caulfield12

QUOTE (Andrew @ May 4, 2011 -> 09:03 PM) We've covered this. KW makes the team, Ozzie is the day to day and is responsible for the work environment. There is no reason that the "team" as constructed shouldn't be better than anyone in this division...by far. But watch 'em show for work and report to the manager. They don't report to KW. They report to Ozzie. As he trots them out to s***ty out (bunts) after out (steals) after out (matchups) after fail. Oh, and slump for weeks on end because it's "not coaches fault players can't recover from slumps" at the "major league level". Fire f***ing Ozzie, already. Fire Cora. Fire Walker. It's goddamn obvious nobody wants to even show up for work and try. That's on him - we already know players are spoiled, crying babies. That's every team. Maddon, Francona...plenty others don't become the worst team in baseball over a few slumps and prolonged losing like his team does...baggage over rivals (Twins), bigger payroll then the next by more than double.... (And I'm not comparing to the Twin THIS year, but they still managed to revive them). f***ing joke. [Wow, that felt good] Actually, we (in the AL Central Div.) have three $100,000,000+ payrolls for the first time, but only two pennants since 1997 (Sox and Tigers back-to-back) to show for it. Personally, I do agree that I'd rather see Ozzie and the coaches gone first. The main reason? 6-24 against the Twins since the second half of 2009 is simply unacceptable. That's the equivalent of the Bears beating the Packers 2 out of every 10 meetings. I'm 50/50 on KW. If they decide to change philosophy, I would prefer not to go with Hahn. I think they need someone more creative, who's acclimated to working with limited budgets. Let's not forget, Rick Hahn has spent most of his time with us cutting his teeth on $90-130 million rosters. That's definitely not going to be the situation for the new GM to work with going forward. Here's where I would raid Friedman's Rays staff, Beinfest/Hill in Florida, some of the Twins' minor league development people.

Here's another way of looking at it. Subtract all the bad moves over the last 2-3 seasons, let's see if we have a competitive roster. Rotation Danks Floyd Gio Gonzalez Buehrle Daniel Hudson Bullpen Clayton Richard (long man) Sox minor leaguer Sale (or in AAA starting) Crain Thornton S. Santos RF Ryan Sweeney SS Alexei Ramirez/Beckham LF Carlos Quentin 1B Paul Konerko CF Chris Young 3B Dayan Viciedo/Josh Fields DH Jermaine Dye/Br. Allen/Fields/Viciedo C AJ Pierzynski 2B Gordon Beckham/Ramirez Trying to figure out the line-up, it's pretty obvious why KW felt he had to go to Rios, Pierre, AJ and Teahen. At that point, seemingly they'd already decided Viciedo wasn't ready for the position. Then you have the lack of development internally at the catching position, leaving us with no viable everyday option but AJ. The pitching would definitely be better. The offense would be more enjoyable with the youthful presence, it's hard for me to argue it would actually be better, because Rios and Dunn are both very talented players. Of course, so is Chris B. Young. It definitely would be a more inexpensive payroll and provide much more flexibility. The starting rotation has a LOT of depth with Sale and Richard backing it up. Would we have been more excited if this was the Sox roster heading into 2011? Allen obviously could be replaced by someone like Johnny Damon fairly cheaply (or Vladimir Guerrero), making the starting line-up appear even more dangerous.

Saw The Cave of Forgotten Dreams (aka the White Sox 2011 Season in Review) by Werner Herzog in 3D at the Jeonju International Film Festival here in South Korea. Excellent, though-provoking documentary. Just saw THOR last night. The 3-D was disappointing (which ones haven't been except for Avatar, How to Train Your Dragon and a couple of others?) but I actually liked this movie a lot more than Fast Five, even though a majority of critics are favoring FF over Thor. Could definitely see the influence of Kenneth Branagh on Thor. It felt kind of like a hybrid between a typical superhero movie and Beowulf, actually. By the way, welcome officially to summer movie season. January-April was disappointing in many respects, there were a few decent dramas like Source Code, The Adjustment Bureau and Limitless, but hugely underwhelming box office.

