Chisoxfn

Sorry Vince, but thats exactly mediocre. Mediocrity is being lulled in the middle and thats exactly what the Sox have done. I give them credit for this past season, but I also believe they buried their own graves by offering some stupid ass contracts and now they have no payroll flexibility. A team can compete at 60 mill, but to do so they can't be attached to certain players because once people want big pay days, you have to be the very best, otherwise its not worth it and you should get quality cheap players in return and re-invest some money on some free agents. And the Sox have been mediocre although by getting Colon, Koch, Everett, Sully, Alomar they were trying to cure those woes...but it didn't happen, possibly because they stuck with JM too long, maybe it was never JM's fault and they just had crap chemistry and players that had no desire.

To go on with that, if the Sox were willing to pick up part of the tab, they wouldn't of had to give up Josh Rupe and Royce Ring, whom I think are the two best players that came out of that deal. Rupe is by far the best, imo. I don't mention Anthony Webster because I think he has a lot of things to still work on and the Sox have a ton of outfield prospects. And I think the Sox went after the two players because they wanted to go to the series so they could be in position to keep most of their players and re-enter the picture as a large market team. I firmly believe a world series win would cure a lot of problems. It wouldn't fix all problems, but it would be the type of thing that would really get things heading in the right direction.

For a team crying poor, I think Garcia is way too big of a risk. He's gonna get around 8 mill next year and unless the Mariners take Konerko for him, it just doesn't make sense.

This would be a good signing. At 30, he's at a point where he could break out onto the scene and I remember him absolutely shutting us down late last season. He went on to put up very good numbers over the 2nd half of the season and he's gonna get about 3 mill a year. You sign him and you now have your 4th or 5th guy that could turn into a lot more and then the Sox can be a lot more patient looking for that front line guy. I'd think they at least have 2.5-3 mill out there, but I'm sure they won't do it.

Damn my typos :lol"

Couldn't agree more. Had I read this post I would of made my post in here, but I offer basically the same suggestion, although I offer it by cutting 1/2 price nights and instead lowering all ticket prices by a certain % and offer a great incentive to season ticket holders. Like in economics, there is always the right price. When you figure out the demand and the profit you get, you find the best fitting line where you sell the goods and make the greatest total profit. Of course in economics with the charts its a lot easier, then actually compiling all the numbers and creating it, but I do think they would do good with a decrease, especially when it brings more people in to buy concessions, souvenirs, park (Although they make a small % on this). I also understand this means they have to hire more employees, but they still need quite a few employees anyway and they aren't running at capacity so they have a lot of fixed costs anyway. All they got to do is cover the variable costs of adding more employees (and I seriously doubt they would need to add that many more employees if the Sox drew 3000 or 4000 more fans a night on average because they are supposed to be prepared for that anyway.

Mark Buerhle, Joe Crede, Frank Thomas, Robin Ventura, Alex Fernandez, Wilson Alvarez, Jack McDowell, Ray Durham, Kip Wells (suceeding, even if he didn't do it with us), Jeff Weaver (For a while was very good, even though we couldn't agree to a contract with him). Most came from the late 80's and early 90's.

