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QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 22, 2010 -> 12:36 PM) 2 points. First of all...when they had been in the league for 2 years...I think you could have made exactly this same argument about each and every one of the guys you cite. Secondly...Rondo and Nash both have had vastly better low-post scoring options and all 3 have had much better outside scoring options than what DR1 has had to contend with, particularly last year after Gordon departed. Basically, the question is...if he breaks down into the lane and the defense collapses on him, who does he send the ball of to? Noah isn't very good on the receive and finish, and there really was no one on the Bulls last year who was a legit 3 point threat. yah yah yah... here it comes the argument of rose doesn't have a good supporting cast, we will see what happens when he plays with boozer. you made your point, some of those guys weren't great playmakers after 2 years. but am I right in saying Rose isn't a great playmaker right now? why can't some people admit that? and one thing, if you say noah is not a good finisher, then what about chandler? we all saw what he can do in chicago. the guy has whopper jr. hands! he can't even grip the ball properly with one hand.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Sep 22, 2010 -> 12:33 PM) No I dont. I really disagree with you here, and I will leave it at that. I have watched pretty much all of the Bulls games the past two years myself, and clearly you are watching something else. I am well aware that you are a bulls fan, and so am I. but if you watch the game objectively, you will see Rose in terms of playmaking ability is along the lines of Jennings or Evans, decent but not great. If you think Rose is a great playmaker, then what is Rondo, CP3, Dwill and others? Taking nothing away from him, he is a great player, just not a great playmaker. Like you said, passing is his weakness, just accept that. Please go ahead, and read articles from ESPN, Foxsports, or anything like that, and get objective opinions from other writers and fans.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Sep 22, 2010 -> 12:19 PM) WTF, alpha male? How about Rose plays great in the NBA on the bulls every game. Doesnt that do enough for you? Durant's presence had nothing to do with anything Rose did in a FIBA tournament. I can say with a 100% certainty that not only with DRose have a great season, but if they added another star to the team, he would have an even better season because they would win. really? do you have to think again before you make that comment? I am willing to make a bet with you that if we have boozer and carmelo on the team, rose would not even put up numbers like he did last season.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Sep 22, 2010 -> 12:10 PM) Actually I think you are clearly stating your opinion, as I think he is a dynamic playmaker and every game he seems to get better at what people point out as his weaknesses. I will have to disagree here. From all the bulls games i watched over the past two years (believe me, I watch plenty) and the FIBA games i watched this past month, Rose is clearly not a great playmaker. He is decent but not great. Most of his assists come from dishing to open shooters who would hit the shot or simple passes in transition that lead to easy layups. Rarely do you see him driving into the lane and passing off to someone else for the score, nor do you see him make those tough passes through tight spaces that lead to easy score. he just doesn't court vision of CP3, dwill, nash, kidd, rondo and even westbrook. If you watch guys like Rondo, CP3 and nash run the point and compare it to Rose, it's a whole new world. I do think that Rose is a top 3 or 4 pg right now because he has the unique combination of scoring, athleticism and decent playmaking ability. But come on, you have to accept the fact that he is only a decent play maker RIGHT NOW, not a great one.

QUOTE (Chi Town Sox @ Sep 22, 2010 -> 11:14 AM) Not sure if you noticed but Durant was the only one on the team to average double figures. Rose had the most assists on the team, no big deal to struggle on a team filled with superstars filled with superstars? exactly who besides durant is a superstar? rose was suppose to play second fiddle to durant, and he played so poorly at the end that he had a 0 point game vs in the semis, played only 12 minutes, and was nearly pulled out of the starting lineup in the finals. Bryan Colangelo even said after the win that he felt good for Rose after he scored 3 baskets in the fourth quarter of the finals to get some of his confidence back. After all, it's the FIBAs game, we shouldn't take too much from it. but it's still worth pointing out that he played poorly when playing next to an alpha male.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Sep 22, 2010 -> 10:43 AM) LOL why are you judging Rose so harshly from watching the FIBA games? You have been just killing him all summer long and it really is without merit, its just the FIBA games, those games are exhibition games for NBA players Criticism? I don't think so. Rose is clearly not a great playmaker nor a three point shooter, we are well aware of that, so just stating the obvious right there. All I am saying is pairing him with a dominant scorer in the form of Melo might not be a better fit than pairing with a shooter. just like people who said rose and wade will not make a good backcourt, pure analysis

QUOTE (lostfan @ Sep 20, 2010 -> 08:03 PM) Stupid, stupid article here if you want something to laugh at. Yahoo writer has Rose and Durant as the 1st and 2nd most overrated players on his list. http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=ac-6753654 LOL the writer's name is JM Van Horn. Who is he? Keith Van Horn's bitter little brother who hates on all the players who can jump higher than Keith?

