Chisoxfn

Yes...played some basketball (shooting around, not playing an actual game) on my knee today...no complications. WHOOOO, slowly yet surely getting closer to 100%.

Happy Belated Bday AJ!!!

Merry Christmas!!!!!

Thats a ton of money for a safety, who is great when he's healthy, but is injury prone. The Patrick Crayton signing was a steal for the Cowboys.

I'll throw out a quick top 5: 1. Gio Gonzalez - Gio is here due to a combination of performance, stuff, and liklihood to have success. He possesses three major league pitches (FB, Change, Curve) with the curve being his best pitch. He has had improved command and has continously increased his workload over the past couple seasons. He has also had minor league success to go along with major league stuff and seems to be a very good bet to see the major league fields and have major league success. However, as far as a system goes, he isn't the high-upside #1 prospect you'd like, considering right now he grades out as a #3 starter (he would have to turn his change into a plus pitch as well as improve his command for him to grade out any higher). I would be surprised if he wasn't at worse a solid 4th/5th starter. 2. Faustino De Los Santos - Faustino could be higher, I think his two pitchers are better than Gio's two best pitches, but Gio has a good third pitch and Faustino doesn't. I like Faustino more than most because I think he has plenty of time to develop a third pitch and possesses a live arm (a trait you can't teach). The one major question-mark when it comes to Faustino is that he has yet to hit the high levels and with that it means he is a bit farther away from the majors so there are more things that could end up happening to prevent him from having major league success. Still, he has the arm to be an impact reliever and with a better 3rd/4th pitch he definitely has the stuff to be a mid-rotation starter (and if he could turn in an additional good to plus pitch...I'd grade him as a potential #2). Ie, similar to Gio, but less of a sure thing, pushes him down on the board. 3. Ryan Sweeney - Sweeney has the tools, has a pretty swing, and really pure scouting wise may be the best talent in the Sox system. He has good speed, strong arm, good range and projects to develop power. The one concern is that statistically he hasn't put up the numbers that someone with his skill-set should put up. However, he seems to be a smart baseball player and is still a very young ball-player (something a lot of us seem to forget, due to the hype he got at 18/19 years old). I think Sweeney has a good chance of being a .290/20HR/.360 OBP type guy long term (with a lot of doubles while playing above average defense). I grade him out similarly to Garret Anderson (always have as I feel they have very similar swings and skillsets, with Sweeney grading out a bit better defensively). 4. Lance Broadway - Broadway doesn't have near the stuff of Santos/Gonzalez, but he has a bevy of pitches and every one of those pitches moves like crazy. I liken Broadway to a Brad Radke type and if he can gain better command of his pitches I think he will have a lot of major league success. At worse he will be a 5th starter at the major league level but I think he could surprise and turn into a valuable #3 starter (who will throw a lot of innings and keep the club in games). Tools wise, he wouldn't grade out that well, but I think at times scouts under-rate movement and Broadway doesn't throw a straight pitch. 5. John Shelby - Shelby is a good athlete with a real nice bat. I think he can hit for a high average at the major league level, with decent power numbers. All in all I think he has a chance to turn into a damn good prospect and a borderline all star.

QUOTE(shipps @ Dec 26, 2007 -> 11:29 AM) Happy Holidays dude,did santa bring you a new knee just like you asked? Same knee, but its starting to feel like the old one. Shot some hoops today without any pain.

