WCSox

QUOTE(Contreras @ Jul 17, 2006 -> 12:06 PM) So all it takes to be an elite base-stealer is the willingness to run all the time and get caught more often than everyone else, wasting valuable outs and being a drain to your own offense? I'm sure Abreu would be willing to run at inappropriate times and get thrown out more often if told to do so. After all, I'm sure he'd love to be called "elite." And I'm sure that it'd be a really intelligent decision to spend $13 million/year on Abreu when we already have Thome, Konerko, Dye, and Crede, but out starting pitching is in shambles. It'd also be a super idea to owe a past-his-prime Tom Gordon close to $15 million over the next two seasons with Jenks, Cotts, Thornton, and Riske all pitching relatively well out of the 'pen.

QUOTE(Queen Prawn @ Jul 14, 2006 -> 10:49 AM) 0.08 is the limit - apparently they follow it to a T with no leeway. I'm not sure if this applies in Colorado, but in many places you can challenge the accuracy of a portable breathalizer and request to be taken down to the station to blow into the more accurate instrument. Since it usually takes 10-30 minutes to get to your town's police station plus at least a few minutes of paperwork and allowing the instrument to warm up/calibrate, there's a good chance that your alcohol level will go down over that time. If Pete had done that, there's a very good chance that his BAC could've fallen 0.009 points by that time. EDIT: Oops, didn't know about his BAC going up the second time. Yikes. QUOTE(bmags @ Jul 14, 2006 -> 10:49 AM) coors is good for us college folk, we ain't all rich You can find better cheap beer than Coors. Yuck...

QUOTE(GoSox05 @ Jul 17, 2006 -> 11:39 AM) Mariotti is pretty much on perment vaccy from the sun-times. When asked about when he would be back the sun-times just said "weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks". LOL, looks like the little ass-clown got himself run out of town.

QUOTE(ZoomSlowik @ Jul 17, 2006 -> 11:34 AM) Just because it's been a while doesn't mean that the contract totals will increase. In fact, they're coming down a bit. You're not going to see $18 mil contracts like Hampton got, or people giving guys in their mid-30's monster long term contracts like Mussina or Brown, or someone like Chan Ho Park getting $12 mil a year, or a supremely unproven commodity like Dreifort getting over $10 mil (yes, Burnett was more proven). Just because time has passed doesn't mean that people automatically get more money. The number of years committed to players may go down (i.e., no more Brown-like 7-year deals), but I don't see any evidence of the amount per year going down. The fact that an injury-prone, not-that-great A.J. Burnett got 5/$55 certainly suggests otherwise. Glavine is a dinosaur, so his current deal isn't comparable to Buehrle's. Pettitte is SEVEN years older than Buehrle, has had more injury problems, and his regular-season numbers in the AL were less impressive than Mark's. That's all meaningless media-speak. Robin Ventura and Ron Schueler were saying the same crap back in '98 and looked what happened. The fact that the Sox let Paulie twist in the wind during his walk year with Dye as their only other high OPS player speaks volumes. If that's all they're willing to offer, Mark will probably be pitching elsewhere in '08. That's seriously low-balling him. Schmitt and Colon are both past their primes and have had serious arm injuries in the recent past. Schilling is a dinosaur and won't command much. The BoSox won't let Beckett go because he's all they have after Schilling. And the Cubs and Astros also have deep pockets and are likely to re-sign their aces. So that basically leaves Zito and Carpenter. You are correct about the number of free agents determining market value. It's also fair to say that Mark may choose to stay in Chicago or go somewhere else for less than he could get. But to say that Buehrle "won't make $14 mil a year" is wrong. He could easily get that much money in a four- or five-year deal if the Yankess, Red Sox, or Mets needed a starter that badly. But if we can agree that $13 million/year over five years is definitely a possibility, I think that we have some common ground.

QUOTE(vandy125 @ Jul 17, 2006 -> 10:51 AM) Has there ever been a Palestinian nation? What are their national holidays, customs, etc? Do they have any distinct cuisines or anything? I am curious as to what makes them a distinct nationality? I hope this does not sound confrontational (I do not mean for it to be), because this is something I am curious about. A good friend of mine is Palestinian and they basically share the same culture as the rest of the Arab world. There are subtle differences, though. I also believe (but am not sure) that the majority of them are Sunni.

