BlackBetsy

Fairly nice hindsight 20/20 question. I mildly say I prefer Thome because he gave some LH balance to the lineup. But it's a good and interesting question. Kudos to Big Frank for bringing himself back. I wish he had been able to participate in the '05 WS...but having Big Frank around might have altered the chemistry... Big Frank has cemented himself as a first ballot HOF'er. He'll finish with 550 HR...top 15 in most big categories, and he'll have an enhanced reputation because of his clear record on 'roids (and his cooperation with Mitchell).

QUOTE (C_LEE45 @ Apr 15, 2008 -> 04:07 PM) KW and boras need to sit down Pretty much where your post went wrong. :lolhitting

QUOTE (scenario @ Apr 12, 2008 -> 08:55 PM) I'm also really interested in watching the progress of CJ Retherford. The kid is a classic bat-rat... was a two-way player (pitched and played a position when not pitching) on a team that won a JUCO world series. Pitched, played catcher, 3B, and shortstop at Arizona State. Actually pitched and caught in the same inning of a game once. LOL. Hurt his senior year or definitely would have been drafted. I've got a feeling we may have picked up a diamond in the rough with him. Offensively, he was 'the star' at Great Falls last year on a great hitting team. He not only lead the team in OPS (over 1.000). He broke the all-time Pioneer League record for doubles in one year. I listened to alot of the GF games on radio last year, and he was incredibly clutch. Seemed like he always came up with the big hit. I figured he would be at Kanny this year, but the Sox bumped him directly to W-S, so I figured the they must see something in him. Maybe he won't turn out to be anything special... but... I think it's definitely worth watching his progress. Sort of a classic 'underdog does good' type story. You mean you haven't accepted Kent Gerst as you personal savior yet? :unsure:

You cannot be right or wrong about a player in 7 games. Thank you for playing.

QUOTE(BigEdWalsh @ Apr 6, 2008 -> 02:34 PM) Charlotte is up 6-2 in the 8th. Whisler with a decent start. I find it bigger news that the Sox organization is so bad that Wes Whisler is pitching in AAA. What is that, social promotion? This organization has no prospects.

To me, this is an 84 win team as a baseline. An 84 win team will win 94 games maybe 2-5% of the time. So I think that about sums up their chances to be legitimate contenders. The wild card is the performance of the 3/4/5 in the rotation. If they perform (collectively) at an ERA+ of something like 100, this is more like a 90 win team. If the 3/4/5 in the rotation are an ERA+ of 88 (roughly what Contreras/Danks/Floyd were in 2007), it's an 80 win team. Contreras, Danks and Floyd are the fulcrum of the 2008 team.

If Bartolo lost 150 pounds for his comeback, would we be getting a Semi-Colon?

Maybe they are higher on Egbert than I thought. I voted no, because I think this deal could have been done with less going to Oakland. I really think Gio-Adam Russell-Sweeney would have gotten it done just as easily. I don't like giving up the top two arms in the organization (not pitcher, but arms) for an outfielder unless he can play plus defensive CF. It's a very nice deal for Oakland. Oddly, a Quentin-Swisher-Dye OF next year is mildly attractive. And the Sox having another 100 walk guy to go along with Thome is good as well. I do like Swisher's contract for the Sox as well. I might be talked into liking this trade. If someone told me that Gio's stats were just Birmingham-related and he really wasn't developing a third pitch and his curveball command was not good enough to throw in the majors, then, OK, I could see it.

Quick question, for which I will use an example. A guy like Gio Gonzalez has a plus curve, average/plus fastball and average change. What would it take to teach him a cutter? From what I understand, it's only a slight change in the grip, is thrown like a fastball, and would seem like something almost any pitcher could add. Buehrle's cutter is extremely effective, and Loaiza's addition of a cutter in 2003 nearly won him the Cy Young. Can you speak briefly about adding a pitch to a young pitcher's repetoire if they only have 1-2 solid pitches? How would a pitch (slider, change, cutter, forkball, etc.) be selected for the pitcher, and how would the pitcher develop it?

