lostfan

Wait, wait... time-out. Gotta clear some things up here. 1 - Wesley Clark isn't an Obama surrogate and wasn't doing the interview on behalf of Obama, their campaign had nothing to do with that 2 - Clark was asked a leading question from the interview, the words he used were almost verbatim what the interviewer said except his reply was to say "that's not relevant" (to be honest, as crass as it sounds, I don't see how it is in and of itself especially when you see how the question was framed to him) 3 - Clark was wounded in combat in Vietnam too and is the last kind of person to disprespect McCain's war record, not that this means he wouldn't, but he didn't My point in saying this is that the response to this "controversy" is manufactured and the "attack" by Clark is non-existent. It's just more political bulls***.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Jun 30, 2008 -> 05:06 PM) and ps. how could it be that he was fired cuz he was black when a black man was put in to replace him? This reminds me of when Ray Lewis started popping off about Steve McNair and how he got treated "different" or whatever by the Titans b/c he was black, but I guess he forgot that before McNair got there they had a Hall of Fame black QB, and then when McNair left they used a top 5 pick to draft... another black QB.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 30, 2008 -> 03:22 PM) It won't destroy the earth. Don't be such a debbie downer. Get me all excited for nothing.

QUOTE (Cknolls @ Jun 30, 2008 -> 01:50 PM) Why ask the question in the first place? For the same reason someone would ask questions about Obama's patriotism.

Average runs, by its very definiton, tells me absolutely nothing especially when the primary argument is consistency.

QUOTE (YASNY @ Jun 30, 2008 -> 02:05 PM) LMAO ... I agree. Alexei at catcher may prove to be fatal. That reminds me of a few months ago when I was talking to some Bears fans suggesting the Bears draft Colt Brennan (vomit in my mouth from saying that notwithstanding). I was like... do you have somethign against Brennan? Why would you want to put him behind the Bears' offensive line (this was before they drafted Williams)? He wouldn't make it through the first quarter without losing a couple of limbs.

QUOTE (YASNY @ Jun 30, 2008 -> 11:23 AM) I think Swish is one of those guys that you put anywhere on the field other than pitcher, and he'd prove to be at least adequate. There are guys that are just good baseball players, and they'll step up and do what needs to be done and Swish is that type of player, imho. Alexei Ramirez too... although I wouldn't put him at catcher, he might literally die.

QUOTE (almagest @ Jun 30, 2008 -> 01:50 PM) I don't see how what I said is a misrepresentation of this thread at all. The observation that we don't win when we don't hit homeruns as presented is an obvious complaint against our offense and the way it's built. My response was that we play to the strengths of our park, we average more than a HR per game, and when given the evidence presented in this thread, this is a pretty good indication that we'll keep winning consistently, as long as the pitching holds up. We will look great in some games and pathetic in others. When the offense is bad, it's really, really bad. Nobody here is saying we should be a juggernaut offense and that the Sox suck because they're not one, they're saying this team is unbalanced and inconsistent. Which is really obvious when seeing the records of those other teams without HRs.

Richar is still kind of a wild card. If all else fails and he's still productive with no spot, we trade him for a position of need. BTW, he appears to have won the battle he was having against the suck early on, he hit .297 in June with a decent .791 OPS.

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ Jun 30, 2008 -> 11:38 AM) That's blasphemy on SoxTalk. Chris Young is the greatest player the White Sox have ever traded! Yeah no s***. I would love to have a leadoff hitter with a sub .300 OBP as long as he hits 30 home runs!

I respect the Twins too. Which only makes me hate them more, actually.

QUOTE (YASNY @ Jun 30, 2008 -> 12:17 PM) That's true, and it's difficult to produce consistently and stay sharp when your playing time is sporadic. Some players, however, do have that knack. BA is not one of those players yet and he may never be one. But I believe the skill set is there, the maturity is now there and all he needs is the opportunity and experience. His problem has always been maturity. He came up to MLB with a flawed swing (something that's totally correctable with some extra work and getting repetition against live pitching) he managed to get by on in the minors, and he struggled, but instead of working on it he pouted and acted like a b****. Then when he went to AAA he wasn't professional about it, and didn't put his full effort into it. He admits now that he just wanted the status of being a major leaguer but didn't want to put the work in, but he's doing it now, and I've just got a feeling that if he ever got to play consistently (meaning for several weeks, not several days) he'll show more.

QUOTE (YASNY @ Jun 30, 2008 -> 12:05 PM) He may prove me wrong at some point, but I believe that if BA gets another shot at being a regular that he'll prove to be a quality major league ballplayer. I still think so too, there's just a segment of the fanbase that hates him though so they think the slightest degree of support for him is fanboyism. It's not about his total career stats, it's what I see, and the fact that he's shown flashes for a few weeks at a time. I know he hasn't hit, but I still think there's a chance he can. Everything is magnified with him, he was hitting fine, one of the more productive hitters on the team actually (and sadly) but he hits a cold spell just like every other hitter in our lineup has had so far (except Hall maybe) and he never hears the end of it.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jun 30, 2008 -> 12:00 PM) I agree completely, but I'm also saying that someone who plays CF should be one of the premiere defensive 1st baseman with a bit of experience (because "defensive" tools a Cfer possesses is superior to those a 1B possesses). Heck, just look at Darin Erstad, he was an absolutel stud at 1st (than again, in his prime, he was an absolutely stud in CF too). I think players like Erstad just have multiple defensive tools, some guys can do that. Things like the ability to judge where a fly ball will land and range won't do much for you in the infield.

