witesoxfan

I'll take .300, hell, even .280ish.

Is that the one with the brother frenching the sister?

I personally can't imagine either has that huge of an ego. To have an ego, you have to be a big-time dominant pitcher, and Buehrle really is not a dominant pitcher. And to get an ego, it has to build for years(see Mark Prior)...Esteban has had one great year and a bunch of other crappy years. Not only that, but both seem to be level-headed guys. One wouldn't think they'd get too full of themselves. I do like seeing it though. It seems to me the team with the fewest egos is the team with the best attitude and the team with the best attitude is the team that plays best most like a team, and they say that baseball is a team game. Let's hope I'm right.

Hell, I think if he can get on base consistently, he could steal 60 or 70. He seems to be a very good base stealer. Not like Rickey Henderson good, but good none the less.

Is that Joe Valentine or Jose Valentin? I assume it's Valentine, knowing how much you like Valentin, and how the Cubs would not improve incredibly with Valentin over Gonzo, but I still have to ask. Either way, IMO, Sox win. And this seemed to be the make or break year for Corwin. I think we know which way he's going. He better hope he can make it as a reliever elsewhere, because I tend to think his career as a member of the Chicago White Sox organization has about come to an end.

Agreed. If you go around saying "You f***ing f***s, get the f*** to f***ing work f***ers", I know I'd lose my respect for the guy real quick. But you use it like most of us on here use it(and I'm hoping he does), then he'll be fine. Maybe Ozzie's swearing because he's a little nervous and that nervousness will go away with experience. Or maybe it will be good for the team and they will respond to it. Who the f*** f***ing cares, am I f***ing right or am I f***ing right?

No one is sticking with Cade McNown, if that's who you are thinking of. We are talking about Josh McCown, the starting QB for the Cardinals last 5-10 games last year, and the guy who threw the pass to send the Vikings to the country club instead of back to Minnesota to play Seattle.

Nor am I. I said Dusty Baker is one of the better managers the city of Chicago has seen in a very long time. How is that comparing the Cubs and Sox? The best starting rotation in the majors will help them end that streak this year. Catcher is too s***ty to even argue, though I do think the Cubs win. Agreed on 1B and 2B, as well as SS, however, I tend to think LF is more of equal than you want to think of it. Lee, with the exception of 2002 for some odd reason, can't draw a walk to save his life(in 2000, 2001, and 2003, had 37, 37, and 38 walks respetively...and for some strange ass reason, drew 75 in 2002, in 140 games, while playing 150 or more the other 3 years. Just a question that cannot be answered. Meanwhile, Alou puts up slightly fewer homers, RBI, and had a slightly worse BA, but can draw a walk, and strikes out only 60-70 times a year, whereas Lee struck out 90 times last year...however, I will give a slight advantage to Lee). CF, only Patterson is coming off an injury...Rowand was healthy all last year, though he was not 100% at the beginning of the year. I don't know where you get off thinking that Rowand got injured at some point last year. Still even though, because Patterson has incredible range just due to god-given talent, and he is also seems to be a better hitter then Rowand as well. I'll leave it at even just because Patterson is coming off an injury. However, I do not understand at all why you give Crede the advantage over Ramirez. Crede's only in his 3rd year, is solid with the glove, hasn't proven he can hit above .270 at the majors, has not hit 20 homers, let alone 25-30, and barely drew 30 walks last year, while Aramis has hit 25 homers or more twice in his career(2001 with the Pirates, his best year to date going .300 34 112 .885 OPS, and 2003, where he had a solid .272 27 106 .788 OPS), though he has shown he has a weak glove at time. Plain and simply, if you want to win this year and you take Crede over Ramirez, you are probably shooting yourself in the foot, just based on previous years. If you are building for the future and take Crede, that's understandable....then again, you are talking about who is going to be better this year(and I'm not sure how we got into this debate), and I take Ramirez. Your next point shows some definate blind faith. Taking Maggs over Sosa is, if I may, just plain stupid. I hate the guy as a baseball player and I think, if he ever put on a White Sox uniform again, he would be the only Sox player I would ever consider booing just because of who he is, but he has killed Maggs statistically over the past 5 years. Maggs has averaged .312 32 118 .919 OPS over the past 5 years, which would be a very good season, however, Sosa has averaged .301 53 130 1.024 OPS the past 5 years, blowing away Maggs. If you give the edge to Maggs over Sosa just because you like the guy, you need to look at the stats and do a little more considering. Now, if we are talking about who I would rather have if they are both on the FA market, and Maggs is asking for $8 mill a year and Sammy's asking for $15 mill a year, I'll take Maggs based strictly for monetary reasons, because with the $7 mill you would save, you can pick up about 3-4 very good relievers or a pretty solid starter, etc, but we are talking about who is better based strictly upon who is the better ballplayer, and Sosa blows Maggs out of the water. I give the clear advantage to the Cubs in RF, though I like our RFer more. Agreed, agreed(just because Koch is s***), however, I'm not sure how you take Shingo, Marte, Politte, Wunsch, and a ? over Hawkins, Remlinger, Farnsworth, Cruz, and Mercker. Their bullpen is much, much better then ours, and I would love to have it over ours. You're right. It's only 8.1 miles. However, as far as talent is concerned, they destroy us, and then they have one of the better managers Chicago has flat out ever seen. I expect them to win 100+ games a cruise to the World Series, and I'm hoping we win around 80-85, hell, maybe even 90 with a trade or two at the deadline that help push us over the top, and then make a little noise in the playoffs if we get there. And BTW, if you think the manager blew the Cubs NLCS chances last year, I have to ask, when was Alex Gonzalez promoted to player/manager? Plain and simply, Alex Gonzalez blew any chance they had of going. If he fields that ball, Steve Bartman is just 'that one guy' that got in the way of Alou. And in game 7, the Marlins had the lead in the 5th inning and handed the ball to Josh Beckett. End of story. Any manager does the same if they have a pitcher throwing the ball that well and if he has had any rest whatsoever.

