Tek4pres

Who cares? That's really the attitude I take with Manny. Concern yourself with what he does off the field and the more you conern yourself with what he does on it. So he walks into the wall during pitching changes. I tend to go grab a beer myself. The front office and fans should just ignore this like everything else.

This trade was with the Orioles for Mike Boddicker. The second prosepect that the Sox included in the deal was Brady Anderson. While in hindsight this deal looks like a terrible turn for the Sox, it wasn't that bad at the time. Boddicker came to the Sox and won 7 games playing a key role in leading the Sox to the division title including winning the game that assured the Sox a tie for the title. Was it worth it? Well, it's easy to look back and say no. But if you were Lou Gorman and looking at a shot to get to the World Series and deliver the first championship since 1918 are you gonna tell the fans to wait to next year? Most prospects don't pan out and there's hardly ever a sure thing. Look at the other thread with the Gammons article about Toe Nask. Look at all the trades the Yankees have made over the years that have decimated their farm system. How many of those prospects have turned into a Curt Schilling caliber player? Eric Milton, Willie Mo Pena, Drew Henson, Cristian Guzman, etc. And those are only the ones that are remembered. Point being you have to make trades to improve your team when you're close. That's your job as a GM. Trades don't make a GM great. They're a component, but sometimes you have to make a trade that looks bad five years afterwards, but if you have a solid farm system and are prudent in free agency, you'll have the players in there to replace them and your team will be winning. This is why Duquette was a bad GM in spite of the Tek/Lowe deal. He decimated this teams farm system and even after three years of heavy spending on development, we still haven't gotten to the point we want to be. It's also why in spite of the Schilling deal (and Bagwell deal), that Gorman wasn't a bad GM. In 1986, he played a key role in developing both World Series teams, building the Sox for two years as their GM and drafting/signing Doc Gooden, Daryl Strawberry, Lenny Dykstra and Kevin Mitchell when he was the Mets. (Of course he also drafted Roger Clemens. No not with the Sox, but with the Mets. Fortunately for us, that Clemens didn't sign.)

Why not pull a Lou Pinella just start the game with our relievers and bring in Miller in the 4th?

Time for Manny to make up for that brain fart in the last inning.

The Hawk sounds like he's calling Hernandez "El Dookie"

We've figured out the secret. I just need to bet against Miller. 5-1 says he can't go 1-2-3

2-1 says Miller gives up a single to start the inning? Any takers?

ThE oNlY thINg thIS iS MiSsInG iZ RAnDom CapiTaliZation. i EsPeCiAlLy LiKe iT cUZ ThE miSsPeLling oF SCUK

How bush league is it to read viewer's emails complaining about umpires' calls during the broadcast? WGN needs to get it's act together.

Sure, when you double post the same message twice in a row, it's easy to get up to All Star

You can get always get WEEI if you have the Gameday Audio. They have a default broadcast stream if you click the link off of MLB.com or ESPN.com, but if go to the Gameday Audio homepage you can choose from up to four streams (home, away, home secondary language and away secondary language).

They're the same announcers for both network. And they are terrible on either.

The Randa deal actually effects the Sox because he was the other third baseman that the Twins were looking at. Perhaps now they'll be more desperate to get Mueller and pay a higher price.

I think that one has to be especially cautious with the "new environment" talk this year. When a power hitter's skills prodigiously drop off this season like Lowell's have, the steroids question comes into play. If his numbers were inflated before due to steroids use, then a new environment won't make much of a difference. It's unfair to make acusations without proof, but when the money involved could prevent you from signing Damon or one of your other free agents in the off season, you at least have to consider it.

I think if Clement locates his pitches, he's got the best stuff on the current staff. Well's knows how to get guys out. He's more consistent in that you know what you are going to get, but I think Clement could shut down any team in the league if he has his control. That really just avoids the question, but I figure it's not a clear cut question anyways.

It's our only trip to US Cellular this year so if we're rained out tonight, we've got a double header on our hands at some point. So essentially, the line up probably wouldn't even get shuffled. Though if it's a day/night thing, they might want to throw the knuckleballer out there during the day and Clement tonight.

