The Man in Blak

I think Randy Flores and Tyler Johnson have a fair chance of outperforming Ray King next year, especially if King continues to throw the flat slider that he was wielding in 2005. The problem is that everybody else knew that the Cardinals had no trade leverage with King. Aaron Miles is an absolute mess of a player, slick with the glove, but can't swing a bat or run the bases to save his life. I'd rather have Luna at SS and move Eckstein to second, than have Aaron Miles soak up 200 plate appearances as the redbird second baseman, but Tony will probably invent ways to fit Miles into the lineup, probably even throwing him out in left field every once in a while. Larry Bigbie is a passable third outfielder, exceptionally strong fourth outfielder, but he desperately needs to bounce back to be of any worth to St. Louis. Neither player fills the holes that the Cardinals have in the starting lineup, but at least they're filling up spots on the 25 man roster. The Cardinals are in the midst of having a terrible offseason, compounded by the maddening inability to offer Grudzielanek arbitration (clause in his contract) and their quixotic run at A.J. Burnett. The window for contention may be closing for St. Louis quicker than they thought.

Wilkerson for Soriano is an ugly deal for the Nationals. Sledge for Soriano is an ugly deal for the Nationals. Wilkerson, Sledge, and a PTBNL for Soriano is a catastrophe. And any trade leverage that Washington had with Vidro is toast too, now that other teams know the Nats are in a jam. Excellent work all around by Jimmy B.

Of course, major league hitters may get more of an extended look at them this year and they could regress in a hurry, once the scouting report gets passed around. It's hard to tell with small sample sizes and young pitchers.

Okay, the Marte for Renteria deal was ridiculous enough. If they're talking Marte and Saltalamacchia (presumably the "phenom" catching prospect), this might as well come off of SOSH, it's so ridiculous. Another note about Soriano - somebody mentioned that his home/road splits were an aberration, as he performed well during his Yankee years. While it's true that his home/road splits were much better back then, there was/is a lot of statistical evidence that strongly suggests that Soriano may not have been able to maintain that level of performance (K/BB ratio, K/PA, dipping SLG before last year). There is a possibility that the ballpark in Texas masked a declining skill set, one that may dip further in pitcher-friendly Dodger Stadium. And Al has already mentioned his defense, which has to be seen to be believed. Though, if that LA/Soriano deal were to come to pass, it would put the A-Rod trade in an awfully funny light, wouldn't it? Let's trade one of the top three best players in baseball to the Yankees (and pay them to keep him on their roster, no less) for a couple of seasons of Soriano and a relief pitching prospect.

I'm googling for Walt Jocketty's cell phone right now. If they're willing to take Kris Frickin' Benson for Affeldt and MacDougal, then Walt needs to stick his nose into this trade. If this deal goes as it stands, the Mets could come out as big-time winners. MacDougal might be a little unstable but, when he's on, there's nobody in the league that can hit him. (I believe the story goes that, in 2003, he struck out Frank Thomas, Albert Pujols, and Barry Bonds - all of them looking.) And Affeldt is just talent that's dying to get out of Kansas City, where they've bent over backwards to screw his career up. Kris Benson is a league average starter at best with alarmingly bad peripherals. He could very well put up a 5.00 spot with that defense behind him, maybe even worse if DeJesus gets hurt again. Why the Royals are even considering trading for him, especially since he's married to a PR vortex of suck, is truly beyond me.

Depends on how much of it can be insured, should Burnett suffer another arm injury. I actually think it's a pretty good deal for the Jays, who have money to burn and a need to re-establish themselves as a destination in the market. I'll gladly pay a $4 million premium to get a starter of Burnett's caliber over somebody like Loaiza, and the length of the contract could turn out to be a positive, if salaries continue to inflate over the next couple of years. The 4/44 package that's being dangled for Millwood looks to be a worse deal, in my opinion.

Case in point: Mark Grudzielanek (Though that's more a case of health versus quality, but whatever.)

As long as Jones comes with a cheap price tag ($3-5 million), I think he wouldn't hurt terribly at a corner. Sure, he's not the most optimal solution, but he plays decent defense out in right field, and he has some pop and speed. The OBP scares me, but stranger things have happened to average-driven guys that sign with St. Louis (see also: Womack, Tony and Eckstein, David).

