Fingish

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Feb 1, 2010 -> 09:20 AM) Seems like a great reason not to start your best pitcher. Exactly. I was kind of shocked to open this thread up and find the overwhelming majority not saying "Peavy". We have a great rotation, but the idea that Peavy isn't the #1 guy even among this group doesn't even seem to hold water. I love Mark, but I can't imagine that setting the record for most opening day starts by a White Sox pitcher was all that high up on his list of personal goals anyways. (It would already be pretty far down the list of things that he has accomplished) The season starts on day one, there is no reason to treat that game any differently than you would approach any other. If day one didn't have a special name and signifigance for many of us, not a single person would suggest you should start MB over JP given that they are both equally rested. It is tantamount to saying that Buehrle is the better pitcher, in which case, if you think he should start opening day, then you should be dead set against changing the rotation afterwards. Odds are that it wouldn't matter, that we could start him and then shuffle him down to some other spot in the rotation and it wouldn't make a difference over the long course of the season. But the upside is.... Yeah, that is the problem there really isn't much of an upside to starting Buehrle over Peavy besides a warm glow inside and something to look back on the day MB hangs it up. Neither of which get counted in the Won/Loss columns, and as soon as the games are for keeps that is all that matters. If someone can make the case for why Buehrle is the better choice in purely baseball terms, I'd be all for it. Until then.... Peavy.

Just to relate our experience, the old saying about catching more flies with honey might just apply in this case. Now, when we were moving up it was a different time, possibly the reps had more influence over who got moved than they do now, and there certainly was less demand for season tickets in good locations than there is today. (Our family have been season ticket holders since 1974 so that didn't hurt either, but this was in the mid-'80s, so it wasn't just the time we had put in) Anyways, what we did was pretty simple. We were really really nice to our ticket rep. At the holidays they were on our xmas card list, if they did us a favor during the season, or even if they had attempted to do us a favor we would send a nice note and a small gift basket or something like that. Anytime we had contact with them that involved more than just a couple of phone calls we were sure to follow up and say thanks or send a card. These small tokens of appreciation for their efforts, even seasons where they weren't able to move us up, kept us on the top of their minds. I'm sure they get all sorts of angry people talking to them all day about what they feel they are entitled to, so just being nice and making a little bit of extra effort just might pay off. I'm not saying that people who have been season ticket holders should have to do that, or that it would even work today, but for a $1.99 card and the price of stamp, what can it hurt? In 1980 we were sitting in 4 seats, one of which had that great "half baseball game/half steel girder" view. In 1988 we were sitting just a few rows up from the visitors on deck circle on the aisle(only 3 seats though). When the new stadium opened up, our rep held a set of 4 seats that were a few rows back from where we were and one section over because they thought we might be interested in getting our 4th seat back, and they were right. All in all, the relationship built up over those years paid off. We were lucky that our rep stayed in the organization all through that time, so who knows what would have happened if they had left (and they have since left), but I'm pretty sure that it didn't hurt our chances of being remembered when things became available. (Waits to hear about the dozens of gift baskets that arrive at U.S. Cellular tomorrow)

Can I have two, one good, one bad (but still sorta good)? The Good: It is 1976, I'm 5 years old and my Uncle and I are at a game early watching BP. Things are winding down and the players are heading back to the locker room, when my uncle totally startles me by yelling out across the field, "Hey Bucky! This kid loves you!". It was true, I was 5 and my family loved baseball and the White Sox more than anything and I wanted to be a SS, so Bucky Dent was my hero. He came trotting on over, he introduced himself, I could barely say two words I was in such awe. (I think both of Bucky and that my uncle had been able to summon the immortal Bucky Dent so easily) He signed my hat and gave me a ball. I wore that hat to sleep that night, and kept on wearing it for years even well after my head had started to outgrow it. The hat is gone now, but the ball still remains. Like a lot of people, I think meeting a ballplayer when you are that age just cements your love for the game. It's not the best thing I've ever seen at the park (Thank You, Mr. Buehrle for making a life-long dream come true.), but it is one of my earliest memories of anything and it changed the game from something I just liked a lot to a real passion. The Bad: It is only a year or two later, and my family has driven down to Spring Training in Florida. We are staying at a motel that is really close to the field and it turns out that the team we are playing this particular day, the Kansas City Royals were staying at the same motel. (I mean, seriously this was not a fancy place, those players staying in their suites today better be very freakin' grateful.) So we go to the game and the Sox just get trounced, I mean we were beaten bad, something like 19-1 or 17-2, just a horrible a game. After the game, my brother and I are sitting outside on the walkway that goes around the place with our White Sox t-shirts on, and who should walk by but Hal McRae and some other Royal player. As they walk past us, Hal snickers under his breath, "White Sox..." and starts laughing a little. (My brother who is 7 years older has confirmed the details of this in later years) Now, I'm about 7 years old, and this giant man is laughing at me because I have my White Sox gear on, and I know he was just beating the tar out of us at the game I just watched. It stung to say the least. But I do have to kind of thank him, because he allowed my passion for the White Sox to blossom into a full-fledged hatred of all other teams. (The Cubs, of course, I had already been trained to hate from an early age.) And it lead to a tradition that I enjoyed for many years. Our seats at the old and new park were always right by the visitors on-deck circle or now a few rows up from the home-plate side of the end of the visitors dugout (sec 127), and every time we played the Royals when Hal was managing, I got many chances to yell at him as he left the dugout to pull pitchers as we generally stomped KC during that time period. "Who's laughing now, Hal?!?", I would yell out. Sometimes he would even look up, scanning the crowd trying to see who was saying it, and probably really puzzling over just what the hell it meant. All it did for me was send me into fits of laughter as I enjoyed our victories against them that much more. The whole thing gave me such joy for that time, that the bad memory ended up being one of my own little personal favorite memories. So I have to thank Hal too for being such a jerk. Ah memories....

