caulfield12

If I'm San Diego, the only players I'm looking at: Alexei Ramirez Gordon Beckham Viciedo (as possible 1B replacement) Hudson Matty Thornton Tyler Flowers Mitchell Carlos Quentin possibly Jordan Danks if he's playing like he did first half of 2009

QUOTE (Ozzie Ball @ Feb 26, 2010 -> 05:05 PM) That luck adjusted line regressed his BABIP to .361, so it is taking into account the likelihood that Mitchell with have significantly above average BABIP (.330-.340 range), with extra adjustment for poor defense. His strikeout rate was just that bad, and obviously it was a small sample size, but if Mitchell does start at Birmingham he could fall flat on his face. It's pretty difficult to make such a blanket generalization as this. Mitchell and Jordan Danks both came out of top college programs with a very high level of competition, so they're simply expected to be on a faster track. While Mitchell is more raw in terms of playing experience, nobody can say he would fail at Birmingham, anymore than scouts could project what Viciedo might do at age 19 or 20 in that league. I agree with most of the posters here that Winston-Salem is the more likely destination, and there's currently not any pressing need to rush either Mitchell or Danks with Quentin, Pierre and Rios all in the picture for at least the next two years. Of course, injury and non-performance (by Andruw Jones/Kotsay) could change all that, but the odds of KW dipping down to Jordan Danks as an outfielder or DH in 2010 are about 3-5% at most. I think the club really made a smart move with Viciedo...he certainly struggled out of the gate but the club stuck with him and didn't demote him. By the second half of the season, he was learning how to make adjustments and his stat line started to look much more respectable. Personally, with Mitchell, I'd really prefer that he builds his confidence step by step, and he's not nearly as polished as Danks, so we can take our time and nurture his development over the next two years with the idea he'd take over as the starter and leadoff hitter as early as 2012. I think that's pretty realistic...some will say late 2011 or late 2012, but somewhere in that time frame.

Opinions are all over the board on Danks. Some love the guy, some absolutely think he'll never be much more than Brian Anderson. Like BA, all the physical tools...certainly a more fluid swing, but it will be his offense that decides whether he can ever stick in the majors as a starter. There's not much margin for error for him to be a corner outfielder (I suppose we could his compared his predicted offensive output to Ryan Sweeney, with more power hopefully), so he pretty much has to play CF. I don't think we'll see ever see a Mitchell/Danks/Quentin/Rios OF, but stranger things have happened with White Sox prospects. Maybe the strangest of all would be Sox position prospects starting to make a consistent impact, starting with Beckham.

Basically, he's like Joe Crede offensively without the Gold Glove defense. More potential for doubles, but still a downgrade from what Crede (the 775-825 OPS version) did for sure. Looking at those numbers on the surface, you start thinking about guys like AJ or Juan Uribe, not a "power" position. Which means the extra power with him in the line-up (as well as Pierre) has to come from Flowers (in the future) and continuing up with middle with Ramirez, Beckham and Rios.

If this past offseason was boring, this one has the potential to be even worse. As mentioned earlier, Hudson, Flowers and Viciedo could all take on more prominent roles (5th, C, 1B/DH)...then there's also Jordan Danks and perhaps CJ Retherford could challege Nix for the utility spot. Of course, 10 million things will change between now and then, injuries, non-performance, etc. That rotation is so good that KW might not want to invest so much money in a team and rely heavily on 3 rookies to make important contributions. OTOH, Hudson might be good to go already and Flowers is pretty darn close. The biggest question mark is definitely Viciedo...they've already invested $10 million into him, but that 1B/DH spot is (well, SHOULD BE) the easiest spot to find cheap/veteran talent if they have to plug in a hole for one year (I'm thinking of the Herbert Perry move b4 Joe Crede was ready to take over). FWIW, I'm not sure that keeping Jenks around makes as much sense going forward if JJ Putz has a very good comeback season. There's definitely room in the pen to pare some payroll, and of course, Linebrink's soaking up valuable resources as well.

Are you tweeting? What do you think of Ozzie's new plaything? How long before this whole thing blows up in his face and one of his sons inadvertently types something that comes back to bite them after a tough loss or player transaction? C'mon Ranger, I know you can get 11,000 followers in a couple of days if you advertise it on the radio and here!

It seems some of the tweets are already being translated into English and Spanish by his son... If there's kind of a "general message" that's not so specific, it's getting tweeted out both ways. Oh god I jinxed kobe...time for mlb network about 8 hours ago via txt I'm watching kobe, he reminds me of my boy mj would like to meet him I think it's kind of cool, you get a "behind the scenes" idea of what Guillen's life and what he likes to do in his free time: 1) tease/mess with people and talk s--t 2) play bad golf 3) watch other sports like basketball 4) have barbeques and drink alcohol, hang out with the Hispanic players and coaches

5,000 "followers" and counting for Ossssvaldo. What I would really love to see would be a KW twitter, but that's not happening. Has anyone ever sent him an e-mail (or even snail mail) and gotten an actual response from him?