QUOTE (YASNY @ Jun 30, 2008 -> 12:00 PM) Paulie is a proven solid major league hitter that has struggled due to a couple of nagging injuries. It's very difficult to perform at the major league level when you are 100%, let alone when you aren't. Look at the difference between '07 and '08 for Toby Hall. I can't believe people that just want to throw Paulie under the bus when he has been so solid for so long in a Sox uniform. It just hurts to watch him suck when you know he's capable of doing so much better. I try not to pile on him.

QUOTE (YASNY @ Jun 30, 2008 -> 11:53 AM) I have conflicting opinions with a lot of the posters here from time to time. Just because I happen to disagree with them doesn't mean they are dumb. Sometimes, smart people have dumb opinions. And to be honest, anyone that spends much time here and puts forth opinions ends up having to eat their words, eventually. Not dumb posters, but there are certainly dumb posts, of which some posters seem to be more prone to than others (however, the ignore function allows me to scroll past them blissfully unaware). That being said there are plenty of good posters if you are willing to put all that aside (Kalapse, yourself, witesoxfan, kyyle, etc etc)

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jun 30, 2008 -> 11:53 AM) He picks them with the very best of em and gets to anything hit near him. The only area he actually lacks is in the range department and I'd agree that Swisher is all around better, but not by a whole lot. I also think Swish is one of the best defensive 1st baseman in the game (as he should be, considering he is capable of playing CF). The skill set for a CF and a corner infielder are totally different, though. Not that you're wrong. Just saying, I don't think one has anything to do with the other. In fact I would say having a plus defender at CF play 1B, even if he is good at 1B, is a total waste.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Jun 30, 2008 -> 11:54 AM) um... I'm pretty sure he meant "the lack thereof."

QUOTE (YASNY @ Jun 30, 2008 -> 11:29 AM) P.E.T.A. will be calling on you soon. Then I will have succeeded. I hate the Twins.

QUOTE (almagest @ Jun 30, 2008 -> 09:50 AM) Why is this such an issue for people? We've been at or near the top of MLB in home runs since like 2003. Our park is a hitter's paradise, so we build our team to take advantage of that. We're on pace for about 215 home runs this year, meaning we'll average roughly 1.33 home runs per game. We also average 4.83 runs a game. The offense is fine. Inconsistent at times, but every team has the same problem. I sure would like us to start scoring in different ways and become one of the best offenses of all time and score like 900 runs a season, though. Unfortunately, that's probably not going to happen. As evidenced by Jackie Hayes' and a couple other posts, this is a pretty gross misrepresentation of what people are saying.

QUOTE (RME JICO @ Jun 30, 2008 -> 09:33 AM) I understand that, but are we winning because of the HR, or are we hitting HRs when we win? An example of this is our 10-3 vs the Cubs. We hit HR's, but even without them, we still would've won. When the Cubs swept us, they scored 12 of 22 runs on HRs, when we swept them, we scored 12 of 21. How is that so different? It's not that we win when we hit HRs. It's that we are almost guaranteed to lose when we don't hit HRs.

Macowiak was always a decent offensive player IMO, I never had any complaints about his bat. There's a fair amount of OBP on this team, but it's just imbalanced.

In another thread I compared the Twins to an obnoxious rabid dog that always gets in the way. I would very much like to be the proverbial shotgun that takes them out back and puts them down.

Speaking of the D-backs, am I the only one that's been very underwhelmed by Chris Young's development so far? Still no batting average and no OBP whatsoever to speak of.

QUOTE (RME JICO @ Jun 30, 2008 -> 08:44 AM) You can make that statement for a ton of stats. What is the record of the Sox when Quentin gets a hit? I bet if you did that for any good team you would get similar results. Many teams win when they hit home runs. Would you rather have them hit it softer for a double off the wall? That's not really the point of the stat though. The Sox score a disproportionate amount of runs via the home run, and they are hard pressed to do it any other way. In fact, in games where they're hitting home runs, they're probably getting a couple of them hit "softer for a double off the wall" too because they're exploding on some poor pitcher. But when they're not hitting home runs they're just not hitting, period (see: numerous shutouts this year) which probably means they're facing a lefty with something resembling an off-speed pitch. The end result is a lot of runs, but maddening inconsistency. Hell, if I could throw with my left hand with a curveball and a changeup, even I could get a CG SO and strike out 12 against them, I can barely throw 60 mph with that hand. lol.