bighurt574

Tribune this morning said Garland would be scheduled to pitch the last game of the season, but Ozzie would like to push him back to start Game 1 of the playoffs if we have already clinched.

I can't imagine how Gibbons keeps his job through this. If he is back next year the Blue Jays are really clueless. If this happens once, ok, maybe it is the players fault. But twice in a season?

This is a message board, right? Isn't this a place to discuss problem areas and weaknesses? Obviously, of course, when you take a step back, the overall picture is still pretty good, which is important to keep in mind.

Through 53 games, our attendence is 1,908,770, which means we would need 1,091,230 over our last 28 home games to hit 3 million. That would be 38,972 per game. Possible, yes, but we probably come up just short (we haven't even hit that in all of our "sell-outs").

No. We're right there with Boston too. Even if the Yankees take off, as long as we play well, we'll be fine. I can't see both Boston and the Yanks finishing ahead of us (if we don't play well, of course, the whole thing is moot anyway).

If we can get Soriano without giving up BMac I like our chances of resigning Soriano. That lets us stick with the plan of moving BMac into the rotation and shipping out a Garcia or Vazquez. Take the salary we hopefully save from moving Garcia/Vazquez and Pods (assuming he is either part of the Soriano deal or would be dealt seperately if Soriano signs an extension), that already goes a long way towards paying Soriano. I also think the longer the White Sox/Washington deal would take to finalize, the less likely the Sox would be able to just trade Soriano for other parts this year. You can see how long this process takes, hard for it to happen all over again a second time. I can't imagine those second-level discussions are that far along, because if you're another team wanting Soriano, you'd be negotiating with Washington, not the Sox right now.

Leyland, unless Detroit chokes, in which case Torre. No way does Ozzie get it this year. One, even if the Sox win the division or get the wild card, it'll be attributed to the talent, not the manager. Two, Ozzie has probably managed to alienate enough sports writers for one thing or another, for this year at least.

Anyone else find it strange that the Sox are reportedly "extremely close" to getting Soriano, but there doesn't even seem to be an agreement as to the key pieces to the deal? McCarthy? Broadway? Pods?

How does suspending him admit censorship? If Mariotti's allegation was completely false, would a suspension not be warranted?

Should the Sox care about the altercation any less than the Phillies?

I'll take the proven player any day of the week. The Sox are in a rare position of being defending champs and having a championship-calibre team put together for the next few years. If they can trade prospects to improve it even more, I'll go for another title now. The simple odds are that most prospects don't make it in the majors. You may get burned once in a while, but so be it. And although we'll never be the Yankees, if the Sox can maintain this success for a couple years to justify maintaining a higher payroll, we'll be bigger players in the free agent market every year to make up for perhaps less reliance on home-grown talent.

Our pitching has struggled at times, yet we are still on pace to win 106 games, and currently have a 6-game lead for the wild card. The Sox have won 8 straight series (including against Detroit, St. Louis, and Houston) and are coming off a 19-8 June. I'm not too worried yet.

One word - Pirates. Not a bad move.

With his batting average, I'd like to see him in there as much as possible, whether he is officially a "starter" or not.

QUOTE(SoxAce @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 01:08 AM) You are right, but there's no arguing on "rankings" they should be #1. That's my point. The whole point of power rankings is to look past the records and stats and determine who is truly the best team. Based on the Tigers poor showing against the White Sox and Yankees, one could easily conclude that they are not the best team in baseball.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jun 15, 2006 -> 11:17 AM) 0-1 this year, 3.72 ERA, 1.14 WHIP. Full Riske Stats. When you click on his ESPN player page, I like the first story under the "news" link back from 2005. Sort of ironic.

If he could, I think Ozzie would even admit that the "public" lashing of Tracey was a mistake. It's never been his style to show up one of his own players like that. Is Ozzie at risk for a suspension here even though no one was hit? Seems pretty clear to anyone that he brought in a pitcher with instructions to hit a guy. Stories like this also worry me: ESPN, quoting Suntimes Having "leaks" like this can't be good either.

Luckily for the Cubs, they sold most of their tickets before the season started. If the Sox can make another deep playoff run while the Cubs continue to flounder, next year you might see the attendence numbers get pretty close.

The fact that any Cub fan or player (Rich Hill, cough, cough) would call out AJ is a perfect statement of what is wrong with the Cubs. If the Cubs had more players that played the game the way AJ does, maybe they wouldn't be in the situation they are in now. Anyone that thinks AJ was out of line has been lulled to sleep by watching poorly-played, lackluster, lackadaisical baseball for a while. Welcome to the big leagues.

I would love Hunter (if nothing else, the rest of the Sox lineup would have about 5 more HR's a year), but the Twins aren't going to trade him to the Sox.

The video is not good, it was a lot more than a "flip," as soon as the ump ejected him, Young purposefully turned around and threw the bat at a pretty good speed from about 10-15 feet away. Luckily the bat appeared to just bounce off the ump's chest protector. He should be out for the year.

I'm guessing the May 6 game is some promotional day involving group sales - weren't there a couple random sellouts like that last year?

Since the Orioles asked for Contreras, I would think they wouldn't be asking for McCarthy as the pitching prospect. It's a little risky to make yet another drastic trade coming of a WS, but I like it, Tejada is an elite player in his prime and at about $12M per is worth the contract.

With Vasquez, I think another trade has to be in the works. KW will put the push on for Garland and Contreras to sign an extension (as he's already started to with some pretty strong words), and whoever won't sign will get dealt. If they can trade Garland for some big offense (Tejada, Abreu, Crawford), it makes sense. BMac proved last year that he deserves another shot at starting right now. It doesn't make sense to have him buried as a long reliever (how often did the Sox use a long reliever in 2005?) when Garland could land them an elite offensive player.

It's going to take a lot more than a few mid-tier prospects to get Crawford. The Sox had to give up Carlos Lee to get Podsednik, and Crawford, IMO, is a step above Podsednik. I'm sure the Yankees or Cubs would bid pretty high to get him in CF. Still, if KW somehow pulls it off, this would be the move of a very impressive offseason. His contract at $5-$6 million per for a player of his calibre entering his prime is a steal.