southsideirish71

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Dec 9, 2007 -> 12:50 PM) I don't know -- Ozzie has been witness to two World Series victories with speedy leadoff men, so it isn't as if he's delusional; but besides that, there is nothing to truly suggest that Ozzie wants "a bantam weight track star" to be our leadoff man. Ozzie Guillen wants someone who is good at the game of baseball, period. He didn't want Podsednik back last year; I'm sure he doesn't want Jerry Owens back next year, at least not as number one. He isn't stupid, whatever anger people want to project on him cast aside. He didnt want Podsednik back last year. Thats why he started the season off as our leadoff hitter and starter in the OF. The only reason that they soured on him was due to the amount of injuries he had over the previous years. If Pods was healthy he would still be on this team, and would still be in LF.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 9, 2007 -> 12:49 PM) And that's what it would be. Why pay $9M or whatever Pierre gets for Owens aged a few years. I think the Sox end up with Rowand in CF. Leadoff hitters who have pretty much about 98% of their OBP invested via their batting average are a ticking time bomb.

Ozzie can talk all he wants about OBP and such. But push come to shove, a bantam weight track star will be our leadoff guy. He can't get the f***ing Marlins experience out of his head. The only weigh that Owens doesnt start is if we waste money and pick up Pierre.

QUOTE(TLAK @ Dec 9, 2007 -> 10:38 AM) Joe Cowley visits with Ozzie Guillen in Sunday's Sun-Times: "Q: Who is going to play second? A: Right now, I'm looking to [Danny] Richar. But I have Juan Uribe to compete with him." So no mention of Pablo, and as I mentioned above, if Uribe is still on the team you can expect to see him on the field quite a bit. Which means that if Uribe is on the team, we will have a fatty at 2nd yelling profundo every time he comes to AB. Hopefully Ozzie gives Richar the shot instead of Uribe having the Erstad effect.

QUOTE(greg775 @ Dec 8, 2007 -> 08:24 PM) Why would they release him? Pick him up and dump Hall. Bring back Olivo! Because Olivo isnt good. Because our pitchers hated him calling a game, and he cant hit. His arm is amazing, but the rest of the package is bad.

QUOTE(Markbilliards @ Dec 8, 2007 -> 07:20 PM) who here would trade Fields for Figgins? Only those who have done some heavy duty drugs while listening to Hawk talk about Ozzieball. Fields > Figgins

QUOTE(Dec 8 @ 2007 -> 09:26 AM:name=BearSox) Yeah, lets sentence a 61 year old to prison for life, even if he isn't a menace to society. What he did wasn't right, but he doesn't belong to be in jail for the rest of his life, which he would get if convicted. A couple years of probation, and go from there. It's not like he goes around killing bad guys, this was his first incident. This guy is a criminal. Lets look at the facts. He wasn't in mortal danger, neither was his neighbors. He calmly and clearly spoke on the phone showing that he knew exactly what he was doing. He boasted about loading his weapon and ignored the advise of the police on the phone. Not only that he shot unarmed people in the back. If this was a police officer instead of Mr. Horn they would be in a lot of trouble. If a person breaks into your house, and you are in fear of your life sure use deadly force. But chasing them, when you are not in danger, is not acceptable. Joe Horn decided to play Dirty Harry. And for the people who say, well this will deter them. Remember that criminals read the paper too, if they believe that they may be involved with some goof with a gun they might bring a gun themselves. Burglars choose homes that are empty, that have the path of least resistance. They try to avoid houses with people for obvious reasons. I am as conservative as you can get, but this doesnt pass the smell test. Here is the 9-11 call in its entirety. How many times is the man told not to go outside. How many times is the guy warned off. He admits that he doesn't really know that neighbor in the call as well. So its not like this is a friend of the family or long lost friend that he is protecting their property. He argues with the dispatcher over his ability to go out and shoot them. This guy is a criminal and I hope he goes to jail. Brave Neighbor Kills 2 Robbers 911 Call - Watch more free videos

QUOTE(GoSox05 @ Dec 7, 2007 -> 12:51 PM) Yes we know global warming is fake and Dinosaurs too. Jesus is great. Blah blah blah. I think we've heard this crazy rant before. You are talking about someone's rant being crazy, ha thats rich.

