caulfield12

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Feb 22, 2009 -> 10:28 PM) This is getting ridiculous. Slumdog Millionaire was not this good. Neither was CCoBB, The Reader, Frost/Nixon...Milk, The Wrestler. I still prefer Gran Torino over all of them, in terms of impact on me as a viewer. Doubt was really good, but I can't say that I would want to watch it again every year for the rest of my life or anything like that. Well, at least it's not The English Patient, lol. I think Slumdog is probably better than Crash, too.

Agreed, the Ledger "hype" goes back well before the movie even came out. It was coronated at that point, and probably his death put the exclamation point. It's like the perfect made for t.v. moment...which is why I guess they held that award longer this year. I usually like some of the musical performances that are live, but this year isn't as interesting in that category.

Not over Hoop Dreams. Roger and Me, at the time, was much more cutting edge than Bowling. But the little cartoon history segment in that movie was a classic, I'll give you that. Actually, the Robert McNamara one (can't remember the title off top of my head) was one of the better ones, too.

I would really like to see Trouble the Water, too....seems like an interesting one, although Hoop Dreams might never be eclipsed for best documentary ever. I know Michael Moore and March of the Penguins have their fans, but Hoop Dreams was it...although I have to admit the one about the girls' basketball season in the Pacific Northwest was really entertaining too, just because of the coach and the saga of the star player.

So the only question left is will Slumdog sweep through the rest of the big awards....?

QUOTE (santo=dorf @ Feb 22, 2009 -> 09:47 PM) I saw Slumdog last night and aside from the goofy dance number during the credits, I thought it was fantastic and was the third best film I saw this year behind TDK and WALL-E. It seems that tonight will be the official coronation for Freida Pinto, who spoke probably 20-30 lines in that whole movie and will now become the IT girl of hte moment due to her country of origin, the growing interest in Bollywood, her beauty and her interesting dress. The big question becomes will she ever evolve into more than a pretty face? Can she carry a movie on her own or be a lead actor/actress? I guess we'll find out soon enough. Slumdog Millionaire star Freida Pinto has reportedly called off her engagement to Rohan Antao after work commitments left her with too little time to spend with him. Actress Pinto and Antao, both 24, met four years ago when they were studying at St Xavier's University in Mumbai, India. Antao allegedly supported his partner's career after she left university and became a successful model and TV presenter. But her recent catapult to fame thanks to the international box office success of Slumdog Millionaire has put a strain on their relationship, prompting Pinto to call it a day. A friend tells British tabloid the Sunday Mirror, "Freida called off the engagement after the film took off. She could never have imagined how rapidly her career would grow and it's all been overwhelming."

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Feb 22, 2009 -> 09:44 PM) Did you see the other nominees? I think Frost/Nixon was easily better, easily. And yes, that was a great skit. I'm not able to watch because I'm still in Thailand and the streams aren't very good. What did The Reader win for? I guess I'll have to catch that skit on youtube or something. At least I was able to see Pineapple Express, though. So the only surprise so far is Penelope Cruz I guess?

surprising win for Cruz, who I found terribly annoying in that role/movie....the English actress in that movie was much better than her or S. Johannson...seems to be a "career history" win like Kim Basinger for LA Confidential Viola Davis was the best, but perhaps her role was too short M. Tomei, at least she didn't win just for playing another struggling, heart of gold stripper and taking off her top, that would be too stereotypical Amy Adams was good but not Oscar-worthy

