He's of the same ilk as Kemp, Loney, Russell Martin.

That means LaRoche won't make the club out of spring training.

Seriously, these quotes are reassuring though.

That was an awesome interview. I rarely put stock into what a GM says, but he sounded as excited as we do. Thanks for the link.

It is like Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

I fully endorse our new alien overlords.

Someone tell these MNF producers that Led Zeppelin has more than three songs

That was heartening. Combined with the (possibly fake) encounter between Logan Whtie and a Dodgers.com poster linked in the last thread, and I feel much more at ease about this offseason.

At least until we trade for Blalock.

[Kemp] might wind up being a great centerfielder!

-- Ned Colletti

Ned. Colletti. Think about that.

I just checked Blalocks #"s on B-R.com like I suspected there about the same Blalock's OB% is a tiny bit better but that's about it. Overall though I think Beltre has the better glove I would think.

ps Why am I even talking about Blalock if the rumor isn't even true!! :o)

7 If you're that suggestible, you might be great in a hypnotist's show!

Hooray! The Blue Jays will wear powder blue uniforms every Friday home game in 2008.

http://tinyurl.com/2qhrdx

Here's hoping the Cards, Phillies, and other 1980s powder blue wearers will follow suit.

Jerry: Yeah. Like Bizarro Superman. Superman's exact opposite, who lives in the backwards bizarro world. Up is down, down is up. He says "Hello" when he leaves, "Good bye" when he arrives.
Elaine: Shouldn't he say "bad bye"?
Jerry: No, it's still goodbye.
Elaine: Does he live underwater?
Jerry: No.
Elaine: Is he black?
Jerry: Look, just forget the whole thing, all right.

I'm of a mind that Voldem- Colletti isn't so horrible. He threw huge money at Pierre. That was stupid. He gave away Joel Guzman. Also, eventually, that'll look stupid (though not in the same league as Pierre). But take away those two blunders, and Colletti hasn't been horrible. Everybody blasts the Schmidt deal now, but at the time the signing looked reasonable. (I'll reverse my ruling on this if somebody has the goods that Ned shoulda/did know about Schmidt's shoulder.). And, true, Nomar bathed in Hai Karate this year, but he earned a $5 million contract based on his '06 performance. Some of the smaller deals - the backup outfielders in need of walkers, the weird fetish for the weirdly moon headed Ramon Martinez - are the sorts of tics all GMs have but we don't really notice because we don't give a crap. My point is the above quotes are evidence that Ned seems capable of learning, a trait I'd like to acquire before death.

Nice find, very reassuring.

Bart Scott not having a good last few minutes of MNF.

That's not Ned Colletti. I refuse to believe it.

Larry Csonka weeps.

Surely, I can't be alone in thinking that the conversation the Baseball Digest Daily guy had with Colletti sounds more fake than the one the lowly message board poster had with Logan White -- I mean, based on what we THINK we know about Colletti and White.:)

Well that was one crazy football game.

I am sure next weeks Saints vs Falcons on MNF will just be as good.

How do referees define "control" when it comes to catching a pass in the end zone? The ball definitely turned about 45 degrees in Gaffney's hands while he was going out of bounds.

19
Control is in the eye of the beholder.

16
If you don't think it's true then ask yourself:
Why did this guy lie about Colletti? Who benefited? Who has the power to cover it up? Who?

20 - Just like in that Twilight Zone episode.

The Dodgers have asked about Ben Sheets, Brewers GM Doug Melvin confirmed.
Melvin indicated that he was willing to listen to offers. The Brewers want an outfielder and would have to be interested in Matt Kemp. Sheets' price tag shouldn't be quite as high as that of Johan Santana, Erik Bedard or Dan Haren, but he won't come cheap, not with the Brewers aiming for first place next year.
Sheets is a big risk, but is a very solid pitcher when healthy. Still, he hasn't pitched more than 156 innings in each of the last 3 years.

I wonder what it would take to acquire Bill Hall. He would be a good buy low candidate.

Brian Billick might very well get fired for blowing that timeout on 4th down.

4 Seriously. I started muting the intros and the outros. And Don Shula.

Where was "Stairway", man?

24
Rex Ryan the defensive coordinator called it.

wow. this is the best i've felt about colletti since he's been hired. the article made me yell hallelujah in my mind.

