caulfield12

So we're back to Hudson, Flowers and Jordan Danks/Morel again, just like the A-Gonz discussions, basically... YES?

But you'd only have to be right on one player out of 20 to make your money back... Correct? I think most people who play the stock market believe they could do better than picking 1/20 companies to "explode," just like you HOPE your mutual fund manager can do the same with his bundles of stock picks. But if you did it with the White Sox over 10-12 years, the only time you would be right would have been betting on Buehrle, Rowand and I can't remember, did Crede make it once? Maybe he didn't... Just for argument's sake, who would you pick? I'll go with Santos Rodriguez. Point #2, outside of Trayce Thompson, what argument can you make that we're not (as many are arguing) anything more than the 26th/27th/28th/29th/30th organization in terms of projectable major league talent?

I just remember a lot of idle speculation at the beginning of the offseason that K-Rod was talking numbers like $50-100 million. He didn't, in the end, come close to sniffing those numbers, and rightfully so. There's a lot of wear and tear on that arm/shoulder, and he does have a pretty violent delivery that screams DL in the 2nd half of his career. You're right about buying FA closers. The closest we've been to doing that was acquiring Koch, and KW definitely learned a "MONEYBALL" lesson with that move...although Cotts turned out to be a very valuable piece, he was far from the centerpiece, that was getting the "fireballing" closer we've never had to replace the crafty Foulke, who got by with guile, moxie and guts against all but the very best teams.

It's going to take a lot more than Gavin Floyd to get Fielder. You can forget that one. It begins and ends with JD1, in terms of any discussion. Trading one of the top 3-5 young lefties in the game, when he's a lot cheaper than Fielder....and once again, he's LEFT-HANDED and OUR ACE, for a DH/1B/LF bat making more or less TWICE what Danks makes (over the next two seasons) is insanity. KW would be crazy to do that. And there's a good possibility we have to chop $10-15 million from payroll, too. That could come in the form of shedding Jenks and AJ with Paulie signing to a $13 million, 2 year deal with a 3rd option year included...but then we still have to deal with other players (like Danks and Pierre) bumping up in salary too.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Apr 28, 2010 -> 06:24 AM) Absurd. Kotsay is a major league hitter, Gilmore is still multiple years away from being ready. He happens to have a hot hand right now, but let's not get ridiculous. Eh? Most prospect ratings didn't "diss" him at all - some had him a top 10 in all of baseball, others more in the 20's or 30's, but all see him as having significant major league potential. Where are you getting this? You earlier say that Gilmore is better than Kotsay right now, and then you say the only real positive is Thompson? Seriously? This happens every season. Players come in and their early performance is not what people expected. Its only a couple or three weeks into their season anyway, and there are always question marks. There are multiple guys who are surprising on the up side - everyone you mentioned, but also Bellamy, Shirek, Greene, and others. Just like there are guys surprising on the down side. Mitchell and Phegley were definitely blows, but the other guys, you have to have some patience. Its still April. I was being facetious to an extent about Gilmore, but not 100%. Kotsay was great last season, but he can't be overextended, and there's certainly the chance he just went on a tear like Pierre with the Dodgers and some were fooled into thinking he could repeat it. Which ratings have Hudson rated anything higher than 30-50 out of the Top 100? I could have mentioned Maurice Gartrell, for example....he's sort of like David Cook, do you agree? Yet do you think he'll ever sniff 100 MLB at-bats with the White Sox, either Greene or Gartrell (or Salvador Sanchez), all of those eventualities would be shocking. I'll give you Shirek, he could definitely become more than just a "sleeper" prospect, he's got a nice arm. But then, I've also thought the same thing about Brian Omogrosso and 100's of White Sox prospects throughout the ages. So I've learned to temper my enthusiam. It's just a little frustrating when our MLB team looks like it's bottom 8-10 and our minor league system looks bottom 3-5. Last year, the argument was that we were Top 15-20 in the majors, maybe even as high as 12/13/14. Right? I get that Beckham's no longer a rookie and notch on our belt, that we traded Brandon Allen, that Viciedo came up short in the eyes of some who projected him as Miguel Cabrera Lite...the way I look at it, we don't have many prospects capable of becoming All-Stars. Mitchell (if he rebounds 100%), Flowers (only at catcher) and Trayce Thompson, at least to me, are the ones with that projectability. Danks, Viciedo, Hudson and Morel (I was wavering about him being able to make it to that elite level) all have some identifiable flaws that limit their ceilings, would you not also agree? Outside of those 7, what prospects would you bet $1,000 that they will make the MLB All-Star game in the future, if your bet payoff would be $20,000 for being correct on a call? Escobar? Gonzalez? Holmberg? Phegley? Santeliz? Gilmore? Shirek? Santos Rodriguez?

