Balta1701

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jun 9, 2010 -> 04:55 PM) Interesting. Well, they'll be A LOT of pissed off people (mainly Nationals fans) if the difference between making the playoffs and sitting at home came down to an innings limit. And I think they'd be more pissed if he hit the DL next year.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 9, 2010 -> 04:09 PM) How about "Obama lied and the Gulf of Mexico died"? Well, both the Obama lie and the Bush lie were directly the result of trying to get the country more oil...

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jun 9, 2010 -> 04:41 PM) This is an amazing time to be a baseball fan (although a s***ty time to be a Sox fan). I'm just glad none of these guys are on the Cubs or anybody from our division. Joe Mauer. Austin Jackson Brennan Boesch (seriously, again, wtf?)

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jun 9, 2010 -> 04:35 PM) I wonder does the innings/pitch count restriction go out the window if the Nationals are legitimately in the playoff hunt? It'd be pretty impossible to justify pigeonholing your best pitcher with a playoff birth in reach. I don't think there is any out for it, and I wouldn't be surprised if Boras's people had been 100% insistent on that. Hypothetically, let's imagine that the Nationals start off the season near .500, and that they keep Stras in the minors for 2 months to save themselves the arb year, so he pitches say, 55.1 innings. The most innings Stras has ever thrown before this year was 128, counting last year's AFL stint (Where, IIRC, some of the Sox minor leaguers actually got to him). He threw 109 in college last year. So, now the Nats call Stras up, he helps pitch them into the playoff hunt, but he comes up on 100 innings. Now he's thrown 150 innings this year, an increase of 22+ from last year, and they've been presumably harder innings (pennant race, MLB level). It's Verducci Effect territory. The only reason that kind of clause would show up in his contract is that Boras's people projected exactly how the season would go, and they knew that the Nats, in a playoff hunt, would have the temptation to Dusty Baker him in order to make their first playoff round in D.C., if they got close at all, and they weren't going to let the team risk his arm on one season.

QUOTE (spiderman @ Jun 9, 2010 -> 04:13 PM) That's pretty much how I see it - and I think the payroll will go south of $90 million. If that happens, then you go from having $12 million available to about $7 million available, depending on exact arb figures for Q and D1, assuming Q is actually offered arbitration. When I look at those sorts of plausible numbers, I really see no option other than this; if we want to compete next year, we either need to strike gold on about 7 guys all signed for $1 million, or we need to move 1-2 of our contracts to both free up salary and grab someone else who can fill those holes.

He absolutely has to be.

QUOTE (mmmmmbeeer @ Jun 9, 2010 -> 03:07 PM) Even going back as far as 2005, the benefit of having Ozzie Guillen as manager was never his ability to manage a ballgame and be an x's and o's guy. Ozzie's contribution has always been his ability to motivate, deflect negative attention, and keep a clubhouse loose. Well, I'm not seeing much motivation from our players, there's plenty of bad press about this team and Ozzie's antics are no longer putting that bad press on page 2, and, from the looks of it, our team is far from loose. So what exactly is it that Ozzie is providing this team? And I don't mean to imply that KW is without fault for this dreadful season; ultimately all roster decisions are on him regardless of what Ozzie requests. But, perhaps it's just me, I would have never put this team at 9 games under .500 in mid-June given the opening day roster and early season schedule. There were plenty of threads on this board and articles in the national media talking about our rotation being in the top 5 of MLB. We were also supposed to have a decent pen. So yes, the offense didn't look great coming into the season, but with the pitching we were supposed to have we'd be in it to grab a bat closer to the deadline. The pitching flopped and you can't put that on KW. So yeah, mark me down as wanting Ozzie canned for being a sh*t manager, not because of his roster requests. Finally a post I can use this smiley for.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 9, 2010 -> 03:52 PM) Balta, they have the freedom to purchase more speech then you. Duh. But we don't have the freedom to decide to do something about that.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 9, 2010 -> 03:43 PM) His slider is nowhere near the pitch it was in the past. That's the biggest difference. He used to get a ton of swings and misses on that pitch. His fastball is about what it used to be. Usually when a pitcher loses something because of age though, it's his fastball. If he's lost his slider, that sounds like one of 2 things to me; either it's a change in his mechanics (which we know has happened) or it's a nagging injury (which may have happened). One of those, he's likely to correct. The other, he's likely to Liriano.

Commentary.

OH COME ON

QUOTE (docsox24 @ Jun 9, 2010 -> 02:57 PM) True but smart baseball people also have to have the foresight to recognize whether it really is a few bad starts or a bad pitcher. That's the tough part and something we won't really know for a while still. After his few starts last year, I can't believe this is anything but a few bad starts unless there's a serious injury he's hiding.

QUOTE (T R U @ Jun 9, 2010 -> 02:53 PM) I swear Kotsay has come up with the bases loaded at least 4 times from the 5 hole and I honestly cant remember a single time he did anything with that opportunity.. Kotsay is 0/6 this season with the Bases Loaded.

The one thing that annoys me but doesn't surprise me about that article is that it doesn't point out that every time they tried to put a delay on any sort of drilling, the (usually Republican) local Senators responded by blocking a dozen or so more Obama nominees. Although it is nice to see the Republicans here starting to agree with us that the flow rate has been deliberately set low from the start to protect BP.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Jun 9, 2010 -> 01:15 PM) Any predictions for the CA general elections? Fiorina vs Boxer Whitman vs Brown The Dems will take both. The Republican primaries pushed both of those candidates so far to the right that it's going to be way too easy for Brown and Boxer to run the "Carly Fiorina said xxxx about immigration" ad.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jun 9, 2010 -> 01:28 PM) i'm just so shocked fiorino won. She's such a terrible candidate. She was a failure as an executive, failure as a McCain flac, and the only thing remarkable about her campaign has been incredibly modern and awesome viral commercials. Otherwise she says a bunch of stupid s***. She spent like $75 million of her own money. The TV channels in California are absolutely thrilled she won.

