joeynach

QUOTE(CanOfCorn @ Mar 20, 2007 -> 03:23 PM) Besides opening weekend, I don't think the Cubs sell out in April all that much either. I could be wrong though, cuz when I go...I go for the Old Style and the boobies. Sorry bud there just isn't that much boobie to see in April at wrigley when its 48 with 20 MPH winds and rain. There are a few bums though.

Thats just the way it is. And thats true for most teams. April is a low attendance month period. Only teams that are exempt are inelastic teams, meaning teams whose performance or other on field criteria don't equate to the ticket sales or attendance. Those are the teams who draw based on hype, stadium, history, name, popularity I.E.; cubs, yankees, redsox, dodgers,etc. Most teams must draw based on performance at some point. For the sox and a lot of other teams the summer months mean better weather, no school, free weeknights, pennance race, plus the warm day cold beer factor that you jsut dont get in April. So i dont think its really a big deal. I think thats just the way it is. Personally, my family and I dont really attack the April ticket market. My mom and sisters complain about the cold/wind/rain and wont have a good time in those conditions (they will whine) and frankly I enjoy the nice weather too so I can just focus on the game not being cold or having my nose run and such.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Mar 20, 2007 -> 10:35 AM) Why is Ozzie so worried about the right handed matchups, considering we did very well against righties last year. It was the lefties, and the loogy's that just worked us over last year. Maybe he should worry about that. Here is rotoworld on the subject. Jesus f***ing christ. Anderson has no f***ing shot No doubt that those three lefties can probably perform very well against a RH starter, but what happens when its a tie game in the 8th or 9th and we have the top of lineup coming in. They take the starter out and just bring in a LOOGY, Jamie Walker or Dennys Reyes and boom out go the sox 1,2,3 in order. It happened all the time last year. Its not all about just matching up against the starter its about having the most consistent and productive lineup out there that gives you the best chance to win every day. And going lefty, lefty, lefty at the top even against a RH starter jsut ensures that you are screwed when the LOOGY comes in for a close game in relief. Its just dumb to stack the LH like that, thats why no other mananger does it. You dont see the yankees, go Damon, Cano, Giambi do you?

QUOTE(Heads22 @ Mar 20, 2007 -> 11:00 AM) Oh, I'm willing to bet we can and will. Well yeah we will if we go 3 lefties in a row at the top. I mean the numbers straight up say it, Thome had what 3 homers last year against lefties, and Pods and Erstad are like .250 hitters against them. What a wonderful top of the lineup.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Mar 20, 2007 -> 01:13 AM) It just looks ridiculous on paper. LF - Podsednik - L CF - Erstad - L DH - Thome - L 1B - Konerko - R RF - Dye - R C - Pierzynski - L 3B - Crede - R 2B - Iguchi - R SS - Uribe - R How can Ozzie in conscience write out that lineup before every game? It's just looks terrible. And by age: LF - 32 CF - 33 DH - 36 1B - 31 RF - 33 C - 30 3B - 29 2B - 32 SS - 27 AVG OF = 32.67 yo AVG IF = 30.60 yo LINEUP = 31.44 yo Yuck thats awful. That 1,2,3 combo is a combined .225 against LHP. Looks like we will be dismal against Lefties again this year and make the Kyle Synder's and Mark Redman's of the world look like cy young. And even against righties thats just bad, all the opposing manager has to do in tight game to shut our lineup down is just bring in a lefty reliever for the top of our order and a righty for the bottom and we neutralized. Thats why you break up the LH and RH hitters to provide better matchups or force more pitching changes. This is baseball 101 and we saw last year what a lack of it does.

I think the point is that going Pods, Iguchi, Thome as 1,2,3 sounds pretty dumb. Especially with that many lefties you usually want to break them up to force the other team to change pitchers (relievers) more frequently. With those three up there, who suck against lefties, all a team has to do is bring in a lefty reliever late in the game to shut the top of our lineup down and lock away the game. This happened all the time last year. Thats too easy, and thats why lineups usually break up your LH and RH hitters. It happened last year when we went Pods, Iguchi, Thome and all three couldn't hit lefties. Hell it was even worse when those three started a game against lefties and we couldn't score, now u want to do more of the same. Doesnt make sense. The lineup that would best take into account our 4 LH starters would be, LH Erstad/Pods RH Iguchi LH Thome RH Konerko RH Dye LH AJ RH Crede LH Erstad/Pods RH Uribe I mean at least this way we wont get shutout by the Mark Redmans, Kyle Scheiders, and be blanked by Jamie Walkers and Danny Reyes of the world.

