southsideirish71

QUOTE(greg775 @ Aug 25, 2007 -> 09:39 PM) Obviously we absolutely need to sign Hunter, although he is 32 and will be 33 next season. He will help the order a lot. Dye and Hunter on paper will be 2/3 of a pretty good outfield. Either Pods or Owens or Fields can play lf. Then we need to acquire Renteria and hope the rest of the guys who had bad seasons suddently have good seasons. Look at this lineup Owens or Fields lf Renteria ss Hunter cf Thome dh Paulie 1b Dye rf AJP c with a healthy Hall playing against a LOT of lefties Crede 3b Ozuna or Cintron 2B, or somebody we acquire cheap (trade for Grudzalanek?) if Richar is our second baseman we're in a world of hurt Mark, Jon, Vaz, Danks, Floyd (or sign a veteran starter) Sign a free agent reliever to go with the current cast of stiffs Bobby closer You have to admit the addition of Hunter, Renteria and some "name" second baseman we can get on the cheap to go with a veteran starter and I've fixed our team. And yes I've simply released Contreras. I defy you to come up with a better solution than what I've proposed. Richar so far has been working counts, playing solid defense, and putting the ball in play. He is not overmatched, and doesnt look like it. You wanting to put Cintron or Ozuna as a starting 2nd baseman tells me how far off you are on this. The rest of this year is about letting the kids play and seeing what they are doing. Let wait until the end of the year for these silly assessments on players with less than a month of major league experience. You would of ran Robin Ventura the hell out of town because he didnt hit right off the bat. Its one thing if the kid is up there putting the first pitch in play, or striking out all the time. I understand its painful to watch this. Its very painful to have tickets still on a plan left with this crap. The only thing that brought me to go to the game was the fact that I wanted to see some of the kids play. Richar went 2 for 4 today. Out of his 2 outs, one was a liner to left. Fields made a dumb move when he didnt fire home. It happens. Let them take a beating for the rest of the year and lets see if they get better. If not, sure make changes.

QUOTE(greg775 @ Aug 25, 2007 -> 06:53 PM) It must have been hell sitting there listening to those assholes as their team pummeled our team mercilessly. Another year, another slew of Red Cub assholes voicing their opinion on how great they are, how their attendance is so great, and basically how they are the best fans in the world. I drank a few beers, then left the game as Buckavich was brought in. I could hear the boos from the parking lot, turned on the game once I got to I55 and heard the wreckage. At this point, I hope the Yanks win the whole damn thing just because I cant stand these guys so much. They are truly the Cubs American League equal. Some dumbf*** behind me was signing Sweet Caroline.

Why would anyone on this earth put Darin Erstad as the 3 hole hitter.

QUOTE(michelangelosmonkey @ Aug 23, 2007 -> 02:28 PM) Look I didn't slightly skim over it...I pointed it out and it was against my argument. BUT...I've always been slightly irritated at the Baseball Prospectus crowd for completly ignoring W-L as if it is irrelevant. Buehrle has never gotten the credit I think he deserves because his K rate is so low...the strongest indicator for him that he's going to win is...he keeps winning. At some point knowing how to win a game has some relevance. But I'm NOT saying Floyd is going to be good. I'm saying it CAN'T be said that Garza will not only be good but as good as Santana. In Garza's first 15 innings this year he gave up 0 ER. The next 31 innings he gave up 17 runs. Both pitchers are 24. Both have good stuff. Both have shown glimpses of being able to be dominating. Both have been hit hard as well. Floyd's K to W rate this year is 3 to 1. Garza about 2.5 to 1. I know this will open me up to more name calling because people love Garza and hate Floyd...but until the guy starts winning more consistently...he's just another young pitcher that might or might not be good. And yes...that goes for Bailey and Hughes and Haeger. Tim Wakefield has 166 career wins and Brien Taylor has 0. Still I will say that you make a helluva point with the Twins bullpen. Man they keep turning these guys up. So lucky with Santana and skillful with the bullpen. Well in 2006 Randy Johnson won 17 games. Granted he was giving up 5 runs a game. But he won 17 games. I wonder if that was because he had an awsome offense behind him. Who is better the pitcher that has a 3.05 ERA and 10 wins because his offense is anemic, or the 17 game winner with the 5.00 ERA and his offense is the yankees.

QUOTE(sox4lifeinPA @ Aug 23, 2007 -> 11:40 AM) if they were irish, they would have f-ed the sheep instead of each other.... Its not our fault, they dress like sluts.

Well with all of the rain this summer, my backyard looks great. The wife has been planting perennials in the backyard sign we moved in 4 years ago. With the conditions being so tropical it looks like the Amazon back there now. Our vegetable garden has never looked so good. All of the plants have grown to record levels, and we have started picking some of the vegetables.

