caulfield12

Yeah....Juan Pierre has that Luis Polonia stroke to LF and how many balls have outfielders just been parked there waiting when the ball off the bat looked like a sure double? You can't afford to play THAT shallow (and right on the line) in a much bigger outfield unless Willie Mays in his prime is playing CF. Of course, Pierre's never succeeded (at least I can't think of a time) in plugging that LCF gap. When he hits the ball hard to the outfield, it's always a pitch he turns on and pulls right down the RF line or foul to right.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.d...VIEWS/110719994 Ebert with 3 1/2. Will be seeing it today.

Well, those Ozzie offensive statistics were also put up in a totally different era. And, the Old Comiskey Park was not exactly "Home Run Central," not that Ozzie ever was a power hitter. He's one of those players who would have fit in any era...and certainly in the first 5-7 years, he had the added dimension of hitting for more triples and piling up some decent stolen base numbers. Ozzie Smith is another player (and Ozzie wasn't quite his caliber defensively, of course) who put up very average offensive numbers. Or Omar Vizquel, although Ozzie wasn't his equal with the glove either. You have to look at the position, and what his peers did. And that's where Ripken's power and RBI's shined, although he never had the range of the great shortstops, obviously. Things changed when Jeter came into the AL in the mid 90's. Then you had that offensive (steroids too) explosion at the position with Jeter, Garciaparra, Miguel Tejada and Alex Rodriguez all putting up MVP numbers.

Let's see. The Indians have been without a "revitalized" Travis Hafner for over half their games. LaPorta has missed a lot of time. Shoo and Sizemore nowhere close to their career levels and/or injured. So basically you've got a team led by Asdrubal Cabrera (offensively) in first place. Some of their most important contributors in the first half have been Hannahan, Orlando Cabrera, Lou Marson, Michael Brantley, Travis Buck and Shelley Duncan. They've only got 2 hitters with over an 800 OPS in Hafner and Cabrera. Nobody in baseball was predicting that we expect too much from Carlos Carrasco, Tomlin, Talbot...and that bullpen looked like it was full of more holes than Swiss cheese preseason. Carmona/Masterson always were loved by scouts but hadn't produced consistent results in recent seasons. Oh, and they also lost first round draft pick Alex White to a freak injury. He served as their main pitching depth and looked very good when he was able to take the mound.

Why would we want Lowe over Pierre? Are we dumping Rios' contract on the Braves, too? There's just no way Lowe for Pierre makes sense for us....and some combo of Rios and/or Pierre for Lowe makes any sense for them.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 13, 2011 -> 12:32 PM) The top three guys were dumped as quick as humanly possible. MacD even got bought out and released. And MacDougal/Linebrink are the first two times in KW's tenure we admitted a mistake and sent money the other way or just flat-out ate a contract. My argument is that he stuck with those guys forever and gave them way TOO many chances before he cut them loose. At their point, their value collectively was basically less than zero. Well, I guess we saved a couple of million with Linebrink, but we ate the majority of his 2011 deal. He's stuck with Rios over 3 seasons when he's been worse than Brian Anderson for 80% of that time.

The only ones he really dealt or wrote off quickly were Cabrera (who was already a FA) and Swisher. Look how long he held onto Javy. MacDougal. Linebrink way too long. Teahen. Tony Pena. Contreras after his last Sox contract. He had dealt guys like Julio Ramirez where there was very little financial risk....D'Angelo Jimenez, Lofton, etc. But very rarely when he's given up something significant in acquiring aforementioned player. And undoubtedly he was backed into a position of weakness where he got the lowest possible return on Swisher after buying at the highest possible value. If he didn't give a shi-, then there was absolutely no reason 4 weeks ago NOT to AT LEAST TRY Viciedo and see if he'd catch fire. Ramirez could have hit leadoff. Pierre's value wouldn't have been affected in the least. In fact, we're not going to get anything for him if he plays everyday for the next 15 days or doesn't play at all.

I don't think they would acquire Beltran because that means KW admitting: 1) Pierre/Dunn/Rios are failures 2) With Pierre being THE leadoff guy with Ozzie, probably that Dunn or Rios would be sitting the majority of time 3) It puts him closer and closer to declaring Rios a dead weight or anchor 4) Without Viciedo, this team has zero future hitters in the pipeline...would JR sign off on it after the Hudson trade backfired (so far)?

Maybe. The majority of sportswriters usually go for the "surprise" team that nobody expected to be in it at all. With the Rays a contender in every season since 2008, they're probably a victim of their own success here. And maybe there's this idea that their minor league system has been so productive that they can just plug in new pieces and automatically be successful...like the Twins seemingly do.

