caulfield12

Southside, I think you and 50% of the season tickets holding on for now agree with you. Which is why I'm going to be very very pissed off the first time KW makes a remark out of frustration about payroll and attendance. He brought this on himself. The surprising thing is that it seemed we were no more than a bat away...when Jones and Rios have actually been decent. (I made this argument somewhere, that simply resigning Thome to go with Jones and then Hudson for 2B/leadoff would have been cheaper, and it might have been the only way to come close to holding the Twins back because they'd be missing two important veterans). But I'm not even sure Thome/Hudson gets it done. MAYBE. But when you have Pierre, Kotsay, Vizquel, Teahen and Ramirez all playing like bench players and AJ never more that a complementary player, you can't trade for Adrian Gonzalez or Lance Berkman or Roy Oswalt, etc. We're just not looking like we're close enough talent-wise to make those "make or break" type of moves we did with Rios and Peavy in 2009.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Apr 17, 2010 -> 05:04 PM) Every 7th inning a lucky fan is randomly selected to pinch hit. The results would be comparable to what we've seen so far from the team. This is similar to the Bill Veeck promotion where the fans in a certain section could be managers for one inning and they were all equipped with FLASH CARDS to show as a democratic consensus (like voting on multiple choice answers on Millionaire for the lifeline) what they wanted to do. 686 OPS now through 12 games. Well, someone has to win when we play the M's. There are no ties in baseball, at least that's what Tom Hanks said in A League of their Own. Or was it there's no crying in baseball? Guess I'll have to watch the 2005 highlights and Field of Dreams again to remember why we subject ourselves to this.

I'm amused that Ranger is close to sounding depressed/despondent. Hard to get really really upset anymore when we've been predicting this for months. You're seeing the apathy already setting in throughout the message boards. The talk in the first week about being buried in the month of April is becoming a frightening possibility.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Apr 17, 2010 -> 05:01 PM) The White Sox won about 12% of the games last season when they scored less than 4 runs. It shouldn't be a surprise they lose when they score 2 runs. Ozzie might have made a mistake keeping Peavy out there too long, I didn't see the game, but you score 2 runs against the Indians again and you should lose. The scary thing is Andruw Jones is actually hitting pretty well and this team is a bat short. Pierre looks done. He seems like he's lost a couple of steps. There is no margin of error for the pitching staff or the defense. One let down and the game is over. NL offenses don't work in the AL. I'm sure that's what the entire team felt yesterday when Teahen made that two run error. They all mentally checked out of the game, which is sad when you're playing a team as bad as the Indians, especially with their recent history of pen troubles.

Quentin hitting into that DP and doing his typical homer in a phone booth pop-up swing didn't help matters very much. We're just not good at driving in RISP except for the mysterious blips of first half 2006 and for most of 2008 as well. Other than that, it has been a pretty brutal stretch of White Sox baseball and there's little light at the end of the tunnel.

With all the examination of Ozzie's leaving Peavy in too long, there's still little to no excuse for our offense. (Just that they're not that good, which is the frustrating part...there's no easy solution to the problem because it's related to a lack of talent/ability/aging roster.) I think that will be lost in the arguments over managing, but our offense just doesn't give the pitching any cushion...with the exception of maybe 2-3 games all season when they actually showed up and looked good.

The big question is can we actually stay close enough to the Twins to make any of this matter? Look at their schedule the next couple of weeks. Meanwhile, we're playing Tampa Bay, Seattle (who will shut down our offense completely and win the close games), we've got a pretty tough schedule the next month. With the exception of the Twins series, this should have been the time to take advantage of playing the Indians, instead we're burying ourselves in a hole right out of the gate.

for the remainder of April 1) Come see Sergio Santos 2) It's Still Early 3) Gordon Beckham...Gordon Beckham. 4) Andruw Jones, he's not as bad as we thought. 5) Alex Rios, he's not as bad as we thought. 6) Come see Peavy, Putz, Konerko, AJ, Jenks and Buehrle before they're traded. 7) Even Ranger Rongey is now questioning Ozzie...which means even YOU, the casual fan, could probably do a better job than Ozzie. 8) We can beat the Indians and possibly the Royals in attendance 9) Only the SOX can make a hero out of Asdrubal Cabrera, who hits .194 against RHP and is a vital cog in the worst offense in baseball, and cause season ticket holders to ditch their tickets after the first homestand. 10) We have the hitting coach with the longest tenure in the AL Central Division.