QUOTE (GREEDY @ Dec 21, 2009 -> 11:10 AM) But doesn't Rios' value lie in the fact that he is a CF with corner outfielder pop? So why trade for a corner outfielder that offensively is a prototypical CF? I think that it you can't really pin down his value that easily. If he plays like he did in basically 4 of his 6 seasons in the Majors, he is much more valuable than your prototypical CF. If he doesn't then he does lose some value. I believe that was probably part of the calculation. That I think is where they weighed the risk/reward. The upside of him producing up to his potential at the CF position makes his contract more than worth it, the downside to him ending up as an above-average OF'er or even slightly above-average OF'er was probably the worst case scenario that they were looking at. So while it would have been nice to see the Jays eat a few million off that deal, even if Rios disappoints, it probably wouldn't be to the extent that he is worthless, just worth less than we paid for him. Unless I'm misunderstand your thoughts, my thought is this is indeed a gamble, but it really had nothing to do with what Pods was doing last year or in '05-'06 or what he'll do next year, he was never a potential long-term piece. Rios is. That is where they choose to gamble their money, but it is a controlled gamble. Do you not believe that a Rios producing up to his potential isn't more than a prototypical CF'er, both in offensive and glove? (and especially having the combination of the two) If a better option comes along, Rios shouldn't be so horrible that he won't be able to be traded at any price. I honestly think the Jays look a bit dumb here. What we now know is that if they had pulled Rios back and negotiated with Kenny, they probably could have pried a low-level prospect or two from him instead of letting him go for nada. Just my thoughts, FWIW. I love talking baseball in winter. Especially on the shortest day of the year, that means that summer will be closer with every day from here on out.

