Chisoxfn

Happy Belated Bday Gents!!! Rock, hopefully you get a nice bday gift in 2 weeks when the Buckeyes kick the s*** out of USC (I can only hope cause I hate those f***ing trojans).

Happy Bday Everyone. Some great great, long time posters included in this list. Hope you all have an outsanding Bday!!!

So I saw Prison Break last night....f***ing awesome. I was worried where they were going to go, but they got me back on the edge of my seat.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 3, 2008 -> 08:20 AM) Actually, Gavin would still have been in the rotation. Gavin didn't have any options left, and they weren't going to let him walk for nothing. The only guy in our starting rotation who had a minor league option left was John Danks. So, quite simply, if you kept Garland, until Jose got hurt, Danks was in AAA. Gavin would have been traded. Danks was not going to AAA.

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 2, 2008 -> 06:23 PM) Sign me up for that trade I'd do it in a heartbeat. Beltre will be a type A free agent and fills a significant need. Plus I don't really see Swisher's value at 1B. At least not if he produces like he did this season.

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 2, 2008 -> 06:06 PM) We have a few more years though to see how the Swisher trade was. It's hard to complain about an offseason that gave us a lot of pieces to compete this season. Plus it didn't hurt future off-seasons. Pretty much every piece acquired has some sort of future value to the franchise (including OC, who will net the Sox a couple picks).

QUOTE (quickman @ Sep 2, 2008 -> 05:54 PM) funny we are in first place in september in a division we thought we couldn't win, and we are complaining about the deals now. strange. I was the first to complain about the deals in the spring. I will admit I never thought we would be where we are today, but i will say we wouldn't be where we are today if we had garland, sweeney and the great GIO. So at least for this year I think they were good deals. By the way GIO SUCKS. He will never make it, and sweeney is not all that great, He is just playing on a glorified triple A team right now. Completely agree with you. The reality is somehow Kenny has turned this team into something to be excited about. You have two young starters that have been well above league average and have the ability to be bookends of this rotation for years to come (Floyd/Danks). You have a nice crop of young position players (as much as I dislike Swisher, he deserves to be considered part of this group which involves Ramirez/Quentin/Swisher) plus a solid mix of vets.

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 2, 2008 -> 05:42 PM) The Cabrera deal sucked...the Swisher deal has a while to go to tell if it was good or not. However, I like the lower end deals of acquiring Quentin and signing Alexei. If that deal isn't made the Sox don't have a chance at being where they are today. I'm sorry, but Alexei wasn't ready to be a starter from opening day and I certainly didn't want to sit through another season of watching Uribe play for the Sox. Out of curiosity, what would the Sox lineup have looked like had the Sox not made that deal? Well they would have had Uribe/Ramirez in the middle infield and this would have meant that Ozzie would have to find another leadoff hitter. This means Jerry Owens would have been the starting outfielder and Quentin would have never had his chance to shine. Garland would also be on the roster which means that Floyd would have been dealt (since he was out of options). Oh and the Sox are going to get 2 draft picks for OC too. I still think the Angels probably get such out of Garland, but given the Sox needs there is absolutely no way they are competing without making that deal..NONE. You can throw out other hypothetical deals the Sox could have made involving Garland but the reality is Kenny made the deal he needed to.

QUOTE (scenario @ Sep 3, 2008 -> 08:52 AM) Regarding the Great Jon Garland... a little reality check here... Gar has a 4.54 ERA this season (31st in the AL) with a .294 BAA and a 1.45 WHIP... not exactly $10M worth of production. Meanwhile, Danks is 11th in the AL in ERA... and Gavin is 13th. Would keeping Garland have made us better? No. He's pitching half of his games in a hitters park and has had his ERA skewed by a few horrible outings. Bottom line I'd say he's pretty much pitching consistent with his salary (in terms of ERA/Wins). Basically put he's been a bit above league average and market value for that is right around 10M.

QUOTE (CQMVP @ Sep 2, 2008 -> 05:36 PM) Swisher and OC have been total disappointments this year. I can't stand either of them. I certainly hope Kenny has some better moves this upcoming offseason, or you can forget about playoffs next year. Right now, we're really lucky that Detroit and Cleveland have had terrible seasons. OC hasn't been as good as advertised, but he's still been very solid and a significant upgrade over the performance the Sox have gotten at shortstop over the prior couple seasons. Swisher has been an absolute dissapointment. I know people will point to his solid power numbers and good OBP but as a whole I have a hard time accepting anyone who hits for the average he does (and strikes out with the abundance he does) to be an effective player (at least given his hype). However, I think Swisher should be more productive in future years, although, I wouldn't be opposed to dealing him if the right offer were out there (ie, if the Sox could use him to get a legit CFer). Its also funny that you ignore acquisitions like Linebrink/Dotel/Quentin/Alexei Ramirez who all have been very key performers for a team that no one expected to contend. Plus, Jon Garland hasn't exactly been dominant. Given the performances of Danks/Floyd for about 90% of the season thus far you really can't hammer the fact that the Sox gave up Jon.