QUOTE(iamshack @ Dec 6, 2007 -> 02:37 PM) Yet on the other hand, Detroit, who you specifically mention, made the EXACT same mistake in 07' that Kenny made in 06', and now have gambled basically their entire farm system on bringing a title to Motown within the next two seasons. Are they a better team on paper right now, absolutely. Do they have any pitching? Uhhh... I don't see anything wrong with what Kenny said regarding the Tigers competing with the White Sox. How people can continually ignore the fact that teams come out of nowhere each and every year and compete with, or exceed the performance of other teams that on paper look far more dangerous is beyond me. If you want to award the division to Detroit or Cleveland right now, go right ahead. Just as people awarded it to us prior to 06', and most to the Tigers last season. I'm not going to argue that Cabrera wasn't a wonderful acquisition for the Marlins. He's an incredible player and it's hard to go wrong when trading for someone so advanced in skill at his young age. Yet the Tigers have problems of their own- they've got a core that is filled with aging veterans that WILL experience injury and WILL see their production decline over the next two years. Yet they look at themselves now and they have very little pitching and a farm system devoid of a whole ton of talent. Can they win it all this year? Perhaps. Had we taken the same gamble would KW be getting railed here for something so reckless and short-sighted, absolutely. But I guess the grass is always greener....right now, Mark Shapiro/Dave Dombrowski/Billy Smith/Dayton Moore are all geniuses, while the Stanford guy is dumb as rocks. I am sure you can cite plenty of examples of 90 loss dogs that added a SS and a setup guy losing their number 2 or 3 pitcher but keeping the team in tact and went on to challenge for the division. Or did the perfect storm only his 35th street. In 06 our pitching pretty much stunk all year long. We heard the excuses of the World Baseball classic and the work load from the previous WS year. Well the Tigers are good and rested. And as depleted as their system is from before. Its still leaps and bounds over what we have had over the last few years.

QUOTE(striker62704 @ Dec 6, 2007 -> 02:21 PM) As much as we sucked last year we still had a winning record against Detroit. The talent was there for us but the attitudes just stank. Hopefully we get off to a good start and the players don't fall apart. Our minor league system is bare but even if we had a hot prospect, the only position we have to fill is CF. If we sucked again this year we could easily replenish our minor league system with a firesale. Dye, Kornerko, Crede, Vazquez would all bring at least one A prospect in return. I'm confident one of Danks, Gio, Gavin or Eggy will pan out. The Whitesox of 2008 have alot to prove and have the capability to win. I'm sure they'll be alot better than last year. The team lost 90 games. Thats horrid. Who cares if we had a winning record against Detroit. When we were a good team we had problems with KC and Detroit. Good teams have problems sometimes with horrid teams. I am sure that the Rays hold a nice feeling to all of the hell they gave the Yanks all these years. But they were not the same. The only position to fill is CF? Crede is going to get us a A prospect? Dye is going to get us a A prospect? The 08 team is the same team that lost 90 games except we picked up a SS, and we picked up a reliever. Those two upgrades dont tell me that this all of a sudden is a good team.

QUOTE(striker62704 @ Dec 6, 2007 -> 01:15 PM) I don't know why everyone is freaking out so much. The only thing you can win in the offseason is the "on-paper world series". On-paper right now the Sox don't look so great because everyone had a bad season last year. On-paper right now the Tigers look completely awesome. On-paper in 2005 the Whitesox looked like crap. Hermanson was our closer! Dustin Fing Hermanson! Dye was coming off a decent season. Garland was coming off a 12 win season with a 4.89 era. We said goodbye to Lee and Ordonez, two of baseballs best. But we won it all. And we beat Boston and LAA to get there. On-paper in 2006 we looked even better. We added Jim Thome who tore it up. But we finished third. So everyone just stop whining so much. All Kenny Williams can do is field a good team. The players have to win. There is no need to rebuild now. We can wait til after this season and try and dump Kornerko, Thome, Dye, etc. to rebuild. The 2005 AL Central wasnt all that good. The 2008 AL Central is one of the best in baseball. Beating up on the division, which helped juggernaut the sox will be a bit harder. Take a look at the Tigers and see if anything in 05 compared to that team. The competition is tougher. Saying because it happened in 05 doesnt mean a thing, because each season is a vacuum.

