Wedge

QUOTE(Jabroni @ Apr 20, 2005 -> 10:21 PM) Dye turned it around tonight. Magg$ now appears to not even have a hernia, which was his original diagnosis. He is probably just lying and it's really his knee that's bothering him. I will take Dye at $10.15 million for 2 years over Magg$ at a gazillion dollars for 7 years and currently on the DL. Dye vs Maggs: plus! You don't turn it around in baseball in one night, otherwise Shaun Green would be a hall of famer player. That said, Dye will definitely prove to be a better value than Maggs. He plays better defense and will put up offensive stats that are propotionally better than Maggs's when compared against salaries.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Apr 20, 2005 -> 10:05 AM) Why did Blackhole Sun just jump into my head? speaking of awesome songs... "WE BUILT THIS CITY!"

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Apr 20, 2005 -> 09:47 AM) In Ozzie's defense we were paying Botch an insane amount of money and I think there might have been some pressure from the front office to make that square peg fit in the round hole. Good point, I forgot about the ridiculous contract that KW had given Koch after the Foulke trade. We really got screwed in that trade, didn't we?

QUOTE(robinventura23 @ Apr 20, 2005 -> 09:37 AM) That was one of Ozzie's quotes from the postgame last night. At least he understands. Shingo may be a one-inning guy during a blow out game for awhile until he can get his pitches together. I just don't understand by Ozzie didn't do this with Koch last year until June. Maybe Ozzie learned from what shook out with Koch last year. That's a good sign of a manager, that when his decisions lead to bad results, he changes the decisions he makes. "Insanity is repeating the same experiment with the same parameters and expecting different results." -Albert Einstein

I was happy with the moves in the offseason. KW did a good job of getting the moves made, but I think the vision for the team really came from Ozzie. Thus, while KW did a good job of getting the players acquired, I think Ozzie was really the guy that had the vision for this year's club. As a benefit of the two of them, this is really a stronger team than last year.

UPDATE?!?

QUOTE(Punch and Judy Garland @ Apr 19, 2005 -> 08:31 PM) Garland and Buehrle as good of fielders as anyone? Ahh Hawk hyperbole. Buehlre is a very good fielding pitcher.

Let's hold 'em guys!

QUOTE(fathom @ Apr 19, 2005 -> 07:54 PM) I totally agree with that, but when a hitter is seeing a pitcher for the 4th time in a game, and the pitcher is tiring, then it's usually a better bet to go to the fresh pitcher who the batter hasn't seen that game. It just seemed like last year, the starting pitcher for the Sox always seemed to give up a hit to his last batter in a big situation. That might be true, but as weak as our starters were last year, the bullpen was MUCH weaker.

QUOTE(fathom @ Apr 19, 2005 -> 07:52 PM) Lets hope it's not another case where Ozzie's one batter too late......again. You know, it's not like most of the time bringing in a reliever will necessarily stop a run from being scored...

Now hold on... Dye's been struggling and Willie isn't a right fielder, exactly. Let's just see how this works out.

QUOTE(KevHead0881 @ Apr 19, 2005 -> 02:19 PM) s***, now that damn song is in my head. Thanks alot man. Just imagine some of the Jefferson Starship classics and you'll have it out of your head no sweat... "WE BUILT THIS CITY!"

QUOTE(frahungski @ Apr 19, 2005 -> 11:52 AM) i don't know about the opinions of the rest of you guys, but i think modern nicknames suck ass. it seems like the majority of them are either the first letter of the first name, plus the first 3 letters of the last name; or are just the name with a "y" at the end. a-rod, a-row, s-pod, paulie, booney, etc. many teams don't even have real nicknames. the cardinals and cubs for instance. one name that is very cool is El Duque, but that's about it for cool names that i can think of. what happened to "the Deacon," or "Black Jack," or "Paco Martin," "Batman," "Rock Raines" "One Dog" "Officer Karkovice." maybe it's just me, but nicknames nowadays are weak. I agree. A-Rod isn't a nickname, it's an acronym.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Apr 19, 2005 -> 06:38 AM) So what becomes the complaint du jour now? Crede is hot, and Thunderstruck is back. Apparently the complaint du joiur is that they don't sell enough black jerseys

QUOTE(Spod=Ratings @ Apr 18, 2005 -> 04:08 PM) rivera on the wsox does sound nice We'd end up being the Yankee pitching rejects...

