caulfield12

Amazing...well, even the White Sox have come from behind to beat League. But 15 times in a single season at home? And an actual earthquake in CLE to boot? So much for that 5-4 Mariners ninth inning lead. Choo, who nearly missed the game following the birth of his daughter, hit the first pitch from Mariners closer Brandon League(notes) (1-5) over the wall in left, helping the Indians end a four-game losing streak and avoid falling further behind first-place Detroit in the AL Central. Choo was mobbed at home plate by his teammates, a fitting welcome for the versatile outfielder who has had a rough season on and off the field. “As I rounded the bases, a lot of things were going through my mind,” said Choo, whose wife gave birth to 7-pound Abigail on Monday. “I thought about my family, my wife, my newborn daughter. I’m not an emotional person, but it was a great feeling.” Chris Perez(notes) (3-6) got the win despite giving up a two-run double in the ninth to put the Mariners up 5-4. If not for Choo’s heroics—Cleveland’s sixth walk-off homer and 15th win in its last at-bat at home this season—the Indians were in danger of dropping below .500 for the first time since April 3 and effectively kissing what has been an unexpected season of thrills goodbye. Cleveland’s hanging on.

If we can't produce a random lefty who can produce better than a 1.333 WHIP for a minimum salary, we're in trouble. I don't have the energy to go through every single appearance...it just seems that we're spending way too much as an aggregate on these guys like Ohman, Vizquel, Teahen, Pena and Castro. Heck, we paid Linebrink $3.5 million NOT to pitch for us. In the end, that's the difference between paying Paul Konerko or being able to go after someone like Adrian Gonzalez or Miguel Cabrera long-term. If we had a better minor league system, those overpay contracts for veterans wouldn't be necessary. I mean....I'm sure you could take one of DJ Carrasco's seasons with us and point to similar numbers of inherited runners scored and say he wasn't THAT bad, either.

Try listening to what the random interstate long-haul truck drivers are saving about a certain chief executive from Illinois. It's 10X than what I've heard "old timers" ever say about Reinsdorf, and that's quite a lot.

But the near certainty of winning every single Verlander start mitigates any possible advantage the White Sox might have in depth at the back of the rotation. If we had a starter pitching like that, it would be more realistic to imagine them going on this huge run or streak.

Someone earlier said it well. We're forcing ourselves to trade away "good" assets like Thornton or Ramirez because of the array of bad/terrible decisions all over the roster. Because we didn't have what is essentially a "3rd lefty/LOOGY" in our minor league system, KW reached for Ohman. All those $1.5 and $2.5 milllion contracts add up at this point. We'd be much better off as a team if we had kept Thornton and never signed Ohman in the first place. He has added about zero, because if you had nameless rookie down there (Santiago), Ozzie would have been tempted to use him with the Sox leading or tied in a game...or even 1-2 runs down. He's failed more often than not in those "close or tied or leading" appearances if you were go through every single appearance.

And God knows, but we've had 4-5 positions in the line-up all season long hitting like pitchers, anytime you can get an 800+ OPS into the line-up is a huge bonus offensively and you absolutely have to go for it.

2006. 2009. The fact they've never won the AL Central... However, we're not the Twins chasing them down. And this is a different Verlander than we've ever seen, a juggernaut. Sure, we've had good luck against him (this year), but can we expect that to last? Perhaps the greatest argument is that Jose Valverde has been pitching with smoke and mirrors all season and is due to implode. But the odds of the White Sox exploding over .500 are a LOT less than the Tigers collapsing. How much they can fall back....to 5-6 games over .500, that's probably what it would take. We're incredibly unlikely to go 24-12, 23-13, even 22-14. You just can't trust Peavy or Humber at all, and Stewart's a wild card from appearance to appearance.

