JUGGERNAUT

I didn't read one news report suggesting it was obvious. That's your opinion. Hardly a fact.

Great so we can still possibly see him vs the CHC in late June. That's what I'm hoping.

I disagree with this being a bad deal for ND & I'll tell you why. If they make a BCS bowl they earn $4.5M if they don't they earn $1M. That $1M is on top of anything they earn from being invited to a lesser bowl. It's guaranteed income yr after yr. Now look at the qualifications for ND to make a BCS bowl: 1) top 8 in BCS ranking for automatic bid 2) top 12 in BCS ranking for possible bid That means the bar is lower for them to make a bid. Now the NBC deal is a 3 yr renewal deal. What's a BCS bowl bid worth towards that contract every 3 yrs? Probably worth an extra 1-2 million per yr in the next contract. Keep in mind NBC is NOT the only network that wants the IRISH. They all do. If Weis gets ND back to BCS caliber the $ will come in their Yankee like contract. If not they get $1M a yr regardless. It seems like a pretty good deal to me.

That's an impressive list. It's going to change of course as it's heavily influenced by wins & losses. I expect Colon to be in it after May. Florida is unbelievable! Willis, Beckett, & Burnett are all Cy candidates. That's what Flub fans have always dreamed of. Too bad it looks like just Prior this yr. I'm not surprised that El Duque is there. It's more a question of whether he can last the marathon than be amongst the leaders early. As for Jon, I was hoping on 15W. I thought he could do it as a #5 following El Duque. Now I'm hoping for Cy Jon.

Mark & Koney were both quoted as saying the team needed to face some adversity & whether it before they could decide whether they were good or bad. Well a 3 gm losing streak with 2 bad calls, & a mash unit of players certainly qualifies for adversity. How did they weather it? Rode a 116 pitch effort by El Duque to a win on Sat & a CG, 4H, SO by Jon Garland to a win today. I'd say they are pretty damn good!

Someone other than us finally beat the Twins. Ex-Sox pitcher Bartolo Colon (7IP, 2H, 0ER, 7K) out-dueled Johan Santana (8IP, 2H, 2ER, 2BB, 7K). Santana gave up 2 HRs. Sox 2.5 gms up.

The rulebook doesn't say jack s*** about how to judge whether a player avoided a pitch or not. But in any organization where judgemental rules exist practice dictates policy. The practice is clearly defined & the ump making the call against Crede bucked it. This can be easily avoided if MLB adopts the NCAA freeze rule.

I think now the media is going to take notice of Garland. Let's not forget "he was expected to do this." This is not overachieving. The past 4 yrs have been underachieving. This guy had has much props when he was young as Prior had. Maybe even more. As I understand two big things have led to his dominance: mastering the changeup & accelerated rhythm. He's more like Mark now in terms of catch it & throw it. Is it to early to put Jon up for Cy Young? Maybe. But May is historically his best month & he just kicked it off with a CG, 4H, SO. He could match his highest season win total before the AS break. Phenomenal. Jon could be in line for a 40M/4 deal after this. Offensively Perez came up big. Carl nearly always does, but Perez surprised most of us.

http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?ac...t=0#entry663754 Enough said. Crede's defense rests. Change the rule to match the NCAA & it's no longer controversial. Likewise it should help cut down on muscle related injuries that occur while avoiding the pitch.

Umpire Gary Darling's viewpoint on when HBP should be negated: Only when the batter moves his bat such that it appears he offered at the pitch. In otherwords it's the movement of his bat & not his body that should determine whether a player attempted to avoid a pitch. http://www.goldenbaseball.com/ However, since determining effort is purely based on judgment, many umpires will only void the hit batsman call if the hitter obviously moves into the path of the pitch.

http://bradbury.sewanee.edu/hatpic/hbp.jpg Since the DH was added to the AL, AL hitters are 12.5% more likely to HBP by NL hitters. http://www.ncaa.org/library/rules/2005/200...eball_rules.pdf Approved ruling: If the batter freezes (makes no attempt to avoid the pitch) and is hit by a pitch that is clearly inside the vertical lines of the batter's box, the ball is dead & the batter is awarded first base. Further discussion beyond the approved ruling cited factual evidence believing that more injuries result from trying to avoid the pitch than from being hit by the pitch. This was the main reason behind adding the freeze rule to NCAA baseball. A subsequent reason was to clarify what is meant by avoiding the pitch. The rationale was that as long as the hitter's movements remain w/in the batter's box the hitter has reasonably tried to avoid the pitch. That was essentially Crede's argument that night as well.