QUOTE (GREEDY @ Feb 22, 2009 -> 05:57 PM) No s***? Really? I didn't even look at the numbers, I was just trying to figure out how a guy who has a career OBP of .306 has the reputation as being Captain Clutch. Obviously, some guys are better dead red hitters than others, and I am speculating that Crede is one of them. Also, make Joe Crede Black, Hispanic, Cuban, whatever, anything but White and no one would give a damn about him. Outside of '06 his numbers are awful comparable to Uribe's. Both are above average defensively, both suck at hitting but have streaky pop where they can carry a team for a week or so. Neither can get on base to save their soul. The only difference is one has 500 fans in the stands wearing his jersey, and the other had maybe five people wearing number fives out there. And for clarification I am a white guy. Or imagine there was such a thing as a similar, stick-figurish white Alexei Ramirez who literally came out of nowhere like Roy Hobbs and helped lead the White Sox to the pennant, lol. Or that Contreras was white and not Cuban in 05/06. It's interesting that the three most debated players around here are Crede, Rowand and Brian Anderson. Maybe it's just pure randomness or chance, I'm not sure. One thing is for sure, Rowand's current contract and 2008 performance has shut up a lot of the comments about his grinder/leader/vocal personality (starting with the Carl Everett remarks about the lack of leadership post 05). Although personally, I this phenomenon happens a lot more in college and to a lesser extent in pro basketball....Tyler Hansborough, Danny Ferry, Christian Laettner, Danny Hurley, JJ Reddick (this is my chance to pick on Duke and Vitale, lol)...or the deification of players like Nash, Nowitzski and John Stockton. I do think it's also much easier for the "average Joe Trucker" fans to associate with someone who is white, could be them (their size/color) and speaks their own language. That's human nature, largely. Of course, there are athletes like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods that transcend color to an extent, and everyone at least wants to Be Like Them. Or even in the last 20-30 years, most Sox fans will say that Melton or Crede or Rowand or Kittle or Fisk or Ventura or McDowell was their favorite player. Frank Thomas and Griffey, Jr., will go down probably as the two greatest natural hitters of their generation, yet neither has really been appreciated very much (for a multitude of reasons, not just race) around the country over the past decade. You could also lump Dick Allen into this group.

Some of the Charlotte love is based on the theory that the Wachovia/Wells Fargo staved off the loss of tremendous job loss (albeit not all) in Charlotte, and then you have the twin presence of Bank of America. Financial centers of the world have not moved quickly...in the last 500 years, you could argue Amsterdam to London to NYC...but I think Charlotte and Nashville will definitely be the cities to watch in the New South. Portland (the Beavers?) used to put up some amazing numbers for their minor league teams, and I think at one point it was only a short-season team, maybe I'm mistaken. Salt Lake City, Louisville and Denver were the other three franchises, along with the Buffalo Bisons, that seemed to really dominate. After Katrina, you'd obviously have to cross New Orleans off the list. With the influx of immigration (and the assumption many of these immigrants, legal and illegal, like beisbol, although their incomes aren't perhap high enough to reflect in season ticket numbers right away) in South Texas, the corridor between San Antonio and Austin (it would probably have to be a domed stadium though, blah!) is another area to watch. I'm pretty sure Colorado (Boulder area?) can't sustain two teams, and there's the altitude/climate issue...but there's a huge swath of territory for just the Royals and the Rockies...Salt Lake City is probably the only other franchise that could fit, and that's a big stretch to me, although not impossible.