•Francisco Rodriguez's agent Scott Boras spoke with Brewers GM Doug Melvin shortly after last night's trade, at which point Heyman says "Boras made the case that K-Rod should close, suggesting he wouldn't do nearly as well setting up." Melvin was apparently noncommital in that conversation, as he has been publicly. K-Rod would become the highest-paid reliever in baseball history if his option vests, though Boras wouldn't get commission on a contract brokered by Wasserman Media Group in 2008. Heyman suggests an unhappy Rodriguez is a scary concept, but based on the player's tweets (in Spanish), he's content. www.mlbtraderumors.com

Where the heck was security? Why wasn't he thrown out of the ballpark for standing on the table? With an event that big, certainly there had to be some additionals ushers or security personnel in every section of the outfield in case fans were fighting over foul balls?

It would still be a toss-up to me between Gardenhire and Acta. Depends on how close the Indians finished to the Twins. If you go back to the expectations game, Minnesota was predicted to finish first by the majority of prognosticators, yes? Not unlike Shapiro beating out KW for GM/Executive of the Year for the 2005 season.

But Twins fans would retort with the, well, we already have 1987 and 1991 card in our pockets. To which someone would probably retort...well, they wouldn't have won all those playoff games without the home field advantage, etc. (In the same way that we do about the "luckiness" of actually having the Twins fall apart that final week in 2008 after they'd ripped through us....winning the three games in a row, coin flip going in our favor...which would now be nullified, etc.) Leading to the...we were "lucky/fortunate" in 2008, but in 2003, 2004, 2006, 2009, 2010...the Twins just flat out beat us head-to-head. If you tip the scales to the Twins winning 7 of 9 and the White Sox just ONE of the past 9 years, it's pretty damning. OFC, you can include 2000 in that stat....make it 3 for the Sox, 6 for the Twins, 2 for the Indians. Makes the Tigers look like the real underachievers in the AL Central, doesn't it? Of course, does DET getting to the World Series in 2006 trump all those Twins' playoff appearances, even if they lost? I don't think so. But you can't just pretend the Twins didn't win 4/5 from 2002-2004/2006, either.

You also have the "readjusting to AL pitchers" dilemma with Beltran. He's been out of the AL Central so long, he would be behind the 8 ball catching up...and you know with how good our scouting is, well, it would seem a better fit to add players who are already familiar with the opposition, since the advantge almost always goes to the pitchers.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Jul 13, 2011 -> 08:49 AM) Or about Juan Pierre if Greg is involved. Or Jenks. Or Ozzerrroo.

Except we also know that Quentin is one of the few guys that seem capable of carrying this team offensively right now...we know his streakiness, and usually when you're about to give up on him, he'll put up another hot streak and look like the CQ of 2008 and you feel silly to even think about moving him. I don't know how we can say that we can't afford to pay Quentin $7.5-8 million when we want to pay Danks the same amount...and we're paying Juan Pierre the same as Carlos this year. Maybe you're right. Dunn/Rios/Peavy force us into this cost-cutting mode, but I think it's not sound decision-making unless the player we get back in return will be with the White Sox for at least 4-6 seasons. And we have to remember we're committed to paying AJ $6 million next year. Seems silly to be forced into giving up your second best player offensively (at USCF no less) when offense is the MAIN issue standing between the White Sox and being a competitive team again. We're not even close to being able to count on Dunn and Konerko's due for a return to mean AT SOME POINT, and Quentin's also due to get hot again...so I'm not buying that KW will actually pull the trigger unless it is for Beachy or a similar pitcher.

Looks like with Beltran available that will cool down the CQ market a bit. The White Sox are one of the teams being listed as potentially interested in paying Mr. Beltran $6 million to play out the remainder of the season. Guess he'd have to play CF again in that scenario...which would continue to the trend of the White Sox acquiring veteran CFers who aren't really fit for everyday play at that position anymore (Mackowiak, Erstad, Griffey Jr., etc.)

It's an interesting point QUINARV made. I served in AmeriCorps (the domestic version of the Peace Corps that President Clinton started) for two years and our education award was about 20% less than someone serving the same amount of time in the military would receive. Which I find interesting...because if you research how many of the children of Congressman/women are actually serving on active duty in the US military (four branches), it's under 10, maybe even 5. Those same politicians who are so quick to "fly the flag" and wax patriotic are scared to death of their kids actually getting killed. In the end, I get the point. I wasn't risking my life in exactly the same way...and yet volunteering everyday in Kansas City, Kansas...well, it's about the same as East St. Louis was 15-20 years ago. You can make arguments either way, depending on how you define service. I guess the way I look at it is this...my dad spent his whole life in the military and was what you would call a "fiscal conservative" in the same sense Colin Powell is...and he was also a little bitter because (in his eyes) he lost advancement/promotion opportunities working for the US government in the 80's and 90's simply because he was an older, white male. Yet my dad wanted to give me a great life...to have the freedom to make my own choices, not to service in the US military unless it was something I chose (and not out of economic necessity or having no other options)...I feel that being a teacher or doing non-profit/volunteer work contributes all the same to our society. Flysox made the argument about doing military service. Well, I have always felt the same way about Congress. If they spent just a week in a typical inner-city school or volunteering with a project not unlike Obama was involved with (churches, community organizing), they'd have a slightly different perspective on poverty and what was the best way to "empower" poor people. P.S. PLEASE CONTINUE WITH PREVIOUS CONVERSATION WHICH WILL NEVER END UP CHANGING ANYONE'S VIEWPOINT BUT HAS BEEN IMMENSELY MORE ENTERTAINING THAN THE WHITE SOX 2011.

