dmbjeff

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ Jun 19, 2010 -> 02:15 PM) "No Viciedo today. He'll play Sunday for sure, giving Vizquel a chance for two days off with Monday's off-day. - Scott Merkin via Twitter. The problem with this quote is that Vizquel apparently needs 2 days off in Ozzie's world and will be back starting on Tuesday. Vizquel should be back on the bench, spot starting and being a late inning D replacement.

QUOTE (11and1 @ Jun 19, 2010 -> 02:00 PM) WTF no Viciedo or Rios or PK??!!?? Oh, I forgot, you can Kount on Kotsay..... Can't wait for Teahan's return so he can kill all momentum. Ozzie is certifiable. This is the "I am Ozzie and smarter than all of you lineup." Cause when we somehow win 2-1 he will tell everyone how damn smart he is. When PK or Rios come in late to help win the game he will be in every media members face about being smart and the fans being dumb. Of course we know better and will probably lose 7-1 and then he can blame the fact that Rios and PK needed a day off. He is a real jackhole.

QUOTE (Kalapse @ Jun 19, 2010 -> 11:51 AM) No he isn't. And he needs to play both righties and lefties, the kid needs ABs and putting him in a strict platoon will leave him on the bench for all but 1 or 2 games a week. I can't fathom why he wouldn't be in the lineup today. F'n Ozzie is an idiot. He truly is. Your GM calls up this big power hitting 3B for a team barely scratching out runs but you leave him sit on the bench. Nice move assholee.

QUOTE (JPN366 @ Jun 18, 2010 -> 01:14 PM) This is what I wrote about him last year. I watched him play almost 70 games in person. He's not a lost cause at all for third base. JPNese 7/26/09 Awesome write up. You follow the Barons alot so I trust your judgements. If popups are his major problem defensively, it seems as though that could be worked on. We also have a real good rangy SS in Ramirez so it makes me feel better about those type of plays. I really hope Ozzie gives him a real shot and plays him 5 times a week. Let Vizquel and Lilli sub in at the end of games for D. This lineup really needs a spark and hopefully he can do it.

QUOTE (docsox24 @ Jun 18, 2010 -> 10:54 AM) Ok don't believe me then. I don't care. I agree lots of decent fielders make a ton of errors in the minors due to bad field conditions or just being young. I am just trying to pass on to you some useful info and what to expect. Like I said, not calling you a liar. I just want to know if you have seen him play or this is what you hear from this board or from other websites and deem it to be accurate. He might be a butcher at 3B for all I know. Just trying to gage your opinion.

QUOTE (docsox24 @ Jun 18, 2010 -> 10:24 AM) Believe me he is not on par with Teahen. Believe you? Not calling you a liar or anything but how much have you seen him play? Do you get the Birmingham video feed? I saw he had 30 errors which is alot obviously last season but what kind of errors were they? Throwing errors? Fielding the ball errors? How is his range? How is his arm? Does he have the ability to improve? Alot of guys coming up through the minors playing on less than ideal playing conditions put up alot of errors as well. I'd love to see him play there first before we start dubbing him as being worst than Teahen. And Joe Crede had 30+ errors multiple times down in the minors and ended up improving over time. Not saying he will be the next Crede but give the guy some time.

How bad is he defensively really? I have seen him play in some spring training games, but I have no idea how he is at 3B.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jun 16, 2010 -> 03:31 PM) Beckham is fine defensively at 2B. He doesn't have a good first step, but has the makeup speed to make up for it. All you were seeing him do at the end of last year was finally getting adjusted to 3B. If he's given a couple years to develop defensively at 2B, he'll end up being just fine and perhaps even an all-star at some point. I also don't think Williams envisioned Teahen being as bad defensively as he is. He's been quite undeniably the worst defensive 3Bman in the entire majors. He doesn't belong in the infield. Teahen is nothing more than a nice utility player. He has the ability to fill in at multiple position and provide decent replacement numbers. Given him being left handed, he seems more of an NL utility guy to me, who can fill in to rest guys and also be a nice PH off the bench. At his salary unfortunately, he is a very expensive role player.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 16, 2010 -> 12:47 PM) No one watches MLB Network....it's been a huge bust in the ratings. No one will care about this show, so a "scripted" fight between KW and Ozzie makes no sense. Did anyone even watch the show last year about the Phillies bullpen? They didn't suggest that Chan Ho Park sleep with Scott Eyre's wife or anything like that. I love MLB network. From about 4 or 5pm til midnight they do a great job with MLB Tonight. They have live cut-ins to games. For someone who doesn't have MLB.tv or the Extra Innings package, it is pretty sweet. They do Quick Pitch from midnight until about noon. An ESPN News style show where they recap all of the games. From Noon until about 4 or 5pm, they air day games or have on other programming that is real cool. I suppose you have to be a baseball nut like myself to appreciate it. I am suprised that it has been a bust in the ratings if true. That bullpen reality show was OK, but not great. For reality TV, you need very dynamic and outspoken characters for the show to be interesting. The White Sox show definetly has that with Oz and KW to say the least.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jun 16, 2010 -> 10:48 AM) Quentin's literally been one of the most not-valuable players in baseball this year with a -1.3 WAR. Q has been so hard to understand and figure out. He would have been the AL MVP if not for that injury in 2008. How many former MVP's or near MVP's have fallen so far and so fast just 2 years after the fact? I can't come up with anyone off the top of my head. His injury could be to blame for a good deal of it, but how many guys with wrist injuries can still hit the ball out of the park like he does? It is his inability to hit linedrives and he is hitting too many flyballs. 50% flyballs in fact, that number is outrageuously high. It tells you all he is trying to do is hit the ball out of the park and not try to hit screaming linedrives back up the middle. His BABIP is a horrific .197, so it suggests some bad luck, but if you hit the ball in the air 50% of the time, it better find the seats or the wall. Time for Q to take a new approach and go right back up the middle and go from there.

