Balta1701

QUOTE(tonyho7476 @ May 10, 2005 -> 06:16 AM) You can't stop him, he is a gladiator! Ah---Ah---Ah----CHOO!

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ May 10, 2005 -> 10:33 AM) Its a really tough call. I would basically call Anderson untouchable, but is anyone REALLY untouchable with a chance to win the World Series? I guess it would depend mostly on how the pen looked at that point in time. If we were getting the kinds of efforts out of Marte and Hermanson that we are now, I might be tempted to stay the course, or see if I could find another closer for cheaper. The one thing I think we should keep in mind this year is that there are going to be very, very few teams that are actually out of the running at the trade deadline. KC, Tampa, Colorado, Pittsburgh, probably 1 or 2 more. Everyone else is probably going to be pretty close to the shape Houston was in last year; having an ok team but needing 1 or 2 parts if they want to win. In other words, this year could very well be one heck of a seller's market. So if we want to get anything worth while, we're going to have to give up a ton. Barring an injury to Konerko, I think our best move is to stand pat. We have backup at every single position; Perez and Anderson can back up the outfield, Ozuna, Harris, Uribe can work as backups in the infield, B-Mac and Adkins back up the pitching staff, Widger and Davis back up the catching. Right now there's just no one place that I see us having room for a big upgrade, especially one that would be worth the cost.

If they're finally saying this team will win 90, then they're giving us a lot more respect, and they deserve some credit. What people might be missing is the influence that ESPN can have on attendance. If we're getting good coverage every night...highlights that make it look like the games are entertaining and people saying we'll be having a great matchup with another team...that brings people to the ballpark. Do that for a whole season, and people start wanting to see the team because it'll be a good game to watch.

Contreras has thrown 46 pitches through 4 innings...he's had innings where he's almost thrown that many. 35 for strikes.

QUOTE(WHarris1 @ May 5, 2005 -> 11:23 AM) Awesome 1-2-3 for JC 10 pitches that inning for Jose. Not as good as Greinke, but for Jose that's a good thing to hear.

I'd say I'm only a little worried. Paulie has had his share of bad at bats in this 0 for 20-some-at bats streak he's got going, like the strikeout talked about above, but there have been a ton of balls that he has just hammered that have either fallen foul or ended up right at someone. Remember that bases-loaded lined shot he hit a few days ago right down the leftfield line that somehow managed to end up right in the glove of the 3rd baseman for a double play? That's the way Paulie's luck has been. I'll grant his timing is a little off - he's hitting a bundle of very hard foul balls down the left field line, but those are ending up foul by only a couple of feet. I'd say he should make an effort to hit the ball more to right field; might keep him back on the ball just a little more. But either way...he's hitting the ball hard and having a bunch of bad luck, so I'm still fairly confident he'll snap out of it.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ May 4, 2005 -> 11:37 AM) Sox are on CSN Plus, which for most people is CLTV. Bulls are on CSN, and the Cubs are on CSN Plus 2, which is the Total Living Network, whatever the hell that is. Was this the schedule before the season, or are they basing this on who they think will watch? I only ask because I take some joy in the Cubs being on CSN Plus 2 while the Sox get CSN plus - a closer thing to a real network.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan99 @ May 4, 2005 -> 10:15 AM) Buehrle doesn't deserve an A. Buehrle has pitched 2 of the best starts in the AL all season - opening day against Cleveland and the 1 hour race against Seattle. Those 2 have to count for something. And his loss to Minnesota happened as much because of an error by Dye as anything Buehrle did.

QUOTE(EvilJester99 @ May 4, 2005 -> 10:31 AM) Actually they did show Iguchi's HR on the "touch em all" spot. Also it was said by I think Karl Ravich They didn't show him on the "Touch em all" I watched...during the 40 minute version.

