HaloMilliVanilli

Incidentally, I was watching a clip from a Springsteen concert from earlier this year or late last year.  It was around the time of the death of Levon Helm, drummer/singer from The Band, and Springsteen began to sing The Band's song "The Weight".  Totally got chills as one can clearly hear 10-15,000 (that's a rough estimate) people begin to sing an entire song (not just the chorus) of a band they didn't come to see as a tribute to Levon Helm.  It was pretty cool.  I can't think of any song that gives me chills each time I hear it, but there have been plenty of songs that have given me chills but it's more about the moment that I'm hearing the song combined with the song.

Knockin' On Heaven's Door- G n' R  (original Bob Dylan)
Live and Let Die - G n' R (original Sir Paul McCartney)
Nothing Compares To You - Sinead O'Connor (original Prince)
Respect - Aretha Franklin  (original Otis Redding)
I Heard It Through The Grapevine - CCR (original Marvin Gaye)
Me and Bobby McGee -Janis Joplin (original Kris Kristoferson)
Blue Suede Shoes - Elvis  (original Carl Perkins)
Crossroads - Cream (original Robert Johnson?)
Little Wing - Sting, and also Stevie Ray Vaughn version (original Jimi Hendrix)

Having Weaver and Wilson under contract for 3 more seasons (14'-16'), it would be refreshing to be able to sign Gonzalez and be able to plug him into the #3 or #4 spot in the rotation next season (assuming he is MLB ready after a solid spring training).  As others have noted, it would be difficult to sign anyone else in free agency for a 5 year, $12 million AAV, especially at the age of 26.  It also puts us in position to put the kibosh on any potential chance of the Dodgers signing him.  They already have Puig, don't let them get another impact latin free agent.
 
Do we attempt to resign Vargas if we somehow do sign Gonzalez, or offer him arbitration and pickup the extra first round draft choice?  If it was a club friendly deal, maybe that would make sense.  Gives us a nice R-L-R-L rotation too.  Maybe pencil Richards into the #5 spot.  Otherwise, Blanton or Hanson would likely be the #4.

My money is on Masuka figuring it out, since he's the least likely.  And he'll be cool with it as long as Dex allows him to nail Deb.

I think the Lakers need to get younger, but Howard isn't the guy.  When a guy's attitude is "I want to go where they're going to give me championships" instead of "I'll be a champion wherever I go", he doesn't have the right mindset.  He didn't show a lot of effort this season from what I saw.  And when Kobe pushed him to be better, he didn't like it.  The guy doesn't seem to want to work hard to take it to the next level.  Champions are always trying to find ways to get better.  Dwight's not that guy.
 
That said, he's already gotten one coach fired.  Now he's saying he didn't feel comfortable playing for D'Antoni?  You can't let a guy have that kind of control.  What if he doesn't like the next coach you bring in?  I could honestly give a hot crap about D'Antoni one way or another.  But if you go down that road with a player, it will lead to even bigger problems later.  You can't have that if you want to have a consistent winner every year.
 
The Lakers are absolutely better off without him.  They don't have his drama to deal with in the short-term, and in the long-term, they'll have more money to play around with.  Good riddance.

Even if Trout has to "wait out" Hamilton's entire contract, he'd still only be 26.  Just entering his prime years.  Hell, even if he is paid to "wait out" Pujol's entire deal, he'd be 31.  Probably still in his prime.  Point is....there is time.  Don't freak out and demand that Trout be traded just to speed up the clock on the Pujols/Hamilton contracts.  We can still win with those bloated deals.  Maybe just not immediately (i.e. this year).

To any zombies who may be reading this thread, Tank didn't mean it.

We are not winning anything this year.  Totally agree that Howie could be replaced by a youngster (maybe Lindsey, maybe someone like Stamets, Yarbrough or Long).  Get him to a team that is deep in minor league pitching (Orioles?) and that is contending.  Howie typically hits around .285, with 10 homers.  Average defense.  Lots of DP's.  Strike while the iron is hot!

We are not winning anything this year.  Totally agree that Howie could be replaced by a youngster (maybe Lindsey, maybe someone like Stamets, Yarbrough or Long).  Get him to a team that is deep in minor league pitching (Orioles?) and that is contending.  Howie typically hits around .285, with 10 homers.  Average defense.  Lots of DP's.  Strike while the iron is hot!

This is the ideal, best-case scenario to me.  If he likes Houston AND wants to sign the max deal, we could probably land a few nice, young pieces.  It would make next season clearly a rebuild season before the big cap-space summer of 2014.  Might make sense to trade Pau Gasol's expiring contract for more young pieces.

Enjoyed the read.  It'd be nice to have some prospects currently flying under the radar begin to flourish.

I used to be HaloU2.
 
Received too much grief over my choice of musical screen names.  So I've chosen names with more street cred.
 
I first chose HaloJustinBieber.
Now I am HaloRickAstley.

I like the move for Minnesota.  While Percy Harvin is an exceptional wide receiver and adept at catching and running after the catch, the Vikings apparently felt his personality was too much to overcome.  The Vikings have a reasonable amount of cap space, probably $20 million if you factor not paying Harvin, and could conceivably attempt to sign someone like Greg Jennings (which would hurt GB as well).  Spend one of their #1 picks on a young, explosive WR and they may be in better shape that they began.
 
Harvin improves his situation by immediately becoming the #1 WR on a much-improved, young Seahawks team.  Should develop a great repore with Russell Wilson.

I like the way you think.

Is it just me (and my wife) or did The Governor have the eye patch covering the wrong eye while he laid in bed at the end of the episode?  I thought it was his left eye that got poked and he even took off the eye patch at one point to show how jacked the eye was.  But the patch was on his right eye while he was in bed sleeping.

I am the poster formerly known as HaloU2.  I received too much flack with my former choice of bandnames, so I thought I'd go with this one.