witesoxfan

Sounds like Jamie Navarro......after he complained of not getting run support after losing a game 9-1....it's not his fault he gave up 9 runs. It's the offense's fault for not scoring 10 runs. No, I don't want Weaver....he is a good pitcher on a bad team or a bad pitcher on a good team....he'll never be a good pitcher on a good team.

Say that we are about to make a trade with Montreal....we are asking for Colon....but they want a good 3B replacement because they also want to dump Tatis on us. If this came up....would you be willing to trade Wright, Crede, a prospect and cash for Colon and Tatis?

Well, I'll give you a hint about why we don't deal with Bora$(aside from that one). Greg Maddux also has Bora$ as his agent....and Maddux will have 18 million reasons why he is happy that Bora$ is his agent. Rogers could command around $5 or $6 million next year. At his age, that is outlandish.

Now, I hate to say this....but why in the hell would you pick Green Bay? They are not that good of a team....seriously. Hell, I bet if they played your Washington Redskins somewhere other than Lambeau Field, they would stand a chance in hell....Lambeau Field is a place where Green Bay gets all the calls they need....the games may appear to be called fairly, but in all honesty, there will be one key play in the game where the refs blow it so badly that it wins the game for the Packers....their game with the Vikings should have been won by the Vikings.....9 calls that were incorrect in one quarter....and in the Bills game, Ahman Green clearly fumbled the ball, but it was called incomplete(and there was another play on Bledsoe's first pick where there was pass interference on a Green Bay DB, but that one was less obvious). I won't question the Jets....just pissed that anyone would pick those lucky motherf***ers to do anything in the playoffs....I mean they lost to the Bears...I think any Bears fan will agree with me that if you lost to the Bears this year, you must have been a team that wasn't that good. Not to offend any Bears fan. In all reality, the Packers should be, at best, a 10-6 team....and there were probably other games as well in Lambeau where the officials 'just missed a call' or 'made a bad call on the visiting team'....if Donald Driver does not play this weekend, the Packers could be eliminated by the Falcons in week 1, assuming Michael Vick were to get real hot and just take control of the game. Choose what you wish though...I guess I can't make up your mind for you. All I can hope for is that the Redskins thing will change your mind just a little.

Obviously, Flanagan is a rookie GM. His comment immediately makes me think that...."We felt this was a good pickup for the team."...well no f***ing s***. If you didn't think it was a good pickup then why the hell did you make it?

Raiders - Eagles, Raiders taking it all home...their offense is way too much for the Eagles defense....it is way too much for any defense. I bet the Raiders offense right now could have beaten the defense the Ravens put out in 2000.

HSC....you have me confused. If he s***s from his mouth, than where the hell does he pee from?

Or Rick Vaughn, who came out of the California Pino league. Actually, he was a young guy in the movie....but Jas, when you said a beer league....that was the first thing that popped into my head. And I couldn't resist not saying it.

Or Lorenzo Barcelo...or Mitch Wylie....anyone else I'm missing? Probably....I guess you can fail from injuries...didn't think about that.

Isn't Rogers' agent Boras? If so, forget him.

I don't expect to win 90....I said just told him not to expect more than that....I'm expecting somewhere in the range of 85-90, but not necessarily 90. However, this is a team that could win 90 or 95 games....I've said it since September and I'll say it again....this next year will feel a little like 2000....Buehrle is a very good pitcher, and we all know that....Garland will improve his numbers this year over last year, winning 15-18 games, 18 if he pitches out of his mind(which he could do)....Wright will improve a little and Biddle and Rauch will both pitch decently, if they start, that is. Biddle has had some success as mainly a starter, and Rauch has no ceiling as a pitcher...if the word is true that he has incredible stuff and knows how to pitch, than he could be a ROY canidate. Add that and a good bullpen along with a pretty good young lineup, and we have the makings of a very good team. I expect an improvement of last year, and hopefully by about 5 games....and one last interesting point that I have forgotten to mention....the Sox pythagorean W-L for 2002 was 86-76....and the Twins pythagorean W-L for 2002 was 86-75, as they had a rainout with Detroit that was not made up.....so the teams, last year, even with the Sox struggling as much as they did, still finished rather closely statistically to the Twins than what showed up in the actual W-L.

