Harry Chappas

Three things that may make this legitimate. 1) Old McCormick Place converted to a casino to regenerate the conventions lost and needed for all of the new McCormick place space. Trump adds legitimacy to the operation. 2) Vacant land and regeneration. See the ABLA Homes, Robert Taylor, etc. a good real estate broker could be used here. He already is looking at the Sun Times building. In the next few years that southside land could be worth a ton. See Bridgeport development. Wrigleyville is renovated crap. Bridgeport/southside could be built in good parts from scratch as the indusrtry is removed. 3) Daley is a Sox fan and Reinsdorf is from Brooklyn. Reinsdorf sells to a fellow real estate mogul and Daley uses his influence to have the state sell Comiskey Park to Trump as part of the deal. The downside to this is the Trib wanting to compete against a serious organization and what influence they have with MLB. I think it is pipedream but hey what the hell it beats talking about Juan Uribe.

You need to increase payroll if your minor league system is not ready to produce. When you can get Migel Cabrerra and Josh Beckett for what it cost to get Tony Graffanino you can win. The Oakland A's have never gotten out of the first round of the playoffs because of salary. Where were the Angels last year? You need to spend money to be competitive. Every season someone will be a surprise but they have great young players and they can get on a roll. We do not have this luxury. I do not agree with paying Chan Ho Park $14M/yr. but I would Colon. We use money as our excuse.

I usually go to look at the wares and what not. It is also cool to just get excited for baseball. I thought it was a tad overpriced and now I really feel this way and will probably not attend unless soemthing REAL is done to get me excited for the upcoming season.

I go back to this. We lost 5 in a row to the Twins which cost us the division. Every player on the team failed when we needed them most. Nobody stepped up, except maybe Colon. Therefore I have no problem with gettting rid of anyone. The GM assembled a team on paper that was one of the best in the AL and then lost 5 in a row to the Twins. I think they should've done a better job at retaining players but the owner will ahve no part of that. Therefore we get a joke of a manager to replace teh joke of a manager and cheap crappy players. Blame last years players (Ordonez, Thomas, Alomar, etc.,) and manager/coaching staff. For this upcoming season blame the owner. The GM or who ever did this put a very good team out there. This year is going to be a joke. If Maddux signs witht eh cub, you will be lucky to see the box score of the Sox in the paper. Going into this offseason thsi team needed to do something. Now I feel anythign they do will be a wash. The only way the will get better is to add salary. Well who am I kidding.

Unless the Sox are going with some very inexperienced players something has to give and a trade like this makes sense although I do not think it will happen. The thing with Konerko/Damon is Boston has no use for Konerko so you trade Konerko somewhere, get Damon and have whoever takes Konerko deal with Boston for money and players. We have three outfileders right now and Uribe is our only bench player. If we carry 12 pitchers, this leaves 13 position players on the team (Lee,Ordonez, Rowand, Crede, Valentin, Uribe, Harris, Konerko, Thomas, Olivo and Alomar.) We need something from somewhere (Reed, Borchard are the only players worth a look.) As far as pitching goes we have Buerhle, Loiaza, Garland, Wright, Schoenweis, Pollitte, Grillli, Wunsch, Koch, and Marte. This means Cotts and Ginter are almost assured jobs. Any injury at any position decimates this team. 80 wins looks like a stretch. This is why this trade is plausible and why I think Ordonez will not be here Opening Day.

If KW was smart he would should bid Boston against Baltimore for Maggs services and make one of them take soem dead salary in the process. Float the Maggs to Baltimore to fleece Boston.

Nomar is considered a bigger star because he is in Boston. This trade is an even deal in my book. Valentin can then go Texas.

Mo vaughn meet Grant Hill Wouldn't insurance have soemthing to say about his health and ability to play?

Best news all offseason.

What if the Red Sox were going to give us cash with the deal? They needed Ordonez and had to dump Nomar. Maggs/A-Rod =$35M Nomar/Willamson/Ramirez=$33M KW held the chips in this deal and may ahve been getting a good deal here.

The Tigers will be a draw for pitchers and they can pick up speed. That being the case you can see the mid-80's Cardinals for a blueprint. Juanquin Andujar and John Tudor looked like HOf'ers with that defense. Imagine Maddux pitching in the cold in that park with a speedy outfield.

Like what Koch said last year about the Twins. Was what he said wrong?

94-96 with control is enough for me. I would still like to try and get Williamson somehow but this is a nice solid move. We need another mid-level bat, reliever and starter though. I got a felling Borchard or Anderson will be moved for pitching.

I get the feeling Guillen, Cora and KW are not attrative guys to come and work for and this does not bode well.... Say what you want but nobody really went out of their way to play here except Alomar and I get the feeling he wasn't getting offers anyway.

Konerko dumped his land? There was an editorial in the Times about a month ago about how some older lady in Bridgeport was all excited about Konerko moving to Bridgeport and he better not be traded. I thought he was going to try and trump the guy with the indoor pool just south of the park.

Why ruin our fun when it is so damn cold outside?

styx

Ya but neither do Matt Ginter or Jon Rauch

I think it will come down to Konerko for Weaver as there appears to be a pissing match on who pays for Konerko.

Trade Konerko ; sign Ponson I like Konerko but he bogs down teh middle of our lineup and for $9M you can't have that, not for a 1 1/2 to 2 tool player. This move allows Lee and Thomas to DH play first and open a spot for Borchard, Reed, etc.

Everyone on this site seems to think you need to have a .600 winning percentage to be worthy of starting for us. I get the feeling Cotts for Clemens would be debated here as Cotts has more upside. I personally think cotts will never see the majors again. Control and a good batting eye can not be taught.

Konerko for Ponson and a prospect sounds like a good deal to me. Although keeping Konerko and signing Ponson sounds like a major league organization addresing their needs. After watching the hawks last eve I need to continue reminding myself that Chicago is a big city. Traffic this morning was all I needed to remind me. FYI, the roof supports are going up although the braces for the upperdeck structure are kind of scary. I'd hate to see the entire upperdeck collapse.

The only case of this as I remember it was when Tim Raines played for the Expos on May 1st and did something huge. Not sure what the deal was wuith this or I amy be way wrong.

They were in first place (last Sunday in May) until the Tigers beat us and Keith Foulke was spun around by Jason Giambi. After that game we never regained confidence and it was over. Todd Ritchie became Todd Ritchie, Kennty Loften became Emancio Panchero (sp?,) Ray Durham became Felix something or other, yada, yada, yada.