balfanman

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Nov 24, 2009 -> 12:11 PM) I agree that taking on Matthews would be a mistake, but I seriously doubt that Jordan Danks would be a better offensive player next year than Matthews would. The only reason I would rather have Danks over Matthews on the Sox next year is because Danks will cost more than $10 million less than Matthews. I'm not saying that Gary Matthews would be an ideal outfielder, or the best choice for this team. It might be one of a very few ways that you can dump Konerkos' contract however and you sure could do alot worse.

QUOTE (bmags @ Nov 24, 2009 -> 11:49 AM) ~I´m borderline insulted this was asked Same here. The question should be is Thomas a unanamous first ballot choice.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Nov 24, 2009 -> 10:28 AM) Unless you are moving Konerko for financial savings so you can sign such a player, you might as well just hold on to him for one more season. That's kind of the point, financial savings. This is to be able to sign a free agent hitter. This was discussed in the Adrian Gonzales thread I believe.

If (IF) K. W. somehow manages to land Adrian Gonzales I would not be upset at all if some version of the Konerko to the Angels for Gary Matthews trade happened. I think that somehow Gary Matthews would not be all that bad at the Cell. His power numbers would probably increase at least a little and at the very worst would provide plus defense for our pitching staff. At that point we could always go to a Thome / Dye / etc. type to D. H. JMHO

I don't believe that Harold is "Hall Worthy", whatever that means anymore. That said, the article states that the author believes that Harold was a below average defensive player and uses the fact that "he only played 2 innings there" for his reasoning.. Harold was a below average defensive player late in his career because he was extremely slow due to his injuries taking their toll. However, prior to his injuries I believe that he was a top shelf defensive right fielder with a pretty good arm.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Nov 20, 2009 -> 12:57 PM) Why not just outright Marquez and Armstrong or Torres? Hynick being added is another 5th/6th starter type and Ely isn't that far away, so we don't need to keep all these fringe guys around. I understand Luis and Santos, but Omogrosso is also confusing. How can you keep a player on your roster if he's not even throwing the baseball? Wasn't Marquez injured most of last season? I would not be suprised, due to K. W.'s comments on him last season, that K. W. sees Marquez as a strong candidate for long relief next season. This would free up Carasco for the later innings.

I probably should also state that I don't believe that I'm necessarily a "conspiracy theorist' type, but I have seen some instances over the years where there was a fairly obvious show of favoritism by the Tribune. I can't say that I blame them to a point though because afterall, the Cubs were their product. It's along the same lines as the radio stations in town. Sox fans complain that WGN radio is bias towards the Cubs. Well why shouldn't they be, it's the Cubs flagship station. I actually think that the Score does a pretty fair job of discussing the Cubs overall, but as a Sox fan I wish that they would concentrate on the Sox more, but I understand why. I don't listen to much radio anyway so I don't care that much about it, although I do try to catch Ranger on White Sox Weekly every Saturday.

I would just like to add my "Welcome Ranger" to the chorus. I post on "the other" site too, but the main reason I signed up at WSI was because you posted there Ranger and I found alot of your posts to be honest and insightful. I have always felt that Soxtalk is much more informative overall, with better quality dialogue. I guess now that you're here Ranger this is now kind of like one stop shopping for me!

I'm not sure if this is in the right forum or not but it is about the Sox. Mods please move this if it needs to go elsewhere. I was wondering if anyone else has noticed, or if it's just me that the Tribune seems be be more favorable to the Sox recently. This is most likely due to the fact that they are no longer the majority owner of the Cubs, but I wasn't really expecting anything to change when they sold them. Maybe the whole Mark Gonzales / Joe Cowley thing the last couple of days has helped too. I noticed that there were 3 or 4 Sox stories this morning for example. Does anyone think that maybe the Tribune has actually changed it's tune and is going to cover the Sox on an equal basis from now on, or am I dreaming?

