hogan873

I don't see a McCann signing happening, but we can hope. No matter the length of the contract, he'll be getting at least $15 million per year. Saltalamacchia is a possibility, and he'd be significantly cheaper. But I wouldn't rule out AJ coming back for a year. He would be a left-handed bat the Sox need, and he'd be relatively cheap. If the Sox can fill the 3B hole, and they spend the money there, AJ filling in for a year makes sense.

QUOTE (SoxFan562004 @ Oct 18, 2013 -> 11:14 AM) This is probably my White Sox fan angst coming out, but I think it's coming from he didn't sign with one of the media darling teams, so it's not being spun in an overly positive way.... again, probably angst, but I think if NYY, Red Sox or Cubs the positive scouting reports would be pushed. If the Yankees or Red Sox had signed this guy ESPN would have cancelled all other programming for a day to talk about it.

Wow this happened fast. Just yesterday afternoon I was reading that a deal might happen within a few weeks. Then I go online last night and was extremely surprised. I wonder how much national attention this will get when the deal is made official? This is probably the biggest deal the Sox have made in a long time. Now the attention switches to the catcher spot. I'd be happy with McCann, Salty, Suzuki, or Jaso...probably in that order. If the Sox do have another $10-$20 million to allocate for next year, any one of them is a possibility. But, if they are also going to be looking for a 3B and/or CF, I think we might see someone other than McCann being signed. Overall, though, what a way to start the off season!

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Oct 16, 2013 -> 10:20 PM) Well, he's a switch hitter, but I'm sure he will bat lefty as some point, yeah. I was just going to ask if he stopped switch hitting. I'd seen several posts talking about him being a lefty, and I was sure he was a switch hitter. If I remember correctly, during one of Hawk's ramblings during a Sox vs. Sox game, he mentioned that he's much better from the left side of the plate.

QUOTE (knightni @ Oct 16, 2013 -> 01:54 PM) Wasn't he the guy who got the "yips" and couldn't throw the ball back to the pitcher? Wasn't that Major League 2? And wasn't he cured by looking at a Victoria's Secret catalog?

I know 28 isn't young, but for some reason I thought Salty was older. I'd be okay with signing him if the Sox miss out on McCann. There was an article today about McCann maybe commanding a $100 million deal. I don't know how realistic that is, but I doubt the Sox are going to sign a contract like that.

Without getting into the advanced statistics, I think that WHIP is a stat that most people (players and fans alike) can look at and understand the importance. A pitcher could have a low ERA and a high WHIP, but that would mean he gets into trouble a lot and somehow works his way out of it. But, it's the potential is what grabs my attention. A high WHIP, regardless of ERA, means that the pitcher has the potential to give up a lot of runs. Sooner or later that high WHIP is going to catch up to that pitcher.

I've always thought that ERA and WHIP were better stats to see how a pitcher is doing compared to looking at wins. Look at Chris Sale this season for example. One thing that Steve Stone says a lot that I disagree with (and for the most part he's a smart baseball guy) is that you don't look at the ERA of a closer. You look at their saves to chances. I don't like this because even if a guy has 20 saves out of 22 chances but has an ERA of 6.00, it shows that he has the tendency to give up runs. Which means that there's a higher chance of blowing saves than if his ERA is 3.00.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 15, 2013 -> 10:16 AM) From what I have seen, Garcia would be out there over De Aza in a heartbeat. Granted at this point it is limited samplesize. Right. And that's where a guy that makes mistakes ends up sitting because of those mistakes. That's a part of coaching, too. It's tough, but there will come a time (and maybe that time has already come) where he's told to get his head out of his ass and utilize his tools and make a difference.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Oct 15, 2013 -> 10:02 AM) Look, I'm all for being reasonable here...and surely many advanced statistics are not perfectly fine-tuned. But to dismiss them outright because there may be some flaws is ridiculous. I don't know why you seem to be holding on to this line of reasoning because we all know you are smarter than that. Let me put it this way. If we were in a postseason game, tied, in the 9th inning, and PK singles or doubles with less than two outs, and you have De Aza on the bench...would you not pinch run him for PK? Well, this is a no brainer, and you don't need advanced statistics to tell you to put De Aza in. However, to play the devil's (SS2K5) advocate, what if you had De Aza and Leury Garcia on the bench, and even though their stats match up you've seen De Aza picked off first base a few times and get a few bad jumps and consequently kill a few rallies, who do you put in the game? I'm personally not a fan of advanced statistics...let me rephrase that...I don't know much about them and haven't made an effort to do much research. But advanced stats aside, De Aza is a fairly valuable player due to his decent hitting and good speed. He has made some bad decisions and has looked dumb on the basepads at times. But that's the kind of thing that can be coached. You can't as easily coach a slow runner to be faster. I like De Aza, and for his price he's fine in the outfield (preferably LF). It's ludicrous to say the guy has no value because he makes mistakes. You take him for his tools and you coach the mistakes.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Oct 14, 2013 -> 11:23 AM) I thought the episode was somewhat mediocre to be honest. Too much ambiguity with that kid and some of the stuff with Rick. Wasn't very compelling. There was a bit of a time jump from the end of last season. I think (and hope) that more will be explained with the kid in the future. Rick's been messed up for a while now, and I think the episode showed that he's slowly coming back. Carl, though...what's up with that kid?

With some rare down time on Saturday I was able to watch The Purge and This Is The End. Both were very good. The Purge did a good job with the suspense. My wife and kids said they expect a sequel. I hope not. I think it would be nothing more than a re-hashing of what happened in the movie. I'm not sure they could tell another story that would be original in any way. This Is The End was hilarious. There were so many little jokes mixed in that I'm sure I didn't see all of them. I think it's a movie that has to be watched a few times.

