witesoxfan

Hate equally Oh yeah, and like it has been said on this board, the easiest way to lose weight is to get out and exercise. Go out and walk or go out and take a jog, run on a treadmill, go to the gym, play some Bball, play some tennis, etc. It's not as bad some make it out to be...in fact, after I get done jogging, quite honestly, I feel refreshed.

I was going to get that one, but I talked to a guy at my local GameStop and he told me they stopped making it, so I ended up getting MM04. I think I'll consider buying ESPN Hoops off the internet and then selling MM04(or maybe the other way around)

I like Wish You Were Here and Another Brick in the Wall. Also, Money isn't bad.

Well that's good. Atleast we agree on that. It may not take 20 minutes, but it sure as hell doesn't take 20 seconds, and I can tell you that for sure. I've looked at stats before and have done so on the board, and it can be a time consuming process...which is why I said I don't have 20 minutes. I was being a smart-ass. Maybe it takes 5-10 minutes. And I do have (atleast) half a brain, so I think I understand statstics. Or is that the other way around? Anyways... It probably will not affect the hitters as much as one would think. They were 7th in the league in homers with 162, and while that stat may or may not drop(remember, as I said before, they could have Sweeney and Gonzalez all year, and if so, I would bet their homers increase solely because of that, however, if either or both get hurt, that number will probably drop), they rely much more on singles, doubles, stealing, bunting, and the like. They were 4th in the league in hits, among the top 3 in singles, and tied for 3rd in triples, while they were not quite as high on the doubles list. I can't honestly tell you how it will affect them. But for the rest, I have no comment, other then you ahve done more research then me and I have nothing else to say. Well said. BTW, I do not live by the assume the worst, hope for the best....that is only in baseball, or more generally, in sports that I do that. If someone did that in real life, their life would probably be s***ty. I do that in baseball so that way if the White Sox do falter and struggle as they have the past two years, the fall does not hurt nearly as much. They say the higher you up, the further the fall, and I tend to agree. Also, part of that is you assume the worst for things you cannot control. If I was on the White Sox(dream ends there ), and we are in a divisional race down the stretch, you assume the worst will happen of things you cannot control(the team closest to you in the standings will win out), and so you have to control what you can and you have to win out(which is the part I did not write). The hoping for the best would be when the team closest to you loses a game. That's where I got the theory from originally, and instead of just applying it to baseball in September, I am applying it throughout the whole year.

Or proven hitter(Konerko). Thomas cannot play defense fulltime(mainly due to injury concerns), makes less then Konerko, is a better hitter then Konerko, and can actually take a walk now and then. Thomas is about as proto-typical of a DH as you are going to get.

Grammar is not that big of a deal if you understand what he is trying to say, and I do, and I think everyone else does. Take off the rose-colored glasses. C.Rector has brought up a good point in that Buehrle's numbers do seem to be getting slightly worse year in and year out. Teams are starting to see him better and are hitting him harder. There was a reason he started out 2-10 last year. I like Buehrle as much as you and as much as everyone else on here, and I hope he has a great year and he wins 22 or 23 games and the Cy Young, but plain and simply, we do not know if he will. Will he rebound and have a great year, or will he continue this decline? The common rule of thumb is that if a player has about the same thing 3 years in a row that is what you will see most of the time. This would be Buehrle's 3rd year of declining if he does once again decline. If KW traded Buehrle and got max value out of him at either the deadline or in the offseason(assuming Buehrle did once again get worse statistically), it would be a wise move. He is going to be earning more and more money each year and would be a burden to have. Not quite the same as Konerko, who may put up .230 20 70 or .300 30 110, but either way, is overpaid by a lot and is a b**** to have no matter what stats he puts up, but maybe more similar to say Mark Grudzielanek from last year when he was paid something like $6 mill, when he was undoubtedly not worth all $6 mill, but maybe more around $2-3 mill. As for my predictions, I'll say Esteban gets 16, Mark 15, Garland 13, Show 11 and our #5 starter(s) 7....I believe it's a total of 62 combined wins from our rotation. I hope that is proved wrong and they win about 75-80.