Definitely an idea from a marketing perspective that falls in line with Bo Jackson, Michael Jordan, David Wells, Albert Belle (slight backfire on that one) and Jose Canseco. Heck, Jim Abbott could hit better than Pierre, AJ, Kotsay and Vizquel, or Pete Grey's Ghost, too. Really, I don't want to see it, but I would RATHER see Frank end his career in a Sox uniform officially and also make a final lasting peace with KW than see any more Kotsay this season. I'm even willing to do the same with Crede, if he took Nix's spot. WHY NOT? It's not like we can bring up Morel yet....you can argue that spot would take away valuable playing time and experience from CJ Retherford, but maybe the additional revenues derived from Thomas and Crede being back on the team would be worth it. I think a lot of the Sox fans in their 30's and 40's would love to take their kids to see those guys play one last time for the Sox.

He underestimated how bad the Royals' bullpen really is....that's always very dangerous, in and of itself. Former Sox farmhand Rupe was torched and single-handedly blew Josh Greinke's masterful start, 7 IP and zero runs allowed. (Juan Cruz is gone and Kyle Farnsworth, mysteriously signed for a rebuilding team with his FB a shadow of its former self....they don't have ANY "bridge" guys, Tejeda is definitely not the guy to do it either). If nothing else, we can't be lumped in with the Indians and Royals inept bullpens, although CLE has certainly improved, with the exception of a huge implosion in one game against DET where they blew a 6-1 lead in the late stages.

Valverde and K-Rod didn't get anything close to what some were speculating, Fernando Rodney, etc. Jenks is FAR from the worst contract at $7.5 million....it's just that he was a huge plus when he was at a low salary number, like Santos. Now he's kind of an ongoing headache for the FO to figure out what to do with, especially if the season goes further south in April/May (instead of putting off the real misery for later like the gruesome 2007 "squad")

I really think Gilmore would be more of a threat up at the plate than Kotsay right now...sad as it is to admit. Second the notion about Hudson...never really saw him as "special" pitcher or even in the same league as Brandon McCarthy, and the prospects ratings have similarly "dissed" him. Not a great start to the minor league season, except for pleasant surprises like Gilmore, Nathan Jones, Shelby, Salvador Sanchez...the only REAL positive is the Trayce Thompson development process, which will end up being more interesting than the major league roster unless KW guts it. Morel, also has looked very solid from everything I've read and heard. And Danks has started out hot again like he did in 2009, but EVERYONE's convinced he might strike out too much to ever be more than a 4th outfielder, or better hitting version of BA with a little bit more excitement/athleticism to his overall upside. Hopefully Dayan starts to get on a little tear after the breakout game. Escobar's a field gem but we'll have to wait and see how his bat holds up at the upper levels of the system. Mitchell is down and out, Phegley, Hudson is struggling mightily, Gonzalez around .200, Johnny Nunez has fallen off the map, Santeliz is hurt...Flowers, half of the die-hard prospect people are convinced his swing's too long (the Josh Fields/Brian Anderson AAAA bat) and defensively....well, with AJ not hitting a lick, not ever throwing out runners and soaking up payroll AND the supposed best rotation in the AL looking pretty mediocre so far, there's nowhere but up as far as Flowers goes and our present level of performance from that spot.

6 games back again. Minnesota's not conceding any ground in the early season. They blow a save, they still win. Face Verlander on the road, Liriano looks almost as good as 2006. It's REALLY just what it is...and the more times this happens, the less energy anyone will have to care anymore. We could be alone in last place if KC and CLE win tonight.

Game on, Kotsay's pinch hitting. We will win for sure I feel. It's always nice to have those fast games when we lose and look egregiously bad in the process of doing so.

Feldman will beat us for sure, guaranteed. Peavy, this is why you weren't so excited to come to the AL....facing this line-up in Arlington. Lucky it's not June/July or the ball would really be jumping out of the park. And we're seemingly the only team to make Francisco look like a real MLB closer this season.

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 27, 2010 -> 09:12 PM) Two different zones tonight...keep sitting there coaches! Even they are bored with this season already. Has a team ever led the AL in solo homers and stolen bases and finished in the bottom 3 in runs scored? Orioles might actually beat the Yankees (up 5-2) and Liney's "A" fastball is nowhere to be found...sitting at 92. But he's getting outs and feeling som success, so maybe that will start to feed off itself and be sustainable. Hopefully it will actually matter to something with the Sox and not just dumping his contract at the deadline like we did with Ray Durham, Howry, Alomar, Lofton and James Baldwin in 2002 (all of those trades worked out so well in the end for the Sox...NOT! in Borat voice).