19 It turned because the receiver turned it. That's control.

I'm hoping that the football gods have a sense of humor and allow the Dolphins to be the team that ends New England's perfect season. Though, allowing another team to go undefeated while the Dolphins go winless may be just as funny to the football gods.

Latimes has their daily article up.

http://tinyurl.com/2zcaud

The Dodgers want to sign Jones or Rowand to a relatively short deal -- two or three years, according to a major league source.

The Dodgers remain in pursuit of free-agent right-hander Hiroki Kuroda. A major league source said the Dodgers have in mind a three-year deal worth upward of $20 million, though the length and value of the contract were said to be "moving."

The Seattle Mariners are believed to have offered the 32-year-old Kuroda a four-year contract worth $44 million. The Arizona Diamondbacks have offered Kuroda a three-year deal.

Our offers don't seem to match the market.

The Seattle Mariners are believed to have offered the 32-year-old Kuroda a four-year contract worth $44 million

Name that tune.

11
Or he's a mutant freak. I forgot about that. Sorry.

When does BA's Dodgers top 10 come out?

33 Dec 4th, I believe.

Ohhh!! Goodie!

Hey, maybe Ned always liked the kids, but had some real schtick about making them earn their jobs by wresting them from veterans--what Loney managed to do. That, combined with his preoccupation with depth, and Grady's inability to manage the playing time issue better might have made him seem more veteran addicted than he actually was. Or maybe Ned has actually learned a thing or two from our disastrous season.

A lot of the PVL nonsense also really was a media thing, which fed off of clubhouse strife.

In this market, 4/44 mil for Kuroda isn't as crazy as I would normally think, but I certainly won't mind Ned passing. After the Pierre fiasco, maybe he's now gunshy about tossing money around in long term contracts.

WWSH

I wonder why HongZhi Guo's name was not mentioned by Colletti regarding possible starting rotation spots. I haven't heard any news that he won't be ready for spring training or that he hasn't healed properly from his injury. I know he has a terrible injury history and shouldn't be counted on for a significant contribution, but the guy has enormous talent when healthy. If you look at the 2008 ZIPS projections for ALL Dodger starting pitchers, Guo has arguably the best rate stats (of course minus the injury/lack of durability thing). This should atleast get a mention from Colletti as being a possible option. vr, Xei

Note that his embrace of the youth isn't combined with a disembrace of the veterans.

What can he say that won't be interpreted as a slap? "Yeah, getting Pierre was a huge mistake, it tanked our season" won't (a) find you trade partners willing to take on his albatross contract, or (b) help you in other negotiations. (If it sounds like I have lost all faith in the ability of [at least, sensible] GM's to say anything meaningful on-record, then you're absolutely right.)

36 Maybe he really thinks Elbert, McDonald, and Kershaw can be ready right away, like he said in this article, and so Kuroda is not really needed beyond 1 or 2 years.

37 - After a season in which two-fifths of the opening week rotation missed half or more of the season, including the team's alleged offseason "ace"-level acquisition, mentioning [GK]uo as a possibility for the rotation is at best impolitic.

Padres seem interested in Mark Prior and/or Josh Towers.

http://tinyurl.com/2ees4n

I don't understand the tampering rules, but isn't it tampering when a GM talks about a player under contract with another club? I guess Towers just talked about talking with Prior in the article, but I guess I don't see where the line in the sand is.

Re: 37

Well, at this point, I think Kuo's injury history is pretty well established--I'm pulling for the guy, but I really doubt he'll be able to survive a season. I'd be more optimistic about Greg Miller learning to throw strikes again at this point, which isn't saying much.

WWSH

41

Prior technically doesn't have a contract yet... He is just under control by the Cubs.

Maybe thats it.

38 - My point was only that just because he was praising the kids doesn't mean the kids will start.

11 - I'm of a mind that Voldem- Colletti isn't so horrible. He threw huge money at Pierre. That was stupid. He gave away Joel Guzman. Also, eventually, that'll look stupid (though not in the same league as Pierre). But take away those two blunders, and Colletti hasn't been horrible.

Actively trading blue-chip prospects for Lance Carter, Danys Baez, Toby Hall, and Mark Hendrickson definitely puts him in the ballpark of awful.

44 - ah, so the George W. Bush trick: he was famous as governor of Texas for praising a program just before he cut its budget.

45 Navarro would have been a nice chip in a Cabrera offer.

45

I don't think they were considered blue chip prospects at the time of their trade.

