DBAHO

Easy win for the Cowboys, but the season starts now considering we're just about in December. Great night though with the Giants losing, they look just about done IMO. Oh and Martz would be a terrible signing for the Bears, because the QB has got to stay a long time in the pocket in is offense with minimal protection, and that means you need a very good offensive line which the Bears do not have at this point.

QUOTE (ChWRoCk2 @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 12:54 PM) Just randomly thinking.... Hypothetically, lets say the Nets go 0-82 and don't get the first pick after the lottery drawing, do you change the system? I personally think the lottery is stupid, and yes I know the Bulls got Rose and this is somewhat sill for me to bring up. I've always felt the system is flawed and if a team has the worst record then they should get the first overall pick outright. Oth, the Bulls need a scorer or they won't go far in the playoffs "if" they make the playoffs. That basically encourages losing though, and I don't think the NBA really wanna promote that type of thought. I personally like the lottery system and think it should stay.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 04:26 AM) I still believe people are using selective memory in thinking of Tony Pena's "failure" with the White Sox. They have had better relievers before, but he was actually pretty solid for the Sox. And he basically only pitched to about 50% of his true ability this season IMO. I think he's one you can certainly expect a bounce back season from in 2010.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 12:23 AM) I read where Orlando Hudson would be hard pressed to get the guarantee of a little over $3 million he received last year. Put him at 2B, leave Beckham at 3B, and I think the infield everyday defense is better than with Teahan, the offense is most likely better and you still have money left over. I keep reading about bargains. As giddy as people are about Teahan and Vizquel, and I find it shocking, the bullpen has yet to be addressed. There are plenty of reasons the Sox lost a lot in 2009. Having Omar Vizquel play 3B in the 8th and 9th, addresses only an extremely small percentage. As for waiting before commenting, if that's the case, why have a message board? KW said he was doing some projection with Teahan, why can't we? IMO the White Sox have spent $5 million that could have been spent on more pressing issues. Sure Vizquel is one of the greatest defensive players ever, but not only is he now 43, he's not going to play much. He had a little over 1 chance a game last year if you consider the 162 game schedule. I've certainly been a fan of Hudson in the past, mainly for his defensive ability. But as he's been getting older, that's probably been slipping from the level it was back when he was playing with the Bluejays. I mean he's still pretty solid at .796 RZR, but for comparisons sake, Chris Getz had a RZR of .826, so you'd actually be downgrading there. And his OPS slipped to its lowest level in 3-4 seasons to .774, albeit that's still pretty decent. And there's always the issue of the nagging injuries that he seems to pick up every season, so his lack of durability is another factor you'd have to consider. But Hudson is also a Type A FA this off-season, albeit we wouldn't lose our 1st round pick at 13, but we'd lose our 2nd round pick, which I'm sure would come into KW's calculations. As for the bullpen, do you want the Sox to go out there in FA and give out the type of contracts that they gave to Scott Linebrink and Octavio Dotel 2 seasons ago? It's all about supply and demand with FA relievers, even the above average ones get taken care of pretty well, and quite often just because of the unpredicatable nature of relievers from year to year, giving out a sizeable contract like that can certainly backfire. The Vizquel signing is basically to improve the Sox's infield defense as a whole. And he'll probably put up around the same offensive numbers as what Getz put up in 2009, so you're not going to lose a lot there. If Vizquel can help make Alexei a better SS for instance, Teahen a better third baseman, then the signing will have been worth it IMO. And by all means, of course we can project numbers here etc. as it's a message board, I was just looking for the reasoning behind those projections I guess. At least with Rios, we were able to tell pretty much straight away what he was going to be like offensively. With Teahen, we have to wait around 5-6 months.

