Chisoxfn

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Oct 25, 2006 -> 12:47 PM) Sing it with me Jas.........."THISSSSSSSSSSS ISSSSSS OURRRRRRR COUNNNNNNNNNTRYYYYYYYYYY" FAAAAAAAAAAAAAA THIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSS ISSSSSSSSSSSSSSS OOUUUUUUUUURRRR COOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUNNNNNNTTTRYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOO, HYPOCRITES FORD/GM AREEEEEEEEEEEE QUOTE(Steff @ Oct 25, 2006 -> 12:53 PM) I Amazingly fun cars to drive. You have a 5 or a 3 series??? My moms BF just got the new 5 and holy crap I finally got to drive it (and drive it I did) and it was amazingly fun to drive. If I won the lotto, I'd own a 5 series and a Denalli. One car, one SUV.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Oct 25, 2006 -> 12:45 PM) We should have talked a few months ago. Went out pretty much expecting to wind up in a new Corolla, took a look at that car and the Civic, wound up walking away having spent more money on the Civic and being pretty darn happy about it. Its a great car. I've had two Honda's and a Ford in my lifetime. I loved my Ford, but absolutely have loved my Honda's.

I :wub Scrubs. I need to watch the earlier seasons on TBS or WGN or wherever they are playing.

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Oct 25, 2006 -> 12:48 PM) IIRC ND scored with about 5 minutes left to get the game within a td. So ya, blowout wasn't the appropiate term to use here but irrc they never actually had a chance to tie the game up. I thought at one point we recovered a fumble or something (only to have it reviewed and over-turned) or had a TD come back that could have tied it and than OSU instead shut the door. But if ND wasn't outclassed speed wise in the secondary it would have been more of a game. However, it was the type of game that even when it got close I really didn't think ND would win. But thats cause OSU was clearly the 3rd best team in the country. However that OSU team is probably national champs most years, but it just happened that two of the best teams in college history both happened to appear in 05 (Texas and USC).

QUOTE(ZoomSlowik @ Oct 25, 2006 -> 12:39 PM) Heads wishes he had Milledge. It's not a case of him having young players, it's him having a lack of talent. Anyways, on to the original thing. Heilman is probably a better fit for what we'd want, even though Milledge is a sexier name. If we can't find a more dependable option in LF though I'd consider it, the kid is quite talented. The guy I want is Mike Pelfrey. Thats an arm to hang our hats on. Give me arm's over a LF because I think our very own Ryan Sweeney is just the prospect Milledge is (or very very close to it) with far less hype (ie a better value). We don't have anyone like Pelfrey in our system. QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Oct 25, 2006 -> 12:42 PM) Just out of curiosity, how is Heilman a better fit for what we want? Don't we already have 6 guys who want to start in a 5 man rotation, with 2 guys at AAA or above who look close? Doesn't picking up another guy who wants to be a starter just leave us with the same problem? It helps the back end of the pen and makes him the new Bmac (our 6th starter if any of our 5 goes down). The only difference is this is a guy who has actually had success pitching out of the pen. The problem is he wants to start and I don't know how happy he'd be coming to Chicago and than pitching out of the pen. If we could swing a Pelfrey/Heilman for Tracey or Haeger/Garcia I'd be freaking exstatic.