QUOTE(ZoomSlowik @ Jul 17, 2006 -> 10:04 AM) 1) Vazquez and Mussina were both signed a while ago, back when contracts were even more ridiculous. Plus neither Vazquez or Pettitte are getting those kind of totals over the life of the contract, they're only getting it for one year. Pettitte made $5.5 mil the first year and only made $8.5 mil last year. He only gets the ridiculous money for this year ($17.5 mil). Vazquez averages just over $11 mil. There are a few guys making that much, but that doesn't mean that suddenly Buehrle and Zito are going to get over $13 mil per year. Most of those guys were dominant pitchers at some point or another (Schilling, Johnson, Martinez, Mussina, Brown, Hampton). What makes you think that contracts are going to become any less "ridiculous" in the future? Unless there just happens to be an inordinate amount of quality free-agent pictchers on the market in a particular year, the money is going up, not down. This is especially true if the Yankees or Red Sox are buying that year. The fact that Vazquez and Mussina were getting big bucks from contracts signed three years ago supports my argument. By the time Mark is a free agent, it'll have been about five years since those deals were inked... and they're going to be significantly higher. If Brunett and Vazquez are going to average $11 million/year, Buehrle and Zito will average AT LEAST $2 million/year more and could probably command additional money. A 27-year-old Mark Buehrle is inherently more valuable than a 38-year-old Randy Johnson or a 35-year-old Mike Mussina, even if he hasn't been as dominant as those guys were several years before inking their current deals. You're also forgetting the Steinbrenner Factor. Keep in mind that Randy Johnson is a free agent soon and that Seinbrenner is going to also be looking for replacements for Pavano and Wright. If he's desperate for a relatively young, durable, and accomplished starter and is willing to pay Jeter $19 million a year, Mark could easily get 5 years/$75 million in New York. I don't have to. Mark has already stated not once, but twice, that he's interested in playing for the Cardinals. And when was the last time that Jerry Reinsdorf committed $60-$70 million to a pitcher? If JR and KW didn't make a serious effort to re-sign Konerko in his walk year, why would they do so for Buehrle? Mark may not even have a say in whether or not he tests the open market - JR may force him to. Maddux and Glavine are both finesse pitchers and they earned top dollar in their primes. "Stuff" matters more when a pitcher is 22 and has limited MLB experience. But at some point, pitchers need to turn their "superior stuff" into results. Buehrle has and, for the most part, Burnett has not. Factor in Burnett's arm problems, bad attitude, and lack of postseason success, and I guarantee you that Mark will make $3-5 million/year more than him.

QUOTE(Pale Hose Jon @ Jul 17, 2006 -> 09:19 AM) A Brief History of the Creation of Israel. So WWI hits and the British need a way to eliminate the Ottoman empire whihc at the time had become very fractured. Britian did not have that many troops so it made the Hussein Mcmahon deal in 1915. This deal promissed to Shairf Hussein that he would be given controll of the arab world if he would lead an overthrow of the ottoman empire. HE did and at the conclusion of the war the British said ehh, too bad. It's a bit more complicated than that... Link

QUOTE(Pale Hose Jon @ Jul 17, 2006 -> 09:19 AM) So What is the Morale of the story. When countries try to decide the fate of other countries, things tend to get f***ed up. And sometimes when countries do not, things get even more f***ed up (WWII). Perhaps my memory fails me, but I believe that Jordan was given to the Arabs by the British. Quite a bit more land than Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza.

QUOTE(Contreras @ Jul 17, 2006 -> 09:35 AM) No, we don't really need him...But he's gotta be 4 or 5 times more valuable than Pods as a leadoff hitter. As for that "stolen base threat" trash...Abreu: 19 steals/ 4 caught He's better at it than Pods. Abreu is not an elite base-stealer. Pods is. Abreu is not cheap ($13+ million/year). Pods is. I agree that Pods is not in the Sox's long-term plans, but Vazquez probably should be for now, since it doesn't look like Freddy has much left and Garland will never be more than an innings-eater at the back of the rotation. Gordon is also expensive and will be in his early 40's at the end of his contract.

The only short-term (for this season) benefit for the Sox in this deal would be dumping Javy's contract. And the last time I checked, the Sox weren't concerned with unloading salary right now. The Sox don't need Abreu and this deal would take away their only base-stealing threat.

QUOTE(vandy125 @ Jul 17, 2006 -> 08:22 AM) I think that Israel's claim to the land is much older than the Palestinian's claim is. That is the key difference that I see in the comparison. In one case, it is a group of people returning to their land that they had thousands of years ago. In the other case, it is a group of people taking over land that they never had a claim to before. This is an interesting little read about some of the history. I would be interested in seeing other sources that people run across with it: http://www.science.co.il/Israel-history.asp That is a good point. There is no such thing as a recognized 'state of Palestine' from what I have read. IIRC, the British controlled that land (and also Jordan) via a mandate from the League of Nations after WWI. While it was sort of a no-man's land that was populated mostly by Arabs, there had been no sovereign Arab government control over it when the U.N. gave part of it to the Jews.

