caulfield12

QUOTE (fathom @ May 6, 2012 -> 11:35 AM) Probably would have been a lot easier to think about "how nice it will be if it works out" if they didn't already have Reed in the system though. I said this after the Santos trade, but who cares about the back-end of your bullpen if you're going through a rebuilding process? Now, if KW and Jerry decide to spend money on upgrading the starting rotation after the year, then it's no longer in the rebuilding phase and having a good closer is important (Captain Obvious, I know). Well, there's your Moneyball 2.0 book to start working on. (Build backwards from dominant bullpen to then filling in the starting pitching around it). Trade Santos for a #3 starter in Molina, stand back and watch Santos fall apart or be ineffective due to injury while controlling Molina for 6 years. Turn 4 homegrown products (Sale/Reed/Jones/Santiago) into the modern-day equivalent of the Nasty Boys. Trade two veteran relievers you acquired at little or no cost (Thornton and Crain) and turn them into more serviceable cost-controlled starting prospects. Or Frasor for Webb and Jaye, as another example. Incubate future starters in the 6-7 spots (Axelrod, Stewart, P. Hernandez, Petricka, Santiago, Castro, etc.). Throw in a veteran loogy in Ohman for a little veteran stability and "grizzledness." A Matt Thornton/Christian Bale as Batman beard is helpful, although not full-blown like Dan Haggerty or Mr. Wilson on the Gigantes. FWIW, now with Axelrod on the roster, we have TEN (10) homegrown players on our roster, trailing only a handful of teams in MLB. The most was 13 coming into this season (Astros) and there are a couple of other teams I can't remember off the top of my head.

Okay, I'm offering an olive branch. I won't mention Don Cooper for another 27 games, until Game 54. Will you agree not to mention Greg Walker, no matter what happens with the Braves and the White Sox? On that day, we can open the debate again. Right now, the results are premature and inconclusive. You can argue we might not even know until 2013 or 2014, but let's table the discussion (at least) until that point. I know it will tempting if Dylan Axelrod gets rocked to say that Don Cooper can't work miracles...or if he pitches a great game, many would say Cooper took a pitcher with just average major league stuff and made him serviceable, so I'm agreeing to refrain one way or the other.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ May 6, 2012 -> 09:14 AM) Solid point except for the small fact that Garcia was the only one that panned out. Unless you define it as leading to Zach Stewart, saving money on Mark Teahen and adding Lillibridge/Flowers/Santos Rodriguez. But clearly comparing Stewart to Hudson/Holmberg's going to be a debacle that never goes away from KW's recent resume. In the middle, from 2003-2008, Williams was among the best. 2001-2002 and 2009-2011, the absolute worst or bottom 5. No in between with KW.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 6, 2012 -> 09:57 AM) When they acquired Swisher and Cabrera, they made it a point to say they needed some vocal guys in the clubhouse. There have been plenty of posts through the years with posters being pissed at Konerko for not being a loudmouth. It was ironic, that even though that team won the division, KW couldn't get rid of those 2 fast enough. The whole our "leadership fell apart when Rowand and Everett departed" argument for the Sox downfall after 2005. I prefer the Uribe/Crede/Curse of 2008 one, though.

We're going to be facing Tomlin for the 3rd time in a month. Wonder if they could change from Humber to Stults or Santiago at the last second for that one? Actually, it wouldn't matter because Game 2 starter Zach McAllister held the Sox to 2/15 last year (the only 2 hits by Beckham).

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ May 6, 2012 -> 08:52 AM) Obviously we will never know the truth, but to me it seems pretty obvious that Swisher didnt fit in and it carried over to the field. That is a personality scouting issue. When Swisher was acquired i really dont remember many people complaining about the price And, in fact, his long-term contract at the time of the trade was looked at as a huge plus at the time of the acquisition, until it quickly wasn't after just 4 months.

Just using my "wrestling persona" the last 2-3 days, lol. (See, I'm playing Devil's Advocate and forcing KW to be defended). Actually, the one and only thing I'm sure of is that Sale to the bullpen is the final straw in supporting KW. The rest is debateable.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ May 6, 2012 -> 09:36 AM) Gio also brought back Jim Thome, I would have KW make that trade again in a heartbeat Who KW allowed Ozzie to talk him into letting go, when it probably made the biggest difference in deciding the 2010 ALCD. A good GM doesn't let his manager dictate his roster, the GM exerts his will on the manager (see Beane vs. Howe).

