Balta1701

The Al Franken Millennium truly begins...

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 1, 2007 -> 05:48 AM) His arm is still above average in strength and accuracy. He's just lost some speed and footing. The other side of the token with Dye is that there is an easy solution to the worries about him having lost a few steps in the outfield; put a freaking track star in Center Field who can cover a lot of space into the Right-Center gap. That way, Dye can cheat towards the line, and make up for some of the issues that come with age and injury. Oh, if only we had a guy who could play a dynamite Center Field defense and cover an enormous amount of ground. Quick, get Mackowiak some steroids. I understand your point, but its still not what my eyes told me repeatedly last year. In a lot of those games that were lost by more than 1 run, there was always some sort of defining moment, like a 6th inning Vazquez collapse for example, that would wind up really hurting the team, and Mack would invariably be directly involved in that. I guess that it looks like the numbers just don't back me up on this one, but my eyes say that simply playing Anderson 155+ games in CF last year turns the White Sox into a playoff team solely because of his defense.

QUOTE(santo=dorf @ Jan 31, 2007 -> 03:51 PM) B.S. Simple as that. Hey, I'm calling that one the way I see it. By my eyes when Rob Mackowiak was playing CF, in an overwhelming majority of those games he directly cost the White Sox 1 run, and indirectly usually led to at least a couple more scoring. In other words, in any game, the White Sox still had say a 50% shot at a quality start last season, but in a much higher percentage of games where he started in CF, Rob Mackowiak's defense in CF did horrific damage.

By the way, for added entertainment value, Joe Biden was as of last night scheduled for the Daily Show tonight. Not sure if his "gaffe" will force some changes of plans or anything.

QUOTE(supernuke @ Jan 31, 2007 -> 11:37 AM) Both of which are In Mackowiak's case, that is only because the pitchers were on the mound more than he was in CF. Put him in CF for 162 games, and based on his performance last year, we lose more games because of Mack in CF than because of the pitching.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jan 31, 2007 -> 10:44 AM) Which is why having Ozuna, a well below average MLB defensive outfielder, as our main back-up is inexcusable. He cost us a few games early last season with his bad defense. It's just stunning to me that we didn't do jacks*** this offseason to upgrade any part of our LF situation. # of games the White Sox lost in 2006 due to Ozuna's outfield defense

Welcome to the race, Senator Biden! Welcome back to the Senate, Senator Biden!

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 31, 2007 -> 06:00 AM) A Brownback nomination makes for an automatic Democrat win in the national election. No way he gets nominated. He would have been ideal in 2000 or 2004, during the height of power for the religious conservatives. But that is on the downslope now. He may turn out to be a VP candidate though, if the P candidate is a moderate Republican. Here's the big problem I see in the Republican field (well, other than Bush's Iraq debacle...ok, second biggest problem, with a big gap between the first 2) the couple candidates who would have the best shot (looking 20 months out) in the General might have real difficulty with the Republican primaries. Giuliani, for example, has a ton of name recognition and so forth, but how many Republicans are going to vote in the primaries for a pro-choice, pro-gay rights candidate? Romney is running into similar problems. Their primary may well wind up producing a candidate like Brownback because he plays to the base quite well (aka the Karl Rove strategy)

Baltnews is ready to declare a winner in the Florida primary...

One of the Perq's of a lifetime @ university is you don't have to spend more than a couple bucks for most Microsoft products.

Um...

QUOTE(Rex Kicka** @ Jan 30, 2007 -> 11:47 AM) The Republicans allow closure on the Minimum Wage issue, the filibuster was broken 87-10 today. I wonder if this is why.... Different possible option: By Filibustering on the Minimum Wage vote, the Republicans also kept the Senate from voting on any of the Iraq augmentation opposition bills hanging around. Reid finally also said "Enough is enough...if they keep the filibuster going on that bill, we're moving on to the next stuff either way", so the delaying benefit finally dried up.

