caulfield12

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 09:40 PM) I do think its time that when a guy who has mostly sucked his entire career comes up with a good season to maybe lower the expectations the following season. See Loaisa, Cotts, Politte, now Thornton. Loiaza at least had something of a successful track record in the earlier part of his career, and he always had good stuff...it was just that adding the cutter in 2003 made him an All-Star caliber pitcher.

QUOTE(santo=dorf @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 08:55 PM) If we have an infield problem right now, what makes you think some prospects are going to change it for next year? How about we build up our farm with the best possible players, and use them as trading pieces to fill our holes? Pitching prospects tend to be worth more in the trading market, so I understand where the Sox are coming from. The question is, how does trading Haeger, Floyd, Phillips, McCullough or Broadway net us even a MLB quality starter in the OF, SS, 2B or catcher? We won't even be able to trade any of these picks for at least a year...if we wanted to, and we can't really go out and trade Gio, Russell, Masset and De Los Santos, so what's left to trade?

Can someone please explain to me why we're drafting all pitchers when we need about 4-5 positions on the field to be replaced? Is KW planning to trade all of his pitching prospects to fill needs? Well, that's one way to go about it...as pitchers are the most valuable components of any organization, just not sure I agree with that philosophy or not.

QUOTE(GreenSox @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 08:16 AM) Oh, yea, Ozzie's a big believer in plate patience and taking walks and waiting for a ball that you can hit. What a howler that is. And you call my post BS? The "evidence" you provide is walker saying he wants players that can hit up the middle. There's a big difference between not swinging for the fences and plate patience. On the other hand, this staff has: drooled over free-swinging Erstad and labelling Erstad a .400 quality hitter when he was hitting below .200. When he uses Alex Cintron as a pinch-hitter. When he loads the team up with free swingers. If they believed in patience wouldn't at least ONE of the slap hitters take walks. You'd think, but none do under this staff. Do you see hitters taking walks when Guillen and Walker coach them? Do you ever see Guillen criticiizing a player (which he loves to do in general) for swinging at everything. The Sox aren't alone. The Angels aren't an OBP team either and they've had success. The Sox won a WS with free swingers. You can do it if you get good hitting free swingers. Right now, we feature Rob M., two rookies, and Alex Cintron as pinch hitter (and a cold rest of the team). THAT is the problem. You could argue that Cintron and Mackowiak SHOULD be slap hitters based on their power totals, but they aren't accurately described as that...and Cintron doesn't have the speed to be a slap hitter.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 08:38 AM) He was the one who got the Sox behing 4 early. Look at Vazquez's White Sox career. He has had the lead in the vast majority of games he has pitched. Last season he had the lead in all but 3 or 4 starts and still sucked. He is what he is. Stop making excuses for his overpaid, overhyped ass. We could single out any of about 15-20 players for blame, KW, Ozzie, JR, the scouting department, Walker, Cooper..."the blame game," whatever you want to call it, the best thing thing KW could do is trade Vazquez and get the equivalent of another Chris Young back. Which basically means KW admitting he was wrong about Vazquez AND Anderson, which is going to be very difficult for him to do...in fact, I think one of the reasons he signed him long-term was to show that this trade was not just about 2006-07 but the long-term future of the White Sox as well.

QUOTE(RME JICO @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 07:48 AM) He sees dead people. Maybe he was confused after watching POTC: At World's (Wit's) End

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 07:24 AM) *Sigh* This was worst case scenario, and of course it happened. If you ask me, I really think Kenny did try to deal Joe to NYY in a Buehrle/Garcia and Crede for Arod deal. I think he also talked to Anaheim about trading Joe over there for Figgins and a pitcher, because there was too much smoke there for it to be nothing as well. I think Anaheim backed out because of their apprehension over Crede's back after dealing with McPhearson's problems. The whole world knew about Joe's back, so I doubt anyone was busting down the door to take a chance on a guy who is getting really close to free agency, has Borass as an agent, has a bad back, and refused to have surgery. How many teams do you think would have actually paid up for that? With the Sirotka/Wells trade in not-too-distant memory, I think that most clubs would have disqualified the trade based on MRI's and potential problems with his back. There would certainly be a grievance if something like this happened with KW trading "damaged goods" twice in seven year span. Clubs that acquired him would have the same hesitation that KW was obviously having, and trading for a player you would only have for 1-2 seasons wouldn't make sense to many clubs.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 07:08 AM) That's a 6.00 ERA and it sucks. He threw so many pitches he had to be lifted. At $12.5 million its not crazy to expect more. Excepting this as not a bad game from him and looking at his strikeouts is something teams have been doing the last 4 seasons with him. The object of the game is to win. Its nice to see DJ question his concentration last night. Except he's only making $9.5 million, from the Sox. And there are 100 more pressing problems that can be pointed out, besides the results from a fourth starter whose overall stats would be much better than the average MLB 4th starter. It is what it is. We won this exact same type of game last year when our offense scored four runs for Javy early in the game. Expecting our starters to give up 0 or 1 runs per game is simply unrealistic. The harder they try to be too "fine," that's when you'll start seeing 3-5 runs given up per game by starters.

