Balta1701

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jun 11, 2008 -> 02:57 PM) Probably good. I still would like to see Quentin get a day off, since he's a little cold at the plate and looks like he might be wearing down a bit (after carrying the offense for a month or more). Hopefully that happens tomorrow. Q had a pair of hits yesterday IIRC.

QUOTE (VAfan @ Jun 11, 2008 -> 02:49 PM) We won in 2005 in large part because we had 4 dominant starters. We might have gotten by with 3. But it's better to have 4, esp. in a 7-game series. I know it's waaaaaayyyyy early, but how do our starters match up against the top guys for the Bosox or Angels? We're beating those teams staffs now because we're deeper, and because they've lost top guys to injury. But how will we compare in October? Jose Contreras Javy Vazquez Gavin Floyd Mark Buehrle John Danks John Lackey Jon Garland Joe Saunders Ervin Santana Jared Weaver Josh Beckett D. Matsuzaka Tim Wakefield John Lester Bartolo Colon J. Masterson Injuries are going to play a role certainly at some point (Dice-K is on the DL as I type this I believe). If everyone comes out firing, then I'd say our top guy can match their top guy pitch for pitch. Javy worries me a little, he really folded when he was last in the playoffs with the Yankees, but stuff wise I'll take him over Garland, Dice-K could match him if he had a good day. Beyond that, Buehrle is probably the best starter left with good postseason experience, and then there's a lot of youth on each of those rotations.

QUOTE (SoxFanForever @ Jun 11, 2008 -> 02:27 PM) Call it a gut feeling but I think we will be pleasantly surprised with how he handles the job. I think so too. If you had asked me in Feb. what I wanted the next coach of the Bulls to be saying during his press conference, it would have been almost word for word what I'm reading Del Negro said. Take advantage of having guys like Noah, Tyrus, Luol who are young, athletic and mobile, start with defense first but push the tempo on offense, etc.

QUOTE (29andPoplar @ Jun 11, 2008 -> 01:29 PM) Brian Anderson in the lineup tonight, Konerko out. Well, Konerko has a career .347 OPS against Verlander, so if we're going to rest him, I guess that's as good of a day as any. (Anderson is 1/4 career against him)

QUOTE (VenomSox @ Jun 11, 2008 -> 11:52 AM) I know Beckham becomes the Sox best prospect. Does he rank in the top 100 overall? Players very rarely seem to reach top 100 lists before they've shown stuff in the minors...they take in to account what level those guys are at when they make the lists, which is why the top guys are usually AA and AAA players.

Give em Jell, Havy. Take care of Business, Toby Hall's pants.

QUOTE (thedoctor @ Jun 11, 2008 -> 12:42 PM) although i don't have much interest in garcia (i think loaiza will be the only semi-washed up pitcher we acquire in 08) i do have a slight concern over danks IP. i've read somewhere (can't recall where and can't find it again) that they'd like to keep him to 160 IP heading into october. but as has been mentioned above, loaiza and/or masset could probably make spot starts if necessary to lighten the workload a bit. i'm not nearly as concerned about floyd, primarily because he's a bigger guy and has thrown a lot of innings in the past. I'll raise my hand on this one. Danks has pitched roughly 130 innings each of the past 2 years. The rule of thumb in baseball is that it puts a pitcher at a much higher injury risk the next year if you increase their innings total by more than 30 or so innings for a young pitcher. That's where the 160 innings mark comes from with Danks. Floyd, this is less of a concern, since he's pushed 170+ innings between the bigs and the minors the last couple years, so he should be good to go even for a playoff run. But Danks, yes, we do have to be careful with his arm, especially when we get around the end of the year. A spot start from Loaiza or Masset will, if we can work it, not be the worst thing in the world, if it happens in August or July. And frankly, I think we ought to pencil Broadway in for 3 starts in September for exactly this reason.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Jun 11, 2008 -> 10:43 AM) what ever happened to the Recall thing? Did that ever get voted into law? Trust a Californian on this one...you don't want that in the law.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 11, 2008 -> 11:15 AM) http://www.bizzyblog.com/2008/06/10/dirty-...-climate-taxes/ Unfortunately, this is the boat we're in right now. As long as there are countries out there ignoring the problem, other countries will use them as an excuse to do nothing because the results aren't directly obvious. But then a few cities get lost, people panic, a step or two is taken, but then things die down. This may well be one of those things that just doesn't get done until its too late because the people who have to pay for it don't want to do so. The British won't really want to pay for climate control legislation until London is under water. The U.S. won't want to pay for climate control until it loses a few of its cities....wait a second...

