caulfield12

Well, I remember when he came up with the Sox after the Baines deal, I was convinced that Sosa was the next Clemente....I even wrote to him in Spanish and asked him to change his number from 25 to 21, haha. Probably we'll never see that combination of speed, arm strength, grace, agility, wrist strength, batting style and off-field humanitarianism. Vladimir Guerrero was the closest (that I've seen personally), but nowhere need the speed or joy/reckless abandon that Clemente displayed with the Pirates.

Heck, you can stay at a really nice hotel in Bali for $50-75 per night. Rent a car for $10-15 per day. Gas for 3-4 days, $10. Eat 4-5 star food for $7.50-12.50 per meal. If it wasn't for the flight from the US ($250 for me to fly Manila to Jakarta, $50-60 Jakarta to Bali each way), it would be a great bargain. But spending it on this White Sox team is a tough cost-benefit for everyone in 2011. If Greg went to Bali and posted here less often, his blood pressure would decrease. $7.50 per hour for hot stone/Thai/Balinese massage....he'd like that.

You're welcome. See, I'm even defending your boy Rios today, lol.

QUOTE (Knackattack @ Jul 30, 2011 -> 02:39 PM) I'm gonna go ahead and believe the reporters that say Danks/Matt would get it done rather than your silly opinion that it would take Quentin too, lol. Why would Daniels do this? Holland's already arguably a better pitcher (and yes, Danks has been VERY good recently), and has clearly better stuff than Danks. He's 10-4 with 4 shutouts already. Yet you're going to pay Danks 80 million for 5 years instead? When you can pay Holland $20-25 million? Because you don't trade for Danks unless you can extend him. And Matt Thornton isn't a bargain contract for a team that was recently bankrupt. If this was Jackson/Hudson again, and that was clearly a horrible trade according to everyone, why would including Matt Thornton make it a great deal? If anything, I'd be happy to get that contract off the books since he's never going to be a closer for the Sox and we already have Sale/Ohman/Santiago from the left hand side.

610 pm cst That's 5 stolen bases already against Avila/Jacob Turner.

When the Twins finally get back Span, Morneau and Kubel, they won't be a AAA team any longer. Still think their bullpen is too shaky to go on a consistent winning streak, and Nishioka/Casilla up the middle has been hugely disappointing compared to Hardy/Hudson. And Valencia's REALLY been up and down both offensively and defensively this season. And the Sox aren't bad in the 2nd half, they're just bad against the Twins in the 2nd half. We did hold them off in 2008. 2006 wasn't anything like choking...the whole team just faded, but the Tigers/Twins were simply better teams. The only times they really dominated us head-to-head down the stretch were 2003 and last year. 2009 team never really was in it down the stretch.

Lillibridge has also been a much better hitter during the day compared to at night. 900+ OPS in day games, around 700 during the day. Yeah, yeah, small sample size. And only 12/64 since June 1st. Ordonez with a sharp line drive to CF for the first Tigers run. Only 17th RBI of season for Maggs. 1-0 Tigers heading to top of the 5th.

So many variables could change between now and 22 hours from this exact moment in time. 5 Jacob Turner strikeouts. No runs surrendered through 4 IP.

The fact of the matter is that if we go out and make Quentin, Danks/Floyd and Thornton available this offseason...we might get an even better return. Might be worse...who knows, but you simply can't give up on 2011 yet. If someone offers something sweet for Thornton or Ohman, or Frasier Crain, then you can at least give it careful consideration, but you can't really touch the core of the team, which you would if you move Quentin/Danks/Floyd. Imagine if we traded 3-4 of those guys and the Tigers and Indians stayed 0-6 games over .500 for the remainder of the season, we'd be hearing from Sox fans all offseason how they didn't make any effort to go for it. That White Flag trade still riles a lot of old Sox fans, and we were about the same number of games back and similar record at the time.

It's really pushing it to say DeAza should be starting every single game, against righties and lefties. Still, Ozzie's normally "superstitious" enough when the team's winning games not to change things around too much, like when Morel was in the 2 hole and struggling but the team was doing pretty well for awhile. Like it or not, Rios is a decent hitter against lefties, he's not been a disaster hitting at home and he has a decent track record against Lester.

Don't give KW that drug Bradley Cooper was taking in Limitless. We'd have a new 25 man roster by 4 p.m. tomorrow. Jacob Turner's stranded four runners already in scoring position against LAA, 4 K's, lots of pitches...still 0-0 in the bottom of the 3rd. Seems pretty easy to run on him. Had lost 3 decisions in a row in AAA and gave up 7 runs in one of those outings. Angels could really use Napoli's bat again...one of the hottest hitters in baseball recently.

