Dick Allen

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Feb 11, 2013 -> 11:54 AM) Exactly. He went to a team that has a history of trading away all their big money guys and they don't offer no trade clauses. People on this site were predicting it would happen from day one, it should not have been a surprise to Mark or his agent. Probably not, but supposedly he was told to his face he would not be traded.

If Morel is healthy, which when talking about backs, I always find questionable at best, I don't see a reason why so many are so fast to throw him to the curb. A lot of people were excited about him last year. He clearly was injured. He couldn't even hit at AAA where he dominated earlier. I really don't think you can use last season against him. This time of year, most injured guys are either 100% healthy, in the best shape of their lives, never have felt better, or right on schedule. We will have to wait to find out, but if he's healthy and can play, he can become a bench player, and go in and play 3B with Keppinger the regular, but the guy who moves around depending on the line up. I've never been sold on Morel, but his glove is good, and he has shown flashes of being able to hit in the past.

QUOTE (flavum @ Feb 10, 2013 -> 11:22 AM) Indians sign Jason Giambi and Daisuke Matsuzaka. Good times. Reminds me of when Schueler signed guys like Sabo, Kruk, Dibble and Steib.

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Feb 8, 2013 -> 02:25 PM) I think the Bears should take a punter in the first round. Or long snapper. Considering past history with their first round picks, they probably would be better off. Although, I still hold out some hope for Carimi.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Feb 8, 2013 -> 02:08 PM) It was past the point of no return. Renovation would have been pretty intense I have a coffee table book with pictures from 1977. The park was in horrendous shape back then. JR definitely wasn't lying when he said they threw a ton of money into the park.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Feb 8, 2013 -> 02:06 PM) I feel like with the renovations the Cell is actually pretty awesome - that being said it doesn't have a single trademark that you'd love to see, unless Fundamentals counts! What about the singing beer vendor?

Since the Sox usually don't sign other teams' major free agents (Dunn was the first free agent from another team they signed for more than $20 million since Albert Belle) trades or minor free agent signings are their buzz. Most of their major trades seem to occur in season. Really, big offseason buzz is not very common with the White Sox.

QUOTE (southside_hitman @ Feb 8, 2013 -> 01:42 PM) I always wondered how Terry Savarise was given the job of suggesting (and for all practical purposes, determining) what the new Comiskey Park would look like. Was he a relative of Einhorn or Reinsdorf? He certainly lacked the ability to develop a concept for a new baseball stadium that would result in a structure that would have lasting architectural beauty, like our famous buildings in Chicago. Savarise was dispatched to every major league stadium (nice summer for that kid) in order to glean what HE liked about each park. He must have been high when he went our to Los Angelos becuse he took back the robn's egg blue color for the stadium - something that was entirely inapproriate and cost an enormous amount to undo. In that process, Savarise showed a complete disregard for the the original architecture of the park, the neighborhood, or the fans. What did he take from the old park? The silly scoreboard twirly birds and the ridiculous drenching shower. The prominent and beautiful split arches which graced original Comiskey and we looked through to see our downtown skyline were simply worked into the exterior in that pinky brownish colored dryvit on the 35th street fascade. As others have said, the park was oriented to look at the ugly brown building, not the skyline. Nose bleed seats in the upper deck were and still are horrible. The overstated deep bleachers in the outfield might have worked if the stadium faced the loop, but now they are just a serious inconvenience for fans to walk back dozens of rows to get to the concessions or the washrooms. There was no attempt to work the design into the surrounding neighborhood which would not have been that difficult (as one can see with the Armor Park plan that was submitted). There was no plan for accommodating a hotel or dealing with the adjoining housing projects. I am now hyperventilating so I'll stop criticizing what was done by Savarise and the owners back then. It just galls me that our park was the last one before a series of beautiful retro parks were constructed for other teams. The Sox should have purchased all of the housing between the Ryan and the Park and maybe cut back on the original budget for bricks and mortar. Now how can that pooch be unscrewed? I'd still like to see some major renovations that will make us forget that first day at the new Comiskey where some of us dropped our jaws at how brutal the thing looked. I think it's a pretty nice place to watch a game now.

