thedoctor

i'll agree that he's better than grilli. i don't know that i'd go as far as to say he's the third best starting pitcher on the market.

well, he does start. you are correct on his usage, although i can't say i agree with skiles' approach.

there he goes again...

curry has been starting.

awesome. welcome to the family. we're a little dysfunctional sometimes, kind of like a baseball 'all in the family,' but we are passionate and love our team.

sox were never mentioned for garcia, either.

today, i would say no. going into last year i thought we had three solid starting pitchers (buehrle, loaiza, garland), then some questions marks. today i think we have three solid starting pitchers (buehrle, garcia, contreras) and some question marks. going into last year i felt really good about our outfield. today i don't feel as confident knowing maggs won't be out there. i like the dye signing, but there is no combination of dye, gload, jurassic or timo that will equal the production a healthy maggs would have had. going into last year i felt our infield was very solid. i presumed crede and harris would improve and valentin and uribe would be a nice platoon situation. today, i can't presume crede and harris will improve, and i have my reservations about uribe, although i do believe he will do the job. i feel better today about our bullpen than i did last year. i really like the hermanson addition and i think marte will be better next year. i feel about the same about our catcher situation. last year we went into the season with a young and talented catcher who'd yet to reach his potential. i think we'll have the same situation this year. to recap: i feel our starting pitching is about the same, our relief pitching is better, our catching situation is the same and our outfield and infield aren't as good. that's just today, though. i'm assuming there will be more roster tinkering before the season.

renteria

i'd love to see drew here, but as said above as long as boras is his agent, it's unlikely.

there's not a legitimate reason for every coaches' firing. following a legend isn't easy. fireronzook.com was up and running within days of him being hired, before he'd coached a game. in that climate, really, you're going to be under the gun and probably get the ax at any misstep.

fwiw, spurrier did not leave a whole lot of talent in the younger classes when he departed florida. even he admitted that he didn't have his heart in recruiting the last two or three years he was there. i don't know how good of a coach zook will be, other than being fairly certain he'll be better than turner or tepper. neither had any significant head coaching experience and zook's at least got a few seasons in a high-pressure environment under his belt. i have no doubt he's made his fair share of mistakes at florida, but hopefully he's learned from them.

my dad works in administration with the chicago public schools and he's always said the sox and bulls have been extremely gracious in terms of offering anything they can to help out, whether its time, tickets or money. he also said the cubs don't do s***.

she'd have some explaining to do as well.

i haven't read anything one way or another, but i'd be interested if rj wants the team he goes to to agree to a contract extension before being traded.

from ap: FOUNTAIN HILLS, Ariz. (AP) — Randy Johnson is waiting for the Arizona Diamondbacks to come to him with specific trade possibilities, with his only firm stipulation being that the new team be a contender, one of his agents said on Friday. Johnson returned this week from a tour of Japan by major league players for his annual Randy Johnson Invitational golf tournament to benefit the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation of Arizona. But Johnson wouldn’t talk about any baseball issues, referring all questions to agent Alan Nero, who also was at the tournament. “Most of Randy’s desire to leave is not because he doesn’t want to be a Diamondback,” Nero said. “It’s because at this stage of his career he’s got some milestones that he’d like to achieve and he’s a competitor. It’s hard to work as hard as you work at age 40 (actually 41) and come to the yard and not feel like you have the very best possibility of competing.” Johnson will earn $16 million next season, the final year of his contract with Arizona, and the Diamondbacks are listening to offers. The New York Yankees head the list of teams with interest, but the Anaheim Angels and Chicago White Sox also could be possibilities. Johnson has the right to veto any trade. “The bottom line is he is a Diamondback, he’s under contract,” the agent said. “If what’s best for the Diamondbacks is they decide he won’t be traded, he’s a very honorable guy. This is home. He will live up to his contract and at the end of the year he will be a free agent.” Johnson won Cy Young Awards in his first four seasons with Arizona and was second to Roger Clemens in Cy Young voting this year, even though Johnson was on a club that lost 111 games, tied for 10th-most in baseball history. In many aspects, it was the Big Unit’s most impressive season. Coming off knee surgery, Johnson was 16-14, but the team scored three or fewer runs for him in all but one of those losses. He was 13-2 when the Diamondbacks scored more than two runs. Johnson was second in the majors with a 2.60 ERA and led the majors in strikeouts at 290. Along the way, he pitched a perfect game, passed 4,000 strikeouts and passed Steve Carlton to become the most prolific left-handed strikeout pitcher in baseball history. He ranks No. 3 on the strikeout list behind Nolan Ryan and Clemens. Johnson had his best seasons with Arizona and lives in Paradise Valley, a 20-minute drive to Bank One Ballpark, but he wants to end his career with a top team. General manager Joe Garagiola Jr., who did not return telephone messages on Friday, held a telephone conference call with Johnson’s agents on Wednesday to talk about the situation. A trade seems to make sense for a team in transition. The Diamondbacks could rid themselves of a huge contract and get some young talent in return. The situation is far from adversarial, Nero said. “No one’s a culprit. No one’s trying to do anything to hurt anyone,” Nero said. “It’s not Randy turning his back on the team. It’s not the team turning its back on him. It’s determining what’s best for everybody and trying to make it a win-win for everybody. That’s what it’s about and I trust Joe is going to make every attempt to do that.” Johnson would prefer any trade be completed before the start of next season, rather than have him endure the constant speculation that dogged him throughout the 2003 season. But even that is not a steadfast demand, Nero said. “There’s no real hurry,” the agent said. “Everybody likes to know where they’re going and we all want closure. But there’s no present deadline that’s been imposed on anyone. The only real deadline there is the July trade deadline.” Still, Nero said, Johnson doesn’t want another season of constant trade speculation. The most logical time for a deal, he said, would be the winter meetings in December.

