Rudy Law

Berroa beat Matsui because two writer left Matsui off their ballots completely. The NHL has a rule, where I believe a player has to be 27 or younger to qualify for the ROY award. Until that rule is amended, and it should be, Shingo has to be considered. I think he should finish second to Crosby. Greinke and Madritsch were good, and I'd prefer both of them for the future. But what should be considered is the overall contribution made, regardless of future potential, and Shingo bests them both in that regard. I know the only rules of eligibility are fewer than 45 days service or less than 130 ab's. Morneau is not eligible based on 2003, and had Mauer been injured 8 more days--he would have been eligible next year. Speaking of ROY, Was there ever a weeker AL ROY than Ozzie Guillen? Gregg Olson? Marty Cordova? Maybe Joe Charboneau. I can't think of any.

I like the effort Juan Uribe gives....I'd call him a grinder. Agree on Gload, Burke, Rowand and Buehrle.

These projections are actually pretty interesting. I do, however, have some issues with the AB's and pitching totals. Cheat also stated on his blog that the pitching numbers look inflated. Name W GS Mark Buehrle* 17 35 Freddy Garcia 14 32 Jose Contreras 9 28 Jon Garland 12 33 Damaso Marte* 5 0 Shingo Takatsu 6 0 Cliff Politte 3 0 Felix Diaz 7 21 Neal Cotts* 5 15 Jon Adkins 5 16 Scott Schoenew* 6 14 Arnaldo Munoz* 7 21 Jeff Bajenaru 3 0 Jason Grilli 7 28 Assuming that the author assumed no transactions, our pitching staff will compile 110 wins in 243 starts!!!!! I realize prognosticating is hard, and I would struggle mightily to do better myself. But GS should always be based on 162 games...that's the first thing I check. And AB's should roughly be the same as the previous team AB's the prior season with a reasonable standard deviation allowed.

There are several problems with using the defensive win shares total. 1. It does not account for the range of a player. Jeff Kent doesn't drop anything, but he has the range William "the Fridge" Perry. You get no credit for "creating" an out with a great play. 2. WS is cumulative for the season. Hudson scored high because he was healthy and always in the line-up. It would be like looking at Uribe's and Mags season HR totals and concluding they were equally as powerful. 3. Stats are adjusted by park. Since less runs are scored at Dodger Stadium, then Coors Field....the defensive plays in LA are valued greater. We can't look at WS from Shea Stadium and expect that to correlate to the Cell. WS is excellent at determining a players value to his teams past success. But that number is useless in valuing future performance without considering the effect of many factors.

Damian Miller did have a fine year for a catcher. But he's a scab. He broke from the union in '95 to be a replacement player. I'd just as soon he and Rick Reed etc. were blackballed. Sorry, sensitive topic with me.... I'd like to see Burke get a shot at doing the bulk of the catching with Ben Davis as insurance should he falter. Then again, I always thought Josh Paul deservrd a shot too.

I can't take this. I was happy to see Boston win beacause I thought this stuff would fade away. But they're talking about us on SportsCenter now. I don't like this. We're not cursed....we were run by idiots. There is no such thing as a curse. For people or individuals. The reason I haven't succeeded in life like my parents hoped is not because I'm cursed, it's because I have no initiative or intelligence.

I remember when the Bulls had their second run. I was stationed in California, and suddenly everybody loved the Bulls. Granted, when someone's as great as Jordan they become public property that transcends Chicago. But it felt like you were being robbed of something when you'd hear people talking about the Bulls like they do about the Lakers, Yankees and Cowboys. That being said, it's a heckuva lot better than finishing 20 games under .500. I'd take that success from the Sox in a second. Although, it would be nice if the mainstream didn't care like when the D-Backs, Angels and Marlins won it all.

I feel your pain, man....I was 17 in 1990 and I lways wonder "What if Bob Welch gets hurt in April?" Age is irrelevant to the amount of pain, the accumulated pain is what leads to frustration. Maybe next year. Why not us?

Not me. I want to be sitting in my winter coat, guzzling hot choco by the gallon with my gloves on. I want my Churro to freeze like a piece of iron. I want to see Mark Buehrle's breath. I want to see Juan Uribe and the other Dominicans with their shirts pulled over their mouths like their Adm. Byrd leading the Anatarctic exhibition. That's what optomism looks like.

You know what? We do open against Cleveland at home. I guess it says "vs." and not "@." I'm either an idiot, or my protest worked really, really well. Of course, I just watched Keith Foulke close out the Series for the Sox. I wish I could've typed that sentence three years ago. So, oops...my bad....nevermind. The Idiot.

