Chisoxfn

Kris Benson is singlehandedly the most over-rated pitcher in baseball. The Mets were morons for giving up the prospects they did to get him from Pittsburgh and the Mets were even bigger morons for giving him a 3 year deal worth a little more then 7 million a year.

This was from BenMaller.com. I sure hope its true cause it be a welcome to have him singed up till 2012. The big reason is this can further enhance trust in the guys he recruits that he's going to be at Iowa for the long haul. Ferentz....YES

Thats kind of dissapointing since they didn't really re-invest those earnings in 2004, but I'm hoping they will this offseason. Still, I have no problem with the chairman making money, absolutely zero problem. As long as he fields a competitive team. I think all the shareholders deserve the right to make a return on their money.

I think its sucks that most of the seniors seasons are ended by the events of some of their mates.

Ok cool, I was confused, I thought somehow someone assigned me as a co-gm.

Who is with me?

Just want to make a post to make sure everyone is careful in this thread and that they stay away from personal attacks.

Borchard in Charlotte, as a throw in, or in Chicago as a reserve outfielder. Konerko will be in Chicago or Arizona, imo. Ordonez in New York, Baltimore, or San Francisco Crede in Chicago. Garland in Chicago, Arizona, Oakland, or Pittsburgh

I'll tell you one thing, Iowa has a lot more athletism then I've seen in a long long time out of one of their squads. They also seem to have some low post players in Brunner/Hansen, a guy that can create his shot in Pierce and then a very good shooting point guard in Horner. Also liked the way some of their younger players played too. I was impressed, especially with their defense. They absolutely shut down Louisville's offense. That Alex Thompson, who is a freshman is an insane looking athlete who is already getting minutes early in the year and should continue to develop. They only have one senior too, which is a nice thing to look at in terms of long term. If they can have a good season now, then Alford can build on it and maybe go for the big ten next year. Oh wait, their I go getting my hopes up so I better just shut up now before I get dissapointed by Alford.

Iowa looked great from the moment I turned it on. Only flaw with them is their free throw shooting otherwise it would of been a 15 point win. Hansen definately looks thin Chris, but darn talk about playing good defense and he did an oustanding job forcing the opponents to alter their shots. Heck, I'm not going to count anything but Iowa looks like they may have something. Still, I've thought that too many times with Alford only to get dissapointed so I'll wait and see.

Thanks for telling me the Hawks were on tv. Come on Iowa, down by 4. I'd love to see Iowa pull the upset.

I don't doubt a Garland for Kendall swap would be something the Pirates would consider, depending on how much cash they had to send to the Sox. I sure hope it would be a lot. Of course this deal couldn't be made today. It would be stupid for the Sox to deal Garland without first figuring getting at least one more pitcher and a very good one at that. Plus with Garland potentially one of the big players going in a RJ deal the SOx would want to hold off on him because RJ >>>> Kendall. First the Sox will address the pitching staff, then they may target Kendall, imo, and I don't know whether Garladn will still be with the Sox at that time.

I agree, their are better ways to handle it. I just think the fans in Detroit now have this extra bit of control in the sense that they have ruined the season for the Pacers and in a sense cost some of the athletes millions. Thats probably not the right way to look at it, but its something I think needs to be partially factored. And your right the way the Bears handled it was superiorly better, in fact I don't think you can handle it much worse then the Pistons did. Part of it has to do with athletes being handled millions at such a young age, some of whom haven't had enough of an eductaion for many reasons, mainly because they have had grades handed to them for most of their life due to their ability to play basketball. Not everyone fits this bill, but their are enough NBA players and other athletes that fit into this notion that it puts of a vibe as if its how most of the athletes are (even though I don't think its near as many as people think). Still, image is a lot, and the NBA doesn't have a good image. The NFL seems to be cleaning its image back up after the Rae Carruth and Ray Lewis incidents. Steff, maybe at SoxFest I'll be able to team up and get that chant going. I'll just grab the mic and go MVP when Willie is standing on the stage

No, I think Artest should be tried criminally if he injured anyone on the path to the fan. I'm not saying it was right, but If the fan who perpetrated this act isn't heavily punished, I think its absolute bulls***. Just because he's an athlete doesn't mean the other person should be able to get away with it. I think some of the fans were complete assholes. I may boo players or say shout things about a player sucking at a game every once in a while (or chant MVP Willie just to piss off a certain someone ) but throwing stuff onto the field/court is bs. What Artest did was completely wrong, but so is what the fan did. However, Artest could hit the guy that was punching him, imo. And the guy on the court was fiar game. I don't think O'Neal needed to hit him, but at the same time with all thats going on you have no idea whats going on in their minds. They are in a defensive state at that point.

Guys end the personal attacks. Anymore posts containing them will be removed. If you can't make a post without attacking the person, then don't make the post.

