caulfield12

If nothing else, Penny dated Alyssa Milano. That's enough for me to give him props. Any girl who looks like that who's also really into baseball is cool with me.

587, 606 and 486 OPS numbers coming to the plate. Ouch. And then there's Rios. AJ=Thome/Dunn/Kotsay/Erstad, 4-3 out syndrome. Austin Jackson going through the dreaded "Sophomore Slump" that Beckham and 90% of rookies succumb to. Except on defense. Dadgummit.

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 23, 2011 -> 03:37 PM) Rios is swinging in the same spot every time, regardless of what type of pitch it is. Maybe it's time to reconstruct his swing, as there's nothing to lose right now. Which is a scary proposition, because this is precisely what Walker said he wouldn't do in 2009 after we'd acquired him....not until the off-season. So now what? You just have to wait...if they have to send Beckham down for swing reconstruction, it will be ugly. Rios doesn't strike me as the type of player who will be easily willing to do something like that, either. It's not as simple as merely changing his hands and bat position, I think he's too comfortable with that to change when it has been "imprinted" into his muscle memory. If it's anything like what Tiger Woods has gone through 3 times in his career, it will take 12-18 months to see any real progress and signs of light at the end of the tunnel.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Apr 23, 2011 -> 10:41 AM) The Sox are only in it every year because they have the most resources in the division (their payroll). It really has nothing to do with KW; it's actually the opposite. KW is the reason we have this ceiling where we are in it almost every year, but not winning it. For all the good trades KW has made, he and this organization has drafted horrendously and developed players horrifically. The Sox will never be a consistent winner with KW because the Sox don't draft and develop. Unless you can spend like the Yankees and Red Sox, you need to draft and develop well. And actually the Sawks and Yankees do draft and develop well. It's also boggles my mind that the Sox are willing to spend so much on payroll yet they consistently neglect spending on foreign free agents and the draft. Like Ordonez, Carlos Lee, Tadahito Iguchi, Shingo Takatsu, Alexei Ramirez and Dayan Viciedo? If there's ONE huge issue every Sox fan SHOULD have, it's with the Wilder/Dominican fiasco and the fact we haven't been able to get any prospects out of Venezuela when it's Ozzie's homeland. Nor, in the end, has Ozzie been able to use his connections to get any free agents here, other than maybe someone like Omar Vizquel. I guess you have to give Guillen SOME credit for being able to get the Freddy Garcia deal done, that's one occasion that can be cited. Who's the last Dominican prospect we developed? Jesus Pena? And for Venezuela, Clevelan Santeliz? Pretty abysmal. If Sale and Beckham both become stars, that's a huge improvement from the draft picks of 2000-2007. And certainly, we've never gotten involved in a "posting war" for one of the Japanese stars, but you could argue that unless you're the Red Sox or Yankees, doing so hasn't been so wise unless we're talking about a "once in a lifetime" player in his prime like Ichiro Suzuki.

Even with Baltimore and Seattle the last half decade? Oakland really hasn't been good for at least five years, either. The odds would be about the same of winning the AL West, considering only four teams....albeit the Rangers and Angels look super tough now. Yes, the Sox have had the highest or second highest payroll each year since KW took over. And yes, I'm fairly certain that the division has been home to 2 of the worst 3 teams in the AL in every year, too. That's only true for 2009. Last year it was Seattle, Balt and then KC. In 2008, Seattle, Baltimore then Detroit (KC and Oak one game better), 2007 Tampa, Baltimore and KC, and 2006, TB, KC and Baltimore.