The Talk Chicago Sports Network (TCSN) and Soxtalk.com would like to announce a revoluationary change which will be happening to all of the sites sometime in Q1 2008 (ETA March 15th, 2008). That change will be a content driven network based front page which will have original news and content on all of your favorite Chicago Sports Teams. You may be wondering what will change on the forums and the answer is nothing (unless of course there are new features you'd like to see on the forums). Soxtalk.com will still take you directly to these forums, just like TalkBears.com will take you to the Bears forum. However, when you go to talkchicagosports.com you will be taken to a media driven front page which will provide the forum members with unique Chicago Sports content and articles. The articles will be provided through a partnership with CSweekly, which is a weekly Chicago Sports Magazine (ran in part by one Mario Scalise, who is the founding member of SoxNet.net, which was the precursor to Soxtalk.com). CSWeekly has full press credentials, which means CSWeekly will be able to request interviews that Soxtalk would have never been able to get. This will enable Soxtalk.com to post interviews with any player, including front office personell, which are performed by CSWeekly for the TalkChicagoSports sites. We want to point out that not only will CSweekly do Sox interviews, but Blackhawk fans can now have a way to get there questions (on a random basis, we will PM members privately for questions) answered by one Dale Tallon. This means in the future, if you are curious about what goes on in the MLB draft or NFL draft, well we now will have the resources to get out there and find out (and these resources will include questions that come directly from the forum members). These interviews will not only be text written, but the new front page will have audio outputs of such interviews, plus podcasts, and hopefully one day video clips as well. The site will not only have original articles & interviews specifically for the members here, but it will also have a blog portion (for breaking news stories and more blog-driven pieces) & RSS Feeds (syndication of other stories surrounding all of your favorite teams). Our goal is to be able to complete what will be a place where if a person wanted to, they could hop onto TCSN's front page, see a brief overview (which could be as in-depth as they want it) of what is going on with their teams (both our network stories as well as ESPN/Tribune/Yahoo/ETC) and than pop onto the specific forums to discuss the news and get further information (as only die hard fans like ourselves would be privvy/curious about). The features above are what we have implemented in our early design process, but I'd also like to reach out to all of the members that have made this network even possible and see if there are any other features they would like to see on the front page (aside from the stories, blog, media (ie podcasts/audio clips), and RSS Feeds). In addition to the features found on the web, we hope in the future, to be able to hold viewing parties at specific Chicagoland bars (where Soxtalk members can gather to catch a Sox game...TalkBears members can gather to catch a Bears game....TalkBhawks members can catch a Blackhawk game) which will include prizes/raffles and all sorts of cool stuff. Also, if you take a look at top, you will see a survey which is being performed by CSWeekly. The winner of the raffle will get a Sox jersey.

Monday Night Football Game....to see the Broncos get there asses beat in. Felt more like a Raider game given the ridiculous amount of fights (including one fight that happened in the row behind us with about 4 guys getting escorted out). I don't think I've ever seen more fights at a sporting event (that I was at) in my life.

Prayers go out to you and Angie!!! Hope it isn't too much longer till Alexi is home with the two of you :prayers

I was at the Holiday Bowl and it was a total blast (first time where my job paid off, cause Pac Life is my main client so I got hooked up with free tickets, free food, massive tailgate parties galore). I don't go to many football games but I was glad to see Texas give a old fashion beatdown to an overrated Pac 10 team.

QUOTE(shipps @ Dec 25, 2007 -> 07:14 AM) Thanx for the help guys I finally got it.And thanx for the patience.Happy holidays. Noob. Merry Christmas Jeff!!!

I just want to thank Skiles for making the Bulls a real fun team to watch for three seasons. I won't forget how the team was transformed from the laughing stock of the entire NBA to one of the most respected teams in the NBA (they may not have been the best, but for 3 seasons they played harder and more fundementally sound than practically any team in the league). I hope Skiles gets a job next season and does what he did in Chicago, rebuild someone elses franchise to the point of respectability. However, I do think the time was probably right for the move and I would like the Bulls to bring in a guy who has a history of developing bigs. Bottom line this team is going to go as far as Tyrus Thomas/Joakim Noah can take them (we know what we have in the other guys and for this team to make it to the next level they will need to get something pretty productive out of the two big men lottery picks). I suspect we will see some changes to the roster by the trade deadline as well, which may include a trade involving at least one of the core players.

QUOTE(RME JICO @ Dec 21, 2007 -> 01:20 PM) http://www.oursportscentral.com/services/r...ses/?id=3572600 They tried to add a positive spin to his brutal stats: Excellent...Kenny's plan is starting to work. Tribe signs Gonzalez...no longer a contender. Next up, Tigers trade for Toby Hall. Get er done Kenny...get er done.

