Disqus - Latest Comments for Abe_Froman

Re: Dean Lombardi Should Be Remembered in LA as a Guy Who Was Full of Shit

Abe_Froman — Thu, 13 Apr 2017 03:53:44 -0000

What a total clickbait effort to write a disingenuous article arguing for "X" while everyone else is claiming "Y". It would be more believable though if you had at least gotten your facts straight about things like the Voynov situation as another commenter pointed out. Nice to know that your pieces shouldn't be taken very seriously though. Good job losing your credibility with this effort. I hope it was worth it.

Re: My 2 Cents on Bernier for Frattin and Scrivens

Abe_Froman — Fri, 28 Jun 2013 15:18:24 -0000

Ugh. Poor writing on my part. That should have been, "Can King even play on the right side?" It was late when I wrote it.

Re: My 2 Cents on Bernier for Frattin and Scrivens

Abe_Froman — Mon, 24 Jun 2013 02:29:54 -0000

I think this deal provides some bread crumbs to follow regarding the rest of the Kings summer plans.

First, after listening to the conference call today, I believe that Lombardi wants to resign Scuderi. The problem though is that assuming that happens, and assuming Mitchell heals, without any other moves our defense looks like this:

Doughty Mitchell

Scuderi Voynov

Regher Greene

Muzzin

There's been a lot of speculation that when the Kings signed Regher to that 2 year deal, that it meant Mitchell was going LTIR because of his knee. But Lombardi's recent comments seem to indicate that there is at least the possibility that Mitchell recovers in time for next year. If that's true, then Regher becomes our worst defensive defenseman and instantly moves to the third pairing. Maybe Sutter is fine with a bottom pairing of defensive stalwarts Regher and Greene as opposed to the scoring upside of Muzzin and Greene. But Regher makes a lot more than Muzzin, so could a lineup like this even work financially? Hold on, let me go check CapGeek and see if I can make this work...

(5 mins later...)

Well, it might be technically possible, but would require trading some of our RFA's and convincing others to sign for their qualifying offer and no more. It would also require us giving up on the idea of signing Bud Holloway. I don't think this is a wise path to follow.

What would make more sense would be to trade Regher, put Muzzin in his place on the third pairing, and use the extra money to retain most of the RFA's, and sign Holloway to play with Stoll on the 3rd line, while Lewis moves to the 4th line. That lineup would look like this:

Brown Kopitar Williams

Frattin Richards Carter

Holloway Stoll Toffoli

Clifford Lewis King/Pearson

Can King even play on the 4th line? Who knows? But if he can't, then maybe Pearson can. And if Pearson can't, the two of them would make nice trade assets to get someone who can. Where's Fraser you ask? Gone.

Of course, if Toffoli pans out then maybe he and Frattin trade places. But for any of this to work financially, the Kings will have to lose one of their 3mm defensemen (Regher, Scuderi, Mitchell). The rub for Lombardi is that he's going to have to make this decision before he knows for sure that Mitchell is going to be ready for the season.

So what does Lombardi do? I think he signs Scuderi and kicks the can down the road a little while waiting on Mitchell's status. If Mitchell is healthy, then Regher gets traded (it would be great if we could get our second round picks back). If Mitchell is not healthy, he goes to LTIR, and Regher stays.

I guess what I'm saying is that I don't think there is any way that Mitchell and Regher ever see the ice together as Kings, but if these moves pan out the way that I'm hoping they do, we're going to have a much more effective bottom-six next season.

Re: Revisiting the 2013-14 question

Abe_Froman — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 15:23:18 -0000

I think the numbers you used in your previous post are inflated, and the Kings probably won't necessarily have to dump a $3m player to get under the cap for next season. To wit:

This year's team is currently $1.4m under next year's $64.3m cap, with the potential of gaining another $6.7 by not re-signing Penner and Gagne. That's over $8m in room to sign, re-sign, and recall players. Of course, $4m of that is immediately eaten up by Quick's new contract coming into effect next season, but regardless, Lombardi has shown himself to be quite frugal in negotiating contracts, and assuming that trend continues the Kings can get under the cap without having to deal Stoll. Regarding their current RFA's and UFA's, I would assume that the following deals take place:

1. Scuderi - $3.5m. I don't see Scuderi taking a paycut after being so instrumental to the team for the last two years. I think he signs for his current salary, or a small bump to the $3.5m that Mitchell makes.