QUOTE(sox4lifeinPA @ Oct 25, 2006 -> 10:45 AM) this to me is like the Catholic Preist scandals.... EVERYONE knew that kids were getting hurt, but 20-30 years go by and the Catholic Leadership does nothing. EVERYONE knows that Fords suck goat balls and Ford's leadership do everything but make their cars worth investing in. "Built Ford Tough" only goes as far as your car breaking down 3 times in a month. No one believes in your product, so DO something to change that BESIDES fancy marketing. "you can polish a turd....but it's still a turd at the end of the day" For years there trucks were the best on the market. I'm not sure if thats true (since they changed the styling around 03 or 04) but they had that market covered. QUOTE(Rex Kicka** @ Oct 25, 2006 -> 12:32 PM) Actually Toyota pays, on average, a higher wage than GM and Ford union shops. The drive to unionize Toyota has had a side effect of making sure Toyota employees are well taken care of. As a result, KY's Toyota plant can't get more than 40% of the employees on board for the UAW. AKA the most over-rated car company on the planet. On a lot of there products, people are paying far more than what they are getting. Yes, I have a bias against Toyota in fact I hate Toyota. HONDA, now thats another story That said I think the Tundra and 4Runner kick butt, they are just overpriced (especially the 4Runner). QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Oct 25, 2006 -> 12:21 PM) Tell me one that has offered anything near the compensation packages that the US companies have. Nissan was for a long while. Friend of the family worked pretty high up at there headquarters out my way and they were paying well more than the American Counterparts (he had previously worked for two of the American car companies). I also know Nissan has opened plenty more plants in the midwest and vehicles like the Titan are built entirely in the US. At the same time GM assembles most of its products in Mexico (at least for SUV's) although my dad was telling me the higher up SUV's are produced in the states or in canada (one or the other).

Q QUOTE(ZoomSlowik @ Oct 25, 2006 -> 10:48 AM) Oh please, take off the homer-glasses. ND has defeated one team with less than 3 losses so far, and that's from some mediocre conferences. Plus 3 of those wins were less than impressive. Florida had a convincing win against a 6-2 LSU team that would have one or no losses in any other conference and beat a 6-1 Tennessee team on the road. Tennessee absolutely destroyed a 7-1 Cal team that just might win the Pac-10 and had a convincing win at Georgia, who is 6-2. Auburn has wins against LSU and Florida. Even Texas at least beat Oklahoma and Nebraska. The best Notre Dame can claim is a win over 5-2 Georgia Tech, and all they really have is a win over an equally overrated Virginia Tech team. If Charlie Weis didn't have a four-leaf clover up his fat ass they could easily be 3-4 against a rather mediocre schedule. You could make a decent case that a few more teams should be ahead of them... Trust me, as a big time ND fan there is no way I'd make claim to ND being better than Florida. I don't think Tenn is that good but thats cause I don't think Cal (or the Pac 10) are any good. OSU Mich Florida (depsite its loss) are my top 3 (even though WVU and USC are undefeated). USC is hurting now that they don't have a QB who worked with Chow and knew all of the intracacies of his system.

