Christmas Eve things

yea this is true
there was friction btwn ozzie and bmac but nobody thought he was getting traded

It was an M. Night production. What did you expect?

Although I will say that more often than not they do a decent job of giving good movies some much needed respect.

Life Is Beautiful was a terrific movie.

Benigni is this generation’s Chaplin.

if juan cruz wasnt a type A id want him

Really the only problem I have anointing him a #1 starter is the increase in innings. He pitched 69 more innings in ’08 than in ’07, making him a prime candidate for the Verducci effect.

Saunders is a mirage guy, imo. He’s a LAIE posing as a #2. That said, like you noted above, he’s a pretty damn good back of the rotation option.

He’s been a fairly good but unreliable year-to-year reliever in the past who’s never been anywhere close to as good as he was in ’08.

If I was confident that ‘08 was the real Fuentes… then, sure. But I’m not.

I hate the idea of paying him closer money based on what looks to me to be a career year.

s it really a stretch to think that bringing back the same cast of characters that provided shitty defense and shitty pitching last year, just might possibly do the same thing next year?

The bad defense at 2B and 3B should be better.

And, as I mentioned below, if the young starters who broke in last season aren’t going to improve any this year, then we might as well just release them and quit wasting 40 man roster spots on them.

The point of building from within is to have internal improvements. It isn’t that Eric Hurley and Matt Harrison are going to show up as rookies, post 5.50 ERAs, and then we know that that is what they’ll always be. If you are trying to build with prospects and young players, you have to expect some improvement from the players you are breaking in from year to year, or else there’s no point trying to rebuild.

shitty manager.

look, i know that the correlation between odds and the actual reality of a season is a loose indicator at best, but it’s the only numerical tool i can find.

furthermore, i think we all agree that 2009 is a wasted season in terms of any hope at competing. it might be fun in terms of seeing guys try to develop, but losses will be plentiful. that being said, here’s the odds for this year (updated today):

LAA 6.5-1 (13-2)
OAK 16-1
TEX 35-1

http://www.vegasinsider.com/mlb/odds/futures/

… a distant third. that’s without k-rod and teixeira. so (using this as a reference) we need to pass the two worse of NYY/BOS/TB

or

LAA and OAK

awesome.

if neither team gets better, when can texas compete? if either or both get better (LAA will), what’s the likelihood of catching them?

i am not saying that texas should not field a team. my family owns tickets, and i will go to games. because of that i want them to be competitive. however, i have a realistic view that the team is not nearly as close to competing as people seem to think.
 

Their rotation was solid, lotsss of innings eaters…. Blanton, Myers, Moyer and Kendrick (punk’d guy) were all legit and won more often than not

2011 at earliest

about the Angels because every year it has been true. It is even more true this year than the last couple of years, though, so to say Adam (or anyone else in this line of thinking) is just singing the same old song is silly.

I really liked what I saw from him.

The only guy I’d have payed for was Wood.

I’d rather spend the money elsewhere and use Fx2 than bring in someone like Fuentes or Hoffman or Lyon.

Primarily through better infield defense at 2B and 3B, and better performance from the young starters.

My point is not that that is going to happen, but that it is not unrealistic to think that the third base defense to improve and for Hurley, Harrison, Feldman, McCarthy, whomever else we have behind Padilla and Millwood to be better than what there was last year.

If the idea is that Hurley, Harrison, et al can’t possibly do any better than the collection of suck at the back of the rotation last season, then we are wasting 40 man roster spots on them, and Hurley and Harrison and the rest of those guys should be traded or released while we wait for Feliz and Holland to arrive.

The whole point of building from within is that you’ll have internal improvements. You can’t use this model for building a team, but then say that the team won’t be any better because you didn’t go out and add a bunch of new players. If you build from within, you should be able to look to some of the young players who broke in and got their feet wet in one year to take a step forward the next. Not all of them will, but enough of them should that the team will improve, or else the rebuilding plan is a failure.

Though, not great. A look around the infield:
C Tea and Salty is a better combo than Laird/Salty
1B Davis is fine
2B Kinsler won’t be worse and is capable of better
SS Young was close to league average by several metrics last year, the biggest problem was…
3B which you could almost say has nowhere to go but up. Vazquez is gone, and whoever they get to play there will be better than the collective performance there last year.

The pitching staff had a LOT of injuries last year and that is simply not likely to happen two years in a row. Plus the young pitchers will mature a bit. This has the potential to be a league average rotation. If they are, it almost automatically improves the bullpen.

This team can win 85 games or so right now.

It actually sounds just like Billy Beane, if I’m not mistaken.

Fans of other teams would be lucky to have an owner with that mindset.

Unfortunately, that’s now obvious to everyone.

I think the only person in the D/FW media who pointed out how stupid the trade was at the time was Eddie Sefko.