Balta1701

Something that should have been passed a long time ago, IMO. Paying $750 billion out of bonds to finance a war while cutting taxes is just asking for long-term trouble.

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Mar 26, 2007 -> 05:16 PM) I just hate not being AS excited as I usually am for the upcoming season. There has just been a bad vibe this spring it seems, with some very questionable decisions coming from management. I hope they make us all look like idiots, but right now I am not thrilled with the was this team is headed into the Opener. Before 2005, and I wasn't here so there's no evidence, but I was pumped. I was pumped that we actually had a balanced lineup, I was pumped that we had a pitching staff that could go 1-6, I was pumped that we had a bunch of people who might be on their way to improvement. I just am not pumped right now.

QUOTE(ChiSoxLifer @ Mar 26, 2007 -> 05:09 PM) Can anyone here say the 2006 Cardinals or the 2005 White Sox had the most talent when they won their respective World Series? I'll give you the 2006 Cardinals...but here's the key thing. When all of the cards have been shown, when each team has had its season on the line...what is the one commonality? Their pitching stepped up. In 2005, the White Sox pitching staff carried a mediocre offense to 110 wins. The pitching was just phenomenal the entire year. In 2006, the Cardinals struggled, but when they hit the playoffs, they finally had a rotation where guys stepped up, and those pitchers took care of business. I was saying in July of last year that the Mets would lose in the playoffs the moment they ran into a team which was pitching well, and they did. Most talent is not the issue. Most talent, and most performance, at the key spots is a much bigger issue to my eyes. You get starting pitching and bullpen pitching...and you look pretty darn good as long as you're putting something on the field. Especially if you combine that with defense.

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Mar 26, 2007 -> 05:08 PM) Once again, I just get an awful vibe going into this season, and I hate it. My mood just significantly soured...and the combination of the performance of our pitching staff combined with the whole Erstad/Anderson situation is worrying me more and more. With the FA situation, it may be entirely possible that the White Sox could be selling by the trade deadline this year and stockpiling more for next year. QUOTE(fathom @ Mar 26, 2007 -> 05:09 PM) Super, the only position where I felt we upgraded during the offseason, and now it's a downgrade. Are you certain? I'll give you a choice between Wiki, the Widge, and Alomar Sr., and suicide is not an option.

Erstad, CF Iguchi, 2B Konerko, 1B Dye, RF Crede, 3B Cintron, SS Anderson, LF Molina, C Vazquez, P Roberts, CF Vizquel, SS Bonds, LF Durham, 2B Klesko, 1B Feliz, 3B Molina, B, C Winn, RF Cain, P

QUOTE(Milkman delivers @ Mar 26, 2007 -> 12:53 PM) Need Damien Miller. Yay! Finally someone noticed what I said a little while ago!

QUOTE(LVSoxFan @ Mar 26, 2007 -> 12:50 PM) http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/preview07/co...&id=2809709 Interesting stuff. I thought Jenks hit triple digits more than he did. Although he has that nasty curveball to use too. Zumaya, though: what a monster. Jenks hit triple digits a ton in 05, but very few times in 06. His 05 number might have looked like Zumaya's if he was up the whole season, but he never got back to that level last year.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Mar 26, 2007 -> 11:36 AM) Oh, and you don't need the draft. If you want more than the troop levels we have right now...yes, it requires a draft. We probably can't sustain these troop levels for another year no matter what we do.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Mar 26, 2007 -> 12:37 PM) If Toby Hall is the most significant injury to the White Sox this season, it will be a great year health-wise. Already, I think this sounds like the most significant injury to the White Sox in the last 3 years. Yeah, there have been people who have struggled some, Marte in 05, Contreras last year, but who for the most part didn't miss more than a couple weeks on the DL. Of course, there's the Frank Thomas think in 05, but he was already hurt from 04. I think this is the first guy who we projected on our 25 man from the start of spring training who will miss several months worth of time since 2004.

Ok, KW needs to be on the phone with the Brewers. They have the opposite problem...too many catchers. Damian Miller went on the DL last year with a concussion and missed a lot of time. While he was down, a guy named Mike Rivera, who is wearing a White Sox cap in his MLB.com photo, came up and did an admirable job. Rivera has had a good spring, and is out of options, so the Brewers don't want to lose him, but also don't know if they want to use a roster spot to hold 3 catchers. One of those 2 guys should be available and it shouldn't cost an arm and a leg.

Teams with 3 catchers on their roster: Tampa Bay: Dioner Navarro, Josh Paul, Shawn Riggans (all righties) LAA: Mike Napoli, Jose Molina, Jeff Mathis (2 quasi rookies, all righties) Texas: Gerald Laird, Miguel Ojeda, Guillermo Quiroz, (all righties) Philadelphia: Rod Barajas, Chris Coste, Carlos Ruiz (all righties) Cinci: David Ross, Javier Valentin (S), Chad Moeller (one switch, 2 righties) Houston, Brad Ausmus, Humberto Quintero, Eric Munson (L) Milwaukee: Johnny Estrada (S), Damian Miller, Mike Rivera Pittsburgh: Ronny Paulino Ryan Doumit (S), Humberto Cota Arizona; Chris Snyder , Miguel Montero (L), Robby Hammock All righties unless otherwise noted

So...aside from Alomar and Widger...does anyone have any other ideas for someone who might be available? Javy Lopez did just come to mind, I believe he was released by the Rockies. He was able to put up a .270 .293 .404 .697 against lefties last year.

