SoxFan562004

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Feb 16, 2011 -> 11:26 AM) My short list for 8/200 would be Cubs Yanks Boston LAA LAD STL TEX HOU ATL TOR DET SEA Probably more. I think some teams have been waiting for him to come available, he's one of the best hitters to ever play. I think Detroit and Seattle are interesting, but for Detroit, that would be two sizable deals on their books with Cabrera and another decent one with V-Mart. Again with the Cubs, I don't see how they realistically have the money for it. I posted on the last page, if they can't dump Zambrano, and gave Pujols 27m, which actually seems like it might not get it done, they would have 63m for 3 players between those 2 and Soriano, and you are getting less and less production out of Soriano every year. Another reason I question the Cubs signing him is they are not in the position to maximize his revenue ability, the Shrine isn't set up for it. There's no secret Ricketts has a desire to revamp Wrigley to get more revenue, I'm sure we all remember that debacle a few months ago when he was asking the state for money. So at this point he would have to front the money, when he's already serving 30m of debt a year for a team worth less than he paid for, take on new partners, or secure debt with the state in a plan he apparently has no interest in. If he doesn't do that the Cubs could sell out every game and they are still limited on revenue streams. I think LAA makes sense because the have a refurbished stadium that maximizes all possible revenues, they also have a higher capacity, so I feel they are the team that can maximize his revenue the most. He reportedly turned down 8/200+ so that number is going to be either 8 and significantly more than 200 or 2 more years and more money.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Feb 16, 2011 -> 11:22 AM) He said no in season negotiation and his agent seems determined to take him to free agency. Is there a team in the majors that wouldnt break the bank to sign this guy to an 8 year contract? what he says and what is a reality can be two different things, depending on what they hear through the gravevine and what teams dump salary etc... I think LAA is his best bet for leaving, outside of that I'm not sure who would really give him 8/200+

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Feb 16, 2011 -> 10:35 AM) It bothers me because I live outside of the Chicago market, but it's not something I take offense to. Also, with mlb.tv i care less about it now, but it still is nice for out of towners to see games nationally broadcast, so that is unfortunate if ESPN really has zero games scheduled this year. they have at least one, and if someone can confirm it for me, I believe they use a flexible schedule later in the season

QUOTE (Rooftop Shots @ Feb 16, 2011 -> 09:11 AM) Still can't figure it out! As we all know, that for many years ESPN has had no love for The Sox. Last year on MLBN's 30 clubs in 30 days they had us next to last on the schedule. This year On MLBN ,when they were going through who they thought were the top 10 best teams this year, Rod Allen picked The Sox as #8 and Harold Reynolds laughed his head off and said that he was surprised that they were on the list at all! When Reynolds was asked about the depth of The Sox rotation, he ducked the question and reverted the question over to Oakland and yacked up a storm about them. Even Mitch Williams. Reverts questions off of The Sox, and straight onto Detroit and how good they are. Yesterday, they talked about major key players that were injured last year that can make major impacts on teams if they are healthy. Santana, Morales, Nathan, and a few others were mentioned. How the heck can Peavy's name not even be mentioned let alone not be thrown into the conversation? This year on the TV broadcst schedule, (Except for one spring training game) ESPN has NO GAMES scheduled for The Sox this year. I know that we are all Sox fans and have some great hopes this year, but why don't major networks see us as a legitimate threat? I mean....C'mon already! Look at our line up and rotaion and pen! Maybe it's not tops in the majors, but sheesh......I don't thnk that we should be looked upon as a pile of rags that aren't worth the time of day for discussion on contending and being a threat! 7 on Fox GOTW and 1 ESPN game on August 1. Also, I believe MLBN doesn't set a schedule for the games it picks up during the season, and if memory serves me right, there were a few on last year because MLBN was either blacked out or showed an alternate game. I believe ESPN "flexes" games later in the year to get more relevant games on, so it's possible they'll have more. http://chicagoradioandmedia.com/news/1395-...adcast-schedule I guess maybe they were Tiger heavy last week on MLBN, but I also watched and their broadcasters said good things about the Sox through the off-season, it goes from show to show and week to week sometimes. Honestly, outside the NYY and Bos, I bet a lot of fans of other teams have similar complaints. Ultimately, who cares, the Sox have consistently had a top 10 payroll, and while you can argue with how the team does it, they have the resources to put on paper competitive teams out there. ESPN is a different story, that is everything NYY or Bos do is important and all other teams get 2nd fiddle on that network.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Feb 16, 2011 -> 09:49 AM) The "deadline" has passed, according to Olney. Not that it even matters because the deadline isn't really a deadline. that's my feelings on this. It wouldn't shock me if at some point, really any point during the season, there's breaking news he resigned. He can sell a whole press conference of him saying this is where his heart is, blah blah blah.