http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sp...-home-headlines Note to KW, This season is OVAH, for all intents and purposes, without Joe Crede. That means that the short-sighted drafting of another college reliever (see Ring, Royce or even Fogg, Josh) would be idiotic. We need catchers, middle infielders and outfielders more than anything. There are a few that should be available when the Sox pick. I don't want to see KW's quote in the paper tomorrow, "We felt this was our best chance to compete this year. We don't believe in rebuilding here, we're reloading, and the price other clubs were asking for quality relief pitching was not commensurate with what I wanted to give up in return from our system. Usually we take the "best player available," but we feel Mr. Weathers is "big league ready" and can contribute to our bullpen immediately. In fact, I was speaking to Ozzie last week and he said, "Get me some right-handed relievers that can throw strikes." Well, Ozzie, here you go. And no, I don't see any commonality between this pick and Royce Ring, there's nothing wrong with taking a reliever in the 1st round even though we desperately need position prospects to replenish our lower minors."

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Jun 7, 2007 -> 04:18 AM) Hello Jim from DesPlaines welcome to the Whitesox post game show. "Chris, how do you stand the crap we see. Its June, where is the offense. How the hell is this team not hitting. Is Greg Walker looking for a new job yet. I am a season ticket holder and I am sick of this crap....and" Well Jim, you know what will make you happy. A triple threats gift card. "A triple threats sports card? Chris you didnt answer my question. When is this team going to hit? Why is Greg Wa...." Well it seems that Jim got disconnected. I know its a common thing for fans to try and find blame. I talked to Greg Walker, the best hitting coach in the history of baseball earlier about it. And he reassured me that when the weather heats up, so will this team. This has been a perfect storm of injuries, unseasonably cold weather, and a large amount of Johan Santana like pitching we have faced. No other team has faced the challenges we have. But good news, we are a 2nd half team. Thats right sox fans. When you think of the 2nd half, you can count on a strong sox team pulling away. I like our position, and I agree with Jon Garland as we will run away with the division. Its not possible for the offense to go on like this. If you flip their cards they are all allstars. I fully expect each member of the team to hit 900 for the rest of the year, and pitchers should be afraid very afraid to face a team like this. Its a lion, about to pounce and tear a team up. It just gives me chills thinking about how many runs this team is going to put up. It could happen tomorrow, it could happen next month. Just remember to be patient, and keep coming to he park and it will happen. Next caller The only time in recent memory we played well in the second half was 2003, and we tanked against the Twins and nearly everyone in September. The 01 team played "okay" down the stretch, but they started out at 14-29, fought to get back to .500 in June and July, then essentially stayed around within a few games of .500

QUOTE(Flash Tizzle @ Jun 6, 2007 -> 11:00 PM) Williams owes this team a player of Chris Young's calibur. Surely if he traded Vazquez after next season he'd receive one, right? What's done is done, CY wasn't going to lead us to the championship last year, and that was our last, best chance to compete for the next 2-3 seasons. KW tried, at least. QUOTE(CWSGuy406 @ Jun 6, 2007 -> 11:08 PM) Couple of comments... -For those expecting Milledge + Pelfrey for Buehrle, keep dreaming. If that offer was on the table this winter, Kenny would have jumped on it right away. You think Minaya is going to offer six years each of the afformentioned players for two-three months of Mark Buehrle? -I think Kenny would be best served trying to find a taker for Contreras, get Jose to waive his NTC and offer a reasonably big contract to Buehrle (5/$75). If the Mets would do Contreras for Milledge straight up, I'd be all over that, and I think Jose would waive his NTC for that (big latin influence on New York including El Duque). -Why is any ire being directed at Javy Vazquez? I know the trade sucks, but he (along with the other four on the starting staff) are the last guys who people should be complaining about. If their ERA wasn't collectively around 4.00, this team would be behind KC. Because he represents the future we don't have, thanks to KW. At least it's not poor Erstad that was traded for Young...it would be interesting if it was Rowand, maybe less of the "love" would stick to him in that case!!

