CWSGuy406

QUOTE(scenario @ Nov 6, 2007 -> 07:04 PM) Ahhh.... I see. Mark Prior is a much better option. Thanks. It's really not that hard to understand. Your trade proposal is quite ridiculous. Yes, Towers is going to trade a cheap, well-above average SS for a pitcher nearing 40 who is already breaking down and mediocre and a CFer who's ceiling (if everything goes right) is as a slightly above league average CFer. Makes a whole lot of sense. But if we're playing the "why not?" game, why not offer the Padres Contreras for Peavy. Afterall, why not? Maybe it'll go through on my MLB Power Pros game, though, I'll offer it up and come back to let you all know.

If Pittsburg is just looking to 'dump' Wilson, I'd definitely like the Sox to pick him up. If it meant the Sox could dump the Contreras contract (and some cash) and say, Brian Anderson to Pitt for Wilson I'd definitely look into doing that. Wilson isn't very good, but he's a strong defender and he'll give us an okay .310ish OBP from the bottom of the order. And who knows, maybe some of last year's second half sticks and he's a 90 OPS+ hitter for the next couple seasons.

Looks like Schilling is going to re-up with the BoSox which is great news for our Sox and any potential trade of Garland. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3096549

And so there are whispers that Havlat is going to be back in the next week or so. I don't think I'm a huge fan of that but I guess I should have some faith that the Hawks' medical staff knows what they're doing. It's just, seeing how he got injured in that first game -- it didn't even look like anything happened. It looked like he got tapped on the back of the shoulder and 'pop' it went. Obviously if you baby him too much you're going to take make him a bit worse of a player, but I still hope he's being told to be very careful -- avoid any post-whistle scrums, avoid confrontation, avoid going into the corner too hard -- just make your magic happen with the puck in open ice, score a bit and get off the ice. He shouldn't be used on the PK, either, and it's no longer needed for him to get huge minutes. He's just gotta take some pressure off of that RTK line, who (for all intents and purposes) should be getting the most ES minutes (even if they're not technically the 'first line').

Who should I be worried about in the Maui Invitational? Marquette is the number one seed and (thus) gets Chaminade in the first game. Round two will be against OK State or LSU (so long as we advance), and if we're lucky enough to get to the championship game, we get one of Duke/Arizona State/UofI/Princeton. I generally know about Duke and UofI, but is the winner of that second round game (LSU-OKState) something to worry about? And yes I realize I'm jumping the gun a bit -- Maui doesn't kick off for another two weeks but I'm still pretty excited.

QUOTE(Palehosefan @ Nov 6, 2007 -> 01:12 AM) This is the first game of the real season. What channel is this game on?

Did anybody actually see the press conference? I thought I read that there was some mention of lifting the blackouts on NHL Center Ice to let fans with CI to see home games with the other team's feed. That'd be great to get that done as well...

This season is going to take at least a couple of years off my life. I want to complain but really, I can't. Why? - They're .500 despite playing without their best player. And yes, as good as Toews and Kane have been, I still see Havlat as the best player (when healthy, which is obviously a huge issue). - Even with Toews and Kane, this is still a team that's lacking in talent, especially on the blueline. We have a bunch of defensemen who are good 5-6 types but are being asked to do more than that. We're also asking Seabrook and Keith to be a one and two, and they aren't ready for it, either. QUOTE(RockRaines @ Nov 5, 2007 -> 03:55 PM) Sharpie has been ok, but players like Lang, Seabrook, Sopel, who i expect to be good players are total disappointments this far into the season. Really? Sopel is and has been better than anything anyone could've hoped for considering he was signed what, a week before the season starts? He's not very physical and he's rather slow but he's our best passing defenseman and generally makes good decisions with the puck. He and Wisniewski (outside of last night -- Wisniewski was brutal yesterday) have been our best two. Of course, this goes back to what I said above -- Sopel isn't a top pairing defenseman but unfortunately, he's the best we have. I don't get all the complaining about Lang. He's doing exactly what he was brought here to do -- score a bit and play a decent center. If you expected him to get down and dirty in the defensive end and fight for loose pucks, you (apparently) didn't see him play with the Red Wings. He is what he is... a player in the final few years of his career who's declining but is still a decent (not great, probably average) number two centerman. Look who he's playing with, for cripes sakes -- Adam Burish and Patrick Sharp were his linemates last night, IIRC. Come on now -- if I were to make a list of players on this team I'd complain about, I think it'd be a stretch for Lang to be in the top ten. As far as Seabrook, he was benched the whole third last night. That's very discouraging -- he CANNOT take a step backwards last year, especially with Barker's stagnation. I'm not going to say I expected these first 12 (?) games to go like this, but it doesn't surprise me. They've had fantastic come from behind wins, they've beat Detroit (twice!), they won on the road at Toronto. And then they've had sleepers like last night and the Atlanta game. Get Havlat back, keep him relatively healthy and I'd say your looking at a team fighting for that 8th spot in the West.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Nov 5, 2007 -> 04:44 PM) Please reread my post. That may clarify it for you. I got your PM, we're okay. I reacted that way because my post was the one quoted.

