chitownsportsfan

QUOTE (TCQ @ Jul 8, 2008 -> 12:04 AM) That trade was not a steal the brewers gave up a top tier prospect and three other prospects for a great pitcher for half a season. He wont resign, so they threw four prospects to the indians who are out it, and could technically sign him back next year with the prospects (They wont resign him tho i dont think). It was a steal for the indians if they get anything out of these four prospects because they dont need him this year, and they wouldnt have resigned him anyway. Yea, but as I told my good friend Joe Morgan, (who also doesn't seem to understand how baseball works): if CC leaves the Brewers get the compensation picks, probably 2 of the top 50. That replaces their prospects right there. It's the same reason the Sox traded for Cabrera even though they probably weren't going to resign him. This is a great trade for the Brewers.

I see Ramirez peaking at about 300/340/500 when he's 28-30, and that's great production from a middle infielder, especially a defensive wizard. His range is simply incredible at 2B. He makes those difficult pop-ups look like child's play. I am loving this signing by KW.

Although I'm a firm believer in sample size and guys like Wise don't suddenly "break out" at age 30, in the case of bench players I do think there is such as thing as "riding a hot hand". The Sox should ride Wise until he starts to suck again (and it will happen), at which point BA should be the usual backup for defensive purposes alone. I've come to the sad conclusion that BA is never going to be a good MLB hitter, his peak seems something like 250/310/480, which with his defense would put him as an above average starter. And that, IMO, is his peak.

I don't know, if you really want to get into the math of it all you should look at BP's 3rd order wins: Sox are only behind the Red Sox, Cubs, and Rays for 4th best.

This is not a big problem. The team is built to play in US Cellular field. The best way to score runs in baseball is to get on basel and mash the baseball. I'd love to see the team average over 5 runs a game and have a great offense, but it just isn't going to happen. As long as they finish in the top half of the league in offense the pitching should carry them to the playoffs.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jun 24, 2008 -> 06:14 PM) If I were Jim Thome, I'd blow up Soxtalk for getting on my case when I've been the 4th best hitter for the White Sox. DO YOU PEOPLE NOT WATCH GAMES OR LOOK AT NUMBERS? no, Jim Thome just strikes out a lot and he's kinda ugly and he's old so therefore he must suck Thank god, some sanity here. Thome will likely finish the year with around 30 homers and around a 250/350/490 line, which is about A BILLION TIMES MORE production than Willy Taveras is going to give us. I exagerate, but come on people!

QUOTE (GreatScott82 @ Jun 24, 2008 -> 03:56 PM) It was a very good article.. puts many things into perspective. Our sluggers and pitching have the ability to put together 2 or 3 more 7/8 game winning streaks. However when we dont hit, we can easily lose 3 in a row. When the Sox runs into good pitching, it starts to become more difficult to score runs. This team needs to finally start thinking about manufacturing runs every once in awhile. Unfortanately we really dont have too many players to do such a thing. This is why i want KW to make a push for Willy Taveras. His average maybe a little down this year, but he has 35 SBs and he would change the entire look of our team. Where would he play? Thats the problem, we have no room for him. However, if Thome continues to struggle, i would seriously consider trading him before his option kicks in for next year. Teams like Boston, Angels, or even the Rays could be looking for a DH down the road. This team has pleanty of power w/o Thome in the lineup: Quentin 17HR, Dye 16HR, Crede 15HR, Konerko 8HR, Swisher 8HR. With Taveras leading off a lineup such as this can actually manufacture some runs and switch things up a little bit. Willy Taveras CF Orlando Cabrera SS Carlos Quentin LF Jermaine Dye RF/ DH Paul Konerko DH/1B AJ Pierzynski C Nick Swisher 1B/RF Joe Crede 3B Alexei Ramirez SS Willy Taveras makes Uribe look like Ty Cobb. Career OPS+ of 75 and 55 (FIFTY f***ING FIVE!) so far this year. I don't care is he steals 100 bases, dude can't hit for s***. He is getting on base 29% of the time, seriously, he sucks. Replacing Thome with Taveras would be disastrous.

QUOTE (RME JICO @ Jun 10, 2008 -> 12:35 PM) Based on his past numbers, you knew he would come around. He had been extremely unlucky, and probably had some problems when he was moved into leadoff, which further entrenched him in a slump. I never thought about cutting him, but giving him a couple of days off wouldn't have hurt. LOL @ anyone who suggested the Sox DFA Swisher. Yea, cause 27 year old outfielders with career OPS+ above 110 with reasonable contracts are easy to find. All of his underlying stats were fine, he was just getting unlucky. Swisher is never going to be a high average guy but he can still easily finish with his typical 265/365/450 line. With his average CF defense that's a good and useful player.

LOL, The Angels, also in 1st place, are giong to trade Figgins and Santana AND Kotchman for a 32 year old PK who is clearly declining? GImme some of that good stuff!

Griffey is a mediocre hitter at this point who can't play CF anymore. Konerko is sucking ass but Griffey isn't the answer, and who would trade for Kong at this point anyway?

Jesus, let's not get ahead of ourselves. I love the Missile but let's see a full season or so before we annoint this guy the 2nd coming. He just moved his OPS over .700 tonight. Uribe is a super sub but far from ideal as an everday player. Richar I like also and he showed good plate discipline in his call up last season -- but he at best is a league average 2B playing for cheap.

