Balta1701

QUOTE(WCSox @ Mar 11, 2006 -> 01:55 PM) Of course, JR and KW might not like what the arbitrator has to say next year and decide to trade him. I don't see any chance in hell of us re-signing him over the long term with Boras negotiating his deals. On that we agree...which is why we have a 3rd baseman who's been raking in the spring about to hit AAA. They drafted Fields because of Boras...on that I don't think there's any doubt. The only question looks to be when they'll decide Fields is ready...and if they'll move Crede to make room for him if he is ready. I seriously would't be surprised if we see a couple of the 05 guys dealt at the end of this year if guys like Sweeney, Owens, and Fields have great years in AAA.

QUOTE(Felix @ Mar 11, 2006 -> 10:25 AM) Thats a good signing for the Browns. Looks like they are trying to improve their offense this year. They need a quarterback.

QUOTE(fathom @ Mar 11, 2006 -> 01:54 PM) We've had two straight seasons where our closer (Shingo/Hermanson) pitched out of their minds. Both of them were amazing during their closer stretch during their particular season, and I think we took them for granted. I'm confident Jenks will do well, and I don't anticipate Koch Jr. If Jenks somehow has his fastball drop 10 mph like the closer who will not be named who came here along with Neal (Thank you for that throw in KW)...then he'll be in deep trouble. Jenks is going to be the key to this bullpen. The closer almost always is. I think I like the idea of having a guy who can throw 100 be the guy we need to succeed the most.

Aside from Pittsburgh and Dallas, who else would be interested in Randle El's services? Those have been the other 2 teams I've heard floated.

QUOTE(WCSox @ Mar 11, 2006 -> 01:52 PM) I thought that he had an option for '07 and that was it? Apparently I was wrong. For those who think that we need another middle reliever RIGHT NOW, the Cintron signing seems to suggest that KW isn't done wheeling and dealing just yet. It may happen sooner than you think. Nope. Crede has gone through 1 of 3 arbitration eligible years. He will be first eligible for FA after 2008. He signed a 1 year deal this year to avoid arbitration. Even if he signs another 1 year deal next offseason, we will still have the rights to him in 2008. In other words, Fields has 3 years to be fully ready to replace him.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Mar 11, 2006 -> 01:45 PM) I just hope everyone who says the bullpen is fine as currently constructed, doesn't start complaining if it doesn't work out. I will be the first one to say I was wrong if the bullpen is strong this year. I think the bullpen will probably be ok, not exceptional...but we won't know until we get into the season. If it turns out we have holes...hopefully we can fill them with a trade. Usually at least a couple of pitchers will move around at trade time. And anyway...usually the bullpen winds up being as good or as bad as your last guy. If Bobby Jenks has a real good year...it will make problems in the setup guys look a lot less important. Think about how bad the Yankee bullpen would have been these last few years without Rivera, or how bad the Braves bullpen looked last year because they couldn't close, or how much better the Cubs bullpen looked last year when Dempster finally became their closer. That role gets filled, and it makes everything else look better. And Maybe Urbina will be out of jail by then.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Mar 11, 2006 -> 01:47 PM) Crede has this season and next under White Sox control I believe. I don't think there is a chance in hell KW acquired Cintron in anticipation of Crede's departure. Perhaps as insurance for his back, I'll give you that. Crede is with the White Sox until the end of 2008 unless he's traded. 2 more years of arbitration eligibility.

QUOTE(WCSox @ Mar 11, 2006 -> 01:45 PM) See also Suzuki, Ichiro; Matsui, Hideki; Iguchi, Tadahito Just like any other population of players...you can find both success stories and failures. Anyone remember Hideki Irabu?

Just like the first time people started saying we were going to close Abu Ghraib...This whole story appears untrue.

QUOTE(SoxFan101 @ Mar 10, 2006 -> 09:57 PM) I thought the Bulls would come out of the all star game w/ a vengeance..... but they are still the same W, L, W, L, L, W, W, L, W team. They just don't have the players right now. We need a shooting guard and an inside scorer, and it's plainly obvious in every game.

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Mar 11, 2006 -> 08:01 AM) BTW, the reason that this law is particularly heinous is that it is worded in such a way that churches can be held liable for giving comfort to someone who is illegal. Meaning that they can technically be arrested for giving an illegal immigrant a meal at a soup kitchen. Cardinal Mahoney out here in L.A. has already told the catholic churches around here that they should be willing to defy that part of the law if it is passed.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Mar 11, 2006 -> 06:41 AM) I've alluded to this before - I've had some (slight) business dealings with people in the UAE... and this is something that is NOT good. People have taken this and just absolutely ran whacky with it. Flaxx has propagated what the problem really is. Look, it doesn't matter WHO OWNS the port, security is OUR problem. WE are in charge of how the ports are ran, no matter WHO OWNS them. But gee, somehow all that gets overlooked. Why? Because this was blatent racism by this country. It was Islamaphobia. And it's f***ING SICK. I understand the fact that UAE has some serious issues - ie they DO have terrorist connections, they DO NOT recognize Israel, they are participating in a ban of business with Israel, etc. etc. etc. and yes this is problematic. Something needed to be done, however, you don't want to cut your nose off to spite itself, and we just did that. Sometime, if anyone cares, I can share my experience in dealing with Dubai business folks. It was pretty interesting the exchanges. I'd be more interesting in knowing how much damage that could actually do to this country. One of the more interesting things about the world economy right now is that if you're not Saudi Arabia or Venezuela, you need the U.S. more than the U.S. needs you. The UAE doesn't want to do trade deals with the U.S.? Ok, that'll cost what, a couple thousand jobs in the U.S., maybe a couple tens of thousands? In a country of 250 million, that's a much smaller deal than in a country of 2.4 million. Yes, it's nice being able to do business with everyone in the world, but sometimes things just conspire to make that impossible politically. We're in a spot where the UAE can hurt a few people, but the steel tarriffs probably did 10x the amount of damage to industries (other than steal) than any action by the UAE would.