10,245 were excited enough to come out and watch the White Sox on a Saturday, haha. If we think they're boring, what does everyone else in baseball think? The last team so boring to me was some of those mid to late 80's teams, but then we at least had Ventura/Thomas/McDowell/Sosa/Alvarez/Radinsky, all those young and talented players coming up together

QUOTE (flavum @ Apr 17, 2010 -> 04:29 PM) The thing that sucks the most about that move to leave Peavy in is that it's out of character for Ozzie to do that. He'll usually bend backwards to get the starter a quality start with the lead and get out of there. Just a bad move. I don't know. I think you could make the argument to go with Santos there based on the first week, but Peavy's a former Cy Young winner. Curious decision, but I'm sure Ozzie talked to him and he wanted to go out there to start the inning, he's such a tremendous competitor. At least he proved he could still pitch, that's one positive, although the Indians' offense has sucked except against us.

DAMN YOU, FARMER. I really thought that ball Paulie hit was gone the way he was calling it.

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 17, 2010 -> 04:25 PM) Yep, just that the way sucking on offense since the ASB of 2006 has gotten rid of Walker. At this point, Ozzie's done so much damage to the talent of this organization that it's going to be hard to recover for a few seasons. Now this I'll disgree with. I think 75% of it has to do with KW's decision-making process...we just haven't done a good job for a decade in developing talent, with the significant addition of Beckham, but he's only one player. When Ramirez and Quentin proved they both overachieved a bit in 2008 and KW didn't replace that gap, along with shedding Dye/Thome and replacing those guys with Teahen/Pierre/Vizquel/Kotsay...we've regressed since that year and Twins have improved each season and grown more confident. Quentin TRYING WAY TOO HARD and pulling off the ball, popping up. What's new?

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ Apr 17, 2010 -> 04:24 PM) Can someone please tell me how Cleveland scored the third run? I missed it while driving home. Choo ripped a double after Sizemore had singled. Gave up two hits in a row to lefties. He's human. Newsflash...our offense sucks. End of story.

This does happen to Thornton occasionally, he doesn't have that 96-98 MPH FB when he's out of the stretch. Then he gave up a hit on an offspeed pitch to Sizemore. But hey, it's still early.

At least Pods can actually drive in a run, unlike Pierre. And he's got six stolen bases. Well, the odds of him lasting the entire season are about 10-15%.

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Apr 17, 2010 -> 12:14 PM) I believe Oswalt was one of the contingency plans after Peavy rejected the first trade last year. Oswalt didn't express any interest in coming here. Frankly, if we went after Berkman and the Astros demanded we toss in a couple more players and assume Oswalt and his salary... i'd be game. I'd love to see it, but adding $12 million to $20 million (Oswalt/Berkman)...depending on when they're acquired...that doesn't seem to be in the cards. It would be super ballsy, but with all the whining KW does, do you see it happening realistically?

It's frighteningly obvious...I don't know what KW was thinking, maybe that they really wanted to move Beckham to 2B as his most natural position. But you don't trade for Teahen and then sign him to an extension when he hasn't proven he can consistently put up corner infield numbers. I don't like Beckham at 3B, but having Hudson/Ramirez/Beckham (wherever they play) to me gives you more speed/athleticism and a better overall infield defense than what we have now. ANKIEL with two bombs...but still, trailing 5-3 and not looking good since the Royals' bullpen is Soria, (Sain) and pray for Rain. Farnsworth's current fastball is making Jake Peavy's look like Zumaya, amazing.

