chitownsportsfan

wow, this topic quickly devolved.

Yea, I'm not real happy about this whole world championship at all. Freddy is what, 30 years old? He doesn't need anymore strain on his right arm then is absolutely needed by the White Sox. So now he has to pitch for his home team in some gimmicky world championship--great. If Freddy gets injured next year the "I told you so's" will be out in full force, and rightfully so. He already pitched over 200 innings last year, he needs rest, not this. That being said, I don't blame Freddy at all, if I was in his position, I'd do the exact same thing. It's just unfortunate this has to happen after he already pitched deep into the playoffs.

Yea, it seems to me that Ozzie was giving his typical "off the wall, look I'm ozzie guillen the media loves me I'm getting a haircut this is news" interview, and in reailty, nothing he said will having much bearing on next year. Ozzie may like Owens and his winter league play now, but get him in spring training when Owens just misplayed a gapper and cost the team a run and you'll get the exact 180 degree spin. Ozzie's mouth is unreliable. Who knows what goes on in that head. He's a great manager though, if inprecise mouth.

"The Sox want a new number 2 hitter, nobody said anything about you wanting one. That's why Pierre has been brought up so much cause the Sox want to move Iguchi down to make use of his power." Great, they want a new number 2 hitter, I'd like a BMW, but that isn't going to happen because it WOULD COST TOO MUCH. I'd have to sell my computer and the cheapo car I have now and god knows what else, and boy I can't even post on soxtalk anymore! Although some of you would like that, I'm not going to make it happen ;-) Similiary, just say no to Juan Pierre. He is a terrible freaking number 2 hitter, god, go get a number two hitter, but where the heck is he going to play? Juan Pierre plays CF obviously, the only position on the field open for the Sox. So if Juan comes in he is the new sparkly number 2 hitter? Great, a guy with worse stats than Gooch and Rowand comes in and hits number two. uhg, I'm going to to the bar to get even more beligerent, hopefully I have at least provoked some raw emotion in the cold winter.

Yea, it would be nice to have a backup leadoff man, but it would be nice to have alot of things, and the Sox budget is near max, if we sign another utility man, I think were maxed out, given that Marte and Duque stay. The money Pierre makes will probably max out the payroll and preclude any chance of getting a decent utility type in case Kong or Crede go down, (who knows with Reinsdorf, but it can't be wrong to assume he thinks anything much above 85 million is stretching it, which we'd have to go way over if we trade for Juan and another utiilty type.) So given the budget, I don't think it's a wise tradeoff to bring in Juan, when a fine and very cheap option exists in the sox farm system.

Huh? I think something got lost in that translation. I think Iguchi is fine in the number two spot. I don't advocate any linup changes from last year, Juan can hit 9, I like that. I'm not sending any memo to the sox to go look for a number 2 hitter; I'm sending a memo to the board that the Sox shouldn't trade for Juan Pierre. We don't need a number 2 hitter, which is why we don't need to trade for Pierre, along with a million other reasons, most of which deal with how bad a hitter Juan is, and that BA can't be any worse while coming much cheaper.

IS HE GOING TO HIT LEADOFF FOR THE SOX. Sorry about shouting, but christ almighty, listen to yourselves, we need a #2 hitter--he will not hit leadoff if traded to the Sox. He will hit number 2, which would be a mistake. I'm not sure why everyone is trumpeting his OPB, it was terrible last year--.326...wow, quite the leadoff man. Career you say: .355. I concede that .355 is a decent enough number, but it sure as heck isn't noteworthy, not for a "leadoff" hitter. He has speed, but rarely gets on to use it. I'm kinda tired of looking up all these stats on my dialup, so if anyone wants to pick up the anti-pierre cause that would be cool. His 2006 salary is going to be above 5 million, FYI, which of course is about 4.75 million more than any of our in house options. Roughly, 1/17 of the whitesox total payrole would be going to trade for Juan, plus whatever talent we have to give up, and I have to think the marlins ain't taking El Duque or Marte, they want prospects.

Players on the Sox that had a better OPS than Juan Pierre in 2005: The entire starting lineup--yes, even such "heavyweights" as Scottie Pods, Juan Uribe, Arow, and AJ. Enough really can't be said about how bad Juan was last year at the plate. Juan Pierre, Career Splits: .305 .355 .375 .730 Arow, Career Splits: .283 .337 .451 .788 Both players are the same age. Now, Arow is generally noted as a good but not great CF with an average arm. Juan is a average fielder with a below average arm, kinda like scottie pods, actually, alot like scottie pods. Why would we trade anything for Pierre? Please tell me, we already have a Juan Pierre clone in Scottie Pods, we need a number 2 hitter with a little bit of Pop for crying out loud. It's hard for me to see Juan Pierre setting the table with a career OPS ops of .730, especially considering that he has played half his career in Coors Field. Throw in the fact that NL pitching is weaker than AL pitching, and Juan is almost certainly not going to have anything close to a productive year in CF.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/stats?playerId=4486 Please tell me which of Juan's 6 (yes I was wrong) seasons was good. I say 2001, 2003, 2004. He played 3 of his career 6 seasons at Coors Field. I'm sure that couldn't have hurt his OPS. His plate discline number are way below way what they were in 2001, which suggest that (gasp!) 2004 was mostly luck. He stunk in 2005, we already have a light hitting speedster in LF, we don't need another. His OPS in 2005 was .680!

