bigred3535

We can't lose the great Rupert Murdoch baseball tradition now!!! He's done so much for the Dodgers in his endless five and a half years of ownership. Who can forget that great playoff run they had in...well...never. But at least we can count on his legacy as one of the great owners of all time lasting forever. Oh wait...no we can't. I'm sorry, I don't mean to be condescending but who gives a s*** whether it's one uncaring billionaire or another owning the Dodgers. McCourt won't be any worse than Murdoch. Maybe baseball sold out when the O'Malleys sold the Dodgers, but it's ridiculous to talk like baseball is losing a revered founder of the game, or something like that.

Man, I envy you guys going to Soxfest. I'll just have to lurk around the Spring Training site trying to get autographs and talk to players and kick KW in the shins (whoops, did I say that?). Anyway, have a b****in' time tomorrow and the rest of the weekend for those of you going.

It's a pretty bleak list, but I still wouldn't mind seeing Osuna, Burkett, Astacio or Mesa signed to a minor-league deal (that's excluding the ones the Sox have no chance of signing of course).

Goin' with the KW strategy...

I noticed that he did not really answer most of the questions. He deftly side-stepped any questions about payroll and economics ("our fans don't want to hear about that"...even though they asked about it...hmmm...) and was very ambiguous in questions regarding players and position battles (i.e. the Rowand/Reed, Harris and Kris Honel questions). Of course, I didn't expect anything different when I saw that whitesox.com was looking for questions. This isn't any different from anything the site does: good p.r. for the sox to get people to buy tickets. I'll be much more interested to hear about the SoxFest Q&A (although I'm sure he'll be well-rehearsed and won't say much there either). I also think it would be interesting to see him answer some questions on the fly on these boards: no holds barred and no stating questions politely enough to get them published online (no offense elrockinMT). My feeling is he might wnd up walking away with his tail between his legs.

Not really. He's had four magnificent seasons and one decent season (I doubt many people here would have been disappointed with his 4.26 ERA if he were the third starter for the Sox, and so I would consider last year a fairly decent season, although not No. 1 starter caliber). Carlton, meanwhile, only hit over .260 in six of his thirteen years with the Sox. He had over 20 home runs four times with the ChiSox, and 120 hits only four times as well. Now, I'd just like to make it clear once again that I think Fisk was a great signing and he is undoubtedly one of the best Sox players of all time. However he was not nearly as effective in Chicago as he was in Boston. With the White Sox he had maybe one MVP caliber seasons, and definitely not the four Cy Young quality seasons Johnson's had. And the fact remains that he did not lead the team to a championship. That's why I think Fisk, although a great player, was not as good a signing as Johnson.

I agree that Carlton was a great player and a great signing. But Johnson is actually signed through 2005, which makes seven years of Randy in AZ, at the end of which he'll probably retire. So it comes down to this: Would you trade thirteen years with Carlton for seven years, two MVP awards and a World Series championship. I know that I sure would. That's why I think Johnson is a better signing.

I think the Johnson signing in AZ may be the best. He almost singlehandedly led them to a World Series Championship (how many free agents can ay that?) and won two or three Cy Youngs. But if you're looking at stats and price, I don't think anyone's ever gotten a bigger bang for the buck than E-Lo last year.

I'm good with this as long as it's shaped like KW's head or a horse's ass (although the two do seem like one and the same don't they?)

You gotta respect Spanky.

How are you supposed to get RBI's if D'Angelo Jimenez/Robbie Alomar/Jose Valentin can't get on base more than 30 percent of the time? I remember countless times early in the season where Frank hit solo home runs to lead off an inning because the hacks in front of him weren't on base. As for average, I think we'd all like to see Frank get more hits, but his OBP was still about .380, so as long as he gets on base why does it matter if it's a single or a walk?

Frank gets a bad rap from the media. Early in his career he was not friendly with them, but many players aren't. Not everyone is an Alex Rodriguez or a Ken Griffey Jr. or a Derek Jeter (regarding the media) when they come into the league and the fact that he's been trying to improve his pubblic relations don't seem to make a difference to them. It's ridiculous. Leave the poor guy alone. He's got to be in the Chicago spotlight for eight months of the year, the least they could do is wait another month until Spring Training starts before they badger him.

Jackson was pretty good in 2002 so he could be productive. As for Bernard, the Sox don't have a backup outfielder this year and would probably prefer that Reed and Borchard work on their games in AAA than sit on the bench. The Sox also sorely lacked a solid pinch hitter last year (Brian Daubach anyone?) and Benard is reputedly pretty good at that.

