With regard to money, I don't think Guillen's contract is going to preclude us from going after someone like Dunn or another top tier FA next year.  The money is there, and I think Glass is willing to spend it.  We will be able to afford one top tier FA.  If that means Dunn at 5/90, I'm all for it.  If that means Dunn at 5/100 or 6/110, I'd pass.  There are many other good FA's to go after if the bidding on Dunn gets really, really crazy, or if we would have to significantly over-bet the pot to get him.

I think the difference here might be between a guy with a psychological dysfunction and a garden variety ass.

Not like I really know these guys.

With time we will see who is right.

As far as "how HGH is used by athletes," how do athletes use HGH?  They certainly don't use massive doses.  If they did, you would see very evident facial acromegaly.  I haven't seen any evidence of acromegaly on any baseball player and certainly not Guillen.

Long story short, there is little reason to believe HGH significantly helped Guillen and that we should now see a significant dropoff in his performance.

2001 KCR .495
2002 KCR .537
2003 KCR .454

2004 SEA .472
2005 SEA .436
2006 SEA .516
2007 SEA .480

Pretty similar, overall.  He did have one horrible year in 2005, but his SLG in Seattle is very comparable to KCR, perhaps only 5-10 points less on average.

Please also note that the Royals moved their fences back in 2004, so odds are that had Raul continued with KC his SLG would have been even worse than what's listed above for SEA, or at least very close.

Sure, one person is not a particularly good sample size, so looks at the KC teams offensive production from 1999-2003 and 2004-2007.  

Year  Runs/game SLG
1999  5.32     .443                              
2000  5.43     .425
2001  4.50     .409
2002  4.55     .398
2003  5.16     .427

2004  4.44     .397
2005  4.33     .396
2006  4.67     .411
2007  4.36     .388

The decrease in production has been significant. We scored 5 runs three times in 5 years, but have only cleared 4.5 runs once in the last four.  We slugged over .400 four out of five years, but only hit over .400 once in the last four.

Yes, we have had significant changes in personnel, and losing guys like Beltran and Dye surely have lowered our production.  

But if you look at the holdovers, guys like Sweeney and Randa and Guiel, and you'll see significant drops in production in 2004 and later.  

Perhaps the most striking example is our former ROY, Berroa, who had a career year in 2003, but once the fences moved, could never approach again that level of production.

Still, a lot of people think of KC as a hitter's park, when it really has reverted back to, or only slightly improved on, the version of what we had pre-1995.    

Now, I'll admit all of this "research" was done very quickly and possibly haphazardly.  But, I believe my points remain:

1. Kauffman Stadium 2008 resembles more of the pitching friendly confines of the 1980's and early 90's than it does the hitters paradise of Kauffman 1995-2003
2. if Raul is any example, there's no reason to expect Guillen to have any significant jump in SLG.

if Raul is any example, there's no reason to expect Guillen to have any significant jump in SLG, especially when you consider Raul was hitting in a much more friendly park when he posted those SLG numbers in KC

Plus Guillen played half his games away from Safeco.

Rough math here, but all other things being equal (which they never are) Guillen moving from Safeco to the K might boost his numbers between one and two percent.

It is a factor, but not a big one unless the hitter has some dominating characteristic which either plays for or against a specific park.

We know that Guillen started using no later than 2002 because that is when he started to buy HGH and have it shipped to him.

But what do I know.

There is no current study that has demonstrated a significant increase in workload capacity in response to human GH administration in healthy adults. The studies that have addressed the impact of GH on muscle mass and athletic performance do not show consistently favorable results. For instance, patients with acromegaly do have greater muscle volume than normal individuals, but they do not show an increase in strength or performance. No controlled study to our knowledge has shown a beneficial effect of supraphysiological doses of human GH on muscle strength in trained athletes.

Studies of adults with growth hormone deficiencies show that injections of human growth hormone can:

Increase bone density
Increase muscle mass
Decrease body fat
Bolster the heart's ability to contract
Improve mood and motivation
Increase exercise capacity

Sure, if you are short on HGH naturally and you get your HGH level back up to normal, that hormone works as it should work.  But that does not show what will happen if you have normal HGH production and you get inject yourself with it to give you an excess of HGH.

Still waiting for the link I asked for.

Sure people can post whatever they want, but how long do we need to beat the dead horse of which OFer the Royals should have signed?

Did you read the post which you replied to?  The "HGH enhances performance" cognitive leap is just one of the many leaps one has to take to argue that Guillen's numbers are going to drop off in 2008 because he's not using HGH, while he did use HGH in 2007.  All of those bits of information which we don't have make up the "vast chasm" I referred to above.

I'm not sure that this leap spans any "vast chasm" given what we know about large doses of HGH for bodybuilders and moderate doses of HGH for HGH-deficient patients

In the scientific word that is a pretty big leap, particularly when the available scientific data does not support said leap.

AND that there have been so few (any?  i sure can't find any...) double-blind studies done with HGH and healthy adults using moderate doses.

I linked to one.  That link also has a paper which summarizes the finding of several studies.  The studies do not support the conclusion that HGH enhances athletic performance.  I cut-and-pasted this quote from the study earlier.  It bears repeating:

There is no current study that has demonstrated a significant increase in workload capacity in response to human GH administration in healthy adults. The studies that have addressed the impact of GH on muscle mass and athletic performance do not show consistently favorable results. For instance, patients with acromegaly do have greater muscle volume than normal individuals, but they do not show an increase in strength or performance. No controlled study to our knowledge has shown a beneficial effect of supraphysiological doses of human GH on muscle strength in trained athletes.

As for the science, I'm not waiting with bated breath for those "HGH makes you stronger" studies to be published.

Is it at all relevant to you that studies have been published showing that low/moderate does HGH use doesn't make you stronger?

There are MANY studies that report that creatine is not an effective supplement.  But I'm telling you that creatine was ridiculously effective for me

Scientific evidence is worth much more than anecdotal evidence.  Why?  Because anecdotal evidence is all over the place.  It is limited in both number and scope and the relevant variable has not been isolated.  For you or anyone else who has taken creatin or HGH and reported a positive effect, how do we know it was the creatin or HGH?  It could be a placebo effect.  It could be something else you are doing.  It could be the nature of your workout/exercise.  It could be any number of other factors.  That's why scientific studies which control for other variables give good, reliable evidence and anecdotal evidence does not.

Moore brings in drug users and wife beaters!

Wah, wah, wah, cry me a river.  If one can't find anything of substance to criticize and is left with this crap, then the guy must be doing a pretty good job.

As for Hillman, he hasn't had the opportunity to succeed or fail yet and already he gets criticized.  It is so silly it's hilarious.