QUOTE(southsideirish @ Jun 6, 2007 -> 04:51 PM) Athleticism and speed are completely differnt things. I never said we weren't slow. But to equate athleticism with speed is not correct. I will state again that you have no idea how athletic or unathletic a person is on this team. By seeing some of the plays that are made I would say Dye, Erstad, Uribe, Iguchi, Crede, Pods, and even A.J. have above athletic ability. Speed is a whole different category. When you say depleted are you suggesting that the team would have been better off without trading away a lot of the minor league players that they did? If not then I don't think you are using the correct verbage. If you are then I would like to know how you can suggest something like that when much of the "talent" that was traded sucks ass and is nowhere to be found. I'll just say that speed is one important aspect of athleticism and leave it at that. I agree that there are some things that Uribe does very athletically...but he's not a basestealer. Crede has very good "range" but he's not quick or fast. Ozuna, Anderson, Sweeney, Erstad and even a healthy Mack are good athletes, although none of them are burners...not even Pablo. Owens is more what I had in mind, but you can't have 9 Juan Pierre's on your ballclub, or even Erick Aybar, or your team OPS will be in the 600's or low 700's. Pods, of course was a great high school athlete. I'm not sure anyone can compare to what Erstad did in high school, he reminds me a little of Iowa SG Adam Haluska. Just the very nature of ball/bat contact is incredibly athletic....Thome, Konerko, Dye. Dye, at one point, used to have one of the three best RF throwing arms in the game. Now he's a little above average. On the mound, Garland and Buehrle and even Javier (in BP as well) are very natural and instinctive athletes. What I was getting at, if you were to ask 100 scouts (and each was to have his own version of what "athleticism" was....and some would think of Bo Jackson right off the top of their heads, some might think of Roberto Clemente!)...which White Sox players were in the top half at their positions athletically in the major leagues, you wouldn't find many. You can make an argument for Uribe, for a healthy Pods and Erstad....for Garland. Of course, just because you take athletic or gifted players (think Borchard or Fields or Kenny Williams or Brian West), that doesn't mean you have a major leaguer either. Or look at Michael Jordan, for another example. Supposedly, Tiger Woods doesn't look very good in BP, although I'm not sure I believe that one.

QUOTE(Jenks Heat @ Jun 6, 2007 -> 12:57 PM) The only reason we have had the lead is because the starting pitching has been lights out. I do not count a lead of 3 to 1 or 4 to 2 all that great. In the American League a GOOD team should average over 5 runs a game. The White Sox have scored more than 5 runs twice in the last 13 games. The bullpen is being asked to do something that is not realistic for them. Look at the salaries of the guys failing on this team. If you want to get by with the league minimum in your pen that is fine but the players being paid to hit should hit. The money that is spent on this team is on starting pitching and home run hitters. One is doing their job most of the time the othere is failing miserably. The bullpen is magnified because every game is close and if they give up a run the offense is unable to get it back. I don't think salary is the only measure you can look at for bullpen pitchers. The Cubs and Orioles spending $15-20 million on their bullpens hasn't necessarily solved all their problems. Realistically, you could say that much was expected of Jenks, Thornton and MacDougal, because they were the "veterans" of that group and had signed long-term, guaranteed contracts. Fair enough? I guess it would be interesting to look at the 5 best bullpens in the league and their salaries, vis a vis the White Sox. The whole debate comes down to whether paying Keith Foulke, Joe Borowski, Jose Mesa, Jamie Walker, Roberto Hernandez, Chris Speier, Williamson, Baez, Bradford, etc., would have been worth it. Heck, you can also debate ad infinitum whether paying Mackowiak, Hall and Cintron so much as bench players makes any sense, as opposed to putting that $7.5 million or whatever it is into the bullpen instead. I guess we'll never know who KW was after in this case, as we did hear that KW was very close to Myers last year, and that LH relief position eventually solidified itself, although it would have been nice to have another reliable lefty after Cotts and Logan, although most would consider that something of a luxury. The Padres, I think, don't have a LH, yet have one of the best bullpens in the league.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jun 6, 2007 -> 12:57 PM) Supposedly when he was a free agent, we were one of the teams who had offered 8 years at $160 million, and that was years ago. If we look at working out a trade with the Yankees, the Rangers money will come with Alex, and that gets us $7 million a year in relief IIRC. But isn't he walking away or "opting out" of that contract at the end of this year, supposedly? In that case, the Rangers' subsidy would be gone, and I doubt the Yankees are going to give a further subsidy to unload him...if it's a typical KW deal, instead of paying the money, we'll take the money and give up talent, like we did with the Young/Vazquez trade. Essentially, the D-Backs (at least it looked like this at the time) agreed to take on a very questionable El Duque deal (I think it was between $6.5-7.0 million, w/ incentives) AND give money to the White Sox to help pay for Vazquez, but the price for that was Chris Young, which might prove a very high price to pay for the White Sox to have saved $5-7.5 million dollars.