But people bringing the game up, I had to go back and play it, and so you can include that into the games I am playing now.

Thank you

Look, all I'm saying is that it is ignorant to say that they will suck or that they were a fluke. Maybe it was ignorant of me to say they will be great(which I did not). And sorry for not taking 20 minutes of my time analyzing the Royals team stats from 2003 when all that could change with the fact that the Royals moved their fences back(how far I am not exactly sure, I just know they moved them back). Odds are very good that their pitchers will reap benefits from this. I thought immediately of the Twins of 2001 when I see everyone calling the Royals of 2003 a fluke. Basically, I am saying we should assume the worst and hope for the best, which IMO is probably the best thing to do. I do not like it when people assume the best and hope the worst does not happen. It bothers me when people say the 2003 Royals were a fluke, because they were saying the exact same things about the Twins of 2001. BTW, while the Royals .305 BA w/RISP will come down, you should assume that that will be cancelled out atleast a little bit with Sweeney being healthy and them adding Gonzalez(who has been one of the very best run producers of the past 10 years), along with the maturity of Ken Harvey as a hitter.

Because this is not Odalis Perez's 6th year in the league. I believe it is his 5th. So after 2005 he will be a free agent.

Because we as a board agreed to do a mock draft, and this is exactly what this is. Cheat thought this may be a good and unique idea on how to approach it, and it has been a success so far. D'oh! If you want to talk about who the Bears will draft, they will draft the best available off or def lineman...probably Vince Wilfork from Miami.

No you did not.

Actually brando, IIRC, Garland can get it up to 94-95, however, his sinker then flattens out, and any major leaguer can hit the s*** out of a 94-95 MPH fastball ESPECIALLY if that's all they really need to look out for. Garland's best pitch is his sinker, and after that, he doesn't have much else(as has been pointed out before). You add 2-3 MPH to his sinker, but flatten it out(which is what happens), and he is Billy Koch circa 2003.

Keep in mind that, for starters, Odalis Perez is NOT a free agent after this year(though he can be non-tendered and then become a free agent), that Frank has a 10-5 no-trade clause and there is a possibility he would reject a trade to an NL team, AND that KW has said that no Frank or Konerko to LA talks are going on at the moment. The odds of Konerko to LA are about 1000:1. The odds of Thomas to LA are 1 million:1 or 1 billion:1. If I may pull a Michael Jordan(or Roger Clemens if you prefer), I am 99.9% sure that Thomas will not be dealt to LA.

You mean like we won't get to see Corg's Tub o Goo posts, right? But I do agree. I think our rotation will go on spells where they are just crappy and our bullpen will be worn out, and people will say "Why did this not happen last year?" The answer is in Anaheim.

I guess it's too bad we don't work on these games for EA Sports.

People's ignorance bothers me. Am I the only one who remembers when the Twins were above .500 for the first time in quite some time in 2001, but they were a fluke and were going to regress in 2002? And then how 2002 was ALSO a fluke, but they were going to regress in 2003? And now I've even seen some people who say they will not be good THIS year. The Royals are in the same boat as far as I'm concerned. I'm not quite sure why people are discounting them when they've improved themselves the most BY FAR(unless you count the Tigers, and I don't, because they still won't contend). Why people question the Royals starting is also beyond me. Runlevys Hernandez almost always starts out quite well, and if he can continue it over the whole year, I would not be surprised to see him win 14-17 games with an ERA of about 4.00. If Affeldt truly has fixed his blister problem, he will probably win 13-16 games with a decent ERA. Brian Anderson will have a decent year, like he always does, and will probably win 12-15 games, and Darrell May, who will be solid as well. I believe they have Kevin Appier as their #5 starter....I can tell you that he will almost undoubtedly be better then whoever is our #5 starter.

I feel the same.