Hanna...pretty good, a little bit like one of the Bourne or Bond movies, but not very much action, great film-making, cinematography and performances but not really a movie I'd ever want to watch again Insidious...very good horror movie, ending is so-so but I definitely enjoyed it more than most in that genre Scream 4....I actually wasn't as annoyed as some with the self-referential "meta" comments, but with the 3 stars aging, it did feel a little bit....stale, is the word...and the ending, while a pretty big surprise, was also not one of the best...more of a wait for the DVD movie

In all fairness, we've done plenty of damage against Verlander in the last five seasons. This line-up is just in one of their collective slides, nothing new for the last decade. And the opposing starters have a LOT to do with it. Just because you've faced someone 10 times doesn't mean you can then use that knowledge every time out to beat them. If that were true, then we would have turned the corner against Liriano, Santana or Sabathia a long time ago. Just like college basketball teams that get more and more knowledgeable about their opponents when they play 3 or more times in one season, it actually in many ways gets harder and not easier to beat someone like that. Think of it from the flip side. Everyone's seen what Mark Buehrle does for the last 10 years. There are no secrets about it. His stuff now is basically what your average high schooler in a top notch program features. Yet he's had 2 no hitters and has gone through numerous teams like a buzzsaw during his career. It's not that those teams weren't prepared to face him, they were just out-executed, out-thought and usually swung at his pitches or got themselves out. That's the nature of hitting and pitching. Normally, over 5-6-7 innings, you'll take 3 runs off Verlander (as long as it's not 0-1-2 runs), hope your own starter holds them down and turn it over to the bullpens.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Apr 23, 2011 -> 07:10 AM) I forgot about Mark's contract kicker, so that could be a problem. If Jackson posts a 3.5 ERA and the acquiring team only has to pay him $4 million or so, yes, I think you'd get a very solid prospect in return. Dunn has a heck of a track record and I don't think his contract would provide much of a barrier, but yeah, you might have to hold on to him for a year or so and then deal him. Thornton has been one of the best setup men in the league for a few years now. I don't think the contract extension really would scare many teams away. Danks/Floyd/Quentin would probably be the biggest draws, and I think the haul would be pretty decent, along with Jackson. You're (the acquiring team) guaranteeing at least $12 million that Matt Thornton will get it back together again. How many teams out there could afford to take that risk? For a set-up guy? If you do manage to find a trading partner, you're not going to get much back in return, just a salary dump (which does have some value, except in putting a competitive team back out there as soon as possible, assuming the payroll would consequently take a huge hit again). If we traded him anytime in the last 2-3 seasons, with his bargain contract, we could have gotten back a good haul, but the devil's in the timing. Otherwise, we could have gotten something back for Jenks or Crede.