In case you somehow missed the other thread...last night John Kruk on Baseball tonight went off on a rant about how only 12,000 or so White Sox fans showed up in 40 degree windy weather to beat the last place team in our division. Well...I have a rant against Kruk in response. I watched the 40 minute Baseball tonight last night, and by the end of the show, I was literally screaming at the TV because of how badly our team was being screwed over in terms of coverage. I've got a bundle of examples of them doing this, so bear with me. First, one of their "Themes" of the night was poor baserunning. In this vein...they took the liberty to show the 1st-inning Royals double play, where both Everett and Iguchi were thrown out on the basepaths, at least 2 to 3 times - a couple while talking about baserunning, and a repeat when they showed the Sox highlights. Secondly...the White Sox hit 2 home runs in that game. KC hit 3, 2 by Sweeney. The Sox won the game. So what highlights did they choose to show when they showed the game highlights? Not any of the Sox home runs...they showed the first shot by Sweeney, and Everett's double. There was not a mention of ARow's shot, nor was there a mention of Iguchi's first home run in the US. It gets worse. At the end of the show...they run through highlights of some of the bigger home runs of the day. Guess who's shot they showed? Guess who's they didn't? They replayed the Sweeney home run, and ignored ARow and Iguchi again. In their web gems segment...those 2 early plays by Mark Buehrle got no credit. They also weren't shown in any of the highlight reels. I thought that at least 1 of them should have been noticed. And here's the one that really infuriated me. At the end of the show, they gave some air time to the people they thought were their players of the day. Their offensive one? Craig Wilson of the Pirates. What did Wilson do? He went 4 for 4, with 1 home run, 2 rbi's and 1 run scored. In case you don't remember, a guy named Tadahito Iguchi went 4 for 4, with 1 home run (his first in the USA), 2 rbi's, and 2 runs scored. And once again, he was completely glossed over...despite having what I think are better numbers than Wilson. John Kruk wants to lecture the White Sox fans about how they aren't coming out to the ballgame in 40 degree weather against the Royals. But on the same token, it's hard for me to even believe that they had anybody even watching the game. They didn't mention Dye, they didn't mention ARow, they didn't show any of those plays by Buehrle, and most annoyingly, they hardly noticed the great day had by Iguchi. If baseball tonight thinks they can lecture White Sox fans about not coming out to the park in crappy conditions, maybe they could take a second to actually acknowledge the better parts of the game, or at least pretend that they had really watched it.

CNN.com/Sports Illustrated have a piece up of the "20 best young pitchers in baseball." # 2 is our very own Mark Buehrle Here's what they have to say about him... "Mark Buehrle, 26, White Sox Season: 3-1, 3.89, K/BB: 25-9 Career: 72-46, 3.76, K/BB: 606-249 The White Sox's underrated workhorse already has four seasons of 200-plus innings under his belt. That's pretty good for a 38th round draft pick." Their #1 pitcher is Santana, as you probably expected, but I took some joy in the fact that they ranked Buehrle higher than Zambrano or Prior. John Garland was ranked #13.

QUOTE(redandwhite @ May 3, 2005 -> 02:04 PM) I don't post here anymore, but Willie Harris was placed on the DL thus resulting in the call up of Jamie Burke. Did Harris get hurt at some point? I thought he was the healthy one - the game he missed on Sunday was supposedly due to some sort of family issue, according to all the news reports.

Thus far this year, he's played in 7 games, had 19 at bats...7 hits.

QUOTE(SuperSteve @ May 2, 2005 -> 11:23 AM) So trade a proven guy so we can going into the playoff race with guys who have never been in the majors before? It's worked for Oakland. At some point you have to decide what you want your team to do...they can be good almost every year if you keep the right people in...and then you can take your chances in the playoffs, sometimes with unproven guys. Or you can be great for 1 or 2 years, have a better chance in the playoffs for those 2 years, and then have a sudden dropoff when you lose those people (see Cleveland in 2000). Personally...I think that our best chance is to try to put together a very good team every year, and hope someone like McCarthy magically does a Josh Beckett and pulls off a miracle during the playoffs. Given how volatile things can be in the postseason...if you're in there, you've got a chance, even if its just as a wild card. Unless of course, you're the Yankees and you can buy everyone and their grandmother to fill your pitching staff.

