CWSGuy406

Jason - I'm interested in your thoughts on the trade, and any other people who know the minors, or specifically Kazmir, somewhat well.

Let's hope he keeps Judy in the locker room, and we get Jon out on the mound.

What are you talking about? Aquiring Everett and Alomar and Scott Sullivan was standing pat? Just because Kenny makes his move before anyone else does, doesn't mean he stood pat.

Tampa Bay makes out real well in that trade. Kazmir and Niemann to look forward to. You guys say Kenny overpays? This guy just traded a top prospect and another prospect for a number three, at best, pitcher.

:headshake When has Kenny every 'stood pat'? Kenny will make a move, whether it be before the trade deadline, or before the waiver deadline.

Explain to me why taking one of the most feared hitters in the AL, a man with a batting eye second to only Barry Bonds and maybe Manny Ramirez, is a good thing? This team CAN survive without Magglio. This team cannot survive, as it is right now, without Thomas. I think we can stay afloat without Thomas, but he really changes our lineup; i.e. Thomas gets walked, and they are forced to throw more fastballs to Lee, and so on and so forth.

Gammons was just on ESPN. He said that last night, a trade was nearly made, the three-way deal, and Sweeney WAS the prospect going, but now - it looks like it will just be the Mets and Pitt making the deal without the Sox involved. Who knows, though.

Does the trade of Penny/Choi for Mota/LaDuca/Encarnacion mean that Florida is packing it in or not? I really don't know how to take this trade. If it means that they are, I really hope Kenny is looking at obtaining someone from that Florida pitching staff, whether it be Mota, Benitez, or Pavano. Maybe I'm taking this trade the wrong way, but while Mota is an excellent addition, how can Florida survive in that division with up to four teams, including them, contending? Thoughts?

