caulfield12

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/chi-0...,2690841.column Phil Rogers takes a couple of shots at Danks for skipping the WBC. In his other column (MLB whispers), he speculates about Ivan Rodriguez coming to the Sox as back-up catcher and part-time DH.

Santodorf, Which movies with big-name stars are you talking about? I hope not Mickey Rourke, unless we're back in the 1980's and Lisa Bonet is also classified as big-time. Sometimes, it's simply about the marketing budget and how much they think they would have to spend in additional advertising to get a good ROI. This time of the year, these campaigns are almost always focused on Golden Glove and Academy Award wins/nominations. That has been really helping Slumdog...although it's still far from being the cultural phenomenon that My Big Fat Greek Wedding became where almost everyone simply HAS/HAD to see it, seemingly. I think I read where Frost/Nixon cost quite a bit of money to make (around $50 million), it's one of the arguably best movies of the year but it will still end up as something of a financial disaster, because there's almost no way to extract international box office from it. But that animated movie that was made independently, DELGO (sp?), I'm sure a book will come out of that disaster eventually...such an interesting story how it finally came to the big screen and then became the biggest dud in recent history in terms of box office. Of course, many times, a movie will come out with a lot of negative buzz and/or no screenings/reviews, and the studio will basically anticipate an early death and wash their hands of it. That's one thing I was surprised, with Valkryie, it has held its own fairly well, at least as well as Seven Pounds and maybe better. Of course, many have argued 7 Pounds is one of the worst movies of the year, while the Tom Cruise movie is a pleasant surprise.

While this isn't as questionable as Farnsworth and he's only Type B, the Tigers are going to end up more like the Detoothed Lions with LYON as closer. They're still unsure about Rodney, Zumaya's really a huge mental/physical question mark coming into this season and Dolsi's too young and raw/inexperienced for the role. This sort of reminds me of the Indians' experiment with Borowski as closer. We all know how well that went.

QUOTE (santo=dorf @ Jan 24, 2009 -> 02:16 PM) It's rotten at 59% at rotten tomatoes.com It opened wide yesterday The Wrestler is still in only 566 theatres, so I wouldn't call that wide exactly...maybe wider. Unless it gets above 1,000 (which it might with an Academy Award for Rourke or Tomei...which I'm not sure she deserves exactly, except for taking off her clothes and trying to act out of her traditional character/type as sort of a b****), maybe that's the new definition of wide. Two movies which ARE doing terribly are Inkheart (the new Brendan Fraser movie) and Defiance, the WWII/Jewish resistance movie, which is okay but not great. Daniel Craig has a long way to go to prove he can open up a non-Bond movie with his name alone. When Munich came out, he and Eric Bana were far from household names, people went to see it because of Spielberg. I think there's a law here in Thailand that every Brendan Fraser movie that comes out must be shown here...we're going to have to sit through Inkheart, too. Why we got a movie like City of Ember but are still waiting for Marley & Me is beyond my cognition. Bedtime Stories finally arrived this weekend. Oh, and every Jason Statham movie as well, who I actually like. As someone pointed out earlier, like Denzel Washington or Kevin Spacey, his presence in most movies (although the David Gale one was pushing it) makes nearly every movie they're in at least watchable/somewhat enjoyable.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jan 24, 2009 -> 09:40 AM) Sure...but they're no Little Big League. That's the one where the kid manages the Twins, right? Pretty clever movie...much better than Mr. Baseball! The Natural and Bull Durham have to be up there in the Top 5 as well. I guess the very first Major League deserves some kudos as well. I remember going to a couple of Indians games in Memorial Stadium where basically anything you wanted to say to the LF could be heard by the entire outfield and the few fans sitting in the bleacher seats out there.

Fathom, did you at least like Field of Dreams or Eight Men Out, lol? You can at least enjoy watching Marisa Tomei sing RATT songs with Mickey Rouke in The Wrestler, right? Just saw that tonight...too bad it wasn't the Marisa from My Cousin Vinny, but she's still cute at her age. I think I have the market cornered on washed up actors/wrestlers/boxers/martial arts stars, also watching JCVD (Jean Claude Van Damme), which was also enjoyable but not nearly as impactful as The Wrestler. Gotta love those 80's songs. Hollywood just loves to bury its stars and then dig them back up from the dead for their comebacks...maybe the recent phenomenon started with John Travolta in Pulp Fiction, carrying over to the resurrection of every 70's/80's music group and now anyone can be resurrected, except for perhaps Minoso on the White Sox another decade.