QUOTE (Princess Dye @ Nov 18, 2009 -> 12:15 PM) If Flowers is traded it really puts the Sox in a spot. They bring in Blanco and then they risk severing the relationship with AJ. As things stand now, I bet AJ would back for a series of short term cheaper deals........it would just have to guarantee him playing time. It's the same deal if they keep Flowers though. AJ would be gone after this year, I'd bet I'm all for resigning A. J., but why would you guarantee anyone playing time? Especially an older player. If someone starts to suck you don't want to be forced to play them.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Nov 17, 2009 -> 01:57 PM) As for the leadership thing, I think it really comes down to winning. If you're winning baseball games you feed off each other and get along when you have to, assuming you don't have a clubhouse full of cancers, which I don't think is the case with us. Paulie really sunk down in 2007, then took a big crap all over the rest of this team in 2008, then did alright last year. Dye sucked for the first half of 2007 and the second half of 2009. AJ OTOH has been the same AJ more or less, so I've got no issues with him. He also doesn't seem to have the same general quiet attitude as some of the other veterans, and IIRC his best friends here were Crede and Rowand. I think AJ is going to eventually end up as a mentor type at the tail end of his career, but he's not there yet. He'll be a starter for a few more years, and if it isn't with the Sox then it'll be elsewhere. Personally I hope Flowers does all his learning in San Diego while AJ is here hitting behind Adrian Gonzalez. That's what I'd like to see. For most of this post I can't say that I disagree. As I mentioned I'm just not informed enough to form a strong opinion. As for the bolded part........ Amen brotha preach it!

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Nov 17, 2009 -> 01:28 PM) Sorry if that was a little nasty. Oh contraire, For some reason I cant stop laughing at that one.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Nov 17, 2009 -> 01:17 PM) Well done Jason. I agree.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Nov 17, 2009 -> 01:11 PM) Sadly, I agree. And given that Mark is probably not going to get another contract from the Sox, moving Floyd or Danks would be a bad idea. I imagine that the Padres would demand both Hudson and Flowers, plus others. Why would the Padres want Floyd or Danks 1? They are not going to compete for a few years and by that time those two will be very expensive.

Let me state first of all, like any other subject that can't be substantiated with facts, that this is just my opinion. I do not have access to the clubhouse or any team officials. I appreciate tremendously what A. J. has done for the Sox, particularly 2005. That said, I feel the same way about A. J. as I have expressed about Konerko & Dye recently. Judging from some of the reports, they don't seem to me to be the best "team leaders". You can interpret what is meant by "team leader" any way that you want I guess, I'm not sure that I really know specifically what I mean. They seem to view themselves as leaders, yet if reports are to be believed they kind of take exception when someone else on the team wants to say something in this regard. That would be okay if their leadership style had the Sox winning consistantly, but since 2005 thay have barely scratched 1 division title out in what for the most part has been a weak division. With what seems like a 2nd half collapse every season it just doesn't seem to me that their leadership has been very effective and isn't inspiring their team mates on to "greatness". It doesn't seem like the team is unified to reach the ultimate goal, in fact, they seem sort of fractured. That said, Dye is already gone for the most part and it would not upset me if A. J. and Konerko were sent on their way as well. It's not like any of them are so valuable on the field that they could not be replaced, they are more complimentary players now anyway on a championship team. If they want to accept a lesser role, where in A. J.'s case I think would prolong his career, then I'm fine with them here. To refuse to help a younger team mate along or welcome new additions to the team because they feel "threatened" is rather immature and not being a team player in my book. Ultimately this is something that K. W. and Ozzie need to decide how to handle, as their opinion is what counts here. But this is JMHO.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Nov 17, 2009 -> 08:01 AM) Howard, Pujols, Morneau, Gonzales, Pujols, Cabrera, Fielder, Pena, Dunn, Teixeira. Those guys are all pretty much locks to match or come close to matching 40/110. Lance Berkman, although he had a down year in the HR/RBI department in 2009, is capable. Then you've got young studs like Kendry Morales and Joey Votto who are more than capable of at least coming close. I'd take all the guys I just named over PK in two shakes of a lambs tail. And I'm not hating on PK. He is what he is. But they're plenty who play his position that are considerably better. The problem is getting one of those guys. That's about one 40 HR, 110 RBI man for every 3 teams. This is why I for one would love to get Gonzales here, even if we have to give up all of our top 5 prospects. What are the odds that one of Danks 2, Morell, Flowers, etc., ever turn into a 40 HR, 110 RBI hitter? Even if one of them does it will be at least 3 - 4 years down the road and by then our starting staff will be gone. We need to do this now if it is possible.

