caulfield12

If those homers that Flowers and Viciedo ALMOST hit in the late innings would have gone, 23-19 would be sweet. But we've already lost 5 games in which we've had a blown save, that's going to equal out over the course of a season with Reed as the established guy. And just when you think Flowers might not be able to stick as the starter next year, he'll rise up and do something to get you to take notice...now he has a leadoff double, out in front but kept his hands back, caught it on the barrel of the bat though. Has gone from 167 to 222 in one game. Now we just need to get Fukudome, Escobar and Lillibridge over 200, lol.

QUOTE (greg775 @ May 20, 2012 -> 01:59 PM) Can't you get him back? Unless your league is full of Sox fans, it's not like the Tank is a hot national commodity. Not like Ozzie. Well, neither is Konerko. But everyone who plays roto baseball knows him, just like they know Reed, Sale, Santiago, etc. They watch that stuff religiously.

QUOTE (greg775 @ May 20, 2012 -> 01:45 PM) If this game continues on like this and we win, what a dominant sweep this would be in Wrigley. Only halfway through; obviously a lot can happen. This still could be a 9-6 game or something like that. But we're ONLY 7-12 at home and 14-9 on the road, lol. And on a 53-22 string (if we win) in interleague play. By the way, Mark Buehrle has 24 interleague victories since its inception.

Didn't realize we were tied with the Blue Jays for the most blown saves in the AL, with 7. Thought it was closer to 4 or 5. I remember the two Santiago ones, two to Thornton, one to Reed when he came on with the tying runner already on 2nd with 2 outs...seems like there was at least another one to Thornton that maybe we came back to win the game? (Yeah, missed the Friday Cubs' game, that was he blew where he got the win on the Beckham save). Ohman didn't have a blown save in the Peavy/Tigers game last week in the 6th, did he?

Maximum effort inning there for Peavy. 70 pitches, 25+ that inning in very hot weather conditions. Going to have to really monitor things in the 5th and 6th. Don't want a repeat of the Detroit debacle.

Wouldn't be surprised if Mitchell put up much better numbers in Charlotte. But they'll keep him there in Birmingham at least through the Southern League All-Star game. That's when most teams usually move their prospects, along with the influx/organizational shifting from the June draft.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ May 20, 2012 -> 03:17 AM) It's been like this for a while now. The AL has been dominating for the better part of a decade. Except for some All-Star games and now the Phillies, Giants and Cardinals (two times in half a decade) winning the World Series. Realistically, the Phillies were the only dominant multi-dimensional team of those 3....the Giants were more pitching oriented and the Cardinals really just got hot at the right time and rode it all the way through the playoffs, just like in 2006. But the Rangers were clearly the better team overall last year, when you combine the regular season, post-season and the flukey nature of how they lost.

Yeah, I feel zero confidence about Beckham being on the team in 2014 or 2015, but we do know that Hudson won't be on the team then, either. So it's easier to ask Hudson to move IMO. Ask any big leaguer, they'd all rather start everyday rather than sit on the bench. Taking away Beckham's defense from 2B, putting him a position where he doesn't feel very comfortable...messing up the chemistry between Beckham and Ramirez up the middle that's developed over the last 3+ years, don't think you want to mess with it. Omar Vizquel showed he could play a decent 3B and really improved Alexei's confidence when he was there...not that Hudson would be an improvement on Brent Morel, but he should be able to play the position at a fairly competent level, just like Uribe adjusted, Escobar adjusted off SS too, it's better than putting Viciedo back there and sticking Hudson in the OF, that's for sure. And we need a #2 hitter in the line-up badly, so that's the other reason that Hudson should be starting over Lillibridge and Escobar. Plus, he spent the 2010 season with Twins and is fairly familiar with the AL Central.

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ May 20, 2012 -> 01:47 AM) Move Beckham to 3B or move as in trade? Moving Beckham now makes ZERO sense. In the future, Lillibridge is the only middle infielder in our system who could claim to put up similar offensive numbers at 2B (to what Beckham has been doing the past month), but he'd be a platoon player against only LHP and there's considerable doubt whether he can handle the position defensively...or definitely questions about his compatibility with Alexei as double-play partners. You certainly can't "build" around Hudson at 2B or 3B and get rid of Beckham.

