NorthSideSox72

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 14, 2009 -> 11:15 AM) The Bush administration violated Federal statues. That's what is different. Do none of you remember that big report that came out last summer showing just how pathetically political they made the DOJ? http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/law/ju.../doj_07-28.html It is much easier for people to make out Obama to be "THE SAME" as Bush, than to acknowledge these differences. Regardless of the fact that they are quite clearly not the same.

QUOTE (bighurt4life @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 06:10 PM) What I've read is that he has slightly above average speed so he is passable in CF. He has also played CF in the minors though not much. If he plays a corner OF that would lead one to believe that he has at least an average arm. I wouldn't mind seeing him out there over Wise/Owens. He has potential and we already know what those other two bring to the table, their poor route running really negates their speed in CF, if Kroeger can get good reads on the ball I'm sure he'd perform as well as those two with much more hitting potential. There is far, far more to playing CF than speed. speed alone doesn't make a player passable in CF.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 03:59 PM) Floyd singles up the middle over the Pitcher's head after pulling back the bunt. Bases loaded, nobody out, Floyd with a 2.000 OPS this spring. Can Gavin actually hit? Or was this anomolous?

So, IF Lilli were to get the CF job... how does that effect the roster? Your bench already includes the backup C and Betemit, so, you have two spots for: Anderson Owens Wise Nix/Getz (whoever doesn't get the 2B job) You need at least one OF in that bunch. Lilli can back up the middle infield when not in CF. I think I'd go with Nix/Getz and Anderson. Push Owens to AAA, and release Wise.

Floyd HR off Floyd. Both Floyds have scored. Heh.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 03:40 PM) Konerko with the RBI single. Scoring Floyd?

They actually left Floyd out there to run, huh? I wonder how well he runs.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 03:22 PM) Owens leading Anderson in the race to the Mendoza Line, .194 to .185. Gavin Floyd gets a strikeout with his slider? Sure it wasn't his curve? They keep call him throwing his slider and not curve....interesting. I think he does indeed have a slider. But its not a pitch he throws often, unless his curve isn't working. Its the spring though, so, maybe he is playing with it a bit.

They are NOT dropping the use of the concept of an enemy combatant. They are just deciding not to call these particular people at Gitmo by that description. I'll change the thread title.

PK having a good spring. I'm with the crowd that thinks he'll have a very good 2009.

They need to get this Franken/Coleman thing sorted out right quick. This is becoming unfair to the people of Minnesota. Trial, investigation, whatever, finish the damn thing off please.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 02:59 PM) Wise, CF 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .412 Nix, 2B 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .714 Pierzynski, C 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .444 Konerko, 1B 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .280 Fields, 3B 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .313 Anderson, B, RF 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .192 Lillibridge, SS 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .269 Owens, LF 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .200 Floyd, P 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 Wow, talk about your anemic offensive line-ups...this is one of the most anemic possible that Ozzie must have drawn out of a a hat. No Quentin, no Alexei, no Dye, Thome still out with the iffy back, no Viciedo, no Beckham. And pitchers batting. Watching Floyd hit could be entertaining.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 02:33 PM) Sam Zell has lawyered up in this case. LOL, this is like a soap opera. New episodes with new shockers every week.

Some spiders, I think including Luxoscili (sp?) order spiders, have neurotoxin for venom (as opposed to hemotoxin or other types). It effects the nervous system directly. So, the relationship is there. Still though, this is amazing. Hopefully prompts some research into using that venom or analogs for this sort of thing in the future.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 12:02 PM) You can just forget David Cook...before we see him batting leadoff, we'll go through the following: 1) Owens 2) Wise 3) Getz 4) Lillibridge 5) Nix 6) Beckham 7) Josh Kroeger 8) Jordan Danks 9) John Shelby III 10) John Thain 11) Ken Lewis 12) Bernie Madoff 13) ex Krispy Kreme CEO 14) Brian Cook (ex-Illini F/C) 15) David Cook http://www.baseballprojection.com/CHA2009.htm And the WINNER IS....David Cook or Noah Hall, lol. Interesting website, they have Wise and Anderson neck and neck statistically and Owens lagging a little bit. I guess this "projection" would probably favor Chris Getz or Alexei Ramirez of all the possible candidates and MAYBE Owens. But .327 for JO isn't going to be enough to get it done. To be clear, I was not suggesting that David Cook lead off. Not at all. I was dicussing the idea of age, prospects and development.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 11:57 AM) I will choose not to comment on Cook because I'm going to wind up agreeing with you. We can't have that on Soxtalk!