Worldwide, people are crowding into a discrete number of mega-regions, systems of multiple cities and their surrounding suburban rings like the Boston–New York–Washington Corridor. In North America, these mega-regions include SunBelt centers like the Char-Lanta Corridor, Northern and Southern California, the Texas Triangle of Houston–San Antonio–Dallas, and Southern Florida’s Tampa-Orlando-Miami area; the Pacific Northwest’s Cascadia, stretching from Portland through Seattle to Vancouver; and both Greater Chicago and Tor-Buff-Chester in the old Rust Belt. Internationally, these mega-regions include Greater London, Greater Tokyo, Europe’s Am-Brus-Twerp, China’s Shanghai-Beijing Corridor, and India’s Bangalore-Mumbai area. Economic output is ever-more concentrated in these places as well. The world’s 40 largest mega-regions, which are home to some 18 percent of the world’s population, produce two-thirds of global economic output and nearly 9 in 10 new patented innovations. Some (though not all) of these mega-regions have a clear hub, and these hubs are likely to be better buffered from the crash than most cities, because of their size, diversity, and regional role. Chicago has emerged as a center for industrial management and has rolled up many of the functions, such as finance and law, once performed in smaller midwestern centers. Los Angeles has a broad, diverse economy with global strength in media and entertainment. Miami, which is being hit hard by the collapse of the real-estate bubble, nonetheless remains the commercial center for the large South Florida mega-region, and a major financial center for Latin America. Each of these places is the financial and commercial core of a large mega-region with tens of millions of people and hundreds of billions of dollars in output. That’s not going to change as a result of the crisis. And potential problems (perhaps we're already seeing it with reduced ticket sales and sponsorships in ST) for the teams who train in Arizona. Phoenix, for instance, grew from 983,403 people in 1990 to 1,552,259 in 2007. One of its suburbs, Mesa, now has nearly half a million residents, more than Pittsburgh, Cleveland, or Miami. As housing starts and housing prices rose, so did tax revenues, and a major capital-spending boom occurred throughout the Greater Phoenix area. Arizona State University built a new downtown Phoenix campus, and the city expanded its convention center and constructed a 20-mile light-rail system connecting Phoenix, Mesa, and Tempe. And then the bubble burst. From October 2007 through October 2008, the Phoenix area registered the largest decline in housing values in the country: 32.7 percent. (Las Vegas was just a whisker behind, at 31.7 percent. Housing in the New York region, by contrast, fell by just 7.5 percent over the same period.) Overstretched and overbuilt, the region is now experiencing a fiscal double whammy, as its many retirees—some 21 percent of its residents are older than 55—have seen their retirement savings decimated. Mortgages Limited, the state’s largest private commercial lender, filed for bankruptcy last summer. The city is running a $200 million budget deficit, which is only expected to grow. Last fall, the city government petitioned for federal funds to help it deal with the financial crisis. “We had a big bubble here, and it burst,” Anthony Sanders, a professor of economics and finance at ASU, told USA Today in December. “We’ve taken Kevin Costner’s Field of Dreams and now it’s Field of Screams. If you build it, nobody comes.” http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200903/meltdown-geography/2