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Sep 22, 2010 -> 09:49 AM) I would assume that Noah would replace Gibson in the deal, not be added. Personally, I'll drive Joakim to the airport. You don't snub opportunities to acquire 26-year old top 10 NBA players. Other high-energy, no-score centers will come available, more Carmelo Anthony's to pair with D-Rose will not. personally, i am a little hesitant to trade for Carmelo after seeing how poorly Rose played with a dominant scorer on the team like Durant. Rose needs to take his shots to be effective and is not a great playmaker, and does not have the 3 point shooting to compliment Carmelo. Now, maybe the poor performance was a fluke or it had something to do with the FIBA style, but I am not sure if pairing Rose with Carmelo would be a better fit than having Rose and Noah.

things are getting so bad now, in my fantasy baseball league, this week is the championship week. yesterday i picked up Gio Gonzales from the waiver wire and he performed well. I just pick up Brett Anderson also, who is starting against the Sox tomorrow. These poor White Sox may just help me win my fantasy league

after reading the article, i think a good reclamation project would be Joba Chamberlain. This guy has the so called "Chicago tough" Kenny is looking for, and is going the adversity of failing in a big city media right now. Peripheral wise, he gave up 21 homerun and 76 walks in 155 innings last season, If Coop can get him to throw a cutter and reduce his HR rate and walk rate like his work with Ejax, Joba can be scary good, can be sort of like the Josh Johnson of AL.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 17, 2010 -> 11:06 AM) One hole in that... What it takes to win a division is based on who finished second. If the second place team won 85 games, it only took 86 games to actually win the division. one hole in your argument. You have to top the first place team to win the division, not by topping the so called "second place team". theoretically, the first place team will finish with that amount of win no matter what the other teams do. So the 2007 Indians will finish with 96 wins regardless of what the second place team do. In order to top them and win the division, you need 97 wins. So the OP was correct when saying you need 93.66 wins to win the division.

agree with most of you, beckham will be a sell low right now. All of you people who wants to trade him will be crying if he ends up performing to his potential after being traded. a better what if question is what if Dan Hudson wasn't traded, how good can he be with the white sox, and how good our rotation would look in the future.

wow, talk about being an optimist, you are definitely an extreme one. the season has been over before the series started. Our plan was to sweep the twins this series, being 3 back with 12 to go is already a long shot. 7 back with 12 to go? not even if the Twins implodes to finish the season. If the twins go 5-7, and we would have to go 12-0. you probably have a better chance of winning the little lotto instead. funny that everyone wants a sweep of the twins this series, even the players, but we could be the one end up being swept. good job white sox.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 15, 2010 -> 02:57 PM) Before we ask people to elaborate...I probably ought to offer a reminder that occasionally people from the organization do drop by here...and we have no idea how high up those people might be. Just something to think about for your own personal benefit. for all I care, oney guillen can cry his panties off when he reads what people here say about him!

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Sep 15, 2010 -> 07:04 PM) Well, to each their own I guess, but I see the MVP as the player who is the most valuable to their team, and if your team didn't make the playoffs, then you couldn't have provided THAT much value to them. an example here. so if you feel that Cano is a more deserving candidate than Konerko. What if Cano didn't have A-Rod on the team, and now A-Rod plays for the white sox now, and the sox made the playoffs with the addition of A-Rod. So what if Cano and Konerko posted the same number as they have right now, wouldn't they theoretically provided the same value? so why now would Konerko become more valuable due to the addition of A-Rod? Don't you think it's really unfair to those players if they put up those great great numbers, and their team would have made the playoffs if their GM had surrounded them with a great team?

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Sep 15, 2010 -> 06:18 PM) Cy Young is defined as the best pitcher in the league. Team performance doesn't matter. MVP is defined as the most valuable player in the league. Team performance SHOULD matter. Why is it that in the NFL the player that wins the MVP does not necessarily win the Offensive Player of the Year or the Defensive Player of the Year? This has happened the past 2 years now. I don't have the information on top of my head, but I am pretty sure NFL MVPs have came from teams didn't make the playoffs before. and also, in NFL they emphasize playoff berths in the MVP award heavier because they already have an award designated for the best offensive player. Ultimately, I think your argument boils down to, do you view the term VALUE as wins or playoff berth. For me, i think the word value suggests nothing about making the playoffs, it only denotes the amount of wins you can bring to the team over a replacement player.

i think it would be really funny if the Twins or some other signs Manny as a DH next season and performs very well, then some of you guys go like man we should fire ozzie or whoever for not bringing back Manny!