QUOTE(sox4lifeinPA @ Dec 22, 2007 -> 02:34 PM) Good lord, if I lived in Iowa, all I'd do is drink... If I lived in Iowa...I'd laugh point and laugh at Heads to his face instead of through Soxtalk.

QUOTE(PHAT ALBERT @ Dec 22, 2007 -> 07:32 AM) I do not think that the Scouting Buereau gets reports turned in by all 30 teams. Why would they do that? Why would they share proprietary, subjective evaluations with their competitors? No offense, but I think this is kind of bogus. The Sox used the MLB scouting reports/services when they signed Iguchi. Kenny himself mentioned that it is where the Sox got the information they did about Tadahito.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Dec 18, 2007 -> 06:04 AM) There was also a pretty prominent ex-pitcher who said he wouldn't last, and I can't remember if it was Tom House or Mike Marshall. Actually, House was the one who developed his mechanics and was the person who said that he would pretty much never get hurt. He had awesome mechanics, the problem was he got overworked by Baker and a young age and the end result caused him to alter his mechanics a bit and well injuries popped up all over the place.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Dec 21, 2007 -> 04:06 PM) Levine said it was $4.75M TOTAL which does not sound right at all. I'll just assume he misspoke and it's actually 4 years, $19M. That wouldn't make sense, because a draft pick would have gotten more than that. But I still wouldn't be shocked if the number ended up being much lower than expected.

Volquez is incredibly over-rated. He has a nice live arm, but I don't consider him one of the best pitching prospects in baseball and I would have gladly given up one of Gio/DLS for Hamilton (I'd have taken my chances) and I think the Reds would have considered such a deal.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Dec 21, 2007 -> 03:49 PM) Yes, that was certainly one of the things being said about him earlier. If he beats out Owens for CF, great. If he struggles in ST, fine, stick him in AAA for a year and teach him to be a SS. Either way, our organization is now stronger at a point it was weak at yesterday. That is a pretty funny comparison, considering how badly Contreras sucked when he first came over. Heck, Contreras has had about one good season of major league baseball (and it was over the course of two seasons).

Kendry Morales has been solid. He just wasn't as major league ready as everyone thought he would be. That said I'd take Morales any day because he has the talent to be a pretty good hitter. Ramirez has a lot of talent as well and I've seen a couple scouts compare his frame, which generates a lot of power to Soriano. Now that doesn't mean the Sox have a Soriano out there and I'd like to temper expectations because he will be asked to play at an incredibly high level (MLB is much higher than the Cuban leagues). However, he has the tools and that is what I love. The club is getting another athlete onto the roster, but I wouldn't be stunned if the deal is a lot cheaper than people expect (I'm talking 4yr 16M with incentives pushing to the 24M range or so, maybe even less than that in guaranteed money).

QUOTE(JDsDirtySox @ Dec 21, 2007 -> 02:58 PM) Lets hope he is the best player out of Cuba ever. Now this is a deal I love. I should trash Kenny more often because he has now made three deals that I love this off-season, two of which are great for the long term future of the franchise (this signing and the Quentin trade). The Cabrera trade was one I loved because OC is a great baseball player who likely ensures the Sox a couple compensation picks that they wouldn't have gotten had they kept Jon.

Random Fact: Since July 2004, Soxtalk.com has had ~383 Million hits.

