BearSox

I like it. Alexei needs a day off, and Fields could use one as well. We gotta get Dye a day off soon, but if so, that means we might have to actually see Jerry Owens starting. Hopefully Garza doesn't have his top stuff today... what were the Twins thinking when they traded him?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 14, 2009 -> 07:52 PM) Padres Closer Heath Bell. I watched baseball tonight for the first time in a while last night, and they barely showed anything of Grienke's or Wandy Rodriguez's outings and they, guess what, focused on the Mets, Yankees, Red Sox, and Manny! They had Tim Kurkijan do one those 5 minute things about how the Yankees allowed 14 in an inning. I mean, who the hell cares? Yankees gave up a lot of runs, big whoop. The Royals could have allowed 27 runs in one inning vs. the Mariners, and they wouldn't do anything special. But because it was the Yankees, they had to talk about how it was the most runs ever allowed in one inning, etc. I doubt they did any special s*** for when JD and PK went back to back for no. 300 each, and that is a whole lot more impressive and special than the Yankees allowing 14 in one inning. And then last night they spent time actually talking about how Jed Lowrie is likely out for the year! Are you freaking kidding me? You are actually spending more than 3 seconds talking about Jed Lowrie's injury? It is just god awful. MLBN is lightyears better than ESPN and Baseball Tonight. While we're on the subject, NFLN >>>>>> ESPN and NFL Live. The only thing I use ESPN for anymore is Sports Center once in a while, and College Gameday during the football season.

Those are cute as well!

someone needs to tell Alexei to back off the plate some.

Hudson with the very nice outing. 6 innings of shutout ball, 4 K's, no walks, and only 3 hits... Kanny won 2-1 as well.

The crowd wasn't that bad last night. I think you'll see good crowds on weekends, but on weekdays, it'll be empty.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Apr 18, 2009 -> 07:54 AM) If KW even considered sending Poreda or Allen away for Blanco, he should be sent to a rubber room immediately. Willits in no better than what is already here. He's a switch hiitting Jerry Owens. Reggie Willits is 100x the baseball player Jerry Owens is.

Awww... that's cute!

looking at the stats, Myrow is a vet minor league player who has put up some big numbers in AAA. Maybe they view him as more of a leader and perhaps even mentor for the younger players.

Joe Dimaggio is the greatest CF of all time, I don't care what any bogus numbers say. And apparently bleacherreport is crap (I'm not familiar with them), so it doesn't matter.

QUOTE (Disco72 @ Apr 17, 2009 -> 04:21 PM) I 100% disagree with adding two more teams. I don't think the "market for baseball" is big enough to expand, especially right now. You can move a team (or two) if necessary, but no more expansion. I wasn't talking about immediately, but in 5-10 years. Wait for the economy to be in a good place, have a lot more major league talent formed, etc. Also, if there were ever expansion teams, I'd have an expansion draft similar to the one the NFL had a few years back. Something like each team has to put 5 of their players on the 40 man roster in the draft pool, and if one of the two expansion team drafts a player on your list, they have to take on that players whole contract. So it'd also provide an option for any of the other 30 teams to get rid of some bad contracts (like Travis Hafner for instance).

I agree, one of the Florida teams need to move, and whichever team stays needs to build their new stadium in either Jacksonville or Orlando like Hawk said. I also think baseball needs to add 2 expansion teams. Make it 16 teams in each division (5-6-5). Cities that should have a baseball team, IMO: San Antonio - Largest city in USA without a professional baseball team. I'm sure a team could draw well there. Both the Rangers and Astros draw well, even when they are doing bad. I think this would be a real good location to put a team. Indianapolis - Another large city without a professional baseball team. Could probably draw a lot, I think baseball could do really well there. Memphis - They have a ton of minor league baseball teams, and I think the fans down there would love a professional team. Charlotte - Good sports city, I think the people would like an MLB team There's some more possibilities as well, but those are my favorite.

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Apr 16, 2009 -> 11:45 PM) Or she might have had a s***ty day with an assignment she didn't want and people insulting her very presence - I wouldn't go so far as saying that she's a fraud. Given that so many of these teabag affairs were actually hosted by Fox personalities, I'd be willing to wager that she encountered a pretty hostile crowd - not that this is any excuse. Still pretty unprofessional, and if I was her boss, I'd suspend her for what she said - at least. Just not right. Well, maybe she wouldn't have gotten insulted so much if she didn't go around asking people their opinion and then insult them by calling them practically stupid because they have different views than her.

Hey Kap, how is Perry? Do you think he is someone I would like? I don't know much about him except that he is a converted democrat and supposedly pretty conservative.

Quick question... is CNN supposed to be an unbiased news channel? While the guy in the following video did go overboard with the Obama-Hitler picture and most importantly didn't have any points to backup his stance, I love how you can see a sign in the background that says "Republicans suck too!" I thought these were all right wing GOP nut jobs??? Weird, huh? See, the difference between her and people like Beck, Hannity, etc. is that she claims to be a journalist while the others are commentators.

I remember last year Ramirez broke out at Tampa Bay... lets hope that's the case again this year.

