caulfield12

I saw the other day he's averaged 34 homers and 97 RBI's for the last 7 years. Still, not quite dominant numbers considering he's a 1B playing in a hitter's park. Gary Sheffield has over 500 homers and I'm not sure I would vote for the guy if I had a ballot. Probably. But I'd have to think long and hard about it.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/mari...?prmid=obinsite Good article on the inner workings of the M's clubhouse and what Bradley did to get released finally...a lot of it had to do with the series against the White Sox, at least the final straw. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/mari...?prmid=obinsite

When times are bad, we expect good players to step up. That's what Michael Cuddyer did in 2009 when he filled in for Justin Morneau at first base and did a lot of the heavy lifting in the final weeks as the Twins rallied to win the AL Central in the season of 163 games. This year, so far, it's not happening. And this is the most telling manifestation: So far this season, Cuddyer has three home runs and four RBI in 122 plate appearances. That means he's driven in exactly one player who isn't named Cuddyer. That was Jason Kubel with a fielder's choice on April 23 against Cleveland. Save for the solo home runs, Cuddyer does not have a run-scoring hit in the 52 times he's batted with runners on base -- including 27 with runners in scoring position. Howard Stringer (Section 219), www.startribune.com/sports

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ May 11, 2011 -> 03:02 AM) Also, WTF Drew Lee? Who the hell is he for hitting .431 this year? The Brandon Short, CJ Retherford or John Shelby, Jr., of 2011?

The Astros had a really good reputation until the World Series team was dismantled and they started awarding idiotic contracts like the Carlos Lee one. A lot of the Stros fans really identified with Bagwell, Berkman, Biggio and Oswalt and they all left at approximately the same time. I know it was a decision that McLane agonized over for many months, particularly the parting with Oswalt. They're also suffering a bit because of the success of the Rangers, IMO. And the fact that Nolan Ryan is now identifying himself with that rival organization, well, basically he's the face of the Rangers to Texans.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ May 11, 2011 -> 02:04 AM) Completely do-able w/ this team. Can you imagine if we had Viciedo in LF instead of Pierre? KW will have no other choice if this team obviously isn't competitive at the ASB. The other big concern is leading off with Ramirez, Rios or possibly Lillibridge/Teahen. There aren't many good options. Beckham's simply not walking enough to be there...they're better off leaving him at the bottom of the line-up where there's no pressure until he gets his confidence back and/or the games become less and less meaningful, except as spoiler games and auditioning for 2012.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 11, 2011 -> 02:20 AM) Rebuilt to a fluke division winner in 2000 that was 23 games over .500 in the first half of the season and saw Cleveland close the division lead to 5 games by the end of the season after having 32 different pitchers appear in games. They lost quite a few players to injury in 2001 and ended up finishing .500, but those teams were built almost exclusively on the offense and really didn't have much of a chance to have any sort of sustained success. They had a chance to have a really good team in 2003, but neither 2002 nor 2004 were that good of teams either. That's not much of a rebuild. To rebuild the way people here have and the way I suggested, it's going to take far longer than 3 years. If the Sox try to rebuild with the same organizational philosophy of trading away young, talented players that they "think" will fail or don't "project" well to the majors according to them but keep those guys that they do feel strongly about, they will be left with the same exact situation they're in now. The only team I can think of in the majors that is not the Yankees or Red Sox that has been able to do what the White Sox would be trying to do is the Phillies. They finished in 2nd or 3rd place for like 5 straight seasons, Gillick came on for Ed Wade, and the first move he made was dealing Thome for Rowand, Gonzalez, and Haigwood. They had some dude named Ryan Howard waiting in the wings. On top of that, they had Utley at 2B, Rollins at SS, Burrell in LF, and Abreu in RF - who they traded in 2006 along with Cory Lidle for 4 prospects, none of whom did much of anything in the majors (though Monasterios looks OK for the Dodgers). They still had Brett Myers and Cole Hamels in the rotation too, and a young Madson coming up. There had a good, young core of players to build around, so it didn't take much, and they were STILL selling off. The White Sox don't have an offensive core like that. It's going to take quite a bit more to build something in Chicago. I still think it's a lot easier to rebuild/repair an offense than to find quality/young starting pitching. I guess a lot of this is dependent on Peavy, whether he can return to 1/2 starter form and/or be traded to free up payroll. Of course, we'd prefer the former, because in all likelihood that money wouldn't remain in the payroll if we tank. Looking at things optimistically, we are set offensively with Rios (because we have no choice), Quentin, Ramirez, Dunn, Beckham and Konerko. Viciedo (and possibly Jordan Danks) can take the place of Juan Pierre eventually. That means we merely need to find a catcher and 3B. We have Danks/Buehrle/E. Jackson to trade in order to get there. Of course, if Peavy and Rios DON'T ever return to form, we're absolute screwed for another 2-3 years. Not much of a choice but to have faith that both of them eventually will be fine. Same with Gordon. With a rotation of Peavy, Floyd, Sale, Humber and another young prospect that we get in return for Danks/Buehrle/Jackson, we COULD be okay. The other area where we MIGHT be able to get something in return is trading Thornton, but it would be dangerous to do so since Sale will be in the rotation and we don't have anything close to legitimate proxies for them in our minor league system. And yes, that leaves a rotation with four huge question marks in Peavy, Sale, Humber and mystery "major league ready" pitching prospect. The Royals have been confronting that type of situation with their starting rotation for nearly 15 years and have never adequately filled in their back 3 starters.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 10, 2011 -> 11:27 PM) I just want to say that for the White Sox to get to the point that you guys want, it's going to take, at the very minimum, 5 years. Said changes would require a complete organizational shift in philosophy, because what they're doing in the minors, from top to bottom, clearly is not preparing these players well enough for the major leagues. So you have to bring in new coaches, new front office personnel, and new players. It's going to take 3-5 years to get those players prepared for what the White Sox want them to do at the major league level, and then you have to worry about getting the right players in place at the highest level. Perhaps this is something you can incorporate along the way, but I don't believe that. The Yankees and Red Sox have been able to get away from it because they've spent anywhere between 50-100% more than the rest of the league during these transitional periods. That's not to say that the White Sox aren't spending at all - they quite clearly are - but they simply don't have the resources to "purchase" playoff appearances. The teams with similar payrolls to them are teams like the Cubs, Dodgers, Angels, and Mets - no surprise that they are all in the 3 largest markets in the country - and those teams have only been so-so at getting to the playoffs and only the Angels - 10 years ago - have had success in the playoffs, perhaps suggesting that part of their success had to do with the suckage of the A's, Rangers, and Mariners as opposed to them actually being very good. It doesn't surprise me in the least that they struggled last year when a couple other good teams came along and it won't surprise me this year if they finish 3rd in the division. The Sox are also similar to the Twins, Tigers, and Giants who have had varying (used quite loosely) degrees of success over the past 2-5 years. Oh, and this is by far the team's highest payroll ever, by like $20 mill. Every other young and successful team around the league has taken their lumps, and they've usually done so for around 10 years. I don't think it would take the Sox 10 years because they do have the financial capabilities to make it work, but it certainly shouldn't surprise anyone if it does. If they were to sell off and go into a complete rebuild, it's going to be at the expense of the major league team until like 2016 at the very earliest. There are going to be an exorbitant amount of people who are upset about it and attendance will almost certainly drop to the bottom 3rd of the league again. We're already in the bottom 3rd of attendance, it's just that we can generate higher revenues due to our market, broadcast rights/regional sports network/WGN, average ticket prices, promotions/advertising, etc. The 80's rebuilding effort was painful but finally ended with Thomas, Ventura, McDowell, Sosa, Alvarez, Radinsky, etc., arriving at the same time. We "rebuilt" in a way after the 97/98 seasons (it was kind of a two year movement of dumping higher salaries) and were back in the playoffs by 2000 with a team led by Thomas, Konerko, Ordonez and El Caballo. I'd say 3 years with our payroll and the Twins falling apart too, although there's always the possibility that the Indians and Royals will delay our success until 2016 or 2017. You just wonder how much the Indians' payroll can come up....they're going to have to have success for 2-3 seasons in a row to start closing in on their 1990's-2002 attendance numbers with all the consecutive sellouts. Otherwise, they'll have to continue to part with their higher priced pieces like Carmona as they get into Years 5 & 6 of their contracts.

