caulfield12

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 24, 2011 -> 07:45 AM) Terry Bevington without a doubt, was the worst manager I have seen on the south side. I was just responding to the "worst World Series-winning manager" post earlier. Torborg and Guillen have been my favorites.

QUOTE (since56 @ Jun 24, 2011 -> 08:07 AM) How many game suspension for an attack on Kenny and Ozzie? Is there an appeal process? Also, as long as Adam Dunn is under .200 there should no suspensions involving that bum. Have a nice day. I would doubt there's anybody on this board who has NEVER once said anything negative about Ozzie as a manager. With KW, he has significantly fewer detractors but certainly more than any previous season...and it reached a crescendo in May.

What I haven't understood the last 2-3 days is why so many people "hate" Jake Peavy because of his contract. If they were posting on the Twins' message board, I can't imagine what they'd be saying about Joe Mauer this season. The guy came back....arguably as early as possible and possibly too quickly...from a one-of-a-kind surgery. He could have taken the entire season to rehab it if he wanted to and there would have been nothing the White Sox could have done about it. And he was actually the winning pitcher in that game. It's almost like people are upset if he doesn't throw a shutout or go 7+ innings in every start. When you play the Cubs, you can throw all their stats out and window and forget about their "AAA lineup" outside of Castro, Soriano, Ramirez and Pena. Same thing when we play the Twins. Any victory against those teams is a "plus" as far as I'm concerned.

QUOTE (hi8is @ Jun 24, 2011 -> 02:48 AM) I'll give it a crack... Juan Pierre has been WAY down across the board this year. We all know that. All his statistics are no bueno - may it be fielding, stolen bases, or on base percentage. The logical choice is to replace him but it seems that pride or some stubborn faith within our organization is preventing a move from being made. Hell, I hope that Juan turns it around but seriously - every time a fly ball is hit his way -- I hold my breath. On the rare occasion that he actually gets on base - I foresee him getting thrown out ( though since he only has 2 attempts this month - it seems he has stopped trying to use his "wheels" ) Anyhow.... there is a bunch to harp on when it comes to our production from the leadoff / LF spot but I for one really hope that Juan improves... I just don't expect it. One thing I do fully expect - is for some sort of moves to be made within the next 6 weeks. What they'll be - I have no clue... but I do have trust in the belief that Kenny, Ozzie, and Jerry all really want to make the team better - even if it means biting the bullet. You'd have to hope that last years rotating DH brought Ozzie some humility... if it didn't thou, I wouldn't be surprised. I have faith that Rios, Dunn, and Beckham will all have good second half numbers. Rios came on strong last year during the second half if I'm not mistaken. Beckham had a great second half for sure - that I remember well. Dunn has been so consistent with his end of season numbers that I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if he put up monster power numbers coming shortly and carrying into October. Our bullpen looks to be locked in. Humber is the real deal and the rest of the rotation is doing well. Things are looking up for the Sox and with Detriot losing 2 of 3 to a HORRID dodger team... we're in this thing. It'll be a fun few months of the 2011 season coming up here. Go SoX! Let's sweep Washington and have a 30 game summer run circa 2010 Rios, .879 OPS before ASB vs. a Brian Anderson-esque .684 last year in the 2nd half. We'd have to be elated to get 684 again this season. More of the same this year, although he's hit a couple of homers recently and showed (for a stretch) an ability to go up the middle and to the right side. Beckham was much much better, you're right there. Unfortunately, he can't seem to put together more than a solid month or two before falling back into the same bad habits offensively. Losing 2 out of 3 to the Dodgers on the road isn't surprising. You could pull up stretches for the Sox, Indians and Twins and say "how could they lose to those teams?" just like how could they sweep Boston, or play NY and TB so well? The concern about Dunn is that the constant "buzz" about his strikeouts, the home fans booing incessantly....PHing the bench for him against LHPer's, it might start to ruin his thought process for the entire season. Let's hope there's some kind of injury, eye problem, adjusting to new leagues or DHing, carrying extra weight....something to explain it. Otherwise, Cory Snyder and Steve Sax can rest easy that their negligible contributions will be forgotten in the world of White Sox FA busts. Only Jaime Navarro is keeping Dunn from being the worst (so far).