If the Democrats really want to continue making an issue out of this, instead of just letting the Republicans say "Look how independent we are from Bush!" that NYT article is their outline.

Bush nominated that guy twice to the 4th U.S. Circuit court of appeals. The Democrats filibustered his nomination both times. Thank God for the Filibuster. He also was in charge of the first few weeks of the White House's Katrina task force.

Well, that's a shame. In the "I wanted him to be found guilty first" sense.

QUOTE(kevin57 @ Mar 10, 2006 -> 07:23 PM) Ah, but you forgot the biggest of all: the Big Hurt. For those who lamented the Sox' lack of power last year, Frank was supposed to be it, yet he was out most of the season. Actually, I included that..."Our best hitter managed to have only about 90 at bats"

QUOTE(chitownsportsfan @ Mar 10, 2006 -> 06:45 PM) I am most optimisic about the offense this season. Say we score 50 more runs--will that make up for losses other places? Hopefully. Last year, scoring 50 more runs would have made us the #4 offense in the AL.

You know what this means? People will be scared off...so TICKETS WILL BE EASIER TO GET!!!

QUOTE(POPPY_HIDALGO @ Mar 10, 2006 -> 06:23 PM) I think its safe to say that at worst this team wins 93 games. I see them easily winning over 100 and I am going to go on record and say it right now, I wouldn't be surprised if they won 120. So when it happens remember who said it first! Dude, you actually say in your sig that Buehrle will win 26 games? When's the last time anyone actually won that many in a season for anyone?

Tracy McGrady is out for up to 5 weeks due to his back.

QUOTE(chitownsportsfan @ Mar 10, 2006 -> 06:05 PM) However, an improved bench is a reason the homer and sabermetric side of me sees nothing to argue with as a reason for optimism. Will an improved bench make of up a near certain regression from the bullpen? That remains to be seen. If it were only an improved bench that was possibly making up for a regression of the bullpen, I'd probably agree with you too. But it's not just an improved bench. It's first of all, an improved starting rotation, due to the subtraction of El Duque and addition of Vazquez. It remains to be seen how good he'll be given his struggels in recent years, but almost anything must be better than what El Duque gave us the last few months of the season where he just couldn't beat anyone and his arm was falling off. It's an improved ability to win long games, which we struggled with last year. Aside from Jenks, we had no long man...the longest other than him was Viz, who occasionally would throw 2.1 innings and then fall apart. BMac can go in and keep the bullpen alive and keep us in long games that we couldn't win last year, or he can keep the bullpen from being blown out during blow-out games. And most importantly of all, it's an almost certainly improved offense. The obvious one is Thome over Everett, which will be massively big, but AJP is almost guaranteed to improve on his numbers last year (it was his lowest OPS since he got to the big leagues, for example), Crede still has a ton of room to possibly improve if he can find a little more consistency and avoid slumps due to his back and his swing, Uribe has a ton of room for improvement and is hitting in what could be the perfect spot for him between Thome and Pods, Podsednik would have hit .300 and stolen 80 bases had it not been for his injuries, and Rowand was simply incredibly disappointing, and it won't take much for BA to equal his numbers. Oh, and Konerko has a shot at having a dynamite year also, if he avoids his early year slump (last year, had the season started on June 1, he'd have had a legit shot at MVP in the AL) The guys on our team were so surprisingly bad with the bats last year that there's room to make up for some losses which might happen if the bullpen regressess...on top of the other upgrades we made.

QUOTE(CWSGuy406 @ Mar 10, 2006 -> 05:58 PM) He's had one major league stint where he's played a little bit. That was 2004. His final line, in 200 ABs (which isn't a great deal, but it's better than nothing) was this -- .174/.249/.338. I hate to say it, that's worse than Timo's overall line. Borchard's OPS in 04 was Higher than Timo's in 05.

QUOTE(Rex Hudler @ Mar 10, 2006 -> 05:25 PM) I like how Greenspan has gone about his business (quietly) so far, so I will keep an open mind now and after a coach is named. Even if it turns out to be Alford?

On the other hand, the Sox also had plenty of things go very wrong last season. Scott Podsednik couldn't steal for the last 2 months, and spent a month barely able to play. Crede broke his hand. Jermaine Dye was attacked by a spider. A bunch of our guys continued to hit at levels well under where they should be and even well under their career averages (AJ, Rowand, Crede, Uribe, Everett) One of our pitchers had his arm fall completely off. Our best hitter managed to have only about 90 at bats. Timo Perez got 180 at bats. Our closer to start the year got shellacked Our 2nd closer blew out his back A lot of those things will change as well. So don't just say "Oh we got lucky last year". Yes, we got lucky when Mark Buehlre's foot wasn't really hurt, but there was also a sh*tload of talent on that team, with a lot of ability to overcome adversity.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Mar 10, 2006 -> 05:33 PM) That's taking into account all the starters stay healthy. Odds are one of the at the very least will miss a few starts, moving BMac to the rotation, and weaking the bullpen. Yes, that is possible...but one of the very nice things about the guys we have is that none of them have had major recent problems with injuries, beyond missing the occasional start. 2 years ago we basically used Mr. "Off day" as our 5th starter. Now we have BMac to back that up. And by having Mac in the bullpen...we can get through those long, extra inning affairs without blowing the whole bullpen out. You'll remember there were times last year where we went significant stretches with guys from the bullpen not pitching...Hermanson and Marte in particular. We can weather those stretches unless the worst case scenario of multiple people going down happens, and you just can't keep enough guys on your team to get through that - you can only carry 25 players.