I've now seen Slumdog, Revolutionary Road, CCoBB, Frost/Nixon and Doubt. By the way, Defiance is a WWII/Holocaust movie that won't win many awards. The Jewish Rambo movie, I think of it as. Rev. Road was obviously not very easy/comfortable to watch or a "feel good" movie in any way, shape or form....in a completely different way than In the Company of Men or some of LaBute's others. I'm not quite sure why its automatically compared to American Beauty, I guess simply because of Mendes' presence/involvement with both. The actor who played the "insane asylum" patient is the one who sticks out to me the most upon reflection later. Thought he was very good in his small part. And I really think Richard Jenkins was awesome in The Visitor, up until now the 4th best movie I've seen from 2008. FWIW, I would give BEST MOVIE a tie currently between Doubt and Slumdog...but I haven't seen The Wrestler or Gran Torino yet. Wall-E would be a close 3rd, I suppose. By the way, "W." is one of the worst, if not THE worst, Oliver Stone movies I've ever seen. Maybe he should have stopped thinking about that project after Fahrenheit 9/11 came out. I think Josh Brolin was pretty good, but Langella as Nixon was superlatively better. I liked Brolin more in NCFOM. And I still really like Vicky Cristina Barcelona, except for Penelope Cruz' histrionics disguised as acting. BTW, has anyone ever seen a movie called THE FALL? Some people rave about it...I see at imdb that the reviews have it above 8, which is pretty rare over there.

Just as I was beginning to write a piece advocating the White Sox pick up a number a former All-Stars on minor league or near-league-minimum contracts, Freddy Garcia, the Sox second possible scrap heap pick-up for the rotation, has agreed to terms with the Mets. Garcia's deal is a minor league deal, which means it's non-guaranteed, but reportedly carries incentives which could raise his salary to near 8 figures. A few days ago, I mentioned that I though Garcia was worth more than Bartolo Colon, as Garcia, a year off of shoulder surgery, figures to be a better injury risk than the perpetually injured Colon. That being said, I don't think the Sox could have matched the Mets offer even if they had offered him a guaranteed deal. We have the Sox current '09 salary obligations at about $94MM right now, but that doesn't include the $4M signing bonus to Dayan Viciedo, the '09 buyout of Pablo Ozuna's contract (yeah, they still owe him), and the $3+MM or so which will be paid to the near-minimum guys. The Sox are looking at about a $100MM opening day payroll. Kenny Williams has said the Sox were bumping against their "payroll ceiling" numerous times since November, and given their actions this off-season we have no reason not to believe him. It's my feeling, however, based on nothing other than my own intuitions, that the Sox have a little bit of wiggle room left. They were "in" on the Garcia derby, after all. That wiggle room is probably no more than a million dollars or two, nothing in baseball terms, certainly not enough to sway the hubris of a former All-Star from a possible $9MM payout. But I had hoped it would be enough to entice some semi-interesting guys looking for work in a tough baseball (and world) economy. ....... Which brings me back to what I had intended to write about today. Thanks to the economy, there might not have been a better time in the free agent era to go dumpster diving. For let's say $2M, you might be able to pick up 3 or 4 down-and-out players who have significant upside. And in the AL Central where there's no clear favorite--I'd give the nod to Cleveland right now--it might be those pickups in the last month of free agency that make the difference. From SouthSide Sox (Heads) This is new/updated article also including Jenks' new one-year contract numbers...and maybe the ST relocation money earmarked is a factor, we can't really know unless someone asked KW/JR directly if this was the case.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ Jan 23, 2009 -> 03:25 PM) Oh I completely agree, but I just wish we could have seen what Bonds would have done had he never touched steroids. He obviously would have never hit 73 home runs or broke the all time home run record, but he'd still be a guy with 600 something home runs in all likelihood to go with all of the walks, steals, gold gloves, and MVP's. He cheated himself using the stuff because he didn't need it. In his mind, big literally and figuratively, Sammy and McGwire were inferior players who "stole his thunder" in 1998 with the HR chase. He wanted to get back on top and grab/hold the country's attention, because he felt underappreciated as the greatest "pure" baseball player up until that point in time, in terms of once having been a 30/30 type of guy and Gold Gloves defensively...he was so thin (like Sosa when he came up), he seemed that he'd have a lot more trouble hitting homers than stealing bases.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ Jan 23, 2009 -> 03:22 PM) He's the ONLY steroid-related player I would vote for. I hate him for what he did in the 2000's, but he'd have been a hall of famer no doubt had he never touched the stuff, and he's the only guy I can for sure say that about. What about Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez?

