BrandoFan

What gives you the right to "exclude" ANYTHING? If you exclude any of Rauch's 5 terrible starts in AAA, his ERA is 2.00...

....playing 7 games against, say, the Yankees and Red Sox is QUITE different from playing 19 games against each. Considering how much trouble their rotaton was in for most of the season, it would have fallen apart if had to face Toronto, Boston and NY offense 57 times, with hardly a breather. Had Twins fallen 5 games under .500 at the BREAK (liek they did in ALC), playing in ALW, ALE, NLE, they would have beenat least 20 games behind and never would have even dreamed of getting Stewart because there would be no point losing Kielty and finishing 3rd instead of 4th. And so on....In your world variables are set and are uniform; in reality, they're not. But hey, if you choose to believe Twins would've finished ahead of Yankees, Red Sox, Braves, As, Mariners, Phillies, Marlins, go ahead. Me? Considering they had great difficulty with the Sox up until late September, I doubt they would've hung with Expos, Blue Jays and healthy Angels, small-sample head to head matches notwithstanding. Hard stats? When they say stats lie (ie can easily be misinterpreted), Twins being a playoffs team coming out of a NON-Central division s EXACTLY what they mean. By the same token, Loaiza would have been just as dominannt pitching the whole year against Toronto, NY and Boston offensive jaggernauts just because he succeeded in his starts against them in 2003....In reality, his ERA would have been half a point to a point higher most likely. RH rightfully deferved Cy Young.

Me biased? Girlfriend, no you d'iint.....You must not have read most of my posts in which I pick apart almost everything White Sox, from attendance to Magglio Orgonez to WhiteSoxInteractive. Pulease. . For what, winning a bumch of games against hapless, choke-happy, overswingig Sox? Pathetic Indians? Or oh-so-super-pathetic Tigers? WAKE THE f*** UP yourself! I know, I was on your side in that Ponson debate, but if you don't think 2003 Twins would have finished 5th in NLE and 4th both ALE and ALW, you're simply not looking at things intelligently. Hell, until they got Stewart, Twins were FIVE games under .500 in the super-pathetic ALC the ASB in 2003

I can't believe you guys are fighting over Mitch f***ING Wylie. What's next? Andy Gonzalez? LMAO! Rauch Pacheco Cotts Honel are the only ones worth talking about at this point. That other kid from high-A ball and maybe Felix Diaz if he stays healthy might suprise people, but I doubt. Ok, Yofu as long reliever. But that's about it.

Is it me or is Rexy ignoring my posts? lol

See, that's funny because they were never "very good" to begin with. Not in 2002. Certainly not in 2001 or 2003. If they played in ALW or ALE or NLE or even NLW, they'd be lucky to win 83-85 games a year. Wouldn't even SNIFF playoffs. In 2004, they'll be weaker still and will have to rely on Mauer and a rookie pitcher just to be respectable. It's a testament to gigantic Sox failure (esp in the clutch) that Twins have had our number in the manner in which they did more so than anything.

Soxtalk is heaven. I called his 17 steals in 19 attempts a fluke. Not his offense. And what about his offense? How many 850 OPS seasons does he have under his belt in the last 5 years? How many 100-RBI seasons for that matter? At 3-4 mill? Fine. 6-7 mill in 2004? Not wild about it, but OK.. 8-10 mill he'll ask after arbitration is over? No, thanks. I used to consider him the Next Manny Ramirez, but his hitting IQ is just not there.

No, I didn't. When Dontrell Willis posts a 4.50 ERA in 2004 in a great pitcher's park and people start laying off Webb's novelty sinker like they did Zambrano in the end, I will not be among those surpised. Most fail. Outside of Pirzinki whose production was indeed pretty good for a cacther, and the now-injured Santana, they don't have any exceptional players, and have only been winning this divsion in 2002-2003 because Sox were so will-less and dumb. Even Hawkins sucked donkey balls for his first 3-4 years in the majors. Crain might be a sub-4.00 ERA pitcher in 2005. Or he may not be.

Sox have NEVER drawn 3 mill in their history. Furthermore, they didn't even have TOP 5 major league attendance in the majestic 1983, and all of the solid attendance in 1991-93 can be solely attributed to casual fans going to a new stadium I have a philosophical question: when a person who DOESN'T EXIST hates another person, does that count as hate? Last season's attendance was 1.9 mill. In 2000, it was 1.9 mill EVEN with all the half-price days. Any pattern emerging? I am with JR on this one: why take a 10-20 Mill loss if the team can't win in the PATHETIC ALC. Most posters on this board would leave their place of work if they were offered 1 or 2 dollars per hour more some place else....And here we are throwing tens of millions of other people's dough around like it's peanuts.

