hogan873

I feel pretty good about this team. The distractions should be much fewer, and I believe Ventura will do a decent job...maybe even a great job. It comes down to a few keys "ifs", but if Dunn, Rios, and Beckham rebound and if the pitching staff does a good job and stays healthy this team has a chance. The only team I'm really concerned about it Detroit. I see the Sox hanging with them, at least close by for most of the season. I'll stick by my prediction of 82-85 wins.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 10:54 PM) You're f***ed on Sundays. He did say "primarily".

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 08:02 PM) What about getting the infamous "Ozzie" Martinez and Jhan Martinez for the departure of Ozzie Guillen? At least our system and major league team are strong enough that these former "top prospects" from the Marlins' system didn't come close to making the team. A- for new beginnings, unknown grade for picking Ventura and a C- for keeping KW in charge. This would have been a good trade if the Sox received a jar of sunshine and a Cuban sandwich, so getting a couple prospects made it a great trade.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 28, 2012 -> 08:03 AM) It's really not that hard to envision a path for how the Sox get to 95ish losses from last year. Lose Buehrle, lose Quentin, lose Santos. Between them, that's ~10 wins if you're going by WAR. That takes a 78 win team down to a ~68 win team. You're right there already. Now, just have most of the people repeat last year's numbers. Some people are likely to improve, it'd be hard for De Aza to be as bad as Pierre, but then if you finally have PK14 start showing his age and either get hurt for 1/2 the year or only hit 18 home runs, the team is literally right there. The place we're starting from is ~70 wins if everyone does what they did last year. The list of guys who can improve on that is long, but you can raise a question on almost all of them. I see your point, and I guess I see SI's logic for a 95 loss season. However, the fillers for Buehrle (Sale), Santos (?), and Quentin (Viciedo) are unknowns. Saying you right away count the loss of those three guys as -10 wins is discounting anything their replacements bring to the table. And then you assume Rios, Dunn, and Beckham don't improve at all. To me it seems like a lazy prediction. So if the Sox had won 84 games last season, SI would predict 71 wins for 2012?

Seems like I'm in the majority with 82-85 wins. I saw on the news last night that someone predicted a 95 loss season. I really don't see how that would be possible unless there were a string of injuries and Dunn, Rios, and Peavy (aka the Lawrence Bums) repeat 2011. I think a lot of people outside of the Sox fandom overvalue the loss of Buehrle, Quentin, and Santos. Realistically, I think the Sox have filled those holes fairly well.

QUOTE (knightni @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 03:53 PM) I really like Grimm. Anyone else? I like Grimm, too. I'm way behind on it, though. I think I have about 8 on my DVR.

Adam Dunn has a career year batting .265 with 44 HRs and 112 RBIs. Konerko struggles a bit early but heats up down the stretch. Still has a down year with 23 HRs and 91 RBIs. Peavy wins 15 games. Sale wins 17 games and makes the All Star team. The Sox are in it all year, and the division comes down to the last week of the season. Hawk yells "Stretch, stretch, get on back there!" in an at bat where Dunn hits a pop up to second base. He then says, "He just missed that one." An early April game is postponed due to snow. 100 randomly polled people in Kansas think that Ozzie is funnier than Robin. Out to prove he's a good manager, Robin visits local restaurants to see if people will smile at him.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Mar 27, 2012 -> 12:31 PM) My wife and I have the entire seasons of The River and Alcatraz on our DVR. We havent had a chance to watch them yet. Should I just scrap them? I like The River, but I haven't watched Alcatraz yet. I'm wondering the same thing about it. If I hear it's been cancelled, I won't bother.

QUOTE (flavum @ Mar 26, 2012 -> 09:27 AM) Yeah, I agree with this. I was waiting for a signature moment during this episode...especially for being a 2 hour show. They've set some things up for the season. Don is happy, and that can't last. Pete vs Roger. My guess is Don won't be married much longer. Yeah, a happy Don is a boring Don. But I can sense some foreshadowing that the marriage won't last long, and afterwards he'll be a much more interesting character...again.

QUOTE (Iwritecode @ Mar 22, 2012 -> 09:57 AM) I'm probably going to end up reading these books eventually since it seems to be all I've heard about the past couple of weeks. I know very little about the story but I heard it described as The Long Walk combined with The Running Man. Those are two of my favorite Richard Bachman (a.k.a. Stephen King) books, so I'm interested. As I was reading The Hunger Games, I did think about those two books. It's a futuristic story, but it doesn't necessarily read like that. I enjoyed the parts of the book leading up to the Games as much as the part about the Games themselves.

