caulfield12

And Dye, and El Duque....amazing to think back that Takatsu was a closer at the start of that season with his "frisbee"

Chloe....3.5/4.0 stars, wow, Amanda Seyfreid like you've never seen her b4, in the beginning of the movie, she looks like spitting image of Scarlett Johansson, it's the first time she's really played an "adult" role like Anne Hathaway did at a similar point in her career Chronicles of Narnia....2.50/4 very very blah, missed Peter and Susan's character, this series has gotten progressively worse...the second movie was "okay" but this one just didn't do it for me, the best acting might have been done by a talking mouse and the new snotty English lad was the worst since Jar-Jar Binks Due Date....just a major misfire, 2.25/4.0, laughs were few and far between for me That's two movies (Chloe and The Kids Are All Right) that Julianne Moore was just spot-on....she's an incredible actress, she gets compared to Tilda Swinton sometimes but I think she's even better

Why Jonah Hex? That movie's supposed to be one of the worst of the year. Just for Megan Fox? Scott Pilgrim's a bit like a tamer version of Kick-Ass...I like both, about equally, although Pilgrim is definitely more creative/imaginative/humorous.

QUOTE (IamtheHBOMB @ Dec 19, 2010 -> 06:44 PM) Why would you watch that unless you were being forced to? I just like travel movies....and the Indian/ashram/chanting part was underplayed, which they really had no choice without coming across as totally hokey. Living in Asia, I've never gone to Bali and maybe this gives me more incentive or inducement finally. When I went to Mount Everest/Tibet a couple of months ago, I met a bunch of Indonesians on the trip and they were very kind and welcoming, especially the ones from the Bali/Lombok area of the country. Finally, Richard Jenkins is one of my favorite character actors, and The Visitor one of my all-time faves for underappreciated movies that are nearly great. As far as THE BOOK OF ELI goes, I have seen, I think, probably 90-95% of Denzel Washington's movies since his career began...one of the best actors of his generation, since he was on a tv show called St. Elsewhere. Owen Gleiberman from EW.com had this as the worst movie of the year, and it actually kept my interest for most of the time. I already knew the "twist" going in as well (not unlike 127 Hours, if you can even call it a twist)...it was very similar in feeling to THE ROAD, both of them were watchable but not anything I would care to see again for the rest of my life.

Jake Odorizzi Born: 3/27/1990 Height: 6'2" Weight: 175 lbs Throws: R With the 32nd pick of the 2008 First Year Player Draft, the Milwaukee Brewers took the right-handed Jake Odorizzi to improve the pitching depth in the minor leagues. It is extremely easy to see why the Crew selected the youngster so high in the draft. Not even 19-years old at this point, Jake has a repetoire of three (potentially four) pitches that project to be league-average or better. He throws a fastball that sits comfortably in the low-90s, but Brewerfan.net reports it can run up to 95-96 MPH. The right-hander also features a two-plane slider that serves as his out pitch and projects to be a plus-pitch and a diving curveball he can throw for strikes. As with all young Brewers pitchers, he is developing a change-up. It is a promising pitch, he does not quite have the feel for it yet. It could potentially be a fourth league-average pitch in his already impressive arsenal. A high-school pitcher with four relatively established pitches is very difficult to find, and many scouts believe Odorizzi could turn out to be one of the best pitchers of the draft.[/i] Milwaukee JS

Former Cy Young Award winner Zack Greinke has been traded to the Milwaukee Brewers, sources told ESPN The Magazine's Buster Olney on Sunday morning. In the deal, the Royals are reportedly acquiring Brewers outfielder Lorenzo Cain, shortstop Alcides Escobar and pitching prospects Jake Odorizzi and Jeremy Jeffress for the 27-year-old Greinke, 10-14 with a 4.17 ERA in 2010 after winning the 2009 Cy Young. Royals general manager Dayton Moore had been actively shopping for major league-ready, up-the-middle position players for Greinke. Zack Greinke #23 SP Kansas City Royals 2010 STATS GM 33 W 10 L 14 BB 55 K 181 ERA 4.17 The Brewers were expected to receive another major leaguer in the deal. Jim Breem of the blog "Bernie's Crew" reported that player to be shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt.

