bmags

might be the last scoop the wash times ever gets (could also have been the first)

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 22, 2009 -> 02:35 PM) Vernon Wells was a -18.2. Jesus.

No matter what, I don't think anyone can argue that it was a disgrace to open up the season with Wise as our starting CF and leadoff hitter. Especially in an offseason where Abreu garnered a paltry sum and O. Hudson was had for reasonably. It was a stupid strategy that we probably paid for in losing the division.

QUOTE (qwerty @ Dec 22, 2009 -> 05:53 AM) The sox were -25.6... tied with the red sox for third worst in baseball...ahead of the blue jays (-28.8) and twins (-30.6). But remember, the outfield defense wasn't really a problem anyway. I would've never imagined the blue jays were that bad...

attention all Sao paolo pet owners, a new ploy of city criminals has been to kidnap pets and hold them for ransom. No s***.

I mean, I really don't think intelligence counts. Is this at a federal level? Actually, I think I may exempt myself...Anything I say is just based off too limited experience.

I would consider Dye in RF and Podsednik in CF last year as a pretty brutal defensive OF last year. Defensive inferiority is often less noticeable unless you have a Soriano or Carlos Lee to admire, but the defense needed to be much improved in OF and infield. I'll wait and see if Teahan can be that upgrade, but Alexei and Beckham need to show some strength early on for me to call it an upgrade.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Dec 21, 2009 -> 11:28 PM) Nardi was the problem, imo. Yeah, I guess. But even so, I think it says something that I'm really not worried about injuries to our pitching staff. We haven't even (knock on wood) had the freak injuries like line drives to elbows (heh) a lot of other teams have had.

QUOTE (Ranger @ Dec 21, 2009 -> 11:20 PM) What would have been a better, realistic option for them? I am also not entirely enamored with Pierre but I don't think picking up Austin Kearns and hoping he isn't bad is a better option than Pierre. I do. 1. Kearns is better on defense, and I'm all for creating the best defense possible in front of our pitching staff. 2. Kearns has a high career OBP. In contrast, Pierre's best years at OBP were solely created by average. I think it's fair to say the years of Pierre's .330 BA's are over. Kearns inevitably has more power than Pierre, as Mark Buehrle has more power than Juan Pierre. And it's likely Kearns would come on a cheap 1 year deal. But alas, we have a slap hitting girl-arm in LF for another 2 years.

QUOTE (kjshoe04 @ Dec 21, 2009 -> 07:05 AM) I've seriously only heard of maybe 2 of the movies on either list. isn't that a good thing?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 22, 2009 -> 12:08 AM) We do the same thing for ex-Presidents and VPs, including pay for life and protection for life. And I'm fine with that because they are big ambassadors for the country and symbols of our democracy, and more than that, there is only a handful of them around, usually. Speakers of the house...not as big a symbol.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 21, 2009 -> 11:02 PM) All suffered major injury problems. They just decimated the system, and turned the Sox mentality into an extremely conservative one, which set us back a decade in terms of minor league production. Do you remember in 2001 when people were calling for HERM'S head because of all the injuries? It's amazing the lack of injuries our pitching staff has endured with the pairing of Cooper and Schneider. They were a perfect match.

QUOTE (GREEDY @ Dec 21, 2009 -> 10:50 PM) I didn't want to bring in other names to clutter up my original post, but since most of you didn't get it anyways I will try it this way. I like Alex Rios, I would have claimed Alex Rios. I would not have paired him with Juan Pierre. To get the most value out of Rios he needs to play CF, and you need power hitters in both LF and RF. For far less risk, and far less money KW could have Crisp in CF and Matsui in LF, and get rougnly the same offensive production (and most likely better defense, with little to no committment). This sums up my "first reason" for signing Alex Rios. I understand you, greed, what you are saying is the benefit of a player like rios (and now beckham) is they give you power production out of a position that is usually void (CF, 2B), but by putting players like pierre in a traditional power position, or high offensive, position like LF, you negate the positives of having found above average production in CF. I understand that, on the other hand, the argument could be made that because you are getting above average production in CF and 2b, you can put less offensively-talented players - which means cheaper - in those positions. I don't like Pierre, and yeah, i agree that we are wasting an opportunity to have a great outfield since, really, the hardest piece was found, on the other hand I'm not sure I totally agree that you wash out the reason for getting an offensive CF if you don't find a powerhouse LF and RF. That seems unreasonable unless you are NY/BOS. That said, I really wish we would've taken a flyer on Kearns.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Dec 20, 2009 -> 02:20 AM) Jim Thome has 9,463 career plate appearances, and that isn't including spring training, the minor leagues, or even warm up swings. I tend to doubt that about one less than active month (where he was still taking batting practice) is going to freshen him up. I tend to think he's going to put up an .850 OPS or somewhere in the whereabouts if he plays next year, and the only place he is going to play is Chicago. Okay? Thome is at an age where he could see a sudden decline in ability. My point wasn't that with an extra month rest he'd be in 1.000 OPS, rather that perhaps getting a shortened season last year was a good thing in saving up for another full year.

