Kalapse

Well, here we go bout damn time.

I've had 4 f***ing homeruns stolen from me in a matter of 2 weeks. It's driving me insane.

He's got a little Mike Fetters in him.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Apr 6, 2010 -> 04:28 PM) Good stuff. Where do you find stats like that at? PitchFX is a wonderful thing. Brooks Baseball has a nice tool.

Thornton Average: 95.62 Max 96.5 Putz Average: 92.19 Max: 93.1 Buehrle Average: 85.78 Max: 87.1

QUOTE (JohnCangelosi @ Apr 6, 2010 -> 03:09 PM) Is Thome one of them? I know Konerko is... :-) Vlad, Bengie and a spot open for a wild card.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Apr 6, 2010 -> 03:08 PM) They'll have the podcast up tonight, and I'm not lying. This kid is so composed and natural... I can't wait for the national media to get ahold of him truly. He's a superstar on and off the field. Assuming they leave it in the 2:00 hour full show podcast, it should be up on iTunes by 3:30.

I heard it and it was terrific, Gordon gives a great interview. I love the way he defended his self preservation during the turning of the DP yesterday.

QUOTE (bmags @ Apr 6, 2010 -> 02:57 PM) word. I you know, won't look it up, but i can't imagine that Kotsay's stats vs. RHP are better than Rios. How about this: Rios is 1 for 4 with a HR and a BB against Pat Neshek in his career and Kotsay's 0 for 1 with a K. Neshek's the only tough righty with a bizarre delivery in our division that I can think of and Rios has made contact off him before. Rios sucked against everyone last year so I'm not even going to look it up. .292/.342/.476/.818 vs RHP in '08 .283/.334/.468/.802 vs RHP in '07 Rios is just a much better hitter so I'm going to put him in a position to drive in runs. I'm not too worried about splits; good hitters have a good shot against good hitters regardless of their delivery or throwing hand. When you're an every day player who hits right handed and puts up numbers like Rios has in the past the majority of your success is going to come against right handed pitching because it makes up 70% of the league's pitchers, his splits this year may be better against lefties in the end but that will be in less than 200 PA so if he's producing then he's handling righties just fine.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Apr 6, 2010 -> 02:56 PM) If we play like we did yesterday every day, I wouldn't get too worked up about this. Something tells me our run differential isn't going to be +972 this season. Go back to what you thought of this team on Sunday; that's what you should be thinking of them now.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 6, 2010 -> 02:41 PM) AJ's OPS since he joined the sox, starting in 05 .728 .769 .712 .728 .755 Kotsay hasn't played regularly because of injury for a couple seasons, so it's hard to give numbers on what we might get from him, especially if we're careful enough to keep him healthy. But he put up a .732 in 2008, and a .783 with the Sox last year. I'll be the first to admit "Sample size!", but if Kotsay hits like a .300 hitter, we're talkign ab out 10-20 points of OPS difference at the worst. AJ and Kotsay seem like pretty similar hitters when it comes to OPS. You can't get me mad about that one right now, the numbers just don't back it up. Mark Kotsay is not going to hit .300, he did that once in his career when he was 28 years old, he's not that talented of a hitter. The last time he was healthy was his age 29 and 30 seasons (ie: a hitter's prime) and he put up a .278/.329/.405/.734 line (average of 11 HR). Shockingly the last time he got at least 400 PA in a season (age 32) he hit .276/.329/.403/.732 with 6 HR, or almost exactly what he hit the last time he wasn't beat up. Personally, I'm putting Alex Rios 5th. I'm not cowering at the thought of a sidearmer (Pat Nechek and ?) coming in and mowing down my best hitters, Mark Kotsay's weakass bat isn't likely to save the day in that scenario. At least this way I have a potential run producer in a run producer's role and not a 34 year old journeyman slap hitter masquerading as a run producer. Janson Lewis (not a sidearmer) doesn't scare me enough to give away potential RBI situations in the first 6 innings of a game.

QUOTE (VAfan @ Apr 6, 2010 -> 11:18 AM) I thought it was a fantastic Opening Day. Love the link to 2005, the most magical year in Sox history. I'm pretty sure we also beat the Indians that day, though it was 1-0, the same score as the final game of the year. And it was obviously Mark Buehrle on the mound then too. The Buehrle play was just downright amazing and fun to watch. Web gem of the year on Opening Day. Great to see Rios hit, and Quentin wearing the pad so he doesn't get hurt when he gets hit (twice yesterday). If Carlos stays healthy, I think he's back. Nice to see him leg out a double in the first. He couldn't run like that last year. Great to see Rios's range, too. We need it when he's flanked by Pierre and Quentin. Beckham's baserunning was the best. Took third without a throw on a ball that almost didn't get out of the batter's box. That kid is a team leader (by example) already. He also looked pretty good at 2B. Ranged to his left and spun to make one play look easy. Has to get more used the pivot on the DP, and one throw to Alexei kept them from having another DP, but I'm sure he'll quickly improve like he did at 3B. We know Thornton is awesome! Putz looked pretty good too. They were swinging at stuff that dropped way out of the zone. He may be the key to the pen. Guys scored from 3rd with less than 2 outs. Kotsay, as weak as he is in the 5 hole, beat out a double-play grounder when Konerko hustled down to second to help cause an errant throw. Added a run on a hustle play. The only guy who seemed a bit befuddled was Pierre, but he'll come around. Sox win. Indians, Twins, and Royals lost. Still a chance to go wire-to-wire. There are like 3 players in baseball who wouldn't have beat that out. You don't see a lot of double plays turned on incredibly weak choppers to second.

