caulfield12

Christian Marrero PHing for Thome gets a SAC fly after Lillibridge got a hustle double. I think that was his first PA. 2-0 White Sox now going into bottom of 5th. Escobar with a solid single for his first hit of the spring. I guess he'll be playing in Winston-Salem behind Beckham in the pecking order.

I would be excited to see Betemit (against only RHP), Viciedo or Allen get some playing time at 1B, but I wouldn't want to see Konerko out for more than 2 weeks. Walk for BA...that's good news. He's going to have to take more pitches, but he's a lot like Wise and Ramirez up there usually swinging early in the count or getting down 0-1/0-2 and getting punched out with offspeed stuff off the plate. Anderson gunned down by Montero stealing 2nd, then Wise makes the 3rd out after he flew out deep into the RF corner and almost hit it out. 1-0 White Sox going into the bottom of the 4th. Big inning for Jose, Young/Drew/Jackson coming up. Highly touted defender Eduardo Escobar in at SS for his second game of the spring with the big league team. Chris Young strikes out, DBacks 1/11 against Jose so far in this game. That's a nice (Paciorek)! Got one pitch up to 94 now, but his average FB is 90-91 now. Lillibridge with a nice play up the middle....now the problem is that Jose has only 50 pitches and they need to elevate his pitch count and give Colon at least innings out there too. So I guess Colon will come in for the bottom of the 6th. Another 1-2-3 inning for Jose. Awesome El Gran Titan De Bronze!

http://www.wgntv.com/weather Right now, if they don't up playing Monday...Tuesday through Sunday looks fine for the time being. Monday looks 50/50 at best...unless they moved the game back to 6 or 7 pm, but then it would be brutally cold. Nothing wrong with Konerko. Salvador Sanchez is already in the game in LF for Quentin, whoever Sanchez is. Contreras through 3 scoreless innings, averaging 91.3 MPH fastball, highest was 93. ONLY 41 pitches through 3, that's good news.

LOL. They said Ramirez was going to be a "force" by the end of this season. I think they're a little late on that observation... White Sox leaving quite a few runners out there, but it doesn't really matter as much as the weather next week. I guess delaying the first starts for Contreras/Colon and having them pitch in better conditions might not be the worst thing is the world if they lose a couple of games the first week due to weather cancellations.

QUOTE (CryptviLL @ Apr 4, 2009 -> 02:36 PM) man i am so ready for beisbol Are you Cubano or Sammy Sosa in disguise? Contreras through 2 innings, seems to be pitching much better this time out...30 pitches through 2. KW expects Colon to pitch at 90-94 today.

"I don't know who's crazier, me, or you for hiring me?" Ozzie to KW. KW tried to give Garland (rent free) his Paradise Valley house but Garland refused to take it for this season...haha. Ah, to be a suffering multi-millionaire who didn't get $10-12 million but had to settle for poverty. Didn't know Josh Fields was also battling hip problems last year....as well as the knee. Mentioned that he was concerned (DUH!) about the leadoff position but satisfied with 2-9. Played up that the White Sox were being picked by some for 5th place. I don't think most predictions have them last...maybe 2nd-4th. Attributed this to the losses of Crede and Cabrera. Had a lot of praise for Garland. Also lots of praise for Cooper. From listening to KW, Contreras will start on the 10th and Colon on the 11th against the Twins, with Buehrle starting the Sunday game against Liriano. Kenny Williams, Jr., will be starting the season at Kannapolis.

and Colon for the 4th/5th starter's spot. Strange to be facing Garland...Thome uncharacteristically swung at a 3-0 pitch and grounded out weakly to 2B. Obviously, everyone just wants to get back to Chicago and get settled in...this game will be over in 2 hours. KW will be getting interviewed on the Diamondbacks' radio broadcast, I'll try to report anything noteworthy. Contreras with 2 quick outs....91-93 with the FB so far. Gave up a hit to Drew on a FB but got Conor Jackson for the K (Jackson the 10th toughest in th NL to strike out last season, so that's encouraging.) Wise with an 854 OPS for the spring and BA at 798.

Between Ramirez's arm and wild/sailing throws and Josh, Konerko might come close to earning part of that $13 million offensively and DEFENSIVELY this season...and yet another reason why Josh Kroeger couldn't make the team, he's a butcher at 1B...certainly nothing like Ross Gload.

Let's say Linebrink or Dotel goes on the disabled list...hypothetically. Who's the first reliever you would call in from Charlotte to force into that 7th/8th inning role, after MacDougal was moved up? Omogrosso would probably be my choice. Russell? Wasserman? Santeliz? Link? Santos Rodriguez? Ely? Cassel? Signing another Cuban or Japanese pitcher? German, Nunez and Jiminez all failed to distinguish themselves this past spring.