I think you'd have to cut the difference in the middle. It all comes down to what you can get back for Danks and Quentin based on his hot start. You have to find the right matches with teams needing pitching (easier) than someone needing a defense-limited corner OFer/DH in CQ. Ramirez and Beckham, logically, wouldn't be traded....although I can see some arguing that Ramirez will be out of his prime by the time the team's competitive again. You could definitely shop him, but I doubt they want to go back to Beckham at SS, it would have to be Escobar or another prospect we acquire, and that severely puts a crimp in the offense. Jackson could get you something back in return, definitely. Floyd, as well. Buehrle, Konerko and Dunn, not so much. You're still left with all those contracts like Rios, Peavy, Pierre, Teahen, AJ, Crain, etc., that aren't going anywhere regardless, so the end result is just cosmetic and it's hard to totally rebuild even if you want to. Trading Sale, Santos or even Thornton (after his slow start)? None of those are logical moves, either.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Apr 23, 2011 -> 06:52 AM) I think with sabermetrics becoming more and more mainstream, a lot of people are just looking at stats to determine how guys in AA and AAA project. Jeremy Reed and Jeff Abbott had minor league hitting stats that would project them to be perennial all stars. It didn't happen. Josh Fields was going to be a star because of how he lit up some pitchers in some meaningless games, then the league realized they didn't have to throw him strikes. The biggest jump isn't from A to AA or AA to AAA its from any level to MLB. Personally, I would like the Sox as an organization to put some value on making contact. Its not like they are developing 40 homer guys or 30 homer guys or even 20 homer guys right now, and I'm not emphasizing small ball or bunting. I know contact all around baseball has be de-valued for a long while, although I laugh that a strikeout is just an out like any other out. Its OK some guys strike out a lot, but they should be run producers who also walk a lot. Not every hit is a rocket. If Jordan Danks struck out 80 times instead of 150 and made contact those other 70 ABs some of those 70 would find a hole even if they were weakly hit. Which was the essence of the problem with guys like Brian Anderson or even Getz K-ing like they were 30 homer guys. We can afford to have guys like Morel and Pierre and AJ, we're not going to have 7-8 twenty homer guys again in our line-up. However, if you start having Beckham, Rios and Ramirez K-ing 100+ times without making productive outs, the whole structure of the line-up becomes severely hamstrung. Outside of Quentin and Konerko, nobody's been hitting, so there are targets throughout the line-up for criticism. Not to parrot Rongey and DJ/Farmer and Hawk/Stone, but we've had a long string of facing some really good starting pitchers, since the beginning of the A's series. Farmer made an interesting comment about Morel not being the same since facing Jared Weaver, and Beckham and Rios both look totally lost. Dunn, you know, somehow ends up with his numbers, but hopefully he learns the league quickly and those are Albert Belle 1997 "meaningless" stats where the season's already been lost.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Apr 22, 2011 -> 07:00 PM) Please, give me a reason? Is it his numbers this season? Because then Chris Sale sucks too. Look, Hudson isn't a surefire Hall of Fame lock, but he should be a damn good number three starter for the Diamondbacks in the NL. I was indifferent towards the trade. I still think it was an overpay, but Jackson could very well be our ace this year so I accepted it. Threads like this are just to whip your dick out and yell "I WAS RIGHT!" and bait people into reacting. Right now, if I had one game, I'm taking E-Jax. If I'm planning for the future, it's Hudson. If we somehow resign EJax, get a good pitching prospect, or draft one with whatever picks we hopefully can get for him (I believe he is a Type-B FA right now) then we win the deal. If we don't, we lose, because Hudson represented value. It's like the Charlotte Bobcats pick for the Bulls, you could strike gold or you don't and Hudson looked like he had damn good value until we called him up, then got it back in Arizona. Had he bounced back like that here we'd have been talking about Chris Sale in the rotation and trading Hudson in a package for a closer, probably Heath Bell. The problem is that we'll never know if Hudson or McCarthy or anyone could have done the same things if they'd stayed here. Heck, you can add Kip Wells and Josh Fogg while you're at it. We only know what Jackson has done since the trade. I can't imagine a rotation of Danks-Floyd-Buehrle-Sale-Humber would be doing all that much better. You'd have to argue that Heath Bell would have been available straight up for Hudson AND that Sale could actually outpitch E-Jax this season. We can argue with Bell they would have had 3-4 less blown saves, but it's all murky conjecture. I don't think you can state either with anything close to certainty, especially the idea of Sale outpitching Jackson in 2011 as a starter.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Apr 23, 2011 -> 03:06 AM) I believe it is the home team. And they probably would rather play it later in the season when the weather is better and they can draw more at the gate. And Morneau, Mauer and Nathan are healthy and Cuddyer's not hitting for about the same OPS as Gordon Beckham. With their luck, another Liriano, Pavano or Duensing will have already popped up from the minors (Kyle Gibson?) and they'll sweep right through the Indians in a second-half make-up game. http://www.startribune.com/sports/twins/120519229.html Game won't be made up until July or September. Morneau and Young expected back for today, would have both been out last night.

Ummmm, okay. I sure hope you're right and they come back from Detroit and New York still within 5-6 games of first place.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Apr 23, 2011 -> 04:09 AM) I've always seen that he's generally regarded as a better defensive outfielder, especially in CF, and he's probably a bit better offensively too (though he seems to be a guy that, at least at one time and perhaps still today, was really overrated offensively). He developed that reputation with Indians early in his career and is still riding on those coat-tails, to some extent. Because he's one of those "Sox killer" guys, he tends to get overrated just a bit, but he's a legit starter on about 8-10 MLB teams.

