JUGGERNAUT

If you soe a no-holds barred animalistic media culture then that is what you will reap.

It would actually help standardize the schedule doing away with the terrible two & 1 game series that exist now with these crazy off days. Every series would be a 3 gm series. Each team would play 54 series. Ex: Sox vs ALC: 4 teams, 7 series = 28 vs ALW: 5 teams, 2 series = 10 vs ALE : 5 teams, 2 series = 10 vs NL : 6 teams, 1 series = 6 Just over 1/2 of the series will be against division rivals. The way it should be. The Cubs would consume 2 of the 6 teams for the Sox. Throughout the year there would be 54 IL matchups. About 9 a month. That still allows 126 IL matchups during the exclusive play period in June.

No it is an allegation until law enforcement believes there is sufficient evidence to charge a person with a crime. In this case they have been charged with crimes against the district, the state, & fed. That's pretty serious.

Again context is everything. Slashing tires of GOP workers is a direct & obvious act to undermine the democratic voting process of the USA. That is what the thread topic is about. Clinton's perjury, the war in Iraq, prison abuse scandals, voting irregularity allegations in FL, OH, & PA have nothing to do with this topic. This is not heresay nor is it an allegation. It's an obvious criminal act which has both state & federal implications. It should be treated by the courts as such.

Changing subjects I think J Vazquez will be back in the trade rumors as soon as Delgado is signed. There are still several E coast & NL teams interested.

If I were the Tigs GM I would be willing to offer him a 40/4 deal contingent upon his being able to play everyday in ST. None of this workout, physical crap. If he wants that kind of money he needs to show me he can play this year. So it would main a tentititve agreement until ST ends.

VAZQUEZ DOES NOT WANT TO PLAY FOR THE WHITE SOX !!!!!!!! Do you ever listen to what the player says? His demands: Wants to remain in NL. Wants to play on the E coast. Mostly likely targets: Nationals, Marlins, Braves. NOT THE WHITE SOX! If you are sad because you feel the Sox are complete, don't be. They're not. They still have a probable hole at 3B, no solid-proven player to spell Uribe at SS, & a RH RP who remains shaky in Adkins. I'm still waiting for KW to make 2 more moves to fill those holes. I still have anticipation that the Cub might deal Farnsworth to the Sox. The sentiment at Cubfest (from the cubby fans I know) is that the fans don't like him any more. They don't want him on the team. He needs a change of scenery & the Sox would make a good fit. If we get the high heat of Farnsworth going into 05 then I think we can challenge the Twins the pen. I'm not worried about a guy who can spell Uribe yet. There will be plenty available that might be better than our own Valdez & Ozuna after rosters are cut to 25. IMO, this isn't as great a need as replacing Adkins in the pen.

Show some names & numbers & I might be inclined to agree with you. But until you do I stil contend that Pods, Iggy, Rowand, Uribe, Dye, & Everett are faster that any other group of 6 expected starters on any other team.

I don't know how many times I need to repeat this. Cooper agrees with me. Use the off-days to extend EL-D's rest periods & skip some of his starts. This can be done while still for the most part keeping him #3 in the rotation following Garcia. Ozzie doesn't agree with us. He takes the position that 1-5 is so strong individually there is no need to skip starts. So he has a straight 1-5 every 5th day schedule in mind. Off days would just extend rest to the pitcher who happened to be next in line to pitch after that off day. Ozzie's plan will most likely give EL-D 5 more starts than Cooper's throughout the season. Pushing him into the 30+ start range. It will also drop Marky B & Freddy G down to the 210-220 ip range. So I guess you could say they are protecting their longest & most expensive pitching investments at the expense of their cheapest. My hope is that Cooper can persuade Ozzie to rest EL-D more often than the rest.

I disagree. When I do the 04 vs 05 comparison I do with a bias to 04. What that means is that for new players I take their 3 yr avg's. That gives you a better picture of what to expect in 05. Of course their are no guarantees. Dye might wind up hating AJP & that could affect 1 or both of their numbers but it makes no sense to think negative like that. The 05 Sox have a deficit of 21r, & 18rbi based on a conservative estimation of what the new & old player mix will do in 05. Not an optimistic one & not a pessimistic one but somewhere in the middle. Optimistically with the adding team speed & a team potential of 150+ SB's (it boggles the mind) this team could break the Sox all-time record for runs. Do I think the Sox are the fastest team in the majors? 4 of the 10 guys have great/good speed (Pods, Iggy, Rowand, Uribe) 2 of the 10 guys have above avg speed (Dye, Everett) 2 of the 10 guys have avg speed (Crede, Thomas) 2 of the 10 guys are slow (Koney, AJP) I don't think any team compares with that. Great/good guys can score from 3B on an IF hit or a shallow OF fly. They can advance to 3B on a solid SF, a wild pitch, a stolen base, or a sac hit. They can score from 2B on any non fly hit in the OF. Above avg guys can score from 2B on a weak OF hit. They can advance to 3B on SF, or SH. They need a solid OF fly to score from 3B. But you can't do anything unless you get on so that's why we all remain cautiously optimistic. We need to first be convinced this team will be one of the highest in OBP.

Yes. Small ball means giving up less runs & scoring less runs but preventing droughts of runs. It's all about manufacturing runs with base hits, moving runners over, hit & runs, stolen bases, hit by pitch, sacrifice hits, & walks. Oddly enough in the revamping of the Sox to small ball, the Sox are only giving up 21r, 18rbi from the 04 team. They still have an 8 cylinder engine but have added some nitrous oxide for the quick burst Quoting the Sun-Times, the Sox are probably the fastest team in the majors now. With power nearly equal to that of last year's team.

