Butcher'd

I consider myself a casual fan. I went from season seats in the early 2000's to slowly just a handful of games a year and have no plans to go to any games this year outside the random games with friends.
I'm next to the stadium now, but every game I went to last year I got home between around 11:30. That's just not feasible on a random Tuesday night. We left every game early because it was hitting close to 11pm. Add the fact if we stayed and had to deal with the exiting traffic, no thanks.

They just don't want to incite more riots.

About time. It's extremely annoying having to wait for a batter to adjust his batting gloves after every pitch.
Last season there was an AB by Calhoun where he took a little over a minute to adjust has battling gloves and take some swings, I shut off the tv and went to bed.
It'd be nice if they implemented a rule to pick up the pace of game as soon as this year.

I could be wrong here, but it seems like there is a line you're very close to crossing over with this post

What are they doing! I never know what they're doing.

I hope it's not a double yellow line.

Pujols' contract is God awful. So is Hamilton's. No getting around it. 
 
Dipoto and Arte are both counting down the years until those deals are over

Agree. Regardless, I hope both Arte and JD are still here by the end of those deals.

Jezuz, I just spent the last 10 years reading how everybody hated him.  Today, he's a mix between MLK and the non-pedophile Michael Jackson.

What the heck??

3 of those guys have shown absolutely nothing at the MLB level. Pestano I have high hope for, but he still has to actually return to form. Morin is great. Salas scares me. I like Rasmus, hope he can follow up last year

Yeah im sure he can. Im not saying we 'should' have kept grilli. I just am hesitant in breaking it up too much.
Street and smith are solid as hell, but we kind of struxk gold last year with jepsen, salas and grilli. 2 of those 3 are gone, and salas could go either way. I like morin a lot, but he is still young and could regress.
Like i said, im just hesitant to break up a strength after having be a weakness for so long

He will. Thats obviously a ton of money to leave on the table, but he also has career numbers to worry about. In all honesty it could come before most are thinking. The closer his career average gets to .300, the sooner he hangs it up.
And remember...in terms of the 90 million...upon retirement he gets 10 a year as artes 'assistant' or whatever in the front office.

I'd be surprised if Pujols called it quits by then. Would you walk away from 90 million dollars?

I'm not going anywhere.
 

If I had to guess, I'd say both he and Alcantara switch to the bullpen after next year and force their way into the majors as a triple digit tandem with wipe out sliders.

I have to think they'll bring in a veteran bullpen arm at some point before the trade deadline. Not too upset about this

Nah...offense is much improved. 
 
Pitching is still solid

Yep. Unfortunately Callaspo is gone.

I so hope these signings backfire on them

with each move Dipoto makes, I'm more and more convinced that Pujols and Hamilton were 100% Arte.

Dipoto had one bad offseason.  
 
His first year he added Wilson to a staff that was touted as one the best in baseball.  One that he inherited and it promptly fell apart in the first month of the 2012 season.  The move to bring in Greinke was panned but what he gave up hasn't really amounted to much.  Segura still has potential but after a great 1/2 season he's been pretty weak.  Although he gets a pass because of the horrible loss of his son.  
But CJ has been CJ for the past 3 years.  He's given about what was expected.  Maybe a bit less.
Pujols is on Arte for sure.  A franchise move and his sharp decline so early in the deal is unprecedented for an inner circle hall of famer.  
But the 2012 team won 89.  
 
The following year he had to rebuild 3/5ths of a rotation and an entire bullpen.  A mess he didn't create.  Santana was arguably the worst SP in baseball in 2012 and he wasn't worth the option he was owed.  His success since isn't a mystery, but to keep him around would have been more risky than not.  
The addition of Hamilton was all Arte and left JD with very little payroll to accomplish the above.  I am fairly sure the reigns were being pulled in regards to what he was allowed to do in trade.  But the Blanton, Hanson, and Madsen moves were horrific no doubt.  He had other options and chose poorly.  The Burnett move was reasonable and didn't work out.  
 
I think last year he was given more freedom to do what he needed and it worked out.   
 
This year we'll see but what he has done so far is sound.
 
My one major nit aside from who he chose to man the rotation last year was his neglect of the bullpen for 3 offseasons and 2.5 regular seasons.  He went saber cheap at it was the achilles heel of the team until he decided that it mattered and then the team took off.  
 
But he and his staff have consistently shown the ability to do something very important and that is evaluate talent that isn't generally well known.  Both with the Halos and players on other teams.  While his track record for bringing in a known quantity hasn't been superlative, what he gives up hasn't done much, and what he keeps does.  And when he moves a known entity for a lesser known player, those lesser known players have succeeded far more than the players he's moved.  Some of that is yet to be determined.  
 
After the 2012 season when the rotation fell apart, he started 2013 with Weaver, Wilson, Vargas, Blanton and Hanson in the rotation with depth of Williams, Billy Buckner, Barry Enright, Michael Roth, Matt Shoemaker, Daniel Stange, and Garret Richards.  Our top 20 prospects had Cam Bedrosian, Nick Mutz, Daniel Tillman, Nick Maronde, AJ Schugel, Michael Clevinger, RJ Alvarez, and Austin Wood.
 
Fast forward to the 2014 offseason, and our rotation is Richards, Weaver, Shoemaker, Santiago, Wilson, with depth of Skaggs, Heaney, Tropeano, Jose Alvarez, Rucinski, and Newcomb.  And our top 20 prospect list has maybe 4-5 guys that were present when Dipoto was hired.  
 
Not to mention he remade the entire pen in 1/2 a season, and it's stocked with depth.  Plus, the system has a bunch of major league capable arms that could find their way to the pen if they don't succeed as starters.  
 
This org was in real trouble after the 2013 season.  No farm.  No pitching.  No international presence.  Where they have come in 1yr is pretty amazing.   

Zimmerman, Richards, Weaver, Shoemaker, Skaggs/Heaney/Santiago
 

Moncada to Giants imo

So how much longer does he need? My guess is this is his last season as a 3rd baseman if it's not a good one.

All of those guys got those contracts after good years. CJ is coming off a second half where he was about as difficult to hit as a ball on a tee. You'd struggle to think of an example of a 34-year-old pitcher, coming off a replacement level season, got a contract anywhere near as high as 2/30.