Balta1701

QUOTE(supernuke @ Jan 31, 2007 -> 11:37 AM) Both of which are In Mackowiak's case, that is only because the pitchers were on the mound more than he was in CF. Put him in CF for 162 games, and based on his performance last year, we lose more games because of Mack in CF than because of the pitching.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jan 31, 2007 -> 10:44 AM) Which is why having Ozuna, a well below average MLB defensive outfielder, as our main back-up is inexcusable. He cost us a few games early last season with his bad defense. It's just stunning to me that we didn't do jacks*** this offseason to upgrade any part of our LF situation. # of games the White Sox lost in 2006 due to Ozuna's outfield defense

Welcome to the race, Senator Biden! Welcome back to the Senate, Senator Biden!

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 31, 2007 -> 06:00 AM) A Brownback nomination makes for an automatic Democrat win in the national election. No way he gets nominated. He would have been ideal in 2000 or 2004, during the height of power for the religious conservatives. But that is on the downslope now. He may turn out to be a VP candidate though, if the P candidate is a moderate Republican. Here's the big problem I see in the Republican field (well, other than Bush's Iraq debacle...ok, second biggest problem, with a big gap between the first 2) the couple candidates who would have the best shot (looking 20 months out) in the General might have real difficulty with the Republican primaries. Giuliani, for example, has a ton of name recognition and so forth, but how many Republicans are going to vote in the primaries for a pro-choice, pro-gay rights candidate? Romney is running into similar problems. Their primary may well wind up producing a candidate like Brownback because he plays to the base quite well (aka the Karl Rove strategy)

Baltnews is ready to declare a winner in the Florida primary...

One of the Perq's of a lifetime @ university is you don't have to spend more than a couple bucks for most Microsoft products.

Um...

QUOTE(Rex Kicka** @ Jan 30, 2007 -> 11:47 AM) The Republicans allow closure on the Minimum Wage issue, the filibuster was broken 87-10 today. I wonder if this is why.... Different possible option: By Filibustering on the Minimum Wage vote, the Republicans also kept the Senate from voting on any of the Iraq augmentation opposition bills hanging around. Reid finally also said "Enough is enough...if they keep the filibuster going on that bill, we're moving on to the next stuff either way", so the delaying benefit finally dried up.

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Jan 30, 2007 -> 11:22 AM) Oh, and... Ummm......yeah......sooooooo, you kinda just completely contradicted yourself. Cuz athleticism sort of has to deal with natural ability.....yeaaaaaaaaaaaah In baseball, not entirely...you can have a ton of natural baseball ability and be pretty darn unathletic. Some names like David Wells, CC Sabathia, Cecil Fielder, Tony Gwynn, Bobby Jenks come to mind immediately. Not exactly marathon runners, but pretty darn good baseball players.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Jan 30, 2007 -> 10:46 AM) Stewart is a right handed outfielder and if he doesn't get a contract from anyone else I don't see where the harm is in giving him a minimum deal and have him come in (in case Pods stinks) because while Stewart is god awful defensively in LF (so was Pods) he could be a decent bat to have off the bench (that said it seems we'd have one too many veteran bats on the bench if we did pick him up). Do you think he would accept a minor league deal? If not, who do we drop from the 40 man?

At least it's the NYT, so half the people here won't believe the updates anyway.

QUOTE(Heads22 @ Jan 30, 2007 -> 09:13 AM) For anyone that watched the AAA All-Star game last year, or saw the Futures game.....the thing about Josh is he swings hard and misses...quite a bit. However, when he makes contact, it's a rocket quite a bit of the time. He's going to struggle, but I think he'd hit better than BA did in the first half if brought up right now. Swinging and missing has been BA's problem too. And, IIRC, Crede's as well. Lack of command of the strike zone.

QUOTE(Alpha Dog @ Jan 30, 2007 -> 06:17 AM) Sounds like the world needs a s***load of condoms. Abstinence is the only option.

The White Sox have no remaining slots to fill on their 40 man roster, and barring an additional trade, I don't think they're looking to add anyone else right now (depending on the Uribe situation). Knowing the admiration for the way some of the Twinkies have performed the last few years within our management, I think they'd have picked up Stewart if they thought he was a viable option. They Chose Erstad.