QUOTE(CanOfCorn @ Aug 22, 2007 -> 04:33 PM) It's not so much...CAN WE? It's more of...SHOULD WE? And don't forget, the market isn't necessarily dictated by an individual's skill. It's dictated by the individual's counterpart's skill. F'rinstance...if the Twins decide to put Santana on the block...Garland gets bumped down a few notches and the Sox won't get that good of a return. But, if Garland is the best pitcher available via trade, then his value goes up...not to Santana level, but higher than before. Garland has lots of things going for him. Young. Durable (so far). Post season experience. Occasional dominating stuff. Those kinda things mean a lot to GM's. Well the durable part might on the teeter right now as he has been pitching the last year or so with a "knott" in his shoulder. He is about to get a major payday. When a pitcher, no matter how young, is about to come into megabucks for megayears and complains about a long shoulder knott and his line drive ratio starts to climb, and his ground ball ratio starts to drop you have an issue. I would trade him in the offseason and wouldnt blink twice on it.

QUOTE(elrockinMT @ Aug 22, 2007 -> 04:12 PM) Pods pinch ran today so the injury can't be or shouldn't be that serious. Just a few days off is all. Rib Cage injuries dont impede you from pinch running. Its swinging that piece of wood real hard that is the issue. The last time he did this he was on the DL for a while.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Aug 22, 2007 -> 03:46 PM) My son has had three iPods crash and burn, but decided when he went off to college he needed a Mac Book. I'll admit I liked the packaging and the look and feel, and I imagine after a learning curve I could grow to love a Mac, until today. His "D" key stopped working. Less than a month old and a keyboard failure. damn them. Of course he didn't take the packaging with him, and now I'm trying to help from a few hundred miles away. I have had my Macbook Core Duo and havent had any issues. The only defect was the case yellowed as it was first gen. The only issue that I have is with the install media. Make sure you keep yours. It is specific to the model/make and proc level. I lost mine, and just picked up a 200 gig drive. I go to install OSX using my bosses MacBook Core Duo 2 one gen ahead and I get the "Cannot install Software on this computer". Contact Apple, and had to purchase install media for my version. Kinda a pisser.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Aug 22, 2007 -> 03:41 PM) If you could punch one player on the current sox roster, who would it be? Can it be a former player and member of the coaching staff. Then you know my answer.

Nice to see our submarining cuban is up to the task today. Why the f*** is Erstad hitting in front of Dye. Jesus.

QUOTE(beautox @ Aug 21, 2007 -> 09:41 PM) smooth move ozzie, its not like ross has historically been better against LHP or anything? or the fact that myers hasn't been able to get LHH out... wow. Hopefully this will end the discussion of because Myers has a better ERA against righties that ozzie will use him as anything but a Loogy. For the love of god, he throws with a left hand its like God put him on this earth just to throw to lefties. Throwing to righties is unamerican.

Well as predicted, Ozzie used Myers as a loogy. And as the year has been, the lefty promply singled off of him. There goes the theory that Ozzie will use him with his stats in mind.

QUOTE(Soxbadger @ Aug 20, 2007 -> 11:36 PM) Altidore is on New York Red Bulls. You non-americans need to get into MLS! Wake me when they stop playing in slow motion.

Happy Birthday Tony. :uhoh

As one of Bobby's biggest fans, it was one hell of a streak. But those are the breaks. Nice job big man. Here comes the BOOM!!!!

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Aug 20, 2007 -> 08:59 PM) Well, that and the fact that Buehrle had thrown over a hundred pitches and had been hit hard by, what, four straight hitters? But really, who cares about the situation at hand? I forgot, the almighty battle for 4th place in the AL Central. I wonder if sportscenter will break in as the game goes back in forth with updates.

QUOTE(Felix @ Aug 20, 2007 -> 08:40 PM) Mark out after only 5.1 innings? Talk about unusual. Ozzie has to give the 17 man pen a spin. He can play matchups now with anyone.

Well Ozzie said before the game, that Myers hasnt been to good against lefties this year, but he has been over his career. He will be brought in to face lefties(as a loogy).

