Chisoxfn

QUOTE (GreatScott82 @ Aug 29, 2009 -> 11:29 AM) Ramirez will be traded. We will have a new SS or 3B next year. I honestly think Beckham could be a great SS in this league. For anyone who will gripe about Ramirez defense, you can not tell me Beckham will be better defensively. Absolutely, no way will that be the case.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 29, 2009 -> 11:22 AM) Quote of the Day... "You won't believe how terrible this White Sox team is defensively..." Anonymous AL Advance Scout to the Yankees' broadcast crew. Guillen is pissed, pissed, pissed. It seems that the intimation from the announcers is that Guillen didn't want to start Contreras and was forced to against his will by KW. I could have told you the team was going to suck defensively given who we had starting over the majority of the season. Its f***ing terrible.

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 09:20 AM) He didn't fit in Chicago? Bulls***, the guy ruled the Chicago media for the 1st half of the year. Remember the nicknames? The CSN appearances? The Charity events? Things turned bad for Swish, when things got bad for the team. Swish had an aberration of a year and still managed to hit for power and get on base, even while losing his playing time to Dewayne Wise. By all accounts almost everyone on the team loved him (Jenks and Crede, specifically), and that the main issue was with Ozzie. Furthermore, the majority of the negative feedback comes from Joe Cowley (who might as well be writing for a tabloid) a guy, who didn't like Swish from the start. Also, no position on this team? CF would have looked a lot nicer with him in it for the beginning of the year. All I can tell you is that the above couldn't be more un-true (in regards to how the team as a whole felt about Swish). And while Swisher is having a better season this year, he isn't exactly lighting the world on fire with his sub .250 average.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Aug 29, 2009 -> 12:13 PM) Agreed. If it was cryptville's wish, then give it to him. Take away the other sites or make people use them. Let's not have a site because people ask for them, and then not make them use them. Well what I was thinking of is going a more drastic route where when you log into each site there are a list of forums, but all the same database. When you go to Soxtalk, the baseball sites are at the top, when you go to TalkBears, the Bears forum is at the top. The Off Topic is the same forum and everything and basically put each site just has its own unique skin but in its entirety we are talking about one massive site with customized graphics. I have no clue how possible this is, but it was my idea. Basically put there would be the following forums (plus or minus some): Diamond Club, White Sox, Future Sox, Trade Winds (When Needed), Bears, Bulls, Generic Sports Forum. If stuff got very popular, there could be seperate forums for each sport..ie a baseball one, a football one, a basketball one, etc. And the order of the forums just depends on the site you are on.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Aug 28, 2009 -> 02:39 PM) I think that's been a huge problem lately. Just because people want a certain player or players gone, it does not mean that their contributions in the past are not respected. When someone makes a post about letting so-and-so walk, or trading this guy, it is immediately met with "don't you even care what this guy has given to the team in his tenure here?" posts. Yeah, I'm grateful and I respect the contributions. I respect the hell out of guys like Tony Gwynn and Frank Thomas, but I don't want either on this team. I feel like we should take a lesson from the mafia and begin each post discussing getting rid of a player with the line "With all due respect..." I've called for a ton of guys to get moved on. I was just responding to the f*** Paul Konerko post cause I think that is harsh. IF we want to turn the page and go another direction, I agree. Afterall, I've been calling people out for a long time and coming up with whacky trade ideas almost every season I've been a part of this site. Good post by the way Milkman and I agree with what your saying.

Ouch, evidently the deal falls through.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Aug 28, 2009 -> 02:18 PM) That's why I bust out laughing (I laugh at the Cubs regardless) when their short bus fans and others try to blame their terrible season on injuries. NOBODY has had to deal with more on the injury front (and as you mentioned, the terrible Adenhart tragedy) then the Angels have. They've got a heck of a franchise. I ache for us to get to that level of year-in and year-out consistency to which they've achieved. Completely agree.

QUOTE (rangercal @ Aug 28, 2009 -> 12:31 PM) Pennington is an active player who once had 1 unbelievable season, same with Rivers. In Pennington's case he showed he was playing over his head. If Rivers does it again, he will have 2 unbelievable seasons and I will call him a top 3 QB. I'm not calling Rivers a fluke either, I'm in happy medium land, sitting back and waiting to see what he does this year. Rivers is in that same area as Cutler though.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Aug 28, 2009 -> 01:13 PM) What do you mean? Ya, balta, I'm curious what you are referring to?