QUOTE (klaus kinski @ Feb 8, 2013 -> 01:40 PM) Nothing to create any buzz (Lars Anderson signing excluded) since message boards came about Last year's offseason was boring. Buehrle left, traded Quentin for a bust.......no buzz at all.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 8, 2013 -> 01:07 PM) In this case...it might well depend on their revenue projections. With the TV contracts coming up, it could be a helluva lot easier to afford a contract like this over the next 7 years than the last 7. With the national contract, every team is getting an extra 25 million a year starting in 2014.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 8, 2013 -> 12:17 PM) Having it in the south loop would have been pretty awesome too. Around Roosevelt and the Chicago River would have been spectacular. Open to the skyline. Could have had a party type area along the river. Red, Green, Orange line trains within walking distance. There could have been Wendella boats to take fans to and from the train stations, and it's proximitey to downtown and the people who work there make it pretty easy to think attendance would probably always be good.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Feb 8, 2013 -> 10:48 AM) Maybe extending him wasnt ludicrous, extending him for THAT much is probably the ludicrous part I don't think they will go broke with the extension, and am sure they know its an over pay, but he is the face of a franchise that has really struggled lately. It's probably worth the extra money to keep him around rather than letting him walk or trading him, if you take those things into consideration.

QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ Feb 8, 2013 -> 08:29 AM) I didn't want to start another thread to ask this question, but I had a question about the bleacher seats. Do all or only some of the bleacher seats have backs? I saw the bleacher seats once, but I didn't take a close look. I'm looking at getting some tickets to a game this summer, and I noticed the bleacher seats are pretty reasonable. Thanks for any input. They all have backs, but it is bench seating.

He'd probably get hurt signing his contract.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 5, 2013 -> 02:03 PM) But if the distributor has a client like ARod...that client can be his trump card. The government would at least be willing to switch some of the penalties if there is a user that they can make an example of. That seems to me then he could be trying to protect himself by using a fake client. Maybe he gains some legitimacy and sales if he says ARod is a client when in fact he's not. ARod may have been a client, but he also may have not. He passed MLB's tests. If they suspend him, I'm sure he will get a few lawyers involved, unless there is some more evidence other than hand scribbled notes. Madams get busted with coded lists that supposedly include many famous names all the time, yet the johns rarely, if ever, get into legal trouble. The government wants to shut down the source. This guy distributing to hundreds is a lot more dangerous than ARod applying creams.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 5, 2013 -> 01:50 PM) Think about the other things you'd be doing at the same time though...in order to have your name unaffiliated, you'd have to have the distributor agree to it, you'd have to have a way of paying the distributor without a direct financial record being generated (which is going to start bordering on money laundering really quick), you have to find a way to have people other than the distributor deliver the injections and supplies to you...you have to involve multiple people so there's not one person always traveling to your location from the clinic... Now you're talking about a conspiracy. You're talking about a web of people who might know enough to realize...they can go to the press and get a payday by revealing what they know, and they can trade what they know for legal immunity. This distributor was one guy. He was already breaking the law. How many different people allegedly delivered stuff to ARod? I read one, the guy who claimed falsely to be a doctor and was the guy making notes. No one saw him in the office, no one else delivered anything to him. I don't think the government is really interested in chasing some random guy pretending to be ARod. ARod is hated, and people want him to be guilty. He may be guilty, I just don't think the proof is out there on this one unless they have something they are keeping secret. It wasn't like the guy was running a legitimate business. The government is more interested in busting the distributor rather than the user.