Garland will never be non-tendered by the Sox. Ever. You can never ignore the story that surrounds him. The trade & all that. Garland is good for a near 500 season every year. That's is his bad. We have endured his bad for 3 yrs in a row. It doesn't get any worse than this with Garland. We are waiting to experience his good.

I don't want Maggs in the AL but no one is going to top that price. Especially now that the Mets have upped their Delgado offer to an obscene 51M/4yr.

The article confirms the Sox have a 3rd yr option. The article does not mention the incentives. It's incentives that will likely pay Iggy 6M/2yr which would suggest to me the 3rd yr is a 4M base + incentives. So in the end it might turn out to be 15M/3yr. Which still is still good. The only way Iggy makes that kind of $ is with top performance.

But then what do the Fish do with Castillo? They haven't gained anything $ wise & that's the main reason for them to make a trade. Now they have to find a team with a hole at 2B that would be willing to part with another group of players. I can't think of many like that with the $ to spend on Castillo. Maybe the Rangers. Soriano - Marlins to play 2B Harris - Marlins to play CF Garland - Marlins rotation Burnett - Sox rotation Castillo - Texas 2B Harris & Soriano are similar players only Soriano has much more power. Is Burnett really an upgrade over Garland? If we made that trade & Garland has a breakout year with the Fish & Burnett struggles in the tougher AL that would be one that would haunt us for a long time. We're still suffering from the Fogg & Wells trades. I don't like Burnett enough to do that.

Maybe Hendry is seeing this the same way. Where is the team speed on the Cub? Patterson has great speed, but Barrett, Lee, Ramirez, & Normar are above average at best. Sosa is average & whomever is playing 2B or LF is about average as well. They might be one of the slowest teams in the NL. They might need Harris a lot more than we do. For that matter the same can be said of Milw whom gave up Pods. There are teams in need of Harris' speed. That's for sure.

Just to break up this ugliness, I agree with the general premise that Harris has talent. Jiminez thrived for the Reds & I think Harris could thrive on another team as well. It might come as a surprise to some of you but Harris ranked higher than the Twins 2B Rivas in win share. So he's got talent it's just not good enough for the Sox. Or better put it's just not better than Pods & Iguchi. His biggest weakness is against LHP. He did not show that in the ml's so I don't think it can't be overcome. This is why if KW does trade him & does not got a quality UIF or a quality pen guy in return he's undersold him. I do not think the Sox are in any rush to trade Harris. It will probably happen after or duing ST when other teams see what they have. That still gives Harris a chance to show he can hit LHP which would give his trade value a boost. The sox might even try him at SS. I think he's remain with the Sox for another month at least. The only exception being a guy like Beane makes the Sox an offer they can't refuse. As for Magglio he has a snowball's chance in hell of winning the triple crown. Not just this year but any year. He's good. He's not great.

Well you're thinking the Thomas-Koney or AJ-Crede pairings. With Everett you might do that with Thomas. With Gload you can do it for Koney, & with Davis you could do it with AJ. But you can't do it with Crede. If you do it with Crede, then Uribe goes to 3B & you have no one to play SS. Assuming Iggy can't make that throw any more. So you are back to the general feeling that if both Harris & Iggy can't play short then Harris is a waste of space.

The more I think about this he is tailor made for the Cub. He would be best buddies I imagine with Patterson. So are there any Cub players worth giving up Harris for? I've always like Farnsworth because he could throw 100 mph. We don't have any one like that right now. A lot of mid-90 guys but not the real heat. He could help Iguchi adjust to the high heat of MLB. He's a head case but I think Oz & Cooper can help him.

I think you are forgetting something else. Delgado signing with the fighting Fish is contingent on their remaining a contender. It's why there is a lot of deferred $ in the contract. Trading Burnett would not be a good sign towards that. I think the fighting Fish are more liklely to swing a Castillo for Kaz + cash deal than a 3-way Harris deal. Any one tradiing for Castillo already has a 2B. The Mets would basically be unloading Kaz so the Fish would pay much less for 2B over the next 3 yrs.

With the addition of Hermanson, & Vizc they drop out of the 25 man roster. Adds & Subtracts only apply the the ML team. I guess you could put Grili & Munoz in the subtractions to then. But don't go so far as to add the Sept callups. There's another reason to give KW as well. He pushed the Sox to their highest payroll ever. That alone is worth an A

I think the size of the wall might have escaped some of you. It's much higher than the Cell. You can't make a HR stealing catch there. I think you have to add at least 10ft to those dimensions in order to hit a HR there. That makes it easier for him to hit HR's in the Cell than that Dome. Assuming he can hit MLB pitching of course

I'll make it real simple. If he can't play short he's a waste of space. Do we need speed off the bench? No. There are only 4 guys on this team who don't have good speed: Thomas, Koney, Crede, & AJP. The rest have good enough speed to either swipe or base, score from 3rd on an infield hit, or score from 2nd on a duck snort. Can he play short? I don't know. To be honest I don't know how any guy can play both CF & 2B & not be qualified as a full utility player. Back in the day the OFers with the best arm played CF. The IFer with the best arm played 3B, & the IFers with the best quickness played SS, & 2B. Again arm strength decided that. So how can Harris be considered a strong armed CFer with adequate quickness to play 2B & not be considered an UIF? Is he a head case?

Uggh, next it will be Gold Ranger, or Gundam, or Bebop, or maybe Frylock

For the record I am not in the Ozzie camp on this. I think they should use El-D as sparingly as possible. Even with the goofy off days they can do that on 4 days rest & skip EL-D starts. That would drop El-D down to about 25+ starts. If El-D goes down at mid-season I"M BLAMING OZZIE!