caulfield12

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jun 8, 2009 -> 03:56 PM) But Josh Anderson sure does look good... What did they trade to get him again? Looks like Kenny missed out. We missed out on Jackson, Josh Anderson and Pavano, although nobody could have seen that last one coming. I'll add Porcello to the list, just because the White Sox were clearly outspent by a mid-market team in our own division that was more committed to winning than we were...even this year, when the market's so down for Detroit because of the economic downturn. I'm sure Jackson and Porcello will both beat the White Sox a couple more times this season.

Fields and Anderson should both just be sent packing. It's obvious 1) we won't get anything in return for them at this point, 2) they both need a change of scenery and/or a new hitting coach. It's just not going to happen for them in Chicago, two more blown first-round draft picks in a streak of almost 15 years of bad ones. Not an Ozzie basher, but NO F'IN reason not to PH for Fields there with Zumaya on the mound, no reason not to use Nix/Beckham/Anderson defensively in the top of the 9th and NO REASON WHATSOEVER to leave Thornton on the bench as well in the most critical game of the season up to that point. Actually another point, absolutely ZERO REASON to let Wise bat there too, he's obviously not 100% and has ZERO TIMING, and yet Ozzie expects last year's string of luck to continue and for Wise to get a miracle hit against a 98-100 MPH fastball.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jun 8, 2009 -> 02:31 PM) Any team that wins their division can be classified as a contender, I guess. But even the most optimistic Sox fan knew that team was so not built for October. They had a chance if their pitching was aligned for the post-season and we didn't have to use Javier Vazquez in the first 3 games. Healthy Quentin, Crede, Linebrink, etc., also would have made a huge difference.

QUOTE (Jenks Heat @ Jun 8, 2009 -> 03:45 PM) Ozzie Guillen is proving to be a brutal in game manager. Why are defensive replacements never an option? Wise and Fields suck there is no reason why Anderson and Nix are not in there for defensive reasons. They each should have hit in the 8th as they can hit fastballs they can not hit breaking pithces. Anderson wasn't going to hit Zumaya, but Beckham and Nix have compact enough swings to get to him, Gordon especially, despite the 0/12 start.

I really hope it's worth it in 2010 and 2011 what KW has done to our major league team this year.

Pods leading off innings five times now this game.

This feels like the game that was the official tipping point to the season...with Contreras starting tonight. If Josh Fields is in the line-up again tonight, Ozzie should just go home to Florida and turn the team over to Cora.

Forget Nix for Getz, he or Beckham should be in there for Fields. What a pathetic way to screw over the team this year...thanks Josh. Horrible. Atrocious. Egregious. Way to let all of the air out of the balloon there after we managed to tie it against Zumaya.

QUOTE (TitoMB345 @ Jun 8, 2009 -> 03:31 PM) WHERE THE f*** IS BRIAN? f*** you Ozzie. I hope you don't want any piece of Brian against Zumaya. Nix and Anderson should both be in the game as defensive replacements right now. There's no reason for Wise to be on this roster right now, he's just atrocious. Great job, Fields!! No excuse, not even a fast runner, and now we've just put Josh Anderson at 2B.

Beckham or Nix would have had a better chance there than Wise....he's really, REALLY struggling. Beckham has the perfect inside-out swing to take Zumaya to RCF but maybe Ozzie hesistant to pinch-hit him there on his 0 for 12 string, but still pretty silly. We all know Fields doesn't have a chance to line up a FB.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 8, 2009 -> 11:46 AM) It also led to the pitching staff throwing more pitches and more stress on their arms. Eldred, Baldwin, Sirotka, and Parque all were never the same. I'm not blaming Valentin, he was a good player when the Sox acquired him and got a little worse every season, but it certainly didn't help them. And every ball that flew through the infield unmolested by Royce (Range of Josh Fields at 3B) Clayton led to additional pitches as well. If you asked any of our pitchers who'd they rather have playing SS everyday, privately, they all would have said Jose Valentin. Not to mention the fact that he was a really smart ballplayer in terms of instincts...we don't even have a baserunner with close to his aptitude on this current Sox team. We just have lots of low baseball IQ players, and that goes back to drafting. We can't blame the injuries to Rauch, Barcelo, Kelly Wunsch, Rocky Biddle, Bobby Howry, Jason Stumm, Danny Wright, Corwin Malone and MANY others on Jose Valentin alone, that would be silly. Eldred had a long history of injury problems before he came to Chicago...

