caulfield12

QUOTE (Reddy @ May 15, 2012 -> 08:06 AM) so in the history of the show we should have had, what, one black and maybe one hispanic? how longs the show been running? I remember a Hispanic woman being one of the final two or three women on Bachelor, and getting rejected by the guy and being torn up about it (I think she was a single mother). I can't recall off the top of my head if they ended up taking her as the Bachelorette or not...

QUOTE (Marty34 @ May 15, 2012 -> 12:51 PM) He plays so deep many times his first step or two is in that's how he got burned last night. 90% of our outfielders are better coming in rather than playing shallow and going back for anything hit over their heads. (See Edmonds, Jim). Rios was atrocious at that. Hopefully it's something he can improve on over time. For right now, he's our best option. And it's not like it's 100% automatic he would put up such good numbers against RHP if he sat against all LHP. There's something about playing everyday, the confidence of knowing your name will be in the line-up when you get to the ballpark no matter what, which you can't underestimate. Would Dunn be hitting so well overall if RV had benched him from the beginning of the season against all LHP and given those at-bats to Lillibridge? I think not. Sometimes statistics do not just exist in a vacuum. And you can't assume Brent Lillibridge will hit 12 homers again in limited at-bats just because he did it one season, which looks like it might turn out to be something of an anomaly in his career stat line.

QUOTE (2nd_city_saint787 @ May 15, 2012 -> 12:42 AM) Actually, according to espn, right now its a 37.9% chance at making the playoffs, which is the 5th highest % in the AL and 5 teams make the playoffs... My "position" is that if your team is built to compete, and with a good Rios and Dunn, they are then by god you compete.... If Danks, Lexi, and Tank are still shaky and they're out of it in the standings come time for the trade deadline then yes trade away....but on MAY 15th when they're right in the thick of things its not time to talk about trades, like you smarks are doin already. Unless youre getting someone like Dylan Bundy, Trevor Bauer, or Bryce Harper there are no sure things as far as prospects go. So there's no guarantee that a "fire sale" or whatever you "fans" on here want is gonna mean you're gonna be be any better off in the future. If they're competing as the season goes on more fans are gonna come out, there's zero doubt there IMO whereas if you sell off the team no ones gonna wanna come out and watch that team. Look this team is a year removed from being "all in" and what failed about that team?? Dunn and Rios being historically bad...From the looks of it so far this year were getting what we expected last year out of them this year...What has changed from this year to last year?? They lost MB, okkkk but this year we have a healthy CY Peavy. They lost Juan Pierre, okkkk ADA is one of the best lead odd hitters in the game right now. They lost Sergio Santos, okkkkk well before yesterday Addison Reed had an era of 0.00. They lost CQ, ok well the books still open on Tank but it was long believed that he can equal the production of Carlos....Am I missing something here on why this team CANT compete and I should be talking about trades on MAY 15! You're forgetting replacing Mark Buehrle and the fact that John Danks except for one start has been one of the worst starting pitchers in all of baseball. Talking trades and actually consummating one are two quite different things. I'm sure if someone made an amazing offer for Matt Thornton or Jesse Crain that KW would pack their bags for them. As Balta kept on saying all offseason, we had/have to replace 8 wins just to get back to a 79-83 team. That was predicated on getting positive contributions out of Dunn/Rios/Peavy (check, check and check) but also Viciedo, Morel and Beckham. If you take the steady contributions of Buehrle out of the equation and add in Danks as one of the worst and Humber continues to look more like a 5th starter than he did in the first half of 2011...as well as figuring in Sale in all likelihood can't withstand pitching anything above 125 or max 150 innings, and you're going to be shutting down Sale or putting him in the bullpen in the heat of the pennant race, well, everything that can go right almost has to go right, and that means we also have to rely on DET to falter for almost the entire season. Finally, add in the mysterious disappearing bat of Alexei Ramirez. Even in the rosiest point of view, we're an 84-85-86 win team as currently constructed. Is DET likely to finish that low? Second, we KNOW Detroit and Illitch will be willing to go "all out" in June/July to make improvements to their bullpen, 2B, DH abd RF positions. We're certainly not in a position to add payroll this season, either. And we have almost nothing in the minor leagues to work with in terms of commodities that could get something useful back for the major league roster. Best case scenario, we find a veteran 3B ala Herb Perry in 2000 and he catches fire. I suppose that's possible. But it's also trusting KW when he hasn't shown any reason for us to trust him since the end of the 2008 season.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ May 14, 2012 -> 06:05 PM) De Aza is a LF'er playing CF. He covers the gaps at the expense of letting balls drop in front of him. He's a stopgap who's best position would be a 400 AB corner OF. How many "pure/stellar" defenders are there in CF who put up an OPS in the 800+ range? http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/batting/_/pos.../OPS/order/true There are 24 "qualified" players right now in MLB. DeAza's OPS is 9th. I would think we should worry FIRST about the positions where we are getting below average production, relative to that position. Clearly, that's Morel, Viciedo (LF, there are 3 qualified players under 600), Alexei Ramirez (24/25) and Beckham. Morel's LAST in all of the majors, and he's 71 OPS points behind Danny Valencia, who has been sent down already. You go from 423 to 542 to get the NEXT (2nd to worst) player above Brent, and that's Scott Rolen. Then you have Gordon Beckham, 20th out of 24 at a 600 OPS (and you live with him because of his upward trend until recently offensively and his D). Worrying about limiting DeAza to 400 at-bats when we need to get him 600+ and limiting Dunn's AB's because of his defense in LF. We just don't have those luxuries. If it comes down to it, they almost have to move Viciedo or Dan Johnson to 3B and play the other in LF to mask Morel's overall ineptitude, unless they trade for another 3B as a stop-gap (assuming they're ready to give up on Morel for 2012 and perhaps beyond). We all kind of expect Alexei Ramirez and probably Viciedo to turn it around. We can't win with four black holes and Rios/AJ both trending downwards. We've got to get at least average or solid contributions from 7 places in the line-up.

