witesoxfan

QUOTE (lostfan @ Jan 30, 2011 -> 12:07 PM) I honestly do not give a s*** about this game. It's been a while since I just blatantly did not give a s*** about the Super Bowl and I don't think I've ever said point-blank that I might not watch it. I like the Steelers, but watching them win a 3rd time is just... so lame. I don't like seeing the same damn teams in the game every year. I'm not about to watch Green Bay either. I feel the exact same way about Pittsburgh, but I have never met fans more annoying than Packers fans - some weird sort of entitlement. The only thing I can do is hope for the Packers to win and be happy for Aaron Rodgers, I guess. It's about time for two teams who have been perennial losers to make it so we can all look forward to the Super Bowl. Bills-Lions?

Aussie Open Men's Final looks like it is going to be an awesome match already

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jan 29, 2011 -> 11:24 PM) Most of the bullpen arms you see ranked that high are guys that have plus velocity and a plus, or potential to be plus, breaking pitch. Infante has neither. And his minor league resume is hardly impressive. He was at 95.8 with his fastball in the majors. It's a small sample size, but it doesn't take much of a sample size to establish velocity. I would say that is plus velocity.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 29, 2011 -> 09:47 PM) This was actually addressed on the show as well. They revisited an earlier episode where they had looked into the health of the 300+ lb linemen. Apparently, because of the amount of working out they do while they play, they are usually not all that unhealthy during their playing careers, even though many of them are technically obese. However, once their playing days are over, they usually continue to eat as much, but discontinue working out, and so then they really balloon to higher weights and put far too much strain on their hearts. There are so many health issues that are beginning to come to light, between the head injuries, the weight issues, and the NFL's stubborn stance towards their pension plans, the future is definitely quite murky. They are going to have to find a way to sell the game in a less-violent and slower manner if they wish to continue as a top-tier professional league, IMHO. I'd thought about what I said earlier and kind of figured that to be the case. Mike Williams, the OT the Bills drafted in the early 2000s, quit playing for a while and then had an itch to come back, and when he did he was at like 400 pounds. Unless you are like 7'5 (which is an unhealthy height even though nothing can be done about that), 400 pounds is not good. At this point in time, the desire for hits and success is greater than the desire to prevent health problems, and quite frankly it's similar to the gladiator games during the Roman era. Sure, they aren't LITERALLY fighting lions and elephants and bears and whatever else, and people aren't being killed, so we have become civilized in that regards, but the fact of the matter is, people are being subjected to extremely violent actions for the sake of entertainment.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jan 27, 2011 -> 10:12 PM) Not sure if I agree or not. I'm just saying going by metrics alone is worthless. I've seen plenty of Andrus and Escobar and both are special in the field. Well generally I think people see a huge UZR and they just explode, when in reality defensive metrics can fluctuate for any number of reasons and a lot of them don't agree with each other. I think they are a definitely a bit overrated at this point.

Personally, it seems like De Aza is the 14th (or 15th, depending on how you view Viciedo) guy on the depth chart. If I am to make a prediction for how it all shakes out, the hitters look something like this C - Pierzynski 1B - Konerko 2B - Beckham 3B - Morel SS - Ramirez LF - Pierre CF - Rios RF - Quentin DH - Dunn C - Castro 1B/3B/LF/RF - Teahen 2B/SS/3B - Vizquel CF/LF/RF/2B/SS - Lillibridge You are probably going to want to have 2 people on the bench who can play SS, Lillibridge is out of options, did show a little bit in a utility role at the end of the season, he can play CF, and really, if the Sox need a guy to stand in the outfield, Dunn can do a little of that too. He does the standing around really well, but not so much with regards to his fielding ability.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Jan 28, 2011 -> 06:19 PM) The White Sox won a World Series with Carl Everett as our main source of pop from the left side. I think we'll be ok with just Adam Dunn. Podsednik was definitely a power hitter as well.

