ZoomSlowik

QUOTE(CanOfCorn @ Jul 10, 2006 -> 11:22 AM) I think one or the other could get Schmidt. If we trade BMac...we better get Matt Cain in the deal. And if BA is in the deal, I hope we get either Jason Ellison or Fred Lewis. I don't think this deal will happen as it stands. I could see trading one of our minor league arms, but Kenny isn't going to deal two of our biggest upside chips for a couple of months... ...is he? Matt Cain isn't going to happen. He's basically their version of B-Mac. No way they're trading him.

I got a 31, and I'm somewhat disappointed in my total. I thought I would have scored better, and I messed up some that I should have gotten. There were 3 of them when I had it down to two and chose the wrong one, and I messed up a few of the number-related ones.

QUOTE(quickman @ Jul 8, 2006 -> 09:11 PM) I am not excited at all. No reason to relax. I am not jumping off a bridge, nor am I a bandwagon fan. I do think 6 games is alot. Hell 2 games seems to be alot and I do think the sox are not playing well. It just shows more against better teams. They need to pitch better. Our starters really do suck right now. 5 ERA's are not going to win you a division. I gotta admit, you're more reasonable than the others with your position. I just have a little more faith that our guys will do what they need to do.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Jul 8, 2006 -> 09:06 PM) If last years performance and greatness automatically translates into next year, then why didnt the BoSox tear threw us. They did win in 2004. Curt Schilling and his bloody sock was a good pitcher, then for some reason he had a hard time breaking 90 and was transformed into a reliever. Resting your hat on 2005 is going to get you squat in 2006. Our pitchers need to execute, and Freddy needs his arm examined or a few weeks rest ala El Duque. First off, their team wasn't entirely entact from the previous year. Losing Pedro was huge, and their bullpen went to s***, especially Foulke. Schilling wasn't right most of the year either. Injuries were a major issue. Second, they still made the playoffs, so the season wasn't a total flop. They ran into a team with a great staff. s*** happens in the playoffs, you never know quite how things will go.

QUOTE(shoota @ Jul 8, 2006 -> 09:04 PM) Those who live and die with the Sox based on the highs and lows of the team experience greater highs than those who are consistent in their naive joy. Therefore, those who were most vocal and worried about the state of their team also were the fans who enjoyed the playoff run most. :headshake There's a difference between experiencing the highs and lows and panicking every time something doesn't go our way.

QUOTE(quickman @ Jul 8, 2006 -> 09:00 PM) I believe I said they will be out of the divisional race contending with the Yankees for the Wild card. i think my point of which you seem to ignore is that the sox are not playing well and this is a tough schedule coming up. Considering we have not been able to catch the tigers when we are just a game back I would view 6 games back to be a problem. I view this year as contending for the Wild card. I hope I am wrong but the pitching is not there and the hitting will cool off. as far as giving up, I am not as i continue to pay my 12k a year for tickets, but i do know when a team is playing poorly and now is that time and quite frankly its the wrong time with a tough week for us and an easy week for detriot. i bet you believe we will win every year. it doesn't happen. No, I don't believe they're going to win every year. But I also don't think we're suddenly going to fall out of the division race after winning a title when we're on pace to win 105 games. Even if we are 6 back, that's still a manageable deficit, especially with the schedule that the Tigers have coming up. The problem is we aren't playing that poorly. We've been winning every series, staying neck and neck with the best team in baseball. We lose one series to another good team and suddenly we're s***. Geez, relax.

QUOTE(quickman @ Jul 8, 2006 -> 08:45 PM) 0k no problem and I am saying they will be 6 games out after the tiger series. This is not that hard of a discussion. i gave my reasons, which you disagreed.no problem. I gave my reasons and you have yours which I believe is "they will hold there own" Ok, no problem, I just think they are playing poorly now and the schedule gets tougher. How many games back will they be after the tiger series? Wait, you've been saying how they'll be out of the race and tied with the Yankees, and you're saying 6? That's not THAT bad. I wouldn't call that "out of the race." The way you were talking you made it sound like it'd be 9. I certainly don't see us losing our lead on the Yankees. My guess is somewhere right around where we are, like 3 or 4, maybe 5.

