witesoxfan

I hope both Ingram and Kaepernick fall to round 2 and someone trades up to 33 with the full intention of drafting Ingram. Cuz that could leave the Bills with Miller/Dareus and Kaepernick, and I would blow my load everywhere. Kaepernick is nowhere near a finished product, but with Gailey coaching him and sitting for a year, I think he'd be just fine. Also, I am hoping this "Ponder to the Bills" stuff is a smokescreen to try and get Miami to bite on him. I like Ponder enough, but the only two people I can think of when I think of him are Chad Pennington (which would be OK) and Trent Edwards (which would be total f***ing bulls***)

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Apr 28, 2011 -> 06:04 PM) I meant the whole "tweeting 30 minutes prior to game, and not during". Shows what I get for not reading the article. I dunno. Maybe it has something to do with having a wireless electronic device that close to game time. I honestly have no idea.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Apr 28, 2011 -> 05:35 PM) Lol, why the f*** does the MLB even care? You can't talk trash about umpires.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 27, 2011 -> 09:21 PM) The minimum wage guys are making like half a million dollars a year. I am pretty sure they also get health insurance for life now. They aren't hurting. That's not true. http://deadspin.com/#!5795895/dear-rog...reer-looks-like 27 guys are cut from each training camp during and after the preseason each year, which in total is the equivalent to more than 1/3 of the league. Some of those guys end up on the practice squad and I don't know how those types are paid, but the minimum salary in the NFL for rookies (according to answer.com) is $285K. They do well for themselves, but most of those guys don't make it long in the NFL and then they have to go find real work, so $285K is not going to cover too much for too long. Beyond that, as Jackson points out in the article, these guys are destroying their bodies just trying to get food onto the table. How much of an economic impact do injuries like that affect a person? It's certainly possible that those types of injuries may not allow a person to do any sort of physical labor afterwards and it's possible that a head injury or two takes away some mental capacity. Beyond the hypothetical mental capacity drain, I tend to doubt a lot of these players are actually capable or prepared to work any sort of desk job, and some of them end up suffering with severe mental illnesses as a result of playing in the league as well. I don't know enough about hockey salaries to compare that, but this is a completely different scenario than MLB or NBA teams. Guys that sign a contract in those leagues are guaranteed their salary (unless it clearly states otherwise). Brent Lillibridge is guaranteed to make $400K this year.

Cam Newton reminds me a lot of Vince Young, minus the whole throwing like a girl thing.

QUOTE (Princess Dye @ Apr 28, 2011 -> 10:24 AM) Help - What should I look at stat-wise to determine how good/not good Juan Pierre is offensively? Obviously mediocre OBP for a leadoff guy, but I'd like to graduate to something a little more knowledgeable. Like pointing to line drive ability. Basically I want something that indicates how consistently he hits these annoying little dribblers, and thus how difficult it is for him to bring runners in avg with runners in scoring position? Obviously I could probably look at anything, but I'm looking to kind of shape an argument and learn something about #s in the process. He has absolutely no power whatsoever. In order to be solid offensively, you need to either hit about .330 (which Juan Pierre could only do if he got ridiculously lucky at this point), walk an absolute ton (which Pierre does not do) or you need to have some semblance of power. It doesn't matter that he's the leadoff hitter; in fact, it's preferred as the leadoff hitter that he have some sort of power. If Juan Pierre could hit 40 doubles and 10 triples a year - never gonna happen, I'm well aware - he increases his value exponentially. The reason for this is that you can be on base all you want and you can have a player be as fast as possible - it's still going to take 2 base hits or a home run to score that runner. You can talk about steals all you want to, but steals come at the expense of a hitter potentially digging themselves into a hole by taking a couple pitches or losing aggressiveness at the plate because the steal is on. Beyond that, there's usually about a 1 in 4 chance (and it's been worse than 1 in 2 this year) that he gets thrown out at 2B, which obviously defeats the purpose all together. He would be an OK 9 hitter. He should not be receiving the most plate appearances on the team.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Apr 27, 2011 -> 01:35 PM) I see everyone loves the Soriano signing already. It was destined for failure. He could recover and have a great year for the rest of the year or he could have had a hypothetical 2.75 ERA and a 1.10 WHIP and it would still fail. You simply don't give $12 million a year to a setup guy. Hell, you don't give $8 million to a setup guy. That is stupid. Of course, being the Yankees, his payroll hit is similar to Teahen's for the Sox - noticeable, but not substantial.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Apr 27, 2011 -> 09:58 PM) Dare I say Sox are lucky to be 2-1 in this series, mighty lucky? Team.Can't.Hit. They were also unlucky to be 7-4. Dare I say, mighty unlucky? Things.Even.Out.

Guess I was wrong about them scoring runs. Oh well. It looked like Colon was bringing some pretty good stuff in the one highlight I saw.

Those may be the case currently but the size of the sample suggests that they will return to their career norms as opposed to continuing this current trend.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 27, 2011 -> 02:42 PM) Boy would that be nice. Of course when it happens, that will be the night we give up 11-15 runs... That's why I'm just hoping Buehrle can get through 6 innings. If he doesn't do that, it doesn't look good. QUOTE (Swingandalongonetoleft @ Apr 27, 2011 -> 03:20 PM) I understand that he's a rookie, but with their record as it is, this isn't the time for Morel to "work through it". I'd like to see Vizquel's time at third continue to increase. No, this is exactly the time that Morel should be working through his problems. It's April. Their record doesn't mean jack s*** (or at the very least, means much less than it did 2 whole games ago when they were 6 games under .500) right now. Odds are very good the Sox are going to be in a tight division race all season long. You tell me when it IS going to be a good time for him to work out his struggles.