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 8, 2009 -> 11:43 AM) I don't know what everyone can realistically expect out of an offense that was so poorly put together, Dewayne Wise and Brent Lillibridge led off multiple games. Their best hitter has been hurt. Dye and Thome have missed time. A rookie is at 2b. The C and SS while decent hitters are low OBP, the 3rd baseman is a low OBP high K guy coming off a horrific stint in AAA, but yet when the Sox lose 8-4 the when will Greg Walker be fired thread begins. It is ridiculous. Again, be careful what you wish for. Everyone wanted Uribe and Crede out, you got it. Here's Lillibridge and Fields, what an upgrade. If the White Sox get better hitters, they will hit better. If they continue to trot out mediocre line-ups, mediocre results will follow. Buehrle offered $1 million of his salary to keep Uribe. I would have loved to bring him back, but at a minimum of $3.6 million (20% cut), he would have been pricey for a bench player. Then again, he might have ended up becoming the starting 2B or 3B on this team and really shoring up the infield defense, particularly at third. All I know is we won in 2005 and 2008 with Juan Uribe, for whatever that's worth. In fact, I would have kept Uribe OVER Crede simply because Joe seemed done and Boras wanted him out of here anyway...not to mention the injury probability. Uribe was the one "glue" that everyone in the clubhouse seemed to love, white/black/Hispanic...and he cracked everyone up on a daily basis that was around the team. His presence is sorely missed when the team is going through these "blah/down" spells. My favorite Uribe story is the time he was going up and down the bench pointing at players, "white guy, black guy, white guy...then he came to JD and made a smirk and said "white guy." Gotta to love Juan and his blonde goatee, it was so much better than Jenks'. Now we have Nix, Getz and had Betemit when we really would have been better off with Uribe all along. Ironic.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Jun 8, 2009 -> 11:30 AM) I was a big Valentin fan as well. He was an error machine, but you're correct about his range and arm (his 20+ HR power was nice as well). To my recollection, I only remember him costing us one game back in 2000 (the Sirotka/Pedro matchup, where the Red Sox on 1-0 on an unearned run). Which led directly to two of the worst KW moves (in terms of team chemistry) of all time, David Wells/Sirotka and the dreaded Royce Clayton/Aaron Myette trade. Clayton and Mark Johnson would have fit in perfectly with this offense at 8/9. I wouldn't be surprised if Ramirez pulled a hamstring playing CF, it would be a reminder of KW trying (briefly) to move Jose there...a case of a trade that NEVER would have been made if KW would have looked beyond the error totals at some of the other statistical measures (Total Chances, Total Chances Per IP, Zone Rating, Range Factor, etc., etc.) Clayton went on to become a clubhouse cancer (fitting in well with D'Angelo Jimenez) and teaming with Kenny Lofton to really turn Carlos Lee and Magglio Ordonez to the "dark side" in terms of their clubhouse presence(s).

QUOTE (IowaSoxFan @ Jun 8, 2009 -> 09:06 AM) Move Harold off first and make him the hitting coach then hire someone else like Mookie Wilson to coach 1B. Lance Johnson

