caulfield12

Never mind. I was being sarcastic...not a Stewart fan, lol.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ May 2, 2012 -> 11:47 AM) There seem to be a lot of people who don't realize that things said on Facebook and twitter have the ability to spread rapidly and be preserved forever. Especially the Sun-Times' brass, although DeLuca at least had the sense to TRY to get him to shut down his Twitter before the story got picked up...but once Deadspin took off with it (thanks to Sloan Martin and then there was also the previous Joe Forte showdown with "Jessica Danielle" on April 1st and stories of the intern who "outed" himself) and it was all she wrote. The story started gaining steam....then all the local Chicago press picked it up and had a field day, it wasn't unlike that 24-72 hour period with the Ozzie/Castro story where the story just kept mushrooming and there was no way to put the cat back in the bag. That there was no response from the S-T and he kept writing more and more Bulls' stories with seemingly no punishment gave the story even more life the last 24-36 hours or so.

Are they kidding, no Zach Stewart?? What are they thinking?? C'mon, Sox braintrust!

But their circulation passed the Tribune's, lol. IF you count about 40 other locals and free pamphlets and apartments wanted/Thrifty Nickel type magazines, Daily Southtown....

If Don Cooper would have been "poached" by another team this off-season (let's say, by the NY Yankees), there would have been a thread bemoaning it and worrying 5X longer than the current Cowley thread. Nobody would have been celebrating it or saying "finally!" If you want to believe I'm the only one who has ever compared their accomplishments, that's cool. Everyone would have been MORE upset with Ozzie and blaming him for Cooper's departure, etc. How many times do we see "Coop will fix 'em" or "In Coop We Trust" or Don Cooper is the best or one of THE best or one of the top 3-5 pitching coaches, etc., in MLB? Have we ever seen that about Walker? Well, because he found a job, he's great. So did Juan Pierre and Omar Vizquel. Jeff Cox must be bad too, right?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 2, 2012 -> 12:27 PM) We know you're not exactly in our time zone, but people do sleep sometimes! Royals/Tigers is the FREE GAME of the Day and I fell asleep at like 9 pm and just woke up accidentally, lol. The game started here at 100 a.m.

Maybe last year, the White Sox took on their "bad wrestling" personality and tanked on purpose to get rid of Ozzie? And now this year they're showing their true baseball selves and playing up to their actual abilities. How can we prove what was really in their hearts? They just weren't trying (seemingly) in 2011, and now they are....so problem solved. Jake Peavy was just messing with us, same with Dunn and Rios. Like in the parable in the Bible, they wanted to summon all the doubting Thomases, to see how low attendance could go and fan frustration and despair would mount, what valleys could be reached and denials of our Sox faiths uttered...only to come forth and proclaim their true natures to the unbelievers who had no faith without proof. (This is fun...whatever we actually see, it's the opposite that we're really seeing. Good is now "bad" and bad is good.)

Dick, Dick, Dick... It's not EITHER/OR as you always say. Comparatively, Cooper has been a better pitching coach than Walker a better hitting coach. And you will never admit or agree to that basic tenet of Sox baseball since 2003, which is an idea that 98% of the posters here would probably also agree with. Last time, I gave the examples of Konerko, Lillibridge and Carlos Quentin. We can argue this on a day-by-day basis, too. We can say Cubans always start out slow and/or Alexei Ramirez is getting old or his real age is much older than the "official" age, etc. Or that last night was the culmination of months of work for Gordon Beckham and he's going to go on a 2009-ish tear that will have everyone wondering "where did that Beckham do?" for all that time? And then you can respond with some anecdote about something Gordon's father or UGA coach or whatever worked with him over this past off-season...anything to not admit Manto might have had a positive effect on him, lol. Most here would agree things just weren't working or had gotten a bit stale here with the Sox...whereas the White Sox pitching numbers have been up there with any team in the league. Then you'll say that's expected because of Peavy's salary, or Danks' salary, it will go back and forth forever, lol.

Greg didn't respond to the most recent pending question yet?

Greg didn't respond to the most recent pending question yet?

Ohman and Zach Stewart will do that to almost anyone, even the most die-hard of baseball fans.

Stop the Mr. Handsome pro wrestling persona, B. We know you're actually a paid Romney speechwriter, you want to gut the EPA and Dept. of Education, Dept. of Interior, go back to the Gold Standard, the Commerce Department, gone, all financial regulators done away with, and, oh yeah...The Department of Energy, too. You only come here to practice your debating skills and you actually are a Cubs' fan and registered member of the NRA and a subscriber to Reader's and Baseball Digest.

That's weird. At MLB.com GameDay, he was at 93-94-95 pretty consistently the first 3 innings. Even had one or two at 96, which surprised me. Guess he really must have lost it the second half of his outing as his pitch count elevated.

