What? We play NL West once every 3 years.

check out now i’m a H – t – m l right about now a H – t – m l

You’re right. :-P

If there was a blueprint to make a masterpiece, Michelangelo would be a synonym of Wal-Mart.

There’s a passage in Ecclesiastes about that.

pitching a 7-inning 2 ER gem and we lose 2-1

my position on value/overvalue comes from comparing the names other teams were submitting for possible trades versus what we were submitting. All rumors, probably, but the 4 or 5 of ours versus 3 of theirs was pretty consistent. The takeaway there is that, consistently, the dialog around the league seemed to always come back to the notion that we needed more bodies at the table as our ante. We, as fans, are not thinking in terms of that probable reality. We, as fans, think of our prospects as solid one-to-one matchups against those of other teams and we pull out all kinds of rhetoric and numbers to justify those arguments. But all that rhetoric and all that mathematical gymnastics are defied by the evidence out on the bargaining tables this year.

So, yes, they have built a solid foundation. Now is the time to trust in that foundation rather than planning to nurture it. Since the point of the enterprise is to win the WS rather than most regular season wins in the decade, nurturing and growing that foundation any more is pointless at this level of fundamental strength. Stop playing into the law of diminishing returns. Time to take a chance. Time to be bold. Raise the bet.

Your point about playoffs and Tex, versus pitching, is self-contradictory. The Big Bat was easily defused by dominant pitching compressed within a short series. So, clearly, The Big Bat is not a major leveraging factor against a playoff team with strong pitching. That result does not mandate that strong pitching will be of zero value against a good offense. In fact, that result proves that dominant pitching compressed within a short series is the superior tactic.

No sane person would believe that, in any playoff series, a front side of Lackey/Halladay/best-starter-left-over-after-the-deal is NOT far superior to Lackey/Weaver/best-starter-that-survived-their-regular-season-flameouts-with-the-least-amount-of-torment.

And my basic premise is that such a deal does NOT ensure that this franchise will no longer be able to continue to win year in and year out. This is a strong franchise, and nobody can declare that the subtraction of the players being mentioned with the addition of a Halladay will corrupt the entire foundation.

Finally, I would posit that you are, through hyperbole, overvaluing Halos all over again. The last deal I heard for Halladay was
Aybar
Weaver OR Saunders
Wood
Reckling OR Bourjos

Aybar and Saunders would be my choices off of the current Active Roster. With the logjam of infielders capable of playing SS, Aybar is not a linchpin. Saunders, at best, is a 4/5. This season he is struggling to hang on to that. That might have been a linchpin back in ’74, but not today. Calling them “MULTIPLE key pieces” of the current team is pricing them high. (yes, I know that Aybar has been super-hot for a month, but the Halos won those other 870 games without a super-hot Aybar. Somehow they managed.)

Wood and Reckling, or Wood and Bourjos? Top prospects, yes. 100% of our “best prospects”? No. At most, it is only 2/3rds of those three and does not include Bell, Evans, SRod. And that’s ignoring Conger, Grichuk, Trout further down.

When those top prospect came through in the playoffs. Teixiera needed to have guys on base when hitting and often found himself hitting with nobody on or in scoring position. I know maybe we can try squeezing in all the runs in the playoff,,,,,,,,never mind we couldn’t even do that either,,,,,,,CRAP!!

no matter what happens. The BoSux won in 2004 fair and square.

Aren’t there private emails or Facebook IM’s or twitters where this can be discussed?

(BTW, I’m jealous … I want some Booger BBQ and some great stats in Baltimore!)