Jordan4life_2007

QUOTE(SoxFan562004 @ Dec 31, 2006 -> 01:28 AM) I agree 100%, it bugs me when people paint him out to be a saint just because he brought Chicago 6 championships. I loved watching MJ on the court, but don't think he's that great of a person off of it. Who really does that, though? It's well-known that he's not only cheated on his wife, but had a really bad gambling problem. To the point it had been linked to his father's death (although there hasn't been a shred of proof that his gambling played a role).

QUOTE(3E8 @ Dec 31, 2006 -> 03:25 AM) This is quite the undertaking. That's at least 10 fatties. Is this an all-day event? From about 5-10 PM. It might take a little longer.

Just finished watching "Unfaithful." God damn is Diane Lane foine. I'd hit that until I barfed.

Saw 3. Hostel. The Hills have Eyes.

Johnny Walker's "Red Label." Oh yes! It's a combination of scotch and whiskey. I also plan on smokin' 3 20's (weed) as well. I'm gonna be so gone.

I like being the "underdog" again. Seems like we always fall on our faces when we're predicted to dominate.

QUOTE(knightni @ Dec 30, 2006 -> 12:37 AM) #6. FoxySoxGirl is really a man. LOL. I just caught that.

QUOTE(redandwhite @ Dec 29, 2006 -> 10:53 PM) Jordan had been cheating, gambling, lying since he made it to the NBA. I still can't necessarily blame him, I moreso blame his wife for trusting him for as long she did. It's just plain stupidity on her part. Well, the fact the guy is worth 23475320657423432 million dollars might've had something to do with that.

QUOTE(SoxFan1 @ Dec 29, 2006 -> 09:04 PM) Give me MJ anyday.

Juanita Jordan is simply disgusting.

This is an awesome thread. I really can't think of anyone else outside of the guys you mentioned. Let me sober up a bit, and I'll get back to you.

5: I'm an alcoholic (Not a dangerous one, though. I'm the most fun drunk that's ever lived). 4: I love to smoke weed (I think only Rowand44 knows). 3: I have a tattoo of a severed head on my left shoulder. 2: I actually like watching beheadings at www.ogrish.com (Yes, I know, I'm sick). 1: I have a crush on Steff. I love it when she goes off on somebody. And she's just really intelligent and smart overall.