This isn't directly related to baseball, per se, but I thought it was interesting. It wouldn't surprise me if Detroit has a difficult time hanging onto their NFL/MLB/NBA teams, and perhaps Cleveland and Kansas City will eventually fail as franchises, too. Do you see the teams comprising the AL Central being the same as the five that currently constitute the division? Will the White Sox be able to build a true dynasty due to the competitive advantage of Chicago vis a vis the other four cities in our division? It seems to me that the areas that will really thrive in the future include Seattle/Vancouver/Portland (one franchise relocated), San Jose/Silicon Valley/SF (+1), the Research Triangle/Charlotte (banking, universities) +1, Nashville, San Antonio/Austin corridor...these last two are stretches due to population size and/or weather concerns. The Rust Belt and Sun Belt will be under the most duress....perhaps the Rays will not survive (although their future looks bright on the field as an organization) and/or the Marlins, the Diamondbacks....Cleveland and Detroit will be disproportionately affected as well. Other teams at risk will be the Royals, Reds, Brewers and Pirates. If the Padres didn't make it, you could imagine one more Southern California franchise. It also seems pretty clear Las Vegas will never have a franchise, either. I wouldn't be surprised to see four out of the ten aforementioned teams replaced and/or fail in the next decade. I think baseball will also need to start becoming more creative at looking at Mexico City, Northern Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and/or Venezuela for expansion. All of those sites would be much more likely than Tokyo/Japan, South Korea, Taiwan or China for the next decade. The Twins looks to be the second-best positioned for the new economy, but they're taking out a pretty massive debt load with the new stadium and opening that facility in the teeth of a recession. While NY can absorb the blow/s, at least for now, I am less concerned than say 2-3 years ago that the Twins will become the dominant franchise in the division. The Rust Belt in particular looks likely to shed vast numbers of jobs, and some of its cities and towns, from Cleveland to St. Louis to Buffalo to Detroit, will have a hard time recovering. Since 1950, the manufacturing sector has shrunk from 32 percent of nonfarm employment to just 10 percent. This decline is the result of long-term trends—increasing foreign competition and, especially, the relentless replacement of people with machines—that look unlikely to abate. But the job losses themselves have proceeded not steadily, but rather in sharp bursts, as recessions have killed off older plants and resulted in mass layoffs that are never fully reversed during subsequent upswings. In November, nationwide unemployment in manufacturing and production occupations was already 9.4 percent. Compare that with the professional occupations, where it was just a little over 3 percent. According to an analysis done by Michael Mandel, the chief economist at BusinessWeek, jobs in the “tangible” sector—that is, production, construction, extraction, and transport—declined by nearly 1.8 million between December 2007 and November 2008, while those in the intangible sector—what I call the “creative class” of scientists, engineers, managers, and professionals—increased by more than 500,000. Both sorts of jobs are regionally concentrated. Paul Krugman has noted that the worst of the crisis, so far at least, can be seen in a “Slump Belt,” heavy with manufacturing centers, running from the industrial Midwest down into the Carolinas. Large swaths of the Northeast, with its professional and creative centers, have been better insulated. Perhaps no major city in the U.S. today looks more beleaguered than Detroit, where in October the average home price was $18,513, and some 45,000 properties were in some form of foreclosure. A recent listing of tax foreclosures in Wayne County, which encompasses Detroit, ran to 137 pages in the Detroit Free Press. The city’s public school system, facing a budget deficit of $408 million, was taken over by the state in December; dozens of schools have been closed since 2005 because of declining enrollment. Just 10 percent of Detroit’s adult residents are college graduates, and in December the city’s jobless rate was 21 percent. To say the least, Detroit is not well positioned to absorb fresh blows. The city has of course been declining for a long time. But if the area’s auto headquarters, parts manufacturers, and remaining auto-manufacturing jobs should vanish, it’s hard to imagine anything replacing them. When work disappears, city populations don’t always decline as fast as you might expect. Detroit, astonishingly, is still the 11th-largest city in the U.S. “If you no longer can sell your property, how can you move elsewhere?” said Robin Boyle, an urban-planning professor at Wayne State University, in a December Associated Press article. But then he answered his own question: “Some people just switch out the lights and leave—property values have gone so low, walking away is no longer such a difficult option.” Perhaps Detroit has reached a tipping point, and will become a ghost town. I’d certainly expect it to shrink faster in the next few years than it has in the past few. But more than likely, many people will stay—those with no means and few obvious prospects elsewhere, those with close family ties nearby, some number of young professionals and creative types looking to take advantage of the city’s low housing prices. Still, as its population density dips further, the city’s struggle to provide services and prevent blight across an ever-emptier landscape will only intensify. That’s the challenge that many Rust Belt cities share: managing population decline without becoming blighted. The task is doubly difficult because as the manufacturing industry has shrunk, the local high-end services—finance, law, consulting—that it once supported have diminished as well, absorbed by bigger regional hubs and globally connected cities. In Chicago, for instance, the country’s 50 biggest law firms grew by 2,130 lawyers from 1984 to 2006, according to William Henderson and Arthur Alderson of Indiana University. Throughout the rest of the Midwest, these firms added a total of just 169 attorneys. Jones Day, founded in 1893 and today one of the country’s largest law firms, no longer considers its Cleveland office “headquarters”—that’s in Washington, D.C.—but rather its “founding office.”

