CWSGuy406

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Aug 4, 2007 -> 10:42 PM) You're right about not looking at all the numbers. Joe's "paultry" .717 OPS in his worst season is really blown away by Fields current .723. Gotta love the comparison between Crede's second full season in the bigs to Fields' first 200 at-bats as a major leaguer. That's a definite apples-to-apples comp right there... I do agree with you about Crede, though. Non-tendering him would be selling very very low on a pretty decent player (when healthy). I don't want Crede here long-term, but non-tendering him seems really pointless. Where can the Sox spend $5 million better anyways? Fields can play LF or RF for the first couple months of next season -- I don't think it will be a huge adjustment for him especially because he seems to be a pretty good athlete.

We have zero major league starting OFers who should be considered for next season -- perhaps Dye, but that's about it (this includes Sweeney and his .415 slugging percentage). Unless some other team still really likes Crede -- back surgery and all -- the best plan of attack might be giving Crede third and one of the corner spots to Fields. I'm not suggesting this should be a long-term plan, but it seems too unrealistic for the Sox to add two (much less three) outfielders from outside the organization.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Aug 4, 2007 -> 04:09 AM) BMAC isnt the pitcher we thought he was, bar none Outside of April, B-Mac has been superb for Texas. In his last 12 starts his ERA is at about 3.75. I'm not going to complain about the B-Mac for Danks trade, but I still believe B-Mac got shafted in 2006. They said in Spring Training that B-Mac would get spot starts to spell any of the five in case they started to 'tire' because of the extra innings from the World Series. That never happened, despite the fact that any of Buehrle, Contreras and Garcia (before his awesome September) probably could've used some rest at various points in the season.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Aug 3, 2007 -> 11:03 PM) Terry Ryan is a damn good GM. Ryan and the Twins do a helluva job scouting, but their free agent signings probably rank right up there with the worst. In 2007 alone, Jeff Cirillo? Sidney Ponson? Ramon Ortiz? In 2006 they did the same thing -- went with crappy veterans rather than trust their farm system (Juan Castro and Tony Batista). I'd say they got rather lucky by having two MVP quality players on offense, the best pitcher in baseball throwing every five days and a two-month period of pure dominance from Liriano. I don't see Ryan as being a heckuva lot better, either, and it's going to be verrrry interesting to see what they do with CF -- they have nobody to replace Hunter.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Aug 2, 2007 -> 04:16 AM) I was hoping to get a laugh. I thought it was funny. But you were being snarky and I was being snarky. Fair enough. I really don't think the two "sides" are that far off on this. Even you guys have 'conceded' that Floyd should see a handful of starts, and hey, if he gets shelled in each of the next four starts, then I'd probably be calling for the experiment to end, perhaps giving him the last month to see if he can try to become a one inning reliever. Tell him to let loose a little bit, see if he can get that fastball up to 94-96 for one inning and go from there.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Aug 2, 2007 -> 04:03 AM) Haeger was actually very good the last month or so in AAA. Maybe his 4th season of AAA he can be as good as Floyd. 30 innings -- as a 21-year old, no less -- counts as a season? Sorry for nitpicking at your hilarious joke, though.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Aug 2, 2007 -> 04:02 AM) The irony is delicious that you would give Floyd shots but not poor Heath Phillips. And though it's true there's only been one successful knuckler over the past fifteen years, that's one more successful knuckler in baseball than successful Gavin Floyds. Did you actually expect a response to this? I sure hope not.

QUOTE(fathom @ Aug 2, 2007 -> 03:59 AM) Well, I'm just praying that guys like Peavy, Young, Penny, Lowe, Saito, Smoltz and Hudson stay healthy so the Cubs could face some good competition in the playoffs. I'm just letting you know that you aren't alone -- there's a lot of us that have to deal with some of the stupid people who root for that team. I think I've come to the realization that they're going to make the playoffs -- afterall, Marquis hasn't totally collapsed yet despite throwing nothing but s*** to homeplate, and Sean Marshall has somehow become the 2002 version of Barry Zito, not to mention what Z and Lilly are doing. And with Wood coming back, you just get the sense that he's going to give the Cubs two-and-a-half months of excellence. I guess what gives me hope is that they can't possibly stay this hot for the next two (plus) months. And as good as their pitching staff has been, I'm not sure it's better than San Diego's. Atlanta now has the best lineup in the NL, and if the Mets get healthy, they're going to be very tough.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Aug 2, 2007 -> 03:55 AM) Well, he should've been up to help, if IL AAA stats mean that you deserve it. The irony is delicious. Haeger deserves a shot despite the fact that he got creamed in a league that you constantly rip on everyday. But Haeger gets excuses -- "Knucklers are up and down" -- yup, which is why there's been all of one successful knuckler over the past 15 years.