QUOTE (Jenksy Cat @ Nov 24, 2009 -> 04:51 PM) What defense is biting on a play action with a RB who gets Cutler is the absolute last (or 2nd to last next to Briggs) problem on this team. But far too many "fans" are too stupid/ignorant to realize that there is slightly more to the game than the QB. But by all means, lets keep blaming JC, boo him, run him out of town, etc etc and not worry about the high school level secondary and o-line we have, or the GM that makes the "deal" for JC and then doesn't spend another cent upgrading anything else on offense, or the coaches who insist on running the same 4 plays on shuffle to the point that every team knows whats coming. Love me some stupid bear fans. Also, we should just start taking 2 knees or kicking the FG on first down in the redzone since we insist on wasting the first 2 plays of every series and then get pissed when JC has to force something. Good stuff I only used play action as one example. Even if you don't fake the run, Cutler should be more active in the pocket to avoid the pressure if he can, and that's something they did in Denver a lot. Aaron Rodgers has had it worse than Jay Cutler this season as far as offensive lines go IMO (and that's due to all of the multiple injuries the Packers Line has had compared to the Bears), and yet he has a QB rating above 100, albeit Ryan Grant is having an above average season with 4.4 yards a carry. So yes, I do think JC deserves SOME of the blame, obviously not all of it, but he has had a disappointing season, and I'm sure he would probably agree. He's a gunslinger like Favre and Romo who likes to throw it into receivers that may be double covered because he think he can get it into those tight spots, and obviously it has backfired for the most part.

Could have been Oden's best game as a pro right there. If Portland would have signed Lamar Odom instead of Andre Miller, I think they could win the West this season. I don't see them being better than Denver or LA though.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 24, 2009 -> 12:12 PM) That's fine but what I don't like about the moves are Teahan/Vizquel while an upgrade from Getz/Lillibridge, may not be the $5 million upgrade it costs. I personally don't think Beckham at 2B, Teahan at 3B is much of a defensive upgrade from Getz/Nix at 2B Beckham at 3B. Offensively it could be, but Teahan is no lock to take off offensively. It kind of reminds me of the Cory Snyder acquisition. A talented guy who had a tough time making contact but was a scout's wet dream. Vizquel definitely can play 3B and SS better than Lillibridge or Nix, without a doubt and is an upgrade offensively over Lillibridge, but really not much at this stage. But how often is he going to be playing SS or 3B or 2B? Not much if no one gets hurt, plus Omar doesn't steal you bases anymore. Getz could get you a bag as could Lillibridge, plus we are talking about a guy who will be 43. He still seems nimble, but 43 year olds tend to tweak things a lot easier than younger guys. He definitely could be a weapon as a pinch bunter. It definitely appears the Sox will have one of the older benches in baseball. What are some alternatives you suggest the Sox could have spent $5M on this off-season instead then? It all depends on how Teahen does, to decide whether those moves will be worthwhile. Too early to pass judgement IMO, until you see how Teahen. Same sort of thing as the Rios waiver claim, albeit a lot more people including myself were critical of the move because of Rios's contract and his declining offensive output.

QUOTE (CanOfCorn @ Nov 24, 2009 -> 09:46 AM) ESPN Insider (insert grain of salt here) is reporting Barker to Toronto. Many names bandied about for Toronto including Jason Blake and Garnet Exelby. But, that might just be people they WANT to get rid of.... I wonder if Toronto would deal a 1st for Barket, but IIRC they gave up one for Phil Kessell.

QUOTE (The Critic @ Nov 23, 2009 -> 08:08 PM) DBAHO......."fastly"??? It's nice to have one good team to talk about in this city. Ha, you know I just did a google search and came up with this; http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qi...21094427AAv80kA Back to English class for me.

QUOTE (MHizzle85 @ Nov 24, 2009 -> 03:18 AM) You know, I remember saying this exact thing before the season. But then I was called stupid because I was told that the Bears never had a good QB so things would be different. I guess Bears' fans thought that with the addition of Orlando Pace, and Chris Williams coming into his 2nd season, things would be better on the O-Line, hence the high expectations. But it goes both ways IMO. Yes, the offensive line has been bad, but Cutler should be used to that by now, so he should escape the pocket more and make plays on the run as Shanahan used to have him do with the playaction back in Denver quite a bit. But then I guess people are going to say well Ron Turner isn't letting him do that.

QUOTE (qwerty @ Nov 23, 2009 -> 05:13 PM) You pretty much answered the reason yourself as to why linebrink was trotted out there. It's really as simple as coming down to the money. The excuse is the sox feel linebrink makes too much money to part ways with, whether you, myself, or anyone else agrees with their thought process. Afterall linebrink did make 4.5 last season with an additional 11.5 coming his way the next two seasons. There is no chance they dump him until next off-season, and that is still barring a significant increase in production. For better or worse, linebrink is still gonna get the ball in a white sox uniform. The linebrink signing was bad from the get go, and was quite unlike the sox, they sure as hell stumped me at the time. It was basically coming off the end of 2007 when our bullpen was probably in worse shape that it is now. I thought the Dotel signing for 2 years was a pretty good deal for both sides, but giving 4 years to Linebrink was just far too risky, as he wasn't a good pitcher outside of PETCO back in his Padre days, although I remember KW saying something to the thought of his power sinker would fit in well with the Sox or something like that.

