Jack Parkman

Masset has great movement on his 4 seamer. it tails in on rightys and away on leftys. His non fastball stuff looks to be superb. His sinker and curve were awesome, changeup looked good, but his slider looked only ok. If his fastball is at 93-96 right now, then I expect some serious heat mid-season. I think he'll be a starter next year though, because Buehrle is going to walk, and I think Kenny is going to trade Jon during the offseason.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Apr 4, 2007 -> 10:47 PM) Garbage pitchers tend to cause more problems for good hitting teams. The reason is you have to completely change your offensive makeup at times for one hitter and there is a theory in baseball that making those type of adjustments can do more long term harm than good so often times a player will try to make minimal adjustments and use his ability to get him through the game. And I also believe that the garbage pitcher theory is a bit over-exagerated because some of the times we got shut down guys just came in and hit there spots and when that happens you typically are going to have a tough night at the plate. But by all means I'm not saying our hitters are going to be perfect every game and I think thats the point, they won't be and people seem to expect them to be perfect (or for there approaches to be perfect every time). I know one thing, our guys have a better approach at the plate than almost any team in baseball (New York is a clear exception as hands down they have the best approach in baseball). I don't think he means garbage pitchers as in junkballers, I think he means garbage pitchers as in pitchers who go in to a game in July with an ERA north of 7 and hold the Sox to 0 runs and 3-5 hits over 8 innings. The Sox have a reputation of making pitchers like Jose Lima(sans 20 win season) and Runelvys Hernandez look like the second coming of Cy Young.

Buehrle and Jenks gave me reasons for optimism today. Before this game I was thinking between 75-85 wins for this team, now I have hope that they'll win 90+.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Mar 30, 2007 -> 07:34 PM) How's Buehrle looked so far for those watching? Getting himself into a bit of trouble here though. Besides the gopher ball in the 1st he has been vintage Buehrle.

speak of the devil, Mark just threw a fastball that registered 92 on the gun. twice.

JD with a single, Crede flies out; on to bottom of 5th Sox 3 Braves 2

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Mar 30, 2007 -> 06:50 PM) He never threw the ball 94. If he hit 94, check the gun because its broken. I forgot to mention that he clearly overthrew that pitch. AJ had to jump to keep it from being a wild pitch. It was a game in Seattle towards the end of the season. I think he was pitching against Moyer. The reason I remember it is because I didn't think he had that velocity in him.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Mar 30, 2007 -> 06:45 PM) No he is a flamethrower. The radar gun is dialed down a bit, just for effect. I know he is not a flamethrower, ha ha ha. Jamie Moyer is a junkballer. he can barely reach 88 with the fastball. Buehrle can probably hit 90 every now and then. In 2005 he threw a fastball at 94

Would you guys consider Buehrle a junkballer?

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Mar 25, 2007 -> 07:22 PM) 68 Do you honestly believe that the Sox will only win 68 games?

I should change my handle to Danks 4 ROY.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Mar 23, 2007 -> 08:29 PM) My thoughts exactly. Still he's earned it with his pitching so far in ST I was really hoping Floyd would be the one who came out and pitched well, but unfortunately that wasn't the case. I was hoping Floyd would pitch well too. If he doesn't get the 5th starter job, they should keep him in the bigs to work long relief. I think that Floyd needs to work on throwing strikes/getting ahead of hitters. From what I've seen and heard of him, that is his only obstacle to success.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Mar 23, 2007 -> 04:13 PM) Comcast's gun doesn't seem to be working right now. The Colorado broadcast has Gavin sitting at about 93 MPH. I was hearing 93-96 for Gavin's FB but the comcast gun has him at 89-92 so I don't know. I'm sure the rain has something to do with it though.

Pods looked SLOOOOOOW on that steal attempt. It almost looked like Paulie on the basepaths. I swear he was half way to second when the ball got there.

I am for giving Floyd a chance to show us what he can do in the majors. Philly did with him what Ozzie is doing with BA. Phillly gave Floyd 4 starts in 2004 in a September callup, and 4 starts in 2005 and 11 last year to prove himself at the major league level before shipping him to AAA. IMO, that's no way to bring along your top prospect. He has had only 19 starts at the major league level, and Philly traded him. No wonder his confidence is shot. Danks has been impressive this spring, but I think he could use a whole season at AAA. We want to be sure he is 100% ready when we bring him up. In the same regard as Floyd, sending BA to AAA is asinine. Kenny wants to gradually bring along some young, cheap players. If Ozzie is going to be so f***ing stubborn about not giving the young talent a viable shot to prove that they can play, then Kenny needs to smack some sense into him. If BA gets traded, then, even though I like Javy, trading Chris Young was a collossal mistake because we have no minor leaguer that we can give a shot to replace him, and we'll be forced to overpay on the FA market.