QUOTE(fathom @ Aug 2, 2007 -> 03:48 AM) Unreal.....teams are literally handing the Cubs wins now. I'm so f***ing thrilled that I'll be away from the television/internet for 10 days. When I go back up to Marquette, I don't think I'll want to leave my dorm -- annoying Cubs fans plus, if Milwaukee makes a run, the Brewer fans who I still find annoying becaause they're the same people who root for the Packers. I'm going to bury my head in the sand and try to focus on the other sports (English Premier Football, Blackhawks, Bears and MU B-ball). These next two months are going to be the 'sux0rz', that's for sure.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Aug 2, 2007 -> 03:29 AM) Floyd and his enthusiasts have Oh come on, you're better than that. Who in this thread is a Floyd "enthusiast"? You and DA may be right, he might suck and never be anything more than a AAAA pitcher. We "enthusiasts" just want to see Floyd given the chance to prove that he sucks, and three or four starts certainly isn't enough to show that. You guys still haven't given a good reason why letting Floyd start the rest of the season is a bad idea. It won't burn out the bullpen -- that's what Haeger is here for.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Aug 2, 2007 -> 03:26 AM) Like I've said, knucklers will be up or down. Well, mostly down. There's a reason only one of them has stuck around over the past decade-and-a-half.

QUOTE(fathom @ Aug 2, 2007 -> 03:22 AM) Holy cow, the umpire in the 8th inning of the Cubs game is squeezing the crap out of Romero. Romero's not getting anything. Hey alright, the ump gave him strike one to DeRosa. f*** me, Dempster is making everybody look silly with that slider. He's making Rowand look like 2005 Aaron.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Aug 2, 2007 -> 03:17 AM) I'll bet if you gave Haeger and Floyd equal starts, Haeger would have better numbers in the end. Sort of like at Charlotte this season? Err...

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Aug 2, 2007 -> 02:48 AM) Haeger will never be good or bad. He will be good sometimes and bad at other times. All knucklers are like that. Well if he's more bad than good -- which he has been over the past four months -- what use will he be to a major league team?

QUOTE(fathom @ Aug 2, 2007 -> 02:27 AM) What really irks me is that KW, Ozzie, Walker, and Cooper likely won't lose their jobs this offseason. You really believe all of them deserve to be canned?

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Aug 2, 2007 -> 02:01 AM) Personally, I give him three more outings like the ones he's had -- excluding the 1-2-3 inning in relief -- before I let Haeger get some work in. His numbers over the last 90-some innings tell me just about everything I need to know, especially in conjunction with his work here so far. What has Haeger done to deserve innings? Floyd's been bad, but Chuck hasn't been a heckuva lot better. And at least one of the two pitchers was able to get AAA hitters out consistently this season... Haeger will see his innings, especially with Danks on a bit of a slide. On a side note, Danks' ERA is now just .12 points higher better than B-Mac's. Not saying the trade was a bad one, just that it shows you the different directions the two pitchers are heading in.

So the Community Shield is this Sunday. I take it it's pretty much a glorified 'friendly', yes? It'll still be fun to see it live, Man-U vs Chelsea.

That's a great pitch. Danks is definitely a lot better when he works off of his fastball -- it's only a 90 MPH pitch, but when he locates it it's tough to hit.

Floyd is showing some good breaking stuff, but WTF -- I thought your fastball was supposed to go up a couple MPH when you moved to the bullpen. 91 MPH? GMAB.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jul 31, 2007 -> 04:40 PM) The only chance we get Delcarmen possibly in a deal is if they get Gagne. Maybe they could orchestrate a three-way deal (although I doubt it at this late hour): Texas gets: Prospects from BoSox, Prospect from our Sox (McCollouch?) BoSox get: Gagne We get: Delcarmen, WMP EDIT: Whoops -- obviously forgot to add Dye.

QUOTE(jackie hayes @ Jul 31, 2007 -> 04:16 PM) Because I can't make sense of Pena + Delcarmen o/w. A middle reliever and a player who's never shown up at any level, who couldn't start on a bad Cincy team, and who's under the team's control for only one year? No thanks. I'll take a couple Aaron Poreda, high risk, high reward types over that offer. Pena has shown up -- from 2004-2006, he put up an OPS+ of about 115 in ~900 at-bats -- he's just never been given a starting job and left alone. And I don't think Delcarmen is as good as he's been this season, but I figure he's a decent second righty option out of the 'pen. Is that better than two draft picks? Tough call, I guess...

Kenny is in a tough spot. I think it's become pretty clear that he'd rather deal Dye for young players, but Boston doesn't seem to want to give up anything more than WMP and a low level prospect. I'd say the two draft picks are better than getting WMP and a low-level prospect in return. I'm also a bit dissappointed that Boston is the only team that's been linked to Dye. There seem to be a buch of other teams who could use Dye's bat, yet we're only reading about Boston.

QUOTE(daa84 @ Jul 31, 2007 -> 04:00 PM) if they can get anyone to take his contract....even for a dubee-esque pitcher i think it would be time well spent The Sox can still take their time with Contreras. They can pass Contreras easily through waivers, so getting a Conde deal done by 3:00 today isn't a huge deal. The Dye deal, OTOH -- I'm really hoping for Delcarmen and WMP at this point. I think the Sox would do very well to grab an OFer who has a crapload of potential -- the nice thing about the White Sox' situation is that they could guarantee WMP everyday at-bats, something he's never consistently had -- as well as a nice second or third righty out of the bullpen.

The Euro leagues are starting up again in the next two weeks. I'm reasonably excited as I'm going to try and keep up this season. Should be fun.