southsideirish

QUOTE(striker62704 @ Mar 26, 2007 -> 09:58 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The article mentioned how Garcia was topping out at 85mph. I'm glad KW is the GM and not some of the nay saying posters who didn't like that trade. But we could have should have gotten sooooo much back in return for him! Didn't you see all the possible trades Kenny had to choose from for a guy with an 85 MPH fastball?

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Mar 26, 2007 -> 07:20 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> My question is why is this all coming out now? Is it because Danks surprising won the 5th job, and McCarthy has been awful this Spring? Or did Rogers just stumble onto this new information? It states in the article that he asked scouts this spring:

QUOTE(StrangeSox @ Mar 14, 2007 -> 09:39 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> How is it even possible for someone not to be able to name Christinianity, Judaism, or Islam? If that number really is true, I think that there's a much larger problem then religious knowledge in our public schools. Or use common sense and know the two most populated countries in the world are China (Buddhism) and India (Hinduism) and put 2 and 2 together. That would give you all 5 just by using common sense. Ridiculous. Our nation should definitely be taught world religions. What case can you make against it?

Damn that sucks. RIP BUD.

QUOTE(DrunkBomber @ Mar 20, 2007 -> 10:45 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I dont think we needed Archuleta to pull the trigger if somebody offered us a first rounder for Briggs at this point. Need? no. But does it help? Hell yeah!

QUOTE(SoxAce @ Mar 20, 2007 -> 11:36 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I know you weren't quoting me, but you didn't see any improvement that at least El-Duque was a veteran and can give you innings and keep you in the game and whose era during 98-04 was 3.13, 4.12, 4.51, 4.85, 3.64, and 3.30 respectively? The only question with him was injuries and even then B-Mac was MLB ready anyway to step in from LR and handle the 5th spot. The Whitesox organization wouldn't be wearing rings right now if El-Duque didn't help contribute. Who the hell knew that Hermy was going to get injured. Who knows who'll get injured this year. Your right about the "overwhelmed" but ALOT of posters saw that improvement from that dreaded 5th spot as well. Now that's BS. Where does it say that I didn't see it? A lot of posters just saw his age and injury history and couldn't care less about how it was better than our 5th spot of a year before. The loss of Lee and Ordonez for an injury plagued Dye and some one year wonder Pods was not well received either. We were just going on the cheap. You don't recall this? Oh yeah, there was a ton of negativity prior to the 2005 season. A TON! And not one quote in that statement or my previous statement was BS. Total truth.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Mar 20, 2007 -> 11:19 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yeah, I'm not surprised that you didn't mention any of that in your post because to be honest I didn't read it because I don't really care. It was more of a general post about a certain subject that tends to piss me off. How about you don't tell me what to post and what sort of feelings I should be having and I'll extend the same to you. Flash basically said everything that needs to be said. I don't often post things like 'Pods sucks' because I think that's pretty childish and stuff like that brings down the collective IQ of the board IMO. If I do post something like that though it's usually backed up by an argument heavily weighted in statistical evidence not just some bulls*** whim or 'gut feeling' I have at the time. It's kind of tough to distinguish the difference between fact and opinion at times so perhaps some of the posts you've read which you've taken as fact are actually opinions in disguise as facts. Perhaps you shouldn't take everything you read so seriously? Oh, yeah. I feel I must say this I am not crucifying the whole team by any means. I f***ing love Jermaine Dye, he's great. Totally agree. I'd much rather read a million "Brian Anderson is bad and here's why *lists evidence*" posts than a hundred "lets just wait and see what happens when the season starts" posts. The Former may upset me a bit because I disagree with it but atleast that's an opinion backed up by a little evidence -- no matter how flawed it may be -- the latter on the other hand nothing but fluff to the discussion. Any fan that wants to agree with Baseball Prospectus or has the opinion that the Sox will miss the playoffs this season is absolutely 100% cool to say such things in my book as long as they're backing it up with a little evidence. If it's a flimsy bulls*** statement backed up by a gut feeling then yeah I get why that would be pretty annoying but as long as evidence is being presented I don't have much of a problem with it. Those who think the team is bad are fans just as much as you and I and I really don't see where we get off telling them to think otherwise. You're lucky you weren't around here towards the end of last season when the "soxhawks" and "sinkingship's" of the board took over with their negative talk, it probably would have really gotten to you. At the end of last year it made total sense to be negative, There was absolutely nothing positive about the direction they were headed. However, to bring a negative attitude into a season that has yet to even begin is completely ridiculous. Lets see how they start playing as a team. Lets see how our bullpen shapes up. If it is anything like 2006 where certain hitters are just swinging for the fences in every situation and our bullpen is going down one by one and our starters are consistently underperforming then I can see where the negativity would come from. This is a brand new season with, what looks like, an improved bullpen and bench to go along with a solid starting rotation and a kick ass lineup. Now if our favorite team resembled that north side team I would be pretty pissed off and I could see the negativity, but that is not the case at all.