I'll believe it when I see it....Orlando Hudson sitting on the bench while Escobar's playing 3B everyday, or even Lillibridge. Guillen would have played O-Dog everyday over the younger players, and it's a pretty good bet that Ventura will go with him and see if he can get hot and spark the top of the line-up. Nobody has fit into that 2 hole this season, and Hudson profiles pretty well there.

It may be heresy to suggest it here, but Ozzie Guillen is most certainly a student of the Bobby Cox School of Management, if not of temperment. Ozzie Guillen sees himself as a manager of men and believes that his number one duty as a manager is to create conditions under which a player can perform his best. He will provide a young player with words of encouragement and he will keep the veteran in the lineup to prove that he believes the player can break out of a slump. Games are won by players. Championships are won by players. Guillen wouldn’t even rush the field after the White Sox won the 2005 World Series. That was accomplished by his players. Let them celebrate. On the other hand, when losing, he sets himself up for blame. He goes to the press and suggests he could be fired. He makes sure that when his team is losing, he will be the lead story. He loved taking the heat when his team was playing poorly. Many loved playing for him. Of course, Ozzie is still Ozzie. The tempest that always swirled around him could be a bit much for the players. When asked a specific question about his players by the press, he’s brutally honest. Sure, he isn’t saying anything that he hasn’t already said to the player’s face, but a player typically doesn’t enjoy reading the ctiticism in the papers. His constant battles with management and umpires have been an occasional distraction for his team. Plus, with Ozzie, there’s no getting away from him. Despite his old school ideas about how the game should be played, he is decidedly different in the clubhouse. Unlike Bobby Cox and Tony LaRussa, Ozzie Guillen doesn’t sit in his office. He wanders through the clubhouse talking to the players. Sure, he’s often out there to encourage the team, to get them talking about the game at hand. Sometimes though, players need a break. When Ozzie and his mouth are around, there is no break. Even more than the players, management needs a break from Ozzie. The relationship between Ozzie Guillen and longtime White Sox GM Kenny Williams was often fractured. They would argue about moves they wanted to make. They would argue about comments Ozzie would make in the press. They would argue about something Guillen’s son said on Twitter. In his interview to become White Sox manager, Ozzie went off on Williams and everything else in a profanity laced tirade. It actually helped him land the job. I doubt that Williams thinks it was a mistake to hire Ozzie, but you know he was glad when it was over. For the record, Ozzie admits that he is not an easy person to manage. WIth his welcome wore out in Chicago, Guillen would find his way to Miami. If players and upper management would tire of Ozzie, there was one group who wouldn’t. The press loved Ozzie because Ozzie loved to talk. It was not in his nature to hide his feelings. He is not a diplomatic man. His wears his heart on his sleeve. It never occurred to him that maybe this though should not be shared. Reporter after reporter can enter his office after a game and fully expect to hear something quotable, even if they have to leave out several words. He tells what he believes to be the truth in the moment and his most outrageous words always end up in print. He finds himself in hot water more than any reasonable man could tolerate. This is why many of us love him and it is also why many hate him. One thing though, at least he takes his lumps like a man. He doesn’t shoot off to a reporter and then try to blame the reporter for the backlash. Ozzie knows who he is and he knows when he says certain things he’s going to get into trouble. It’s not that he doesn’t care, he just can’t stop himself. If you hated Ozzie before reading this book, your opinion will not be changed. As the author says, "one person’s entertaining manager is another’s loudmouth." His mouth has already spoiled his new start in Miami thanks to those ridiculous comments about Castro. (An event that was predicted in spirit, if not exactly by Morrissey.) Still, it looks like he’ll get a chance. At some point though, that foot is going back in his mouth. There will be people who love him, and there will be people who hate him. I wouldn't surprise if he doesn't have some success in Miami, especially the first few years. It doesn’t really matter in the long run. As Morrissey says, sooner or later, he will wear out his welcome. Such is baseball life around Ozzie Guillen. http://www.talkingchop.com/2012/5/16/30223...florida-marlins