Isn't that about the time the whole "winning ugly" thing started?

QUOTE (joeynach @ Nov 17, 2009 -> 04:14 AM) Konerko is a nice hitter to have...hes good for .275/30/90 at this point in his career. He is no longer a 40 HR and 110+ RBI threat. Yes, but who is? I'm not a huge Konerko fan either and I have more of an issue with his apparent leadership skills than anything else, so I won't cry too many tears if he's dealt. However, in the post steroid era there are not too many 40 hr, 110 rbi people around.

QUOTE (BFirebird @ Nov 16, 2009 -> 04:52 PM) Even if this doesn't happen, I like the fact that KW sees the same bad offense that we see going into next year and is attempting to correct it. That is something to be optimistic about. I certainly hope that Kenney does something major to this offense before spring.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Nov 16, 2009 -> 03:06 PM) I just turned on the Score and they are doing Bears stuff. Dropped them an e-mail with the story. I don't understand this on two levels. First, why would you alert them to a rumor? If the story is credible I'm sure that they would've already heard about it. Secondly, and more importantly, who the hell cares what those two morons think of this?

Once again KHP, we see eye to eye on this issue. Thank you for stating it so eloquently!

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Nov 12, 2009 -> 11:48 PM) I would like to see them take a risk and go up to $120M. Give those starters some more confidence. Having a starting 4 like this at trying to be cheap at the same time is like Culter trying to work with the Bears O. This has been my thought process for a couple of months now. I think that you now have true Sox fans excited about next season with the potential (almost sure thing) awesomeness of our starting rotation. I think that if you now take a plung and add that "big bat" you will then get the casual fan excited about next year and ticket sales climb. When Kenny said something the other day about trying to get Jerry to up the budget a little bit it made me think that Kenny is thinking along these same lines (at least I hope that he is) and has a trade in the works for this "big bat". JMHO

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Nov 12, 2009 -> 11:57 PM) Why would you trade Jenks for "prospects"? Closers are hard to replace. Period. What may be even more difficult is replacing the quality of setup work provided by Thornton. Again, for the most part I agree with this. One question I have that I haven't heard anyone address (if they have I missed it, sorry) is the condition of Jenks' arm. The Sox have mentioned that they would like for him to trim down and get in better shape, and that would help his leg problem I'm sure. I can't recall if any of his injuries the last few seasons have anything to do with his arm or shoulder, but Jenks does have a screw in his elbow and I wonder if the Sox are at all concerned about that. Has anyone heard of Jenks or anyone from the Sox mention anything about his arm?

QUOTE (League @ Nov 13, 2009 -> 07:53 AM) If I'm Kenny, I call up Dombrowski and offer Flowers, Hudson, Retherford and Viciedo for Granderson. Add a player like him to our line-up and outfield and we instantly have a dangerous order and extremely effective defensive outfield. I would personally prefer him to Adrian Gonzalez, seeing as he'd probably be cheaper and fits more of what this team needs, IMO. I agree that Granderson fits more of a need for us in some ways, particularly defensively. His downward trends tend to sound an alarm in me however. I'm not a "stats guy" persay, so I'll leave it to others to debate that. I'm not sure that Granderson is the power guy that we need in the middle of the lineup. If you could possibly get Granderson and then resign Thome / Dye to dh that could work though.

QUOTE (cornball @ Nov 13, 2009 -> 08:12 AM) LOL I guess I am showing my age a little bit. It doesn't seem that long ago. I'm right there with you Cornball. "Several" seemed like the right term to me when you first posted it. I guess that these young whiper snappers take offense when you mention something that probably happened before they were a twinkle in their daddys' eyes as being not that long ago. Kind of like when your 13 year old says something to the effect of "when I was young".