Soul

The team with better pitching and better hitting will almost always win. Wow, that's pure genius isn't it? The White Sox have better pitching, and better hitting, than the Astros. Doesn't matter what the Stros do-----they're going to lose the Series.

You can crucify me if you want, but this is how I really feel. Two things must happen for the Cubs to win a World Series: 1) Ownership must change to someone who knows & loves baseball. 2) Wrigley Field must be abandoned and a new ballpark built, so that money can not be made unless a winner is put on the field. Yes, I really did just say that.

As someone who has watched several wonderful people suffer immensely through their lives, while other obviously evil folks walk on easy street all their lives, I can tell you for a fact Karma is a myth. That said, the White Sox aren't an example of Karma missing in action. They're an excercise in pitching and good team baseball. That and the fact that Konerko is one of the most underrated players in the league (or was, until the national spotlight finally hit him). They're a 99 win team that has 4 really solid starters. And they've been facing teams with sketchy pitching (Angels included, mostly because Colon was gone but also because their bullpen wasn't really all that impressive). Houston's finally got Oswalt on the mound---that's probably far and away the best pitcher they've faced in the playoffs. It's not a mystery folks. The White Sox are a very good team.

Big Mac's cheating with steroids isn't a "perception," it's a stone cold fact. So is Sosa's. Alot of these guys did it. We all need to come to terms with that. These ballplayers. They aren't heroes. They're aggressive, career-minded individuals just like alot of us are. And some of them went too far to improve their position in their chosen career-----again, just like some "normal" people do. I'll even go out on a limb and say it's highly likely there is a new steroid out there that is undetectable and is being used by ballplayers right now. It won't end because Congress holds a few hearings and Bud Selig holds a few press conferences. 40+ home runs makes a person incredibly rich. Some guys are going to cheat to get there, and others are going to cheat to stay there. Big Mac and Sosa both cheated. I don't mind St. Louis fans standing up and cheering for Big Mac. And I don't want Big Mac (or Sosa for that matter) crucified or anything like that. I just want everyone to understand that the numbers aren't totally what they appear to be.

If there was a Cubs/White Sox subway Series, no doubt ESPN would ignore it to the highest degree possible. I bet it wouldn't lead Sportscenter every night.

Then I truly have no ideas 8) We seem to be made to suffer.

With our minor league system? I think you're right. Spending less is probably not the answer. I don't know what is.

If the Cubs didn't fire Dusty during the season when it might have made a difference, I'm not so sure he will this offseason. Though it would be nice. I keep hearing these "reports" that Hendry is convinced Dusty is a great manager. I never put much stock in the media, but there were a couple points during the season where I thought a managerial change might have provided a boost and could have made a difference. Yet none was made...

Fielding win shares Carlos Lee - 4.0 Scoty Pod - 4.2 Fielding runs over replacement player though: Pod 19. Lee 3. Is that not an improvement defensively for the White Sox? i thought we were supposed to look past the complicated numbers. Sure. Let's. 99 wins. Any questions?

I watch these other franchises. I watch them bring up solid players, put together winning teams, make the playoffs several years in a row. I watch them suffer injuries yet still dominate. I watch them actually COME BACK from a miserable first two months of the season (there's a novel concept) to make the playoffs. I see teams who didn't even exist in my childhood win the World Series. I see a team who everyone said was cursed finally win a World Championship. I see a California team who played second fiddle their entire existence finally win a World Series in 2002 (I believe that was the Angels' year). I watch teams with half our payroll make playoff runs consistently. I watch 2 teams dominate our division on less money. I sit and watch all this and wonder: when is our turn? I'm not a baseball genius. I can't tell you the exact technical reasons why we fail and others succeed. But I know a little about motivation, and if you are already packing the house finishing last, there isn't much mojo to go out and win. The Cubs are spending money. Well----they sure aren't spending it right, I can tell you that because of the results. What's it going to take to get this franchise in the perennial winner's column? The only thing I can think of from a fan's perspective is to stop giving the Tribune money, in order to provide a little artificial motivation to win.

Fielding win shares Carlos Lee - 4.0 Scoty Pod - 4.2 Fielding runs over replacement player though: Pod 19. Lee 3. Is that not an improvement defensively for the White Sox?