a the 02-04 (maybe not 04, if not for the injuries it's possible we win out) sox were so odd. We had a really great middle of the lineup. We had some good pitching upfront. Usually had some nice bullpen pieces (Marte/Flash), but the odd thing was the last pieces you usually pull together for a team, the fifth starter, catcher, second base were usually so horrendous that it seemed to pull the whole team down with it. But man, if that 03 team could have made it. Ugh. But yeah, how many times did we see us score 12 runs and the next three games get only a few. Wildly inconsistent. And, I was young, I gather, but I remember being really excited for ozzie because in the beginning of 04 we had a couple of 'rally-back' games that were really non-existent under manuel. We won some late inning games, to be sure, but usually when we held on. The come back games didn't really happen. And the first half of 04 before all the injuries, and then the beginning of 05, it was just so fun watching a really energetic team again. Same with first half of 06. I haven't really felt the same of our team since, even with 08.

i suppose this thread existed before I copy pasted into the music thread. I wrote this somewhere else. I already kind of declared this year a success when MPP and Veckatamest exceeded my expectations. It's been so rare this decade for an established band to follow up with a great album that I'm fine with 2 excellent albums and a bunch of crap. That said, I don't think the rest of the year was filled with crap. Go flips and the underwater peeps lineup: 1-2. MPP & Veckatamest 3. embryonic 4. Beach House (it's funny how some bands get trashed on for sounding the same every album, but bands like beach house, I don't ever want to change. Just keep pumping it out.) ...was beach house this year? 4A. Ptarmigan - Our ancient friends - maybe my favorite, no other album could hold a treasure chest of memories the way this one does. 5. Real Estate 6. Raekwon 7. Phoenix 8. Japandroids 9. Wavves 10. Girls 11. Neko Case 12. Ganglians 13. Marissa Nadler. 14. The Thermals 15. Wale 16. Ducktales wilco's album was perhaps the most disappointing piece of crap I've ever listened to. They need to either break up or apologize, or hang nels cline.

QUOTE (Cali @ Dec 21, 2009 -> 07:07 PM) 10. 2006 - Cubs-Sox Brawl 9. 2002 - Crede ties the game with a 2 run shot in the 9th, walk off Grand Slam in the 10th vs. Blue Jays 8. 2000 - 7 in a row on the road vs. Indians and Yankees 7. 2002 - Sox come back against Cubs to win 13-9. Possible first instance of "Paulie" chant before his home run to put Sox on Top 10-8 in the 6th 6. 2008 - Blackout Game 163 5. 2005 - Konerko's Slam 4. 2005 - Podsednik walks off Lidge 3. 2009 - Buehrle's Perfect Game 2. 2005 - Uribe goes into the stands for out two. 1. 2005 - "Chopper, over the head of Jenks, Uribe charges..... Throws.... OUT!" Whole-heartedly endorse this list. One game that's a shame to have a cloud over it for losing, was when Iguchi went nuts with a 3R homer and then a granny to tie it up vs. the 'stros?, a game we ultimately lost. Also C-Lee walking-off the cubs with a granny.

copy/paste I wrote this somewhere else. I already kind of declared this year a success when MPP and Veckatamest exceeded my expectations. It's been so rare this decade for an established band to follow up with a great album that I'm fine with 2 excellent albums and a bunch of crap. That said, I don't think the rest of the year was filled with crap. Go flips and the underwater peeps lineup: 1-2. MPP & Veckatamest 3. embryonic 4. Beach House (it's funny how some bands get trashed on for sounding the same every album, but bands like beach house, I don't ever want to change. Just keep pumping it out.) ...was beach house this year? 4A. Ptarmigan - Our ancient friends - maybe my favorite, no other album could hold a treasure chest of memories the way this one does. 5. Real Estate 6. Raekwon 7. Phoenix 8. Japandroids 9. Wavves 10. Girls 11. Neko Case 12. Ganglians 13. Marissa Nadler. 14. The Thermals 15. Wale 16. Ducktales

2009 Soxtalk Conservative Statue of Liberty Inscription "Keep your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Keep the homeless off our god damned beaches I lift my lamp beside the golden door! (but just so you can see how much better we are)"

another "law" from the "most transparent" "administration" ever sorry I was just seeing how it feels.

Yeah, I was so thrilled for '01, and it felt like everything went wrong. Franks arm rips open, Wells constantly crying about his back, Royce Clayton Lots seemed to go wrong the first half of 01, then we went on a 22-7 tear but just had the typical ought-sox team MO of hanging around .500. 03 was the most disappointing though, by far. Man that one hurt, maybe worse than 06.

like he makes all his s*** up. NSFW oh yeah it's cause it was magnetized and he fell oh and yeah we all started throwing up ohhh yeah.

Balta said it, but again, you can either call the taxes bad idea, or call it unfunded, but you can't say that it's both unfunded and their tax ideas are bad ideas. As balta said, I'm a bigger fan of the cadillac plans because it's a more consistent string of revenue in addition to it being a cost saving measure in itself.

the guy's a liar, terrible writer and an asshole. Figure's he's so popular.

nice post soxAce. As some have said, as piece by piece got signed, I, too, was like "oh it's just a couple million", but as a whole, the $15 or so million now given out is rather disappointing when seeing who it was given to. Putz and Jones, I'm fine with. Vizquel, sure. They seem fine face value, but when you stop there, I don't know. I just don't trust Quentin and Ramirez to duplicate 08, Konerko to even put up even 07, and we're all praying to God Rios can be his 08 self. I thought we'd grab one sure thing in terms of adding some power and OBP, and we've done anything but.