Heyman is saying at one point Pujols and his camp wanted part of the team, Heyman claims it's complicated but possible. That's crazy and something no team out there is going to give him in FA

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Feb 15, 2011 -> 09:22 PM) Cards reportedly offer Albert 8 years, $240 million via Heyman. I'm hard pressed to find a team that is going to give him his 10/30 next year, if that's the real offer, I think he's listening to the wrong people

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ Feb 15, 2011 -> 11:41 AM) Have you heard what their offer is? I haven't seen it anywhere. And part of the answer to your question about the 5 year plan is that he supposedly wants 10 years. I heard it was about half of what he wanted, so I'm just assuming it was somewhere around 5/150 or in that neighborhood, possibly 6 or 7 years with a little less average per year.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Feb 15, 2011 -> 08:39 AM) Take it FWIW @SI_JonHeyman one competing baseball exec told me he believes #cubs will offer pujols the a-rod deal ($10 mil, $27.5 mil/yr). supposed to be 10 years of course, not 10 mil so with Soriano that's about 45m a year for two players with Soriano giving you less and less every year. Also, I think he wants more than A-Rod, that's kind of the point. I think his eventual deal with whoever will be shorter but for more $$$ a year. Garza is at around 5m this season and arb for next year, so either they extend him or he goes to arb you're looking at conservatively 7m. So for an awesome bat, an OK declining bat who is a complete liability in the OF and a very good pitcher the Cubs are at 52m. That's a lot of holes to fill. That's not even thinking about Zambrano and if they either dump him and eat some of the salary or have the 18m on the books... that easily turns into 60m for those three and pay for Z to go away or 70m for those 4 players. I know some people like some of their young players, but I've never heard anyone say they have a great system filled with MLB ready talent ready to make this jump to fill that many holes cheaply.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Feb 11, 2011 -> 05:01 PM) Couldn't Undertaker basically just say no to the idea of losing to HHH? he probably has some sort of creative control clause in his deal, but also, HHH and Steph are going to be running that company in the future, and they're going to have ultimate say over retrospective collections, future off-camera roles, promotional roles, etc... there's money in that for retired wrestlers. I know how long Undertaker has been doing this and probably has made a lot of money, but he's also been married several times, so extra paychecks could come in handy down the line. With that said, I just can't imagine HHH beating him at Wrestlemania

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 14, 2011 -> 02:32 PM) If they hadn't spent all that money on Beltre I might believe that. But even after a WS run, they're not a hugely profitable team, and at the end of this season, they're going to be having to seriously figure out what they're doing with a number of guys. B-R does a little thing where they automatically guess a general range for how much a team's arbitration guys and options make...they go from a $95 million payroll this year to close to $120-$130 million next year just by guys hitting arbitration and guys whose contracts expand (Hamilton's does this by $6 mil, for example). Thanks for posting the numbers, didn't know they expanded that much, yeah likely not suitors. Just trying to rack my brains for more teams because Pujols and his camp have to be hearing scuttle from other teams. I just think with the PED testing, his age and DH for end of a long term deal available in only 1 league I just don't see how he gets anywhere near what he wants. With that said, if he's not with the Cards, I would make the Angels front runners even with the Wells trade

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Feb 14, 2011 -> 09:06 AM) Angels, Dodgers, Cubs, maybe the Mets are about the only teams I see in the mix. Yankees and Red Sox just don't have a need. I just still don't see how they swing it. The Cubs have some serious cash flow problems and they are going to get very little help from the state to maintain/upgrade Wrigley. Team is worth less than when he bought it and he has a major payment do every year on his debt for it. I'll throw the Rangers in there, they were willing to go pretty high with Lee and the new ownership might determine it's the best business move, also can play him at 1b for a few and have luxury of DH.

