caulfield12

Lillibridge was battling a wrist problem all of last season and changed his swing mechanics to compensate. He played much better in the last 4-6 weeks (like Konerko) but it's really lost in the stats. KW and Ozzie really like what he brings to the team...versatility, speed/pinch-running, best defender/back-up at SS and the ability to play CF if we give him some time out there. I won't be surprised at all if he makes the team.

QUOTE (jphat007 @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 03:32 PM) It's too far away to be making any big statements like that. One player could get hot and cold and in one week their avgs will be totally different Brian Anderson has left 7 on base. He's struck out in a key situation and looked more horrible than Jerry Owens. That's hard to do. Ozzie has already told the papers he's going to use Lillibridge in CF. Lillibridge is RH and he was acquired as part of a big trade for Javier. I think that increases the odds of him breaking with the team. I know this sounds crazy...but MacDougal is coming close to being under consideration for at least being part of the conversation for making the squad.

Well, technically Owens is at .212 but it's the weakest 200+ average in spring training history. Coleman wants to rename him "Wayne Wise." Starting to remind me of Harry Carry...he's really really OLD.

The difference is that Lillibridge has two tools...speed and defense. He can play SS perhaps better than anyone in our organization (according to reports), 2B and CF as well (at least at Univ. of Washington). His minor league averages were strong/solid before the last couple of years, but he's a younger player that has more upside than Owens/Wise and probably Brian Anderson too at this point in his development. You'd have to say Lillibridge would be more valuable simply because he can play SS so well. We can debate if BA also has "power" as a tool. Dewayne Wise homers as the WBC 10 run mercy rule is about to be put into effect. Things are really shaping up to be a Wise/Lillibridge platoon with Anderson and Owens waived or traded or sent to AAA.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 03:17 PM) Do you want to change any of this? It is an anemic line-up. Ekstrom is garbage/horrible. The only hitters who looked good b4 that were Konerko and Fields against Chris Young. Owens cost Floyd a run with a bonehead play. Wise made a baserunning mistake but it didn't end up hurting us. Anderson and Owens are playing like....well, there are many possible words to choose. Owens, I think, has actually squared approximately ONE ball the whole spring and hit a line drive somewhere. Maybe he does it in BP occasionally, I doubt it.

Lillibridge would have to hit against LHPers with Wise getting most of the AB's against righties. He could also pinch run and back up Ramirez better than Getz/Betemit and also play occasionally at 2B, depends if you take Nix or not. Ironic....both Owens and Anderson K in an inning when the Sox send up 12 to the plate. Wise, CF 3 1 0 1 0 0 3 .350 Nix, 2B 2 1 0 0 1 0 1 .556 Pierzynski, C 3 1 2 1 0 0 0 .476 Konerko, 1B 3 2 3 3 0 0 0 .357 Fields, 3B 2 0 2 1 1 0 0 .389 Anderson, B, RF 3 0 0 0 0 1 7 .172 Lillibridge, SS 3 1 2 1 0 0 1 .310 Owens, LF 3 0 1 0 0 1 3 .212 Floyd, P 1 2 1 0 1 0 0 1.000 Lillibridge's average is climbing...that's the nature of spring, he can catch Wise in almost one game.

Just don't look at Lillibridge's offensive numbers the last two seasons and project Brent as a regular CFer. Well, maybe KW "fixed" him just by bringing him to the White Sox. Owens manages not to get somehow by Todd Worrell's brother...Konerko scores on WP, miracles (milagros) do happen.

That Baines trade was at the end of his career...or towards the end. The Baines for Sosa/Fletcher/Alvarez move was in 1988 or 1989 I think. Josh Fields continues to come through with another hit...station-to-station baseball at its best/worst. Nobody has advanced once in this inning more than one base on any of the plays. For an outfielder (on Anderson) to be hitting .192 "that's not so good." Anderson K's for the FIRST White Sox strikeout of the ballgame. Anderson is really killing his chances. Lillibridge making a case to play in CF as part of a platoon instead of Anderson.

Wise with an RBI on an infield FC...runners on 1st and 2nd with one out, Owens cut down at 3rd, no attempt at a DP. C'mon Nix, come through with a big hit. Nix apparently gets a break on a call that could have been the 2nd out and takes the walk. Bases juiced with AJ up, only one out, Sox up 3-2. Somehow a ball that should have been a double ends up only scoring one run...Wise had tagged up at 2nd and misjudged the ball, so the runners could only advance one base at a time. Wow...Konerko with another hit...5-2 White Sox. Konerko 3/3 with 3 RBI's. Owens up to a "blistering" .219. Anderson stuck at .179 in shades of his 2006 batting average in early June of that year.

