Kalapse

I'll hold back my negativity until Opening day if you hold back your optimism until then. Deal?

QUOTE(SoxAce @ Mar 20, 2007 -> 10:40 PM) Damn I can't wait to see whose getting cut tomorrow. It's going to go down to 28 or so? I still think Brian could be cut in a surprise move. I'm not sure how Guillen is going to justify it but the demotion is inevitable. Might as well get it out of the way now and save yourself the roster spot. Think about it though, we have Buehrle, Contreras, Garland, Vazquez, Jenks, Thornton, MacDougal, Pierzynski, Thome, Konerko, Iguchi, Uribe, Crede, Podsednik, Erstad, Dye, Mackowiak, Cintron, Ozuna and Hall as locks to make the team so that's 20 spots taken up that leaves only 8 spots after tomorrow's cuts. Danks, Floyd, Russell (supposedly in the running), Masset, Aardsma, Haeger, Logan, Sisco, Terrero, Anderson and Perez are all on the bubble for the 5th starter spot, the 4th, 5th & 6th bullpen spots and the final spot on the bench. So that's 11 players and only 8 spots. Which 3 of the 11 mentioned below will be cut tomorrow? Probably Russell, Aardsma and Sisco but there should be a decent surprise in there none the less.

QUOTE(sircaffey @ Mar 20, 2007 -> 10:26 PM) Fluke perhaps fits better in this situation. Aberration Anomaly It doesn't matter what you call it, you're never seeing that type of production from Darin Erstad ever again and I don't get why it's even mentioned, Hawk has mentioned 2000 during every Erstad AB this Spring even during games that weren't on TV.

QUOTE(sircaffey @ Mar 20, 2007 -> 10:05 PM) Toss Up... What's more likely to happen first? Erstad gets injured or Ozzie realizes what a friggin failure his idea was and Iguchi returns to hitting 2nd If Erstad begins the year in the 2 hole he'll have about the same odds of being removed from that role as Pods had of being replaced while sucking last season.

Neither of Aardsma nor Cotts should be on a big league roster at this point. I'm sure Piniella meant that as partially tongue in cheek probably laughing afterwards and throwing a few compliments his way. Neil has been terrible thus far but I highly doubt Piniella would hang one of his players out to dry like that just because they're struggling in Spring.

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Mar 20, 2007 -> 09:10 PM) I just re-read that thread. It makes me sad that I was right.... http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=56432 Ha I called for Eduardo Perez to be signed in post #33.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Mar 20, 2007 -> 08:59 PM) I don't think KW traded Rowand + Young away because he wanted to "clear the way" for BA -- he traded them because he wanted Vazquez and Thome. I'd bet KW would prefer either one of them to Brian Anderson. 2 starter caliber centerfielders were made expendable by KW's trust in Brian Anderson to be a solid major league centerfielder. WTF is the difference? And to say that KW would probably take either of them over Anderson is sheer conjecture and has no place in this.

Brian Anderson isn't going anywhere. He's far too important to the team this season to be dealt now. If he's traded tomorrow then who starts in CF in May? Leaving Brian off the 25 man roster may be Ozzie's choice but trading Brian would be KW's and he's proven that he has some sort of faith in Brian despite the recent moves to the contrary. He's traded away 2 starting centerfielders in order to clear the way for Brian, he isn't going to cut bait now after 399 career at bats.

QUOTE(WhiteSoxfan1986 @ Mar 20, 2007 -> 08:44 PM) When we signed Erstad I liked the move because I figured he would be a guy who could back up in the outfield and play a little first, I would have been completely against the move if I would have known he had a good chance of starting. If it's Pods and Erstad 1-2, we may very well have the worst 1-2 in all of baseball. HA! You should go back to the original 'Erstad Signs' thread and check out some of the posts in there. It was what 2 months ago and I had it as a foregone conclusion even then that he would be taking over for Anderson as the starting CF to start the season. This isn't exactly coming as a surprise to me. There was no way Ozzie Guillen was going to use the Greatest Grinder In Grinding History as a bench player, it goes against everything he's done over his 3 years as the White Sox' Manager.

Is anyone in the market for a new grill?

QUOTE(Jordan4life_2007 @ Mar 20, 2007 -> 06:16 PM) Fixed. Actually it's more like 2001-2002 & (post AS break) 2004-2006 (pre AS break) form

QUOTE(Damen @ Mar 20, 2007 -> 02:10 PM) I think its much closer to 3 million. 2.9? Well considering his service time he'd be making about $900k on most any major league club despite being terrible. I'm sure someone could have use for a $900K pinch runner, so I'll give him that.

QUOTE(Y2HH @ Mar 20, 2007 -> 02:06 PM) Whats with the link about Uribe? Are you trying to use misdirection?! Did you read the last line of the article?

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Mar 20, 2007 -> 02:06 PM) His pure lack of baseball skills. He simply is not a good baseball player. He doesn't hit for power. He plays below average defense. He has trouble getting on base. The only way Scott Podsednik is effective is with his speed. He was a step slower in 2006, and is coming off groin surgery. Groin surgery with a speed player=Bad News. There really isn't much to like. Plus he's making about $2M too much and is the only real leadoff option on the club in the manager's eyes. They put way too much faith in him.

