C.Rector
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Posts posted by C.Rector
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Schoenweis will be great. Kenny has coveted him for three years, remember?
Why are you being so negative?
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If its true what they say about Schoweneweiss adding the cutter to his repertoire, then he should be all right. He should be good for 12-15 wins in his first year as a Sox starter.
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I could give two craps about the spring training record. As long as the team is feisty, hungry, aggressive, anxious, and rearing to go - it's all good.
I have a feeling that once spring training is done, this team will be riding a wave of positivity they haven't seen in years. They will believe they can win - even if the "experts" say they can't.
I used to love Gardenhire, and I liked Pena - but they can't match the enthusiasm or fire (real or not) of Ozzie.
Let the game begin, fellas.
Everything that you said about Guillen was said of Bevington as well when he took over from Lamont in 1995. Knowledge of the game is what counts, not the alleged "fire" or whatever in the manager's personality. Both Lamont and Manuel had what it takes to be winners, while Bevington and thus far Guillen were nothing but blowhards with a grin.
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From:
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/stor..._rob&id=1738015
Nobody better than the Babe
By Rob Neyer
ESPN.com
When I'm asked about the greatest baseball players in major league history, there are nine names that always work their way into the conversation. In chronological order, they are:
Honus Wagner
Ty Cobb
Babe Ruth
Ted Williams
Stan Musial
Mickey Mantle
Willie Mays
Henry Aaron
Barry Bonds
Four of these players can be "matched," because they have contemporaries who played the same position: Williams with Musial, Mantle with Mays. If we're trying to eliminate competitors for the top spot, this is a good place to start.
As I've written many times before, Stan Musial is one of my favorites. I never saw him play, of course, but I've been reading and hearing stories about him for as long as I can remember, and the baseball that Stan signed for my grandfather is probably the only piece of memorabilia that I truly care about. That said, I just don't see any way to rate Musial even with Ted Williams.
Even if one assumes that the National League was superior to the American League in the 1950s -- true, I think -- it's hard to imagine the difference was great enough to push Musial past Williams. Stan was a better baserunner than Ted, a better fielder, and easier to manage. But in the 1940s, Williams was the best hitter in the world ... and you know, he wasn't too shabby in the 1950s, either.
Mantle vs. Mays isn't as clear-cut. As Bill James wrote in his most recent book, "I have Mantle rated higher than anyone else does, but just a little bit higher ... my argument would be that there has been too much talk about Mantle's drinking and too little about the impact of his career on base percentage, .421."
Agreed. And if you could have one of them for only one season, you probably would want Mantle. But Mays was a better center fielder, he was faster on the bases, and he was a lot better at staying out of the doctor's office. Make no mistake, Mantle was incredibly talented. But Mays was very nearly as talented ... and he played nearly 600 more games than Mantle.
Removing Mantle and Musial leaves seven players vying for the top spot. Here they are again, along with Bill James' Win Shares, career and per 154 games:
WinShares WS/154
Wagner 655 36
Cobb 722 37
Ruth 756 47
Williams 555 37
Mays 642 33
Aaron 643 30
Bonds 611 37
I've listed them (for now) in chronological order, because the time in which a player played does impact our evaluation. In a nutshell, it's likely that the quality of play in the major leagues has steadily improved since the National League was formed in 1876, and it follows that it's become steadily more difficult to dominate the competition. I'm not suggesting the trend line is absolutely straight, but it's fairly obvious that it was easier to pile up big numbers, relative to the competition, in Ty Cobb's era than in Henry Aaron's.
Now, looking at those numbers in the chart, a couple of things might pop out ...
# Babe Ruth was awesome (yes, he was), and
# Ted Williams is getting screwed (yes, he is).
Williams' Win Shares per 154 games are right up there with anybody except Ruth, but he's way behind in career Win Shares. Why? Because he served his country in not one, but two wars. And I don't think it's fair to hold that against him.
Year 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54
Actual 42 46 0 0 0 49 44 39 40 19 34 1 9 29
42 46 40 40 40 49 44 39 40 19 34 25 25 29
That bottom line includes my Win Shares adjustments for the five years in which Williams spent most or all of his time flying airplanes for his country. I was somewhat conservative, because 1) we should try to account for the possibility of injury, and 2) I think we should always be conservative when we do things like this. Still, adding 160 Win Shares to Williams' career total does wonders.
A similar adjustment helps Willie Mays, though not nearly as much. He spent most of the 1952 season, and all of 1953, in the army, and so I assigned him 60 Win Shares for those seasons (he earned 19 as a rookie in 1951 and 40 in 1954).