QUOTE (Pants Rowland @ Jun 14, 2010 -> 06:04 PM) I know this has been used and abused, but Bernazard for Cruz is the type of scenario I see working this year more than a farm system for Fielder type trade. If there is a trade to be made that will change the makeup of the team and improve its all around approach, it will involve moving Alexei or CQ. That is a gamble that I think is worth taking, especially if sent to the NL. I have given up on either of them amounting to more than they are right now and would personally drive Lexi to the airport. He really has not improved much since his rookie season. I am all for a CQ trade. I think bringing in someone like Fukudome could be a good idea. I know the dollars don't matchup and Fukudome has fell apart in the 2nd half the past few years, but he is a left handed OBP machine. He also could be confused with Ichiro in RF in comparison with the hack job Q does out there. The only problem is the Cubs most likely don't need another OF, so it would then have to be a 3 way deal. Or a deal in which in addition to Q, they would take Linebrink off our hands too and with their bullpen, they may just do it.

Over the weekend, there were alot of comments from Ozzie about AJ not going anywhere. Weeks prior, there were comments from Ozzie about how Beckham wasn't going anywhere as long as he kept playing hard and keeping his head up. Don't these seem like comments you should be hearing from KW, not the field manager? Isn't KW in charge of making personnel decisions? I know each offseason they organization has meetings and I swear JR must have said to the board room, Ozzie gets whatever he wants. It seems like KW is a puppet. Our offense has been bad all season, yet no moves whatsoever have been made. Oh wait, Lillibridge. So yeah no moves whatsoever. For a team so bad at scoring runs, the old KW would have done something by now. This is Ozzie's team, there is no doubt in mind. I feel bad for KW.

Beckham won't be sent down until his "Gordon Beckham Remington Sweepstakes" is over.

The offense for the exception of a few games this month has been awful. You can''t win with inconsistant play. I love your optimism, but I give them about a 30% chance to even finish the year up at .500 or better and maybe a 5% chance of coming all the way back and winning the division by some miracle.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Jun 11, 2010 -> 03:00 PM) Again, you're taking this argument to a place I'm not going, and I'm not sure why. I'm specifically pointing out what aspect this I hold the GM accountable for. I don't hold him accountable for the years had by many of our other players. However, relying on given production from guys without the track record to show for it, and having a team then augmented by "undervalued" pieces, left us a little thin in my opinion. I also give KW all the credit in the world for Rios. I think Pierzynski, Jenks, Peavy should have been playing much much better and cast 100% of the responsibility for that on them. I still don't know how you suggest KW could have had better fall back options for RF and 2B. Jones and Kotsay are Q's backups and Nix and Vizquel are Beckham's backups. The minors had Lillibridge and Retherford, both of which you know aren't better than Beckham. D2 isn't ready yet and Mitchell got injured in ST. What would you have done to have better fallback options?

