Balta1701

Even with the main problem of this season being the bullpen...his main job is to fix the SS hole, and it's not even really close. We have lots of depth in the other spots. Whether or not they succeed is a different matter. I can probably give you 8-9 possible solid bullpen candidates for next year. I can give you 4 OF candidates that the Sox currently have, not counting Dye. I can give you 6 starting pitchers without counting Gio or Broadway. But I can give you 0 major league caliber shortstops on this team right now.

QUOTE(Kid Gleason @ Aug 2, 2007 -> 05:42 PM) The least the government could do then is post a list on the internet of such bridges so that we have a knowledge of where things are a little less than "safe". Your wish is MSNBC and my command.

No, I'm not going to use his nickname, but Colts DT Anthony McFarland appears to be pretty much done for the season after tearing up his knee.

QUOTE(Shadows @ Aug 6, 2007 -> 10:33 AM) If they help so much, why is Bonds pretty much the only player who has done anything while "on them". Why isn't Neifi Perez badass? Why did Jason Giambi crumble, yet Bonds has shown no sign of slowing down? What about those 100 or so unnamed players who failed tests in 2003 when they first tested? Because some people react different ways to different drugs and different treatments of any sort. There are some drugs you hope will work in a known way most of the time, but there are always warnings about side effects. Not every person who takes an erectile dysfunction drug goes blind or suffers a heart attack. In the same way, not every person who overloads on steroids, which btw is an incredibly risky and untested thing to do with who knows what sort of side effects, and on top of it undertakes programs designed to hide the doping from steroid tests, is going to turn into a monster. Not every body type is capable of adding 100 pounds of muscle in 3 years, but some are. Not every steroid works the same way; you can take some steroids like Winstrol, what Raffy was on, to improve things like the strength of the muscle tissue you have and its response abilities without blowing yourself up into a Giambi/Bonds Monster. And beyond that, some people can take steroids, just like any drug, and suffer no reprocussions in the short-term, while others can take those same drugs, and either wind up with a pituitary cancer, or wind up depressed and committing suicide, etc. Not every person who takes a single steroid turns into Bonds, just the way that not every steroid abuser winds up committing suicide. An awful lot depends on how each particular body reacts to the specific program it was on.

Soriano appears to be out for the better part of a month with a strained Quad muscle. And this is of course the biggest issue with giving 8 year contracts to guys in their 30's.

QUOTE(CanOfCorn @ Aug 6, 2007 -> 10:06 AM) And if he accepts??? I don't know about that. I have a feeling they are going to let him walk. If he accepts, so what? He'll still be very cheap and on a 1 year contract at the most.

I think at some level, we've actually been spoiled by the number of 300 game winners around lately. Glavine, Maddux, Clemens, all pitching at once and getting to that plateau within a few years. There's been what, 23 of them in 100+ years? On paper, you should get 1 300 game winner every 4 or 5 years then. We've actually had more of those in the last few years, despite all of the other issues with guys going on the DL sooner, the rise of middle relief, fewer starts per year, and everything else...than there were at earlier times in baseball. We're actually due for a slow stretch in terms of guys getting there, because we've been in a fast stretch lately.

I wonder if they have to put those health department grades on the stadium entrances there. (Restaurants around here always seem to have a giant "A" or "B" displayed in the window. I think having a "D" on the Angels stadium might look nice)

QUOTE(BearSox @ Aug 5, 2007 -> 06:29 PM) Does anyone see Ryan Bukvich in the White Sox plans for next year? I hope not, cause I ain't buying his recent resurgence. I wonder if he might have pitched well enough this season to get us a pick if he walks. Can't hurt to at least offer him arb.

QUOTE(kyyle23 @ Aug 6, 2007 -> 07:26 AM) Is Tex worth Soriano money? Heck, I dont even think Soriano is truly worth that money, but now that the bar has been raised to that level, does Tex have the same worth that Soriano does? He doesnt steal bases, but he provides GG defense at first. HRs and RBIs are pretty similar, Tex is a switch hitter. Whats the consensus on Texeira's worth? I think Tex is more worth Soriano money than Soriano was, if that counts.

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Aug 5, 2007 -> 08:26 PM) Won't happen. If it increases, it will increase marginally. All this tells me is that come the offseason, one of Vazquez and Garland will go and KW is going to bust his ass to get rid of Contreras while taking on as little salary as possible. Gavin's good performance - along with potential more good performances from Gavin - will further prove that to be true. I'm sorry, but I have to say...there are exactly 2 pitchers I am certain will be on the White Sox next year. Mark Buehrle, and Jose Contreras. For the simple reason that both of them are entirely unmovable. Mark because of his no trade clause, Jose because it's just stupid for the Sox to pay 1/2 of his contract to move him.

