caulfield12

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.

QUOTE (Cali @ May 14, 2012 -> 08:19 PM) Our "ace" can't even make it past the 4th inning. Money well spent... The problem is that Danks never really was an ace. He just got that label largely because of 2008 and Game 163, but he was never in Lester or Sabathia or CJ Wilson's neighborhood. He's an average #2 (obviously he's pitching worse than that this season) or a very good #3, but not really the textbook definition of an ace or stopper. Maybe the contract's in his head, just like Dunn in 2011 or AJ in prior years when he was thinking too much about his future with the Sox.

Axelrod throws harder than Stewart. Maybe he should just bring it down to the mid 80's and he'll be below the normal fastball hitting speed but a tick higher than BP. Gameday had that as an 84 MPH two-seam fastball. Is that even possible in the big leagues? Guess so. Maybe KW should go with all "command and control" pitchers who throw in the high 80's now.

Delayed steal? How does Cabrera steal 3rd there? What the heck is going on? Stewart just assumed he's not going anywhere?