witesoxfan

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Oct 28, 2010 -> 01:35 PM) Not really. He hit .217/.335/.427/.762 with RISP this year, and a paltry .169/.344/.366/.710 with RISP and 2 out- add to that a total of almost 100 strikeouts in those 2 situations. Those are the stats that count to me. He's not a horrible offensive player, he just isn't great. His defense IS horrible. I'd take PK any day of the week over that dude. He's put up a .231/.411/.478/.890 line with RISP in his career. Which is a better sample size - 1707 PAs or 191 PAs? He's put up a .214/.429/.443/.872 line with RISP and 2 outs in his career. He's walked more than he's struck out in those situations. Which is a better sample size - 771 PAs or 90 PAs? Yes, his average is low, because he does not hit for average. His OBP is higher with RISP w/ 2 outs because teams won't pitch to him unless they have a definitive advantage in that circumstance, hence the 9 IBBs this past year and the 69 IBBs in those situations throughout his career. Food for thought - Konerko is a career .284/.372/.479/.851 hitter with RISP in his career (2109 PAs) and a .236/.348/.415/.763 hitter with RISP w/ 2 outs in his career (976 PAs), and teams are obviously not afraid to go after him considering he only has 27 IBBs in his career in those situations (again, Dunn has 69). The first is worse than Dunn, and the second is considerably worse than Dunn. If you suggest that Dunn isn't a great offensive player, then Paul Konerko isn't either.

QUOTE (balfanman @ Oct 29, 2010 -> 09:19 AM) I don't know. Ozzie can't be that dumb outside of baseball. For example, look how he handled Jenks mentally during the World Series. Ozzie sensed that his confidence may have taken a hit and tried to reassure him. He must have some sense of how to handle human emotion. My dog can tell when I am happy, angry, or sad, and he knows what to do in each scenario. I don't think the ability to handle another's emotions has anything to do with intelligence. Ozzie does it well, otherwise he wouldn't be a manager, but I'm not going to him for psychiatric advice.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Oct 29, 2010 -> 12:38 PM) They announced today they exercised Kubel's $5.5 mil option and declined Punto's option for $5 mil. Both very understandable moves. Defensive value is still hard to quantify, though easier than in the past, and Kubel's offensive upside is probably that of 2-3 WAR. The Twins picking up that option is for the same reasons the White Sox will tender Carlos Quentin a contract.

QUOTE (TheBigHurt @ Oct 30, 2010 -> 04:54 AM) Yeah, the prospect of a MANAGER being offered in a trade says nothing bad about his reputation. You're thought process is wrong here, pretty much the complete opposite of what it should be. If a manager is (truly) being offered in a trade, it speaks volumes about his reputation around the league and how highly respected he is amongst his peers. The last manager to be traded was Lou Piniella. Are you going to tell me that Piniella was not highly thought of around the game when he was traded to the Devil Rays?

QUOTE (Rex Hudler @ Oct 29, 2010 -> 11:24 PM) Hopefully IU is cementing the recruitment of Cody Zeller tonight. He would be a big get for Crean and could open even more doors for the Hoosiers. Question for some of you vets... What is site that former soxtalker Alex Bozich started? I can't remember it and I had to clear my hard drive and I lost the link in my favorites. An interesting note to no other than me, Evansville plays Butler, Indiana and hosts North Carolina in a two week span starting with a November 21 date in Bloomington. IU will be visiting Evansville next year to open up their new arena. Inside the Hall

QUOTE (knightni @ Oct 28, 2010 -> 02:57 AM) You were prepared to drive a car made in 1996 over 1600 miles in 2 days? It depends on how many miles and what kind of shape the car is in. 2 years ago, I would have taken my 1993 Camry pretty much anywhere, and sort of did...I drove from Vermillion to Bismarck quite a few times, down to Sioux City several times, up to Minneapolis, to Fargo, and I was ready to go to Denver in it too (but the plans got canceled at the last second). Now that engine is beginning to go out, I'm afraid to make a 1 hour drive.