QUOTE(CWSGuy406 @ Oct 25, 2006 -> 11:51 AM) Jason, I know you would strongly disagree with me on this, but I don't think for a second that a Milledge/Anderson/Dye OF would be conceding. For all intents and purposes, we got nothing out of our left-fielder this season. He provided virtually no power, he didn't get on-base, and he didn't do a whole lot defensively either. Let's take Dye out of the equation here, and just talk about Anderson and Milledge. I think you have one of the most reasonable opinions about Anderson's potential. Some people talk about Anderson like he can be a future All-Star at the plate. That's terribly unreasonable. I believe he has the potential (I should say peak) to be a slightly above average hitter (I'm thinking .275/.330/.450, pretty much Torii Hunter's line through his age 27-29 seasons), with the obvious plus of being a good-to-great defender at a premium defensive position. Unfortunately, I still think we're in for another year of 'getting to that potential' from BA. I'd guess something like .250/.320/.425, which is similar to his ZiPS projection for 2007 (.247/.312/.392). That being said, I strongly believe you can put up with a line like that so long as the defense is there. The only two positions I'll say that for are SS and CF, with catcher coming in at a close third. The question is, how is Milledge going to perform next season? He seems to be a much superior offensive talent to Brian Anderson, so I don't think he'd struggle as much as BA did last season. What would you project from Milledge for 2007? And, is that better or worse than Sweeney? Wrapping it all up, the main objective for Kenny this winter is getting the pitching back to its 2005 level. That includes remembering that, if you are going to replace Uribe or Anderson, you're likely to have a defensive downgrade at two really important spots (there are some obvious exceptions, like Mike Cameron). And, although defense in LF isn't as important as CF, it would be nice to have a LFer who could get the ball to homeplate on a fly. My problem is if you have Uribe, Anderson and Milledge as a 7-8-9 you have as feeble of a 7-8-9 as anyteam in baseball (and you could almost go on to include NL teams that throw the pitcher in the 9 spot). Now I'm not saying these guys can't do better than that cause all three are highly capable, but I'm not a fan of developing more than a couple guys per-season at the big league level. I think the Atlanta Braves did things best by having a few horses in there rotation, a few key bats in there lineup and than each year they'd have 1-3 guys that they'd be developing but those guys would be completely eased into the situation and have little to no pressure (kind of like how BA had last year). Truthfully the key to next season is getting our pitching to perform more like 05 and less like 06 (rotation and pen). If we knew we had super strong pitching the team could probably get by with the outfield listed above and a weak lineup, especially since Milledge & Anderson would both provide speed and quite frankly you are accurate, our LF last year blew chunks anyway. However, I have very little expecations (like you) for any major/rapid development of Brian Anderson and I think your long term line was very accurate (his upside is that of a Torri Hunter) and he'll never be a super star offensive player but when you mix in his defensive abilities you end up having an above avg CF. In Milledge's case we are talking about a guy that is still extremely young and that is still very raw, but extremely talented. Defensively he has a long ways to go but the tools are there (plus LF isn't a hard place to play unless your Pods). He's still a slap hitter at this point and in a sense I'd expect him and Sweeney to have similar numbers and both are the type's of guys that should develop more power as they progress. I like Sweeney's defensive tools over Milledge's and I think Sweeney has the better swing to hit for a high average, however the few times I saw Milledge I did notice that he has what I'd call a "live" bat which could turn him into a Soriano type guy (small but with lots of power). Now I'm not saying he'll be that good, just kind of comparing body/bat types. Milledge has solid plate discipline for a 21 year old but also has a long swing which leads to ton of K's. I think he'd do a little worse than Ryan over the course of a full season and I tend to think Milledge is over-hyped a bit because as a whole I don't consider him much better (if at all better) than Sweeney (who now is what I'd call an under-rated prospect by those outside of our organization). The one thing Milledge does superior to Sweeney is hit doubles and I'm very confident some of those will turn to HR's. My closing point is that if the Sox want to carry those two in the OF than we might as well bring in a vet that can play both places and fill in from time to time (plus kind of be a mentor). I'm talking a quality guy. That could even mean Mack (who can play LF) as long as Ozzie knows he isn't the everyday CF. In addition to that we'd need someone else at SS that could be the teams explosive leadoff guy and obviously a very good pitching staff. It can definately be done, but the Sox would have to do somethings first.

QUOTE(Steff @ Oct 25, 2006 -> 10:19 AM) Or anyone except shaving products. Haha, damn job has me shaving twice a week. I shave Monday morning and Wed morning and on Sunday's I got some nice scruff. I should be a spokesman for the working without having to shave association.

Chicago White Sox

Ford is hurting, but a lot of the reason they are hurting is because the effects of all there restructuring adjutsments and layoffs have yet to really be felt. I expect another chunk of awful results for them but in a couple quarters things should imrpove at least a bit (not saying that means things will be good, far from it, but better than they have been).

QUOTE(Texsox @ Oct 25, 2006 -> 10:02 AM) How it gets there is the entire debate here. You've said the Rangers pay the team Alex is playing for. So would there be new negotiations between the Rangers and that new team, or would the new team have to accept the terms that the Yankees and Rangers agreed to? Its already been agreed upon. A portion of Arod's contract is paid by the Rangers each season. So now when the White Sox negotiate, they are basically talking about roughly 16 mill per year and at that point they can try and negotiate with the Yanks to include some more cash towards the deal. But the Rangers will be paying a few mill per year (whatever was originally agreed upon when the first trade was made) of Arod's contract with the Sox/Yanks or whoever picking up the 16 mill.

QUOTE(He_Gawn @ Oct 24, 2006 -> 06:03 PM) And what about USC? And Tennessee had the same kinda game we did, and they jumped us... Then theres Florida, who didnt even play, who also jumped us. Exactly Albeit it I think Florida is hands down a better team than ND. I think Florida is the 3rd best team in the country. But Tennessee is not better.