I want to quickly state that I am the one responsible for such ad. We are not involved with 180, but I am involved with a large advertising company on the web which helps sell one ad on top of our site (and than on the bottom of the site) and they have been coming to us with various promotions throughout the year. In this case the promotion related to 180 and the ad was hosted through the standard site. The issue was that this ad was using the feature and as such it was truly being pulled from 180. As soon as we were made aware of the issue we pulled the ad immediately (these ads are meant as a way for us to defray costs associated with being on a dedicated server as well as some of the software costs we run into from time to time). I do my personal best to keep ads from being invasive (most of our ads are on the footer portion of the site, which is a spot where few people see as it keeps the key stuff, Sox news more towards the top). In fact, aside from the graphic ad about the only advertisements on the top are related to tickets and the reason for that is because I consider that semi-relevant to Sox fans (since plenty people here are ocassionally in the market for tough tickets to the Bears/Bulls/Sox). We obviously have pulled the ad (and I will never do anything associated with 180) but I have also got in contact with the large ad company I use (it is one of the larger one's on the web) and have informed them of such problem and I hope they personally use there power (as they are massive and can hit the company in the wallets, something Soxtalk can't do) to prevent such an issue to happening to other people (not just Soxtalk people but anyone else who happens to be running such an ad). Once again I apologize for such instance and I want to remind anyone, if for some reason you are getting something to run a script when you enter our site, always click no. We never use intrusive software of any sort and none of the applications on the site will require such.

QUOTE(Vance Law @ Dec 16, 2007 -> 01:49 PM) Bull. If you are in the playoffs, you are a World Series contender. My point was that that team could compete for 1st or 2nd in the Central. A lineup that includes Thome, Konerko, Dye, Hunter/Jones or whoever, Fields, Quentin and Orlando has the potential to be excellent. With Danks and Contreras having not-good years last year, our rotation still had a better ERA than Detroit's, and that's without adjusting for the park. With all of the luck, chance, and randomness that effect baseball, that team can compete with Detroit and Cleveland for a playoff spot(s). Are Ordonez, Polanco, Renteria, and Granderson going to have years as good as last year? How about Sabathia and Carmona? How did the 06 Indians only win 78 games? How did Arizona win 90 games last year with a negative run differential? You are flat out indicating how Arizona had luck on there side to a large extent and than are expecting Danks/Contreras to have better seasons. I don't know if that is realistic in Contreras case since he could very well fall apart. You are also forgetting that Jon Garland was a big reason to that ERA, in fact a huge reason, and you are replacing him with Gavin Floyd who is as big of a questionmark as Danks/Contreras. I still think Contreras is the biggest questionmark and I think it is a joke the Sox aren't shopping him (well based on rumors, I can't actually guarantee that). So you are going to go out and pray/hope that three of your starters come in and pitch way better than they ever have. Danks/Floyd are capable of doing it, but it is unrealistic to expect them to be super good as neither of them is truly 100% ready for major league success. They aren't Justin Verlander type guys. They both have good arms and should have solid careers (especially Danks) but they are the type of guys that will take a year or two of major league development to really turn things around (and Danks could very well be above league average this year, but to hope all three of those guys are even league average is way unrealistic). Offensively that lineup has good power but still absolute s*** at the top of the order which will have an impact (whether people like it or not). So bottom line I would compare the team a bit more to the 2006 Sox and prior Sox (Jerry Manuel Sox) in the sense that those teams would slug and just hope to god the pitching would be there (the one difference is those 2000 Sox squads had young players that were still really developing...Thomas was pretty much the only true vet those years that was a significant producer in those offenses). I'm not saying that the lineup you are proposing doesn't end up making the playoffs, it could, but there is a lot of luck involved, imo. There is luck in anything, you are right, but had you traded guys for major league ready top prospects and used the money to sign a couple guys (or trade for a couple guys and than sign...such as Mcab) that you felt could help you in 08, 09 and beyond than I think you could also have had a couple lucky breaks (with guys developing early) and turned into a contender in 08 and you'd ALSO be in a spot to contend in FUTURE YEARS.

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Dec 15, 2007 -> 02:15 PM) I like to take Haren out of the Mulder package for a second, and just include what they got for him in there instead. Essentially, 8 players for Mulder, several of them top prospects; that's how you build a baseball team. Arizona hangs up the phone I seriously can't believe people are still slupring up all over Beane. He has made countless of mediocre decisions and has continued to fail to get the A's to the promised land. He had some really good teams for a couple year span, I'll admit, but the past couple years they have been far more mediocre and they are right with the Sox when it comes to drafting (ie unimpresively).