whitesoxfan101

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Jun 30, 2010 -> 11:24 AM) 2006 was probably Ozzie over anyone to be honest because of the Mackowiak-Anderson bulls*** he was pulling in cf. He definitely played a very large role. I've never liked him as a game manager since then.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Jun 30, 2010 -> 11:22 AM) You skipped my like 4 posts stating that I was surprised to hear recently that the Bulls changed their stance on Joe Johnson. Hell, in the exact post you quoted I added "surprisingly". Give me a break. Well his quotes are an example of why speaking in absolutes is a really bad idea unless you're truly 100 percent sure.

QUOTE (Palehosefan @ Jun 30, 2010 -> 09:59 AM) I would NOT want to be part of that recruiting duo of $chool$. Yeah, Iowa State had better be ready to open the checkbook big time if they want that kid.

I'm not sure where the idea the Bulls had no interest in Joe Johnson came from. The only rumor I've even heard is they aren't keen on Amar'e, and we all know how much rumors mean.

QUOTE (SuperSteve @ Jun 30, 2010 -> 10:40 AM) RealGM boards are saying he reported it on his Twitter. I am at the point where I am prepared for Boozer and Johnson and I am happy with that. Well, 3rd or 4th in the East and out in the 2nd round every year is an improvement, and I guess some people might be happy with it if it plays out that way.

I'm still not sold on the Bosh trade to Miami yet even. Do we have any others sources confirming this report?

QUOTE (GoodAsGould @ Jun 30, 2010 -> 10:59 AM) Not specifically, could still sign Boozer/Amare at PF and Joe Johnson at SG and we have a pretty solid team. Those 2 would even allow us to make a 3rd move. You're not winning any championships with that team. You'd need a big 3rd move.

Yeah, you're in big trouble if you don't get Bosh or LeBron.

QUOTE (chimpy2121 @ Jun 30, 2010 -> 10:51 AM) But, but, but LeBron would never ever play with Wade. I'm sure he'll go there to be the 3rd highest paid player on the team, and maybe even have to take even less than the max he could take somewhere other than Cleveland. Good luck filling out the rest of that team too. As good as LeBron, Bosh, and Wade are, they can't even win a ring with literally a bunch of minimum salary guys around them. And i'm still not sure that works capwise.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jun 30, 2010 -> 10:40 AM) Why cant Lebron go to Miami? I thought if the Heat found a way to shed more salary (ie trading Beasley) they would have room for all 3. A Bosh sign and trade means he gets the extra 30 something million since he's technically signing at first with Toronto. That'd make it hard to afford all 3 of them since two would be true max deals. And even if they could (and I don't think they could), they'd almost literally have no money for anybody else. I think a Bosh sign and trade to Miami helps the Bulls chances. But it puts them 100 percent, all in on one guy. If they don't get that guy, they're doomed to mediocrity (or worse) for a very long time.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jun 30, 2010 -> 10:33 AM) If that happens, it isn't a huge deal. It pretty much means Lebron is going to go to Chicago or Cleveland. The Bulls just need to look at Amare or Johnson to join LBJ and sell him on that, imo. Well it kills the idea of Bosh coming here, which sucks. But I am with you that if it happens, it kills LeBron to Miami. I also think this might actually help the chances of him coming here if it's true. Are you going to beat Bosh and Wade in Cleveland? New York? New Jersey? How about in Chicago with Rose, Noah, and probably another pretty big name free agent?

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jun 30, 2010 -> 10:27 AM) Yeah ive had a pretty uneasy feeling since people said the Bulls were the favorite. They were only the favorites in the world of theory. The overexcitement people had over LeBron potentially coming here was always over the top, even if they actually still get him (and I think a Bosh sign and trade to Miami, it could easily be argued, would help their chances).

A Bosh sign and trade makes LeBron to Miami a lot less likely, even if true. Unless i'm misunderstanding some things. That'd still be not good though.

QUOTE (LVSoxFan @ Jun 30, 2010 -> 10:12 AM) I'm usually not one to jump on whipping boy bandwagons (remember how everybody piled on Rios last year?), but for my whipping boy dollar I'd say 50/50 right now between Teahen and Linebrink. Teahen for the obvious why-did-we-get-this-guy? factor; Linebrink because every time he comes into a game I cover my eyes. But in the past five years I can't think of anybody who exemplifies futility more than: McDougal. Geesh. Which is who Linebrink reminds me of. I actually think the hate on Teahen and Linebrink is a bit unique. The hate for them is also in large part hate on Kenny Williams because both acquisitions were dreaded and expected to fail from the moment they were made by the vast majority of people. Kenny had his reasons to make the moves (the bullpen sucked in '07, wanted to move Beckham to 2nd base this year), but both appeared to be disasters waiting to happen from day 1, and have not dissapointed thusfar.

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Jun 28, 2010 -> 11:34 PM) I honestly think if Steve Stone wasn't employed by the sox org., he would definitely be saying something about Ozzie and the lack of playing time for Dayan, like he did with Sweet Lou and Colvin. I mean it is probably killing him now to stay quiet about it. Of course not. Stoney knows where the bread comes from, and he doesn't want to suffer the same fate here as he did with that team a little bit to the north of us. Then again, in Stone's defense, the Dayan thing isn't the same thing yet as the Colvin thing. However, if things continue as they are and Stone keeps quiet, he certainly will look like a hypocrite. I will say in general, Stone isn't as critical of us as our announcer as he was of the Cubs as their announcer (or, at least as he was of them in the later days as their announcer). Maybe part of that was he just got tired of the whole Cub thing, which would be understandable. But still, I hope he understands he's really straddling the line of looking inconsistent.

