ScottyDo

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Oct 15, 2010 -> 05:33 PM) I'll have to search for the links to some of the draft articles I read. But there were multiple ones stating that while Sale's talent is not in question, his size/delivery could relegate him to the 'pen. And I disagree. A good reliever is not a good investment with your first round pick. You won't convince me otherwise. There are much less expensive ways to find relievers/closers than to burn first round picks. Okay but if you're 80% sure he's a dominant starter with a 20% shot that he's a dominant reliever, how can you possibly say it's a bad pick? I mean, retrospectively, if he ends up in the 'pen permanently, yeah, it ended up being somewhat of a waste but it doesn't make the decision poor. He's gonna get every opportunity to start unless we end up with a Papelbon situation.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Oct 13, 2010 -> 03:18 PM) Why, he pitched well in the minors with good peripherals, and has shown swing an miss stuff at the mlb level. Scouts believe he will be a good 3 starter in the future and the way he has performed in hte minors and majors now shows that this is a very real possibility, including for next season. Because you don't project 6 years in the future for even the most can't-miss of can't-miss prospects with any degree of certainty. Any prospect has a significant corollary attached to their projection, let alone the likes of Dan Hudson. The dude hasn't had a full season in MLB yet. While I agree that he projects relatively well, to say that we just traded off 6 years of successful pitching is waaay premature. Edwin Jackson was a bigger 'spect than Dan Hudson, and I believe you would characterize him as below-average thus far, though that is putting words in your mouth and you should certainly feel free to remove them if they're incorrect.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Oct 13, 2010 -> 03:08 PM) Yes because you would have had Hudson for 6 years. With his talent and performances he is exaclty what the Sox need, a 3/4 starter cheap for years to come. That is WAAAAY premature.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Oct 13, 2010 -> 02:49 PM) No people are concerned that Jackson won't be as valuable as the Sox may think he would be even after a strong finish to the season. He'll be worth a decent price, but not what we gave up for him and that could haunt the Sox this offseason. Potentially. If we do trade him, though, even for a modest return, are we really that much worse off without Hudson? A huge list of potential starters has already been posted in a couple of topics. I dunno, it just seemed like a reasonable risk to me, considering we were attempting to steal a playoff spot. I don't see us as crippled because of it, either, because we can still trade the dude.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Oct 13, 2010 -> 12:33 AM) Which gallon of milk are you going to pay more for: one that expires in 2 weeks, or one that expires in 2 days? Any team that would acquire Edwin Jackson will have him for one fewer postseason than the White Sox did when they traded for him. That takes value away from him. The White Sox also gave up a ton to get him, probably more than his market value indicated. That makes it less likely that the Sox will receive an offer of equal talent in return. It's a pretty sound assumption. Maybe you're right, but the tone of the post was that we CAN'T trade Jackson and get anything significant in return. I agree that there's depreciation involved but he can still be flipped and we can get some value back. I really don't think this was a case of Kenny having significantly more love for Jackson than any other GM, I think a number of people probably covet him somewhat and will give up SOMETHING (more than just a B-level 'spect) for him if we're really that desperate for salary relief. The way I look at it, if you paid $10 for a chance at the postseason, didn't make it, but you can still sell it for $8, that's not (necessarily) evidence of a stupid move. Obviously, those were arbitrarily chosen numbers, not reflective of anything. Seriously, though, people have been arguing since this trade happened that Jackson is now valueless and we'll never get anything but a bucket of balls for him, but I disagree and don't understand why he can't be flipped for decent return and salary relief.

