Rowand44

DJ seems non existant in this game.

Tie game.

Once again, having two pitchers like Brandon McCarthy and Ervin Santana in your rotation for years to come is absolutely humungous for any team in the current market. Not to mention Ervin would have been our best starting pitcher last season so it's not just something that deals with the future. Santana is a 23 year old stud who has already proven he's an above average starter, he's under contract for a while and has a fantastic arm, he'd just be absolutely fantastic to get.

I think some of you guys don't realize just how valuable an Ervin Santana is.

Well for this year(and this year only) it's actually a good thing that the Cubs are upping the market for starters.

QUOTE(Soxbadger @ Nov 28, 2006 -> 01:41 PM) Thats untrue, playing a Valley team is lose-lose no matter how you slice it. Wisconsin lost to Mo. State, a quality team. When they lose its an "upset", when they win its "status-quo." Maybe in 5 years, when the Valley starts to get teams rated in the top 15 preseason (Gonzaga has been there so no reason to say that it cant happen in the Valley) then you will see teams from the big conferences start to schedule the valley. A lot of this has to do with recruiting as well. Because the BCS conferences get the top recruits, they are always considered the "top" teams eventhough many of these recruits are young so they are really not playing at the same level as a 4th year player on a valley team. This will even be more prevelant with the 1 and done, because writers etc will rank teams with the "Odens" of the world as 1, eventhough they have never stepped on the court. This will perpetuate Valley teams consistently being under ranked, and therefore people wont be willing to play them. Right now I would always prefer Wisconsin to play a top 15 team, to a 25-40 Valley team. If you lose to the top 15, so what life moves on. If you lose to the valley, everyone is second guessing your program. It basically boils down to the fact that sportswriters like hype, and they vote on hype. If the Valley can get some hyped players, all of a sudden everything will change. If someone is 2nd guessing your team then they're retarded. A ton of the major conferences last year b****ed about the mid majors having high rpi's and that they some how manipulated the system. The Valley had about 6 teams in the rpi top 50 last year iirc. Beating a valley team is going to be considered a quality victory in March by the selection committee. The major conferences have absolutely no reason to b**** that some of their teams get left out come March when they refuse to schedule quality mid majors(I'm talking to you Gary Williams).

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Nov 28, 2006 -> 12:56 PM) It's not even a lose/lose game for Illinois, since SIU is a borderline if not in top 25 team every year that makes the dance, so it would really be a quality win if you got it. Well that's the thing, people say those type of games are just lose/lose for the bcs conferences but that certainly isn't the case anymore with the Valley. We'll see if any of the BCS coaches start to man up and schedule some of the Valley teams, I still got a feeling that it aint happening anytime soon.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Nov 28, 2006 -> 12:48 PM) Illinois and SIU should play in St. Louis every year to be honest. It'd be more fun than pantsing Misery every year down there, and would help both teams RPI's immensly. That'd be nice. I don't think Bruce will ever schedule us though, even though he said he's just waiting until all the players he recruited are gone.

QUOTE(daa84 @ Nov 28, 2006 -> 12:28 PM) murph is gonna have teh angels beat reporter on who apparently also has been hearing rumors of this deal... Keep us updated por favor.

If we get Santana he needs to be kept.

HEY, we're the lead picture on espn.com's college bball homepage: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/index I guess we've made the big time.

QUOTE(SABR Sox @ Nov 27, 2006 -> 09:33 PM) Wanna know whats even worse. Before last season even started, PECOTA saw Young as the NL's 5th best CF acccorind to VORP. BEFORE LAST YEAR. We f***ed up. Ay jesus. Wait till we trade a starter and then we can START evaluating the Vazquez trade but we're not going to know who won this trade for a long time. It's very, very premature to start b****ing about this deal.

QUOTE(VAfan @ Nov 28, 2006 -> 10:33 AM) Joe Crede ALONE is worth more than Santana and Figgins. No.

QUOTE(ILoveThisGame @ Nov 28, 2006 -> 10:26 AM) Go through with the trade for Santana and Figgins for Garcia and Crede. Then trade Scott Podsednik, Brian Anderson, and Ryan Sweeney for Carl Crawford. This would answer the top of the lineup problem we had last year, put a really good center fielder out there, and make us a base stealing team. Crawford Figgins (put him in LF, couldn't be worse than Pods) J. Dye Thome Konerko Pierzynski Iguchi Fields (Leave him at 3rd) Uribe Pitchers Beuhrle Contreras McCarthy Garland E.Santana No one could stop that 1-5 punch in the lineup. Ha.

I enjoyed this article: http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?t=153508

QUOTE(KevHead0881 @ Nov 28, 2006 -> 09:19 AM) I don't believe we're "crying poverty". The Sox have the money to shell out a monster contract for Crede or make a large bid on a free agent. They aren't doing so because none of these players are worth anywhere near the asking price. We could spend our money stupidly to make our team slightly better, or we can explore options that won't strap us financially for years to come, and still improve the team. Ding. And to add to that, trading one of our starters this offseason has much more to do with Brandon McCarthy than it does with money. Yes, the money is a key to everything but if we didn't have Brandon then we wouldn't be trading a starter.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Nov 28, 2006 -> 08:26 AM) I agree. Jon Garland is awfully overrated. Not sure if you're being sarcastic or not but he has indeed become quite overrated.

QUOTE(Leonard Zelig @ Nov 28, 2006 -> 12:46 AM) Is Valido still in our system? Will he ever be a decent major leaguer? Yes. I doubt it.

QUOTE(fathom @ Nov 27, 2006 -> 11:24 PM) We have a very short window to legitimately compete for the world championship I've heard this line forever now and every year "on paper" we have ourselves a legit shot. As long as Kenny around, we're going to be contenders.

QUOTE(CWSGuy406 @ Nov 27, 2006 -> 11:28 PM) I'm not 100% sure, but I think we control Crede through 2008...? We do.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Nov 27, 2006 -> 11:08 PM) Its not a bad idea really. Though Gload sucks in the field, he is Sean Casey with speed. He'd be better than Pods out there, no doubt in my mind. Ross

Kenny uses the media to position himself in negotiations, take anything Kenny says to the media with a grain of salt.

QUOTE(Rex Hudler @ Nov 27, 2006 -> 09:16 PM) How in the hell Evansville can be favored over ANY team by 18 is beyond me. How the hell Evansville can still cover the 18 baffles me. Evansville 65 SEMO 45 Looks like they're starting to wake up. They really should be a solid team this year.

Michigan might want to wake up for the sake of the big 10. Pack up 7 at the half.

Petway can jump... QUOTE(Buehrle>Wood @ Nov 27, 2006 -> 06:17 PM) I don't mean to call anyone out, but anyone who thought NC State actually had a chance in this game, well, yeah...