BrandoFan

He laughs who laughs last. Much to your and others' chagrin, there most likely be a 2-year deal hammered out this October. Something along the lines of 2 year, 4-5 Mill, with at bat-based incentives. He will be used primarily against RHP because he could still muster 900+ OPS against them, with good clutch peripherals. Then you got his 900 ZR, which would lead all AL SS as soon as Pokey Reese is replaced by Garciaparra, as well as his good baserunning and a positive clubhouse presence. Sox still do not know what they will get out of Willie and Crede in the long-run, so Jose will serve as insurence if anything else. The only way Valentin is definately not back is if he somehow returns to the all-field line-drive approach he briefly employed in 2004 Spring Training (only 1 HR), which allowed him to hit LHP extremely well, and finishes out this season on a great note because of it. If that happens (not likely), he'll price himself out of the Sox market and will be signed by a big-market contender still willing to pay 4+ Mill.

Oh yeah?

Jose will be here both in 2005 and 2006, albeit at a lower price. Heard it here first.

Yeah the whole genre is at fault and not you, sure.... Hey, I DO like Freeway , gotta a prob wit dat? no!

This is non-news. At least I hope Sox saved a couple of Mill on the deal that they could use on somebody later on. I hear Sox are back in the Roger Cedeno sweepstakes. Maybe even Okha for Reed and Borchard if Kenny gets lucky. Sox got absolutely f***ing dominated by 3 good RHP performances. Again. After 3+ years this is not even a trend; it's a reality. We can't hit them. Walker is over his head. Just think what Prior, Wood, Zambrano, Clement are gonna do to the Sox. :puke

Stop lying, my arguement wasn't that Ordonez was more valuable than Thomas, but rather than he was more valuable than Dye and that his "fair market value was worth AT LEAST 11-12 Mill, and not the laughable 7 Mill figure that you pulled out of your ass a few days ago. But since you started....... In 1999, Ordonez was all-around better than Thomas while making a fraction of Hurt's salary. In 2000 Thomas was better, while making MUCH more than Magglio. In 2001, even before injury, Magglio was better than Thomas while making less. In 2002, Magglio was much better while making less still. In 2003, they were about the same (that's right Hurt's 25 OPS point advantage is easily canceled out by Maggs's much higher RISP efficiency and 'Close and Late' production as well as his speed and defense that one-dimensional Thomas simply cannot provide) with Magglio making more. So of course Frank was gonna make no more than 6 Mill. He is old, fat DH type whose bat can permanently slow down at ANY moment. Nobody knew he would be rejuvenated this year. Next year his salary will go up to 8 Mill, he should be happy. You want to pay Maggs no more than 8-9 Mill? Fine, watch what happens once he goes to the Cubs and returns to his old 950 OPS/120 RBI/high Close-n-Late form. Just watch

Yeah, nonsense has that effect on me. I've already shown why Magglio is CLEARLY Dye's superior since 2001, in ALL respects. I am not going to repeat myself. Thanks for playing.

Don't blame the genre for your own shortcomings.

Dark City was pretty good, no doubt. Unfortunately, the completely unnessesary Kiefer Sutherland VOICE-OVER in the very beginning spoils the rest of the flick. What were the idiots thinking!

You're asking the wrong question. Your % comparison method makes little sense. Magglio had his best year when Thomas had a slow bat and couldn't contribute squat in 2002, so there goes your "Maggs is nothing without Thomas" crap. If anything, Dye benefited more from Chavez, Tejada, Giambi, Hattenberg, Durazo, Guillen and Justice more than Maggs did from his teammates. Dye can't hit with RO or RISP like an All-Star run-producer should. He is downright terrible in C&L situations since 2001. He is not very good defensively anymore, either. He is slow on the pads. In short, he and his 12 Mill a year could be EASILY replaced. The problem is...nobody wants him. Beane is stuck with him. Duh.

How about....no? Before the seaosn is over, Magglio will be back to 950 OPS while Dye will languish in the low-800's - not exactly worth 12 Mill a year. Magglio will also best him in RO/RISP production as well as Close and Late. And just about everything else. And unlike the A's whose fanbase is unrecoverable and who could care less if Dye stays or leaves...Maggs is Mr. Sox and if it's a matter of paying him 12 Mill or 12.5, or for 4 years or 5, Sox might have to give in since they wouldn't want him going to the Cubs because of a few extra 100K a year. In any case, Maggs wants out, he won't be back anyway, you can look forward to b****ing about 800 OPS Carlos making 9 Mill in 2005.