Guys, I know this is a day late, but here's a report from MeanMikeBrown, a poster on chicagobears.com message boards on Thursday's practice (EDIT: so thanks, MeanMike, for letting me borrow this - credit and props to you). THURSDAY REPORT: I went to both the morning session and the evening session yesturday, here is how I saw it. Moring Session: Where do I begin? Well, for one, Lovie's practices are much more fun for the fans because there are several things going on at once and they arent as spread out as they were previously. Not only that, but the scrimmage alot more than the previous regime rather than doing drills. Grossman looks like he has to warm up a bit before he gains his accuracy. He one hopped a couple passes and was generally inaccurate for the first few passes before he started throwing on target darts. He has a rifle arm, throwing laser shots 30 yards downfield. His really deep arm isnt nearly as accurate or powerful. He gets the ball off really quick, he's very decisive, and makes good reads. He's clearly our best QB. DT was acting a bit immature. Lovie told him to come back to a pass(which he did catch, but fell down on) and as he was walking back to line kinda brushed off lovie as he Lovie was admonishing DT. DT dropped a couple passes. In a skeleton drill with QB, WRs vs. DBs, DT tried to shake Peanut off the line but got stoned by 'Nut and completely gave up on the route, and just stood there. Peanut is clearly our best CB, not that you didnt notice that The main event for me was the O-Line vs. D-Line drill in which both lines line up and when the ball is snapped one D-lineman tries to beat one O-Lineman to the QB. At this point, I notice Alex Brown was missing. He never returned, and I didnt notice him being carted off or anything, he just disappeared. Anyway, the stars of this drill were Tank and Metcalf. Tank dominated all the "unknown" interior linemen. He ate Tucker and Ruben Brown up as well. Kreutz looked, as he is, our best O-Lineman negating all who faced him, but thats to be expected. Metcalf did the same. Metcalf lined up as the backup center and dominated everyone he faced, including Tommie Harris. Harris was wearing knee braces on both knees in the morning for some reason and was held out of some drills. He also looked winded at times. Q Mitchell looked up and down, he got burnt on one play, but then knocked his man to the ground at the LOS on the next play. Here's a hungry sleeper for ya, Dan Rumishek. They list him as a DT, but played DE and did well. He has a great motor and beat his man more often than not, though there were alot of scrubs out there. Alain Kashama looked like he was out of shape and didnt show much else. Tait didnt practice in the morning but was out there in his jersey. Haynes hasnt shown me much at all, Im kinda worried. Alot of the DBs looked good. R-Dub had 2 picks in the skeleton drill versus WRs. Peanut, R-dub, Zoom, and Vash, all cover like a blanket, but dont go for the ball enough. Mike Brown got in on one of the CB Vs. WR drills and blanketed DT on a slant knocking the ball out of DTs waiting hands. Mike Brown's man-to-man coverage skills are as good as anyone's Ive ever seen. If he was faster, he'd probably be a great cornerback. In those same WR vs. CB drills, Zoom went down with what appeared to be a neck stinger. He didnt practice the rest of the day. Mike Brown looks like a tank. Mike Green looks taller but less filled-in than I remember. He looks really fast too, but didnt show up that often in scrimmage or drills. Bobby Gray popped Lyman pretty good during the scrimmage along the sideline, best hit of the morning practice. Worrell and Todd Johnson seem pretty nondescript. Alphonso Marshall is a big corner and has very good movements including a very smooth backpeddal and hip turn. He needs alot of coaching but could be a very decent corner if he and the coaches give him enough work; he's a project. The first team linebacking crew is Marcus Reese at WILL, Briggs at MIKE, and Odom at SAM. The weird thing is, and I heard Bob Babich on the Score say this, the WILL LB lines up on the TE side of the formation, which Ive always been told is the strong side. Thats puzzling. I couldnt tell much out of this group in practice as though there is some hitting, there isnt tackling, i.e, bringing the guy to the ground. Briggs does seem to posess the ability to move sideline to sideline more than adequately, though not nearly as fast as Url. Reese is in there because Leon Joe doesnt seem to posess much of a nose for the ball or LB instinct. Also, Joe's athleticsm really doesnt show up in gameplay. A-Train is a man posessed. He probably stood out as the most impressive player all day. He caught the ball VERY well, catching every catchable ball. He showed very good acceleration, and the ability to find the uncovered gaps in the short zone, so he caught a couple dumpoff passes. Thomas Jones looked good catching the ball as well, which is to be expected, but did drop maybe 2 very catchable balls. He has great speed. They dont tackle in scrimmage and the RBs are told to run through the "tackles" and continue on. Well, on this one off-tackle play, he "broke" through a couple tackles and was sprinting to the house when Peanut decided to make chase(really just for fun and to hustle). Jones was a whole half step ahead of Peanut until Peanut dove for TJ at the last second as TJ turned on a last second after-burner. Without question, TJ is our fastest play, but I tell you, Peanut is probably a close second. Afternoon session: A-Train again looked to be a man posessed. He caught everything and ran with power. I saw this mentioned earlier, but A-Train completely ran-the-F-over Marcus Reese(#52), very impressive. TJ kinda disappeared in this practice. AP, Forsey, and Hicks are all about on equal footing to me. Each brings something a little different. Forsey seems to have the best vision though he looks painfully slow. AP seems to have great patience, strength and balance, but not overwhelming speed. Hicks seems to have the best speed of the three, and also got more passes thrown his way. Its gonna be tough to decide which of the three to keep. Bobby Wade made some nice catches in traffic. Jamin Elliot really made a case for himself today. All of the guys who wear numbers in the teens looked pretty good. DT came on late after dropping a number of balls. Gage catches everything thrown at him. Ive been a big DT supporter as the #2, but Im starting to be swayed by this guy. He looks like a thin TE. He has good YAC too. Lyman was pretty non-descript, as well as Gilmore, but Clark had some good catches. Berrian is now on the PUP list but was in his jersey running fly routes on the side. He looks to have great speed and caught everything, though they were all just easy touch passes. Grossman got off to a rusty start again, but started to pull it together. He did well in his progressions. He did have a pass batted down terribly by B-Rob, but that is one thing B-Rob does very well. B-Rob also had very good pentration on that particular play from the left side. Quinn is a huge guy, 6-6 240 and it shows. He's terribly indecisive. He wont throw the ball to a guy unless he's wide open, which is nearly never the case. If this guy doesnt get it together and he has to play at all, we'll be getting sacked alot. He's got enough time to decide what to do, but just doesnt. He tucks the ball at the last second, but he's fairly slow. Krenzel is fairly indecisve as well, but not nearly to the extent of Quinn. Krenzel has a better more accurate arm than I had thought, but then again I hadnt had a high opinion of either to begin with. With some work krenzel could take the #2 spot. Dinwiddie looks terrible. The O-Line works better as a unit than individually. Tait practiced in the second practice and looked good. they had him lining up at LT most of the time when I noticed him. Gibson looked good. Defensively, Tommie Harris showed up in the second practice. He and Tank were on the second team and Harris had good penetration at times, though it was versus the second team. Tank had about one good play but was negated most of the time as he lines up on the the center and the second string center is Metcalf who looked great all day. Tank also seemed to receive his share of doubleteams. Haynes again isnt getting to the QB. Rumishek showed up again, against the second or third string O-Line. Alex Brown didnt practice again and was nowhere to be found. As a whole though, the D-line seemed to get pushed around a bit. If you wanted to run on us, youll probably gain a consistent 4YPC a carry. Odom had a good pop in the second session. Overall, the LBs seem to be getting to the play quick enough laterally, but dont seem to fill gaps towards the LOS. Mike Brown entered the field and did a couple drills, but then disappreared, literally. He was nonwhere to be found after about 30mins into practice. I didnt see him get injured or anything, he was just gone. In his absence, Green played FS and Gray played SS. BTW, it looks like we'll be blitzing the FS alot and showing the FS blitz alot. On to special teams: Zoom didnt practice so they had Merritt, Darryl Jones and Vasher returning kicks. Merritt didnt look special. Vasher looked extremely quick and fast. Give him open daylight and he's GONE. darryl Jones looked pretty quick and fast, but also showed some VERY nice moves on the kickoff return. He had this little shake and bake from side to side as he cruised down the field and didnt lose any speed as he made these moves. I cant wait to see more of him returning kicks. Edinger still cant drive kicks deep on kickoffs consistently. Brooks Bernard kicked-off as well and did alot better on his depth but didnt get the hang-time of edinger. On a cool note: I was wearing my Mike Brown away jersey and was standing in the back of one of the bleechers at the beginning of the morning practice. As the starting defense began to line up for a scrimmage, Mike Brown was waving towards the bleechers I was sitting on. I thought he was waving at the whole bleecher but i was thinking, "wouldnt that be cool if he were waving at me because I was wearing my Mike Brown Jersey". Then Mike started tugging at his jersey by the numbers singnifying that he was indeed waving at me because I was wearing my Mike Brown jersey. So I waved back, and that's the end of the story. I jst thought that was kinda cool, albeit kinda corny. Sorry about the legth and lack of organization of my post. Its just that there was so much going on and its difficult for me to try to remember everything and organize it all in my mind as a write. I should have made an outline, but Im too lazy, sorry, i hope you enjoyed the info and perspective anyways.

