SoxFan562004

yeah, no other mentions of Drabek, so don't think he's going... weird move by Angels, I know they're a big revenue team and they completely struck out this season, but it's like 80m for 4 years left on that deal, will be interesting to see what Jays are sending in $$$ if anything. This might be a stretch, but any way we hear a Pujols extension with Cards is done in the next week? Possibly Angels heard it's near, who knows, just throwing stuff at the wall because as it is this is strange and as Heyman pointed out Wells is a better hitter at home than on the road and it was significant last year.

Manny and Damon to Rays pending physicals.

sorry if this is covered, but I don't have the time to root through 44 pages... I haven't seen anything in any of the articles I've read, but what do they expect to be her mental capacity? I don't mean this to be insensitive at all, but it was obviously a traumatic brain injury and haven't seen what expectations were.

QUOTE (TomPickle @ Jan 21, 2011 -> 06:07 PM) The deal might be Napoli and Rivera for Wells and Drabek. What. The. ****. hmmmm, yes, that would seem a lot more odd to me if Drabek went unless Angels are taking either all or near 100% of Wells deal and they demanded a good prospect in return

QUOTE (ChrisLikesBaseball @ Jan 21, 2011 -> 06:04 PM) I know I saw Harold Reynolds stroking Latos's work on MLBN but I don't remember seeing much on ESPN.. I didn't even know they covered the Western divisions of baseball! haha, I'm not a huge ESPN fan either, but they did give Latos a lot of credit in 2010.

QUOTE (ChrisLikesBaseball @ Jan 21, 2011 -> 05:54 PM) What about a guy like Mat Latos getting the underrated tag? He was a phenomenal pitcher in 2010. Is he under rated or unknown? Do people know about him or is he flying under the radar? I watched a lot of Padres games because he was a joy to watch pitch. I'd ask the same question about Carlos Santana, he was having a phenomenal year behind the plate after he got called up and then he got his knee blown out on a play at the plate. well if you were going to point out ESPN's coverage over JJ, then I'll point it out about Latos, they and MLBN gave him a ton of pub last year

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 21, 2011 -> 05:11 PM) I don't recall where but I believe I read that the video shows a receiver ran totally the wrong route and that was a timing pattern/throw. Bears receivers are average at best, yes Cutler makes some bad decisions but he gets zero help from is receivers, he flat out has nobody who will make a play on the ball, if it isn't thrown nearly perfect it has little chance of being a reception.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Jan 21, 2011 -> 05:01 PM) Too high scoring. BTW, Ted Bruschi also picked the Bears. So this whole, "Us against the world" schtick needs to stop. It's ridiculously dumb. yeah, there's others picking the Bears, I know the playoffs are a different animal, but the last game of the regular season had to sway some people, the Bears D is the only one to slow that offense down lately. I'm a Bears fan, but if forced to pick I would favor the Pack, but by no means do I think the Bears have no chance, if Peppers and Harris have crazy games the Bears are in excellent shape and throw in the wildcard of the the Soldier Field turf being actual garbage and this should be a close game.

QUOTE (Springfield SoxFan @ Jan 21, 2011 -> 05:46 PM) http://www.chicagobreakingsports.com/2011/...-white-sox.html Any thoughts on what the "other move" might be? purely a guess, but trying to bring in a more established 5th starter, even if it's a mediocre innings eater type, that way they can wait on Peavy and have Sale getting some seasoning in the minors in case he's needed during the year, again just a guess. Could also be a power guy off the bench

QUOTE (flavum @ Jan 21, 2011 -> 05:42 PM) This Morel thing is just to light the fire under him during spring training. He can't tell Morel that he has the job even though he does. As long as he isn't pitiful with the bat in March, Morel will be there on opening day. Pierzynski batting 6th? I suppose the lineup can be fluid 6-9, but I hope Quentin earns his way back up to 6th, and AJ can go to 8, especially if Morel is batting 9th. is he doing it to break up the RHs? I'm not sure I'm that big of a fan of that depending on how it shakes out

well, salary shakeout will be interesting, but looks like Jays wanted to just get rid of Wells deal, not a bad move for either side only because Angels have the money

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Jan 21, 2011 -> 05:36 PM) Thought for sure Alexei would bat 2nd to not put to much pressure on Becks. Gotta admit though besides the /Teahen, I have no complaints there. yeah, but I like Beck there better, better potential OBP guy in that slot in front of 3-4-5

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ Jan 21, 2011 -> 05:31 PM) Oz's lineup: Pierre, beckham, Dunn, PK, rios, AJ, Quentin, Ramirez, morel/teahen - Doug Padilla I guess as expected, hopefully that's a lot of "Morel" and less teahen

Along with Dunn, Beckham and Q are why I'm really excited about the offense this year. Beck's numbers are above and Q was bad in April and May (BTW guys, your Q sponsored page at BR is going to expire soon!!). Hopefully with solid starts from those two the Sox can get off on a good roll. Also, with the addition of Dunn I really hope Q goes back to seeing a lot of pitches, a big key to a good offense is getting to the underbelly of the pen, too many times the Sox let teams go from starter to main set up to closer, would like to see more 6th inning guys in there!