QUOTE (jamesdiego @ Aug 28, 2009 -> 01:57 PM) I love it that most here agree on Konerko. KW and Oz have to have some of the same feelings we share. KW took my advice last year about Swish and Javy, hopefully he will this time about Paulie. In the email I sent him, I had the subject heading: "F*** Konerko". He has my opinion on the matter. I think your being a bit harsh on Konerko and I find it hard to believe that Kenny would take anything with that subject line very serious. We can say what we want about Paulie, but he's been an above average 1st baseman and a high character guy during his tenure here and that goes along way. Could he be the man showed the door this off-season, sure, but I don't think its because the Sox are over him or dislike him cause that clearly isn't the case. They might think a new voice is needed and maybe to do that they move Paulie, but they might also find a way to keep Paulie and bring in a new "captain" so to speak or maybe Beckham starts to grab that role and AJ is given the title of Captain. Either way I see Konerko get spat on a lot and while I have no problem making changes I do think we should respect that he's been an above average player and a very good White Sox during his tenure.

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Aug 28, 2009 -> 01:55 PM) Torres will probably be a future reliever, especially with his short stature. Sweeney could be a steal for TB if he develops and develops into that power but he's a while away. I'm just shocked that the Rays didn't get more actually. Kazmir might be a classic change of scenery guy. He is proven, and I love this deal for LAA. Kazmir, Weaver, Saunders is a pretty nice looking young set of 3 starters. Santana has been all over the place but has stuff (he's just really been hurt by injuries this year). Saunders hasn't been that great either, but he was hurt too. Angels have done incredibly well given how snake-bit they've been with injuries. Santana/Saunders/Lackey all missing extensive time, plus Vladdy and Torri. And than on top of that you have the Adenhart tragedy.

QUOTE (GO CHI SOX! @ Aug 28, 2009 -> 01:54 PM) 8-7 with a 5.92 era over this year is nothing to really to get excited over. The Rays are getting the better end of this deal by saving money over the next 2 years. Kazmir is having just a little bit better season than Contreras. But Kazmir is 4-1 in his last 6. Im not sure what to make of him. Kazmir was hurt, but since he came back he's pitched much much much more like the old Scott Kazmir. Is he overpaid, sure, but is he still young with a lot of good years left, probably.

Lot of money owed to Kazmir, but the Angels lost a ton of contracts last off-season off there books (Krod, Tex, GA, etc) and have Lackey, Vladdy, and Figgins all coming due this year so financially they should be in a pretty darn good position. Plus they are getting closer and closer to getting Matthews Jr's awful contract off the books.

Insane. What a f***ing great deal. I'm stoked as a secondary Angel fan.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 28, 2009 -> 01:22 PM) Are we really sure he's healthy? Ozzie doesn't usually protect hurt players. If he was hurt, something would have came out by now. Just like it did with Paulie's thumb injury.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Aug 28, 2009 -> 11:56 AM) Well, supply of existing homes is small maybe because if anyone sells, they lose their rears on the price, so they'll stay put until they see an appreciation of the value of their house. Yep, I made a post below with regards to the people in that position, but the reality is you won't have any true recovery until we start seeing the everyday homeowner begin to sell there places and move to new ones. Most sales are new home-buyers and that is a great thing, but its tough when you don't have a ton of people selling nor do you have much new production.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 28, 2009 -> 11:55 AM) I think having it THAT low is a very localized thing. Nationally, that isn't the case. Its a lot lower than it was, but most places aside from a few isolated counties are not that way yet. In fact, put it this way, if I'm Joe Blow equity owner and I've seen prices drop by ~30% (which is the standard in SoCal) well than my only options are the following (unless I'm forced into selling, ie, by a transfer or an increase need for a different sized home): 1. Stay where I am and let the economy rebound 2. Move to a more expensive place knowing that that place is also down 30% so the net impact is really no big deal The problem with point 2 is that in this economy it is probably very difficult for someone to be in a position where they can afford that new home and even if they can the next question is how are they going to get financing. The above is the exact reason that the supply is so out of whack in most areas that were hard hit currently, imo. Or at least its my theory.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 28, 2009 -> 11:55 AM) I think having it THAT low is a very localized thing. Nationally, that isn't the case. Its a lot lower than it was, but most places aside from a few isolated counties are not that way yet. All of my stuff was referring to the SoCal market which was the hardest hit by this entire thing (along with Nevada, AZ, and Florida).