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Jan 23, 2009 -> 11:52 AM) what is there, 31 teams? So assuming a random distribution you'd expect every team to have a least 3 guys in the top 100. So Sox are just average there. anyways, I put very little stock in Law's observations. He goes and watches a player once or twice than passes judgment. He basically admits as much in the article. Not my idea of proper scouting, which should be a mix of DETAILED and SUSTAINED observation and statistical analysis. On a positive note, we do have 3 of the top 57 but nobody in the Top 30. I really think nobody has a firm idea where to slot Viciedo. Legitimately, based on his hitting skills alone, he's thought to be a Top 5-10 guy. We'll have a much better idea down in Arizona what we might actually have on our hands...or we might be wishing we had used that $11 million to sign Ben Sheets instead. Could go either way. Interesting question though...would you rather have Ben Sheets in 2009 or Viciedo in 10/11/12? If the Viciedo bidding happened again, it might be somewhere between $4-8 million instead of $10+.

QUOTE (Melissa1334 @ Jan 23, 2009 -> 10:55 AM) even though its a minor league deal, freddy has a chance to make up to 9mil as to where colon would only make up to about 2mil. i know its off subject, but im surprised crede might be siging with the twins. i realize theyre practicly his only option at this point but with his history of back problems, i dont think itd be a good idea to play on turf. I think it's one million guaranteed, and an extra $2 million in incentives possible, raising the total theoretical value to around $3 million. If that's the case, that's really a bargain compared to Garcia's deal I think....better to take a risk with Colon's motivation/weight/back than Garcia's shoulder, FWIW.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 23, 2009 -> 12:12 AM) I did that a while back with the top 10's, it was my impression that roughly 1/2 of the top 10 prospects wound up busting. If we were to look back around the time of 1999/00/01, look at the Sox prospects who have made the biggest impact (not counting Garland, who wasn't incubated in our system). Buehrle Josh Fogg Those were two of the lowest rated in our Top 10 list around that time...and then you have Rowand, who many thought might turn out to be more like Aaron Cunningham/Jeremy Reed in terms of a big league career as a 4th OF. You could even argue that Biddle and Majewski were fringe prospects who made a bigger impact than most our top-rated guys. But look at all the busts. Kip Wells, with the Sox...and for most of his MLB career Danny Wright Aaron Myette Jon Rauch Lorenzo Barcelo Jason Stumm Brian West Corwin Malone Joe Borchard Matt Guerrier (well, it's a stretch to refer to him as a "top" prospect) Matt Ginter

[Comment From Hoffmann] Is Heilman enough to get Swisher, or will the M's have to stomach a ridiculous request from Cashman? Perhaps payback for the Washburn nonsense? 3:32 That Washburn stuff wasnt Jack Z, so I doubt there is a grudge. I imagine it would take more than Heilman. mlbtraderumors chat Would any of you prefer Heilman to the package that we got for Swisher? Betemit, Marquez and Nunez? What if you change it around to make it Heilman OR Betemit, Marquez, Nunez and Viciedo? Or do you prefer to think Heilman ($1.625 million)/Viciedo would be better than Betemit, Marquez, Nunez and Viciedo? BTW, did anyone see Ryan Howard is asking for $18 million in arbitration? Wow. Dewon Day cleared waivers and is still with the Rays and Aardsma signed with the Mariners.