Yeah, that's the problem with trading Quentin. We were able to discard Magglio, C-Lee AND Valentin (and basically get by without Frank Thomas) because we 1) signed Dye, 2) had a number of players with "good" pop like Crede, Rowand, AJ, Everett, Uribe, etc. That would leave the majority of power numbers coming from Dayan, Konerko (who's certainly going to cool off at some point) and THEORETICALLY Adam Dunn. They're at least one hitter short, if not 2. Bourn would be an upgrade, but how he helps long-term isn't clear, because basically he's getting more and more expensive (just like Quentin) and unless 2012 is another "All In" year, which seems impossible at this point, renting Bourn for just a season makes little sense in the big picture perspective. QUentin for Beachy, that makes a TON of sense. But a move I'm sure the Braves are hesitating on more and more.

QUOTE (hi8is @ Jul 11, 2011 -> 06:37 PM) Well, one thing that also needs to be accounted for is salary. Quentin is making what - 8MM and is in line for more next year - where as Beachy is under team control for another 6 years. Some people would say that Q for Beachy is too strong a trade from the Sox perspective. $5 million....you'd have to guess $7.25-8.0 million next season in arbitration.

Better just to get the best possible prospects back for Danks...and hope/pray Rios can rebound (AGAIN). With Gardner, Granderson, Swisher and Jones, I can't see how/why they'd actually have any need for Rios. Mike Lowell was the 3B for the Marlins who had a very good run with the Red Sox.