Major props to Niemi tonight, he flat out stole that victory, and kept our momentum going. Right now our goaltender situation is really looking pretty good, and Niemi is fastly becoming one of the better backstops in the NHL. Well done to Bickell for getting his 1st of the season and the game-winner also.

Tottenham beat Wigan 9-1 today. Not like Wigan were supposed to win that match, but to lose 9-1, that's pretty bad indeed.

2nd in the league for goals against with 49 now, 1 behind New Jersey. So Huet has obviously picked up his game over the past couple of weeks, and the results have spoken for themselves.

Nice win for us over Boston today, even though it was a struggle offensively against them, but it always will be. Dwight Howard needs to pick it up offensively though. And Milwaukee is 7-3 right now, Brandon Jennings is carrying that team ATM.

The last time Vizquel had an average enough season with the bat offensively was in 2006 with the Giants. Since then, he's put GPA's of .216, .192 and .222. So as Kalapse said, there's no way in hell this guy is going to be anything close to a starter if he's signed. Late inning defensive replacement etc. that'll be it. FWIW though, his RZR in 2009 at SS was .903. That's pretty elite (Uribe in his best defensive season with the Sox had something around a .900 RZR IIRC). Alexei Ramirez had a RZR of .815 in 2009 at SS, so at least there's a definite improvement shown defensively.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Nov 21, 2009 -> 12:46 AM) Salmons has been straight up "Clank" all year. If he doesnt get it in gear then teams are going to just focus on stopping Rose Albeit I only watched the 1st half yesterday, but I thought Salmons was actually pretty good on the offensive end last night. I suppose he's still getting used to playing at the 2 and not the 3 spot, and in a way, the Bulls ideally would probably like to deal Deng for a good shooting 2 guard such as Monta Ellis and allow for Salmons to go back to the 3 spot.

In a way, seeing this report makes me sad because T-Mac is still one of my favourite players going around, but he's basically a shadow of what he was back when he was playing with the Magic. Now if the Bulls had a chance to dump a long - term contract such as Deng's for T-Mac's expiring max deal, would you pull the trigger?

Sounds as if Hossa is going to play on Wednesday according to the Tribune. If we can go above .500 on this road trip, it's really going to set-up our season as a top 4 team in the West as it did last season. Last night was the perfect start, and probably the best the Hawks have played this season so far.

Well last night showed the offensive problems that the Bulls are going thru ATM. Taking out Gordon's points off the bench, and when Gibson only gives you 4 points, you're going to struggle to post a winning score. Shows how if a guy like Tyrus Thomas was healthy, and improving on the level of say a Josh Smith from season to season, how much of a difference that can make overall. Luckily, the Bulls have been very good defensively so far this season, and that's why they've won 6 games so far.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Nov 20, 2009 -> 08:28 PM) My best friend coached Brad Guzan in high school and remains good friends with him. It looks like Guzan will be the backup in goal for the 2010 WC and possibly take over for the 2014 WC. My friend and I have thought about going (well he wants to go really badly and is trying to get me to go along), especially since we would probably be able to have some kind of exposure to the team and Brad, but I'm just not sure if I can swing it or not. Has anyone here been to one before? Is it crazy? Guzan's pretty unlucky that he's stuck behind Brad Friedel at Aston Villa ATM, some Villa fans actually think he is the better goalkeeper, but Friedel's probably been a top 5 keeper in the EPL over the past 5-6 seasons, even though he's about 40 now. If you can go, especially with the chance to get some close access to the US team, by all means I'd recommend it.

QUOTE (Sonik22 @ Nov 20, 2009 -> 05:39 PM) Well hopefully the USA gets it in 2018 or 2022. We'll find out in December. That'll be very interesting because both England and Australia are going hard for that also. England's probably gonna get it in 2018 I would say, while Australia's probably a better chance for 2022.

