caulfield12

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_leagu...?urn=mlb-wp8118 Maybe Ozzie and Avril Lavigne can be a part of the Pepsi Summer Concert Series together? I have a feeling by the end of this season, Ozzie will be 1) be fired/resign, 2) have his own t.v. show on some network, 3) be doing a Charlie Sheen-esque tour across the country.

You build chemistry by players trusting each other, progressing forward step by step through the minor league system, learning how to win together, being taught the key organizational learning outcomes so that they don't have to be taught or retrained at the major league level. Why do we have so many "Camp Coras" that seem to be designed only to make us believe the hype that a Josh Fields, Mark Teahen or Dayan Viciedo could be a legit MLB 3B? Why have so many of the bunting practice sessions and early work failed to work with countless Sox players like Brian Anderson or Alexei Ramirez? Why is it that our biggest defensive "progression" (Alexei last year...obviously not followed up in 2011) was credited more to the presence of Omar Vizquel to his right (and not Teahen) rather than anything the coaching staff did? When you just have a collection of talented players without any cohesiveness, a lot of that has to come down on the manager to make them "jell" together as a team, like it or not. Ozzie was successful in the early stages of his managing career, and in 2008, but has largely been a failure the last 3 seasons. Basically, the only reason to still believe in Ozzie is one long anomalous run through the interleague schedule. Rios is a perfect example. One of the most talented players in the game, but only 1/30 organizations was willing to take that contract on, and KW was essentially betting that we were the organization/coaching staff who could pull off the impossible. Maybe NOBODY can "fix" Alex Rios, you have to consider that possibility...still, you can't just bet millions of contract dollars that a change of scenery will result in positive results for more than one month out of the last year years at $12-13 million per season because you as a GM haven't been able to come up with an adequate MLB CFer since 2005. The reason 2005/2006 can't be duplicated or used as a blueprint for success is that turning over 8-10 players (30-40%) of your roster every offseason simply doesn't work unless you have the $75-125 million in extra payroll that the Yankees and Red Sox can allocate to cover those mistakes like Dice-K, Irabu, Lackey, Igawa, Posada, etc.

Gil Meche, more due to injuries and the fact that he wanted to reward the Royals for showing faith in him with that 5 year/$55 million contract coming off an injury/surgery plagued start to his career with SEA. And Meche actually earned his salary and then some, the first couple of years of that deal...giving the Royals a BIT of legitimacy/credibility in terms of going out to market themselves as a destination for free agents in the future.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ May 29, 2011 -> 06:49 PM) The jury is still out on Humber (I think he's going to fall and he's going to fall hard before the season is over), but for the time being, you have to give him some credit there. But then what about Jackson? What about Pena? These are guys Coop wanted. How come Nick Masset has been so solid with the Reds, yet he couldn't do s*** here? Why was there such a gross miscalculation on Dan Hudson? Why has Danks and Thornton regressed so much? Coop is not as bad as Walker. Not even close. But he's kinda lost that 'magic' he supposedly had 3-4 years ago. I think we're going to have to wait awhile before judging this Hudson deal, simply because we don't know what/if anything we'll get back for him in trade and/or compensation picks. Still, it's not comparable to the Ritchie for K.Wells/Fogg/Lowe deal where we gave up 2 1/2 starters (a long man who could occasionally start in Lowe) and then saw the White Sox suffer for another 2-3 years with the back end of the rotation depth largely because of that one move (and injuries), but it's the same idea, since Hudson was cost-controlled for 6 years and Jackson/Manny Ramirez were "roll the dice/go for broke" moves with inadequate thought to the long-term organizational consequences for making those moves. Luckily for KW, he might have found some help with Humber and a healthy Peavy, but Sale's got to work out for this to make sense for the Sox in the next 2 seasons. I find it hard to believe that Hudson (or Richard) would be putting up #2 or #3 starter numbers with the Yankees, Red Sox, Rays, etc. One thing is for certain, they felt Jackson was a lot more capable than Hudson of getting on a roll at the major league level last year. That's the only logic for making this particular move. And I'm not sure why anyone is suprised when we're 6-22 going back to whenever in TOR, which is basically a victory less than 1 win in 4 games every trip/series up there.

But the Indians are losing and we're still only 9 1/2 GB. I still think it's possible we can get back within 3-4 games, but winning the division? Doubt it. There's really nothing to be excited about with this team, for the moment. In 2007, at least there was Fields/Owens/Wasserman. I guess Peavy's comeback, Santos, Alexei/Quentin/Konerko offensively and Lillibridge for a brief time span. Either take 2/3 from the Red Sox or get swept by Boston and DET at home and call it a season early.

So basically, it's like we re-signed Bobby Jenks, except he's now Edwin Jackson and has morphed into a new and improved (theoretically) version of Joel Zumaya. Since we can't even DFA Pena, there's no way in hell they're putting Jackson in the bullpen. The only time we've done something similar was El Duque in 2005, and I think he was making around $6.5 million that year, but there was actually the experience factor in the playoffs to consider with him, as well as his success against the Red Sox as a Yankee. Something's going go give before it comes to that move, in all likelihood.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 26, 2011 -> 09:34 PM) Seems like Mitchell is finding a groove. 1.045 OPS, 3 HR's and 8 RBI's the last 10 games .323 AVG, still 7 k's in 31 AB's but not a 1K/2AB or 1/3 ratio there, which is an improvement of sorts

QUOTE (fathom @ May 26, 2011 -> 06:01 PM) I wonder which player the Sox will have to spend more money on to trade them, Dunn or Rios? I give it a 1 percent chance that either finishes out their contract with the Sox. I'll guess Rios will end up being impossible to trade and Dunn will have a statistical rebound after the games stop really counting.

