Vance Law

QUOTE(max power @ Dec 10, 2007 -> 11:40 AM) Really though, I think they will all be mediocre. Era about 4.5. That would likely make for a very good rotation. 4.50 at U.S. Cellular is clearly above league average. With Buehrle and Vasquez making 40% of the starts and presumably putting up even better numbers.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Dec 9, 2007 -> 05:00 PM) I didn't see a certain basketball player turned baseball outfielder who went on to win a few championships in the NBA and is regarded as one of the greatest players of all time. Seriously, Olajuwon had a f***ing cannon in right field.

QUOTE(TLAK @ Dec 9, 2007 -> 10:38 AM) Joe Cowley visits with Ozzie Guillen in Sunday's Sun-Times: "Q: Who is going to play second? A: Right now, I'm looking to [Danny] Richar. But I have Juan Uribe to compete with him." So no mention of Pablo, and as I mentioned above, if Uribe is still on the team you can expect to see him on the field quite a bit. You don't say, "We are desperate to get rid of Uribe. We'll take any offer for him." You say, "Uribe's going to play."

QUOTE(South Side Fireworks Man @ Dec 9, 2007 -> 07:52 PM) KW should offer 3/$48M. If anyone beats that, fine. That's a total disaster. Absurd gamble. He'd need to be a superstar to come close to being worth that.

QUOTE(spiderman @ Dec 9, 2007 -> 12:43 PM) Does anyone really give the White Sox a fighting chance in winning a bidding war ? Potentially they could if they really wanted to. I'm almost certain that they shouldn't. My guess is the Cubs will offer him at least 4 years at $13 million per. There's absolutely no way of knowing if he's worth anything close to that, and it is more likely that he is not. Iguchi was a star over there who came over here and has been a league average second baseman. Not bad. League average. Which is fine for the $4 or 5 million we paid him. For the amount of money Fukudome will be getting, he needs to be a star here. And the fact that center field is not his real position does not help.

QUOTE(joeynach @ Dec 8, 2007 -> 04:38 PM) 27 other teams didn't have delusions of grander that they were moral locks to get them for one reason or the other. You put all your eggs in 1 basket....you lose. This made me think of some video retrospective that needs to be put together of Erstad's time with the Sox, to be titled, "Delusions of Grinder."

QUOTE(BaseballNick @ Dec 8, 2007 -> 07:26 PM) Verlander, Bonderman, Kenny "the cheat" Rogers, Nate Robertson and D-train Willis is a questionable staff? Hardly as questionable as one with Jose Contreras, Gavin Floyd and Jon Danks in it. You have to admit that. I wouldn't say they have a better staff than Cleveland, but certainly better than ours (at the moment). Well our starters last year put up an ERA of 4.47 and we play our home games U.S. Cellular. Theirs put up an ERA of 4.68 and the more spacious Tiger Stadium is their home. They've got some injury and performance questions (did you see what Dontrelle put up.......in the NL last year?), we've got some performance questions. We'll have to see how it plays out. Anyone who pretends to be certain one way or the other (about which will have the better rotation) is doing that annoying thing where the pretend like they "know" what's going to happen, when they obviously do not and can't.

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Dec 8, 2007 -> 01:21 PM) Thats why I said try and get an idea of who everyone else is keeping. Cano vs. Martin is tough, because they both play positions that are weak in fantasy. I would go Martin( I just love his upside) but it could go either way. Yes 2nd is weak, but not as week as catcher. There are a lot of 2Bs that can get at least in the neighborhood of Cano's numbers. That is unless Cano has a career year or something like 2006 again.

Yeah, it's 25.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Dec 8, 2007 -> 01:03 PM) Well, it would give Anderson or Owens a chance to earn the job, since he's suspended for 1/3 of the season for Amphetamines. And they might get to keep the job permanently when he tests positive again. I thought it was a 25 game suspension, not 50.

Per Rotoworld "Free agent Mike Cameron, who declined the Padres' offer of arbitration, said Friday night a new suitor for his services had emerged. The Rangers are known to be interested. The San Diego Union-Tribune believes the new suitor could be the Reds. They'd have an outfield vacancy if they get the right offer of a starting pitcher for Josh Hamilton." This new suitor might be the Sox. Or it might not be, if in fact it is a different team.

Alex R. and either Sizemore or Fielder depending on what else you have on your team. Then I'd take Martin.

None of the limp hitting wusses mentioned in the title of this thread are worth anything at all. At all. I should be playing CF (I would play for $38,000) before Roberts or whoever the f***. There is no reason to pay any 1-dimensional wuss hitting speedster $2.00 more than Owens contract, much less, several millions. I take pride in and congratulate K. Williams and the Sox for not paying a dime to these jokers from last years free agency: Juan Pierre, Dave Roberts, Gary Matthews. Those contracts are embarrassing. Someone should go back and look at the threads. Anyone who was clamoring for/ or complaining about not getting (and I guarantee there were a lot of people; desperate for anything, no reasonable brain sense to tell what's good and bad) any of those featherbags from last year should be stripped of posting privledges.