QUOTE (greg775 @ May 19, 2012 -> 09:00 PM) Stuck with Ozzie? LOL. Do you guys realize how hard it is to win a WS when you are a baseball team in history-deprived Chicago? He deserves everlasting love from our fans IMO. Greg, I suggest you go to amazon.com and start quoting from the new Morrissey book on "Ozzie's School of Management." It will give you insights into why he stuck with Dunn and Pierre all season, why he thought it was insulting to play Omar Vizquel in blowout games (either way), why he soured on Nick Swisher and why he likes to curse so much. They have the first 10 pages or so of the book there.

Well, M, surprised you weren't here to make an announcement that rebuilding was never a reality and that KW's job is hanging in the balance based on making the playoffs this season. As far as the Twins go, they have been playing much better in the last week. Which of course is bad timing for us, as usual. 24-9 is a little bit unlikely, but 22-11's probably doable. By the way, the Sox interleague streak is now something like 52-22 or 53-22, we've been surviving the last three years (especially 2010) largely because of those games, as we've played neither well at home nor particularly well within the division.

No, that won't work because Greg will argue that at some point in the game, there was (or will be) a pitch meant to deliver a message or which MIGHT have had a very high likelihood of hitting a batter...even though it didn't actually make contact physically, the message was delivered loud and clear, etc.

They're not going to bring in Orlando Hudson to sit behind Brent Lillibridge or Eduardo Escobar. KW wouldn't have signed him with the promise to sit him on the bench. 100% he said 3B is yours as long as you produce something at least halfway decent...that Morel will be either on the DL or assigned to Charlotte for an extended period of time and that they're 100% back into "win now" mode for 2012.

It's still going to come down to pitching, as it always does. It is pretty amazing to be within one game of .500 with 3B at around a 400 OPS for 1/4th of a season (Morel, Lillibridge and Escobar), SS at 500 and 2B at 600. We've gone through at least four blown saves and almost zero production from our #2 hitters.

Another random stat.... Brandon League has blown 7 of his last 8 save opportunities against the Cleveland Indians. Talk about having someone's number.

Telander said he also represented something Cubs' fans have always identified with.... Unrealized potential, what if's, the idea of the talent never living up to the hype or ending up with disappointment yet remembering fondly the hope that once sprung... 1969, 1971, 1984, 1989, 2003, etc. Santo not making it into the HOF while he was alive is yet another example.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ May 19, 2012 -> 08:36 PM) But why are they only showing Tiger players? One of the three best third place teams in baseball, lol.

In all fairness, it's very hard to get any kind of rhythm going offensively when you play only once every 5-10 days. Wonder what we actually could have gotten for Lillibridge on the offseason trade market...reports said he was one of the most inquired about players this offseason on the Sox roster.

Hernandez with another very good start. On quite the roll now. Mitchell was finally moved up to the 5th spot in the Barons line-up, 0/3 with a K.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 19, 2012 -> 07:13 PM) Name a better one. Better yet, name someone who won't cost any talent from our side and who will earn the minimum. That narrows the list quite considerably. Brandon Inge was the other guy out there, and he was claimed by the A's or you have to think KW would have taken him. But they certainly weren't willing to pay any of Inge's 2012 salary or trade talent for him before he was released, that's for sure.

Danks has a .345 BAA after 45 pitches this season. No signs of problems YET.

We've heard bulging and herniated disk. Thome had one of the most violent swings in baseball history and managed it with treatment. There have been just as many who couldn't, like Joe Crede. If they start talking about invasive surgery, then you could start wondering about his career...rather than just physical rehabilitation/therapy/strengthening exercises/stretching/massage, etc.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 19, 2012 -> 07:04 PM) Chris Young. He's mourning the 2006 Young for Vazquez trade. Hey, I have an already-registered copyright on that complaint. Or Phil Rogers.