Happy B-day to all of you. And yes, Qwerty needs to come out of his coma.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Dec 26, 2006 -> 04:24 PM) The main bone of contention here seems to be whether the '07 Sox are as strong, on paper, as the '06 Sox. Here are some thoughts on the matter. To begin with, let's take a look at the starting rotation. We've got Buehrle, Contreras, Garland, Vasquez and whoever vs. those 4 and Garcia in '06. Buehrle has been, historically, a solid starter who had a horrid 2nd half last year. I'd be inclined to believe that we'll see the historically dependable Buehrle, especially since he's in a contract year, rather than the Buehrle of the 2nd half of '06. Summation: Probable improvement over '06 performance. Contreras: Assuming he's 41 is as assinine as assuming he's 35. In my opinion he's a solid to bet to at least match his '06 performance. Summation: Equal to '06. Garland: Jon didn't have a year as good as he had in '05. He had a bad 1st half and a very solid 2nd half. I believe at an absolute minimum he'll match '06 and I have strong feeling he'll surpass his '06 performance. If you recall, he has stated he had a dead arm early in the season. Summation: Garland will be measurably better in '07 than in '06. Vasquez: His 2nd half leads me to believe that after a half year with Cooper, that he improved over the Vasquez that pitched below his capabilities the last couple/three years. Wishful thinking maybe, but I liked what I saw of him after the break. Summation: probable improvement ... maybe. Regression is doubtful. Whoever vs. Garcia: I think Garcia will have a better year than last, but that is moot point. It's all about his '06 season vs. what we can expect from Mr. Whoever. Will we get 17 wins out of the 5 slot. Probably not. Will we have a guy throwing 86 mph and unable to hold runners on? If Heager wins the 5 spot, then yes. But that's a knuckleballer. We've got several guys who can step into this slot that have the potential to give us an acceptable performance. With all this talent, I believe one will come through. Summation: A probable drop off from Garcia. Overall, I believe the rotation will be stronger in '07 than '06. I see a probable improvement in 3 of our 4 veterans, with a drop off in the #5 slot. I don't believe the dropoff will be a repeat of '03 - '04 though. I believe the bullpen will be stronger. We'll have MacDougal all year as opposed to a half season of a terrible Cliff Politte. BMac, Riske and Cotts were questionable to bad overall. Jenks and Thorton seem to have found their niche and should be able to maintain their level of performance. So who do we have to fill slots 4 through 6 out of the pen? Aardsma, Sisco, Masset and/or the losers of the 5th starter competition out of Heager, Danks, Floyd, Broadway ... maybe Tracey, Phillips, Gonzalez. There is enough talent there to effectively fill out the bullpen. Now, let's talk about our so called holes. Backup catcher, we seem to agree, has been improved. Probably so, but it's not a lock. Pods is getting a lot of crap around here, and his '06 performance justifies that. However, I believe that he was never able to get into proper game shape due to the hernia surgery he had in the offseason. Look at spring training and his start to the season. He wasn't ready. He never had the chance to get healthy and get in shape. Pods doesn't have enough talent to get by at less than 100%. I don't expect a lot, but I do expect an improvement from Pods in '07 due to the fact he'll be healthy and ready to go. Anderson has been around the league now and he should improve just from having a year of MLB under his belt. The key word, of course, was 'should'. It's no given, but BA has too much natural talent to have such a bad year again. As for backup CF, not having Mackoviak out there will be a drastic defensive upgrade. Either of Sweeney, Owens or that dude we picked up early this offseason (name escapes me for now) will have to be better than Mack. Uribe ... I don't know. We don't know if this attempted murder thing will continue hanging over his head or not and how it will effect him. Worse case scenario, Cintron starts and we lose defensively but gain with the bat. Hopefully, Uribe will be around to a late inning defensive replacement. In general, I don't think our holes are as glaring as has been made out. As for the rest. Dye may backslide, but the dude is a pro and he's in a contract year ... so who knows. Crede's back is always an issue but he's been coming into his own as a solid major leaguer. If he can stray healthy we can expect at least as much from him. If AJ gets more rest, I believe he'll be more consistant over the course of the year with a probable slight upgrade overall, because he really hit the skids in the 2nd half. There's no reason to expect less out of PK, Thome, Iguchi or the bench. In general, I see plenty of reasons to be optimistic about our chances in '07. Geez, Yasny, I guess I've got nothing to say now.

Danks and Masset excite the hell out of me.

QUOTE(NCsoxfan @ Dec 25, 2006 -> 10:17 PM) Hypothetically, if it were A-Rod - what would YOU be willing to give up if you were the GM? Would you give up Crede, Danks, and a mid-level prospect? In a second. The Yanks would laugh at such an offer.

Why the hell would the D-backs be interested? And the Yankees better be prepared to pay ALL of that $16 million he's owned next year if they're really serious about trading him.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Dec 25, 2006 -> 06:54 PM) I'm glad to see the Cowboys getting their asses handed to them not just because they're a mediocre team that's been getting a ridiculous amount of media love but because Garcia's a class act and it's nice to see his team beat T.O.'s. The Romo lovefest was getting very tired. And yes, the Cowboys get way too much media love for a team that's won one playoff game since 1995. The Eagles are lookin' real good right now. I definitely don't want to play them at the moment.

QUOTE(hitlesswonder @ Dec 25, 2006 -> 05:02 PM) McCarthy's ERA in 151 innings in the bigs is 4.39, Floyd is 6.96 in 108 innings. And McCarthy outperformed Floyd at every level of the minors. I just don't see what's impressive about Floyd other than being a high draft pick. What makes people optimistic about Floyd? I just don't get it. I don't know if I'm "optimistic," but Kenny and his people scout these guys extensively before he goes after them. It's not like Kenny woke up one day and said "Yeah, let's just trade for this guy and see what happens." They obviously feel they see something he's doing wrong and feel like they can fix it. It's worked with guys like Jose Contreras and Matt Thornton. So who knows...

He's been in decline every year since 2003 (when steroid testing began). He's not much defensively, and is asking for 7 million a year for 3 years. No thanks!