QUOTE(jphat007 @ Mar 19, 2007 -> 02:47 PM) Well, the funny thing is that he had a better OBP and SLG against lefties than righties in 05, so it's hard to get an exact idea of what he would do. I think our players numbers vs lefties are a little bit lower than regular because there are so many great lefties in our division, especially last year. They are tough to hit no matter what hand you swing with. Though in an interesting case, Paulie was better in 06 against lefties than he was in 05. While OPS was a little bit closer, I think avg was diff by about 30 points. But I agree with you. I'd rather have Gooch at the 2 and Erstad down in the lineup Id rather have Erstad either hitting 9th or just straight up replacing Pods in the leadoff role. I can do without the tinkering that would affect on of our best all puropose hitters in iguchi.

From Rotoworld "Manager Ozzie Guillen said Sunday that Darin Erstad will bat second in the lineup against right-handed pitchers. That'll put Scott Podsednik and Erstad at the top of the lineup, push Brian Anderson to a platoon role or back to Triple-A, and means Tadahito Iguchi will slide down the lineup against righties. Between Podsednik and Erstad the fearsome middle of the White Sox lineup may not have a ton of runners to drive in." I hate this because not only I do I not like taking Iguchi out of the two hole where he has been so productive and such a smart situational hitter, but he was awful against lefties last year, hitting .252. Why have Iguchi hit in the two spot only where he was bad last year @ .252 and not against righties when he hit .298. It seems totally backwards.

QUOTE(TitoMB345 @ Mar 14, 2007 -> 05:59 PM) If he signs for 3 years at $4 mil/year, I think we got ourselves a decent deal. I think he could be in for a big third year though, so it might be a little more like $5-$5.5/year. Placido Polanco gets like 4.7 M per year with the Tigers, Iguchi is worth somewhere right around there. Two years 9.5 Mil with an option for a 3rd at 5.5 Mil should get the job done. By the way that 3 year 21 Mil deal Matsui got with the Mets was a joke and way way overpriced. I think that pretty evident by the the new 1 year 1 Mil deal he signed with the rockies.

I agree with your assessment of McCarthy. I think he had a 89-91 strait fastball with no movement, a plus curveball, and a below average change up (which usually got hammered cuz it was always up in the Zone). The thing I dont think people took into account, which I think Kenny did, was the fact that the league probably caught up with BMac in 06. It would then be up to BMac to adjust and possibly develop a new pitch or two, which I think cooper was trying to get him to develop a 2 seamer and it just didn't work out. I like Bmac, but I think Danks has way better stuff, he just need at least a year to become a star. BMac was giving up way to many homers, his changeup was up in the zone, his curveball became predictable once scouted, and his fastball was average at best. Sorry but thats not gonna get the job done against your Maur, Mornea, Hafner, Martinez, contingent.

This just in Gavin Floyd sucks and cant get anyone out.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Mar 13, 2007 -> 02:31 PM) Its not about pulling a fast one, its about making the most money possible out of the schedule we were given. People want a $100 million plus payroll, we have to pay for it somehow. This is how. Its not the price or payroll im arguing about. Its about denoting that Sea series as Prime as if due to the matchup being Seattle its a popular or crucial series, when obviously its not. If they want to charge more for it becuase its a weekend during Jun, Jul, or Aug fine by me, they should because those tickets are in higher demand (thats the way econ works, things in higher demand cost more), but dont label it a Prime because of the two teams matching up. That works for our rivals like Minny, Det, and also for the big boys like Yanks BoSox, but like I said dont pull a fast one on us by pooling lowly seattle as a "bigtime" series the way those others teams are. I and everyone else would rather enjoy the strait up its a weekend summer home series therefore it costs you more because of demand. Instead we are supposed to just blindly accept that its a prime matchup alright and is as popular and interesting as playing the Twins, Tigers, or Tribe. Thats just not reality.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Mar 13, 2007 -> 02:23 PM) I am guessing it has something to do with the Asian contingent that follows Ichiro and Johjima. More likely becuase its a weekend during the sox big months of June, July, Aug, where they usually sell out weekend games by defualt becuase school is out, fireworks, warm summer nights, blah blah. Everyone knows it. Look at the home weekend schedule for Jun, jul, Aug, all the series are quality series on paper except for Tor and Sea. So one can then conclude that since they inlcuded Tor and Sea as Prime they did so becuase of the time of year and day of the week, not the matchup per say. If thats the case they sould say Prime as in either by match up (team) or by time during the season or week. Its really a joke. Do they really think they are pulling a fast one on us, we are not retarded.

Very nice, kudos!