What's interesting is that making James Bond "dark/er" has had very much mixed results. In a way, he was kind of becoming tired and cliched under Moore and Dalton has a character...now he's something like Jason Bourne, Jr., almost too evolved and too modern and not enough one-liners and meaningless sex. Maybe part of it's a reaction to the parodies too, movies like Austin Powers. I'm still not sure if that last Bond movie was horrible because of the script or Olgy Kurylenko is meant to be a leggy Ukrainian ubermodel and not actress.

Interesting that Mr. Ryan Sweeney didn't end up mentioned...a lot of people are ready for him to have a "semi" breakout season in OAK...or Carter/Cunningham.

Merkin should be sentenced to do Bristol Sox games with Bill Melton for six weeks this summer...wow, that would be both a snoozefest and a laugh a minute. The sad fact is that Bender was so much more obviously prepared to discuss the White Sox than either one of our guys when they appeared on the audio broadcast. I ALMOST would have preferred Mariotti doing the games, seriously.

And Joe Borchard was worth $5.3 million before they discovered he couldn't hit a breaking ball or above average FB.

MacDougal or Dotel are the only candidates we have internally if Linebrink isn't 100%. At least the fact that he's already throwing 91-93 is much more encouraging than high 80's at this point. The problem seems to be more with the command of his breakin stuff than his FB.

If Wise can hit .280-.290, then we can live with him at the 9 spot, but not leading off...he just doesn't walk enough. The only real candidates for the top 2 spots should be Getz/Ramirez and eventually Beckham. I think the back-up plan (Plan B, Plan A would be trade or waiver wire or Edmonds) would be moving Alexei back out to CF. Remember, the Twins are starting the season without Mauer, Baker (although supposedly Liriano was miffed he wasn't the OD starter, so Baker agreed to take the hit for the team and go on the DL for a short stint but not really miss a start) and possibly Morneau with his iffy back. Maybe they are just saving Baker and Liriano for the White Sox the 2nd series?

I think it's kind of relative...not meaning a ranking of those players in order in terms of talent, ability or what numbers they'll put up in 2009, but more in terms of "shock value," players many haven't heard of or don't know much about putting up some gaudy statistics. Fields has been out of the limelight for over a year, so I'm sure many Fantasy League drafters tend to forget about you when you spend an entire year in AAA and a very lousy one at that...of course, if they knew he was injured and studied a little further, it's not hard to understand why some are now expecting bigger things out of Fields than they did 6 weeks ago.

candidates... http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writ...yers/index.html Good to see Josh and especially Getz getting some early recognition for their efforts. Let's hope that ST doesn't turn out to be a mirage for both of these guys and they can carry forward their successes from AZ into the regular season. Some other familiar names on this list, like Javy Vazquez.

QUOTE (kyyle23 @ Apr 2, 2009 -> 02:07 PM) Agreed, successful comics are usually successful because the character AND the story are great. Fox just likes to exploit the name value of these characters and get butts in the seats, they could care less if the seat occupiers actually enjoy the movie Catwoman with Halle Berry, the Punisher (2X, like the Hulk), would be just a couple of examples... I saw Adventureland yesterday and I really, really, liked it. Definitely 3.5/4 stars. There's just something about Kristen Stewart (she had the same laconic presence in Twilight) that compels you to watch her, even though she's not beautiful by any stretch of the imagination. It reminded me a little bit of Nick and Norah meets a Zach Braff movie with an 80's soundtrack sprinkled in. It's definitely going to play to more of a 15-25 year old crowd, but it was well done and captured that time period (1987) so well without overdoing it and going for the cliches. Fast/Furious was as expected. Jordana Brewster hasn't done very much since the first film, I thought she was going to be a star but it just never materialized. I'm actually getting to like Paul Walker movies, I guess it's because I have a soft spot for the vastly underrated 8 Below. He would be on the list with Jason Statham and Paul Rudd for male actors I usually enjoy something about their movies even if they are pretty horrific. In some ways, he's become what the likes of Ryan Philippe or Freddie Prinze, Jr., never became...or Josh Hartnett, to name a more recent example. Either 3 or 3.25 stars out of 4, can't decide. Watchable, but nothing great, predictable in a summer popcorn movie kind of way. I guess with Knowing, reviewers either eviscerate Nicolas Cage movies automatically (for the toupee or not pushing himself as an actor like he did earlier in his career before he "sold out") or they tend to like them no matter how bad they actually are. I like Knowing more than The Day the Earth Stood Still, simply because I hate Keanu Reeves with a passion (and not because he's gay, not that there's anything wrong with that, wink wink) and Will Smith's son made me want to have him offed by the Aliens at various times. Knowing, was interesting/thought-provoking in a DaVinci/National Treasure-ish way but it had the same problem as Signs. I really think movies where the "aliens" don't show up at all is the best...or where there's a totally different approach to conceiving them, like "Race to Witch Mountain." BTW, is "Sugar" playing in Chicago anywhere? It's not here in the Quad Cities yet, although part of it was filmed at the minor league stadium here on the riverfront.