I'm not so sure about gay people wanting their adopted kids to be gay, either. Research has proven that the likelihood of that kid turning out gay (when adopted) is actually at a lower/lesser rate than the general population %. Some believe this "overcorrection" is due to the ubiquitous belief in the straight community that gay parents "teach" their kids to be gay, therefore, adoption by lesbian/gay parents shouldn't be allowed...always leading back to the same nature/nurture argument which will never be resolved to anyone's satisfaction.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Jul 11, 2011 -> 03:09 PM) I was asked my opinion and I gave it. Sorry it doesn't match yours. It isn't ridiculous IMO but I could say all this clamoring and such to blame someone is a bit old and getting ridiculous in the extremes people want to go. The manager always gets the blame and gets fired when the players fail to perform. I guess it is easier to fire a manager then a player making $16M a year. Doesn't mean it's right and doesn't mean it will make anyone play better either with the manager getting fired. But, that seems to be the only answer folks have ' FIRE OZZIE." If you make mention of a possible trade or of a player that should be singled out and you then hear all kinds of reasons why that can't be done. All this has become is a gigantic gripe session with fingers getting pointed everywhere. But, I still haven't heard how this idea of firing the manager or the hitting coach or the first base coach is going to help the team win. I think Ozzie is moving from protecting the players mode to lighting a fire under some people as it should be. He had called out Rios and that's one of the guys performing well below expectations. I refuse to believe this team can't get back on track during the second half. We have the talent to go on a winning streak. We are maybe one good stretch away from being on top. That's how I see it. If others don't fine, but don't call the positive comments ridiculous, etc, etc. I won't deny things have been bad and we find some new way to lose almost every day it seems. But, we have some darn good talent of this team and they have won before. They can motivate each other and I am loking forward to seeing them drive on He called out Rios and what has happened to his level of play since then? If anything, it has gotten worse. FWIW, he also said he wasn't meaning to send an example to Rios personally, that his being pulled was a message/warning to the entire team. I'd agree with you if there weren't 3-4-5 obvious "mental" errors per game. Physical errors, that's one thing. At least there's an effort being made, like when Juan Pierre throws the ball in from LF, I never get upset no matter what the result. In Sunday's game, Rios made numerous "mental errors" just in the span of 2-3 innings on defense. That's just not acceptable for a player with his OPS. Missing cutoff men, lollipopping throws, throwing to the wrong base/s, taking the wrong routes on balls, misreads....maybe the last two aren't as easily correctable, and it's true, most outfielders have a lot easier time coming in on the ball than going back. But Rios has made the same mistake 15-20 times this season....where a ball hit deep, he'l drift along with the ball instead of the more correct fundamental play of going straight back, contacting the wall, then readjusting and finding the ball in flight. So while the White Sox, in terms of fielding percentage, look good on paper...the truth isn't residing in that one statistic if you follow the team closely. And this isn't about Rios or Dunn alone....we have had so many opportunities to advance runners into scoring position when there are zero or one out and we almost never change our approach...shorten our swings, try to hit the ball to the opposite field...we hit groundouts/DP balls when we need sacrifice flies and hit pop-ups, foul out or K when we need to put the ball in play. I'll use Lillibridge as an example here. You can't have a player that size swinging for the fences every at-bat when contact is called for. Holding on runners...we can't even succeed this season throwing out runners when there's a pitchout. Guys are running on our pitchers (and AJ) like it's an American Legion or short-season minor league game. It just seems like Ozzie "respects" the veteran players too much and doesn't do anything to address their fundamental deficiencies. Jermaine Dye comes to mind here. JD, when he came up with the Braves, had one of the best throwing arms in the game. Yet when he was with us, he was a defensive liability (largely because of the loss of speed/range due to injuries and aging)....but he had the horrible habit of catching every ball flat-footed and then either taking a couple of crow/bunny hops or winding up with a long mechanical throw instead of coming into the ball with all of his momentum moving forward. That's the first thing you learn in Little League/Tom Emanski videos as an outfielder. Catch the ball with two hands. Figure out where the ball's going to land (and it's not ALWAYS possible, but most of the time, yes) and get a running start and catch/throw in one continuous motion with your momentum/force helping you to get some extra ooomph on the ball. Never addressed or changed by the coaching staff. Even something like sending out Alexei Ramirez to deeper LCF to help Pierre out with throws to 2nd, 3rd and home (especially). We don't make adjustments. We don't ever improve or teach fundamentals/execution once the season begins. We never, ever seem to improve in this area. That's where a coaching change can help. You have to break the players of the habit of swinging for the fences in every situation. I guarantee Gibson w/ the DBacks or watch the Nationals/Pirates....if a young hitter came up with runners at 1st and 2nd (no outs) and didn't advance those runners, that guy would be on the bench. Same thing with bunting, which we overuse for an AL team (especially considering none of our players have seemingly learned the art of sacrifice bunting, for a number of reasons). In the end, it's ONE thing if you get beat by a better team, like the Yankees/Red Sox/Angels/Rays/Rangers. It's quite another when you've been getting beat for a decade (with ONE exception) because you keep making mental errors that good baseball teams shouldn't make.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jul 11, 2011 -> 12:43 PM) Anyone else see Cedar Rapids with Ed Helms? It was a little too disjointed but had a lot of hysterical moments. It's too bad they couldn't have added about 30 more minutes to round out the story. Anne Heche was good in that one, and I've never even liked her. The African-American insurance agent was hilarious (the party scene and some of his ad-libbed one liners), so was John C. Reilly, who in some ways was the "heart" of that movie with Mr. Hangover. Very underrated comedy that just didn't have enough marketing "oomph" behind it to break out and become a big success box office-wise. I'd put it up there with "Win Win" (Giamatti) for one of the Top 5 movies "that most people haven't heard of" in 2011. Is it just me, it seems Jeong, Thomas Lennon and Jason Segel are in every movie that comes out these days. I guess that's better than too much Seth Rogen. Plus, being from the Quad-Cities, it's amusing to see the way "flyover territory" is perceived in Hollywoodland. A little like "Up in the Air" in that sense. But the "moral/emotional payoff" in the end of Cedar Rapids is much lighter and syrupy.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Jul 11, 2011 -> 01:25 PM) OBP is "as usual meager"....what exactly is a good OBP, in your opinion? Is .350 the last 2.5 months not good enough? Pierre has been offensively performing at right around his career numbers since May 1st (.281/.348/.326/.674), which is now nearly 300 PAs. He has been stealing bases at about the right percentage since then, too (73% - 8 for 11). More importantly, he has been his most hottest most recently. If you never liked the acquisition and were always against him, that's one thing, but he's doing what he was he was brought in here for offensively for the last 2.5 months. Swapping him out for a dude with 100 major league PAs seems silly at this point. The problem is that Juan Pierre is no longer a threat on the basepaths...except to the Chicago White Sox. I could pull all the MLB stolen bases leaders and there would be guys like Michael Cuddyer with nearly as many steals and a much better ratio of success. When your one "plus" tool is no longer there...you're limited to hitting for average, and (to give him his due) he's had some clutch hits recently. However, if you throw all the season-long statistics into the blender and spit out ANY type of number to measure him against the average production expected out of a major league outfielder, he's going to come up in the bottom 10-20%. The only number that he'll rank highly in is outs recorded and plate appearances. If Rios and Dunn and Morel were all hitting better, we MIGHT be able to get away with it, or mask Juan's weaknesses.