Well, there's good news and bad news. Checking the schedule, it looks like we'll miss Pineda (which sucks, was actually looking forward to seeing him), Haren, Jared Weaver, Gio (again) and Brett Anderson. WHEW! I'm thinking it will be a 3-6 or 4-5 trip (being optimistic based on past Sox experiences out there), from the looks of things. Then again, 2-7 isn't out of the realm of possibility either, matching the 2001 White Sox (13-28/14-29) for worst run out of the gate in Sox history. Humber vs. King Felix (wonder what the early Las Vegas odds are on that one?) Floyd vs. Fister Buehrle vs. Bedard (Harrelson gets another chance to cream his pants over Bedard) E-JAX vs. Santana (seemingly winnable, depends on which versions of these two enigmatic pitchers show up) Danks vs. Pineiro Humber (POSSIBLY PEAVY) vs. THE DREADED CHATWOOD AGAIN Floyd vs. B. McCarthy (trip down memory lane) Buehrle vs. Ross (what's Mark's record out there again? it's the thing of nightmares or Tim Burton's dreams) E-JAX vs. Cahill

QUOTE (mmmmmbeeer @ May 4, 2011 -> 04:26 PM) No one on this board, no one in the press, no one in baseball thought this team, as constructed, would be this horrible. So how the hell can anyone fault KW for not knowing it was bad? What I see each game is a lack of preparedness, a lack of intensity, a lack of fundamentals, and a lack of confidence. None of these have anything, whatsoever, to do with the GM. They play that way because the young players that are brought up aren't prepared well enough. KW hired Bell, so he's accountable for the bottom line. They play that way because KW mixes in 6-10 different players per year from every organization in baseball (because our minor league system sucks). There's no cohesion, there's not a discernible "Sox Way" or identity of what our strategy is, there's no developing together in the minor leagues for 4+ seasons together and then another 6 seasons together at the major league level, so the players don't have trust and confidence in each other....a perfect example was sticking Teahen at 3B next to Ramirez last year. Because our minor league system sucked/sucks, he wasn't able to make the moves he needed at midseason last year. Acquiring Manny Ramirez and wasting what would be a huge bonus for a first round draft pick???

1. Chone Figgins, there's no argument about that, especially with his contract going forward 2. The RIOT/Theriot 3. Nyjer Morgan 4. Jose Lopez 5. Cesar Izturis maybe Erick Aybar 6. Vernon Wells (once again, based on contracts) 7. Gordon Beckham 8. Brandon Inge 9. Omar Infante 10. Miguel Tejada 11. Mark Ellis 12. Alcides Escobar (although I'd still rather have him than Pierre) 13. Raul Ibanez (like Chone, a no doubter) 14. Brendan Ryan 15. Will Venable 16. AJ Pierzynski 17. Alex Rios (before today) 18. James Loney 19. Derek Jeter (based on contract) 20. Rick Ankiel

Other than identifying Santos and acquiring him, there's nothing this F.O. has done well since 2008. You can argue Viciedo, Sale and Beckham all you want, but those aren't winning arguments for the time being.

Yeah, but the Yankees have roughly 2.5X our revenue stream to support that payroll. We will end up paring $40-50 million from our payroll if things continue like this. The Yankees would be adding players in our situation. There's simply zero tolerance over there for not at least making the playoffs, let alone winning the World Series each season.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 4, 2011 -> 04:13 PM) I'm not even going into detail about the Jackson/Hudson trade and the impact on our payroll, but I'm willing to bet that when we trade Jackson in 2 months, it will be for a player far below Hudson's caliber. Who we undoubtedly will have to pay 3-5X as much as we would have had to pay a cost-controlled Hudson over the next 5 years.

QUOTE (b-Rye @ May 4, 2011 -> 04:02 PM) Hmm think KW's gotta go. He built this team, and this team is out of it with worst record in baseball over a month into season. * He traded for injured AND reinjured Peavy, added around 15mil per in payroll * Signed Adam Dunn, similar to Thome after letting him go, had worse numbers than Thome in NL and costs around 15 mil per * Let Jenks walk, not a bad move but Will Ohman money could of resigned him * Linebrink signed to stupid contract, and we're still paying Linebrink to pitch on Braves in 2011 * Resigned AJ Perzynski, it was time to move on * Acquired Juan Pierre * Edwin Jackson and his plus salary acquired for Dan Hudson. * TEAHEN * WILL OHMAN We need a hungry team that wants to win, this roster reminds me of a Cubs team and I hate it and they SUCK. This team is a disgrace. Fire Kenny, Ozzie, Walker, Teahen, Pierre. This team needs some bold moves, get younger and get a few MLB ready players and maybe pull in some good prospects for Danks, Buehrle, Jackson. Maybe even Konerko, Quentin, Ramirez, Thorton, considering rest of team is un tradeable or untouchable. Agree with most, except bringing back Jenks (period) and Jenks willingness to sign for anything close to Ohman money....or in general, not coming back unless he was guaranteed a shot to be the closer again. Boston, he knew going in he wasn't getting that job over Papelbon or Bard.

