witesoxfan

Oh well. Atleast all the rumors will stop now. I still don't think the Yanks win the Series....don't have enough pitching.

35 degrees yesterday and I was out helping my dad wash the car with a t-shirt on.

I think Loaiza finishing 2nd in the Cy Young balloting makes him proven to be atleast a solid starter next year. He may not have a 21-9 2.90 season again, but I don't think a 16-10 3.50 season is out of the question, and that would be solid enough.

That would suck, but I would personally have to consider the source of the information...not ESPN radio, but a poster on the MLB boards. Sometimes people say s*** just to say s*** on those boards.

He'd of been a decent pitcher at the very least. I agree though. He definately would have been a solid pickup.

So that IS 4. And they'd take Frank for what reason? To get Lowe, it would probably cost us some combination of Reed, Cotts, Honel, and Borchard.

Not sure if this game does this, but what I always thought would be cool is if your minor league teams actually played games. I know that on WSB2k3 you just have a minor league system, but they don't actually play games. Also, on WSB2k3, not only are the coaches not real, but they never get better or worse, and hitting coaches can never be promoted to manager. I assume this is something they've considered and will be done in this year's addition. All in all, I can't wait for March 9th.

Why would Boston want Frank Thomas? Don't they have about 3, if not more, 1B/DH types(off the top of my head, Manny should be a DH, Millar is 1B, and Ortiz is 1B/DH...are there more?). I'd take Lowe, but I doubt Boston gives him to us for Frank.

Agreed. I would guess that he is a guy you never look at as a great player, but always will be a good player and will be worth every cent he gets. If the White Sox could get their hands on him, I would love it.

Brusselspouts and squash. Can't stand beets either.

Unless he hits about .320 35 120, he isn't worth $8 mill. Therefore, he should be traded.

If KW wanted to do that, he'd resign tomorrow, and he'd take Ozzie with him.

Just curious... While I do not want injuries to occur, nor am I a cold-hearted evil man....who cares? Person probably wasn't even going to make the team out of ST. And he didn't have the stuff to pull an Esteban anyways. At the very best, he could be a decent #5 starter for some team. Anyways, I'll have to see it to believe it.

In very few cases. In almost all things, especially baseball, statistics are a great indicator of success and failure or how something works. Then there's the saying from Hawk "Don't tell me what you hit, tell me when you hit it"....as it has been said before, getting off to a hot start would be nice now and then(see 2000), and his May record of 0-4 with a 7.16 ERA is a good indicator of how he pitched. In August, he had an ERA of 4.50....far from the ace material we would really need in August, so he did struggle down the stretch. His ERA was below 4.00 in the other 4 months however. If I did, then WHERE? I don't recall saying the he would go 12-15 with a 4.50 ERA....I basically said I wouldn't rule it out. I believe in the actual predictions, I predicted Mark to win 15 games, so how is that 12-15 with a 4.50 ERA? Would Garland win 19 games if he got injured? I think not. And who cares if Beckett has more dominant stuff? Esteban Loaiza doesn't exactly have dominant stuff either, and he was only the runner up in the Cy Young balloting last year, and he only made hitters look silly from April to August, when his arm really just fell off. And who says Garland doesn't make one adjustment, sees his sinker sink more and sink faster, develops a little cutter, and is a top tier pitcher in the league? Probably won't happen, but you never know. If he goes back to something he did earlier in his career, he may be successful for a little bit, and then will be hit hard because hitters will make adjustments, at which point Buehrle will have to make an adjustment, at which point the hitters will have to, etc, etc, etc....it is a never ending cycle. But my guess would be this year will be similar to years past where he got gradually worse....maybe 15-13 4.25 or something similar to that. I'd never heard anything about the sinking. The only one I'd heard was left side of the rubber to right side. Why, because you'd do the same thing? If Jimenez was still with us, was acting like a s***face, giving a half-assed effort, and put up a .300 20 70 25 steals .900 OPS season, would you not wonder why he had better numbers? That would be what Buehrle was doing in that situation. Regardless, if Buehrle did that, he would be with another team faster then...hell, he'd be gone so fast, I can't compare it to anything. He'd be gone faster then fast. Buehrle has little talent as a baseball player, and has gotten where he has from locating his pitches and pitching like a pitcher. Buehrle gave a half-assed effort, his numbers would be worse then Koch's. BTW, you technically did respond, He obviously has a good work ethic and good attitude, otherwise he'd still be in AA or AAA. Different story for Maggs, though he has gotten where he has from the same thing as Mark, good work ethic and good attitude. So WHAT if it's August? You said he was incredible in the playoff run and I proved you wrong. A 4.50 ERA is not run, and that's what he had in August, and August is in the playoff run. Therefore, he was not incredible in the playoff run.

Mine will be to fire Ozzie.

