mothershipconnection

The issue isn't about him losing muscle, it's about him displaying less power. Let's say that he has the same muscle, but he has added fat on top of it, which could numerous effects. It could slow down his swing, it could lead to quicker fatigue and less stamina, it could slow his speed so that he isn't going to leg out as many doubles, or he sometimes isn't going to score from 1st on a double with two outs in the inning. Agreed, but the common complaint is that he's becoming a wuss because he's not eating meat (protein). I'm totally on board with the argument that he needs to cut calories and trim down the fat, but not the argument that it's because he dropped meat from his diet.

You don't lose muscle that fast, people don't go vegetarian and have crazy muscle atrophy begin the next day. If people want to rail on his diet, the obvious high amount of calories should be the key issue, not meat.

It's the musical equivalent of that female shriek that's been in about 500 horror movies. Some recent movies have used it and I blurt out "seriously, you couldn't hire some singer to belt out a good scream?"

julian tavarez! If I were latino, I'd claim he's actually a German with a tan.

You would think that MLB would work out a deal were amateur teams below a certain age level would be able to use their trademarks for no charge... They could be pretty restrictive with the jerseys, but I don't like them blocking the use of names. I mean, you could say it can only be in white letters in times new roman font. Having a big league name for your team is one of the cool parts of little league for most kids.

But hey, we got Ochoa! Judging from your sarcasm, I guess some people will just never understand the importance of spring training stats. Remember his magic spring?

I think we are the real #1 on the list as Washingtom is in an entirely new location...the past history of the Expos is not a source of misery in Washington. Not to mention they were the best team in baseball in '94 and were robbed by the strike. They were 74-40 and had a 6 game lead with 48 games remaining.

Thank god. I think I speak for many here when I say I was really afraid of Ned having that tool in his box.

Never? Not much if you take a static look at it. They can be a better indicator if the number is trending or fluctuating a lot, but the other numbers can still all go up while K's go up as well. Still K number is never near the same importance of OBP, SLG, AVG. I'd say K's have the most importance from a coaching and player development standpoint, as you may see that a certain approach to plate discipline and more or less free swinging leads to different numbers for the major offensive indicators.

MS, what are replying to? I've been flying a lot lately, and I hate when it takes 45 minutes to board and get off the plane because everyone has a dang rollerbag that can store a 20" television. Half the people aren't strong enough to even lift it into the bin, and they can barely walk down the aisle because it's about 3 feet wide. Nobody needs that much stuff with them on a plane. I bring a book and put my allergy meds in my pocket.

you do need some sort of grain to help manage all that cholesterol Not to mention keeping your colon in working order. It hasn't been for body building purposes, but I've gone through carnivorous phases, and then had to take metamucil to clean things out.

and Branyan starts racking up the K's? Now we have to try and get him through waivers again and we just wasted a major league contract on him. Oh well, that's what he was signed for: emergency help. If he helps us in a bind and we have no more use for him and let him go, that's a better use of a player than letting him play all year in the minors.

I don't see why he'd accept an extension without even testing free agency, which means he probably won't agree to a trade at all. If you're playing for a free agent deal, though, you probably wouldn't mind being in a more visible market and playing in the postseason. If Dunn came up big for a media darling team, his value jumps a bit.

Boston didn't force us to DH Tony Gwynn Jr. today. When I saw the lineups and noticed that I almost puked. In terms of a franchise embarrassments, Gwynn playing DH is right up there with Molina batting cleanup for SF.

And 3 one and dones...what a great GM with a unlimited bank payroll. What matters in my opinion for a GM is that he gets you to the postseason and keeps you competitive. It's unfair to expect them to control the outcome of a 5 game series when they assembled a team that did great for 162. He had a huge checkbook in Texas and didn't know what starting pitching was. They did have a couple of acceptable staffs there. One thing that should be pointed out is the reputation Texas has for killing pitchers. That undoubtedly made it much harder for him to sign pitchers, while the reputation probably helped him attract hitters looking to pad their resume in a hitters park.