Oooops. I guess my Obama Overexuberance got the best of me today...with the sometimes soaring rhetoric, even past salary numbers were inflated, old White Sox greats were raised from the dead, the 2003 season actually ended up in our winning the World Series and Hawk's period as GM never actually happened, with Fisk going into the HOF in a White Sox hat. "Hope and virtue." Sounds like all White Sox fans the last 100 years. Haha. Rosenthal notes that free agents who accept offers of arbitration do not have guaranteed contracts. However, players such as Orlando Cabrera and Jason Varitek would've had to be released for clear baseball reasons, not to save money. Otherwise the teams would be in hot water with the Players Association. mlbtraderumors.com

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jan 20, 2009 -> 02:33 PM) Unfortunately untl they move out of the dome, I give the title to the Twins. 1.) Minn in a runaway 2.) Detroit. 3. Cleveland. 4.) Sox 5.Royals Could change if we sign Dunn or another starter. Where would we put Dunn if we signed him today, even if it was for only $5 million? Surely not CF? Because Quentin and Dye aren't playing there...we know that much. Or is this predicated on somehow trading Konerko/Thome? I don't think you can guarantee Dunn's results in the NL, but I do think it would be at LEAST interesting to trade Konerko for Figgins, if we could sign Dunn for $5 million stick him at first. That would give us Dunn (although how much would his defense hurt us with an already questionable infield at every position, particularly Fields and Ramirez...we have no idea what they can give us defensively right now), Figgins and a couple of million to play around with in savings for this year and then $15 million more opened up for 2010. So, in essence.... Dunn (1B), Figgins (3B/CF, maybe 2B) and using that savings for Freddy Garcia OR Paul Konerko

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Jan 20, 2009 -> 03:03 PM) Honestly I have no bloody idea what to expect from Fields offensively. I can't even begin to predict this. We do know that defense will be much, much worse. I think it's interesting that Contreras, Colon, even Garcia who's not even signed yet, along with Floyd and Danks and the rest of the young dudes - these aren't guys who are in a position to be evaluated strongly either because of injury (Contreras), age (all), conditioning (Garcia and Colon), or lack of a proven track record (all the young guns). The only pitcher who it seems we can project with any sort of confidence is Buehrle, IMO. I can't recall when we've entered a season as an alleged contender with so many question marks from #2 on down. Well, look at the 2005 season, when we weren't even an alleged contender (I know this is yet further condemnation of the idea of judging a season before spring training starts, as I tried to do in another thread). 1) Nobody knew anything about Iguchi, besides the fact that KW had scouted him through tape and what he got/expected to get in terms of a contract were very divergent....maybe because of K. Matsui's failure with the Mets. 2) Takatsu was already suspected to be a one-trick pony, and nobody had a clue of the emergence of Hermanson (especially), Cotts or Politte. 3) Nobody knew how AJ would do in a "crazy" clubhouse coming off the gossip/innuendo of that SF year. 4) Did El Duque have anything left (similar to concerns about Colon, Contreras and maybe Garcia) 5) Pods was coming off a season when he hit around .240 in the NL 6) We'd lost Valentin, Ordonez and Carlos Lee, three of our best power hitters....we're replacing much less in the line-up this year (Swisher, Cabrera, Uribe/Crede and Griffey) 7) Nobody knew what we could get out of Frank Thomas at that point... 8) Garland and Contreras, especially, had never proven themselves to be "big game" or anything but average MLB pitchers...especially Jose, who would morph/evolve into the best in the game for a period of almost one year 9) Brandon McCarthy was another Sox prospect/suspect with high expectations and no clear idea what he'd produce 10) Jermaine Dye...nobody had an idea what he would do for the next four seasons either, coming off injuries and signing for less with Chicago than he could have gotten elsewhere, he was just seen as a "high reward/low risk" signing, but anyone who predicted MVP numbers consistently, I would like to see that thread/post/message.

I'm going to say 2 years, $13-16 million. I can't imagine the top of the guaranteed market for Ben Sheets is 2/$18 and that Garland will get MORE. Compare Sheets and Burnett and most comparisons career-wise come out in favor of Sheets, and yet he's been relegating to begging status now.