AJ at 4/40 throwing out runners. I think that counts the CS against Crisp, so really less than 10%, or 3/40, 7.5%.

TSA or TSC? Hard to keep track of all the Homeland Defense acronyms and agencies we've created these days.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ May 26, 2011 -> 05:53 PM) I have been doing my best to support the team and it's putrid offesne, but this is getting tiring. Dunn has more K's than anyone in th league if not both leagues. Too bad the guy isn't a pitcher for crying out loud. We need some spark. Where will it come from and when and how Dunn leads the AL with 62 K's, and yet we're the 4th best team in the AL at NOT striking out. A lot of it has to do with AJ and Pierre, but they haven't shown any power.

George Bell I think. Oh, catcher. Has to be former Soxer Borders. I wanted to guess Ernie Whitt but that's definitely wrong. Or Glenallen Hill for worst OF of all time.

Andy Ashby saying that Humber reminds them in terms of his build, delivery and number 41 of former Jays' hurler Pat Hentgen. We have to wish that Phil has anything resembling that type of career with the Sox.

That also marks the first time Viciedo all year has been over a 900 OPS, .905 to be precise. He's more exciting than any hitter on our team except for Quentin and Alexei when he's not foolhardily trying to bunt. Surprised the Jays didn't bring back Frank Catalonotto to have another six hit game against us!

QUOTE (OilCan @ May 26, 2011 -> 06:31 PM) You mean Rice? I might be wrong. Yeah, Rice. I must have been thinking of Lance Broadway or one of those guys. McCulloch? I think he and Danks went to Texas. Maybe one of those pitchers will actually turn out okay, Niemann's been a sort of decent fifth starter except for when he faces the White Sox.

How did Baylor lose any games when they had Aardsma, SS Paul Janish, Humber, Jeff Niemann and the other pitcher who went 8th in the 1st round? Wow...

On a side note, Greg Walker has been telling the opposing broadcasting teams that Dunn has had some of his best BP sessions of the season in Texas. Yay! Glad to see it's really translating against 95 MPH fastballs. One of those swings was half there or a rusty gate at the Haunted Mansion. How do you not just look FB against Morrow? Locked and loaded, not exactly.

Dammit Carlos, you're going to end up with another broken hand bone or radius/ulna at some point doing that. We need you too much.

Cue caught stealing. Maybe teams are deliberately trying to walk Pierre so they can throw him out and demoralize the Sox right away? Cue atrocious bunt, oops. Nice to have a leadoff hitter who can't steal so that we have our 3rd best hitter give up an at-bat against a fastball pitcher who should be a good match-up for Alexei.

5-19 in our last 24 Skydome games. Yay! Although I was reading something like the Twins were 17-45 since some point in September last year.

Did anyone notice Chris Stewart's now on the SF Giants roster...I'm guessing as one of Posey's many replacements to come? Too bad we can't trade them back AJ! That ship has already sailed.

QUOTE (JPN366 @ May 26, 2011 -> 01:38 PM) And he'll continue to as long as he's not on the DL. Hate to be a broken record, but imagine paying to see it. Well, at least you're not paying Chicago prices! Do you have to pay much for parking now at AA games or you can still park mostly for free? I can just imagine the Barons' front office being inundated with irate fans requesting more David Cook or Maurice Gartrell at-bats and that KWJR should be benched or moved out of leadoff spot. Sounds a lot like the problem with the major league team, favoritism/nepotism for both Pierre and KW's son that seems unexplainable. Isn't he at least a step up from Josh Shaffer or Ozzie's son, though? I mean, he did play for one of the storied collegiate baseball programs in NCAA history.

And Don Cooper. If not the best, Coop has a reputation of definitely being in the top 5 for his position. Although Baines might be the worst 1B coach, Cora the shortest bench coach (he does get extra credit points for his overrated "Camp Coras" that have had such a tangible long-term effect on our fielders) and Jeff Cox the looniest/most hyperkinetic 3B coach.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ May 26, 2011 -> 09:02 AM) You're missing the point. It doesn't matter what Allen becomes, he was one of our better prospects at the time and we traded him for a reliever with a bad track record. That's the issue most of us have. We could have used him in a package for a better player. We got bad value in return for him. Also, having a left-handed power bat around wouldn't have been a bad thing, given the future uncertainty at 1B and DH at the time. It was a dumb trade then and remains a dumb trade today. Except a LH power bat doesn't mean anything unless he can put up those numbers in the majors without striking out 125 times and hitting .220. We could stick Tyler Flowers and Joe Borchard in the line-up with Dunn, and we might not do anything but change the path of El Nino/La Nina....whatever that weather phenomenon is called these days. I'm not sure Pena was a "bad value," I think it was more like he never reached his potential (blame it on COOP). It's not the move KW currently is losing sleep on, like the Swisher deals, Peavy, Dunn, Teahen, AJ, Linebrink, Pierre, Dunn, Rios, etc.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 26, 2011 -> 03:49 AM) He's probably still getting his feet under him. I'm more concerned with his bat at this point, and I think and hope the Sox are too. Yes, otherwise we'd just sign Willie Mays Hays, Bullet Bob Hayes, Renaldo Nehemiah, Michael Johnson, Usain Bolt and Joey Gathright. Still, when he was drafted, I had the feeling that he was looked at as the heir apparent in LF for Pierre and a future leadoff hitter/igniter in the Crawford mode. You know how Ozzie loves the 30+ SB type guys.