QUOTE(joeynach @ Dec 8, 2007 -> 01:53 AM) No doubt Pierre is fast and steals a ton of bases. Someting just bothers me about him being a locked down solid lead off hitter. I just dont remember his OBP being that high, he seemed more like a .280 hitter with a .350 OBP type guy, not bad but rather Iguchi like in essence. You are right to not like him, but you are wrong on the numbers. A .350 OBP from him, or from any leadoff hitter would be nice. Pierre is a .330 OBP player. Pierre is not worth a $2 million more than J. Owens, much less the actual $33 million difference over Pierre's contract.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Dec 7, 2007 -> 09:47 PM) Via the Wikipedia: Thanks. So if you're drafted at age 19, you have 4 years to either make it to AAA or to be put on the 40-man, 5 years if you're drafted 18 or younger. Otherwise you can be picked by another team.

At what point do players need to be protected on the 40-man roster? After a certain number of years? At what point can one be taken in the AAA draft? Major League draft?

QUOTE(BlackBetsy @ Dec 7, 2007 -> 08:19 AM) Chris Young...whoops. Young is as established as Josh Fields.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 7, 2007 -> 03:19 PM) I'm just going to say three more things, and then leave this thread to the soothsayers... 1. The Sox made one deal in the winter meetings - and it helped the club. 2. Do any of you own a calendar? 3. If the Opening Day roster looks like it does right now, then I'll be right there saying this is, at best, a 3rd place-caliber team in the ALC, and maybe worse. Thank you. You are a sane poster. That's nice to see.

QUOTE(Chombi @ Dec 7, 2007 -> 02:19 AM) I must say you are a favorite poster of mine sir. I hate BA though. I thought the McCarthy thing where he was saying things about the Sox and what Anderson said or did spelled the end for BA here. That and that Ozzie didn';t want him on the team anymore or something. Idk. I'd wish this story was about Sweeney. Something about that swing just leaves your jaw wide open. Hopefully this rubs off. Well I appreciate that, and thank you. Like or hate Anderson, but his doing well can only help the Sox.

QUOTE(rockren @ Dec 7, 2007 -> 02:32 AM) Bonds is still a douche bag, though. He may be, personally, but I don't care. If I had to deal with reporters, NO, local sports reporters, on a daily basis, I would probably do anything I could to antagonize them. When I was a f***ing 9 year old reading sports in the Tribune I would get all sorts of angry, feeling like my intelligence was being insulted. f***ing meathead sports columnists in the newspaper. Loudly barking some s***ty opinion, stating it as if it were fact. Sprinkling in some D grade standup comedyspeak. Take some stance, regardless of how inane or ill-informed and state it as if it were fact. That shows conviction- a nice substitute for knowing what the f*** you are talking about. Never once have I read, "say, remember that horses*** I was spouting off about 2 months ago ("lock 'em up, put away the equipment, fellas this season is over. This organization has as much vision as the girl in Lionel Richie's "Hello" video")yeah , I didn't know what I was talking about, and it turns out I was exactly wrong. I just needed to sound as if I knew anything. I simply adopted the conventional sports columnist tone and blah, blah..." It's unreal that this sort of horses*** gets out to, what, millions of people and apparently helps form their opinions. I was on the train yesterday and saw the Sun Times. It's unreal that Jay Mariotti is a person. Is there anything like that in any other city where a "writer" for a major paper is openly at war with an organization he writes about? It's unbelievable that people listen to the f***ing hamburger heads on sports talk radio. It's National Inquirer for guys.

QUOTE(scenario @ Dec 6, 2007 -> 04:26 PM) GREAT point. The 'hate' for Bonds among most fans is way beyond logic IMO. Yes, he is a jerk. (So are alot of other people.) Yes, he did take steroids and lie about it (so have ALOT of other people). Somehow though with Barry, the combination of those two issues seems to have escalated into irrational hatred and public enemy status. Thank you. Yes. Precisely.

But seriously, I love to hear that about Anderson. Him really going after it and kicking ass can only help us, either on our team or by being traded if there's no room for him here. Go BA.

QUOTE(sox-r-us @ Dec 7, 2007 -> 12:03 AM) Anyone else remember when everyone was down on Jon Garland when he could never live up to his potential? Anyone else remember when everyone was down on Crede when he could never live up to his potential? Well, maybe Anderson might break out too one of these years....it is not like it has never happened before. If he does break out to his potential, it would be huge for the Sox. I know, I am dreaming....but stranger things have happened. What are you talking about? Aaron Rowand posted a .694 OPS in his first shot in the big leagues. .694 If you wanna make big bucks in free agency down the line you need to put up kick ass numbers like that from the beginning.

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Dec 6, 2007 -> 01:40 PM) Hunter and Andruw Jones also both play in a much tougher position to fill. Compare Magglio to the 2/$22 that Dye got, and it brings it within reason a bit. Maggs basically put up Dye's 2005 in 2006, then put up Dye's 2006 in 2007. Let's hope he puts up Dye's 2007 in 2008. But what the hell will Dye do? He's in the future!

QUOTE(Texsox @ Dec 6, 2007 -> 01:31 PM) So based on recent free agent signings, how does Maggs look at $15 mil? If Mags has a career year every year like 2007, that's a great price for him. If he has magically turned into a consistent .360 hitter at age 33, well, that would be one for the books. Outside of 2002 he'd never had an OPS within 100 points of what he did last year. I expect him to be closer to his .892 career mark than 1.029. $15 million for a .900 OPS in RF is certainly what one would expect in free agency now.