QUOTE(BureauEmployee171 @ Dec 22, 2007 -> 04:00 PM) I will give MLBSB's and the BAL Orioles reports (as both are the same): Danny Richar - Tool - Current/Future Hit - 40/50 Power - 30/35 Run - 60/60 Field - 35/45 Throw - 50/55 OFP 49 Richar's patience at the plate has to count for something. To me, I guy who hits as an average ML'er (say, .260-.270) but who walks a ton to get on base at a .360-.380 clip is much more valuable than a guy who hits for "plus" average - .300, say, and never walks. I don't see this in the list of tools. BTW, Richar's power potential at 35...I call shenanigans on that. He had about .190 ISOs in both AAA stops last year, and a .170 ISO for the White Sox. The only time he didn't show slugging ability was in 2006 in AA. I wonder if the power numbers are based on a review of his work in 2006. If his power is 40/50, his overall OFP goes up to what, 52-53?

To Bureau17 and others: I note that you say you have access to the MLB scouting reports on players (and thus were able to compare Fukudome to Rios, Markakis, etc.) and that Fukudome comes out as a 60 and Ramirez comes out as a 47. A couple of questions: (1) Are these official MLB reports, meaning that they are done by the Office of the Commissioner, or are they aggregate grades across different organizations? (2) If they are aggregate grades, it would seem like there is some range - one team might have Ramirez as a 41 while another might have him as a 53. It would seem there may be grounds to differ. (3) If these official MLB reports, and no damage would be done to the Sox, would it be possible for you to post the scouting grades of the major prospects and players in the White Sox minor league system?

Wasn't Mark Prior's agent Scott Boras? Does John Boggs work for Boras or something...or did he really get rid of Boras? If so, that makes the Sox MUCH more likely to sign him. Mostly out of spite.

QUOTE(Palehosefan @ Dec 18, 2007 -> 03:35 PM) So, the tiny amount of revenue that is generated from ads should be donated by the guys that have put their own time and money into this site for all of us fans to enjoy should be given away? The only people that would have had problems with this are the people that don't have active-x controls blocked. Jason, Kap, and the others have put their own time and money into countless server costs, message board upgrades, etc over the years to keep this site up and running. They only recently started going to non-intrusive advertisements to make a tiny amount of cash to help the upkeep. This was one malicious company that fooled a lot of advertisees into running their ads. I appreciate their efforts, and appreciate that they need to defray costs. If they want to run a sponsorship drive, I may very well donate. I'm just saying it's the internet form of blood money, and it's bad karma to keep it.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Dec 18, 2007 -> 02:02 PM) We took it down. I do appreciate people letting us know. It never was a problem on my machine, but apparently if you have your activeX controls set a little different, you could have ran into problems. We apologize to everyone who had an issue and would like to encourage anyone to let us know in the future if there's problems like this again. I appreciate your response on this, but I do think that as penance for dealing with 180, Soxtalk should make a donation of at least a portion of the funds it got from that banner ad to an anti-spyware software company like Super AntiSpyware or Spybot, etc. Think of it as buying some karma. I spent 12-16 hours this weekend on this, and other people probably did, too.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Dec 18, 2007 -> 09:21 AM) If you didn't click on the ad, you should not have had a problem. All of the complaints I found was at their web site and from downloading software. Do you think I actually clicked on the ad? No way. There is a script running on the page because of the ad. If you run No Script on Firefox, you'll see that the page tries to run "About:Blank" - do a search on that and see what you come up with. This is bad, bad malware. I think not only should Soxtalk take down this ad, but should also donate whatever money they got from those bastards to the makers of Super AntiSpyware and Spybot. I'm serious. It's the Internet version of blood money and can't be kept.

QUOTE(santo=dorf @ Dec 18, 2007 -> 05:54 AM) I knew this site was a problem. I'll let you guys know I dropped the $70 to upgrade to Norton 360 just because I was sick of seeing the same damn thing. There are good suggestions at SouthSideSox for Firefox users under the thread I started. I figured I would warn there b/c there is a good amount of crossover from this site.

You REALLY need to think about whether you want to do business with 180: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Spyware/?cat=8&paged=3 You can read that for starters. They've been sued multiple times, including by the Government for running spyware programs. The money isn't worth the trouble, guys.