QUOTE(Flash Tizzle @ Mar 20, 2007 -> 11:09 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> It's almost the lazy persons why of tackling an issue. To say, "yeah, well, let's just wait and see." Sure, it's safe (as to avoid looking dumb later on) -- but boring and almost counterproductive to the purpose of a message board. Just state your opinion now, jackass!!~!!! Optimistic or not, I'd rather someone atleast contribute to the message board than spout some useless cliche. I guarantee for EVERY Williams deal someone within a thread brings it up. Although it's more commonly associated with controversial trades (such as Garcia and McCarthy) where, rather than admit perhaps it didn't meet their expectations, someone will present the "wait and see" card. No. That phrase should be banned. I think the lazy man's approach is to just be negative as well if all your worried about is being right about something. You will be right more likely than not every time. Only 8 teams make it to the playoffs, only 2 to the World Series, and there is only one champ. Not everyone is going to have a great season. It is much easier to be negative on something if you want to be right, because more often than not your team will not make the World Series or win it. The wait and see approach is idiotic, I agree. If you don't have an opinion you shouldn't be posting on a message board, because as you say, you contribute absolutely nothing. You are Switzerland.

QUOTE(Flash Tizzle @ Mar 20, 2007 -> 11:00 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> First off, considering how you joined seven months ago you probably have no idea of Soxtalk's expectations prior to 2005. I know many here (I honestly can't remember my exact sentiments) realized our rotation was finally entact 1-5, and the lineup was significantly stronger with Pierzysnki catching and Podsednik leading off. No one really knew what to expect from Iguchi. Even without Ordonez and Lee, a general feeling of "well, hitting HR's got us nowhere" was echoed and their absence wasn't droned upon. 2007 is completely different. The division is tougher top to bottom. Our pitching staff has more recently regressed than won a World Series. I don't believe we'll finish 72-90, as Baseball Prospectus suggested, but I wouldn't be surprised with a 85 win ballclub. In my opinion, until the bullpen establishes itself and the rotation significantly improves (which I wrote in a separate post is really asking alot), I won't expect too much. See, here's the two way straight -- you can't just go around telling everyone to be optimistic based upon your gut feeling than dismiss those who believe otherwise. I know people say, "it's easy to be negative," but I look at it as having legitimate reasons for establishing doubt in this ball club. In the last six years, we've made the playoffs twice. Nothing is guaranteed. Why should I assume that what happened in 2005 is bound to happen again? That is a bunch of BS. Most here hated that Lee trade and it was drone upon. Most here were very pessimistic about the 2005 season, much more so than the previous year. We had freaking El Duque as our 5th starter and no one here was overwhelmed by his presence as a 5th starter. Very few people here or elsewhere were optimistic of our chances prior to the 05 season and people thought we were tanking or rebuilding. The "hitting HR's got us nowhere" aproach was not the majority of the posters thoughts. Very few people liked Pods and thought he was a career minor leaguer with 1 good season. You probably can't recall your exact sentiments because they were most likely negative as usual. I would just ask this. Given the choice of looking at this team optimistically or pesimistically, why would you choose the negative approach? Why wouldn't you give the team, manager, general manager, and owner the benefit of the doubt based on the 2 previous seasons or even 3, since KW and Ozzie have been working together? They have an average of a 91-71 record over those 3 seasons. No other team in the AL Central can claim better or claim a World Series Championship. Have faith in your favorite team for once.

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Mar 20, 2007 -> 10:35 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Faith is what a person relies upon when there is no concrete evidence to back the claim. ...just saying And what is wrong with that? There is not concrete evidence of what this team WILL become. You may as well hope for the best and have faith in your team, manager, general manager, and owner (yes the same people that helped this team win the World Championship just 2 years ago) that they know what they are doing and they will get the job done. Why not have faith in them? Why not? It is not like this team was horrible last year. They were a 90 win team in the toughest division in baseball. They had injuries and players with down years. Hope for the best and have faith in your favorite baseball team.