QUOTE(Jenks Heat @ Jan 30, 2007 -> 07:40 AM) Shouldn't Joe Crede be capable of batting above sixth or seventh in the order before he is handed a contract worth over $10M a season? I like Joe Crede but Fields is a much better athlete and athletes can turn into Joe Crede type defenders (see Brandon Inge). Crede had and still can have a very long swing. He also can be fooled greatly on offspeed pitchers. Oh and wheather it was the back or not, he was not a GG thirdbaseman in the 2nd half last season. Joe Crede only hits 6th/7th on this team because of how good the people in front of him are. There are quite a few teams in the big leagues where he'd have hit 4th or 5th. The Angels, Tigers come to mind immediately. I think Uribe has a much better chance of staying at SS and not learning how to hit than he does of learning how to hit and moving to 3rd. I also think he has a good chance of eating himself right out of the major leagues.

QUOTE(Mplssoxfan @ Jan 29, 2007 -> 08:06 PM) Besides, wasn't the 80's the Al Franken Decade? But, this is the Al Franken Millennium now.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Jan 29, 2007 -> 07:47 PM) I don't think that's a good thing. You don't have much experience with this country do you? I'll bet like 40% of this country still can't find Iraq on a map, and like the same amount think that Iraq had a bunch of WMD's when we invaded them. Getting 87% of this country, plus or minus 4%, to hear about anything educational is an accomplishment.

I'm quite impressed that it's that low.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Jan 29, 2007 -> 04:54 PM) The hacker thing is interesting. How would it be different that loooking for something in all the other versions of Windows? It would more than likely effect the entire Windows family. Or do you think they would want to find something that attacks Vista and not all the others? Well, the joy of a new version of a Windows program is that it's fresh meat...it's something totally new that you can attack in a new way, and knowing microsoft, that means it has a whole new selection of flaws that snuck in and haven't yet been found. With a version that's been around there for a few months/years, then the hackers have spent all their time and effort finding all the flaws, so most of them have probably been corrected. The ol natural selection I'd say....introduce a new species into an area, and those that are weakest get weeded out rapidly by Godless Killing Machines.

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Jan 29, 2007 -> 05:37 PM) DEAD. Well, based on previous experience, this now means Helton will wind up a Yankee within a few years. Seriously, the Red Sox are a gigantic market team which is just a little too stubborn about that small-market mentality.

QUOTE(winninguglyin83 @ Jan 29, 2007 -> 06:03 PM) but probably not by the Twinkies Well, there is always the matter of them getting a new stadium at long last...who knows what that will do to their payroll. They probably wouldn't keep Johan anyway...but that's a factor we should all avoid forgetting.

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Jan 29, 2007 -> 05:31 PM) It's very possible, and perhaps likely, Koch was a 'roider. It's not a witch hunt though. I'll confess, until I learned about his other condition, if I had to pick any player to play on the White Sox who i thought had juiced, it would have been Koch, based on the other reasons people gave here. But after hearing about the condition his whole family is suffering from, I'm leaning towards giving him the benefit of the doubt, or at least throwing him into the void of other guys who we have no idea about. I mean, some sort of wierd degradational environment-related condition starts to make his entire family sick, God only knows what toxin it really is, and I'm supposed to be surprised that his fastball falls apart? And you certainly can't blame the steroids for that other condition, because his whole family suffered from it. With what it sounds like struck his family, I'm moderately surprised he could even throw a ball, let alone get his fastball above 90 mph.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jan 29, 2007 -> 02:23 PM) Ugh, same money as Erstad. He would have been such a perfect fit for the Sox 4th OF spot. He has 2 things going for him that we know for certain Erstad can not provide, he's right handed and he hits for power. Well, the big question is...do you want an outfielder to back up Anderson or do you want an outfielder to back up/Platoon with Podsednik? I think the organization answered, at least at some level, that question by which one they picked. But yeah, I would also add that Kenny's history of liking Erstad and his "intangibles" and so forth probably played into that choice also.

QUOTE(illinilaw08 @ Jan 29, 2007 -> 03:42 PM) I wouldn't go so far as to take Curry, but I agree that I just don't see the Gasol move for the Bulls. Honestly, in my mind, if the Bulls make a move, it needs to be the move that puts them over the top in the East. Gasol is a scorer, but isn't a great defender. Unless Garnett is available, I don't want the Bulls to make a move just for the hell of making a move. But, the "Just for the hell of making a move" issue...right now the Bulls have a large expiring Contract in the form of PJ Brown. $8 million or so. That is an asset that the Bulls simply will not have in the next few years, barring something really big involving this team. Furthermore, the Bulls have a draft pick of unknown position in the Greg Oden draft, and I would argue that right now, an unknown potential lottery pick has more value than the same pick at a known position unless it winds up being outside the top 2 (stockpiling lottery balls). In other words, right now, the Bulls have 2 major tradeable assets that they simply will not have a year from now and may not have again for a long time. There is some good reason to make a move just to make a move.