Dick Allen

At least Danks' ERA for the spring will be a little below 6.00. Not exactly the stiffling spring training competition KW envisioned I would guess.

CC's x-rays were negative, but there is still question whether he can go opening day.

Well if anyone thought Ozzie may try to get his buddy Urbina to help in the bullpen sometime, you can forget it. He supposedly has been sentenced to 14 years in the big house. He'll be locked up longer than the Sox have Vazquez locked up.

QUOTE(santo=dorf @ Mar 27, 2007 -> 10:41 PM) Honestly, this team in a vacuum is around 83 wins IMO. But because baseball is such a great game, we have no idea how the other teams will show up or what might happen when Cleveland puts their catcher at first base. I still think the Sox can win the division, but it just seems everyday there's not much good news to report. KW said he wouldn't trade a SP unless the players in return would help contribute to the 2007 team. Garcia was traded for Floyd and Gio with KW saying Floyd would compete with Brandon for the 5th starter's spot. Brandon is traded, 5th spot is in Floyd's hands. As expected, Floyd sucks, but thankfully a player we got back in the McCarthy trade is ahead of schedule, or maybe he's going to be a little rushed, and Floyd is no longer a 5th starter canidate. The Erstad signing was completely worthless and made because KW has always liked him, he felt the Sox lacked a "grinder effect," and because Darin was cheap. This signing makes Pods' signing look worthless, but I think Pods has more to offer this team, and Darin is going to hurt this team more than help by blocking Anderson, batting like crap, and forcing guys who can help this team off the roster (see Perez, and in the article Ozzie said the Sox were looking to move players to get him on the team [Mack?]) I'm glad baseball is coming, but I'm not pumped. I'm more worried about the pitchers. Erstad could be the version who had 240 hits, and Pods could have the best season of his life, if the pitchers throw like they threw last season or even worse, like they have in spring training, except for Danks and Logan, and to a certain extent Contreras, it wouldn't matter. The Sox have at least half their staff 6 days before the start of the season still looking for their velocity. That's pretty scary.

I'm predicting a huge year from Uribe, and I think Anderson will be improved, so I think the Sox should be a little better against lefties although they still appear to have a few automatic outs against them. Pablo in LF, Anderson in CF, Dye in RF, Crede 3b, Uribe ss, Iguchi 2b, Konerko 1b, even if Molina is an automatic out catching, and Thome is struggling against the left handers, the offense shouldn't be too pathetic against them. I think they will have a little more success against lefties this year, the problem is they may be required to score even more runs than last season.

QUOTE(kevo880 @ Mar 27, 2007 -> 05:49 PM) I bet that's what Greggory_Pratt would be saying Easy on my guy Pratt.

QUOTE(fathom @ Mar 27, 2007 -> 05:40 PM) They're not fooling anyone, which is scary (besides Boone). It's hard to argue about our strength/conditioning coach due to the lack of injuries we've had the past few years, but you have to wonder what these guys have been doing over the past two offseasons. I've never seen a team just have their velocity drop almost across the board like ours last year, and the stories so far this offseason are scary. Its as if almost the entire bullpen has had a Billy Koch loss of velocity. We kept hearing how his would pop back until they dealt him to Florida.

The White Sox have pretty much sucked in spring training the past several years, but the amount of hits they are giving up now is alarming. I hope the cold air wakes them up on Monday.

I hope all the guys we have that supposedly throw 95-98 suddenly find their fastballs this final week.

QUOTE(CWSGuy406 @ Mar 26, 2007 -> 09:56 PM) Oh, and one more thing. WTF, White Sox scouts? Maybe they were just watching tapes and it said 90 kilometers per hour.

QUOTE(Flash Tizzle @ Mar 26, 2007 -> 06:56 PM) That's so easy to say. Imagine this -- you're in a position, as a new guy, where the manager comes up and asks whether you're comfortable at first base. Even if you're not, do you think you'd risk looking bad by rejecting the request? Then teammates may say, "he's not a team player." The concern here, after Hall began fielding at 1B, was whether anyone noticed any trouble he may have been having. If there were obvious signs, Guillen absolutely has to be held accountable. I've been on Ozzie as much as anyone, but its first base. How many firstbasemen experienced or unexperienced have torn their labrums diving for a ball? I would bet it is not very many. I know Hall was a weapon to fight the lefthanders in the division. And I'm sure he would have helped against the Kenny Rogers and Cliff Lees. He is 4-25 lifetime against Santana and Sabbathia. With no homers. I hope KW doesn't feel like he can fill this position internally, but he needs to get a better than average back-up now in case AJ goes down for any time. Nobody will do him any favors if that happens. QUOTE(Kalapse @ Mar 26, 2007 -> 07:04 PM) KW was interviewed on Comcast and said the backup catcher position will be filled internally. THE WIKI ERA BEGINS IN CHICAGO! That's a big mistake.

