Vance Law

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ Jul 18, 2010 -> 12:29 PM) Indians with the early lead against Detroit. Nix Damn, Nix is slugging .563 with the Tribe. 6 homers in 64 at bats. Who would've thought that at this point in the season, Beckham would be trailing the offensive output of Nix, Lillibridge, and Vizquel.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 18, 2010 -> 11:29 AM) AJP is 12-29 in his career against Blackburn. There are no numbers in the sentence, "My gut talks to me and tells me what to do."

suicide squeeze

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 17, 2010 -> 07:49 PM) Problem is I really don't want to see Omar leading off the 9th. incorrecto

Hawk rules "That other ballpark sucked." re: Metrodome

Buehrle must have picked off more runners than AJ has thrown out this year.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 17, 2010 -> 07:02 PM) Way to go Konerko!! And Vance, Pavano is good because he has the best command of any pitcher we've faced this year. Where was this for the past every year of his career?

Suck it, Twins!

Why is Carl Pavano good? What is the deal?

Viciedo will go down for August and can be back up in September. Viciedo already isn't making all of the starts over Vizquel. He won't over Vizquel and Teahen. Lillibridge is more useful as a bench player. Viciedo will start every day in AAA.

Pavano with the 'tache. Goodness.

QUOTE (RoyHobbs @ Jul 16, 2010 -> 09:13 AM) Not only is that 9 in a row...we won't be seeing Mr. Morneau the rest of the series Pretty damn smart move, them picking up Thome for dirt cheap. It won't solve their pitching problems though.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Jul 14, 2010 -> 08:50 AM) I think KW views Viceido as untouchable. I don't know that that's the case and I kind of hope it's not. His inability to draw a walk, and therefore to get on base, is pretty extreme. 8 walks in 265 plate appearances this year between Charlotte and Chicago (all walks coming in the minors, 1 intentional). He pretty much needs to hit around .300 to even be worthwhile, that's not easy. His upside seems likely to be like Crede 2006, but without the superb defense. His defense definitely has not been as bad as we might have feared at third base considering Kenny decided to switch him to 1st base as a 20 year old (you generally don't do that if you feel like you can get utility from a player at a more demanding position). But you can't expect it to ever be a strong suit, and you've got to be concerned mobility wise about a 21 year old who's just 5'11'' and weighs 240. If he can actually hit .300 in the majors with his power, that's definitely useful, but his OBP seemingly won't ever be better than league average. You can get that kind of production from a lot of corner infielders and it's not too difficult to find better for cheap on the free agent market (Huff, Laroche, Luke Scott). So I hope he's not untouchable.

QUOTE (ScottyDo @ Jul 14, 2010 -> 12:40 PM) We were JUST begging KW to DFA Jones a week ago and now we're lobbying for more playing time because of his defense? Jeeze, the mood swings are hard to handle sometimes Maybe some people were. I know I wasn't, and others weren't. He's useful simply because of his defense and as a 4th outfielder. He can play center. Add to that the facts that with his power he's been above average at the plate, is an above average baserunner, has an .830 OPS against lefties, and has done most everything better than Kotsay. He's clearly the more valuable of those 2.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 13, 2010 -> 04:50 PM) The team is 25-5 and and you want to talk about the defense of a guy who is ON FIRE? That's not very logical to me. Then your version of logic is notably different than a lot of other posters' version. It's not just when Quentin's on fire that his bad defense ought to be mentioned. It's also when he's been bad at the plate. And when he's been medium. It is not people trying to find something negative to talk about. It's not searching hard to find chinks in Quentin's otherwise perfect armor, it's that by the most reliable defensive metrics out there, Quentin has been one of the 2 or 3 worst outfielders in baseball. It's not that he's not perfect, it's that he's been one of the WORST. That's significant. That's a lot of runs over the course of the year. Yes, he made an impressive catch recently. It can't be easy to run full speed after a ball hit that hard and dive at the last second make that catch. We applaud the effort and the play. The important point, however, is that an outfielder's usefulness is predicated on his ability to cover a lot of ground. The more balls he can get to, the fewer hits, the team gives up. That's pretty logical. If Jermaine Dye runs 20 feet and makes an impressive-looking diving catch, is that a "better" catch than if Scott Podsednik or Alex Rios can just quickly trot over and catch it standing up? Which is more useful? Logically, if they don't have to dive for that ball, he can get to balls hit further away, catch more balls, prevent more hits, prevent more runs. It is very sensible for anyone to postulate that, clearly, this team (NO team in baseball) can maintain a 25-5 pace. No team is going to get pitching as good as we have this month for an entire half of a season. That said, it's pretty logical for people to discuss what would be a very easy, in-house, significant improvement to the team- Quentin taking his bad defense off the field and DHing, and inserting Jones' plus defense in right.

