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Mar 18, 2008 Dec 22, 2009 17 1832

"So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Anconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

"But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made--before it can be looted or mooched--made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.'

"You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it's crumbling around you, while you're damning its life-blood--money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of your cities. Throughout men's history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, whose names changed, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves--slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody's mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer, Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers--as industrialists.

"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other--and your time is running out."

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Aggregate Top 30 of all random users lists

There has been about 10 different top 25/50/100 whatever lists posted on this board in the past couple weeks. So here's the aggregate list. I removed the outliers - those players that were only listed twice or less (basically, most of Dewey's list).

I also removed those players who have played a meaningful number of major league games since a lot of people didn't list them at all (so gone are guys like Chacin, Weiters, etc.)   Of those in the majors, remaining are Tillman, Matusz, Escobar, Latos


Here's the list

 

  1. Jason Heyward
  2. Jesus Montero
  3. Michael Stanton
  4. Justin Smoak
  5. Buster Posey
  6. Chris Tillman
  7. Carlos Santana
  8. Brian Matusz
  9. Desmond Jennings
  10. Logan Morrison
  11. Madison Bumgarner
  12. Jenrry Mejia
  13. Pedro Alvarez
  14. Dominic Brown
  15. Fernando Martinez
  16. Christian Friedrich
  17. Mat Latos
  18. Wade Davis
  19. Matt LaPorta
  20. Alcides Escobar
  21. Hector Rondon
  22. Kyle Drabek
  23. Jarrod Parker
  24. Yonder Alonso
  25. Martin Perez
  26. Michael Taylor
  27. Chris Carter
  28. Thomas Neal
  29. Jaff Decker
  30. Nick Weglarz

48 comments  |  4 recs

Aaron Poreda traded to San Diego

For Peavy? According to Heyman (who I don't believe a word he says) http://www.fannation.com/si_blogs/mlb_trade_talk/posts/72805-padres-agree-to-deal-peavy-to-white-sox

But also http://twitter.com/FollowThePadres says 4 pitching prospects:

Clayton Richard
Aaron Poreda
Dexter Carter
Adam Russell

Now it's on MLB trade rumors http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2009/07/peavy-dealt-to-white-sox-again.html

And I can't even get to 75 words with all of those links.

38 comments  |  0 recs

2009 Futures game rosters

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/futures-game/2009/268439.html

Wow, the American team might win infinity to nothing.

I'm surprised Villalona is on the team again, wasn't he on it last year? I thought BA tried to spread players out from year to year.

Also, interesting trivia, 7 of my fantasy team's 8 minor league players will be in this game.

Now I ask you, is that tripe I wrote under the link better than just typing "FILLER FILLER FILLER, I HATE THE 75 WORD LIMIT?"

60 comments  |  2 recs

Supplemental minor league draft

Since I've seen others on the board posting for "who should I pick", here's how my league's supplemental draft has played out so far

PS. Foolishly, people drafted Pedro Alvarez, Gordon Beckham, and Brett Wallace in the regular draft - won't go into the details of keeper issues - but at least that's why they aren't listed here.

PPS. The only people who qualify are players that are a) signed by a major league team - so no Strasburgh and b) have never played a major league game - so no Holland. So it's mostly going to be 2008 draftees and guys who were marginal prospects last year but improved their rankings during the winter.

1) Tim Beckham

2) Buster Posey

3) Justin Smoak

4) Eric Hosmer

5) Brian Matusz

6) Yonder Alonso

7) Aaron Hicks

8) JP Arencibia

9) Michel Ynoa

10) Brett Lawrie

11) Dominic Brown

12) Dayan Viciedo

 

2nd round order:

1) Kyle Blanks

2) Junichi Tazawa

3) Matt Dominguez

4) Aaron Poreda

5) Kyle Skipworth

6) Daniel Bard

7) Daryl Jones

8) Tyler Flowers

9) Sean West

10) David Cooper

Two teams stopped picking because they had a full roster

 

3nd round order:

1) Phillipe Aumonte

2) Jordan Walden

starting to peter out. Some of the good guys still left: Jason Castro, Todd Frazier, Andrew Lambo, Michael Saunders, Jason Donald, Lou Marson, Michael Main, Wilson Ramos

11 comments  |  0 recs

Desmond Jennings - alive?

Jennings hasn't played professional baseball since August. He had a "minor knee injury" and ended up missing the rest of the season, and now apparently (according to rotoworld.com) hurt his back in March and was supposed to be out "4-6 weeks". Now he supposedly has a shoulder injury and has "no ETA". Is this guy made of glass? Is there anything else to the story? It seems odd to have "no ETA" unless it's a dramatically serious injury.