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Jun 11, 2010 -> 01:39 PM) I don't think you automatically have major league caliber backups ready; that's absurd. My entire point is that building a roster by counting on projected production from those two based on a single great partial year each also seems a little far-fetched, especially in retrospect. We were sold that guys like Quentin and Beckham could contribute enough to this team offensively with their limited experience that dudes like Kotsay and Teahen would be non-issues. I thought going in we seemed a little thin, and I think I even remarked 'if either of those two has a bad year...' Well, here we are. The best GMs seem to have solutions when injury/performance issues come up...I'm really not sure KW has any in this situation, other than "dump, start over". "If either of them have a bad year, here we are." You could say that about any team. This goes for any place where 2 of your supposed best players struggle, you end up with results like we have now. Only it wasn't just 2 of our best players struggling, it was 7 out of 9 starters being bad. It is 3 out of 5 SP's being bad. We have a bad closer with a horrible WHIP and opp AVG. When 11 out of your 15 most important pieces are bad, you will have a bad team, plain and simple. I don't know how KW was supposed to account for 11 guys who were supposed to be vital members of the team stinking up the joint. You obviously can't expect to go 15 for 15 in terms of hitting on players but to go 4 for 15, you have to put all the blame on the players. They all have track records suggestiing they are better than this and haven't showed it so far.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 11, 2010 -> 12:50 PM) Not when you look at his numbers. He's going to be striking out 200+ times in the big leagues if he comes up right now. That means his ceiling is Mark Reynolds if he can connect for 40+ HR a year...but his bust potential is high and his Josh Fields potential is very high. He could pull off the Reynolds. We won't know until we see him. His outlook is a little bit different coming from the catching position. If he was an IF or OF, having those type of K totals would be devastating. Most teams would gladly take a .230 avg while striking out 200 times if it meant 25 HR and 80 RBI from a catcher.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Jun 11, 2010 -> 12:29 PM) Your counterpoint is a straw man. I never said I blame KW for their fall off after having great success. I blame KW for having an ill-equipped back-up plan to two guys without enough of a track record. What should have KW done to make you feel better about a fallback option at 2B and RF? It's as if you expect to have a MLB starter sitting on our bench to fill in at the drop of a hat or having a quality MLB option sitting at every position in the minors. That just isn't the case for us as it isn't the case for nearly every other MLB team. KW felt that those two players have proved enough that they wouldn't struggle to the point that they each have. Look around the league at other teams who lost players to injury or have players who performed poorly just like the Sox. Jimmy Rollins has been out nearly all season and have had to play a couple of scrubs at SS. Is it Amaro's fault that they don't have a better SS option within the organization?

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Jun 11, 2010 -> 11:45 AM) Honestly, the biggest problem I have on the GM-side is that Williams seemingly counted on Quentin and Beckham to go out there and produce at a clip that didn't have the MLB-experience to necessarily back it up. Yes, AJ, Jake, Mark and Gavin have disappointed, but Quentin and Beckham aren't necessarily what we thought they were, and that's a talent evaluation call. (Alexei as well, to a lesser extent) Q nearly won an MVP 2 seasons ago. If not for his wrist injury the final month, he surely would have won the award. Beckham won the Sporting News ROY last year and if he had come up sooner, probably would have won it over Bailey or at least would have shared it with him. Long track records certainly help gauge a players performance, but very few fans, experts, baseball execs thought Beckham and Q would fall off as they have. To blame KW for their fall off after having great success with each player is idiotic.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 9, 2010 -> 10:57 AM) You are 100% correct, those guys would have been better choices. However...2 points. First...the only one of those options you list capable of being a backup 1b is Aubrey Huff. And considering he's basically a starter in S.F., I don't know why he'd have come to Chicago. You could always offer him more money, but really, please tell me who though offering $4 million+ to Aubrey Huff to be a backup 1b/DH/corner OF was a sane idea? Kotsay has 1 other job on this team other than being DH, and that's giving Konerko extra time off. And Konerko's having a dynamite season. And second...Can anyone honestly tell me that if we replaced Kotsay's .600 OPS with a .750-.825 OPS by signing Damon or Matsui for $9 million this year...or if we replaced him with Thome and his actually solid numbers, again playing part time, we'd be a .500 team? Honestly. We're scoring as many runs with this lineup as we did with last year's lineup, even in the first half with JD and Thome playing well. And the rest of the league is down in offense, so we're actually producing runs, relative to the league, at a better pace than last year. Unless signing Thome, Matsui, Huff, whatever...would fix the pitching staff, or would turn Quentin and Beckham into all-stars, then you guys are spending all this effort complaining about guys 22-25 on the roster when guys 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, and 10 are bloody failures. You're looking at the Gulf of Mexico and complaining about the small other oil leak from the 2nd platform that no one has heard about, and then filling up at a BP station and wondering why you're getting dirty looks for it. I was a huge believer that we should have signed Huff as our primary DH. He is a solid RBI producing LH bat. He also had the rare ability to give flexibility with defense. No one would confuse him as a solid defender, but he had the ability to play at 1B, LF, RF and 3B, giving other players a day off in the field. The Giants only gave him $3 million. That's double what Kotsay was given and Huff has been an everyday guy for his entire career and Kotsay hasn't been everyday in about 4 or 5 seasons. As for the team as a whole, you are correct that the Kotsay/Jones tandem isn't what is making us a sub .500 team. It is clearly in the hands of the erratic SP and the horrible offense outside of Rios and PK. AJ, Beckham,Quentin,Alexei,Teahen,Pierre and the DH tandem is the other reason we are bad. You can get by with 2 or 3 substandard offense players in the A.L. But when 2 of you regulars have OPS's under .600 and 4 more are under .700, you are really going to struggle. No one saw Beckham struggling to this degree. We all thought CQ could return to something similar to 2008. We hoped that Pierre could get on base 35% of the time, we hoped Teahen could put up solid numbers in a hitters park, we hoped Alexei could find his 2008 magic. We didn't know AJ would start to decline. We had question marks with all 9 of our starters heading into the year and only 2 proved to be solid through the first 9.5 weeks.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 9, 2010 -> 10:37 AM) Kotsay has 6 HR on the year. Vizquel has markedly positive UZR numbers at 3b and SS, negative numbers at 2b but he's only getting time there because our starting 2b is sucking royally. Kotsay and Vizquel have been adequate at their job. Every time anyone blames this season on Kotsay or Vizquel, God Kills a Kitten. Kotsay has played like a regular. He starts about 4-5 times a week. The only reason he starts and Ozzie has said as much, is because they need a left handed bat in the lineup to break up the righties. He is a pretty crappy left handed bat. Aubrey Huff, Jim Thome, Damon, Matsui all would have been much better choices. I know KW is the GM and it is his job to provide players for the manager to then manage, but this offseason, it truly seems as if Ozzie had a huge say in who they obtained. Ozzie loved Pierre. They should have not traded for him and got Damon as a FA instead. We would have some more pitching in the minors in Ely and Link. I get so frustrated anytime I post about this s***ty team, makes me want to bang my head against the wall.

