caulfield12

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ Sep 8, 2010 -> 06:46 PM) After all of the drama between Williams and Ozzie this season, along with the fact that all-time Reinsdorf favorite Tony LaRussa will be looking for a job this off-season AND is interested in trying his hand at being a GM, I would not be surprised to see KW bumped upstairs in order to accommodate LaRussa. That is my bold prediction! Bring back Royce Clayton, any Alomar, Lofton and D'Angelo Jimenez please. Actually, do we really have a lot of faith that JR is going to spend $3 million per year on a GM, because that's what LaRussa's market price is...

Josh Fields update (just for amusement in this sorry game) 6/15 (.400) 1 HR, 1 RBI, 5 K's

Can we have Josh Fields back please? What's the market for the worst 3B in all of baseball (well, maybe better than Viciedo, although Dayan at least has the youth argument on his side there) with a low 700's OPS? I mean, Teahen's in the prime of his career and he's 0.20 points of OPS ahead of a 43 year old Omar Vizquel. Just egregiously bad. If he could defend, you can live with it, assuming there's no Kotsay in the line-up.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Sep 8, 2010 -> 06:39 PM) Especially without Cabrera. And Ordonez, and Carlos Guillen, etc.

QUOTE (southsideirish71 @ Sep 8, 2010 -> 06:36 PM) Kenny needs to do a better job of building a roster. We basically played a man down on offense all year long because he listened to the whims of a man who is pretending we are in the NL. Ozzie proofing the lineup is the key for any executive who is above him. Role players especially lefty marginal players become keys in our lineup. Oddly imagine if we took the money we spent on Manny, added Kotsay and Teahan. We might of had a real DH. It's obviously a problem when the manager has more say than the GM, if that's actually to be believed (which I'm not 100% convinced KW would sacrifice a season with this kind of pitching to make a point to JR and Ozzie but who knows). Look at the issue with TLR and Rasmus/Pujols for another organization with similar "power structure" issues. Seems LaRussa really talks up Jocketty in the papers and uses any chance he can to either remain silent on Mozeliak or diss him...you would think the GM's were more important in the NL Central race than the players and teams playing on the field.

QUOTE (JohnCangelosi @ Sep 8, 2010 -> 06:33 PM) Why is Manny not playing today? Sore hand after being hit yesterday???? Ramirez is playing, he's just hitting 5th instead of 3rd, where he's getting about as much protection from Mark Teahen as the A-Team gives to...forget it. Basically zero.

And now Konerko's dinged up with the ouchy back, I bet his homer totals the final 3-4 weeks are going to suffer quite a bit. Still, his overall numbers are going to be awesome compared to expectations coming into this season.

Andruw Jones=814 OPS Alex Rios=811 OPS Obviously Rios is the better player, but this is one reason that there are other valuable stats to look at, rather than just OPS or SLG.

Well, it's not like our offense has exactly shown up against Cy Bonderman. Harrelson's former favorite crush. At least with our starting rotation already logjammed, KW can't sign him as a FA this winter.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Sep 8, 2010 -> 06:22 PM) huh? Baldwin was a decent pitcher for the White Sox. He was a prototypical “keeps his team in the game” pitcher, a guy who, while not dominant, does well enough to give his team a good chance of winning the game most times around. He usually stayed roughly around the league average for earned runs allowed. His best season was in 2000, when he won 14 games and lost 7, with an earned run average of 4.65, a little better than league average that season. He made the All Star Team in 2000, as the White Sox made the playoffs. Baldwin was going to be a free agent after the 2001 season, and in 2001, the White Sox had an off year after making the playoffs in 2000. So they decided to trade Baldwin at the trade deadline in 2001 to a team (the Los Angeles Dodgers) who had a better chance of making the playoffs in exchange for a few low level prospects, rather than lose Baldwin as a free agent after the season and get nothing in return for him. The prospects were nothing too notable: Jeff Barry, Gary Majewski and Onan Masaoka. Majewski, actually, was drafted by the White Sox and sent to the Dodgers earlier in 2001, so they were just getting him back. Barry had played in the big leagues for a little bit in the late 90s, mostly for the Rockies… Here’s the kicker, though. The White Sox did not MEAN to acquire Barry!!!! No, the White Sox meant to acquire young Dodger minor league pitcher Jonathan Berry!!! The White Sox even issues a press release saying it was Berry that they had received, while it was not. White Sox general manager Kenny Williams noted at the time: There was a misunderstanding on reports. "We were looking at a report on the pitcher and we didn’t have one on the guy we got. We’ll honor the deal." Luckily for the White Sox, while Barry never made the major leagues for the White Sox, Berry never made the majors, either. The best player in the deal turned out, most likely, to be Majewski, who the White Sox traded to the (then) Montreal Expos in 2004 along with pitcher Jon Rauch in exchange for Carl Everett, who helped the White Sox win the 2005 World Series. Amusingly enough, Majewski was involved in ANOTHER trade snafu of sorts when he was traded from the Washington Nationals (that’s who the Montreal Expos became) to the Cincinnati Reds in 2006. At the time, Majewski was a 26-year-old reliever having a strong season after following two strong years as a reliever. So the Reds thought they were getting the tough relief pitcher than their bullpen needed.