Nope, the date on the article says it was posted January 19. There was another one about him a month or two ago. That's why I find this one funny. I think he'll do well in a starting role, too, but it seems like every couple weeks there's an article about him fighting his way back from one thing or another, or his intense devotion to staying in shape, or him "accepting the role the team wants," or him quietly putting up good numbers. Maybe his uncle's on the mlb.com staff or something.

Is it just me, or does this guy have a better article to talent ratio than any guy in the majors. Anyway, there's another one on whitesox.com that I don't know if anyone saw. It's kind of interesting. Says a lot of the same stuff about him proving himself, etc. though.

So the Rangers want to trade A-Rod, huh? When did this happen, I don't think I've heard it before.

Those numbers are kind of misleading. He had two really bad outings but was ok for the rest. I doubt he'll make the team, but he is a good backup plan if someone gets hurt.

Alright, here's where I got the "35 million number from: http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2003/0428/mlb_18.html If you look at the revenue, operating expenses and player payroll that leaves at least $35 million in Jerry's pocket. There may be other variables in there that Forbes didn't include, but either way, it looks like Jerry made a hefty profit of the Sox.

Whatever man, if you want to be a Cubs fan go to a Cubs board. It's going to take harder times than this to bring me over to the dark side. Anyway, the Sox have a better chance of going to the playoffs than the Cubs this year, despite the improvements the Cubs have made. That's all you need to do. Once the playoffs start any team (i.e. the Angels or Marlins) can get hot and win it all. Look at the Angels pitching staff from two years back. They didn't have a better top three than Este, Mark and Jon. And the Marlins sure as hell couldn't hit the way the Sox can when they're on. Stop your b****ing and face it, Reinsdorf isn't going to sell the team so live with it, or move on and find another team or sport.

Alright, I don't know if this has been posted yet, but I'd like to know what everyone's thoughts on the Bush plan for a moon base and a manned mission to Mars are: http://g.msn.com/0US!s5.31472_315529/16.a3990/2??cm=Main Personally, I think we finally have definitive proof that Bush is thinking on a third graders level. There is nothing useful to be learned from putting a man on the moon again, and it's rather ridiculous and pointless to build a "moon base." In addition, while going to Mars may have been a dream of every 8-year old boy, once again it is a useless waste of money to send someone there at this point. Scientists really won't learn much more about Mars than from the samples that robots have brought back. I definitely am not in favor of this plan, and I think it is more a public relations ploy than anything else.

I agree that if Trump does buy a team it will probably be MLB or NBA. However, don't rule out the NBA just because of no mid-season ownership change. Remember, that most sales of major sports franchises take months, if not years, to complete. In addition, it's probably highly likely that the Heat owner would sell because they just lost their coach and are in the middle of a un-promising rebuilding process. I would be surprised to see any of the other NBA owners on that list selling though (especially Indiana and Sac-town). In additon, I would not find it surprising if Colangelo was going to sell the D-Backs. He's way, way in debt and they're going to start a rebuilding process soon. Attendance fell a lot last year and will probably fall more this year. he's also got the Suns to deal with, who are tanking it. He probably has a bigger interest in them anyway since he's owned them for longer. Anyhow, it's probably a moot point since Trump's probably doing this to publicize his show or some crap like that, and I don't find it likely that JR will sell unless he makes a huge profit off the deal. Most owners will want to make a profit if they sell their teams, so when Trump says he wants to buy a team for 250 million it may be a team that's actually worth 150-200 million.

I think Anderson and Sweeney are much better prospects than Borchard was at this point simply because they both read the strike zone better than Joe ever has. Remember that Joe was a top prospect in the pre-"Moneyball" days... Also, Nanita may sneak on the list even though he probably is not a great "prospect" simply because he had an such an outstanding season.

Ok hold the phone. That White Sox value pages says that JR made about 35 million dollars of the team last year. What the f*** Jerry?! Put some of that money back into the team you cheap bastard. You probably couldn't spend that 30 million dollars in the rest of your lifetime anyway.

He'll definitely be behind Reed, probably behind Honel, maybe behind Cotts, Pacheco and Anderson. Honel has been good on every level and is younger, that's why I'm guessing he'll be ahead of Joe. As for Cotts, his miserable showing in the majors last year probably has dropped his stock. Pacheco's excellent season probably raised his, and Anderson was very good in rookie ball as well. It probably doesn't help Borchard that his stats slipped from 2002 even though the majority of both seasons were spent in Charlotte.

I've always liked Kelly. Hopefully he can stay healthy and pitch well next season in what will probably be his biggest role to date.