1) Paying Juan Pierre $5 million this season. He made 3 physical/mental errors alone today, can't steal a base, has ZERO pop, no arm, has lost 2 steps now, blah blah blah. 2) Teahen, although he might have to earn that contract now with Morel seemingly headed back to Charlotte. 3) Tony Pena 4) Rios...and for failing to draft/develop a CF, namely holding onto Brian Anderson 5) Peavy 6) Ohman 7) AJ, paying him $6 million next season when he's way over the hill, can't throw out anyone, hardly ever drives the ball and is again rumored to be a clubhouse cancer when things aren't going well....this falls squarely on KW for not drafting or developing a catcher (Miguel Gonzalez and Tyler Flowers) It remains to be seen on the Thornton contract. Paying a set-up guy $5+ million per year with a multi-year contract in his 30's isn't always the wisest move, as KW learned with Linebrink and Dotel. Crain has been perhaps a little bit better than expected, as you don't see very much consistency from 7th and 8th inning guys over a 3-5 year basis. Dunn and Konerko, those moves were understandable but neither of those guys is easily moved. Buehrle won't get anything much back in return either. I don't see how we could be any worse with Viciedo as the DH, keeping the draft pick/s for Dunn, Hudson and Sale in the rotation. Arguably, De Aza would be doing better than Pierre (hard to do worse). At least we'd have 4/5th's of a starting rotation. I'm not even going to get into the Peavy fiasco again, it's too tiresome.

18,028. Vinny's Beverage Depot just cancelled its sponsorship due to concern about being associated with negativity over the remainder of the season.

Ummm. Yay, sort of. At least no DP.

QUOTE (Knackattack @ May 4, 2011 -> 03:09 PM) As soon as we are completely out of contention he will hit like 14 or 15 in a month. See Belle, Albert (Joey) RBI's in 1997.

Dadgummit Paulie, if you hit into a DP I'm going to sort of get upset. Kind of like the failed comeback Sunday with 1st/2nd, no outs and the heart of the order coming up. They want to make us care, they just can't quite pull it off.

Now how will the offense conspire NOT to score this run? Still not convinced he'll score unless it's a PB.

We managed to save Liriano and Blackburn their respective spots in the Twins' rotation. Both were in danger of being replaced by Slowey and possibly Gibson. This sucks. I would rather have SOME feeling instead of complete apathy. That damned ball Thornton gave up to Thome was the last time a Twins' game against the Sox kept me on the edge of my seat with any kind of tension or excitement.

Castro has good pop for his position, but he's woefully underutilized.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 4, 2011 -> 01:51 PM) Sox are notorious around baseball for not hustling down the line. Oh, just to watch Pablo Ozuna hustle down the line and start throwing the safe sign as he crosses the bag. A sight for sore eyes.

Who would actually want AJ at this point? I miss the days of corpseball. Really.

QUOTE (Tuna @ May 4, 2011 -> 01:41 PM) Also known as the two worst teams in baseball? I don't think you can say that anymore about the Twins after they came and left town with us left in their dust (yet again).

QUOTE (fathom @ May 4, 2011 -> 01:47 PM) I wonder when last time we threw a runner out at the plate was from the outfield Ken Griffey, Jr. in 2008

6-24 against the Twins since 2009. FIRE OZZIE. NOW. THIS SEASON IS DEAD.

6-24 That's our record over the last 30 games against MINNESOTA. 20% winning percentage. 32-130 extrapolated over a full season, haha. Ozzie should be fired for this number alone against our main rival.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 4, 2011 -> 01:38 PM) Agreed, and something else that bugs me is that if you bring in someone like Dunn, then you might as well try to become the 2010 Blue Jays and have a lineup full of mashers. Have an 7-8-9-1 every game with no power in the AL in our ballpark is just f***ing stupid. They almost have no choice but to insert Viciedo for Pierre and hope he can catch fire. You put Beckham back in the line-up, Teahen at 3B, that's all you can do. You almost consider Lillibridge over Pierre at this point if you're not willing to bring up Viciedo because of his OF defense.