Milkman delivers

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 02:58 PM) I'm listening to Cowley on the score and he basically just called Gavin Floyd stupid (said he needs a lot of help to do cross-word puzzles, if he couldn't pitch, he'd be taking orders at Windy's). His job is to cover these guys and get interviews from them, and he goes and does things like this. Who's the idiot?

QUOTE (Stan Bahnsen @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 02:57 PM) The Pen has solidified quite nicely of late. We've got 4 1/2 guys that can be somewhat trusted in SS, MT, JC and CS and WO vs. lefties. Bruney has been a pleasant surprise, though in a small sample, but is there any place for the rehabbing T-Pain? Here's hoping NOT. Still, I'd like to see EJax added to that mix, as long as PV is healthy and EJax remains so inconsistent as a starter. ASB and many more off-days in the 2nd half make a 6 man rotation unnecessary in the long run, IMO. I expect Bruney to continue to be at least average. He's been around long enough to where I think he should be able to handle being the last or second-to-last guy out of the bullpen. I almost lost my mind with your statement about Peña because the "NOT" was the only word that didn't appear on the same line on my computer. Who would want him back? Nobody. QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 03:06 PM) Other than Santos Well, Crain was pretty good at that point, too. It was just hyperbole.

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 02:50 PM) 2.79 ERA vs lefties, 7.20 vs righties. But to be fair, he couldn't get ANYONE out his first few outings of the season. Nobody in our bullpen could.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 02:54 PM) Yeah, it took long enough just to do what I did. You'd have to write a query to do what you were asking. Game threads were just the easiest and most obvious thing that was consistently there. I appreciate the effort, believe me. The main flaw with the game thread idea is that it is avoided by many on both sides of the fence. I'm as pessimistic as it gets, but I avoid them as much as possible. The only time I ever post in a game thread is when I feel like I really need to say something to get it off my chest, and it's basically just one post and done. When I'm upset at a game, game threads usually make it even worse, so I don't even bother. I know other pessimists that do the same, as well as many optimists.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 02:48 PM) Pena must have shared it with Konerko too. YOU SHUT YOUR FACE!

QUOTE (bmags @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 02:31 PM) the character was based off of him but it was not really a movie about him. And not really that great of a movie at that It would be cool to see a movie about him, yes. I really hope he drags up a lot of stuff about dirty FBI agents/cops, etc. I'm very excited to see what comes of this. I thought Bulger was older than 81, though. Perhaps I never actually looked into his age or thought too much of it, but people always just assumed he was dead. Because of that, I just sort of figured that he must be like 90 or older. I assume that they charge him and the girlfriend to the full extent of the law. Even though he's an old man and probably of little harm to anyone at this point, I want this guy to know that he will never breath another free breathe. I feel like he's one of those idealized gangsters that people are sort of "glad" got away with it. I hate that mentality and I want to see that image torn down, to see this broken and sickly old murderer's face as the bars slam in front of him. Maybe the good guys do win more often than not in the end. Perhaps I'm a little more idealistic than most in regards to this, but I'm excited.

Perhaps he lost his bag of steroids and Carlos Peña found it? ::runs and hides::

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 02:41 PM) The good thing is that Sale and Ohman are pitching better as well. Hell, even Bruney has come in and not sucked. Has Ohman been bad at all versus lefties? I feel like he's gotten hit when he has because Ozzie has used him against righties.

Enough can't be said for how important Crain has been to this team. And we have to hope that he doesn't get overworked (think Putz last season), as SS2K5 pointed out.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 02:37 PM) No. Definitely fewer people making a lot higher post rate for games where we lose. Usually the same basic people. There seems to be more people making less posts per person when we win. Gotcha. I can't say that's too surprising though. We'd get a better gauge if this same study were done to the entire PHT forum, but I don't blame anyone for not offering To me, it really feels like the regular, say 30 or so, posters are here everyday no matter.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 01:00 PM) Yes, 100,000 times at least. Haha, that was 11 years ago. I was only 15 and hadn't yet noticed Hawk's repeated sayings. I also could have just as easily forgotten it all

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 02:33 PM) If I'm there more for the bad games it's because there are more bad games than good. I'm on when I get the chance. Those were just the ones that took me by surprise in one way or another. No offense meant.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 02:31 PM) Yes and no. The higher rates part is correct. The more people part is way wrong. So, it's consistently around the same number of posters, regardless of winning or losing?