Well all I can say is the Angels had s*** attendance year after year. They had s*** attendance during their playoff season two years ago. I went to like 20 games that season, and they had AAA discount and you could get tickets on the field for 11 bucks. Still, they would draw 20k almost every night. Late in the season they started getting some big crowds for Oakland and Seattle, but I still think they only sold out the Dodgers-Angels games and opening night (Where Cleveland absolutely destroyed them). All season they averaged s*** attendance. Then all of a sudden they make the playoffs. I show up to the stadium in the morning to get tickets and there are easily 20,000 people there and I'm like f***, where were all these people when I was watching this team that sucked year after year and even this year. I run home get my tickets to the first round series on ticketmaster.com. Long story short Angels fans are born that year. They sell out their playoff tickets instantly and people were paying up to 2000 bucks a ticket for the series. Then the next year they are like 4th in the majors in attendance. They draw roughly 3 mill fans. It was the most in franchise history by a long shot. Then they get sold and even with a crappy year, I expect they will draw a similar amount of fans, especially with the excitement new owner Artero Moreno is bringing by putting the angels on the front page for the first time in a long long time. Its always been what are the Dodgesr going to do, but now the Dodgers are 2nd story news and the Angels are out there signing Escobar, now Colon and next up is gonna be acquiring Nomar Garciapparra and they still might not be done. If they can move Erstad or Salmon to another team, then they will re-enter the race for Vladdy. Oh ya, the Angels, if things go right this year will become one of the top franchises in the majors for a long time. They got a hell of a farm system, although I'm not at all a big Stoneman fan, and are in a large market with a very untapped fan base that has a lot of money (Orange County is one of the highest income areas out there). Thats not really much different then the Sox, who have been kind of 2nd fiddle to the Cubs all these years. In all seriousness, all it takes is one big time playoff push or World Series. Hell, look at Florida, they are all of becoming a buzz and are probably gonna get a new stadium and that franchise could very well take off. The thing is, those are two cities where baseball wasn't really a big deal to them and now its becoming that. In Chicago, sports are a big deal and there are a ton of baseball fans out there to be won. You have the 3rd largest market in the US (I think the Anaheim area is in the Top 5-7) and they are doing jack about it. To tell me this team can't draw is bulls***. I know it can't draw, but when you can't draw a good crowd in this sized of a city you have some serious problems. Some of those problems definately enly with traffic issues, media bias (horrible stadium, its in the so called "ghetto", and the negative pr always coming out of the Southside). You definately can put blame on Gallas but you should also put blame on the Sox for not putting out the proper product. These is a city dying for a winner and a city that can easily support two baseball teams. They need to do things to get themselves back as a top franchise cause they are far from it. They are one of the worse 5-10 franchises in baseball and the sad thing is they are in a huge market where their is no excuse for not being able to draw. On top of this the Sox do have some of the best ratings of any baseball club and they have a very lucrative tv package, one of the best out there. That package is only going to get more lucractive in a year when the new television station is created. They also have a very nice stadium lease where they only have to pay when attendance reaches a certain point. And most importantly they have a mayor thats a Sox fan. That may seem like small potatoes, but if the Sox pulled the strings right they could get some type of funding to hurry up the process to improve transportation to Sox games as well as create alternatives to getting to Sox games. I also firmly believe that half price nights are a bad idea because it gives incentives for fans not to go other nights. Why go to see the Twins play on Thursday when I can catch the Sox play them on Monday and pay half the price. We may not all think that way, but the casual fan (Which is what the Sox need to draw big time crowds) does think this way. Why not just lower ticket prices by a % and what they lose in regular nights they make back up by making more on those previously half price nights. If you want to make things more affordable for certain demographics, then offer a nice senior citizen discount or make deals with Pepsi where if you bring in a can you get like buy one get one free or something like that for certain games. Or give Student discounts and I know the Sox give military discounts (Supposed to be very good with that). The Sox as an organization have a lot of things they need to improve. It won't be an easy process, but maybe they should start bringing in new people with new ideas, because the current ideas definately aren't working. I'm not even talking about the ball club they are fielding, their are so many other things they also have to address. And trust me, lowering ticket prices while the Cubs are raising them would be great PR and they could do it. I realize they are cutting out some extra seats, but when the hell did those seats get used, other then the Cubs series??? Just realize that lowering seats by a buck or two brings in more fans who will spend money on concessions, where they make a lot of money, as well as bring in additional parking revenue for the city and team and if you ask me will draw more fans, especially with a good product out there. And the renovations are being paid for by US Cell, so their isn't any reason to think ticket prices should be going up for that. The Sox should of made better light of the fact that the deal with US Cell allows the Sox to put together a state of the art facility while costing the fans, the people we care about nothing. Their are countless things the Sox could improve and not all of them are plausible, but if they start improving some of the key areas and working on other areas, it can slowly help.

Anaheim could be a pretty good team this year. They were ravaged with injuries last year and have one of the better farm systems in baseball. They have some bad contracts, but Escobar and Colon will be big time boosts to what was a crappy staff and they still have an awesome bullpen. And with the acquistion of Nomar they will have a pretty damn good lineup too.

Meltdown and work on getting the team ready for next year. If the team isn't serious to compete for the series and just wants to half ass it, then I think they should get some top young guys and let them get ready and next year, with the increased revenue from the new tv deal, go back out and spend money. IT would defiantely put a hit in the fan base, but I'd rather see the team do that then toy with my damn emotions yet again.

Welcome aboard, but you miss read that. Quantrill signed with the Yanks and he is rated higher then Gordon which is why the Sox will get a 2nd round pick for Gordon, plus the sandwich pick.

The way I see it, this could heat up a Magglio-Soriano and a prospect trade.

Agreed, while Colon pitched a heck of a lot of innings and had some great games down the stretch, he wasn't near as effective as he could be and considering his talent he was mediocre. He was still one of the best in the AL though and he will be sorely missed because he could battle and beat any #1 in the majors at any given time, something you can't say about all our guys. I mean who knows what happens with Elo, and Buehrle has had some alarming trends in his WHIP over the past few seasons, although he's still a good pitcher. Now they have a heck of a lot more pressure, plus Garland has more and for the time being another rookie is called into the mix as well.