QUOTE(DrunkBomber @ Mar 20, 2007 -> 10:21 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Do you guys see him playing linebacker to replace Briggs or backup or what? I would only think he would play LB in an emergency. I am hoping to replace Briggs. We can turn Briggs into a first round pick and have Archuleta play outside linebacker and not miss a beat. That is my opinion anyway.

QUOTE(SoxFanForever @ Mar 20, 2007 -> 10:06 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Exactly. Wouldn't be surprised if he made the switch. He played LB in college. Yes he did, however I just read the Tribune article about the trade and it seems like he may be replacing Brown. I am not sure if this is speculation or inside information. I am not in favor of this and I like the linebacker move much better. Then trade Briggs for a 1st rounder. That would be nice. Here is the trib article: http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sp...-home-headlines

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Mar 20, 2007 -> 08:30 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> He's been absolutely TERRIBLE for the past few seasons. Basically he's a strong safety who'sonly effective in the box stopping the run, and not good in coverage. Think Roy Williams for example. So if a player like Daniel Manning really comes on as a center fielder like free safety, I could see this one working out. Archuleta hasn't been the same type of player since Lovie left St. Louis as well. Sounds like an outside linebacker to me, no?

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Mar 20, 2007 -> 07:56 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Couldn't really hurt to try him there if they have the playing time, but I think this is sort of the "Mike Brown is always hurt and this guy is cheap and could still be decent in the system he grew up in" type deal. I would really hate to see Mike Brown gone. He is a leader type and he is very smart. We need those types of players. However, I can't see the Bears paying 2.5 million a year for a backup safety. You are probably right, but I would love to see the move to linebacker. He made a ton of plays near the line of scrimmage for the Rams and it just seems like linebacker would be a great fit for him and his skill set, not safety. Now if Brown gets hurt and we have to move him there that is one thing, but it is not something I would like or look forward to seeing.

I think there are a lot of rumors of him switching to linebacker. Could this actually be a replacement for Briggs? 6'0" 223lbs - Archuleta and 6'1" 240 for Briggs. Archuleta adds 10 pounds and he can easily replace Briggs and we can trade Briggs for a lot more than a 6th round pick I betcha. Plus I think the Bears staff likes the safeties we have, they are just a young and inexperienced. Archuleta is not exactly a great safety and would not be considered an upgrade over what we currently have at safety. If this move is for a replacement for Briggs I love the move. If it is to be one of our starting safeties then I am a bit opposed.

QUOTE(juddling @ Mar 20, 2007 -> 01:31 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> My props to you Mr. Ortiz..this story says alot. The Washington Post has a depressing/heartwarming story today about a fallen soldier who loved the Red Sox. When Justin Allan Rollins learned that he was being deployed to Iraq last year, the soldier had a mission of his own: to see his beloved Boston Red Sox play at Fenway Park one last time. Spec. Rollins saw more than just a game that summer day. He got to meet one of his heroes, Red Sox slugger David Ortiz. Ortiz signed a ball for him. Later, in the stands, Rollins turned to his father. "He said, 'If David Ortiz hits a home run, I can die a happy man in Iraq,' " recalled Kathryn Hanson, a close family friend. "His father thought it was the most eerie thing he had ever heard." Rollins was killed in Iraq two weeks ago and buried in Arlington National Cemetery yesterday. Ortiz sent an inscribed baseball to be placed inside the coffin and one of his jerseys signed with an inscription for the young soldier I don't see what he did exactly. He signed a couple things. Kudos to him I guess.