I don't see much that's surprising about that post, though. It's exactly how I said it was. There are going to be more posts when the team is doing badly. I'm sure that goes for every fan board on the internet, regardless of team or even sport. And a 20% higher post total isn't bad. I was expecting 33-50%.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 02:19 PM) So just for the "fun" of it. I tested the ideas out a bit. I went back through the game threads and figured out how many posts per game in wins and losses, and who had the most posts in each type of thread. Instead of trying to average it out, I counted who was in the top 5 posters for each type of game thread, and how often they appeared in winning and losing thread post leaders. Game threads where we won have averaged 301.8 posts this year, versus 364.2 in losses, or about 20% bigger in losing games. The fun part is who posts in threads. Breaking the people who appear in the highest rate of game threads, the first number is number of times a top 5 post total in a game thread where we won, followed by top 5 appearances in a game thread where we lost. For the purposes of not typing out all of the names, I only included people who had at least 5 in one or the other category. Fathom 17-32 Balta 18-21 TheGingerKid 14-13 Soxfest 10-14 JoeCoolMan 12-8 Jordan4Life 7-9 Caufield 4-12 Greg775 6-9 Heads 8-1 BigEdWalsh 3-5 For the record 53 different people had at least one time they were in the top 5 in a game thread for wins, and only 40 for the losing games. 13 times when a game thread has been under 200 posts, it was a win, only 7 times for a loss. The two highest totals in game winner threads were both in the opening week of the season, including opening day for the second biggest winners thread. The biggest game thread of the year at 847 was the 7-4 loss with Oakland where Matt gave up 3 in the 9th and then three more scored in the 10th, including the really bad Pierre defense. It seems more people post a lot less when we win, and fewer people post a lot more when we lose. I can hardly speak to game threads, as I usually avoid them like the plague. So I can't hope to refute anything you've said. A couple of things I noticed that seem out of place, though. Balta seems to typically be an optimistic guy, and he's there more for the bad games. Joe is the opposite of that, and J4L comes off as pretty even.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 01:45 PM) No sir. But he must have been a very handsome man. No doubt

QUOTE (southsidepride15 @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 12:16 PM) Yeah....that is sad man. You must not be country strong like your sig. Did Hawk characterize Herb as country strong? I honestly can't recall.

My point is that the same amount of regulars are always here. That's why they are regulars. Sure, you're going to get more of the randoms dropping in when something draws them (a tough loss, a big trade, but also a huge victory).

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 11:56 AM) I would bet you money that if you took the average posts in a thread in losses versus wins there would be a massive difference with many more in the loss threads. I'd also bet the leading posters in each type would be very different. That's just human nature. Heated topics are going to get much more discussion than things that everyone agrees on. That's pretty simple. And in the case of loss threads getting a lot of traffic, the "blame" doesn't go squarely on the people that are angry about the loss. It's a two-way street. It takes somebody to take up the side of the franchise/team/management/player to continue the argument.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 11:44 AM) I believe this roster is talented enough to hang with anyone in the AL, if they play to their potential. I happen to believe that what's going on has to do with normal baseball slumps, which happen to all teams and players, and you see it as gross mismanagement. Given Dunn and Rios' performances - what exactly would you do differently with them? With Peavy? With the bullpen that has been so inconsistent? I'll tell you what I saw last night - I saw a winner. The bullpen was amazing, with Santos nearly unhittable. Last night was the first time this whole season I said "we've got this" heading into the 9th. It appears that Santos is really coming into his own. See, that's the problem. I don't think this team ever plays up to its potential anymore and that's something I hang directly on management. I know you disagree, but I feel that they underachieve almost every single year. That's why I think they need to bring new people in on the management front.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 11:47 AM) Best part of that movie was Frank's 20-second cameo. Haha. That's the reason we rented it, to be honest. I remember it pretty vividly. We were in Tennessee on vacation, it was pouring all day, so we had to rent a movie from the relatively small collection the hotel had.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 11:12 AM) Season 2 of Louie premiers tonight. I didn't really enjoy the first season. I'm sure I've mentioned it on here, but the awkward/embarrassing humor did more to make me feel uncomfortable than it did to make me laugh. I've never been a big fan of that type of comedy. It's good in smaller doses (early episodes of The Office), but it's rough when it's the entire basis of a series. QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 11:41 AM) And that weird dog show starts too. I'm going to give that a shot, mainly due to Elijah Wood. He seems to pick really various and unique roles (in order to avoid being typecast, as I've heard), but almost always chooses good projects.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 11:39 AM) Big things happening for Josh Fields. From Rotoworld. LOL. Ever since I saw Mr. Baseball, I've wanted to spend some time in Japan and specifically their baseball world.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 11:39 AM) The loss versus the cubs actually saw the least amount of gamethread posts. Don't let facts interfere with any bias.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 11:33 AM) 80 wins in unlikely, IMO - do you think that they will be .500 the rest of the way? a .550 record the rest of the way would give them between 84-85 wins. a .580 record would give them 87 wins. Either one of those could win this division. I could see them winning at either clip for the rest of the season. They could be anywhere in that range, I suppose with an extreme high and low of about 87 and 77. I'm expecting closer to what I said, though, with 80-85. I truly do not expect them to make any noise if they do indeed make the playoffs, and IMO, that is the worst potential outcome. As I said, I think that it would result in another few years of this regime and I again truly believe that this organization needs some fresh blood in the management areas.