It doesn't seem right to have to buy a new video card for Civilization. How does it compare to Alpha Centauri? (My personal favorite in the series.)

Were they paying all $90 million of that, though? I thought they had some money deferred to other teams (Sosa) that pushed their actual payroll expenditures to around the $80 million mark. If that's not the case, then yeah, I stand corrected. And the only reason I called them "mid-market" is because I thought they were in the $70-80 range.

That would be a tremendous trade for the A's from a pure talent perspective, but where do they put Bradley in the OF, since Kotsay is entrenched at center? Are there rumblings that they will move Kotsay for another bat? There's just way too much disparity in payrolls for a cap to even be effective; there are teams swimming around the $30-40 million mark, which would be close to a 50% cut for midmarket teams like the Cubs or Padres, and even larger for the big fish like the Yankees, Red Sox, and Mets. I think revenue sharing is the way to go, but I'd like to see more regulation on how those funds are distributed. Of course, that would require the books of every MLB franchise to be readily available for audit and that's not happening anytime soon.

I think you're downplaying what the Mets have picked up. Wagner is one of the top ten relievers out there and, when healthy, is arguably as good as anybody you'll find in the league. And if you think Carlos Delgado is only slightly better than Michael Jacobs, then I'll just ask you to give me a call if/when Jacobs throws down a .301/.399/.582 line with 33 home runs in the next three years and I'll buy you a drink. Delgado hits and even if he "only" hits .285/.375/.490 with 25 taters next year, that'll probably double what they could have expected from Jacobs, who played over his head for 100 big league at-bats last year. Not only that, but the holes that they fill on the Mets are huge: this team played Chris Woodward at first for a good portion of the year last year. The bullpen, Looper specifically, was an eyesore for much of the season. I can't defend the Lo Duca deal (one of the worst deals of the offseason) and the dollars for Wagner were a bit absurd, but it's not like the Mets have pissed away their offseason.

Continuing from the last thread, Loretta for Wells is a terrible, terrible deal. That's got to be from the "made up to fill a column" pile.

Okay, so any guesses on what the Florida payroll is going to look like at the end of this offseason? $25 million? $15 million? I mean, come on. Castillo's actually a good value per salary, and he's a free agent after next year anyway - why trade him now, unless you're just intent on gutting the entire roster?

He also walked a ridiculous amount when he got to the majors. I remember him being the guy Dusty would bring in if the game was close and wanted to get fans all nervous by having the other team load the bases via the walk. He had nearly a 3:1 K/BB ratio in the minors leading up to his major league stint, so I wouldn't expect him to post three times as many walks as strikeouts again. Personally, I think this is a great move for Boston. The PTBNL is a marginal giveaway for the Sox and, after a little bit of seasoning in Pawtucket, he could potentially contribute later this season. Sure, he's a little old for prospect status, but posting a 1.98 ERA in the PCL with 65 strikeouts in 54.2 innings ain't easy.

Isn't it a little redundant to be an administrator named Admin anyway?

I don't know if it's already been said, but Base Wars, man.

Part of the problem behind this is that many of the current purveyors of the genre (classical radio, metropolitan symphonies) are overly focused on snatching the common music listener, so much so that they just flood the air with The Standards (Beethoven, Bach, Mozart) and just discard a lot of the other more interesting music. If you're fed a steady diet of those three, with little sprinkles of Brahms or whatever, then hell yeah, it all sounds the same. Sometimes you'll see somebody crank out "Rite of Spring" or maybe some Webern or Bartok, but it's all too rare.

*** Mentions of the IWC and "recapturing the magic"? Looks like a Perfectly Acceptable Message Board Goodbye to me. (And I should know.)

X-Wing Alliance could have had a huge multiplayer rush, if everybody wasn't so dedicated to XvT when it was launched. As it is, it's my favorite Star Wars game of all time.