QUOTE(Jake @ May 2, 2005 -> 11:10 AM) That's exactly what I'm talking about. Also take note of what the run scored averages would be over all - the USA Today guy would find that we had a much higher average runs scored than we have had over any other stretch this season, but we'd still win more games now. What the USA Today guy isn't remembering is that last year, in 4 guys, the Sox had 40% of their total salary tied up: Konerko, Valentin, Lee, and Ordonez. No team in baseball dumped such a high percentage of its salary into only 4 guys. Not one - and that doesn't even count Thomas's dollars either. By letting those guys go, we were able to spread those dollars around. So yeah, we might not have 2 MVP candidates at the center of our lineup, but now we've got 5 actual starters, an improved bullpen, a deeper bench, and fewer holes in our lineup overall. We've spread the money around more, and it's working. Also - let's keep in mind...those 4 run per game numbers are with people like Jermaine Dye hitting .170, and I still dont' th ink he'll do that poorly the whole season. And Konerko hitting .230.

QUOTE(Punch and Judy Garland @ May 2, 2005 -> 11:00 AM) Right but you don't use them if all of your starting five is under contract. While B-Mac should be in the rotation next year, he won't be. Moving Garland after the season at a high value could be a smart move I think moving a pitcher might be a smart move, but I'd disagree with the "after the season" part. As far as I've been able to see, your best chance at getting an absolute steal in a trade is to make a deal just before the trading deadline. If you've got a starting pitcher to move...2 months into the season, you'll have guys lining up at your door offering the shirt off their back if that's what it takes. Look what we gave up for Garcia! Or again, look what the Mets gave up for Kazmir, etc. And if we were to consider moving a pitcher...I'd suggest Hernandez before Garland - assuming Garland only goes through arbitration, both of their contracts will be up at the end of 2006, and Garland has much mor eof a future.

QUOTE(Punch and Judy Garland @ May 2, 2005 -> 10:55 AM) I don't really like the idea of having a rotation that makes $40-50 million annually either though Think about this as a rotation then...Garcia's locked up at $9 a year...At some point in 2 or 3 years we'll have BMac and Gonzalez up, both of whom will be in the low millions their first few years...barring another pitcher coming up (Adkins) that'll leave us with 2 more roster spots to fill. Buehrle and Garland strike me as an ideal pair...and that gives us roughly a $30 million starting 5, and Kenny Williams won't need to trade for any more pitchers. That's the nice thing about bringing up the young guys - they don't cost a lot.

QUOTE(Punch and Judy Garland @ May 2, 2005 -> 10:50 AM) Who was the last pitcher to get more than three years, navarro? I would let Jon go to arbitration and make him prove himself all of this year and next before signing a long term deal. Problem with that is...if he keeps this up this year...we don't sign him...and then he does this again next year, he might be looking at Kevin Brown type numbers for a long-term contract. If you sign him to a 3 year deal after this season is over...yeah it costs you more next year, but then you save more the next 2 years. Can you imagine...if the Yankees or Red Sox miss the playoffs this year, what they would pay to get a 27 year old who has just come off 2 stellar seasons with the White Sox, if Garland pulls that off? It's nice to make "Certain" that he can prove himself, but if he gets out on the free agent market, I wouldn't expect him back. He'll earn way too much.

QUOTE(Controlled Chaos @ May 2, 2005 -> 10:17 AM) He will be releasing a statement any time now with the standard response of "I bought it at the store, I didn't know it was bad" and that's it. 10 days go by and he will be back pitching again. You're 100% right, and that's why Selig's new proposal is so important. I fully agree with the position John Kruk took on BBTN yesterday evening - these guys get paid millions of dollars to perform. They know exactly what they are putting in their bodies - it can cost you a million dollars a season if something doesn't work well. The "I didn't know what it was" excuse is going to be garbage in 99.9% of cases, but everyone still employs it, since its their only rational defense. If you have Selig's 50 day suspension proposal become the law of the game, then there is absolutely no excuse for anyone testing positive. These guys would risk losing $100,000+ for even the minimum-wage guys if they had 1 positive test. At that point, if you're putting something in your body wihtout knowing exactly what it is, you deserve to be suspended...and the people who do get suspended will be the ones who still thought they could beat the system. Anyone care to make any wagers about whether or not Rincon's performance level declines around the end of this season?