I feel nice and relax(ed) today, I don't know why yeeessssssss carlos quentin and rios in camp b ready people 42 minutes ago via txt Yessss nice day let's go to work about 1 hours ago via txt I like how he makes his "yes" like Harrelson....too funny. Guess he's up pretty early in the morning out there.

Colon could dial it up there (when he actually wanted to) in 2003. Thornton with his effortless 96-97 and sometimes 98, you almost forget about him he makes it look so easy.

We've already had an endorsement of TaeRyan shirts/clothing (whatever that is)...and "going to eat in half hour why dye no have a job ?"

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Feb 23, 2010 -> 08:01 PM) It's crazy what's happening on the other big SOX board. There's a legion of blind optimists pouncing on any detractors. At least we have decent, reasoned debates here. Everyone who doesn't kiss a-- with the moderators or defer to their every judgment about the world (or White Sox) is quickly eviscerated or labelled a "dark cloud."

I don't have the averages in front of me, but it felt like Poreda was at 91-94 most of the time. That was the biggest shock, beginning in spring training last year. That Clayton Richard, even as a starter, was throwing consistently and for a much longer duration at 92-95 and sometimes a tick higher depending on the gun. Before the season, Richard was billed as a loogy or fifth starter but almost nobody talked about his stuff...whereas Poreda had the "hype" surrounding his fastball from the time he was drafted. I think Nathan Jones, when he pitches for the White Sox, will end up in the low 90's somehow as well. The list goes on and on...Felix Diaz, Adkins, Aaron Myette, Lorenzo Barcelo (although he was injured), Rob Purvis, Royce Ring, Broadway, McCulloch, Sean Tracey, etc. I don't have any understanding how Matt Ginter was ever as hyped as he was, not only in college but also coming up through the minors. I guess Danny Wright, when he first came up (before the injury)....had some very nice stuff. But nothing like Jason Bere ten years prior.

QUOTE (southsidepride15 @ Feb 23, 2010 -> 01:23 PM) You guys have no clue what this offense is capable of. Are we going to rip through the league?? No. Do we still play in a hitter friendly park against a division that is sub par? Yes. These guys are major league baseball players....they will figure out a way to produce without the almighty A-Gon. Have some frickin faith!! And you could have said that going into 2000 or 2005, too. All you can do is look at the back of the baseball cards and ages/career paths and make projections. Baseball is not an exact science...in 2006, on paper, we looked great and that team fell apart. In 2008, nobody expected a whole lot and we overachieved. Last year, we had a lot of talent but very little team cohesiveness or identity. Nobody said we have to have A-Gon or Pujols, etc., or really expects those types of trades to materialize. On the other hand, we are still in the American League, not the NL West. Last year, we had very good pitching and the offense didn't exactly figure things out, even though they are all professionals. So is Greg Walker. Please tell me you weren't around last year telling everyone to have faith in Brian Anderson, Corky Miller, Josh Fields, DeWayne Wise, Jerry Owens, B. Lillibridge, Williams, etc.? It's pretty obvious there was a talent gap in the last 5-7 spots on the roster last year, as compared to years past. As Ozzie always says, great players look managers look very very smart, and the opposite holds equally as true.

If you want the "group think" positivism, you might prefer other Sox message boards, IMO. Trust me, that's worse than anything you see here. At least this site isn't NEARLY as filtered or controlling of its posters, as long as they stay fairly civil and back up their arguments with substance and not just personal attacks.

I sincerely doubt that 97 number has any current meaning. I would be really shocked if he was throwing that hard so early in ST, let alone at any point in the season...after all those injuries. I think 89-93 ends up being much more likely.

What the heck is the deal with our "relief" pitching philosophy? MacDougal, Masset, Sisco and Aardsma were coached to try to pitch more than throw...to very mixed results. The same thing with Jon Adkins. Maybe it's simply that if you have 2-3 pitches, you can get away with the loss of velocity...but if you don't have velocity OR movement in the pen, you'll get murdered with predominantly one pitch (see Joel Zumaya). Finally, they just gave up with MacDougal and went back to the throw it at the middle of the plate and let natural movement work to your advantage strategy, due to the failure of everything else to work with him. Looking forward to the competition with Dolsi, Santos, Cabrera, Nunez....who emerges and makes it out of camp. Those are very nice arms (especially the first 3), when they're healthy. Santeliz, too. I think the odds are definitely in favor of Hudson starting in the minors instead of working as the long man unless he just dominates, and there's always the possibility with Garcia of injury at any moment. Also feels like Omogrosso has fallen off the map after looking very good in ST last year.

Shelby is the one who really strikes me as having fallen off the map. He wasn't horrible last year, but he's not exactly a youngster anymore, either...and he's never seemed to have found one position on the diamond. I guess there's an outside possibility he makes it as a super-utility guy like a Willie Harris that can play multiple positions and pinch run. CJ Retherford has gotten about as much discussion as anyone in our system, but it's pretty clear the scouts don't see him as much of a prospect. Rodriguez, Escobar and Griffith have a lot of potential.