QUOTE(quickman @ Jul 8, 2006 -> 08:23 PM) nobody is giving up, and this has nothing to do with last year either. The team is different and so is the american league central. last year should never come into the conversation. This team right now is not pitching well nor are they playing well. Thats the facts. i am saying they are heading into a bad part of the schedule which will leave them many games back. How is that giving up? Please tell me how you think they will do tommorrow and against the yankees and tigers on the road. Then tell me how the tigers will do against seattle the next two games and then the four against KC. I realize we must and they must actaully play the games but really do some math and let me know how many games back you think the sox will be. You're already conceeding the games as losses, that's where you're giving up. I certainly don't see us losing all of them, or the Tigers winning all of them. I see it as being roughly the same as it's been the last month: they hold their own and generally end up winning the series. The only real difference is Boston has matched our slugging this series. Neither of those teams have the same kind of lineup as they do. They Yankees have been pretty mediocre, and we're 5-1 so far against Detroit. I expect us to at least split them, that's what the better teams do.

QUOTE(BobDylan @ Jun 30, 2006 -> 04:52 AM) You would trade Freddy before you'd trade Vazquez? I know Freddy has been a bit subpar this season, but he's a proven winner. 109 wins, 66 losses. He also countered 3 straight losses with three straight wins, one of them a 1-0 shut out against St. Louis. Vazquez has an ERA in the 5's, is a career .500 pitcher and has never been known as a winner nor a consistant pitcher. Not to mention he's making 3 million dollars more than Freddy. I was a big backer of Vazquez from the beginning, but the guy just plain sucks. So was Vazquez at one point. He was a very solid pitcher in Montreal. His record would have been roughly the same as Freddy if he played on a real team. He was 13-12 in a year that he finished with a 3.24 ERA, that's not really a fair comparison. I must have missed the part when Freddy was consistent too, just look at his numbers. He's been just as bad as Vazquez the last couple of years at times, and just as bad this year. The money is also about a push for the future. Vazquez is making 1.5 mil more next year, and Freddy is a FA after that, so who knows. Just watch them pitch. Javy actually has some stuff, Freddy generally doesn't. The latter is better at pitching without it, but you can only do so much. Coop can do something with Vazquez, he can't improve Freddy's velocity.

QUOTE(Frankensteiner @ Jul 8, 2006 -> 06:23 PM) That's true about Beckett, but he has been dominant in the playoffs before. In contrast to Buehrle (who's never had great stuff) or Garcia (who's lost his stuff), Beckett has the ability to shut teams down. Also, he's been hurt by the HR ball this season, but his WHIP coming into today was still lower than any of our starters outside of Count... which tells me he's had some bad luck. Vazquez has given up more baserunners and he's never had Beckett's post-season (or even regular season) success. It's not a good comparison. As far as our rotation being more proven, I don't know about that at all. Schilling has a much better track record than any of our pitchers. Count's had a bad month and it's still to early to tell if he's a sure-fire ace. I need to see him do that over a full season... hitters can adjust, which is why I'm still somewhat skeptical. Buehrle is a good pitcher, but he's not a dominating post-season pitcher. We had Garcia last year as that other power arm to go along with Contreras. I think we're missing that this season. Talk to the Angels and Astros about Buehrle and Garcia about "not dominating" in the playoffs. QUOTE(quickman @ Jul 8, 2006 -> 08:09 PM) Well I think I made my point. The original thought was from Hibbard who said we would have a better record than last year. I completely disagree. I also stated we will go into a skid right here. We are two games into a skid which i believe will lead us to 6 games out by the time the Tigers are down mopping us up. I don't want to be right on this one, but the bats will cool and the pitching is not in top form. i also think unlike last year this team will need a spark via a trade. For who I don't know but it will need a spark. Furthermore i am saying we will be contenders for the wild card not the division. There you go, I gave you my reasons which you can disagree, but I believe they are sound reasons and I do believe we are running into a very difficult part of of schedule with a poor pitching staff "right now" People were saying the same s*** in August last year, and lamenting about how we needed another big bat to go anywhere. Oops. Quit giving up before the battle's even close to over.

QUOTE(shoota @ Jul 8, 2006 -> 06:42 PM) You're saying the Sox shouldn't upgrade their bad starting pitching because other contending teams also have bad starting pitching. Since the objective is to be better than other teams and not "just as good," that's reason enough to upgrade. You're not going to find anyone better than what we already have out there. Unless you want to give up Josh Fields and possibly another prospect or two for crap, this is what our rotation is going to look like.

