caulfield12

Can't even decide who you would even bench first, Morel or Beckham. Morel's a lot younger and has less experience, but he seems to be more out of his game, there's all the K's and then his defense has been shaky. At least with Beckham, he's giving you close to Gold Glove-level defense. They're going to have to start playing Lillibridge there if this keeps up for another week or two, despite Manto saying the team's not really going to look at batting averages until 250-300 AB's this year.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Apr 25, 2012 -> 03:11 PM) Is there a new bench coach on the bench that could be directly responsible for this? Don't see that as something Robin would directly teach & improve. Camp Cora, lol? Maybe Mark Parent, he's a former catcher.

Hawk must be loving Josh Reddick. Anyone from Savannah or Georgia, good!

QUOTE (jeffro2525 @ Apr 25, 2012 -> 02:08 PM) The improvement in holding/throwing out baserunners this season has been nothing short of phenominal. Well, that was more on Cespedes for oversliding the bag/poor technique.

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 25, 2012 -> 02:06 PM) Morel should stand as close to the plate as possible. His current stance makes it way too easy for pitchers to throw to the outer half and either get the swing and miss or just a weak fly ball to right. Viciedo does the same thing...then jams himself by lunging towards the plate. If we can notice this so easily on t.v., someone has to have mentioned it to them, you'd think. Maybe they feel uncomfortable closer or like they're too vulnerable to being busted inside, but whatever they're doing clearly isn't working.

QUOTE (Baron @ Apr 25, 2012 -> 02:04 PM) Yeah no kidding...its almost to the point where I dont want Gordon or Brent in the lineup on the same day. Its just a black hole when they are. And Andy Gonzalez > Escobar. So zero expectations of the bottom of the line-up doing a thing. At least Escobar did one heady thing there defensively. Most players give up on the tag there or argue with the ump (see Ryan, Brendan or Rios, A.J.)

Can we please just sign Jorge Soler (haven't seen that name around SoxTalk for ages) and stick him at 3B, lol? Already tried it once with Viciedo. Why not with another Cuban? Except we might have the wrong Cubano.

What are the odds here the A's, despite their tepid offense, score against Sale here? Always happens. You have an inning where you should have 2-3 runs and end up with zero...

When you're looking for the fastball there and still can't connect, forget about it. With Beckham and Viciedo also (for now) in that same boat, we're not going to put together too many big innings.

Nice work by the A's outfield there....and good relay stops AJ at 3rd. This is the kind of inning we have to score at least 2 here. UGH, another Fukudome rocket to the left-hand side. The last one would have scored the tying or winning runs against BALT.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Apr 25, 2012 -> 02:41 PM) Was this script written by Uwe Bol? Nope, Uwe Blab or Manute Bol, lol.

Konerko with one of his first mistakes of the season there. Great throw by Suzuki. Excellent play, off-balance, Paulie didn't have a very good read maybe in the day game.

Cespedes' nickname for Ramirez back in Cuba was "Spiderman" because of his gangly arms and legs... Book on Parker...Sit on the fastball or change, make him beat you with the curve or slider (of course, you can say that about 50% of major league pitchers, lol)

Peavy/Dunn/Rios=bad Ozzie=good Wise/Jenks/Pierre=good Ventura=bad Follow the script!

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 25, 2012 -> 09:56 AM) Stefan, but OK. Position: OF Full Name: Maurice Stefan Gartrell Born: January 14, 1984 San Francisco,California Height: 6-2 Weight: 220 High School: Sacred Heart Prep (San Francisco,CA) College: University of San Francisco Drafted - Selected by Sox in 31st Round (945th overall) of 2006 draft

No, there's nothing that has been officially stated about "hard innings pitched cap limits" for either Humber or Sale. Common sense, observation....Ventura has actually pushed his starters harder earlier in the season than even Guillen ever did. For example, last night when Floyd came out to work the bottom of the 8th with well over 100...Peavy finishing his shutout/CG in April, etc. Just the vague idea that once either of those guys is beyond 140-150 innings pitched, everyone around the organization is going to be looking at any and every sign of possible fatigue, mechanics breakdowns, loss of velocity/dead arm, etc. Some have suggested skipping some of their starts or six man rotations, but we don't have the quality 6th guy at this point to make that possible...as the bloom is off the Zach Stewart rose for now and Molina and Castro are a long ways off still. Hibbard, you're one of the first I've seen here to actually predict finishing over 90 wins. Hope you're right, but we might be a bit optimistic...you have to give every season that 40-54 game "eye test" before you can really make any valid conclusions. See how they play against the Twins, Royals, Indians, interleague, etc. The Red Sox series is going to be a great test because the Red Sox seemingly have turned the corner the last two nights in Minnesota and they're no longer in free fall anymore, but they've got lots of injury and pitching problems to deal with. 3/4 would be great, but 2/2 or 1/4 wouldn't be completely suprising either, especially with how well the Orioles played us at home last week (would help to have some more support from the Chicago fans, too).

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20...lb&c_id=mlb On Phil Humber, faith, mission trip set up by the White Sox to the Philippines Without rehashing the Tebow debate, he seems like a really down-to-earth, appreciative and humble guy with his priorities straight.

As soon as we DON'T have to worry about Brady Shoemaker being left unprotected, that might be a sign of progress for our system. Remember all the hub-bub about Doyle and Kuhn? I still wonder how bad the Marlins' system must have been that Ozzie Martinez and J'han Marinez where middle of the Top 10 picks at one point. Doubt he'll even come close to Maurice Gartrell/David Cook level, let alone Aaron Cunningham or even Ryan Sweeney.

