caulfield12

It all depends on where the White Sox are positioned. If it's clear that Minnesota and Detroit are the class of the division, trading Hudson at midseason (like the reshuffling with Peavy and Rios) makes even less sense because last year you could make a legitimate argument we were close enough to first to justify it. Trading Flowers/Danks/Hudson is intuitively illogical if we're a .500 ballclub, because I really think Minnesota will be a 92-95 win team. DET, not so sure about 90, but they're definitely looking like they have more offensive firepower, a decent starting rotation and a pretty good bullpen. It's quite scary to think that a rehabbing Mitchell and Viciedo would be left as our only top prospects...and maybe a couple of DeLosSantos types emerge at the lower levels...someone like Thompson would have to light up the scouts' charts/reports. Floyd and Danks have proved that it always comes down to having good, young pitching...as someone else said, it's got to be a premium player (probably a hitter), but the problem is that we don't have much payroll flexibility to add a "premium" salary at this point, especially if we continue to play .500 ball and the crowd support in Chicago is more or less tepid in April/May/June. Berkman? How could we afford him, even for half the season?

I still think Linebrink has to prove he can protect 1-2-3 run leads in the 7th and 8th before any team would think about taking that contract. It would be one thing if it was just this season, but it's also 2011, correct? With the shift in the economic climate in the last two offseasons, I just think there's only about 5 teams in baseball that would dare to take a risk with Linebrink's contract at this latter stage in his career.

The same amount of time Colon and Contreras had.... Well, less time than Contreras, a bit more than Colon. We had a lot more salary invested in Jose.

I still think many really high average hitters have at least decent speed, but I'll concede your point. Maybe it's due to my "Ichiro bias." I do think speed has a lot to do with some hitters getting additional hits, like Pods or Carl Crawford...but obviously speed alone can't make for a hitter, or you would see the NFL experiments with sprinters turned receivers applied to baseball as well. Tony Gwynn could run very well the first half of his career, but Boggs wasn't fast at all. Ichiro and Walker (first half of his career) definitely could run a bit, along with Bonds, although Bonds didn't put up that average from 1985-1990 when he was still relatively slim .and stealing 30-50 bags per season.

Yeah, but $4 million isn't going to make or break the Sox. That said, Ozzie really seems to like Pierre, he's a veteran...he'll have plenty of chances to dig his own grave. And then some. They don't feature Linebrink as anything close to the primary set-up man anymore, and he makes more than Pierre.

White Sox Baseball: Expect the Expected

Well...Beckham's an All-Star at 2B, at 3B, his lack of 25+ homer power makes him above average player...but not a stud. And he's got a good arm, but nothing like Teahen or even Viciedo for that matter. Ramirez won't be playing anywhere for long if he puts up a 650 OPS line.

Here's also hoping Linebrink can have another positive outing and build on his confidence.

I wonder if Ozzie will ever retract his statement about Alexei becoming a better SS than he ever was...? The problem is that Beckham really does belong at 2B...which means Vizquel and Nix will be getting a lot more PT. At least we don't have to watch Andy Gonzalez anymore. And, on the bright side, we did get all the heroics of 2008, that was an amazing season with all those grand slams. Pretty good investment by KW, no matter how things turn out with him.

I think this is one of those 50 or 54 or 60 that we're supposed to lose and have very little chance from the get-go. Even though it is Dana CY Eveland.

Now pitching for the White Sox....Bartolo Colon/Jose Contreras/Josh Stewart/Mike Porzio/Felix Diaz/Sean Tracey/Danny Wright/Matt Ginter

QUOTE (greg775 @ Apr 15, 2010 -> 05:42 PM) It would be nice to win three of four here, because their fans don't give a s*** about baseball. If we can't win a series here, good luck winning one anywhere else, cept maybe Cleveland. This will be the typical White Sox team. Winning series against teams like the Yankees, Angels, Rays and Red Sox....losing 2/3 to Cleveland, Baltimore and Oakland. You never expect to win 3/4 on the road in Toronto...doesn't matter if they're playing in front of 8,000, it just doesn't happen very often.

Pierre has Pods-itis...or Willie Harris-itis. Something. Stupid not to try to get into scoring position. Maybe he's just theorizing Beckham will hit a double every time. Hence, no need for anything but decent speed/high OBP at the top of the line-up.

QUOTE (WilliamTell @ Apr 15, 2010 -> 06:36 PM) I remember many being for and against it. It sucked for Olivo because he didn't want to go. A lot of us thought Jeremy Reed was going to be a stud too. I had high hopes for Mike Morse to be a modern day Paco Martin. Haha. Actually, he was the one who ended up having a longer career in the majors with the M's than Olivo. They really soured on Miguel quickly. Haven't had much luck there with catchers, Ben Davis, Johjima, etc.

Well, that one doesn't hurt like the Kubel homer after Thome walked in the 7th. Lots of time to recover. Snider was hitting a robust .107 coming into that AB.

