diehardtwinsfan

Despite his inconsistency, I'd say the odds favor Liriano outperforming Correia by a wide margin. I suspect Correia doesn't finish his first year.

The problem with this is that usually you won't make it 8 innings with only 3 or 4 Ks. That many balls in play extends innings which means more pitches thrown. There's a healthy balance here, but don't underestimate the value of strike outs... especially when the defense behind the pitcher isn't very good.

Most likely flip him at the deadline.

Any of the half dozen guys they put on it a few weeks ago.

This wouldn't be a bad signing. He won't be getting much more than the minimum plus incetives. I agree he likely will be hurt, much like Zumaya, but this a vet minimum risk and an #1/2 type reward.

He should be below Sano and Arcia for certain and given results, you can make a case for Hicks, Rosario, and Meyer.

Mauer is a lock now. 3 batting titles, as a catcher, when no other catcher has more than 1. He's got an MVP, gold gloves, and silver sluggers. He's in. Period.

I know this sounds bad, but Pelfrey is a 1 year contract, not a long term deal, so quite frankly, I doubt they care much about limiting his innings. If he was a young guy under team control, like Gibson, it's a different story.

I speculated somewhere that TR will go out and give a CF a 1 year deal. I think it makes a ton of sense. Both Arcia and Hicks coudln't hurt to have a bit more seasoning in AAA, and Benson definitely needs it. Get a guy on for cheap and then dump him in June and call up Hicks to man center if he's performing. If Arcia and/or Benson is doing well then trade Willingham and/or Morneau for middle infield or pitching help.

On the plus side, the cardboard cutouts might generate more walks then their real counterparts.

At least you admit that these are theories and that no one can say for certain (which most don't, hence my comment)... The big reason why no one knows for certain is that the books in question don't have authors attached to them. Exodus-Deuteronomy can be reasonably said to be Moses or someone close to him since they cover that timeframe, though other theories certainly persist. That said, these books claim no authorship. Genesis makes no such claims either, but I think the idea that a King could have authored them to control the subjects is kind of odd. It sounds nice when one considers human nature, but just looking at what we know about them makes it hard to digest. For one, the dead sea scrolls proved that a number of the books are much older than originaly thought... and second, the law was incredibly restrictive and thereby impossible to enforce. It will never entice people to start keeping it, which is why even orthodox Jews today don't keep it. Why would someone make it up, and why would they make up so many books at a time when books were sparce? The other problem is that if they were written hundres or thousands of years later, how is it that they are very accurate historically?

Can we just drop the Mauer contract? There was no way that Mauer wasn't going to get signed. The Pohlads would have been lynched after that stadium deal if Mauer ended up somewhere else... and Mauer, to his credit, was going to take the Twins for every penny they wanted to offer. I find it amusing that many people in this forum who are down on Mauer are the same ones complaining about the Twins being cheap.

on a permanent basis, yes... but letting him catch 120 games and play another 30-40 at 3rd is not...

That's when you say... "I had a good time, but given the recent FA pitching signings, I won't be coming back."

he alwasy shuts the Twins down... they are signing him to keep him away from the other AL Central teams.

This list looks like it was put together by the marketing department... That's why Pressley is on it at all, and why May and Meyer are so high. Arcia has no business at 7 and Buxton has no business at 2.

The problem I see is that we weren't counting on them to fill spots last year either (Sans Blackburn), but at one point, they were what we had. Personally I'm fairly excited about Deduno and I'm wondering if this could be our RA Dickey type pickup, but there's a pretty sizable likelihood there that it won't be anything of that nature. We have two TJ question marks in the system, though I fully expect Gibson to either start in AAA or get delayed this spring. Pelfrey, on the other hand, is a one year rental, so I doubt there will be much for innings limits and what not. Worley isn't exactly injury free, though his was pretty minor. That's a lot of question marks to go with Correia, who won't be very effective, and Diamond, who is a prime candidate to regress... Perhaps Diamond can comp out more like another leftie that people around here covet (Buehrle), but that's a tight line to walk and highly unlikely.

It's always funny when I see people mentioning this, because more often than not, they don't know either.

Pseudo, I would argue this is your exact problem. I understand how a new protein can be created by simply changing an A to G or something along those lines. That doesn't create additional genetic material, it simply alters exiting genetic material. You mentioned viruses as a way of adding material, and while this is true in that it injects its own DNA into your DNA, it doesn't do it uniformly across all cells (i.e. the reproductive cells aren't going to get genetic data from the flu virus), and it most certainly is not beneficial to you. In your last statement, you alude to another major problem. DNA is copied using a chemical manufacturing process and a number of proteins (DNA polymerase being the big one,but not the only one). It has built in error checking (kind of odd that this would evolve), and is a process that requires a number of other proteins. RNA production is very similar (except with different enzymes) and is used to build the very proteins that these cells depend on. The problem lies in the fact that in order for life to work, your genetic matieral has to have a copy of these exact same proteins, while at the same time having working copies that can be made without the luxury of having a cellular factory to make them. These aren't simple proteins that can just form. They have to be manufactured in a controlled process, much like product is made in today's manufacturing environments. It's really easy to make broad generalizing claims that time+chance=life, but when you look at the details, that is where the theory has problems. It has it's own "chicken or the egg" problem, and it does not adequately explain where all the extra genetic material comes from.

Yet at the same point you say "it's in the bag" so to speak? I never quite get reasoning such as this because you in turn bash creationists for taking things on faith. You just admited to two really big problems with the theory of evolution, yet you basically say people are just pandering for not taking it as fact... Seems kind of odd Brock.

I'm not sure I'd compare Webb to what is going on in NY... I'm pretty sure that NY situation is cutting off the nose to spite the face or something along those lines. I feel sorry for Tebow. He may not be the world's best QB, but what he does well is improvise when plays break down in ways they should not... I don't understand why the team would trade for him and then very intentionally give him no time. Rex Ryan is signing his own termination papers...

The problem with the media is that all of it is owned by something like 5 companies who are also owned by a handful of individuals. This is why you get force fed what Brittney Spears had for breakfast and whatever the latest Teen Mom's flub up was. I'm not sure I'd go so far to blame them for this tragedy, though Lev makes a great point...ethics in journalism is gone. Like many other industries, much of this would get fixed by simply breaking up the mega-conglomerates... but anti-trust laws died several decades ago, and the powers that be get way too much benefit from keeping things as is to resurrect them.

Yeah, I kind of wonder what it woudl be like if he got injured in week 14 or 15 as opposed to week 16. Let's not write teh rushing record in the bag just yet. He needs 150/game to do it. The way he's played the last 8 weeks, I'd say it's very likely, but not impossible.

They are already sniffing the playoffs, and while I suspect they won't get in, I'm not sure your assessment is correct... To answer your thoughts, I'd personally target Alex Smith, who I think can be had cheaply since the niners pretty much screwed themselves on this one. He doesn't make mistakes and can make decent throws... Agreed on Wallace as well. I'm a bit concerned on the QB project since it seems as though we can never develop one... I'd really like to know why Joe Webb hasn't been given a shot at all during Ponder's ineffective games...

Im not sure how anyone can say this was good for the Royals. They have a good young core of hitters, but will these pitchers plus improvements from the core yield them 18 wins? Honestly, if they wanted to pay Shields what they paid him, they could have signed Sanchez or Jackson and traded a much lesser prospect tthe Rays for the other pitcher... The moral of the store is this: trade with Dayton Moore... wonder if he'd trade some minor league pitching for Correia.