"I have a gift and sooner or later I have to give it away.I have to share it. Hopefully I'll get the opportunity here." -Barry Bonds, on his desire to become the hitting coach for the San Francisco Giants

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 28, 2010 -> 03:44 AM) How do the radical NL haters on here who act like any performance in the NL (Richard, Hudson) doesn't mean squat because it's the NL, explain the Giants rouging up Lee tonight? I grow tired of the NL is s*** argument. NL 1, AL 0. And yes I still think Texas wins it in 6. It's a one-game variance and it shows that Cliff Lee is also capable of making mistakes. On average, Cliff Lee is expected to give up anywhere between 2-3 runs per 9 innings. One standard deviation from that to either side is 0-1 runs or 4-5 runs. Another a deviation away from that is 0 runs or 6-7 runs...and there you go. Why do you incessantly call people out? One game doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot. Personally, I am more persuaded by the AL's 134-118 record this year in Interleague, or the 138-114 last year, or the 149-103 in 2008, or the 137-115 in 2007. They might be closing the gap, but they are still not as good as the AL. That's 558-450 over a 4 year period, or a .554 winning percentage, or an 89 win pace. The NL is still the AL's biotch. Oh, and Clayton Richard pitched more than half of his games in the best pitchers park in the majors...quite frankly that has more to do with his good overall numbers than pitching in the NL, and to no one's surprise, his ERA at home was 3.15 and his ERA on the road was 4.41. I've pointed it out on a couple different occasions, but there is a reason his ERA+ was lower in San Diego last year (2009) than it was in Chicago when his ERA in Chicago was more than half a run higher. Oh, and his ERA+ this year, even with a 3.75 ERA? 98. Speaking from a neutral context, Clayton Richard was a slightly below average pitcher this year.

QUOTE (balfanman @ Oct 27, 2010 -> 01:18 PM) That's what Ozzie said, being polite, when asked directly if he would hire Sandberg to be his bench coach. But Ozzie also said that he does not know Ryne Sandberg which, according to past history, would make Sandberg an extreme longshot for the position. Ozzie tends to hire people that he is familiar with. This is why I think that someone such as Sandy Alomar Jr. would be a more likely candidate. This is simply a story manufactured by the media to get headlines by taking Ozzies words out of context...........as hard as that is to believe. I think that the most likely scenario is that Ozzie brings Harold Baines back in to be the bench coach and he hires a new 1st base coach. Sandy Alomar Jr would be a fantastic bench coach

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 27, 2010 -> 01:24 PM) Money isn't an insulator from mistakes. Look no further than 8.1 miles north of USCF. Comparing the Red Sox front office to the Cubs front office is comparing apples to oranges. Not that the Red Sox don't make mistakes, but they are pretty good with their money, and they surely aren't in the mess that the Cubs organization is in right now.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 27, 2010 -> 10:20 PM) So tonight he gets hit HARD. He's great; he's awesome, but he's not worth what the Yankees will pay him. He's human like every pitcher. Oh well, it's their money. Juan Uribe WS MVP?? That would be an awfully odd choice if Texas wins in 5

QUOTE (DirtySox @ Oct 27, 2010 -> 01:31 PM) Phil Rogers is terrible but he mentioned Mitchell (and EE) in today's article: http://www.chicagobreakingsports.com/2010/...g-mitchell.html So how does he figure that the injury is causing him to struggle as opposed to him simply being overmatched? The highest level Mitchell has played at is low-A ball, and even there he still struck out a ton. I think people assuming Mitchell to be an advanced player because he was a 1st round pick a year and a half a go, but he is simply not that far along. Getting Mitchell into the AFL was a good thing because, first and foremost, he needed to get on the field again, but also because it allows him to face upper level prospects and begin to figure out his weaknesses. This is good, because he is a very talented player and doing anything you can to make him better is good. However, at the end of the day, I still don't think he is that far along, and that he should start in W-S next season.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Oct 27, 2010 -> 03:45 PM) Even during '05 you had so many players that you knew would not repeat theirs success in '06 and beyond. I still don't know how the hell Neal Cotts and his one pitch (which was average) dominated like he did. KW knew this better than anybody. That's why he traded arguably the team's most popular player for Thome like 38 seconds after the World Series clincher, to go along with trading the team's top position prospect for another SP when it appeared we had a set 5. The Rangers have a group of guys that you can definitely see stability/growth/upside in. And they still have two of the better pitching prospects in all the minors in Martin Perez and Tanner Scheppers. It all starts obviously, of course, with bringing Lee back. With regards to Cotts, he did have a very mediocre slider to go along with that fastball, and used it just to get the other hitters thinking about it. He hid the ball very well and thus, his 88-91 MPH MPH fastball looked to be about 93-96. I recall people saying that he altered his delivery the following year - I think coming more over the top opposed to three-quarters - and it was much easier to pick the ball up and he's been killed ever since.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Oct 27, 2010 -> 12:06 PM) The Giants put down more sacrifice bunts this year than anybody except the Dodgers and Padres. The Rangers dropped more sacrifice bunts than anybody in the American League. QUOTE (balfanman @ Oct 27, 2010 -> 12:41 PM) Wow, you mean playing unselfish baseball wins games? What a concept! Seems to me we did that circa: 2005 as well. just to prevent any confusion on these points (MLB ranks)... Texas - 5th in R, 8th in OPS San Francisco - 17th in R, 17th in OPS The 3 teams behind San Francisco were Houston, New York (N), and Washington. The next 3 teams in the AL were Chicago, Kansas City, and Oakland. There's no correlation between sacrifice bunting and scoring runs in general, and it's coincidental that both of these two teams were so proficient at bunting into outs and made it to the World Series.