So we should definitely trade Konerko. Beckham should have been traded after 2009. Oops...then we will have no young/affordable players, because we'd have acquired Adrian Gonzalez, who would very soon become too expensive to re-sign. Rios should have been traded last offseason. Jenks and Crede should have been traded a long time before they both became worthless to the organization. Problem is...there weren't very many out there (I guess there were a few on Rios) confidently expressing those thoughts at the time. There was always a "sinking" feeling with Crede's back and Jenks' loss of "stuff" but KW never pulled the trigger. Timing. In the end, we might have a 2012 roster of DeAza, Santos, Lillibridge, Sale, Flowers, Milledge, Stewart, Morel, Beckham and Viciedo...all "youngish" players, but that doesn't mean they're all going to produce. But at least there's more upside to it than watching Dunn and Rios flail away. Of course, the problem is that absolutely everything has to go right with the entire roster to offset the four big contracts (Peavy/Dunn/Rios/Konerko...and maybe Buehrle again).

There's more than one member? How many followers does Rongey have at twitter these days?

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Aug 23, 2011 -> 09:08 AM) Yesterday you had problems with math. Today it's names. What will tomorrow bring? Well, not exactly. Your mathematics left our Frasor, Humber, Beckham and about 7 more first and second year players who will total around $8-12 million dollars. That's two of your Matt Thorntons (or one Matt Thornton, one Alexei Ramirez) you're trying to dump, so I wouldn't call it an insignificant amount. And there's still no "proof" yet about the 2 million in attendance subsidy. That would be quite the story....the State of Illinois renegotiating TWICE in order to give more public monies and free rent to billionaire baseball owners when the majority of the state is suffering from an intransigent recession. I'm not understanding why they would agree to raise the amount from 1.2 million to 1.5 million (already renegotiated once) and then all the way to 2 million. It wouldn't make any economic sense for the State of lllinois to buy 200-300,000 White Sox tickets. Or what? The White Sox would threaten to leave again? What leverage do the White Sox actually have to extract any more concessions?

Knowing the way things have gone this season....they'd finally bench Dunn, ruining him forever (according to Rongey) and then Thome would go all Manny Ramirez 2010 on the White Sox.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Aug 23, 2011 -> 07:30 AM) The title of this thread makes me want to self-mutilate. Would you feel less in a mood for self-immolation if it was "performing like Michael Morse?"

Weren't we tied with the Indians as of last night? Who would be awarded the claim first? Did we have the same exact records, 63-63? Or was one team percentage points ahead or behind? With Hafner on the DL, the Indians definitely make some sense for the short-term.

Here we go again, Marty/Joe. Yesterday, Ramirez...today, Matt Thornton. Never heard any of the rumors of who was actually offered for Matty. Who were they, albeit "rumors"?

JD Drew Ortiz off and on for last 3-4 years Dice K Varitek Crawford The difference is that the Red Sox have that extra cushion and the minor league system to adsorb all those bad contracts, especially Lackey and Dice-K. And we've been able to cover the pitching issues with Peavy, more or less. The problem is we don't have Pedroia, Youkilis, Ortiz, Ellsbury and Adrian Gonzalez (who we could have had for Beckham). Instead we have Morel, Dunn, Rios, Beckham at those positions.

www.ranyonroyals.com (Why the Frenchy deal for Royals makes less sense since Cain is blocked now and Cabrera shouldn't be in CF) Cain and Francoeur both bat right-handed, while Cabrera is a switch-hitter. If the Royals commit to Cain in center field and trade Cabrera, the Royals will have six right-handed bats in the lineup almost every day next year, with little hope that the ratio will balance out in the near future. (Incidentally, this is one of the main reasons why I think the Royals would be foolish to let go of switch-hitting Brayan Pena as their backup catcher.) Francoeur is the only one of the three who could neither play good defense in center field nor bat from the left side. The obvious solution for the Royals was to promote Cain, move Cabrera to right field (or possibly to left field, with Gordon switching corners), and to wave Francoeur good-bye. That would have upgraded their outfield defense while maintaining the platoon advantage in at least four spots in the lineup. By re-signing Francoeur, the Royals put themselves in a difficult decision. Maybe they are able to trade Cain for a starting pitcher, in which case they’re stuck with a bad defender in a crucial up-the-middle position. Maybe they can turn Cabrera into prospects, in which case they’re going to be eaten alive by tough right-handed pitching. But the Royals have created a situation where, no matter which way they go, they’ve left the 2012 team with a significant tactical weakness. Maybe the Royals get really creative here, and trade both Cain and Cabrera in order to open a spot for Jarrod Dyson (which honestly isn’t as crazy as it sounds). Or maybe they trade Butler and DH Cabrera (which is as crazy as it sounds, as I don’t think the Royals can get fair value for Butler). But as it stands now, bringing back Francoeur is the first domino in a chain reaction that, whichever way it goes, doesn’t end well for the Royals. I hope I’m wrong. I hope that, between now and Opening Day, the Royals come up with an outfield arrangement which maximizes their chances of winning in 2012. The problem is that they already had such an arrangement at their fingertips, and let it go rather than relinquish their precious Francoeur. Re-signing Frenchy certainly isn’t a crippling move along the lines of the Jose Guillen contract; it doesn’t clearly make the Royals worse like the Mike Jacobs trade did. But the Royals spent a fair amount of money on a player who doesn’t have a long track record of success, and who the Royals didn’t really need in the first place. There were better ways to spend that money. Love may be blind, but it ain’t cheap. If Dayton Moore’s love is requited, this contract won’t hurt the Royals. Unfortunately, “not hurting the Royals” is about the best we can hope for.