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 8, 2009 -> 08:33 AM) Once again how is every hitter's failure on Walker, but pitcher's failures are never on Cooper? Do you know the White Sox have given up 8 or more runs 11 times this year? That's more than they have been shutout. Its the players, not the coach. Change the coach and you will have the same result. Can someone please come up with a replacement when they said Walker must be fired? For one thing, the most dominant and successful element of our team right now is the bullpen, which is partially Cooper's oversight. Second, Colon has been getting by with smoke and mirrors (until recently) all season long. How he has done as well as he has with an 84-91 MPH fastball, throwing it 85-90% of the time, is beyond me. Everyone knows Clayton Richard has been a pleasant surprise, compared to the view many had of him this offseason as a pitcher who would get knocked out of the game in the 3rd through 5th innings (second time through the line-up). Contreras was/is coming back from a catastrophic, career-threatening injury at age 40+. Floyd has finally seemed to have righted the ship...and it looks like Danks might be the White Sox version of Cliff Lee (look at some of his inconsistency from year to year, where he goes from the Cy Young to the precipice of AAA and back and forth). The heavy toll/workload HAS to be a factor....it got the 2005 starters in the second half of 2006, their ERA's weren't even close to what they put up in our championship season. Buehrle is Buehrle. I don't know what more anyone could realistically expect. We knew we needed repeats from Quentin, Ramirez, Danks and Floyd, and none of that has happened...so it's really hard to say we can accurately predict how good either Floyd OR Danks can be when both of their careers have been so up and down.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Jun 8, 2009 -> 10:55 AM) (1) Quentin's hurt (2) Danks is having an off-year, after all of the extra innings he threw last season (3) Floyd is back to his inconsistent self (4) Contreras and Colon are both done (5) No leadoff hitter with a decent OBP in April (although Pods is hitting well now) (6) Alexei had a terrible April (7) Fields appears to have been highly-overrated Thankfully, the rest of the division isn't much better and I don't see why the Sox can't contend. Getting Quentin back and Alexei re-gaining form will help. Fields has to be at 775-850 OPS to be effective...if you look at Crede's numbers, he wasn't really a consistently high OPS producer (maybe high 600's/low 700's on average), but he saved so many runs defensively (when healthy) that it really was like adding another 100-150 OPS points. Of course, there's no way to quantify it, just as there's no way to easily quantify in a satisfactory way the negative affect Fields and Betemit exacted on our pitchers. It's certainly a lot easier to throw a pitch with conviction knowing it will be either caught or at least stopped 95% of the time when it's within range. It's one of the ways the likes of Jose Valentin AND Juan Uribe were undervalued by many fans who looked at their inconsistent offensive numbers. Both players were much more important for the runs they saved defensively (yes, Valentin was a heckuva lot better than Clayton or Cabrera because of his range AND arm, never let error totals alone deceive one).