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jun 11, 2008 -> 11:20 AM) While I agree that the retroactive aspect of the UK law is a horrible idea, I do think that a bracketed tax based on pollution levels is not a bad idea FOR NEW CARS UPON PURCHASE. This way, everyone is making a choice on how to spend their money. The problem with that strategy though is that it has a flaw, and it's a flaw that's shown up in the U.S. coal plant system. The U.S. coal plants grandfathered in a bunch of the older, highly polluting coal plants when all of the clean air legislation was written. But because they were allowed to keep running, they just kept running without upgrades, and because there was no punishment built in to the tax system to discourage them from still running, there was no motivation to do anything about them. So when a new power plant was built, it was built up to code, but the older ones keep chugging along without any reason to invest money in building more efficient and cleaner plants or upgrading them, and the companies that owned the older ones always fight to keep them open and hold on to them longer because it's more costly to do the upgrades than to pay the lobbyists.

By the way, this is now official. It is real, it actually happened, the Bulls have a head coach and he appears to be human.

Obama's tracking poll lead has been stable at 6-7 points for the last 3 days in Gallup's numbers, and Gallup has an analysis today of how women have rapidly begun migrating to Obama now that Hillary is out of the race.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jun 11, 2008 -> 06:11 AM) I wouldn't call any of these three guys high-level prospects, from what I have seen and read (which is admitedly limited). But I think all three have been successful and have good peripherals, and at least in Texeira's case, has been noted to have some plus stuff. That to me means that they are 0% guys. They are worth watching, because they may be valuable at a higher level. To me, that is the definition of a prospect - someone who MIGHT make it to the big leagues. Especially with bullpen guys though...if you're not projecting a guy to come in and be the next Huston Street or Bobby Jenks, then you're not projecting them to be "High level prospects". But there's been more than a few times that bullpen guys have come up with something funky or just had decent enough stuff that they've been able to pull off impressive performances over a fairly long career, even if they start late. Heck, You probably need 2 hands or more to list the bullpen guys that other teams have salvaged from the Sox when the Sox let a guy go for little. Majewski, Rauch, Grilli, Matt Guerrier, etc. They don't have to be great to be useful out in the bullpen.

QUOTE (juddling @ Jun 11, 2008 -> 08:11 AM) The thing with Donaghy is that it doesn't do a whole lot of good now that the man has no credibility. if these 'fixes' were in, and he was aware of them he should have said something back then...not after his butt is pinned to the wall. I'm not saying that what he says isn't true just that it's alot harder to believe him now as opposed to if he blew the whistle (no pun intended) a while ago. On the other hand though...in MLB...it took cheater after cheater and lawbreaker after lawbreaker to finally make the needed changes happen. Do I believe him totally on this? No. Because Hell, anyone, and I mean anyone, who watched that game thought it had to be fixed. If I was just another ref watching that game, and suddenly I was facing charges for fixing games...if I wanted to make up a story about the NBA fixing games that everyone would believe, which game would I pick? LA/Sacto game 6. So I can't just take him at his word, but I'm also not going to discount him just because he broke the law. If nothing else, I hope this spurs on a bit more investigation, because I think so many have long thought that game was dirty. On the other hand, I think there are people sitting on death row based on less reliable testimony than this...but that's another matter entirely.

Now the Lakers are in trouble. I can hear Hubie Brown over the crowd.

QUOTE (WhiteSoxfan1986 @ Jun 10, 2008 -> 07:37 PM) Ozzie not walking Cabrera with a base open Ozzie sending Jose out for the seventh Yeah, the phrase "Bad day all around" pretty much applies to everyone except maybe Alexei. Either way, it happened. It's over. Got a little kick in our tails today. Maybe a needed one. Let's get em tomorrow.

Kobe gets a Technical foul on him and it interrupts a fast break by the C's.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 10, 2008 -> 05:54 PM) How many lineouts can the Braves have in one game? I also can't believe the Braves signed Glavine. Did they really think he had anything left in the tank? If I'd asked you last October which pitcher had more left...Mussina or Glavine...your answer would have been?

And Alexei is a .300 hitter.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Jun 10, 2008 -> 06:08 PM) the old media? uh they are about 90% pro democrat... you should like that. I never really realized how deeply pro-Democrat they were until they managed to destroy the entire Republican party by helping lead them in to a completely disastrous war. The mendacity it took them to drag those innocent Republicans to their doom in Iraq is just remarkable.

And Kobe has shot 6 free throws in the first 5 minutes...

Argh, and then the wild pitch that could have scored him...

Come on Jim, no k's here, that's all I ask for.

Ugh, damnit PK, at least make some contact.

LOL, first time I've seen one of those all year.