Except it makes KW and Ozzie look look "double idiots" for letting Thome go to the Twins in the first place after 2009, then signing Dunn for 2011 simply because Kotsay/Jones platoon was never a feasible long-term solution but rather a band-aid...I can't imagine Williams doing it solely for ego reasons. And then some of the comments Thome has made and a little back and forth sniping, mostly on the Sox part. The homer off Thornton last year didn't help matters (unless you like to see KW and Ozzie being made to look like idiots). Still, it will be interesting to see if other teams ahead in the pecking order would take him or let him get to the Indians (mostly for sentimental reasons) or eventually the Phils. Definitely not a monetary issue for most clubs that are legitimately interested in him.

Who's more likely to make it as a 4th/5th outfielder...Short or Martinez?

Maybe he was thinking of LEIF Garrett instead? It would be yet more fun if someone started a "I remember Katie Upton or Mrs. Teahen" one and they posted a response. Or Mark Teahen's dogs. Or Oney.

If Hahn's greatest strength is negotiations....and Danks leaving is basically already a foregone conclusion...that's not the most helpful trait. Other than Mark Buehrle this offseason, we might be 2-3 years from ever having another big free agent signing with the White Sox after the Dunn/Rios/Peavy debacle. Ramirez already signed his extension. That's done. We have Floyd for two more years. And we don't allocate a lot of money for draft picks, so this is all a bit scary, if scouting is his biggest weakness and we arguably have one of the weakest scouting systems in the game already. That doesn't bode well at all for trades maximizing the value of Danks/Floyd, Quentin, Thornton, Ramirez and possibly Frasor or Crain.

He'd be, at best, league average if he played there everyday. Next to Kubel and Delmon Young, he looks decent comparatively. They've moved him all over the place the last couple of years. Everywhere but SS, I think, and C...maybe not CF either. As pointed out above, arm strength is his biggest asset.

Gilmore Jose Martinez Kuhn Phegley Santos Rodriguez Rienzo Reed Infante Mitchell Saladino Silverio You'd have to think that might be at least 4-5 of their picks, from a list similar to that. If Walker had absolutely torn apart A ball, they might have considered pushing him, but absolutely no way now.

Really impressed the Indians have been fighting to the last moment...claimed Harden on waivers but couldn't work out a deal with Beane. Wonder what happened since the Red Sox deal for him blew up over his assorted health issues?

I wouldn't sign Greg, Ozzie and Juan Pierre to the Juan Pierre Dodgers' deal. Joking Greg. Went to the Royals/Red Sox game in KC Thursday night, btw. Really impressed with all the changes in the outfield bleachers and concourses. Wish they would bury those Tide/Bounce detergent signs around the entrances in the upper deck, though, makes it look like a cheesy minor league stadium in those sections.

It's very well possible this team could play much better if they did eat 75% of Rios' contract. Unfortunately, that will never happen. But there's no way to put a dollar value on getting a "benched" or sulking Rios out of that clubhouse. And DeAza has definitely been producing as well or better than anyone expected.