Bob Lemon? Joe Altobelli?? Dallas Green? Alvin Dark? Johnny Keane and Red Schoendiest with the Cardinals? Mayo Smith, he won the 1968 World Series as manager of the Tigers... Charlie Manuel wasn't a very good manager at all until he had all that talent to work with on the Phillies. It's pretty hard for me to say Guillen is the worst.

LOL. Now everyone is being too kind and cordial. I think we've all written similar posts over the last 2-3 weeks about Pierre. "That future totalitarian WW II Austrian-born leader sure was a very talented artist, had a difficult life growing up in Austria, was confused about how to deal with women. It's not his fault he wasn't born with blue eyes. He was really hardworking...he was the first one to the Reichstag meetings and last one to leave. He was always willing to give his time to the media to provide a deadline-friendy quote." Do we really have to throw five positives into posts now to make our points in order to avoid being too one-sided or extreme? Nobody hates Pierre, that's not the point. He just represents the easiest and most logical fix...since improving that position won't require going out and getting another player. The counterarguments are obvious. He's working hard....he's had a very solid second half in 2010, what's to say it won't happen again? He can't be this bad for a whole season, can he? Who will hit leadoff in his absence? Lillibridge's going to get exposed. We need to keep Alexei down in the line-up to drive in runs. We can't have a 44 year old or Alex Rios at the top of the line-up when he's just starting to look like he might turn it around. We still have $2.75 million invested in him, etc. We can afford to wait a couple of weeks so that Dayan won't be able to get to Super2 status and cost us $8-10 million more in future salary allocations. PS Like Megan Fox, I don't want to get fired from SoxTalk or get in hot water with Stephen Spielberg. I just think can go too far to the other side...to "apologize/rationalize" for every post we make. That seems even worse, somehow. Better to call Hitler pure evil, or Juan Pierre "really bad," as long as evidence/documentation are provided. It almost feels like we're abrogating our responsibility to "be ourselves" in order to write like "objective" newspaper reporters. Positive spin: We're only 3 1/2 GB of our real threat, the Tigers Negative spin: We're only 3 1/2 games ahead of our mortal enemies, the Twins

Maybe it's human nature to want to see improvements made in your favorite team. When you see them making the same mistakes over and over again (this could be in drafting, trading younger players like Hudson or Gio, bunting too much, getting runners in from scoring position, choosing to play Kotsay over keeping Thome, Viciedo/Pierre, etc.) it does get frustrating. You wonder why if MOST of the posters here can identify the problems so easily, why nobody with the front office or coaching staff can find the solution. It would be one thing if you had players like Owens and Andy Gonzalez and Ehren Wasserman trying their hardest...even with their limited ceilings, it's hard not to root for those guys who aren't "sure things" and maybe don't even belong in major league baseball. Or Chris Getz, to use another example. I'll admit to, for example, jumping over greghibbard with his "positive" thread. He tried to do something "bold and courageous," granted, it's much easier to take the negative side these days than arguing the positive points. Maybe I wish that I could feel the same way that he does about the Sox future prospects. None of us have given up cheering or pulling for Sox victories...I think that this is really the crux of the argument. There's come the point in time where there really SEEMS to be a credible argument to be made on behalf of "let's tank the season.....if KW/Ozzie want to go down with the ship, so be it," start over, have a Top 10 draft pick again to work with, have a new GM and manager, etc. I think this last issue is the flashpoint for all the brushfires. Frustration in not being sure KW has the patience to rebuild, to start replenishing the farm system, making the right trades, etc. Of course, the major frustration is being stuck "in between" and not being able to do a single thing about Dunn/Rios/Peavy/Beckham in particular. Juan Pierre is the easy villain now, but he's not the real issue...it's just that he appears to be the most expendable at the moment, and he plays Viciedo's position, so it's even easier.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 11:44 AM) I believe this roster is talented enough to hang with anyone in the AL, if they play to their potential. I happen to believe that what's going on has to do with normal baseball slumps, which happen to all teams and players, and you see it as gross mismanagement. Given Dunn and Rios' performances - what exactly would you do differently with them? With Peavy? With the bullpen that has been so inconsistent? I'll tell you what I saw last night - I saw a winner. The bullpen was amazing, with Santos nearly unhittable. Last night was the first time this whole season I said "we've got this" heading into the 9th. It appears that Santos is really coming into his own. Then how do you explain their well below average record against teams under .500? The fact that except for 2008 and that stretch in 2010, they've actually been an average home field team....and often better on the road? Their inability to put away teams like the Indians and Royals in the last 5 years...when they should be crushing them and playing .500 baseball against the Twins and walking away with the divisions? Most Sox fans would argue that Minnesota never had a clear talent advantage over the Sox until last year. Would you agree with that? So the Twins have overachieved from 2001-2010 or we have underachieved? Or we've simply underachieved against Minnesota? What is your suggestion for changing our "bad luck/performance anxiety" against the Twins?