That's an interesting tidbit and all, but more research would have to be done to prove any relation at all. Consider the teams that made it to the postseason. The Yankees have Teixeira and Cano and about a million other good hitters as well as a good pitching staff. The Twins had Mauer, Morneau, and Thome, who put up a combined OPS of about a million as well as a good pitching staff. I imagine the Rays were lower on that list, but they had a good offense and a good pitching staff. The Rangers traded for Cliff Lee halfway through the season, which stabilized their rotation, had the MVP of the league hitting from the left side, and had a good offense surrounding him as well. The Phillies entire offense is composed of left handed hitters, and they had a great pitching staff as well. The Braves had Chipper for most of the year, Heyward, and McCann hitting from the left side (and yes, I realize that Chipper is a switch hitter, but he's a better hitter from the left side), and oh, mind you, a good pitching staff. The Reds again had the league MVP hitting from the left side of the plate, a good offense, and a solid, but not necessarily good, pitching staff. The Giants, who I also imagine were lower, still had Aubrey Huff who had a great year and one of the best pitching staffs in recent memory. There is a trend. If you have a good team, you will make the playoffs. It's necessary to have some type of left handed power in your lineup to be a successful team because most pitchers are right handed and it has been proven that left handed hitters hit them better than right handed hitters do.

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Jan 28, 2011 -> 10:38 AM) Has anyone on here ever gone to a Super Bowl? I think it would be cool, but tickets gotta be like 1000 bucks, Starting at $1885

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 28, 2011 -> 11:34 AM) Troy Aikman was also on the episode of Real Sports last night, and he was talking about how he really thinks the long-term viability of the NFL is coming into question, and he was very concerned about it. There are a whole lot of health issues that are really, really scary if you're an NFL executive right now. It's a league where you have to be the fastest, the strongest, and the biggest. That's all well and good, and there are some incredible athletes, but there are huge consequential effects that come from that too, and an issue not mentioned is that people who are overweight are at a higher risk for any number of health related concerns, including heart disease and diabetes. That includes pretty much every single lineman on either side of the ball. There are defensive ends who are about 6'5'' 270 that are simply freaks of nature and they are at a healthy weight, but there are plenty of others who are 300++ and are like 6'0, and that is simply not good on any level. I think Aikman is right. At some point, something has to give.

Great pitcher for the Sox in the early 90s who fizzled out very quickly Bill Simas

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jan 27, 2011 -> 09:58 PM) Why did you ignore me, dickhead? Ha, I was talking about Tony

Used to spit a whole hell of a lot. Loved his batting stance. Dude knew how to draw a walk. Norberto Martin

It's crazy to think that Gallardo is only 25. It just seems like he's been in the big leagues forever already. He's ridiculous.

Ha, that would be awful. USD is a pretty decent tough team as an FCS team with a good moving QB in Dante Warren, but the defense has always been weak and was torched pretty easily by a bad Minnesota team - they'll get absolutely murdered by a team that is actually talented.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 27, 2011 -> 04:33 PM) The weird thing is....260 slap hitters with great gloves seemingly have become fairly highly prized at the SS position, especially now that there are general defensive metrics so that you can confirm how good defensively a player is. A .260 hitter with a great glove pretty much describes Elvis Andrus and Alcides Escobar , and these guys have been viewed as very high level prospects. Both of them had minor league OPS's right around .700 and have hit .265 and .250 in the big leagues overall so far, with OPS's in the mid .600's. Well has it been justifiable? Are they actually worth that much? I mean, you essentially acknowledged that other players have been graded highly, but is it fair? I don't know that it is. Escobar had an OK year offensively, hit the ball well over a short time frame in the AFL, and suddenly he's the 2nd best prospect in the White Sox system? I think Viciedo and Morel have much, much brighter futures in the majors than Escobar does.