QUOTE(dasox24 @ Feb 23, 2007 -> 01:05 AM) Agreed. I really miss the old MVP, and the franchises I used to build into WS Champs! I always would play with the Sox when I'd first get games, and then after awhile, I'd take some team like the Pirates and try to turn them into a contender. I love doing that with crappy teams. I loved MVP 05 for xbox, then i got a 360 and thought the game would work fine just like halo. WRONG. You cant plays MVP 05 for 360 and this was done my Microsoft on purpose. Some stupid licensing deal or something that doesn't allow a patch on the 360 Hard Drive to allow you to play. Its been documented. Really lame.

QUOTE(brokensecrets @ Mar 12, 2007 -> 04:52 PM) See I live by Midway, so I never take the Dan Ryan. I just take Archer all the way to 35th, and go straight down. Or I take the Red Line, for that matter. Doesn't cost me anything. Well you are just a pimp daddy!!

I also recently found out that inbound I-57 is going to be down to 1 lane starting in about a month that will probably last all summer long and into fall. The bishop is down to 1 lane inbound now and this all has to do with the reconstruction of the 94/57 interchange. So word is I-57 is going to back up the way the bishop does now coming in from about 107th in. The best alternate I have found from my alt route study at work is to get off on 111th street and get on Vincennes going north. Vincennes will then dump you right back on the ryan at 69th street. At least u avoid the back up from lane reduction.

Very nice, but my only gripe is on the shot of US Cellular Field. I hate it when I see the stadium cataloged pre-renovation period. I can really tell cuz the bullpens are in the old locations as well as no fan deck or fundamentals. Maybe you could use a more recent photo of US Cellular, I have a few aerials let me know if you would like to change this and/or need my help.

QUOTE(EvilJester99 @ Mar 7, 2007 -> 09:23 AM) Levine said he expects Buehrle's agent to ask for 4yrs @14 mill. He thinks KW will counter with 3yrs @ 14 with an option for a 4th. Id say both sides agree in the middle say 4 years 50 Mil with some backload to get his 14 mil per. 11 in 08, 12 in 09, 13 in 2010, and 14 in 2011. Sounds fair on both fronts. MB is 30 games over compared to Vazquez being 5 games under, seems to deserve more.

Everything looks great should be fun.

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Feb 27, 2007 -> 08:35 PM) the organization gets to decide how much these guys make. They write the contracts, give the year's salary, and then the player has to sign the deal; thus, they signed 1 year deals. The Sox get to do this for the first 3 years of a player's service time. After those 3 years, it either goes to arbitration or some agreed upon contract between the player and team (and they can give as many years after those last 3 as the two agree upon). After that, the player is free to sign with any team in the majors. The Sox never had the possiblity of losing these. It's really nothing you even need to read into quite honestly. The league determines each year what the minimum salary is, I think it was 340 or 350K in 06 and like 330K in 05 so in increases each year by 10-20K or so.

QUOTE(Pods70Rowand33 @ Feb 27, 2007 -> 05:56 PM) Does anyone know if they're going to broadcast any of the games on the score? If anyone has heard anything could you let me know. Thanks a lot. Im not sure if I like Erstad and Thome that high in the order and that close against lefties. That was a problem last year. Thome and Erstad are both see big dips in BA and OBP against lefties and Thome's power output againstLHP was dismal last year, I think 3 hrs. In the first inning we cant have 2 auto outs at the top of the lineup against LHP. I would rather see our best hitter against lefties hitting 3rd in the lineup to make sure you get him up there in the first, PK or Dye. Against LHP I would rather see Ozuna Iguchi Dye Thome PK Crede AJ Anderson Uribe

QUOTE(IlliniKrush @ Feb 22, 2007 -> 11:26 PM) Who wants to drive when parking is 20 bucks anyway? If you only knew where the free street parking is...

Um by the way did anyone notice the fact that he has Contreras birthday listed as 12/6/51. First of all I dont know where you got that birthday from I thought Contreras' real age was a sort of mystery. Second of all that would make him 56 years old, I dont think that can be right at all. I mean hes old, but hes not that old and still playing.

QUOTE(klaus kinski @ Feb 22, 2007 -> 11:40 AM) It will not be like last year-whaen entrances to the X way were open-there's signs all along southbound entrances that they will be closed 3/1/07. If you are heading South, forget about using 90-94-you will not be able to get on. They will defiantly be closed. Thats because the bulk of this work is for the local lanes. I believe the local lanes are going to be ripped out and reconstructed because the pavement is being constructed of concrete and last I checked at least the thru lanes of the locals were still the old asphalt. Although, the new on and off ramps and merge areas are concrete and were completed a year or two ago. The new local lanes will look just like the new express ones that were completed not too long ago; improved barrier, lighting, drainage, etc.