False Alarm

i can't say anything for certain after watching each of em once. i didn't notice a radar gun on santana. from what i've read, he works mid 90s and BMac's generally at 90-91 (never mind that i saw 93 on one of his fastballs sunday). i thought their breaking stuff was about even (read: very good), and i'm not positive i saw a change from either one (though i know BMac's is excellent). here's the thing: mccarthy's younger, has better control (although santnana's was outstanding monday), and has excellent mechanics and no injury history. santana, on the other hand, played only 8 games last year because of injury. there are plenty of amazing pitching talents who flameout young cuz of injury and arm problems, and i'd say santana's at significant risk of being just another. so, though santana's stuff might be a half tick better than BMac's, i'd take BMac over santana any day cuz of his consistency, control, and health profile.

even if fields does pan out, there was originally specualtion that fields would eventually move to 1B anyway if he didn't become a better fielder. i think those concerns have died down some, but i'm sure we could find a way to fit both him and chavez on the same field if it came down to it.

i'm beginning to doubt kotchman's ever gonna hit for exceptional power at 1B. i'd prefer frank's bat for a world series run.

QUOTE(whitesox91403 @ May 22, 2005 -> 03:17 AM) This may not be the thread for this, but does this feel like The 2003 Yankee series and Neal Cotts all over again? In this instance garland could be pitching for the sweep, instead a rookie is going. Someone please ease my mind. cotts walked 171 batters in 311 minor-league innings before that day. mccarthy has walked 74 in 364 minors innings. and he led the minors in Ks last year. hope that helps.

QUOTE(TheBigHurt35 @ May 18, 2005 -> 07:22 PM) And speaking of hypocrisy... jim's a perfectly competent writer. i'm sure you've never had a typo.

QUOTE(AnthraxFan93 @ May 10, 2005 -> 09:46 PM) Thank the owner for taking a page out of The Tigers Market Dept to get the fans back. dude, you seriously think if kenny'd gone to JR and said, "we gotta hire cito gaston," gaston wouldn't be our manager right now? if you think KW's that much of a lame-duck GM then you can't very well get pissed at him for how he's done over the years cuz he clearly has no say over anything important. toss the voodoo doll and give credit where it's due.

QUOTE(AnthraxFan93 @ May 10, 2005 -> 08:56 PM) I give credit to this years team to Ozzie, for him standing up and saying.. HEY DIPs***... THis is Ozzies team NOT KW. i agree. kenny deserves no credit for this team y'alls it was all ozzie. thank god ozzie took charge around here and put this team together otherwise we'd be f***ed. ozzie's been a savior. hey, who hired ozzie anyway? whoever he was, i'd like to shake his hand.

26. elmhurst.

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Apr 25, 2005 -> 10:09 PM) The quality of the '03 Kansas s***ty staff was laughable. It doesn't surprise me that their one good month was a head fake for what was to come. agreed.

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Apr 25, 2005 -> 09:50 PM) You still havent answered my question. How is this a valid comparison? Nothing about the '03 Kansas s***ty team and the '05 Sox is even close save for the W-L numbers in April and the fact that BBTN and the like vastly overrated them as a ball club early on then promptly forgot about them when they started to suck. the ratio (and quantity) of runs scored vs runs allowed between the two teams is pretty close too, and i believe that tends to be a reliable predictor. dude saw a parallel and raised it for discussion. it's the kinda thing peeps do when they, you know, talk baseball. why's everyone jumping on him for that?

i believe the '03 royals hit about 1.000 with RISP, and a lot of their wins could be traced directly to that. last i checked we were hitting .214 or so with RISP. doesn't invalidate the comparison, but it's a start, and i'm pretty sure we won't end up quite like them.

follow-up piece on this today. sorry if it's posted elsewhere: the buehrle-wood comparison's bulls***--buerhle's career ERA+ is significantly better. the prior comparison's not as bad, though he might note that buerhle's thrown about 97 kajillion more innings than prior over the same period. durability should count for something. anyway there you go.

QUOTE(jackie hayes @ Apr 15, 2005 -> 09:50 PM) Maybe I'm the only one, but I'd sign that deal too. A lot can happen over the course of a year. I'd rather have $40 mil as a sure thing than the risky prospect of $50 mil. agree 100%. pitchers go down with serious injury about every two seconds.

southsideirish, your concern for Standard Written English (or, if you prefer, Standard White English) is cute, but i promise it'll survive soxfan101's assault. yasny's advice is sound from the standpoint of forming good habits, but the bottom line's that this is a casual forum, so nitpicking peeps' usage is kinda silly. and yes, harping on homophones is nitpicking.

RIP.

love hawk. love rooney. love farmer. as for the antisabermetrics rants, sure, i hear you, but it's not as if statheads don't consistently take potshots at traditionalists, so i don't think it's unreasonable to expect hawk or others to occasionally fire back.

hoop dreams

dude lives in japan, i believe.

i'm bumping this cuz sickels is doing an "all questions answered" thread all day today. think it'd be cool to flood him with questions about the sox system, especially since he's a twinkies fan. actually i'd take just a trickle of sox questions; there hasn't been one so far.

QUOTE(TheBigHurt35 @ Mar 6, 2005 -> 08:48 PM) Well, then we'll just have to disagree on the grounds of personal taste. "The kings of hip hop"? Wow, that's a pretty bold statement. They certainly are talented as hell, but I think that Run-DMC, LL, the Beasties, Tribe, Jay-Z, and OutKast have put out higher-quality work over roughly the same time span. Then again, that's just my personal opinion. And speaking of the "King of Hip Hop," we would be remiss if we didn't mention Dre. Everything that he touches turns to gold (and usually platinum as well). dude, dre's f***ing great, but he's done plenty of hack work too. dunno why you put so much value on album sales when evaluating an artist. and just for the hell of it i'll throw out my opinion on what we're talking about: de la soul's better than everyone you listed there. i'll listen to arguments for run DMC or tribe over them (i did love the native tongues), but not the others.

QUOTE(hammerhead johnson @ Mar 6, 2005 -> 07:01 PM) Excuse me while I laugh my ass of at all of the hip hop talk on here. The lack of knowledge and respectable taste is frightening. shagar states in his first post that he hasn't listened to hip hop for long, and i think it's clear that several of the other posters are a few years younger than us and more casual music fans than you. not sure you gotta be like that about it. i do feel a lot of your list, though it reminds me that i need to brush up on a lot of older stuff.

QUOTE(SoxFan1 @ Mar 6, 2005 -> 03:44 PM) I voted Jay-Z- Blueprint because that entire album was lyrical genius. He really thought about what he wanted to say. Stillmatic is not as good as Illmatic though, probably one of the best lyrical rap albums of all-time. agree illmatic > stillmatic. i'll also take the original chronic over 2001. enter the wu tang and tribe called quest's low end theory should also be mentioned, while we're on 90s stuff.

QUOTE(Queen Prawn @ Mar 4, 2005 -> 02:11 PM) Dammit - it was last night? The radio said it was tonight. I just wanted to see Lenny one last time. lenny's last episode is tonight. they said something about it in the teaser last night.

dude, record sales don't necessarily = talent. they mean your record company has a good marketing department.