witesoxfan

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Aug 23, 2012 -> 03:00 PM) Conflicts with other reports about being average in CF (I think KG, said that), but from what I had heard previous to this year, defense was one of his calling cards. So at least KLaw wasn't negative about Trayce. I will say Stubbs is a pretty bad player and seriously hopes he isn't like him. Drew Stubbs is a damn fine player. Doesn't hit for a high average and he strikes out a ton, but he plays solid defense, has decent power, decent eye at the plate, and can steal a base. Hell, 2 years ago he put up a 4 fWAR season, and he was at 2.6 last year.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Aug 22, 2012 -> 09:26 AM) The Indians suck so hard. Gonna end up in last place with a top 5 pick. Love that experts were talking about how they had a chance and to sell off more parts to go for it because the division is "weak." By general assumption, to win a weak division, you can't be part of the reason that it's weak in the first place. Besides, it's got this whole Chinese gini coefficient going on right now which I'm OK with since the Sox are apart of the wealthy group in that particular graph.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 22, 2012 -> 05:23 PM) Johan Santana is 3-7 with an 8.27 ERA since he threw 134 pitches in his no-hitter. The Mets will shut him down for the season. And in his first 5 starts after the no-hitter, he was 3-2 with a 3.60 ERA, averaging 6 innings a start. In the next 5 starters, he's 0-5 with an ERA of 15.63, OPSa of 1.242, and fewer than 4 innings a start. In fact, in those 5 starts, his season ERA went from 2.76 to 4.85. It wasn't the no-hitter that did it. It's simply a guy who hadn't thrown a meaningful pitch in about a year and a half coming back to pitch. The body will break down.

You speak of Drew Brees, yet considering he played in a spread, you would think his collegiate completion percentage should have been better than 61.2% while never really getting better year to year. Matthew Stafford did improve each year he was in college, but prior to his junior year, no one would have guessed that a guy who completed around 53% of his passes would have been the 1st overall pick and a 5000 yard passer. Aaron Rodgers looked the part of a good, but not great, QB. And one of the greatest QBs of the last 25 years - who holds pretty much every passing record in the NFL - threw 9 touchdowns during his final year of school. But then there's JaMarcus Russell, playing in a run heavy offense, putting up a 67.2 completion percentage, throwing 28 touchdowns and 8 picks with a 9.1 YPA. He looked like a solid bet to be, at the very least, a serviceable QB in the NFL. And he's now considered the biggest bust ever. Nevermind that Brady Quinn had been putting up equally gaudy numbers his last two years at Notre Dame. You can find examples of this all over. You can't ignore college numbers, but they aren't an indicator of success, no matter the competition nor the system they were in.

It's also funny, considering he'd been angling for that Miami job since 2010.

For this game alone, I just want to do one of these (and I never use emoticons) KW Francisco Liriano, after a rough first, has a great start, Kevin Youkilis has yet another big hit, and Brett Myers throws a scoreless 9th. Oh, and Ventura too. To be fair, none of this happens, but those 3 (+Ventura) simply don't happen without Williams. He is going to sleep well tonight thanks to those 3 (+1)

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 21, 2012 -> 11:54 PM) Think they'll keep this dynamic pricing for next season? Fans don't have the moolah cause of Obama. Kidding about Obama, but we're in an economic crisis, baby! Lower those prices and charge 10 bucks for parking til the crises is OVA!!!! For example's sake, we'll say USCF holds 50,000 fans. It doesn't, but we'll say so for simplicity's sake. We'll also say that $10 will bring in a full capacity crowd while a $200 ticket will only bring 20% capacity. $10 X 50,000 = $500,000 $200 x 10,000 = $2,000,000 If you want to pay $10 a ticket, you better be willing to pay for $15 hot dogs. --- Because of math... QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Aug 22, 2012 -> 12:01 AM) Greg would be a fascinating political analyst. It'd be like combining Al Davis and Hawk. ...comments like this are made. Love it. Although the thought of Al Davis talking at this point frightens me, because it would bring all my nightmares of him being an actual zombie to life.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Aug 20, 2012 -> 11:59 AM) Bills got nothing out of that experiment. It was worth the risk. Nothing came of it, nothing is lost, you move on. If he could have shown even signs of being the old Merriman, even as a situational pass rusher, it would have been worth it, but he's brittle as it is and was a monster early in his career because of his quickness off the edge in a 3-4. As a defensive end in a 4-3? He never really had a shot. Beyond that, they have a solid trio of ends in Williams, Anderson, and Kelsay. Merriman wasn't going to provide a whole lot for that team.