QUOTE (Buehrlesque @ Oct 13, 2010 -> 01:44 PM) AGon is not going to happen this winter. The Sox don't have what it takes to get him anyway, unless Beckham or Sale is involved (and Sale can't even be traded yet). Coming off a winning year, I don't see the Padres moving him at all (unless they are truly blown away), until July 2011 when they are out of contention. I dunno, you could make a similar case for us and Danks, yet most of us feel that trading Danks is a possibility because of his pending free agency, despite the fact that we have a winning record and could be considered contenders. Granted, their offense depends more on A-Gon than our pitching depends on Danks. I wouldn't rule it out is all.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Oct 12, 2010 -> 07:11 PM) To be honest, the failure at the end of the season felt exactly the same, just a little later. 88 wins looks respectable at the end of the year but they went on a ridiculous hot streak (against mostly weak NL teams, excluding 2 vs. the Braves), and we knew some time in August that this team was done. Then once they were in fact done, they won a bunch of games that didn't matter. Had we done anything against our division this might've turned out different and left more margin for error, but we blew it harder than I've ever seen a team blow it and covered it up with some feel-good wins at the end of the season. The only real difference I see between the 79 win season and the 88 season is that in 2011 we probably won't draft a Chris Sale. I don't think that's a fair characterization at all; if you remember, we went on like a 7-game losing streak once we were out of it, then won those games. I think 88 wins put us almost exactly at our talent level, which means we are a few moves away from serious contention. Also, I happen to agree that you win every game you can. There's a culture to winning games, just like there's a culture to losing games. Ask the Cubs. You stay on the winning side if you can, even if it means a lower draft status. I'd MUCH rather be us in this decade than the Marlins, who won two world series in a shortish span but were uncompetitive the rest of the time, and are relatively uncompetitive now.

QUOTE (gatnom @ Oct 11, 2010 -> 08:06 PM) In my opinion, the Hudson trade is different than those because it set in motion the necessity of trading one of Danks or Floyd in the off season because we have just about no money to spend anymore. All of our decent prospects have diminished value due to injuries or poor seasons, which means we have to trade something from our major league roster to get value back, and the only place on our major league roster where we have some semblance of depth is our starting pitching. You aren't getting much of anything for Buehrle because of his contract, and it might be bad to trade him if you decide Konerko and AJ aren't worth what they want to be paid. Nobody will trade for Peavy because of the combination of his contract, injuries, and performance. If we try to trade Jackson himself, we aren't going to get back as much as we gave up to the Diamondbacks, which defeats the whole purpose of trading him in the first place. We can't trade Sale yet. That leaves one of Floyd or Danks that has to go. I don't understand this assumption.

What about Pan's Labyrinth? I mean, I consider it a horror/drama mix, but I know a lot of people don't. Fair game?

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Oct 11, 2010 -> 01:31 AM) Because that philosophy has worked in the past. Are you suggesting a rebuild or what? What players are we going to trade for valuable youngsters in that scenario? We've got Danks and....uhhhh.......... Anyway, you don't blow up a 2nd place team that was a few key injuries away from being VERY competitive for the division. Sounds like we have a bunch of advocates for building a time machine.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Oct 10, 2010 -> 07:57 PM) Which should tell us something. It tells us that we should have done better with our farm system in the past, but that doesn't do anything for us now. Gotta spend in FA when your farm system sucks.

QUOTE (flavum @ Sep 7, 2010 -> 06:36 PM) I don't think it was an Indians person. It was at a Cleveland hospital. yeah but he was probably an indians fan though. conniving jerks...

QUOTE (South Side Fireworks Man @ Sep 7, 2010 -> 06:20 PM) Here is the Sox's revised lineup: Pierre lf Vizquel 2b Rios cf M. Ramirez dh Teahen 3b Quentin rf Pierzynski c Kotsay 1b A. Ramirez ss Garcia p Sucks that we're wedged into a Sunday lineup every day this week.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Sep 7, 2010 -> 01:47 PM) Nope Mkay, just checkin

QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ Sep 7, 2010 -> 07:55 AM) Whichever team wins the AL Central will most likely have 93+ wins. I don't think many of us would have expected that at the beginning of the season. If the Sox play just above .500 ball the rest of the way (13 wins out of 25 games), they'll have 90 wins. And that probably won't be enough for the division or the wild card. The team's horrible start really makes me think of how much different it would look right now had they played even moderately better. Regardless of what happens, the next few weeks are going to be exciting, frustrating, and nail-biting. There was a preseason poll asking exactly that. I don't remember what the results were, though. Would be interesting to recall. Should have re-issued that poll in May, just for the sake of humor.

