About Me 0093: Making Money With Options

Facebook has backtracked on controversial plans to allow users to share their address and cellphone number with advertisers, after facing vocal criticism from privacy advocates. Announced on Friday, Facebook billed the option as a way to “easily share your address and mobile phone with a shopping site to streamline the checkout process, or sign up for up-to-the-minute alerts on special deals directly to your mobile phone”; however, while the standard privacy tools were offered, many believed the social networking site had a greater responsibility to notify users when they were giving out the data.

“Over the weekend, we got some useful feedback that we could make people more clearly aware of when they are granting access to this data. We agree, and we are making changes to help ensure you only share this information when you intend to do so. We’ll be working to launch these updates as soon as possible, and will be temporarily disabling this feature until those changes are ready. We look forward to re-enabling this improved feature in the next few weeks” Facebook statement

As a result, Facebook has “temporarily” disabled the address and phone number sharing feature, though it will not be gone for good. Instead, the company will be working on new ways to indicate to users when their data is being made available, with a mind to reinstating the functionality “in the next few weeks.”

For the social networking site – which makes its money through advertising – anything that allows its sponsors better or easier access to users is a benefit, and it’s unsurprising that, despite the privacy set-back, it intends to push ahead with options to make personal data more available. Whether the responsibility for educating users about the potential harm in sharing that information is the site’s will remain a much-argued question.

Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images

It was only a couple months ago that the Rangers were (near) the top of the baseball world. They fulfilled their role as David, when slaying the Goliath Yankees, and endeared themselves to millions of baseball fans across the country with their love of all things hustle.

But things changed for the Rangers in a New York minute (you knew that New York would get back in the discussion) when Cliff Lee, their undisputed ace, shocked the baseball world and fled back to Philadelphia. Just like that, the Rangers rotation—a strength—turned into a weakness. Panic spread across Texas.

So they did what any right-minded club would do—go sign the next biggest name available. Because if you can't have the prom queen, you should at least get her still cute best friend...right? Except in this case, it's wrong...very wrong.

The Rangers are closing in on signing 3B Adrian Beltre to a 6-year, $96 million dollar deal that frankly makes, well, no sense. There are definitely positives to Beltre—he's coming off a big season, he's one of the best fielding third baseman (and players) in all of baseball, and he does have a power bat. But for the few reasons that the deal does make some sense, there are many more reasons why it doesn't.

Why? Let's break it down:

Beltre will be 32 years old a week into the season—not ancient—but definitely edging towards the downside of his career. On top of that, this will be his 14th season. If there's such a thing as a "young" veteran, Beltre isn't it. Do you really see this guy still going strong when he's in his 17th, 18th or 19th year of his career (or the second half of his contract)?

In 13 previous seasons, Beltre has made the postseason ONCE! That was in 2004-2005, while still with the Dodgers. Beltre's line was .267 AVG, one RBI, zero extra-base hits, three K's, zero BB's—a series that saw the Dodgers lose handily to the Cardinals in four games. For the record, that was the same year he had his breakout season, when he finished second in the NL MVP race.

Beltre is notorious for having big years in the last year of his contract (see 2004 with Dodgers, 2010 with Boston). I think we saw with Seattle what happens when the guy isn't as motivated to play for the next big contract

Texas is a SMALL market team. Giving an aging player a deal averaging $16 million a year is ABSURD. Look at the Yankees with A-Rod. A-Rod is making $30 million a year for the next eight seasons, yet is already being hampered with injuries. Throwing this amount of money at guys over 30 years old with 10+ years of experience is a huge risk, especially for a team like Texas.

As a team, Texas had a salary of around $55 million last year, which ranked 26th in the majors. That means that they're going to give Beltre a contract that composes nearly 29 percent of their salary from last season.

How was this the price set for Beltre this offseason? Carlos Gonzalez—a much younger OF coming off a major season, who has more upside than Beltre, just agreed to a seven-year, $80 million deal with Colorado. Are we to believe that Beltre is worth $16 million more (and a year less) than CarGo?

Where is Michael Young going? Remember, your CURRENTLY highest-paid player who JUST HAPPENS to play third base. He has three more years left on his deal, worth $48 million. Are the Rangers ready to eat $16 million a year for Young to have Beltre play the same position? Young is 34 years old and has a big contract for the next three seasons. What team is going to be willing to eat that amount of money while taking Young on the downside of his career? On top of that, Young has a no-trade clause in his contract with 22 teams on it, further limiting the options the Rangers have with him.

Source:http://removeripoffreports.net/

About Me 0093

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Making Money With Options

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