QUOTE (Kalapse @ Feb 21, 2009 -> 03:01 PM) They're the people who are running baseball teams, the people who make millions just to hold the title of adviser or consultant. They're people like Dayton Moore, Theo Epstein or Jack Zduriencik, the sort of baseball minds that teams are hiring to construct their organizations these days. Despite not playing or managing at the major league level they're winning championships or like the Rays coming damn close and threatening to stick around for a while. It's the reason why teams are hiring 35 year old Harvard grads to run their organizations and moving away from the crusty old baseball guy. Well, it sounds like we're back in the middle of Moneyball's debate again, Beane or Grady Fuson? The obvious answer is that statistics/computer analysis are but one too in the arsenal, but probably will never supercede actual scouting departments...or maybe all that information, with rise of the Internet and streaming video, will just be made available to everyone for a price. Daniels in Texas doesn't really fit the mold you're talking about, he had more of a management/business background than a statistical analysis approach. I do think he went to Cornell, though, so he fits the Ivy League approach I suppose. Obviously, DiPodesta and Ricciardi have had "modest," at best, success. They certainly haven't tipped the scales forever to the Bill James side of thing, and many have since picked holes in that theory by citing the pitching success of Mulder/Hudson/Zito and a "rent a closer" being even a bigger factor in those teams failing to make the playoffs, but not having deep or consistent enough offensive attacks to beat superior talent in a head-to-head elimination series. My take on Moore is that he's much more like "old school" like Schuerholz or Jocketty or Gillick than he is the SABR crowd. The Braves made their mark in producing dominating pitching staffs and incredible scouting to find position prospects and keep their minor league system in the Top 5-10 on a pretty consistent basis. The other team often compared with the A's (before the Rays' emergence) is the Twins, and they're not a SABR type of organization either. Even Beane, to me, is more of a horse trade and has an eye for a talent.....maybe their "screening" methods are a little different in terms of imposing their own form of order by focusing on college players like a Swisher or Blanton, but it's still a matter of picking the right guys. In the end, Miguel Olivo ended up being worth a lot more to the White Sox than Chad Bradford, because his acquisition led to Garcia and a WS title, something that Bradford, while a very solid/above average MLB reliever, never accomplished for the A's. The new guy in Seattle seems like more of a hybrid between the two poles...I think KW is still more of a traditional scouting/eyeballing talent guy than anything else, despite his Stanford degree. I think of him signing someone like Iguchi just from watching video or projecting something in Ramirez that many scouts overlooked (athleticism, baseball instints, wrists/bat speed) because of his wiry frame. It's cyclical. I'm sure we'll see NFL teams going with much younger/inexperienced head coaches like Tomlin, instead of retreads. I also think the Red Sox, while they use those tools and have Bill James on staff....are, first and foremost, an anomaly because of their budgets and iconic status, but also a hybrid organization in the way they're now eschewing competing directly with the Yankees (although TEX was an exception) and making budget-conscious moves with high reward/low risk moves like Penny, Smoltz, Kotsay, Saito and Baldelli that will pay off if just two of those guys produce, rather than sinking all that money into Tex, Sabathia, Burnett, etc.

Even battling back issues, Crede's third base defense is among the game's best. Last year he saved 13 more bases than the average third baseman despite missing a third of the season. Where do they get this crap (mlbtraderumors, although I'm sure it was from another silly defensive metric)??? Seriously, there's no neat/simple/compact way to objectify defense, zone ratings, whatever. Crede was a below average defensive 3B for most of last season. I don't care what they say. Maybe because they remember him from 2005, they watch, I don't know, Josh Fields, and assume that every ball getting by Fields would have been stopped/prevented by Crede. I'm more worried about Juan Cruz in Minnesota as their RH set-up guy than I am Crede replacing Buscher/Harris at 3B.

Which might have been nothing...of course, Cabrera could file a grievance, but it's arguable that he would win (like the Todd Walker situation I think in SD?) The fact that nobody really has come up with a realistic (at least from his POV) contract proposal would seem to offer pretty strong evidence that it wouldn't be obvious he would make the team (over Alexei Ramirez as the starting SS). If you were KW, it would be easy to make the argument that Ramirez's OPS, power, speed (Cabrera is declining in that area, Ramirez is in his prime), etc., would make him the obvious pick, despite the overhype about Cabrera's Gold Glove (supposedly) caliber defense. The only way Cabrera could make an argument through the union would be if he contended he had been offered a shot at the starting 2B position, and Getz/Lillibridge/Nix were selected over him, but even that's tenuous with so many teams going with youth/affordability over veterans. Of course, useless speculation...but I am glad the Twins didn't pick him up, I think he would have been a real thorn in our side as leader of that infield. Luckily, it's just Punto. Cabrera theoretically could have come back, but it would have virtually assured the trade of either Dye, Jenks or Konerko. Viciedo is/was essentially a replacement for Swisher's money in the 2009 budget, although he will be infinitely cheaper in 2010/11/12 than Nick. Swisher's contract has gone from a "bargain" to albatross in a short period of time. It will be interesting to see if the Braves go over Swisher, Nady or possibly Garret Anderson/Edmonds (or a the full-blown youth movement). Of all the players, Garland, Wolf, Hudson, Abreu, Cabrera and Varitek were the ones (along with Juan Cruz) who ended up suffering the most...with Raul Ibanez coming out smelling like a rose, along w/ the Yankees' triumvirate.

