Gene Honda Civic

Uber-long reliever... One of the best relievers in the AL the last 2 seasons. 2.85 ERA in 03 in 148IP slit time between the rotation and pen. VORP = 44.6 3.33 ERA in 04 in 105IP all from the pen in 60 appearences. VORP = 31.5 Relievers who had a higher VORPthan shields in 04 Otsuka 33 Benitez 33.1 Foulke 35.1 Nathan 36.5 BJ Ryan 36.7 K-Rod 37.6 Rivera 37.9 Lidge 39 Gordon 39.6 In short Shields is a workhorse, who succeeds in whatever role given to him. He'd turn a decent pen into a great one, and a great one into a dominant one. IMO he's been the most underrated pitcher in baseball the last two seasons.

Yes, as long as OPS means OBP Actually, Davanon is exactly the type of guy we need. Solid, but not flashy production. He's Gload-like. He's a huge upgrade over Timo Perez should you ever have to rely on him for production, he'd likely step up and be a solid player.

I guess I should make an official prediciton since my original was kinda vague. ALDS Twins over Yanks in 4 Boston over Anahiem in 5 ALCS Boston over Twinks in 6 NLDS Houston over ATL in 4 Redbirds over Dodgers in 5 NLCS Houston over Cards in 6 World Series Sawks over Houston in 6

believe it or not it wasn't me.... there are more pressing needs than getting rid of timo.

Rolen - $74.3MIL over the next 6 seasons including $9.75 next year. Lee - $8.MIL next year, renewable for 8.75 in 06.

It was tough to really figure out... We were sold that there was going to be a big trade.. Uribe obviously wasn't it. it was the only significant change we made all off-season. There were plenty of people calling for KW's head by the time ST rolled around and PK hadn't been shipped off. I remember saying something along the lines of, "i'm much more confident in KW now that I've seen that he won't just make a move for the sake of making a move" -- again I think I was in the minority on that one.

:lol

Since you and Qwerty weren't around, Here's the reaction to that trade.... http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=12483&hl= I was excited because I thought it signaled another move on the horizon, namely Jose to Seattle for FG or something like that.

You're speaking about what we know of willie now though. Last off-season he was a ball a potential, a big question mark, but a ball of potential none-the-less. It wouldn't have gone over too well if KW decided to replace him with a guy whose numbers didn't seemed to prove that he wasn't anything special. I was in the minority last off-season, when I wanted a guy like Todd Walker who the Cubs signed to platoon.(I remember being really upset at how cheaply the cubs got him) To be an insurance policy. And todd walker was definitely a safer bet than signing Ronnie belliard last off-season.

I've gotta side with rex on this one... If KW stood up at Soxfest and told us we were going to sit our promising young 2B in favor of Ronnie Belliard, he would have been lynched.... I know I would have put steff's little tussle with KW to shame with the earful I would have given him about that one, and I'm not a big WH fan.

OK since we killed this thread, and I was talking about this very subject during the Bears game yesterday.... I said that if Clemens won yesterday, I would vote for him, if not it should be RJ. I know that doesn't make complete sense, but to me my reasoning seams solid. Clemens was the obvious choice @ the ASB. RJ has put together the best performance as a whole on the season. Clemens second half wasn't as good as his first, but he was instrumental in Houston's run to the playoffs. The last game would have been enough for me to overlook the #'s and vote Clemens. We all know RC didn't pitch, so I wuold vote for RJ. RJ RC Zambrano Pavano Sheets That's my top 5

my favorite Dusty quote from yesterday and here I thought denial was a river in Egypt.

I heard that James has some new defensive metric that he's been working on, and that it was the driving force behind getting Cabrera and Minkywhatshisname, but it's property of the Boston Red Sox, and no other teams will be able to get their hands on it.

Not sure if this is 100% true -- http://yankeefan.blogspot.com/2004/10/alds-roster.html Giambi left off of the Yankees playoff roster... Loaiza on.

Bill James didn't write Moneyball. He wrote the historical baseball abstracts, and has nothing to do with Oakland. He is on the Red Sox payroll.

In the AL the Sox are second in IP by their starters with 1008IP. Oakland is fisrt with 1030IP, Boston is third with 1007.1IP. The 4 teams who finished with more wins from their starting staff all had better overall W/L records than the Sox and all but Oakland made the Playoffs. Minnesota was 6th in Victories from their starters. The bullpen ranked 11th in the AL in wins, and 8th in ERA.

Ok I'll play along -- You should have included Peavy though. He backed his way into the ERA title. 1) D 2) I 3) G 4) H 5) J 6) B 7) A 8) F 9) C 10) E I tried to be as unbiased as possible, even though I know who most of them are just by the numbers.

I wish I was a bookie with you guys around 180 bets -- 20 push -- I pay out on 62 -- That leaves 98 bets that I get to pocket...

1) Ichiro!'s BA (.372) vs. Mariners winning percentage (.389) 2) Borchard's OPS (.587) vs. Barry Bonds OBP (.609) 3) Garland HR's allowed (34)vs. Carlos Lee HR's (31) 4) White Sox games behind 1st (9) vs. Iowa's average ranking (more than 25) 5) Jeremy Reed HR's (0) vs. Freddy Garcia victories (2) 6) Thomas Jones Rushing TD's (4) vs. Damaso Marte Saves (6) 7) David Terrell TD's (0) vs. Shingo Takatsu Blown Saves (1) 8) Ogunlye sacks (2) vs. Juan Uribe Triples (6) 9) Contreras's ERA (5.50) vs. Loaiza's ERA (5.70) 10) Rowand HR's (24) vs. Konerko GIDP's (23?) 11) Mark Buehrle hits allowed (257) vs. Ichiro! hits (262) 12) Barry Bonds IBB (116?) vs. White Sox HR's allowed @ USCF (124) 13) Willie Harris SB's (19) vs. Aaron Rowand SB's (17) 14) Wilson Valdez BB's (2) vs. Willie Harris HR's (2) 15) Billy Koch's ERA (4.41) vs. Neal Cotts' ERA (5.65) 16) Jon Adkins Holds (5) vs. Jason Grilli wins (2) 17) Jose Valentin Hits plus BB's (140) vs. Valentin K's (139) 18) Joe Crede RBIs (69)vs. Aaron Rowand RBI's (69) 19) Arnie Munoz ERA (10.05) vs. Jeff Bajenaru ERA (10.80) 20) Ben Davis OPS (.603) vs. Carl Everett OPS (.721) 56789 - 9 Dan - 8 DBAHO - 8 WHarris - 8 Goldy - 7 Tony - 7 Greasy - 6 Ace - 5 Soxman - 4

If carlos really desperately wanted that RBI, there was a pretty damn sure way of getting it, in the 7th.... Squeeze play... I know ozzie's never heard of it before, but he had the fastest guy on the team on third, and it didn't have to be a suicide. just put the damn ball in play and willie's gonna score.

In February I said Boston over Houston. I see no reason to become a flip-flopper now.

yeah his career .230/.282/.382 before the ASB have me really excited too.

correct -- pretty much as was speculated around here, he was gone all the way back in june.. They had a negociating deadline, and when both sides didn't come to an agreement, the writing was on the wall. They publicly said that they extended the deadline, but I don't think they actually did.

He signed off the air on the cubs game saying it would be his last as a cubs broadcaster. He's gone.

Glaus Ramirez Koskie Lowell