2. Lewis - $1.5m. Signing Lewis for the $2m that you suggest would almost triple his salary. That isn't going to happen for a bottom-six player who is an RFA instead of a UFA. Even this salary might be a little generous. He could end up signing for a Brad Richardson-like $1.2m.

3. Jones/Backup Goalie - $800k. Because of the cap crunch, there is simply no way the Kings are going to have a $1.8m backup goalie on their roster next season (assuming Quick remains healthy and productive). Bernier will be traded and whether it's Jones or someone else, whoever replaces him will make no more than the $1.2m Bernier makes, and if it's Jones, it will likely be less than $1m, probably $800k or so, which is still a nice bump from the $500k he makes this year.

4. Martinez - $1.5m. That would double his salary, and seems in line with his place as a third-pairing defenseman who doesn't have a lot of leverage as an RFA.

5. Nolan - $1m. There is no way that Nolan goes from $500k to the $1.5m that you suggest, especially if he spends part of this season in Manchester, which seems likely. He probably gets Fraser money in the $800k range, but I could see him getting all the way to $1m if he stays with the big team and has a good year.

6. Muzzin - $800k. Muzzin doesn't go from $500k to $1m as a 7th defenseman. Even if he plays a lot and plays well with Greene out (neither of which is a given), he'll get money similar to what Martinez got on his second contract, which is roughly $800k.

7. Loktionov - $1.2m. This salary might be slightly inflated based on his production, but I like him as much as you do, and if he sticks with the team it will be as a 3rd line Center, so this is probably about right.

8. Voynov - $2m. There is no way that he's going from $800K to the $2.5m that you suggest on a second contract. Not when he'll have less than 100 regular season games under his belt even at the end of this year, and he's an RFA.

9. Clifford - $1.1m. He gets a pay bump to Brad Richardson money.

So, assuming that my numbers are correct, where are we at? Well, with the bonus cushion, this gets us just under the cap by around $250K. Without the bonus cushion, we'd have to cut another $100K somewhere.

What conclusions can we draw from all this regarding players not mentioned above? Several.

1. Based on economics, Gagne is almost certain to be let go after this season. He hasn't lived up to the contract, and unless he turns into a 20 goal scorer over the next 47 games, his salary doesn't justify him taking a spot that seems destined for Toffoli right now.

2. Penner and Stoll are both expendable, and at least one of them must go, but not necessarily both, as you suggest.

3. Loktionov could become expendable depending on what happens with Penner and Stoll. Here are Lombardi's options:

A. Trade Stoll, keep Loktionov, maybe re-sign Penner: This makes the most sense to me because the team can get assets for Stoll. They can then dump his salary, gain a pick and/or a prospect in the process, slide Loktionov into the 3rd line Center spot, and re-sign Fraser or move Lewis down to 4th line Center. The Kings would be comfortably under the cap, could even re-sign Penner if they wanted to, and with or without him they would be putting a much more dynamic team on the ice than what they have now.

B. Let Penner walk, keep Stoll, keep Loktionov: This is technically possible based on the contracts that I've outlined above. Still, the team would be losing an asset (Penner) for nothing, and have very little wriggle room under the cap when all was said and done.

C. Let Penner walk, keep Stoll, trade Loktionov: This seems the most likely scenario, even though it's at odds with your post. I know you'd rather keep Loktionov than Stoll, and so would I, but if Dean re-signs the RFA's to the deals that I think he's going to re-sign them to, then he'll have enough room to keep Stoll, but not enough room to keep Stoll and Loktionov and still have room to make additional moves. So I think he trades Loktionov to get comfortably under the cap, then moves either Lewis or a re-signed Fraser to the 4th line.