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 11:51 AM) Any Jerry Owens love comes from his spectacular Sept 07 performance. Other than that, the guy has been a dog in the major leagues. If he leads off the majority of the time for the White Sox, I say they don't play .500. I really thought KW would make acquiring a lead off hitter a priority seeing how its been a problem now for several years. Wise, Owens....those guys are lead off guys for minor league teams or teams that plan on losing 100 games. Having them lead off with this team is like giving a 16 year old a Ferrari. Ridiculous. Ugh, I knew this would happen. 1. I have made it clear that Owens and Wise are bad ideas, so don't for a second try to label my posts as "Jerry Owens love". 2. You choose to take away his most recent active month in the majors, highlight the couple months before then when he was developing, and also ignore his entire minor league career (which is most of his experience). If we are going to compare these two "candidates" for the job, let's at least be complete in our analysis.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 11:48 AM) Well, we do know that Taveras, Owens and Juan Pierre would all end up with an OPS of around 650-675 (being optimistic) if they played everyday. We need either a .740-.750 OPS OR a .340+ OBP out of CF. Wise and Anderson in a platoon will definitely do the first. Owens and Anderson in a platoon might do both OR neither. Wise isn't going to put up anywhere near a .340 OBP, barring the strangest player jump I've ever seen. His career OBP is below .300, and was only .309 in the minors. Look, I should say, it is POSSIBLE that Dewayne Wise has suddenly "figured it out", at age 31 with 6 years bouncing between AAA and the majors. But using that logic, how is it that we are dismissing that possibility entirely for a 27 year old Owens with a lot less time in? Or for that matter, with David Cook, who I think is 26?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 11:43 AM) Ok, to fire back...first of all, I'm just not convinced that Jerry Owens isn't getting worse with the bat right now. His minor league batting average has gone down significantly over the last few years, even in the minor leagues. And if his legs are getting worse, there's plenty of reason to expect that his average could be getting worse. Secondly, if you say that Owens's 2005 season at Birmingham, where he hit .333, was an aberration, his minor league batting average drops to .276. That's half the difference between his BA and Wise's BA right there. And for even more fun, Owens's batting average last year at AAA? .276. I think Owens right now looks like a .250 hitter or worse in the big leagues, and I think Wise, especially if he's facing only RHP, is just likely to do better, based if nothing else on the trend lines. Those are good points. And I do agree on the concerns over Owens' legs. I am not as concerned about a backwards hitting regression, I think that isn't likely. But of course, that is entirely subjective. I think that as bad as Owens seemed to be in CF, watching Wise out there full time will make people wish it was Owens. Wise is pretty bad out there. Honestly, looking at his minor league career, I can't figure out how he managed to even make it to the majors. And again, you slicing selectively against one player with your numbers there. If you want to take away the biggest year in the minors, do it for Wise too (take his 2008 AAA numbers out, as an example). His other yearS in AAA are all mid to low 200's. He's terrible.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 11:33 AM) Frankly, I'm not totally sure I agree with you that Owens will have a substantially higher OBP. If I go strictly by their minor league numbers, Owens has a .359 minor league OBP and Wise has a .309 OBP. But that's not telling the whole story. Wise has a .259 minor league batting average, while Owens has a .291 batting average. In other words, the difference between their OBP and batting average is .05 in Wise's case and .06 in Owens's case. Their OBP is therefore for both of them highly dependent on their batting average. Owens will give you 1 walk every 10 ab's, for Wise it's about 1/14. Owens is more patient than Wise and will take more pitches. But here's the key...Owens will only put up a higher OBP than Wise if they have identical batting averages. If Owens's batting average is 20 points lower than Wise's, they'd have very similar OBP's. Now the question...as of right now, as of how they're playing right now, which of the 2 do you think will have the higher batting average? I can't answer that by saying Owens. I think you are slicing selectively there. Their career minor and major league OBP's are 50 to 70 points apart, and that includes their AVG. So, why would one hitter's AVG decrease or increase more, but not their IsoBB? Makes no sense statistically. I'll stand by what I said earlier. From what numbers we have, there is every reason to believe that Owens will get on base about 50 points better than Wise. ETA: To answer your last question, I would answer Owens, since their careers show that same trend as with OBP. Owens hits better (for AVG) than Wise does.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 08:54 AM) of course the system's flawed, because we're humans and we're not perfect. every ONE of us on this board would do the exact same things these senators do - and that is to make sure projects for OUR constituents get put into motion so that WE can get re-elected. Mind you, this is their JOB, and just like all of you, they'd like to keep it. Of COURSE that means we may end up wasting money on some things that may be "less important" from a general perspective, but it's the way it works, and some times you just gotta live with that. and a point that Rex made, not all earmarks are bad. in fact, most of them probably aren't bad. And, like I said, as long as the main measure gets passed, who cares what earmarks are attached (obviously to a point, of course). Is it more important to get a budget passed, or to argue for weeks over the pork? There are other alternatives - like passing the budget as is, and combining the pork/earmarks/mini-projects into seperate bills, or doing an amalgamated district grant system as I suggested. You are correct that not all are bad, in fact, many are not I am sure. Its that by adding them to a different bill of any kind, you create a bad situation at multiple levels: 1. Some of it is wasteful or overreaching, at a time when the budget is already a mess. And 1 or 2% is still a big number. 2. Some Congresspeople end up getting bigger shares than others on a regular basis, which is unfair. 3. It puts the people in Congress in a position to not be able to make an intelligent vote. If you agree with a bill in general, but there is an amendment in there that is not what you or your district want, what do you do? You are going to be wrong either way, just as the President would look bad if he had, or had not, signed this bill. It essentially takes away the ability of Congress to do its PRIMARY JOB - passing or not passing legislation in a way that best represents their constituents, and the country. Earmarks are bad, even if their content may be good to some people. And its not about being a drama queen, its about wanting better government and better governance.

QUOTE (forrestg @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 08:50 AM) Kroeger didn't show too much in yesterdays game showing that he was neither the greatest hitter or fielder. Not playing perfectly at first. 1B and OF are not the same. I've seen him in the OF a couple times now (admitedly a very small sample size), and he looked fine. If you look at his career minor league time, he has had a whopping 19 chances at 1B - barely one game's worth. The rest of his time has been in the outfield. 1B is overall easier to play than any OF position, but, that doesn't mean you can just immediately start playing 1B and be good right away. All positions on the field take time to adjust to.

Anyone get to watch Jon Stewart go up against Jim Cramer last night? I didn't get to see it. I'm curious how it went.

QUOTE (Heads22 @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 08:15 AM) I would like Mr. Christopher Getz at leadoff. Please. Thank you. Agreed. Getz, 2B Lexi, SS TCQ, LF Jim, DH Dye, RF PK, 1B AJ, C Fields, 3B BA, CF That would be just fine.

QUOTE (Scwible @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 06:52 AM) I still don't know how Ehren can even see his target with that delivery.