QUOTE(gosox41 @ Mar 13, 2007 -> 07:49 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I know it's only halfway through spring training and all that and I'm not panicking about the team as a whole, though I'm not as optimistic as I was right after Soxfest when KW talked about all this great pitching he traded for. So feel free to talk me off the ledge regarding the issues below: 1. This Garcia trade is eating at me more and more everyday. KW has gone on record saying he wouldn't trade 1 of his 5 starters unless it made the 2007 team as well as the future brighter. So tell me how has the Garcia trade helped the Sox for 2007, let alone 2008? Sure it's early, and maybe the AAA team will go far with Gonzalez and Floyd. Gio wasn't even projected in the rotation and Floyd has been anything but impressive. How are the Sox better with this move? Is this really all the value Garcia had in the trade market. You read columns and behind closed doors Philly is laughing that the Sox took on Floyd for a 17 game winner. Of course any public comments they make talk about a change of scenery helping him. Whatever. This trade alone can be just like the Foulke/Koch trade and keep the Sox out of the playoffs. I said the same thing before the '03 season and nailed it. And I'm saying the same thing now about Floyd. Someone give me some reason to be optimistic about this guy helping the Chicago White Sox in 2007. 2. What is with the Rowand love. Sure he's hard nosed, but he's also not a good offensive player unless you're comparing him to Borchard. There's no reason Anderson can't produce similar numbers to Rowand and give you better D. Why would the sox consider trading young pitching like Tracey or Logan for Rowand and his contract? Does everyone thing the Sox bullpen is going to go into the season and not need any changes due to bad performance or injury? I think they're sadly mistaken if you do. And adding Lieber to the mix as part of the trade rumors really has me scratching my head. A trade of Logan, Garcia, and Tracey for Floyd, Gonzalez, Lieber, and Rowand? I can pass on that one without thinking twice considering the Sox are supposed to be going for it in 2007. 3. Why is Sox management down on Anderson? Give him time to mature. No way is Rowand a significant upgrade. Why didn't the sox ship him out earlier if thy didn't like him? Does anyone else have the same concerns? zzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzz boring

QUOTE(VAfan @ Mar 13, 2007 -> 10:46 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> When this trade was made, I wondered why. And now that we've added other power arms for the bullpen and Aardsma is getting rocked, I am really wondering why. Cotts lost considerable luster last year, but he saved our butts at critical moments in our WS run. What has Aardsma ever done? The only time I've seen him pitch was the ST game against the Cubs this year, and he looked like the worst guy we trotted out that day (though Haeger had no control). Was this trade a big mistake? Discuss. Cause Cotts sucks major a-s-s. Really, he does. He had one good season. He is gone and I really couldn't care any less about it. QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Mar 13, 2007 -> 01:06 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> To answer the question in this thread, we gave up on Cotts because even in the case of lefties, if your only pitch is a "sneaky" 90 to 92 MPH fastball, that's a bit of a problem. The Cotts/Aardsma trade will be remembered as crap for crap, and if all we could get was Mackowiak for Marte, Aardsma for Cotts is about right. People always overvalue players on their own team though, and you get threads like this. Heck, there are people who are silly enough to think we did bad in even the B-Mac trade somehow. Mackowiak for Marte was an awesome trade for the Sox. I would take a utility player with the capability of Macks any day over a nothing pitcher like Marte. I still can't believe we got Mack for Marte. That is just ridiculous.

Wisconsin UCLA Georgetown Texas A&M Wisconsin Texas A&M Wisconsin

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Mar 11, 2007 -> 07:54 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> It's wrong from our perspective. It's not to most players. Same with steroids. I am not sure what you mean by this. Here is my opinion. Most players, if not all, find it wrong to do steroids or cork your bat and things of that nature. Most players, if not all, find it wrong to purposely rat someone out for doing steroids or using a corked bat and such.

QUOTE(IowaSoxFan @ Mar 8, 2007 -> 09:46 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Was Francona another then since the Red Sox missed the playoffs? How about Mike Scioscia? He was never a candidate to be fired even though he took a team taht won 99 games to become World Champs in 2002 and then didn't make the playoffs the following year and finished with 3rd in the AL West (YIKES!) with a record of 77-85 in 2003. That seems a lot worse to me than missing the playoffs with a 90-72 record a year after being World Champions. Yet, he is the great Mike Scioscia!

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Mar 7, 2007 -> 11:29 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I'd probably take Sandy Alomar Jr. over Ozzie, but that's more of a 'by default' type of situation. OMG! QUOTE(RockRaines @ Mar 8, 2007 -> 08:51 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Basically they were trying to stir things up. There was really no validity to what was said, plus phillips is a moron. I totally agree with this. Why do people think Steve Phillips is some kind of expert? He was a disaster as a GM. I have no idea why anyone would value his opinion on any type of talent or managerial type things. He was awful at what he did. He is a FORMER GM for a reason and has not been offered or even thought of as a GM for a reason since he was fired by the Mets. He absolutely destroyed a team that went to the World Series and he had one of the highest payrolls to work with. That team has gotten better every single year since he was fired. And this jamoke has credibility why? how?