I think that lefties have been keeping the ball away from Manny. Someone must have seen it work somewhere and it's spread in scouting reports. But he's too good to not produce all season. I look for him to spray the ball more to right and start murdering lefties. Renteria's actually had a great year against lefties, .336 avg. Plust he's a second half guy throughout his career. He had a lousy start last year but still ended up with decent numbers. I can't figure out Millar. He ended up turning it on last year about this time once he opened up his stance to see the ball better. It was a great minor adjustment that worked for the rest of the season. But it apparently didn't extend to 2005.

That's the one and only Hawk.

Well, there is no more FSN Chicago - it's been replaced by Comcasts Sports Net which splits White Sox coverage with WGN. I'm stuck listening to the Chicago announcers no matter what. I don't mind homers, but they talk about the team like they're thirteen year old girls drooling over a hot teacher (or as we've seen in the past few days, over "Heavenly" Hanley Ramirez".)

It's still a long way from October and it's only four games, but it's going to be hard for both teams in this series to not look at this as a barometer of where they are heading into October. The White Sox have had troubles recently losing 5 of 6 at home. And with an injury to their closer and bullpen anchor Dustin Hermanson (yes that same Dustin Hermanson), they've resorted to the dreaded closer by committee. Still this is a team with two viable Cy Young candidates, Mark Buehrle and Jon Garland, both of whom will face Boston in this series today and Friday respectively, and one of the best defensive teams in baseball. And their record of 62-31 is just completely sick even if they are in the same division as Kansas City. Nature may have it's own plans for extending the hype of this series; there is an 80% chance of showers to night scheduled to begin around 6 o'clock. So it's likely the White Sox won't start this game unless they are sure that Buehrle won't get interrupted by an additional delay and waste a start. I'm hyped for this series, even if I'll have to put up with the Chicago announcers for all four games. This is a time for the boys to step up and show that they're still the World Champs. Besides, who couldn't get excited knowing that "Crazy" Carl Everett will be in the house.

Does this mean we can't walk around in our underwear and cuss like sailors anymore? Drat! And just as I got my pirate accent down pat.

I think that the only reason that trades like this are discussed is because the farm system is still in shock from the Harrington/Duquette regime. Like Nomar last year and possibly Millar or Mueller this year, Theo is looking to find help without mortgaging the future. In a few years once we've developed more prospects and have more abundance in our farm system, we won't mind trading some off in deals. But for now, it's vital that we start developing our own guys that we can bring up to the major league level because that's going to make this team even more flexible financially. I think we have some of the best executives in baseball and in a few years I suspect that we'll be able to drastically reduce payroll without sacrificing wins because we'll have those prospects. It would hurt to see Mueller go, but we probably only have him for a few more months anyways. Regarding Youk at second, I think it's a bad idea because of the importance of the 2B in the double play which if you think about it is probably the single hardest play to execute in baseball since you have to catch a throw, tag the base, turn 180 degrees while avoiding a 200lb guy running at full speed trying to take out your legs and then deliver an accurate throw to first all within a second. For Youk to start working on that right now would be too much of a liability to the team and he risks injuring himself.

Neither were interested in the deal that the Marlins pitched, but who knows where that leaves the Marlins. Truth is, they certainly want to get rid of Burnett and if they keep hitting stonewalls with the Sox, Yanks and O's they'll either go elsewhere or relax their demands. And just rehashing an old point to amend the proposed trades here: I'm pretty sure that any deal involving Stern would have to involve the Braves in someway since he is a rule five player meaning he has to stay on the major league roster or DL or be offered back to the Braves for half the purchasing price (50,000). The player is then subject to waivers and can be taken by any team willing to pay the price, but he must remain on the major league roster there. I know that you can get around that rule of keeping him on the 25 man roster by offerring a player to the Braves in return, so I guess that's what it would take to trade him.

You know your team is involved in a blow out when your announcers are more concerned with finding a "Neil Diamond Shirt" among the fans in the crowd.

Did Manny get taken out on an injury or just to give him more time off to hang out with the scoreboard operator?