caulfield12

Mitchell, 1 for 1 to start the game, still well over .300. 20 K's and 12 walks in 75 total plate appearances. Whenever I see Bayne's name here in the minors section, it reminds me of that guy who won the Daytona 500 (Trevor) or Spider-Man.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Apr 23, 2012 -> 07:10 PM) He can receive credit and I give him credit. You really think you have me pegged, but you're really not close. The bottom line is there is some luck in a perfect game, bloop hits, swinging bunts, someone is going to hit the ball hard at some point,but the credit should go to Humber. There was hardly anything but strikeouts and routine plays Saturday. One ball I thought was hit harder than average was caught by Rios, and a foul ball was hit pretty well. Other than that, it was about as easy as it gets. Yeah, the Ackley ball to RCF. The batter that really had me nervous, though, was Saunders. After starting off 3-0, and Humber running out of gas a little bit, thought he was done for, in terms of the perfect game. Lillibridge had a "pretty good" catch in LF, but it wasn't highlight film material or anything like that. What would be even better would be having Don Cooper with his Brooklyn/NY accent...getting him some more pub. Maybe that would help us get even more free agent pitchers or reclamation projects in the future. There aren't very many many pitching or hitting coaches (at least outside of serious baseball fanatics). I mean, how many casual baseball fans would know that Mike Maddux is the pitching coach for the Rangers, for example?

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Apr 23, 2012 -> 06:57 PM) Cowley knows it was Ozzie. When Buehrle was on Letterman, he had Wise with him. I think it would be great if Humber had the Guillens. Umm....why would that be great? Now following you, here. Just for entertainment's sake? Because Ventura would be too boring? Because Ozzie might say something to get himself kicked out of baseball?

I'll stick take KC bbq over Memphis, but you'll get lots of arguments here I'm sure.

QUOTE (Jake @ Apr 23, 2012 -> 03:02 PM) Competing with Texas in Texas (holding their offense down fairly well), beating Detroit 2/3, THEN sweeping Seattle in Seattle along with good starts from Dunn, Rios, Peavy, AJ, Paulie are why analysts like us so far. The fans don't know s*** and that is literally the worst way to evaluate the team. That's asinine. I'm not going to pretend I evaluate every single team so I won't say definitively where we fall -- but 10 seems to be fair based on our performance so far. Well, most Sox fans are more educated than, say, Cubs' fans. Until the product out on the field proves itself, sustains that success for an extended period of time....driving the bandwagon effect, that's when Sox fans will start to come out. It's like those two Japanese dudes in MAJOR LEAGUE kept saying..."yeah, but they still suck" all the way through the season until they finally jumped on board at the end, too. Except the fans' acceptance or embrace of a winning team will trail their actual performance by about 4-6 weeks. It's only 7 games (four weeknight against an Orioles team nobody cares about or expects much from)...but we are 28th in the majors in attendance. That's not so easy to do. The Royals, without having won a single game at home and with a 3-12 record, are still outdrawing us at home. Those are facts we can't argue with, incontrovertible. We can explain them or excuse them or rationalize them away...but they still exist on paper or on computer monitors.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Apr 23, 2012 -> 03:12 PM) Caulfield finally outsmarted himself. LOL. Maybe from being a history minor and the fact that I've been to nearly every Civil War battlefield in the US, lol. Instead of going to Disneyland or SeaWorld, our family (because of my dad) took me all across the country to see those places....and actually, I have fonder memories of my childhood as a result, even though it was never my desire to become a "Civil War buff," as they're always made fun of on SNL, haha. One of my cousins, Gary Clifton Wisler, wrote tons and tons of books (mostly young adult fiction) about the Civil War, Texas, cowboys and Indians...so that was always a part of life growing up. Some of them can probably still be found at amazon or at your local library. He even beat a Louis La'mour book once for the Western Spur writing award, if I remember correctly. He actually had a heart attack when he was only 53, so I'm sure he would have been shocked to see what his Rangers have done the last two years, had he lived to see it. As far as comic books/marvey civil wars, never paid much attention like some at this site do, although I've seen almost all of the comics-inspired movies, even silly ones like THE PUNISHER or GHOST RIDER.

