South Side Fireworks Man

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 8, 2009 -> 03:52 PM) Fields and Anderson should both just be sent packing. Along with Wise and Getz. Since they decided to bring Beckham up this early, he should be the starting second baseman.

QUOTE (Jenks Heat @ Jun 8, 2009 -> 03:53 PM) Wise, Anderson and Fields are all averaging a strike out once every three at-bats. Ya that's good. All three of them should be gone, unless they want to keep Anderson around solely as a fourth OF. Same for Getz -- OK to keep around, but should not be starting regularly.

My theory on why the Sox are Bad: Their "starting 3rd baseman" Fields sucks. Their starting 2nd baseman, Getz sucks. Anderson and Wise suck. Quentin can't stay healthy. That about sums it up. For cryin' out loud, get rid of Fields, get a real third baseman, move Beckham to second base, and get a real centerfielder. And get rid of Wise once and for all.

QUOTE (chisox2334 @ Jun 7, 2009 -> 09:52 AM) Podsednik, CF Ramirez, SS Dye, RF Konerko, 1B Fields, DH Castro, C Anderson, CF Getz, 2B Beckham, 3B Colon, P Very weak 5 thru 9.

Another problem is Fields is a sub-par defender at third. He may have some power, but I don't think he'll ever be a "good" hitter, at least not good enough to compensate for his poor defense. I say trade both Fields and Getz along with a prospect and get a quality major league third baseman. Move Beckham to second base. And of course, cut Wise ASAP.

QUOTE (BearSox @ Jun 6, 2009 -> 02:40 PM) Astros aren't trading Pence. They'd be stupid to do so, there's really no reason to trade him. They shouldn't want to trade him. But if other team's scouts really believe that Flowers, Poreda or Allen are such hot s***, and you can couple them together with some other young guys like Getz, Fields, Anderson or some of our other prospects along with taking Tejada's salary off their hands, would they be tempted to bite? I don't know but it's worth trying.

QUOTE (VAfan @ Jun 6, 2009 -> 02:24 PM) I like your thinking. Glad to see some folks get the fact that our hitting sucks and we can't rely on AA or AAA to ride to the rescue any time soon. These next few years are going to be very rough if Kenny doesn't get moving to upgrade the offense. I don't know what The Astros' wants/needs are but there are two guys there who would look good on the Sox right now. One of them I'm sure can be had--Miguel Tejada. He'd fit in nicely at 3B for the Sox forthe rest of the season. Beckham could move to what should be his permanent position, 2B. The other guy certainly isn't being shopped but almost anyone can be had for a price. That player is Hunter Pence. He'd certainly look good in CF for the Sox this year and become a fixyure in the Sox OF for years to come. Again, I'm not too familiar with the Astros, but if KW could get these two with a package of some combination of Poreda, Flowers, Getz, Fields, Anderson, Shelby, Allen or other lower prospects, while taking on all or most of Tejada's remaining salary they should definitely do it. An outfield of Quentin, Pence, and Dye along with an infield of Tejada, Ramirez, Beckham and Konerko is pretty darn solid.

QUOTE (VAfan @ Jun 6, 2009 -> 01:25 PM) For those of you who think there is a chance to turn this club around this season, I think you are dreaming. I decided after an absurd lineup and another shutout last night that the Sox reached their high-water mark at 25-25 this season. Unless Kenny starts dealing to bring in some players who can hit the ball with power, this team is headed for a dismal record. Perhaps not as bad as two years ago when we lost 90 games, but that, and even worse, is possible. Here's how the Sox stack up against league averages by position. League average is first, with BA, OBP, SLG. Note that I'm using the best Sox player at each position, or the guy who has played the most. You have to discount this b/c Quentin has missed a fair amount of time in LF and DeWayne Wise has received tons of time in CF. In other words, it is even worse than it looks, and it looks REALLY BAD. C -- 255 .316 .404 - AJ 304 .337 .453 OPS .720 v .790 -- 70 points above LA 1B -- 282 .367 .511 - PK .295 .349 .472 OPS .878 v. .820 -- 58 points below LA 2B -- .272 .333 .407 - CG .245 .310 .302 OPS .740 v. .612 -- 128 points below LA 3B -- .264 .330 .417 - JF 239 .302 .324 OPS .747 v. .626 -- 121 points below LA SS -- .269 .325 .377 - AR 249 .295 .324 OPS .702 v. .619 -- 83 points below LA LF -- .269 .344 .431 - CQ .229 .325 .458 OPS .775 v. .783 (Discount this b/c Pods .720 OPS) -- basically even with LA CF -- .266 .334 .410 - BA .255 .336 .327 OPS .744 v. .663 (Discount this b/c of Wise's ABs at a .377 OPS, just better than NL pitchers) RF -- .277 .356 .457 - JD .278 .337 .550 OPS .813 v. 887 -- 74 points above LA DH -- .251 .335 .437 - JT .247 .380 .479 OPS .772 v. .859 -- 87 points above LA Total -- 240 points below league average (which should be discounted b/c of all the ABs given to even worse players by the Sox.) Here's the actual cummulative total for the Sox 251 .319 .390 .709 Compare that to last year's 263 .332 .448 .780 In 2007, when we lost 90 games, we hit .246 .318 .404 .722. Look at those numbers. The Sox have players above league average at only 3 positions on the field -- C, RF, DH. They are at league average in LF. Every other position is below average, often WAY below. That's not going to get it done. It wasn't just that Kenny didn't fix CF in the offseason (making it worse by trading Nick Swisher's .743 OPS, which would have matched league average). He went in with ridiculous expectations at 2B and 3B too. Add slow starts by Ramirez and Quentin and you have the worst hitting Sox team in 10 years. And yet guys were ripping Nate McLouth on my other post, saying we shouldn't have acquired him. Well, his .250 .342 .459 .801 would look mightly good to me in CF -- it's .138 points better than Brian Anderson, and .424 points better than Wise. It would give us another player above league average, with speed to boot. Frankly, I don't see much hope in the near future unless the Sox are willing to turn over their roster. Beckham ought to be able to approach league average at 3B or 2B. But that isn't going to help much. We need at least 3 new bats, plus Carlos Quentin to come back and hit like he did last year (.965 OPS), plus Alexei Ramirez to hit like he did last year (.792 OPS). Otherwise, it's going to be a long summer on the South Side. You've made some excellent posts here the past few days, VA.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jun 5, 2009 -> 10:20 PM) Exactly. Even Anderson can be added to that mix. We need a healthy, productive CQ to go with a productive Beckham to turn this lineup around. We've got too many guys who are reserves. We need a real third baseman and a real centerfielder. Let Beckham play second base. That coupled with a healthy Quentin would turn this lineup around.