Ok so I think I'm on to something here. In this sample we have skin tone swatches of 3 of the grinderest grinders in the game as well 3 from a trio of the best players in the game. The question is can you guess which are the grinders and which are the great players? As far as the formula is concerned, I'm making progress things are starting to come together and I really think this thing could get done in the next few days.

QUOTE(pcullotta @ Mar 20, 2007 -> 10:28 AM) Prob'ly sends up Ozuna who hit .322 against Lefties and .273 as a Pinch Hitter Ha, he didn't do that one time last year. I highly doubt he changes his ways now besides Erstad was partially brought here for his clutch late game hitting and he NEVER pinch hits for Pods. What if he already has Pablo in the lineup giving Crede or Iguchi a day off? He tends to do that a lot. Ozzie is just setting himself up for failure with this top of the order, no manager would stack the top with lefties especially 2 of them as bad at getting on base as Erstad and Podsednik.

QUOTE(pcullotta @ Mar 20, 2007 -> 10:07 AM) Ozzie specifically said Erstad would bat #2 against Righties. I highly doubt he would put that 1,2,3 combo out there against a Lefty. Plus, we usually use about five lineups a week so I'm sure there will be plenty of variations. We also now have Toby Hall to do the catching against some southpaws and he hit .292 against lefties last year. So what dos he do in the 8th inning when the top of the order (Pods, Erstad, Thome) is due up and a LOOGY is warming in the pen?

I refuse to call a grown ass man Coco. I've been calling him Covelli since the day the Indians called his skinny ass up and I will continue to refer to him as Covelli until he retires. Same goes for John Bonser damn it.

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

QUOTE(Gene Honda Civic @ Mar 20, 2007 -> 12:19 AM) WRONG! I think when Kalapse comes out with his final formula you will see that you need to be a little white guy to be a grinder. Castillo and Ichiro end in vowels. Sounds foreign to me. Well you've already given away a good portion of my rough formula. A major factor in the final result is derived from the amount of melanin in the player's skin, the less melanin the more grinding said player tends to do. A few other factors being taken into consideration are BMI, number of vowels in the player's name and the language they speak. A player like Ryan Howard for example (melanin & BMI overload) would score out very poorly in the Grinder Index©

Take that Jon Garland you candy ass b****!

QUOTE(scenario @ Mar 19, 2007 -> 10:07 PM) It would be interesting to see the same table above with career OBP numbers for all the players, but the names blocked out. My guess? A whole bunch of guys with OBPs in the .340s and hard to tell the difference between most of them. Eh, not so much. I'd much rather use my own judgment. I know most of the players in baseball pretty well. You're welcome to look up their career numbers if you'd like though, if you find a 1-2 that's worse let me know. I mean just look at Rocco Baldelli for example his career OBP is 13 points lower than Pods but is there a single person on the face of the earth who would take Podsednik over Baldelli? I don't think so.

QUOTE(jackie hayes @ Mar 19, 2007 -> 09:58 PM) Yeah, that's what they're saying. To me the Mariners are the 3rd most boring team in baseball behind PIT and BAL. Outside of Ichiro and Hernandez that team is useless and now know that Vidro will be hitting 3rd they look even more pathetic in my eyes. So yeah, I really haven't been following them this Spring. QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Mar 19, 2007 -> 10:01 PM) Wha? What the heck happened to Ibanez? And Sexson? Why in the world do you bat the guy with 7 home runs and 47 RBI 3rd when you have a guy with similar average and OBP but 33 home runs and 121 RBI, and a masher like Sexson to sit behind them? They're the f***ing Mariners, run by some of the biggest idiots in baseball (Bavasi especially) nothing they do is supposed to make sense.

QUOTE(jackie hayes @ Mar 19, 2007 -> 09:48 PM) I thought Drew was protecting Manny, and where's Youkilis? Not that it changes the conclusion, just saying. Edit: And Vidro's gonna bat third for the Mariners, sez Hargrove. So would that make Adrian Beltre the 2 hitter for them? I assume so.

QUOTE(jackie hayes @ Mar 19, 2007 -> 09:48 PM) I thought Drew was protecting Manny, and where's Youkilis? Not that it changes the conclusion, just saying. I'm pretty sure they got Lugo to lead off which is pretty f***ing stupid when Youk was doing a fine job. It's kind of a clusterf*** at the top of the Red Sox lineup so I just put a few of the names in there. Besides the 5 possible candidates are all better than Pods/Erstad anyway so the situation is moot. QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Mar 19, 2007 -> 09:49 PM) I SAW 2 THAT WERE WORSE, SWEAR, THERE ARE 2 OF THEM WORSE Pittsburgh probably will go with Duffy-Wilson, and even though Duffy can actually steal a base, he is horrendously bad about getting on base. And Wilson is like worse than Erstad offensively. but shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit DeJesus is actually good, sry, Sox are #29 best Do the Pirates really count as a major league team anymore? They are beyond horrendous.