CWSGuy406

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 23, 2008 -> 08:18 PM) I guess I'll be the one to bring this up also....I also find it interesting that his peak years were in Oakland shortly after the time that Jason Giambi's peak years happened, and his last really great years were 2002-2003. Right before the start of PED Suspensions. Maybe it's not fair to bring that up with every guy who falls off a cliff after 2003, but that's the bed the owners and MLBPA made when they let the problem fester for so long. Guilty until proven innocent -- isn't that the motto? U-S-A! U-S-A!

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 20, 2008 -> 08:45 PM) Answer me this....wouldn't you have liked to see Reed Johnson as our righty back-up outfielder the last few years instead of Ozuna and his butcher outfield defense? Wow... wite stole the words right from my keyboard, but I'll re-iterate. My answer to that question is irrelevant -- I don't know why you asked it. The Cubs are asking him to be a CFer, despite the fact that he isn't one. He's also blocking Pie, who is, in fact, their best prospect -- a good CF prospect who put up good minor league numbers (seeing that he was young for his level every step of the way) and who is pretty 'toolsy'. He's looked pretty terrible so far but 200 bad at-bats isn't something to hang an argument on.

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 20, 2008 -> 08:20 PM) Considering they were desperate for a righty platoon hitter, he was a much better acquisition than having to trade Murton and Ceda for Marlon Byrd. Johnson is a career .307 hitter against LHP. I wish he wasn't blocking the Cubs "best prosect", as Pie absolutely sucks. Pie sucks based on what -- his 204 major league at-bats? And for a lefty-masher, Johnson's career .830 OPS versus lefties isn't very 'mashy'. Talk to me in a couple of months... you know, not 55 at-bats into the season, mmkay?

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 20, 2008 -> 07:39 PM) It only took the Cubs two batters to take the lead today. Reed Johnson was a superb pick-up for the Cubs. He was the righty platoon outfielder the Sox lacked the past few seasons. LOL at "Reed Johnson" and "superb" being in the same sentence. Then again, it's easy to make that statement when the guy is hitting .375. Let's see... below average hitter? Check. Stretched defensively in CF? Check. Useless against righties? Check. Blocking the Cubs' best prospect? Check. If anything, you should be happy that Johnson has come out flying out of the gates -- that means Lou will probably stick with him longer than he should. At this point in his career, Johnson is a dime-a-dozen ballplayer -- most definitely not someone you'd characterize as a "superb pick-up."

Vandalizing a bike? That made me LOL, as I'm trying to picture exactly how you vandalize a bike (or why you'd want to, for that matter).

QUOTE (RME JICO @ Apr 18, 2008 -> 09:27 PM) This is really odd for Longoria. How does he benefit from this?= Is it really that hard to understand? I'm not trying to be a dick, but SS2k mentioned it early in the thread -- when you have $17 million guaranteed staring you in the face, that's pretty good. He's set for life as of today, and if he produces like everyone thinks he will over the course of the deal, he's still gonna get paid big bucks in his next deal (he'll only be 31 -- that's not that old). This deal is pretty unprecedented, right? The Tulo and C-Young deals are a bit different because at least those guys had one year of service under their belts.

Also... Paul Bako still has a job? WTF?

All Jeff Keppinger does is hit. With Krivsky's infatuation with relievers, I wonder if the Sox could pull off a Wasserman/MacDougal + Masset/Hernandez/Perez deal for Keppinger.

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ Apr 16, 2008 -> 09:14 PM) Maybe because he is the only player in the league who can injure himself doing a stupid hop when catching the ball? That's irrelevant, but go ahead and try to argue it. He's got a strong arm -- probably one of the best LF arms in baseball (top five I'd guess without putting a whole lot of thought into it -- I could certainly be wrong, though). Even if his reads are bad, his speed and athleticism does a lot to make up for that. He's rated above average in LF in Tango's Fan Scouting Report amongst both National and Cub fans, and I'm fairly certain John Dewan has him above average in LF. He's not someone I think as one of the 'best' LFers (defensively) in baseball, but he's far from belonging on a list of the worst.

Agreed.

I'll be upfront and honest that politics is not my arena, but... Is it just me or is this debate frustrating as hell? I've watched the first half-hour and they still have yet to talk about actual policy issues, instead talking about the Bosnia/Reverend Wright bulls*** that's been beaten to a bloody pulp. I'm finding this very, very frustrating... They have 90 minutes to talk about issues and instead we see this crap. Am I way off on this? Please, if I am, tell me I am...

Soriano is a fine left-fielder -- I don't know why he's on that list...

Couple of notes on that list: - I like Hjalmarsson the best of the bunch -- he appears to have some good instincts as a defenseman, especially on the offensive end. He's the main reason why I don't want the Hawks to go after Campbell, as I think in a few years, the Hawks will have a couple of different options to quarterback the PP (Barker, Hjalmarsson and even Keith). Hjalmarsson's also got a bit of a mean streak -- once he fills out a bit he's going to be quite the defenseman. - Aliu would rate second for me -- mean streak, loads of talent and physical as hell. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to the eventual Flyers/Hawks matchup a couple of years from now where Aliu will get a chance to beat the s*** out of that prick Downey on a national stage. - I think Kontiola is generally underrated. He doesn't look like a scorer, but he strikes me as a pretty intelligent hockey player capable of setting guys up and play a defensively-sound game. I'd look to add those guys as deal-sweeteners to land somebody from a team that's going to be up against the cap ala the Havlat deal (read: Philly). Jeff Carter would look mighty nice as the second-line center behind Toews. That would push Bolland (or Lang) to the third line, and the Hawks would almost certainly be rolling three lines that could score. - I have no idea what to think about guys like Blunden, Bickell or Brouwer, or even guys like Skille and Crawford.