Heyman has two teams in on a Young trade with Rangers, no teams named and he said Ranger and Rockies haven't talked in a long time.

first GP card firing up in about hour and a half... will be interesting to see how this thing plays out, just glad they're getting their HWs active again, really don't care that they threw brackets around it, but understand they are trying to create buzz. Good luck watching it if you don't have comp or showtime, basically zero bars are showing this thing, me and about 4 friends wanted to head out for it tonight but are stuck watching it at a house. Jorge Santiago is coming back to UFC, was 1-2 about 4 years ago but went on a 7-1 tear since... probably never a true title contender but he is very good and entertaining.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writ....html?eref=sihp first part of article lists some good data on why the Cards are bristling at a long term deal with Pujols, very legitimate concerns there for the Cards but have to be weighed against the short term

QUOTE (iamshack @ Feb 12, 2011 -> 05:34 PM) Yeah, well, he was willing to basically throw away his future in the first place, so it's difficult to argue that the possibility isn't there for him to relapse. But do you really see him hitting the FA market and someone not going 4-5 years at $75-100 million? I would be shocked if there weren't multiple teams willing to take a chance on him. If you protect yourself via the contract against a relapse, I don't see how the risk is all that great though. yeah, he would likely get those offers, and the contracts would have wording to protect the teams, however, I imagine they would be breaking some new ground, so if he does relapse teams could be buying themselves a ton of litigation.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Feb 12, 2011 -> 03:46 PM) Yeah, I can definitely understand that point, and I wholeheartedly agree with it. You can never fall in love with a player or allow the fans to dictate what you do as an organization. It has certainly happened here before though. That being said, there is a difference between signing Hamilton because the fans would get frustrated and signing Hamilton because there is a genuine market for him, despite your misgivings. Very few players are perfect or do not involve significant risk when signing them long-term. I think Josh has been professional enough, and has been consistent enough, that I would be willing to go long term with him. It's not ideal, but given that there will be other suitors willing to, I'd do it, as long as there was a clause which allowed me to void the contract, at my discretion, if testing showed he was using illegal drugs (and obviously you'd have to set up some sort of criteria for the testing in the first place). he's had at least one relapse that we know of in the last year or so (I believe the deadspin pics were from last off-season), even without those, a known drug addict is a hard sell to me to give long term money to without appropriate safe-guards laid out in the contract. I was a public defender for 2 years, part of that was in abuse/neglect court, I saw people chose drugs over their own kids, even with decent periods of sobriety, it would not come as a major shock to me if Hamilton falls hard again... again, not hoping it happens or anything like that, but it is an extremely realistic possibility.

I like Beckham and Dunn at 2/3 better, two good OPS guys (beckham potential and Dunn proven) in the 1st inning, get pitch counts up and get into 3/4 guys out of the pen instead of 1/2

QUOTE (Brian @ Feb 11, 2011 -> 04:17 PM) Ugh.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Feb 11, 2011 -> 12:33 PM) Sox see spike in 2011 ticket sales good to hear, first article I have heard about ticket sales this offseason, hopefully the team competes all year and I have no doubt ratings and ticket sales will be solid

I thought they were usually held back to be sold with packages like The Ozzie Plan, maybe they didn't do that this year.

so I imagine Cashman almost had a heart attack when he got wind the Twins could deal him, wouldn't be surprised if he hurt himself running for the phone.

On MLBN Mitch Williams actually brought up how teams should be leery of long term with Hamilton. Another commentator, didn't catch his name, said in a few years maybe a long term deal would make sense because he's had a good track record, and everyone on the set completely ignored that he's had at least one relapse

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ Feb 10, 2011 -> 01:19 PM) Rangers signed Josh Hamilton to a $24M - 2 year extension. per Heyman interesting thing about his tweet was he mentioned that the Rangers would not have mentioned his past issues in arb. I'm a little surprised by that. Look, good for Hamilton that he's strung together and constantly works on his sobriety, but we're talking multi-million dollars here, and he had at least one known relapse with alcohol in the past year or so. If they ever try to hammer out a long term deal with him, it simply has to be addressed, the Rangers would need some sort of clause protecting them from a serious relapse. This guy was about as low as you can get and if you saw the Real Sports piece on him he has a ton of safeguards in place to keep him sober, there's a realistic chance he could slip back. Again, I'm not saying I hope he does and I think it's great he has a good support group and keeps working at it, but some people need to start looking at some of these situations with sports figures realistically and not just pretend everything is OK because guys are performing well on the field and have a short successful recovery period.

I'm sure it's been mentioned but I hate it so much I'll add it again, people who drench on the perfume or cologne right before working out.