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Jan 30, 2007 -> 11:22 AM) Oh, and... Ummm......yeah......sooooooo, you kinda just completely contradicted yourself. Cuz athleticism sort of has to deal with natural ability.....yeaaaaaaaaaaaah In baseball, not entirely...you can have a ton of natural baseball ability and be pretty darn unathletic. Some names like David Wells, CC Sabathia, Cecil Fielder, Tony Gwynn, Bobby Jenks come to mind immediately. Not exactly marathon runners, but pretty darn good baseball players.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Jan 30, 2007 -> 10:46 AM) Stewart is a right handed outfielder and if he doesn't get a contract from anyone else I don't see where the harm is in giving him a minimum deal and have him come in (in case Pods stinks) because while Stewart is god awful defensively in LF (so was Pods) he could be a decent bat to have off the bench (that said it seems we'd have one too many veteran bats on the bench if we did pick him up). Do you think he would accept a minor league deal? If not, who do we drop from the 40 man?

At least it's the NYT, so half the people here won't believe the updates anyway.

QUOTE(Heads22 @ Jan 30, 2007 -> 09:13 AM) For anyone that watched the AAA All-Star game last year, or saw the Futures game.....the thing about Josh is he swings hard and misses...quite a bit. However, when he makes contact, it's a rocket quite a bit of the time. He's going to struggle, but I think he'd hit better than BA did in the first half if brought up right now. Swinging and missing has been BA's problem too. And, IIRC, Crede's as well. Lack of command of the strike zone.

QUOTE(Alpha Dog @ Jan 30, 2007 -> 06:17 AM) Sounds like the world needs a s***load of condoms. Abstinence is the only option.

The White Sox have no remaining slots to fill on their 40 man roster, and barring an additional trade, I don't think they're looking to add anyone else right now (depending on the Uribe situation). Knowing the admiration for the way some of the Twinkies have performed the last few years within our management, I think they'd have picked up Stewart if they thought he was a viable option. They Chose Erstad.

QUOTE(Jenks Heat @ Jan 30, 2007 -> 07:40 AM) Shouldn't Joe Crede be capable of batting above sixth or seventh in the order before he is handed a contract worth over $10M a season? I like Joe Crede but Fields is a much better athlete and athletes can turn into Joe Crede type defenders (see Brandon Inge). Crede had and still can have a very long swing. He also can be fooled greatly on offspeed pitchers. Oh and wheather it was the back or not, he was not a GG thirdbaseman in the 2nd half last season. Joe Crede only hits 6th/7th on this team because of how good the people in front of him are. There are quite a few teams in the big leagues where he'd have hit 4th or 5th. The Angels, Tigers come to mind immediately. I think Uribe has a much better chance of staying at SS and not learning how to hit than he does of learning how to hit and moving to 3rd. I also think he has a good chance of eating himself right out of the major leagues.

QUOTE(Mplssoxfan @ Jan 29, 2007 -> 08:06 PM) Besides, wasn't the 80's the Al Franken Decade? But, this is the Al Franken Millennium now.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Jan 29, 2007 -> 07:47 PM) I don't think that's a good thing. You don't have much experience with this country do you? I'll bet like 40% of this country still can't find Iraq on a map, and like the same amount think that Iraq had a bunch of WMD's when we invaded them. Getting 87% of this country, plus or minus 4%, to hear about anything educational is an accomplishment.

I'm quite impressed that it's that low.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Jan 29, 2007 -> 04:54 PM) The hacker thing is interesting. How would it be different that loooking for something in all the other versions of Windows? It would more than likely effect the entire Windows family. Or do you think they would want to find something that attacks Vista and not all the others? Well, the joy of a new version of a Windows program is that it's fresh meat...it's something totally new that you can attack in a new way, and knowing microsoft, that means it has a whole new selection of flaws that snuck in and haven't yet been found. With a version that's been around there for a few months/years, then the hackers have spent all their time and effort finding all the flaws, so most of them have probably been corrected. The ol natural selection I'd say....introduce a new species into an area, and those that are weakest get weeded out rapidly by Godless Killing Machines.

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Jan 29, 2007 -> 05:37 PM) DEAD. Well, based on previous experience, this now means Helton will wind up a Yankee within a few years. Seriously, the Red Sox are a gigantic market team which is just a little too stubborn about that small-market mentality.