Balta1701

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Nov 8, 2007 -> 10:00 AM) He is a good clubhouse leader, but that worries me as its been said Konerko doesnt like to have his leadership threatened in the locker room. On a 70 win team...someone better be threatening the leadership/

LOL, seriously, how the Hell could both teams not try jumping at that. It does exactly what both of them need. Gives the Yankees a dominant #1, gives the Padres more youth, saves them money, fills that CF hole. This is what I'm talking about when I start talking about how teams have begun overvaluing prospects. When even the Yankees won't trade guys they really don't need for Jake Peavy, you know that the prospect value system has gotten out of whack. There's an opening somewhere for a team, maybe someone like the Braves, to make a big move by unloading a few of these high value prospects for really good players...despite the fact that a high value prospect will often produce no where near as much as the guys you'd be getting.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Nov 8, 2007 -> 08:19 AM) That is a good point. And to a large extent, I agree. I guess what I cannot understand is at what point is anything "acceptable", and where do you draw the line? I have a hard time with this issue, because I realize the need to get information, but at what cost/price (depending on how you look at it)? Is it possible that there is no firm line, but that one must actually be drawn discussing certain techniques? I think the blanket Geneva convention type rule that anything that causes psychological or physical harm on a patient is a good guideline for starters, as that obviously rules out 95% of the potential issues, so you can't like beat, shoot, punch, etc. a prisoner to start getting a confession. Beyond that, with that description, sometimes it seems you do need to legislate specific techniques to actually define the line; because what causes permanent psychological harm in one person may not do so in another. One person who is waterboarded may suffer lifetime scars from being broken that way, another might not. So, you sort of draw the line in the law as well as you can. Is waterboarding torture? Well, if I were writing the laws, I'd sure define it that way, and hopefully Congress will too. Beyond that though, you get even murkier, and you get into the realm of sleep deprivation, loud music, and direct humiliation (i.e. the ol trash the Koran in front of a Muslim). I think that the latter should probably be banned, I'd say that stressful positions are probably beyond my limits (that's the ol lock a person in a box for a few days technique), and sleep deprivation probably isn't helpful either. But it's hard to say that 100% of the time those cross that first line, but it's also not 0% of the time, and so legislation specifying those techniques as inappropriate seems like the correct solution.

Seems like he'd never have been coming here anyway, even if they wanted to do the deal at the top level.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Nov 8, 2007 -> 09:26 AM) You forgot Uribe. Who else do we have named Juan?

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Nov 8, 2007 -> 09:25 AM) Yeah, that's sort of my point. EVERYONE else would have to refuse and even then, Florida would have to be willing to accept our, uh, leftovers? If the option is between the White Sox's leftovers and having Cabrera walk in a year for 2 draft picks after costing you an additional $12 million you can't afford, don't you take the leftovers as opposed to starving? Honestly, I wouldn't think it's totally out of the question either. Look at the lack of deals the last few years at the trading deadline. This year we had Tex moving and that was it. Teams just aren't willing to trade anything resembling a prospect for an established guy because of the rapidly growing money difference. It's gotten incredibly extreme. It's actually possible that this is where the value in the market lies right now; trading a few prospects for veterans, because that's what no one else is doing.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Nov 8, 2007 -> 09:04 AM) Yes. Didn't they promise them the first time around that they wouldn't reveal positive tests? But yes, I definitely believe that the game of baseball would go and has gone to steps to ensure that people either don't test positive or it doesn't come out. Yes. The first round of tests in 2003 was done with several months warning and a complete promise of anonymity. I believe Mitchell tried to get his hands on those results and I don't know if he ever did. We do know that somewhere between 5-10% of MLB wound up testing positive in those tests, even with several months of warning.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Nov 8, 2007 -> 09:10 AM) Who are you thinking about, specifically? I'm drawing a blank as to names comparable to Broadway in any way. I'm thinking about the money thrown at guys like Gil Meche, Jason Marquis, Ted Lilly, the amount that's about to be thrown at Silva, etc. He needs to step up to the point of actually being a #5 starter to get there, but that's certianly not out of the question.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 8, 2007 -> 08:38 AM) I liked what I saw of his MLB start, but it was just one start. His track record seems to indicate he's marginal for being a major league starter. We've seen several teams in the last year give up surprising amounts for 5th starter type people who do nothing but eat innings.