I should ask you the same thing but then again it takes a mind capable of a macro perspective rather than a micro one & I'm not sure your capable of that. For the record, your post took it from a discussion on the topic to something personal. Not mine.

I think the only hope lies in his monthly's: 04 April 94AB .298A .359O .596S - Well that's gone 04 May 95AB .232A .308O .368S - better than 05 Apr 04 Jun 103AB .330A .366O .563S - Big lift 04 Jul 95AB .253A .324O .400S - average player 04 Aug 87AB .172A .250O .299S - will kill us this year 04 Sep 48AB .292A .357O .604S - Big lift if we survive Aug 2003 was just horrible. 2002 he was an average player. 01 Aug 106AB .330A .425O .594S - A dream come true. 01 Sep 83AB .265A .323O .506S - Better than average 01 Oct 20AB .250A .286O .550S - Better than average 01 Pre AS 321AB .280A .345O .430S - Average 02 Pos AS 278AB .284A .347O .511S - Better than average

2005 Day http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/teams/battin...Type=2&type=reg.097A .125O .194S 31 AB Night http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/teams/battin...Type=2&type=reg.224 A .255O .388S 49 AB 2004 Day http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/teams/battin...Type=2&type=reg.327 A .388O .508S 199 AB Night http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/teams/battin...Type=2&type=reg.228 A .294O .438S 333 AB

Ok that's obviously a worse case scenario. Do you have a best case?

My biggest concern with last night's game is El Duque's 118 pitches. Ozzie can NOT afford to develop the mindset that NYY did. El Duque never wants to leave a game & gets stronger as the night goes on. So he's always going to make you feel he can pitch 120. But he can't. His last 3 yrs paint a clear pattern: If you pitch him over 115 twice in a row you will likely get a 3 inning effort out of him the next start & find him on the DL if you continue to repeat that practice. That's why it's imperative that Ozzie limit him to 100 next start. I don't care what the score is. Having him healthy in Aug is more important than winning a start in May. We have 13 games left with the Twins in the last 2 months of this season. We need El Duque to be at the top of his game then.

It is you who does not grasp something. You are trying to assess motive based SOLELY on body english. That's ridiculous. Did you bother to read any quotes by Crede? There are a multitude of explanations for Crede's body english on the play. Believe what you will. It's pointless to continue this when all you cling to is your own subjective viewpoint. Ignoring factual evidence in the process. (Crede's HBP history, his hot streak, & how often this call has been made since the AL adopted the DH - a BIG difference).

A 10 yr old umpire? Not in my day. Don't bother mentioning Chipper Jones because that's a different league where pitcher's hit. Entirely different game when it comes to HBP. It's a horrible call in the AL because it encourages retailiation by the other team. That's the only way you can respond in the AL. Keep an eye on this crew the rest of the year. I expect things to get progressively worse for them now that pitchers think they can get away with something.

Frank ran hard on Sat. With a mouthpiece in place he ran hard enough to pass Konerko around the bases. He was in a lot of pain afterwards but felt encouraged. He plans to run hard today. He's showing a desire to bear the pain as long as it doesn't affect his ability to hit & score. I think we could see Frank back before the end of the Chi-Town series.

The shockwave treatment is at least intriguing. Thomas seems to be responding to it. It's helping to break up the scar tissue & relieve pressure on the bone. We need our career .996 OPS hitter back in there. He had a .997 OPS before he went down in 2004. Everett's done a good job but he can do an even better job playing RF with Thomas at DH. Perez is proving to be a big waste of space & when Thomas returns he's the most likely to lose his spot.

He completely ignores the fielding behind that pitching. I've pointed it out earlier. A big part of the 9-2 record in 1 run games is attributed to DPs & timely outs. I would say the timely outs have been more beneficial to the defense than the timely hits have been to the offense. Assuming Uribe is back soon I don't see why that won't continue. It's not just Uribe's glove either. His contribution to the offense with SF's has been a major contribution to these games as well. The fact is the Sox are riding a 3 game losing streak but they been w/out Uribe 2 of those last 3 games. This is a different team when he's playing. His day-to-day value to this team right now makes him the MVP.