QUOTE(rockren @ Nov 5, 2007 -> 06:05 PM) However I don't think it'll take ALL of our best pitching prospects to land him. As far as trading Jenks? That'd only make our bullpen the worst in league history. I'm not condoning trading Jenks. I'm thinking of it from Tampa's perspective. They'd get three more pre-free agency years out of Jenks (I think three -- Kalapse?). They have some money to spend with new ownership, and as such could look to extend Jenks when the time comes. I don't think Jenks and Danks gets it done, BTW, but I'd say that's a pretty interesting offer.

QUOTE(rockren @ Nov 5, 2007 -> 05:52 PM) Gio and Fields would get it done in a hurry IMO. Not even close. What use do they have for Fields? They have plenty of outfielders and their future third baseman is Longoria. Gio + Danks would be the starting offer and I doubt that gets it done. Maybe DLS + Danks + Gio. Or, since they can't seem to find good relievers, Jenks + Danks/Gio.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Nov 5, 2007 -> 03:51 AM) And if y'all step over into personal attacks we will edit your posts. Show me where I personally attacked him. I didn't call him any names, I called that part of his post was "bulls***". He doesn't like that I'm swearing. Swearing = personal attack? Interesting...

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Nov 5, 2007 -> 02:16 AM) Adrian Peterson, wow. I wonder if the 6 teams who had a chance to draft him before Minny are second guessing themselves right now. Raise your hand if your fantasy team was the lucky group who went up against the guy who has AP. //touches some sky

QUOTE(Steve9347 @ Nov 5, 2007 -> 12:53 AM) shut up. you're the resident moron of the board, we get it. if you considered yourself a hawks fan, you'd check out talkbhawks.com... since you obviously aren't, just ignore it. seriously. The irony of you calling someone a moron is absolutely delicious. And really, another post calling into question my fanhood? Seriously? Are you not intelligent enough to come up with another insult, or...?

QUOTE(29andPoplar @ Nov 4, 2007 -> 08:15 PM) This is the second post of mine you've reponded to with profanity. Please don't do that or don't respond to my posts. Thanks. It's not necessary to make your point to me. Oh boo hoo. Give me a break. I see bulls*** and I'm going to call it such. Bad hitting... in the first half bad hitting. And again, it didn't matter. The team was mashing the ball -- everybody in the lineup was doing their thing, except really Podsednik who wasn't doing anything to help the cause. Anderson and Uribe were playing phenomenal defense (yes, phenomenal -- IIRC, The Hardball Times said that Anderson had a historic first half defensively) and everybody else (again -- except Podsednik) was mashing. It was a great mix of hitting and good defense at spots where you need good defense. The Sox didn't need another bat. They needed a guy in CF who wouldn't fall over when line drives were hit to him in CF. They needed a guy who could go get the ball behind his pitchers -- Mackowiak couldn't do that and cost the Sox many games because of his defense. And no, Mackowiak's bat didn't outweigh his defensive miscomings. That's just plain wrong. In the second half, Mackowiak hit .258/.307/.398. Anderson hit .257/.301/.393. There was NO reason -- absolutely none -- for Anderson not to be in CF six days a week, but instead Anderson was basically being platooned. And for what exactly? For the 19th time, I'm not debating the merrits of Brian Anderson being a good player. I'm saying he got jerked around in 2006, which it was pretty clear he was to anyone not wearing Sox organizational shaded glasses. And Anderson wasn't the only one jerked around in 2006. That was a complete failure of managing on Ozzie's part (I'm not one who wants Ozzie fired, BTW, as I generally think he handles the pitchers very well and the players generally like him. Just wanted to get that out there). * There was no reason Ross Gload shouldn't have been the team's everyday starting LFer. Podsednik's second half was absolutely miserable and he was one of the main reasons the Sox didn't play in October, with his .241/.296/.297 second half line. * The Sox said in spring training that B-Mac would be used as a spot starter in cases where it was clear there was fatigue. Buehrle, Garcia and Contreras ALL could have used a rest at one point or another during the season. Instead, Ozzie went against what the whole organization said in spring training.

Watching these two offenses work is so fun. It's nice watching a football game and not yelling obsenities at the TV every other play because the offensive coordinator calls for a ridiculously stupid play (cough Turner cough). Please, if the Bears are going to hire a new offensive coordinator, make sure it's somebody underneath this guy from New England.