Where's the embarrassed smiley? I honestly don't know what I was thinking when I was posting that(maybe I wasn't ), but I think a better trade would involve us getting one of Piniero/Soriano and then probably Winn as well, and I'd have to imagine Garcia as well to make the $$$ involved divided better. Maybe we give them Schoney as well to help fill a hole, along with Munoz and/or Diaz. Salary-wise, it is something like this Piniero - $2.5 mill/Soriano - $500,000, Garcia - $7 mill, Winn - approx. $3.5 mill = $11-13 mill Maggs - $14 mill Schoney - $2 mill Prospects - almost nothing = $16 mill So it would put us below and the Mariners might make it with money to spend. I don't think they would, just saying it makes sense financially. Would fill holes for both teams, but maybe not to the extent the Mariners would want. It would give us 5 very solid starters, and our bullpen would remain unharmed. The only thing that would take a hit is our offense, and I think even that would be fine. While we lose a big power hitter in the middle of the order, we do gain speed, no matter how much, along with the good bat that Winn has. And like I said, with the pitching we would have, we would have little need for a powerhouse offense. We would need only a mediocre offense to get by. Then we trade Konerko to LA for say Mota or Shuey to help shore up the pen, sign Randall Simon, and we are in good shape going into the season. Burkett resigned with Boston? s***, missed that news flash. Anyways, I don't want any part of him either, but the Mariners might. In a pitcher friendly park, he could put up 10-12 wins.

Glad I'm not the only one then. I think if I had to give a review of NCAA MM 04, I would say that the actual basketball part of it is good, but many parts are lacking quite a bit. IMO, the Dynasty Mode is very weak...from what I could tell, players improve very little as they get older, recruiting is not as easy as it should be, and the rankings are usually bad and unrealistic. On the plus side however, I like the fact that teams CPU teams can refuse to play you because you are too weak, though not all teams refuse the opportunity. I was just a little disappointed in it myself...I think it could be improved a ton. Why not make the Dynasty mode similar to NCAAF 04?

As I said with the last Mariotti column, he has got to be on this board somewhere reading each and every one of these posts until he gets one he likes.

2002 - we were unsure on how Rowand was even going to do, so we brought in Lofton, and for the first two months, the move worked brilliantly. The next month was s*** and then Rowand came in, when we were far, far out of it. 2003 - the job was his and he started off hitting .125 for April, was demoted, fixed his swing, and come July was ready. However, we needed a LH bat in the middle of the lineup and the main place to put a LH bat was from the CF spot, and that's what we did, and we added Everett 2004 - the job is his up to this point Doesn't look like he's getting screwed to me. Looks like he has kind of brought it on himself. All I can do is hope he comes through.

I think they're going to win the division. Good starting still, another good pen(even with the losses of Hawkins and Guardado...I know they have Joe Nathan and Juan Rincon as their righties, JC Romero as their lefty, I believe they have Carlos Silva, Pete Munro, Grant Balfour, and then they have a stud minor leaguer too, though I can't recall his name right now...for some reason the name Crank or something like that comes to mind). Plus their defense is still the best in the league, and they're still going to be decent offensively. As a matter of fact, I think the division is going to end up exactly like TSN has it. I think the two sleeper teams are the White Sox and Indians...the only team I will say has virtually no shot at winning is the Tigers.

Do you also mean give us Piniero as well? If so....Maggs plus a prospect for Soriano and Piniero....I like it. Gives us a solid 1-2-3 for sure and puts Garland in the #4 role where I think he is better suited for atleast right now(much like he was last year, but he got screwed in some games as well), solidifies our bullpen, and frees up some money. For the M's, it gives them a big-name bat in the middle of their order. That probably wouldn't be the exact trade, but it could be if the prospect was Arnie Munoz....or if we added another and it was Felix Diaz. That would definately help solidify their pen, and then maybe they go out and sign John Burkett to be a #5 starter....something like that. Not sure if the Mariners would do this, but I would do it in a second and would be in favor of it bigtime.

BTW, on NCAA March Madness 04, what the f*** is up with their s***ty as top 25 polls(or is that just me that gets it)? I mean like in my first year(and only year so far), I was Syracuse and got up to #8 and then played Notre Dame, lost, and dropped to 24th(and I was like 12-1 at the time). Also, UC Santa Bill, Wyoming, and Kent State were all in the top 5 at one time or another in it as well, while during the whole season I had the highest RPI rating in the nation. What in the blue f*** is up with that?