Aha....didn't Lui (Liu) Rodriguez (utility infielder) come up with the Twins? Maybe I'm confusing him with someone else. Jerry Coleman thinks the White Sox look FAST, lol...after Lillibridge ends up at 2nd base on the hustle double. Owens with the infield single to the left side...3B couldn't make the play, Lilli had to stay at 2nd. Floyd with a chance to bunt the runners over, only 1 career sacrifice in his career so far. The "wheel" play was on, Floyd flails at a ball and ends up with an infield single that hits the bag at 2nd...Lilli somehow doesn't score but bases loaded for D-Weezy.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 02:40 PM) They actually left Floyd out there to run, huh? I wonder how well he runs. Gavin was timed running down to 1B on the walk at 2/10th's of a second faster than Owens running from home to first on the weak grounder to Chris Burke. God, Brian Anderson is really making this hard on KW and Ozzie...really hard. At least you can "argue" that Owens is walking occasionally. Cliff Floyd rips a homer and we're all tied up like that.

BTW, that was Fields' 3rd double of the spring. Beckham has five, leading the team...I think he had at least one or two doubles against Australia in the exhibition game as well. Gavin Floyd, auditioning for the leadoff spot, shows Anderson and Owens a thing or two by grabbing a walk on the full count. Fouled off a pitch even.

Owens leading Anderson in the race to the Mendoza Line, .194 to .185. Gavin Floyd gets a strikeout with his slider? Sure it wasn't his curve? They keep call him throwing his slider and not curve....interesting. You think they'd be more familiar with Gavin Floyd from his time w/ the Phillies...it's not like he wasn't one of the best pitching prospects in all of baseball. Owens blasted by announcers for diving for a "marginal" flyball that allowed the typing run to score and letting and ball get past him all the way to the wall. UGH. Well, this is the only time some of us can get away with rooting AGAINST the White Sox and not feel TOO guilty. I'm marking that as an unearned run in my scorebook, lol....Gavin had a ton of those last year where the defense didn't pick him up like it should have.

Well, at least our two big offensive threats in this particular line-up came through. Fields is fouling some balls off and making better contact. Anderson advances the runner to 3rd...productive out. Lillibridge doesn't get the runner in, comebacker to the mound, Fields still at 3B. Owens' reputed speed doesn't come through as he fails to pick up Lillbridge on a MEHHHHHHH grounder up the middle and is thrown out at first.

You know you're in trouble when the hitter you're most looking forward to is the pitcher....I could see if it was Rick Rhoden, Dontrelle Willis, Tom Glavine, Rick Ankiel, Brooks Kieschnick, Jason Dellaero, Carlos Zambrano, etc.

Nix just lost .89 points on his BA, lol....infield pop-up. It will take him some time to get his timing back. Predictable. 1-2-3 inning, AJ lazy pop to the outfield. Let's hope we never see AJ in the 3 hole anytime during the regular season. Chris Burke, who used to be a pretty popular leadoff target when he was w/ the Stros, looks to be hitting fairly well in ST for the Padres. I think Jody Gerut might look okay for us in CF the way things are going for the Sox at this point.

Wise, CF 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .412 Nix, 2B 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .714 Pierzynski, C 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .444 Konerko, 1B 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .280 Fields, 3B 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .313 Anderson, B, RF 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .192 Lillibridge, SS 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .269 Owens, LF 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .200 Floyd, P 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 Wow, talk about your anemic offensive line-ups...this is one of the most anemic possible that Ozzie must have drawn out of a a hat. No Quentin, no Alexei, no Dye, Thome still out with the iffy back, no Viciedo, no Beckham. And pitchers batting.