I'm not surprised JR does not spend money, espeically on pitchers. The last time he went big on pitchers was Jamie Navarro, because he'd been told Navarro probably had a bright future in front of him, and he signed Navarro over Clemens, who he had been told was washed up. Seeing Clemens with 300+ wins, 4000+ strikeouts and still pitching with Houston tells you who was right, does it not? Seeing Navarro's name next to s***ty stats with some minor league team tells you who was right, does it not? It also tells you why JR does not give a lot of guaranteed money to pitchers, correct? I mean, the last time he spent big-time money on a pitcher, the pitcher called out his offense after a game b****ing them out because they gave him no run support after a 9-1 loss. Go figure. He also gave the richest contract in the history of the sport and the first 8-figure salary to one Albert Belle. And Belle actually did do some very good things for us in his second year, hitting I believe about 50 homers and driving in around 145 runs, both all-time White Sox records(and they still are, kind of funny considering the White Sox have been around 100+ years and Frank Thomas has been on the team for the past 13 years, but it's true). Of course, Belle was in a Baltimore uniform the year after that, and a year or two after that, he retired from the game because of his hip problems. In all reality, he has either just had someone running the team who threw JR's money in the garbage(Scheuler with Navarro as his main one, but then he sort of redeemed himself with the Navarro and Snyder for Eldred and Valentin deal...that one has worked out nicely for us, both in the short term and long term, and KW with overpaying Konerko, overpaying Koch, picking up Jose's $5 mill option, taking Choice and his $3-4 mill contract, etc...and those are off the top of my head. I'm sure I could find others if I tried hard enough). I'm not here to say to everyone "Go out and attend the park so JR can spend some money" because quite frankly, living in the upper-midwest and being about 1000 miles away from Chicago, I do not attend, so I'd be telling you to do something that I cannot myself do, and I really don't like to tell people to do things that I can't do. All I'm saying is is that it is not JR's fault. You can win with a $60 mill payroll. It takes some intelligent decision making from the front office regarding signings and trades, and some good scouting to bring in guys who will develop into atleast solid major leaguers or potential trade bait, and over the past several years, it has been proven that we, for the most part, have failed in the front office(with the exception of 2000, and even the White Sox catch a break now and then). Blame KW and the scouts and KW's assistants, and if you want, blame Mr. Chairman for hiring KW in the first place, but do not b**** at him for not spending, because he does spend. Just be happy we don't have Pohlad as an owner, a man who is worth over $2 billion and barely spends $50 million on his team, a team that has won the division two straight years.