I want to point out that Rasner has an above average arm.

I don't know, its pretty hard to knock the trade when you look at the resurgence of Paulie/Swisher which occurred after the deal happened. Plus, Griffey isn't that much of a downgrade over Swisher, imo. Ideally you wouldn't have either of them in CF, although I'll readily admit that Swisher was much better defensively than I had ever expected. That said, I'd still trade him if the right offer came around in the off-season.

We'll see him eased into things but if the Sox are going to go anywhere in the playoffs, they will need to have Linebrink healthy (and possibly Mac productive).

MacDougall has really turned things around as of late and he looked absolutely phenomenal last night. He could turn into a major factor with the Sox bullpen getting crap figured out and inevitably with the Sox making the playoffs. I say that because a MacDougall that pitches close to his potential immediately becomes the Sox 2nd or 3rd best reliever (Thorty/Jenks).

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Sep 2, 2008 -> 11:40 AM) No, I'm not. But the ad is stupid. It's the cubification of the hawks, and I don't like it one bit. I don't want the UC to be the place to be and be seen. If this Tony Amonte thing is anything more than a puck drop and some highlights, it's an absolute joke. Come to Hull, Mikita, Espo, Pilote and... Tony Amonte night? Enough already. The Sox and Hawks have done joint marketing too. As far as I'm concerned its great marketing. They are playing a game in Wrigley and are marketing a Wrigley field custom towards hockey. Amonte being recognized isn't necessarily a bad idea too, considering he's the face any younger fan of the franchise would recognize (over Hull/Mikita/Espo/etc).

If there was ever a game that should be rules as a no-hitter, it would be the Cubs game in which Kerry Wood gave up one hit and struck out 20 (that was a definite error by Kevin Orie, imo). I still believe that was the single greatest pitching performance of all time (not in the terms of stepping up in a big game, rather just in the terms of an utterly dominant performance).

Gracias!!!

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 1, 2008 -> 09:10 AM) For Getz, it hasn't yet been 10 days since he was sent down. Does that matter when it comes to September call-ups?

QUOTE (kyyle23 @ Aug 31, 2008 -> 12:01 PM) He may get called up for work in the next month, but unless he gets called up in the next 8 hours he wont be making the playoff roster. He does have ML experience, but he hasnt been very consistent even though he has shown some wicked stuff. Actually, the Sox have a few guys on the DL so if anyone called up as of September 1 or later impresses the Sox have the flexibility to get them added to the post-season roster.

Sox are going to prevent the sweep with a nice win today.

Getz/Owens/Wise/MacDougall/Wasserman/Logan/Fields/Poreda Those guys are all possibilities and I wouldnt' be shocked to see all of them up. Donny Lucy is out for the season.

That pick was horrid, given the fact that the Bears had Alex Brown, Ogunleye, and Anderson. There was absolutley no need to grab a De in the 2nd round. Especially not one that wasn't even expected to go off the boards in RD2. That was easily Angelo's worse pick because there was so much other need positions on the board at such time.

Dare I say it, Boston is flat out beatable. The two teams in the AL that scare me (other than the Twins and I think the Sox can beat the Twins if they did play each other in the playoffs) is the Angels and Rays.

QUOTE (Kalapse @ Aug 27, 2008 -> 09:26 PM) Since there's no longer a catch all thread I'll just put this here. Carlos Quentin's line for the month of August is .338/.480/.714/1.194 So what do you think? Should I just start making the banner now? Probably. Alexei had one hell of a month too but it doesn't even compare to Quentin.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 27, 2008 -> 07:16 PM) It happens...we've been playing close games for a long time now. I was thinking yesterday that we could have easily been on a 12 game win streak. Agreed. A healthy pen and this club is up relatively comfortably. A healthy Count and even more comfortably. But all teams have to go through injuries and I can accept a game like today. Every once in a while your gonna get the s*** knocked out of ya. That Ray series hurt because they should have swept.