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MLB Off-Season 2011: Only a few more weeks until the radio talks about baseball again

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StudioTan

Hold on, friend! I'd love to share with you some swell news about the Windows 8 Metro UI! Wait, where are you going?
I know I'm going to be shat on here but...

I absolutely despise peanut butter, shit is disgusting. Seeing that hot dog makes me sick, especially seeing good bacon wasted like that.

You're not the only one, I hate peanut butter and it's amazing how in the minority I am. I just can't stand the smell. Yet I like salted peanuts, go figure.
 

RBH

Member
MLB.TV app available on Xbox 360 today:

Starting today, Xbox 360 owners can access content from cable giant Comcast, TV channel HBO and Major League Baseball.

Microsoft announced apps for entertainment services HBO Go, Xfinity and MLB.TV are available now to console owners. All three will take advantage of gesture and voice controls.


The HBO Go app adds the cable network's entire catalog on demand, featuring series such as Deadwood, Entourage and Game of Thrones.

"We've fully enabled the Kinect and (its) user experience including voice navigation," says Otto Berkes, senior vice president of HBO's Consumer Technology Group. "We tried to take full advantage of the functionality of Xbox."

The Xfinity app includes Comcast's On-Demand library, which features a variety of television shows and films, all searchable with either gestures or voice controls.

MLB.TV offers access to over 2,400 games and includes interesting touches such as the ability to shift to a splitscreen view to watch two games, then say "Switch" to flip between games.

http://content.usatoday.com/communi...s-hbo-mlb-comcast-to-xbox-live/1#.T3FSADG0zfd
 

XiaNaphryz

LATIN, MATRIPEDICABUS, DO YOU SPEAK IT
Giants' employee gets 21 months for embezzling $2.2 million:

A tearful San Francisco Giants payroll manager who admitted embezzling $2.2 million from the baseball team was sentenced to 21 months in federal prison Monday after a hearing in which the Giants opposed her request for leniency.

Robin O'Connor, 42, of American Canyon, who worked in the Giants' front office from 2007 until her arrest last July, pleaded guilty in November to defrauding the team by transferring money to her bank accounts in numerous transactions between June 2010 and June 2011.

She has paid back $960,000 and was ordered Monday to pay an additional $1.456 million to the Giants, which includes more than $200,000 for the team's costs of investigating her. She will also forfeit a 2011 BMW and a Ford pickup truck, which prosecutors said she bought with stolen money.

Federal sentencing guidelines called for a prison sentence of 33 to 41 months, and prosecutors sought 33 months.


But O'Connor's lawyer, Rita Bosworth, an assistant federal public defender, argued for probation and a year of house arrest. She said the crime was an aberration, O'Connor is deeply remorseful, and her husband would take the couple's autistic 6-year-old son and his 5-year-old brother to his native England if his wife went to prison.

O'Connor, her voice shaking, apologized to the court, her family and friends, and the Giants, "an organization that I loved." But a lawyer for the team argued for a longer sentence, saying O'Connor had betrayed the Giants' trust and was slow to admit her thefts.

"The Giants contest very, very strongly that (O'Connor) has accepted responsibility," said attorney Sharon Bunzel. She said the former payroll manager caused "a fair amount of havoc" for the team and still hasn't accounted for more than $500,000.

U.S. District Judge James Ware imposed the 21-month sentence recommended by the court's probation office, saying the crime was too serious to avoid imprisonment. He gave O'Connor until June 11 to turn herself in.
 

JambiBum

Member
Lady probably couldn't stop once she started and didn't get caught at first. So many people who commit any crime where large amounts of money are involved just don't know when to stop. Although I wonder what she was getting paid if she had the motivation to start embezzling.
 

eznark

Banned
I don't have a problem with this at all. The Brewers have seen some dark days at C, so maintaining long-term stability there will be nice.

Do we have numbers yet? I like Lucroy, nice little catcher, so I'm happy with the extension as long as the numbers are reasonable. We don't have a whole lot in the pipeline. Maldonado was great last year with the bat but is questionable at best behind the plate. He's also 24, so the PCL-inflated numbers of last year are probably his high water mark. We have a couple of low-upside options in Lucroy and Maldonado so you may as well sign one. I'd rather have a consistent guy behind the plate than rotate in a new, broken down vet every two years.
 

h3ro

Member
Just a heads up, y'all. We're gonna have to tone down the back and forth's between long time posters a bit.

