caulfield12

And a SOX team that's one game away from being caught by a Royals team without Salvador Perez, Lorenzo Cain, Danny Duffy, Joakim Soria and their best hitter being mired at .176 in Hosmer. The same team which beat us up at home and are in the process of taking two in a row at the Ballpark in Arlington.

QUOTE (GREEDY @ May 15, 2012 -> 08:38 PM) I can't remember the last time a 25 year old player with this kind of talent has been this "available". Local dude, only 740 career at-bats, and he has a Jacoby Ellsbury circa 2011 skill set. But because Kenny Williams currently employs three everyday designated hitters, there really isn't an outfield spot for Bourjos. It is a shame because he is going to be a better player than anyone in our organization. At least the Sox aren't blocking him with Vernon Wells. Let's say the White Sox did acquire him, who are you going to bench to play him? He's a career .249 hitter with a 712 OPS and 33 steals in those 740 at-bats. Is that clearly better than what DeAza's been providing? No way. Yes, Bourjos is younger, 25, and he's a local Chicago product, but you're not going to see Alex Rios benched, so that means Viciedo will sit. In which case you're going to have an outfield with VERY limited power numbers at USCF, on a team where you're getting almost no pop at 3B, SS and 2B. The only thing that would make sense would be to trade Dunn, make Viciedo the full-time DH and then you'd have Bourjos, DeAza and Rios as your starting OF, but is that the kind of outfield that you can build a pennant winner around? Definitely, the defense would be much improved with Bourjos in CF, DeAza in LF and Rios in RF.

Looks like the Royals prophecies of Greg are close to coming true. After tonight's victory over the Rangers (two in a row in Arlington), they'll only be one game behind the Sox in the standings. They've done all this despite: 1) Losing 12 games in a row at one point 2) Losing 10 consecutive home games, and sporting a cumulative 4-11 home record 3) Losing Soria for the season 4) Having Eric Hosmer with just a .176 BA 5) Losing Danny Duffy for the entire season 6) Losing projected starting catcher and long-term contract extension signee Salvador Perez 7) Losing projected CFer Lorenzo Cain (Greinke trade) to a torn hip flexor It would be the White Sox equivalent of losing Chris Sale, AJ, DeAza and Addison Reed.

Santana trade Young for Garza/Bartlett Hardy trade to Orioles Ramos for Capps Signing Nishioka didn't help matters much, either. And gutting 75% of the bullpen from 2010 (Rauch, Guerrier and all their lefties) and having no good internal candidates to replace them. Train wrecks at 2B/SS/3B over the last couple of seasons. Traded Delmon Young to divisional competitor. Revere and Valencia fell flat compared to the impacts they needed out of both those youngsters. They couldn't afford Nathan and had to stubbornly hold onto Capps to justify the Wilson Ramos trade. Then you have the albatross contracts of Morneau, Liriano and Mauer, to name a few. Letting Kubel and Cudddyer go....Terry Ryan did find a great replacement (so far) in Willingham, but they're an abysmal 10-26 and have the worst record in baseball now.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ May 15, 2012 -> 09:06 PM) As far as team needs go, my order would be: 1.) top of rotation starter 2.) #3 hitter 3.) mid rotation starter 4.) CF'er/3B (tie) 1) Chris Sale 2) not in the budget for now 3) Santiago/Molina/Castro/Axelrod/Hernandez 4) Jared Mitchell / trade (Thornton, Crain)

“I’ve been in jams all year. I just have to make a pitch to get us out of the inning there and try to leave with a lead,” Peavy said. “I put Will (Ohman) in a tough situation having to face a couple of righties. ... I just don’t know what to say. It was ugly. I let my emotions get the best out of me. I take full responsibility for letting the inning get to where it got and the bullpen had trouble keeping it where it was. It was just a bad loss. ... when you get that many runs and you don’t walk away with a team win, it’s disgusting.” freep.com/sports

QUOTE (Marty34 @ May 15, 2012 -> 07:46 PM) Rios is a better CF'er than De Aza. The White Sox would be a better team switching Rios to CF and De Aza to RF. The beauty of this move is it costs no money and blocks no prospects. Once again, how many games did you actually watch Rios play CF last year? Your definitive statement which doesn't have any quantifiable or anecdotal evidence behind it doesn't pass any logical test. Not to mention the fact 1) Rios doesn't want to play CF and 2) there are zero guarantees he wouldn't go into an offensive funk if you made that move. Viciedo has the best RF arm on the team. DeAza's arm is pretty weak and he's not used to playing RF, so you're basically going to have to move all three outfielders around for a negligible defensive improvement (at best) which will probably be more than cancelled out by offensive falloff from Rios, based on past history.

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ May 15, 2012 -> 08:10 PM) Mc = mount Carmel school run by the carmelites So mcgrad went to Mt. Carmel, but his "spiritual education" doesn't seem to have rubbed off on him positively?

Quintana having a great two weeks, both at the major and minor league level. Jaye had a so-so start.

Therein lies the problem, bringing in Callaspo gives you "decent" improvement for the remainder of the season, but probably not enough to make us a contender. Our record might be 2-3 games better, but then we still have the ongoing issue of finding a permanent 3B and the chances of finding one in the first round of the draft have been further eroded.