Playing at SEA and OAK had a LITTLE something to do with that, but usually Hafner, Duncan or Carlos Santana are good for some homers. Kipnis has very good power too, for a 2B, as well as Choo when he's healthy. Cabrera had so many more in one year than in his entire career combined before that.

Hochevar usually throws 94-96. He was down in the low 90's for most of that game. I think he's wearing some type of brace or support on his ankle and you can tell he's not yet 100% comfortable out on that mound. Even at 100%, he's frighteningly inconsistent. Royals up 2-0 over Verlander in the late innings. Jonathan Sanchez with a very solid start. Now KC has their own 100 MPH thrower out of the pen, Kelvin Herrera. Verlander just blew away Hosmer with a 100 MPH fastball on his 123rd pitch. Last time in KC, he went 131 for the CG. Bottom of the 8th, still 2-0 KC with Crow on, Broxton theoretically next.

http://www.salon.com/2012/05/02/the_avenge...vies_never_end/ This is a very long but well thought-out criticism of the comic book movie trend...kind of the intellectual film critic's response, which will get some predictable fanboy responses. Agree with about 25% of what he has to say...everytime there's a popular "mainstream" movie like this which is also receiving a lot of critical praise, there's always going to be a handful to buck the trend and try to make themselves famous or controversial.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118053403?refCatId=13 By the way, I've already seen this movie twice but I'll wait until this weekend to make any more comments about it when everyone in the US has a chance to start watching it. It's the best movie by far I've seen this year. "The main idea is to make a movie that appeals to both the fanboys and fangirls who have known these characters for years and to those who are hearing about them for the first time in the trailer," (studio president Kevin) Feige said. "It's a bit of a fine line." Despite all the planning for "The Avengers," Feige was still surprised at "how quickly people embraced the notion of the superhero team-up," he said. "I thought it would be a slower burn and that it would just be fans wanting that," he said. "Then the Monday after 'Iron Man' opened, and Sam Jackson was in the eyepatch, everyone started talking about 'The Avengers.'" Six years later, Marvel is now planning "Avengers" sequels. It's also developing films around Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, the Inhumans and Guardians of the Galaxy as potential new franchises, while the Johansson, Renner and Jackson characters could be spun off into their own standalone actioners. It already has sequels for "Iron Man," "Captain America" and "Thor" dated through 2014. Disney will market and distribute all of those films. "Avengers" was its first after buying out the rights for the pic from Paramount, which released the "Iron Man," "Thor" and "Captain America" films. The next "Captain America" will be set in the modern world -- not WWII -- and put the star-spangled hero in "a wholly different genre than we've done before," Feige said. "It's all about surprising the audience" with Marvel's films to keep audiences interested and coming back. He's the ultimate fanboy he wants to keep happy.

(How) can the Phillies make the playoffs with THAT hitting? http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/i...yoff-team-maybe

(How) can the Phillies make the playoffs with THAT hitting? http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/i...yoff-team-maybe

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 2, 2012 -> 12:13 AM) No way. Edwin Encarnacion is in his 8th season in the majors. He's a guy who's bad enough defensively that teams want to move him from the position, but whose bat doesn't translate anywhere else, and he's not bad enough defensively that it keeps you from playing him there. He's eclipse a WAR of 2 once, and generally sits in the 1.5 range. The Sox simply can't give up anything from their minor league system for such a marginal upgrade. They may as well stick with Morel in that case and let him work through it, or give a shot to anybody else within the organization. I was basing this idea more on his hot start than anything else. But yeah, over his entire career, MEHHHHH. He's just an average or slightly below average MLB player. That said, we can't have the player with the worst OPS in MLB at the position if we expect to contend, either. Geoff Blum (39) Miguel Cairo (39) Eric Chavez (35) Mark DeRosa (38) Brandon Inge (36) Maicer Izturis (32) Jose Lopez (29) Placido Polanco (37) - $5.5MM mutual option with a $1MM buyout Mark Reynolds (29) - $11MM club option with a $500K buyout Scott Rolen (38) Mark Teahen (31) Ty Wigginton (35) - $4MM club option with a $500K buyout David Wright (30) - $16MM club option with a $1MM buyout Kevin Youkilis (34) - $13MM club option with a $1MM buyout http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/batting/_/pos.../OPS/order/true Wright is the (probably) pipe dream, although clearly the most enticing for many, many reasons. Chase Headley and Hannahan would be the only other upgrades that might be available, and Hannahan's no Mike Schmidt. Polanco, Rolen, Stewart and Reynolds have been beyond bad.