QUOTE (Ozzie Ball @ Apr 16, 2009 -> 05:52 PM) Because the value of even the best relievers is so much less than the value of a solid starter. Even if the college closer because the best closer in all of baseball he'd still only be worth 2.5-3 value wins per season, whereas there were roughly 60 starters who were worth 2.5 value wins or more last year including 4/5 of our rotation (it would have been 5/5 of our rotation of Count didn't get injured). In the first round I think you have to draft a pitcher who at least has a chance of being a starter a la Poreda, and then if he doesn't develop as planned you move him to the 'pen. Building for the future and drafting college relievers in the first round are contradictory statements in my opinion and personally I'd lay off the relievers until at least round 3. Yeah, but relievers have the best chance of contributing soon. It all depends on who is available, but I would not be opposed to drafting a high upside reliever with plus stuff who can rise quickly.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Apr 16, 2009 -> 05:03 PM) I think the Sox will take with their first pick a college reliever. There is clearly a lack of bullpen arms in the system and ML team minus our current top 4. Wouldn't be surprised if they drafted a college closer and he was up in September in middle relief. The other 2 picks will probably be spent on pitching, as it should. The system is solid position-player wise, but there is a glaring weakness of ML-ready arms. Poreda is the only one close. I don't disagree, but who? The top two I have heard about are Jason Stoffel (Arizona) and Ben Tootle (Jacksonville St.). From what I've read about Tootle, he sounds a bit too risky. He can pump it up there apparently (95 usually, up to 98-99 at times) and has a really good breaking ball, but he has a small frame (6'0" 170) and kind of a funky delivery with a lot of flying parts. His frame and likely high stress delivery has me worried about injury problems. But then again, I've never actually seen him pitch so I don't know. Stoffel on the other hand sounds pretty interesting. He was the closer last year for Arizona, but the impressive thing was that while he was the closer, he had two first round picks in Schlereth and Perry (remember, we saw him the other day) setting up for him. From what I have read, Stoffel can get it up to 97, but sits around 93-95 with very good late life. He also has a plus curveball that is used as his out pitch. He could also potentially start, but he hasn't shown a change (either because he didn't need it as a closer or it just ins't good). He should also be a fast riser as he is also a "pitcher" and can locate. Again though, I haven't seen him pitch. But he does sound like an interesting prospect, and someone I wouldn't mind taking early on.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Apr 16, 2009 -> 05:19 PM) You never take a pitcher with the idea of them being a reliever to start off with...it's like taking a punter or kicker in the first 3 rounds of the NFL draft. We made that mistake once with Royce Ring, and it was a waste...unless someone has just an extraordinary arm, and Ring doesn't qualify on that count. It's much better to find someone like Poreda who might be missing a secondary pitch but at least, if coachable/teachable, has a ceiling as a 1-3 starter. The bullpen is WAY too much of a crapshoot to think you can draft someone who will automatically be successful in that role, there are just too many unknowns. Come on now, there have been several relief pitchers taken in the 1st round. You just have to choose the right one. If you got a college closer who pumps it up at 97+ with some movement and a nasty slider, and they project to make it to the bigs quickly... why the hell not?

Even though he is a 1B/3B/LF player, I would love to see us draft Bobby Borchering (whether it might be at 23 or 38). Something about a young switch hitter with great bat speed and plus-plus power from both sides of the plate is too intriguing to pass up, IMO.

QUOTE (danman31 @ Apr 16, 2009 -> 02:50 PM) Kyle Gibson and Aaron Crow are in the draft as 2 power arms. Crow won't make it to the Sox, but Gibson might/should. Both are Missouri guys, Crow is a Boras guy but didn't sign last year with the Nats so he has less leverage. I'd love it if Crow fell to us, but that's highly unlikely. Crow was the one pitcher I would have minded us taking in the 1st round last year.

I don't think so, he still needs to work on his plate discipline and cut down on K's. He struck out 41 times in about 150 AB's last year in AA. If he cuts that down this year though, he should rise quickly.

any one of them any good?

Personally, I want us to bring in a high school catcher with a lot of potential. It's not that I don't like Flowers, I'm just not sold on him being a big league catcher. With all of the talent we have in the minors right now, I think we can afford to go with the risk of taking a high upside high school player. Usually, I prefer to take the safer, more developed college players, but I think we are at the point where we can take some risks early. Right now, I'm a big fan of Luke Bailey. High School catcher out of Georgia, has big time potential. Has some big pop, great arm, solid fielder, above average speed. I'd love to see him taken. Also, icing on the cake, we have 4 picks in the top 75. Talk about a total revamp of our minor league system in just 2 years! I'm so pumped for the future. Our picks this year are: 23 38 (supp for Cabrera) 61 (from A's for Cabrera) 71 Some useful links: MLB.com Draft Reports. They add about 10 new scouting reports each week of the top prospects of the draft. They give the best analysis and give a nice little video to if you're too lazy to read the whole scouting report. http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/events/draft/y2009/...ts.jsp?content= This is the home page of Perfect Game USA. If you are not similar with it, it's basically the game where all the top high school talent goes to, and it gives good analysis and videos of the players. http://www.perfectgame.org/

It's close. Owens gets horrific reads, but Pods reads aren't much better. I'd say it's a draw because of how Pods like to prance around all the time.