QUOTE (Chet Kincaid @ Jan 27, 2011 -> 12:58 PM) Plus the Sox would be okay if (heaven forbid) another starter went down for an extended period of time. The only thing I'd be worried about is KW then turning around and trading another starter away so the Sox would have to depend on Freddo for the entire season. There is no chance Williams is going to trade a starter this late in the offseason, barring the "blown away" package. QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Jan 27, 2011 -> 02:17 PM) Call me crazy, but I'd rather use Sale/Pena/Humber in the 5th slot than have De Aza or Teahen as our backup OF'ers. Teahen was always going to be a 4th outfielder and corner infielder for this team. And as much as I would have loved Jones back - I even said early in the offseason that it would have been one of the first moves I would have made - I can't disagree with it at this time. Adam Dunn still hits lefties fairly well, and though Quentin struggles against them, Ozzie would never take him out against a lefty. And hopefully Viciedo adapts to the outfield well enough so that he can be adequate come anytime from June till the end of the season in case they do need a lefty masher on the bench. Sale is probably going to be in the bullpen this year and moving to the rotation following that, Pena proved he is awful as a starting pitcher, and I don't know why you keep bringing up Humber's name. You're crazy.

Badger, the USD Coyotes will be traveling to Madison to play Wisconsin this year. I will bet you $1 if you give me 10,000:1 odds that USD will beat Wisconson

QUOTE (FlaSoxxJim @ Jan 27, 2011 -> 12:08 PM) I am so miserably sick that I would welcome death as an old friend right now. But then you would get no more cocktails. My fraternity brothers always said that drinking whiskey helps cure you. And they'd always end up sicker and worse off. I would not want them taking care of me when I was sick.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Jan 27, 2011 -> 12:51 PM) Alexei is already 29, so he would be up there in age. Yeah, that was kind of my point. If the Yankees want him in his age 33 season, sure, go for it.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jan 26, 2011 -> 06:05 PM) I wasn't talking simply money. As you obviously proved that this wasn't a factor in this case. Wite clearly hinted at that even if we had taken Trout that there's a good chance that he wouldn't have become the player he has to this point with us as opposed to the Angels. IMO, that casts a negative light on the organization, whether he meant it that way or not . I've always had a problem with the White Sox player development, but it is much better than it has been in the past - atleast the Sox are beginning to develop players that can be starting caliber. There was a long stretch of time when they couldn't really develop anything. From like 2005 through 2008, it seemed as though there were very few rookies - not counting a 26 year old Alexei Ramirez - that the Sox brought up and developed into atleast average starting players, and really, they didn't trade any away during that time frame either. Atleast in 2009 they had Getz and Beckham come up and put up solid (used very loosely considering Getz) numbers as a rookie. However, my post wasn't meant as a shot at the White Sox, but simply alluding to the random nature of prospects. There are certain guys who flourish in certain developmental philosophies, and there are some who really struggle - I mean, that's an obvious point, but it's quite true. I doubt Trout is doing what he did this past year anywhere else; he just fell into the perfect situation for him. And perhaps Donovan Tate isn't struggling if he is with, say, Tampa Bay, who really know how to mold athletes into great baseball players, whereas San Diego doesn't know how to harness that much talent but instead prefer players who have one definable tool.

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ Jan 27, 2011 -> 10:02 AM) Could come in handy when the Yankees steal Alexei from us after Jeter changes position. In 2014? I guess.

Two top 10 teams are playing, and it's not on national TV. I like tennis and the Australian Open as much as the next guy, but for a game like this, I think ESPN can switch to the basketball game.

Jesus, all of this because of Bartolo Colon. I think we can safely blame this on McDonalds as well.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 26, 2011 -> 05:51 PM) FWIW, Cecil Fielder's last solid season was when he was 32 (.834 OPS over a full year). I know Prince is big too, but he seems to be like 2/3 the size of Cecil Fielder. I mean, Cecil seemed like he weighed around 350 towards the end of his career, like he should be playing left guard instead of 1B.