Well, we "think" the White Sox might like Egbert. On one hand, he had quite a few opportunities in ST to go out there and perform, unlike say Link, but he never really got into the conversation to make the team as much as even Broadway and Williams. While you'd like to think he should be at least even with Russell and Wasserman, Ozzie and KW tend to go with guys they've seen perform at the big league level b4 unless they're so clearly superior (like a Gordon Beckham or Boone Logan when they jumped him from the low minors) that there's no possible argument. For all we know, Van Benschoten might be higher on Coop's list than Egbert, although by the way he (JVB) was sent down so quickly, I'll give the Rutgers grad here the benefit of the doubt. Marquez and Broadway will certainly receive SOME attention, although Cassel is a sleeper/wild card, too.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Apr 3, 2009 -> 07:35 PM) He's far more than top 25 on the Sox. I have him just below Danks and that is because I love Danks tools more than practically anyone in the organization. I'm not as high on Poreda as most are, however, I think Poreda projects very nicely in the pen and his upside is as a closer, not a starter. However, if his sinker is truly dominant he might be able to make it as a starter. Right now I have the Sox top five as: Gordon Beckham Dayan Viciedo Tyler Flowers Jordan Danks Aaron Poreda I did not include Clayton Richard or Chris Getz since they are opening the season on the major league roster. Next on my list would be John Shelby followed by Brandon Allen and Hudson. I actually think the Sox need to focus heavily on improving there pitching prospects as there are very few starting prospects I like. I saw Hudson pitch though and I f***ing love him. Are you sure Allen should be so low? From the times I saw him in ST, I liked him a LOT more than Flowers in terms of his approach, and that's not even taking into consideration Flowers' defensive deficiencies currently as a catcher. Plus, Brandon's left-handed, and we don't have any other significant power-hitting prospects other than him on the horizon. I think Jordan Danks really is going to need to prove a lot more b4 you can put him at #4, same thing with Flowers, who has had one really good "A" season followed up by an impressive AFL performance. To me, it looks like he needs to get on a strength and conditioning program and gain another 10-15 pounds of muscle. Then again, Alexei, you could say the same thing about him...and yet the ball just jumps off his bat even if he only weighs 155-165 pounds. Poreda is undervalued unless his highest upside is as a reliever.

1) Dotel is at least five seasons removed from the time when he was closing... 2) Dotel also had at least 2-3 seasons prior to that time where he was either on the shelf due to injury/surgery or rehab 3) Putz, even though it was more it was "only" with the M's that he closed, is perceived by others more to be like a Fuentes type than he is a 7th inning guy...even though K-Rod is obviously the man right now for that team, at least for the conceiveable future Leadoff update: Guillen says he isn't worried about the leadoff spot, even if Dewayne Wise fails, because he has confidence rookie Chris Getz can do the job. "Getz is going to get you consistently good at-bats," Guillen said of his No. 2 hitter. "How much is he going to hit? Well, we're going to find out." Guillen thinks the Sox are improved in center with Wise and Brian Anderson sharing the duties. Richard ready as insurance: Guillen is leaning toward starting Bartolo Colon ahead of Jose Contreras as the Sox's No. 4 starter. That will be sorted out sometime after the two veterans pitch in Saturday's exhibition finale against Arizona. www.chicagotribune.com/sports

Getz and Ramirez have really been raking recently...Getz almost ended up with a 4/5 and 3-4 rbi's if not for a really good basket catch by Chris Young to end the last inning. Quentin also seems to be picking it up as well, although Fields and Konerko are cooling off quite a bit. Who knows what will happen in 35 degree temperatures all next week, it will be brutal for the hitters. I bet Viciedo and Beckham will be at least a LITTLE happy their season starts on Thursday night in Birmingham.

They said (DBacks announcers) that Linebrink was really having a difficult time with his breaking ball...his FB was averaging around 92 MPH. He IS making me a little nervous right now, but thankfully we might luck out with a lights-out season from MacDougal to take his place. I just don't think at this point in his career, with his arm iffy/ouchy from here on out, that we can expect as much consistency as we saw in the first half of 08.

Getz has to shade more up the middle. His definite weakness is plays to his right or throwing against his body and going away from 1st base...he has plenty of range going to his left, better than major league average for sure.

http://chicago.whitesox.mlb.com/news/artic...sp&c_id=cws Really good to hear. Can't wait for Opening Day for the Barons as well. The left side of that infield will lead the minors in homers for 2 teammates combined together on one team. Along with Allen, Flowers, Shelby and Danks, we'll have at least six players to follow all year long and be excited about.