It makes no sense. He's on a hot streak (hitting over .300), playing on a bad foot, & has no of the lowest HBP counts on the team in past years. It just makes no sense for him to do that. IMHO, Crede has proven to be an aggresive hitter at the plate. Meaning he's more likely to swing than to take. As soon as the ball was released he probably had it in mind to swing & then as the pitch came at him he did everything in his power to hold the swing back. In the process he got hit. Now here's the thing whether you agree with the ump or not. What's the history behind such a call & what's best for the game? The game has been played for over a 100 yrs & yet such calls are more rare than perfect games. As for what was best for the game? Since pitchers are not required to hit in the AL this was definitely not in the game's best interest. As I said earlier this crew allowed one team to bean the other 6 times in the series. If the Sox learned anything in this series it's to retaliate early. That's the lesson this crew taught them & the rest of the AL because it doesn't pay to ignore it.

Is it just possible that Crede was faked out by the pitch? How many check swings occur in a ballgame? What do they represent? Hitters being fooled by a pitch. Sometimes they can control the swing enough to where it's not a strike & other times they can't. The key to it all is that it's only a question when it's a ball. http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?ac...ndpost&p=661383 The problem I have with the call is that it's completely ignorant of the history that transpired in the series. You might think that doesn't matter. I believe it does. The A's beaned 5 Sox players before Crede was hit. That's not normal. That's a recipe for a bench clearing brawl. That's something the league does not want to see. Many teams would have said F the rules & bean as A's player in the 2nd game. The Sox were more concerned about winning than retaliation. There was not one umpire in this game who had a perspective on the field to legitimately make that call with a degree of reasonable certainty. That's why it was a bad call. But more important than the call itself is the message it sent to the league. Here was a series where one team repeatedly beaned another & that team didn't retaliate. Where they rewarded? No. They were penalized in the end. In a close game that may have made the difference. So if you were on a team & found out this crew was working your next series would you be more inclined or less inclined to bean opposing players? If your team gets beaned are you more inclined or less inclined to retaliate? It's early in the season. If this crew is not reprimanded it could lead to worse things. A lot worse. IMO, that pitcher should have been ejected after Rowand. The warnings go to the team & not an individual player. Look at the history: Mon - HBP: P Ozuna (By B Zito), J Crede (By B Zito) Tue - HBP: C Everett (By R Harden), P Ozuna (By K Yabu); Wed - HBP: A Rowand (By J Duchscherer), Crede (By J Duchscherer)

I wanted to make this a separate post because it deals specifically with ramifications of the call. What kind of message did this call send to the rest of the league given the number of Sox players HBP in the series & the fact that Rowand had been beaned earlier in the inning? How about Ozuna not being able to play because of his beaning? How about the various groin & other injuries players suffer in an attempt to avoid such wild pitches? Avoiding such pitches is NOT a natural motion. It's a spastic one that could result in a disabliing injury. The league doesn't need more injuries. It needs less of them. When star & fan favorites are put on the DL that hurts both attendance & exposure for the game. The umpire has the responsibility to call a game so as to avoid that risk. Again I refer to my pony & little league experience. I can tell you emphatically that if we had a high number of hits batsmen in a prior matchup between two teams we would give warnings to both teams before the game started. Now let's look at the HBP history unfold in the series: Mon - HBP: P Ozuna (By B Zito), J Crede (By B Zito) Tue - HBP: C Everett (By R Harden), P Ozuna (By K Yabu); Wed - HBP: A Rowand (By J Duchscherer) This crew was lapsed in both warnings & ejections. It's as if they didn't care. Perhaps the White Sox should have had a bench clearing brawl after Crede was beaned to make them care. It's their job to prevent that from happening to make sure both teams know they aren't going to tolerate bean ball. Duchscherer never should have faced Crede. If this crew is not reprimanded for it's attitude in this series then I can only imagine what could happen when they do a RedSox & Yankees series. They are inviting bench clearing plays with thier attitude.

Rex, I'm sorry but you're wrong on this. First off you are making this judgement now after seeing replays of a viewpoint you do NOT get behind the plate. Secondly MLB is a much faster game than pony or little league. I've never once denied a youngster his base when the pitcher had previously beaned a player. Neither the line umpires or the home plate umpire had a viewpoint to accurately make that call. The home plate umpire has to concentrate his effort on the strike zone. He can't concern himself with what the batter is doing. This is why there are so many appeals on check swings. Now you apparently believe that Crede leaned into the pitch purposefully. I do not. I would rather say he misjudged it. As you said it was a curve ball & that is one of the hardest pitches to judge. The fact that it was thrown for a ball coupled with the fact Rowand had been beaned earlier strongly suggests the right call is to give Crede the base. This game was never intended to be called based on instant replays. The perspective on the field is what matters the most.