Personally, I'd go after Lance Berkman and Carl Pavano. Both would help this team in two big parts we need help in (sorry, that didn't make a lot of sense): Left-handed balance to the lineup, and pitching.

Ryan Sweeney for Cliff Floyd? Hell no. Ryan Sweeney for Anna Benson? 'Anna Benson... YES!'

Is it just me or does this deal totally screw Florida? I mean, they lose Penny, Hee Seop (who IMO is going to be one hell of a power hitter in a year or two), and more prospects, and all they get back, really is Mota? I mean, La Duca and Encarnacion IIRC are both getting up there in age, and I'd much rather have Penny/Choi then LaDuca/Encarnacion/Mota.

Bryan Johnson, that's correct. I was mixing up his name with the KC Royals pitcher.

Something the Sox can't hit.

I agree. I haven't been this excited about our backfield since when we drafted Rashaan Salaam. Of course, you guys know how poorly that worked out - but IMO, we have two solid backs, and Brian Anderson our FB looks to be a solid FB.

Ditto, no need to create your own thread...

I'm all for going for it now... But Sweeney for Floyd? GMAFB. Floyd is aging, injury-prone, and declining. There are a hell of a lot of others in our organization, why the f*** aren't Sweeney, Anderson, B-Mac, and Honel untouchable?

I've read that you throw a cutter, two-seamer, slider, and changeup. Which pitch needs the most improving, and what would you consider your 'best' pitch?

Aww, I'm sad to see Gio not do so well in his first start, but he probably had the jitters, so I'm not too worried - just odd seeing four walks in only three innings, he had damn good control at Bristol IIRC. Good to see Fields and Sweeney are raking. Those two will probably move up in the system at about the same pace, someone correct me if I'm wrong. Birmy in '05, Charlotte in '06 with potential September appearances in '06, maybe even a bit earlier that season.

