Balta1701

I don't like the idea of Mueller as a utility man...I think Pablo proved pretty well to me that there are decent backup options out there for less money if you're willing to look. I also think that's a lot of money for a backup...and there are enough teams that would probably give Mueller a starting role that I doubt it'll happen anyway (would he really be a downgrade for the Twins?)

QUOTE(qwerty @ Nov 30, 2005 -> 08:58 PM) Right where he is now. I never see anderson or owens out producing dye... not during this current contract anyway. Just as with Carlos Lee, the question is not whether or not Anderson or Owens could outproduce Dye. The question is whether Owens and $4.4 million or so could outproduce Dye. I can think of several places where that cash could be useful...not the least of which is giving another long term deal to #56.

QUOTE(knightni @ Nov 30, 2005 -> 07:58 PM) That's not up to him. He'll probably go in as an Indian, since he spent so many years in Cleveland. A couple of World Series MVP trophies could do a lot to change that.

QUOTE(sayitaintso @ Nov 30, 2005 -> 08:51 PM) Why do you think Thome is washed up, he has been hurt the last 2 seasons.

QUOTE(rudylaw @ Nov 30, 2005 -> 06:29 PM) If Frank is healthy next year it would not surprise me to see him with beter numbers than Konerko or Thome On the other hand, I think the "If" in that sentence is far, far bigger than the if you would get on what either Konerko or Thome will put up. It would surprise me a lot if Frank was able to play even half a season.

QUOTE(redandwhite @ Nov 30, 2005 -> 06:19 PM) thank you captain obvious im just wondering what people think about having one of the top two most important players on the team on the bench. Ok, more detail. I think it'll hurt, but it won't be brutal. Yeah, it hurts when you lose a bat like either Thome or Konerko. But first of all...we can win without the big bat in there. And secondly, and perhaps more importantly...having either Thome or Konerko on the bench gives us a chance to do something we really couldn't afford to do at all last year - pinch run for the other guy if he gets on base in the late innings. (I.e. Konerko walks while we're down by 1 run. Harris/Ozuna come in. Steal second. RBI by Dye. Tie game. Thome takes over defense at first.) Every team from the AL Faces this dilemma in the playoffs. You think the Red Sox like having to play Ortiz at 1b? I sure as heck wouldn't.

QUOTE(redandwhite @ Nov 30, 2005 -> 06:01 PM) what happens in interleague or if, dare i say, the White Sox make it to the World Series again? it's going to be tough having one of your best hitters on the bench. Did you see our lineup in the World Series this year? Kinda replace Rowand with Anderson and it'll look a lot like that.

QUOTE(nitetrain8601 @ Nov 30, 2005 -> 05:54 PM) I agree with Buehrle > Wood. Sure, he's not the best of personalities, but I don't care. I'd take this guy anytime on my team. I don't care about his personality, I care about the cheating. He could be the nicest guy in the world, but all evidence, and even leaked testimony, strongly points to him being a cheating juicer who broke the law and is about to break Babe Ruth's HR number thanks to his breaking of the law. That's what I care about. I don't like having my country represented by a cheater.

Aside from the Thome trade not being a great move, and a few people underestimating the amount of HR Thome will have (and the fact that I'm overly hopeful), I don't think Sportsnation is very wrong about any of those. I'm a bit disappointed that 30% don't think BMac should be starting though.

In other words...the Indians may not have the money to spend to make up for what they are likely to lose in FA. They still can be a better team next year than they were last year, especially if guys like Boone and Martinez don't get off to horrid starts, but at least we can say that even if Cleveland is coming into next year looking stronger...SO ARE WE.

I don't know if I'd say I like any of them, but as a Geologist in a bad movies thread, I have to write these down: Dante's Peak Volcano Armageddon And the mother of all "I spent 20 minutes after this movie just laughing my ass off" movies from a geologists perspective (and no, it wasn't supposed to be a comedy): The Core

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Nov 30, 2005 -> 01:07 PM) If we are talking about oddball stuff, two of my favorite snacks are peeled apples with salt, and peeled raw potatoes. Uncooked potatoes are about the only thing I've found which make me more sick than mushrooms.

