Friday Links (4 Jan 08)

Got the coffee flowing, music playing: Massive Attack, Groove Collective, and George Benson if anyone cares. The Benson is his The Other Side of Abbey Road, which is full of Beatles songs and which absolutely sizzles. His guitar lines are so fluid, it’s disgusting. I mean, he’s not Joe Pass or Grant Green, but still. Apparently Benson recorded his album just three weeks after the actual Abbey Road was released. How sick is that?

Anyway, you come here for the baseball. Very well, then, let’s get to it:

Finally, thanks for all the suggestions regarding PadreBlogs.com. An aggregator is at the top of my list; I’m evaluating a few tools, but the book is priority #1 right now, so testing and implementation may take a while. Unless, of course, someone with mad skillz would like to volunteer their services. :-)

Oh, and be sure to vote in the spring training meetup poll to let us know which dates work best for you. Happy Friday!

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91 Responses »

  1. 50 … thanks for the link … good one … must read, even!

    The first thing in there that stood out for me was his comment about KK … “There is no doubt in my mind that he’ll stay at 3B” … which seems like a strong statement … given the presence of Chase Headley …

  2. 50: Good interview. Thanks for the link.

    A support for Trammell, who should be in the HoF, in this link:

    http://www.nysun.com/article/68941

  3. 49: I don’t think that the FO would reconsider getting Bonds in LF. The public outrage against that move would be very damaging. I still don’t want Bonds here.

    The public as a general rule are very hard to sway to change their minds so I don’t think it will be as easy as you think to get them to support a Padres team that includes him on the roster even with recent revelations.

    Look at how hard it is to convince the fanbase that the Padres are doing more with less by winning since moving to Petco without succumbing to spending big dollars on FA. I still have friends who despise the FO since big money was not spent on FA this off-season (one went as far as cancelling the season tickets he’s had since the early 90′s). They think the Padres are not trying even when I mentioned the winning records in the past 4 seasons.

    In any case, getting a slugger for a LF is not a move that will improve the team as much as getting that competent #4 and #5 pitchers that are healthy. I’m still concerned with the rotation that’s relying on rehab projects so far. And in that, I’m just as irrational as my friends who prefer big name sluggers FA to my reliable back-end pitchers.

  4. re: 49

    Gee, thanks for giving me all my options. I actually have about a million options, but I won’t detail them here.

    I did not say that Bonds is still an outcast. He wasn’t even an outcast before, because of Canseco, Caminiti, etc. (Pete Rose, for example, would be an outcast.) My argument is that his steroid use is a bigger deal, about 100 times bigger, than these other players. In the case of McGwire, Sosa, Clemens, maybe not 100 times bigger than them. But I still think a bigger deal.

    I said in my previous post that I realize than McGwire and Sosa helped their careers more, in a way. I realize McGwire had the single-season home run record. But also pointed out that Bonds has the all-time record, what was arguably the most important record in sports.

    Maybe it does matter to some that many names were named in the report. It was certainly interesting. But anyone who has followed this controversy since the Caminiti story knew it was a widespread problem. The difference: We now know that F.P. Santangelo took PEDs, instead of just “a lot of players.”

    My overall point by saying what’s the point is: No, the Padres marketing department shouldn’t “be looking at” Bonds and how he would fair in San Diego as a personality. The image of Bonds has not changed, not one bit, I would argue. Alderson has said they won’t sign before and I don’t see how Clemens and a bunch of average players being revealed in the Mitchell Report would change that.

    Also, it seems we’ve taken quite a bit of time for you to say you were just criticizing my “approach.” Yes, you might not have liked how I said it — I don’t like about 15 things that happen everyday — but I have answered your question about Bonds in San Diego a few times now. So we’ve a discussion about it.

    What is the difference between a blog and just a sports web site? Just curious.