Do you feel like a second class citizen? Are you sick and tired of watching Game 1 of the season on freaking TV? Never...has the Cell/New Comiskey hosted a true Game 1. Why is this? This is absurd. I have posted the dates and scores of all our Opening Days since 1990, the last time we could reasonably cheer the Sox in person. And that was so long ago, it was at Old Comiskey, the President owned the Rangers, and Ivan Calderon and Bobby Thigpen were prominently involved. 03-31-2003 at Kansas City Royals 0-3 L 0-1 04-01-2002 at Seattle Mariners 6-5 W 1-0 04-01-2002 at Seattle Mariners 6-5 W 1-0 04-02-2001 at Cleveland Indians 7-4 W 1-0 04-03-2000 at Texas Rangers 4-10 L 0-1 04-05-1999 at Seattle Mariners 8-2 W 1-0 03-31-1998 at Texas Rangers 9-2 W 1-0 04-01-1997 at Toronto Blue Jays 6-5 W 1-0 03-31-1996 at Seattle Mariners 2-3 L 0-1 04-26-1995 at Milwaukee Brewers 3-12 L 0-1 04-04-1994 at Toronto Blue Jays 3-7 L 0-1 04-06-1993 at Minnesota Twins 10-5 W 1-0 04-07-1992 at California Angels 10-4 W 1-0 04-08-1991 at Baltimore Orioles 9-1 W 1-0 04-09-1990 vs Milwaukee Brewers 2-1 W 1-0 We open on the road again in '05. I'm mad as hell....and I'm not gonna take it anymore!!!

Millar at 3.5 million is practically free. I'd be shocked if they moved him at that price. Nixon would be a great pick up IF he could stay healthy. The problem is the guy misses months of the season consistently. I'll never forget when I turned on a RedSox game and found out Trot Nixon was white and Troy O'Leary was black. I was shocked. It should've been the other way around.

I say pick up the phone Kenny. Before Cashman & Steinbrenner wake up and realize he started out 11-2. And a clubhouse cancer? We already have "Clubhouse Leukemua" Frank Thomas and "Clubhouse Hodgkins" Carl Everett! Plus Jon Garland has all the makings of a cancer, if he ever pitched well enough that people listened to what he said. What's one more?

Personally, I'm ashamed at our drought. At 31 years old, I have watched every WS since 1979. In that time we've suffered through Baltimore (twice), Yankees (eight), freaking Milwaukee!, Detroit, KC (twice), Boston (twice), Twins (twice), Oakland (three), Jays (twice), Cleveland (twice) and Anaheim. Along with the Sox, the only AL non-WS teams are Seattle, Texas and Tampa. 8 teams have been there more than once. We're more than due, and I'm a little ashamed. But I'm also proud. The media doesn't talk about curses because we don't bring them up. Why don't they mention Boston's reluctance to sign an African-American player longer than anyone...almost the whole Ted Williams era? You can't compete with a line-up like that (although Houston tried this year). They threw away a whole decade. The Cubs were similarly mismanaged, and now seem more intent on marketing mystique. My point is, is that we realize we haven't won anything for non-curse reasons. Our ownership has been less than committed, our player evaluation and retention has, historically, been sub-par. The only HOF caliber players we have produced from our system since 1970 have been Gossage, Baines and Thomas. I like that we don't blame ourselves. It's not our fault and it's not by divine intervention that we fail. We're the only side of town that realizes that and our day will come. When it does, they'll be a lot more people around saying they were thinking White Sox in late October '04. Just ignore them.

Milton scares me for two reasons. On one hand, he's inconsistent and probably not the best fit for us on the market. But more importantly, because I couldn't handle all the "Milton-Buerhle" puns that no one under 70 gets...and no one over 70 thinks is funny.

Yes, Wilson is a K machine...but he was the NL RBI champ in 2003. If Colorado is willing to take on salary, then I think we should listen. He's definately an upgrade over Timo or Borchard. And of course, Coors contributed to the RBI's but 141 (or whatever it was) is a helluva lot to discount. Uribe made a nice transition from Colorado. I think Chacon may have been an AS in 2003. Their is potential there. However, the Rockies moved him to closer to protect his arm as he was high-risk for injury. And his saves from 04 should push his salary to 3m or so, which would easily overprice him for his numbers. If he could start, he could have significant upside....but I don't think he's worth the risk.