Now I'm going to run the same chart from above, but with the "adjustments" for Williams and Mays, and listing everybody in descending order of career Win Shares ...
WinShares WS/154
Ruth 756 47
Cobb 722 37
Williams 715 37
Mays 702 33
Wagner 655 36
Aaron 643 30
Bonds 611 37
That changes things a bit, doesn't it? Williams moves into a dead heat with Cobb, and Mays separates himself from Wagner and Aaron.
Nobody can catch Ruth, though. He still has more career Win Shares than anybody else, and he kills the competition in Win Shares per season.
I should mention that Ruth's WS/154 are artificially high because he spent the first part of his career as a pitcher, and a pitcher will pick up more Win Shares per game (for the obvious reason that a pitcher has a huge impact on any game he starts). If we account for that, Ruth would still have something like 45 Win Shares per season.
You know that Ruth was a great hitter. How good a pitcher was he? From 1915 through 1919, Ruth went 68-40 with ERAs nearly as good as his winning percentages. Absent injury, he'd have been a Hall of Fame pitcher. Absent pitching, his home-run record probably never would have been broken by Hank Aaron. You can talk about the timeline adjustment and you can say Ruth was fat. But you can't say he wasn't the greatest player who ever lived.
Here, then, is how I rank the nine greatest players ever:
1. Ruth
2. Mays
3. Williams
4. Wagner
5. Cobb
6. Bonds
7. Aaron
8. Musial
9. Mantle
There is a big problem with this list: There are nine players, and eight of them are outfielders (Wagner being the only exception). This is consistent with Conventional Wisdom, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's right. Why do outfielders fare so well? Two obvious reasons: Outfielders tend to last longer, and they tend to hit better. If you want more infielders, though, I heartily endorse Joe Morgan, Eddie Collins and Mike Schmidt (and don't be shy about moving Wagner, a shortstop for most of his career, up a slot or two).
There also aren't any pitchers (Ruth notwithstanding); if you want a pitcher on that list, feel free to drop Walter Johnson somewhere between Bonds and Mantle. And speaking of Bonds, he deserves a couple of bullet points ...
# Obviously, he can still move up on the list. Assuming he plays three more seasons and is moderately healthy, Bonds is going to finish with more (actual) Win Shares than every player but Ruth and Cobb. Combine his career numbers with his per/154 numbers, and it's not hard to argue that he'll deserve to be ranked among the top three or four players ever. And that's before we make any sort of timeline adjustment.
# The mere mention of Barry Bonds in this article will, I know, elicit a great deal of e-mail from readers who think that instead of moving Bonds up the list because he's not through yet, he should be moved down the list because of his (alleged) "creative use of modern pharmaceuticals."
I don't know what to do with that, though. You can't really accuse Bonds of cheating, because A) we don't know what, if anything, he's been doing, and B) the "rules" are not clear. You can't really accuse Bonds of doing things that other players aren't doing, because we know other players are doing things. Which isn't to say it shouldn't be a part of the discussion; I just don't know which part, exactly.
It's very difficult to rate an active player, and for now I'm comfortable saying only that Bonds is one of the game's 10 greatest players ever. As for where exactly he belongs in that group, we'll have to sort that out later.
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Just goes to show just how Manuel was more of a man than Ozzie. Bevington, from what I've heard, used the F-word a lot too. More and more, Ozzie looks like Terry Bevington all over again.
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JR doesn't spend as much money on Scouting as other teams either, at least where foreign players are concerned.
Whenever there is a Cuban defector, or a Japanese or Korean ballplayer that is coming to play in the States, the Sox are NEVER involved with trying to sign them! Don't tell me about Shingo either...te guy is 35 years old and cant break 85 with his "fastball"!
Great signing!
Well, that's a switch given how you're the biggest racist on this forum.
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I like this trade too.
We arguably got back more talent value than what we gave up in the form of the oft addled Captain DUI and that's not even taking into account the 2nd rounder.
I had the feeling that Pulford taking over from Mike Smith would prove to be the right move and this combined with both the signing of Bryan Berard and the Sullivan trade shows that the Hawks are moving in the right direction. Now, if Coach BS were to get fired, things would get even better.
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I think Frank could use a change of scenery, it just seems like he doesnt really want to be a part of the side show anymore, and he's kinda pouting because of it.
If Frank really wants out, its because he's sick and tired of being treated like dirt by the likes of KW & Ozzie. As for the White Sox, how can you say that its a "sideshow"?
