83Gator

As for contraction...the players union will never go for it.? Think they fight hard against a salary cap?? Watch how tough they'd make it to cut 25 to 50 of their jobs. I'm surprised how often I read this. This is incorrect. The players union won't fight contraction because they've already agreed to it. It's in the current CBA. The owners have the right to contract 2 teams after the 2006 season. They have to notify the union that 2 teams are being contracted for the 2007 season, sometime between 4/1/2006 and 7/1/2006. It's in Article XV, Section H. I agree with you that if the owners can't find a place to move one team (the Expos), how are they going to find new places for two teams (the Expos and Marlins)? My fear is that the Expos will still not be moved by the end of 2005, at which point the owners will decide to just wait one more year and contract them, with the Marlins being a possible contraction partner. I don't think it will happen, because I think the Marlins will get a stadium here, but it is something that worries me.

I didn't think Nunez was competing against Banks anyways. He was competing against the guys that could play CF - Rios (gone last week) and Gerald Williams. Can Christenson play CF? I think this is better news for Lenny Harris.

Why the heck didn't they make a run at Chris Reitsma? I have no idea how we could have passed that up if we had the chance, especially having just watched the Braves improve their pen with Cruz the day before. No one has more respect for Beinfest and the people in the front office than me but Reitsma, sheeesh, that's disappointing to say the least. How do we know Beinfest didn't make a run at Reitsma? The Braves seem to have put together an attractive package. Maybe they outbid us.

I wouldn't beat up the Marlins too much for that trade. They got two arms that may still develop into useful major league pitchers in exchange for a pitcher, Redman, that we may have non-tendered anyway. The real problem was the overreaction by some of the fans who thought Neu was going to be the next big thing for no other reason than he was now a Marlin.

Also, all 5 of his Home Runs have come late in games off Minor League Pitching that will probably not even make the Majors. That's not true. Go read my post from earlier this morning if you want to see what pitchers he hit his homers off of. All are having bad springs so I think the homers are kinda tainted but Day and Weaver will be pitching in the majors. I do not think he'll make the team. I think he's going to be a useless major leaguer but I think he'll make the team. Between the lack of competition from Banks and Rios, the 5 HRs, he's out of options, and the fact we need somebody to play CF if Pierre gets hurt or needs a rest, he'll be on the team.

Nunez has hit his 5 HRs off Seung Song (twice), Jeff Weaver, Zach Day, and Duaner Sanchez. They have a combined ERA of 6.98 this spring and have given up 11 HRs in 49 innings. I don't think Nunez can hit real regular season pitching. He deserves a spot on the 2004 Major League roster because of the HRs, even against shaky pitching, and the lack of competition from Rios and Banks. But I don't think he's going to do anything in the majors and the way McKeon uses his bench, the #5 OF won't get a lot of playing time anyway. He's a great athlete - that doesn't mean he can play baseball at the major league level. There is nothing in his minor league stats, other than half a season last year (his third in AAA), that indicates he can hit major league pitching. Athleticism does not mean you can hit a baseball. If it did, Michael Jordan would be playing left field for the White Sox.

Isn't it just dislocated? And it's his pinky, on his throwing hand, meaning it's a negligible finger . It's his glove hand. They're afraid that there is significant ligament damage. They'll know more tomorrow when he gets back from the hand specialist. He's probably fine but they're speculating it could be as long as 6 weeks if they get bad news tomorrow. I imagine any trade involving Nunez is on hold for at least a couple of days.

That article says he's going to a hand specialist on Monday and if there is ligament damage, he could be out six weeks. This could be bad. We don't have a backup CF and Cordero doesn't help us like he can at 1B, 3B, LF, and RF (with some juggling). An injury to Pierre would mean Nunez, Gerald Williams, or Rios would be the regular CF for the first month of the season. April is tough enough with all the road games; I'd hate to go through it without Pierre. I'll feel better when Pierre gets back from the hand specialist.

Huizenga's problem was with the labor costs as much as the market. Once MLB lost the NLRB suit and the owners caved in during the 1994 strike, Huizenga realized there would never be a salary cap and he could never control his costs. He could maybe make money on the Marlins but he was never going to make a huge return on his investment; maybe he'd get X% ROI on the Marlins but he could get 3 times X% if he invested his capital in say, hotels. So he got out and, to help protect his cash cow the Dolphins, he attempted to ruin the baseball market in South Florida. With 5000 season tickets sold after a World Championship, the jury is still out on whether or not he succeeded. This team could never be what the Dolphins are because the Marlins would never be guaranteed a slice of a huge national TV revenue pool and, because there's no salary cap, they would never have player costs that were guaranteed to be less than the revenue.

