Vic Sage

Molina, Hernandez, DeLuca, or Hall. The only name on that list i'd be happy about is Hernandez. The others have more downside and less upside.

Griffey took less to go to Cinncy. Paul O'Neil took less to stay in NY. It happens plenty. Not necessarily out of altruism, or sentimentality, but out of practicality. Moving your family is a huge pain in the ass, and taking your kids out of 1 school and putting them in another can be devastating for them. Some guys just like to work near where they live, rather than have to live where they work. Sure, all things being equal, money talks loudest. But all things are rarely equal.

ditto.

no discussion of the fantasy league should take place on the main baseball forum, especially during the season. It will piss off and alienate all those who are not participating, including some who have "issues" with fantasy leagues, like our own Edgy Train.

]What should have to do with it, though, is whether the player is personally responsible for winning games: clutch hits, walk-off home runs, game-saving defensive plays, that kind of thing. but that, too, is the fallacy of the last straw. "clutch" is a function of sample size, not an innate character trait, until data studies prove otherwise; walk-off HRs are worth no more than the HRs hit earlier in the game; game-saving defensive plays may occur in the first inning, and recognized only in retrospect, and are not quantifiable except in the most subjective of analyses. I agree that an MVP is more than just stats, but the further afield from quantifiable production that you go in considering other aspects of what makes someone the "best player", the greater the burden of proving such criteria are legitimate.

A "list draft" is also a snake draft with Yahoo. People can certainly make their lists, and Yahoo pre-ranks the players, too, so those that don't have the time or inclination to participate can use the "auto-draft", but players should still be permitted to participate, if they choose, and draft "manually", as it were. There really is only 2 choices: Auction or Snake.

IMO, H-2-H makes no sense in fantasy baseball. I'd be unlikely to participate if you end up using that system.

I'd recommend * position eligibility of at least 15 games; * a cap on IP no less than 162 x 9; * short waiting periods for trades and FA pickups;

The fewer roster slots, the more that skill is rewarded over luck, and the more that active players are favored over inactive ones. I generally play with an active roster of 23 +1 DL slot, allocated as follows: Lineup -- C, 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, CI, MI, LF, CF, RF, DH = 11 (sometimes a UT instead of CI/MI; sometimes OFx3 rather than specific positions) Rotation -- SP, SP, RP, RP + 3 more pitchers = 7 (sometimes no specified slots) Bench -- pitchers or hitters = 5 (sometimes 3, depends on # of teams) I think it's very important to have no more than 1 DL slot since GMs should be forced to make hard decisions about whom to hoard and whom to give up on.

when Sondheim does it, he's underscoring brilliant lyrics that define character and advance the story. When Larson did it, it seemed because he was practically clueless as to how to advance a story through song and merely served to point out the banality of his lyrics.

"recetitive"? Sorry for spelling. It's "recitative". rec·i·ta·tive: n. In both senses also called recitativo. 1. A style used in operas, oratorios, and cantatas in which the text is declaimed in the rhythm of natural speech with slight melodic variation and little orchestral accompaniment. 2. A passage rendered in this style. -------------------------------------------------------- It's a word often used to describe passages in a musical that are primarily non-melodic and expository musical material, where dialogue is sung through. Common in scores by Webber and Boublil-Shonberg. To the extent RENT is an opera, such passages are customary. To the extent RENT is a Broadway pop musical, its a lot of noodling around.

]This gets me into the definition of most valuable.To me, its is the player who helped his team most, and if he weren't in their lineup, how well would they have done. This is one of those discussions that drives me crazy. IMO, the notion that an MVP is based on the type of team he plays on is ludicrous. When Branch Rickey said to Kiner, "we finished last with you, we can finish last without you", did that provide any basis for understanding the kind of player Kiner was, relative to every other player in the NL that year? Was it Kiner's fault he played on such a bad team that his Herculean performance couldn't lift the team out of the cellar? Most winning teams have a guy that, for a multitude of reasons (including "intangibles" like charisma and leadership), would be considered "most valuable" by the players on that team. Certainly Jeter is seen that way by Yankme fans and the media, and he had a lot to do with his team making the playoffs. Of course, his contributions would've been meaningless this year without the more productive 2-way play of the 3bman playing next to him. So giving Jeter the credit is the logical fallacy of over-crediting "the last straw". If the MVP is simply that "special guy" on the best team of a given year, then the players of the division-winning teams should each nominate 1 guy, and then the players should vote for the MVP from amongst such nominees. But that was not why the MVP was created. It was created in a more literate and literary era, when a phrase like "most valuable" was merely a way to say "the best", because how could the best player NOT be the most valuable one? This is borne out by the early voting history of the award, where it was often given to players on non-championship teams. It was only later that the illiterati decided to apply a narrower construction, and it became more difficult for great players on losing teams to be given due consideration for the award. Now, there is an "Aaron Award" or something, that, theoretically, goes to the best hitter in each league. I believe it was created, in part, to repair the problem created by the MVP voters who created their own self-imposed limitations on MVP eligibility by making team success a significant criteria for the award. But this new award is of such low stature and visibility, and is equally limited in its definition (insofar as it ignores defense and "intangibles" that should otherwise go into a discussion of the BEST PLAYER AWARD), as to fail in its objective. The Aaron is equivalent to a Silver Slugger, without a positional component. The MVP is a "BEST PLAYER IN THE LEAGUE" award... and team performance should be irrelevant to such a discussion. It's about picking the MOST VALUABLE player in baseball, not most valuable to a particular team. If you put Jeter, Papi and A-Rod up for auction (assuming economic rationality on the part of the bidders), do you really doubt that A-Rod would go for the highest price? What do you think that has to say about relative "value"?