QUOTE(LDF @ Nov 30, 2005 -> 05:02 PM) thing is, i had faith that jr and co would pony up with the cash. my only concern was would paulie ask for too much and force the sox to look elsewhere or would he sign with laa for the same amount the sox were offering. either way, way to go kw for getting the job done quickly. My concern was that someone was going to offer him an obsene amount of money, like $75 million for 5 years or something like that. When it appeared that it was leveling out at 5 years and $60-$65 million, I would have been really pissed off if he didn't wind up with us.

QUOTE(joeynach @ Nov 30, 2005 -> 03:42 PM) I think your are missing Viscaino on there, remember there is not enough room for Marte, Viscaino, and McCarthy in the pen. THat is unless we decide to have 7 releivers which is not normal. Thome is to make 12.5 mil this year and the sox got 22 mil to pay for his 3 years of service. So thats 7.33 mil per year to pay his contract so for 2006 we pay 12.5-7.33 = 5.17 for Thome, in 07 and 08 we pay 6.67 mil per year for him. There's nothing all "That" abnormal about having a 12 man pitching staff. Teams do it all the time. We did it for parts of the year last year. That said...we shouldn't do it...since our starters have a nasty habit of eating up a ton of innings (our bullpen received like the 2nd fewest innings in baseball last year). BMac will be starting next season, also. If anyone goes to the Bullpen, it's El Duque...whether BMac gets the job in ST or gets it when El Duque first goes on the DL is the only question.

Would Owens have been suspended for his remarks on McNabb if he hadn't made a mess of things with his contract dispute, previous public statements about the team, his behavior in training camp which earned him a week's suspension, or his fight in the locker room with Hugh Douglas?

QUOTE(Buehrle>Wood @ Nov 30, 2005 -> 04:44 PM) This is going to help America greatly. Never hurts to have the best hitter of all time on your side. At the cost of your soul?

Mushrooms. It's not that I don't like the taste...they just don't agree with my digestive system at all. As I get older, I'm discovering that I'll eat almost anything put in front of me as long as it doesn't make me sick. I was far pickier as a child than I am now.

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Nov 30, 2005 -> 11:23 AM) What a sorry state of affairs when we have a s***bag like this representing the USA. Dropping 40 lbs shouldn't be too tough for a guy coming off roids also. Hmmm...is he dropping 40 pounds because he needs to lose weight...or is he using "Needing to lose weight" as a convenient cover story for him dropping 40 pounds? I can here the quotes from ST Now..."Have you seen Barry? He looks like Brandon Inge"

Is anyone else hoping that Tadahito will become a better overall hitter in his 2nd season in the big leagues regardless of where we put him in the lineup? I think one of the reasons why he wound up hitting the ball to the right side was that he discovered early in the season that he was able to do that against big league pitching. I think in his 2nd season (and with a guaranteed gigantic bat hitting behind him), he's much more likely to turn it up wherever we put him.

QUOTE(JUGGERNAUT @ Nov 30, 2005 -> 04:19 PM) I haven't seen enough of his play to judge his defense. He seemed a major plus in the championship run out there in 2003. Here's what the ESPN scouts say: His defense remains a huge plus at spacious Pro Player Stadium. His range allowed the Marlins to get by with Miguel Cabrera and Jeff Conine flanking him for the first four months. Pierre's arm probably precludes him from Gold Glove consideration, but he never gives up on balls in the gap and makes his share of highlight catches. His resemblance to a young Mickey Rivers remains eerie. No one is a better judge in the White Sox organization right now when it comes to his defense than Ozzie because he's seen him play day to day. Ozzie has said nothing but good things when it comes to Juan's defense & that goes back to 2003. Still, here's the question...how much talent do we want to risk dropping in a single offseason, especially when the 2nd guy is basically just a rental-player? I say we have talent in Anderson. He probably won't put up the best numbers in history, but it won't be that hard for him to generate as many runs as Rowand did last year...and he could very well generate more of them. He's several million dollars cheaper than Pierre. His arbitration clock has already started. His defense is probably pretty close to where Rowand's was. He's faster than Rowand, and has a better throwing arm. He will likely have more power than Rowand. He'll go through some growing pains if we put him out there, yes, but if we do give him a starting role at any point, we're going to have to live with those growing pains. He won't learn so much in AAA next year that it'll make starting him in the big leagues a risky choice (unlike Owens). I think Anderson is the smartest option around for CF. Especially given that now we aren't absolutely dying for additional run production from center field...just a mediocre performance (Which is frankly what Rowand gave us with the bat last year) but a good performance on defense.