QUOTE(El Piervizdyeguchansodnik @ Apr 17, 2005 -> 07:13 PM) THREAD.PWNED....BAD. Meaning? I'm not "cool" any more.

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Apr 18, 2005 -> 09:01 AM) We care because we want the fans to come out and support their team whenever they can. They need us to be out there cheering and making a ton of noise. It's funny, but in the past few years the team has choked the hardest when this has happened...

QUOTE(Reddy @ Apr 17, 2005 -> 09:27 PM) like how many quality starts a team has or tough losses or cheap wins etc etc etc I do know off the top of my head that a quality start as definied by MLB is considered 6 IP with 3 ER or less. As it works out, 50% of starts by pitchers are quality starts and a team that gets a quality start from a pitcher tends to win 66% of the time that occurs.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Apr 17, 2005 -> 10:25 PM) At least he wasn't in the 5th spot again. Yeah, I'd rather have Diaz there

I think by the ASB we might be ready to put Gio down as our 7th pitcher...

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Apr 17, 2005 -> 09:44 AM) I think the Sox sort of gave themselves the label of playing "smartball" and it has sort of backfired because of the way the O is working. The offense does look like last years, just with a little less pop. However, I don't think it will stay like that all season. I say that because there have been glimpses of the so called "smartball". Like everyone knows, pitching has saved us from a 4-7,5-6 record. Couch was right when talking about yesterday. Did Franklin just have a great performance, or did are hitters make Franklin have a great performance? I disagree. The offense does not look like last years. Yes, we use the HR to score some runs, but we are not solely dependent on it for runs like we were last year. I can't remember baserunning being this strong last year. I don't remember taking advantage of throwing errors and passed balls this much last year. I don't remember generating pressure that led to those things last year. Yes, we use the HR to score runs. Every team is going to do that. It's the only hit in the game that ALWAYS scores you some runs. We do have a number of power hitters in our line-up. They are going to hit HRs. It's just natural. Smartball isn't smallball. If it was, they'd call it the same thing. Smart ball is knowing what it takes to score those runs that we need. If a pitcher grooves a pitch to Konerko (a la yesterday), then f*** yes I want him to try and nail it out of the park. What I don't want to see is Paulie using that same long swing to try to hit it out of the park every time. Smartball is saying to yourself, "we're down by 1 and we have men on 2nd and 3rd with 2 outs. I just have to try to knock a single to get the lead" and then doing what it takes to get that hit. Smartball is knowing that the advantage on the basepaths is in the runner's favor. It is understanding the time old principle that the time it takes for a perfect throw from the catcher to second with a perfect tag takes exactly the same amount of time as a good runner to have a lead and to slide into base and taking advantage because catcher and second baseman have to execute perfectly to get the out. Are we going to be an offensive juggernaught this year? No, but I expect us to be a team that understands the game situation at every at-bat, pitch, relay throw, and baserunning maneuver. We're going to see an intelligent, hard-working, tough team that knows its strength is its starting pitchers and is going to do everything it can to give that pitching a lead and then expect it to hold it. THAT is smart ball.

QUOTE(Yoda @ Apr 16, 2005 -> 04:28 PM) After seeing Santana so dominant for the Twins last night (once again), I wonder if he’ll ever lose? I doubt it... "we're doomed!"

I guess I just don't understand his point. He seems to be gripping that we are going to score less home runs than in past years. By being a primarily homerun driven team, we failed. Now we are trying to use improved pitching (which fails to mention in the article) and a more balanced attack to win games. That's like saying that we should rip the Marlins when they won the World Series because they won a bunch of games on home runs rather than pure small ball. I really just don't understand what exactly this guy is gripping about.

Just to update: the "favorites" are now 2-7 against the "bottom feeders"

This is the way Millwood began with the Phillies. Until the ASB, the dude looked like a sure fire Cy Young winner... then he fell apart physically and mentally and never regained his form there. Time will tell what happens with him in the future...