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Apr 15, 2008 -> 02:15 AM) I like it, I love it, I want some more of it. Hey look an Arnott sighting. Ick -- you're actually rooting for Nashville? It's like asking me if I'd like to have my left eye poked out or my right eye poked out... I can't actively cheer for either of those teams.

They're unproven? So what? That's a weak argument. Fukodome figures to be a good bat, "proven" or not. I'd really like for Soto to prove that last year was a fluke, but most projection systems don't seem to think so. Why is DeRosa a bad second baseman? He's pretty average, actually -- his last 1000 at-bats have been as a league average hitter, which is better-than-average for a second-baseman. He gives some of that away on defense, but overall he's average. And they're not relying on Soto and Fukodome to have "big" years. They figure to be better than average or average at every offensive spot except SS.

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 13, 2008 -> 10:34 PM) They have more than enough talent to be the top team in the NL Central. Like you said, the NL is so bad, there's only 2 or 3 teams that you figure will definitely be good. Piniella is managing his starting rotation very aggressively, and you wonder if that will hurt his bullpen in the long run. The Phillies deserved to lose today, as bringing in Romero to face Soto instead of Gordon against Pie is just awful managing. I don't know if they're better than the Brewers, but saying with certainty that they are or they aren't is stupid as hell. Both of the teams are pretty good, probably true-talent 85-88 win teams. The Brewers have a chance to be a standout team, but both Gallardo and Sheets would have to stay healthy for a good portion of the year. It'll be nice once they get Cameron back -- not that Kapler has missed a beat, but with Hall at third and Cameron in center, they're set to be much better defensively than they were last season. And I too was amazed at how much had to go right for the Cubs to win today... the mishap by Utley, the great play by Lee, Utley missing a homer by a few feet, but such is baseball.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ Apr 13, 2008 -> 10:26 PM) They just aren't very good, I'm not all that worried. The best team in that division won again today and their closer is starting to calm down. Phillies deserved to lose though, couldn't score in the bottom of the 10th off a pitcher who is currently awful, and Utley hurried an easy throw against a slow runner. That's just looking at things through black-and-white shaded specs. Their offense will be one of the best in the NL and they have the makings of a great bullpen. Their rotation may be a bit shaky but again, what team in the NL doesn't have holes?

Wasserman needs to be up with the big club... not so much because MacDougal and Masset are terrible, but because how good of a pitcher Wasserman may actually be. I know he's seen as a gimmick pitcher who probably isn't that good, but damn -- and I'm aware there's severe sample size issues at play -- he held righties to a .430 OPS last year. There's a non-terrible chance that Wasserman is our best non-Jenks reliever against right-handed batters.

The few times I've seen Huet in net... he looks like he's one to give up some fat rebounds. That's an admittedly small sample size, mind you, but combined with the fact that Montreal was willing to trade him for just a second-rounder... well, color me skeptical about giving him big money this winter (not that I'm really worried the Hawks will do that anyways, as I think we're looking at a Bulin/Crawford tandem).

How did Aliu look (if he even played)?

Thanks for the interviewing tips, guys -- I appreciate them all, sorry it took me so long to pass along a thank you. Jason -- it wasn't an accounting firm, it was the accounting department at a Milwaukee-based company called Direct Supply. I haven't gotten word back from them but there were also two other fellas at school who were interviewing for the same open positions (it was part of a program that I signed up for and was accepted into that basically allowed me the opportunity to interview -- sort of confusing, I know) and they haven't received calls back either, so I'm hoping for something early in the week. If not, as DBAHO said, it was great experience as it was my first 'real' interview. Speaking of which, Jason, may I ask -- what route did you go? Did you major in accounting and then go straight for the CPA exam? And if so, how many years were you in school for? I met with my advisor and he brought up an interesting thing besides the typical MBA and CPA routes that I always thought about, and that's law school. I'll be taking my first business law course next semester so I'm looking forward to seeing whether I enjoy that class.

Anyone see who's sponsoring the 2008 White Sox' baseball-reference page? I thought that was kind of interesting...

Go Habs Go! Go Habs Go!

Couple of notes... -Yay -- James back for next year. One more year of decent-ness before Marquette hits rock-bottom. -Nick Williams, our second best recruit for the 2008-2009 class, has been released of his LOI. Buzz is meeting with Taylor in the next couple days -- if playing time is big on Taylor's radar, that's great news for Marquette as Christopherson is also transferring. Taylor would get decent minutes next year and would be starting his sophomore year if he chose to stay, so... fingers are crossed.

Thanks for the advice, guys -- it's greatly appreciated.