QUOTE(CanOfCorn @ Dec 6, 2007 -> 11:02 AM) Not to be a jerk but, pitching and hitting WILL be a problem next year, because YOU said so? Tom Skilling just told me that April will be very cold in Chicago. That will cause the Sox bats to be cold. This in turn will cause the sox to start to press, notice the formation of the Alberta Clipper low moving the jet stream down a bit, again more cold. With the front coming out of the west, and the dry line coming out north it looks like the setup for another perfect storm. s*** Greg just flipped the cards, and 2007 said the team couldnt hit. There goes the card flipping hope. That and watching an offense go to sleep for a year and a half would give us a clue. But don't believe us, just click your heels and say Greg Walkers name backwards in pig latin and when you open your eyes, the perfect storm is gone and the sox are the bestest team in the world.

QUOTE(LosMediasBlancas @ Dec 6, 2007 -> 10:16 AM) I'm really trying to understand who and what spcifically KW is talking about. What leaked? Who leaked it? Who heard about it? What player(s) did we lose as a result of it? Is that probable? First of all, this is the second time as far as I can remember Kenny pulled this blame loose lips for his failure to get someone routine. Secondly, leaks happen from multiple sources. 1.) The other team might leak it to the general pop to see if someone ups the ante. Oddly the Marlin beat writer had a article on his website that stated that the sox had all but just about landed Cabrera and then woosh the Tigers swoop in. 2.) Telling players or in fact, other people is not the best way to keep a secret. He probably told Torii when he was wooing him. JD called him right after it. When you have some information, its a secret. The minute you tell someone its public knowledge. 3.) Making comments about the "big fish" when Cabrera is a marlin and the biggest catch out there, is not exactly indicative of Sherlock Holmes deductive reasoning. 4.) Dealing with an agent is the easiest way to have everything you say put out for all to see. An agents job is to get the best deal and offer for his client. The more offers, the more likely you are to get a better pay day. I would suggest if Kenny wants to yell at the person responsible. He should stand in front of this, and yell at the person that appears in front of him.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Dec 6, 2007 -> 10:24 AM) While I have no doubt he doesn't care what you or I think, he does care what some think based on his quotes today. As far as winning a WS, that was great, but it doesn't give him a pass the rest of his life. The guy had a $108 million payroll and was a lot closer to having the worst record in baseball than the best. This team has been in freefall since the ASB 2006. Its time he noticed. If we are spinning into oblivion this year, JR might pull the plug on this and start to sell items off. One more year of being a dog should do enough to put the season ticket numbers back to pre-05 times. The minute the butts are no longer in the seats and he sees the revenue stream moving away is the minute the payroll gets clipped back quite a bit. There is no way JR is taking a loss over a period of time, its not the way that he has been working as an owner. Butts in the seats, payroll at 100 mill. No one at the park, who knows.

QUOTE(tonyho7476 @ Dec 6, 2007 -> 08:33 AM) This ain't the California Penal League Or the Washington Nationals. Oh wait, thats one and the same.

QUOTE(CarlosMartinez @ Dec 6, 2007 -> 09:22 AM) I don't remember seeing him quoted as guarenteeing playoffs. He said they are building a championship team, the Tigers made moves to contend with them. The Royals and Cleveland did the same things with their additions. Has the season started, are the Sox 10 games out of first already? No, there are still plenty of moves to be made, they didn't trade away what little minor league they have left to get Miggy and they didn't spend a ridiculous amount of cash to get Tori Hunter. The Marlins have won a couple of World Series without signing the best free agents around or making blockbuster trades and so did the Sox a couple years ago. I'm like everyone else, it would have been nice to grab a headlining star this offseason, but it hasn't happened and may not happen. What has a team of high dollar All-Stars done recently, ask the Yanks, Cubs, or Dodgers. Actually his re-occurring quote about this is "Our goal every year is to win the world series, anything else is not acceptable." The last time I checked, the only way you get to the world series and win it is if you get a playoff berth.