Carmelite nuns? where did that come from? was he in the "human baby pills" discussion too, lol?

QUOTE (Marty34 @ May 15, 2012 -> 06:37 PM) Of course there's a reason. He's a poor CF'er. And Alex Rios was even worse, so there you go. And he didn't hit when playing that position in 2011, either. And most truly great defensive outfielders can't hit a lick, so there you go. When you're not getting consistent offense from 3-4 spots in the line-up, then you have to do the best you can under the given set of circumstances. Based on what we're paying him, based on what it cost to acquire him, he's one of baseball's biggest bargains and hardly one of the biggest problems with our team going forward. You can't expect every CFer in baseball to be Matt Kemp or Josh Hamilton. I wonder if you were on the boards of those teams if you would have been criticizing Hamilton for being "injury prone" and never playing more than 130-odd games per season or ripping Matt Kemp for underachieving for a couple of seasons?

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 15, 2012 -> 03:25 PM) If everything about the White Sox upsets you, why do you continue to subject yourself to it? First you cry not enough people are going to the game, then say Peavy is going to be bad when the warm weather hits. Well, its warm, maybe they stayed away because they knew Peavy would suck, although somehow he was able to get away with it for 5 innings. Where were you earlier in the game? What's your excuse? I woke up at 2 am to listen to this game, and I have to work in 2 1/2 more hours, at 8 am. Why did you just pop into this game thread when the White Sox lost the lead?

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 15, 2012 -> 03:25 PM) If everything about the White Sox upsets you, why do you continue to subject yourself to it? First you cry not enough people are going to the game, then say Peavy is going to be bad when the warm weather hits. Well, its warm, maybe they stayed away because they knew Peavy would suck, although somehow he was able to get away with it for 5 innings. Okay, here's what I am going to do Every time you complain for the rest of the season about something, I'm going to call you out for it. Every time you bring up Greg Walker, I'm going to tell you to go watch the f------ Braves if you like them so much more. Do you want me to go back and start bringing up every thread from the past when you complained about Reinsdorf?

QUOTE (2nd_city_saint787 @ May 15, 2012 -> 03:16 PM) My god dude, one bad inning!!! wasnt it you that was saying Reed is the only reliable guy in the pen, based on your logic why is he still good? Nope, I didn't say that. Second of all, Peavy flat out is a fly ball pitcher. The weather is warming up now. He's not going to get away with a lot of those pitches like he did the first six weeks of the season. Throwing 89-93 now, he has to have precise location and movement on all of his pitches. It would be great if Jake was a 3.50-3.75 ERA pitcher. A sub 2.00 ERA or Cy Young talk was clearly premature. That's it.

So much for the good Peavy. It was nice while it lasted.

Another misplay by Viciedo...this time it results in a lucky double because Fielder should have been out by 15 feet at second base.

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ May 15, 2012 -> 03:01 PM) Beckham does with his glove. Inge would look good but one of Lillibridge or Morel need to go somewhere. I think you mean Escobar. Lillibridge is our primary back-up for the infield, a great pinch-runner, and Fukudome's given us nothing in the OF, so we need him. Not to mention he can also play 1B in a pinch. But if Ventura's not going to use him at all, maybe he would be better off hitting everyday in Charlotte to get some type of offensive rhythm going. Whereas Escobar is never going to be a starter in the big leagues.

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ May 15, 2012 -> 02:57 PM) You're last two posts have been nothing but complains, enjoy the damn game homie. Fine, go ahead, praise Brent Morel and Gordon Beckham all you like. If we want to compete this year, one of them needs to contribute something. And how is pointing out that Adam Dunn had 3 great swings complaining? I am enjoying the game, but thanks for your concern, at any rate. And the reason for NOT adding a veteran 3B or taking on additional payroll is going to be attendance and KW saying he can't spend $1.00 when he only has 25 or 50 cents crap. So it is very relevant, whether you choose to acknowledge it or not.

Seems like AJ was stuck on 21 RBI's for like two weeks. 3 now today, 24 already this season.

Dunn went entire months last season without having three liners like he's had today... 98 pitches and still only 12 outs for Scherzer. Ballester? 21,473 on one of the nicest days for baseball all season? Yeah, yeah, school's not out.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ May 15, 2012 -> 02:48 PM) Twins just got shut out by Derek Lowe's corpse Tristan H. Cockcroft ‏ @SultanofStat Derek Lowe is the first player in more than a decade to throw a shutout without recording a strikeout. (Scott Erickson, 4/28/02.) Ironic then that he did it against the team that Erickson pitched for most of his career.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ May 15, 2012 -> 01:34 PM) Rios is a better CF'er than De Aza, switch them. Did you watch Rios play CF at all last season? Seriously? Did you get tired of picking on Viciedo so the new target is DeAza? Why not Morel or Nestor Molina? Shouldn't Dave Dombrowski get fired if the Tigers don't win the AL Central this season?

QUOTE (fathom @ May 15, 2012 -> 01:41 PM) At least Crain is back For awhile, it looked like Santiago was on the way out but Ventura seems to be confident enough to stick with him...hopefully his patience will be rewarded, and Hector has stabilized a bit the last 10 days or so.

37th K for Morel this season. 105 AB's. 5 walks. Beckham about to go back down under .200 after getting his average up close to the .220 mark.