Which perfectly explains his month of May when he went 0-4 with a 7.16 ERA. You would not have a 7.16 ERA if your teammates were making all kinds of s***ty plays behind you. You can give up 937 runs and still have an ERA of 0.00, assuming that all 937 runs were due to errors or passed balls(or if an inning was extended longer then it should have been and a homer was allowed). Buehrle was at fault for quite a few of those runs if his ERA was 7.16. Do these numbers mean NOTHING to you(courtesy C. Rector)? Looks like they're getting worse to me. Also, where did I say Buehrle is in a steady decline? It looks to me like his numbers are getting worse, who says that trend won't continue and he goes 12-15 with a 4.50 ERA this year? Then again, who says that Garland won't bust out, win 19 games, including 12 in the second half, and leads us to a World Series win, much like Josh Beckett did the Marlins? Games aren't played on paper and strange s*** can happen, but usually future statistics can be figured out by trends players have early in their career. We'll see if Buehrle trend continues. Also, where did he say he was trying to sink the ball more? I never read anything about that. What I remember being the story of turning him around was moving from the left side of the mound to the right side. I expect Buehrle to play with everything he has this year, and if everything he has is 12-14 with a 4.50 ERA, then I'd take it. If he is just f***ing around acting like a dips*** and he puts up a 18-9 record with a 3.30 ERA, I'm going to wonder why he didn't try harder and win 20. Obviously, Buehrle's attitude would be the attitude in the first situation, and we all hope he has a record like the one I had in the latter situation. BTW, incredible in the playoff run? I hope you're not talking about his 4.50 ERA in August.

Well if you're going to go from that standpoint, atleast the Royals brought in players, and the Twins made trades to try and help improve the team. Meanwhile, we let Colon, Gordon, Sullivan, Everett, and Alomar get away and we have no starter to replace Colon(which hurts us more then people will realize) unless you count Show, Cliff Politte to replace Tom Gordon(which will probably hurt us), Shingo for Sullivan(that's iffy, could go either way), replaced Everett with Rowand(losing that LH bat pretty much negates anything Rowand will do offensively), and replaced Alomar with Harris/Uribe/someone else(which will probably hurt us, though I can't guarantee that). We also fired Manuel(which was a great move), but hired Ozzie, and he and KW have been nothing short of dumb and dumber so far this offseason.

BUT he's not bad either. I'd say he's mediocre, but in this mediocre category, I'd rate him as better then Jon Garland. And BTW, as has been proven in the past, just because you have the best hitters and pitchers(though I have seen nothing to prove either point), neither one necessarily leads to a division title. Just ask the White Sox of 2003.

Because he's playing in Coors Field. No other reason why in all honesty.

Not quite. Loaiza has never been out for the year with an injury due to something he didn't need to do. Thomas did not need to dive...hell, odds are, Ichiro would have beaten it out anyways had he gotten it. If Thomas got hurt hitting, then it would be comparable to any pitcher pitching. He does not need to field Besides, him not being able to throw it to second or third is also a negative...atleast Konerko can throw the ball around a little.

That's because you were watching him at the Cell. His splits at the Cell: 9 innings, 7 hits, 6 runs allowed(all earned), 2 homers allowed, 6 walks and 8 K's. ERA of 6.00, WHIP of 1.44, though opponents hit just .219 against him.

NL East: Atlanta Philadelphia Florida New York Montreal NL Central: Chicago Houston(WC) St. Louis Pittsburgh Milwaukee Cincinatti NL West: Arizona San Fran Colorado San Diego Los Angeles AL East: Boston New York(WC) Toronto Baltimore Tampa Bay AL Central: Minnesota Kansas City Chicago Cleveland Detroit AL West: Oakland Seattle Anaheim Texas

And IIRC, he also won it in 1992 or 1993, and he finished second in the AL Comeback Player of the Year this year(to ELo, but I thought he should have won, because Elo never was actually there) You can win Comeback Player of the Year more then once, like you can win an MVP or a Cy Young more then once. You can have down years more then once in your career and then come back and have a huge year the next year.

Am I the only one who thinks that it is quite biased that 3 of the 10 have been a part of the White Sox organization at some time or another(be it now with Reed and Takatsu, and some time with Miles)?

I totally agree with that. Our bullpen will be fine as it is, so there is no need for our #1/#2 pitcher(I think he's #2, but people have different opinions), and there is no need to put a guy that will earn something like $4 mill a year(I can't recall the exact numbers but I believe it's $4 mill a year) in the pen to be a long reliever. Only the very best LH relievers in the game will ever make $4 mill(and even Marte will only make like $1 mill next year), and Buehrle would not be anywhere close to the best LH reliever in the game. Plus the fact that it would be flat out stupid to take someone from where we are short-handed and put him somewhere where we have some depth, or to make it more clearly, why would take a starter, where we are weak, and put him in the pen, where we are deep? That would be an incredibly stupid move. Though he does bring up good points about his stats getting worse.