QUOTE(greg775 @ Dec 25, 2006 -> 06:10 PM) I don't think anybody would have wanted Kenny fired for that, especially if it brought us another playoff/Series. He gambled in standing pat during the second half and that didn't work. Now like Arvia wrote, we appear to have a lot of holes for the coming season. I don't think anybody calls for KW's head anymore, not after he brought us a World Series title. I think he and Oz deserve lifetime contracts for that. But it's puzzling what he's doing for the coming season. If Pods is finished as a productive leadoff hitter and Anderson continues to struggle, and our starters pitch as they did much of last year, we are screwed. I think everybody was hopeful BMac would be the stud pitcher we need next year. Now we've cut two proven starters from the mix. Is the knuckleballer destined to start for us this season?? Nothing against you, but I get sick of people that act like Soriano, or any one player, would've lifted us from 3rd place to another title. Are main problems in '06 are well documented. Our starting pitching failed us last year. Period! Our Bullpen failed us last year. Period! Our offense kept us alive for most of the year, but we couldn't overcome the shady pitching. As far as holes that we have for the upcoming year? Show me a team that doesn't have potential holes? Scott Podsednik had a bad year last year. No way around it. Was there a realistic upgrade available? Nope. Brian Anderson? Yes, he was absolutely brutal in April/May/June. But he showed considerable improvement as the year went along. He's already GG caliber. So do we give up on the guy after one tough year? His rookie year at that? Again, was there a realistic upgrade available? Pierre? Figgins? Matthews Jr? Yuck, yuck and more yuck. B-mac could very well turn out to be a "stud" pitcher. But he's far from "proven." Freddy Garcia is proven. But his best days appear to be behind him. And there's no way in hell I would expect Kenny/Jerry to shell out 13-15 million for him. Which he's undoubtedly gonna get when he hits the FA market.

QUOTE(LowerCaseRepublican @ Dec 25, 2006 -> 01:09 AM) We have a winnar! If BMac went for Soriano, we'd have no shot at resigning him in this crazy ass offseason and KW would have had one testicle sent to the Sun Times and the other to the Trib by rabid Sox fans before they strung him up for trading the sudden inside track pitcher for the CYA and that is going to singlehandedly change a division for a three month rental. And correct me again since we're on the same page, Jordan -- the offense didn't seem to be the problem. It was the pitching that kept wetting the bed. We had an unproven pitcher that had a handful of good games and was never in the rotation. Nobody knew or knows if he'll be able to handle that load and pressure. We got what we could for him, especially if he proceeds to wet the bed. And let's keep overvaluing our own players please. I personally thought we should have gotten Pujols, Rolen and Edmonds for him straight up or perhaps with a throw in prospect. We're definitely on the same page.

QUOTE(greg775 @ Dec 25, 2006 -> 12:01 AM) The bottom line is like Rogers wrote, the Sox could have addressed some needs with a trade of BMac instead of stockpiling prospects. I thought KW was all about winning titles NOW and he didn't trade BMac for Soriano last year when Soriano could have helped us get our head out of our ass the second half and maybe win a repeat title. We should have gotten Young in the trade for BMac. And 95% of this board would've been demanding that Kenny be fired for failing to re-sign him and, for all intents and purposes, giving away Brandon for a 3-month rental. Or are you saying we could've re-signed him for, hmmm, let me take a shot in the dark here -- 8-years and $136 million? As far as Young goes...Kenny has made it quite clear that he will not trade any pitching from the roster unless he gets pitching in return.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Dec 24, 2006 -> 11:32 PM) And the game where he went pitch for pitch with Johan for 8 innings. Well, that basically came against an AAA lineup. But OK. Let's give him that one, too. That's still just a few starts. And let me make it very clear that I was and still am a big B-mac fan. But, for the right price, anybody is fair game.

QUOTE(Flash Tizzle @ Dec 24, 2006 -> 11:00 PM) Let's not enter this ridiculous set of Steff-semenatics where we argue the true meanings of people posts for four pages. Complete waste of time. What you use to interpret McCarthy's future can just as easily be used towards the prospects we acquired from Texas. Sure, you didn't mention them directly, but what you essentially used as an argument also applies to what we received. He's not, but even his limited amount of innings is more than Danks or Masset. McCarthy has shown an ability to pitch as a starter once his changeup is harnessed. So if Danks or Masset had pitched a couple of good games against major league competition the trade would be OK? That's essentially what Brandon has done to this point. The only Brandon people want to remember is the back-to-back gems he threw against Texas and Boston in 2005.