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ Apr 27, 2011 -> 11:05 AM) I'm pretty sure international laws governing official slugfests state that BOTH teams must be able to score more than 3 runs, not just one. Sorry man, their rules, not mine. Oh, I'm well aware. I'm fully expecting the White Sox to score about 8-10 runs today.

Gotta feeling this one's gonna be a slugfest. Hopefully Buehrle can get through 6 innings relatively in tact, because that may be all it takes to win.

I had no problem with Floyd starting the 9th. He'd only allowed 3 hits up to that point and only 1 that stayed in the stadium. He was in absolute cruise control and the Yankees really had no chance. It was getting a runner on, especially one that can still steal a base in Jeter, that pushed it over the edge. You can't let Jeter steal and then have Granderson up with a runner on 2nd and nobody out - you can't walk him to set up the DP, and he is great against righties. I think Ozzie managed his pen last night perfectly. Hopefully the Sox win by 8 today.

Forget Uribe going into the stands, his play to end the World Series is above anything that has ever happened to me as a sports fan.

QUOTE (JohnCangelosi @ Apr 27, 2011 -> 06:30 AM) Even if we lost I'd still be happy with the job Santos did, as Fathom said A Rod and Cano are two of the best in the world. I really wish Ozzie would move Thornton back into his old role so we can get our setup guy back. This whole experiment with him closing has really cost us bigtime as now I fear he's becoming a bit of a mental case. Thornton was setting up. You don't want Santos facing Granderson, and Teixeira is ever so slightly more likely to end the game against Santos than he is Thornton (not that he couldn't park one against either...18 PA/HR as a lefty, 22 PA/HR as a righty). Some of it may be command, but there is also a reason Thornton didn't give Teixeira anything good to hit. Then Ozzie played it by the book and had Santos face ARod (though it's never mattered to ARod what hand a pitcher throws with), and left him in to get Cano when if he really wanted to micromanage he could have had Sale up and ready to go to face Cano. Santos is the closer.

QUOTE (Lemon_44 @ Apr 27, 2011 -> 06:00 AM) That's Dunn's problem. He looks like he has spent too much time at Arby's. He's fatter than I have ever seen him. The reason he's swinging and missing so often is that he has to adjust to looking over another chin as the pitch approahces. I like Dunn, and being in Columbus, I saw him come up through Cincy, but the guys is just plain fat right now and needs to get back into shape. Think so? --- He's never been a small guy. I think he's just fine.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Apr 27, 2011 -> 12:48 AM) I'm not sure I'd ever be excited about going to Omaha, no matter the occasion. They have a pretty sweet zoo. You know, if you're into smelling animal feces all day.

I thought it was a headline written by The Onion. That's pretty messed up. At the same time, you have to take context into consideration too. It's entirely possible that it's an inside joke between the two of them and Pie is perfectly fine by it. I have minority friends and we use typical stereotypical racism with each other all the time. There naturally comes a point when you cross a line and it does become offensive, but I've never experienced that personally.

QUOTE (T R U @ Apr 27, 2011 -> 03:05 AM) The players and the owners are both assholes They BOTH want more money, they BOTH dont care about the fans.. hopefully we just get football this fall Of course, that is always going to be the case. If there is a side that has deserved some sympathy in this, it's the players. Nate Jackson wrote a great piece for Deadspin today, obviously from a player's perspective so it's biased, but it's very much worth a read.

FanGraphs did a little bit last year for (I think) a Chris Young start where he went 6 shutout innings but Will Venable made two ridiculous plays that saved about 3-4 runs total. They suggested, only half seriously, that some sort of WPA needs to be devised to indicate defensive prowess as well. On that note, after Teixeira walked, the Yankees win expectancy was 36.1%. Since Santos retired the next two batters, he was awarded .361 WPA to his total. You may as well count that towards Lillibridge's number for the year because if Quentin or really anybody else is in RF for those two plays, the Sox lose this game. That was extremely clutch defense. Those two plays were pretty much the equivalent of hitting a game winning 2 run homer.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Apr 26, 2011 -> 06:06 PM) This might be the accountant in me, but how is 100K equivalent to 5M but 300K equivalent to 25M in payroll. Not really following that fact pattern there. I think he's referencing the "plus" part of that, though perhaps he's also viewing that as some of the higher priced tickets not being sold as well. Im not sure what his logic is there. Either way, if they lose $15 million that they were counting on putting towards a Pujols package, they are going to be hurt quite severely by that. It may not discourage them entirely because they'll draw more people as it is, but they are still feeling the ramifications of giving a stupid nine figure contract to a player, I don't know why they'd go back to that well again. I get that Pujols is the best player of our generation, but it's still a scary proposition giving him any sort of ridiculously long-term deal.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Apr 27, 2011 -> 12:27 AM) Both clearly on steroids. You are really counting Flintstone's Vitamins as steroids? Come on now

Thornton's stuff is there, he just doesn't have command of his pitches very well. Noting just pitch locations in general, it would seem that he is overstriding just a bit as everything was really low.

Short had a nice game too.