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Aug 20, 2007 -> 07:39 PM) I know everyone has gotten this draft fantasy into their heads, and you all should quit wasting your time, I think. There is one falacy that needs to go away, like yesterday, and that is the Sox being big spenders in the draft. The whole world knows that Bud Selig and Jerry Reinsdorf are on the same sides of things in this game. If Bud wants money set by draft slots, JR is going to see that it happens. We are not going to be a team that gives big money out of position. Heck odds are if it has been instituted as a policy by MLB, it could have originated with JR himself. Also we know what the Sox history is with drafting and developing thier own players. They don't do it well. Its like asking Jim Thome to sacrfice bunt. They don't do it, so why expect it? They do much better at scouting other teams minor league players, and selling their own players when they think the time is right. The Sox record is much better at raiding other systems, than producing anything on their own. Lets face it, we aren't the Twins. We don't pull amazing players out of our minor league system. We do an amazing job at finding players that other teams undervalue or give up on. Kenny has pulled some amazing years out of no where from players everyone was convinced would flop. I trust him more in that regard, than I do for any player we draft. IF we are going to go into a moderate rebuilding, it isn't going to be from our own draftees. Not exactly true. The last time we were this bad, we had a series of top 10 selections. That is where the McDowells, Venturas and Frank Thomas, and others came from. We didnt just find nuggets of gold, we had blue chippers that you could build your franchise around and we did. In the late 80s to the first part of the 90s we had some killer drafts and had one of the best systems in baseball.

QUOTE(SoxFan1 @ Aug 20, 2007 -> 04:55 PM) You would think we had the best bullpen in the world or something...and please don't give me the "we have a LOOGY" crap...if he gets righties out, use him against righties. Shocking, I know. It's so hard to compute... If he was given a right handed throwing arm, sure he would get a lot of righties out for the whitesox. However he throws from the left side, which means that he will come in to face a lefty. Ozzie usually does matchups based on appendage matchups.

QUOTE(michelangelosmonkey @ Aug 20, 2007 -> 03:56 PM) The thing everyone here forgets is the baseball draft is NOT the NFL or NBA draft. First round picks are overrated. I chose the 2000 draft because it was a round number and it was long enough ago that people couldn't use words like "best potential in all the minor leagues". If you were drafed seven years ago you are either a stud pitcher or a bust...here goes: Pitchers: 2nd pick overall Adam Johnson Twins 4th Mike Stodolka KC 5th Justin Wayne, Expos 7th: Matt Harringon Rockies 8th Mat Wheatland Tigers 9th Mark Philips Padres 10 Joe Torres Angels. 14 Beau Hale Orioles 16 Billy Traber Mets 17 Ben Diggins Dodgers 19 Sean Burnett Pirates 20 Chris Bootcheck Angels 21 John Bonser Giants 22 Phil Dmatrait Red Sox 24 Blake Williams Cardinals 29 Adam Wainwright Braves. There you go...16 FIRST ROUND pitchers. We give each of them $5 million dollars...buy up the damn 2000 draft...corner the market on A1 pitching prospects. And what do we have for that? A bunch of nobodies. Here's Jon Sickles bragging about these great young pitchers back when they were drafted: http://espn.go.com/mlb/draft00/s/2000/0605/569167.html. $10 million a year for a 12-12 innings eater is WAY better than $5 million spent on Mr. Porcella. Maybe Porcella will be great or maybe he will be Mike Stodolka. Boof Bonser is a bust?

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Aug 20, 2007 -> 01:40 PM) Sorry, Buehrle throws plenty hard enough to blow out his arm. The human body and the shoulder in general was not designed to throw an object overhand over and over and over. The minute you start to do that, you put your arm at risk for injury. Now some people have a higher risk because of poor mechanics that put maximum strain on your elbow and shoulder.

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Aug 20, 2007 -> 10:09 AM) It's not like changeups don't take toll on your body. I have absolutely no problem with what Gardenhire did when you have Joe Nathan there to close out games. It's not like he brought in David Aardsma or something. A good changeup is your arm speed and effort being the same as your fastball. The difference between a fastball and a change is the way you hold the ball. So the effort and strain on the arm is the same.

QUOTE(LVSoxFan @ Aug 20, 2007 -> 09:55 AM) Richar: great glove... how long do we wait for him to learn how to hit? (see: Brian AAAnderson) My head just spins at all the question marks. I don't even know where to begin. But I agree that what this team needs now is some major event/change, and not "If it's clearly broke, don't fix it." Richar and Anderson are not comparables. Richar see's a lot of pitches, can take a walk and makes contact with the ball. His OBP is over .300 with his batting average so low. His glove is damn slick. He just needs more ABs and more experience. He will hit fine. Anderson was striking out so much and looked tenative on his swing, jumping on the first pitch that looked straight just so he could avoid the strikeout. Richar is getting into deep counts all of the time. Hitters that do that, see better pitches and will make an impact. He will be fine. More time, thats all he needs. I would like to see him moved into the number 2 spot and move Fields down the order. Richar looks to project as a number 2 hitter type. He has speed, makes contact. The one thing I would like to see the sox do is to teach him how to drag bunt, or have him drag bunt here and there. Watching Ichiro drag bunt with a man on was a thing of beauty. Our hitters bunt directly at the pitcher. If you can push it past the pitcher and bring the first baseman off of the bag, you may have something.