Does anyone really believe that David Cook's going to get a legit chance to win the CF job and that he's not just organizational filler? Well, in my memory, the only time something so strange happened (besides Scott Radinsky and Boone Logan jumping from A ball) was John Cangelosi winning a starting outfield spot way back in the 80's. Cook would have to jump over Owens, Anderson, Wise and probably even Jordan Danks and Shelby (yes, I know Shelby's not a natural CFer). Not to mention Lillibridge will thrown into the mix if he doesn't beat out Getz and Nix, and then there's also Alexei Ramirez (5-10% chance).

Don't forget Contreras, as well... Well, you'd have to think the home playoff games and Game 163 added a pretty decent chunk of revenue. There's always the possibility we dump Jenks as he becomes more and more expensive. The recent philosophy of the White Sox has typically been to go cheap (with the exception of Koch) on closers, like Howry, Foulke, Takatsu, Hermanson (although he wasn't brought on with the idea of making him one originally), Marte, Tom Gordon (by that point in his career), then Jenks. You really have to go back to Roberto Hernandez to find an older, veteran closer who had a long string of years with the Sox. Is Jenks going to be worth $7-9 million in the type of market where that will get you Orlando Hudson and Bob Abreu? Maybe not. Of course the problem is that you won't get much of anything back for him, either. He's not perceived like a Papelbon or even a Nathan. He's somewhere in that second tier of Top 10-12.

QUOTE (Tony82087 @ Feb 20, 2009 -> 08:47 PM) Lets hope I'm wrong then. You bring up a really good point, I just know what I have seen first hand in Spring Training, along with reports from the media, among other things, that Owens still is held in extremely high regard, and he is really going to have to shoot himself in the foot to lose his grasp on the CF job. Is Plaxico Burress anywhere around AZ and/or available?

I think the biggest problem was the last two months of 2006 and then the 2007 season on top of it. Kind of stopped all of our forward momentum...at the same time the Cubs were really starting to take off. A number of studies documenting the effects of WS Championships typically shows a 5 year window of benefits accruing....in our case, it was stopped shorted by the 2007 season and the economy a bit...but I'm sure the Rockies aren't enjoying nearly the economic renaissance that some forecasted. Their WS appearance (and it's still different from a championship, of course) hasn't had a demonstrable affect. Perhaps because their season was so screwy...the way they went on a tear at the end but weren't a factor for much of the season, and their subsequent destruction by the Red Sox. I guess their fans didn't really feel their team was "for real" in the end. Or look at the Tigers from 2006...to where they have fallen today. Almost feel sorry for them, since DET has just been decimated and demoralized, but it sure helps out the White Sox.

The comeback and Robin Ventura walk-off grand slam (can't remember which season) was a good one too...maybe it was against the Rangers? Also, him getting hog-tied and "noogied" by Nolan Ryan...oh, how I hated that prick. I think Craig Grebeck and one other Sox player had taken him deep back to back, too. No specific memory, but "Lance on point" and "I love to watch Ray run" good memories...and Paciorek always made me laugh. Thatsa notso gooda. Back to back to back homers off Randy Johnson (one of them was Widger)?

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AgQY...o&type=lgns Another article on what could be done to free Cruz (hopefully not to Twins), O-Hudson and O-Cabrera

