Balta1701

QUOTE (Middle Buffalo @ Dec 16, 2010 -> 12:40 PM) It's amazing to think that professional athletes in the past served in the military in the middle of their careers for several years. Much is made of Pat Tillman walking away from the NFL (and it should be recognized), but in the 40's it was pretty common for players to serve despite professional status. Imagine a world where Lebron James takes his talents to south Helmand province.

Artists renderings of a proposed nearly $1 billion stadium that would fit in as part of the LA Live complex just south of downtown L.A. Hopefully that link works.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Dec 16, 2010 -> 11:21 AM) But he was awful in April and May and September wasn't anything to write home about. He was lights out for 3 months. This is a very scary signing IMO. Bill James predicts a rather large crash. Why would this be the kind of guy Bill James would predict a large crash for? He's only 29 starting next year and he has a fairly good success record, albeit with a bad 2009 and an injury filled 2007 in it. Last years numbers as far as I can tell on hits, HR given up, BB/K ratio, BABIP, and all of those stats aren't out of line for his career numbers.

QUOTE (3E8 @ Dec 16, 2010 -> 11:06 AM) The difference between the Sox being a 90+ win playoff team and sitting at home in Oct in this current roster are Peavy and Quentin. All players have variation in performance throughout their career, but that range of Peavy/Quentin is large. If you combined their best seasons, the two alone would be worth over 10 wins. But both are injury prone, Quentin's range in RF is detrimental, and both could cause their contribution to be next to nothing. A conservative estimate of their 2011 combined worth is 3 wins considering Peavy has to come back from a serious injury and Quentin's defense remains quite poor. Projecting the rest of the roster out, those 3 wins from Peavy/Quentin leaves us at a high-80s win team currently. Last year, I'd have agreed with you, but I'd have done so because I though, with no DH and Jenks in the closer's spot, that we were counting on those 2 for a lot. This year, with Sale as the current 6th starter option and Dunn in that lineup, I don't think we're counting on those guys for nearly as much.

Link to obituary.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Dec 16, 2010 -> 10:15 AM) Jesse Crain had 62 k's in 68 innings against only 27 walks, for the highest k:9 of his career. He has only had one bad season where he was healthy, which was 2009. I think he's a safe bet to be a solid contributor out of the bullpen for the life of this contract. I love this signing. If you want to be pessimistic though, 2007 and 2009 were both bad seasons, and in 2007 he missed most of the year, so 2 out of the last 4 seasons have been down seasons for him.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 16, 2010 -> 10:17 AM) They have also said that our budget is supposed to be $110 million, and we are going to blow through that with the arb guys. And no one thought that was a "we don't need to over-bid on Jesse Crain because we won't have competition from the White Sox" Gambit?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 16, 2010 -> 10:18 AM) At this point it has way more to do with his being a second rate Jay Mariotti than anything else. And if you'll remember...didn't pretty much every thread wind up deteriorating into Mariotti-ripping around 2006 or so? Same deal. Except now with Twitter.

The FCC appears poised to vote on the proposal that would legalize companies charging different rates for different content providers and allow things like Comcast limiting access to Netflix. I think we can safely say that the end of the fully free-flowing internet has arrived.

While we're on the subject of BP, Wikileaks chimed in today.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 16, 2010 -> 09:52 AM) I'm sure the poorest will appreciate this new tax. WTF?

You think he ever sprayed urine on his veal parmigana?

QUOTE (since56 @ Dec 16, 2010 -> 09:39 AM) Is Crain better than Putz? Besides signing Dunn this team has not changed much. If JJ Putz had been 100% healthy, the answer would be no. Putz would have outpitched him last year. Given that Putz was injured and awful in August, and Crain stayed healthy the whole year, it's a lot closer. You could still make the case for Putz, or that Crain has been too inconsistent in his career, but this dude was downright filthy in the 2nd half last year while Putz faltered. In the 2nd half he gave up a 2.14 ERA and a .491 OPS.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Dec 16, 2010 -> 08:55 AM) Yeah, what LH is available? I know Feliciano is. But that's probably another 3-year deal. There's Joe Beimel (however you spell it). Ron Mahay is old and sucks now. I just can't see another multi-year deal handed out to another reliever. It's gonna have to be a trade. There's still that Tim Byrdak whose name keeps cropping up here.

QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ Dec 16, 2010 -> 09:15 AM) On paper, this team is better than last year's team. The lineup is much better, and the starting pitching is about the same...better if Peavy comes back healthy. And the bullpen looks fairly solid right now. Konerko will most likely not repeat 2010, but he could still be a .270, 30 HR, 90+ RBI guy. Buehrle may actually be better, as someone pointed out he was a bit unlucky at times. Realistically, this team should be a 90+ win team. A lot will depend on how Alexei, Gordon, and Rios come out of the gate. There are 2 obvious "Losses" from the lineup in terms of production. First, we've lost Andruw Jones, who was legitimately good for a few wins last year. Second, we've probably gone from the MVPaulie to the regular 30-ish HR paulie, which is a win or two as well. That production on its own solely ought to be made up by having Dunn in the lineup instead of Kotsay. You could add in that Rios might not have the same May that he did last year again and thus have fewer wins, that would hurt as well. Pierre could take another step backwards, but honestly I doubt that as consistent as he's been. Quentin could be even worse, but if that happens he's going to be replaced by De Aza or someone like that mid-season. On top of that, we've removed a negative player from 3b and at least replaced with nonnegative defense (Teahen to Morel). Alexei had a good year last year, but we all know he still has even better in him if he can get past the crappy start. Outside of Konerko and Rios, it's hard to point at anyone in the lineup and say "this guy had a career year last year". Quentin, Beckham, Alexei, Morel, AJ, there's legitimately 5 guys who have a ton of upside on offense.

QUOTE (bmags @ Dec 16, 2010 -> 09:03 AM) Collins and Snowe are on board. We just need 1 more. Those 2 voted in favor of the filibuster last time. They're classic "Lucy with the football" candidates. "I'm on board, but I want 2 weeks of debate on the bill." " 2 weeks of debate and the session ends before there's ever a vote. You're trying to make sure you never actually have to vote on it." "I want 3 weeks of debate on the bill."

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Dec 16, 2010 -> 09:02 AM) Which is why I wonder why they couldn't take care of it in the off-season. He seemed fine yesterday. They did say that it's been bothering him for a while, he's been playing through a fair amount of pain, he keeps getting hit on that spot, and really, he hasn't dominated games on the boards for the past couple weeks like he was for the first few weeks of the season.

They have said in no uncertain terms that Chris Sale will break camp with this team. That was about the most emphatic thing they said all offseason.

The House passed, by an overwhelming margin, a standalone repeal of Don't ask, Don't tell, late last night. The Senate will once again attempt to take up this bill, but as with before, it is subject to the filibuster.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 16, 2010 -> 08:42 AM) The Gonzalez article mentioned the Sox are looking for a left reliever as well. Got me thinking, if the pen is currently this: Thonton Crain Sale Santos Pena Infante ?? long man And if they are looking for a lefty... that tells me they don't want Sale in the pen. They want him starting. And that tells me they are going to trade an SP, most likely. I gotta disagree. If I look at that exact bullpen you just wrote...I see 1 situational lefty, Sale. If Thornty is closing, he's not available if Mauer, Morneau, and Thome come up with a runner on in the 7th inning. Ozzie has as far as I can remember always had 2 situational lefties. Even if Sale stays in the bullpen for the full year, there's no 2nd situational lefty. I think Sale starts some during the year, which makes that issue even worse.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Dec 16, 2010 -> 08:38 AM) I agree completely. I was content with the 'pen as is before the Crain signing. Now with Crain in place, I think the potential for the 'pen to be well above average is there. I'd rather not dish out another multi-year deal to another reliever (Wood). Let's see if for once we can produce one (Infante, Carter, Bellamy). As for the premise of the thread, I've made it pretty well known that I wasn't satisfied with the direction the team looked to be headed in. And I'm still skeptical that will ever be able to go on a sustained run with our inability to produce from within. But as far as 2011 goes, we should be pretty damn good. And if we could get rid of JP, I'd give up booze forever. The one thing I'd really like to see is another obvious candidate for the LH reliever position if Thornty is genuinely going to be closing. It seems like there's a good shot Sale spends some time starting next year based on how people have talked, and even if he's in the pen, that gives only Sale as the situational lefty.

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ Dec 16, 2010 -> 08:43 AM) Damn when did Jake Peavy piss in your cereal ? He means Juan Pierre, in case you couldn't tell.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Dec 15, 2010 -> 11:00 PM) I believe we'll see big performance drops from Buehrle and Konerko next year. My biggest concern is I don't see the top of the Sox rotation being able to compensate for Buehrle and the 5th spot. I understand the logic on Konerko, but Buehrle, there's no obvious reason to think he's going to go down in his stats. His numbers last year weren't obviously bad, and on top of it, he looked to be somewhat unlucky in his stats. Career high in BABIP, with no obvious increase in things like the Line Drive rate he gave up last year (i.e. he gave up more hits but without giving up more walks or harder hit balls).

QUOTE (daggins @ Dec 15, 2010 -> 11:18 PM) Q, Beckham bad - 85-88 wins Q, Beckham good - 90+ wins SCIENTIFIC LIKE I said that last year about Quentin. This year, I think we're a ton deeper.

QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ Dec 16, 2010 -> 07:17 AM) This is the best I've felt about this team in a while. The offense looks downright imposing, and the starting pitching could be quite scary...especially if Peavy comes back healthy. The bullpen is the only concern right now, and the Crain signing makes it a little less concerning. One more quality bullpen arm and this team should easily compete for the AL Central and even the AL. Hell, even if they don't bring another arm in: Thornton, Sale, Santos, Crain, Infante, Pena is a (potentially) solid 6 man pen, with a couple guys who can go more than 1 inning (Sale, Pena).