The Kids Are All Right...excellent Red...surprisingly better than I expected, certainly a lot better than Expendables, although that movie had its moment as well Legend of the Guardians....somewhere between so-so and fairly good, from what I read the 3-D experience was what made it worthwhile and I just saw it on a PC Invictus...excellent, it's unfortunate they couldn't do a movie like Gandhi about Mandela though, he's (Morgan Freeman) the central theme of the story, but he doesn't quite carry the movie 100% Still want to see Conviction (H. Swank), 127 Hours, True Grit, The King's Speech, Inside Job, The Black Swan, The Fighter, The Company Men and Blue Valentine....I guess Love and Other Drugs just for gratuitous Anne Hathayway scenes, not unlike that Eva Green movie that was NC-17 way back when. If it's not worth the time to watch LaOD, just warn me. Will also try to wade through Eat Pray Love and Due Date. Has anyone seen Wendy and Lucy (Michelle Williams), A Single Man (Colin Firth), Secretariat or the Diving Bell and the Butterfly? Thumbs up or down?

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Dec 18, 2010 -> 11:54 PM) I really don't believe it's just a numbers game, it's the philosophy of how the team drafts that makes the biggest impact. Of course every team will encounter flameouts, but when you draft high risk, high reward (which is what Boston and other top drafters do) than that is expected. The Sox don't do this (they are starting to more but still take many "safe" picks that turn out to be jsut as risky), and they do get a few good prospects coming up and making contributions but they haven't produced a superstar in years. They have some guys who could be continual All-stars (Beckham, Sale) but really the impact of these guys haven't been enough. It's not just getting players to the majors, but what they do at the majors or what you can acquire for them. Look at the Phillies, their best bats were through their system, and you're talking about perennial MVP candidates. It is so hard to trade for those caliber players or get them on decent FA contracts so developing them from within is basically a necessity when running a franchise. At his best, Beckham could be Chase Utley-Lite or Dustin Pedroia. Not an MVP, but definitely a high impact player. Trayce Thompson is one of those rare athletes that could flame out like 90% of them, but he could also be our next superstar, you never know...the more darts you throw at the wall (with $100,000+ price tags), the higher your chances some of them will work out. Ramirez and Viciedo, Takatsu and Iguchi proved we can tap other markets....but we've been handicapped in the DR and amazingly, Venezuela, which makes absolutely no sense to me. We'll see how long it takes before Jerry Krause's efforts bear some fruit. It's definitely too early to determine Sale's potential until we see him in the starting rotation (where his raw stuff only is behind A. Chapman in the majors for lefties). If Santos becomes our next closer, there's a good chance that will provide the impetus to send him back to the rotation. I also think Dayan can still become a huge impact player, the name that comes to mind the more I think about it is Bobby Bonilla.

The funny thing though is that it's difficult to really argue we developed Sale or Beckham...their maturation has occured more at the major league level. Santos was a lot like the Jenks situation...where we identified talent, but it's hard to say we "incubated" it from start to finish. With the regressions of Flowers, Jordan Danks, Retherford, injuries to the likes of Mitchell, Phegley and Omogrosso, the record is spotty, at best. However, if you start adding names like Viciedo (and Ramirez), Hudson, Chris Young, Brandon Allen, Chris Carter, etc., it's not quite so terrible at all. I remember reading back about five years that the White Sox were actually something like 10-12th in terms of developing players who actually ended up playing in the major leagues, it's just that very few of them have been high impact players or superstars. Unfortunately, they're usually players like Chris Getz or Josh Fields or Brian Anderson or various other first round flameouts like Royce Ring who have little to no impact. But, as someone pointed out, Mitchell/Danks not ready=Pierre, Flowers not ready, forced to re-sign AJ, no adequate bullpen pitchers have been developed, we're forced to sign the likes of Dotel, Linebrink and Crain. The glaring area that's hurt us a bit, though, was giving Teahen that money...Morel really came on last year and opened some eyes. I think, of all the moves (Swisher and Javy) that have been dissected over the last 2-3 years, the Teahen move is the one that must really keep Williams up at night. But I'm not going to recommend any of those names until we're sure they're in line for consistent save opportunities. Instead, the player I'll push is Sergio Santos(notes), a reliever who (like Thornton) can help you regardless of his real-life responsibilities. In Chicago, Santos isn't really considered a "dark horse" closer candidate, as he's often described in the fantasy community. He appears to simply be the future closer … but we don't know if that era begins tomorrow, or in 2011. Like a few other successful closers (Rafael Soriano(notes) and Carlos Marmol(notes), for example), Santos is a converted position player with a mid to high-90s fastball. He gets serious movement on his pitches, he's struck out 16 hitters in 12.1 innings, and he's held opposing batters to one of the lowest contact-percentages in baseball. (Link to sortable leader board. The only names ahead of Santos on the list are Marmol, Jose Contreras(notes) and Carlos Villanueva(notes)). His stuff is of the highest quality; his current ratios are ridiculous (0.73 ERA, 0.81 WHIP). Santos may not inherit the ninth inning this week, but the 26-year-old right-hander fits the profile and he can assist a fantasy rotation whether he's saving games or not. The Sox haven't used him in many high-leverage situations, which means he'd have to leapfrog several vets in the bullpen hierarchy to get the closing gig. yahoo.com/sports (roto)