Maddux signing with the Yankees doesn't bother me a bit. I'd much rather he sign with the Yanks than with the Cubs, Giants, Dodgers, or Cardinals where he could hurt us in a Wild Card race.

He had a spot on the A's last year, so I don't see any reason why he won't get the job here. The A's had to keep him on the big-league roster. He was a Rule 5 pickup so if they tried to send him to the minors, they would've had to offer him back to the Reds for $25,000 first. With a strong starting rotation and the DH rule, the A's could stash somebody in their bullpen that wouldn't have to do much. Neu was a low draft choice (29th round) but had some decent minor league numbers. His big problem seems to be throwing strikes - 5.6 BB per 9 IP last season. Surprisingly, his ERA and WHIP were quite a bit lower on the road last year, even though Oakland is a pitcher's park; it was a very small sample size though. If Fox and Benitez perform like they should, Neu should be just fine giving us an inning or so in the 6th or 7th inning of games.

if the marlins have a payroll of 47 million as of now ( w/o arbitration players), then we have more money and, I can give you link, something you obviously can't do: Here That $47 million is as bogus as the $90 million that Berardino kept throwing around all summer. That's for the players already under contract. It's only 17 players. One of the guys technically not under contract is Josh Beckett - he's not included in the 17. He'll make at least $2 million. When you add up the entire roster - including good guesses for the guys like Beckett, Cabrera, and Willis - it comes to about $53 million. Can you provide a link where anybody in the front office is quoted as saying the payroll is $60 million? Because I have yet to see one. All I've seen is conjecture in the press with quotes like "sources believe the Marlins payroll is $60 million."

DETROIT 12th??? MARLINS 15th????? WTF?????????? Why not? These aren't power rankings - they're rating off-season moves. The Tigers probably have done better to improve themselves since the end of the season. They've improved from historically terrible to simply terrible. We've gotten worse, going from the best team in baseball down to a good solid team who has a good shot at the postseason. We're still better than the Tigers. The Twins are ranked 27th. This is not a poll of relative strength to each other, just what each team has done compared to where they ended last season. We've gotten a little worse since the end of last season - any team that has stayed the same or gotten better will be ranked higher than us according to the parameters of the poll. Sometimes I think we're just too damn sensitive. I gotta admit I don't understand the Trend column. The Orioles are ranked forth because they added a lot of people but the Trend is Neutral.

from what espn insider says. The Marlins offer to Pudge, whether it was 3yrs 28 mil or 2 yrs with a 3rd option totalling to 24 mil is still on the table. Which from what there saying is that he can accept the deal. Cant Pudge still play with the team though? I mean i thought the rule was that the marlins cant negotiate with pudge untill May 1st. So if he accepts the marlins former offer wouldnt he be able to play opening dat? Nope. He can't sign the deal with the Marlins until May 1st. Here's the wording from the CBA: If the former Club of the free agent does not so offer [arbitration], it shall not be entitled and shall all rights to negotiate with, and sign, the free agent, until the succeeding May 1.

The Marlins offered Pudge 3 years at $28 million? I thought it was 2 years and $16 million with a vesting option for a third year to make the total a possible 3 years, $24 million. Personally I wouldn't believe any of this, especially if they got the Marlins offer wrong. It's all just rumors and conjecture. For every article you can find that says Pudge is probably coming back, I can probably find one that says he's most likely not. The difference is my articles has quotes from actual front office people, like Admin Beinfest. The 5,000 season ticket part of the story was obviously influenced by LeBatard's article on Friday.

He's going to the Pirates as a non-roster invitee ... http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ap-p...ov=ap&type=lgns

This looks like just more speculation from a writer (Berardino) who's out of the loop on things. There were two other articles out today - one mentioned that Boras is making a counteroffer to the Tigers and the other says that the Mariners may have interest in Pudge now that they have some extra cash. I'd put more stock in either of those articles than anything Berardino can come up with. It was fun while it lasted with Pudge, but it's way past time to move on.

I meant the actual ballpark. the improvements due to code brought up the cost. Okay, but what about your PNC Park comparison? We're way short there too. Do you really believe you can build a stadium for $210 million in Dade County if you haven't yet acquired any land?

I checked two sources and they have it at $215 million, but the difference was the special seawalls and earthquake proofing that is needed in the China Basin, but not here in Florida. Okay - sorry. But the source you provided the link to said $255 million as did your total math numbers. They still need the land. If they could build a stadium for $210 million, why don't they?