QUOTE (bmags @ Nov 19, 2009 -> 11:39 PM) I probably missed the party, but whatever, my internet sucks. Anyway, I think the problem with this story is that the soxtalk message board is so intuned that we understood the purpose of the story. After the original, "I came" messages that rightfully were posted (I participated), everyone knew a three way deal for Adrian Gonzalez would not get hammered out in a couple days. It would take time, it could fall apart, but for us this was what was interesting, and why I appreciated the story, and have a strong negative impression towards Cowley. 1. We have a GM that we are consistently unaware what will happen. We have an idea what our budget is (thanks to Kalapse, who posts an absolutely vital budget resource I've yet to find anywhere else) and that we're close to it. 2. We, as fans, know that we need a bat in this lineup. As presently constructed, we are awful on offense. 3. We know we finally have some legitimately attractive pieces to trade. We aren't even fooling ourselves with Broadway +Fields + crap for CABRERA!!!), Hudson is a legit prospect as is Flowers, J. Danks, etc. 4. We want to know if KW feels the same way. Regardless of the fact that this specific trade likely won't come to fruition, it gives us, the die hard, will post every day on the same topic fans, we learned a lot from this rumor, I'd say. 1. KW is more than likely looking to heavily upgrade our 1b/Dh/RF 2. Moving Konerko for financial flexibility is being explored 3. We are very interested in Adrian Gonzalez 4. By seeking a third team, we are looking for another team to share the burden of prospects, or help put together a better package. Now, the common fan might just hear this, disregard the semantics and say OMG GONZALEZ, or who is Adrian Gonzalez, and a busy reporter might just say "no way it happens, don't need to report", or, they already have Kendry, etc. Blah blah, ignoring DH. Whatever. And maybe that's where this ran into trouble. But for me, and a lot of other fans on this sight, this provided legitimate insight into the offseason, irregardless if it died quickly. This, obviously would be a complicated deal EASILY held up by money. But I don't think the GMJ speculations would be that far off in this hypothetical. I mean, Angels parting with a bad contract, getting a 1 yr deal DH that isn't a great contract but better than GMJs, it makes sense why they were approached in this deal. But I understand Cowley is too busy beating his chest. I realize he's in a competitive industry and has one of about 50 jobs. But, his response was ridiculous, and if he honestly thinks marginalizing a sizeable potential audience for him is a good idea, I won't have any problem with schadenfreude when the ST goes bankrupt and he's watching Star Trek in his parents basement blogging about the White Sox. In fact, I'll be the first to say Ha! Ha! Exactly. Obviously a trade for A-Gon isn't going to go down in the next day or two. But it is something that has been speculated on as an option, ever since the season had finished, because of the circumstances with San Diego's payroll, the Sox's need to improve their 1B/DH situation, and the two teams having dealt with each other only a couple of months ago with the Peavy deal, albeit there's a new GM in Hoyer there now. As for the Soxnet / Cowley situation, Cowley's entitled to his view but obviously many people around here and myself feel that he was overly harsh in doing so to say the least, but hey that's the nature of the business. Soxnet isn't mainstream, we hope one day that it becomes popular enough that it does so. And after making the post about the Gonzalez rumor, traffic on the site spiked significantly, so it has generated the site some publicity and extra viewing traffic which is great for the site. And obviously, every rumor that a message board or a blog posts is not always going to be correct. But the guys decided to post what they had heard from their sources, and for them to be dealt with by some members of the media (while some others have risen above that), has just been classless and really quite sad in the end.

Blanco makes sense on a 1 year deal regardless if the Sox keep Flowers IMO. Tyler's probably just about ready, but he'll get regular AB's in Charlotte, as opposed to only playing about 30% of the games if he was with the Sox (that's if he's not the DH). But KW may decide to try and sell high on him, as he has done with so many prospects in the past.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Nov 19, 2009 -> 01:38 PM) Precisely, and that's not a knock against Floyd, because Floyd is damn fine pitcher himself. Just on Gavin, it'd be nice if he could actually pitch in more home games this season, and the Sox try to re-work the rotation with off - days, double - headers etc. to try and get him as many starts as possible, because his ERA has been so much better pitching at the Cell than it has in away games over the past 2 seasons. He pitched 13 out of 30 games at home this season for example, so the Sox could potentially pinch an extra couple of games if he's as effective at home for 2010. Never thought we'd say that about a pitcher at the Cell though a few seasons ago.