My daughter came home yesterday with a copy of Catching Fire. She still has about 90 pages to go in The Hunger Games, so I said "yoink" and promptly began reading it. Can't put it down.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Mar 19, 2012 -> 10:25 PM) Why the hell did they move him to left? I thought he was doing well in right and had a good arm? If we didn't have the bum, Dunn, we could DH Viciedo the next 15 years (if his age is not a lie) and be done with it. Don't you have any other word to describe the likes of Dunn, Rios, Peavy, etc.? That "bum" seems to be hitting much better so far...but time will tell. As far as DHing Viciedo, there's no proof that putting him in that position makes him a better hitter. There have been plenty of players in the history of baseball that were bad fielders but excellent hitters, and teams were perfectly fine with that. I'm sure this is the thought process when it comes to Viciedo. He wasn't signed for his defensive abilities.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Mar 13, 2012 -> 08:06 PM) Unless it was really his fault, aka he fought with media, players, management etc numerous times and embarrassed the franchise, I don't see Ventura going anywhere regardless of record. Good thing we've never had a manager that's done that!

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/highschool-p...-114729592.html I imagine on a message board with a majority population of guys, the ruling consensus would not have a problem with a little league club taking a donation from a strip club. But, does anyone see anything wrong with this? I say a donation is a donation. Strip clubs are legitmate businesses (for the most part). I wonder if there were any parents that refused to let their kids play?

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Mar 13, 2012 -> 08:31 AM) Act of Valor has some kick-ass action scenes and some God-awful acting. Overall, a 2 1/2 star or 2 3/4 star movie....maybe better to wait for the video, although the explosions and gunfire won't be quite as menacing in a home theatre. The only recognizable actor/actress is the lovely Roselyn Sanchez. You can see how it definitely plays as a short recruitment film which morphed into a big screen money grab. Definitely more interest in this after the bin Laden takedown. Isn't that the movie with active duty Seals? I wouldn't expect much acting.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Mar 12, 2012 -> 09:35 AM) Dunn hit a grand slam for me last night in MLB 12 the Show. His batter walk-up music is "Camouflage" by Brad Paisley. This is all a good sign. I play the Com2Us 9 Innings on my iPhone. Adam Dunn has 30 HRs and 65 RBIs at the All Star break. So, things are looking good.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Mar 12, 2012 -> 07:48 AM) So far Dunn is 3-11 (.273), with 1 2B, 1 HR, 1 R, 4 RBI, 4 BB, 1 K(!!!) for an OBP of .467 and SLG of .636 The one K is very encouraging. But, it's a very small sample size...

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Mar 9, 2012 -> 11:58 AM) More like "run away". Heeee shoots and scores!

QUOTE (Reddy @ Mar 9, 2012 -> 09:28 AM) i am so trying that. the pb+b... not the snack in the woods... Yeah, I'd be happy with a pb+b in my living room right now.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/first-person...-224800280.html How much money would you need right now to walk away from your job? Not necessarily to retire but to take a break, do something you want to do for a while. I think I would need at least $500,000 to feel comfortable. I could pay the bills and put a nice chunk away. But, in reality, I'd have to be finding another job pretty quickly. Maybe it would be something less stressful, something I'd really enjoy doing...

"Gold on the Ceiling" by The Black Keys

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 9, 2012 -> 08:20 AM) Preach! When my dad and would go hunting, we'd make a bunch of peanut butter and bacon sandwiches the night before. They were the perfect snack out in the woods.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 9, 2012 -> 08:55 AM) Some relevant Dunn quotes... Daryl Van Schouwen ‏ @CST_soxvan Dunn: stepping up the intensity in cage work early in the spring seems to be paying off Dunn: Manto and I are on the same page with a lot of things. You don't always have that with a hitting coach Referring to last year?

I'm having trouble getting very involved with the new book I'm reading. It's not that it's a bad book, the story is actually pretty interesting. But after reading 11/22/63, I'm hungry for more writing like that. I truly learned to appreciate Stephen King's writing with that book. Not many authors can write like that.

St. Patrick's Day and the week leading to it are a busy time at my house. Both of my girls are Irish dancers, and beginning this Sunday they have about 8 shows to do at various bars and restaurants. On St. Patrick's Day alone they have three shows: early afternoon, late afternoon, and evening.