Sounds like the Bachelor lawsuit...for never having a "non-white" Bachelor or Bachelorette in the history of the show. Statistically, there should be a Hispanic one 14-15% of the time, African American 11-12% and Asian about 7% of the time. Instead, we get America's Sweetheart, Emily Maynard (granted, she is pretty hot, but I understand the point of those frustrated with ALWAYS having white contestants and the few minority ones getting wiped out quickly). This has never happened with Survivor casts, FWIW.

QUOTE (2nd_city_saint787 @ May 14, 2012 -> 10:07 PM) Sox are now the only team in the AL central with a positive run differential at +1, a half game behind the Tigers, and 2.5 behid the indians who aren't supposed to contend...and everyone here is talking about trading off parts at the deadline lol smh what a loyal fan base we have here So is your position different than Marty's? We're not rebuilding, but we're trying to compete this season and KW very well might get fired if we don't make the playoffs or finish below 1.6 million for attendance? I get it, we're only 2 1/2 behind first place and only 1/2 game behind our primary competitors. The problem is that we do have players with value to other teams (Thornton, Crain, Peavy, Floyd and AJ, not to mention Dunn, Konerko and Ramirez) and that if you subtract away that first group, how realistic is it that we can come close to competing in 2013 and 2014? Then you get in that "wait it out" situation for the fourth year in a row where the team is stuck in-between and has no clear direction or strategy for the future. That's not much fun, either. It's like being in purgatory. Despite the momentary ups and downs (2-4 game streaks either way), the path to be competitive in 2013 and 2014 is just as important as this year. We can't keep mortgaging the future for a 10-15% chance at making the playoffs.

QUOTE (South Side Fireworks Man @ May 14, 2012 -> 09:48 PM) Great to see Viciedo have a big game - hopefully a breakout game for him. Nice pitching by Stewart and Reed. Danks was bad - yet again. Santiago is hard to watch. Let's hope they can sweep 'em tomorrow! What did Santiago do wrong this time? He only had one walk. Seems Ventura trusts him a bit more than Ohman, fwiw. Or he just trusts Ohman too much against RHB'ers in the face of all contrary evidence.

Pujols 0/2, still mired under Mendoza Line at .193.