Comparing St. Louis to KC is like comparing the Cubs/Sox or Giants/A's. St. Louis is a MUCH bigger overall market, significantly bigger population base, much more loyal (the Royals and White Sox both suffered dramatic fanbase drops after the strike compared to other markets), they also had the McGwire years to hold them over...just look at the playoff appearances for the last 20 years. The Twins have done a great job but come up to their limits in the playoffs, and obviously PART of that is about payroll. When you start spending $140 million and up, you have the cushion of having 2-3 more star players on your roster, and also the cushion to go out and get talent every year at mid-season, to correct your mistakes. By and large, even at $90-110 million, a lot of those teams have to have almost everything go right in terms of performance and health. Obviously, that happened in 2005 with a $65 million dollar roster. So you have the Twins, the A's to a lesser extent, the Rays recently and we can throw the Marlins out there because they were able to use their minor league systems and/or cash and KW-like player procurement (in 1997) to win. Of course, both those models were quickly dismantled when they became prohibitively expensive, as we're seeing right now with the Rays. I would really love to see what Epstein/James would do with a team like the Brewers or Reds or Mariners (who ten years ago would have been placed on the list of model organizations, although their payroll spending was like a major market team). Weren't the Brewers #1 in terms of their minor league system not so long ago, too? Then there's the health and "luck" issue, if you go back to our 1999-2000 prospects, a majority of them were pitchers who were injured or would be injured shortly, although some simply didn't perform. Borchard/Crede/Rowand were the only real position player prospects around that time.

An executive for another club said: “I think we all know they have to trade him eventually, and it doesn’t have to be before the season, but it’d probably be easiest for everyone if it did. It’s just a matter of someone giving up what the Royals are asking for.” Moore has openly discussed trading Greinke, saying he’d want high-ceiling and close-to-the-majors prospects in return, preferably some combination of starting pitching, a shortstop or center fielder. The situation is complicated by a limited no-trade clause in Greinke’s contract that includes 15 teams. It’s not clear if Greinke’s willingness to be traded means he would agree to adjust that clause. Greinke’s reluctance to be part of another Royals rebuilding project has been no secret dating back to an August story in The Star when he said, among other things, “There’s no reason for me to get real excited about (the Royals’ prospects), because the chance of more than one of them making a major impact by the time my contract is up is pretty slim.” The situation is becoming muddier by a growing belief that Greinke wouldn’t be fully motivated to pitch for what will probably be another losing Royals team in 2011. The thinking goes that he would perform much better for a contender next season than he would in Kansas City. Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/12/17/25281...l#ixzz18Tozxq9h Essentially, the Royals would have been asking for Hudson (if we still had him), Beckham OR Ramirez and Mitchell/Danks (had he not been injured, and I'm doubtful he could end up as a CFer, maybe...and Danks, when he was still thought of as a Top 10 prospect.) Something like that. There just doesn't seem to be a fit, and they're not going to take Jackson/Floyd/Danks. Doesn't make any sense.

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ Dec 18, 2010 -> 08:46 AM) Brewers, White Sox and Cardinals should all be in on this. The White Sox should move Danks to the Yanks for the prospects the Royals would like and then add Viciedo or Morel. A three way deal gets you around the NTC to a degree. Danks is almost in the same position as Greinke (two years left on deal), except he might be an even better fit in NY because of Pettite (if he stays) and Sabathia, but that would give them an overload of lefties, perhaps. Of course, for the White Sox to trade Danks and not get pitching back would be crazy. I think it would take a lot more than Danks and Viciedo...and Morel simply isn't viewed as a legit starting 3B who will have a 10-15 year MLB career (with 2-3 All-Star game appearances) by the majority of other MLB scouting departments. He's kind of like the equivalent of Michael Morse in the Garcia deal, with a bit more upside because of his stellar defense at one position but serious questions about his power.