QUOTE (flavum @ Apr 23, 2012 -> 01:56 PM) Ivan Rodriguez had a press conference to announce his retirement, and he refused to take questions. Wonder why? Steroids/PED-related questions from the non-Rangers/beat writers who would stir up the past. He's probably more concerned that it will affect his HOF chances to have that dragged through the coals. In actuality, he's probably the strongest argument for including someone because of their defensive abilities (like a Bill Mazeroski at 2B) as a catcher...forget all the offensive numbers he posted.

If anything, the White Sox should be somewhere in the middle 10 teams, 14th-16th seems pretty fair. Beating Seattle or throwing a perfect game doesn't make your team jump 10+ spots magically in one day or weekend. That's a bit of an overreaction or overcorrection. Maybe a better indicator of belief is not the pundits/analysts but our attendance numbers. If they start to tick up from big walk-ups, that's always the best trailing indicator in terms of looking at how good the White Sox are actually going to be...if they can overcome the skepticism of their own fans and detractors.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Apr 23, 2012 -> 11:04 AM) how f***ing funny is it that everyone's clamoring to be the first to say "oh, no the sox are good, we knew that all along!" just so that at the end of the year people don't think they were all idiots. We were sort of in a similar position at mid 2009. We'd actually gotten to the playoffs the previous year, but you had Buehrle's no-hitter just like Humber's this weekend, all the Peavy talk, acquiring Alex Rios....but it all kind of fell apart. Of course, the buzz this season isn't nearly what it was back then, but it's largely because everyone was so disheartened by last season...maybe we're all hoping against hope that things can be turned around in a single year and we can catch lightning in a bottle like 2000, 2005, 2008 or even mid-season of 2010. It's not exactly unprecedented for the White Sox to surprise people when nobody's predicting success, or the opposite, to crash when they're the popular pick.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 23, 2012 -> 02:18 PM) I'd have to go with 1. Contreras 2. Floyd 3. Thornton 4. Jenks 5. Humber 6. Loiaza Loaiza could have been at the top, but he didn't sustain it past one year. Contreras was a long time contributor, and was a trainwreck before he got here. Same with Floyd. Really hard to do, when it comes down to it. I would argue the opposite, we took Esteban off the scrap heap, out of nowhere. I think he was a non-roster invite that year, along with Gil Heredia...not only does he look like the best pitcher in the American League for most of the 2003 season, you end up the next year turning him around for the one pitcher who puts you over the top to win the World Series in Contreras. So the reverberating echo of that one 2003 season singlehandedly launched us into the Garcia/Contreras acquisitions and a title. And then you have to look at the amount of time that Esteban spent here...compared to some of those other guys. And Jenks, another guy off waivers who was having loads of personal problems but always had the arm/talent/stuff...so hard to put these guys in any kind of order. One of the only and major criticisms of Cooper has been his ability to work with Hudson a couple of years ago...even then, you can understand a pitching coach in a "win now" mode again falling in love with Edwin Jackson's arm and saying he can work with that. And Jackson was nearly great for us for most of 2010, too. But he's no miracle worker...he can't turn a Chris Marquez or Van Benschoten or Kip Wells or Mitch Mustain into Cy Young. You have to have the stuff, the talent and ability. Same thing with Aardsma, Sisco, Masset, MacDougal, etc.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 23, 2012 -> 01:58 PM) I am going to stay out on my limb and say I do not see us in that position. It has been a nice couple of weeks, but I'm still not convinced we will sustain this for 162 games. I think we are going to be a middle of the pack-ish team. You're absolutely right about this. I said it before the roadtrip, too. With the size of those stadiums, the colder April air...we're likely to have success and probably look better than we really are in the process. So here we are. When you came into the SEA series having won at around an 80-85% clip against them 2/3 or a sweep wasn't hard to predict. And Oakland has a pretty weak offensive line-up too, outside of Cespedes in the middle when you pitch to him. Then it all comes down to how we play in the AL Central. We have the advantage of being weighted towards all these match-ups with the Twins, Indians and Royals. Can we beat THOSE teams, and at a .600 clip? Then it's doable, because you'd have to think that the Rangers/Angels will beat up on Oakland/Seattle and that with the quality and depth of the AL East, those teams beating each other up night after night after night, there's the possiblity afforded to sneak into the 2nd wildcard because of the lack of quality in our divsion vis a via the AL East. I mean...you have what was the best team in baseball for 4 1/2 months last season possibly being the worst team in that division...probably the Red Sox will catch the Orioles and the Blue Jays, but you just never know what will happen with the Valentine situation. That team might completely implode...or they'll go on an amazing tear at some point and quiet the doubters.