MLB rules make any large sum of money to be tied specifically to a player and that sum will follow a player. Otherwise certain teams (or owners) could completely profitize the business and just sell off players for cash and make tons of profits and just pocket them while the team goes to hell.

I just want to point out MLB is in the business of giving guaranteed contracts. Arod could not play another game because of injury yet he'd still get paid.

QUOTE(Heads22 @ Oct 24, 2006 -> 09:48 PM) A Milledge-Anderson-Dye outfield would also be among the most dynamic in baseball if Brian takes the bat out of his ass. just oozing with potential, but growing pains for sure. It would be on different than any fantasy team you've ever had where you take a bunch of young players with potential and go on to finish in the cellar (or apparently kind of how you run your DPPL team or whatever its called). Yes, it would be great if we were rebuilding, but this team should not have rebuilding on its mind and I find it ridiculous how so many people are talking about such. Yes we may have to swing some deals cause we could lose some guys, but this is a 100 mill payroll team we are talking about (and we'll see payroll in that range) so we have a lot of options. I'd still deal Thome/Contreras and find a way to get Arod (or Tejada) and go from there but thats just me. Cause I think both Thome/Contreras have nowhere to go but down and it could happen relatively fast (yet they still have what I'd consider considerable trade value).

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Oct 24, 2006 -> 02:58 PM) Here's the question I have for folks here: how comfortable are we with a quasi-rookie leadoff hitter/LF next year? (Stick Milledge next to Anderson and suddenly we have a great defensive outfield, with potentially a ton of speed and good power in LF) I'll pass. If we land Milledge, BA should be on the block or coming off the bench. Milledge should fit in nicely in the 9 spot. He'd give us like an extra leadoff hitter, especially after the lineup has gone one way through. That 9-1-2 of Millege-Speedy Leadoff Guy-Guchi would be pretty solid.

He's far more charasmatic and has a far superior chance of becoming president than Hillary does.

QUOTE(Steff @ Oct 24, 2006 -> 02:20 PM) Or the same. Or let's just nit pick for no good stupid ass reason. Yep, It will at the very least be the same. The Yanks could obviously throw in additional cash to make Arod more lucrative on the trade market (but that is all up to negotiations between the Yanks and whoever there trade partner is).

QUOTE(xxx @ Oct 24, 2006 -> 02:05 PM) yeah, there is a realistic way. Dump Garcia/Vazquez, insert McCarthy, and hope that if the SP sucks again, Kenny won't hesitate to make a move. There is absolutely no reason to dump Vaz, imo.

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Oct 24, 2006 -> 10:40 AM) There still aren't many rotations in baseball that I'd trade ours with going into next season. I'm fairly confident Mark will be back, Jon I'm not so sure about, his 06 season is too much like 01-04 for me to have confidence in him. You know how I feel about Brandon and as much as Vaz pissed me off last year, it did seem like he turned a corner and can at least be a solid starter for us next season. Contreras to me is the most interesting pitcher we have right now, if he's completely healthy I believe he's one of the best pitchers in baseball. On the other hand can you count on a 300 year old pitcher to be completely healthy? And we saw this year how he's a completely different pitcher even when he's a bit banged up. Freddy I just want gone, split finger or not I have absolutely 0 confidence in him. I think this is the first baseball related topic we've completely disagreed on. LOL I'm still kind of stunned. I hate Freddy for a lot of things but I think he more than anyone was absolutely gassed from being lazy in the off-season (not a good excuse I know) and it hurt his velocity. Mix in a potential regain in velocity (even if it is just 2 MPH) with his new found splitter, a much much improved changeup and his already solid curve ball and I think you have the makings of something real real good (if he at least partially regains velocity). The thing I cringe at is the idea of his deliberate, slow delivery that allows the entire world to steal off him at all times. Thats the main reason I'd be willing to move Garcia but only if we get something good in return. I think we get more for Contreras and I got a lot more question-marks when it comes to him (mainly because I have little faith in his health). Still I think as a whole we both agree on the fact that this rotation isn't near as bad as many people say it is. Yes it sucked this year, but players have off years and statistically speaking our guys are better than they produced.

