witesoxfan

That is arguable. I'd personally rather have a damn good bullpen over a damn good rotation. Roughly 99% of the population of the United States knows that baseball games are 9 innings, and a lot of those people know that starters usually only pitch 6 or 7 innings, sometimes 8, and if you are Bartolo Colon and you want the ball no matter what, all 9. However, not everyone is Bartolo Colon and they can only go 6-7 innings, and you need to close out some close games now and then. That is when you have to bring in another pitcher, and I want a guy that is going to be lights out for me on any given night. Scho proved last year he is not that kind of guy, while Wright hasn't proved one way or the other. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that I would rather have a mediocre rotation and a lights out pen then have a good rotation and a good bullpen. If by our magic powers we knew Wright would have a 15-12 4.62 200 inning season and Scho would have a 13-13 4.96 season 180 innings, I would consider long and hard about who I would have in the rotation. Personally, I would probably choose to put Wright in the pen, mainly because of pure gut instinct that he could be a very good reliever and Scho cannot(based on what he has done in the past). Neither would be wrong though.

Maggs has hit .305 or better the last 3 years, Chavez has .288 as his highest. Maggs produces more runs, K's less, seems to be a little better base-stealer, has not had an OBP of under .380 over the past 3 years while Chavez has had one at .350, Maggs low SLG% is .533(along with a .597 SLG% in 2001) while Chavez's high is .540 over that span, and as a byproduct of those, Maggs has not had an OPS of under .914 while Chavez has not had one over .878. The ONLY thing Chavez has a clear advantage over Ordonez in as far as on-field things go right now, IMO, is a gold glove at 3B, while Maggs has a solid glove and a good, accurate arm in RF. Is defense that much more important? However, Chavez is only like 25 or 26, so he has probably not even peaked offensively yet, while Maggs is in his early 30s and is in the phase where some, but not all hitters, fizzle out a little bit. That is also a clear advantage. At that price, I'd say Maggs is worth $13-15 mill a year, but if we got lucky as hell, he would resign with us, knowing he is the piece of the puzzle that we need, and he'd resign with us for $12 mill.

Exactly. I mean, they did take Jose Hernandez and Bobby Hill(otherwise known as boy wonder and the second-coming) and not much more for Randall Simon, Kenny Lofton, and Aramis Ramirez, who were all critical in the Cubs success last year.

Call this a wild-ass, crazy-as-hell prediction(please do), but I predict Juan Uribe plays a huge part in our success this year coming off the bench, and he will be a guy that has numerous clutch hits. In fact, I predict he gets the hit that sends us to the postseason.

We try it. If he can't, he takes over Daubach's job from last year and we trade Matt Ginter/Jon Rauch/Felix Diaz to Pittsburgh for Randall Simon. I see no reason why they would not do that deal.

What he said.

Heads, I will do that next year. I was going to take anatomy this year, but figured there would be too many juniors in there for my liking(me being a sophomore and all). Should be fun. However, I think the part of dissections I dislike the most is the scent of formaldehyde. It is horrendous and you never get used to the scent unlike almost everything else. It gives me the chills every time I think about the scent. I would have to say it is very close to the worst smell ever.

Oh no! WNBA Aaaaahhhhhhh!!!!! :banghead :sleep

Probably playing CBA or something like that. Either that or else he might be flipping burgers.

Sorry is this was posted in the college hoops thread, but Kevin Martin, the one from Western Carolina, is declaring for the NBA draft. linky For those of you who don't know or don't remember what I'm talking about, I'm referring to this: K-MART

You and I think exactly alike, as well as all the others that have said OK state. I'm not sure what it is exactly, but I see something in that team that says "Final Four", "National Champion", all over them. I think they win it all.

We can only hope. Usually, if you do bad, it means nothing. And usually, if you do good, it means nothing. Let's just hope it carries into the season and we win 15 of our first 18 and put the Royal Tribe of Tiger Twins in the rear view mirror about 8 games back and then we never look back.