You probably have to give a little credit to Cooper with Danks too, at least the breakout season in 2008. We're not there in the clubhouse or on the field with them and in ST, so it's hard to ascertain, other than the bits and pieces we hear in the press or in interviews. For example, we know Mark Buehrle also had a pronounced effect on some of our starters, getting them to work more quickly or helping them with some of their secondary pitches, etc. Providing insight about how to pitch to certain batters, things like that. Unfortunately, pitching advice seems to payoff with more immediate dividends than Gordon Beckham spending so much time around Paul Konerko picking his brain about hitting.

As soon as we're free of Rios/Dunn, we're going out and committing huge dollars again to David Wright and throwing all the "develop for the future" talk into rubbish bin? I thought the idea of rebuilding was to time the acquisition of an impact bat from outside the organization (like a Wright) with the arrival of a group of players cresting from the minors at about the same time? Who is that group? Viciedo, Morel, Beckham, Flowers/Phegley and DeAza (well, he's 28 already)? Now the success of the pitching staff is causing this ugly situation to rear itself again...where we are desperate to add one or two more pieces to the everyday line-up to compete now, but we clearly don't have those pieces in our own minor league system. Just not seeing any possibility with the attendance being what it is so far (yes, I know....attendance is now only 20-25-30% of revenues generated on a per season basis for most MLB teams and is lessening and lessening in importance compared to other revenue drivers) that JR and the Board will forget all the mistakes of the last 3-4 years and go out and make another one. Isn't the whole point to go forward in a different way, instead of going with the Mississippi Riverboat Gambler approach to assembling competitive clubs? Build with young starting pitching...build SOMEWHERE. We have to have a focus and direction and strategy with where we're going...at least we should.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 23, 2012 -> 09:46 AM) I can't see the Sox getting really anything back in return for any of those guys at any point this year, under any plausible circumstances. I just want the contracts removed for the largest savings possible. If the Sox have to pay significant $ to unload them, then there's no reason to do it, except maybe for Peavy where we'd be losing him at the end of the season and having to pay his buyout anyway. After how Jake has underperformed, do you really see the White Sox trading Peavy in the middle of this season (let's say we're leading for one of the wildcard spots or very, very close behind one) and replacing him in the 2nd half with the likes of Axelrod or Molina? That actually flies in the face of the Hudson/Holmberg trade, which was all about "winning now/results at the major league level" and a lack of patience from the front office and especially the coaching staff (supposedly). As it is, if this good play continues, it's going to be really tough for them to just pull the plug on Chris Sale at some arbitrary number of inning pitched in August or September, based on some theoretical construct like the Verducci Rule. We'll see what happens. And with the ubiquitousness of Tommy John surgeries...maybe there's the feeling within the organization that his elbow might go out at any time and that doing the surgery is inevitable...and that he would or could come back evven stronger, as long as its nothing to do with his labrum or shoulder, which is proving more resistant to modern medical interventions. Then again, Liriano with the Twins is one example of a pitcher who has simply never been the same since that surgery...that slider from 2006 has never come back. But look at Strasburg, he looks almost better than before so far.