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Jun 4, 2009 -> 01:31 PM) Now you're putting this one stat under a whole umbrella of sabermetrical protection by association. We're not talking about a large number of anonymous stats which the game - in your opinion, not fact - is better for. You try to call me out on a straw man because you can't even respond to the question. Again, how does pythagorean win total help anyone solve anything? Not even actual records - much less totally meaningless ones - help anyone solve anything, because you have to look at the reasons for each win or loss to decide what your weaknesses are. The figure itself tells nothing. I mean, do you even know what a straw man is? You were defending the pythagorean win total as not only an important figure, but also as a reasonable evaluation tool. I tell you that is idiotic and explain exactly why, then you call a straw man? What? But instead of actually explaining why pythagorean wins are so important to a baseball exec, you'll probably respond with some kind of insult, and I'm guessing the reason will be because you feel that an attack on the legitimacy of one worthless statistic is also an attack upon your religion as a whole, so you'll get offended. BTW it is your *opinion* that Bill James has done sooooo much for baseball. It may be a fact that his philosophies and recommendations have been used, and it may be a fact that some people have attributed success to them, but it is an opinion that his methods are better than any others. Tell me, are hitters today better than they were 10-20+ years ago? What about pitchers? And if so, how exactly does this relate to Bill James and not to more baseball academies, better sports medicine, alterations to the game itself, expansion, improved technology, a more profitable game, etc.? You sit there and say everyone was making all these bad decisions before, in a whole other era, but then everything changed for the better once Bill James came around. This is exactly the problem with you people: you believe one thing and you won't admit that it's just your own view. It's some great formula that can't be f***ed with. You make your assertion, knowing it cannot be proven, and you play it off as fact. Tell me, did Bill James bring us Carlos Quentin or Gavin Floyd? Or was that a lot more scouting, with a look at minor league stats as a form of reassurance? What were these good numbers that brought us these players here recently but wouldn't have brought them in the past? And please, what is a "good number" versus a "bad number?" Why am I not able to appropriately judge a pitcher simply off of his stuff, his peripheral stats, park/playing conditions, and strength of opposition? Why do I need pythagorean wins and win shares and so on? And why are all these numbers revolutionary? If scouting has improved because stats have improved, then I believe it is because of better technology, more man power, greater funding, and easier access to information. I don't believe it has anything to do with adding a bunch of numbers together. Guillen and Gardenhire have always been near the top in this category, with Wedge lagging far behind. The problem with this whole idea is the White Sox offense is so darned inconsistent, but when your team, for instance, is playing .500 or around that mark and you're in the bottom 5 of the majors in the RS/RA differential, that says something positive (I think) for the manager. What would be more accurate would be to look at winning 1 run and 2 run and 3 run games, but that's LARGELY a function of the bullpen...and Guillen was a genius in 2005 because Cotts, Politte and Hermanson pitched so far over their heads. The problem with the White Sox is that EVEN if you went along with the argument we have the best bullpen in the American League, our starting rotation and line-up has so many holes in it that NO manager could make up for that lack of talent. As Ozzie and Leyland always say, give them great players and they'll make the manager look a whole lot better. If you look at all our deficiences (fundamentals/execution, baserunning, defense, speed, OPS, OBP, etc.), it really is pretty amazing we're only 4 1/2 games back as poorly as we've played. A lot of our ability to really compete seems predicated on Quentin actually looking like a reasonable facsimile of the player he was last season, AND showing the aptitude for staying healthy. Not crossing my fingers on that one, any more than I am on Colon or Richard being consistent in any way, shape or form for the next 4 months. Same thing with Contreras.

QUOTE (beck72 @ Jun 7, 2009 -> 07:25 AM) Are you saying that Getz can't be a starter for the Sox because the Cell's a home run hitter's park, yet would be OK in a pitcher's park? IMO, Getz' approach to offense [making contact, hitting for avg, posting a decent OBP, working counts, smart baserunning] helps the sox lineup that is still heavily reliant on the long ball. He's a guy who can score from 2b on a single, or from 1st on a double. The sox have had too many years of innings with needing 3 hits to score a run. The sox have hit a lot of solo HR's in recent years. Having guys on base [which is what Getz has done in his minor league career-both in avg. and OBP], regardless of where the team plays, helps team's score runs. In an ideal world, the sox lineup would feature 9 guys who all have speed, power, patience and can hit .280-.300. Few guys in the league have that total package who can do that, let alone have a lineup full of them. The sox need a blend of power guys and guys who can compliment that power, esp. playing 82 games in the Cell. Getz compliments the current team quite well. Getz in the Iguchi role (if we had the Pods of 2005, first half) would be more valuable than what he is to this team. We have to give him more time...and he's had a lot of little, nagging injury problems that have kept him from getting on a consistent streak of hitting. As long as he's hitting line drives (DJ had a stat that 56% of line drives end up as hits or something like that) and not uppercutting, he SHOULD be fine. The problem is who do you sit: Getz, Ramirez or Fields?