Artest went after the wrong guy right at the beginning, but he never threw a punch at that guy. The guy he threw his punches at in the stands was the fan that was punching him in the side of the head (after which artest responded by punching). IT was also the same guy who nailed him with a beer. What Stephen Jackson did was far worse then what Ron Artest did, imo, or at least just as bad. I think neither deserved to be suspended the entire season though.

Here's what I think happens. You hear a name come up in talks with someone involved in the organization. You have this information and other information so you piece it together to what you believe could be a plan of action. For example, quite often I post how I think the Sox will look at RJ and try their best to get him. I think they will wait on all other moves until the RJ thing settles or the Sox reach their deadline on waiting, which I believe will be right around the arbitration/non tender deadline (so that gives you somewhere between Dec 7th and the 15th). IF the Sox can't get RJ, then I look for them to help the Yanks get RJ and add Vazquez. It seems that New York wants RJ bad and they will send cash the Sox way along with Vazquez for some pieces that could help make the deal. How did I get to this, by reading and hearing different things and piecing stuff together based on past moves by this organization and quotes. However, I never for one instant thought much of the reports that the Sox were interested in Christian Guzman and I still think those were bs reports. The Vizquel reports were obvious. Their are quotes from Omar himself saying he felt he'd be a White Sox but the Giants offered the 3rd year and that was that.

I disagree when it comes to baseball because minor leauge baseball is supposed to help better prepare players to be ready for a full season of baseball. If we were talking about Mark Prior, who basically jumped straight from college to the bigs then I understand the fatigue factor. But Jon Adkins has had lots of minor league experience and that is professional experience. The total games in the minors is a little less, but Adkins has pitched in numerous levels. He had 4/5 full seasons in the minors which prepared himself for the majors. You can't give the excuse that he was rushed, in some instances being rushed is a perfectly good excuse and its something that happens way too often. Prospects are brought up to learn on the fly instead of learning the fundementals down below and because of it you see teams like the White Sox for example have problems with fundementals. The Twins seem to preach a different philosphy and its paid off well for them since for whatever reason their players tend to come up fundementally prepared. It could simply be the type of guys they draft. Instead of going after high ceiling guys they go after the ones that can play defense, handle the bat, although scouts will tell you they have limited potential. But its amazing what a smart player with some athletic ability can do. Adkins has played in 122 games over 5 minor league seasons, pitching a total of 590 innings. He made 50 appearances with the White Sox in 2004, which definately was a career high considering he has rarely been used primarily as a reliever. Hell, I begun this argument disagreeing with you on Adkins but in a sense considering the workload in terms of games pitched and him not being super used to the difference out of the pen I think you may just be onto something. Of course I still wonder what happened to Adkins fastball. Two years ago I saw him throw and he was as advertised, mid 90's, topping out around 96-97. Now the guns could of been a little off, but for at least parts of this season he was pretty much 90-91 although at othertimes you would see him around 93-94. Now he was much more poised on the mound and his mechanics seemed a little smoother. I remember reading something about him feeling he had a much better rhythm on the mound and it helped him.

Pirate fans may not want to give Kendall away, but ownership would be more then happy to accept that deal. As far as I'm concerned I think the Pirates would be very interested in that offer. The only thing I'd prefer if I were the Pirates would be not taking Rhodes contract and instead paying some cash in the deal. Redman is a solid starter though so it would be interesting, especially since budget wise it would help the Pirates and thats what they want to do. They want to make sure they can free money to sign their core players and I don't think they consider Kendall a core player at this point, especially since they are still a few years off.

The owners are the ones who have to sign off on any of the deals so he can't do anything without their approval, just like Kenny needs JR's approval to make deals adn every other GM in the game needs the same. Unless of course you consider Georgie Porgie a GM cause quite often he negotiates his own deals with players.

I think Nomar is going to look and if he signs a one year deal, Los Angeles may not be the place to be because it isn't a great hitters park, plus I dont' see them offering him a deal anyway with Itzuris at short. I would be a big fan of picking up Nomar and once the Cubs decline to offer him arbitration I think you'll start to see Nomar talks go somewhere (with one team or another).

I haven't been a fan of Rauch in sometimes and I personally thought it was good to unload him. In hindsight it would of probably been better to get someone other then Everett, but I think absolutely nothing of Jon Rauch in terms of being a major league pitcher. He may make it, but he's not the kind of guy I want on the White Sox.

Bang up job Ian

I would agree with that theory if Adkins underwent a heavy workload this season and didn't have plenty of minor league experience in terms of innings under his belt. Had he pitched a vast amount more innings then any previous season or anything along those lines I'd agree with that. I do hope he turns out to be a good reliever, I just have my doubts. But I do think he could be a solid mop up guy.