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QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 10, 2011 -> 09:22 PM) Here's an NFL Mr. Irrelevant winning $5.4 million earleir this year suing a supplement company for a tainted product. That's more than he'd likely ever make in his NFL career. That's one I hadn't seen. I've only seen that supplements were tainted with masking agents and minors things not methyltestosterone. That blatant lying about what's helping someone and endangering their health, not just accidentily tainting a substance. This company claimed to be clean where others don't make that promise.

QUOTE (Tex @ Dec 8, 2011 -> 09:51 PM) I think I stand by my belief that the LPGA gas the strictest standards. I also choose to not debate SS on whether we consider the LPGA a major sport, I will concede that point. But I will say I believe it is legit enough for this comparison. The LPGA does have an advantage when it comes to defining the criteria for getting in the HOF. The major sports aren't individual sports so you can't go by just wins. If that was thew case there would only be Yankees in the HOF. If you want to go to individual sports how about track and field. Here are the criteria: World record holder; American record holder; World champion; Olympic champion; World or American leader in event(s) for three or more years; Winner of four or more USA national open championships; and/or You really have to be the elite to be in this group.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 10, 2011 -> 09:17 PM) Interesting...so there is no way the T/E ratio could be as high as 4 to 1 unless he was taking it on a consistent basis? No it's more the type of substance to get it that high. A "tainted" supplement will not raise it that high. It's like the female Olympic swimmer who tried to blame her birth control pills on the elevated ratio. It would do it but she would have had to take 500 of the pills to do it.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 10, 2011 -> 09:11 PM) Really, there doesn't need to be, not when the league has put forwards a list of approved, legal, and clean substances, and in a world where you know you're going to be tested. If you're going to take something that isn't on MLB's approved list, then keep a sample of it. You're making $400k a year, buy a locker, put a date on them, lock up the last pill in every bottle, and if you ever test positive, you've got a major lawsuit against that supplement maker. If you're not willing to do that, then stick to the large list of officially approved supplements. And if you test positive, you're juicing. You cannot sue the makers of supplements for something like this because the FDA does not regulate them. They do not need to list all of the ingredients. Remember when Jim Miller from the Bears tested positive in this scenario? He tried to sue the company but as long as he wasn't poisoned or something, they didn't do anything wrong.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 10, 2011 -> 08:27 PM) But there needs to be a different process for these instances where there was an honest mistake made as opposed to someone who was consistently taking some kind of designer PED. There is a safe guard for this. The only time a test is positive is when the T/E ratio is more than 4 to 1. You are not going to get that from a tainted supplement. The only way it is possible that he is innocent is that he was taking something that someone gave him on a reular basis but he didn't know what it was. I find that highly unlikely. They were able to find it during the test which means if it was a designer PED, it's one that is known.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Dec 10, 2011 -> 06:52 PM) Just have to laugh at anybody moronic enough at this point to take PEDs. So f***in dumb. There are many of them. However, with the HGH and blood testing it should get rid of most of the rest of them. There will still be the designers ones out there but only a few will have access to them.

QUOTE (fathom @ Dec 8, 2011 -> 07:49 PM) It's a lot easier to think of Hudson in the rotation. Gio's been gone for a long time now. Do you think KW will ever deal with Rizzo?

QUOTE (ScottyDo @ Dec 8, 2011 -> 06:21 PM) I tend to agree with you. But it may well have limited their ability to discuss contract extensions previous to free agency which could have wrapped him up at a more manageable salary. In the end, it's on KW for creating a team situation which requires a rebuild, no matter what aspect of the team you blame most. The GM ultimately has the most control over a team's destiny, aside from the players themselves. That said, my complaints are retrospective. I have no problem with the club's decision not to retain Buehrle at that rate, I just wish it wasn't so because I heart him. I don't understand why so many people keep saying this. Of course it is on him. He is the GM. I think last year he had a good plan. He signed Dunn who was very consistent until last year. Rios had a pretty good year the previous year. The only problem with the plan for last year that I had was no proven closer. It wwas a good plan but didn't work. Either way it's always on him as he is the GM.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Dec 8, 2011 -> 02:02 PM) Phil Rogers' column says it all. This is on Kenny for bringing in stiffs Rios, Dunn and the injured Peavy. I disagree. I don't think the Sox would give him a 4 year deal especially at that kind of money, at his age even without the other contracts. I wouldn't.