He's a pretty unique kid. I think he'd actually be okay in New York, there are so many other superstars on that team that he could blend into the mix fairly well. He wouldn't be coming in as the savior or with one of those huge contracts like Burnett. I'll never forget the article in the KC Star where he said he would like to just walk away from baseball and "mow lawns with his headphones on" as his job. I think (correct me if I'm wrong) he was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder at that time...I do think that all the losing has worn on him, and he'd be much better off on a winning ballclub. He's not a Javier Vazquez. If I'm Cashman, I make the deal and cross my fingers. (The downside is that Rivera, Jeter, Posada, Pettite, etc., won't be around forever and they'll need to build around some of their new younger wave of star players and prospects, like Cano and Montero). But yes, teams like the Rangers or LA Angels/Dodgers (in terms of having a fanbase and mentality that's more laid-back and casual) would seem like better fits than East Coast teams. In some ways, he's always reminded me of Garland a bit, although I think he really has a next gear and "adrenaline" level where he can crank that fastball up into the mid to high 90's when he wants to, but he loses some of the control he has at 92-93.

For a long time, it was their speed and athleticism, defense, fundamentals and bullpens that beat us. I liked to think of it as the Martina Hingis analogy...they would just stay in the game with you and wait for you to beat yourselves (which the Sox have often done), but the game had to be close enough for them to do it, and their bullpen with Hawkins/Romero/Guardado was even scarier in 2002-2004 than their recent ones. So, as someone posted it, part of it is having the kind of offense we LOOK to have on paper that can score runs in bunches (like the Yankees as well) and just dominate the game in the first 3-4 innings and then cruise to a victory. The problem typically is we would be up by 2-3-4 runs and then the Twins would slowly whittle the lead down to zero and go ahead (those darned Jenks blown saves in 2008/2010 still haunt me). Clutch hitting with RISP...virtually non-existent for the White Sox in the second half against MIN. We had many, many opportunities to blow those games wide open and failed at a 90-95% rate. Somebody said the Twins blew us out....totally disagree with that. There were legitimately 10-11-12 games you could go back and dissect one or two key situations going against us and the Twins eventually winning. They weren't all so dramatic as the Thome homer off Thornton, but that was another huge backbreaker. I'd guess another way would be for Mauer/Morneau to be out significant periods of time and for them not to resign Pavano. Having Kyle Gibson turn out to be a huge flop wouldn't hurt too much either. They had the likes of Duensing, Valencia and Young come through in unexpected fashion last year. So we need to improve our minor league depth, and we all know that's our #1 weakness and it always has been under KW. Let's say Nathan doesn't return to form and Mauer/Morneau are hurt, that's like $50-60 million of payroll that's both ineffective and also blocking their flexibility to make other moves with the bloated payroll. And I'd still be pretty shocked to Greinke traded within the division....although I'm sure the Royals would take Gibson, Hicks and another prospect for Greinke...at least PRETTY sure. I really believe the Twins simply don't want to pay his salary. They're kind of at that in-between stage where they have players like Baker, Blackburn, Young, Cuddyer (especially) and Kubel all starting to make bigger bank. Also, they had to create some room for Capps....they couldn't just let him go after they gave up their best catching prospect, and Top 3 (arguably in baseball) for him. That's why they let O. Hudson, Hardy, Rauch, Crain, Guerrier and possibly Thome/Pavano were all let go. And it's going to be interesting to see what happens if Nathan struggles (likely at his age and with the two year timetable for being 100%) and can't be the closer but isn't actually hurt enough to go on the DL.

If Mitchell wouldn't have gotten hurt, this might have been a little bit more realistic. That, and the disappointing seasons by Flowers and Danks really pushed any idea of going totally young out of the window. I think the current struggles of the Cubs have something to do with it, too. It just didn't see like the right moment to "fold" when they were seemingly only 2-3 players away from having the best team on the South Side since 05/first half 06. You can easily see where it would have gone...they would have probably held onto Floyd and Peavy (no choice but to rehab him, obviously) and jettisoned Danks and Buehrle. Viciedo would be at 1B or DH. They would have had a big decision to make with Ramirez...probably, they would have traded him at his highest value (because of his contract structure) instead of waiting 2-3 years on a competitive team. You would have had Flowers, Viciedo, Beckham, Morel, Mitchell in LF, someone like Rasmus in CF (or the 2nd or 3rd best young CF we could get, with Rios gone as well)...theoretically Danks/Andruw Jones in RF (if he was affordable, if not, adios). Then the rotation would have been Floyd (until he was traded at highest value), maybe Peavy, Sale and then a lot of young prospects that we got in return for Konerko's departure (draft picks), Edwin Jackson, Rios, Jon Danks, Quentin, Matt Thornton, Buehrle, Alexei Ramirez. If you put the group of Rios, Danks, Jackson, Quentin, Thornton and Ramirez (along with Floyd at some point in 2011/12) on the open market and had pocked the money from Buehrle's departure to use signing draft picks that fell due to signability, it would be a pretty darned big haul in return.