Danks/Thornton/Quentin for Holland still won't get it done. Unless they could agree to a contract extension with Danks, but why do that when they control Holland cheaply for 4 more years? Doesn't make any sense from a financial standpoint for the Rangers.

Just a black hole on the road. 713 OPS at USCF is actually fine out of Rios. Not a bargain, but not killing the line-up like Dunn against LHP batting 3-4-5.

Alex Rios 713 OPS at home (that's fine, not great) 433 OPS on the road (basically, he should never see the field again outside of Chicago this season) Kind of funny, since he's been getting booed more and more in the last 6 weeks at USCF, and yet he's incomparably better in front of the home fans. Bizarre split. Heath Bell looking like he's going to the Rangers, Cardinals second favorite...

In the end, the only players we've ever traded away (while young) that would play a role on this roster are Gio, Hudson and Chris Young. Maybe Clayton Richard, would be in Ohman's role/long reliever and spot starter. I guess Sweeney would have the advantage over Lillibridge for being LH off the bench/4th OF, but he can't play infield and he's less of a stolen base threat as well. So those five guys, maybe 4. Unless you want to count someone like Jon Rauch or Frank Francisco. Mike Morse, but nobody would undo the Garcia deal of 2004. I guess you could argue Fautino DeLosSantos, too. But would you take any of those RH relievers over Santos/Crain/Frasor? No. Over Bruney, sure, probably.

We control Humber's rights for at least 4 more seasons (3 of them would be arbitration eligible). Somebody correct me if I'm wrong...just guessing. He had the equivalent of about 1 full season of service time over the course of his entire MLB career coming into April, 2010.

Not sure if you want Lilly against a knuckleballer pitcher, that might make his swing even bigger, if that's possible? But you have to question "benching" Rios and then turning around and putting him back out there a couple of games (both Sox wins) later...we already went through this same situation when he was pulled from a game a month or so ago and then singled out by Guillen....then he backtracked and stuck him back out there again. For whatever reason, Ozzie just can't seem to permanently doghouse any veterans...other than Nick Swisher. But young players like Anderson, Beckham or Hudson seemed to have much less rope to hang themselves with.

And a 10-4 record, although his ERA's a bit high, a lot of that can be explained away by pitching in that ballpark 1/2 the time. Fastest infield since the Cardinals/Royals astroturf cookie-cutter fields in the 80's. Rangers will have 4 10 game winners, and then I think CJ Wilson or Harrison has 9. 49-28 record for the starting pitchers. 3.49 starter's ERA, .242 average against Holland just threw a 96 MPH fastball on his 95th pitch. No way they would trade Holland for Danks, Thornton AND Quentin. 4 shutouts equals Cliff Lee for MLB lead.

Edwin Jackson is the Jim Thome of the last 12 months...more or less. I guess it's because he's so talented that it's easy to focus more on the negatives than what he actually does/did well.

http://www.brotherlyglove.com/2011/05/31/t...the-luxury-tax/ $178 million, would be amazing to have that kind of a payroll.

If Rios gets torn apart tonight, they better not proceed to play him two more games in a row against Andrew Miller and Sabathia. That would just suck, because we're already sticking Dunn out there where he's gotten what, 2 for 68 or something like that off lefties? Rios 8/30, 2 doubles, 3 RBI's career against LESTER (those same 3 RBI's equal his totals for the last 100+ plate appearances)

A four man rotation this far out is going to kill them by early August. We tried this down the stretch in 2008 and they barely made it over the last 2-3 weeks, and the rotation was in such shambles we had no choice but to throw Javy out there to get mowed down. If you try to go to that desperation move and you still have Peavy or Humber in the rotation, you're doubly dead. But I think this is being done with the idea that one of them (or both?) would be traded, yes??

I can just see it now. Subsidize Alex Rios Sitting on the Pine Kosher Dogs....2 for the price of his OPS on the road, or about $4.75 Rasmus not exactly lighting TOR on fire in the early going. Yunel Hothead Escobar dogs it down the line in classic Alex Rios fashion....gets thrown out by a shoe length and promptly proceeds to get tossed after about 2.6 seconds of arguing with the 1B ump. Anthonopolous might not look so smart in the end on Rasmus/Escobar/Lawrie.

Did anyone hear that the Astros also sent $1 million to the Phillies as part of that Pence deal? Weird.

Watch when Doug Davis is our fifth starter and leading us through the playoffs....haha. Actually, trading Thornton does make sense, but we're going to have to get a huge return (thinking Ricardo Rincon for Brian Giles here) that just overwhelms KW. And definitely freeing up the salary/payroll situation for 2012 and beyond helps out, too. You just have to think that any savings will disappear with a lowered payroll and not be plugged back into signing international free agents or scouting/drafting. The only money that's going to be extended uncomfortably will be for Buehrle (2-3 years) and not for Danks (4-6 years).