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Nov 8, 2007 -> 08:38 AM) I have strong doubts about that last part. Perhaps in Petco they could have good seasons; not at USCF. For starters, Colon's shoulder is shot, meaning the 93-96 MPH fastball he had when he was with the Sox is likely down to 82-92 MPH territory, and he just won't get by on that. Just IIRC, when Bartolo came back, his fastball was almost right where it was beforehand.

QUOTE(CWSGuy406 @ Nov 7, 2007 -> 07:09 PM) It's not high-risk at all, even though you're trying to paint it that way. He's going to get at most what, $2.5-3 million dollars? If he sucks you'll know that by July 1st. Start him off in low-leverage innings, pitching middle relief. If he succeeds for the first month-and-a-half, two months, start using him as Jenks' setup man. As far as at the beginning of the year when you're not sure whether he's good or not, you have a couple of options. First is hoping Thorton and MacDougal bounce back -- both certainly have the stuff to bounce back, and it took a lot of bad luck for both MacDougal and Thorton to be as mediocre (that's being nice) as they were in 2007. If by chance they still suck into next season, leverage the hell out of your LOOGY/ROOGY monster of Boone Logan and Ehren Wasserman. That's not awe inspiring by any means, but if used properly I'm confident they'll be effective. Despite how much I like the LOOGY/ROOGY combo, outside of those 2 I really don't like the concept of having 1 other right handed reliever other than this guy. At least to my eyes, if this guy is your 11th guy in the bullpen, the 2nd, early inning righty, then you have to plan to start the season with 12 relievers. April wins count just as much as September ones. If Wasserman's job is as a ROOGY and not a guy who can give you 2 innings, and we still don't have a clue what we have with MMac (we just know he can't give you 2 innings), then I'd think we'd need to start the season with a 7 man pen to be able to include this guy. Esp. if Danks, Contreras, and Floyd have rotation spots, or even 2/3.

George W. Bush, saying with a straight face "you can't be President and head of the military at the same time".

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Nov 7, 2007 -> 05:23 PM) Good. We need at least 1 maybe 2 acquisitions into our bullpen, and the best place to start would be from Japan. They have a good success rate in the 1st season, and you don't have to give up draft picks to sign them instead of a Scott Linebrink for instance. I hope we are targeting Iwase and Kobayashi too though. I dunno if I'm a fan of this. It's a high risk, high reward type signing. We've seen as many japanese guys come over on the mound in recent years and dominate as we've seen completely implode. We need, as far as I can tell, a key 8th inning type righy setup man, 7th inning if MMac could ever get his arm out of his ass. I'm just not sure I'm ready to put a guy who's never pitched in the MLB in that role.

QUOTE(TLAK @ Nov 7, 2007 -> 06:25 PM) I'd love it if the White Sox would take a flyer on Freddy Garcia. He won't be ready to pitch until the ASB so offer him a minors deal like the Yankee's did when Jon Lieber was coming back. It worked for them, the Vermin tried it with Wade Miller and it didn't. Even if Garcia's arm never gets better you can write it off as a reward for Game 7 in WS. Garcia is the gutsiest pitcher I've seen since Jack McDowell. He might do better than what I'm suggesting somewhere else but I'd still love to see him have a shot of getting back with the team. Garcia's never seen a World Series game 7. We were way too damn good to lose 3 games.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Nov 7, 2007 -> 12:45 PM) Heh . . . I'm not saying the two situations are necessarily comparable but it is pretty funny that I can so easily plug Uribe's name into some of the posts from the Pods Signs thread from Dec. 1st of '06. You win this round...