So my whole point in this exercise was to show that the team doesn't have to trade Stoll if the RFA's are signed to reasonable deals. Assuming that happens, and no trades are made, then Dean will have to pick one of the 3 options outlines above. I wish he would pick A, since I think it makes the Kings a better and more dynamic team while also bringing in assets instead of just letting them walk via free agency. However, I think Lombardi goes with C, and we watch Loktionov blossom in another city while lamenting Stoll for shooting high and wide for yet another season.

I guess my end all point would be to say that I think it would take a miracle for both Stoll and Loktionov to be on the team 10 months from now. The reality of the situation will probably force Lombardi to trade Loktionov, which no one in the Kings Hivemind wants, and keep Stoll, which no one in the Kings Hivemind wants. I'm not looking forward to Hivemind meltdown that occurs when that inevitability occurs.

EDIT: Clearly I don't want to get any actual work done today.

Re: Was President Bush Trying to Be Funny?

Abe_Froman — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 21:52:02 -0000

I respectfully disagree.

I started creating a rebuttal to this comment, but then I found two sources that detail the situation in 2004 much better than I could. The first is a 2006 RollingStone article by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. that details the overwhelming number of "sketchy" actions perpetrated by the Republicans in general, and the Secretary of State in Ohio in particular during the 2004 election. (A nifty graphic that shows one possible outcome of these actions can be found here. The second source is a Status Report by the House Judiciary Committee regarding the voting irregularities in Ohio during the 2004 election. Since the Rolling Stone article is over 5,000 words, and the House Judiciary Committee report is over 100 pages, I'll provide some bullet point highlights here regarding just the situation in Ohio:

* The misallocation of voting machines led to unprecedented long lines that disenfranchised scores, if not hundreds of thousands, of predominantly minority and Democratic voters. This was illustrated by the fact that the Washington Post reported that in Franklin County, “27 of the 30 wards with the most machines per registered voter showed majorities for Bush. At the other end of the spectrum, six of the seven wards with the fewest machines delivered large margins for Kerry."

*Mr. Blackwell’s (Ohio's then-Secretary of State and a co-chair of Bush's re-election campaign, similar to Katharine Harris in 2000) widely reviled decision to reject voter registration applications based on paper weight may have resulted in thousands of new voters not being registered in time for the 2004 election."

This was a big one. To reject correctly filled out voter registration cards because they weren't sent in with the proper paper weight is an unbelievable miscarriage of justice and a classic example of voter disenfranchisement.

* Mr. Blackwell’s decision to prevent voters who requested absentee ballots but did not receive them on a timely basis from being able to receive provisional ballots likely disenfranchised thousands, if not tens of thousands, of voters, particularly seniors.

* There were 93,000 spoiled ballots where no vote was cast for president, the vast majority of which have yet to be inspected. The problem was particularly acute in two precincts in Montgomery County which had an undervote rate of over 25% each – accounting for nearly 6,000 voters who stood in line to vote, but purportedly declined to vote for president.

There are many other examples cited in both the Rolling Stone article and the House Committee report, but in the interest of brevity I cited only the most egregious irregularities. In fairness to the other side, a rebuttal to the Rolling Stone article was given to Salon.com, which RFK Jr. then provided a rejoinder to. While there are differing conclusions on who won Ohio, Both sides seem to agree that, at a minimum, the election process in Ohio was an embarrassment to Democracy, and they are not alone in their disappointment.

Admittedly, it is possible that even if these errors hadn't occurred Bush would have still won Ohio, and the election along with it. He carried the state by about 120,000 votes, and it is difficult to ascertain just how the partisanship of all disenfranchised voter breaks down. But although the exact "what if" number will probably never be known, it is relevant to consider the specific regions where disenfranchisement occurred, and more importantly, the demographics and voting patterns of citizens living in those regions, when considering possible motivations for one to engage in voter disenfranchisement.