Key difference of course being that Roy Williams was incredibly successful at both Kansas and North Carolina, whereas the White Sox were mediocre, inconsistent, and lackadaisical in Guillen's final 5 years. He has now gone on to Miami and has had an even worse record with an arguably more talented group of players. I think it would probably more comparable to how Bears fans laughed at Mike Ditka when he coached the Saints. He had a really good run in Chicago but it was time for him to go, and then he took on the Saints job and proceeded to win 15 games in 3 seasons with the team.

QUOTE (South Side Fireworks Man @ Aug 16, 2012 -> 04:27 PM) Great look, great uniforms. Yeah I do like that, but that's a red stirrup. Speaking of which, stirrups are awesome and nobody wears them anymore, which is a shame.

With regard to those ups and downs, I genuinely feel that's been the biggest difference in the regimes. They are obviously better prepared and sharper fundamentally, but the Sox have never had a really long bad stretch throughout the season, and they've only really had one semi-extended stretch where they were really good, those being two 3-10's and one 1 13-1 stretch. Otherwise, they have legitimately played about .550 ball all year long. I haven't had this much fun following a team since 2008, and even then they were on dire straits by the end of the year and really lucked into a playoff appearance.

QUOTE (oldsox @ Aug 15, 2012 -> 09:18 AM) ...None of whom have played an inning for our DSL team, not one inning. Because they just signed and they're 16. Settle down. They'll play. It's not like they're needed in the majors 2 years from now. QUOTE (earthshiner @ Aug 15, 2012 -> 01:19 PM) And that includes a year and a half of Danny Wright Eh, 19 starts in 2003 and 2004, 5 of which were actually quality starts. Since 2003, the Sox have played 1574 regular season games, and I don't think one guy who has accounted for 1.2% of those games started is really going to skew that statistic too badly. That guy who wore 56, however, may skew that number juuuuuuuuuuuuuust a bit. I've heard he's good.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 14, 2012 -> 08:26 PM) That is a run every three games or so if you base it on the 27 run differential. Freep Tigers ‏@freeptigers This adds to Tigers lead in unearned runs allowed. They've allowed league-high 58 unearned runs. White Sox have allowed league-low 21. Besides the fact that the Tigers pitching staff has been worse (and I think is worse, all things considered, though they are pretty close), they've also allowed ~40 more runs that weren't the pitcher's fault than the White Sox. That exasperates the problem, forcing pitchers to work more than they have to and giving up runs they should have never given up. You don't have to look at anything else, that alone is the difference in the standings.

QUOTE (kjshoe04 @ Aug 15, 2012 -> 11:07 PM) Agreed. They keep saying he won't pitch in the playoffs and I'm not buying it. If I was the Nationals I'd sit him until about September 15th. I don't think that's a good idea either because that gets you, what, 4 starts between coming back and going into the postseason? And he goes from absolutely no stress to some stress in live baseball games to a ton of stress in the postseason. I think they should handle him like the Sox are handling Sale...give him extra days, but keep him on a semi-regular schedule.

ESPN The Magazine - Jeff Kent from wayne best on Vimeo.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Aug 15, 2012 -> 05:04 PM) Zzzzzzzzzzz@another perfect game. It just doesn't do anything for me anymore. Perfect games are cool, especially when the dude is Felix Hernandez and he strikes out 12 guys. No hitters where the guy walks 6 and strikes out 7 or something stupid like that...those are dumb.