It is my belief that Floyd only has 1 minor league option left, but I am not 100% sure. Can someone confirm or deny this? Is there a website that I can go to in order to find out whether or not this is true? If so, then I believe we are stuck with him as our 5th starter whether he produces or not.

Most improved-Vazquez and Floyd. I think that Javy will have a Cy Young caliber season, but won't win. I'm thinking something along the lines of 17-20 wins 6-10 losses an ERA between 2.90-3.30 and 230+Ks for Javy and 10-14 Wins 9-13 Losses an ERA between 4.30 and 4.70 and 150+Ks for Floyd. He will struggle early but be much improved by July. Most disappointing-Dye. I'd expect production closer to 04-05 levels. X-factor-the bullpen. They could be dominant or horrible. I can imagine Ozzie needing some Pepto-Bismol if with all the walks that could be handed out.

Someone at WSI said that they saw Danks pitch in Oklahoma and that that day he was at 89-92mph. Edit: I saw him pitch today, and he was between 89-93 with the fastball.

Why do they not like Russell as a starter?

Heath PHILLIPS is who I meant. Not the TE on pitt. My bad. I get those guys confused sometimes.

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Feb 5, 2007 -> 05:27 PM) 1) are you saying that TB won't go for the trade in the first place or the Sox would be dumb to do it. I know that Crawford is very unlikely to get in a trade so I was meaning that Baldelli was the person to get in the trade. I don't think that TB would get a better offer than that. 2) I even said that Anderson for Olsen or Sanchez was a pipedream in the first place. 3) the Mets trade idea was only possible if (1) and (2) happen.

I'd move Broadway and Heath Miller to TB for Crawford or Baldelli, then we can flip BA to Florida for some pitching, maybe Olsen or Sanchez(pipedream) or a couple of power arms in their system. I'd stay away from Petit though. it would then end up being a lateral move, and if they were willing to part with Olsen or Sanchez, then maybe we could pry away Phil Humber or Mike Pelfrey and Lastings Milledge away from the Mets for Vazquez. This plan may actually improve our team.

With the contract that Zito signed, I think Mark is gone by opening day or July 31. There is no way that the Sox are going to pay a contract > Zito's and that is what Mark is looking at on the open market if he rebounds. If he doesn't rebound then he is looking at a Gil Meche contract at 5/55. Either way that is ridiculous, so from a fiscally responsible standpoint, Mark should be traded by July 31. I also think that Kenny has shifted his mentality from a large market to a small market GM. Something someone else said is that maybe the Sox need to change their stance on long-term deals for pitchers and position players, and if they don't, then maybe we turn into the KC Royals as the cellar dwellars of the AL Central. I don't know if this is entirely true, but it may be a possibility.

I read somewhere that Floyd's fastball was once in the 93-95mph range, topping at 96mph but it had gone down to 91-93 mph topping at 94mph and that he has a 2-seam sinker around 90-92 mph. I wonder if maybe the sox brass saw some problems with his mechanics and they think Coop can work with him and get his fastball and sinker velocity back up. How good is his curve and change right now anyway?

QUOTE(shawnhillegas @ Dec 6, 2006 -> 06:48 PM) We are overvaluing our own players. Im pretty sure that Texas fans would laugh at the notion of Danks and Young for rent-a-Buerhle. I'm getting that feeling too. It seems that we are going to get no more than one top prospect STRAIGHT UP for one of our starters. If that is the case then we should look to sign Buehrle to an extention and trade Garcia at the deadline in July. If the best package we could get is Milledge for Buehrle, then either the fans are overvaluing our starters or teams would much rather pay ridiculous amounts for #4 or #5 starters than pony up top talent for a member of the Sox rotation. I think our overvaluing of the Sox starters has to do with that the scouts like pitchers who K a lot of batters, and Vazquez is the only guy in the rotation who does that, but he does it with an ERA in the mid to high 4s, which makes him only as attractive as a guy like Gil Meche, who does the same thing, and teams can get Meche for less money than we are paying Vazquez. So I think we might end up with the situation that McCarthy is in AAA next spring, and we have basically the same team that we had to end 2006 besides the Cotts-Aardsma trade.