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 08:30 AM) The 2006 Cardinals went 39-42 in the NL Central and won the World Series. The 2009 Rockies were 33-39 vs. the NL West and won a wild card. At least three other teams that I've found in a cursory glance over the past 5 years have barely been .500 vs. their division and won it. (06 padres, 09 angels among them) The 2010 world champion giants were also just 4 games over vs. their division. Obviously, we can't continue to win 33% of our divisional games, but I hardly think we can draw any conclusions from 17 games. So you have a team with the best player in baseball (no, Konerko's not that...although close in terms of hitting lately)...and a notorious second half team in the Rockies. The Giants had the best pitching in baseball (along with the Phillies), I don't quite think we can quite claim that distinction at this point. The bar just seems to be set pretty low. With a $128 million dollar payroll, hoping and praying for the division winner to get only 84-88 wins wasn't exactly the plan. Essentially, you're asking for a repeat of 2008, except without being the front-runner and having to hold off 3 clubs this year instead of just the Twins. We've beaten the Tigers before pretty consistently...but that's a whole new monster with Verlander and Scherzer the way they've pitched. We might look at Thome/Kotsay last year....and Victor Martinez/Dunn this year as the two moves/non-moves that tipped the division away from us in consecutive years. So...with the White Sox having no record of second half comebacks (except for 3 games at the end of 2008) to speak of...what makes you think our recent trends against both the AL Central and in the 2nd half will change? What is different about this year? That we're playing so god-awful but still in it? Well, that show already debuted in 2009, and it didn't end very well. If we do something to show the entire team that everyone's accountable (releasing Pierre) and that Dunn/Rios/Beckham won't just be given time but will have to work hard to earn it by performing.....there's about a 35-40% chance they can pull it off.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 08:00 AM) If they had dropped 5 games to NYY and BOS, we would have said "they can't beat contenders" if they had dropped 5 games to the Cubs and Oakland, we would have said "they can't beat the bad teams" if they had dropped 5 day games, we would have said "they can't win day games" I just can't bring myself to cherry pick FIVE f***ing games out of 43 that they won 60+% of and find much fault in losing a couple of them. Unbelievable - now not sweeping a FOUR GAME series is the problem??? The 2003 Detroit Tigers, the team that nearly lost 120 games, played a total of 7 4-game series. They didn't get swept in 6 of them. That should tell you how hard it is to sweep ANY team in a four game series. C'mon Greg, it's not just those two series, it's the fact that they're 1-9 against the Twins and Tigers overall this year. If you look at 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2010, all of those SOX teams played very well within the division. And we invididually blew four saves out of 10 games against the A's and I think won another game in which we had a blown save. 6-4 should have been, at worst, 8-2 or possibly 9-1. None of it matters unless/until Dunn/Rios/Pierre/Beckham (at least 2 and probably 3 of the 4, because the odds of Konerko continuing to hit at this clip aren't high) play at anywhere close to their abilities and/or Viciedo comes up. And it's also predicated on Humber keeping this up as well. And actually figuring out how to beat a MUCH MUCH better Twins team than the one that has beaten us four times in a row and 27 of the last 35. The Tigers had beaten us 8 consecutive times dating back to last year before we finally won a game against them.