QUOTE(GoSox05 @ Mar 26, 2007 -> 12:14 PM) what is Aj's career batting average against lefties? Career, here's AJ against lefties (618 AB) .248 .274 .350 .624 That .624 OPS is downright Erstadian.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 26, 2007 -> 10:25 AM) Floyd needs consistency and confidence, and he isn't getting those in the Sox' pen. Haeger needs a new challenge, after how well he did in AAA last year (his spring numbers I question, given the knuckle thing in dry high air), and still was almost as good as Floyd in ST. I guess I just see different needs in those two than you do. All I'm going to say to support my case is this: Charlie's splits from last year.

One game. Which should be a lot better than the 0 i've been at the last 5 years.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Mar 26, 2007 -> 09:47 AM) I know Danks should start working on his HOF induction speech, but everyone is basing their giddiness on 16 sspring training innings. McCarthy was even more impressive in the spring of 2005. We all may want to keep that in mind. And McCarthy wound up being a key to the White Sox making the postseason with some of his games down the stretch. McCarthy also went face to face with Johan 2 days after the Rally Crede game and left after 8 innings with the game knotted at 1.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Mar 26, 2007 -> 06:14 AM) Still, I believe our system fixes itself if we let it work. I think an impeachment trial would be a huge mistake and I frankly haven't seen enough that I would pin personally on Bush. What about an impeachment trial of only Gonzalez? He's clearly the one who went out on a limb and lied to Congress...the Congress has enough on him to push for one based on his previous testimony and how many documents totally contradict it, and Congress is fully within it's rights to push for an impeachment of the AG.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Mar 26, 2007 -> 08:17 AM) The problem with this war is it is more of a war of psychology then ever before. And, let's face it, Americans are wusses in the wars of psychology. We don't have the guts to stand up for our values anymore. I think at some level, Kap does have a point, even though I disagree with him in general. Let's say I accept Mr. Bush at his word. Let's say that the Iraq war is the Central Front in the War on Terror, adn we're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here, and every other thing Mr. Bush has said to try to keep support for this thing going is correct. Let's say that the answer to the "Iraq war: Great war or Greatest War" question is "Greatest war". In that case, why the Hell is the only thing I'm being asked to do to be kind to Nuke online and go shopping? If this is the most important conflict in our history, if this is World War IV, if we can't let Iraq fall apart at any cost, then why have we been there for 4+ years with only 150,000-160,000 troops max? We've had more than enough time to actually train and equip multiple divisions if we really wanted to. We could have, at this point, drafted soldiers, trained them, equipped them, and rotated them in a couple of times. We could have, if we wanted to, had 250,000 or 300,000 troops in a regular rotation through that country right now. There has been time to do that. So ask yourself this question; why haven't we done this? Why hasn't Mr. Bush called for a draft, made it happen, spent the hundreds of billions it would have taken to expand the army, and so forth? I'll give you the 2 reasons I see. First, the American people don't believe Mr. Bush's rhetoric. This is not the most important war ever, and America will not fall apart if we leave right now. And second, Mr. Bush and the entire power structure right now, and for the last 4+ years, has been more interested in preserving their own power than actually taking the steps necessary to win. So instead of actually spending the little political capital they had to create an army to fight this war, they just denied we needed it, said it was the "last throes", and so forth. And of course, the final point is...if the people who wanted this war don't think it's important enough to risk their political power to take steps that might help...why should the American people put up with it?

QUOTE(fathom @ Mar 26, 2007 -> 09:35 AM) Cliff Floyd almost had to retire after a freak injury at 1B, and don't forget about D. Lee's injury last year. With everything included, 1B might be the most dangerous position in terms of injury out of the 4 infield positions. I really have trouble buying that just from first impressions. There's the possibility of a collision at every base. You can point to the DLee collision at first, but then I'll fire back the guys at 2nd who are turning the DP's with people bearing down on them, or colliding with Center Fielders while chasing down a popup.

All Boone needs to do is throw strikes. He was clearly scared last year, especially after Hafner destroyed that ball, and was trying to throw the perfect pitch every time. He has the stuff to make it and be one very good reliever, I think. He just needs to not fall behind every hitter.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 26, 2007 -> 05:47 AM) Agree. Haeger doesn't get much out of AAA anymore, but I think Floyd needs a year starting there to get consistent. I hope to see Haeger in the pen sooner rather than later, or in the rotation of something goes wrong there. I dunno, I think that Charlie probably has some more he could learn from AAA as well. Maybe more than Floyd, given how much time each of them has spent there. Charlie's still only 2 seasons removed from starting the year in high-A ball, and he did struggle for a lot of the 2nd half last year. He has to work on throwing more strikes with the knuckler, and he's only been throwing it for a couple years, so the more work, the better. Based on how they performed this spring, Floyd to the pen where Cooper gets to keep working with him and Haeger to AAA where he can work on throwing strikes is as good of a gamble as any other one we could have made.

Congrats Danks. No matter the circumstances regarding how he gets the job, or how we got him in the first place, or what we gave up to get him, I cheer first and foremost for laundru. Therefore, I'm going to now sit here and hope that Texas just gave us our Weaver. Go get em Kid. Earn yourself a nice fancy trophy this year.

Worth-reading SI piece on BMac and the deal that sent him over.

Chien Ming Wang pulled a hamstring and will probably miss all of April. Andy Pettitte has also been having back spasms, so the Yankee's starting rotation is starting to look pretty familiar.

Garland gives up 3 straight hits to start the game, and 1 run in the first... and his ERA actually goes down.