Kalapse

Matt Wieters is getting the call. He'll be up for Friday's game vs the Tigers. Can't wait to see him in action.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ May 26, 2009 -> 06:38 PM) Nothing, IMO. But the concensus seems to be that because he does this weird thing at the plate (he's actually running up through the batter's box towards the pitch, like he's a 16" softball player or something), which is considered bush league, he deserves to get nailed. I don't think anything deserves a head shot, though I could see a pitcher putting one in his hip. I never said I'd bean him personally but what he's doing has been considered a no-no for a very long time, if he goes up a against a pitcher who takes offense I wouldn't be surprised if he gets one thrown at his head. Hitting him in the hip or back (he got hit yesterday) wouldn't suffice, hell that's what Pods wants. Lucky for Scott there aren't many head hunters left in the game and there's really nothing but young pitchers coming up in the next week or so, no doubt in my mind someone like Pedro Martinez would look to send a message.

QUOTE (hogan873 @ May 26, 2009 -> 09:00 AM) Yeah, I heard Hawk saying that he'll end up with a ball between the eyes or in the ear, dag gummit. I think Hawk's right on. It's going to take the right kind of pitcher but Pods is going to run up on the wrong guy and take one in the ear. What he's doing has been considered bush for a very long time.

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ May 26, 2009 -> 11:15 AM) Peavy and Oswalt are actually best friends. So, getting Oswalt would make the Peavy trade far more possible, assuming we didn't trade the desired package... What? A man can dream, can't i? Just for fun: that would be near $70M for 8 pitchers.

The Sox actually got burned pretty bad on a "four" year deal very recently. Contreras was under contract for 2006 but the front office extended him 3 more years before the season even started, Jose then proceeded to put up a 5.40 ERA from June 1st, 2006 to present. So the Sox have gone against their philosophy a few times in recent years. It's a damn good philosophy though, the number of starting pitchers who have even come close to living up to expectations on a 4+ year deal over the past decade or so can be counted on one hand this is why I would have been ok with dealing Buehrle at the deadline in '07 instead of extending him.

QUOTE (tommy @ May 25, 2009 -> 08:09 PM) Let me add that we only trade for Figgins if we are still contending. If not, then yes, have Fields play the summer see if he can turn it around, I'm not calling him a bust just yet. Not sure of Figgins' contract status, he would do us great this year tho. He's a free agent.

I'd love to see Podsednik run up on a veteran pitcher, someone with balls. He'd hit the dirt on the next pitch. I'm confident Pedro Martinez would put one in his ear.

Just one of the reasons why Alexei in the 2 hole works. Good contact and an ability to put the ball where he wants, within reason.

QUOTE (Heads22 @ May 25, 2009 -> 06:39 PM) Well, it's ref***ingtarded to platoon him to start against just lefties when he's hitting them at .200 and righties at .320 so far this year. Even simpler than that: it's ref***ingtarded to platoon him when his platoon partner is a 32 year old bad baseball player and of the two Brian is the righty which means the 32 year old gets the majority of the starts.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 25, 2009 -> 05:57 PM) How come Hawk's not getting on Pods for all the weak fly balls he's hitting? The funny thing is that Pods is showing more ability to bunt now than he ever did in 2005 and 2006. This is by far the highest his FB% has been since 2004 when he hit 12 HR. He's already popped up 5 balls on the infield, he had 12 total in 2005. He's also only gotten down only 1 bunt so far this year, he does have 7 infield hits. One more observation: his contact rate is through the dam roof (95%). This is likely a product of increased aggressiveness at the plate, he's swinging at hitable pitches rather than going deep into counts and chasing pitches out of the zone. This is evidenced by his career low pit/pa of 3.76 (below league average) this season and the fact that he's first pitch swinging in 24%, 8% higher than his career average.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 25, 2009 -> 06:07 PM) So if you were KW, you would release Wise and/or Pods and just give Anderson the job (against all pitchers) for the remainder of the season? Yes. I'd give Wise the 4th OF job and send Pods to AAA (shouldn't be a problem if he's willing to take the assignment). I don't see why a platoon is necessary or at all productive.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 25, 2009 -> 12:45 PM) Wandy Rodriguez of the Astros came in to today 3rd in MLB with a 1.83 ERA. It's up to 2.55 after a 5 run first put on him by the Reds. Actually he lowered his ERA to 1.71 after the official scorer reversed his atrocious ruling from the first inning (Tejada straight up muffed a grounder from Taveras, ruled a hit) making all 5 runs unearned. The Reds added a 6th unearned run in the 3rd.

On a positive note: can't wait to watch Danks throw tonight. He hurled 6.1 scoreless in Anaheim last year.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 25, 2009 -> 05:46 PM) Just listen to Hawk: the Sox think Pods is doing great on offense. Nevermind his OPS around .635 and the fact he should be 0 for 4 on the bases. He's not striking out much, but he's not drawing walks either. He's hitting .268 with 2 [real] extra base hits and has displayed some atrocious baserunning, the fact that he's getting the most PA on this team is just sickening. And before anyone mentions it Pods is hitting .231/.286/.308/.593 in the leadoff spot. I feel like I'm falling back into t la-la land again just as I did at the end of spring training. It's like I'm watching a different f***ing game.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 25, 2009 -> 05:39 PM) Question: why Dotel and not Linebrink in the 8th yesterday? We're paying Linebrink a ton of money to get 3 outs in the 8th inning. He pitched the day before (18 pitches)? Aside from that I have no idea. Am I the only one who would have pulled Jenks and gone to Thornton with Niger Morgan at the plate after the game had been tied? In that situation you just have to get to the bottom of the 9th with the game still tied, Jenks didn't have it and Morgan has less than no chance against Matt's fastball.