Here are a couple more things (BTW - I feel I should let you guys know where I'm getting this stuff from. I'm getting this from a poster on the Bears message boards, NaNaBear2, who's getting it from PoHarry on footballhuddles message boards.): Tom Thayer was also on. He feels success of O line depends on Rex Tucker. If he remains healthy the line will fall into place. Likes the intensity and ethic he sees in Columbo. Said no one works harder and he has seen some progress but feels there is a ways to go. Thayer believes Train can be the man. Thayer has confidence in him and believes he can catch the ball but said Train needs to stop hesitating at line and needs to hit the corner. Talked about Bears practicing against the Rams because they can see different personnel and different schemes. Talked about when they did it and how they always ended up brawling with the other team.

Here, this is a pretty good read, I found it from a guy on the Bears message boards, who found it from another message board (it's about J-Hood tonight, talking Bears. Like I said, good read): J Hood doing show from training camp and has been Bears intensive First guest I heard was Booker. Booker stated his injury is a carry over from minicamp. Said he tweaked it and it has never gotten 100%. With regard to practice, OTAs, minicamps, Booker said he is very suprised how physical things have been. He said guys are aggressive because they want to make an impact and get noticed. he feels that has its good side and bad side. On the O over the past couple of years - it was "too reliant" on him. He felt it did not use the assets of the rest of the team. He like getting the ball but felt it took away from the others. With this reliance he felt a tremendous amount of pressure. He didn't mind the pressure but felt the ball should have been spread around more. He also commented how in this O he will get the ball on the move. He talked about how the ball will be spread around this year. He mentioned 3 TE sets, fullhouse backfields and many formations that fans have not seen in awhile. On Shea - Booker called him "wild". He said all the O players feed off him due to his intensity and excitement for the game. Booker was talking about how Shea calls all the Qbs "REx". On Lovie- he is laid back and trusts the coordinators to do their thing. He steps in when he needs to and lets people know what they should be doing. Said he is an "overseer". Booker talked about how he wants to finish his career in Chicago and doesn't want to be one of those salary cap casualties in the future. Michael Haynes was also on and said the same thing about Lovie. Haynes talked about Chico said it is interesting and beneficial that Chico is in on every defensive meeting (D line, LBs, DBs). He said Blache never came to a D line meeting. He said he is also shocked that Chico does not curse anyone out. He said with his experience with Blache, he thought that is all NFL coaches do. He said their is a deep respect for Chico. He said even after just three practices, they watch film of the practice afterward, he is amazed at how much faster the team seems. He said it is like night and day from last year. First meeting he had with Lovie, Haynes said Lovie called him fat and out of shape. He said he was shocked when Lovie told him to get down to 265. he said he got down to 260 and was told to put weight back on. He said he was at about 295. J Hood asked for Haynes impression of T Jones. Haynes said what is impressive about Jones is that he is all about football all the time. He said he is a workout freak and is also doing drills. Ryan Dinwiddie was also on. He said the typical rook things - how fast things are and how impressed he was with everybody. He said he was also impressed with Jones. He feels comfortable with the O since they ran a similiar O at Boise St. He sounded confident. I saw him and Krenzel both play a few times in college (late night tube for BSU) and like what Dinwiddie can bring. I'll root for him for 3rd stringer. It was just reported that Laurence Holmes, Bear reported from the SCORE that he was informed that Url will be out for at least 4 weeks.

Not fun to watch the Sox as of late.

Big start for Jonny tonight. We need a dominant start. Hopefully our offense will have a new toy or two (Kendall, Hairston, Cat) to help them out. Either way, GO SOX!

No, we could get Kendall for not much more than a bag of balls if we/NY took on most of the contract.

It's all simply speculation right now, IMO. Personally, if a deal like this were to go down, it would make the most sense, for us, for Pitt, and probably for the Mets, if it went something like this: Mets get Benson and a prospect from Pitt/Sox. Sox get Kendall, with New York chipping in for part of Kendall's contract. Bucs get prospects from both NY/Sox. That's just what I think, because there is no way that ALL of Kendall's contract will come our way. Take it FWIW, JMHO.