YASNY

I don't see anything wrong with another team's fan coming here and talking baseball, as long as they aren't obnoxious about it. This guy was a little chippy, but not bad.

When Maggs is kicking himself ... is kicking with the bad leg, or standing on it and using the oher one?

QUOTE(Y2HH @ Feb 1, 2005 -> 10:24 PM) I understand that...but I work out, too...and although I've gotten bigger, my SKULL doesn't increase in size when I work out on my biceps/chest. So ... look at those pics of Frank. I don't see any increase in skull size. Regarding Sosa and Bonds ... I was talking about the 15 year difference. As I said, a one or two year difference is another story.

Comparing a player when he's 20 and when he's 35 carries no credence with me. I don't consider those old photos of Bonds and Sosa either. A man is going to mature and fill out naturally over those years. And if he's working out and trying to build up, it will be even more pronounced. It's the quick one or two year jumps that make me take a second look with a suspicious eye. For example, look at Bonds (iirc) during his first season at SF, and then his second.

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Feb 1, 2005 -> 09:55 AM) Yes, those are much more enjoyable than the and the and the :banghead ...

Thanks for the kind words ... and the ... and the

Everyone in the RF bleachers can moon him!

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Feb 1, 2005 -> 09:38 AM) Let's say the Sox have a sucessful season though, and Podsednik, Rowand, Dye and Everett put up good numbers for the number of AB's they have. My question is this. Brian Anderson has a great year, and finishes the season as a 40 man call up, after putting up good numbers for the Knights. Do you keep him on the bench for the Sox, or send him back down to Charlotte, and wait until the contract of someone like Dye comes off the books so he can take over every - day? (I'm probably asking something that's too far ahead in the future thoughm but let's see where it goes). You cross that bridge when you come to it. You have options of trading veterans for other needs, etc.

QUOTE(retro1983hat @ Feb 1, 2005 -> 09:26 AM) Mascot that series: SNEEZY Sneezy and Corky.

QUOTE(JimH @ Feb 1, 2005 -> 09:09 AM) Good post, the other factor to consider is service time and how fast these guys get to free agency. It might be cheap to have a young guy sit on the bench but it makes little sense for that players development. In addition, they get to free agency faster and that ends up costing more money, sooner. Let these young players demonstrate they're ready by dominating at AAA or AA. Even that may be misleading, Diaz was lights out at Charlotte but got his lights punched out in the majors. That's what I try to keep preaching. Look at Rowand. He's just entering his prime and we'll get him for 3 years at a relatively cheap price. He might command a huge contract next time around, but he's ours for a while. That, my friends, is good "GM-ing".

Oklahoma!

QUOTE(Steff @ Feb 1, 2005 -> 05:25 AM) Guys.. I'm sorry. I charged what they told me they would cost. Stop apologizing. Geeze! You went out of your way to do this for us and it is very much appreciated. Consider those posts as informational and not complaints.

I emailed Morrisey a couple of days ago. He wrote a column ripping Sosa, and olny Sosa. While I agreed that Sosa reaped what he sowed, I also pointed out that he left out the part about the Cubs creating the "egomaniacal monster" that Sosa had become. No response, of course.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Jan 31, 2005 -> 06:04 PM) Bingo. I was wondering the same thing. Moodiness in his earlier years, off season weight loss. I hope it isn't true. I'm really hoping for a season to forget Maggs from Carl. I hate when people throw this steroid stuff around so quickly. The moodiness question .... He had that one year in Boston, other that he's been totally professional. That was a Boston spin job. And the weight? Hell, everyone could see he needed to drop 15 pounds. We'd all be b****ing if he hadn't dropped the weight.

Mine came in with postage due as well. No problem though. Thanks Steff.

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Jan 31, 2005 -> 12:25 AM) STD's, Aids.........Details, details, we can't infringe on a womans right to sell herself can we? :rolly Exactly. Pro-choice.

QUOTE(LDF @ Jan 30, 2005 -> 03:17 PM) what i fine amusing is all the beat writers writing all those negative stories about him. The Tribsters are really laying it on thick. World class smear campaign.