QUOTE (GreatScott82 @ Jun 5, 2009 -> 06:52 PM) Anytime you have Wise, Nix, Fields and Pods in your lineup on a consistent basis, the chances of your offense going to suck are very good. Agreed, but don't forget about Anderson and Getz. In fact, right now I'd take Pods and Nix over them.

I hope KW is trying to get Hunter Pence here.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 3, 2009 -> 12:47 PM) Oakland's pitcher has a perfect name for a pitcher. Much more appropriate name for a pitcher than "Balfour" or "Walker" that's for sure.

QUOTE (BearSox @ Jun 3, 2009 -> 03:09 PM) Can he play 3B? Probably as well as Fields does, plus he can hit better than Fields and pitch every fifth day.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 2, 2009 -> 09:17 PM) His catch at the wall was insulting last night. After seeing it again, it wasn't close to going out, but he lifted it over his left shoulder to make it seem tougher. I was telling my kids the exact same thing this afternoon.

Tejada at 3B and Pence in CF would certainly look good for the Sox.

QUOTE (bighurt4life @ Jun 1, 2009 -> 01:15 PM) Beckham was starting at SS BTW, didn't notice that until now. He seems to be making a lot of errors so far this season. He was supposed to be a good defenser. I hope he's not being pushed too quickly.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 30, 2009 -> 08:30 PM) Truth be told, it was a massive hanger and he hit a rocket to the 2nd baseman. Yep. Can't blame AJ there.

A sweep would be very timely right now.

QUOTE (ptatc @ May 27, 2009 -> 02:21 PM) Conservative treatment of shoe wear modification, rest and atni-inflammatory modalities is the best approach. He will need to miss time and it will probably be extended time but unless he wants it to be a lifetime long problem he needs to do it now. What is meant by "extended time"? Are we talking 15 days or are we talking several weeks or months? Thanks.

QUOTE (BearSox @ May 15, 2009 -> 04:02 PM) That would make no sense, as while they are both very good defensively at 2B, Nix is much better suited to play 3B than Getz is. Nix is superior to Getz defensively at 2B, but he didn't look too good at 3B when he played there briefly a week or two ago. Getz could probably play 3B as well as Nix can but Nix is by far the best second baseman on the team.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 15, 2009 -> 03:11 PM) Nix 3b Getz 2b Quentin lf Dye rf Thome DH Konerko 1b AJ c Ramirez ss Pods cf I like this lineup, except I would move Getz to third and let Nix play 2B.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ May 12, 2009 -> 04:49 PM) Indeed. He should bat 3rd since Carlos is out now. Don't give Ozzie any ideas.

Sox: Getz 2b Lillibridge cf Quentin lf Dye rf Thome dh Konerko 1b Pierzynski c Fields 3b Ramirez ss Floyd p Tribe: Sizemore cf Cabrera 2b Martinez c Choo rf DeRosa 3b Peralta ss Dellucci dh Francisco lf Shoppach c Pavano p

QUOTE (Paint it Black @ May 11, 2009 -> 08:49 AM) good to see the "message sent" really carried over into Sunday. Texas hitters looked really uncomfortable. Ya think maybe it had to do with the fact that both pitchers were issued warnings before the game? Since Ozzie has been here, the Sox don't handle this particular situation well at all. The Sox talk too much and do almost nothing about it. Then when a Sox pitcher finally does the right thing, he goes and screws it up by talking about it. Then the manager throws him under the bus for doing it. The one thing that surprised/disappointed me the most was KW talking publicly about it beforehand. KW has more brains than Ozzie and I don't know what he was thinking when he went public with his comments. Still a big fan of KW though. Not so much Ozzie -- he's really worn thin.

QUOTE (mmmmmbeeer @ May 11, 2009 -> 11:02 AM) Ozzie's comments in that ESPN article piss me off. I mean really, what happened to the old Oz? Sometimes it seems like Ozzie doesn't have a clue. Ozzie has never handled the HBP situation well at all. He still hasn't learned how to handle it.