Beane won the Zito-Mulder-Hudson lottery, and his teams stayed remarkably healthy. His enourmous ego would never allow him to admit a mistake. A's won (if you can call it "winning") IN SPITE of Dye, NOT because of him. That 12 Mill could have been spent to alleviate numerous needs that would have likely propelled the A's to the Series. Oops. No, it doesn't. A's are usually an average hitting team at best. It's easier to stand out. How about 1999-2002? And? Yes, and when he was playing, he was protected by the same Carlos who was hitting .240, which pretty much ensured Maggs wouldn't see any pitches. Everything is possible with selective use of stats. You hate Maggs. You love Frank. Whatever.

Yeah, a safe BULLs*** estimate would be that. What could have been is just your fanstasy. REALITY says otherwise: in the last 4 years, Magglio has been a better overall hitter, a better clutch hitter, a better fielder, a better runner than Dye. That's what your 12-Mill a year, broken-down hero would put up while protected by Carlos Lee.

. Magglio's intristic worth: 12-13 Mill. Magglio's value to the Sox: 2nd only to Thomas and MUCH higher than Lee's. Your abitrary and inaccurate way of measuring "fair market value" notwithstanding, IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING that Sox cannot afford a 5/75 contract without Magglio putting up 1000+ OPS/135+ RBI numbers and leading the Sox to at least ALCS in 2004.....But asserting that he is worth less than Dye is pure bulls*** that would get you laughed out of most sports bars.

825 OPS 750 OPS w. RISP. 575 OPS in C&L situations. Average range and no speed. If that.

Pure and unadulterated nonsense, on so many levels. Then again, it's right in line with your "Maggs is a 7 Mill a year player" malarkey. f*** your Splits. Give me OPS, give me run-production, baserunning, etc. Dye couldn't hold Magglio jock in 2001 or 2002 or 2003 or 2004 in any deparment, including defense which used to be Dye's strenght back in 1998-2000 before the injuries. You had the balls to mention clutch hitting....have you f***ing seen Dye's Close and Late and RISP/RO production as compared to Maggs in 2001-2004? Quit before you're behind. Line-up protection? Dye had Giambi, Chavez, Tejada, Justice, Durazo and Jose Guillen at various points. Not too shabby. He was also playing on teams that had outstanding starting pitching and as everyone knows, psychologically it's easier to hit when your team only needs 3-4 runs to win a game. Duh. What does % relative to the rest of the team have anything to do with anything? Dye is a 12 Mill a year player on a 60 Mill payroll team. Given his complete lack of leadership and clutch-hitting, it cannot be viewed as anything more than a botched signing by Beane that possibly robbed him of a WS ring. Your worship of Billy Beane,and Moneyball is hysterical, and it spawn some weird-ass logic: "Because Billy Beane deemed it prudent to ____, it should be emulated by the rest of baseball"......Yeah, right.

Mark Kotsay was in the top 5 defensive CF'ers last year in all of MLB, so if Reed's defensive upside is that, I'll gladly take it. There is another guy who is not a speed burner pplaying in NL. His name ends with '-nik'. He has 29 SB with only 2 CS. So, once again, good speed + great instincts is something I will take over Christian Guzman's brand of "blazing speed" any day. Unless there is something wrong with Reed's Rists, he should be untouchable.