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jan 21, 2011 -> 02:52 PM) This seems to be a popular response whenever somebody questions the legitimacy of the Bulls being actual contenders. And I can agree to a certain extent. But honestly, even if healthy, our we any better than the Utah Jazz of the last four years? Rose is Deron. Boozer is, well, Boozer. Noah is Millsap. Then they've had quality players in Okur, AK47, Brewer and Korver. Yet they've never been able to hang with the big boys. Be it the Spurs or the Lakers. We need another impact player to contend with the likes of the Heat, Celtics and probably the Magic. I think it's 50/50 if we even played a team like the Hawks. IMO, there's a mammoth difference between winning 50-55 games and being a true title contender. the defense as mentioned is better but also, as good as Deron is, Rose is a far more dynamic player he's able to do more than Deron

I'll go with Josh Johnson at #1, he gets talked about on MLBN and ESPN a little, but to me he and King Felix are the best pitchers in their respective leagues.

There's a new article out about it, but similar news has been floating around for a few months, basically FEG who runs K-1 and DREAM are hurting extremely bad financially and the Dynamite New Years ratings didn't help their cause. So it will be interesting to see how this shakes out this year.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 18, 2011 -> 03:08 PM) I don't see them having the money to spend like that. Ricketts hasn't shown any indications like that. agreed. If somehow they find a major revenue stream that was untapped this year then it's a possibility. However right now he has a team worth 10% less than he paid, an extremely high yearly pay off on the money he used to buy the team, even with money coming off they still have a bad contract or two lingering, and I just don't see how he gets money from the state to help with Wrigley, meaning even just to keep the status quo there, money will have to come out of his pocket for upkeep. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense that Albert's agents are spreading some of this about the Cubs to force the Cardinals hands a little in renegotiating. Don't forget, if Albert leaves St Louis it's going to be for the money, so it's not like the Cubs are going to get any sort of discount or generous concessions from Albert to make the signing easier, they are going to have to flat out pay more than at least St. Louis and the Angels, and likely another team or two will pop up. Fielder on the other hand is more likely, but as others have pointed out, they may get 2 good years out of him, but his body type doesn't lead me to believe a huge contract would be a good idea.

Yeah, they did the Sox one already, they'll probably do more in-depth ones as a countdown for opening day, but the ones they are doing now are about a 5 or so minute segment within the show, basically a rundown then a quick round table discussion.

They might go hard after him, it's not really clear what Ricketts is doing, although I think the Angels will go insane with the deal if he hits the FA market

QUOTE (thxfrthmmrs @ Jan 16, 2011 -> 07:43 PM) but you also have to know that the bears are a great overall defense because of their rush defense (2nd ranked in the league) and their ability to force turnovers. the pass defense has been below average (20th in the league), and even Hasselback had a good game today. Lovie's defense is geared towards making solid tackles, not allowing big plays, blitzing, and forcing turnovers, they do not play to shut down the opposing receivers, and do not have the personnel to do so. IIRC opposing QBs are completing pass in a pretty high rate against the Bears pass defense. with the way Rodgers is playing right now, you gotta hope that Bears can somehow slow him down, and Cutler shows up to play next week. they were down 21 pretty quickly, they weren't exactly going to run the ball to get back into the game. I'll give a slight edge to the Packers going into next week, but anyone who thinks the Bears have zero chance are off base IMO. To me you can't underestimate the effort the Bears D put up in week 17 against a Packers team who had to win to get in, of course there were drops and such, but that happens in football games. Both teams will have to play in some elements next week on a horrible field, the Pack's offense won't be indoors on an immaculate playing surface against an overrated D. Really looking forward to it, should be a great build up and a lot of fun. And yes, screw the Pats and ESPN, I'm not the biggest Jets fan in the world, but that was awesome. They got on a great streak and rolled with momentum for the last bunch of weeks of the regular season, but they had obvious defensive flaws that were flat out ignored in the dick sucking that goes on over the Pats, I thought next week Pitt would be the one to expose them, but they were so bad Sanchez was able to do it.

QUOTE (knightni @ Jan 15, 2011 -> 11:35 AM) I edited the title slightly. It made me jump - in a bad way. haha, a little too late for me on the change! I checked it half awake and almost had a heart attack, only thing that prevented it was that it was already 2 pages and not pinned. A little off topic, but I think a strong argument can be made that Joba is the poster child for an ESPN East Coast Bias Creation. Don't get me wrong, Joba had/has excellent potential, but the way ESPN jammed him down our throats with countless hours of "start or relief" debates, the Joba Rules, and bottom line updates every time he sneezed, seemed completely ridiculous and over-the-top. I don't know, maybe it was one I focused on so it seemed more ridiculous than others.

QUOTE (bucket-of-suck @ Jan 15, 2011 -> 10:36 AM) It gives them flexibility to either pick up a starter if Jake can't go or allows them to take on at the trade deadline. please list all these starters that are magically there for the taking if the Sox "free up" some money, don't you think the NYY would be all over them and not praying a guy at the tail end of his career comes back? Also, if you wait for the trade deadline the NYY will flat-out be able to absorb terrible contracts from teams if there's a good SP available, it will give them a leg up over basically any other team going for SP at the deadline. It doesn't even have to be the bad contract of the SP they get, they could take an expensive vet and just stick him on the bench or flip him to another team while eating the money.

QUOTE (buhbuhburrrrlz @ Jan 14, 2011 -> 05:59 PM) wow at the videos the news was showing from the cubs convention. it used to always be a sellout, wall to wall people. didn't look like too many people were there. not sure what the final number will be, but it was the first time in a long time that it didn't sell out before the weekend

Season premier of Ricky Gervais show on HBO tonight, it's a great show!