Well, SBC Park was built with private funds at a cost of $215 million. Why can't the Marlins build an open air ballpark in Dade County like SBC Park with what they have already? All they need is to call HOK, have them find land and form a financing plan. SBC Park was $255 million, not $215 million. So the Marlins are still $45 million short and that's before the cost of acquiring land.

Hey 83Gator, here are some picks for you. The picks I made in the PreSeason. Almost Dead on to what they ended up as. heres my link, no edits nothing... Phlub - I don't care. I don't care anything you have to say about much of anything, including football picks. You're a Twins fan on a Marlins board, so your baseball opinions don't really interest me because you're incredibly partial. Your football picks don't interest me because you cheated here so I'm not even going to waste my time checking your links or reading your picks. There's only one thing about you that interests me - why'd you cheat here on your picks? And after being caught (twice) how come you keep coming back? Most people would be too ashamed.

The regular season game has come to an end.? The winner is: 83Gator :cheers CONGRATULATIONS!!? :notworthy Thank you. But I have a confession to make - all I did was pick the favorite in every single game. I put no thought into any of my picks and there was absolutely no skill involved. I wanted to see if any of us were good enough to be right about upsets more than we were wrong. My own "real" picks on Yahoo were not as good ... My Yahoo Picks Also, in case anybody is interested, picking the home team in every game would've given somebody a 157-99 record, which would've placed 5th in our standings. So, as far as I'm concerned, Das really won the football picking game. Also, just to give my opinion on a couple of big debates that have gone on here over the season: GiantsInNever and Phlub - grow up. Quit try to make up excuses to change the rules in the middle of the game. I noticed as soon as somebody passed you both in winning percentage, y'all dropped the campaign to change the rules. Phlub - quit cheating. You did it twice. Once in the first week of the season when you left out a game and tried to edit it in when the week was over. Once late in the season, when you switched your picks on Atlanta/Tampa. What were you trying to do? It's a game. If you need to win that damn badly, set up your own private Yahoo Football Pool group where you're the only member. Maybe you can win in that one. In fact, I bet you can go undefeated. Can you at least tell me what the point of trying to cheat was? Did you see what Das did in the last week? He got his picks in a little late. But instead of saying he "would've" picked the Pats like the rest of the world did, he left them off his pick sheet - that's the way to play the game. If you're going to join a friendly contest like this, either play fair or don't play at all. Thanks again and congratulations Das, both on picking the most winners on your own and for playing fair.

NFC WILDCARD Dallas Cowboys over Carolina Panthers Seattle Seahawks over Green Bay Packers DIVISIONAL ROUND Philadelphia Eagles over Dallas Cowboys St. Louis Rams over Seattle Seahawks NFC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME Philadelphia Eagles over St. Louis Rams AFC WILDCARD Tennessee Titans over Baltimore Ravens Denver Broncos over Indianoplis Colts DIVISIONAL ROUND (Jan. 10-11) New England Patriots over Denver Broncos Tennessee Titans over Kansas City Chiefs AFC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME Tennessee Titans over New England Patriots SUPER BOWL XXXVIII Philadelphia Eagles over Tennessee Titans 5

If you have an office, you use it for business.? You don't go to a guy's home after midnight to fire him (and then lock him out of the Stadium the next day.)? Very shabby at best. This is kind of a pointless argument because it's been made so many times so long ago, but the Front Office guys were between a rock and a hard place. The news was out so they had to meet with him as soon as possible. Of course, it was the Front Office's fault that the news was out. I'm with you, BW - it was done very poorly and was a classless act by our Front Office. Our Front Office has done a lot of things right but this wasn't one of them. I don't fault Arnsberg for having had a few drinks on his own time and I don't fault him for getting angry. We should've kept that information to ourselves and shown him a little more respect, no matter how Arnsberg behaved. I've had to fire a few people in my life, and while they've always handled it well, I've been prepared to deal with bad reactions. You have to be calm and just let them vent and try to get them back on point, which is the actual separation. BTW, people are very often fired outside of the office. It actually can save them some embarrassment as they have to walk the gauntlet to the front door. Our Front Office made the right decision but executed it really badly. But I don't think they were guilty of an "ambush". I don't think they called Arnsberg and said "hey let's talk about next week rotation" and then fired him instead.

I think the point he is tryin to make is that he got fired at home, not many people do. Usually its at workplace itself. I was responding more to the "Loria and Beinfest didn't show up after midnight to "chat." IMO they went there to fire him..." line. That sounded to me like BenchWarmer was implying that Loria/Beinfest went to Arnsberg's apartment under false pretenses. I also never got the impression that Arnsberg was fired in front of his family. I also thought he was in his apartment alone. I don't know why I thought that, just an assumption I made - I never heard one way or another.