6th or 7th. AJ should be 8th, Getz 9th.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 10:52 AM) Wise isn't going to put up anywhere near a .340 OBP, barring the strangest player jump I've ever seen. His career OBP is below .300, and was only .309 in the minors. Look, I should say, it is POSSIBLE that Dewayne Wise has suddenly "figured it out", at age 31 with 6 years bouncing between AAA and the majors. But using that logic, how is it that we are dismissing that possibility entirely for a 27 year old Owens with a lot less time in? Or for that matter, with David Cook, who I think is 26? You can just forget David Cook...before we see him batting leadoff, we'll go through the following: 1) Owens 2) Wise 3) Getz 4) Lillibridge 5) Nix 6) Beckham 7) Josh Kroeger 8) Jordan Danks 9) John Shelby III 10) John Thain 11) Ken Lewis 12) Bernie Madoff 13) ex Krispy Kreme CEO 14) Brian Cook (ex-Illini F/C) 15) David Cook http://www.baseballprojection.com/CHA2009.htm And the WINNER IS....David Cook or Noah Hall, lol. Interesting website, they have Wise and Anderson neck and neck statistically and Owens lagging a little bit. I guess this "projection" would probably favor Chris Getz or Alexei Ramirez of all the possible candidates and MAYBE Owens. But .327 for JO isn't going to be enough to get it done.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 10:45 AM) Am I the only one who's noticed that Figgins is now 31 years old and hasn't played a full season either of the last 2 years? Or that last year he stole bases at a 72% clip and his success rate is trending downwards fast? (Hey, I have the same birthday as Figgy. Who knew?) I wouldn't be willing to give up much, if anything, for Figgins, unless he proves 100% healthy in the first half, and then it's doubtful they'd want to trade him anyway. The main argument is that he's blocking Brandon Wood, but Wood might turn out to be another McPherson or Kotchman who never achieves anything in Anaheim. McLouth will give you .338/.461/800+ OPS, good defense and 20+ steals. That said, before we give away important components of our farm system, I think we could do just fine with Beckham there eventually. If Ozzie REALLY wants to, he can lead off with Wise against RHPers or possibly Getz. Still don't like the idea of Ramirez hitting first or second. Lillibridge's swing still needs major retooling.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 10:33 AM) Frankly, I'm not totally sure I agree with you that Owens will have a substantially higher OBP. If I go strictly by their minor league numbers, Owens has a .359 minor league OBP and Wise has a .309 OBP. But that's not telling the whole story. Wise has a .259 minor league batting average, while Owens has a .291 batting average. In other words, the difference between their OBP and batting average is .05 in Wise's case and .06 in Owens's case. Their OBP is therefore for both of them highly dependent on their batting average. Owens will give you 1 walk every 10 ab's, for Wise it's about 1/14. Owens is more patient than Wise and will take more pitches. But here's the key...Owens will only put up a higher OBP than Wise if they have identical batting averages. If Owens's batting average is 20 points lower than Wise's, they'd have very similar OBP's. Now the question...as of right now, as of how they're playing right now, which of the 2 do you think will have the higher batting average? I can't answer that by saying Owens. Well, we do know that Taveras, Owens and Juan Pierre would all end up with an OPS of around 650-675 (being optimistic) if they played everyday. We need either a .740-.750 OPS OR a .340+ OBP out of CF. Wise and Anderson in a platoon will definitely do the first. Owens and Anderson in a platoon might do both OR neither.

The White Sox could certainly afford it with Dye, Thome and Contreras coming off the books. But it would be a huge PR disaster for the Orioles, that's true. But they're not going to be competitive with or without Brian Roberts in that division. Figgins would make a lot more sense, because he'll be a FA after this year...and Beckham has at least 50% chance to end up 2B anyway, so Roberts doesn't make AS much sense because it would be better to find someone for center AND leadoff, killing two birds with one (Steve) Stone. There are plenty of other options out there that might be had in this economy, Nate McLouth from the Pirates comes to mind right away. We passed up on Furcal because of the presence of Ramirez and Beckham. David DeJesus can be had for the right price.

QUOTE (shipps @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 09:57 AM) This made me dizzy. Its like one of those pictures if you stare at it long enough you will see an elephant or something. Mr. Pitts??? You still can't see it?

Simple, Wise put up a 310/487/796 line last year against RHPers...if you count the playoffs, he ended up over the magic 800 OPS mark. Now Wise shouldn't be coming within 100 feet of the batter's box against a lefty, ever, but he's fine as part of a stopgap/bandaid solution with Anderson to get us through the first half of the season. Then we can swoop in around the trading deadline and pick off a player like Figgins or Brian Roberts, putting Roberts at 2B, Beckham at SS and then moving Alexei to CF...or we simply get a player like Figgins for CF, it doesn't matter. KW and Ozzie are too competitive and they won't stand by and let another season get away from them like 2007 did.

We have a lot of risk that Thome, Dye, Quentin or Ramirez won't produce like they did last season and/or they will get injured. OTOH, Konerko seems to be in position for improvement on last year's overall line. Fields should also improve on the offensive numbers from 3B last year. CF can't get much worse, Cabrera can be replaced by Getz/Nix, AJ will do about the same probably, barring an injury, which might be the most catastrophic loss the White Sox could suffer on the entire team outside of Danks or Buehrle going down for an extended period. That also doesn't take into account the looming presence of Beckham and Viciedo on the horizon.