QUOTE(CanOfCorn @ Jul 17, 2006 -> 08:07 AM) One question...and I don't know the answer to it... Why don't the other primarily Islamic countries give a piece of their country's to the Palestinians? Or even just absorb them into their country's by giving them automatic citizenship? OK, that's two questions...sorry. Because that solution wouldn't include the annhialation of all Jews from the Middle East. The Islamic countries want the Arabs to control Jerusalem.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Jul 17, 2006 -> 07:41 AM) Correct. I'd say the land was stolen by the people responsible for creating the state of Israel to being with That would be the U.N., correct? The decision to put Israel right smack in the Holy Land (including Jerusalem) was not a wise one. They should've expected these problems. That said, the Israelis have gone out of their way to give a significant amount of this occupied land back to the Palestinians in an effort to reach some sort of peaceful coexistence. And the militant Palestinians have decided that they will settle for nothing less than complete Palestinian control of the land "from sea to sea." That is one key difference between their situation and ours with the Native Americans.

QUOTE(ZoomSlowik @ Jul 16, 2006 -> 02:05 PM) That wasn't my point. My point was that you can't buy any of the contract talk out there. $15 mil a year for a pitcher is insane and it'll take a very good pitcher to earn that kind of money, better than anyone that will be out there. There's also a difference between Buehrle and Burnett. Burnett got his contract on the open market. We're re-signing him, which typically means that you get him for less than market value. Johan Santana signed for 4-40 a while ago, even though he probably could have gotten 5-70 easily. If he hit the open market, that's what I think Buehrle probably would end up with, however I don't see us letting that happen. Even that might be a little bit of a stretch, given he doesn't have the greatest stuff and doesn't have a history of dominance like the other $12-mil-plus pitchers. Finesse pitchers don't seem to get quite as much money as your fire-balling potential aces. (1) $15 million/year is not "insane" by any stretch of the imagination. That's what a well-past-his-prime Randy Johnson is making. IIRC, Vazquez is getting paid something like $13 million in the last year of his deal. Andy Pettitte, who is comparable to Buehrle in terms of talent, but older and has more injury problems, is getting paid just under $16.5 million this year. Mussina, another very-good-but-not-elite pitcher, has averaged around $18 million/year for the past three seasons. If Steinbrenner was willing to give a past-his-prime Moose that type of money, he'll gladly give it to a 28-year-old Buehrle as well. (2) Buehrle is going to test the open market, just like Paulie did. He'd be stupid not to. I agree that the Sox (or Cardinals) may be able to get him to come down to 5/$65 mil at a hometown discount. That's an average of $13 million/year, which is Vazquez money. (3) I'm really not buying the "power pitchers get more money" argument with regard to Burnett. Any GM worth a damn is going to pay significantly more for a consistently-good, workhorse, injury-free finesse pitcher who is a good teammate and contributed heavily to a WS title than someone like Burnett who has only thrown 200 innings twice in six years as a starter, has been hampered by injuries (including reconstructive elbow surgery), has put up good-but-not-great numbers, has never won anything, and was kicked off of his team for bad-mouthing his teammates and coaches.

QUOTE(whitesox1976 @ Jul 16, 2006 -> 01:22 PM) If we didn't have Jose, I don't know where we'd be. I would put McCarthay in the starting rotation and put Vazguez in the bull pen. If we don't play better then this, the Tigers will maul us. Since Vazquez has the mental toughness of a 20-year-old rookie, putting him in the 'pen would be counter-productive at this point. Making B-Mac re-adjust to the rotation is probably not the best idea, either. And it's not like he's pitching lights-out in long relief right now, either. And speaking of the Tigers, some good news for the Sox is that their starting pitching bit it in two of three games against the Royals. They were lucky to win that series. It'd be really nice if the Sox continued to get help from the 2nd-half Kenny Rogers and the '05 incarnations of Robertson and Bonderman.

QUOTE(ZoomSlowik @ Jul 16, 2006 -> 12:44 PM) The 5-75 talk is just crap though. Remember, people were throwing out 10-200 numbers for Beltran and 5-75 for Paulie. Projections are almost always going to be a bit high, at least now. Buehrle would probably get something similar to Zito, and I wouldn't be surprised if he signed a 5-55 extension at some point. Comparing Beltran and Paulie to a consistently-good left-handed starting pitcher is apples and oranges. If you think that Buehrle is going to settle for the same contract as A.J. Burnett (a pitcher that he's trumped in just about every aspect), you're out of your freaking mind. I'd be absolutely shocked if Mark settled for anything less than 5 years/$65 million. That's what it'll probably take to sign Zito and is probably where Buehrle's negotiations will start.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Jul 16, 2006 -> 10:36 AM) If I'm Kenny, I'm looking to UPGRADE the rotation if at all possible and if that means dealing a guy like Freddy and someone else for another starter than so be it. Given how he's pitched this season and how much money is left on his contract, Freddy isn't going to get the Sox anything of value right now. In fact, the Sox would probably have to eat part of his contract if they dealt him.