I haven't met anyone from the board, and I think I'm Facebook friends with just two posters.

Solid opening to The Walking Dead.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Oct 8, 2013 -> 01:42 PM) I honestly don't even know who Alison Brie is. I mean, I've heard the name, but I wouldn't be able to point her out. She must not star in anything that I watch. I had to look it up, too. She's Trudy in Mad Men...that's the only place I recognize her from.

1. White Sox 2. 5 3. $52 Million

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 7, 2013 -> 09:32 PM) Hey guys what's going on in this thread Something about boobs, drugs, and short hair vs. long hair.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 6, 2013 -> 09:57 PM) My impression of the Sox fanbase on this board (not everybody, but general consensus) is people on here don't want Jerry to spend big bucks to get the payroll up where it should be for a city the size of Chicago. I get the feeling the consensus is save the money and spend it all on international scouting and the draft and all this sort of stuff. Really, people ... I hate bad contracts as much as anybody (Rios, Dunn, Peavy) but cmon, the Sox have to improve the product. Let's believe for a moment we have a much better GM than Kenny and Mr. Hahn knows WHO to spend it on. In that case, spend, spend, spend. The Sox have to replace a TON of players in the lineup (pitching is fine) and one way to do that is to SPEND. Do you all agree with me there's a reluctance to spend money on here, as if we should give a flip about Jerry and his money??? I say SPEND IT. As far as a trade, package Beckham, DeAza and either Q or Santiago and we should be able to get something of interest. I agree that some money needs to be spent, but to just go out and sign a bunch of free agents just to do it isn't going to get the job done. They need to focus on catcher and third base first, and then look at what else is out there. If they're going to spend, it needs to happen at those two positions first. I'd like to see a few other guys dealt for some more help in the lineup, and that may happen. Realistically, though, I don't see it all happening this offseason. I think we'll see a couple signings and a trade or two, but this team will still be a year or so away from seriously contending.

The teaser for Godzilla was up briefly yesterday. Apparently it was an unauthorized leak (at least that's what Warner Bros is saying). I was able to watch it, and it looks pretty bad ass.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Oct 4, 2013 -> 10:06 AM) Even then this wouldn't cause problems for anyone else, only for him. The signal would only weaken at the point of the split, he probably has a -7, -7, -3 split...but it's a technical impossibility for that to cause problems for anyone else. That's simply not how RF works. These installers don't know what they're doing, because they're contractors and poorly trained, and/or do not give a s***. I did all my wiring on my own, they're so bad. When I moved in, they had DirecTV hooked up, and even that was terribly run/crimped. I redid all of it, but used the same wires DirecTV had run through the house initially, only for Comcast. As for your cat chewing your wires, that's not his fault...and since DirecTV uses the same exact type of wires, maybe you need to b****slap your cat, because it sounds like you are just going to have the same issues again if DTV runs new wiring and your cat decides to chew it up, not even DTV will re-run wires for free. Over the past 8 years or so, I've had Dish, Comcast, and UVerse. Dish was okay, but at the time they were charging $20/month for HD services (this was probably 7 years ago. Plus we had some issues with reception. Anyway, went to Comcast for a few years. After the initial discount fro switching, the price skyrocketed. But we didn't switch until UVerse was available in our area. The record 4 shows at once feature was what we really wanted. We've had UVerse for a few years now, and I've been very satisfied. We've had a technician come out a couple times. Once was for poor reception, and they found that some wrong connectors were used during the initial set-up. They replaced everything for no charge. The few times I've had to call for other issues, they were able to fix them over the phone and then gave us something free for a few months for the trouble. At this point, there'd have to be an outstanding deal for me to even consider switching. Partly because I like UVerse and partly because it's such a pain in the ass to change.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 2, 2013 -> 09:55 PM) Well, I have criticized the Sox bad contracts in the past (Rios, Dunn, Danks) so I guess all I can say is I trust Hahn to do the right thing this time around. Sox are going to have to pay somebody to fix this atrocious lineup or we lose 99 to 108 games again. Personally I'd suggest signing AJP for a pittance and yes, throw some cash at Grandy or Choo and of course, Abreu and pray it works out. At least my couple of minor deals adds five new bats to our crummy lineup. That's not a bad attempt at improvement (Semien; Garcia; McCann/AJ; Grandy/Choo; new third baseman. Abreu would be great, and I think the Sox have a chance there. How much of a chance? Better than Lloyd's chances with Mary (Samsonite) Swanson, but not dramatically so. If they overpay for him, there's no money for a catcher (McCann). I like AJ, but he's not a solution, not even for one year. And Choo is going to get paid, big time. The Sox won't be signing him.

Anyone else having trouble with Soxtalk loading? The banner comes up, and then nothing. I have to hit refresh a few times for the rest of the page to load.

I just try not to read anything about any of the shows I watch if I haven't seen the current episode. If I view this thread and see something that gives away a moment in an episode I haven't seen, that's my bad. However, if anything about Big Brother was put in spolier tags that would be great. I really don't give a s*** about that show.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 26, 2013 -> 04:56 PM) Or Dunn could get traded. I think this more of a possibility than it has been in the past. Only one year left on his contract, he's hitting at about his career average again, and he's shown that he's not horrendous in the field. If, however, he traded, I wouldn't expect much in return. Freeing the salary and roster spot might be worth it, though.

Breaking Bad was outstanding last night. It's always great, but last night's episode was insane. The DVD scene was amazing. Funny how he threw Marie under the bus with the remark of how much his medical bills cost. I don't know if I've ever seen a show that did such a good job of showing a character's transformation.