Balta1701

Link (Is probably a low-alcohol beer, but still...)

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jun 8, 2007 -> 12:40 PM) Um yeah, Carlos Lee was a true All-Star that season seeing as how the players and coaches voted him in. Podsednik was voted in after the fact by a fan base that seems to love the "Final Man" ballot. 1st half of 2005: Damon: .343/.386/.473/.859 Podsednik: .294/.369/.344/.713 Brian Roberts: .345/.416/.591/1.007 There are others but 2 should be enough. I love cherry picking stats. You'll note how you didn't post Podsednik's dominant pre-05 injury SB numbers (remember that 22 straight streak he had right before the break? Anyone else remember how he almost single handedly broke Cleveland's back on the basepaths right after the break?) And on the other side, Lee was, IIRC, leading the NL in RBI's for much of the first half of 05. Both teams got what they needed out of that deal, I think both of those guys deserved to be all-stars, and let's just leave it at that.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jun 8, 2007 -> 12:16 PM) Then who pray tell are some of the better defensive shortstops in baseball? And for God's sake please don't say Jeter...

Lotta stuff via Stark. Lot more rumor-mongering @ the link.

Lotta stuff in Stark's column Today.

QUOTE(Whitewashed in @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 09:26 PM) Oh yeah... I think were going to give that baseball prospectus record a run for its money this year. So, who projects to be @ the top of next year's draft?

QUOTE(caulfield12 @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 09:10 PM) It's pretty incredible to be outspent by the Detroit Tigers, of all teams, for our own player in Magglio Ordonez, as well as Porcello. Not to mention they have Verlander, Bonderman and Andr. Miller. If you were just to forecast the teams with the best future in our division, you have to figure the Tigers would be up there at #1, despite their aging everyday line-up (Magglio, Guillen, Sheffield, Polanco, Casey, Monroe, I-Rod...I think all of those guys are in their 30's or above). How in the world can people still legitimately complain about the Tigers spending more on Ordonez than us? Letting Magglio walk turned out to be perhaps the best decision in White Sox history.

QUOTE(GreenSox @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 08:51 PM) Scary bad. And scarier defensively. Is Eckstein really an upgrade over Iguchi? Right now, yes, and by a surprisingly large amount. Compared to last year's Iguchi, probably not, but Tad seems to have fallen off whatever cliff Ozzie drove the team off of.

Wow...You walk away from a 1-1 game in the 7th inning and get this. Maybe we should be drafting relief pitchers in the first round.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 07:07 PM) Yeah, didn't know that. I had heard that his splits were big this year, so I figured it was the other way around. Lefties are now hitting .350 against Myers this year. 14/40, with 3 home runs.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 07:06 PM) Do what you do best, and hit into a 4-6-3. I would be shockingly happy with that.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 07:02 PM) If they're bringing in the lefty here, Ozzie should let Hall bat. Lefties are actually hitting .333 off of Myers this season according to Gameday. Which is of course...taunting me tonight, so that could be slightly off.

QUOTE(santo=dorf @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 07:01 PM) According to USA Today, the Sox are 10th amongst all MLB teams for highest % of players to make the big leagues within being drated of the first 5 rounds. I fully believe that data. I also wonder what happens when you start applying additional filters, like %'age of a team's draftees who make the AS game. The Sox have drafted a ton, at least to my eyes, of ok-level major leaguers in the first few rounds, like the guys you cite, but I'm having difficulty remembering many folks we drafted early and developed who turned into legit stars who could carry a team (guys like Buehrles and BMac coming late in drafts)

Gameday is so taunting me right now...