I disagree that dollars have brought the Yankees, and Cardinals for that matter success. Just throwing cash at the hottest FA's doesn't win championships. Look at David Ortiz. Anybody could have had this guy. And he may be their MVP. They basically traded Nomar for Cabrera, which based solely on career stats and marketing/season tix purposes could have been questionable. Millar was almost headed to Japan when they got him. He was a back-up Marlin! Bill Mueller was a batting champ last year. Who the hell was Bill Mueller? They got Bellhorn for his OBP/SLG, and Roberts for situational speed. They had a plan, and stuck to it. Whe they did make a bone-headed move, like Byung-Hyun Kim for Hillenbrand...they didn't kill themselves by insisting the player would turn around. Look how many times the Yanks started Loaiza when he was tanking. When Our Sox do something that doesn't work....we beat up ourselves trying to justify that investment. We all knew Billy Koch sucked before this season started. But we blew some games anyway.... We knew Mike Caruso wouldn't work, and some of you seem to be really tired of Willie Harris. I think Crede has to go. Undoubtedly, the Red Sox success is partially due to their financial flexibility and liberal ownership. Ramirez was a product of the prior owner/GM and they put him on irrevocable waivers!!!! That takes balls, especially since he's an NY native. They passed up A-Rod over a few mil. Yes, they have an outrageous payroll and that makes it easy, but this is a smart well-run orginization that we should really try to learn from...particularly as it relates to identifying players under-utilized by other organizations.

I wish Foulke all the best. I think he did his best here, and that's all you can ask. I don't know if anyone here read "Moneyball". It gave the A's perspective of Beane's dealings with KW, and how he thought that trade would work out. And he was right. Although, Beane also gloated about getting Chad Bradford for a "minor league catcher" which they never bother to mention was Miguel Olivo. Go Cards....Boston would talk too much crap. I'm still hearing about the Pats. They're worse than New Yorkers.

I agree with Clement as being a potential bargain. There's going to be some fallout up there, and the thought of some revenge for the George TacoBell-Sosa trade is nice.... Or at least the Steve Trout trade. Clement does scare me a little, but that's only because of a very unfortunate Fantasy Baseball pick his final season with the Marlins. I'd be willing to give him a second chance if it didn't eat up too much of our FA budget. He's very similar to Pavano w/o the awesome 2004 numbers (that's a huge ass caveat, I know.)

Here's why I believe Radke's in decline.... Year Team INN GS W L K ERA WHIP 2004 MIN 219.7 34 11 8 143 3.482 1.161 2003 MIN 212.1 33 14 10 120 4.498 1.273 2002 MIN 118.1 21 9 5 62 4.725 1.219 2001 MIN 226.0 33 15 11 137 3.942 1.155 2000 MIN 226.2 34 12 16 141 4.456 1.379 1999 MIN 218.2 33 12 14 121 3.753 1.297 1998 MIN 213.2 32 12 14 146 4.306 1.318 1997 MIN 239.2 35 20 10 174 3.875 1.196 Since his incredible 97, he's had an ERA well above 4 in 4/7 years. Granted, he improved that by a full run this season from 2003. His BB rate is excellent, but he's 32 and experienced enough to have established a well defined ceiling. It's not neccesarily that he's in decline....it's that his statistics do not warrant the multi-year investment or perceived market value. He'd be a solid addition at 4-5m w/No.3 starter expectations. I'm cautious about paying for 1997. I wouldn't buy a Hanson or a Hootie CD, and I wouldn't buy Radke either. But that's just my opinion....I almost always wind up wrong. Thanks for the welcome, Sox fans!

Hey everybody. I'm a brand new member. My Dad was raised on the South Side, but moved North where I lived near Lane Tech/WGN. He always says he wants to see the Sox win it all before he dies. Now he's pushing 70 and I want that for him (us) bad. I live in Omaha now and was so excited to find a place where people are thinking about the Sox on a late October night just like me. It's like a disease. Too add my opinion here, over the winter we'll be talking mostly about Odalis Perez. KW wants him, as evidenced by his attempt last winter to pull off the Mags-Nomar-Perez deal that was scuppered when ARod to Boston died. I'd love to have him. He's young, had an ERA around 3 and should be undervalued based on his win total. Radke's in decline, we should steer clear. Realistically, Beltran and Pavano are too sexy for us. Our best hopes will come from young players that are non-tendered to avoid arbitration, as David Ortiz was two years ago. We really need pitching and depth. Crede has been just decent enough to mask that he's not reaching his potential. I like the idea of talking to Polanco. He has a lot of flexibilty. I think he's best served in a platoon role, but flexible players like him always come in handy. Philly won't want him w/Chase Utley around. Go Sox!!