QUOTE (fathom @ May 6, 2012 -> 09:32 AM) Yep, just like with Gio, it's pretty far-fetched to think that KW would have waited long enough for McCarthy to turn into a solid MLB pitcher. I remember watching Gio in his first year in Oakland, and it wasn't pretty at all. But that's kind of accepting the same type of mentality that we don't have the patience to wait on 99.8% of the players we draft to develop. We've never had a Gooden, Strawberry or Harper that was ready to dominate from the get-go. Of course, in my mind, there's a difference between Ryan Sweeney and Morel. Sweeney has/had higher upside, we just didn't have nearly enough time to wait for the strength/power to come into his game. But he always had that pretty swing, the talent and ability was there at least. And maybe he'll never be anything more than a lesser version of Mark Grace but in RF, but he's definitely playing a major role on the Red Sox and carrying a 933 OPS through regular play. We traded Ryan Sweeney when he was still just 22 years old. Brent Morel is already 25. We gave up on Daniel Hudson after 3 major league starts at about the same age. You can't keep sacrificing the long-term in order to leverage short-term results or it will catch up to you, in the perfect storm of diminishing payroll, overpaid veterans in their 30's and not enough talent in the farm system simultaneously.

Michael Morse. That's why KW should be fired. Not Jeremy Reed. Cowley, Marty and Greg Walker predicted he would breakout as a 30/100 guy a decade ago.

Mark, in his four losses, has been trailing 3-1, 2-0, 2-1 and 7-0 when he left those games. Only two runs of support in those 4 games. The defense in the 7-0 game let in 3-4 additional runs.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ May 6, 2012 -> 09:20 AM) Where are they going to get a potential top-of-the-rotation starter next year. If Danks doesn't step up they'll need two. Every year they go without that settled is a rebuilding year. Chris Sale and Nestor Molina.

QUOTE (JorgeFabregas @ May 6, 2012 -> 09:14 AM) You'd have to actually have an accurate list of players lost or added for this list to make any sense at all. If you're going to include free agents not re-signed, then you need to include all free agents signed. Including Chris Young in this list suggests that you're going back to the pre-2006 off-season unless you're just cherry-picking. So you're missing acquisitions like Floyd, Danks, A. Ramirez, Humber, Dunn, Sale, De Aza, etc. You're missing most of the useful players on the current roster, in fact. So you're just cherry picking. You can add Dunn, although you wouldn't have "dunn" that 3 weeks ago. Even if he performs at his statistical averages for the next three seasons, we're not getting anything resembling a great rate of return (overall), plus we lost the draft picks. You're right, I didn't include Freddy Garcia on the "lost/missing" list. Thanks for that reminder. Ramirez and Viciedo were signed as FA's, they weren't on the other side of the transactions involving the players I listed. Humber and DeAza (and you can add Santos to that ledger)...and Sale, so they're once again not involved in the transactions the players I listed were. And yeah, you could put Brandon McCarthy in "lost/missing" and John Danks' now seemingly bad contract on the other side of the ledger (if we're going to now count Dunn as a good or positive contract to have on the books, then Danks has to be put in the "bad" column based on April, right?)

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 6, 2012 -> 09:05 AM) The White Sox currently have the same team OPS they had as a team for the 2011 season. Getting rid of Greg Walker hasn't provided the improvement most thought. The Cubs spent a boatload of money bringing in a former Soxtalk favorite, Rudy Jaramillo. Their players who couldn't hit, still can't hit. And what is the average OPS in MLB this year? 2011? It's down from 730 to 720, so having the same OPS as last year would mathematically be an improvement according to the laws of statistical analysis. Let me guess, it's lower this year. We can argue the definition of improvement, but how can you account for an offense who didn't add anything significant (and actually lost one of its best OPS performers in Quentin) and has probably the weakest bench offensively in the majors leagues outperforming the 2011 version? Last year was just a "fluke" year or unlucky, right? Some of the hitters like Dunn are simply returning to their historical norms and last year was an outlier? Well, then the same arguments can be made for Heyward, who was commonly pronounced one of the future superstars of the game by every scout in the country.

QUOTE (JorgeFabregas @ May 6, 2012 -> 09:01 AM) Floyd is no more erratic or inconsistent than virtually any other starting pitcher. You can pretty much pencil him in for ~190 innings and an fWAR between 3.5 and 4.5. But with his talent and his arsenal of pitches, he could or even SHOULD be great, a #1 or #2 starter. Since he was drafted, that's been his curse to live up to. Blame it all on Don Cooper, right, for Floyd's "underachieving" and the accusations of being a "mental midget" that crop up from time to time?

Hey, I only talked of impending DOOM, no mentions of death as of YET. My metaphorical signature doesn't count. It's an allegory, not to be taken literally, lol.

http://movies.yahoo.com/news/avengers-scor...-154806723.html (#2 Opening Day to Harry Potter:DH, #1 overall Opening Weekend) And the line about a certain favorite poet/bard in residence at Stratford-on-Avon (in reference to Thor) Think Kenneth Branagh as director!

