witesoxfan

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Jul 29, 2010 -> 03:43 PM) I'd love to get De Aza up here at some point. He was pretty good on the Marlins before he got hurt. .229/.261/.313/.574 in 2007 in 158 plate appearances. De Aza's never really been good in a Major League uniform.

Jim Thome has a career 1.038 OPS against Minnesota (784 PAs, so it's significant). You would think that if the Sox were concerned about how a hitter has done against the Twins, they would have looked at that when considering resigning Thome.

QUOTE (BearingPro @ Jul 29, 2010 -> 02:26 PM) Oh, I don't know, Coppock might be a doofas at times but he's pretty well connected around Chicago. I think the Cubs and Sox should always try to deal with each other in hopes of both teams getting better. In this case, Lilly might be a good addition. The WS definitely need another starter...Hudson isn't ready for a prime time pennant race. Hudson is more than ready for a rotation spot, considering all he has to do is keep the game within reach. If he has an ERA of 6 from here on out...meaning like 6 IP, 4 ER in every single start...he's done his job well enough. If he can take something out of it and grow as a pitcher, even better. He has the stuff to make it as a starting pitcher and he needs a bit of experience. Getting him into the game now isn't the worst thing in the world and will make him a better pitcher in the years to come. I think the only reason the Sox are going to be looking for a starting pitcher is if they find a deal in which they are willing to give up Hudson. I tend to doubt that they will acquire a starting pitcher just for the hell of it. It honestly wouldn't surprise me if the Sox do have a deal agreed upon for Lilly from the Cubs, but the reason it hasn't been finalized is simply because the Sox have absolutely no use for Lilly at this moment.

QUOTE (bighurt574 @ Jul 29, 2010 -> 12:20 PM) It could. If the Cubs land a prospect who makes it to the majors, that's a guy they're taking away from the Cards for several years. I doubt many Cubs fans would get that worked up about a Lilly to the Cardinals trade. If Ted Lilly helps them win a World Series, they'd be pissed as hell. Probably the same thing for the Sox.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jul 29, 2010 -> 10:02 AM) everyone loves TO until TO doesnt get the ball s***, I loved TO in Buffalo last year. It just would have been nice to have a QB who could actually throw him the ball.

The Astros have been unwilling to trade Myers.

It was mentioned in the MLB Catch-All, but we can bump this with Strasburg going on the DL. What wasn't mentioned in the Catch-All is that Don Cooper thinks he is going to be prone to injuries. He mentioned the shoulder too, and used the names Kerry Wood and Mark Prior.

QUOTE (BearSox @ Jul 29, 2010 -> 10:57 AM) He's not having a spectacular year... he's just hit a lot of home runs. 40 homers in his last 635 plate appearances. And he IS having a spectacular year. .256/.366/.585/.951 is pretty awesome.

QUOTE (pktmotion @ Jul 29, 2010 -> 01:49 AM) In 2009, Carlos Carrasco, Michael Taylor,Jason Donald, Kyle Drabek, Lou Marson, and JA Happ(who'll presumably be going to HOU for Oswalt) were all ranked higher than Domonic Brown and then sent away for Lee/Halladay. I understand your point of how deep Philadelphia's farm is, but to suggest they orchestrated these great deals while retaining their best prospect(Brown) isn't exactly true. The Phillies have paid a great deal, for what'll be one of the best one-two in the NL of Halladay/Oswalt. What if they could've retained Lee too? Unbelieveable. Halladay-Lee-Oswalt. And to the poster suggesting we could trade for Werth and Happ. Happ is most definitely going to HOU and I can't see them trading Werth while Victorino is out. didn't he shoot JFK?

QUOTE (beck72 @ Jul 29, 2010 -> 10:53 AM) This would look good for the Luke Scott advocates. Scott has crushed Minn. pitching this year, 9 hits in 22 ab's, with 2 2b's, and 3 hr's, good for a .409 avg and a 1.344 OPS. sample size

I would be on board for acquiring Abreu if the Sox were able to get the Angels to pick up a bit of that contract next season in some form. Hell, it might be a possibility that Linebrink would accept a trade there, and that would reduce costs while also allowing Los Angeles to try and round him into shape while getting a decent year out of him. That would allow the Sox to call up Torres to fill the swingman role, and use Tony Pena as more of a prototypical middle reliever. The Sox can do what they want with Threets, and call up Sale, and the bullpen suddenly looks really, really strong again. I'd pretty much give up anyone in the system for Abreu other than the Viciedo, Hudson, Flowers, and Mitchell, which still doesn't leave a whole lot but I think there's enough in the system to be able to acquire a guy like that.

Ground balls, no matter the size of the infield, will find their way into holes. In smaller outfields, like USCF's, the odds of that ground ball remaining a single are high compared to bigger parks. I saw a ball first hand in that final game in Minnesota that I thought was surely a single that made its way to the wall at Target and it ended up being a double or triple. Anyways, I'm still not a huge fan of dealing Hudson...young pitchers will struggle, and they will struggle to the extent that Hudson has. If you feel that Hudson is available if he struggles tomorrow, you are essentially staking the entirety of his value based on 6 starts (since I'll use the two he made last year too). I'm also not a huge fan of dealing for Lilly, even if it is playing keep away from the Twins. It's entirely possible that he'd refuse a trade to the Twins anyways.