QUOTE(Frankensteiner @ Jul 8, 2006 -> 06:05 PM) I'd take Schilling-Beckett-Wakefield over Contreras-Buehrle-Garcia. And guess what, we're 0-2 with Buehrle and Garcia pitching against Boston. Buehrle, although a very good pitcher, does not have the power arm to shut down good hitting offenses like the Red Sox. Neither is Wakefield or Wells, and there's no guarantee that Beckett will even be healthy when the playoffs come around. People said the same thing about Clement last year, and he sucked. We hit Beckett pretty well too, so it's not like he's the shut-down type either. By that logic, Vazquez is a shut-down type too because he as the ability to do it. Beckett isn't pitching much better than he is. I'd happily take our rotation, because it is deeper and more proven. Boston has Schilling and a ton of question marks. We've at least got Contreras and Buehrle, and I've got a lot more faith that our guys will pitch well when it matters.

QUOTE(shoota @ Jul 8, 2006 -> 05:57 PM) The f*** it is. The best team in baseball won the World Series last season and did so in a dominating manner. They didn't get "hot at the right time," they played to their ability and beat teams that were inferior to them. What do you see in Freddy Garcia, Javier Vazquez and Jon Garland that makes you think they're 3/5 of a 2006 Championship caliber team? Perhaps you missed the "2006" part of the question, so here is the question again, now partly bolded. The best team doesn't always win, and neither do the best players. Our starting pitching was solid, but our offense and bullpen were considered to be major question marks. Apparently we're using revisionist history, because just about every expert and a lot of people on here were writing us off, both before and after we started to lose our division lead. If that were the case, we wouldn't have gotten by Boston's monster of an offense, or beaten Clemens, Pettitte and Oswalt. It's all about how they're playing at that time on that day. First off, they don't make up 3/5 of the team. Second, You could ask the same question about a lot of teams. Are Matt Clement, David Wells, and Jon Lester 3/5 of a championship rotation? What about Chien Min Wang, Jarrett Wright, an aging Randy Johnson, and god knows who as 4/5 of a rotation? Steve Trachsel, Alain Soler, and Brian Bannister? This isn't uniquely our problem. A lot of contenders are short on pitching. In fact, Detroit is probably the only one that isn't, and that's assuming all of these guys can keep it up. Even they have Todd Jones as a closer. The difference is that we actually have guys with talent that have done it before, unlike the other teams.

QUOTE(quickman @ Jul 8, 2006 -> 05:47 PM) they are on there way up and we are on our way down. Quite frankly, I really don't understand this argument. Hibbard started it by saying we will have a better record than year. I disagree. Our pitching is not as good. Pitching wins. Secondly, I think the sox are in a stretch now that will dictate the direction of this year. They will not win this division. This next week is critical. The tigers assuming they win tonight and tommorrow should have a 4 game lead on us going into the allstar break. We will play the yankees and they will have 4 against the royals. then we will go to detroit. You assume my math is incorrect, I am saying we should be out of division contention by the end of the month, fighting with the yanks for the wild card. You're making assumptions about the rest of the season based on a very small sample size. We've really only been pitching this poorly for two weeks, and we're still only 2.5 games behind the best team in baseball. There's no guarantee that Detroit, a team full of pitchers with meager major league resumes and a first-half specialist journeyman will keep playing this well, just like there's no guarantee that our staff full of veterans will keep pitching this poorly. There's a lot of baseball left to be played and you simply don't know what will happen. You're already conceding everything though. Even if we struggle through this next stretch, assuming we lose every game and that Detroit wins every game as well is a hell of a stretch. If pitching wins, how come the Cubs lost in 2003? How come the mid-90's Braves only got one title? How come the A's never won a playoff series? It takes a lot more than just good pitching to win it all. Even with our pitchers performing like crap of late, we're still on pace to win over 100 games and have the 2nd best record in baseball. If you're so sure that we're going to lose, go buy a Tigers' hat and go away. QUOTE(Frankensteiner @ Jul 8, 2006 -> 05:54 PM) Lester just got into their rotation recently. They've been screwed with Clement and Wells. As far as Beckett, his stuff is better than anybody on our staff, and I've seen him dominate in the playoffs. I'd take him over anyone of our 3-4-5 guys. GMAFB. Garcia's ERA was 5.86 in April, 4.81 in June, 6.00 in July. That's 2 s***ty months and he's working on a 3rd. The guy's stuff is gone... unless it magically returns, we're stuck with an average to below average pitcher. Garland has been terrible up until his last few starts. There's some serious hypocricy there, trying to downplay what you describe as "one bad stretch" of pitching, yet jumping for joy because Garland's last few starts. I'll start getting excited when he gets his ERA under 5. Vazquez has had a bad June, I'll agree there. I'm not holding out much hope for him to be anything more than a servicable 5th starter. So now John Lester is the savior, 1.55 WHIP and all? Come on. He probably won't even be on the playoff roster.