I think that the "terrible" reason has pretty much no basis in reality whatsoever, given what we know about KW. 1. Even as Pods was hitting tons of clutch hits, I don't think that KW was worried about having to pay massive amounts of money if he did feel "forced" to take Scottie back. First, Kenny would never let himself feel forced to resign a borderline talent like Pods to an overpriced contract no matter what the fans thought. And the reality was that no matter how good of a season he had, he was never going to command 50mil over 5 years or something crazy like that. All his season was doing was bumping him up the ladder a few rungs, not turning him into a superstar. 2. Pods was an add-on, and afterthought. A brilliant move on Kenny's part to pick up a player they had some good knowledge of, cheap as all get out, and filled a hole where we needed it. But, I doubt that KW went into the season thinking that he was hoping an aging OF would fall in his lap, have an amazingly productive season and become our answer in CF for years to come. That just doesn't strike me as how Kenny works. I'd say that he was thinking about long-term CF and other OF options long before the season even started, before he even knew that Scottie Pods would be available. 3. Going with the simplest explanation is probably the most likely, the main reason that KW picked up Rios was probably just a risk/reward call on the waiver claim, combined with enough confidence on the part of the club that Rios wouldn't have Zero value if they ended up with him. Even if Rios never plays up to his full potential again, this isn't a guy that is worth league minimum. It may even come to pass that if they want or need to trade him in the future that they will have to eat some of that salary. Again, this is a calculated risk, they weren't putting it all on Black and hoping they got a good spin of the wheel. Based on the talent he has and his past production, odds are highly likely that he will have some value. (We aren't going to end up having to release him outright and eat the whole contract or anything) So, all in all, I'd say that KW knew he was gambling a bit when he put in the claim. I don't think that there is that much mystery in Kenny's move. Sometimes you gamble on a big upside guy, and I think he did it with the right kind of player. One who has upside, but whose downside is at least limited. I don't think that he thinks he knows something more about Rios than anyone else, he just knows when to put some chips out on the table.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Dec 8, 2009 -> 03:21 PM) The Jays have already said they'll deal Halladay to the team that offers the most, no matter what hat Halladay would put on in the Spring. And beyond that, the White Sox would not acquire Halladay to have him pitch on the South Side, not when the offense needs help way more than anything else. I'll concede that the Jays might not care what hat he wears, my point was more about the fact that Halladay does have leverage in this situation. It is an unlikely scenario, but the Jays options won't be that everyone in the league will offer them the best package of players they can muster. If some of the other big market teams don't come through with serious offers, you could see the Jays having to ask Halladay to accept a trade to a team that he doesn't want to go to in order to get the team that is offering the most. That is the general point, the team that is offering the most isn't guaranteed to get the player, because of the particulars of this situation. A five and ten guy that seems determined to go FA after next season has much more leverage than your run of the mill player. And to the other poster who wondered what to do with Bobby. I think that in the unlikely event that this Halladay thing happened, as someone else said, this is an all-in situation. It is only for the one year that you take the hit with Halladay and you only do that if he falls to you without giving up the farm. If the payroll hit is just too much, somewhere, someone is going to take Jenks off your hands, so you offer arbitration anyways. He might not have the value he once did, but I think there are a number of teams that would make offers if he was available. I know we don't have some unlimited budget so it is important to be realistic, but Jerry has shown a willingness to go for it before when he thinks it could have a big payoff. The city might not be as high on the White Sox as they were following '05, but it is nothing like it was before then (as a very long-time season ticket holder, I can say that that was the last year we had any trouble selling our excess games to our friends). There was a time when the bleachers were empty over at Wrigley, bring the city another World Series or even make it again and you could be building a generation of fans that will be as die-hard as those Cub fans seem today. But, again, mostly fantasy, and I agree that the odds are low, but because of the particulars this may be a case where everyone is left scratching their heads wondering why Toronto didn't end up with more than it did. That may be part of the reason they are looking at multi-team deals, as it gives them the best chance of getting back a big haul, or at least having their pick of the prospects involved. We probably would be better off being the 3rd team in the trade and getting the Jays to acquire the guy we want for us if we aren't able to get him ourselves. (Maybe the Jays value one of our people more than another team, etc....) If there is one thing besides '05 that we can thank Kenny for, it is that we always have plenty to talk about in the off-season!

QUOTE (2nd_city_saint787 @ Dec 8, 2009 -> 01:58 PM) Danks or floyd would have to go in one of the deals to make up for the prospects you send in the other and to be honest id rather go out there with the staff we have instead of landing halladay for a year. First, I'm not going to suggest that I think this has a high probability (like I'd give it 5-10% chance) of getting done, but I think the observation that it might not take as much as one might think to get Halladay could be correct. If he is truly serious about testing FA after this season then his value is obviously reduced in a trade, and he has to start looking around for where he wants to go showcase himself. This is where Kenny does the sell-job. Projecting out to him what they can do with a rotation like our XBox fantasy. Since the Jays won't want to trade him to NY or Bos, Chicago makes more sense for Halladay want to showcase himself than Tampa Bay. Since Halladay has so much say over where he goes, it could create a situation where Toronto is virtually forced to take lesser value than they could get somewhere else. It isn't like we haven't seen this before. All that said, again, I doubt we end up with him, and if we do I'd hope it would be a scenario like that where we don't give full value, where ours is the 2nd or 3rd best offer on the table and the Jays are all but forced to take it. Giving up Danks and Danks and Flowers and on and on for him would be a mistake, IMO. But it sure is fun to think about when it is cold and gray outside.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 10, 2008 -> 08:16 AM) Are you sure your math isn't off by a bit? It should be around 8-9 more starts that we have to cover for Contreras...that situation isn't changing in September, it's only becoming more magnified. Yes, we'll have some additional bullpen help in September, but what can we realistically expect of MacDougal, Wasserman, Link, Rodriguez, etc.??? I don't think very much. Those guys will be helpful to save the "A" relievers (Jenks, Thornton, Dotel and hopefully Linebrink) in blowout losses or mop up duty, but I don't think any of them can be put into tie or even down by 1-3 run situations in the heat of a pennant race. My math was based on the previous poster saying that Byrd was a better alternative to get us to September, when we will be able to call up some degree of help for the bullpen, even if it's just picking up the mop-up situations in blowouts. It seemed that the reasoning was someone like Byrd will keep your bullpen from getting overtaxed before expanded rosters. That puts the person who replaces Jose at making around 4 starts before the rosters are expanded. So the question of how deep a starter can get us isn't negated in September, but it certianly isn't magnified, there will be plenty of pitchers avaible to take the unimportant relief innings, leaving our core relief staff able to be rested and ready in the more important games. The point was that going for a Byrd-like pitcher wasn't going to make a giant difference if your only concern was trying to save the bullpen a little bit, even over the two months, if you don't count September call-ups as having any value in saving our relief staff, you're then talking maybe 16 extra innings pitched over two months. If our staff can't handle that much extra load, they probably aren't going to be the guys to take us all the way to the World Series anyways. I think we're already set in the inning-eater category, taking a shot on bringing up someone who could be better than a #5 starter seems to me to have a better risk/reward return on it, as the risk of over-taxing the bullpen at this stage of the season, based on the performance of 1 starter doesn't seem to be all that great, while the reward of (what appears to be Broadway) coming up and throwing lights out for 2 months is a chance to win it all.