QUOTE (jasonxctf @ May 25, 2009 -> 05:15 PM) just a guess BA hasn't seen Santana much in his limited career. I think only 2AB's... now he did hit one of the 2AB's out of the park, 3 years ago. Scotty Pods has seen Santana a bunch in his career, not a lot of hits, but a bunch of walks. (OBP= .375) Ok, I just checked the numbers and I'm left wondering from where you got your information. Scott Podsednik career vs Ervin Santana: 2/12 w/ 4 K, .167/.286/.167/.452, bunch of walks = 2 Brian Anderson's the only hitter on this team (sans AJ) with any real success against Santana. Pierzynski's the only one with an OPS north of .607 (.769).

QUOTE (Heads22 @ May 25, 2009 -> 05:29 PM) Cora's the one doing it tonight. From what I can tell they're pretty much interchangeable.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 25, 2009 -> 05:23 PM) Me, after yesterday's game, in the game thread. This series, we face a righty, a lefty, and then another righty. Anderson will play tomorrow and will sit the other 2 games. We'll be lucky if we get him as a defensive replacement. That's simply how it is. He also had an excellent throw to the cutoff man that resulted in Alexei catching a runner off first. Good call and I agree, I think 2006-2008 taught us a lot when it comes to the Anderson/Guillen relationship. He was hesitant to use Brian as a defensive replacement even then despite the fact that Podsednik was heading flyballs in LF and Swisher isn't a major league CF.

QUOTE (jasonxctf @ May 25, 2009 -> 05:15 PM) just a guess BA hasn't seen Santana much in his limited career. I think only 2AB's... now he did hit one of the 2AB's out of the park, 3 years ago. Scotty Pods has seen Santana a bunch in his career, not a lot of hits, but a bunch of walks. (OBP= .375) So Brian sits because Ervin Santana used to have major control problems? Then wouldn't Anderson's vastly superior walk rate make him a more dangerous hitter than Podsednik? And I think it's well established that Ozzie Guillen doesn't look at things like past performance and split stats when filling out his lineup card. He's longed to put Podsednik in the leadoff spot since we signed him (he said as much when Pods was recalled) and now he's getting his chance even despite Podsednik's lousy play.

Looks like those who claimed Anderson would unfairly lose his job to Podsednik upon his return are receiving a bit of vindication here. It's sure as hell looking like a platoon to me or perhaps Brian's just the 4th outfielder. Gotta love it, benching a young player who's actually producing for a washed up 32 year old vet. If I were a more superstitious man I'd make the case that Podsednik's presence on this ballclub has hindered the production of 2 young players. (3 if I were willing to tie him to Getz)

QUOTE (Texsox @ May 25, 2009 -> 09:44 AM) I am not going to wade through old threads and find those that have criticized KW for depleting the farm system, not finding a reliable lead off hitter, center fielder, or any of the rest. I could point to Josh Fields is a bust type threads. The I'm sick and tired of this s*** threads. The posts where we should blow up this team and start a rebuilding process. If you have not read them, I'm not going to read them for you. And I'm not curious about your* opinion of the article, but I thank you for being curious of mine. The article is the perspective of one guy who does not follow the Sox as closely as most here. Often times the out of town writer opinions take a season or two to change. The opinions have to be formed while writing on deadlines. The writer does not have the luxury of living and dying with one team, so they are never as accurate as the hometown beat writers. Of course, the hometown guy is also an idiot if he disagrees with the average poster's opinion. *or anyone's opinion. An opinion of this writer's opinion is kind of boring. That's fine then, I guess message boards need those who just come by to take pot shots at the rest while really providing no opinion of their own. I'm not entirely sure why you even bothered to read the comments in this thread considering the vast majority of them are likely to be opinions of the writer's opinion and the rest will be opinions of the opinions of the writer's opinion. After all, that would be boring. Perhaps you just can't pass up an opportunity to point out the many hypocrisies of this board's posters. You say the board consensus is that this team is going to suck for a while, I don't think that's the case at all. So naturally I'm going to be curious as to why you hold this opinion. What I think most believe: this team has a good young core, an owner willing to spend, a s*** load of money coming off the books, a very good farm system and an aggressive general manager with a knack of dealing the right guys at the right time. Sound like a recipe for a quick turn around if things don't work out this year. I still find it interesting that you were able to determine a board consensus after 3 posts (I believe that's how many posters stated their displeasure with the posted article), seems like a sample size issue to me. Of course it's awful hard to determine your real point when you're speaking in generalities. If you're going to start calling out hypocrites perhaps you should start with the people in this thread.

QUOTE (Texsox @ May 24, 2009 -> 11:37 PM) Did anyone think Peavy came here, read how badly this team sucks, and is going to suck for a long time, and decided not to come? I've been reading for months here how this team sucks, then when it's in print elsewhere, suddenly that writer is an idiot Not entirely sure where you read that one. I'm Curious who exactly believes this team's future is beak, since you're confident enough to put it in a post calling people out I'd love to hear some names. I'm almost positive the 3 people in this thread that have expressed their displeasure with the premise of the posted article are not amongst those you speak of so we can cross them off to start. Blanket statements are fun though. I'm also curious what your opinion is of the article.

Hey, there's still Jhonny Nunez, right? Right?

2009: April: .312/.430/.714/1.144, 7 HR May: .123/.301/.246/.547, 2 HR 2008: May: .176/.272/.275/.547, 1 HR June: .315/.402/.630/1.032, 7 HR

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 23, 2009 -> 05:48 PM) Looks like they missed the hit and run sign last night, I think it was Nix. Pods got off to a terrible jump and was looking bat at the plate way too much for it to have been a straight steal. I was thinking the same thing but Hawk didn't bother to make any excuses for him so I'm going with horrible jump and panic from podsednik.