-Ozzie forces Lillibridge to bunt for singles because his constant extra base hits don't allow Guillen to hit and run. -AJ smashes his bat into the ground before an at bat, getting it out of the way so he can just walk to the dugout when he pops up. -Jones leans so far back to try to uppercut a fastball that he scrapes his right elbow on the ground. -A DJ weird attempt at humor is shoe horned into a conversation, met with silence by Farmer, and then driven into the ground as DJ assumes all the joke needed was to be repeated ad nauseum.

Aviles is a clown out there. He did the same thing on Vizquel's single last inning that led to 4 homers. Like he had to think for few seconds to remember if the next thing you do after catching the ball is to throw it to first base.

Quentin now with 10 homers in 16 games. OPS around 1.075 over his last 35 games.

Someone needs to tell Hawk to not pronounce his name the same as 'Dianne.'

QUOTE (scenario @ Jul 10, 2010 -> 09:47 PM) But it's still illustrates why it's ridiculous for people to want to mail in the season in late May or early June. Yes, well if you're 9.5 games out of first (and 9 games under .500) then, you absolutely can't afford to lose any ground. And if you're still near that at the all-star break, you can't justify adding payroll at the trade deadline and it makes sense trade your outgoing free agents. If you dig yourself that big of a hole that early, your season might be effectively over by July.

Glad for Konerko, but Youkilis actually has a better case. Rios was terrible oversight as he's been the best all-around CF in the American Leauge.

QUOTE (GoodAsGould @ Jul 10, 2010 -> 02:01 PM) Right but than you take into the fact his age and the fact he is having a mediocre season there is no way they are going to get premium talent for Berkman even if the owner pays the entire contract. His "mediocre" season is better than 7 of our 9 hitters, and he's been great since beginning of June. If not to us, then who? I don't see a NL contender that can use him. Not Boston or Texas or Detroit or Minnesota. I could see, Angels, Rays, or Yankees (if they send Posada to catch full time). He kinda has to go somewhere. Astros have no reason not to get something for him. I'd send Viciedo if we could sign Berkman to an extension.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jul 7, 2010 -> 03:44 PM) Below is what I said earlier in the thread, it definitely hurts us but doesn't put us out of the race. If JFP were to be out for the year, he would miss about 15 more starts. Realistically assuming the team goes 10-5 in games he starts, then as long as Hudson can hit the .500 mark, they would only lose a game or two in the standings. I know in this division one game has meant everything the last two years, but it can still be won. Losing a Rios or PK would hurt much more IMO. Peavy has made 16 starts (I'll exclude this 17th one from Tues). The White Sox are 8-8 in those starts. I'd say Peavy is even a bit lucky that the Sox are playing .500 ball in his starts as he's put up a 4.63 ERA. You can decide to look at this a million different ways. The Sox have won 37 games in which Peavy did not play, and all of 8 games in which he did. In two of those games, the Sox won when he gave up 7 and 5 runs. Peavy has the worst ERA of our 5 starters. He trails the team with 8 quality starts. All of these things point to the Sox should be able to continue to contend just fine with Hudson (it wouldn't shock me if he bested Peavy's 4.63 ERA). No doubt, a dominant Peavy (as he's been in some, but not most of his starts) is a huge boost, but I'm definitely in the camp that says pick up a good lefty bat and let Hudson pitch. The team is rolling right now. 23 of 29.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jul 7, 2010 -> 04:22 PM) We really need Hudson to step up now. Guys, we had a similar staff in 08 with no 5th starter and we were able to win the thing that year. It's nowhere near f***ing over. Also, kinda didn't have a 5th starter in 05 the second half until McCarthy stepped in.

Jonesy