Balta1701

QUOTE(daa84 @ May 30, 2006 -> 04:39 PM) sabathia just pissed himself at the thought of uribe anderson and ozuna coming up this inning Yeah, Ozuna finally dropped below .400 after the first inning.

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ May 30, 2006 -> 04:36 PM) ESPN is really slobbering all over Buehrle, and I love it. So you're saying mark is throwing a spitball?

QUOTE(daa84 @ May 30, 2006 -> 04:33 PM) haha just take thome + konerko.....they have 35, and the cubs as a team have 36 Can Pujols catch the Cubs?

13 pitch 2nd inning for CC. 31 pitches for him through 2. QUOTE(whitesoxin @ May 30, 2006 -> 04:30 PM) 49 homers so far through 50 games and two innings. That's quite impressive. Are you counting just the big 3?

And I'm glad I picked Dye to click. He just kills CC for some reason.

Nice quick inning for Mark. Somehow, Aaron Small pitches over a bases loaded, 0 out, Ordonez, Guillen, and Shelton up situation in the 1st without giving up a run.

QUOTE(tigerfan @ May 30, 2006 -> 04:17 PM) Little side note, Yanks get a leadoff triple in the first, but Colon retires the side after that, including 2 K's. For a moment I thought Bartolo had actually come off the DL. Bases loaded, nobody out for Detroit.

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ May 30, 2006 -> 03:45 PM) If AJ can bump up his RBI totals a bit, Oz wont keep him off the roster... Ozzie has less input on this roster than guys used to...mainly a result of Torre's stacking of the roster with Yankees a few years ago IIRC. Many of the slots are now actually chosen by the players (that's how PK got on there last year). QUOTE(sayitaintso @ May 30, 2006 -> 04:05 PM) If JT would have difficulty, then why wouldn't Ortiz since he is a DH too? Ortiz is a DH, but he's also on the ballot as a 1st baseman this year. Thome's in a worse spot because the Sox have another all star playing at 1b, while the Red Sox do not, so the BoSox could get Ortiz in the voting by saying he was a 1st baseman and pretending Youkilis exists as much as the other Greek Gods.

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ May 30, 2006 -> 03:26 PM) Tek is going to be lucky to make the All Star game this year. Paul,Jim,Dye,Pierz,MB,and Count should all be there. I think AJ's a bit of a stretch, given the numbers that guys like Mauer and Posada are running right now. hell, AJ has fewer RBI's than any other starting catcher in the AL save Kendall. Varitek also may be voted in again despite his bad numbers the first 2 months.

Say what you want about Jones, Ray, even Jenks...but to put together an All Star Bullpen without Rivera is just wrong...especially if you actually want home field advantage in the W.S.

Boy do I f***ing hate prox mines.

QUOTE(sayitaintso @ May 30, 2006 -> 02:59 PM) I would imagine that their bill would be through the roof unless that coach had the same service. Compared to what a coach makes in their next contract after they score a recruit who gets them into the round of 64 and earns them an extension and a new shoe contract? I doubt they care.

QUOTE(WCSox @ May 30, 2006 -> 02:59 PM) But I thought that we could spend $10 million/year on a 4th/5th starter? $12-$15 mil for Buehrle. $10 = Contreras. What is it with the money from Arizona, like $10-$11 mil for Vazquez? Then it comes down to Garcia versus Garland, and they're both at around $10 mil next year (especially if we trade Garland & have to sign Garcia to an extension.) Mac = 5th starter until he gets that first cy young award. So either way, we'll be spending at least $9 mil for a 4th starter, unless somehow KW pulls a miracle and turns Garland/Garcia into a ML ready starting pitching prospect.

The White Sox have already hit 44 home runs in May. This passes the team record of 37 home runs in may, set in 2000.

QUOTE(WCSox @ May 30, 2006 -> 02:35 PM) Sure, if you're not paying three other starters in your rotation $10-$11 million/year and are on the verge of having to re-sign your ace to a $15 mil+/year contract. Not to mention a third-baseman who will also be looking for a long-term deal soon. Garland's also well worth it if you have a strong, young bullpen and you don't have long-reliever who will likely put up similar numbers at the back of the rotation at just a fraction of the cost. But that's not the case here. Oh that's pretty silly...judging whether or not that deal makes sense to a particular team doesn't depend only on what other people on the team are making, it depends on how much your team is able to spend overall, and what you have on the way up. You don't need to have a strong, young bullpen to offset the cost of an expensive starting pitcher if, for example, you have a strong, young outfield, with 2-3 guys making pretty close to the league minimum, as we'll have in a year or two if things go well, a young closer, and a few other young guys intersperced in there, such as your last starter. If we're paying $100 mil a year, and we have guys like Anderson, Sweeney, Macarthy, Jenks, and eventually Stewart, Fields, and maybe Owens and a few other relievers hanging around, then there's no reason why we can't spend that much on a 4th/5th starter. The real question we still have to answer is who will be the 4th starter next year, and what will we get for the guy who departs to make room for Mac.