QUOTE (Jenks Heat @ Jun 8, 2010 -> 03:23 PM) Freddy will stay with the Sox as long as Guillen is here. He is cheap and gives you innings they will not get anything better back in return. If you can get a middlie infielder with some upside, like the Rays did when they got Zobrist, why not? The Sox have very little to speak of in the minors at SS and 2B, see if you can get a blocked guy at AA or a guy from single A that has upside but need 3 years to develop still.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Jun 8, 2010 -> 02:33 PM) I sure hope we finally have a starting pitcher step up other than Freddie. FG needs some help and can't do it all alone Freddy is pitching for a trade. He has put together a decent season. Minus a few games where he was garbage he has been a very good 5th starter for us. Given his cheap salary, I could definetly see him traded to a team needing a cheap 5th starter. Put him in a pitchers park or in the NL he could provide alot of value for a team. We could maybe even get back a so-so prospect for him.

looks to be a rainout tonight, seems to be raining all night on weather.com. i am going to tomorrow night's game and am hoping to see galarraga. I am also excited to scurry down to the bullpen sports bar when we are down 6 after 3 innings to watch the hawks game.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jun 5, 2010 -> 11:28 PM) When things go this bad it makes you wonder how ANYBODY thought it was a good idea to add old guys like Pierre, Jones, Omar and a stiff like Teahen and how this pitching staff could be performing this badly. Also how could CQ, Beckham and AJ suck this bad??? The denial is over and realization has set in. For weeks and weeks, I kept saying that this team would break out of it. There was no way that GB,CQ,AJ,Alexei, etc would all remain horrible. I told myself we had a great pitching staff, there is no way MB,GF,JP would continue to scuffle. It has been a tough 2 months of watching baseball. They are a bad baseball team. Kenny is in the worst position he has been in since becoming the GM. There are so many holes and deciding where to fix and with who is a tough choice. GB is the future, but certainly not looking like it right now. Luckily he is under team control and pre-ARB for the next few years, so we have patience on our side with him. CQ just seems to be better than your run of the mill power hitting 4th OF. He reminds me of Gomes or Hinske at this point. AJ looks like he isn't the same player we have come to know in the past 4 season's. Hopefully Flowers will be able to replace him in the future, but as of now he is struggling mightily at AAA, so he probably isn't ready yet. JP is signed for 1 more year and is horrible at getting on base. We wasted millions on this guy when we could of had Willy Taveras put up the same numbers for the minimum. Ugh I could keep going with all the bad players we have, thank goodness for Rios and PK nthis year, they have been fun to watch at least.