caulfield12

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 5, 2011 -> 09:01 PM) 4 last year, but you also forget how absolutely worthless he was in tied games/2 inning outings. Not to mention that most of those games in 2010, Jenks had a "more comfortable" 2-3 run lead. There wasn't a huge number of one-run leads that he preserved successfully.

Obviously, there's no such thing as a perfect manager. But there are managers who show a statistical probability of "outplaying" their predicted wins and losses based on runs scored and runs given up...the infamous pythagorean method. In that category, Ozzie's actually +3 in the category for 2011. Which is why it's not the best barometer...just ONE tool. However, +7 Bochy-Giants +6 Roenicke-Brewers +5 Gibson-DBacks +5 Gonzalez-Braves +5 Leyland-Tigers +5 Gardenhire-Twins The only one from a "bad" team on this list is Gardy, who at least 33% of Twins fans would like to get rid of....it's kind of the inverse of the KW/Guillen situation, where about 2/3rd's are against Bill Smith as GM but the majority want to give Gardenhire at least one or two more years with a 100% healthy team. Getting your club to the playoffs six times in nine years definitely should buy a manager a minimum of two seasons. Ozzie's already had 3 underperforming years in a row, and 4 out of the last 5.

Definitely had more movement than in the past 3-4 outings. From watching his Toronto footage, his fastball at 91-93 had a lot of movement. Maybe a "dead arm" period? Seems like he got that life back on his pitches again tonight that was previously missing.

Yep, after Saturday...that was the Jim Thome/Thornton death blow, albeit not quite as dramatic as last year. That and the fact that we never we in first place like last year...at one point, we were up I think 3 1/2 on the Twins in late July or early August.

QUOTE (southsideirish71 @ Sep 5, 2011 -> 08:31 PM) Well my plan involves an Alien conspiracy and pods. Now before you say no, hear me out. We take a pod and give it to Verlander as a pillow. Once he is taken over, the rest will fall. Now plan B involes Zombies, I would personally rather go with plan A as Aliens can be killed with the common cold and zombies require a head shot. Who is with me. Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford and the Cowpokes are with you. At least Stewart's succeeded in bringing his ERA all the way back down to 4.50 almost. Interestingly enough, Diamond and Stewart ended the game with exactly the same ERA, at 4.56

I loved how in Transformers 3, they finally realized you had to "take their eyes" out after almost 6 hours of previous movie/s. So take Verlander's eyes out...that might work. Stake to the heart, crucifix blessed by Pope Benedict, holy water, etc.

QUOTE (southsideirish71 @ Sep 5, 2011 -> 08:29 PM) Well planting his ass on the bench after AJ showed up is not the formula for getting this kid to make contact. Maybe we can promoted the AAA hitting coach before someone from the georgia region decides to empart his knowledge of the dark side to him. Harrelson and Beckham are giving him batting advice, too?

Rios at 588 OPS, Morel finally creeping over the Mendoza OPS at 606... Beckham has almost faded into nothingness at 615.

Flowers coming back to earth. But still, a .788 OPS with this many AB's is more than almost anyone would have projected when AJ went down.

sin city/greg hibbard... please, give up!!! So we want Wil Ohman or Santiago as our "go to" lefty in the 8th and 9th next year if Thornton is traded? Obviously having Thornton still in the bullpen makes it much more plausible to start Sale. Then again, if we do trade Quentin/Danks/Thornton and don't resign Buehrle, it doesn't really matter and Sale has to be in the starting rotation no matter who we have out in the bullpen.

Well, you'd have to think this start would give him a solid boost for the rotation next year. The real question is what happens with Chris Sale.

Walker or Beckham? I think there's ZERO choice but to hold onto him, unless Walker's back and they want to give the position to Lillibridge/Kuhn/Escobar. EDIT: Bit confused the first time I read it, ooops.