For every Mark Prior, there are 10 Jesse Crains...and 100 Andy Siscos. To hear Twin fans speak of it, Restovich-Cuddayer-Mornea are A-Rod-Palmeiro-1-Gone. They'll be lucky to be Stairs-Jaha-Palmer. I like Mauer. Might be a good player some day.

At this point you could build a floating ballpark near Navy P, assemble a 100-win team and give away tickets on Mondays and Sox STILL won't draw 3 Mill

And most of them will fail. Hey, we'll be around to witness Justin Marneu strike out 250 times next season. Good lord. That's more like it. Bring him on.

Huh?

And?

If you're talking about Bonser (sp?) , you have nothing to worry about. He won't be in the majors in 2004. You don't dominate major league hitters by throwing 93-94 and a nothing-special breaking ball. He was like ranked 7th or something in the Giant farm system. Far from Miark Prior.

If only we (and Sox ownership/management) knew why. Rex?

How so?

The whole Twins season is riding on the severity of Santana's injury and, to lesser extent, whether they can re-sign Stewart. If they fail to do one, let alone both, they'll win 75-77 games in 2004 at the most.

I've always liked Marriotti, but hell I like corg also. Me, on the other hand? Never much liked Mariotti or Corg. But I digress. Mediocre defense. Fluke 2003 aside, average speed, will slow down as he ages. A penny over 6-7 Mill a year is a crime. Too dumb to be a star. Time will tell. Not even close to being untouchable. A 30yo with unspectacular speed/defense and without a single 1000 OPS season? Against awful ALCental pitching? Yeah, definately 14-15 Mill a year material...especially on a team with a sub-60 mill payroll ceiling. AL hitters are solving Burhle more and more with each passing year, he lives and dies with his cutter as his curveball sucks and slider mediocre.....Considering his 2003 production and Cardinalgate, pay him 6 mill for the next 2 years and LET HIM GO. The dimwit's not worth more than 4-5 per. Until he learns not to swing at balls in the dirt and stops getting eaten up alive on every hard ball down the line, he is nothing but a talented younger. Stop hyping everything and everybody. What has this fat slob done in 2003 (or career for that matter) to warrant 12-13 Mill a year deal? Is throwing almost 80% fastballs (god forbid his velocity naturally declines as he ages!) and not being able to communicate with a English-speaking pitching coach/manager worht that money? My God. As long as he makes what he makes, fine. If he has another excellent year in 2004 and proves he can be domiant in the playoffs, giving 6-7 Mill a year would be just fine with me. What about Frank? The last thing we need is for him to leave and wear another hat to Cooperstown. As long as the money is reasonable (5-6 mill) and he feels confident, I'd rather see him on the South Side in the next 2, 3 years than Colon or Ordonez. This organnization hasn't had a plyer of his magnitude in 80 years.

You don't have to sell me on RIAA. It's a separate issue. As is "acting on behalf of defenseless artists" for that matter. 9 out of 10 "kids" download because it's FREE and FAST; they coulnd't care less about economic or social justice and other lofty, worthy causes. I guess I was wrong about you afterall. Please forgive me and allow me to kiss your honorable feet. I didn't know I stuttered when I said that some pre-teen who inadvertedly presses "DOWNLOAD" and gets himself a 5-year old MP3 probably doesn't deserve to rot in jail for the rest of his life. However illegal site and P2P software programmers, distributors, big-time collectors and repeat offenders? f*** em and f*** em hard. And Apu, bringing Ken Lays into this is akin to bringing up Hitler when embroiled in comparative political discussion- a loser's tactic..........Yes, a child knows that Republicans are probably not as bad as Nazis, nor are incorrigible copyright offenders as deserving of punishment as, say, Enron-esque corporate criminals. Bur so what? Let's leave thiefs alone until all murderers are caught, is that it? Why can't we prosecute both, albeit on a different scale, with varying harshness?

Don't hate the player; hate the system.

How about people who don't want to pay "artificially inflated prices" PERIOD, preferring theft instead? Should they go to jail, ever? Maybe some day you'll get it through your insipid poseur-revolutionary head that (insufferable and unbecoming b****ing on part of Metallica and Co. aside) INTELLECTUAL and ARTISTIC property is, how should I put it.....NOT YOURS TO TAKE. I love what happens to morals and ethics when the law is not around.

Someone should tell the poor guy that Heather is only using him to get closer to Carlos.

I am legal now, don't mind if I do. Tell me something, though. When I was a kid I was dreaming about some day watching a great national soccer game in Azteka (huge Mexican stadium) and the one in Brazil which then seated about 220,000 fans. Since then they cut down capacity in almost half, no? Can you post pictures of it pre-renovations. Thanks.

But Yas, how can that be? Afterall he runs a crazy 40-yard dash; throw like a QB; has light-tower power. And the sig, what happened to it?