What sucks about the baseball postseason is that it is a total crapshoot. In football, the least you have to win is 3 games to win a Super Bowl, which is the equivalent of 18.75% of the regular season games. In the NBA, you have to win 16 games, and more are always played - unless, of course, some team gets ridiculously hot and somehow manages to beat the other best teams in the NBA in 16 straight games, which doesn't happen - which makes up 19.5%. Hockey is the same thing as the NBA. However, baseball has the longest season by far (which is good, because it absolutely determines who the best and worst teams are, unlike football, where a team can struggle for 6 games and be pretty much eliminated from postseason competition), but you can win the entire thing in 11 games, and two teams - the Sox and Sawks - have won it in 12. That represents 7.4% of regular season games. Now, can you honestly tell me that you can crown a champion of a major sport by playing 7.4% of the regular season games? I agree that you shouldn't add more teams to the playoffs (although the one circumstance I can see is adding a wild card team and having a wild card play-in round, two best non-division winners play like a 3-game series or something along those lines). What I would like to see is a drastic shift to a 7-9-9 format. You get more postseason baseball, which generally equates to more money, you get more games to help determine a winner much better (rather than seeing a hot streak by an otherwise mediocre team), and it really doesn't take that much longer (at the very most, 6 extra games, which means it would probably be a little over a week extra). It's still a rather meager percentage of games compared to the regular season (8.6% at the least, 15.4% at the very most), but I think it's a little more telling then 5-7-7.

QUOTE (Gregory Pratt @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 08:30 PM) Santana's basically a lock. Maybe the only pitcher of the last decade that I think will make it in no matter what. One interesting thing about the current crop of top tier pitchers is that we're going to wind up with a lot of outstanding pitchers who aren't going to be very good in terms of counting stats. It'll be interesting to see how they get evaluated. Well the same can be said for hitters, but of the completely opposite spectrum. There have been like 10 guys who have gotten to 500 homers in the past 10 years, and there were only 15 in the history of the game before that (with Eddie Murray being the last guy I count in the "old" era). How do you evaluate them?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 26, 2010 -> 04:29 PM) What I'd have loved to hear is "Yeah, I sucked today, but you know what, it was a bad day, I'm going to go out my next couple outings and earn that job back." -Billy Koch

QUOTE (T R U @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 02:16 PM) Ocho Cinco said they would be like Bonnie and Clyde but TO is Bonnie and then TO has already twittered that Robin should get ready because Batman is on his way.. I can already see this working out well It's going to be awesome.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 26, 2010 -> 04:56 PM) His control was awful at times last year with the Sox, and he recently walked 6 in a game in the minors. His BB/9 in the minors over the past 2 seasons has been 4. He does not have good control. There's a reason he's not considered a good prospect.

QUOTE (Springfield SoxFan @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 08:17 AM) I like the fact that Omar is pushing the Sox to go for it this year with his comments about trades!! Dude's never won a World Series title...I'm sure he'd like to get one, so it makes sense that he would.

Vargas road splits consist of a 3.99 ERA and a 1.19 WHIP over 8 starts. It would probably be good if he left with an ERA well over 3 and well over 4 on the road.

QUOTE (JPN366 @ Jul 28, 2010 -> 12:47 PM) For Angel Pagan maybe? Angel Pagan has put up a .305/.356/.476/.832 line over the last 2 seasons with 14 homers, 41 doubles, 17 triples, and 37 stolen bases (vs 13 caught stealing, so he's at 74%) while playing good defense. Angel Pagan is a damn fine player. In one word: no.

QUOTE (palehose23 @ Jul 27, 2010 -> 10:52 PM) and imagine if your Aunt had a penis... then she'd be your uncle, what's the point?

QUOTE (joesaiditstrue @ Jul 27, 2010 -> 04:23 PM) Would you guys do this trade (and do you think the DBacks would bite?) Gordon Beckham + Daniel Hudson for Edwin Jackson + Kelly Johnson? You keep your Vizquel/Viciedo/Teahen TriPlatoon at 3B for the rest of the year, or until the playoffs, you get a left-handed hitter with a decent OBP & Pop playing where Beckham was, and you have a rotation going into the playoffs that's pretty solid, and your 2011 rotation would be pretty ridiculous, and you have Johnson locked up for 2011 as well Under no circumstances. It's entirely possible that both Hudson and Beckham could outproduce Jackson and Johnson this year, and you have some type of financial security with both Beckham and Hudson.

It's also possible that the Sox, you know, really like Hudson too.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jul 27, 2010 -> 03:45 PM) And I ain't trading Strasburg for anybody not named Jayson Heyward either. I'm not dealing him for Jason Heyward either. Even with potential mechanical problems (it sounds like we're talking about cars), I'm not trading a talent like that. Heyward may be a once in a generation type prospect, but I just can't justify dealing Strasburg in any fashion.

Why would the Nationals have interest in Morel? They have a top 5 3Bman in the game in Zimmerman, and it's not like Morel is some uber prospect that they could deal for a great pitching prospect. The only semi-logical answer to that would be that they think Morel can play 2B or that his bat can handle a shift to the outfield, but I think both are a bit far fetched to assume at this point.