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Sep 15, 2010 -> 02:15 PM) No, the point is right now they are a lock for the playoffs. But without Cano, they are barely in a playoff position, and fighting to make it. That's quite a difference. But whether the Sox are 7 games out or 13 games out doesn't really matter because either way they have almost no chance at the playoffs. The thinking of MVP should come from a playoff team is really outdated. Same thinking that the Cy Young award should have league leading wins or close to it. It used to be that most Cy Young winnners are 20 game winners or close to it. But writers are speculating that parameters for the award are changing after Lincecum won it with 18 wins then 15 wins, and then Greinke won it with 16 wins. and this year, many feel that Felix hernandez is the leading candidate with 11 wins. Those players are elite pitchers, though they couldn't win more games because the offense the team assembles is not scoring runs. A player really has no control over what the other players do. This isn't basketball where you can make your teammates better, it's really an individual award. If your teammates aren't performing well, your team won't make the playoffs despite how good you are. If you really think about it, the term value only represent the quality a players brings to a team, i.e. WAR. If a player have a WAR of 8, that means he adds a value of 8 wins to the team, doesn't mean that his team will make the playoffs with those 8 wins the player adds, because his teammates flat out sucks. So why would would give an award to a player with a value of 6 wins, even if his team makes the playoffs? wouldn't you think that a player who brings 8 more wins to a team would be more valuable than a player who would win 6 more games for the team, regardless of playoff berth?

but mauer was by far the best player at a premium position, same case with Pedroia in 08. I mean the pool was quite weak last year, who else would you have chose? we have 3 or 4 very deserving candidates this year. Mauer missed a month in June and came back strong and CARRIED the twins into the playoffs. I always feel that it's a tremendous knock on a player if he missed significant time late in the season, when his team is fighting for positions in the playoffs.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Sep 15, 2010 -> 08:51 AM) ...IF Quentin was taken out of the discussion in 2008 for missing the final month, then we can discount Josh Hamilton, who is nowhere near returning. ...IF A-Rod could win it with the last place Rangers, then first place is not a requirement. ...IF there is any justice, Paul Konerko will win the 2010 MVP Award. This team would have been out of the postseason discussion for good in June if it weren't for our franchise player, Paul Konerko, who is quite possibly having his best season at age 34. I thank Paul Konerko for this season, for 2005, and for his career as a White Sox, which may or may not be coming to an end (I'm leaning that he'll stay). However, regardless of what shakes there... PAUL KONERKO FOR MVP if A-Rod could win, so can Miguel Cabrera. The only way i season konerko winning is if cabrera goes on a mini slump and konerko continues to play the way he played the last two weeks.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 15, 2010 -> 08:55 AM) An awful lot of people put Quentin lower on their list in 2008 not because he was hurt...but because the injury was self-inflicted. though a legitimate knock on hamilton is he is no longer the team leader in RBI. Vlad Guerrero is having a very good season in his own rights with .305-25-105. if hamilton is out till October, he can very well say goodbye to the MVP award.

