greg775

My question to you is then ... if these players like Dye, Crede, Mark are not good enough to sign, why will other teams be lining up to sign them on their terms? If fiscal responsibility means getting rid of all the cogs of a world championship team and offending its fanbase in the process for what will certainly be downgrades at many positions, so be it. To you who blast me and others for bagging on Jerry for not spending money to keep our heroes ... who do you envision being our next Buehrle, our next Dye, our next Crede, our next Freddie, our next Contreras? You are counting on these guys Kenny is stockpiling to pan out and likely downgrades with Dye and Crede. and my position isn't as absurd as some of you make it out to be. My position is the one I've read by Couch and Morrissey in the Trib and Sun Times others are baffled as well. It's not like I am some complete moron who has watched no baseball in his lifetime. I've followed this team and baseball like the rest of you. And Tony if you hate my posts you must detest reading Couch and Morrissey, et all because what they have written is not much different than what I'm saying.

I have one question. Why can't Chicago, one of the biggest and best cities in the world with a recent world championship be able to afford players like Dye and Buehrle. It really is sad that Chicago has to try to win titles the cheap ass way. Very sad. Mark B and Dye should remain White Sox. You seen the figures on what the White Sox franchise is worth?? Sell the team Jerry if you can't pay the freight.

For the old timers, maybe he's destined to be the next Ken Berry. All field, no hit. The Sox were patient with Crede; maybe they plan the same with BA and he'll reward them soon by learning how to hit.

I love Buehrle. He deserves to get the best possible contract. He wants to be a White Sox. Will the White Sox make him the best offer he can get? Obviously not. I hope we keep him. If not, we'll probably have our front office people trash him when he's let go. I love the fact he admits he's a Cardinal fan. It's a free country.

I don't think Oz is dumb enough to piss off A.J. by cutting his at bats too many. Like AJ said in that one quote, our division is full of lefties and he doesn't want his at bats sliced by a significant margin. I do tire of seeing lefty starters mow down the Sox, though.

No I didn't. I just think we need to dump Juan. He looks fat and he's apparently in trouble with the authorities. Who needs him? Alex had a pretty good year last year I thought. I would suspect we'll be reading something in the Trib soon about how Uribe will be allowed to play for us this year. That item seems kind of weird.

Cut bait with Juan. We don't need him. Welcome to the lineup, Cintron.

I think he'll play less games and will hit righties well. Hope he doesn't get upset with the added bench time. I think he'll have a very good year. Hopefully he'll stay healthy.

Detroit's pitchers better be tired this season after all the crap spewed about how tired our pitchers were last season. Geez. You'd think an extra month was 6 months. Good to hear KW's comments otherwise though. He has a plan and I can't fault him too much for that. I don't want 100 loss seasons and he sensed they were coming.

I say start him. We need a power lefty in the rotation.Everybody but us in the AL seems to trot lefties out there every other night.

It does suck the games when the foes trot out lefty starters and it nullifies Thomes's greatness. We do need to do better versus lefties. Can we is the question? Pods can't hit a lefty and neither can Jimmy T. Nor can AJ.

I didn't mean to imply he's been cheap of late. He was willing to up our payroll and it paid off in a World Series. I'm saying it appears the owners are taking it to the next level again and from what I've read in the Trib our management is appalled and going to let all the cogs from our Series team walk. Our pitching cogs. So I'm saying in the future ... if Jerry doesn't want to keep spending and have us in the top echelon of payroll, sell the team. But as of now ... I give Jerry credit for having a big enough payroll. That's why I won't ever refer to him as Reinsdor(xxx) again. I will always be grateful for he, KW and Oz giving us a title.

Not to be a doomsayer either, but our bullpen remains a question mark. The former Royals MacD and Sisco are not necessarily studs. They could be ... but they remain question marks. Same with Thornton. Our team is one big question mark like most teams. The only thing that appears certain is we will again score runs in the same vicinity of last year. We won't score more, but we should have the same offensive ability. Starting pitching, bullpen, defense all could go either way. Speed ... we seem slow.

Baseball is back on the big big salary kick. Amazing how the owners can't control themselves. Amazing. Look for ticket prices to continue to skyrocket. Jerry needs to be willing to keep up or see us fall in the standings. Gotta spend some money. If the Giants can pay Zito that kind of money ... wow. You can't win pennants with pitchers who are prospects. Gotta have some Buehrles, Jose's, Freddies to go with the Charlies. Pay up, Jerry, or sell the team.

The Trib columnist was saying BMac was a good quote and had a head on his shoulders and wasn't afraid to speak his mind. Probably pissed off KW. I was not a big BMac fan but resigned myself to the fact he was gonna get his shot next year after the trade of Freddie. Once we dealt Freddie, BMac should have been given his shot.

I just wish Juan would get a clue at the plate. He seems to have incredible natural talent.

I wonder if a team will let Clemens skip spring training and come pitch in late May or June. What a primma donna. No team should be desperate enough to take this ego maniac on his terms.

If Cintron had 10 stolen bases in limited duty, couldn't he add some speed to the lineup if our regular ss? Dump Juan.

I know. This year is one big question mark. Maybe all years are, but this one seems more than most.

--I expect Thome's numbers to decline only cause he had an incredible season. --Pods I fear is finished. -- BA can't hit, folks, but he CAN field. --Uribe has talent, but must be a headcase, cause he hasn't improved. When he gets hot, he's hot. But he's a bad undisciplined hitter. I see Crede, Iguchi, Konerko, Thome, Dye, AJ being great as usual. I wish we'd play Cintron every day. Screw Uribe.

Random thoughts on the Sox outlook ... I say it's Cintron time. Dump Uribe. We need another outfielder. Could he be one of our minor leaguers Oz likes so much? The bottom line is nobody knows if we are going to continue the mediocre to lousy play of the second half or get some good starting pitching, great defense and clutch hitting like we did the year before. I think it's a stretch to say our starters are 1-4 some of the best in baseball. Not after last year. Vazzy was not great. Mark was horrible the second half except for some gutty outings late in which he was hit hard but still managed to keep us in the games. Jose is now a question mark because of health. Jon is pretty much a stud. We still could use another lefthanded starter and have two of our five be lefties. If Mark B pitches as he did the second half of the season, we're cooked. We can't overcome that.

It's gonna be Charlie. I hope he's ready.

I don't think anybody would have wanted Kenny fired for that, especially if it brought us another playoff/Series. He gambled in standing pat during the second half and that didn't work. Now like Arvia wrote, we appear to have a lot of holes for the coming season. I don't think anybody calls for KW's head anymore, not after he brought us a World Series title. I think he and Oz deserve lifetime contracts for that. But it's puzzling what he's doing for the coming season. If Pods is finished as a productive leadoff hitter and Anderson continues to struggle, and our starters pitch as they did much of last year, we are screwed. I think everybody was hopeful BMac would be the stud pitcher we need next year. Now we've cut two proven starters from the mix. Is the knuckleballer destined to start for us this season??

The bottom line is like Rogers wrote, the Sox could have addressed some needs with a trade of BMac instead of stockpiling prospects. I thought KW was all about winning titles NOW and he didn't trade BMac for Soriano last year when Soriano could have helped us get our head out of our ass the second half and maybe win a repeat title. We should have gotten Young in the trade for BMac.

Forget Mariotti though. Rogers is more rational and he is also questioning this trade big time and the direction the team has headed, calling it unwise and "arrogant."