QUOTE(caulfield12 @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 06:53 PM) Can someone please explain to me why we're drafting all pitchers when we need about 4-5 positions on the field to be replaced? Is KW planning to trade all of his pitching prospects to fill needs? Well, that's one way to go about it...as pitchers are the most valuable components of any organization, just not sure I agree with that philosophy or not. I think the answer to why we're drafting pitchers has a lot to do with things like the contracts for Matsuzaka, Zito, Meche, Lilly, Schmidt, and so forth from last season. After another year of jumping, the price for a guy who plays 1 out of every 5 days has gone up to the same level as that of a person who plays every day and challenges for the MVP award. There is just such a demand for pitching on the FA market that it seems impossible these days to actually build a competitive team if you're stuck having to buy pitchers. I think it's a lot easier to find either reasonably priced performers or even bargains if you're hunting over the position players, and I think a position player is a lot more likely to earn $15 mil a year and stay healthy over the course of a contract (depending on age) than a pitcher.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 06:28 PM) We really should trade Dye to the Mets. Did both Green and Alou get hurt when I wasn't paying attention?

QUOTE(Whitewashed in @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 02:54 PM) Yep, I saw it. I had the feeling if anyone were to break it, it would be Stewart. Didn't he break up a Garcia attempt with a home run a couple years back?

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 02:59 PM) well, the only people who think he is a reliever or a LOOGY are on this board. So I wouldnt put a whole lot of stock in that. Well, I for one am sure hoping he projects as a starter, but I also don't have a clue and I'll freely admit that.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 02:53 PM) He's going to have to be a reliever. I wouldn't be to upset if he can be a lefty set-up man. Well, at some level, I think you do have to be fairly disappointed if your first round pick winds up being nothing but a LOOGY. From the first round, I'd think you'd either want someone who can come up and close or someone who can be a starter. It's just too easy to find Lefty setup men otherwise. In the last year, we've come up with one of them trading a washed up prospect and created another gem out of our organization with something like a 10th round pick (that's when the Legend was drafted right?). And we pulled a LOOGY off the scrap heap and sent him to the Red Sox for Riske, and maybe grabbed another one for a backup 1b who never played.

QUOTE(AirScott @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 10:28 AM) Might take more than Danks. Probably him and another of our starting pitching prospects. Their starting rotation is nonexistent after Kazmir and Shields, plus nobody likes them as trading partners because they're so unreasonable...seriously, how many trades have they been involved in the past five years? No one said it would be just Danks. It's more like Danks, Gio, and Fields. And maybe they'd do it.

Applause.

You don't get him without Danks. Have a nice day.

QUOTE(RME JICO @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 09:08 AM) I don't think he was an idiot for not having surgery. That is a huge decision that will affect his entire life, and normally you start with the least evasive way - surgery is the last option, which it seems we are now at. The doctors gave him the options and if they felt that there was no way he would get better, they would've recommended surgery as the only option. I still think you are wrong. I thought Joe was wrong for not having the surgery last fall, for both the team and his career, I said so at the time, and I've been proven right. I will dispute you on one issue; surgery is not always the last option; it's the last option if you're about to die and you have no other choice. Joe had a finite probability of a disaster with either of the 2 options: surgery or rehab. The team reccommended surgery, and at least the first doctor the team sent him to reccommended surgery. I believe it was the 2nd doctor, reccommended by his agent, who suggested the rehab option. To my eyes, yes, surgery was riskier without taking anything else into account, but when you take into account the fact that he was 2 years away from FA at the time, and the fact that he'd already tried to rehab his back from 05-06 and it wound up really hurting him again at the end of 06, and combine that with the suggestion from the team doctors, then I think the calculation winds up favoring the surgery as the best option, and again, I think I've been proven correct.

Right now, it appears that the most important acquisition we could make is another reliable bullpen arm, whether it comes from within the system of from outside.

QUOTE(iamshack @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 09:06 AM) But had we made a run deep into the playoffs last year, would people continue to be moaning about that trade? Or would it have been worth it then? We won 90 games. So many things are outside of Kenny's control. The damn Cardinals won 83 games and won the World Series. Isn't it obvious how speculative his job is? I will still go to my grave saying that the 06 white sox make the playoffs if Rob Mackowiak never, ever starts a game in CF after July 1st last year. The numbers don't back me up well, but thats' what my eyes told me about that team.