First of all, stop using RPG as some sort of be all end all, silver bullet of arguementation. The validity and reliability of this stat has been contested. Secondly, this is classic hindsight 20/20 crap. On ESPN boards, you were one of great multitude of Sox homers who claimed Magglio was the "best RF in Chicago" in midst of 2002, that he was pound for pound "better than Sammy when he was 28yo"; generally there was little doubt Magglio would improve and become a star........So what the f*** are you blathering on now how it was "obvious" that KW should have traded him while his value was high? I do not believe you for a second if you try to claim that you "knew" Magglio would have a disappointing 2003 season after breaking out in 2002. What part of Mondesi making 15, Jeter making 17, Appier making 13 and many, many other similar examples of contractual overvaluation do you not understand? How would a 27yo rising star, a future MVP (according to expert consensus which I am sure included the Sox brass) gonna only settle for 6 Mill per year - during period of salary escalation of 2001-2002 no less! - playing on a team like the Sox that was and still is fighting for fans and therefore could ill-afford to lose its most popular and promising player because of a small amount of money? After 2001-2002 failures, KW would be lynched if he got rid of Maggs. Frank Thomas was "clearly back" in 2002? Huh? He had a 740 OPS in the first 4 months of 2002, his bat was slow as hell, his mechanics out of whack - nobody knew JACK s*** whether or not he would ever come close to 950 OPS levels. Ever. Hindsight 20/20 again.... Btw....Jermaine Dye is inferior to Maggs in every way, his clutch-hitting, whether it be with RISP or Close and Late are laughable since 2001 and he makes 12 Mill a year which is about 20% of Oakland's payroll. Beane dropped the ball on him big-time. Put the knee pads away.

Perhaps you missed this So how about it? Since M&C was "terrible", I am sure you could come up with 10 flicks in that particular genre that are much better, off the top of your hammer head. I thought so.

Are you insane? Ray Duhram was making 6 per. Let's take a trip down the memory lane...... You're talking about 2001-2002, a time of gross market over-valuation; 10 Mill a year was a STARTING POINT in negotions for All-Star players....Raul f***ing' Mondesi was making 15 Mill a year then, FCOL!! In 2001, Magglio was already a proven 925 OPS, 120 RBI, high-RISP, high-'Close and Late' production player. In addition to that, he was one of the BEST defensive RF in the game (only behind Ichiro and Vlad) AND was coming off 1999-2000 seasons where he showed ability to steal and take extra bases at high %. But most importantly, at just 27yo and with only 3 full ML seasons under his belt, there was a good chance he would take the next step (which he briefly did in 2002) and become a legitimate 1000 OPS, possibly HOF-caliber player, especially if he would finally decide to follow Sosa, Mac, Bonds, Boone, Giambi's example and get on steroids. Some experts had him as their dark horse MVP pick as early as 2001-2002 off-season. Sorry, but a 3 year, 29.5 Mill contract for what was considered to be a RISING STAR as well as a home-grown fan favorite and a possible Thomas replacement (remember, at that time nobody knew how Frank would bounce back after the injury or how soon his batspeed would slow down due to extra weight and age...nobody knew) was anything BUT "absurd". In fact, Sox thought they were getting a bargain. I argued that Maggs isn't worth 5/75 to the Sox in their present financial state long before you started posting on this board......but at some poiint you have to knock that "Maggs is worth no more than 7-8 Mill a year" garbage. When you have a base-clogging, mediocre-fielding, 790 OPS-hitting player in Miguel Tejada making 72 over 6 years. WTF? Furthermore, blaming Magglio for basically wanting to get the f*** out of this sorry, classless 2nd rate organization makes very little sense, on any level. It's especially hypocritical and contradictory in light of your well-known views that you now conveniently claim you've discarded as though it were a pair of gloves. Magglio owes YOU nothing. He hasn't delievered on the lofty Sammy Sosa 2.0 promise, true, but he still put up respectable numbers and is quietly playing out the term of his current contract without media boycotts or clubhouse tantrums. He wants more? I would too in his position. Cao. No hard feeling, Maggs - it's Borchard's time to shine.

Whoa nizzle, hol' up rite der....Master and Commander "terrible"? I thought it was ok, just your average sea advent fare, but terrible? I'd like to know what you consider "good" and "great" then. In that genre. Top Gun is also ineligible due to HoYay and it's so-bad-it's-good factors.

Can we unlock Israel-vs-Palestine thread for Juggs? Cuz...

I know you're a retard and all, so usually I ignore your posts.... Coming into today's game, a slumping Valentin had a 960+ OPS versus right-handed pitching. That was second highest on the team only behind Thomas, much higher than either Lee or Konerko, the two players I am sure you wanted to see in the clean-up spot instead, preferrably at the same time. But I am sure it's just a case of Latino Love on Ozzie's part.

Happened to see Vanilla Sky, A.I. and Fat Man, Little Boy in the span of 48 hours.....Sweet release of death Mishima-style and all. :puke :puke