Raburn was totally lost in the shuffle the first half of the season. Now he's become the most dangerous hitter in their line-up after Cabrera...actually much hotter than Miguel the last 4-6 weeks. Boesch has really done a 2nd half fade job, not quite as bad as Chris Shelton but I wouldn't call him a sure thing for 2011.

QUOTE (11and1 @ Sep 8, 2010 -> 07:14 PM) Do it now. Teahen plays, we lose. It never f***ing fails. Two more years of this loser? KW's Worst. Deal. Ever. 1. Todd Ritchie for Wells/Fogg/Lowe 2. Any Swisher deal 3. Ray Durham/draft picks for Jon Adkins 4. acquiring the wrong Berry/Barry from the Dodgers because KW spelled the name wrong on the list sent to MLB, I think that was the one where we received the unforgettable Onan Masaoka from LA 5. Billy Koch trade, although we got Cotts out of it...Koch REALLY sucked for us, big time, but he was a "fireballer" after Foulke, lol

QUOTE (CWSOX45 @ Sep 8, 2010 -> 07:10 PM) I don't often criticize moves by KW, but what on earth were they thinking on this one? He doesn't pass the eye test at 3B, and the UZR backs that up. Teahen is not a ML 3B. Plain and simple. Buddy Bell made the recommendation based on his time working with Teahen previously. Supposedly, Teahen would be a better hitter when offered more protection in the line-up. Supposedly, Buddy Bell was going to revolutionize our minor league system. Still waiting on that one.

And think how good KW did signing A. Jones, Putz, Vizquel and Santos. How likely is that to repeat itself? Of course, NOT SIGNING Thome might have undone half the good those other four moves made.

And Danks at 70 pitches after 4 IP ensures that the bullpen will be entering this one early as well. I'm definitely not in favor of giving him anything resembling Lester or Sabathia money until he proves he can pitch through situations like this...on the surface, he's got a good ERA, but he just hasn't pitched well enough on a consistent basis when we've needed him to step up and be the stopper in the 2nd half. We can blame Teahen for some of this, but he shouldn't have given up 4 runs there.

And away we go...the dreaded crooked number. Is Harrelson announcing? How is he taking this putrid play the last two days?

That was an 86 MPH cutter that didn't cut much and was up and right out over the heart of the plate. Not great pitch selection or execution there. I'm starting to think Jackson is the only one on the Sox who can consistently pitch in and out of trouble.

What did Teahen do now? Oh, I see, another huge error and what could have been a double play ball, right? I'm sure Greg is laughing somewhere now. Well, 75% laughing and 25% pissed.

I'm 99% sure that if Kotsay is not on the team next year (probably will be the starting 1B) that Teahen becomes the #1 whipping boy. Unless it's Peavy because he's soaking up so much money and not pitching, but injury is so much less fun to argue about than just sucking. On the bright side, Minnesota's payroll will be larger with two closers in Capps and Nathan, so I can't imagine they'd have a ton of money to spend. What would be hilarious is if the White Sox brought back Thome and then he was as bad as projected by many experts.

QUOTE (daggins @ Sep 7, 2010 -> 09:58 PM) I meant it as a compliment, believe it or not. 95+ mph fastball, good movement, he threw at least one sick offspeed pitch in the inning. He has probably the best stuff of any of our minor league pen guys. He could eventually be a Pena replacement after Tony is non-tendered this offseason. Right now, we already have to replace Jenks and probably Putz. It's doubtful Pena will be non-tendered because it makes the Allen trade look pretty awful for KW. Maybe? Just depends on what's available/affordable on the FA market. If you subtract Sale from the bullpen, and Pena, where are we going to fill FOUR slots? I don't know that we have one minor league reliever you could actually depend upon. And that would leave only Linebrink and Thornton. Not good.

QUOTE (11and1 @ Sep 7, 2010 -> 09:10 PM) This season so far would make it silly to give up until we are mathematically eliminated. I'm in for the duration. But tonight's "losing ugly" flashback to early June is distressing. The only way to lose at this time of year is to get beat straight up. Even a one run heartbreaker gives you something to build on. Nobody showed up up tonight. The good news is we own KC this year.... 8-7 against KC is owning them? I'll have more of whatever you had for breakfast.

Twins taking all the drama out of tonight's action. Well, there's always the Padres/Giants saga. Or Rasmus in STL.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Sep 7, 2010 -> 08:02 PM) Did you know in 1990 KC had the highest payroll in baseball? Ewing Kauffman >>> David Glass You can't have two more polarizing figures...Kauffman being universally loved and respected, Glass vilified for his Wal-Mart, cost-cutting, bottom line ways. He just doesn't look like the kind of guy you even think of having a beer with.

Game, Twins. Unless Liriano or the bullpen has a meltdown. But the Royals have never played well in Minnesota. Actually, they've never played well anywhere since the early 90's. Thome OPS up to 1.024. Two walks. And even his 4-3 "shift" groundouts to short RCF were more interesting than Kotsay's 8 hop rollovers.

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 7, 2010 -> 07:55 PM) KW really needs to be looking to trade Teahen this offseason. He's an awful fit in the AL, as he'd be much better off playing in the NL. But are you ready to commit to Morel or Viciedo for that position? Bringing back Vizquel? You can't think he could repeat anything close to a 700 OPS at age 44...interesting decision.