He's a K machine in the majors and what has happened to change that? What changed is that Bill Hall forgot how to hit. IMO, it's not so much about Branyan as it is that we have some pretty big weaknesses. I'd like to be in a position where we don't need to think about Branyan, Gwynn, Zach Jackson, or Jeff Weaver, but we aren't.

We have a rather extensive body of major league work that tells us that the league he belongs in is the league he is in. How many teams has this guy played for? There is a reason he has bounced from place to place. I've really never understood what people are saying when they make that argument. So, he's been let go a few times because teams felt they had a better option. Nobody's every labeled the guy a franchise cornerstone. Rather, he's just good enough to get signed and on a roster, but not good enough to stick when they find a free agent or prospect they have faith in. I don't see what past roster situations on other teams have to do with what this team is dealing with and needs to decide now. Our current 3B options are Hall, playing horribly right now, and Counsell who will similarly give you an OPS in the .600's. I'd love for our other option to be David Wright, but it isn't.

So when LaPorta takes a full season to adjust to major league pitching, we write off 2009? Could definitely happen. We also have to think, in a scenario where we have no Sheets, and only 1 decent pitcher coming back from surgery, who's gonna pitch for us? That, to me, would be a bigger problem than a single prospect who may struggle but is surrounded by an established lineup.

The Brewers and Rangers are in very different situations; trading Prince for four prospects wouldn't be smart. That depends somewhat on both the prospects and Matt Laporta, though. If, for example, Laporta dominates the rest of the year, and we get a couple of AA studs who could be ready mid-year, it's not a problem, IMO. This is especially true if we lose Sheets and the deal includes a winter-2006 Gallardo or Lincecum type of SP prospect.

Like others, I think the potential problem would be in opening a Pandora's Box in that it will be hard to judge every single case exhaustively to see if there's an advantage. The question that must be asked is how plausible and sizable an advantage must be before it's not allowed. That threshold, you'd think, would be very hard to define.

Stetter has been awful the last few times so I understand him being sent down but Zach Jackson? My thoughts exactly, unless the plan is "Stetter needs minor league time, so we'll just call up a token replacement who we have no plans of using outside of an emergency or mop job".

Yeah, things can definitely wear down and cause your power steering to not function like it once did. You wouldn't think it'd be that noticeable in an 04 vehicle though.

A lot of cars can actually diagnose themselves. There's often a series of button presses you can perform that brings up a menu that will give you the history of trouble codes the system has reported.

Fri-ggin awesome. Yeah, there's risk in a deal this long considering his short track record, but if you go year-to-year and he continues to produce, not only will you pay more, but you lose him after the 6th year unless you're willing to go 6+ years at the free agent rate.

The Simpsons has been faltering for some time now, but was incredible in its heyday. Family Guy, IMO, has similarly faltered, and had a shorter peak, which was also quite good. I'll judge these historically, with greater weight placed on the peak years. Peter Griffin vs Homer Simpson- Homer mops the floor with Peter. He set the mold for the modern-day animated drunken idiot dad. Lois Griffin vs Marge Simpson- close to a push for me, I'll go with a slight edge to Lois. Lisa Simpson vs Meg Griffin- I've never liked the Lisa character, or the Meg character for that matter, but they do add good things to the show by bringing an odd sense of balance. I go with Lisa by a nose. Bart Simpson vs Chris Griffin- Bart Dominates Stewie vs Maggie- Stewie is the best character on that show, by far and Maggie isn't much of a character, but an accessory. Brian vs Snowball/Santas little helper/Itchy and Scratchy- Brian's an actual character, the others are pets. Extended Family- (francis griffin/the pewterschmidts vs homer's dad/marge's sisters) - Marge's sisters and Abe Simpson are awesome. Other regular characters- (Swansons/Quagmire/Cleveland/Goldmans/Channel 5 news crew/Adam West vs Flanders/Burns/Smithers/Krusty/Barney/Moe/Nelson/Milhouse/Seymour/Wiggums - Simpsons other characters- Simpsons. So I go with the Simpsons pretty much winning everywhere there's a good comparison except a slight edge to Lois while Stewie and Brian are great characters with no real counterpart on the Simpsons. The secondary characters make the Simpsons great, and Homer is an icon. That's enough for me.