I think the exact quote is, "because that's the way we roll."

Even Wright is only signed through 2012, unless there's an option. Looks like there is (for 2013), for $16 million...but I still think it would be impossible to compete in the next two years with the payroll inflexibility carrying the likes of Peavy and Rios. Not if we had to trade away all of those players as well. It's better in our case to add 3-4-5 players like we did in 2005 instead of 1 superstar.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ May 10, 2011 -> 10:55 PM) They can keep Beltran. I'd give up the franchise for Reyes and Wright. But not for 1/2 season of Reyes when we're going absolutely nowhere. And Kyle Farnsworth walks in the winning run in CLE. Figures.

QUOTE (flavum @ May 10, 2011 -> 10:52 PM) Who hangs up first? Sox get Reyes, Wright and Beltran Mets get Alexei, Morel, Viciedo, Flowers, Floyd, Sale I kid. They're going to lose Reyes after this year, so they need a SS. They definitely don't want Beltran or his salary, think of him as more dispensable than Rios. Except for losing Wright, gaining Alexei, Viciedo, Floyd and Sale would be a huge win for NY. With Wright included, it still favors the Mets. I know, I know, just kidding. Might as well have something to speculate about for the next 9-10 months.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 10, 2011 -> 10:47 PM) Morel's defense is as good as advertised...not! He's made Teahen look like Robin Ventura. Better than Snopek, NOOOOrton or The Mailman? I think Morel's hovering in the low 500's for OPS. In retrospect, they would have been better off keeping Uribe after 2008, with Beckham at 2B from the very beginning, as many projected when he was drafted. Bases loaded in CLE, no outs, bottom of the 9th, tie ballgame. Looks like they still won't have a single loss at home since the first two games against us. That's crazy. Now one out. At least DET is beating Minnesota so we're only the 29th worst team for another day/night. Smart money has to be on DET vs. CLE for the division.

