Emmz

You used to get into fights with everyone man.

That's why they always have a good offensive and defensive stat. Last year they were leading the NFL in both for most of the year even though they were losing, well yeah when half your games are against those team you're going to get a lot of yards without giving up many in return. Though, you usually win when you advance the ball a lot without giving up much in return.

*Facepalm*

Now you understand what the Vikings are EVERY YEAR. Even when they have a team that looks good, they find some way to finish with like 6-8 wins and miss the playoffs or get knocked out in the first round. When they put together a powerhouse, they choke in the conference championship. At least they used to get to the super bowl before they chocked out on us. Starting out 6-0 and finishing 8-8 and getting eliminated on the last play of the last game of the year. Going 15-1 and being the most prolific offense in the history of football then losing to a team that they should have crushed because of a field goal. Then there was the Favre season where he was totally kicking ass and was healthy all season. I thought we had the Saints, we outplayed them even though the refs were sucking them off all game long, we hung with them, we were about to seal the deal, then of course Favre throws the pick. The Vikings are here to break hearts, but I still support them and watch all the games. I think the Vikings and the Bills are the biggest "cocktease" teams in the history of the NFL.

Great post. +1

Dice-K gave us pretty solid performance when healthy, and Lackey has played for 2 seasons, 1 of which, he was pretty damn good overall. I'd hardly call them complete failure contracts, and even though Lackey has s*** the bed this year, to be generous, he's still had one very good year, and a few more years to redeem himself. That said, I think Lackey needs to really find it next year, otherwise he will be considered a complete bust. Daisuke, however, was a pretty effective pitcher when he was healthy.

The injuries are too much, realistically they will be making exit in the ALDS, but I'm an optimist, so I voted for Wild Card and WS. Who knows really, the playoffs seems to be real weird all the time. The best team from the regular season doesn't even win half the time, and it's pretty common to see the crappiest team scrap for a while, or even win the WS. Maybe Crawford returns to form in the playoffs or something, heck maybe even Drew shows up, you never know. There's nothing rational about it, the playoffs really seems pretty random.

No one knew that Lee was going to stick it to the Yankees. If he didn't, Lee would have been theirs. The Yankees get whatever they want unless something weird happens. Lee decided to flip them the bird and go to Philly.

He isn't player management, Tito is. Theo is just the guy who puts together the roster, it's Theo's job to get them to produce.

Lol, he's not responsible for players who were supposed to produce. Lets see, all signs pointed to Lackey and Crawford being headed into their primes, he signed them, they didn't produce up to par. That is not Theo's fault. Your logic is all in hindsight. Theo's decisions were completely rational at the time, which is what matters. There's a serious flaw in your logic that you're not seeing, so I'm not going to beat a dead horse trying to prove a point again.

It's the eeennnnd of the world as we know it! It's the eeennnd of the world as we know it!

This is the essence of Talksox right now, in one post. Lol.

This is all in hindsight, which makes your point completely irrelevant to your own logic that Theo should be fired for his decisions. It is not his job to get the players to play to their best ability, it's his job to field a good team with his budget. Those players were all supposed to be better than this, it is not Theo's fault that happened. You basically want him to be fired because he didn't expect a 200 point plus drop in OPS from Crawford, and a 2 run inflation of Lackey's ERA. Your argument, my friend, is very flawed.

Yeah, because it was so clear that Crawford was going to basically hit 200 points below his regular OPS, and Lackey's ERA was going to go up by 2 runs. Daisuke was a major risk, Cameron was probably never a good move, Jenks should have been better though. 3 of those contracts were acceptable, 1 (Daisuke) was working out for 3 of his 5 seasons with the team so far, in fact, he returned more than his value is WAR all three of those seasons (2007, 2008 and 2010). 2 of those seasons where he did not make up his value, he was injured. Lackey came to this season with 4 seasons where he averaged about 20M per year in WAR, 16M sounds like a good deal to me. He can still make that back with some typical John Lackey years. Crawford had come into this season with basically having averaged 27M in value over the last two seasons in Tampa. How could Theo have guessed he'd have a .600 OPS?

He isn't a bad signing, his WAR converted to $ in his previous 3 full seasons leading up to the signing were around 20M per year. Last year, he earned 15.9M of his 16.5M, this year he's stunk, there's no question, but I'm not convinced he's a bust yet. He has to put together good performances that live up to his previous norms to earn his pay, and he has to do it consistently. He can't have another year like this.

ERA+ is ballpark adjusted, his ERA+ in those years were 166, 130 and 132. He's exactly 1 year removed from being his same old overpowering self, due to injury. Santana isn't ineffective, and hasn't been for right around 10 years now.