And Bell had a 1-2-3 ninth. Maybe he got confused and still thought he was pitching in the NL West out in Frisco?

Amazingly, we've only faced Tomlin once in the 1 1/2+ seasons he's been on their roster. This year, 4-2 victory. 5 IP, 7 H, 4 ER, 1 BB, 7 K's (more than a pitcher like Tomlin should get) DeAza and AJ homered in that game. XBaza also had a double, and Viciedo doubled off him, too.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 2, 2012 -> 12:06 AM) There was a lot of smoke and mirrors with their team last year...the fact that Valverde didn't blow a save is reason enough...but there are just too many good players on that roster right now for them to not be a better than .500 team, again, barring crazy injuries. They've been predictably bad defensively (UZR is right around -12, which means their poor defense by itself has cost them a full game in the standings, roughly speaking) but, according they have produced negative value offensively thus far, meaning in this young season, they have lost more games than won because of their offense. This is essentially the same team, minus Victor Martinez, plus Prince Fielder, that finished 5th in the entire MLB last year in offensive value at 90.8 batting runs above value meaning, when not taken out of context for positional adjustments, their offense alone won them 9 games. The offense is good and has plenty of talent. They're going to hit. There may be a few guys who regress a bit - Alex Avila and Jhonny Peralta come to mind immediately, plus Betemit was really good down the stretch for them last year too and he's in Baltimore now - but they're going to hit. The main thing at this point is getting Scherzer and Porcello straightened out. I half tongue-in-cheek stated they'd win 100 games after signing Fielder, but I really can't see any scenario where they win fewer 85 unless it involves someone getting injured. That is a very, very top heavy organization (no offense intended to Cabrera and Fielder, who are going to eclipse 600 combined pounds before they do home runs), and one significant injury to Verlander, Cabrera, or Fielder puts their season in very serious jeopardy very quickly, and if two get injured, they may as well pack it in. Papa Grande says "Don't forget me, I'll full-figured, too!!" Agree, what determines their season is the contributions of Jackson, Boesch, Raburn, Peralta, Kelly, Santiago, Eldred, Worth, etc. If their "complementary" players rake, then they're a 95+ win team. And I'm already putting Avila at that assumed All-Star level at catcher, although it's perhaps a bit early (see Soto, Geovanny). Jackson definitely gives them an added dimension in being able to manufacture runs, and Boesch can carry a team when he's hot, like 2 seasons ago. Delmon Young is a pretty big wildcard, especially now after the suspension. Hard to expect the 2010 version with the Twins to return, but stranger things have happened.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 1, 2012 -> 11:25 PM) I think they do look better. It's still early, so stats are skewed all around, but Konerko, Pierzynski, Dunn, and Rios all look good at the plate and are generally hitting the ball well right now. De Aza looks like he has a plan and usually puts a good swing on the ball every time he comes to the plate. Beckham is still here or there but he looked great tonight, destroying a mistake pitch and then going with two other pitches on the outer half of the plate. Ramirez always looks lost in the early part of the season, so there's nothing I worry about there. Viciedo is a talented hitter and is still learning, but he still needs quite a bit of refinement. The one guy (who I really like) who I just haven't seen anything from this year is Morel. He just doesn't look like he's swinging with any authority whatsoever right now. I don't remember which AB, but there was a pitch tonight that he should have absolutely smoked with the way the bat made contact, and it had absolutely nothing on it. I love him defensively, but he isn't even offering the occasional homer that Crede provided when he was young. In fact, 3B is probably the one area where the Sox could find a big time upgrade at this season that would be really, really worth it. The one guy who has been mentioned on here before is David Wright, and if the Sox can play above .500 ball through June, I think that is a route Williams will look to take. Even an .800 or so OPS at 3B would be a huge bonus, and Wright has done that quite often in his career. It's too early to even be considering that, because perhaps Morel starts hitting with some authority here soon, but as of now he really seems to be the biggest hole in the entire lineup. Or, if they want to go "cheap," Edwin Encarnacion, somone of his ilk. I've given Walker credit for Quentin (although nobody ever really questioned if he was a talented hitter in the draft or as a prospect coming up with the DBacks), for working with Konerko to maintain consistency, for getting the most out of Brent Lillibridge when his career looked over heading in 2011, etc. As far as DeAza goes, it's hard to reach much of a conclusion about what if anything Walker did, as he was hitting very well all last year in Charlotte. For all we know, the Charlotte hitting coach had more to do with it than anything. In that 40-54 game zone, we'll know a lot more...although I doubt anything conclusive.

Cabrera and Kipnis aren't going anywhere. Jason Donald and Santana, they're not so good. But they really need to keep Carlos healthy and keep his bat in the line-up. Hannahan's a very good defender and their normal everyday 3B.