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Mar 8, 2007 -> 08:24 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Really? Could have fooled me last season...... Ozzie didn't say this last season, but he did a couple weeks back: if Brian Anderson, Ryan Sweeney, or Jerry Owens don't win a starting spot in ST that they will start at AAA At least I don't recall him saying that. Do you?

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Mar 5, 2007 -> 04:19 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Also it would cost me 25 more dollars a month to then have internet without the cable tv. My condo association bans any dish on the outside of our building. Many of the buildings around me are the same, even some have contracts with dish network or somehting other than Directv. Basically, im screwed if I ever wanted the package. On Demand itself it freakin awesome. If you havent had it, I understand, but the quality of TV on there is worth every penny. I have had it, however I would much rather have the NFL Sunday Ticket if I had to choose between the two. However, this may not be the case as DirecTV has stated they will be coming out with their version of On Demand sometime this year. QUOTE(ExpatNYC @ Mar 5, 2007 -> 05:48 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Sorry, I should have explained myself better. DTV requires a phone line (a land line, no VOIP). Since I had to get a land line for DTV anyway, I figured I'd bundle it with DSL and save a few bucks a month. (DSL is also cheaper as a stand-alone product than is a cable Internet connection.) I can't speak to Comcast's HD picture quality, but my Cablevision HD picture is excellent. Everything I've read about DTV HD seems to indicate that DTV over-compresses their HD signal, resulting in lower picture quality. Obviously I'm not in Chicago, which is why I'm so pissed about this Extra Innings deal. I want to watch the Sox in my living room. It's become a summer ritual since I left Chicago. Bud Selig, dolt that he is, seems not to grasp that he is making it difficult for baseball's most loyal fans to follow their teams. Having had both cable and DTV, I can report that outages with DTV were much more frequent than with cable. Plus, as I said, they make you pay for HD, and my cable company doesn't. Add to that the fact that if you want HD and you want a DVR with DTV, you have to shell out several hundred dollars before your service even starts. DTV's HD DVRs are super-expensive. With cable, I pay $5 a month to rent my HD DVR. I have had no problem with the compression of my picture, but I did have trouble with Comcast's DVR in the past - none with my DirecTV's DVR. We also didn't have to buy any hardware to get DirecTV, so there are not rental charges. I am not sure where you got that information from about the DVR HD, but it wasn't that way for me. I have not had any outages in the 2 years I have had DirecTV. NONE. So it is pretty reliable for me.

QUOTE(ExpatNYC @ Mar 5, 2007 -> 02:03 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I wonder if DirecTV or MLB has employees who troll blogs... Anyway, Kalapse lists all the reasons one wouldn't want to or be able to switch to DirecTV. For my part, I live in an apartment building that does not allow satellite dishes. But I also have a triple-play package from my cable company, which I can't really afford to break up. Moreover, my cable company offers free HD--there's no "HD package," like there is with DirecTV. In fact, I left DTV a year ago when I bought an HD set because their HD offering is a joke. I haven't missed them at all. My cable service is reliable, the VOIP phone rocks, and the Internet connection is fast as hell--much faster than my crappy DSL line I had when I was with DirecTV. Why DSL? Because DTV required me to plug a phone line into the receiver. That is kind of silly if you ask me. I have DirecTV and I have had Comcast cable. Both have HD packages, but the HD picture that I get from DirecTV is much much better than the one I received from Comcast cable. I don't know if it is the quality of cables of if Comcast has to use converters or what not, but you can definitely tell a huge difference in quality. I won't get VOIP for a while. I don't trust it. You have to get DSL because you need a phone line to plug into the DTV receiver? I don't get it. QUOTE(Linnwood @ Mar 5, 2007 -> 02:19 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> There is really nothing that can be done, aside from cutting down the tree in my case. DirecTV uses geostationary satellites, so your dish needs to be line of sight. If anything blocks it you get no signal. Also, I don't blame DirecTV... This is a great deal for them. I had DirecTV years ago, and prefer it to Comcast. I blame MLB for not thinking of what is best for their customers (fans) and the cable companies for being too cheap to carry The Baseball Channel, which seems to be the big reason MLB went with DirecTV. I too much prefer it to Comcast. What does COmcast offer DirecTV customers besides On Demand? Are there any channels that Comcast customers get that you can't get on DirecTV?