RENT is a lame musical. The score has about 3 or 4 songs worth hearing, in its pseudo-rock/Broadway style. The rest is either recetitive, or worse. The book is ludicrous... a rehash of La Boheme, with whiny, pathetic characters and an absurd last-minute resurrection that made me laugh out loud. The director's staging was dreadful... most numbers ended up with the performers proclaiming some simple-minded idea or emotion directly at the audience, standing in a line at the foot of the stage. There is no choreography that i can recall. The design elements are community theater level. I've no idea why this show was a hit, except that the 42ND STREET-style death of the author just before the Broadway opening gave it all kinds of attention that this flawed, off-Broadway show wouldn't have otherwise had. Also, it attracted a young audience that Broadway didn't normally get, with such inexperienced audiences unencumbered by taste. I am curious, however, to see how it transfers to film. Maybe the director found a way to make it cinematic in a way that the stage director failed to make it theatrical.

i was disappointed. One of the best elements of the screenplay was its rich language, but then of course the language was written by Murrow, not Clooney. The performances, the cinematography, Murrow's writing, and the importance of the story, all contribute to the film being above average. However, the script's structure leaves much to be desired, IMO. when you are telling about a historical event of relatively recent (ie, last 50 years) vintage, where the outcome is fairly well known, you've got to find dramatic devices to make the conflict compelling. In APOLLO 13, Ron Howard was successful by focusing on the "how", not the "what", and you ended up getting caught up in a story that you already knew the ending to. Here, Clooney needed to focus on the "why", but too much attention was focused on the "what" and "how". Since the conflict between Murrow and McCarthy is never dramatized (because its just a series of alternating monologues), you need something else to be at the dramatic center. Clooney tries, by framing the story with Murrow's speech about the power of TV and its misuse for mere entertainment, but speeches are not drama. And the language, as powerful as it is, was not in the screenplay... its the words of Murrow, reiterated. If he just wanted to use existing footage and existing transcripts, Clooney might've been better of making a documentary. This "docu-drama", while still worth seeing, is slow, ponderous, inert and lacking in dramatic tension or development.

Kooz Mex Mookie Hojo Kranepool ...with a special mention to Tim Leary, for teaching me a valuable lesson about the cruelty of fate.

Edgy: ]I dislike the Mets uniform two days in three. so what happens on the 3rd day? The Midol starts to kick in?

Yancy: ]I do like seeing them get great players, and I'd much rather see them win than lose, but I wonder if we're going to far, if we're getting to a point where we're rooting for a bunch of strangers. Yancy, they're all strangers. You ever been out to dinner with a Met? Any of them ever bring the cranberry sauce to your T'giving dinner? Why don't fans get the fact that what we are rooting for is the UNIFORM... players come and go, management changes... the only constant is the team's name and the history it evokes. I've rooted for such Mets batteries as Seaver and Grote, Swan and Stearns, Ed Lynch and Hodgie, Doc and the Kid, Viola and Sasser, Sabes and Hundley, Leiter and the Pizza Man, and Pedro and Castro. And I'll root for Vasquez and Ramon Hernandez next season, if it comes to that, without skipping a beat. And if that combo gets us closer to a championship than Heilmann to Heitpas, I'm fine with that. I'm as sentimental as the next guy, but lets not over-romanticize the kids. Some kids turn out to be Mr. Wright, but most turn out to be Floyd Youmans. That being said, I agree with Rottweiler. We don't really NEED Manny anymore, not like we did before the Delgado trade, so I don't see the necessity of giving up Milledge. Unlike young pitchers (who can blow up at a moment's notice) 5-tool CFers who've actually produced at each stop in the minors (unlike "prospects" like ryan thompson or Alex Escobar who were mostly "potential", not "production") are diamonds to be surrendered under the direst of circumstances. This is not such a circumstance. If we can get Manny for Nady and other prospects, I'd be okay with it (even with the salary and the headaches). But Milledge is a keeper, like Wright and Reyes, and you only move him if absolutely necessary. Furthermore, this is Floyd's last season and, given his injury history, he is as likely to end up on the DL for a substantial period as he is to repeat this past season's performance. Milledge is the heir apparent, and is likely to get a callup this season.... maybe September, but maybe sooner, if Floyd goes down. Lets just overpay for Wagner, sign Ramon and go into ST with an open competition at 2B and RF. I'm good with that.

My lawyer, Matt Murdock, advises me to vote for a: - Free Yahoo league - 5x5 Rotisserie-style - snake draft - MLB/ all players available I don't draft Yankees as a rule, so it won't effect me, one way or the other. I just can't stand rooting for any of VonSteingrabber's Luftwaffen.

the TITTS say "yea, verily, yea!"

But of course that says more about you than about Senor Benitez.

Hey, Omar! I'd be all smiles if the Mets signed Giles his age is no reason to blow it this season and just check your facts ain't no luxury tax! you win the race by gettin' on base And we'd be flyin' if we had Brian I'll get in your face and stay on your case until you stack cash in piles and go sign Brian Giles

There you go again, Frayedy cat... FACTS. Always with the facts. What do facts have to do with anything?!!

MIKEJACOBSMIKEJACOBSMIKEJACOBSMIKEJACOBS! hello? hello? is this thing on? hello?

edgy, a "bergman spoof" sounds like a Woody Allen movie.

they playwright didn't like the adaptation... and he wrote it!