a700hitter

That is certainly not standing pat, so why aren't you discouraged that Theo is saying that it is likely that he will stay pat?

You were the one with the boner in August and September about king Felix. Weren't you also promoting the acquisition of Adrian Gonzalez? Now you are okay with staying pat? What does this have to do with having faith in Theo? I am just reporting what he said, which is not very encouraging if we are expecting a big deal at these meetings. Unlike you, I do not try to figure out what he is thinking. I don't find his words encouraging. Is he playing possum? I hope so, but if he is not, I don't expect the team will have a chance of catching or beating the Yanks in 2010. He said less than 50/50.

Theo is on the Hot Stove Report saying "forget about the Yankees." "We are going to do our thing." He said that they are not close to doing anything big, and that they may not do anything big. He says their goal is not to make a big splash, but to "build a healthy organization." He's calling this a "bridge season." f*** that. This sounds like Scutaro may be it for us. Screw that. IMO, they will not make the playoffs with the current squad. He estimates that the chances of a major move is less than 50/50. I didn't like anything that I just heard.

Of course this move grates on me. If Bay is going to walk, it would have been nice to get Granderson to take his place. He's a young guy, so it's not like they gave up prospects for a guy in the twilight.

The Yankees closed the deal before the Tigers realized that they got fleeced. Good work by them. Theo needs to step up his game.

Next stop: Old age home, drooling, dementia and then death.

I wouldn't be surprised if any or all of them were to this day taking the nondetectable HGH.

Correction, practically everyone was guilty, not just the ones who have been exposed. 39 year old closers who never have arm problems and consistently perform at the highest level of excellence are probably enjoying the benefits of more than a healthy diet.

Why would anyone protect this guy? he threw his wife under the steroid bus, and his best friend and best friend's wife sold him down the river. In a court of law, Clemens would be more likely to get convicted than would Big Papi, because the government can't even tell us the substance for which Papi tested positive.

He's a bridge to nowhere. He's a 32 yr old journeyman that had to journey to Japan for employment.

Nothing informative or interesting has come from him. He's a zero. He needs to go.

Why is this guy still here. He contributes nothing. In every single one of his posts, he is either trolling, attacking a member or both. Mods, enough is enough with this jerk.

It is limited investment in a high risk asset. I agree with ORS that we are discussing semantics, but baseball FO's have it completely wrong. These moves can be accurately described as high risk/high reward or low cost/low probability of success moves, but they are not low risk/high reward moves under any sound financial analysis. The limited investment in these substandard/speculative assets is part of sound risk management by the team, i.e. if the moves don't pan out the team's operations will not be affected. That doesn't make the particular move a low risk move.

Thank goodness you are a Lawyer and not an investment guy.

In analyzing risk, the monetary commitment needs to be appropriate in light of the risk factors. The more speculative the investment (i.e. the risk) the less the business will invest. The fact that a company limits its exposure to speculative investments does not decrease the risk of the investment. The risk or speculative nature of the investment is still high. A good business limits its exposure to such risks by investing most of its assets in safe-low risk investments. Investing $5 million in John Smoltz is good risk management, because they have not devoted too much of the payroll to a risky investment. The asset, i.e., Smoltz, is still a high risk asset because he had a small probability of succeeding.

It's not circular logic. Any book about investments will describe the relationship of between risk and return. Low risk/high return assets really don't exist in a free market. The reason being that if there were available low risk/high return assets the demand for them would grow and the price would go up. If you want to point to an Ortiz, that is probably the best case you can make. Like I said, he was a good consistent paltoon player before coming to the Sox. There was little risk that his value would go down. The number of guys that turn out to be like Ortiz are very very rare. You don't normally see a decent young player who is healthy get released. It was a freak circumstance. Almost all of the other so-called low risk/high reward players are not that at all. Our FO throughout the years has called guys like Jason (the ultimate loser) Johnson, Brad Penny, John Smoltz, and countless others low risk/high reward when in reality they were just long shots.

He'd never been given a consistent opportunity, because he never proved he could hit lefties or the inside pitch. He was a part time platoon type guy that wasn't a good 1B and could only play DH. His value was not high, and while talented, the flaws in his game did not indicate future super stardom. He was an appropriate risk for the Sox to take, but he was not the low risk/low reward asset that he eventually became. On the risk spectrum, he was not completely high risk either. After thinking about it more, he was not really high risk. He was a moderate risk asset because he had a fairly consistent track record, so the Sox had no reason to be concerned that he would be a total flop.

Believe it or not, when he was released by the Twins, his past performance gave no indication that he would become the player that he is. The risk that he would be an offensive force at that time was very high. Don't confuse the dollars invested with the risk. Ortiz was High Risk/High Yield. He was one of those rare long shots that came though as a hit. It's like a lottery ticket. Most people would view the $1 lottery ticket as a low risk/high reward investment, because it only costs a dollar. And if you hit the lottery, it reinforces that misconception. A lottery ticket is a very high risk/ high reward asset. To prove the point that the risk is extremely high, most people invest only a minuscule portion of their assets in lottery tickets. Only an idiot heading for bankruptcy would invest most of his assets in lottery tickets. You can't mistake the low dollar amount invested for the risk. The risk is huge which is precisely why the amount invested is small. Ortiz was high risk/high reward. He paid off. Then he became a low risk/low yield asset and the FO accordingly invested a lot of money in a long term contract to keep him.

There is no such thing. These should be more accurately be called long shots.

When I have sat in the bleachers at Fenway or any other ballpark, I realized that you get a whole new appreciation for the OF'ers play, because you are seeing the pitch and the ball come off the bat like they do, and you can see the incredible jumps they get on balls and the routes they take on balls. You are looking right at their backs the entire time. The fielders are in your field of vision the entire time, unlike people sitting along the baselines who are focused on the batter and most of the fielders are not in their field of vision while looking at the batter. By the time you look up to see what the fielder is doing, the bleacher fan is already seeing it.

Example, it was an "example" of things you pick up at games. I didn't say that would impact his value. It might impact the managers decision regarding the starting CF in a particular game. It might impact his value for the Cubs if they play more day games than most teams. Certainly, it would have affected his value for the Cubs before Wrigley installed lights. Again, it was an example. Let's not make it into the focal part of the argument.