I think we can agree that most Sox fans are happy with the way this offseason has gone and are pleased with the team as-is and certainly consider them good enough to be competitive. If that is true, then when the season comes to an end and if a lot of these moves don't result in a winner, I think it would be disingenuous to say, "KW should take the heat for this season!" To me, you can't be on board with the team and happy with the deals and acquisitions if you're going to change your mind later and blame the GM for failure. But by this logic, then only a tiny cross-section of fans could have been happy BEFORE 2010 because EVERYONE at soxtalk and throughout baseball saw the gaping holes in the structure of the team (particularly no DH)....this way, I guess the argument goes that ALMOST every Sox fan should be satisfied with the offseason and therefore, ergo, have no excuses for not supporting the team (particularly in terms of their attendance). The year prior of that, it was Wise coming out of ST as the starting CFer. There was just no way you could sell that to the fans. Of course, someone will say not even the Red Sox have All-Stars at EVERY position, but Wise wasn't even close to being a legitimate, non-platoon candidate from the opening bell. To those like greg and myself who'd seen Teahen play a significant amont of time, including the ill-fated RF and 2B experiments, you can go back and see predictions of impending doom/disaster, especially after that ridiculous extension was signed on the dotted line. Or am I misreading that...?

2/10 isn't the greatest success ratio either when we're the largest market team in the ALCD by far... that said, everyone would take 05 over the the Twins, BUT we all know the Twins' approach increases the probability/likelihood of winning another...or do the riverboat gambler moves make for more excitement? just like a sales manager has to assemble the best sales team with the budget allocated him...if they don't perform collectively well enough to meet their quotas, then the manager is replaced and someone new brought in...if the team weren't at least breaking even under the KW approach, he would be gone for now, it's working...but this season will be the biggest test yet since 2006 of our fanbase, GM/manager and ownership group....luckily the Twins are staying in neutral so we can catch up to them, and part of it has to be the fact that the Cubs seem dead in the water with piranhas in 3D circling them and smelling blood

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Dec 15, 2010 -> 09:51 PM) Effort is for kids. Results is what matters in the real world. If you owned a company had 2 salesman and one worked his ass off was a great guy etc.but couldn't sell a thing and another was a total ass, put in 5 hours a week but sold a ton, and one of them had to go, which one is it going to be? There isn't a GM in the game that doesn't put in the effort. Alard Baird in KC, now Dayton Moore....both those guys WORK/ED really hard, BUT...what do they have to show for it? I think if this current reincarnation of "all in" blows up like it almost did in 2010 (but the expectations will be much higher going into 2011)...then KW or Ozzie will definitely be having new roles. Ozzie most likely with another organization.

The Tribune is running it right now as if it's a "LIVE/BREAKING" story, but apparently not...??? You would think the editors over there would have some clue, but it's a former Cub, so maybe it's another chance to get a shot in at the White Sox (that he apparently doesn't want to play on the South Side). You'd have to think if Wood came in, it would be as the closer. Crain definitely won't be...he'll be more like Dotel or Santos for the middle two months of 2010. FWIW, they already noted in the story he had apparently said he wasn't interested...which was going to get interesting, or words to that effect.

I guess if you're comparing Crain to Rauch or Guerrier, he's the highest risk, but also has the most upside. He was pretty bad (almost to Linebrink proportions in 08/09) though in the past, spotty/erratic is how I would describe it. I don't think any Twins fans are upset about losing any of those three, but Crain was definitely the best of the group last year. Some even thought he pitched well enough to be a closer for one of the bottom 5-10 teams in MLB coming into this offseason. Let's hope for once we get a former Twin who can make his former team regret their decision to let him go.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/ct-sp...,7999899.column

Collapse THUMBS UP, just lots of interesting things to think about GET HIM to the GREEK 3.5/4.0 The Messenger 3.5/4.0

Captain Hugh JACKman, lol....would have been strange, but I think he would have been an excellent choice as well Forgetting Sarah Marshall 3.5/4.0 Date Night 2.75/4.0 The Town 3.75/4.0 Megamind 3.25/4.0 I Love You Phillip Morris 3.5/4.0 Easy A 3.5/4.0 JACKASS 3-D 2.75/4.00 (although kind of silly to try to objectively rate any of those movies)

I think the way the Nielsen company does it is random samplings in the thousands of viewers....they also try to enroll their subscribers in programs where they monitor tv usage automatically through a centralized computer database.

If you go by average number of households for the tv broadcasts, the Cubs were 9th and the White Sox 17th.