QUOTE (whitesox61382 @ Jun 6, 2009 -> 11:08 PM) Let me start by saying that it is a good thing that VAfan isn't part of the Sox front office. 1) Sample size - as others have already pointed out, you can't make a full judgement on a player based on 146 career ABs or even 601 ABs (Field's career total). If teams gave up on young players after a quarter of a season, than half of the current superstars in the majors wouldn't exist. Every now and again you get a player like Pujols who comes into the majors and produces from day 1, but most young players go through a learning curve. Point being, using either players career averages and assuming that they are going to continue to produce at that level over the remainder of their career is simple foolish. Let both players play on a regular basis and see what they can do. 2) One dimensional offense - have you been a Sox fan for the past decade? If so, than you will know that one of the Sox biggest flaws has been a one dimensional offense that relies too much on the HR. I know their overall offensive numbers look solid, but what is hidden in the numbers is inconsistency. The Sox have a tendancy to win 11-2 only to come back the next day and lose 2-1. Overall, the numbers look reasonable (in that scenario the Sox average 6 runs a game), but the overall result is an inconsistent .500 calibur team. I am not suggesting that the Sox need to get rid of their power hits and fill the lineup with .300, slap hitters, with good speed, and no power (especially in USCF), but they need some versatility and the ability to manufacture runs in those pitching duals when the HR isn't flying out. The Sox have finished 1st or 2nd in the AL in HRs from 2004 to 2008 in every year expect for one. Is it a coincidence that the one year they didn't finish in the top two they won the World Series? They still hit a lot of HRs, but they found ways to produce runs when they weren't hitting HRs. Fields is in the mold of those one dimensional all or nothing power hitters. IMO, the Sox not to limit those types of players in the lineup. 3) Complete player - similar to the argument above, the Sox need to find more complete players. I look at the 5 tools, except I substitute "plate discipline" for "arm". IMO, "arm" should fall under defense. One of the more underrated catagories and stats, especially for young hitters, is plate discipline and none of the other 4 catagories takes into consideration plate discipline. Lets compare the two players in the 5 catagories and you tell me which is the more complete player. Average - Fields hit .275 in 1685 career minor league ABs and .235 in his 601 career major league ABs. The scouting report on Fields is that he is never going to hit for a high average. If he hits .250+ at the major league level, than Sox fans should be happy. Getz hit .286 in 1428 career minor league ABs (hit below .299 only once in his 4 seasons) and .250 in 146 career major league ABs. The scouting report on Getz is that he should be able to hit in the .280-.290 range at the major league leve. Advantage Getz. Power - Fields hit 62 HR and a .458 SLG in the minors and 26 HR and .416 SLG in the majors (601 AB). Fields has good power potential and has displayed the ability to be a 20+ HR hitter at the major league level. Getz hit 17 HR and a .381 SLG in the minors and 0 HR and a .306 SLG in the majors. Getz is not a power guy. He might hit 5-10 HRs a year at the major level. Clear advantage Fields. Plate discipline - Fields draws a decent amount of walks, but he is a lock for 150+ SO if he gets a full season worth of ABs (550+). Getz has always had good plate discipline. Last year was the first year he had more SO than BB. He doesn't draw a ton of walks, but a healthy total. Advantage Getz. Defense - Fields has made some improvements defensively, but he is still a liability at 3B. You can even make an argument that he is one of the worst 3B in the game defensively. He will be lucky to be adequate at 3B and will likely have to move to DH (or possible 1B or LF). Getz is solid defensively and even above average at 2B. He lacks the arm to make the difficult plays in the hole, and that will likely keep him from being a great defensive 2B/GG calibur. Advantage Getz. Speed - Fields runs pretty well for a big power hitters, but his speed is average at best. Before his knee operations he could even snag double digit bags, but he doesn't have that potential any more. Getz isn't a speedster or a great base stealer, but he does have above average speed and has the potential to snag 20 bags. Advantage Getz. Personally, I don't know if either are everyday players (we will only find out if the Sox let them play on a regular basis), but I think Getz is the more complete player. I think both have rather limited upsides. Fields due to his struggles to make consistent contact, which is never going to to away. And Getz because of his lack of power. Only time will tell. At this point in both players careers it is irrational to draw firm conclusions though. Yes, BUT by this argument, you'd think that someone like Chris Getz would be more valuable than Adam Dunn, for instance. There's very little doubt that if we had Adam Dunn playing LF (for example) all season, we'd have at least 2-4 more wins this season. The Sox offense has always been predicated on production from the core of the line-up, complemented by the other positions on the field...the likes of Pods, Iguchi, Rowand and Uribe in 2005, for instance. Or even Carl Everett that season. Where the problem occurs this season (besides inconsistent starting pitching) is with the loss of Carlos Quentin's production, the heat really falls on 3B, SS, 2B and CF to give us more production. Of course, Alexei is hitting decently now, but he's still about 150 OPS behind what he did last year. You can live with Alexei at 700+ at SS, but probably not at 650 like Cabrera last year, not when you're losing all of the production out of Carlos. Obviously, Nix would be a better utility player than Getz...except he's an all or nothing hitter and doesn't have Chris' speed. It seems there is a place for BOTH these guys on the team...as long as you have a bigger bat coming off the bench for OF/1B/DH. Certainly bigger than Wise/Owens/Anderson/Pods. Of course, we had that batter in Betemit, he just couldn't play any position in the field and his best place was DH, but he's only effective against RHP, just like Thome...so superfluous and now gone. Fields/Viciedo at 3B, Ramirez at SS and Beckham at 2B gives the best possible offensive/defensive combination. The only possibility to improve would be if Nix miraculously became a 260-280 hitter, he would be more valuable because of his "plus" defense at 3B over Josh. Of course, Viciedo just committed his 13th error, but he has been an RBI machine recently. Now, how much of that is attributable to the overwhelming talent on that roster and how much of it is "innate" I guess we'll find out when he plays for Charlotte and has to maximize his RBI opportunities (and he struggled mightily in that area the first 4-6 weeks or so). Bottom line, playing 81 home games at USCF, Getz can't be a starter. If he was playing at Safeco or Petco or in the Metrodome, you might be able to hide him in the line-up more easily. He won't kill your offense, but he's a below average player in that regard and he still hasn't learned how to maximize his speed in terms of stolen bases, either. Realistically, they would be better off with Uribe as the "supersub" and Getz and Nix both playing everyday in Charlotte, if both of them aren't going to get enough at-bats, depending on how long they stick with Beckham.