The race in Ohio was expected to be extremely close. And in an honest election any candidate in that situation would do everything in their power to energize their base and turn out their voters. But for Republicans, that is only half the battle. They certainly did what they could to turn out their base and energize their voters (the gay marriage ban on the ballot in Ohio and 11 other states is just one obvious example), but they also did everything in their power to limit any potential votes that might have been cast for their opponent. After all, every vote that the other side doesn't get can is an extra vote for your guy. That’s just how they do things over there, and judging by their results in the 2000 and 2004 elections, they do things well.

A final point. One shouldn't use the 2000 election shenanigans as the standard to judge the 2004 election shenanigans. The unbelievable closeness of the 2000 vote in Florida was certainly one for the ages. Republicans for sure, and to a lesser extent, Democrats, chalked that situation up as an unfortunate anomaly that could not have been predicted. They claimed plausible deniability against the voting irregularities found in that election and vowed to fix things in time for 2004. But, sure enough, when 2004 rolled around the Republicans were doing the exact same thing, just in a different state, and the Democrats, in their all-too-often spineless way, were once again duped into allowing such a thing to happen. In any event, just because the race in Florida was ostensibly closer than the race in Ohio four years later, it doesn't mean that the nefarious tactics used by the Republicans were any less outrageous, or that in a truly fair election, John Kerry wouldn’t have been president for the last four years.

**Edit: My apologies for hitting "Reply" instead of "Reply to". I hate it when that happens...

Re: Hearing on Economic Effects of Drug Policy

Abe_Froman — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 20:29:14 -0000

This is pretty interesting, and good for Senator Webb for taking a closer look. Hopefully he approaches this with the same vigor that he's been using in examining the U.S. prison population debate.

If Webb is selected as VP (I'm convinced that it will be either him or Richardson), this could turn up as an election issue. If so, then like all election issues, framing will be key. The Democratic Party has been fighting against a reputation for being "soft on crime" since the Reagan administration (Can you say "Willie Horton"?). If Webb does anything about this other than keep the status quo, you can bet that the Republican 527 groups will start pushing that exact "soft on crime" angle in their campaign ads in the fall.

If it were me, I think that a winning argument would tie the drug policy failure together with the prison population debacle and re-frame both to give voters an economic incentive to demand an overhaul of both policies. If I were running for office the argument that I would make might go something like this.

(cue 60 second campaign ad music and cut to me standing in front of my fireplace with a picture of my non-threatening wife and kids in the background):

"Each year, we put X people in prison for committing non-violent offenses, most related to drug use. And each year Y million of your tax dollars goes toward paying for their incarceration. The result of this policy is that our prisons are currently carrying Z percent of their official capacity and are so full that violent offenders are being given early releases to make room for the next batch of non-violent offenders entering the system. In fact, we will need to build N new prisons over the course of the next O years, at a cost of P million more of your tax dollars just to keep up. This policy makes no economic sense, and actually makes us less safe.

"I have a plan that includes limitations on the length of sentences for non-violent offenses, and imposing fines instead of jail time for others. This policy would make sure that we don't have to build all those new prisons and save us an additional Q tax dollars every year. That is enough money to build R new schools, hiring S new teachers, or give every family in our state/country a T dollars tax cut.

"We are a nation of laws and those laws need to be obeyed. My plan would go a long way toward ensuring that our prisons have enough room to keep violent offenders off the streets, while simultaneously keeping our tax dollars flowing into more noble causes like infrastructure investment and tax cuts. Under this policy we'll save money and be safer as a state/country. Doesn't that make sense to you?

My name is Abe Froman, and I approve this message"

I've always believed that people aren't opposed to the idea of taxes, they just want to get an efficient return on their investment. If the argument can be couched in that manner, we might be finally make some headway on an issue that has seen little movement in either direction for the last 35 years.