Can't believe Saladino and Mitchell are only 0.08 points apart for batting average now. Hernandez didn't have a quality start, but he's now 5-1 and has been our most consistent starting pitcher in AA/AAA.

Matt Capps rears his ugly head again in Minnesota. Twins had rallied for 3 to tie in the bottom of the 8th and Capps gave up the tie-breaking run with 2 outs (after a wild pitch moved the runner over) to Choo.

I don't even remember Danks' ERA being 6.46 in 2007. That's Barry Zito-esque. 23,538 for attendance, better than we had been doing, but the Tigers do have 3 superstars and should clearly be the biggest draw of all our divisional rivals. 4-3 versus DET 5-4 versus CLE 1-2 versus KC 7-11 at home

Marty34 knew this one was coming after tonight.

Well, Reed survived. Huge win there. But somehow we need to fix Danks. And Zach Stewart/Dayan get co-MVP for this one.

Biggest AB for Viciedo in recent memory. Tiggers obviously want DP or K, pitched around Alexei.

C'mon Cubans!!! Dayan needs to dial it up a notch or two for this guy's FB. And lay off the high ones.

QUOTE (Jake @ May 14, 2012 -> 07:58 PM) Where'd he move? From the mound to the mound? Jerking back and forth from relieving to starting to relieving...not quite the same as a position change, but similar ideas. Hit and run is fine, but not a straight steal. AJ usually makes contact at least.

Seems every middle reliever in baseball these days throws 93-99 MPH. Definitely the era of the pitcher, whereas articles came out a decade or so ago wondering if hitters would dominate forever.

QUOTE (Jake @ May 14, 2012 -> 07:55 PM) Seems interesting that KW seems to have a much easier time getting good arms than hitters when he hasn't thrown a pitch in his life But the OPS numbers and OBP for most of our young hitters align nicely with KW's career as a hitter, lol. And there's another parallel, Williams too was moved around the diamond, just like we have done with Beckham, Sale and Viciedo, not to mention Santiago.

Except Bere before all his injuries threw in the mid 90's and had a "fosch" ball that was devastating. But good God, he was one of slowest working pitchers I can remember this side of Contreras.

Heart of the order coming up. Most important inning of Stewart's 2012 season here. I don't know how he's doing it, has to be command and movement, because it's certainly no velocity. So for now, I'll apologize to young Mr. Stewart, although I don't believe it can last for much longer. I guess for now we should hope for Molina to start throwing in the 80's instead of 89-93 as well.

Morel threatening 400 OPS, now at 415. Alexei at 481. What happened to the 2008 version? Yeah, yeah, I know...he'll heat up in June and July and August. Well, at least Beckham got on base for Dunn, there's that.

Viciedo hitting .417 against sliders in the middle of the plate, lol. Cue Fathom comment...why would you throw him anything but a fastball above the letters or a breaking pitch way off the plate for him to take a Uribe-esque cut at?

The problem with Morel is we have no replacement in sight, other than Lillibridge (who the majority view as a platoon option, at best, and who has very limited experience at 3B at any level). So unless they trade Thornton/Crain/Floyd and get back a young starting 3B, they pretty much have to stick it out for the next 2-3 months and determine once and for all if he's going to be a part of the future. He goes to AAA for 2 months, hits decently (in line with minor league track record) and then puts up a similar August/September to 2011, then who would have any confidence he would repeat it again in 2013 after what happened this season?

QUOTE (Baron @ May 14, 2012 -> 07:31 PM) Lets see if Morel can get below .180 tonight That won't be hard, only 1 more AB. More worried about Viciedo than Morel, who I've already given up on and just preferring to be surprised by but not expecting anything more than Chris Snopek (minus the marginal power but better defense) from now on. Took Bryce Harper 54 AB's to get his first homer. Hitting .236 now.

The Royals announcers have stopped counting the sheer number of line drives hit at fielders...and then it starts to snowball, you start to press and get out of your normal game, like it did with Swisher in 2008. A year ago, you would have said Hosmer was the sure thing and that Moustakas looked incredibly shaky, more like Alex Gordon when he first came up than a perennial All-Star. Now things have almost completely reversed, although Hosmer's at least hit some dingers and collected some RBI's.