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From:
http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,20...1962367,00.html
New owner, GM but still no big bat
By Rich Hammond
Staff Writer
VERO BEACH, Fla. -- Is it Frank McCourt's fault? Dan Evans' fault? News Corp.? Bud Selig? The shadowy figure on the grass knoll? It doesn't matter. At this point, the blame games won't solve anything for the Dodgers, and it won't get them what they desperately need: a cleanup hitter.
Almost a full calendar year after it became painfully obvious that the Dodgers needed offensive help, it still hasn't arrived. If the season started today, their cleanup hitter probably would be Adrian Beltre, a sobering thought given Beltre's massive lack of consistency.
The season doesn't start for another seven weeks, but Dodgers players begin reporting to spring training today knowing that if a significant trade isn't made by April 5, the Dodgers will be baseball's biggest offseason joke and long shots to even contend in the National League West.
What was supposed to be a glorious winter turned into a nightmare for the Dodgers. An outstanding array of hitters -- including Nomar Garciaparra, Vladimir Guerrero, Derrek Lee, Magglio Ordonez and Richie Sexson -- each seemed headed to the Dodgers at various points, only to have potential trades fall through.
So the Dodgers will arrive here, look at Juan Encarnacion and Bubba Trammell, and wonder what happened. The money the Dodgers saved by cutting loose Andy Ashby, Kevin Brown and Brian Jordan is now sitting in McCourt's pocket, not Guerrero's, and that fact has left many fans irate.
There's a good chance the Dodgers can pull off a trade for a player such as the Chicago White Sox's Paul Konerko or Frank Thomas, but those names pale in comparison to what could have been.
The Dodgers, as they exist now, don't seem prepared to match last season's 85-77 record and second-place finish in the NL West. At least on paper, the lineup looks worse than the 2003 group, which scored the fewest runs in baseball and was shut out 13 times.
The Dodgers took the first step in trying to upgrade the offense Tuesday with the hiring of former Montreal Expos and Dodgers third baseman Tim Wallach as batting instructor, a position vacant since the end of last season.
One positive for the Dodgers is that their top hitter, Shawn Green, is bound to improve. Green hit 19 home runs last season, a staggering decline considering his annual 40-homer potential, but Green admitted midway though the season that a shoulder injury had restricted his ability to drive the ball.
Offseason surgery should return Green to his previous form, but Green's best efforts have been in seasons when he was a supporting hitter, a strong No. 3 or No. 5 spot in the lineup. He seems to be more comfortable in one of those spots, but how will he be impacted if the Dodgers can't make a trade, and will the possible stress of moving to first base weigh on his mind?
Another player to watch in the spring is Paul Lo Duca, the Dodgers' All-Star catcher. Lo Duca hit .226 with one home run after the All-Star break but to his credit, he played through significant injuries and never admitted their seriousness because he didn't want to come out of the lineup or make excuses.
The top of the batting order -- Dave Roberts, Lo Duca and Green -- looks solid, but it falls apart after that. Beltre and Encarnacion are chronic underachievers, and while Alex Cora and Cesar Izturis are superb in the field, they had on-base percentages well under .300 last season.
Roberts is always playing for a contract, Lo Duca is in the final year of his and Beltre will be eligible for free agency next winter, so there is some financial incentive for the Dodgers to get things done.
Then there's the pitching staff, arguably the best in baseball in 2003 and arguably the best in Dodgers history since the Don Drysdale-Sandy Koufax days.
The rotation took a hit when Brown, the staff ace, was traded to the New York Yankees for Jeff Weaver (Simi Valley High), but the Dodgers retained plenty of candidates for what should be another solid rotation.
Hideo Nomo would have earned Cy Young Award consideration last season if not for the Dodgers' terrible offense, Wilson Alvarez turned in a stunning comeback season and Edwin Jackson showed flashes of brilliance as a 20-year-old rookie who looked like a future star.
Then there are three less-than-sure things. Kazuhisa Ishii has struggled with control, Odalis Perez has been inconsistent and alienated teammates with disparaging public comments, Darren Dreifort hasn't made more than 16 starts in a season since 2000 and Weaver must rebound from a terrible stint in New York.
Evans took a preliminary look at Greg Maddux, who might have filled the Brown role, but the Dodgers should find five strong starters without the former Atlanta Brave.
The bullpen suffered a big loss when top setup man Paul Quantrill signed with the Yankees, but Eric Gagne shows no signs of slowing down, Guillermo Mota looks more than capable of filling Quantrill's role and the Dodgers hope Steve Colyer can hold down one of the setup roles.