I didn't see that this has been posted any where, so I thought I'd mention it: mySQL query error: DELETE FROM ibf1_sessions WHERE member_id=722 mySQL error: Can't open file: 'ibf1_sessions.MYI' (errno: 145) mySQL error code: Date: Monday 28th of November 2005 08:25:38 AM After about five minutes, I was able to access the board like I have in the past. I'm viewing the board through Firefox on Windows XP Professional.

Haikus are sooooo 2003. And yeah, I think plenty of people are overreacting. On both sides.

Quoted For Truth. Very obscure 'net slang.

1. FFVI - I think OSIcon's comments essentially nailed my sentiments about this game. This game might have my favorite music from the series as well (FFIV Celtic Moon excepted). 2. FFT - If we're counting Tactics, then I feel it definitely belongs up here with the best in the series. It's still the defining "Tactics" game, the music is fantastic, and the plotline is surprisingly complex. 3. FFIV - Though FFVI has the complete package for me, I enjoy the battles in FFIV the most through the series because there's some actual strategy involved behind the system, due to the strict class system. It's a sentimental favorite. 4. FFX - One of the better games in the franchise, but one of the lesser plotlines. Yuna and Auron are good characters, but Tidus is the most annoying protagonist in the history of the series, Uematsu's musical ride into the sunset is probably the low point for the series, and the storyline drives off a cliff in the final third of the game. That aside, the sphere grid, the turn-based system, and Blitzball go a long way for this game. 5. FFVII - The first third of the game is outstanding and can stand alongside with the best of the series. As the game progresses, though, the plot becomes more insane, and the lack of depth in the battle system is exposed. The graphics haven't aged well, but the orchestral swell behind the overworld music just might represent Uematsu's finest work. 6. FFIX - If you take out the last third of this game and remove Zidane's WTF origin moment, pseudo time compression, and the super pathetic final boss, this is a great game and it ranks as the best PS1 offering. As it stands, it comes up short of FFVII and, no matter how much I want to like this game (it is my personal favorite of the PS1 games), it still feels like a disappointment years later. 7. FFV - Finally, the job system done right. 8. FFVIII - Undoubtedly, the best mini-game ever. The graphics have also aged remarkably well. And the plot has some spice until (say it with me) it completely falls off the wagon in the final third of the game. But, god damn, I've got to have a game to play here and the GFs and Junction system single handedly wreck the game and put the franchise in a tight spot. 9. FFI - Let's be realistic: the plotline is nothing to write home about, the combat system isn't really that remarkable ("ineffective", time and time again), and there are stretches in this game where you just want to set your NES on fire. The different classes are a nice touch, but it just allows for variations on a mediocre theme; Dawn of Souls did a nice job of dressing this game up. 10. FFX-2. An absolute turd and the only North American FF that I couldn't bring myself to finish. Seems like it was designed to piss off longtime fans of the series. Mission accomplished. 11. FFII - It's virtually unplayable. That's it, that's all I got. I actually haven't played FFIII enough to really bring forth an opinion, but if you had to push me to a ratings, it'd be at 11, pushing FFII to the bottom.

I haven't checked into this thread in a while but, looking back, I probably should have relented a little bit on my No Mercy vs. Eternal Darkness argument. My opinion of No Mercy is probably skewed from the reaction that I've observed to the game here, as well as in other wrestling communities, so I probably tend to overrate it. I'm still holding to my guns that the N64 was a more significant console than the Gamecube, but I will concede that it's because I put a lot more stock in the innovation factor, probably more than most. It was okay, but not nearly as fun as the first two. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> That's an understatement, in my opinion. The alien design fell off of a cliff in Apocalypse, moving from Lovecraftian nightmares to these pastel-covered lumps that look like they emerged from an easy bake oven. The fact that you could recruit scientists with different specialties was a plus, but the real-time engine was a disappointment and it adversely affected the turn-based gameplay, since the game seemed to be balanced off of real-time play. The first two games in the series are phenomenal, though. I've still got Terror From The Deep from the X-Com Collector's Edition installed on my laptop. There's an X-Com multiplayer mod out there too that you might want to check out, if you're a fan. And yeah, System Shock 2 is an amazing game, even though I think I might like its "sequel", Deus Ex, that much more.