QUOTE(shoota @ Jul 8, 2006 -> 05:42 PM) f*** career averages. Answer me this: What do you see in Freddy Garcia, Javier Vazquez and Jon Garland that makes you think they're 3/5 of a 2006 Championship caliber team? You can find weak links on EVERY team. Besides, two of the three were part of a champion last year that had a much weaker offense.

QUOTE(shoota @ Jul 8, 2006 -> 05:39 PM) AND MOST TEAMS DON'T WIN THE WORLD SERIES EVERY YEAR. THAT COMPARISON IS FAULTY. Since when do you have to lead the league in every category to win it all? Even assuming our pitching stays this bad, which it probably won't, we've got the #1 offense in the league. That's enough to get you through the regular season, and the playoffs is a crap shoot.

QUOTE(quickman @ Jul 8, 2006 -> 05:39 PM) By the way our pitching has been progressively getting worse. Not better. We have been winning with our bats which cool off. Vasquez has nine wins and could easily have nine loses. Unless the pitching gets better I can't see us making the playoffs right now. Furthermore, we are losing to boston at home. we will need to go to yankee stadium and detriot. I really don't like the chances. Bats go cold, just like today with bases loaded and nobody out with our heart of the order up. No runs. bats go cold. Our pitching will not be this bad all year. All of their totals are well above their career averages. Either we're getting extremely unlucky in catching this all in one year, or they'll start pitching better at some point.

QUOTE(Frankensteiner @ Jul 8, 2006 -> 05:39 PM) How do you figure Boston's pitching is worse? Schilling, Beckett, Wakefield, Lester is a better combo than any of our 4 starters. Also, "one bad stretch" is not entirely accurate. It's taken them 3+ months to accumulate these ERAs, right? How about the fact that their team ERA is higher? Josh Beckett is their number 2 starter, how's he doing? No, not really. Their ERA's haven't been constantly at 5. Freddy and Javy have both been under that for most of the year, and Garland's is on its way down.

That team didn't have a ring on their finger. They're also winning at a much better rate, and their pitchers have much better resumes than those did. Chill the hell out people.

QUOTE(Greg The Bull Luzinski @ Jul 8, 2006 -> 05:28 PM) I think the bolded statement is the bottom line. It is not a question of optimism or pessimism. It is tough to win a world series when all of your starters except 2 have 5.00+ ERA's. I think the question is when and who will step up once this Boston Massacre is over. Do you really think all of them will finish the year with ERA's that high? That would put all of them well over their career averages. That seems pretty damn unlikely.

QUOTE(quickman @ Jul 8, 2006 -> 05:24 PM) actually I would say the sox are prime to lose 6 in row. I think our pitching is horrible, and if a trade isn't made we will struggle with the wild card. Despite the record the Red sox are better, the yanks are better and the tigers are better. last time I checked one of those teams needs to be out. Our starting pitchers are giving up 5 runs a game. Bats go cold. Ours will go cold. Our pitching is horrible. I predict a loss tommorrow, three to the yanks and we will, lose 2 of 3 to the tigers. By that time we should pretty much be a wild card contender holding on by a string. How in the hell do you figure that the Yankees are better? Their pitching about as bad as ours with no real prospects for improvement, with Matsui and Sheffield out for the forseeable future our offense is better, and our record is 5 1/2 games better. Boston's pitching is worse than ours too. Suddenly a pitching staff goes from the best in baseball to horrible because of one bad stretch. I'd happily take that bet. We will not lose 6 in a row.

QUOTE(shoota @ Jul 8, 2006 -> 05:23 PM) Those who defend the Sox's pitching staff need to ask themselves if they believe this team's pitching is Championship caliber. Once they realize the honest answer is "no," they'll then understand why those who criticize the pitching are complaining. We're not in a rebuilding year. We've already traded away prospects like Young, and we're not far from assembling a Championship caliber team, so KW might as well finish his f***ing plan. People said the same thing about our offense last year. You can't make generalizations based on half a season. Our pitching is still better than most teams, even with the rough stretch we are going through. Give it a rest, we've got the second best record in baseball. I'd hate to see what this site would look like if we were around .500.

QUOTE(Greg Hibbard @ Jul 8, 2006 -> 05:23 PM) 105 actually Well, depends on if you round up or down. I went by winning percentage.

They're on pace for 104 wins right now.

QUOTE(maggsmaggs @ Jul 8, 2006 -> 10:08 AM) The leagues are going to be live drafts right? Definitely, unless there is enough interest in an Auto-Draft (which I doubt).