For better or worse, those are the 2004 Dodgers, at least for now. -- With Associated Press
Rich Hammond, (818) 713-3611 rich.hammond@dailynews.com
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For what its worth, here's an email that was sent to Blackhawks season ticket holders by Acting GM Robert Pulford:
Letter To Season Ticketholders
I wanted to address the trading of Steve Sullivan and to explain the reasons to you as to why it was the right thing to do.
First of all, we tried to re-sign Sullivan to a 3-year deal worth $2.5 million per season. He turned the deal down. The Blackhawks would have had to qualify Steve next year for the $3 million salary he was currently making. If we had done that, it still would not have guaranteed that he would have been here next year.
Steve had the right and his agent, in fact, had told us that they would be taking the Blackhawks to arbitration. With the uncertainty of arbitration cases, the Blackhawks may have had to walk away from the decision and come away with nothing.
That being our decision, we tried to make the best deal we could for Steve. We felt that the deal with Nashville was the best deal we could make at this time. We felt it was important to get something in return for Steve instead of losing him for nothing at the end of the season.
I know that some of you are upset over this decision. However, you can rest assured that the Blackhawks will invest that money on players in the free agent market who will make us a much more competitive team next year. We are positioned and well-prepared to enter the free agent market as well as continuing to draft and develop our young players. Together, these things will help us to become a much more competitive team next year.
I hope you now understand why we felt trading Steve Sullivan was the right thing to do at this time.
I thank you for your continued interest and support of the Chicago Blackhawks.
Sincerely,
Bob Pulford
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Today's Daily Herald ran a column by Steve Sassone that puts the Blackhawks's trade of Steve Sullivan, that bent so many here out of shape, in perspective.
From Sassone:
"While Sullivan might have 15 goals and a team-leading 43 points, he scored only 6 goals in the first 42 games when the Hawks needed him most with Zhamnov and Eric Daze out with serious injuries. Sullivan only started producing regularly when Zhamnov returned from back surgery.
Last season, Sullivan scored 26 goals, but 10 came in the final 14 games when the Hawks were hopelessly out of the playoff race."
In other words, Sullivan for all his scoring, is hardly a clutch player. For the Hawks to regain their former status as a perennial contender, they need to have players who score when it really counts. In other words, Sullivan was the Hawks equivalent of the Bulls Eddy Curry.
That being the case, those 2 2nd round draft picks could work out a lot more for the team than retaining the services of Sullivan ever could.
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From:
http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sp...tesox-headlines
Bo Jackson tackles jury duty
The Associated Press
February 12, 2004, 11:48 AM CST
Bo knows baseball. Bo knows football. And now Bo knows jury duty.
Bo Jackson, a former slugger with the Kansas City Royals and Chicago White Sox and tailback for the Los Angeles Raiders whose "Bo Knows" Nike commercials became pop-culture classics, served as a juror this week on a DuPage County personal injury case.
"He was very laid-back," jury administrator Daniel Amati said of the retired sports star, who served under his real name, Vincent E. Jackson. "He just came in and did what he was supposed to do."
Attorney Michael Maher, one of the lawyers in the case, said he thought Jackson -- who had hip replacement surgery -- would be a perfect fit for the jury. Maher's 67-year-old client was seeking damages for a car accident that he claimed aggravated his arthritis.
"I figured he'd probably be familiar with what my guy was going through," Maher said.
The trial ended Tuesday with the jury awarding the Villa Park man about $32,000 in damages. Afterward, Jackson, who lives in the Chicago suburbs, signed autographs for other jurors and chatted with State's Attorney Joseph Birkett.
"We didn't talk about sports," Birkett said. Instead, they discussed Illinois politics, their families and the Middle East, where Jackson, 41, recently visited U.S. troops in Kuwait.
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If a team like the White Sox, that has not finished any lower than 3rd since 1990, is really on its "death knell," then Chicago truly is a 1-team town.
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What this means is that Angelo was not sabotaging Jauron. Angelo really is an incompetent and the Bears will continue to be pathetic under Coach Lovie.
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Flash wanted way too much for his injury-prone services and the Yankees were stupid enough to oblige. I'm glad that the Sox didn't waste that money on him.
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The Wolves are already in competition with the Hawks. The Hawks haven't realized that yet.
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Being a White Sox fan is a tougher assignment.
Mets won the series in 1969 and 1986 and also made it in 1973.
They spend money, often unwisely. But they spend on Piazza, Vaughn, Alomar, Camerson, Glavine and on and on and on.
They know they're second banana in their home town, but they don't always simply throw up their hands and say 'What can we do about it?"
And with the Mets, you can understand being Number two because the Yankees get the job done.
Being number two to the Team I Can't Type is simply unacceptable -- but Sox management accepts it.