Don't they have to win 2/3 in Wrigley in order to worry about parade routes? I hope you didn't just jinx that series.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 07:06 AM) You can't trade Gullen this offseason if you didn't have him under contract. Just depends, if they can get Bobby Valentine without giving up a significant player, they might just do that. Obviously, the big concern for the Marlins is selling season tickets in the offseason for the new stadium. Some of it also depends on how Guillen finishes this season, too...in terms of increasing his desirability (to both sides), an AL Central championship would burnish his resume and put him back into spotlight again.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jun 23, 2011 -> 05:34 AM) Yeah, some of them trade for Freddy Garcia and then get nothing back. I don't see you talking s*** about Pat Gillick. Pat Gillick has been quite a bit more successful in his ventures than Ken Williams has. My point does nothing but accentuate the fact that general managers, no matter the caliber, make dumb trades. Gillick gave up Gio Gonzalez and Gavin Floyd for Freddy Garcia. I'm sure that deal still pisses him off. He was able to recover. I honestly can't think of a move right now in the past 10 1/2 months that Williams has made that has really pissed me off and made me say "Why?" Can you? There is only one move that he has not made that still leaves me scratching my head, but otherwise, it's on the players, coaches, and manager at this point. Pena over Jeff Gray? Haha. I'm guessing you're referring to the ongoing "replace Pierre with Viciedo" movement? Giving Guillen a contract extension through 2012?

So what are Kuhn's other "plus" tools besides hitting? It seems he's got decent speed, but maybe a step down from Lillibridge/Getz and certainly Chone Figgins in his prime. Figgins was really an igniter and game-changer at the top of the line-up.... What is the reason that he's never even profiled in the Top 30 before this season? If he was to have ONE best position, what would it be? Does he have to be moved all over the diamond...ala Jose Oquendo...or is he the type of player who could be a regular at one position? Looking at the White Sox down the line...we're still not certain about 3B, 2B and LF (although odds are it will be Viciedo barring a trade). I'm guessing he can't catch, which is what we really need! What is his arm strength and range at SS and 2B? Does he go better to his left or right? Can he throw from deep short flat-footed or jumping? How would you compare him to Lillibridge, Pablo Ozuna or Willie Harris?

Saw The Tree of Life. Excellent movie, I just love Malick movies. Unfortunately, he hasn't done very many. But he can surely paint a story with his camera in a way that dialogue isn't necessary.

Game, set, match. We held serve and didn't lose ground to the Tigers or Indians.

Low and away, whatever you do.....don't let him pull hook something up.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Jun 22, 2011 -> 10:07 PM) True, but his OPS is right at his norm for the past two years, .800. That is still oodles better than Pierre. But that's not playing everyday. He hasn't proven he can play 150+ games in the weak NL, how would he magically be better with us?

Good start. Let's mow 'em down Sergio.

QUOTE (skidoochic @ Jun 22, 2011 -> 10:03 PM) Where is the sarcasm button because I don't seriously believe we could do that, but geez, are you really saying you think these guys are worth their salaries right now? You must be watching different games than I. That's kind of the whole point. What other team in MLB would think that player would be WORTH paying aforementioned salary they're clearly not earning?

QUOTE (whitesoxbrian @ Jun 22, 2011 -> 10:02 PM) Who gets more All-Stars: Cubs (Castro, Marshall) or Sox (Santos, Konerko)? 1:1 No way Santos or Marshall go.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 22, 2011 -> 10:02 PM) I'm not watching, and I am not Peavy's biggest fan, but AJP did the same thing to Sergio a few weeks ago. Dodgers' game or against the A's when he blew the 2 out, 2 strike situation?

QUOTE (whitesoxbrian @ Jun 22, 2011 -> 10:00 PM) So back to my original question, if the Sox are still going for it, would you like him as the lead-off hitter for the Sox? I'd guess that's a yes..? So you're trading Quentin or Viciedo? Benching Rios and paying another $6 million, so we'd be committing $18+ million to CF and leadoff?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 22, 2011 -> 09:58 PM) Why would the Cubs pay for 1/2 if a free agent's next contract? Oh, I thought he had one more year to go. Well...it doesn't even matter, not going to happen.

QUOTE (skidoochic @ Jun 22, 2011 -> 09:56 PM) I know you guys are all done complaining about A.J. but I think you are nuts. I was screaming at my TV to pull that idiot Peavy long before A.J. made the sign. Peavy is a huge waste of money. I say trade his butt and send Dunn and Rios with him. Maybe we could get some players worth something and with a little more emotion for the game - like A.J.!!!! Ummm....in what alternative universe can you trade Jake Peavy, Dunn or Rios?