QUOTE(fathom @ Mar 26, 2007 -> 06:50 PM) What do you think about Erstad batting in the 9th and busting his ass down the line? I've got no problem with it as long as he's not nursing some sort of tweak in his legs. It would be nice if all the White Sox got used to busting their ass down the line. If Erstad gets hurt hustling to first base, I don't know how anyone could say he would be able to be a good player and remain healthy for an entire season.

It was a fluke play. He dove for a ball A LOT of guys would have dove for it and maybe or maybe not got hurt. What if it was Konerko? Then the Sox would be screwed. It had NOTHING to do with his inexperience, except for maybe he would have realized the game doesn't count so he wouldn't have dove. I seem to remember a guy who has played several games at first base do almost exactly the same thing and tore his tricep or bicep in Frank Thomas. After all, NONE of the games in Arizona mean anything, so why should anyone play? They might get hurt. Having a guy like Thome run the bases in the 8th inning of a game that's already decided and he comes up lame, that would be idiotic and stupid. Having Toby Hall play a few innings at first base and tearing his labrum is just bad luck.

How come nobody mentioned the craziness when Ozzie put Dye at first base for a few innings in 2005?

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Mar 26, 2007 -> 05:19 PM) And haven't the Brewers said plenty of times that they want to hold on to Damian? They would dump him in a heartbeat. The problem is he exercised his player option after last season and is making pretty big coin.

QUOTE(HeGone33 @ Mar 26, 2007 -> 02:51 PM) Just imagine if something happened to AJ now. that's the one scenerio that would make this injury a real big loss. AJ has suddenly become the Sox most unreplaceable position player, just as he was the past 2 seasons.

I was all for trading for Ivan Rodriquez, but then I looked. He was a combined 2-16 against Sabbathia and Santana last season. Its the back-uup catcher back away from the ledge.

If Toby Hall is the most significant injury to the White Sox this season, it will be a great year health-wise.

I'm not an Ozzie guy, but I'm not going to blame him for Hall's injury. Guys actually play first to avoid injury. It was a fluke. At least it happened to the back-up catcher. Personally, I don't think Hall was going to make the huge difference against guys like Sabbathia and Santana. Everyone seems to struggle against them. It is a blow, but not as huge as it would have been if it were a regular or Contreras.

QUOTE(Wedge @ Mar 26, 2007 -> 10:58 AM) Based on Danks' performance, this will probably be a great trade for us. Now factor in that Masset could be quite solid out of the pen this season and a future starter... and I think the Sox are clear winners given their players can stay healthy. I know Danks should start working on his HOF induction speech, but everyone is basing their giddiness on 16 sspring training innings. McCarthy was even more impressive in the spring of 2005. We all may want to keep that in mind.

It will be interesting to see what happens when the games actually count. It will be interesting to see what happens when the games actually count.

QUOTE(LVSoxFan @ Mar 25, 2007 -> 07:36 PM) I watched the whole game and never saw Buehrle top 86 but that could have been the gun. Granted, I've never seen him top 88 at the Cell so maybe it's not that big a deal. I saw a couple of 87s and 88s in the first inning. Like I've said before, I was in Tucson last year and he was topping out at 80 the game I was at. So he's a little better, but he is giving up a lot of hits.

QUOTE(nitetrain8601 @ Mar 25, 2007 -> 08:41 PM) Yes, but several of the bullpen guys pitch high 90's. Supposedly. I think that's pretty overrated though, the different look. These guys are pretty much geared up for the gas anyway. Seeing a knuckleballer 15 or 20 minutes earlier isn't going to mean much IMO. I wish Haeger was on the team because at least if you don't want him as the fifth starter, which I feel he is the one with the best chance of succeeding in 2007, he has to be a better option in the bullpen than Floyd. I guess you have to have someone on the roster that you got for one of your starters after telling everyone how wrong they were that said player was a bust.

The key to 2005 was the White Sox total domination of their division. The division appears to be pretty good this year, and the pitchers have shown me nothing to indicate they will be any better this year than last. 82-85 wins.

QUOTE(WSoxMatt @ Mar 25, 2007 -> 08:20 PM) He definitely didnt deserve a spot out of camp! Nor does the majority of the pitching staff.