P.S. I wasn't even in the camp that we should ditch the guy; I was very luke-warm on him. I could see him being a boon to the DH spot, but I could equally see him having a terrible season and clogging our basepaths AND roster, since he is incredibly one-dimensional. The only reason I'm defending the decision right now so vehemently is because, now that he's produced, a handful of people are acting like letting him go was the stupidest decision on the face of the earth. They may be the same people begging for him back in March, maybe not, I don't remember, but there are an awful lot of blanket statements being issued.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Sep 7, 2010 -> 11:06 AM) No it isn't... Saying a guy who had a .933 OPS that hit around 130 home runs for your team wasn't worth much is absolutely ridiculous. Okay but last year, in his age 38 season, he posted an .864 OPS and looked to be taking a downward slide. Not only that, but there were some really, REALLY ugly at-bats. Someone on here said we haven't seen at-bats like Manny's since Big Frank in his prime, EVEN THOUGH the results haven't matched the quality of his at-bats (no XBH yet). The converse could be said for Thome last year: he may have hit decently, but boy was it ugly at times. Not only that, but in his limited opportunities with LAD to end the season, he looked awful. So when you rewind to March of this year, when we were projecting his career arc, signs did not point to golden happiness and joy, particularly not in a reduced role (judging from the LAD numbers -- I know, sample size, blah blah blah). The Thome love, enjoyed by about 50% of this board during that couple-day span where we thought we might re-sign him, was largely based on residual fondness and affection from when he was playing well. It wasn't completely devoid of statistical analysis, but let's face it: it was not unreasonable to project a poor season out of the dude. The outrage right now is TOTALLY 20/20 retrospect. It's like playing blackjack: a situation might call for you to hit, simply because of the odds, but there's a chance you bust. If you bust, was it the wrong choice? No.

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Sep 7, 2010 -> 12:42 PM) As I really dont see us losing again this year. Sox - 6 Tigers - 4 Yah, I think we're done with that. If we had made the decision to not lose earlier, we'd be golden right now. Ozzie makes the worst decisions sometimes.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Sep 7, 2010 -> 11:09 AM) 191 outs given up. Are you gonna bother counting the benefits of runners moving into scoring position? I'm not saying I love running into outs, I really don't, but it's a risk/reward game, and you're only counting risk. Seems pretty angled to me. Just a for-instance, a stolen base late in the game got us the win yesterday. Just sayin'.

I dunno, wouldn't switching up your rotation for the Twins series indicate you're LESS confident in your team's ability to beat them? Wouldn't that be MORE of a psychological mindf*** for the Sox? Like we can't beat them unless we do something drastic? I mean, granted, I want my best pitchers up against them, but I don't see it being a psychological benefit.

Heads, you are quite the streaker. You're like Frank the Tank. Incidentally, I believe he was wearing white socks when he was streaking. Coincidence? No way. SOX! This is the day we win and the Twins lose! 2.5 games = awesome.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Sep 7, 2010 -> 02:14 AM) Not at all, considering everyone in the f***in world minus Ozzie Guillen thought having Thome as our dh over Kotsay/Jones was the way to go. Most of us were on board with Damon over Thome. Heck, even the name Hank Blalock was bandied around. Thome may have been on the list of people we wanted over Kotsay but he wasn't at the top of the list.

The whole Thome thing is a gigantic buttload of hindsight being 20/20. There are so many circumstances that go into the results of this year. Of course, if we had a time machine, we'd go back sign him, but a good percentage of this well-educated board was behind dumping his behind for quite a number of very good reasons.

QUOTE (bmags @ Sep 6, 2010 -> 11:52 PM) It seems I was the only one that appreciated this. They aren't lucky. They've done this too long to be lucky. It isn't the dome. They have really solid teams. You could say we are lucky to have won 7 in a row coming from behind in a lot of them while giving up so many outs. The twins are a great offense with good pitching starting and bullpen. Teams like that tend to do well in the regular season. certain events that have transpired for the twins (e.g. the catwalk in tampa, the bizarre final out of the texas game yesterday) fall outside the realm of "great offense and good pitching". that's just pure, unadulterated luck. as far as winning that many one-run games...it's partially luck, but certainly not entirely. and our recent string of comebacks is, likewise, partially luck. what really gets me is their bizarre deus-ex-machina wins, not the close victories.