TheLeviathan

Was razzing ya more about the homerism.

Yeah, it's funny to watch both sides constantly betray their own talking points. The Pubs claim Obama did all these horrible things but then claim he did nothing because he wouldn't reach across. The Dems complain the Pubs never let them do anything, but then laud all the accomplishments. It's utter nonsense.

That's some interesting information. It looks like his career there was pretty muddled, thanks for posting it!

It's an interesting thought experiment, but from my vantage point it's hard to take an argument seriously that suggests an ERA of 4.67 constitutes a "good" season.

Care to ask a question that isn't a stupid talking point?

Well, if we let him do that, it would make the rest of the articles look like award-winning stuff.

I think one could argue the "all-in" move for Detroit was getting Sanchez and Infante. Time will tell if it was effective - if St. Louis takes them down again, they could really regret both the Fielder signing and that trade very quickly.

But see you're demonstrating my point Brock. You say that the better way to judge a candidate is by actions, not words. Except that many things politicians do they do simply to garner votes. I believe there are Republicans that don't mind gay marriage, but stump on it to get votes. There are Dems that believe we need rollbacks of union powers and social welfare, but don't dare vote against it because of voting reprecussions. To me, there isn't one sure fool-proof way to judge a candidate. To bad-mouth using debates, or advertisements, or voting records, or anything else is missing the bigger picture. To me, you need to take it all in and use reason and common sense to assess who they really are. I learned a lot about that in 2008 - I got swept up in a few features of Obama I really liked and totally missed the boat on a number of things that may have given me pause if I reflected deeper on them. (His inexperience, his personal point of view, his far too sweeping promises, etc.) I don't believe Romney is nearly as duplicitous as you say, certainly more than your average politician. But to me, the actual Romney is a better person than the Romney we see campaigning. Which is an odd twist on the usual way it goes.

What, in all your evident wisdom thus far, would you suggest they do make decisions upon?

kab is doing just fine at that. A poor argument is a poor argument, no matter how spiffy you think the source material is.

I could research the holy hell out of the migratory patterns of bats and it doesn't mean a thing if we're talking about football. The fact is, from what I see, it's a well researched turd that he polished up nicely and got a compliment from you. So I'll feel free to point out your appreciation of shiny turds as well.

Then I might suggest, prior to complimenting an argument, you look at the total context of it.

Which is cool - I think what kab is suggesting is that this particular interpretation of "value" that is being floated here is as questionable as some of the defensive metrics that often don't pass the eye test or have other similar problems.

It's one thing to value alternative metrics that tell a better story of a player's success, it's another to ignore results in favor of those metrics. From what I can see the "value" stat is cobbled together from other stats that are a bit more theoretical than OPS or WHIP. I would suggest that if a stat says that Lowe was worth 40M - it may need some tinkering.

Seconded. I feel the same way about this choice, would love to hear more Crikket.

I'd consider it. Bowe is a bit of a headcase, but he's got tremendous physical talent. I'm not a big fan of moving picks on a team that is young and still building, but Bowe has certainly got plenty of tread on the tires. I'd probably stick with just a third for him though.

Yeah, this is an actual problem. Some of the articles are 4-6 paragraphs that could have better been said in one or two sentences to generate discussion. It has gotten to the point that I don't even click on articles because they have, by and large, been pretty bare bones of content. To me, articles for the sake of articles aren't going to promote the forum - good articles will. And sometimes, when the content is a bit more dry, it's ok just to wait until there is more fodder for thought. The problem got more and more evident as the season bled out and it's a friggin epidemic of worthless articles these days.

I strongly considered bringing up Benson because I see him as the bridge between the start of the year and the arrival of Hicks or Arcia. Of course, that's in my dream world in which Span and Willingham are dealt and I know most people don't hold that view.

Who says he stops when the ball falls?

I think that's precisely the problem. I don't attack him on being soft on terrorism (good lord the guy has been more hawkish than recent Republican presidents), but I attack him on two things - how inappropriate it was to make sweeping claims about some stupid video and imply that it was a bunch of Islamic hotheads and to take that same argument to a prominent foreign policy environment (the UN) and soapbox about it. While Obama has been very tough on terrorism, he has been very forward about speaking out of both sides of his mouth and making flimsy excuses in place of genuine leadership.

Snippy responses aside, some of us are a bit bored with the content these days. So as an attempt to appease Smerf (yearn....ravage....you know the bit), let's talk about a few of the prospects it is realistic that we might see this year. I guess I'm curious what people expect as far as when we should see them and what we can expect from them. The Twins are notorious for getting immediate, sometimes surprising, production from young players they call up: Kyle Gibson: We've already heard about his innings limit, but the guy is battling his tail off on the mound this fall. Most people have written him off as an ace before injury, but what if his velocity maintains this mid-90s rate? I don't see why we might not have a really legit arm here coming this season. We can't rely on him a whole lot due to the injury and limitations, but if we assume he probably gets only a portion of his 130 innings in the big leagues, I'm going to speculate probably 12-15 starts is reasonable then, you're talking about at least a half season of a pretty capable starter that the Twins have coming down the pipeline. Deolis Guerra: The WHIP wasn't pretty in AAA, the walk total was a bit high, but the strikeout numbers can be a bit encouraging. Does he take a spot in the backend of this bullpen? It's been accurately called "soft" in the underbelly and this is the kind of arm that the Twins may need to help patch that weakness. Oswaldo Arcia - In my dream world we flip Span to Tampa Bay or Atlanta for a starter and then flip Willingham for prospects as well. In which case I'd love a young outfield of Arcia-Revere-Parmalee. We all know the Twins and we'd probably get two frustrating months of Doumit making crop circles in left before Arcia comes up, but I really believe this guy can make an impact next year and be a fixture on this team for a long time to come. I could see him sporting a full season line around 290-10-60 with a slash of 290/330/550 even early on. Long term I think he's the ideal #2 hitter we've been looking for to purge the evil of "play second, hit second". To me, it's a mistake if he doesn't get a call-up before the all-star break. Aaron Hicks:........? Just a conversation starter on an important topic, not the best but about as well as we can do until this god awful postseason full of teams I want to all see lose is over.

Reply With Quote I still think Romney should attack that. I don't think most Americans know the truth about that and about how terrible it was handled start to finish. Romney royally screwed up a major opportunity, but he should keep at it.

Second Psuedo's question - it's absolutely excellent.

Clearly an Obama win. To me, the debate was won on the Libya exchange. He had a nice zinger about pensions, but as a thinking person I know they're both rich and guilty of the same thing so that gives me a big grain of salt. But Libya is potentially a massive black eye for the administration in the god-awful, despicable way they handled a tragic situation....and yet somehow Romney totally screwed up that attack. That was a huge miss.

Rudolph is a better jump ball target than some washed up guy. Part of the problem isn't that Rudolph can't do it - he's actually a fantastic weapon for that - the problem is teams seem to realize we use Harvin as a decoy and not a weapon in the redzone and overprotect against Rudolph.