Astacio will make $7 million next year....Lee will make $4.2 million. This won't happen, but I'm throwing it out there as a possibility, because we'd only take on $2.8 million of his contract, and if KW could sweet talk Phillips, maybe he could get the Mets to take about half of it....whether in cash or against their payroll.

We will don't need two guys like Osuna and Gordon in our pen....both are similar pitchers....I'd rather have Biddle than either one of those, just because he mixes things up a bit....brings in some nasty ass s*** instead of just fastball and the occasional breaking ball. If we could get rid of Osuna, I wouldn't mind it....Osuna will make around $2.5 mill next year or so, and if you are closing, you shouldn't be making more than $2 million(unless you play for a team that has a payroll of over $100 mill, cuz we sure as hell know JR ain't dishing out even $60 mill). IMO, a bullpen of Gordon/Osuna, Biddle, Glover, Marte, Wunsch and Koch is better than Gordon, Osuna, Glover, Marte, Wunsch and Koch.

Olivo hitting 14 homers isn't exceeding it a bit? Thomas hitting 36 or Konerko hitting 34? Buehrle - 23-7 2.93? Garland - 15-8 3.78? 98-64? The most they will win, with engines going at all cylinders and this team playing the best ball it's ever played, is 105...and that's with the starting going great, the offense going great, the bullpen going great, the defense making very few errors and the ones they do make aren't costly, and the magic working all year long....and the most we'd win is 105....odds are, atleast 2 of those will fail, most likely the starting and the defense, and the magic may or may not be there....we'll only be guarenteed two things going into next year, and one of those shouldn't even be guaranteed(the bullpen)...unless we make the right moves for it, we're done for there....those moves will cost atleast 20 games from the 105 possible wins and it could be more. Don't expect more than 90 wins...there's a realistic expectation for next year.

Many people don't "fail" because of the hype that is brought upon them...Drew Henson has failed thus far, and Chad Hermanson could fall under that category as well. But to say people fail because of their hype is bulls***. For instance...some people had Jon Rauch in our rotation last year and had him winning arund 10 ballgames....but did he fail because of the hype he had? No...he sucked when he was up with us at the beginning, but pitched well at the end....and he still has a lot of upside. Some people said that Todd Ritchie would be a 15 game winner for us and would help lead us to the promised land(which is your basic definition of hype)....but he didn't fail because he didn't live up to his hype. He failed because he sucked ass. Can the opposite be true as well? Can someone be incredibly good not because they exceed their hype, but rather they played well? Can we give Mark Buehrle any credit for what he has done, or has he done it because he pitched better than his hype? I'm done talking about this topic....because it is quite simple in my book....people fail because they suck, not because they don't live up to their hype. Failing means doing bad....hitting 25 or 30 homers when they are expected to hit 50 isn't bad....it may not be living up to their hype, but they haven't failed. You simply don't fail just because you don't live up to your hype....plain and simple. You fail because you suck.