QUOTE (Whitewashed in '05 @ Dec 8, 2011 -> 01:20 PM) I'm a little surprised (disappointed actually) at the Buehrle hate around here when he didn't even turn down a non-existent Cards or Sox offer. The Sox didn't offer him anything because buehrle had an offer from the Marlins and said "match it and I'll stay." I don't blame either party. MB has the right to take the money and the Sox have the right to say for that many years and that much money it's not worth it.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Dec 8, 2011 -> 11:02 AM) I voted "Other" because it's the Hall Of Very Good. And it's by far the most strict of a Hall of Fames of the major sports.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 8, 2011 -> 12:11 AM) You'd guess they would give it to Danks, but what are the odds that either Danks or Floyd will both still be around? Seeing Sale start would be the most exciting, but they probably wouldn't do that to him. Which leads me to the sneaking suspicion it will be Peavy...after a series of Scott Merkin puff pieces hyping his reinvigorated fastball and nastier breaking slider. Actually, based on the way he pitched for the majority of the season, Phil Humber is probably the most deserving over Danks/Floyd. Zach Stewart? Molina? Well you can't expect a pitcher a year removed from rehab for a major injury to be better that would just be silly. People never pitch better after strengthening thier shoulders. So there's no reason to expect him to better this year at all. I'm tired of people ripping a guy who had a major, unique injury to his throwing shoulder for trying to pitch. The guy worked his rear end off trying to help his team and he gets nothing but complaints. I know I've said it before but I would rather have a competitive guy like Peavy who refuses to give up as opposed to a guy like Mark Prior who rfuses to pitch because of soreness in his shoulder.

QUOTE (southsideirish71 @ Dec 7, 2011 -> 11:11 PM) I don't think Kenny is going to do well rebuilding. He has tunnel vision. He sees something he wants and pays whatever to get it. On the other hand he feels that other GMs will do the same. He will leave the meetings tomorrow saying that we don't have to give our players away. Then in a few weeks he will make another token trade for payroll sake, then put a bow on the offseason. His next plan will be to wait until the trading deadline. We will pick up crap for Danks. Marketing will spin the offseason on the rebirth of Dunn, etc. I don't think Dunn, Rios and Beckham could be any worse this year.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Dec 7, 2011 -> 09:35 PM) Dunn actually hit better as a DH than he did playing the field. He was 14-122 when playing the field with 60 strikeouts. That pencils out to a .115 average. It truly is amazing how bad he was in 2011. I think he's a lock to improve, but he can improve a bunch and still be bad. Go back to the old faithful sample size arguement. He was obviously uncomfortable all of last year. It may have been the DH, the new league, new pressure environment, surgery early in the season, tkae your pick. I think Ventura is being a good people manager when he is trying to make Dunn a little more comfortable this year.

QUOTE (joeynach @ Dec 6, 2011 -> 03:58 PM) Ventura says Dunn will get more playing time in the field (its all over Twitter), including time in the OF. Again, another example of blatant disregard of advanced metrics, something we saw with Ozzie too (remember 75 pitch Peavy). Advanced statistics have a place in this game weather u were brought up with them or not, they are not just for mid twenties baseball bloggers. If you ignore them you will wind up playing a guy whose is -127.3 career defensive WAR player, the same guy who posted a staggering -37.3 def WAR season in 2010 for the Nats. Dude also owns a career -167 defensive runs above replacement figure (according to Baseball Info Solutions). Can some non archaic baseball thinker (of the media) please ask Robin if he is aware of things like this, even cares to look, and why he would play such an established poor defender in the field more. This isnt rocket science. It may not be rocket science but are looking at it from a very narrow point of view. His defensive stats are awful but does this outweigh the fact that he will hit better when he plays in the field? you need to look at both sides. also your your point about 75 pitch Peavy is short sighted. If he doesn't pitch more than that he will never build up strength thus he would never be able to pitch more than that. He was coming off a major injury and needed to build up the strength. You can quote stats all you want and most have some validity (but not reliability) to them. However you also need to look at the player as well and there may be a better way to look at it. As any researcher knows I can create any statistical model to say what I want, it doesn't mean it is generalizable to every case.