I think they're going with Crisp because he's a better top-of-the-order "igniter" and has the veteran track record, but the dude's been injury prone for most of the last five years. Sweeney probably has about the same amount of speed (as Crisp) and is a pretty good athlete in his own right, but he's not the basestealer that Crisp is...and his career OPS is a rather pedestrian .728. Maybe, just maybe, that's good enough for CF, but not for one of the corners, at least in USCF. I guess now the argument is whether you see more upside down the road in a Sweeney, who has a fairly limited ceiling, as you acknowledged (albeit pretty consistent in his numbers) or someone like a Milledge or Viciedo. Many have seen Sweeney as the type of player who's just not quite good enough offensively for KW to believe in him, a little bit of the Aaron Rowand syndrome, where he had to prove himself year after year in order to become the starter. I always liked him more than Reed or Cunningham, but the jury's still out.

It actually changed quite a bit after a 1 for 8 performance the last couple of games. Poor Chris, it was only a one point difference between his career average and 2011 earlier when I check it this week. Career .636 2011 .621 So he's regressed a bit with the Royals, ha. So much for the Greg Walker ruins all hitters theory.

An NL GM (Sandy Alderson) who's not much of a believer in the bunt...we know this won't be Ozzie's next landing spot now Which brings us to Wednesday night’s game, when catcher Josh Thole bunted with none out and Jose Reyes aboard in the ninth. Alderson dislikes bunts. They waste the game’s most precious commodity: an out. Here, the Mets gave up two outs when Thole popped into a double play. “I think if you probably talk to Terry, he’ll tell you the same thing,” Alderson said. “That wasn’t necessarily a standard approach for him in that situation. Alderson did not feel it was necessary to talk to manager Terry Collins about the decision. He believes those under him deserve latitude. If an over-reliance on bunting occurred — i.e. a leadoff single regularly followed by a bunt from a position player — then he would intervene. One incident did not alarm him. “I try to not to express it in the context of a play that didn’t go well, immediately afterward,” Alderson said. R.A. Dickey sparked something resembling a brush fire Wednesday night, when he said that his team needed to stop grousing about how much talent they had and begin making changes. Alderson had no problem with that sentiment. “I think that was very candid and heartfelt,” Alderson said. “I was happy to hear it coming from a player.” www.nj.com/sports

Kila Ka'aihue will be available soon if he keeps hitting so poorly. Not that we need any more 1B/3B/DH types.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Apr 22, 2011 -> 08:39 PM) Has Coop done jack s*** with a reliever since Thornton? Santos? Sale?

QUOTE (DukeofChicago88 @ Apr 22, 2011 -> 08:37 PM) Yes leave Pena in Ozzie. Totally the right call no doubt. Who would you have brought it there? Crain? With a 3 or 4 run deficit? Really? Ohman?

Thanks for eliminating all doubts in this game, Pena. 87 MPH batting practice fastball. I think it's time for him to be released. Unfortunately, he's our only insurance for an injury in the starting rotation.

Quentin on fire. The rest of the White Sox offense torched by Verlander. Typical Buehrle the last 2-3 years. Brent Morel and Beckham sacrificed by Guillen to the baseball gods. Wow, the Royals just scored five against Derek Holland, highlighted by a Brayan Pena homer to tie it.

I think I'd rather see the Miller Genuine Draft commercial where the guy buys a round of bikinis for the girls...or is that only a radio ad?

Verlander is an absolute freak. He's still throwing 98-99 MPH in this weather after well over 100 pitches. Not sure how good that is for his career longevity, Leyland. Well, so much for ever being able to trade away Alex Rios.

Sox deciding to make it a game finally.