Well, so much for the winning streak. Looks like for all our "progress" in the last week, we'll have only managed to pick up one-half game on the Indians. Before this past weekend, I think we'd lost ground in the standings every day (or stayed even) since around April 21st or something like that.

We have to look at Mitchell as a "long term" prospect, it's simple. Before his injury, many saw him as a replacement for Pierre after this season. That's obviously not going to happen now, so there's simply no sense in him continuing to struggle at Winston-Salem. Of course it's a demotion, but it's better for him to play ANYWHERE right now where he can rebuild his confidence a bit instead of just falling backwards at a 45 degree angle into an abyss.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ May 10, 2011 -> 01:34 AM) I would assume so. His name is Delino DeShields Jr. lol. In the box score, it just showed DeShields. Obviously, it could have been a cousin or relative, but it's not a common name obviously in baseball.

Imagine if the White Sox had had to use 12 players from their AA and AAA rosters this year. It wouldn't be pretty, it hasn't been for the Twins. Pavano sucks, Morneau's a shadow of his former self, Mauer's new girlfriend is the DL and Young's on the DL as well, THome is ouchy, Cuddyer has something like 0 homers and 4 RBI's (0 for 20 with RISP), they have ZERO middle relief, Nathan has lost his closer's job, Alexi Casilla and Tolbert are getting a ton of AB's along with the likes of Butera and Rene Rivera, Repko, Tosoni, Hoey, Luke Hughes, D. Hughes, Burnett, etc. This isn't your usual Twins team, that's for sure. It's a miracle they're not 12-16 games below .500, to be honest. Blackburn and Liriano were both in danger of losing their spots in the rotation and now they're both on mini-rolls.

@LAA 2 games (1-1) @Oakland 3 games (1-2) TEX (1-1) CLE (1-1) LAD (2-1) If we can manage to go 6-6 our next 12 games, they've bought themselves a reprieve for the moment. But then comes the really challenging part. AT Texas (3) AT Toronto (4) AT Boston (3) DETROIT (the same team we've lost about 8 games in a row to) Somehow, we have to go 12-10 in our next 22 before our next long homestand, which would put us at 6 games under .500. And then we have to figure out a way to beat the Tigers. At that point, we MIGHT be relevant again in the division race.

Andrew, I think everyone realizes it. That's why everyone has been so despondent and apathetic so far this season, along with our atrocious minor league system that offers no quick remedies, with the possible exception of Viciedo.

QUOTE (Andrew @ May 9, 2011 -> 11:16 PM) None of that made sense... Why would you change anything? Peavy... Let HIM middle relief/long man... In conclusion - Screw Peavy in '11 until he proves. So far, all we do is pay him to get operations anyway (and talk....big). I wouldn't, I was replying to GREG. There's no point in putting Peavy in the bullpen. The only way we get any value (or potential trade/dump) from Peavy is as a starter. Period. He's not used to the rhythm of working as a reliever. It would be silly to start doing that now coming off a major injury. So far, all we do is pay insurance premiums to pay ourselves back for all the time he's missed.

QUOTE (Andrew @ May 9, 2011 -> 11:12 PM) Who cares. They need to go like 15-3 to be relevant. If they do that at LA, at Oak, TEX, CLE, LAD (NL), at Texas, at Toronto and at Boston, they'll be back in the conversation as the best team in baseball.

Why would we make Jackson the closer when the job is clearly Sergio's? Makes zero sense, especially from a future trade possibility standpoint. I think they'll just have to take it series to series with Peavy. I bet the Las Vegas odds don't favor him making 25+ starts for the Sox this year. LOL at Angels' announcers. Chris Sale reminds them of a LH Mike MacDougal. Please, don't jinx him with that comparison. Where/how did Sale lose 3-5 MPH on his fastball?

That looks more like the Alexei Ramirez from last year. Nice play, made it look relatively routine. I'm just wondering now how many runs our bullpen will give up? Don't want to give any momentum to the Angels. Sale warming. Angels had only given up 3 homers TOTAL in the previous 7 home games at the BIG A.

QUOTE (Real @ May 9, 2011 -> 10:52 PM) we'll find out about 8 or so games from now, because if they have they'll be right around .500 We better bring our bats against the Rangers and Indians if the weather heats up at USCF. So now Gray and Pena get to audition for them to decide who stays on the big league roster?

Heckuva defensive play by Bourjos. Alex, you got robbed. Nice to see some of our hitters going the opposite way the last 3-4 games. Beckham with his 7th double. Most runs since we scored 9 against the Rays on April 21st. That seems like a LONG time ago.