Three times in the last week, I have come to Soxtalk.com and gotten a virus/worm/trojan. If you guys know anything about this, you need to get it fixed. I think it has something to do with your advertiser, 180. It comes in, I believe, as part of the Java platform for the ads you support. Knock it out, or I suspect you will simply lose a lot of subs.

Shouldn't we have a thread entitled "OFFSEASON MELTDOWN THREAD" where we can all go Chicken Little on the 2008 White Sox?

QUOTE(rockren @ Dec 7, 2007 -> 07:44 PM) I think that'd be a no-brainer. The only thing is...I don't think the rest of baseball likes Richar as much as we do. If the O's like Richar half as much as we do....it'd be a done deal. Two years of Roberts for 6 years of Gio and 6 years of Richar? No thanks. Look at what Richar's projections are for next year. I think Bill James's handbook has him at a .280/.340/.440 level, which is close to Roberts career average. Richar and Egbert, yes. Richar and Broadway, yes. Not Richar and Gio.

QUOTE(innersanctum @ Dec 7, 2007 -> 03:13 PM) So out of those, Rowand is the latest with Crede behind him and Buehrle....so we are going 7 years without a farm player paying off, is that right? Rowand is gone though and I was thinking more specifically about players on our current roster that have established themselves enough to prevent them from being traded. Shouldn't we make moves that establishes us right now? I just don't get why we should hold onto players when the last time a farm player paid off was almost 7 years ago (6 if you count Rowand but he no longer resides at the Cell). So Buehrle is the only All-Star who was born and raised on the in a White Sox uniform that is currently on the active roster, is that right?? Yes. The Sox farm systems sucks. It has for a long time now. It was good once, but no more. Baseball America ranked the Sox #12 after the 2005 season, when Jenks was included (not a Sox farmhand, ironically) and Brian Anderson still looked promising, and Chris Young was probably still included. Fields was in AA, Jerry Owens just won the AA batting title, Sweeney just hit .298 as a 20-year-old in AA in a pitcher's league in a pitcher's park, B-Mac had an OK season in the bandbox in Charlotte and looked great down the stretch towards the playoffs. Then Chris Young, Gio Gonzalez, B-Mac and others were traded...Sweeney never developed power, Brian Anderson crapped out...and no one took their place. Baseball America actually had the Sox as the #1 farm system going into the 2001 season. That's LOL. Lorenzo Barcelo!!!

QUOTE(Soxfest @ Dec 7, 2007 -> 02:41 PM) From Scott Miller CBS Sportsline in losers section Chicago White Sox: They failed to land Miguel Cabrera, they couldn't snag Torii Hunter, they finished 24 games behind Cleveland last season and 16 games behind Detroit ... and the Tigers are only getting better. Ouch. http://www.sportsline.com/mlb/story/10516780 Heyman says the same - Sox are #1 loser. Link.

QUOTE(innersanctum @ Dec 7, 2007 -> 08:37 AM) So when was the last time that young talent paid off for the White Sox? Before we start holding back our young talent, when was the last time that talent paid off for the Sox? I am a White Sox fan but by no means at the level most of you are. I am asking because I just honestly don't know who on the roster right now was brought up through the farm. Crede is the only one that I can think of right now who has established himself. I know there are others that are homegrown but they haven't really established themselves yet. Is there any young player that could play up to the already achieved potential of someone like Bay? Or would they just turn into another Borchard? Mark Buehrle, Aaron Rowand, Joe Crede, Chris Young...whoops.

Wow. I didn't think there could be a worse deal than the Torii Hunter deal. Then some dumbass GM makes a worse deal. Now some other dumbass GM is going to give Rowand 6 years 100 million or something stupider. I hope it's not Kenny. Fuku Fuku Fuku.

8:45 p.m., from Steve Phillips • The Cubs and Orioles have discussed a Brian Roberts trade. Baltimore would get Rich Hill and Sean Marshall for the second baseman. Geebus. They need to take the 'puter away from Steve Phillips. Rich Hill is easily worth Brian Roberts + a prospect from the Orioles. OPS+ of 112 for Roberts vs. ERA+ of 119 for Rich Hill...plus Rich Hill is controlled for 4 more years. If the Cubs are giving Rich Hill away, the Sox should try to get him.