Is this kind of like the image someone created with the headline in huge bold caps saying something like "SOSA HITS TWO HOMERS" and then in small print as a title of a little article down on the bottom "Sox beat Cubs in World Series 4 games to 1" ?

f*** Griffey. If we're going to get an overpaid LH bat, why not just shell the s*** out and do whatever it takes to get Jim Thome or Jason Giambi? Or maybe we could just trade a guy like Rauch to Tampa for Huff. Maybe add Diaz too. It's.that.simple.(it would also involve trading Konerko/Lee/Thomas too, but I decided not to mention that)

Oh my god, don't you guys get what he's saying? He's saying that if you suck in ST, you'll suck in the season.... ...which perfectly explains why Curt Schilling had about a 9.50 ERA in ST 2 years ago Hell, Jeff Kent practically didn't have a ST in 2002, and he helped his team damn near win a World Series(I had no idea washing your truck was so dangerous). Maybe the Phillies should give up, Jim Thome is out until about the second week of the season. Cubs fans, the season is down the drain...Prior has a sore achilles heel! Cut the s***, just because you suck in ST does NOT mean you'll suck in the regular season. :dips***

It says in the article that Ortiz makes about $3.1 mill this year and I believe it said Washburn makes $5.45. With those numbers, and Anaheim not taking anyone on, we can't trade Rauch for just one of them. However, I personally would take a Sele for Konerko trade. It helps us financially in that we get rid of a big contract after this year(while Konerko's goes until 05), allowing us more room to resign Maggs and Loaiza(we'd have Maggs's $14 mill coming off, Sele's $8 mill, Valentin's $5 mill, Koch's $6 mill, and Loaiza's $3.5, and there are other littler ones as well....with just those big contracts, we have roughly $36.5 mill coming off, though I would hope that about $15-20 mill of that would be spent to retain Maggs and Loaiza) Also, I wonder if this could be made into a 3-way deal, with Chicago sending Konerko to LA, LA sending Shuey or Mota to Anaheim, and Anaheim sending Washburn/Ortiz to Chicago. Helps strengthen an already strong Anaheim bullpen, gets LA some offense, and gets the Sox another starter that they need(though I'm not sure what we'd do with Wright then, whether it be trade him in one of those deals or try to make him a reliever...I'm not exactly sure)

Neither Roy Williams or Mike Williams would slip to Chicago. One if not both of those 2 will be drafted in the top 10(along with Fitzgerald), and the other will either be selected by the Falcons, the Jets, or the Bills. IMO, the Bears have little to no shot of drafting either one of those two. Now if we're talking Reggie Williams, then you have a point. However, that could quite possibly be reaching a bit at 14. I would imagine they'd wait until atleast the 3rd round to get a WR, maybe even later.

Regarding the trading of the pick...can you say AI?

Karma will bite him in the ass. Can you say 4 straight NFC Championship games with no Superbowls for the Eagles?

But he has had major shoulder problems. IIRC, he's had a major surgery or two on probably his labrums and his elbows, and is not worth the risk at $6 mill. He can be a solid pitcher when healthy...but I'd rather have a mediocre and sometimes bad pitcher in Rauch who could still be a pretty solid starter then Benson.

I'm happy for him personally. He was rotting away in our system, atleast now in Cleveland he has a chance to see if he is a major league pitcher. Cleveland did that same kind of thing with Casey Blake, a former Twin minor leaguer stuck behind Koskie...now he is going to be a huge part of their team, and will almost undoubtedly be a big part of whatever success they have.

Regarding Loaiza, we WERE comforted atleast a little when he had about a 2.00 ERA or so in ST. Can Shoe say the same?

Agreed. And your pitchers can't have all great outings, you can't have all your pitchers pitching well, etc. If Loaiza doesn't have the cutter, he'll have to find it again. He probably will. A cutter is not like losing a 98 MPH fastball, like Koch. Cutters can be regained, and usually, 98 MPH fastballs cannot. Just to add to Steve's comment...the last time I checked, no team had ever gone 162-0 in a regular season, and no team had ever won more then 116 games. We will lose, our pitchers will have bad outings where they don't have their stuff, our hitters will have off days....BIG f***ING DEAL. If in the end we win more games then the Twins, Tigers, Indians, and Royals, we will get to see the members of the Chicago White Sox pouring beer and champagne(is that one the city or the stuff you drink?) over themselves, and then they'll go to the playoffs, and hopefully win 11 games there. Come early April, we are 0-0 with arguably the 25 best players in the organization, and we start a 6 month journey that starts out slowly and picks up speed like a motherf***er late. I can't wait for it to start.

We brought him on to bring the heat. KW said something to the extent of 'We brought Billy on board because he is more of a closer type', or something like that(IIRC) right after he made the deal. What has he exhibited to us thus far? A fastball that tops out of 95 when he's throwing well, and usually right around 92-93. He has to have a very big season to be worth the $6 mill he's making.

Magglio Ordonez and now Jon Rauch? Who next, who next! I want to know. BTW, by successful do you mean he'll put up like 15-10 4.00 ERA, basically a very good rookie year, or do you mean 13-12 5.25 ERA?