QUOTE(BearSox @ Aug 5, 2007 -> 03:17 PM) Floyd panning out and Garland for Hu, Kemp and maybe something else... I'd probably cream my pants. Hu and Kemp might be a little much for Garland, IMO. Maybe with the legendary 72 hour window. They might well do Hu and Ethier though, but I don't know Coletti's long term plans any better than anyone else. But it is fairly obvious that they have more players than positions out here. There's a couple other places that would work too. Garland to the Angels for Aybar + another good player would be an interesting thing to think about too, if anyone else still likes that kid as much as me.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Aug 5, 2007 -> 03:18 PM) Yeah, everyone of those guys that can put up respectable numbers for us, saves us at least 10 times that in salary for another major leaguer. And, at least to my eyes most importantly...if Gavin could keep this up, it turns Garland or Vazquez into a trading chip this offseason which we can use to fill in those other holes (SS). Without another young starter stepping up, we won't be in a place to either clear salary off the books or to trade away our best trade asset, because we'd be stuck with a 4 man rotation next year, with 2 of them being Danks and Jose.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Aug 5, 2007 -> 03:15 PM) You can't be thinking about the playoffs at this point. You have to take things day to day, and put people in the position to learn at the major league level to be able to help you here in 2008 and beyond. If we win, and get into the playoff hunt, that is just a bonus. I know a lot of people really dislike our system, but seriously...the way Owens, Richar, Fields, and now Floyd have been performing lately, it certainly seems like we're setting ourself up well for this offseason and next year.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Aug 5, 2007 -> 03:07 PM) They are both of those things and more. Jesus going into Pakistan in any form would guarentee the downfall of a friendly government and it would lose any help at all in that region. It would also put WMD into the hands of an enemy Islamic state. But of course, things aren't that simple. If it were known that Bin Laden was in that territory, how much difference could the capture of UBL make to the situation? Possibly a ton. And beyond that, Musharraf's government certainly appears to have considerably weakened over the past year or so, to the point where there has been some talk that it could just fall anyway. Like many military dictatorships, it can really only last so long.

QUOTE(spiderman @ Aug 5, 2007 -> 02:56 PM) If the White Sox sign Jermaine Dye to a 2 or 3 year deal at 10-12 million a season, I don't think they will go out on the free agent market to even add a player like Aaron Rowand. In fact, wouldn't signing Dye mean the White Sox are more likely to move Jon Garland for 2 younger players given the payroll would be extremely tight ? If Floyd could repeat what he did today about a dozen more times before the end of the season...then it makes perfect sense to try to move Mr. Garland for say, a Shortstop and an OF. Because we need to find a SS Somewhere this offseason.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Aug 5, 2007 -> 03:01 PM) But supposedly not even genocide is enough to attack another country, and the Iraq war was wrong. How do you justify those two opinons working together? Well, I don't think any of those are justification for attacking a country except in the right case for the presence of Al Qaeda members, given that the organization in question has already attacked us. And Al Qaeda is vastly more poweful in Pakistan than it was ever in Iraq before the invasion. But if you ask, would I have supported an attack on the Zarqawi camp which the No Fly zones were protecting in Iraq before the war, the answer would almost certainly be yes. And the Genocide one is a very touchy one, and I can't give you a clear answer on that, because the simple fact is that war is Hell and war almost invariably makes things worse, so things have to be incredibly bad at the time of the invasion for a humanitarian war to actually be practical. Rwanda might be about the only actual example I can think of. The Iraq war has made the humanitarian situation vastly, vastly worse. The Kosovo bombings made the situation in Kosovo dramatically worse right away, and the killings dramatically increased as soon as the bombings began.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 5, 2007 -> 02:57 PM) If I click on that link, I get a page without any article. What is it about - more on him maybe running? @ Salon.com, you can get free access by watching an ad (it's sort of their way of making money from people without having them subscribe). Very interesting piece with Gingrich basically going totally off message during a speech. If you're using adblock or something like that on Firefox you might have difficulty viewing it.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Aug 5, 2007 -> 02:27 PM) It might sound good to some, but we are talking about a pre-emptive military invasion of an ally. At least Iraq was our enemy and thumbing their nose at the entire world, what has Pakistan done to us? You can bet if this was said by someone like Mitt or McCain, the spin would be vicious and entirely different. Well, they did train the Taliban, they've essentially negotiated and signed a peace deal with organizations we'd label as part of Al Qaeda, and they're armed with WMD. If nothing else, every single justification for the Iraq war applies even more so to Pakistan. Armed with WMD, with a significant Al Qaeda presence in their territory that they're not even really trying to remove, they're run by a dictator, they've launched aggressive wars against their neighbors and their government has directly financed and aided terrorist operations in the past (in Kashmir).

QUOTE(rangercal @ Aug 5, 2007 -> 02:44 PM) Arod for 1,000? If he follows Bonds pattern it's possible. Dude, not even Barry Bonds could follow tetrahydrogestrinone's patterns.

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Aug 5, 2007 -> 02:18 PM) It's really just crazy to think what the Sox would look like with Bonds in LF. They'd look to my eyes an awful lot like what the Cubs and Giants look like to me right now. A team I root against and want to lose every single day.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Aug 5, 2007 -> 02:41 PM) Anyway, congratulations to Alex. If the kid didn't have Scott Borass as his agent, he would be one of the most popular players of all time. I think the "Playing for the Yankees" issue also hurts him quite a bit.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Aug 5, 2007 -> 02:33 PM) Buehrle doesn't have the ego to win 300. He will retire when he feels like he has played long enough and made enough money. He's not the kind of guy who is going to look at a big round number as something that defines his life. He'll walk away long before he gets to 300, and never look back. But he also seems like he has so much fun playing the game too. If his body holds up, might he just keep doing it because he likes it? Think about Maddux, what else does he have to prove or to earn? He could have retired 3 years a go a guaranteed HOF with loaded bank accounts, but it sure seems like he enjoys getting his butt out on the mound.

QUOTE(WHarris1 @ Aug 5, 2007 -> 02:24 PM) Alternatively we could go with the good D/fast guy plan and have a contest to see which guy out of Jerry Owens/Ryan Sweeney/other grinders we sign can get an OPS over .750 first. And the prize will be...the $16 million we'll save by going with those guys compared to mr. tetrahydrogestrinone.

Newt?