There's danger here, Sheree. Why did we treat Peralta like he's Babe Ruth there? Kind of silly. But somehow Gavin got out of it. The bullpens, thankfully our biggest advantage, will decide this one. Knock on (Kerry) Wood.

Any manager forced to use a starting line-up of Scott Podsednik, Brian Anderson and Jayson Nix would be driven to drink, clearly. What starting outfield have you seen in a boxscore WORSE than that one in recent weeks? I can't think of any of the top of my head.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Jun 6, 2009 -> 04:17 PM) Jermaine Dye AND AJ Pierzynski AND Alexei Ramirez Fields was 13 for his last 35 before the June 4th game. Dye is 6/21 in his last 7 days and hit .261 in May. I'll stand by my argument.

Why does BA always play like this after teasing us with a week of "decent" hitting?

QUOTE (Reddy @ Jun 6, 2009 -> 04:08 PM) WHAAAAT? did you even THINK before posting this? basing this off of ONE Josh Fields home run? Jesus. Wasn't Josh Fields 13 for his last last 39? Now something like 14 for 40? No, that's NOT JUST BASED ON ONE AT-BAT, but it's even funnier that he hit tie-breaking homer in what could easily end up a 2-1 game. JESUS BACK. Obviously you haven't been following Fields' offensive resurgence (albeit singles mostly) the last 2-3 weeks. Besides Pods with his creeping stance, WHO IS HITTING THE BALL BETTER ON THE WHITE SOX NOW??? Pray tell.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 6, 2009 -> 04:07 PM) Ozzie needs to manage wisely against the Tigers next week. You can't play Fields against the likes of Verlander and Jackson, as he won't hit their fastball. However, he needs to be in the lineup against Dontrelle. Beckham's swing was designed to take ANY fastball to RCF. Anderson, Fields, not much of a chance. Getz...he goes either way, if he's in his uppercut mode, forget it. If he's quicker and inside-outing the ball to LF and hitting line drives in general, he can be an effective player as well. You'd like to see Nix with his more compact swing get some AB's, too.