Finally, ESPN has something other than Barry Bonds to focus on that will allow them to ignore the play of 90% of the league.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ May 30, 2006 -> 01:50 PM) Hand it over and I'll tell you. Seriously, I don't disagree, however, I do think that this could influence something that is perhaps NOT related to said bill. If you KEEP giving me $10,000, I might just be more influenced to vote your way. It's a slippery slope. My point is, (surprise!!!) they all do it. Yes, they do all do it. However, that is not the brunt of the ethics problems we currently have in Congress...the Jefferson, Dukestir, Delay, Ney, Burns, Pombo, Lewis, Hastert (and so on, there's a lot more) problems are focused on something far more specific...the actual quid pro quo, or even worse, bribery. The Cunningham (and others) and Jefferson scandals are about outright bribery...that would be me giving you $10,000 personally (and, it appears, a couple of prostitutes and a Watergate hotel room) if you were to put something into a bill that would make me a cool million. The Abramoff one is far more complex, involving false charities which basically were set up to donate the money they took in to the GOP, quid pro quos galore (That's the I'll give you $10,000 in donations and a few expensive golf trips if you make this happen), hiding of those sorts of gifts from Congress and the IRS, bribery along the Cunningham lines, and so on. Right now, in both my eyes and in the eyes of the law, there are massive differences between the stuff these guys have been doing and the stuff that "They all do." It'd be nice to stop some of the stuff that "They all do" in order to prevent any appearance of impropriety...but well, the guys in power don't want it to stop, so they do things like strip down lobbying reform bills and put Ted Stevens on the conference committee.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ May 30, 2006 -> 01:39 PM) Its so funny that Javier Vazquez can do no wrong on this board, and is called the next Ace, yet posts a similar career ERA to Garland and gets paid more money. And Vazquez did most of his work in the NL as well. 4.53 for Garland career vs. 4.27 for Vazquez. Interesting way to look at it. And JV is about 3 years older. QUOTE(Felix @ May 30, 2006 -> 01:44 PM) There's a difference between a 4.42 ERA and 1.38 WHIP (Garland), and a 4.28 ERA and 1.27 WHIP (Vazquez). Vazquez has also had numberous successful seasons (2000-2003), and had more above average seasons than average seasons... unlike Garland. (these numbers aren't including this years stats) JV's WHIP was 1.36 when he was 1 year away from hitting Free Agency (the place Garland was at the end of last season.)

QUOTE(kapkomet @ May 30, 2006 -> 01:35 PM) Did he take the tickets, or not? It doesn't matter how he voted. Was it "ethical" to take those tickets? Personally, I could care less that he took them. But it can look bad. The Ethics "problem" if we really want to focus on it would be the "Quid Pro Quo's" in Congress...i.e. a lobbyist offering something to try to convince a person to vote a certain way, and the person voting that way. So yes, given that the tickets seem to have failed to influence him, yeah, it probably was ethical. If I offered you $10,000 and didn't ask you to do anything at all, would it be ethical for you to accept the $? (Assume that it's not laundered money or anything like that.)

QUOTE(kapkomet @ May 30, 2006 -> 01:07 PM) So, it's a "smear" when it happens to a Democrat, but it's corruption all over the place when a Repulican is involved in the same types of things? They are all b****es to the money, power, and lobbyists. Period. No, it's a smear when people allege corruption and wrongdoing when none is present. I'd be more than happy for every single Republican who was given free tickets to skyboxes by Jack Abramoff to get his own article detailing it to jump on, but I don't want to get to 20,000 posts that fast...and most of those congresspeople wound up actually supporting the legislation that the lobbyist wanted, not opposing it. You know as well as I do that I'd be more than happy to end the entire industry of lobbyists. But playing up some sort of false equality by casually leaving key out details from stories or by focusing on things like this story, where a Senator takes something from a lobbyist and then fails to support what the lobbyist wants, when there are dozens of examples of senators taking things from lobbyists and then deciding to support the lobbyist position, just shows that people care more about hurting the other side than they do about real lobbying reform.

Linky.

QUOTE(Felix @ May 30, 2006 -> 12:40 PM) Again, the Yankees, injury prone, and a VERY good pitcher when fully healthy. The Dodgers signed that contract, the Yankees only traded for him.

Origins of a smear. AP publishes article that works as hard as possible to paint Harry Reid in a bad light. Harry Reid took some free Boxing tickets from the Nevada Gaming commission, and then voted against the bill the gaming commission was lobbying on behalf of. The AP cites a couple of unnamed "Ethics experts" who think it's a bad idea. Oh, and this is the same AP Guy who 2 months ago wrote a story on how Reid was lobbied on behalf of an Abramoff client, supporting a bill related to the Marianas Islands, without ever noting that Reid opposed the bill. Next step? CNN and MSNBC run with the exact same story, except they casually forget to include the little note that Reid actually voted against what the NGC was lobbying on behalf of. The Republicans reduce the CNN story, which left out the most important, key detail which proves that Reid didn't do a damn thing wrong, into the slogan "Harry Reid ethics violator." So, Reid gets stuff from lobbyist, votes against what the lobbying party wanted, and turns into an ethics violater. The liberal media at it again. Meanwhile, those same Republicans, so desperate to make Congress clean again make $$$ have taken the incredibly stripped-down lobbying reform package to a conference committee. Who did the Senate appoint to that committee? Was it either of the Senators who backed much stronger reform proposals? Nope, it's Ted Stevens (R - AK). The question now is...will Senator Stevens be able to insert another $300 million Bridge to Nowhere in the lobbying bill, just to make sure that it's a joke to everyone, not just to the folks paying attention.

QUOTE(Felix @ May 30, 2006 -> 12:08 PM) I fail to see how giving an average starter $10 million in 2007 and $12 million in 2008 is lower than market value. AJ Burnett moved to the 60 day DL from the 15 day DL.

Didn't see this posted anywhere, so here we go. Crash returned from the DL saturday night to quite a few standing ovations. At least one person had a sign saying "Chicks dig scars." Rowand is 2/11 (2 doubles, 2 runs scored) since his return.