QUOTE (Swingandalongonetoleft @ Feb 5, 2013 -> 01:38 PM) With the PED stuff going on in Southern Florida, it'll be interesting to see who retires in the next season or two. I really wonder if they can do anything about those guys anyway. The only "proof" is their names on the guy's notes. How does anyone know for sure that what was given in the notes was actually given and if the MLB players mentioned in the notes were actually the people given the juice. If anything, wouldn't someone use an assumed name when going to these types of places? Especially with as much to lose as an MLB player?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 5, 2013 -> 09:09 AM) One thing I'd keep in mind is how "Coops fixem" technique works. Generally, he seems like he has guys dial back on the fastball as a tradeoff for improved control, or at least dial back on the wildness/tendency to overthrow the fastball. That's what I think of when I think of Floyd, that's what I think of with Thornton, Freddy Garcia, Jon Garland, Humber, etc. He also has had people do things like "Get rid of the cut fastball if that's causing you problems (Humber)". The guy who strikes me as a candidate to succeed doing those type of things is Brackman. He sounds like a guy who struggles with command but still has the fastball...so he has some room to dial it down into the low to mid 90's in exchange for some control. Cooper's biggest fix was Thornton and it had nothing to do with dialing back on his fastball. In fact, when it is down 1 or 2 MPH, people complain. In fact, I think people thinking dialing back on the fastball as something Cooper stresses is as much a fallacy as the Greg Walker lift and pull. He really stresses a consistant delivery.

QUOTE (Lamar Johnson 23 @ Feb 4, 2013 -> 09:50 AM) Grady Sizemore at 80% is better than DeWayne Wise at 100%, isn't he? Sizemore was playing hurt in 2009 and really slipped in performance. He was brutal in limited appearances in 2010 and 2011 and didn't play in 2012. To expect anything out of him is a dream. It might come true, but chances are his days of being a good player are ova. Sizemore hasn't been elite or healthy since Lance Broadway was considered a prospect.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 4, 2013 -> 08:11 AM) The remarkable thing though is how much that strategy would have backfired if they tried it. If the Ravens had taken a TO there before the 2 minute warning, and everything went the same way otherwise...they'd have handed S.F. the ball back with ~:35 on the clock, instead of :04. Could have literally cost them the game. Guess that's why you pay a coach good money. Glad I didn't have to make that call. It basically was a great move to call TO if SF were to score, not so great if they didn't score. If SF scored at the end and won the game, he would be getting hammered for not calling them.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Feb 3, 2013 -> 05:03 PM) The White Sox will not sign a top-of-the-rotation starter on the free agent market and unless they improve the farm system drastically it's difficult to see how they will trade for one. Right now, Danks is the realistic candidate to replace Peavy as the #2. Funny but the Sox have more homegrown pitchers on their roster now then they did when they won the WS, and they traded for Garcia, Garland, Contreras, without giving up much at all.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Feb 3, 2013 -> 04:18 PM) I'm not sold on either one as a starter yet. How many rotations have no question marks?what you expect roster wise is just not realistic, but I think most would take their chances with one of those 2 vs. paying what it would take to sign Lohse. And you want to rebuild but also place zero value on the draft pick you would lose.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Feb 3, 2013 -> 04:12 PM) Sale and ?? Projecting pitching staffs is a pretty tough thing to do. The Sox have been better than most at getting guys off the scrap heap and having them be effective for a year or two. There is no reason to think it can't continue.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Feb 3, 2013 -> 02:46 PM) No, I prefer a tear down. Since they aren't going that way and have the 28th farm system, they are going to have to spend their way out of this middle-of-the-pack mess they are in. The had several pitchers contribute last year when they were ranked even lower. Your farm system ranking means nothing. The Sox have been ranked #1 and last. In the end, they seemed to get about the same out of their system.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Feb 3, 2013 -> 02:21 PM) Look at the money free agent starters got this year. The price of mediocrity is way up there. So your suggestion for the "sustained success" you often mention is to spend big money, and get locked into several years on guys like Gavin Floyd and a 34 year old Kyle Lohse. The Sox were never huge players in big time free agents anyway, and their pitching staff has still had their share of big money guys. I don't know why free agency is the only way to acquire pitching, and most of the big time contracts handed out to free agent pitchers up until this point, have been huge mistakes. For every Maddux or Sabatthia, there are 5 Kevin Browns or Barry Zitos.