QUOTE(BaseballNick @ Jan 30, 2005 -> 03:09 PM) Stolen bases OVERRATED??? How can you think this? Speed is an extremely intimidating asset for a player to possess. If you don't think so then why is something like this possible? http://florida.marlins.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/...layer_id=334393 (the video from 7/20/04). Guys like Ichiro, Pierre, and Pods force infielders to rush their throws which result in errors. Pitchers have stolen bases in the back of their minds when these guys are on the basepaths. I said it before and I'll say it again: speed is a tremendous asset for a player to possess. You just spent these two paragraphs trying to convince me that speed is great. I totally agree with that. Speed is a wonderful, intimidating weapon. Speed kills. But, the stolen base, in and of itself, is overrated.

QUOTE(qwerty @ Jan 30, 2005 -> 04:00 AM) 122 games in 2002, 58 in 2003, and 86 in 2004. It's not like he was on the bench, he was starter every year in one position or another. I would definitely consider him injury prone. I should have clarified myself better. Sorry about that. I wasn't particularly talking about Hairston, though I made it look that way. I was making a general observation about how loosely that term was thrown around.

QUOTE(SouthSideScraper @ Jan 30, 2005 -> 04:25 AM) I'm not flat wrong. I was talking about the trend that started in 2001. I was using 2000 as a point of reference. How many times do I need to post his numbers. This is not a one time occurance if he has had two seperate injuries that led to him ending a season prematurely and causing him to have an off year the following season. If it takes the rest of one year or most of the following year for him to heal, then we're not going to see the Frank we know and love until either sometime in September, or next season. He doesn't bounce back. Look....I have nothing against Frank Thomas. Nothing, I'm just trying to justify spending the kind of money he's going to want if he has a ad year this year. Both season ending injuries led to off years. If 2005 follows this trend, do the Sox really want to spend the money on him or do they want to look at what else they can get? There are some true blue Frank Thomas fans on this thread. Jeeze. And lets not bring Fisk into this. Him and Riensdorf hated each other. That is a whole other ball of wax. I didn't say that you were wrong. I said your statement was innaccurate. I'll modify that and say it was misleading. You said it has happened 3 time. No it hasn't. It has happened once. It may be happening again, but we don't know that yet. What you implied in your post was that once he goes down was that he won't be back to 100% until the season after his return. That has only happened one time, not three.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Jan 29, 2005 -> 11:28 PM) I just watched that like a night ago. I thought it was going to be horrible based on what friends told me, but it wasn't too bad. It was far from great, but enjoyable soley because I'm semi interested in the whole king arthur spiel. I saw this when it first hit the theatres and I thought it was decent. I was glad to see that it was set in the proper century. I know that there are reasonable doubts as to whether or not Arthur actually existed, but there is usually a smidgen of truth behind every legend. I'm inclined to think that there was an historical King Arthur.

Considering that Canada has never had Fox News type outlet and have been only hearing one side of the issues, that might contribute to their liberal leanings. As for my point, Fox News has b**** slapped CNN, MSNBC, etc. They'll, in time, do the same to CBC unless the liberalists in Canada cause the gov't to pull the plug on them.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Jan 29, 2005 -> 09:29 PM) IIRC, 2005 will be 2 seasons after Grilli had major arm surgery, and he'll be able to pitch up to 96 MPH on his fastball. Pitchers in the past have had success coming back at this period, like Jon Lieber for example. I agree with what you said, but Grilli's never been there to come back to, as far as being a good major league pitcher. However, because he got injured fairly young, he just may become a quality arm now that he's healthy.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Jan 29, 2005 -> 09:05 PM) OBP was a killer stat for the Sox last season. I think we were the best team in the AL to score with runners in scoring position, but we were the worst team in getting play into scoring position in the 1st place, I may be wrong on that, but it's something like that. If Pods can put up a .340 OBP the same as Willie leading off, but steal 70 bases, he'll be able to score a lot more runs. Hairston is too injury prone, and won't hit well enough to be a productive left fielder, which is most likely going to be his position for the Flubs, because they want won't move Walker, which I find strange, considering he ain't a good fielder anyway. It's amazing how quick this board is to put the label of "injury prone" on a player. Let a guy get one debillitating injury and he's forever "injury prone".

That statement is flat out inaccurate. He was injured in 2001. THAT particular injury (a torn tricep) ruin '01 and took all of 02 for him to recover. 2003 was typical Frank and he was doing great in 04 until he got hurt. So what we have here is one injury that took almost two years for him to fully recover. The most recent injury has cost half a season. So far. We don't what '05 will bring. But I'm more inclined to say it was the particular type of injury, rather than the injured, that was the reason for Frank's subpar 2002. But either way you slice it, this is not a trend. It's a one time occurance.