QUOTE(sickness212 @ Nov 30, 2005 -> 04:06 PM) I just saw this, and it made my Day!!!

QUOTE(Gene Honda Civic @ Nov 30, 2005 -> 03:39 PM) Kareer OBP Thome -- .408 Kong -- .349 I don't Kare where he hits it, Thome should always be in front of Konerko... Well, PK's OBP last year = .375, although that was the best of his career.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Nov 30, 2005 -> 01:56 PM) I can respect that viewpoint. Do I get respect if I say that I would have said something very similar, but was at 5 hours worth of lectures/seminars? I think one thing you can actually find within the resolution the Senate passed is something very similar to what Rex said...the Senate asked for timetables, but also gave the White House an out - it also let them give reasons why those timetables could be missed. In other words, the White House could have said "500,000 Iraqi police on duty by such and such a date, but we could miss this if insurgent operations cause such and such or if there is some political shift." Take your pick - you could construct those however you wanted, and as long as you gave them, you'd be able to meet the request of the Senate. However, this is something the White House ardently refuses to do. When they are asked to do this, even by the Senate, they respond with the president is “determined to stay his course.” Furthermore, they've gone and done something else which is basically slight of hand in this document...in September, General Casey testified before the Senate that the number of Iraqi battalions who were ready for combat had dropped from 3 to 1 over the last year, without giving any real explanation (that's about 700 men per battalion). That is based on a 4 point chassification scheme drawn up by the military. On the other hand, the document released today says, several times I might add, that over 100,000 Iraqi troops are now "In the fight" without ever defining what "In the fight" actually means. In other words, the Senate asked for specific metrics or timetables or something by which they could evaluate the progress of the war. The White House responded by saying that they don't do timetables, and then went on to give statistics without telling us what they mean. Right now, I see the reality as this; the President refuses to retreat or cut and run from Iraq in defeat. However, he has defined the U.S. pulling out of Iraq without "Defeating" the terrorists and establishing democracy as a defeat...without ever telling us what "Defeating" the terrorists actually means. Therefore, any pullback of U.S. forces would constitute a victory for the terrorists based on what he's told us, and consequently, we have to keep U.S. forces there until "victory" is achieved or we lose. What the Senate I believe is asking for is some definition of "victory", when the President hopes we could have "victory", and a few guesses as to what would constitute victory. Something measureable that they can take back to people like me so that they can say "Here, shut up Balta, we've accomplished x and y and if z happens we can begin to withdraw q number of troops." If something like that was actually given to the public, it would shut a lot of this criticism up, and it would give proponents of "Staying the course" something to challenge Representative Murtha with. Without that, however, the plan looks to be "Just keep doing what we're doing until victory is in hand", and given that what we're doing keeps costing lives without seemingly moving us closer to "defeating the terrorists", it makes pulling out look like a much more appealing option. If you give me the 2 options of "Stay the course until "Victory"" and "Pull out immediately", I'd have to choose the latter since I don't have a huge amount of confidence in the magical appearance of Victory. But if you gave me a defined plan for victory combined with gradual pullouts associated with that victory...if the plan was well done and actually made sense, then it would immediately be the preferred option.

QUOTE(JUGGERNAUT @ Nov 30, 2005 -> 03:03 PM) I just had a vision .. a dream really. Is our new CFer going to be Ichiro? While I want BA in CF next year myself for the defense and occasional power, I'd sacrifice that for Ichiro. That said, I can't see that happening for several reasons; 1. Seattle doesn't want to trade Ichiro - they make a ton just from having him on their team from the Japanese fans (same Reason Matsui is making PK Money in NY). Secondly, Ichiro has never been willing to switch to CF in Seattle, which is why he's still playing RF despite the fact he'd be their best defensive center fielder.

QUOTE(redandwhite @ Nov 30, 2005 -> 02:47 PM) eh... konerko is an average hitter at best outside of us cellular field. Last year he still put up 17 home runs and an .863 OPS outside of the Cell (and that's not counting the fact that he hit 3 postseason home runs on the road), so he's a better hitter at the Cell, but last year he was still pretty darn deadly on the road. 52 RBI at Home, 48 away for PK too.