Supposedly Sheets is considering 2 years and $18 million somewhere. To put it in its proper perspective, Jon Garland made $15 million last year. Some feel this is a sign that Sheets might have some concerns about his health and wants the guaranteed money instead of the ability to make $10+ million in just one year and wait for the "economic crisis" to lift. From what you see on the Net, there are a lot of offers out there similar to the Penny or Smoltz one with higher base salaries and the ability through meeting all incentives to get into the $13-16 million range.

We also have the potential to receive contributions from Viciedo, Beckham, Poreda and even Flowers this year...or, at the latest, next. Fields should put up much better overall offensive numbers than the position gave us last year. Ramirez's numbers SHOULD be plenty better at SS than Cabrera. Contreras and Colon have the ability to step up as well. There's no reason to believe that, combined with Marquez, those three can't replicate Vazquez's numbers. There's one more thing...we should have more payroll flexibility and the minor league depth chart to bring in a really good player if we're in at the ASB.

The main reason for hope is that no team in the AL Central is clearly better today than they were at the end of the 2008 season...someone might argue CLE, with DeRosa and Wood, but CLE is without Westbrook, Franklin Gutierrez and it looks like Travis Hafner's career might be coming to an end. DeRosa will be hard pressed to repeat his career year of 2008 in a transition to the more challenging AL, and he's ready for a decline...while Wood could go to the DL just about any day of the season. Minnesota has done nothing, as is their custom, standing pat...adding Eric Gagne to replace Jesse Crain/Guerrier might actually cost them 3-5 games instead of adding them to the win column.

Usually 3 full seasons (six total) but there are some "Super2" players...there's a formula for determining that which I don't care to look up amidst all the euphoria of Inauguration Day.

QUOTE (Ozzie Ball @ Jan 20, 2009 -> 11:17 AM) I was looking over the rosters recently and I came to the conclusion that this division is really, really bad. Just two years ago it looked like the strongest division in all of baseball (just about), but now it's full of mediocre teams and the Kansas City Royals. Personally I can't see any way in which the Twins will be able to hit .313 (or whatever ridiculously high number it was) with RISP again and therefore they are set to fall back to earth, the Tigers' pitching still isn't strong enough, we have holes all over the place and the Royals are the Royals... the Tribe win it by default. Well, let's discuss the Tribe weaknesses. 1) Absolutely no clarity after Lee and Carmona, and Lee is going to have trouble repeating...just like Danks. They don't even have a clear 3rd starter yet...they have Reyes, Lewis, Pavano, Jackson, Laffey and Sowers. Westbrook will probably be out as long as Contreras. 2) Their INF defense is absolutely brutal. DeRosa, Peralta and Victor Martinez if he is playing 1st. I guess Garko will get most of the time, with Martinez DHing eventually and Shoppach. 3) The defense of Victor Martinez if he is catching. 4) Travis Hafner? Will this be his last season or comeback of the year? Went from most dangerous hitter in Central to Luis Terrero. QUICKLY. 5) Their bullpen is chock full of holes everywhere you look...and health has never been a strong point of Kerry Wood. He goes down, the entire bullpen collpases around him in one giant implosion. 6) They weakened their outfield by trading Franklin Gutierrez in one of the stranger moves of the offseason. They have Ben Francisco, Sizemore and two platoon players that don't fit together (Delluci) and Shin-Soo Choo...although maybe Choo will finally have a breakthrough season as a full-time player. 7) Why do they still have Marte and Barfield on their roster? 8) Ryan Garko doesn't have enough power for 1B. Just kidding. He's a heckuva player in an underrated/underappreciated way, but very streaky.

I do know this, if Kristin Kreuk was in the Sox Pride Club and dancing around the stadium in a skimpy outfit, it would lower the pitchers' WAR or whatever that statistical anomaly is.

What are your predicted AL Central standings at this point? 1. Minnesota Twins, 92-70 2. Chicago White Sox, 85-77 3. Cleveland Indians, 84-78 4. Detroit Tigers, 80-82 5. KC Royals, 77-85