BrandoFan

15K on half-price nights?

Griffey? No thanks. Too much money. Too fragile. Too old. And not that productive, quite frankly. Reds had no use for Kong, so the trade was a pipe dream either way. I love it when people blame every hitting failure on uninterrupted RH'ers in the line-up. I am sure it has nothing to do with Lee's, Konerko's, Crede's and Rowand's selfishness and stupidity.....Sox just don't have a LH bat, that it. I-Rod-Cabrera-Lee-Lowell-Conine....I mean, Sosa-Alou-Ramirez.....man, just how DO they do it without Patterson breaking them up? It's a miracle.

Vizquel is only 37, so he has another 3 years to cement his legacy. Was Ozzie Smith a better fielder than Vizquel? He sure as hell wasn't a better hitter.

There are NO shortcuts, not even in ALC. If there were, Sox would have been in the playoffs in 2002 and 2003. Florida was a very good team last year that would have won close to 100 games if Lowell wasn't out for a long time. Just about every player needs to take it up a notch. Thomas, Olivo, Shingo Cotts and maybe Marte are the only ones playing up to par. Sox are not going ANYWHERE without Magglio playing like an MVP...without Harris getting on base at 350 clip.....without Lee, Konerko, Crede at 825+ OPS....without Garland, Buerhle, Loaiza all under 4.00 ERA.....and without Politte pitching like he did in 2002. It will take the kind of intensity it took in 2000.

Of course he is. Vizquel will be an interesting one. Prolly will have to wait a bit longer.

You're kidding, right? The man plays till he's 40, he'll be around 2,800 hits. 810 career OPS. 400+ steals. 4-time GG'er. 7-time All-Star. Cake walk.

Sun GoG: Konerko

It's early

Come to think of it, since Sox swept KC way back when, they haven't played better than Manuel's teams did, and only Riske, Broussard, Baez, Tejada and that Toronto scrub giving us gift wins are the difference. :puke Magglio, good riddance after the year. Some 'superstar'. Crede -- Gold Glover you're not. Come to think of it, not much of a hitter, either. Konerko and Rowand - look up 'breaking ball' Loaiza -- where's the 93+ mph heater? You can follow Magglio out the door. Ozzie -- sending Crede while not sending Willie in any of his 3 trips on base? Idiot. Thomas -- buy yourself some batspeed. Growth hormone. Look it into. Everybody else not worth mentioning. Greg Walker....adi-f***ing-os.

Big Hawk supporter here. Layed many a smackdown on fact-free morons from other cities who bash Hawk just because it's the thing to do. Having said that....I think it's effed up what Hawk did to Wimpy, his constant "keeping down" of DJ, who may indeed be unlistenable when he is Hawk's b****, but when he is working with other broadcasters or during interviews, he comes off infinitely better.....and of course Hawk's ridiculous obcession with Manuel. Get over it, it wasn't Manuel's fault his players layed down or choked or both. Hawkisms are great, so are Hawk's speaking cadence, his stories and baseball knowledge. He is unique, for better or worse. LMAO. But he does need to lay off the S-metrics a bit. I find it puzzluing that such a rudimentary and useful stat as 'OPS' still hasn't infiltrated the mainstream lingo.

He was hitting 93-95 just the other day in Toronto. He will never be anything other than a solid #4 if either his change or curve don't become a legtimate 'out' pitch.

You are. There is a reason why Garland could never strike anybody out for a guy who could reach mid-90's on a heater and possesses a tough sinker. His off-speed arsenal stinks.

It's early.

If if was as simple as that, then Judy would be domiating people with sinker-change and 4-seamer-curve set-ups.

That goes without saying. Still, it helps when hitters' eye don't lit up almost as soon as the ball is released.

Speaking of which.... I could have guessed Judy was falling apart after 6, but I didn't know it was to the extent TLAK showed. I have no idea why "inning eaters" are revered well beyond point of diminishing returns. I would rather have Judy throw 200 inn with a 3.60 ERA and then have an "extra" reliever Kelly Wunsch make up for up the rest of the inning load (say ERA of 3.50 as he sees more RH'ers), than have the ghastly splits shown above just so Garland fans could see him pitch 40 more innings.

Wright - burned Garland - burned Cotts burned Hey Coop....how bout tweaking their delivery so they don't telegraph all the time. :puke

Sat GoG: Timo Perez Uribe made a good catch on a line-drive, but it wuld have saived a base as opposed to 2 bases for Timo. When Juan dropped a replay throw, it put Perez on top for good.

Wite, Don't bother. That is all.

I don't know why people are shocked by all this. Twins have ALWAYS played the game the right way. They fight for every out, every base, every pitch. And Offerman.....well, let me put it this way: he is in the same boat as Chunk Knoblauch in a sense -- people remember them by their recent "overpaid bum" seasons and not by their ALL STAR seasons. I was shocked to learn that Knoblauch at his best was a Gold Glove 2B who got on base at 425 clip, had near 500 Slugging, swiped 50 bags and saw a ton of pitches per at bat........That's Hall of Fame production right there. Offerman was never that good, but from 1995 to 1999, he was GOOD. Most Sox fans could kill for Willie Harris getting on base at 390 clip.

Speaking of "20-25 errors".....Ozzie Smith had 6 seasons with 20+ errors. Aparicio had 10 seasons with 20+ errors, including 2 with 30+.......Those two happen to be HOF'ers. Having said that, there is no excuse for taking your eye off the ball. Delgado was half way down the line and with the shift, the 1B bag was right there. When he made a tough play on a line-drive in the very next inning, I was like, "The tough one you make, but the routine grounder is dropped"....lmao That reminds me of Willie Harris not getting his ass over to 1B in Baltimore. Complacecy kills.

Over the course of a 162-game season, about 800 "reachable" balls (both groundball and flyball variety) are hit in a SS's direction, about 700-750 of them are of low or medium difficulty. Forgetting about RangeFactor for a second.....Theoretically, a SS whose range is just 5% better than his counterpart, will "save" up to 30-40 bases. Something to think about when chiding Jose for making 5 to 10 more errors than an average SS in a given year.

What witesoxfan probably meant with that remark is something along these lines: Defense 101 Defense 101.5

Meaningless games...I've heard it all now.. :dips*** You do realize that since 1985, only 3 teams that played poorly (I think it's 3 games under .500 or worse) in April, ended up making the playoffs? Sox have choked and pissed over themselves with stunning regularity in the last 2 years. They've invented new ways to fail. Dunno bot'choo, but I personally do not feel safe with anything less than a 10 game lead on the Twins by the Break. The bigger the lead, the more inclined JR will be to actually spend (read: we need an ace and a stud closer) for a change. If anything....these "meaning-less" games show the kind of TALENT Sox have. Frankly, I am not impressed. I expected better coming into this season. Konerko, Lee, Crede, Harris, Garland, Gload, Perez, Rowand, Buerhle, Politte, Koch and even Magglio the Superstar.....Thank God for ALC is all I'm gonna say.

And it's not as if these guys were slow to develop. All 3 (and many others on the list) basically came into the majors ready to dominate.