QUOTE (Disco72 @ Apr 17, 2010 -> 11:54 AM) If their pitching holds up, that's the difference. Other than Nathan and Pavano, they're not paying much of anything for their pitching. I'm not convinced their pitching is going to hold up over a full season. They're kind of in the same situation we are with Danks/Floyd. Blackburn just signed a $14 million/4 years, Slowey wants the same deal, essentially. Then you have Baker and Liriano hitting arbitration as well. But they don't have the big deals like we do with Buehrle, Peavy, Jenks and Linebrink. And all that said, they can easily sustain that payroll if they want because Pohlad has very deep pockets and wants to differentiate himself from his dad IMO. FWIW, we'd be much better off with Thome/Hudson (Beckham could have stayed at 3B) and SAVED money compared to what we have now with Teahen, Pierre, Vizquel and Kotsay. Hudson could have hit 1st, Beckham 2nd. Hudson/Rios Beckham Quentin Konerko Thome Jones Rios AJ Ramirez That line-up would score 50-100 more runs IMO than our present line-up. Thome, Jones, Rios and Quentin would get 90-95% of the OF/DH ab's, with Kotsay as the 4th OF/1B/DH and DeAza 5th. Heck, you could argue De Aza might be a better option than Pierre based on what we've seen for two weeks.

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ Apr 17, 2010 -> 10:26 AM) I missed it, what did Ozzie say about the lineup? That the whole line-up was inconsistent...that Jones would be starting instead of Kotsay....maybe moving up Teahen and/or AJ in the line-up.

The thing that really sucks is not only can the Twins now outspend us, they have a much better farm system. The only area that we can argue superiority is the bullpen. Well, as they say, it's always darkest before the dawn. Things can shift and change very quickly in baseball.

Threets with another good outing. Here's hoping Danks stays healthy all season and sustains his high level of play...that would be a great sign for his future, although he's certainly not an obvious replacement for Pierre as a leadoff hitter. Leading to the (Ryan Sweeney-esque) question of moving Rios out of CF again or just letting Danks play a corner spot. Obviously, Pods and Pierre are lighter-hitting corner outfielders in terms of their power numbers, so the White Sox historically haven't been afraid to go that route. Yet Danks clearly strikes out too much and doesn't yet have the ability to put up 30+ steals either. Hope he ends up more like Sweeney than BA, Borchard or Jeremy Reed.

It wouldn't piss me off. It would be disappointing...and probably impossible with the Royals and Indians in our own division. We have to beat those teams about 50% of the time, no matter how poorly we've played the Indians so far. If we're going to be that bad, we might as well go out and completely tear things apart, because another 78-84 win team that's non-competitive for the division title won't do anything for the attendance anyways. Having a Top 5-6-7-8 draft pick would be so much better than 13-17, too. I'd be more excited about seeing Flowers, Hudson, Danks and Viciedo play than I ever would be about a 43 year old Vizquel, Kotsay, Pierre or Mark Teahen, that's for sure. Things have gotten to the point I'd rather see Nix play/bat than half of our line-up. That's saying something. Or I'd rather see CJ Retherford and similar players who have something to prove and a chip on their shoulders who really appreciate every day they're on a major league roster. It's not like they could be any worse than Owens, Fields, Wasserman, Brian Anderson and Andy Gonzalez. That's impossible to duplicate.

Marson's already thrown out 4 guys this season....leading Victor Martinez and AJ's totals for one year, haha. Well, there goes a run and RBI for Becks. Ugly.

You don't think Jack Z made a very silly move taking on the Bradley contract, undoing a lot of the good he'd done in 2009? At least he has a philosophy, defense/pitching first, but he obviously needs Lee for that to work...and the offense has been putrid to date.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Apr 16, 2010 -> 03:41 PM) I don't think extending Contreras had anything to do with acquiring him. Getting something worth a s*** for an expiring contract in Loaiza had everything to do with it. I can't imagine why the Sox would have wanted to resign Contreras at that time because his career ERA was like 5.50 at the time. I also don't think Williams is going to put any pressure on Danks, but Danks has to realize that if you pitch for the White Sox, you are almost always safe from being dealt if you are in the middle of a contract, and you are very vulnerable to being traded if you are in the final year of your contract, especially as a starting pitcher. Williams dealt both Garcia and Garland in the offseason of the last year of their deals, and he dealt Contreras near the end of the year for his deal. I meant, he (Contreras) had already signed a "subsidized" contract with the Yankees and he was going to be under our control for multiple seasons at that point. I can't remember exactly, I thought that Yankees deal was something like $32 million for 4 years, his first contract. Loaiza was a one-and-done at that point, wasn't he? After 2003?