I actually have a lot of faith of most of our guys coming back and I wouldn't cringe if we kept our 5 guys. The only reason I'm for moving one of the guys (and only one of them, preferably Contreras or Buehrle) is because of the value I think we could get for them (that could help us fill a couple other wholes while giving us front line talent) and that it opens up a spot for McCarthy who is capable and deserves to be our 5th guy. Aside from that I would not deal Garland/Vaz. Count is so old I wouldn't be against it if we got some top notch stuff in return and well Buerhle could be a tough resign so I don't have a problem with that. As far as Freddy goes, I'd move him if we got value for him or were able to make that Arod trade, although I think he's going to rebound quite nicely.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Oct 24, 2006 -> 10:08 AM) Along that vein, I was wondering is this a recycling of the same story, or is it someone actually doing a little research? Nightengale is one of the best in the biz and he has a ton of contacts in Chicago from his days of working the Sox beat.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Oct 24, 2006 -> 12:03 AM) It's great news that they got it done and we have 5 more years of peace, but the only reason it did get done is the owners pussied out and put no HGH language in there as well as minimal changes to the caste system esque payroll chart in the game. The game is getting better, and more teams can win, but just imagine even how many more teams would be in it with a real shot at winning it all if the payroll spending was an even field? Judging by the moves some of those teams make I really don't think some of them would win anything regardless of whether they were the highest salaried teams in the league. Obviously there were other things that would have been nice, but I'll take 5 more years without a strike myself. They can continue to negotiate the other things on the side knowing that regardless of what happens in that sense you'll still have baseball. A world wide draft would have absolutely no chance of success. Sure it sounds cool, but the logistics of it are near impossible. Especially when you consider some of those players that would be eligible are professionals in other leagues (especially Japan) and those professionals are not going to want to come here and get drafted and have no say on there contract or team they go to. They are leaving one major league for another major league and have the right to options and some say. As far as draft pick slotting, technically MLB has suggested slot prices and by and large the MLB draft works very well when it comes to salary. In the late 90's there was a short run with ridiculous contracts but right now they are very in control as opposed to the NFL and almost as good as the NBA and considering all the rounds in the MLB draft they do an absolutely outstanding job. A salary floor/ceiling will absolutely never work. IF they went after that idea we'd be enjoying a spring of no baseball a year from now and probably would miss at the minimum one full season of baseball, maybe more. QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Oct 24, 2006 -> 06:34 AM) My thought exactly. It's good pub for the average fan, and I'm glad we'll have unimpeded MLB through 2011, but nothing got done here at all. But I'm sure the next commish, Andy MacPhail, will get this stuff done (and I'm not kidding about who the new commish will be, just watch. The Cub resignation is all part of that plan). And even with all that said, I am interested to see what exactly turns out to be done with comp picks for lost FA's. Not sure why they'd mess with that, as it's part of the increase in competitive balance, but hey, baseball isn't exactly the smartest group of people. The problem is under the current system it was the high payroll teams that were getting the extra draft picks (think of when the White Sox lost a good size group of FA's and we had a ton of 1st/2nd round picks even though we had a league avg to above avg payroll). The Yanks/BoSox have been in similar boats at times as well. Very few of the lower payroll teams are getting extra draft picks so really the system tends to just give one high payroll team extra picks while another high payroll team loses the picks (that would be the high payroll team that is losing a player it probably just acquired at the deadline from some crappy team).

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Oct 24, 2006 -> 08:14 AM) But NY is under no obligation to pass that money on if they trade Arod. Technically, IIRC, they are under the obligation to do so. The money was linked to Arod's contract and there were some specific clauses when they made the original trade. I know there are cases where the money doesn't have to come, but a good chunk of the time the money sticks with the player (often times because it has to). If its going to take 10-12 per year over 4 years to lock up Crede than I'm starting to be willing to make this deal, but I wouldn't be making it for Arod to go back to SS, instead I'd make it and try to acquire a SS using Fields as bait. Maybe swing some sort of deal with Fields for a Maicer Itzuris (with us getting more in return, potentially one of there catcher's).