Konerko's last contract before this most recent one had looked bad from time to time, as well. Linebrink and MacDougal, as well as Dotel, were bloated contracts, but that's because of the premium placed on relief pitching and the disastrous results many teams had piecing things togethers with journeyman, castoffs and minor leaguers internally. The other thing you have to look at is the fact that Dunn's STILL something like second in the majors going back to the 2008 year in homers for all of MLB. We don't have anything close to that kind of bat in our minor league system. Someone will probably say Trayce Thompson COULD THEORETICALLY show that power, but that's 2-3 years away, IF THEN. We just don't have the replacement in the minors right now. Kuhn or Lillibridge or McPherson for Beckham and Morel. Lillibridge and Fukudome are not long-term replacements in the outfield. Neither is Jordan Danks. Mitchell is probably the closest, and there would still be many arguments made against him being able be an everyday player for the White Sox in 2013 (strike out rate being #1). This is always the problem with the White Sox. Will the team have the patience to go through growing pains with Phegley/Flowers or will they keep AJ around YET AGAIN when many wanted to turn the page last time and move on...? And it's going to take a lot more than 2-3 weeks for Rios and Dunn to start attracting attention...it's going to have to be sustained at least until late June/early July because of their recent histories. They're not in a situation like Marlon Byrd where there contract's ending this year and a team has the luxury of the "salary drive motivational theory" to fall back on. That's only the case with Peavy and Floyd to a lesser extent because of the option year in his contract. It's got to be a very tough position for the GM to be in...especially with the 2nd wildcard spot being so tempting, and keeping teams in contention longer than ever before. Almost like fool's gold...at least it could be.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/philip-humber...x-mariners.html So far....you'd have to go with 1.Loaiza 2.Thornton 3.Humber 4.Contreras 5.Jenks or Santos

QUOTE (mumbles3k @ Apr 23, 2012 -> 02:14 AM) Thanks for the input, guys. Knightni, I would say yes, Frank Thomas counts. caulfield12, I did a quick search on imdb and put together my top ten list: 1. Moneyball 2. For Love of the Game 3. Sugar 4. Fever Pitch 5. 61* 6. Eight Men Out 7. A League of Their Own 8. Bull Durham 9. The Rookie 10. The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg witesoxfan, I did not find MAJOR LEAGUE to be all that funny. I saw it first when I was very young (it was actually the first R-rated movie I ever saw). It left a positive impression, but when I revisited it as an adult, it did not hold up at all. Same thing happened with FIELD OF DREAMS. Now THAT movie is a piece of crap. As far as the funniest baseball movie, I'd have to go with FEVER PITCH. Steve9347 and JoeCoolMan24, I think I'm gonna stick to movies for simplicity's sake, but thanks for the heads up. I've been meaning to watch those two shows for a while, and this just gives me even more incentive. As a side note, I went over to my parents' house yesterday, and found an unopened copy of MAJOR LEAGUE II on their shelf! So I stole it. I'll let you know what I think. Sugar's not bad at all...being from the Quad Cities, that area (Iowa in general) always suffers under the lens of Hollywood distortions and stereotypes (thinking idiotic movies like Bucky Larson: Born to be a Porn Star here) or that sort of recent movie where Christina Aguilera (Burlesque with Cher) moves from Iowa to become a "star" in Hollywood, but it's a SOLID movie. Fever Pitch is WAY too high, unless you're really a Red Sox or Fallon fan, or Drew Barrymore. Another movie which should definitely be on your list is BANG THE DRUM SLOWLY with Bobby DeNiro. Quality flick. If you want to see a much better movie than FOR LOVE OF THE GAME, you have to watch THE NATURAL with Robert Redford. That's a movie that is on the Top 3, Top 5 or Top 10 list for the majority of baseball fans that I know. Just skip Mr. Baseball with Tom Selleck. Actually, LITTLE BIG LEAGUE isn't all that bad either, I would say it's probably better than all the sequels to MAJOR LEAGUE, for example. Just don't watch that stupid Cubs' propaganda, ROOKIE OF THE YEAR, that was ridiculously bad. And I'm really really surprised the movie THE BAD NEWS BEARS is not on that list as well, maybe the most classic baseball movie ever....with Walter Matthau in one of his best roles ever, Tatum O'Neill, etc. And Bull Durham is way too low as well, one of the best, if not THE best, baseball movie ever.

Boston's in no position to add the Rios contract since they are already dealing with Lackey, Dice-K (final year, thankfully), Crawford, Beckett, Ortiz, Youkilis, Pedroia, A-Gone, etc. They couldn't even really legimately afford to keep Papelbon at the back of their pen for the numbers and years he was asking. And I'm sure they have had to eat a decent part of Bryd's contract as well. The one argument for Rios as opposed to National League or even AL West players is that he should be more familiar with the pitching staffs in that league and the ballparks...although things have changed quite a bit since 2009.