Ok, I've not nearly as familiar with Owens as I am with BA and Juan Pierre. Here is a long winded yet thorough post about Juan I made earlier. I think it might convince you that he stinks. http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=43560

Trading Owens for Pierre would be the dumbest move KW could make. I thought Owens was projecting to be an All-Star, (the highest cieling of any position player the sox have right?) and you're suggesting trading him for a number "2" hitter who doesn't work the count, had a .326 OBP (OMG!) in 2005, has had 2 good seasons out of 7 in the majors, makes 5 million a year, and plays crap defense? No thanks.

Good post balta, I agree with everything you said. BA is dirt cheap, and his offense can hardly be any worse than Rowand's. He might hit .250 but he's a lock to have at least Rowand's 2005 OPS, what was it, like .736 or something bad like that. Defensively, I think it is mostly agreed upon that BA has a better arm than Rowand, better speed, and gets good jumps and reads. I really think at his price tag of $250,000, and that fact that Thome is guaranteed to offset any loss from Rowand's spot, that this move is a no brainer. Plug BA into CF, let him struggle, just keep telling him to play solid D, thats all we need.

Yea, I guess the speculation that the Angels offered 65 million is just uncomfirmed rumor, but still, I think this deal came with just a bit of "home town discount"

Yea, lost in this is the fact that Konerko was offered more money by both the Angels and the Orioles, yet decided to stay with the Sox for less. A great guy, I only wish him the best. Konerko did a lot of talking after the WS about how he loved Chicago and could never picture himself leaving, but as we've all experienced, oftentimes this is just talk. Well, Kong walked the walk.

I said when the sox are down more than by 2 runs.. Personally I love the strategy of bunting early in the game to get that 1st run, but after that, I think it's usefullness has been disproven, except in certain late game or 1 run scenarious. But I for one am happy to be arguing about this! It's great to be the champs, and it's great to only be able to nitpick. Great job by KW to get Kong signed and Thome into the DH!

Yea, he could hit 20 homers, but I'm hoping he does that in the 2 hole, and just stops bunting pods and uribe over so damn much, and stops giving away outs. Especially when the Sox are behind by more than 2 runs.

Good, now this team has absolutely NO need to trade for Juan Pierre. The offense is already vastly improved over last season, basically taking out Jurassic and Rowand, two of our worst run producers, and replacing them with Thome and Brian Anderson. Now anderson has no pressure on him and he can have a splits of 265/350/705 and if he plays good defense he's golden. If you want to argue about Pierre, please feel free, but I already answered alot I feel on the "Juan Pierre Dossier" thread, I know many here are in agreement that BA should be the CF next year. The Konerko signing only cements that in my mind, because now Thome is def the almost full time DH. Guch is fine in the number 2 spot, I don't know what all the fuss is. He's not going to magically hit 30 bombs if he moves down to 6 or 7.

Timo and Gload gone? Hells yea, sounds like a plan to me. Gload does nothing above average, and for his position, he's a terrible run producer. Timo's shortcomings have been well documented, and we have other guys (Willie or Ozona) that can fill the role of versatile speedster off the bench. I think were stuck with El Duque, which might not be a bad thing if he's willing to except being a spot starter and/or long man. I hope he realized that we're counting on him to show up big time at least a few times next year, (hopefully in October again) and that he's making 4.5 million, so he won't complain too much.

Yea, whoops, he had over 200 hits in 2004 I believe. Obviously I was looking at his stats for awile today, must have gotten that one a bit jumbled up!