Wow from Torii, to Cabrera to an old man hanging on barely. Just blow the f***ing thing up.

QUOTE(elrockinMT @ Dec 5, 2007 -> 06:05 PM) It sure looked like they had plans to trade Fields and/or Crede, but now at least one will stay. I would have liked Crede at 3B and Fields in LF. Yoy hear a lot of good things about Richar, but then the Sox are reported to be looking for a 2B man like Burke. Don't know what's up there. You realize that Burke can play multiple positions, and has great splits against lefties. You could platoon him with Richar, and move him around to get his stick in the lineup when he doesnt start at 2nd. Them going after Burke is not a sign that they are ditching Richar.

QUOTE(ptatc @ Dec 5, 2007 -> 05:07 PM) the only reason Boras is an issue is that he overvalues his clients and lies to other teams about what his client has been offered. The man lies and cheats to get his client the best offer. Some people don't mind it, others prefer to deal with others. I would prefer to deal with others. There is another reason. His entire MO as an agent is to sign year to year deals, and move towards eventual FA where the money is made. He will not negotiate with the Sox and being that his numbers were not that good, he will fail to rate on the Ellias scale so in fact we will lose him for absolutely nothing. The sox could want to do a deal tomorrow, unless they overwhelmed Boras and think about what that number would be, he will reject and move towards FA.

QUOTE(southsideirish @ Dec 5, 2007 -> 04:37 PM) What would it take to get this guy? Here is our solution to our leadoff spot and 2nd base. Perfect fit. If we trade for him and sign Rowand I would be very happy. Do we have enough to offer to get both him and Bedard like the Tigers did with Cabrera and Willis. This would be a better fit for the White Sox if they could pull something like this off. I would be absolutely ecstatic if they could get either or both of these guys. A team devoid of prospects did not burn one of their best last year to give a 2 month tryout for Richar. Richar will start and will get every chance to prove himself. They will most likely platoon him with Ozuna. Brian Roberts would cost too much as in Gio and other top prospects to cover that Chit. Bedard is out of our price range as well. Cabrera is a 24 year old superstar and worth the price made. The rest are not worth burning the farm to the ground over.

QUOTE(elrockinMT @ Dec 5, 2007 -> 04:22 PM) Don't trade Crede. Plus with all the talk about the Sox looking at 2B upgrade-apparently Richar isn't as good as we were told?- Iguchi is not a bad option for the Sox Is Crede dropping his agent, or do you forget that his agent is Boras. Find a new favorite player he is a moving on.

QUOTE(fathom @ Dec 5, 2007 -> 04:07 PM) But what if it's a guy that can't get on base against LHP? As our division stands right now, it's possible we'll have to face Santana, Liriano, Rogers, Robertson, Willis, Sabathia, and one or two other tough lefties in our division. We already have a 2nd baseman that can't face LHP and a DH that is below league average when facing lefties. Does anyone know how Fukudome is against LHP? There are certain lefties, such as Johan that its better to face them as a traditional lefty as it takes away their best pitch, the change up.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Dec 5, 2007 -> 03:34 PM) He said the Sox did make a big push for him today. It would be hearbreaking if he wound up on the other side of town. Fukodome is the best option left. He wants a 3 year deal. He is a high OBP line drive type guy. And he doesnt cost you anything in the draft. So you can get talent for money only, and still work to rebuild the mess we call our minor leagues.

QUOTE(WHITESOXRANDY @ Dec 5, 2007 -> 03:13 PM) Well, yes, many people are saying it's too late and that Kenny already screwed up. Also, were these 2005 acquisitions all part of the plan 6 months before ? I doubt it. Lastly, 5 years of a bad farm system - how about 10 ? Sure because the 05 AL Central is the same as the monster division we have before us. The tigers and the royals in 05 were both doormats. Its not the same.