Gregory Pratt

Ichiro's better than decent, mate. But I hear ya.

Gio should be about untouchable.

Truth.

Mackowiak can't handle Santana. He can barely handle the average lefty. And I hate any anti-Santana lineup that has Pods + AJ in it.

I meant Shines. But man, it feels bad to have mixed them up.

That's actually a rather interesting point. I always figured they had some African descent somewhere, but what do we call a black man? If you saw Contreras walking down the street, you'd probably think he was black or "African American." And it's a question that comes up everywhere. In politics (see: Obama, for instance) and in school (see: kids being picked on for not "Acting black") and all over. Very interesting idea, but probably not fit for this forum. SoxAce: Glad Baines is wearing it. I was going to suggest that he and Raines do, too.

Most teams have more than one black player. Kind of odd that we've only got one black player.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Apr 8, 2007 -> 05:22 PM) Going to ignore the offense for now. Plenty of time to b&*ch about that later. Johnny boy...well done. Major Leage Debut against probably the best pitcher in baseball in the last 7 years. Didn't give us the shutout, but held your ground, gave us a quality start. And after things got bad in the 4th, cinched it up, and then just resumed mowing down people. All last season, I kept hoping someone on this team would show some balls. It didn't happen. Today, John Danks showed some balls, even in the loss. Plenty of guys showed balls last year. Against Santana, against other pitchers, against every team. I remember Gload and Old Man Alomar taking Santana deep and pushing him out of the game, even. That said, I too am happy with Danks' performance. I'm glad to say I witnessed his first game.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Apr 8, 2007 -> 04:28 PM) I'm one of Anderson's biggest fans, but Santana would make him look silly. Thome has 3 homers vs. Santana in his career. 2 last season. I'd leave him in. Someone mentioned sitting on his fastball. Thats fine and dandy, the only problem is he has one of the best change-ups of all time, and you still will probably struggle. There's no magic formula to beating him, you really have to get very lucky or catch him on an off day. Left handed hitters seem to have a little more success vs. him. I do agree that the team seems resigned to losing when he takes the mound against them now. Shame on you!! /half-green

Erstad plays the game just as it's meant to be played. He's been perfect so far.

QUOTE(SoxAce @ Apr 7, 2007 -> 08:42 PM) God dammit only 4 people in my department have to work tomorrow and I'm one of the lucky ones. I'm going to miss my family dinner, Danks MLB debut and I'll be alone in my house for a while (I take that back, my dog wil be here too.) I'll catch the Bulls game at least but tomorrow is gonna be a s***ty day. I'll come over and strike you out on two pitches.

I'm so very encouraged by the bullpen's work since the beginning of the season. It's exciting. -- I'm feeling Danks tomorrow. Let's beat Santana. At the least, let's make him throw pitches and beat the bullpen. But I think Santana can be had this early, even by us.

I'm glad. Javier is so exciting to me. Frustrating, but I love him, even when I've got nasty things to say about him. Last year, though, he pitched great against KC and we know how that season ended. Let's keep it rolling though, Javier!

Hey guys. Taking my cousin to the game tomorrow. It's Kid's Day! (Well, I'm taking two, but one's a kid and one isn't.) Two questions. What time does the park usually open? Does it open at any different time on Kid's Day?

QUOTE(AWhiteSoxinNJ @ Apr 7, 2007 -> 09:43 AM) and we would do this because? Because we don't have anyone who is anything resembling a real leadoff hitter going into the future. -- All these trades sound great. In theory. But it's not like ordering a pizza.

QUOTE(longshot7 @ Apr 6, 2007 -> 03:44 PM) left out the most important detail - he was killed by a UNLICENSED, possibly illegal alien drunk driver. And people think they should be allowed to have driver's licenses and to stay in the country. That's not the most important detail. That they're dead is the most important detail. Everything else is something else. And please keep politics out of this. -- RIP.

So what else has he done? I'm having trouble finding stuff. His father is a murderer. He's been busted with drugs and playing loud music. Shoved Tracey to the ground. What else am I missing fathom?

QUOTE(fathom @ Apr 6, 2007 -> 02:28 PM) I'm too scared of Dukes to start saying everything he's been involved in. I hope you're being hyperbolic. Wow.

QUOTE(jackie hayes @ Apr 6, 2007 -> 01:19 PM) Yes, good catch. With GP's avatar, he probably should've known that. I knew that. It just slipped my mind. Only one of those guys is really worth much and the others are average if that. That is a great point. But as far as I can tell, they aren't exactly products of our minor leagues completely. They learned their own way in the Latin countries and of course we worked with them here, in our system, but neither of them is one of Our guys. Mid-average, loopy swing -- they had their own fabulous natural abilities.

I'm not sure when I first noticed this and started to be bothered by it, but it really started to grate on me these last few days. I was at the game yesterday and I was talking to the person I was with and I said, "Damn, it has been a long time since we drafted someone like that -- or any impact player, at all," and I think it was in response to Sizemore homering. I said, "Since Frank Thomas. Actually, it might've been Chris Young, come to think of it," and he said, "Oh I hope not!" But I was thinking about it and here's our lineup. Podsednik -- Not ours. Besides that, his hitting isn't something to be particularly proud of. I do wish he'd swing the bat more because he makes fair contact when he is swinging. If he looked to foul off close pitches and drive some more often he'd do so much better for himself, I think. All the same, we can't take much credit for his development. Erstad -- Not ours. He came here knowing how to play. Thome -- Not ours. Konerko -- Not ours. I know we think of him as ours but he doesn't come from our system and I'm not sure we can take too much credit for successfully developing him. Dye -- Not ours. Crede -- Ours, but a. I think his year last year is something he'll be hard-pressed to match and b. he's not that great even with his year last year. I know we all appreciate Crede, but as fathom points out (or Kalapse), he'd be the fourth best third baseman in the NL East, and it took him, what, four years to get to this level? Iguchi -- Not ours. Uribe -- We can't take credit for his development. He has become more pull-happy than before, I think. Pierzynski -- He isn't ours, either, but I think there's a real case to be made for us having changed him for the worse with our softball approach to hitting when he used to be a pesky linedrive hitter. It goes to our pitching, too, but to a much lesser extent. When your organization's best success at developing a player is Joe Crede, there's something seriously wrong unless you have the Yankees money, which we don't.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Apr 6, 2007 -> 11:43 AM) I know this is going to sound like a broken record. But I really wouldnt mind seriously going after Ichiro for RF and lead off. He is getting older and losing some of his hitting and running, but I really would enjoy that OF. Mmhmm. I concur.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Apr 6, 2007 -> 11:40 AM) I'd rather get rid of a couple of those larger contracts and buy ourselves a good FA leadoff hitter. Im ok with injecting Fields and maybe Sweeney if we can make a larger splash on the FA market. I think Sweeney'll have a better career than Fields right from the beginning. Fields swing is long.

A pessimistic guess, I guess.

More K-Rod: http://www.beloblog.com/Pe_Blogs/baseball/...acy_theory.html

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