Some buffoon writes a web article and that means something somehow? You oughtta know better than that. Who's in the playoffs and who isn't? That's all that matters. Like I said, individual stats: overrated. Team wins: the name of the game. Wow Soul. You're missing the point. What CPatt and the rest have been saying is true, Kenny Williams simply isn't a good GM. The article proves it without discrediting Pods' year. Lee's importance to the Brewers is far more than Pods to the White Sox, as the VORP is stating. He's fortunate that Pods became a sparkplug. Would a good GM make a trade to acquire the SAME OF/DH (Everett) twice in back to back midseasons? Seems like a waste of prospects to me. Let me see what I'm gathering here, your argument is based off of what? Miracles and luck? No doubting the White Sox have been good this year, but come on. Statistically they shouldn't even been close (hence my comment that they will fall hard in the standings next year). You should know better... What that mediot fails to realize as do most others who look at that trade, is that it was also a salary dump, which saved the White Sox 7 million, which they used to sign AJ, El Duque and Iguchi. ...and the fact that the White Sox's achilles heel over the past 5 years has always been their defense, an area where Carlos Lee is below the curve and Pod shines. The writer of that article at least posts a defensive measurement and it, of course, shows Pod has much better defensive value than Lee. And in his final analysis, Mr. Luft acknowledges Pod's defense, and further acknowledges the need to look past numbers like VORP, which he claims are slanted toward sluggers. Fact is, that article doesn't "prove" the Lee for PODS deal was bad. It does nothing of the sort. Lee is a better slugger. PODS is better for the White Sox. This deal that supposedly makes Kenny Williams a terrible GM is actually a solid move that helped that ballclub and is a contributing reason why their win total was up this year. Lee is a very good offensive player who is a much better fit in Milwaukee, a team that was starving for power after the loss of Richie Sexson. I'm taking nothing away from Carlos here. In fact, he would look pretty darn good in Cubbie blue given our current situation in the outfield. Not gonna happen, but hey I can dream. I'm sorry, but I respectfully decline those of you who think this was just a "stupid" deal. It was, in my opinion, a pretty good move by Kenny Williams given the White Sox situation.

Great chart Fred.

Oh good Lord no. The Sox are a cross town rivalry. The Cards are our sworn, hated enemy. I think some of you are too sensitive to the words you hear, and it causes you to lose perspective a little bit. Bah. It doesn't matter. Root for who you wish.

I'm sure plenty of Sox fans also like money and weekends. The fact that I share some traits with them doesn't make me hate them any less. The goings on at Wrigley are what matters, and the Sox and their fans have looked way more dispicable there over the last eight years than St. Louis has. The Cardinals at least can claim some class as an organization. Everyone likes money and weekends. Not everyone else is a Bear fan. Big difference.

What the hell does this have to do with anything? If you're a Bear fan, it has everything to do with.......everything. These are the same fans you will be hugging at Soldier field after the Bears score a winning touchdown (if they ever do.........that's another story). It's a very, very good reason to root for Chicago and therefore the White Sox. We're all Chicago fans, and that's the bottom line. Certainly most Cub & Sox fans have Chicago in their hearts, and that's more than enough reason to root for the White Sox over the hated, despicable, Cardinals. If you aren't a Bear fan, then perhaps it doesn't mean anything to you. Many Cub fans are though, including myself. Please...those same Bears fans were talking trash after Games 6 and 7 in 2003 to me and other Cubs fans. .....and high-fived Cub fans in 2001 when Mike Brown took 2 INTs back for game-winning TDs in overtime. Many Cub & Sox fans partied together the night the Bears clinched the division title that year, beating the Packers at *something* for the first time in forever. Where were the Cards fans? Oh yeah, now I remember: rooting for us to lose for their Rams home-field advantage. Had we won another game we wouldn't have faced the upstart Beagles and surely would have advanced... Cards fans may as well be Martians to me. Sox fans at least share the same city interests sports-wise after the baseball season ends. I didn't like being trash-talked after games 6 & 7 either. But guess what? It was coming from Cards fans every bit as much as Sox fans. So in the final analysis, my alliegance in a Cards/Sox World Series would go squarely to the South Side, despite the North/South side rivalry. I can't even understand someone who would root for the Cards.