QUOTE (CrimsonWeltall @ Jun 9, 2010 -> 12:24 PM) It might not be *lethal*, but if someone whipped a baseball-sized rock into your face, it would do some major damage. Baseball sized rocks are heavy. Whip a few of those and you're going for Tommy John.

QUOTE (jamesdiego @ Jun 9, 2010 -> 01:16 PM) They should have some dough, assuming Jenks and Putz would not be here. And possibly Konerko too, even though we need him next year. Our options would be limited regardless. Adam Dunn would be out of out price range. I guess we could buy low on Derrek Lee & Matsui, but would they even want to play for us? If you do the math and assume the Sox will spend about $95 million next year on salary (that could be an overestimate), then the Sox have somewhere in the range of $10-$12 million to spend. They'll have holes at DH, 1b, C, all 4 bench slots, and at least 2 bullpen slots including closer (or chief LH setup man if they move Thornton to closer). Viciedo and Flowers probably will fill 2 of those spots, but that means $10-$12 million to divide amongst 6-7 players. Unless they can move some salary this year to put savings towards next year, they'll be trying to find bargains again.

QUOTE (soxfan-kwman @ Jun 9, 2010 -> 12:15 PM) Ozzie is a good manager and Kenny is a good GM. However, they need to revamp with what they have. 5 things: 1. New hitting coach or additional hitting coach (special assistant) 2. Put Cora back at 3b coach 3. Put Gordon Beckham at 3b for the rest of the year, Nix to Short, & Ramirez back to 2B. (I would say put Beckham at SS, but Ramirez would probably sulk & not help improve the team) 4. Make no trades, Bat AJ 5th. 5. Put Andruw in the field more often, let Kotsay play a more reserve role. Wow, I think I agree with 1 of those at most.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jun 9, 2010 -> 12:09 PM) Is that a scientific conclusion? I'm pretty sure I could take a small rock from 25 feet away and if I hit you you'd be severly injured. I'm not saying what this guy did was right, but, at some point you gotta think throwing rocks at guys with guns is gonna end badly. If I'm standing out in the open and you hit me from behind at 25 feet with a rock of a few pounds, yes, I'd probably be bruised, but that's because I'm neither prepared for it nor wearing any sort of protection. Furthermore, it's not going to severely injure me. Once you start getting to the weight of rocks that would cause any actual damage beyond a small bruise on an unpadded person, you can't throw it that far. Maybe the exact number is 25 feet, maybe it's 10, but either way, there is no way that they're going to throw a rock far enough that would actually put people's lives in danger unless they're reasonably within non-lethal ordinance range.

QUOTE (GoodAsGould @ Jun 9, 2010 -> 12:00 PM) Danks is still pretty young, I dont understand the point in trading him. He's a free agent at the end of 2012, he's rejected every offer the Sox have made to sign him long-term so far, and it's entirely possible that he could be up for on the order of a 6-7 year, $15-$20 million a year deal.

QUOTE (daa84 @ Jun 9, 2010 -> 11:56 AM) if you aren't sold on this kid, then there just isnt any young player you will ever be sold on Didn't say I wasn't sold on it. You can put out a crappy commercial for a great product.

QUOTE (dmbjeff @ Jun 9, 2010 -> 11:50 AM) Kotsay has played like a regular. He starts about 4-5 times a week. The only reason he starts and Ozzie has said as much, is because they need a left handed bat in the lineup to break up the righties. He is a pretty crappy left handed bat. Aubrey Huff, Jim Thome, Damon, Matsui all would have been much better choices. You are 100% correct, those guys would have been better choices. However...2 points. First...the only one of those options you list capable of being a backup 1b is Aubrey Huff. And considering he's basically a starter in S.F., I don't know why he'd have come to Chicago. You could always offer him more money, but really, please tell me who though offering $4 million+ to Aubrey Huff to be a backup 1b/DH/corner OF was a sane idea? Kotsay has 1 other job on this team other than being DH, and that's giving Konerko extra time off. And Konerko's having a dynamite season. And second...Can anyone honestly tell me that if we replaced Kotsay's .600 OPS with a .750-.825 OPS by signing Damon or Matsui for $9 million this year...or if we replaced him with Thome and his actually solid numbers, again playing part time, we'd be a .500 team? Honestly. We're scoring as many runs with this lineup as we did with last year's lineup, even in the first half with JD and Thome playing well. And the rest of the league is down in offense, so we're actually producing runs, relative to the league, at a better pace than last year. Unless signing Thome, Matsui, Huff, whatever...would fix the pitching staff, or would turn Quentin and Beckham into all-stars, then you guys are spending all this effort complaining about guys 22-25 on the roster when guys 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, and 10 are bloody failures. You're looking at the Gulf of Mexico and complaining about the small other oil leak from the 2nd platform that no one has heard about, and then filling up at a BP station and wondering why you're getting dirty looks for it.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jun 9, 2010 -> 11:39 AM) Good, I f***ing hate cats. G*d D*mnit.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jun 9, 2010 -> 11:33 AM) Tazers have a very short effective range, like 10 feet for it to be of real use. They can go further, but with like zero accuracy. If the police were farther than 10 feet away, then the rocks they were being hit with are non-threatening.