The Mets also charge much higher ticket prices than the Sox do. If the Sox upped their ticket prices to the Mets level and also increased their payroll with the new revenues, would you support that move or have something else to complain about?
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"Sullivan is just another guy who did well in the NL, but couldn't make the transition to the AL with its DH rule well."
...his entire AL career has been a couple months with the sox...pitched 14 2/3 innings for us...only gave up 9 hits and had 13k's...his 3.77 era with us is lower than his career 3.91 era...he basically did for us what he has been doing in cincy for years
Sullivan's ERA when the trade was made was a bit under the 3.77 mark, so his performance worsened after moving over to the AL. In any event, the only reason why the Sox picked him up in the first place was in a trade to get rid of the worthless D'Angelo. When the Sox "lost" Sullivan, the team wasn't really losing anyone. KC fans will rue the day that their GM decided that picking up Sullivan would be a bright idea.
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This article, by a guy who looks like he wears lipstick or something, is garbage.
The Sox did not lose much other than Graffanino and Everett and the latter should be replaced quite well by Rowand playing full time. Alomar, Colon and Gordon are all on the decline and Sullivan is just another guy who did well in the NL, but couldn't make the transition to the AL with its DH rule well.
Rosenthal writes, "The anger in Chicago is palpable. " From what I've seen and heard from the Sox fans I know, they are looking at the new season pretty much the same way that they normally do: hope for the best and have fun watching the Sox on TV and/or listening to them on the radio.
The Sox have done a good job in the Rule V Draft and in signing folks to minor league contracts, so there should be a pretty spirited competition for pitching slots in Spring Training. As for the Cubs, they've done well in adding to their bullpen, but they've downgraded at catcher and face a situation that unless they can sign either Maddux or some other pitching talent, where their regular rotation might collapse under the exactions of Dusty Baker the pitcher torturer.
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Who cares?
Last I looked, NY is not in the AL Central.
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White Sox had 86 years to win the Series and have the ulimate bragging rights over their biggest rival, Cubs.
They failed. They chose the bottom line instead.
I ain't no sucka.
I can maybe understand losing if Cubs are also losing.
Losing while Cubs are winning is INCONGRUENT with my very constitution.
Last 3 years of futility have prepared me for this next step. Trading Thomas and Valentin for peanuts will push me further.
Cubs making the World Series will be the final straw.
BrandoFan:
Why can't you be a fan of both Chicago teams? There's no reason why you have to choose one over the other.
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I want the White Sox to get Maddux instead.
Is it too much to ask?
JR, get on it.
Maddux has made it clear that he hates the DH rule in the AL and as such will not play for an AL team. You clan't blame Reinsdorf for not getting him when Maddux has this clear preference for the NL.
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Cubs make it to the World Series and I am done with this franchise.
f*** em.
What if they make it to the World Series and lose it?
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Here's my prediction on how the 2004 season will end up:
American League:
East: New York (Assuming ARod trade goes through)
ARod proves the difference between the division and the Wild Card.
Central: Minnesota (Assuming Ozzie proves my impression of him as the Hispanic Terry Bevington proves correct)
West: Seattle
The Mariners's pickup of Guardado and their strong minor league system comes through.
Wild Card: Baltimore
The Orioles's pickup of strong hitters combined with young pitching makes them the AL's surprise team.
AL Pennant: New York
National League:
East: Florida
Defending world champions still possesses strong core of young pitchers combined with such clutch hitters as Jeff Conine and Mike Lowell. Look for Philadelphia to burn out under wild man Bowa.
Central: Houston
Astros win 100+ games with Clemens and Pettite in the lead.
West: San Francisco
Wild Card: Atlanta
Surprise NL team: Pittsburgh. The Pirates have made a number of decent, underpublicized pickups such as Chris Singleton and reportedly Randall Simon. They went 50-48 during the last part of the 2003 season and if they can repeat that performance all season long, they could finish as high as 3rd place with the Cubs in 4th place. Remember, every year that the Cubs have made the playoffs, was followed by a losing season.
NL Pennant: Houston
World Series: Houston (Clemens signs multi-year contract after 2004 season, guaranteeing that the Cubs agony will endure)
Why couldn't we use the money we were gonna
in Pale Hose Talk
Posted
Why did anyone even want the Sox to resign Colon anyways? He was fat, lazy and apathetic. Plus, he's a pitcher in decline. He will almost certainly bust in Anaheim.
Why tie up valuable payroll with Colon? Its bad enough that declining Buehrle is clogging up payroll space, don't have to have another run down pitcher on the team too.