And this gets back to the point of why I'm so angry with Williams and the Sox management in general. Chris Sale was the key component for us to be competitive in the future, him becoming a sort of Randy Johnson-Lite. Without that, having the greatest young bullpen since The Nasty Boys in Cincy doesn't mean a thing unless you have the starting line-up and rotation to put the back end of your bullpen in a position to consistently close out games. Granted, they still have the option of holding onto Floyd ONE MORE YEAR if they feel they can actually compete in 2013, but that's 50/50 at best right now. So there legitimately could be at least THREE openings in the starting rotation, and if they're filled with young/rookie pitchers, it will take them at least 2-3 years (see Baltimore Orioles of today or Glavine/Smoltz/Avery in the late 80's/early 90's) to become consistent winners at the big league level, and there are SUBSTANTIAL doubts in the minds of everyone around baseball those guys have the talent to even do it. We're not the 30th ranked farm system in the majors without reason. Danks Floyd ??? (option for 2013) Humber Axelrod, Molina, S. Castro, Hector Santiago, maybe Pedro Hernandez (BIRM)...you'd have to say the odds for Zach Stewart look very long to be a starter again...and perhaps Petricka, but that would be a huge reach or stretch for 2013. So we really have 5 guys for two and possibly three open spots (although surely we'd get young pitching back for Floyd in a trade). But, yeah, not really pretty projecting forward into future years past this one.

QUOTE (JPN366 @ May 5, 2012 -> 11:01 PM) I thought this was a rebuilding year, growing pains and all. Your imagination is amazing, I give up... But Williams couldn’t find any trading partners and he certainly wasn’t getting a good return price, so he’ll start the season with a mostly veteran-laden team and see what they can do. It’s not likely that the White Sox will win the division, but stranger things have happened. It’s not always the team that is picked to win the division that actually does. Just look at last season when the White Sox were the prohibitive favorite only to fall flat on their faces. http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/02/27/sch...now-rebuilding/ He's trying to rebuild and compete at the same time. Nearly impossible, sure. But what other choice does he have? You can't have Brent Morel striking out 30+ times and being in the bottom 5 of MLB OPS without at least considering other alternatives besides sticking him out there everyday. Don't you? Trying to play him through a slump didn't work at all with Rios and Dunn last year, so we have the (multiple) option/s to send him down and try a different way to rebuild his confidence. There's got to be some objective truth between Balta's and Marty34's standpoint on this issue, it's a grey or nuanced area in the middle which is very hard to straddle without making fans/season ticket holders on one side of the equation or the other unhappy.

QUOTE (JPN366 @ May 4, 2012 -> 10:41 PM) Released by the Jays, minor league FA. Marco Paddy strikes again!

http://www.reelz.com/movie-news/13805/the-...n-the-avengers/ Explanation of the "shawarma" scene. Wonder how much of a kick in sales they'll get from the prominent mention? Wonder what executives with the studio or which of the actors have an investment in the company? They're super popular in the Philippines, many people start the stands in local neighborhoods as a secondary income source for their family. http://www.boxoffice.com/statistics/bo_num...mate/2012-05-05 Avengers will set new all-time opening weekend record, close to $180 million give or take (already around $300 million and climbing overseas)

QUOTE (2nd_city_saint787 @ May 5, 2012 -> 11:18 PM) Touche, One too many cervasas for this guy Cervezas...it's Cinco de Mayo, remember?

QUOTE (JPN366 @ May 5, 2012 -> 11:11 PM) Where do you get these ideas? The fact that we have to be in "win now" mode while we're still in the race, Sale is now in the bullpen and simply the fact that Ventura pinch-hit Esobar for Morel. Let's just call it intuition. At most, Morel has 2 more weeks at this current pace of striking out and not hitting for extra bases. That and the fact our bench has been among the worst in the majors in production, except for Brent's stolen bases.

QUOTE (RME JICO @ May 5, 2012 -> 10:32 PM) About Walker's comments, I believe everyone witnessed what he was feeling. It had a lot to do with the environment created by Ozzie and KW. No wonder Dunn came in and bottomed out and Rios struggled. I still believe some of these coaches get too much credit for successes and too much blame for failures. Sometimes it just takes the right type of person to get through to certain players who are struggling. Also, looking at the Braves' stats, no one is considerably better than last year other than Bourn. Most have came back down to earth since a hot start. And with Bourn, you'd expect part of that improvement is simply more time and familiarity with the pitchers in the NL East, comfort level of coming into spring training with the same team, not being placed on the pressure-cooker of leading off in the middle of a stressful August/September pennant race and also being constantly reminded of the fact that they sent a couple of their best young prospects to the Astros to acquire you.

2012 White Sox in their first 27 games, 107 runs scored (13-14) 2011 White Sox in their first 27 games, 107 runs scored (10-17) However, there's ONE key difference. In 2011, we scored 40 runs in our first 5 games, then went on to score only 67 in our next 22 (3.04 p/g). This year, we've been much more balanced, overall. In terms of runs scored and OPS, we're currently 9th in both categories in the AL (ahead of Seattle, KC, LAA, Minnesota and Oakland). Last year, we were 11th. (Obviously the Royals and Angels have been disappointments). So there are improvements taking place, especially when you consider the subtraction of Carlos Quentin from the line-up for what's basically a rookie in Viciedo. Runs Scored Per Game 7. Indians, 4.52 8. Tigers, 4.31 9. White Sox, 3.96 Also, yesterday was the first time in 11 tries we won a game where we scored 3 runs or less.