QUOTE (beck72 @ Aug 10, 2008 -> 07:30 AM) Paul Byrd has thrown well in July and August. He's a better bet to give the sox 6, 7 innings than a guy who started the year in A ball [Poreda].Byrd throws strikes and isn't signed for 2009. As long as the sox don't have to give up much for Byrd, why not. If the sox go with Poreda or another minor leaguer, they are almost assured of taxing the bullpen. And the sox need to tread water until the sox can expand their rosters in Sept. Getting a vet who can get major leaguers out is the most likely route for helping the sox pitching stay afloat until reinforcements come. By my count, whoever takes Jose's place, will make about 4 starts, if Paul Byrd was able to on average pitch 2 more innings per game than Poreda, that would be all of 8 innings over the course of the rest of the month that he would save the bullpen. My thought being if a bullpen can't handle an extra eight innings over the course of 20 days, then you probably aren't making it to the playoffs anyways. So give me Poreda and his higher upside, rather than the known quantity in Byrd. Sure it's a gamble, but it seems to me that most teams don't do well in the playoffs without taking a chance on some of their kids coming up and producing in key roles, a la Bobby Jenks in '05. I know that one of these days we'll call up a prospect who will floor us with his performance right out of the gate, why not let it be now, when we really need it?

QUOTE(WSoxMatt @ Jul 7, 2007 -> 07:23 PM) If the Sox give in to MB for a full no trade, then next year they will have to give in to Garland, and in the future all Sox starters will want the NTC...Then you get a staff with 3-4 starters with NTC and the Sox would be screwed... Tell me, have other teams given players full No Trade protection, and then gone on to sign other free agents without giving them the same NTC? Of course they have, almost every team has at one point or another. To pretend like this is some situation without precedent isn't really being honest about it. This wouldn't be the first NTC ever given to a player by a team, and it would do nothing to impede their ability to sign future contracts without NTC's because it's been proven to be so in the past with other teams that have done the exact same thing.

QUOTE(Jake @ Jul 25, 2006 -> 12:49 PM) For the record -- Scott Podsednik under no circumstances will ever start in CF over Brian Anderson. no doubt at all. Scottie will be gone before the 31st if Soriano becomes our RF. It might mean musical chairs at lead-off for the rest of the season, but Pods might still have some value, even if you just get prospects that's better than letting rot on the bench and leave after the season is done.

Gates at 11am 20,000 Replica Rings What is the latest you think someone will get there and still get a ring? I'm hoping that by 11:30 there are still rings, am I being too optomistic? any input appreciated!

Just about to leave! God Damn this is awesome! I can't believe we're going back, sitting in the same spot where we watched Paulie hit that grand-slam... it's almost still so surreal. and i gotta say, whatever the weather does, this is shaping up to be one of the better opening days weather wise regardless. i've been to plenty of 40deg. games, i'll take 60 and moist anytime! i'll admit, i'm a little worried that the emotion of the whole event will maybe lead us to not play our best game, but that was the hallmark of this team last year, they didn't seem to let anything get them too up or too down, so hopefully we just get a masterful start from Mark, and we go home in an hour and 45 minutes with our first W. Go Sox!

Sunday Night! Sec. 127 Row 9, where I've been for every opening day(night) since 1987(it was row 3in the old park...)! (My Uncle, who will be with me, has me beat, he's been to every opening day since 1965!!) This will be the best of them all though!

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Mar 8, 2006 -> 12:18 PM) The AZ boards seem to think another trade is coming. this certianly smells like the precusor to another trade, we'll see what happens, but it wouldn't be surprising. i would say Ozuna would be the most likely to be shipped off, and knowing what kind of gambler KW is, if someone offers him something rediculous for Iguchi I wouldn't be surprised to see him go. he is in the last year of his contract, no? you know his agent isn't going to settle for $5mil. on his next contract. who in the world of baseball could we NOT get for a Contreras/Iguchi package? obviously not a very likely scenario, but you have to like that Kenny has stockpiled some very tradeable talent, and has the right replacements waiting in the wings.