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Nov 7, 2007 -> 12:33 PM) The national polls with 52 weeks to election day have Rudy Guilliani at 28%, Thompson in second at 19%, McCain in 3rd at 16%, and Romney in 4th at 11% The Dem side has Hillary still with a sizable lead, but it has gotten MUCH smaller. She went from a 51% to 21% advantage over Obama to a 44% to 25% advantage from the last CNN poll in October. http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/11/05/poll.presidential.08/ Right now, all I really care about is the Iowa data. And here's what it says: Poll Date Sample Romney Huckabee Giuliani Thompson McCain Spread RCP Average 10/10 - 10/29 - 28.8 15.5 13.8 12.0 7.8 Romney +13.3 ARG 10/26 - 10/29 600 LV 27 19 16 8 14 Romney +8.0 Univ. of Iowa 10/17 - 10/24 285 LV 36 13 13 11 6 Romney +23.0 Strategic Vision ® 10/12 - 10/14 600 LV 27 12 13 10 5 Romney +14.0 Rasmussen 10/10 - 10/14 650 LV 25 18 13 19 6 Romney +6.0

QUOTE(Chombi and the Fungi @ Nov 7, 2007 -> 12:31 PM) The thing about that is that was the tribune. I think everyone on here has expected more to be in the deal. I wouldve done that deal w/o consideration at all. It also reflects how poor everyone else views our prospects. Gio = a 3 starter yet we view him as an Ace or something. All the more reason to make a deal like this. If our farm system is truly this weak then why would it hurt in the long run to dump a bunch of 3 starters and a 3rd baseman like Fields? DLS, Gio, Fields, and... Dumping all those guys leaves us with even less. Here's the thing to consider; which one would leave the Sox better off, Cabrera playing next to say Andy Gonzalez with Haeger on the mound or Fields with Gio on the mound. We may not have a Kershaw coming up right now, but we at least have guys who might be able to pull off the average to above average big leaguer. If we trade all those guys for a big money guy, then we're left with that big money guy next to guys who are at best below average big leaguers.

He'll get $5 mil or more, I have no doubts about that. Teams seem more than willing these days to gamble that kind of money. I doubt he'll get $10 mil unless he takes a 2 year deal. He will not get "Something low with a bunch of incentives". Not with his record and his ability to throw a baseball. Bringing in a guy like Colon or Garcia makes sense to me if 1 condition is met first: we can trade both Garland and Contreras. If we can do that, it cuts hopefully enough salary from the pitching rotation for us to take a 1 year gamble, and that gamble can be cut short to make room for either Gio, Egbert, Broadway, Sisco, or Haeger midseason if it goes bad Otherwise, if we trade Contreras or Garland, but not both, then all this type of move would do is block one of the younger, significantly cheaper guys who have a shot at giving us equal or better numbers. If nothing else, we at least have like 5 AAAA type players right now who could start as that 5th starter, which is not a terribly bad spot to be in, as it lets us save some money simply due to volume.

QUOTE(Vance Law @ Nov 7, 2007 -> 12:27 PM) In roughly one week's time? Work out a trade along the lines of various fantasy joke trades suggested here? Not even any of those were upgrades for us? One year of Garland for one year of Furcal? That's retarded. Jack Wilson? After Vizquel signs for $5.5 million the only remotely possible solution was Eckstein which would have been a disaster. Too many years, too much money per year for a singles hitter who can hit .300 in the NL Central, has been breaking down physically, and who is a gigantic downgrade defensively at ss. Personally, I still kinda like the Furcal one. But that depends a lot on if he's healthy...and perhaps more importantly, what else, if anything, the Dodgers threw in (either some money or players based on the value of a pitcher). Then again, I wouldn't think this move handicaps us in any of those moves, as our bench was really, really depleted by the end of last year, and being able to move Uribe around the IF, and maybe stick him in the OF if we were desperate, could be worth that money. It also appears that Uribe could be a useful trading chip somewhere as well for one of these teams looking for a short term solution at SS (Cardinals?)

QUOTE(BMac Attack @ Nov 7, 2007 -> 11:50 AM) I'm not the biggest Uribe-hater out there, but there were and are better options than giving him $4.5 million dollars to eat/strike out a whole lot. Who?

Borat endorses Obama

QUOTE(AssHatSoxFan @ Nov 7, 2007 -> 09:52 AM) what about the Loud grunter who has to let everyone in the entire gym know that he is stronger and buffer than you for every single rep he does Dude, the guys' benching 450, give him a break.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Nov 7, 2007 -> 10:04 AM) I think if they trade Crede, there's still a good chance Eckstein comes here. Sorry Rock Raines. The White Sox have thought that Uribe may be better if not a regular but a guy that moves around like his first year with the White Sox. How do people think Uribe would do in the Of spots these days? How was he back in 04 when he spent time in CF for those who can remember?