QUOTE (PeavyTime @ Apr 6, 2010 -> 01:32 PM) I was listening to M&H this morning and a caller mentioned how Z would be the 5th starter if he were on the White Sox. That really got me thinking...what does everyone else think? Well, just keeping it super basic because this means absolutely nothing: Average IP, ERA+ and WHIP over the past 2 years (normally I'd go 3 years but that would be doing a disservice to Danks and Floyd): Danks: 197.7 130 1.26 Peavy: 137.7 125 1.16 Buehr: 216 121 1.29 Zambr: 179 118 1.33 Floyd: 199.5 117 1.25

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Apr 6, 2010 -> 12:59 PM) I assume you're talking about Joey Votto, if Yonder Alonso gets called up. That's not going tp happen, so don't get your hopes up. Even if he were to become available (which just will not happen) we don't have anywhere near he bullets to get him. 26 years old, one of the best young hitters in the game and he's under team control for 4 more years. 1.) you don't trade that guy and 2.) if you do it's for a package of players that would blow your f***ing mind.

QUOTE (IowaSoxFan @ Apr 6, 2010 -> 12:07 PM) I agree with that. Cust is a poor mans Adam Dunn, big power, decent at drawing walks, atrocious in the field. I think Kotsay/Jones will be fine in a limited role and can bridge the gap for this season. If that spot is what is holding this team back in June/July, KW will go out and make a deal. Cinci may have a 1B to spare by that point and be looking for some other pieces. Sure, if by decent you mean best in the game over the past 3 years.

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ Apr 5, 2010 -> 05:52 PM) If you're doing a RTTS, and you get placed on the Blue Jays, just start another one. It's just horrible. They suck. Their stadium sucks. Kenny traded me to the Orioles for Chad Moeller halfway through my first year in the minors. I got called up mid-way through the 2011 season, won the rookie of the year and a World Series Title, good times.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Apr 5, 2010 -> 05:52 PM) Regardless of your analysis it was still a fantastic play by Iguchi don't you agree? It was exciting if not unnecessary.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Apr 5, 2010 -> 05:45 PM) Well, I thought Iguchi had to do it too. Maybe because he was stumbling over himself or the ball was hit weird, but I don't remember him having much time to get the throw off. He had all the time in the world. Bengie Molina was running down the line, he ended up getting him by like 10 steps.

Forecasts for tomorrow: Accuweather: 69 and rain at noon, 70 and clear by 1:00, rain again at 6:00. Wind: WSW at 6 MPH Weather.com: 67 and sunny at 1pm, no rain in the forcast. Wind: WSW at 11 MPH wunderground.com: 65 and partly cloudy at 1pm, rain by 7:00. Wind: South at 5 MPH

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 4, 2010 -> 03:50 PM) His first report of an injury was on about April 22nd of last year. That was just a bruised knee, it bugged him for a few days but didn't seem to hinder his play at all. The strained hammy happened on August 7th. At the time he was hitting .232/.342/.532/.874 with 17 HR in 260 PA. From there on out he got only 71 PA and hit .148/.254/.197/.450 with 0 HR. 10 games prior to the injury: .257/.366/.600/.966 10 games after the injury: .121/.237/.152/.388

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Apr 4, 2010 -> 10:50 AM) His argument is terrible. Why do stats take away from watching the game? They don't. And guess what, stats have always meant a ton in baseball. That was true ten years ago. That was true fifty years ago. Just because the names have changed shouldn't mean anything, just that we know a little more at what we're doing. I think I know a thing or two about sabermetrics and yet I've never loved baseball more than I do right now.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Apr 4, 2010 -> 07:28 PM) Granderson hitting 7th. That's just not right. And his first AB as a Yankee results in a HR. Terrible pitch by Beckett; grooved that fastball.

QUOTE (Brian @ Apr 4, 2010 -> 07:22 PM) Joe Morgan probably would compare himself to Mantle. You really think Morgan would compare himself to a white player?

QUOTE (Flash Tizzle @ Apr 4, 2010 -> 07:21 PM) Well, for one, you have to download the program. That's one more step than just having a link. Next, it doesn't look pretty. Most importantly, there are no awesome sound clips to help express my emotions. Huge plus: I can easily access an IRC chat room from my phone.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Apr 4, 2010 -> 07:16 PM) Jabroni? Otherwise I have no idea. No big deal. No, if it were Jabroni you'd know; he'd have 700 posts in under a week of posting before being banned.