The best part about trading Rowand: perhaps the endless dicussion about CF in 2006. Juan Pierre is a name often throwed around as a possible replacement. Here is the 411 on Juan. Juan made 3.6 million last year, and is set to make over 4 million after arbitration this winter. Pierre had over 200 hits last year, but his OBP was a measly .326. His OPS was only .680. He did steal 57 bases, and had a nice success rate of .77. He also struck out (45) more times than he walked (41). His numbers last year indicate a player who has good speed but rarely gets on base to use it. Don't let his batting average fool you: Pierre has poor plate discipline. His "equivalent average", which is a good measure of a players total offensive output (much better than BA, regardless of what you think of Moneyball and the like) was only .257. Before you go crazy and yell about stat geeks, realize that Arow's EQA was .267, which they consider, for his plus defense, a nice enough number. Juan's career numbers aren't much better. He is 28 and has a career ops of .730, having a career avg of .305. Note that in the prime of his career, at 28, 2005 was actually a down year for Juan--he regressed. He hit only .276 in 2005. He wasn't getting on base nearly enough to take full advantage of his speed. In fact, from 2003 to 2005, Juan's offensive indicators have taken a nosedive: BB/SO: 2003: 1.57 2004: 1.29 2005: .91 BB/PA 2003: .71 2004: .61 2005: .58 Somehow, he is seeing more P/PA in the last three years: 2003: 3.44 2004: 3.51 2005: 3.69 For easy comparison, Uribe averaged 3.83 in 2004, and 3.54 in 2005. Both are impatient hitters. Offensively, Juan is not what any team needs in CF, at least not the free swinging, light hitting Juan of 2005. If he can somehow return to hsi 2003-2004 numbers, then he might be a decent enough option, but that is a big stretch. Juan's stats from those years are nice, but his plate discipline has not improved since 2003, and it appears his 2005 numbers, (which are much closer to his career numbers) are the real Juan Pierre. Granted, he could bust it up next year, stranger things have happened, but I wouldn't bet on it. Coming from the inferior NL will make it even harder. For his career, it has been noted be stat geeks and "old school" scouts that Pierre is at best an average defensive centerfielder with a an average arm. I really don't see what the fuss is about Juan. IMO, it is in no way worth it to trade any prospect for him, when a better option in B.A. already exists. The Sox offense needs to get better, not worse, Pierre was worse than Rowand offensively, both for his career and in 2005. I believe Anderson has to be at least on par with the Rowand of 2005, with slightly worse batting being offset by slightly better defense. Throw in the fact that his is going to be over 3.5 million dollars cheaper than Pierre, and it's a no brainer.

"That being said, the Sox have had a very difficult time producing productive major league pitchers the last 10 years, especially during the KW regime." Huh? Buerhe, Garland, Wells, Cotts, Foulke...the list goes on. I wouldn't say the Sox have been "A+++ smiley face" about developing pitchers, but I wouldn't say they have had "a very difficult time" either. Developing Buehrle and Garland into top flight pitchers, (albeit only this year for Garland) does a lot for me.

"I bet there's 2 or 3 players on every team in baseball whose fans think the same way. Stats prior to the 2005 season shouldn't be used when evaluating players, sadly." Huh? You just argued that only stats from the previous season should be used to evaulate players? That makes no sense at all for a variety of reasons, the most obvious being small sample size. I won't bother to highlight the other deficiences with that way of thinking.

As a side note, my father, who is way more knowledgable about stadiums than I am, has said that his trip to Pacbell was the best stadium he's every experienced. I'm curious to here if anyone else has been there, and what they have to say about it.

I hate to make this into a discussion about Detroit, but I will anway. I live in Michigan, have my whole life. Do I want to move, hell yes. But is Detroit as bad as it's rep--I don't think so. The City sucks, I would never live there, but I know many great people from the Detroit Suburbs, yes, I'm white and middle class, but whatever. Detroit is a symptom of greater economic and social change in America: away from manufacturing and towards conservatism. Wage cuts due to pressure abroad has gutted the middle class blue collar worker, which used to a symbol of Detroit's luxury. "White Flight", has gutted the cities tax revenue, not to mention taken many of it's best minds (not being racist, this is just a fact, I don't think minorities are "inherently" less smart) away. All that being said, the Detroit downtown is way, way better than 5 years ago. Yea, there is still crime, still very grey, very abandoned buildings, but improved is the operative word here. The NYTIMES recently ran a piece on the rising cost of real esate in the metro area, while the next day a piece ran lamenting other problems the city faces. I think, to care about Detroit, and to accurately face it's problems is a major step in realizing that big cities across the country are failing, many for the same reasons as Detroit. I don't think the problem is terminal, as the rebirth of downtown D-town shows. wow, off my drunk soapbox

Thanks to my dad, I've been able to experience a few ballparks: Old Comiskey The Cell Yankeee Stadium Tiger Stadium Comerica HHH Metrodome The Skydome The Stadium the Fish play in (which sucks, football facility, it feels all wrong) Of those, the HHH Metrodome is by far the worst. It feels all wrong, from the roof to the turf to the food. The skydome is much better, the best dome I've experienced for baseball. The parking is easy, despite being right downtown in beautiful Toronto, the night my dad took me we got to see the roof recede, which was sweet when it was all the open. It almost felt just like an outdoor park, except the turf of course. The food and beer are pricey, but very good as well. I saw Cubs/Yankees at Yankee Stadium this year, an amazing experience. The subway on the way to the game was a great experience in itself, packed with Cubs and Yankees fans. Tiger Stadium isn't as bad as it gets reps for. I remember having outfield seats and it felt like we were right next to Griffey in center. Like talking distance away. Comerica is great, I don't know what people are complaining about. Downtown Detroit is much improved in the last 5 years, and the ballpark has an amazing field and turf, as well as great seating along the first base line (where we had tix both nights last year) The Cell is average in my opinion, although I haven't been since the recent renovations.