I don't think you can say Bradley has the same kind of injury issues as Guillen.  Guillen has only had one injury which significantly decreased his playing time in the last five years.  Bradley, on the other hand, has had significant injuries in each of the last 3 years, limiting him to 75, 96 and 61 games in those seasons.  Bradley is positively Sweeney-like in his injury history and likelihood to get injured yet again.  And this season, he's not likely to even be ready by opening day.

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 would have been happy with a two year contract with him.  Bradley has anger control issues, but I don't see his behavior as very similar to Guillen's behavior.  Bradley comes off as a good enough guy who loses his mind a few times a year.  And this is bad and he knows it.  But Guillen comes across as a bastard 24/7 in the stories I have read about 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.

You probably disagee with it ;-)

With time we will see who is right.

But the reality is that there is little scientific evidence to support the contention that HGH (as opposed to steroids) actually enhances athletic performance.  And there is significant scientific evidence which suggests that it does not.

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.

Ask any stunted growth kid that grew a foot after taking HGH if it works...ask any bodybuilder if it works (they will just laugh)...I think one thing overlooked here is what kind of endurance and stamina allows u...guys I've known that have taken it have reported immediately feeling the best of their lives, work out time doubling ("I could go forever on a treadmeal"), and have called it "the ultimate fountain of youth"...and these are guys that have tried everything...there is no doubt in my mind that it works...whoever that was that did the study is either a)on crack , b)payed to put out false info, c)got a bad batch of info, or d)overlooked something

Look at Raul Ibanez's slg before and after his move to Seattle:

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.

That should have read:

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

According to THT the difference between an extreme hitter's park and an extreme pitcher's park is 4%.  So the difference between Safeco and Kauffman would be around 2%, maybe a bit more.

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.

That's about what I came up with.  Sounds about right to me.  His drop could easily be worse.