Yet another time change, yet another OK by me. It would work.

IMO, it is not a good shot for Detroit to gain ground. They will gain ground, period.

But he also drafted Daunte to be the future of the Vikings in about his 3rd to last draft(or sometime around there). I see no reason why he would not take Roethlisberger, a potential franchise QB. If he wants another receiver, he'll get a solid one in the second or third round.

Which probably cost them the game. Kind of ironic that it happens against Minnesota. In Detroit's other game against Minnesota this year, I believe Billups was fouled pretty hard on the last shot of the game and it went uncalled, or in other words, there is a good chance Detroit should have beaten Minnesota both times they played them this year, and instead lose both times. Kind of funny how things work out.

That too.

Queen kicks ass!

Major League 1 and 2 are my favorite baseball movies of all time I think. I like Bull Durham a lot, and I like Field of Dreams, but there is something funny as hell about the Major League's that makes them the most enjoyable baseball movies to me. I think my favorite line is the one that old b**** makes when Vaughn comes in to get them into the playoffs against the Yankees in ML1... "I hate this f***in song."

"See Ismael, we have to leave with out her because there's an ohhh s***...." (while the two are fighting) "There's a s*** cloud coming, run for your life!"

Amen

I don't think anyone compares to Jurassic Carl. Not even evil gnomes or whatever the hell they were can touch Carl's odd beliefs.

Because Mariotti is a jackass of a writer who contradicts himself week in and week out and is the worst plagarizer I have ever seen(because it is quite obvious he gets all his work from this site). He has blind faith and has had several very s***ty articles written about the White Sox(if we had gotten Nomar Garciaparra in the ARod to Boston deal which has fallen apart, he thought it would have been stupid to trade Nomar to LA for Perez, Mota, and a prospect or two, even knowing Nomar would be unhappy here and we would still have Jose Valentin, and he would have written s*** about how it would be a terrible move to trade Nomar for a no-name Odalis Perez, a s***ty Guillermo Mota, and two prospects who have little chance of doing anything....come late October when the White Sox have won the Series while riding on the backs/arms of Perez and Buehrle and Mota being a key part of our bullpen with one of these prospects we got winning minor league player of the year, while Nomar had his worst year ever, he would then write something about what a great trade the Nomar deal was....given, none of that happened because of those damn Yankees, but that's what Mariotti does). We do not do the same as Mariotti(except for long-gone OldRoman, but he was known as the windsock for a reason). We us more intelligence when posting, we rarely if ever contradict ourselves, and we look at things objectively.

Hey Steff, just in case you didn't know, I heard that Rowand, Crede, and Harris went to ST early this year

Very, very much so. If the Sox start out hot, and gain say 4-6 games on Minny, KC and the rest in April, and gain two more the next two months, we could realistically put the division away by the All-Star break. Unfortunately, this also applies for Minny and KC, hell, even Cleveland and Detroit too.

He is actually correct. I've personally never touched the stuff, and I never plan on it. However, it is unaddictive, you cannot overdose on it(therefore, weed cannot directly kill unless you are talking about the way cigarettes kill you, and as I said, you can pretty much stop at any time), and the fact that the government is spending so much money on trying to stop you from using it when it can be grown in one's home is ridiculous. Spend money to prevent people from making meth and cocaine, not to prevent them from smoking marijuana. Instead, in all reality, they could legalize it, tax it, and reap the benefits. But that's an entirely different topic, and we have more informed posters on the board who are more informed on this issue than I am, I just make observations from reading. However, what he did is stupid. Regardless of what I just said, marijuana is illegal, and he was informed probably very clearly NOT to use illegal drugs, and he did, so he is in trouble.

Looks good.

I'd say the guy with the best chance is Scho, and that's if his supposed cutter actually cuts and his fastball and slider do what they are supposed to do. Also, I wouldn't count out Grilli either.