danman31

QUOTE (bighurt4life @ Mar 9, 2011 -> 09:18 PM) uggg. I was really looking forward to watching his progression this year, I think he's a big time sleeper prospect. He shouldn't be out too long, but it could hamper his performance once he's in playing shape.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Mar 9, 2011 -> 03:41 PM) Holy f***, I don't know if I've ever seen a team get jobbed down the stretch quite like Rutgers did. That was bad, but I think the bigger thing is how St. John's has all these quality wins. They don't do anything to wow me. Looking at the Big East this year it looks more like a bunch of inconsistent teams than a truly top tier deep conference.

Yeah, auction sounds cool.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Mar 8, 2011 -> 11:52 AM) I'm a pretty hardcore alley-ooper, threes are dumb in that game. Me too. I love ooping. Nothing like playing with Rodman and Pippen on that game.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Mar 7, 2011 -> 10:22 PM) ODU and Gonzaga are going to be real tough outs in the tourny. St. Mary's is directly on the bubble now, only one top 50 win but it's a good one, the weakness of the bubble makes me believe they'll get in. Something very interesting of note with the Gaels is they actually scheduled an extra game against Weber State after the WCC tourny, you hardly ever see that. St. Mary's did it recently when Patrick Mills got injured and came back in March. I've seen Gonzaga a few times this year (love me some WCC Big Monday action) and they're pretty poor. They have enough weaknesses to be a one and done. They have some talent, but they're too inconsistent.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Mar 7, 2011 -> 07:07 PM) In NBA Jam the computer still cheats like a motherf***er. Haha I raged pretty hard at that game the last time I played it. That was a couple weeks ago. Online play would be fun, but all people do is shoot 3s. With lag it's impossible to block them. It's called NBA Jam, not NBA Threes.

White Sox System Breakdown: Catchers Entering 2010, the backstops were a position of great strength and depth in the White Sox minor league system. A year later, it's iffy at best. The trio of Tyler Flowers, Miguel Gonzalez and Josh Phegley were all ranked in the top 11 of our 2010 preseason rankings and they all dropped after disappointing seasons for a variety of reasons. Is there still hope at the position? After doing this piece I can't decide which one I like best. Rogers put Blanke as the projected starter in 2014 and he's the only one that didn't have a bad 2010, but Flowers still has power and walks. I think you can make an argument for all four.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Mar 7, 2011 -> 01:36 PM) I'm greedy. I want to see both have break-out years. The talent/tools are there. I'm sticking with my guns that Thompson winds up the better player than Mitchell.

It's been pointed out that the catch-all thread still had 2010 in the title (856 replies, good stuff everyone) so here's the new 2011 version in time for, well it's late. Anyway post all tidbits about the Sox minor leagues or anything MiLB related here. I'll kick it off with some potentially awful injury news. Tyler Saladino may have broken his hand. This guy says surgery too. If accurate, he will probably miss April and wrist injuries always suck for hitters. Saladino was a sleeper for me. I hope it's not that severe and he recovers quickly.

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ Mar 5, 2011 -> 05:58 AM) This thread needs to be closed and a 2011 thread needs to be created. Touche.

That is better than PS3's text only chat, but I wouldn't use the voice chat. Heck, I don't even have a headset.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Mar 6, 2011 -> 02:55 PM) I gotta admit, I was expecting more out of AC Brotherhood... it seemed so short compared to AC2 even though the map was much bigger. It's like it was a really big DLC for AC2 or something. Yeah, I think the gameplay is slightly better than 2, but Brotherhood feels short. Of course, part of that could be that you are always in one map so you don't have to wait on load times to switch places (which really annoyed me in the first 2 games). I've been getting into the multiplayer lately so I'm getting my money's worth out of the game. QUOTE (flippedoutpunk @ Mar 6, 2011 -> 06:57 PM) Im in the middle when it comes to the two consoles, T R U yells at me for it all the time.. I dont mind paying 60 dollars once a year to play online if it means i can play my tunes and chat with my buds while spanking some tail at nba 2k. ive always said, once ps3 enables those two things, it will be very difficult for me to choose what console to play with more. I don't understand the chat thing. What's the big deal about that? You can chat during multiplayer games when needed. As for the music, I always have my laptop in the room with me so if I want music, I use that. To me, these seem like very small things to choose a console over.