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 28, 2009 -> 11:24 AM) Not what I have seen. Heck, one of my people here was just telling me they were below 700, and will get dinged on the rate, but will still get a new loan. I think your statement was true back in the winter and spring. Less so now. NBC and others have done some stories lately about people having trouble re-financing to make things affordable, and having trouble - and that doesn't surprise me. But that is also a different equation than new lending (new buyers or buyer/sellers). If you are doing that type of loan you are putting 20% down for the most part and while that might have been the standard thing, that isn't the easiest thing for the younger buyer who is the person leading this so called housing recovery. FHA is the route I think most new home-buyers are going in, but you'll pay a bit more long-term although given the shakiness of the market I can't blame anyone for not wanting to sink 20% into something.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Aug 28, 2009 -> 11:18 AM) Supply is low? No way. Demand is trickling back up because of some of the incentives out there, but in no way is there a large demand - as you said, jobs, credit, etc. are still damn hard to come by. Inventories are pretty large at this point as well. It depends on the supply you look at and the marketplace. But in my area I'd consider supply extremely low. Buyers are more extensive than sellers but even than we are talking about low numbers, scaringly low, it just happens to be that supply is at all time lows and the volume of transactions is as well.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 28, 2009 -> 11:14 AM) Except I really don't believe that supply is nearly as low as it seems. There are a ton of people who want to see but can't, because of either job, credit, credit market, or upside down issues right now. The resistance for a recovery in the housing market is huge right now. I can think of no better example than the auto market fundamentals we just saw, except this is much bigger because of the huge price losses in many markets. Supply is incredibly low when you look at the supply of homes that is actually available for sale. I'm referring to homes that aren't on short sales. These homes will eventually get foreclosed on and go the REO route and become available and as soon as that happens you'll see the prices fall back down again. The biggest thing that will keep the markets stagnant is that there will still be another year or two of this short sale to REO cycle. When you than realize that is all that is on the market and that there is zero incentive for equity sellers to move (unless they are forced too) since there is very little available on the market that they'd want to move up to or down to and no true motivation (aside from increasing family size, or a new job which moves you to another market) and I really see very little things which would indicate that the housing market is in recovery mode. I think its stabilized, but I don't think we are about to see appreciation anytime soon. And this is before we even talk about the ease of getting capital, which right now, is very very difficult. In fact, I ultimately think the item which will launch an appreciation might just be a government program which further stimulates capital and allows for loans to start getting processed and thus maybe opening up equity sellers and putting money out onto the markets.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 28, 2009 -> 11:12 AM) The low supply you are referring to is a fundamental support in the market. The fact that is has gotten a lot lower is good, not bad. Its not an indication of anything temporary, its quite the opposite. If sales and prices suddenly jumped while supply was not going down significantly, then THAT would tell me this this will go back down again, and that it was purely tax-deal and foreclosure-inspired blips. But as supply keeps getting lower in going with the prices, and more people snatch up the foreclosure properties, the market is correcting in a fundamental way. I'm talking about a supply where there are 30 offers per place, which tells you that you that the reason for the price increase is because the demand/supply curves are currently off and it is because of where the markets are currently priced. This is basically a full on shortage in the supply of homes for sale. In fact, in a typical market where supply was this low you would expect prices to sky-rocket much more than they have, which again, to me is a cause for concern.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Aug 28, 2009 -> 10:42 AM) I don't think that's an official lineup. Aren't those available much closer to game time? Ya, I didn't realize it so I changed my post.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Aug 28, 2009 -> 07:40 AM) Rios, Beckham, Quentin, Konerko, Thome, Dye, Pierzynski, Ramirez, Nix I like the above with CC on the mound.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 27, 2009 -> 12:17 PM) Dye might get more days off, but he isn't getting benched. The reason Swisher got benched is because he acted like an idiot on a day that Ozzie gave him off. Dye is a professional, and isn't going to show up his manager or other players. I think someone could question why Dye stayed in the 3 spot of the lineup for so long, but there is no way the Sox are going to bench a guy whose produced like Jermaine has over the past few years. He's healthy and in a funk, but when he gets out of it, he'll get out of it big and he might damn well carry the Sox to a surprising post-season birth.