37 HongZhi Guo's name How many more consonants are you planning to re-map? This is a gradual issue, is it? Your preferred Chinese transliteration system (which we know by now you insist on now matter how many times Hong Chi Kuo indicates he's happy with the alternate outmoded system) keeps changing. I don't recall your demanding "HongZhi" before. Perhaps I wasn't paying attention. Will it change again to "HungZhi" or "HngZhi"? Or "Harold"? "Honest Abe"? Or something else?

28 Thank you. Now I have somewhere to point all the people I've been arguing with for the last hour and a half.

Wow, random use of a Badly Drawn Boy tune in the new Starbucks commercial. Not so much the fact that it's a song of his, but that it's one of the random instrumental tracks from the About a Boy soundtrack.

Steve Phillips is reporting that Jose Guillen is close to signing with the Royals for 3/$36m.

49
I like to think of it as a Xeifrank quirk and see no reason why you feel the need to belittle him for it.

Another Nationals deal, by the way: Tyler Clippard acquired from the Yankees for RH RP Jonathan Albaladejo.

I saw Albaladejo pitch a couple of times last year. He was good. People who pay attention to these things, as in the link, believe this is a good deal for the Nationals.

http://tinyurl.com/2tp7h5

--throws Rule 5 flag at 46 --

--then Bart Scott picks it up and throws it into the stands--

36 - WWSH, is it not good that he is now gun-shy about those though? Like a couple of posts ago asked, does it really matter why there has not been a big $$ signing this winter, if the result is Kemp, Loney, Martin, and it sounds like LaRoche all starting?

Diamond updated his blog..

-no contract offered to jones/rowand, too far apart in years and $$

-contract offered to Kuroda

-Lieberthal, Sweeney and Seanez all remain possibilities to be re-signed.

-and this tidbit...Ned Colletti met with the Arn Tellem, the agent for Nomar Garciaparra. "I didn't have to say anything," Colletti said. "He told me Nomar just wants to know."

huh?

56 Wow, juicy. Am I benched?

45
Blue Chip prospects??? Is this revisionist history? They all had warts, some had big warts. 1 1/2 years later
JtD - still can't hit AAA pitching
Ed Jackson - was the 5th starter for the worse rotation in baseball. Had a decent 2nd half every 3rd game kind of like that Tomko guy that everyone hated.
Navarro - until the 2nd half of 2007 looked like the worse catcher in baseball. If Tampa Bay felt he was the future they wouldnt' be looking for another catcher
Ruggiano - 4th outfielder at best
Pedroza - will probably never even sniff a major league at bat.

Lugo was evidently held in high enough esteem that the brightest team in baseball gave him a multi year multi million dollar deal to play SS for their World Championship team and gave us their number one pick for right to do so.

56
Maybe Nomar wanted to know if he would be the highest-paid bench player in MLB in 2008. Or maybe Nomar just wanted to know that they checks will still cash.

But more importantly, what should I buy my 8-year old niece for Christmas? Her father's suggestion was "beats me."

60
Hannah Montana something.

60

a Nintendo Wii

61
She likely has no idea who that is. My brother has no cable TV and barely any broadcast channels.

62
Everytime you search for a toy on Amazon.com, you get a recommendation to buy a Wii.

The Wii is for drunks not 8 year olds.

Let's all bookmark this thread, and come back when the 2008 starting LFer's name is announced.

And laugh, and laugh, and laugh. . .

63
There's your answer. Buy your brother cable TV. It's the gift that keeps on giving.

Buy her some books. No TV means she probably reads a lot.

It will be under my Christmas tree this year. I'm finally splurging on my 1st ever video game system. i hate to be trendy but we had a lot of fun playing it during thanksgiving.

Buy her a shuffle board.

...wait, thats another thing for drunk people. Sorry, I have nothing.

New post from Tony Jackson re: Andruw Jones...

"We are nowhere close to a deal," Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti said. "I had the intention of making an offer, but as it stands, it would have been foolish to do so." Colletti left the door open to continue negotiations, but only slightly. "I'm not sure how we would explore it from here when the distance is that great," Colletti said. "Those explorations would probably have to come from the other side."

66
What is so funny about Barry Bonds?

Ned Colletti met with the Arn Tellem, the agent for Nomar Garciaparra. "I didn't have to say anything," Colletti said. "He told me Nomar just wants to know."

huh?