1 comment  |  0 recs

How Much is a Prospect Worth? A study

Really cool (though analytical) paper about the success, and therefore "worth" of prospects by Victor Wang.

It's from August, but I hadn't seen or heard about it before.  While this is part of a subscription-only newsletter, I'm not concerned about this being copywrited, because in this Hardball Times Article (which is cool in and of itself):  http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-bright-side-of-losing-santana/ the author links the original paper, here: http://www.philbirnbaum.com/btn2007-08.pdf

Basically, Wang looked at the prospects in the top 100 of BAs lists through every year in the 90s.  And then looked at their performance in the first six years of their careers.

Looking only at top 10 prospects:  For hitters, the likelihood of them becoming stars (based on WARP) was 17%, bust 21%.  For pitchers it was 4% stars and over 50% busts.  For prospects 11-25, the bust rate increased for both subgroups.

19 comments  |  0 recs

Bizarro Prospect Rundown

Following up on Bravesin07/PujolsJunkie's posts about cool stat figures, how about the other end?

Let's keep this to consensus top 50 prospects (obviously there is no "consensus" on this, but figuring our top 25, plus some leeway around those who will likely finish around the top 50.

Under .260 average (full season) = Cam Maybin
Under 10 HR (full season) = Ellsbury
Under 30 SB (career)= Travis Snider
Over 162Ks (batter, season) = Cam Maybin
at least 17 losses = Carlos Carrasco
at least 100 BB's (pitcher) = Franklin Morales
Era over 5.00 (full season) = Radhams Liz
Fewer than 100 career games (pitcher) = Nick Adenhart
Fewer than 1,000 career AB = Jose Tabata
Least career major league service time = Jose Tabata

11 comments  |  0 recs

Mitchell Report - Thursday @ 2PM EST

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/12/sports/baseball/12mitchell.html?em&ex=1197608400&en=55cc34 ecc24a60f6&ei=5087%0A

Steroid Report Expected to Cite About 50 Players

"...What it contains will be officially revealed Thursday, when Mitchell holds a 2 p.m. news conference in Manhattan followed by a separate news conference by Commissioner Bud Selig to discuss the findings. But two people who are familiar with Mitchell's investigation, and his findings, said that the report would contain the names of more than 50 active and former major league players who are linked to the use of performance-enhancing drugs....

....Both said many of the names in the report are directly tied to information provided to Mitchell's investigators by Kirk Radomski, a former bat boy and clubhouse attendant for the Mets who pleaded guilty to steroid distribution in April.

In Radomski's plea agreement, he stated that he provided dozens of players with steroids, human growth hormone and stimulants from 1995 through 2005...."

"...The evidence that Mitchell will use to cite players is expected to be documentary in nature -- canceled checks, shipping slips, phone records -- and not based on positive drug tests...."

Feel free to speculate which all star players (since nobody cares about anyone else) that will be listed among the 50 or chide people who are speculating about it.

The key facts are that the source worked for the Mets and he was supplying between '95 and '05.

I think Piazza is a lock.  I also bet that Arod will be mentioned.

56 comments  |  0 recs

2009 Free Agent Class

this year's FA class isn't really that interesting, but the 2008 off-season is shaping up be like the 2000 off-season.

And because of that, next year's trade deadline looks like it has the potential to have some really game-changing talents changing teams.  Given the list of talents below, I think a lot of teams will be much more likely to part with some elite level prospects to get these guys.  Don't get too attached to your teams' favorite prospects.

Guys currently tabbed as potential free agents after 2008:

P:  Johan, Peavy, Sabathia, Lackey, AJ Burnett, Rich Harden, Ben Sheets
OF:  Crawford, Dunn, Wily Mo Pena, Manny, Vlad
IF:  Texeira, Furcal, Renteria, Glaus, Chipper, Orlando Hudson, Sexson, Felipe Lopez, Blaylock

The pitching especially looks amazing.

And note: between now and the end of the '08 season, the Yankees will have about $80MM coming off the books in Clemens, Giambi, Mussina, Pavano, Farnsworth, Abreu, and Pettite.  That $80MM number will be decreased by whatever it costs to extend A-rod, and sign new contracts with Posada and Rivera.  But it will still likely be about $60-%70MM.  Enough for at least two, probably three superstar additions

34 comments  |  0 recs

Craig Hansen

Remember him?

In his last 10 games dating back to the middle of July (since he missed about 3 weeks with a non-pitching related bruised elbow):

16 2/3 innings
14 hits
5 walks
23 ks
0.54 ERA

He has been typically pitching more than an inning per appearance.

He was supposed to be phenomenal when drafted, and then just fell apart in the majors last year as well as Spring Training, and the beginning of the season this year.

Is there hope still for him to be a dominant reliever/closer?

3 comments  |  0 recs