QUOTE (Cali @ Jun 7, 2008 -> 10:09 PM) The HD is not kind to some of the girls they showed today at the game. One girl looked like she was coming down from an 8 day coke binge... However there was one HOT girl they showed right toward the end of the rain delay coming back to her seat. I swear the camera man stayed on her for like 5 mins, it was awesome. The camera guys are such pervs haha Back in the day, when I was growing up, (talking 1992-7 here) my family had one of those huge satellite dishes. They also knew a guy who put a decoder chip in it so we got like every channel for free. Well, I'd always watch what was called "the back feed" on some random satellite. During the commercials the feed stayed on what the production team was seeing. Needless to say it was pretty much tits and ass all the time.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Jun 7, 2008 -> 09:03 PM) we have now scored 60. yes, SIXTY more runs than we've allowed. a thing of beauty. The RD dominance and the road record are a couple of big indicators that quite possibly this team is for f***ing real!

QUOTE (RibbieRubarb @ Jun 7, 2008 -> 08:56 PM) coughtheyplaymondaycough the devil is in the details, fixed.

Eat s*** Twinkies! Sox now have a 4.5 game lead in the division and a 7.5 game lead over the Tribe! :headbang

QUOTE (RME JICO @ Jun 7, 2008 -> 07:44 PM) He will be a year older at SS and will want a pay check that the Sox are probably not willing to give him. And that's the perfect scenario we need to a) win now, and B) get good compensation.

Ball was flying out of the park tonight for the most part. Dye and Swisher crushed balls that got knocked down by the wind. Quentin muscled a ball (helpe by the wind) into the patio area in RF and Dye hit one to center that seemed to get a boost. Great inning there in the 4th or 5th or whatever the f*** it was. Swisher continues to be one the mote unluckiest players in baseball, crushed the ball 3 out of 4 trips and has a single to show for it.

QUOTE (whitesoxbrian @ Jun 6, 2008 -> 10:05 PM) Swisher was 1-4 with a run. Hardly deserves a He smoked the ball all night, should have been 3-4.

QUOTE (daa84 @ Jun 6, 2008 -> 07:24 PM) seriously, this sucks....i hate mlbtv so much...at least 1 game every two weeks i dont get to see because of a malfunction...so aggravating, if i was going to buy for the whole year, and not monthly i would have done extra innings in a heartbeat Mlb.tv is such a garbage product. It's sickening how dumb their tech support people are -- I think they pick up the people Mickee D's fires. Not to mention their horrible bloatworthy marriage to MS, their horrible purchasing system that prevents me from buying their product after it expires. I was forced to use a friend's email address to re-sign up after 2 calls to tech support and an EMAIL resulting in nothing but the standard (oh, part of the site is down, try again in 15 minutes) bull s***.

Thanks for all the gift runs this series Royals! That said, you gotta beat the s***ty teams and the Sox did just that! Great series from the starters and the offense awakes as A-Ram continues to impress! :sweep: :sweep:

Oh come on! I like the article but saying Williams isn't in line with much of sabermetric thinking is silly. This is a guy that loves a flame throwing bullpen and picked up Q because (duh!) he put up great production at a young age in the minor leagues. Just because Beane won a trade once doesn't make KW some neanderthal. I'd be willing to be that sabermetrics has a large bearing on almost 25 of the 32 clubs' thinking. It's clear Kenny is in the majority, if not one of the strict adherents.

The problem is the Sox don't have any really complete offensive forces (hit, hit for power, run, patient) outside of Q. (Thank God for Q) Call me crazy but I'd throw Swisher back up to leadoff. f*** it, so maybe he'll put up a 250/360/380 line -- that's better than O-Cab. Drop Cabrera down to 2nd, as he can acually go the other way and hopefully can get on base around a .340 clip the rest of the way. Q, and so on down the line.

LOL, a 3rd catcher? BA the everday CF? Dye to DH so Owens is the everday RF? hahahaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhahah And no mention of the obvious move (bring up Fields and dump Ozuna) that should be made. How does this guy have a job writing about baseball?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 4, 2008 -> 08:57 AM) I don't ever see Alexei being a guy who walks more than 30 times a year. I could be wrong, but he loves to swing the bat. He's got an IdoD of .022, which is garbage. Don't get me wrong, I like what he brings, good range, a strong arm and can hit the ball with some pop from the middle infield. Guys like that aren't very common. I compared him to a poor man's Soriano (albeit one actually capable in the field) at SSS. I don't think Ramirez is ever going to be a guy that is walking 50 times a year, but he can certainly learn a bit of discipline up there. A 290/330/450 line would be excellent from him at the end of the year.

QUOTE (Jenks Heat @ May 29, 2008 -> 08:54 AM) Know what I noticed that is cool about Ramirez. Watch how he catches groundballs. Uses two hands and gets down. Very fluid. Yea, he's a smooth fielder for the most part, although he needs to learn a primary position (SS I'd say) and stick. I'd love to see him finish out the year as a servicable (talking OPS around 700 here) with good defense 2B. Then he spends all winter at SS and all spring at SS and is the everyday SS next season. It's awesome how much young talent this team appears to have after seemingly having nothing going into the offseason last year. Ramirez, Fields, Q, Swisher, Richar -- all those guys have proven (or sorta proven in Richar's case) that they are talented young cheap players. It's great to see!