QUOTE(IlliniKrush @ Nov 4, 2007 -> 09:02 PM) Putting the games on CSN+ in s*** quality is not the way to expose the team. All the games need to be in HD, so however many you can get on there this year in HD, that's what you do. Agree completely. Speaking of which, on Monday they're going to announce which other home games will be televised the rest of the way. Hopefully they can get a total of eight (not counting potential playoff games) on there -- that would be pretty good.

QUOTE(MurcieOne @ Nov 4, 2007 -> 06:37 PM) I apologize if 5 posts in a 20 page thread offend you, but its a sister site to this board... and well it's ours to push. You pushed it three posts in a row... link link link. If I -- or anyone, really -- wanted to go there, a simple scroll over "TalkChicagoSports" lets me know about the family of boards. Whatever, it's only slightly bothersome.

So apparently there's a site out there called TalkBHawks? Please continue to push it in this thread.

QUOTE(29andPoplar @ Nov 4, 2007 -> 01:44 PM) Actually I have responded to it repeatedly. He wasn't jerked around in 2006, he didn't perform. The team was trying to repeat as a winner. If anything they went out of their way to make it easier for Brian by trying to take the pressure off him by telling him to just worry about defense with the hopes his talent (which they overrated big time) would surface at the plate. Bulls***. He performed fine. When he wasn't hitting in the first half, the team was still winning and his crappy at-bats weren't hurting the team a whole lot and his defense more than made up for his woes at the plate. His first half of 2006 defensively was better than amazing. In the second half, he continued to play strong defense as his bat picked up. That's funny you mention "the team was trying to repeat as a winner", yet you haven't pointed out why Brian Anderson was a detriment to this cause. As Anderson's bat picked up, Ozzie thought it necessary to play a utility infielder in CF. If Ozzie wanted the team to repeat as a winner, he would've left Anderson out there, as Mackowiak's defensive miscues cost the Sox multiple second half games. So appparently 'making a point' took precedence over trying to "repeat as a winner".

QUOTE(greg775 @ Nov 4, 2007 -> 03:43 AM) how misplaced your brain is. Haha. Oh my, haha. Too funny. That provided a nice laugh.

Sweet sweet victory tonight in St. Louis. Hopefully there's a decent crowd out there tomorrow night against the Predators. Too bad Toews didn't continue the point streak, but a very nice 'W' with neither of the two kids scoring. Ruutu also had a great game even though he didn't crack the scoresheet.

QUOTE(fathom @ Nov 4, 2007 -> 02:43 AM) I was thinking about this the other day, and it's really depressing to think of how bad Paxson has done with this team over the last few years. I'm just hoping they don't resign Ben Gordon to the big money he's asking for. The Bulls that I like the least right now are Gordon and Nocioni.

QUOTE(29andPoplar @ Nov 4, 2007 -> 01:31 AM) The whole point of your post was how much BA got jerked around and how bad a move it was to plug in Erstad. Chisoxfn does a good job of articulating the Erstad thing so no need for me to belabor it. And I answered that. Bringing in Erstad was as useless a move then as it is right now. Now we're stuck with our thumbs up our butt (to put it bluntly), still not knowing what kind of player Anderson is. What I mean by that is -- if he repeats the second half of 2006, you don't have to worry about finding a CFer this winter. If he sucks -- well, you know he's probably not going to make it. Instead, we have a player who hasn't even had a full season's worth of at-bats at the major league level, and we're forced to cut bait with him when his value is at his lowest. So not only was he jerked around in 2006 -- which you haven't responded to so I'll take that as meaning you agree that I'm right -- but they've effectively killed his trade value.

QUOTE(29andPoplar @ Nov 4, 2007 -> 12:13 AM) You might want to check your own post for useless hyperbole. I noticed this: "Nope, instead we brought in Darin Erstad, the guy whose balls were massaged by every f-ing person within the organization .... " Really? It's hyperbole? When the Sox signed Erstad, I know I saw articles by Phil Rogers, Mark Gonzalez, Scott Merkin etc etc saying the same damn thing. "He played football, he's a winner, he's a great veteran presence." Apparently I was just imagining that, though. Apparently the Erstad signing wasn't as how I have it pegged (That's sarcasm). The rest of your post has nothing to do with what I said. I was debating the person -- you, maybe? -- who said Anderson didn't get jerked around. He did, he got jerked around in 2006 and I'd argue that it cost us a ballgame or two. Yeah, you're probably right that Anderson won't turn out to be anything better than a 4th outfielder but that doesn't mean he was handled correctly. Far from it.