QUOTE(Punch and Judy Garland @ May 2, 2005 -> 10:12 AM) I believe once you test positive you are on accelrated testing but I'm not sure when that kicks in and there is a chance I'm thinking of football You are correct that you're thinking of football - in that game, if a person tests positive, he's gone for 1/4 of the season, and then is subject to something like 10+ random tests per year for the rest of his career. While there may be some reason to not trust that the NFL is not telling us the whole story on their testing program (check out this Bayless piece), at least on paper it works very well

QUOTE(Punch and Judy Garland @ May 2, 2005 -> 10:06 AM) Here's my question: Let's say you injected steroids last week. This week you get tested and fail and are suspended for ten days. Upon your return, about three weeks after using, you get tested again within 2 weeks or so. Wouldn't you still test positive from the initial usage? Do they give you a free pass since you say it's fromt he first time? Again..another reason why we need 50 game suspensions. Everyone reading this thread should do anything they can to support that proposal by Selig. I'd say that the odds of a person being tested 2 weeks after a suspension are basically nil, given that they're only tested like 2 or 3 times a year at most. But aside from that, as far as I read the rules, if the player did test positive twice, I'd expect him to receive the 2nd suspension level - I don't think there's any sort of free pass in there, assuming that they did remove the Commissioner's free pass that was discussed before Congress.

See...now this is exactly why we need 50 day suspensions for positive tests - let's see if this guy can really perform without the junk.

QUOTE(sircaffey @ May 2, 2005 -> 09:29 AM) I don't think that's entirely true. I doubt we add MORE pitching. Pitching is ALWAYS the most expensive come the deadline. If you want to make a good comparison of what the Sox would be looking to do this deadline, look to the Delgado/Walker deals for the comparison. A Kazmir type was not part of those deals. Yeah, but I would say that this year is even more of a seller's market than last year - aside from Todd Helton, can you name a single person out there that a team might be willing to simply dump? Tampa Bay has a closer that some people are interested in, and Billy Beane is certain to do something, but other than that, there aren't that many people available unless you give up a lot or take on a ton of salary (Mike Sweeney). When you look at it...a lot of teams, like Pitt, Tampa, KC, are where they are not because they're overloaded with bad contracts any more - they're there because they have a ton of young guys that they're trying to develop, and those aren't the kinds of guys you make a deal with.

In his interview with 20/20 a year ago, Victor Conte, the BALCO guy, alleged that the use of amphetimines was in fact a huge problem in baseball (bigger than steroids); people taking them before games to get more charged up. They are fairly easy to test for as far as I know - they're the sorts of things that are tested for in your standard, "I'm at the doctor and i need a physical" drug test. it's another part of the game that needs to be cleaned up...and it seems Bud Selig may finally be realizing this.

QUOTE(aboz56 @ May 2, 2005 -> 09:16 AM) What would we have to give up to get him? That's the $10,000 question right there. When these trade threads come up here, I think everyone should keep 1 thing in mind; by the time the trading deadline rolls around this year, the odds are there will only be 4 or 5 teams who are truly "out of it" beyond any shadow of a doubt (Pitt, Tampa, KC), and maybe 4 or 5 other teams at most who are like the Astros last year; still have a remote shot and may be either buyers or sellers depending on where they are with their teams (Cleveland has a shot to be here, Milwaukee, Probably someone in the NL West, Houston, Cubs, probably someone else you won't expect). This means that more than 2/3 of the teams in baseball are going to be either looking to stand pat or to add something for the pennant race. That is a sellers market. Last year, the Devil Rays got a #1 rookie starter, Scott Kazmir, from the Mets for a #3 or #4 starter. All indications are that if you want to make an upgrading-deal this year...you're going to need to do something like that also. So yeah...if we really want to add something in a trade that's going to be better than what we have, the odds are it's going to cost us BMac or BAnderson level talent. And those are a few guys I don't want KW to touch.