Well, maybe KW will get some redemption on the Jackson trade after all. Of course, this Twins' line-up is still missing a healthy Span, Morneau, Cuddyer and Kubel. Makes a big difference. Not to mention Big Jim Thome. But at least it's a confidence-builder for 2012. Same with Phil Humber having some second half success finally.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 31, 2011 -> 06:52 AM) That's the key to all of this. He was lucky to find a taker for Wells, but his return for Halladay isn't looking so hot right now, and he was (and still probably is) the best and most valuable pitcher in baseball. Kyle Drabek, though still young, has been absolutely demolished at both the MLB and AAA level this year and one has to wonder if he's not injured. Michael Taylor - who's been OK - was actually traded immediately for Brett Wallace. Wallace was then traded for Michael Gose, who has, again, been OK at the AA level. Travis d'Arnaud has played well this year, but that's one player. He was lucky to find a taker for Wells too. I like Anthropolous and what he's done with that organization as much as the next guy, but they are still quite a ways away from getting out of 4th place. People were in love with Jack Zduriencik too and then the M's fell flat on their face and his plan failed, and suddenly he is thought of as a middle of the pack GM again. There are many ways to go about building a team - the Astros brought in as many players as they could for Pence and Bourn to try and replenish the depth they'd lost over the years as well as getting as many serviceable MLB players as they could. The Jays have set themselves up with high ceiling players, but if 2-3 of those players completely flop, especially some of the bigger names (this year alone, Snider and Lind could have done wonders for them, but their presence has been non-existent), it's all for not. What I see is high variability with that team. There will be a year, probably within the next 4, that they win anywhere between 92-102 games. And then there will be a couple years that they only win 75-83. That's the nature of young players and how they pan out. Some players blossom and continue to be stars. Some come out like a bang, struggle for a year or two, and then find their groove again. Others succeed at all times they are not injured - which is often. Some succeed, fail, and then can't get it back. There is a lot which is yet to be accounted for. Before anyone declares AA as one of the best in the game, I would suggest that they take a step back and wait for everything to pan out. In the meantime, I'm going to suggest that, if using wins/resources, Andrew Friedman is the best GM in the game. I don't think there's much of an argument. AA looking at potential $100+ million pitcher Yu Darvish. http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_leagu...urn=mlb-wp18464 You would have to think the Dice-K and Aroldis Chapman experiments would be cooling off most GM's on these huge international signings...

Considering his OPS (563) was in Alex Rios territory, I guess about the only positive spin on Walker is that he started out so slowly at KANNY that he actually started to make a decent adjustment the last 2-3 weeks of the season to at least bring his BA into the .230's. For now, not much reason to project him above and beyond a 4th-5th outfielder type...but he has a full season next year starting at KANNY and then moving up to High A if it's merited to prove his worth.

There are...depending on the return. Of course, considering he's heading for a $7.5-8.5 million this offseason (arbitration), his value's even lower than it was at midseason 2011, when KW passed on the opportunity to trade him.