i watched a fair amount of white sox baseball last year, and just because my opinion doesn't jive with yours is no need to jump down my throat. i thought uribe had a great start to the season offensively and a great finish. in the middle he was bad, which was coincidentally the period of time the sox went in the crapper. was it his fault? no way, but he was as complicit as anyone else. defensively i thought he had a cannon of an arm and pretty good range. i would have liked to see him out there everyday, no doubt, but the fact of the matter is, he wasn't. why? i don't know, i'm not a coach. let me reiterate as i said in my previous post that i think he has great potential. and again let me reiterate that i am not criticizing the lack of activity. but if the organization was totally sold on him being the guy everyday, then why were we offering vizquel four or five million a year?

i totally agree that it is early, way too early to be out on a ledge. my biggest concern is the fact the the lower-budget shortstop options out there are out of the picture at this point and i just have my doubts about uribe being an everyday shortstop. that's just me. i like uribe's potential, but i also know he wasn't good enough to be an everyday shortstop last year, and harris wasn't able to be an everyday second baseman either. to me that puts us with two big questions marks in the middle infield, which is concerning. one question mark i could live with, but two are a little sketchy, especially when it can be argued that crede is a pretty big question mark himself at third.

i didn't have time to read all the replies so if i'm off-topic or something here i apologize. i think there's no chance the sox get beltran. it's all posturing as far as i'm concerned, probably similar to the posturing that happened last offseason when kw said he wanted to resign all of our free agents (we signed none). i can't see how the sox would afford beltran because any money "saved" by not resigning maggs will be mostly sucked up by contreras' and garcia's contracts. that said i would love to have beltran regardless of sweeney and anderson. who knows how those guys or any other prospects are going to turn out. beltran is a proven commodity, those other guys are potential and nothing more at this point.

CLEVELAND (AP) — Shortstop Omar Vizquel took an unofficial step to leaving the Cleveland Indians when the team declined to pick up his $5 million contract option for next season. “This step is a mere formality and does not impact the process in re-signing Omar Vizquel,” Indians general manager Mark Shapiro said Tuesday. “It does not lessen our hope or desire in bringing Omar back.” Vizquel, 37, will become a free agent after the World Series ends. He has said he wants to return for a 12th season in Cleveland, but the Indians are targeting a starting pitcher. The Indians will pay Vizquel’s $1 million buyout and could sign him to a new deal or enter salary arbitration with him by Dec. 7. Shapiro last week called bringing back the widely popular Vizquel “a longshot.” The team doesn’t want to lock into any contracts because they want to look at the free agent market and have some pending salary arbitration cases, including with second baseman Ronnie Belliard. Vizquel batted .291 with seven homers and 59 RBIs this season. He also scored 82 runs, stole 19 bases and did not commit an error over the last 55 games. Shapiro would like a veteran middle infielder and said it was unlikely he would start the season with Jhonny Peralta at shortstop together with Brandon Phillips at second base. The Indians could offer salary arbitration to Belliard, who had a strong first season in Cleveland, or Shapiro said his coaching staff feels third baseman Casey Blake could shift to second.

i don't follow prospects as closely as i should but i have to admit i was stunned to see fields even mentioned as a late-season possibility at third. has he showed that much promise?

great line about everett.

i realize that steve stone's straight-shooting approach might not sit well with jerry reinsdorf, but i've always felt stone was one of the best analysts out there. i would love to see him doing sox games, although i realize it is highly unlikely. plus, i just don't like d.j., but that's just me.

well, ron gardenhire hates jorge julio so i say go get him. julio would have stuck it in torii hunter's ear.

boles is from beverly.