QUOTE(whitesoxin @ Jul 15, 2006 -> 06:18 PM) In this thread Barry Bonds has been compared to Scott Podsednik and Mark Buehrle, yet I'm the stupid one. I never called you stupid, but you're doing a great job of not understanding other people's points. Well, even the casual observer would've noticed him hugging Jenks after he blew the save in Game 2 of the WS. The casual fan also may have heard Ozzie praise Mark for his leadership qualities on several occasions. WTF is that supposed to mean?

QUOTE(whitesoxin @ Jul 15, 2006 -> 06:03 PM) Ok? Was that necessary? Arguing with people on the internet is like being in the special olympics, even if you win, you're still retarded in the end. Oh and thanks for all the warm greetings on my birthday fellas. I'd buy you a drink, but apparently you're not of legal age yet. Nope. I also base them on their demeanor, how well they play under pressure, and how they treat the fans. I'll admit that Buehrle has very mediocre stuff and, frankly, I don't think he's very bright either. But he's a nice guy, a hell of a teammate, and has been one of the better pitchers in the league over the past five seasons. To say that he's "not that good" just because you don't like him for whatever reason is stupid. I don't like Barry Bonds, but I'll never say that he's "not that good."

QUOTE(whitesoxin @ Jul 15, 2006 -> 05:44 PM) In picking the players that I like, yes personal prejudice is what matters. I don't like Buehrle, I love the White Sox. I like Vazquez. Is that so wrong? Nope, just don't go around saying that Buehrle "isn't that good" when the stats show that isn't the case. So, Pods must be a better player than Barry becauase he's won more championships, right? QUOTE(Misplaced_Sox @ Jul 15, 2006 -> 05:44 PM) Stats can be misleading.... if you asked GM's around the league who would they rather have they would pick Halladay over Buerhle in a land slide. The two are not even compartive. There are other, less "misleading" stats that clearly show that Halladay has been more dominant than Buehrle.

Buehrle may be not be in the highest pitching tier (Santana, Pedro, Clemens, etc.), but he's sitting right at the top of the next tier. QUOTE(whitesoxin @ Jul 15, 2006 -> 05:37 PM) ERA+.... Anyways, I'm not trying to fight with anyone, you can all love Buehrle as much as you want, but I've never really liked him and never will. That's just my opinion so leave me alone and don't throw a bunch of worthless stats in my face. By the way, Vazquez has 4 fewer losses this year than Buehrle Who cares what the stats say? Personal prejudice is what really matters!

QUOTE(whitesoxin @ Jul 15, 2006 -> 05:19 PM) Maybe because he has been pitching out of his mind for his entire career and he is in no way shape or form an ace. So, he's just been lucky for the past five years? Since he's not throwing a Mulder-esque 80 mph fastball, we can most likely rule out an arm injury. And that's good news.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jul 15, 2006 -> 04:27 PM) And he'll get more money than Burnett got but not $20M more. Don't you wonder why kerry wood will probably end up getting a nice sized deal after this season? GMs love guys with killer arms, they all think they'll be the one to get the most out of the guy no one else could tap into. Burnett's been in the majors since '99 and has never lived up to his potential. If he hasn't become an ace by now and has had enough injury problems to limit him to only two 200-inning seasons, he's probably never going to live up to that potential. He's an older Mark Prior with slightly less injury risk, but a worse attitude. It's possible that the Burnett signing was a fluke and that Buehrle isn't going to get that much more. But it did create a precedent and it's likely that Steinbrenner and his aging, injury-prone pitching staff will drive the market up even higher.. And if Mark continues to pitch at his career averages for the next year and a half, $13 million/year is where the negotiations will probably start. Agreed that Zito's next deal should tell us more.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Jul 15, 2006 -> 04:14 PM) Buerhle's problem is that he is not locating. He's leaving everything right down the heart of the plate or missing the corners by a few inches for balls. When he gets his command back he'll be fine, but as long as its off a little, he's a gas can. ^^^ He's definitely leaving pitches up and not hitting the corners like he usually does. Also, the Cubs were sitting on first-pitch fastball in the first inning of the last game of the series at Wrigley. When A.J. began calling first-pitch breaking ball, he was much more effective.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jul 15, 2006 -> 04:11 PM) Burnett got his contract soley based on his upside and pure stuff, the guy throws in the high 90's with a nasty breaking ball when healthy, a guy like that is always going to find a place in baseball. Burnett is a horrible comparison to Buehrle. Burnett has Ace quality stuff, Buehrle does not, it's really as simple as that. Burnett had several injuries (and also needed Tommy John sugery) and was dismissed from his team for throwing them under the bus to the press. He's injury-prone and has a bad attitude - two very good reasons to not throw a $55 million contract at him. Whatever better "stuff" Burnett has, Mark has been tremendously more successful in terms of individual pitching performance, winning, and being a good teammate. His value is much higher than Burnett's.