Dallas and New Jersey are two teams that come to mind for Melo if he's traded IMO.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Jun 30, 2010 -> 09:55 AM) I don't know if I buy that. They played 12 post season games. That's 3 additional starts each for the rotation of 4 used in the playoffs. Those are MEGA high stress innings, we had guys throwing complete games and long outings quite a bit that postseason too of course, and I think the regular season inning totals (which also including a lot of high stress innings due to Cleveland, as well as a lot of close games because our offense wasn't dominant, to say the least) were also very high that year, even with as good as our bullpen was. The little things really add up.

I guess there is a report out of Cleveland today that LeBron is leaning towards staying? That'd make sense to report, it's one of the few angles of made up storytelling we haven't seen recently.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jun 30, 2010 -> 09:31 AM) The crazy thing was that Williams actually made 3 acquisitions to help that bullpen out, and all 3 were varying levels of adequate (Riske), good (Thornton), and great (MacDougal), and it was still just terrible. Jenks blew up in July and September of that year, the league finally realized that Neal Cotts only had 1 pitch, Cliff Politte had a worse season than Randy Williams is having now, Brandon McCarthy was not a middle reliever, Boone Logan was certainly not ready to be a relief pitcher for the Sox...it was ugly all-around. In 2005, 4 White Sox starters finished with an ERA below 4.00 (and Freddy was the highest at 3.87)...in 2006, no White Sox starter had an ERA below 4.25, and Contreras was the best at 4.27 (and in his final 22 starts, he posted a 5.32 ERA). The magic had definitely worn off. I think in the case of some of the bullpen guys, the pixie dust ran out. In the case of the starters, they just were exhausted from all of the innings they had to throw the previous season. It was worth those innings obviously since we won the whole thing, but it catches up to you eventually.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jun 29, 2010 -> 10:14 PM) Therefore the state can make any law limiting your right to bear arms, so long is it based on the states power to police itself and protect the people. So if the City of Chicago believes that the people of the city will be safer if no one can own a handgun, that is okay, it is their right to do it. But if the majority of the people of chicago, believe that we would be safer if no one can have a gun, why cant we make that decision? I think going from "the state can make any law limiting your right to bear arms" (which I don't think would be argued by many) to "if the city of Chicago believes that the people of the city will be safer if not one can own a handgun, or be able to bring a gun into court, that is okay, it is their right to do it" is quite a leap. Restrictions, even a lot of them, to own a gun are fine, but to outright ban them is difficult to defend in any Constitution, including the Illinois one (and yes, I read the portion of it you put in the above post, I still don't see how that allows outright gun bans anywhere). I also am not sure where you have the info that says "the majority of the people of chicago believe that we would be safer if no one can have a gun". It might be true, but just posting that with nothing to back it up makes it a sketchy point. Was there a vote I missed which shows that you're right and the people of Chicago made the decision to ban guns? I always thought Richie decided that one. And even if you're right and the people of Chicago really do believe the city would be safer if nobody had a gun and actually did make that decision and I somehow missed it, there are two problems. First, it's very debatable as to if the gun ban actually made anybody safer. But second, and perhaps more relevant, I don't think it's their place to decide what is and isn't Constitutional. Your post had A LOT of really good points in it, but those were a couple I was a bit puzzled by.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jun 30, 2010 -> 08:48 AM) That entire team took one giant step backwards in the second half. The offense went from an .829 OPS in the first half to a .778 in the second, the starter's ERA went from 4.60 to 4.71, and the relievers ERA went from 4.06 to 5.14. There are a lot of reasons that '06 team failed, and Mackowiak's defense in CF was just one of them. I agree with Balta that it could be reasonably argued that Mack's defense in CF cost us 5+ games (and thus a playoff spot) in 2006, even when you take the solid offensive year I believe he had into account (I'm just about positive his average and on base were both quite high). However, the bolded is the thing that really killed us the 2nd half of that year IMO. The offense did dropoff, and defense really hurt us, but I still think we could have ended up in the playoffs if not for our relievers dying. The '05 bullpen pixie dust picked a really bad time to run out for us.

I really think it's all mental with Gordon, which is the scary part. It's one thing to have a swing flaw, you can just fix that once you find it. But if it is indeed mental, you wonder about his ability to recover. Gordon wouldn't be the first superprospect to lose it mentally and never find it again.

QUOTE (sircaffey @ Jun 30, 2010 -> 12:44 AM) LeBron's going to meet with teams over 3 days, so nothing much will happen until then. I'm thinking he'll make a "verbal commitment" by the end of the weekend. He doesn't really need to do anything until the 8th though since that's the earliest he can sign.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 30, 2010 -> 12:42 AM) Vizcaino was actually quite solid for us for much of that season. Unfortunately, he had to take a few outings for the team (much like Tony Pena now) which blew up his numbers and skewed the hell out of them. Yeah, Pena this year and Vizcaino in '05 is a pretty good comparison. I guess Vizcaino just stood out as "bad" since the rest of the pen was basically ridiculous, although Marte had a mega high WHIP IIRC and was for sure falling off. Speaking of whipping boys who probably didn't deserve it in our fanbase, Damaso Marte. He was absolutely awesome in 2002 and 2003, even 2004 was pretty good. But he just drove everybody nuts.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 29, 2010 -> 11:50 PM) Should happen tomorrow!