Konerko has the numbers for you to forgive him, but Valentin does not? What the f*** are you smoking? Konerko - .303 27 104 Valentin - .248 25 75 Valentin hit 2 less homers all year, had 29 fewer RBI and a much worse batting average(will get back to that later)....the power numbers alone state it for me....Valentin is doing something that only a few SS's in the majors could do....play SS and hit 25 homers....tell me, how many others can do that(without striking out 188 times)...and your answer would be a very small number....after that, tell me how many could make some of the plays that Jose does(because he does make some plays that only a few could dream of making, and that group includes Royce)? He makes many, many errors. Regardless, Valentin had much less playing time than Konerko did....Jose played in 135 games, Konerko in 151 games...a 16 game difference...I'm sure Jose could have done a little damage in 16 games. Here's a little something to chew on Konerko's stats w/ RISP - .303 9 80 Valentin's stats w/RISP - .351 4 49 Jose hit 48 points higher with RISP, or in other words, when it really mattered, and he drove in over half the runs Konerko did with RISP batting from either the #2 spot or the #6 spot oir the #7 spot....however, he never really started any rallies...that's why he's not a leadoff hitter....when leading off an inning, he hit .179....with 1 or 2 outs and no one on, he hit .233, and .209 overall with no one on. However, he kept rallies going, which is the perfect reason for him to be hitting #2....if Jimenez were to get on base, Jose could move him over. Regardless....Jose is the team leader....Konerko is not. There really is no difference to me....Jose does more for the team than show up in his stats...same with Konerko....Jose does more...he brings more intangibles to the game than Konerko does. You can think what you want to....it won't bother me. You just remember that when we win this year, a lot of credit should be given to Jose. Not all, but a lot.

You'd win more ballgames with 9 Rowand's than with 9 Caballo's is basically what I was saying...I wasn't trying to imply that you'd win it all with 9 Rowand's. That, in my mind atleast, makes me think that maybe Rowand is a better ballplayer than Lee....and he makes less(looking at it from JR's point of view). So we'd probably be better off with Rowand in LF and Borchard in CF, or Borchard in LF and Rowand in CF...either would work.

Molto....what you might be able to say is you win championships with guys like Aaron Rowand. On any day of the week, I'd rather have 9 Aaron Rowand's in my lineup than 9 Carlos Lee's.

greg....you basically summed up how I feel, though the way I'd say it would be slightly different. I'd rather see Frank do s***ty for us than see him do great for another team. I gotta hunch we will get the old Frank back....it's just a hunch though.

Dunn can play 1B...so when Casey leaves, Dunn takes over there(although I believe he has a really good arm...that'd be a waste of a good arm to put him at 1B)...which leaves them with 4 OFers....and they'd get rid of Branyan, who strikes out about as much as Bobby Bonds. I sure as hell don't want Branyan, when we got a guy that's very close to him talent wise in Jeff Liefer. If we could get on of their outfielders, I'd love it, but odds are, only one team has a shot at one of them....Montreal.

I wouldn't be so sure about that... 2003 "conservative" predictions You haven't set any expectations yet? That's what those look like to me.

He probably was calling people out....the same thing happened during the All-Star break when Konerko called out Thomas, and the same thing happened when Matt Millen called his player a devout coward on the Mike Ditka show. You wonder why they don't talk about it afterwards? It's because the problem gets fixed.

No, people fail because they suck.

I view CLee as a failure....he can't run the bases correctly and he doesn't field all that well...who gives a s*** if he improved...he went from s***ty in the field to bad. I would still bet that 70% of leftfielders out there right now are better defensively than Carlos. And not only that, but he will be a guy that, at most, hits .275 with 30 homers, 100 RBI and 80 walks with 70 K's....you think JR will dish out the money to keep that kind of hitter when he has one in the wings? I don't think so. If he produces a ton this year, expect him to be in a different uniform next year. That's all fine and dandy with me.

If he hits 25 homers instead of 40 homers, I wouldn't care....it's like saying if Frank Thomas hits 30 homers instead of hitting 40 homers, you are going to be disappointed. The casual fan may be disappointed, but I for one would not be....I still don't see how Thomas's past season was bad...he hit .250 with 28 homers and 92 RBI...not bad, considering he was coming off an injury. Yet most people were disappointed. If all he ever did was hit 25 homers, he'd still be a good player....and he'd play good defense and hit those 25 homers from both sides of the plate. Odds are, however, he won't just hit 25 homers...he probably will be one of the bright stars of the future. End of story.