I just realized that Alexei only net his 10th stolen base of the year tonight, and to go along with 9 caught steals. In this career, he is 36 for 59 in stolen bases, like 60% success rate, that is beyond terrible, especially for a guy with his speed. I always feel like that he is one of the faster shortstops in baseball, in a 20-80 scale, he is probably a 60 or 65. A guy with his speed can easily swipe 20-25 bags every year. There is a reason why he's called the Cuban Missile. When he accelerates and gets it going, he is really fast. I remember in his rookie year, Hawk and DJ pointed out that when he start off the steal, his lead foot pushes backward instead of taking a stride forward, hence leading to a step slower. I don't know, I haven't paid attention to his baserunning lately, does he still run the same way? Why has no one teach him how to use his speed? Alexei has improved his hitting a bit this year, and his defense is worlds apart from last year. If he can improve his baserunning, and continue to improve his bat, I think his inline for a .280-20-80 to go along with 25 steals, while playing exceptional defense at short. I think that is the making of an all star shortstop.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ Sep 14, 2010 -> 10:31 PM) Large changes. They are going to end up without Morneau for half the season, without Nathan for all of the season, we're getting just about a career year from Konerko, and we're still going to finish way up the tracks in the standings from them. I don't think small changes are going to cut it, between our payroll situation and just that the Twins are way better than us right now IMO. Twins are better than us, indeed, but not by that much. Here are the bright sides heading into next season. 1) We got off to a bad start, were 21-30 at the beginning of June. Had we played consistent baseball throughout the year, we could easily be a few games in front right now. We had a nice stretch from June to the beginning of August, but I guess the team ran out of gas, and we knew that the team will eventually cool off. But all in all, I am proud of the fact the way we came back from 9 under .500 and actually took a 4 games division lead. 2) We saw how good our offense can be if we can get everybody going. Our offense was horrid in April and May, and I remember at one point we were hitting .234 and last in MLB in team BA. But right now we are 6th with .269 team BA. I would assume we had the best team BA in all of baseball since the beginning of June. Guys who got off to a bad start, Quentin, AJ, Beckham, and Alexei, with the exception of Alexei, they weren't known for being slow starters, so if we can get them off to a quick start next year, we can be very good. Once again, our offense has potential, it's just a matter of consistency. 3) The Twins got lucky, very lucky. They had the easiest schedule to finish of all the teams in a pennant race. Another poster point out last week, the Twins keep winning despite being out hit in a lot of their games recently, especially after Morneau went out. They can't count on the same type of luck next year. Guys who are having a fluke year: Carl Pavano, the guy who is having a Renaissance year, the last time this guy had a year with sub 4.50 ERA was 2004. Then he couldn't stay healthy for 5 straight years. and this year, he is on pace to throw 230 innings. It's safe to say that he would either due for a drop off next year, or he will spend some time on the DL next year. Brian Duensing, who the hell is this guy? with an ERA of 2.00 in over 100 innings pitched, and his minor league track record suggests that he is nothing more than an end of the rotation pitcher, it safe to say that he too, is due for a drop off, a tremendous one. Danny Valencia, he has only 1 season of .300+ BA in the minor leagues, and has been on fire to start off his major league career. I say he will eventually go on some slump similar to the one Brennan Boesch had. Jim Thome, we all know he has power, but he is 40 years old, and 41 next year. You can't count on a 40 year old to give you another year of .280 BA and 1.000+ OPS, and is he a free agent at the end of the year? 4) Here is the reason why I think the return of Nathan next year won't make them any better than this year. As good as Nathan has been, he still blows 5 or 6 saves a year. The duo of Capps and Rauch only blew 6 saves this year, and lost only 1 game, and if I am correct, one of the trio of Capps, Rauch and Fuentes will not return next year. AND we don't know how Nathan will fare after a year off due to injury, perhaps he won't be the same pitcher anymore? 5) Yes, Paulie is having a career year, and is carrying us by himself, we don't know if he is back next year, and knows for sure he won't put up the same production next year. But if we can resign Paulie, or sign a good free agent, Vmart, Dunn, or Beltre, and with the good young talent from our farm knocking on the door, Viceido, Morel and Sale, and the return of JFP, and a full season from Ejax, we can be even better than this year. In conclusion, Twins are good, but they aren't that much better than us. Unless they go deep into the playoffs and win the WS, they won't have the payroll to add significant pieces. We in good shape heading into the offseason. I feel that no matter what we do in the offseason, it's still a two team race between the Sox and the Twins for the division title next year. EDIT: IIRC, the terrible defense of Teahen at third costed us at least 3 games. If we can resign Omar, and put Morel at 3rd next year, and trade Teahen or put him on the bench, it would greatly improve our defense. (That guy is seriously a bad luck charm. After he went down, the Sox immediately caught fire, when he returns, the Sox came back down to earth. GET HIM AWAY FROM THE SOX NEXT YEAR!!) If we can also move Quentin to DH next year, we can field a great, great defensive team, to go along with the great starting rotation. Pitching and defense wins championships, and we have both.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 14, 2010 -> 04:52 PM) Depends on what I'm doing with the other $75 million. of course, if it were the white sox, it would be a bad fit, because we are known as a slot drafting team, drafting on a $4 mil budget, and we are not a big spender in Latin America. We have a bad farm system, and does not regularly develop young prospects to play in the Major league level But for a team like the Rangers, Rockies, Braves, Rays, even the Twins and Red Sox, who has very good farm systems, I can sign Pujols for $25 million, and still fill a very talented team with young players and guys in the Pre- arb years, with a 90-100 million budget.

QUOTE (knightni @ Sep 14, 2010 -> 08:56 AM) No one is worth more than 25 mil a season. Would you rather have 6 Mark Teahen on your team or 1 Albert Pujols?