caulfield12

QUOTE (Jake @ Jun 3, 2012 -> 07:42 PM) I think Gavin is just inconsistent mechanically. This means when he is off, it is not easy for him to just "recalibrate" and start throwing like he wants. This might make him seem nut-less, but he's just streaky...there's lots of pitchers like this. I'd say we don't know much about him as a big game pitcher because there haven't been a great deal of big games since he's been here. Except for 2008 down the stretch, the 2008 playoff start, 2010 when we were near or in first place....and this year, but not a HUGE record of "big-game" failures, it's mostly just perception. Same way John Danks will ALWAYS be thought of as a big-game pitcher due to Game 163, it tends to skew our perceptions one way or the other. Frankly, between the two, you couldn't trust either guy right now. Or Humber. Just Sale and Peavy, and Jake has those two "collapses" against DET and CLE now appended to his sterling results this year.

Both Floyd and Danks have never quite measured up to their 2008 success. Instead of improving, they "maintained" or arguably regresssed a bit. Second, the "stuff" argument, which is reminiscent of Javy. Cue Hawk: "I've never seen a pitcher with Javy's or Gavin's pure stuff have a career .500 record." Third, as fathom has noted, he really really struggles with runners on base. Out of the stretch, he tends to elevate all of his fastballs up in the zone, and his offspeed stuff flattens out. If anything, Cooper really should be working on getting more explosion/leverage and on his mechanics in these situations. Of course, Gavin's been on our roster for 5+ seasons, if it was an "easy" fix like he had with Matt Thornton, then Guru Don already would have fixed him by now.

When is the last time a pitcher on the AL All-Star roster was shut down (or moved to the bullpen) in the 2nd half of a season, in the middle of a pennant race, for "injury prevention" concerns? Just curious what other examples are out there in recent history.

Why don't they try an experiment ONCE..."fan/customer appreciation day," on a Monday-Thursday game??? FREE PARKING. And just analyze the total revenue increase from those games in tickets sold, fans attending, concessions and souvenirs, etc. Maybe it wouldn't be worth it...and they would lose money, but there's no other way to study this specific market (Chicago White Sox ticket demand) without at least trying it once to see what the effect is. I don't think the season ticket holders who pay for parking as part of their packages would all threaten to burn down the front office. Maybe you can give them a preferred parking area that's closest to the stadium, some kind of giveaway (all you can eat those days for free, or all you can drink, or whatever, be creative!!)

Cue the next Rosenbloom article on the pitch count (by the way, was he also there with Prior and Wood every start a decade ago criticizing Dusty Baker?)... Not so much pitch counts, total pitches and innings pitched, but HIGH LEVERAGE pitches, pitches which put maximum torque on the elbow (slider), pitches thrown at 95 MPH and above...the 9th inning of today's game, for example, the Olivo at-bat, when he was fouling off pitches and had already homered earlier in the game and thought he had him put away at least once. You can't compare Sale to Randy Johnson, Verlander, Prior, Wood, Strasburg...everyone's unique. FWIW, I think the risk/upside is worth it, and if he does go down to TJ, that's actually improved or aided the careers of many pitchers, as opposed to the career death sentence that elbow injuries were in Hawk Harrelson's time. As long as it's not the shoulder or labrum...and Johan Santana provides some encouragement in that area, even.

We were talking about successful big league starters at the 5'10" or 5'9 mark. Whitey Ford of the Yankees would be another example, or Ron Guidry, come to mind. Fernando Valenzuela, Pedro Martinez, Tom Glavine, Tim Lincecum, Billy Wagner (for a reliever)…Gio Gonzalez.

By my count, Chris Sale has already thrown 1,064 pitches this season. In his next start, he'll pass his entire 2011 major league workload at the 1/3rd mark of the season. Three starts from now, he'll pass his entire MLB career (1,477 pitches) in 2 1/3 months (yes, this doesn't take into consideration Chris' amateur career before he joined the Sox). The question I would have is does the fact that does the fact that Chris has let up quite a bit with the fastball (except when he really needs to dial it up into the 95-97 mph range) help his elbow's longevity, or is the biggest concern still the slider? In the 15 K game, the majority of the K's came on sliders, although he is throwing it statistically less often than he did in 2011 and 2010. Is there any way to measure the torque on an elbow...vis a vis someone like Liriano, who threw his slider in the 89-92 MPH range at the height of his success in 2006. One would think that because Chris doesn't throw his slider nearly as hard as Liriano that, heaven forbid, if he ever did suffer an injury or need surgery, he'd be much more likely to bounce back compared to what we've seen with the Twins' pitcher.