QUOTE (Jake @ Aug 14, 2012 -> 11:34 PM) At some point we have to start exercising caution with the roster moves. You don't want a huge portion of the team being fluid. Lots of pieces have shuffled around this year, from the bench to some very big contributors. Weird dugout vibes can be a product of all of this type of thing. I think the exact opposite would be true. If you keep the same people that close together for an 8 month period of time, people tend to wear on others. With new people, you get new experiences and new people to talk to, keeping the mood fresh as the year goes on. There is also the risk of losing a good clubhouse guy who is not a good baseball player. In times like that, a good manager will keep heads level and keep the atmosphere loose.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Aug 9, 2012 -> 03:54 PM) Probably Wite. That is his team I don't think I did. I've predicted them to make it to the playoffs, but I don't think I predicted an AFC Championship appearance. I love that team but I'm generally pretty realistic about them. I certainly may have though, I'm not sure.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Aug 9, 2012 -> 04:35 PM) Cubs. Easy. October, 2003 was arguably the worst month of my life until a hero, a champion, a wonder to behold, a dear good friend of mine intervened and put an end to the horror that had been that month: Mr. Alex S. Gonzalez. AND DONT YOU f***ING FORGET IT Oh, and the team I hate the most is the 2011 White Sox. That was by far the most boring and disgraceful team I have ever seen play the game.

People have been seemingly on the fence about it, so I'm just going to go ahead and say that Brady Shoemaker's a prospect. Regardless of tools, his numbers don't lie...he walks, he doesn't strike out too much, he hits, he hits for power, and he plays the outfield. I admit I haven't seen him swing a bat, so I'm slightly in the dark in that regard, but his numbers indicate a well school, patient hitter. In fact, his minor league numbers are comparable to two Cardinals, Allen Craig and David Freese. Neither were ever big time prospects, both were generally older for their level (though Craig was a bit younger), and they were both disciplined hitters who hit for power (albeit better home run power), didn't strike out a ton, and drew their fair share of walks. When it comes to hitters, there is sort of a punnett square - guys with talent who get it (you're elite), guys with talent who don't get it (the maddeningly inconsistent), guys without talent who get it (more consistent, easily overlooked), and those without talent who don't (minor leaguers or bench players). There's obviously a lot of gray area here, but Shoemaker really seems like the kind of guy who is, at the very least, going to find his way onto a bench at some point, and if he keeps on hitting, into a lineup. And I'm not at all concerned about his .264 average in Birmingham. You'd like to see it higher, but it's a very small sample, he's walking more, he's still making pretty decent contact, and the power, albeit down some, is still there too. Might actually be a good idea to push him a bit and start him in AAA next year if they can find room.

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Aug 6, 2012 -> 12:08 AM) Distant cousin of double rainbow guy? I've haven't seen anyone this excited about a train since Bubbles stole the Swayze Express

Remember when people thought Daniel Cabrera was going to be good?

Having gotten to 199 once before, I think I'm more excited to see him break the 200 barrier.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Aug 6, 2012 -> 10:32 PM) TO......................Moss has looked good reports say! TO running sub 4.5 40s in a really thin group of wideouts. Moss seems like a glorified deep threat at this point in his career and Alex Smith doesn't seem like the kind of guy who can get him the ball on a consistent basis. TO has always been an over the middle guy - I don't see why that would change now - and some combination of Flynn/Jackson/Wilson should be able to get him the ball a decent amount. I'd make a friendly wager with whomever would like that TO outproduces Moss this year.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Aug 5, 2012 -> 10:29 AM) I actually wasnt going with the "Lisa Dergan strained groin" joke, it was actually just pointing out that the guy yet again hurt his groin and that is something I really dont want any part of You and I, we make good soup together.