QUOTE (SOXOBAMA @ Dec 6, 2011 -> 08:07 PM) If KW was to give up on Ethier,Street, Gonzalez, Hudson, Wallace and Nelson Cruz like the overrated guy has, this site would be b****ing for many years.. Also, since he traded away C Gonzalez, he got nothing for Haren as well. Like it isn't now?

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Dec 5, 2011 -> 09:21 AM) Yeah... but they didn't come out this year with a high payroll because the team sucked. Chances are, the White Sox will be bad the next couple of seasons... might as well do so cheaper. I agree with you. However, the people who control the money still need to take it into consideration. It's not as cut and dry as we see it. Unfortunately, I think this will be the reason behind some of the odd decisions we may see in the next couple of weeks.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Dec 5, 2011 -> 09:11 AM) ...because if you move both of them, feigning interest in competing in 2012... and spending a ton of money to do so (on Mark Buehrle) would be entirely moronic on all fronts. Not on all fronts. As I said earlier keeping the fans a little happy does need to be a consideration otherwise you may cut off a major revenue source.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Dec 4, 2011 -> 10:27 PM) Besides what others have already said, I wouldn't care who is on the team. I'd go to games anyway. I'm a fam of the team, not the players. Having those two would clearly mean a better team, but only slightly better. Not much difference in my mind between .500 and last place. Most of us on this board feel this way. However, this is not the way all of the regular fans see it. If the regular fans get disgusted with the rebuilding process and don't show up the revenue will drop and it will greatly effect the way the team is run. This may change the way the team is run that is different from our view or the"ideal" way it should be run.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Dec 1, 2011 -> 07:34 AM) Honestly. I think a lot of people here are going to be disappointed with the returns the Sox get in deals. that's an understatement. It's tough to remember many people liking any of KW's trades. Even the ones that work out in the long run.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 12, 2011 -> 05:01 PM) I think he'll get fined for this one. It is alcohol which is a drug technically. I have no problem with it, though. But some will say if he had one shot, he probably really had 5-6 and might have been impaired. It is a legal drug so there won't be much trouble. Just like if he took ibuprofen, it's a drug but it's legal. Unless he has already been suspended for a substance abuse problem the league won't do anything.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Oct 11, 2011 -> 01:31 AM) That is incredibly revisionist. A lot of people were complaining then about the lift and pull offense. Either way, Dick Allen gets credit here. Most believed that no teams would have interest in Walker after he left. The idea that all he taught was "lift and pull" was wrong. Some of us said so at the time. Those were the types of players he had and he was working with their strengths. I believe that some of the biggest complaints this year were that not enough players were pulling the ball and there was a decrease in power. He obviously was not getting through to players this year or that they didn't want to listen. Maybe they were tired of Ozzie and they thought he was an Ozzie guy. Who knows but Walker is well respected in baseball and will get a job if he wants one.

QUOTE (fathom @ Oct 6, 2011 -> 08:27 PM) I sure hope Ventura doesn't try to pull a pitcher and signal for a lefty instead of a righty...oops! Or pull a pitcher without one having warmed up. Ventura was actually the person who gave Bevington the solution to that one. They brought in a cold pitcher to intentionally walk a guy thus not stressing his arm, while they had another warm up in the pen.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Oct 6, 2011 -> 07:53 PM) Haha, add that to the stretches. Let's bring Connie Mack back up. That was a relevant addition as well. My sweet Lord... Terry Bevington was a 3rd base coach.