QUOTE (2nd_city_saint787 @ Jun 3, 2012 -> 10:58 AM) Youks batting .314 since coming off the DL, raising his BA from .219 to .253, raising his OBP .032 points to .324, and his OPS .103 points up from .635 to .738. His back was clearly holding him back, but then again perhaps the same could be said for Brent. If Brent doesnt come back and perform and Youks still available for Thornton and lower level prospects you do that deal. IMO adding youk moves the sox from a playoff contender to a WS contender. Is the "WS Contender" factoring in acquiring Youkilis without giving up Floyd, Thornton or Crain? Just taking on salary...or sending prospects their way? The problem is the better Youkilis starts to play, the more likely they are to hold onto him...and Middlebrooks, like all rookies, will go through a down period where a team in a pennant race will be tempted to go with the veteran leader, just like they did with Mike Lowell in the past. With the AL East being such a logjam, this trade becomes less and less likely the better the Red Sox play, especially with all the issues in Boston's outfield offensively.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 3, 2012 -> 04:36 PM) SUCK IT SEAMEN! At least Hawk didn't say "Saunders took a facial" in Game 1. Although maybe Stone Pony did...

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jun 3, 2012 -> 03:57 PM) 6 up on Detroit. Believe it or not, the Tigers are just 1 game better than Kansas City. Oy. The same Royals who were 6-18 at HOME this season coming into Sunday's play. WOW.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Jun 3, 2012 -> 08:02 AM) The flip side of the attendance issue is, taking last year as an example, they had the highest payroll in their history and according to Forbes made money averaging only 25,000. It shows a pretty strong franchise with room to grow. One of the neat little statistical comparisons between this year and last is that we're almost exactly 100,000 behind last year's attendance pace. Through 27 home games in 2011 (cutoff is June 8th game with SEA), we had drawn 661,813 fans, for an average of 24,512. Through 27 hom games in 2012 (cutoff is June 3rd game with SEA), we've drawn 561,934 fans, for an average of 20,812. The net difference is 3,700 fans per game. However, when you take into consideration we lopped off roughly 20% of our payroll (more or less $25 million), a 15% decrease in attendance is clearly offset by the highest prices in baseball for parking, top 4-5-6 for tickets, etc. So we're just as profitable, it not a tick or two more profitable, than 2011. If the dynamic pricing model wasn't making them MORE profits, they wouldn't be sticking with it. Perhaps actual attendance and announced attendance would show a disparity (one could assume more fans were using their tickets in early 2011 and less as the season wore on, as opposed to the opposite effect this year).

This is all fine and good until Konerko suffers a season-ending injury or pulls a hammy lunging to his left or right or trying to come in on a bunt and throwing across his body in a way he's not used to doing. Viciedo...okay, he's played with position as recently as 3 years ago. Konerko, no way.

Actually, Nathan Jones now is in the pen...maybe Quintana just getting in work for his next start depending on Danks' status.

Quintana warming up. What? That's interesting. Guess RV is in love with LH relievers this year...

Would have to guess Sale at least gets to go out and start the 9th. Off-day tmrw. Hate to bring in a reliever with a runner or runners on base, but he's earned the shot at the CG if he can keep his pitch count down. This is going to be the problem all year long. He's so good, you keep telling yourself you have to protect him, even though it's so tempting to leave him out there. He does have that extra day of rest, right?

Can Ventura go to Reed again? Pitch count 99.

Yay! We have 2 bench players now over the .200 mark. Sale's at 94 pitches. Very tempting to leave him in the for the 8th...at least until he gives up a baserunner.

Twins still up 3-2 after getting out to the early 3-0 lead in the top of the 5th. Similar to the game yesterday, where they were out front early 4-0.

QUOTE (Stan Bahnsen @ Jun 3, 2012 -> 03:08 PM) Mitchell 2-2 already and B-Ham cruising. http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?s...biraax_mobaax_1 I think we have a real OF prospect again. Yay! 36 RBI's, and, most importantly, his 37th walk of the season.

5th walk on the season for Viciedo. Don't think he'll be hitting cleanup too many more times this season. What's the status of Fukudome?

QUOTE (Brian26 @ Jun 3, 2012 -> 01:41 PM) Did you copy these from a post on WSI? Driving me crazy because I thought I saw it somewhere else recently. http://www.whitesoxinteractive.com/vbullet...p;postcount=245 The first quote is from Mark Liptak, their resident scribe from Idaho who I think works for a newspaper/media outlet. But yeah, in the original quote, I attributed it directly to him. The second was a quote that I looked up from Ozzie.

Guess the story of today's game is missed opportunities/LOB and the fact that the score could easily be 6-7-8 to 2, right? Seems like some of those bases-loaded situations could have ended up with more runs scoring if not for some flukey plays?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseb...0,1048975.story Harrelson calls Wegner, apologizes

Yu Darvish and CJ Wilson locked in a bitter pitcher's duel in the 6th, 0-0. Momentum shifting game if the Angels can win again and put some real pressure on the Rangers this season. They hadn't been previously threatened.

I thought it was a promotion for a new Terminator movie, lol.