caulfield12

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=5098407 Best story of day, or weirdest. Fan arrested for vomiting intentionally on girl in Philly....$36,00 fine? Double wow.

Is Chris B. Young for real again? Or just an anomalous beginning to 2010? Should I write another article revisiting the Javy Vazquez trade? From Phil Rogers

QUOTE (Kalapse @ Apr 16, 2010 -> 11:58 AM) So the 3 to 4 months that would remain in the 2010 season don't count? I should have been a bit more clear. I meant that more in the sense that we get him in late July instead of early June....I think the Padres will hold onto him as long as possible and wait for the bidding war to develop, not unlike the Halladay situation in TOR. Not that I was giving up on this season, because it's still WAY too early to make any conclusions until late May. I don't think you cripple your minor league system for a MAYBE division title in 2010 and just one full season of Gonzalez. It's too big of a gamble with long term negative consequences for our orgnizational competitiveness. Also, with the market set for Blackburn at $14 million/4 years, Floyd's contract, Slowey wanting a similar deal with the Twins...will KW now offer to pay Danksie more than all 3 of them in an effort to keep him from getting too expensive in Years 5/6? How high do you go to keep him a happy camper?

It will be interesting to see what becomes of Jenks, Konerko, AJ and Buehrle. They're the last four surviving links to 2005. Hard to imagine parting with all four before 2011. It's going to be the key decision of KW's tenure about moving Buehrle/Floyd/Danks. Danks would seem like the logical choice, since he's been more unwilling to accept a "favorable" (below market value) contract from the club perspective. Santos=Jenks Viciedo=Konerko (in a perfect world, certainly not with a 600 OPS so far at Charlotte) Flowers=AJ Hudson can take the place of Danks. It really scares me to trade Danks over Floyd, simply because I think Danks is going to end up as the better pitcher looking back 5 years from now... It does make for a much more interesting trade if you're the Padres....although Danks starts to look more and more expensive in arbitration, like Jenks has become. Danks/Danks/Flowers will definitely get you Adrian Gonzalez. Or Danks/Santos/Flowers. The problem is that KW has to pull another rabbit out of his hat to replace that other spot in the starting rotation. It's not likely to be Torres, Marquez, Cassell, Harrell, Hynick, etc. What I'd like to see is whether there's ANY possibility in the world to convert Sergio Santos into a starting pitcher. It's a 1/20 shot, but it's worth kicking the tires on. Letting him "stretch" out and develop his offspeed stuff would have nothing but positive consequences for his development. If we saved all the money from Jenks, Konerko and AJ, we could use it to resign Gonzalez long-term. Or something I don't believe I'm saying, bringing back Jermaine Dye to play 1B....if we don't pay Konerko $10-15 million for 2 years and/or Viciedo is FAIL.

Threets is definitely the next guy in...supposedly he was throwing 93-95 MPH in spring training, seems Coop can work with him. Williams has never been anything but a journeyman.

I don't understand trading for Gonzalez for basically just one season (doubtful on the possibility of an extension like Garcia signed right after being traded in 2004)...you know he's going to test the market with how underpaid he is. Buddy Bell on the subject of Tyler Flowers "We are trying to transition him back to the basics to get back to where he was last season....Too many thoughts, you just can't play [the game that way]." On his offense "We think the world of him offensively. Very intelligent kid." Let's say the deal was Santos, Flowers, Hudson and Shelby/CJ/Sergio Morales/M. Gonzalez, would anyone pull the trigger on that one?

I think 4.50 is pretty unrealistic for Garcia at this point. Anything above 5.25 or so, that would be the "danger zone" for Freddy.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 16, 2010 -> 08:16 AM) If the Sox were looking to actually make a trade, who on their major league roster would be involved? They might want to sell of Jenks or Linebrink as a salary dump. I could see them moving Santos right now, but that would be unpleasant. Beckham or Ramirez? Hardly likely. Either they're looking at Toronto's team or their just advance scouts. If anyone's scouting the Sox's system right now, they're going to AAA. What would be the incentive to trade Sergio Santos at this point?

There is a unofficial sports rule that no group or subgroup can be called "Fab Five" or "Fab Four" if the team's overall record is below .500.

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!