So who are people's early auto bid sleepers? Fairfield, Missouri State and Coastal Carolina were all top seeds that had a decent shot to pull an upset but lost in their conference tourneys. Heck even George Mason lost (though they'll get an at-large taking away a bubble spot). Who's left?

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Mar 6, 2011 -> 12:58 AM) So basically there is no reason other than it's this year. Still waiting to find out what a great team is. MY team hasq 2 losses at Wisconsin and at purdue. They have plenty of top 25 rpi wins including on the road. They also have probably 4 NBA players in the lineup. Tell me why they aren't great other than your eye test. I didn't say they weren't great and I don't give a f*** about your damn OSU team. Geez. Oh me oh my someone doesn't think Rock's OSU team is great? What is the world coming to? Who gives a flying f***?

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Mar 5, 2011 -> 11:26 PM) FYI. 2009 unc had 4 losses to Bc, fsu, Maryland and wf They had 4 losses, but were a number 1 seed and the only teams ahead of them in the polls were Louisville (who had 5 losses) and Memphis (who had 3 and doesn't play in a good conference). I'll say what I said is a decent definition. It's hard to know in advance unless it's a defending champ with the same core like Florida recently (who lost 5 games but had that target on their back all year).

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Mar 5, 2011 -> 10:47 PM) Blah blah. What qualifies a team as great? I'm gonna guess he's saying it's a wire to wire #1 that was THE favorite going into the tourney and then won. I'm not saying whether that's right or wrong, but UNC fits that profile.

LOL SIU that is the worst display in the final few minutes of a game possible. In my mind, that's probably a new low for the program. There should be no way you can end a game on an 11-0 run. Gotta love March.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Mar 1, 2011 -> 04:26 PM) Its still the #2 RPI conference and thats not just because of one team. 4 teams is hilariously absurd. Not sure what this means, but I wasn't really talking about the quality of the Big Ten. I was just saying KenPom had some strange rankings.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Mar 1, 2011 -> 04:18 PM) I just saw this post now, but how on Earth should the Big 10 only get 4 bids when it is the #2 RPI conference, #1 Kenpom conference and the #2 Sagarin conference? Just so we are clear, when Big East teams beat each other that means the conference is deep and awesome but when the Big 10 teams beat each other the conference isn't really that good and will get undeserving bids. KenPom's ratings on the Big Ten are bizarre. Illinois at 21? Indiana 72? Iowa 84? KenPom is a fun tool, but I can't buy that.

Compiling White Sox Prospect Rankings Last year, I lined up top ten White Sox prospect rankings in one post to compare them and see which publications liked certain prospects better than others. It was one of our most popular posts so let's do it again. This generated some discussion last year so hopefully people like it. I like having all the rankings lined up to see any trends. If anything, it might be more telling about the publications/writers than the prospects themselves.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Mar 1, 2011 -> 01:38 PM) Nebraska loses their PG and best player but they return basically everyone else from a team that has been respectable this year so they should be at least decent next year as well. I think Nebraska could struggle in the Big Ten because they play slowdown. That screws with some of the faster teams in the conference like Mizzou (who they do fairly well against in Lincoln), Texas (who they beat this year) and Kansas (who they almost beat in Lawrence this year). They won't be such an unusual match up for most of the Big Ten. As for what Heads said a bit ago, the Big 12 is going to be tougher next year because they are switching to an 18 game schedule and Colorado and Nebraska are at best mediocre (like this year). Take away some of the easier games and throw in two games against the other division (for the south playing Mizzou and Kansas twice and for the north playing the non Tech Texas schools twice). The Big whatever probably won't be as top heavy next year, but it should be deep and you're playing everyone twice. The SOS of the remaining teams in the conference should go up.

I was really waiting for that to be a Onion bit or something.

All is right in the world. Texas is underachieving again.

Yeah, .218/.260/.276 in 2010 for Miguel. Not his best work, but since he brings good defense at a premium position he will remain a prospect.

I don't think this deserves it's own thread, but finally got a new post at FutureSox. Offseason coverage kicking off. Offseason Catch-up