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TheLeviathan

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Everything posted by TheLeviathan

  1. TheLeviathan
    Except, in many ways, we are shareholders. It isn't a perfect analogy, but there isn't one for this situation because professional sports operate outside many normal business rules and scenarios. The closest thing to what the Pohlads are doing, in my opinion, is pocketing things behind the backs of shareholders. Having a higher payroll does not mean winning more games by and large. But with 100% certainty I can tell you that the Pohlads pocketing money does NOTHING to win more games.
  2. TheLeviathan
    I would suggest it's bad for business to essentially pocket money from your shareholders.
  3. TheLeviathan
    No team manages to baffle, intrigue, horrify, and infuriate me all at the same time quite like the Marlins.
  4. TheLeviathan
    These Winter Meetings have truly lived up to the billing. Trades and contracts are flying all over the place.
  5. TheLeviathan
    Same for me, I have guys I would've rather taken a chance on but Santana is a good pitcher and we had the money to spend.
  6. TheLeviathan
    Exactly. Everyone is right that it would be smarter to not value people based on their dollar figure that year and players and owners to varying degrees would be smart to frontload. But the reasoning behind avoiding it has nothing to do with smart vs. stupid - it's a union driven phenomenon to avoid the perception of "bargain" stars because they believe (wrongly IMO) that this would create negotiating leverage for owners. Since there is nothing more evil and toxic to a union than giving away negotiating leverage.....we have our current situation: virtually no frontloaded contracts. Just the way it is, not really a commentary if it is smart or not, that's just the explanation.
  7. TheLeviathan
    Frontloading is heavily frowned upon by the union as well. So basically neither side is really interested in doing it for various reasons. Hence why it almost never happens.
  8. TheLeviathan
    No I totally agree with the problems the Twins' method has had as well. I have repeatedly stated they have roughly equal outcomes. What bugs me is pedestalizing a White Sox method that has the same results.
  9. TheLeviathan
    He had 300 at bats in the minors total, I would call that rushing. Especially since another 80 of those came AFTER his debut.
  10. TheLeviathan
    You think 25 years of yo-yoing and "nearly good enough" is just baseball randomness? The more you claim to be neutral the less you sound it. The Sox problem is that they are constantly patching on the fly and by the very nature of how things come available and how patches work - they often flop or have a short shelf life. Here are just a few examples: 1) In order to not have a sustained rebuild they rushed Gordon Beckham to the majors. 2) They patch their lineup with the likes of Kotsay and Pierre because that's the best they can do 3) No farm depth means they trot out a group of hitters in 2011 that are impressively awful with no alternatives 4) They give Keppinger 500 ABs at a Puntonian level of production I could go on. The truth is that the Sox have a problem getting over the hump because they constantly exhaust themselves trying to stay semi-relevant. Their patching isn't sustainable because you often have to invest more resources to do what they do. The Twins strategy requires the investment of time and a combination of luck and good scouting. The Twins could learn a few things from the way the Sox use their resources and the Sox could learn a few things about avoiding the constant depletion of theirs. That's how you find sustainable success, but to claim this notion that the Sox should be commended for staying relevant is like commending the Washington Generals for always being the one mentioned with the Globetrotters.
  11. TheLeviathan
    I'm confused why we shouldn't expect power production from a power position.
  12. TheLeviathan
    But what you seem to ignore is that they can be almost as equally confident to be notably worse soon after. So as a fan and a club you are basically using the scatter-gun approach of team building. I prefer a more sustainable model, something neither the Twins nor the Sox feature because of how extreme their tendencies are.
  13. TheLeviathan
    Ben = nailed it.
  14. TheLeviathan
    Well that's a change for the better. Now let's stop being in on Kyle Kendrick to prove it.
  15. TheLeviathan
    But confidence in what? That they'll have a temporary, eventually fruitless, rebound for a year and be no closer to a sustainable winning track? I'm not sure why yo-yoing from awful to pretty decent is something to admire. I put it about the same as being pretty decent for a long stretch followed by awful for a decent stretch. I admire some of what they do and I'm certainly not putting the Twins way ahead of them. I think they're two very different ways to get largely the same results.
  16. TheLeviathan
    I would be ok with Masterson on a Hughes type of contract. I really think he could bounce back nicely with a good infield behind him.
  17. TheLeviathan
    They could be putting them into save or high leverage situations in the interest of creating trade bait.
  18. TheLeviathan
    I'd rather gamble on Masterson and that 20% higher GB%. At least he'll have a chance to get outs consistently.
  19. TheLeviathan
    I look at their strategy as tantamount to banging your head against the wall. Constantly being "second banana" because your team building strategy has the patience and long-term thinking of a fruit fly leads to plenty of frustration too. I know the Sox fans I know from down there often get as frustrated with the up and down nature of the team as they do with the losing. It speaks to either having no vision of the future or one that frequently fails - hard to see any other way around such erratic play from year to year. To go back to my analogy, just because you occasionally take a bit of plaster out of the wall doesn't mean you're getting any closer to knocking down the wall. I like elements of what they do, but I wouldn't want the Twins to emulate them in total.
  20. TheLeviathan
    My wife, a lifelong White Sox fan, laughed when I read that last line to her. And having lived in Chicago for awhile I can tell you that most White Sox fans do not have such a positive spin on what you're speaking of.
  21. TheLeviathan
    At this point, with the A's basically selling everything at a marked discount, should we be asking about Scott Kazmir?
  22. TheLeviathan
    You think his "Floor" (meaning: worst he could do) is 130+? He's getting older, injuries and a sore body might just be par for the course. Which means his "floor" is nothing nearly this high.
  23. TheLeviathan
    I think that has more to do with what constitutes a "line drive" because I didn't see much "driving" from Mauer.
  24. TheLeviathan
    Yeah? What value exactly? It hasn't won them over much in terms of fan support or a reputation as a perpetual contender. The Sox have largely been a middling team with zero success for much of their existence, so I'm not sure what you're hanging your hat on here.
  25. TheLeviathan
    They've also devoted significant resources and been basically the same as us the last decade. It's not that any of their moves are horrible, it's just that they are always thin (which bites them in little ways that hold them back), they're always chasing, and they're always inconsistent. (Odd as that might sound) Every now and then those inconsistencies smooth out and they perform decently, but just as often the patchwork roster construction and thin depth catch up to them and they give 500 at-bats to Gordon Beckham, Jeff Keppinger, or keep shoving Jordan Danks out there. (Or John Danks for that matter) None of that is to put the Twins on a pedestal. In my opinion they both suffer from the same problem of being too comfortable in their heavy handed approach. (Over Aggressive vs. Pathological fear of Aggression)
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