Nomar wanted to know what Ned is getting him for Christmas. Obviously it's a surprise, so Ned isn't going to reveal what his gift is.

Bob:
* High School Musical 2 DVD.
* Spiderwick Chronicles series

If you want more suggestions, email me and I could ask my 8-year-old daughter tomorrow when she's awake.

Also, tell your brother he's a very poor dad if he has no idea what his little girl wants for Christmas.

Kids like yo-yos. Also, this is supposed to be fun, though I'm not sure why: http://tinyurl.com/2blsqt

The best present I ever got was a really great baseball glove, but you'd be typecast for life. My sister loved board games and Babysitter Club Books, when she was that age.

Thanks for the input. I should have this all wrapped up this week.

I'll be sure to tell my brother he's a poor parent. That's always welcome advice from the single guy with no kids.

Sounds about right.

http://www.firejoemorgan.com/2007/12/comments.html

This holiday season, care enough to give the gift of fatalism and dread to your loved ones.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/?p=813

I'm starting to wonder if a dark horse team like the Royals will make a splash with Andruw Jones....I just don't see us or anyone else offering more than two years.

the logan white thing from the dodgers.com board is a great read... a little TOO great. i mean, who says "email me a copy of your ultrasound!" to a random fan guy they just met an hour earlier?

78 yet another reason why fjm is bloody brilliant.

The Twins are looking over Jon Lester's medical records. Deal might be close...

81 -- People with children say those kinds of things all the time nowadays. I suppose White thought he was being polite by professing to be interested.

84 I remember somebody posted (I think it was) here some time ago about meeting Mr. White on an airplane. The MO seemed about the same, so I really wouldn't be surprised if it were authentic.

82 I don't quite get why they seemed so overwhelmed by the experience.

83

Santana
Beckett
Schilling
Dice-K
Buccholz

That's not fair. Just don't even play next season.

is the Dodgers top 10 out yet?

85 well, it was neat that they were open-minded enough to experiment... but i don't think they were overwhelmed by the quantity. it's just that 95% of the comments were absolute rubbish. fjm is better as a closed forum. you can email the guys if you have a really important point to make and if it's good they'll probably mention it. that way, everything is gold. i don't need another site with hundreds of comments to wade through. i can barely keep up with DT as it is :)

87 Tuesday morning, Nate. Expect to see large Minotaur pictures on BA.com.

86 schilling is on an age precipice though, and wouldn't buchholz be sent to the twins? still, santana and beckett on the same team with manny and ortiz is just not fair.

89

http://tinyurl.com/28vpul

I would laugh so hard...

90

apparently Buccholz isn't eve on the table. Its basically Ellsbury OR Lester, plus trash.

wouldn't buchholz be sent to the twins?

Nope, Lester is going. Buchholz is untouchable from I understand.

92 wow, santana really hurt the twins with his comments, didn't he. forced to trade within their league, for much inferior players. if you're the twins, wouldn't you rather have kershaw and ethier than lester plus filler?

Ned sounds like he has big plans for Elbert. I didn't know he was on the 2008 big league radar.

95 I really feel that the injuries to Elbert and Wolf doomed us as much as any other snafu that occurred last season.

wow, santana really hurt the twins with his comments, didn't he. forced to trade within their league, for much inferior players

That's what they get for giving him a no-trade clause. NTCs are a very bad idea from a team's standpoint.

77 If they have internet try webkinz.

http://www.webkinz.com/

I too was an expert on raising kids before my daughter was born.

84 - We pass out copies of our ultrasounds as Valentine's Day cards. This Christmas, I'm thinking of giving away my appendix to a truly special friend. Maybe Jodie Foster?

47

maybe we could have thrown in Guzman as well.

28
pfft..Pat's fans. -shakes head-

what was up with those refs anyways...terrible...

pfft more Pat's fans me thinks....

its ok though...Steelers gonna take it to them, just like when we broke their 20 something win streak, and just like we stuck it to the colts when they started out 13-0.

95

Upper management was pimping Elbert pretty good in spring training '07 & I think they mentioned if he didn't make it opening day he would definitely be a Sept call up but obviously things didn't pan out.

65 AHAHAHAHAHAHA

too true

Amen!

91
when i put in the link yahoo told me

"site may not exist"

ironic

Get he