QUOTE (joeynach @ Oct 26, 2010 -> 09:42 PM) Does anyone realize how productive Castro was in limited AB's last year. He hit 8 Hr in 128 AB. If he gets a full a year of AB's, say about 460 for a catcher, thats about 30 HR. Wow. And if a guy who hits 1 homer in a game keeps up that pace, he's surely going to hit 162 home runs. I honestly have no problem giving Castro a lot of playing time next year, so long as Flowers is up and playing quite a bit too. There is a reason why Castro has only played more than 57 games in a season once, and there is a reason why his career splits are .237/.310/.423/.733, and that is because he is not a great hitter.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Oct 26, 2010 -> 03:55 PM) If Joey gets job w/ Brewers, apparently Ryne Sandberg is a possibility for 3B. I am not a Cubs hater, but I think it would be hilarious if this happened. Cubs fans would throw a fit that Hendry drove Sandberg to us. You mean bench coach?

QUOTE (hitlesswonder @ Oct 26, 2010 -> 03:24 PM) Flowers is a non-prospect at this point. No team would trade anything of value for him. As for Viciedo, he's probably the starting 1B next season given the payroll problems the team has. Just because Flowers' had a bad season doesn't mean he's a non-prospect. This is the same exact kind of stuff people were saying about Viciedo last year, and then he had a good all around season. The example I used was JP Arencibia for Toronto. Had a piss-poor 2009, comes back this year, destroys AAA pitching, and he's looked at in a different light again. Flowers is still a relatively young player. This is a very important season for him, but considering him a non-prospect after his first full go around in AAA is pretty ridiculous.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Oct 26, 2010 -> 10:12 AM) Halloween decorations all shot to hell, pumpkins in neighbor's yard, housewrap just gone, 2 ghosts MIA, Jason mask missing from dummy and several shingles torn up one section of my roof. And I didn't think it was that bad. Was worse during the tornado scare a few months back. Not happy. How do you know? Ghosts are invisible. Maybe they never blew away. Or maybe they're having a ghost part right in your front yard...never know. To find out, all you have to do is to loudly ask them why they are here, and what they want.

QUOTE (TheBigHurt @ Oct 25, 2010 -> 10:26 PM) Hell, why not just make him OUR manager? Joey Cora scares me more than Ozzie. He seems like he would manage in a very similar fashion, only wouldn't be nearly as funny.

URIBE! http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/ps/y2005/video.jsp?view=ws

QUOTE (kev211 @ Oct 25, 2010 -> 11:30 PM) Hahaha @ the James Madison wouldn't beat VT now. Doesn't matter they played them THIS year and BEAT them.

Hahaha, so many melodramatic Cowboys fans. It's hilarious. ARRGH, THEE CURSE OF THEE WADE PHILLIPS

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Oct 25, 2010 -> 06:23 PM) I'm not going to hate. It's a cool commercial. Yeah, and LeBron still comes off as a douche

QUOTE (lostfan @ Oct 25, 2010 -> 08:09 PM) I read on another board that Ray Lewis tackled him and Fitz said "get off me, b****" lol Honest to God, it's only a 4 game stretch, and they need a long-term developmental QB, but I am honestly content with Fitzpatrick over the next 1-3 years so long as their future picks are used on players who actually fill team needs and improve the team overall. He doesn't have a huge arm, but he's smart. It's really weird not having the worst QB situation in the league.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Oct 25, 2010 -> 07:21 PM) Thanks, most things I do are. Ha, that's not what my mom said Wait, what?