I miss Josh Fields' plus defense at 3B from 2009 spring training already...

I am positive about Greg's renewed positivism...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseb...0,5065584.story Jenks down to 275 pounds, has stopped drinking and is TRYING to lay off the junk food...sounds good, so far!

After 2006, all the talk was about having the most expensive rotation in the major leagues. At that point, I think it was around $55 million, something in that range. You had Buehrle, Contreras, Garcia, Garland, Vazquez and McCarthy, who would be traded for Danks...the Garcia/Floyd move was the other one that really saved KW's a--. I agree with the diminishing returns idea...heck, KW also did too, he dealt Javier away in order to create payroll flexibility AND simply due to the fact that he thought the back end of the rotation could sort of hold up enough to justify the move. We really need a premier offensive player to get us over the hump and give us a much better opportunity of making the playoffs and going deep...the question is which players can KW afford to part with and still not impact the future TOO adversely. Beckham, Ramirez, Danks, Floyd, Thornton, Putz (if healthy), Quentin (maybe)...have the most value to other clubs, but they do to the Sox, too. If you trade away Flowers, that leaves no replacement for an aging AJ. One of the keys with Flowers is that you insert a pretty big bat at a position that's more statistically anemic than any other on the field. That leaves Hudson, Danks, Mitchell, Viciedo, Morel, CJ, Shelby, Miguel Gonzalez, Santeliz et al to get a deal done. They would really have to gut at least 40% of the farm system, like the Swisher trade TIMES 2. If I was KW, I wouldn't be sleeping easily right now...and I would be even more worried about doing nothing about the DH situation, because the longer he waits, the more expensive the solution. I'm not buying that he can wait for a player to be waived out of ST and strike gold...at best, we'll get someone like Jayson Nix again.

Is James Cameron a White Sox fan, lol? Maybe he would be willing to give Johnny Damon an extra $1-2 million.

QUOTE (Ranger @ Feb 22, 2010 -> 10:22 PM) Well, why would you hear about that? What point would it be for the GM to come out during the winter and say, "jsut thought you'd like to know, but I can't get ahold of ________." You have heard maybe a couple of examples of Kenny talking to a player during the offseason and you just assume that it is easy for all of them to be reached. Sure, some guys are easy to get ahold of. Other guys are not. Sometimes the easy guys are even hard to reach. And yes, sometimes deals do get done very quickly, but even you should know that's not normal. While you went to law school and understand the drafting of an addendum can be done quickly, that doesn't mean that getting all parties to agree on an addendum would be as quick. Sure, the actual drafting of it may take little time, but that's once the parties have agreed. That's the part that usually takes a while. On a side note, what's interesting to me is how you fought me on this idea that it wasn't a realistic option to ask a player to renegotiate, yet you've since admitted that it would be nearly impossible to do. An example would be how difficult it was getting information about Juan Uribe when he had his incident in the DR a couple of years ago. He was out of touch for quite awhile. A lot of times the agents don't even know where their players are....and inevitably it seems there are visa problems with getting players back to the US for spring training from the Caribbean.

Yeah Ranger, that's how it is. My guy was VERY hands-on, that was part of the problem, because sometimes we were at cross-purposes. However, I'd much prefer working with any ahtlete who is personally invested into something in the charitable realm, rather than a player who just puts their name on something out of obligation or because the team requires community involvement. (This was the case with the KC Chiefs, and one of the really outstanding athletes I had a chance to work with there, just briefly, was named Pellom McDaniels--I see now that he has become as Assistant Professor of History at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, not the most likely post-career for an NFL football player!). Unfortunately, it's the journeymen players (who are most often involved in really worthwhile projects) who hang around the league 3-4-5 years but when their time is up, they're really shut out and it's much harder to accomplish anything on their behalf. When I was working for the Augusta GreenJackets, I tried to put together a celebrity home-run hitting contest. I had Garrison Hearst and Bert Emmanuel (he played some college BB at Rice University, and drafted by the Pirates) very interested, but they had to defer because their agents were worried they might get hurt and their NFL contracts could be voided. I remember Bert even took one of my phone calls when he was in the shower, lol. Many of the players were surprisingly accessible, some were deliberately evasive or would commit to do something and then keep changing their mind on a weekly basis. Some of the best athletes are the ones you would think would be the most difficult. It's just like getting a job in sports...everyone assumes the most competition is for a job with an NFL or MLB team, so they try to get minor league jobs or internships. What ends up happening is that the competition is stiffer at that level than for the minor leaguers. I guess I'll always regret turning down the Red Sox (I hated them, and it was "only" an internship with $200 per month stipend) and taking a minor league job instead. But that's life. One of my dorm-mates at the University of Iowa ended up getting a radio job with the Astros (Brett Dolan) andI was really shocked, because I know how much competition there is...you just have to be in the right place at the right time, cliched as that is.