Dear Marty34/Joe C., Why would we want to keep Buehrle if you're trading away 1/3rd of the team? Doesn't make much sense. And why would/should we trade Santos? Because of yesterday? Why would you trade away a cheap closer who's still currently at an 85% save conversion rate when at the very beginning of the year our veteran closer disaster (with Thornton) was one of the key factors for our 4-18 stretch? Who would you replace Santos with? Chris Sale? Crain? Frasor? (I'm assuming you're ditching him too, yes?) A. Reed? Infante? I don't get why it's so important to keep Konerko and Buehrle around when they won't be (arguably) contributing enough to be a good match for the "new core" that should be fully maturing around 2013-2014. Sentimentality? Because of JR? Attendance? Well, that will be brutal even if you keep both of them if we're projecting 72-78 win teams. I get the arguments for trading Alexei Ramirez, although you can forget fielding a competitive team when the rest of our division has Peralta and Cabrera putting up 18-24 homers per year and Escobar struggling to put up a 575-600 OPS.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Sep 4, 2011 -> 11:16 PM) Exactly. Have to throw Ramirez, Thornton, and Santos out there too. This rebuild can be relatively painless given the division. The goal should be to have a solid core in place by the time Peavy, Rios, Dunn, Konerko, Buehrle (re-sign) contracts are off the books. Why would we want to keep Buehrle if you're trading away 1/3rd of the team? Doesn't make much sense. And why would we trade Santos? Because of yesterday? Why would you trade away a cheap closer who's still currently at an 85% save conversion rate when at the very beginning of the year our veteran closer disaster (with Thornton) was one of the key factors for our 4-18 stretch? Who would you replace Santos with? Chris Sale? Crain? Frasor? (I'm assuming you're ditching him too, yes?) A. Reed? Infante? I don't get why it's so important to keep Konerko and Buehrle around when they won't be (arguably) contributing enough to be a good match for the "new core" that should be fully maturing around 2013-2014. Sentimentality? Because of JR? Attendance? Well, that will be brutal even if you keep both of them if we're projecting 72-78 win teams. I get the arguments for trading Alexei Ramirez, although you can forget fielding a competitive team when the rest of our division has Peralta and Cabrera putting up 18-24 homers per year and Escobar struggling to put up a 575-600 OPS.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Sep 4, 2011 -> 09:21 AM) Yes, it is almost certainly over. This is not even close to a bad team, just a disappointing and frustrating one. I commend the team for clawing back into a race they had no business being in. However, they will finish probably 10 games worse than they should. C'mon Hibbard, you're better than that. A race they had no business being in? Even the Twins after being 20 games under .500 were legitimately back into the race before falling off again. The White Sox had 3-4 months to put together a run and they didn't manage it. They had no business NOT being in it. For most of the second half, they were 2 1/2 to 6 1/2 games back. I'm pretty sure we were only 11-7 in interleague play this year. Change that to 15-3...which came in the midst of that 26-5 run in 2010...and we're legitmately a part of the playoff conversation, even at this late point.

And an apparent difference of opinion between Williams and Walker, whose future past 2011 is in question, according to two team sources. "They are two grown men talking," Guillen said. "I don't have any details. Walk tried to tell me, and I said that wasn't any of my business." Said Walker: "I learned a long time ago the rule of baseball is what goes on in the clubhouse, stays in the clubhouse. That's where I'm going to leave it." Two weeks after Williams said it wasn't too early to suggest that struggling Gordon Beckham's career was at a crossroads, Walker said Saturday: "The only thing I'll say about Gordon is that he's still a kid in this game. He's just a kid. He's learning how to play here and working as hard as any player I've ever coached." Guillen, meanwhile, scoffed at suggestions that his hope for a new contract posed a distraction. "If people think we're horse(bleep) because I made that comment, (bleep) them too," Guillen said. "I respect my players more than anything." Ozzie's starting to remind me of Emperor Commodus in Gladiator. "The time for honoring yourself will soon be at an end, Ozzie."

Well, the main difference is nobody expected anything of those late 80's teams. Before Ventura and Thomas arrived, nobody cared to watch them, either. Then finally the 1990 season came and there was a reason for hope and enthusiasm about the White Sox again. This year's team SHOULD have won the division and should have piled up 89-93 wins with the pitching we have and playing in a very down AL Central except for the Tigers. It doesn't feel like 2006-07, because the idea of any type of extended run or "dynasty" of Sox dominant winning baseball was still tangible until it ended the final 2 months of 2006. With how everything KW has touched has turned to mush or sludge for the last 3 years, you can't be completely surprised by this season....well, maybe the Dunn part....but the rest, we've been conditioned to expect over recent seasons.

Why not blow an 8-1 lead in this game? Of course, Santos had a scoreless streak going again...yet another sign this season wasn't meant to be. Game over. Patented Santos implosion. Don't even really care at this point.

Is Wilkins really perceived as a legit prospect to be an everyday MLB 1B, full-time? Obviously he put up some strong numbers this season...but I've never seen him on any Top 10-15 prospect lists for the White Sox, and with the depth of our system, that's pretty telling.

Santiago pitched pretty well for the Barons. No decision, not his recent dominant self and the 4 walks were a problem Saladino continues to trend upwards, Mitchell back down.

Pretty hypocritical Ozzie thought Viciedo wasn't close to ready to hit clean-up. But batting 5th is absolutely no problem whatsoever.