This is not starting off very well. Usually a bad sign with the Sox if they don't look alive in the early innings, we'll see how it turns out tonight. White Sox Rules #19: We don't ever beat pitchers who feature 87-89 MPH fastballs!

Beckham doesn't have the speed to hit .350, but i can see .320 or .330 out of him, possibly. The Twins are indeed very dangerous with Liriano (if he's indeed back and psychologically past the injury 100%), but they're still nothing approaching the Twins with Santana/Liriano/Radke at the top of the rotation, it's just that their everyday line-up is so much better than in the past. As far as the Tigers go, they really should be 4-4, if not for very inept Indians and Royals bullpen outings. It's pretty unusual to come back from 7-1 and 5-0 down after the 7th within the span of a week in the majors, let alone a month. That will even out when they play some better teams.

I'm not the one who wrote the article...it was also a story in the Sun-Times. Of course, any manager worth anything is going to have confidence in his abilities...whether it's silly or not, I'll let someone else be the judge. I'm sure Jerry Manuel, who everyone was ready to run out of town, had the same quotes back in 2003. But I'm also pretty sure the sports editors didn't think that was an interesting enough story to merit column inches. Well, maybe Bevington never proclaimed he was sure to get another job somewhere. I would be curious which posters here would go out and be willing to say they'd hire Guillen NOW over all the available options if they were running a franchise...I don't think Ozzie's a great fit for many other organizations, there are a few, though. But I definitely wouldn't prefer Cora over Guillen...nor would I want Cora to manage the Sox. I can honestly say I'd rather have either Walker or Cooper as manager over Cora, and probably neither of those guys would be interested, well...maybe Walker, but he wouldn't take it under the condition that he would be replacing Ozzie, no way.

Well, of course, 2 games doesn't make a career...obviously. However, seems kind of silly to pick on the new manager in your division, simply because he had the bad luck of trying to manage the Nationals. I mean, Ozzie more than anybody is the first to acknowledge that great players make great managers and bad managers usually are the result of a lack of talent. Just because somebody's had a job before and they failed once isn't really indicative of anything. Look at how bad Bill Belichick was when he had his first job with the Browns. Joe Torre was never considered a good manager before the Yankees, same with Francona and the Red Sox. I don't even think Ron Gardenhire is capable of getting his teams to play 10 games above their talent level...in fact, by pythagorean analysis (very simple, but it does say something) Ozzie has always been better or at least the equal of Gardy. I also don't think you can judge Acta very well when he has one of the most worse offenses in baseball and clearly one of the 2-3 worst bullpens overall in baseball.

TORONTO — Ozzie Guillen's contract expires after next season and White Sox- Twitter controversy involving his son this spring didn't bolster relations with general manager Ken Williams. Regardless, Guillen believes he would get another shot to manage if the Sox were to fire him. "There are a lot of horse(bleep) managers out there that were given two and three shots to manage in the big leagues," Guillen said. "I don't see why not me.'' Guillen reluctantly mentioned Manny Acta, who was fired after 2 1/2 losing seasons with the Nationals but had two offers to manage teams last winter before selecting the Indians. "Why can't I get another chance with another team?" Guillen said. "Am I going to keep on doing it? Well, I have to see what is going on." Guillen said he could perform any duty in baseball except GM. He added that his television duties at the 2009 World Series enhanced his opportunities. "If I get fired, I will tell (Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf) to fire Steve Stone, Farmio (Ed Farmer) or D.J. (Darrin Jackson)," Guillen said. "I want that job." mark gonzales/trib What I find annoying is that we're about to play the Indians on the road this weekend...the Indians have been playing like absolute horse manure since they left our park and here we are giving them bulletin board material by picking on their manager who pretty much out-managed Ozzie in Games 2/3 of the season.

It's also pretty amazing that Marte, who was on the verge of being waived by the Pirates supposedly...became one of the 2-3 best lefties in baseball (along the lines of Thornton today, not quite THAT good, though) from 2002-2004. Of course, Guerrier went on to have a very good career, too. Is Gary Majewski still in baseball? Royce Ring? Broadway? I remember way back when we traded Joe Valentine and some were convinced he was on track to become a lock-down closer. Josh Fogg started out as a college reliever/closer at UF. Chad Bradford was VERY good for a long time...not sure where he is these days.

Damaso Marte has had his moments...I would probably pick him over Williams, hoping he could get his career back on track and catch lightning in a bottle for one season if he could get on a roll. But Threets might end up being okay, too.

Scott Schoeneweis Andrew Sisco Javier Lopez Jason Grilli Bobby Seay Octavio Dotel--Pirates Boone Logan Aaron Poreda Scott Eyre Bobby Howry David Riske Luis Vizcaino Neal Cotts Damaso Marte

That's the guy who used to pitch for Oakland, right? Dana?

I guess Ichiro Suzuki (2000-2005 version) is the closest you can get to a match for Mauer, because of that speed. Otherwise, Gwynn and Boggs are the only ones who come to mind.