On the other hand, it can be useful as simply an indicator of progress. Last year, he was mired in the 500's and low 600's for OPS much of the season. Of course, he hit amazingly well the first 2-3 months of 2010 and it didn't last for the whole year. That said, any positive signs of progress have to looked on skeptically until he proves he can sustain it. But yeah....that triple to the RCF gap, usually he would roll his wrists over and it would have ended up being pulled to the SS on the ground for an easy 6-3 PO or a made-to-order GIDP. It's going to be very difficult to every move Alex because he's probably going to be either so bad you can't move him without eating his salary or the White Sox will be playing so well it would seem counterproductive to trade him...especially with Viciedo struggling out of the gate and no minor league replacements in sight...and no, Lillibridge can't be considered as an everyday OFer, nor can Fukudome.

0-9 at home to boot, that's very very hard to do, even for the 1962 Mets or Astros of recent yore....or that one really bad Orioles team But they can’t be this bad, can they? If you’re a pessimist — and right now, who can blame you? — maybe you see one of the most disastrous starts in franchise history, a young team with higher expectations channeling something out of those dark, dark days of 100-loss seasons and embarrassing baseball from earlier this decade. But here’s the thing: In the moments after the Royals’ 5-3 loss to the Blue Jays on Sunday afternoon at Kauffman Stadium, it was pretty easy to see the glass of blue Kool-aid nearly all-the-way empty. Last week, Royals manager Ned Yost warned against panicking. After 10 straight losses, the mood is starting to change. “You keep pushing,” Yost said. “If we need to make some moves, we’ll make some moves. But, again, we’re trying to stay away from that.” Still, Yost added: “We can’t continue this.” On a drab and overcast day, 58 degrees at first pitch, the Royals followed with a performance perfectly in line with the conditions. In the process, they dropped to 3-12 on the young season, the worst record in the majors and the worst 15-game opening to a season since a 2-13 start in 2006. It’s also the third-worst start in franchise history. (That 1-14 mark in 1992 still can’t be touched.) “We’re only 15 games in; a lot of season left,” designated hitter Billy Butler cautioned. “It’s not even digging out of a hole. It’s not even enough games to be considered a hole yet. “We finished 32 games under .500 last year. That’s a hole. That’s when you dig yourself a hole. We’re not there yet.” In truth, the Royals finished just 20 games under .500 last season. (The last time they finished 32 games under was 2009.) But Butler’s point remains. The Royals may have also dropped to 0-9 at home, tying the single-season record for most consecutive home losses, set May 19-June 7 in 2006. But it’s still only April. Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/04/22/35702...l#storylink=cpy

I just think it's amusing to see what he can manage to write about when the Sox when they're playing well. Doesn't give him much material to cover, or when the Marlins are mired around .500 and largely irrelevant again in the wake of the Nationals and Braves resurgence.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Apr 22, 2012 -> 09:06 PM) And let me add "damn the unbalanced schedule". That's it for the Sox here in 2012 unless both teams make the playoffs. 32-22 on the West Coast from 2008 onwards. Used to be the House of Horrors, especially Oakland. Remember how much Buehrle always struggled there...fog games....all kinds of weird occurrenences.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Apr 22, 2012 -> 07:10 PM) White Sox thru 15 games: RS: 67 (4.47 RPG) RA: 53 (3.53 RPG) Team ERA: 3.16 1st in the AL in BAA (.219) 2nd in the AL is Strikeouts (Pitching) 2nd to last in BB allowed 2nd to last in Runs Allowed 2nd in WHIP 3rd in ERA there's some potential here... I'm guessing the Rangers are leading most or many of those categories. Not bad company to be in. First in perfect games, lol.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 22, 2012 -> 07:11 PM) Except for when he had all the TV's on college football in the locker room in, what was it, 2010? But that was because he also cares for the Florida Gators, lol. As someone who's pretty passionate about sports, it's at least understandable. Sometimes it's nice to take a break from baseball and focus on something else. Next I'm sure we'll have the Giants/card-playing incident raised again.

Do they still have Ichi-Rolls? The sushi concoction named after Suzuki, think they sold them in the OF when I was last there around 2003 or 2004.