman profiled Martin because of his race, or that the cops handled the death of a young black man differently than that of another death? Of course I don't have proof of that. But it is my belief, my opinion. It's not spurious speculation (as you frame it), it's an informed inference based on the facts of the case and my understanding of the culture at large. I imagine the prosecution's case would have been stronger had the cops been more cynical of Zimmerman's story and treated him as a suspect murderer. Again, that's my opinion. Honestly, latent racism is unprovable, but we shouldn't deny it's existence.

I agree with this. But race is certainly involved from the profiling Martin by Zimmerman to the initial non-arrest of Zimmerman by the cops. The outcome of the trial, however, had nothing to do with race, as you suggest.

That would have driven me up the wall. Bad form indeed.

I agree. And this goes back to the **** Steve G pulled in the offseason because he didn't get his way on whatever issue it was. The league needs to drop the assumption that owners are acting in good faith and create rules and structures to insure that.

Thanks for aggregating this info, my man.