That went well. We never seem to play well in Arlington on that super fast surface. You always breathe a sigh of relief if we can get 1/3 instead of getting swept out of town.

Liriano is officially for real, Twins blank the Tigers on the road, Rauch with yet another save. I was monitoring that game and he was consistent with 94 MPH fastball (up 2-3 MPH from before) and he's toned down his slider, it used to be a hard 87-88, now it's sitting at 83-84-85. Despite the M's sweep, the news is almost all bad in terms of our being able to stay with MINN this year. I think DET will end up having the same problem, but they'll fall off after we do. And we have only Danks and Garcia (who'd a thunk it?) pitching fairly well, although how long that lasts with Freddy is anyone's guess.

Well, he was definitely wrong about one thing, Kenny Williams being on the way out....funny now, looking back on those days when we'd debate Ritchie for Wells/Fogg/Lowe and Valentin versus Clayton over and over again. I actually got to know ColSat46 (I think he's died since then) and baggio pretty well over there, both great guys. However, I drew the line when he made personal threats relating to my family and lots of other over-the-top things....I never could understand how he could get me banned so often, it's like he was the one moderating the board. Quite mysterious. So I was saddened and both relieved when I found out about his eventual demise on the SOX boards.

Because SouthSider, as much as I hate to admit it, he was right sometimes. You can't draw any conclusions 3 weeks into the season about Frank Francisco OR Dayan Viciedo, Pods versus Pierre, etc. In football terms, we're 1-1 to start the year and still have 14 games to make up ground on the 2-0 team in Minnesota. I fought with that guy as much as anyone on the Internet, but that's the one quote I always remember...and I should reference back to it from time to time, it would prevent me from being a Dark Cloud and starting numerous threads micro-analyzing the Sox after every loss and still finding things to be concerned about after even some wins.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Apr 27, 2010 -> 04:24 PM) I like it. Lets get the guy with the 7.88 ERA & 1.88 WHIP who already lost his closers role and was on the DL 3 times last year. He can throw a chair with the best of them too. "Look at the back of his baseball card, stats don't lie..." Ozzie Guillen, March 2010 "Premature evaluation." ncorgbl, chisox.com every year in 2000-2004

SouthSide, will you join my I love Juan Uribe fanclub I'm starting...? Thanks, Holden

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ Apr 27, 2010 -> 01:16 PM) they give rings for division championships? What about Wild Cards, are those like promise rings? For the Jonas brothers, they might be....

QUOTE (chisoxfan09 @ Apr 27, 2010 -> 03:13 PM) Worse case scenario you may have a 30 year old reliever on the decline after 2011. May or may not be good enough to net Type B status which gets us a supplemental pick I think. Who KW will then turn around and say they can't afford to pay his signing bonus because of the electricity bill at USCF and the money we already invested into Viciedo and Dave Wilder's bar in metro Phoenix.

The same way KW scouted Iguchi and decided to sign him before having seen him play in person, based on recommendations of other players who'd been around him in JAPAN....for Alexei and Dayan, stolen digital camera videos pirated out of Cuba and/or Cubano's blog. Or a long conversation with that Peter dude with the "historic" Cuban baseball blog who was always underselling Viciedo constantly in the weeks before we signed him in any national interview about the Cuban influx of talent into MLB.

Peace of mind and restful sleep. No thoughts of suicide when he comes in against the Twins (or Brew Crew) and Carlos Gomez is due up in the 9th. Two other possible answers. YES, I KNOW, WE HAVE TO KEEP HIM. Sorry, need the teal or green I suppose.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Apr 27, 2010 -> 03:06 PM) Olivio Pallazo. Wasn't that the umpire Leslie Nielsen played in THE NAKED GUN? I know it wasn't that EXACT name, but similar sounding Italian...

QUOTE (Kalapse @ Apr 27, 2010 -> 02:59 PM) Miguel Olivo is a catcher only in the loosest definition of the word. He's a catcher in the same way Vizquel or Pierre are a threat to go yard (boo-yah!) in any given at-bat. Great arm...the mental/strategic side of the game, preparation, working with pitchers, calling pitches and setting up opposing hitters....TOTAL FAIL. And it's sad, he has some great physical tools, speed for a catcher, etc.