Gom

Olney makes a good point. Ellsbury isn't much of an option for SD, since he is a year away from free agency and he is a Boras client.

No...he's right. We had decent baseball conversations when you weren't here. Try to think why that happened. No need to respond. Just realize it, learn from it, and move on. Got it? Good.

Which is better...one year of Lowell at 12 million, or three years of Beltre at 39 million [assuming a 30 year deal, and 9 million to trade Lowell]?

For fans. As for players, no one cares except Minaya.

What a steal for the Mariners. Wow.

The Cardinals want Americans.

Here you go. ESPN's Gordon Edes tweets that there's "nothing going on" on the Gonzalez front. Edes doesn't expect the Red Sox to land Adrian Beltre or Matt Holliday either.

Meanwhile, Cashman sits on his ass...

Eventually, you will get Gonzalez. It's just a question of when.

Not with Posada catching.

Tejada is no longer a shortstop. Do you watch baseball? He lacks the ability to be a legitimate shortstop at this point in his career.

I know I'm reaching here...I mean, we are still in December and all..but... The AL East championship is critical now. Why? The Mariners. I presume that the AL Central will have the worst record. The Tigers had a bit of a fire sale, and the Twinkies are in my opinion, the faves, with a new park opening up and all. I think with Lee, the Mariners are the favorites in the west, with the Angels losing both Figgins and Lackey. I presume the wild card comes out of the East, either Boston or the Yankees. Short series...playing the Twins, or facing the best defensive team in baseball, a pesky hit and run team, with the best 1-2 punch in baseball in Felix and Lee? No brainer. In a short series, the Mariners might just be the best team in baseball.

You have a much better chance of getting Cabrera. He would go to 1B for a year, then slowly slide to DH as Ortiz rides off into a PED-enhanced sunset.

Not really. I stated before that I do not believe that there is that much variation in the field from year to year as there is in hitting. We've made our points here..but now, how to tackle the inefficiency in firstbasemen?

We are lacking in SP depth. I really could care less about LF. I wouldn't mind going with what we have, maybe bringing back Nady to play against lefties, and DH'ing Miranda and rotating the rest of the team in that role. We won last year for one simple reason. Pitching, pitching, pitching...and clutch hitting from Arod, the new Mr. f***ing October!!! Sorry, couldn't help it. If we face the Sox in the ALCS, we lose 3 out of 4 pitching matchups. Bringing in Sheets pretty much evens it out.

Also, he wants to go with a 7 man lineup against righties. Not a good beginning for our new poster.

The fact remains that you're making a lineup with players you don't even have yet.

I think I'm very good at predicting the market and the money trends. I am shocked that Cashman is nowhere near as good as I am. He gets paid millions for it, and I'm just a fan. This is why I'm shocked at how bad he is at guessing the market. Let's take a look at my predictions for money in my Plan For Yankee Dominance: So far three players have signed: Angels, one year, 6.5 million. Yankees, 11.75 million Red Sox, 5 years, 85 million. My AAV is 16.7 million, he gets 17 million AAV. I don't miss often, although I will probably miss on Wang, and the jury is still out on Damon and Molina. The Yankees are arguing about the years with Damon..why not just go year to year with him in arbitration? How can I see this and not Cashman?

You don't have Ramirez or AG. It's like me making a Yankee lineup like this. Jeter Damon Arod Tex Holliday Granderson Posada Cano Swisher The rotation would be CC AJ Pettitte Sheets Wang The bullpen would be Robertson Aceves Capps Marte Hughes Joba Mo

I understand your point, ORS, but adjusting it on a logarithmic level would eliminate many of the statistical deviations. Since the data itself is very limited, the variations are great. Conceptually, I understand it. However, it's application is very limited. Case in point...an established player, say a Jeter, or a Drew...his offensive numbers will basically stay the same with little variation. Similar OPS from year to year, with little deviation. However, looking at Jeter, there is major deviation in his UZR. This makes no sense to me. There is an element of luck in a players batting average. Things tend to even out over time, but one year..hey, those bloops find holes. With UZR, this variation is more or less the norm, not a deviation. I believe that there is less of a deviation for fielding on a year to year basis. You don't suddenly lose the ability to track fly balls, or the ability throw across a diamond. It deteriorates at a much slower rate, than say, the ability to turn on a fastball. This is one of the biggest problems I have with it. The concept may be linear, but the effect is not linear IMO. It's logarithmic in it's application. It's not that I do not thing that a fielder should not get credit/failure. He is limited to the amount of plays he has an impact on. The number of plays should be factored in when determining a players overall defensive impact. Currently, it does not. Not to mention that the statistic is mathematically flawed. I just don't see why you accept everything you read without question.

Because of the sheer randomness and inaccuracies inherent in the metric. Also, when comparing players, it should be noted that a difference of say, 2.0 on a UZR scale is much more important for a shortstop than it is for a LFer. Let me attempt to illustrate. I'm not a mathematician, but here is the concept. To make this a more accurate description of a player's total value defensively, it should be multiplied by a factor. SS is the most important defensive position. So going with the above metric, he would get a value of say 1. Each other position would receive a percentage of that. Say a SS is 2.0 UZR better than his counterpart. Now let's say you have a LFer that is also 2.0 better than his counterpart. To actually be 2.0 better at shortstop is a huge impact defensively at shortstop, but minimal at LF. Let's say the factor for LF is .10. Where a shortstop might save you 2.0 runs per whatever, over the same factor, the LFer will save you .2 runs in that time period. Therefore, even a marginal increase or decrease at shortstop will be more substantial than a major increase or decrease in the OF. I'm not really interested in the math, just the concept. What do you think?

Makes more sense now, thank you. However, why is it so flawed? Also, that dismisses my notion that each point should be exponentially harder to get than the one before. If this is scales logarithmically, it would lead to a greater degree of accuracy.