They deserved to lose Lee Judge The Kansas City Star As I’ve been saying the last few days, I no longer am going to try to correlate winning and losing to intangibles. I don’t care if the Royals hold meetings or go on benders. I don’t care if Ned Yost throws a chair or stays calm. I don’t care if they eat crow or chicken dinners in the clubhouse. Hell, I don’t care if they sacrifice live chickens in the clubhouse — maybe it would help. From now on, I am going to correlate winning and losing to playing the game well. (Novel concept, but let’s try it for a while and see how it goes.) So if playing a game well is how you win, the Royals deserved to lose this one. When a team’s pitching staff walks nine batters, hits another and every run it gives up was one of those walked or hit batters who scored, that team deserves to lose. For a while I thought the Royals were playing well but losing. Now I think they’re playing poorly and losing. That can change tomorrow night, but a team with little margin for error can’t give the other guys 10 free base-runners, let four of them score and blame it all on bad luck. The bad Yost said the players need to find the right emotional level and stay there. I can’t get in their heads, but from the outside, I see a team that sometimes is aggressive when it should be cautious and other time is cautious when it should be aggressive. On Tuesday night, I thought that happened to third-base coach Eddie Rodriguez. In the eighth inning with two outs, Eric Hosmer on second base and Mike Moustakas on first, Mitch Maier (who played a helluva game) doubled down the right-field line. Moose is neither the fastest guy on the team nor the slowest, but I figured he would score, considering the situation. That would have made the score 4-3. The Indians’ right fielder, Shin-Soo Choo, did not exactly bust it going after the ball, and I figured it was a done deal, but Eddie held up Moose at third base. To make matters worse, you can be more aggressive sending the runner when the throw comes from right field. The catcher loses sight of home plate when he turns to receive the throw from right field. Then he has to turn back, find the runner and apply the tag. (We have a video on the site called “The catcher’s blind spot” that demonstrates this play.) Now add the fact that Choo and Cleveland first baseman Casey Kotchman are both left-handed, and the decision looks even worse. Throws from lefties tail toward the first-base side, and the Indians’ catcher, Carlos Santana, would have been pulled even farther from home plate when receiving the ball. You might wonder whether a third-base coach should know all this in an instant, but when I was watching a game with Jason Kendall last season, he knew all this before the fielder picked up the ball — and Kendall was holding a beer in one hand at the time. So when Chris Getz doubled to lead off the ninth inning on Tuesday night, he should have been the tying run but wasn’t. After Alex Gordon moved Getz to third, it’s possible Chris could have scored the tying run on Billy Butler’s groundout to the shortstop. But, to be fair to Eddie, that wasn’t likely. If that had been the case, the Indians would have moved in their infielders. Maybe there is reason Eddie did what he did, but right now I don’t get it. After Eddie held up Moose, Alcides Escobar had the tying run in scoring position, worked the count to 2-0 and then took a 90 mph four-seamer down the middle, another decision I don’t get. The table was set. I thought Esky would be looking for a fastball in a fastball count, and he got one in the middle of the strike zone. Esky hit the ball hard 3-2, but it was a one-hopper back to the pitcher. Read more here: http://royals.kansascity.com/games/361/#storylink=cpy

I'll just make a scenario up. Let's say one of the partners dies and they're one piece (1/12th) of 12 shares that are theoretically "on the open market" worth anything from $50 to 75 to even $100 million. Do the other partners have a right of first refusal to buy them if let's say the family member dies and the children/wife want to sell? Would they pay them "cash out" from their own pockets or would they be able to use, let's say, Comcast SportsNet shares? A combination thereof? They do have the right to block sale of the team share/s to an outsider who might be trying to accumulate shares in order to take over a control bloc or percentage of the team, correct? As the share in the team is technically a share in the value of the ballclub AND Comcast SportNet, how many shares would have to be acquired for one entity to be able to dictate control of the RSN itself (over Universal/NBC, Wirtz, Ricketts and the Bulls/Sox group)? For example, is there a mechanism in place to keep the Ricketts family from buying out NBC/Universal and the Blackhawks shares in COMCAST SN Chicago and having a controlling interest over the Reinsdorf shares, etc.?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 25, 2012 -> 08:03 AM) Of Course, Byrd was actually hitting well enough to make Morel look good. Byrd was last of all 188 eligible/qualified MLB hitters the day they traded him. Morel was 185th.

Four way tie for first place in the AL East. "How about that?" said with Mel Allen/This Week in Baseball accent. Everyone predicted it would be tight. Just not with the Orioles....Red Sox still in the cellar, but only 4 games under.

Too bad you didn't go with the "Humphrey" Bogar nickname to start the interview.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Apr 24, 2012 -> 11:27 PM) http://qkme.me/3oyk2c What five minor leaguers? Mitchell Thompson Molina S. Castro Saladino

As debated ad infinitum, Peavy's not going to be easy to move at all. If other teams are after him, it probably means the White Sox will be within shouting distance of first place or at least the wild card. So then you're just talking about dumping more salary or payroll relief, because we're not going to get savings AND a prospect simultaneously. Greg Hibbard jinxed us with this thread, lol. THANKS A LOT! You're also forgetting the Rays, Blue Jays, Orioles, Indians (for now) and eventually the Angels are going to put runs together, it's not just about the Red Sox/Yankees anymore. Unless, Viciedo, Beckham and Morel can pick it up (2 of the 3), there's no chance for us to win more than 85-86-87 games. Because we'll also be dealing with Humber, Sale and maybe Peavy (who knows if we can trust his health, it's an unprecedented surgery) missing starts in the second half, and replaced by much lower quality pitchers from within our system. Unless you're just going with the theory we can go 15-3/14-4 against the Twins/Royals/Indians.