FMT just got a ban (a short one, according to Hito in the NFL thread, but a ban none the less) for this:

FrenchMovieTheme said:
and yet alex posted the best QB rating against your D in the post season AND had a better rating than eli in the game! you didn't win that game because of alex, you won it because of kyle williams and nothing else you dumb BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITCH!
Post link

We need to be a more careful with language and 'personal attacks' I guess. Fair enough, and it was cool of Hito to come into the thread and explain what was up.

I'd hate to lose a long time poster over some banter so close to the start of the season.
 

Jon

Member
True or false:

1) The Nationals will win more games than the Marlins

2) The Royals will win more games than the Twins

3) The Mets will win more games than Athletics

Andddd...go.
 

darkside31337

Tomodachi wa Mahou
Just to follow up on what eznark was talking about, it's some pretty messed up shit. Some snippets from the article:

In a raw new memoir, Mets pitcher R.A. Dickey reveals that he was sexually abused as an eight-year-old, and later lived with so much anger and shame that he contemplated suicide just a few years before signing with the Mets.

Dickey writes about closing down Nashville barrooms with his mother at age five, sleeping in abandoned houses as a teenager, swimming with alligators and turning to sports in an effort to mitigate the pain brought on by the sexual abuse.

In the memoir, Dickey writes of repeated abuse by a female babysitter, and one instance perpetrated by a 17-year-old boy.

“I felt dirty, I felt ashamed and alone, and I felt there was something terribly wrong with me," Dickey says. He kept the secret for almost 25 years, not even telling his wife, Anne, until they were married for eight years.
 

eznark

Banned
While an obviously horrible story, I think it's pretty well bullshit that he blames cheating on his wife on getting abused as an 8 year old but whatever, she bought it so good for him.
 

Jon

Member
I think the answer is True to all three.

I really don't see how the Marlins will recoup 8+ wins with this team, passing an improved Washington team. Provided Zimmerman and Strasburg stay healthy, Werth plays above replacement level, and the continued progression of Espinosa and Ramos, they should absolutely finish above 500. They will feast on the Mets and Marlins in the division, and they beat the Phillies 10 times I believe last year, so I think they are on track for a big year.

Kansas City will finish better than the Twins, because, I mean...isn't 2012 the year they've been waiting for?

As for the Mets, all LOLs aside, they will definitely best the As. They will hopefully have a contributing Santana, which can't hurt matters, and an improving Jon Niese. Big Pelf might get released this season, which can't hurt matters either. But hey, I am asking a lot for the Mets to stay relatively healthy and not have Davis and Murphy succumb to colon cancer. If they can play 130 games each, the Mets can win 80 games.
 

BFIB

Member
Just read the RA Dickey piece. Holy shit, glad he was able to cope with what he went through. Thats some messed up shit.

Oh, and:

True
True
False

I'm still picking the Nats for the NL East this year.
 

darkside31337

Tomodachi wa Mahou
I think the answer is True to all three.

I really don't see how the Marlins will recoup 8+ wins with this team, passing an improved Washington team. Provided Zimmerman and Strasburg stay healthy, Werth plays above replacement level, and the continued progression of Espinosa and Ramos, they should absolutely finish above 500.

Espinosa was a hot pile of garbage the second half of last season. He hasn't looked any better this spring training. It's been massive regression, not progression.

If Josh Johnson stays healthy then I think the Marlins have a decent shot of making the playoffs. He won't though.
 

BFIB

Member
Out of the new managers for 2012, which do you see lasting the longest with their new team?

Ozzie Guillen-Miami
Mike Matheny-St. Louis
Bobby Valentine-Boston
Dale Sveum-Chicago
Robin Ventura-White Sox
 
Do we have numbers yet? I like Lucroy, nice little catcher, so I'm happy with the extension as long as the numbers are reasonable. We don't have a whole lot in the pipeline. Maldonado was great last year with the bat but is questionable at best behind the plate. He's also 24, so the PCL-inflated numbers of last year are probably his high water mark. We have a couple of low-upside options in Lucroy and Maldonado so you may as well sign one. I'd rather have a consistent guy behind the plate than rotate in a new, broken down vet every two years.

All I've heard is that it's north of $11M total. Not a terrible deal. He'll be making about what the Crew were paying Miller and Estrada and less than what they were paying Kendall.
 
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