I hear you. And then just deal with the Cub fans who are still homers calling you a negative nancy. I'm right there with you. After a certain point (in my case, about 35 years of disappointment), you learn to protect your emotions. This isn't a bad thing----it's a natural defense mechanism to deal with psychological TRAUMA. I'm only half-joking. Hey---I totally understand if a Cub fan has optimism each year. I've been there, believe me. Been there for a long, long time. But unless something really changes, just understand that optimism is not eternal. It's conditional. Conditional upon the team actually redeeming that optimism at some point in your life. And the Cubs haven't. Not in any of our lifetimes. Even the late '60's to early '70s "Cubs run" yielded no playoff appearances and was more about disappointment than delivery on a promise.

I wonder how long Damon & Boras rehearsed that performance before Damon delivered it to the media? It's another Boras power play. We've got cash, but it has to be spent wisely, not blown on one guy who is then heaped with the pressure of an entire franchise to turn it around.

What the hell does this have to do with anything? If you're a Bear fan, it has everything to do with.......everything. These are the same fans you will be hugging at Soldier field after the Bears score a winning touchdown (if they ever do.........that's another story). It's a very, very good reason to root for Chicago and therefore the White Sox. We're all Chicago fans, and that's the bottom line. Certainly most Cub & Sox fans have Chicago in their hearts, and that's more than enough reason to root for the White Sox over the hated, despicable, Cardinals. If you aren't a Bear fan, then perhaps it doesn't mean anything to you. Many Cub fans are though, including myself.

Some buffoon writes a web article and that means something somehow? You oughtta know better than that. Who's in the playoffs and who isn't? That's all that matters. Like I said, individual stats: overrated. Team wins: the name of the game.

Red Sox are one of the most explosive offensive teams in the league. That was El Duque pitching from the core of his soul, make no mistake. That pitch to Damon was nothing short of brilliance. D has no idea where that ball was. He swung out of total confusion, and couldn't hold up. Cubs did have some luck in 2003. And I didn't notice anyone pointing it out at the time in Cubdom. So it's a bit disingenuous to claim we would be pointing out our own luck in the heat of a World Series run. Maybe afterwards, but not during. I don't buy that for a second.

I think most of us are, given the negative posts around here. It's not negative, man. It's frustration. 100 years of it. We all love the Cubs, or should at least.

That's your standard, and you hold up the White Sox as a bastion of success? They've been hovering around .500 for 5 years. You just said "How many teams can just put out incredible contenders every season? There's really 4. Cards, Yanks, BoSox, and Braves. The rest of the teams struggle, and the goal is to build a winner who makes a run in a given season." Yeah, sure----that's the goal for the WHITE SOX and others. That shouldn't be the goal for us. We should be one of those cream-of-the-crop teams.

That's because you think it's a miracle and it isn't. It was well planned out and executed to provide a ballclub that works with his manager. Lee for Pod is downright stupid if you are trying to build a power-based baseball team. But not so stupid if you intend to put more runners in scoring position and want to improve your defense a little. Oh, and by the way: it didn't hurt the White Sox power numbers a whole lot as it turned out. But that wasn't the point. The point was to give Guillen tools he could work with.

At the risk of getting myself into trouble..... Sometimes I wonder if you guys & gals are even really bothered by the failures year in & year out by this organization. I've been watching Cub baseball for 40 years. Most of my family has been Cub fans for their entire lives. We've watched this play out over & over forever it seems. I'm getting old :? And getting gray :wink: Watching teams like the Braves, A's, BoSox, Yanks, Cards, even the Stros every year. I sit back and watch, and they just have better teams than we do 9/10 years. You have to wonder why, don't you? And at some point don't you have to get angry and demand more from your baseball team? I don't buy that close to .500 is acceptable, or a rebuilding year, or O.K. because it's within a couple years of a playoff run. I want to have 90+ wins at least 3/5 seasons. I want meaningful games every September, and many Octobers. That's a winning, successful baseball team to me. That's what I see other organizations accomplishing. So tell me. Am I just doomed to be a fan of a team that will never accomplish this? Does anyone here see a future for the Cubs that is anywhere close to what teams like the Braves & Yanks have accomplished? Maybe not playoff bound 20 years in a row, but say, in the playoffs more than 50% of the time? Or should I just give up hoping for that and just hope for the one-off playoff year every once in awhile?