it's amazing how most of the memories are the ones from 2000 on...good job KW!...or just short-term memory is more poignant Melido Perez rain-shortened no hitter no hitter thrown against us by Hawkins that we actually won seeing Tom Seaver pitch for Sox in Old Comiskey there was one game that really stands out in 1990 when we had that improbable run...a home game against KC we won with an amazing comeback (another game I was able to attend, being from the Quad Cities) Rodney McCray running through fence in minors (sort of counts) Bo Jackson (1993) Michael Jordan playing for the Sox (sort of) Mike Cameron ripping Parque to shreds at Comiskey... being friends with Scott Radinsky (met him when he pitched for SB) and then seeing him up in the bigs a year later...getting free tickets, going out to Will Call and saying a player left tickets for me, that was kind of cool Tito Landrum and Jerry Dybzynski (sp) for all the wrong reasons Julio Cruz and Rudy Law in 1983...and watching the Ron LeFlore story on t.v. too young for 1977 team, unfortunately getting Claudell Washington autograph on 1979 Topps bb card, my first of many autographs RECENT 2000 DET brawl (one of the few moments I was able to attend, and the spark that lit the fire that season) 2005 the whole season, I was out of the country teaching in Colombia....but I was still able to see all the playoff and WS games...but just the memory of being in a hotel and going crazy when Tyler Blum FINALLY ended that game against Wandy Rodriguez...it was a liner, so it was so strange....the game just ended like that after you wanted to go to bed but knew you simply couldn't Crede homer off Riske to push back the Tribe and turn the tide finally...I distinctly remember we'd blown a huge lead against KC, going to bed, waking up the next morning and seeing the score on ESPN Deportes ticker and thinking the season was doomed at that point All the players coming back onto the field at DET with their 2005 ALCD clinching greys with black piping...particularly Garcia and for some reason, I still thought that last liner to RF off Jenks was going to be a hit and maybe they wouldn't make the playoffs Pods and Konerko (GS) off Qualls, Buehrle's steady performance in WS (classic Mark)...Willie Harris/JD in game 4....Juan Uribe's catch...El Duque in ALDS (I was on a tour in the Andes Mountains, but the bus stopped for an hour so I went in to Internet cafe and followed that inning live through cbssportsline.com, I wanted to KILL Marte at that point in the season)...Crede throughout the playoffs defensively...that amazing comeback off Oswalt, capped off by the AJ bases-clearing double into no-man's land Crede's double to win Game 2 of ALCS...Iguchi's homer following the muffed grounder by former Sox favorite Graffanino...and that it was off David Wells to boot another one that really stands out was Cotts getting a couple of huge outs in the WS and then Jenks winning that epic confrontation with Jeff Bagwell...that was a class power versus power showdown ripping Clemens to shreds and sending him to showers early with lame injury excuse and for a sort of White Sox related memory...arguing/fighting with ncorgbl and sometimes colsat (although I got to respect him over time) for the first 2-3 years of chisox.com, we were mortal enemies...I re

He was a legit #3 starter at least for the first half of the season until he tried to pitch through injuries. If both Colon and Contreras can hold up, we're in MUCH better shape than we were one month ago. Marquez, Richard and Poreda...perhaps only one of them even making the OP roster the way things are going now. Pretty big turnaround I'd say.

No different than some of the predictions coming into 2005....with the team's chemistry totally changed and the offensive firepower of Magglio, Carlos Lee and Valentin all gone.

QUOTE (Pumpkin Escobar @ Feb 17, 2009 -> 11:26 PM) I agree with this. I am hoping that if we are out of it we can move these guys for solid prospects as I am very concerned about arbitration next year. If we are able to take notes from the Cabrera situation, it may be in our best interest to move our guys at the deadline. Hopefully we are in a position of adding players for a playoff run but if not, so be it. Next offseason though. Not to get ahead of ourselves but since it was brought up, I completely agree that we'll have a lot of payroll flexibility and we'll be able to get discounts because of the economy. Off the top of my head some free agents I see us going after or would like to go after are: Roberts Figgins Crawford (not sure though if he has a option off the top of my head) Vlad Holliday Matsui Winn For pitching. I was talking about this with a buddy when we were discussing Bedards value and I do belive he is a FA. With Contreras coming off the books - I wouldnt mind taking a flier on him for half that or finding a guy like Lackey or Webb or something would be a big addition to this club. Especially if we see a regression from Danks and Floyd. Big insurance policy. Anyways...just my thought on the comment above. Hopefully this season goes well but I think that next offseason may be a telling sign why we were less committed to making moves and strapped for cash. Crawford will have his option picked up. We definitely need some LH bats (internally, we have Brandon Allen and that's it in terms of power). Some names we'll hear include Ankiel and Holliday (but both Boras clients)...Chipper Jones, Carlos Delgado and maybe (although doubtful) Jason Bay. Hank Blalock might get some consideration too, if he stays healthy. I don't see Vladimir Guerrero as an option...think he will still be injury-prone, and he's not a left-handed DH to replace Jim Thome. Perhaps Aubrey Huff will be the conversation? I'm sure Roberts, Figgins and Abreu will all be under consideration as well. Both Lackey and Webb will be too expensive...although we will/should have some money to play around with, unless the economy completely collapses and our attendance sinks below 1.75 million. I guess anything's possible. Bedard will be too expensive to bring aboard if he has another impressive season....and too risky for the price barring a Colon-esque contract.