And on the opposite side of the spectrum there is the Mets and the Orioles and Dodgers of a few years ago.

I am of the belief that none of the guys rumored to get a shot at the 5th spot should get it. The Sox should bring in 2 more starters. I also don't think there is a chance in hell that Scho is brought back. He's gonna get 3 mill and they could invest that money in a much better way, so he will be non-tendered. Now if they have an opening for the 5th spot, then I do think Wright deserves the shot. I think he'll make a hell of a reliever, but he has proven he can go deep in games and I think he could be an absolute horse of a starter. At the same time he lacks an extra out pitch and may be best suited for the pen. Once again from what I heard from the Charlotte people when I was there this summer was that Wright had no problem pitching otu of the pen. He's willing to do whatever it takes to help the Sox and he was very dissapointed in the way he pitched last season. He knows he has to improve because he didn't get it done last year. He will pull through it and be a pretty damn good pitcher for the Sox if you ask me. I just think the odds are, he will do it as a reliever.

In terms of the Sox, its not necessarily best to have one. They need many quality guys and with the bargains that can be had out there, they would be in much better shape with 3 good players then with one great player. A bullpen will make or break a mediocre club. As witesoxfan pointed out the Blue Jays were very very good, they had lousy starting (Minus Halladay) and a s***ty pen. That pen is what kept them from being a lot better, although they still would of had to pass the BoSox. If this team plans on competing with what it has, they better have one hell of a bullpen. I have no problem in the Sox putting faith in Wright, Munoz and Sanders/Majewski, but it scares the hell out of me to think they need to count on all those guys coming through, count on Scho and another young starter coming through and count on Harris and Reed coming through. As of now thats how it stands and it will continue to stand that way until the Sox make moves. They obviously have a self imposed salary restriction and JR won't let Kenny add any salary even if Kenny plans on moving other players. I think JR's told him, NO, first move the players, then spend that money, I don't want to have to worry about getting stuck with it (Remember, kenny thought he could of dealt Royce and we know how that worked). I think Colon was the only player Kenny was given the permission to sign without having already cleared the necessary money. In this case the Sox had a lot of deferred money partially because they get a lot of added revenue and secondly because they don't have any guarantee that they could unload some of these guys. Now that Colon is gone, before the Sox do anything, they are going to have to create room under the pre-determined budget. Thats what the winter meetings will be for and I'd have to think the Sox need to make two salary cutting moves during the meetings and then hope that some of the guys they really want are still out there (Ponson and someone else). Once that happens they can at least get a lot more comfortable and then work on clearing other salary and making other moves, but in this case they now have a few things taken care of and would be in a hell of a lot better position. Right now the Sox need at least one good starting pitcher (I'd like two and if I were the gm I'd get two), at least two relievers (I'd like three, but one of them would be acquired by moving Koch for Weathers and if the Sox need to, throw in someone like Ginter or some type of player that may not have a future with the org), a 2nd baseman or cf (They need one of the two positions, imo, unless they have addressed all the other needs with 2 starters, and 3 relievers and have found a leadoff hitter another way).

Agreed, the drop happened in 2003 and well he was coming back from arm surgery. I do recall late in the season that he was regaining his old velocity. And the things I have heard from the Charlotte people say that Wright just has an amazing work ethic and is willing to do anything to get better.

EXACTLY

I still think Danny had good velocity. I remember watching him in his first few games and noticing it was low compared to last season. I know at the end of 2001 he was throwing as hard as ever, 95 late in ball games. As the season went on I saw Wright's velocity go back up to normal although he didn't throw many innings. Still, its really hard to tell cause the Radar gun was so whacky on the games. Sometimes you could see it was reading really high...I saw a game or two where Buehrle had some pitches around 94, while other games it was very very low.

I'd say that the Brewers gm would be doing pretty good considering Spivey is pretty much out of Milwalkee.

There were a few kids in it when I saw it...they must of been traumatized from it. Oh ya, I love Santa's pinball tips

Absolute classic. Went to the mall this weekend and when I saw Santa Clause all I thought of was "Are you f***ing with Me". LMAO

All I can say is look what Moreno is doing in Anaheim. I think he's over paying, but damn what a difference a new owner makes. In short, I agree with you, but screw Heizengua....he dismantled the taem. Then again, even with all that he's done more so then the SOx have done in a long long time (World Series champs).

Haa...thats awesome. The evil grin makes it an instant classic.

1st row, 3rd from the right.