QUOTE(striker62704 @ Jun 6, 2007 -> 02:17 PM) Fields will play against left handed pitchers and Cintron will play against right handed pitchers, because Ozzie things righties hit lefties and lefties hit righties. But Ozzie is wrong. In fact, I bet most lefties today (Moyer, Buehrle, Glavine) all pitch better against righties because of their changeup. Fields will play 80% of the time, there's no other reason to bring him up, they could just use someone like Thomas Perez. Owens has played in almost every game since his recall, and through an 0 for 15 slump.

QUOTE(hitlesswonder @ Jun 6, 2007 -> 10:05 AM) I think Vizquel will be the starting shortstop for the Sox in 2008. This only makes sense if we keep Buehrle, Dye and Crede. Otherwise, there's no point in having a one-year bandaid solution, because we won't be competing for a playoff spot unless those trades miraculously net us the equivalent of Phillips/Sizemore/Lee or Liriano/Bonser/Nathan. I'm not 100% opposed to moving Uribe over to 2B if we could bring in a better SS.

QUOTE(kyyle23 @ Jun 6, 2007 -> 08:52 AM) Iguchi was way more of a homerun oriented hitter in Japan, his power is moderated in the MLB. Uribe I agree with, but not Iguchi How many leads has the bullpen blown after the 6th inning? I think we're now at 12-13 leads blown from the 6th inning on. As Hawk said, we had the lead at one point in most of the games on that roadtrip, with the exception of the Halladay start.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Jun 6, 2007 -> 08:35 AM) I actually think Thornton is a bit overrated because of that stuff he posseses, and I still have a question or 2 whether he is a set-up man in the long - term. THis season his BAA is up to .270, and he's lucky the ERA has risen more as he's only given up 1 HR in 25G which is the major positive for him. Sisco I think should be converted into a starter. 2 lefties in the pen is enough for me, and Boone Logan has shown enough in the majors this season to keep him up permanently. And it's what Andy wanted when he was acquired. I still liked that trade for Ross Gload, and I think it'll pay dividends over the long - term, IF, Sisco can get his control issues straightened out. MacDougal's just been a bust this season, which I don't think anybody saw coming. 1.80 ERA in 25G for us last season, and in 2 more games he's pitched this season he's issued 11 more walks, and his BAA is up over .300. Can he get it back? Absolutely, but he's got to get everything working 100%, motion and throwing wise. As for acquiring a veteran reliever, well that's all well and good, but top FA veteran relievers such as Justin Speier and Jamie Walker from this off-season got pretty sizeable contracts. And if you sign a bullpen guy to a deal like that, and he doesn't produce, you're in trouble, because as we've seen, relievers are very hit and miss from season to season. I just don't see how Sisco would possibly be a better bet than some of our other prospects, like Gio. Let's say, worst-case scenario, Contreras and Buehrle are both traded. That leaves you: 1) Garland 2) Vazquez 3) Danks If you were to line up candidates for 4/5, they would probably look something like this: 1) Gio 2) Russell 3) Masset 4) Broadway 5) De Los Santos 6) Sisco 7) McCullough 8) Haeger 9) Phillips The thing that works in Sisco's favor is that he's left-handed, throws hard and is still relatively young. That has value to SOMEONE in MLB, since LH starters are the #1 commodity in the game today, especially young/affordable lefties. Which is why we are in very good shape with Danks and Gio IMO.

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Jun 6, 2007 -> 04:02 AM) I doubt you could have gotten even that. 3B was not a high priority this offseason, and Crede's a middle of the pack 3Bman, and maybe top 10 all around, but I doubt even that. Really, the only teams I can think of that were looking for 3Bman were Anaheim, Philadelphia, Tampa Bay, San Diego, and San Francisco, and all pretty much settled for what they were able to get; the demand was not that great, and the Sox would have been left with a disappointing package. Add to it that I really doubt Fields would have done much better than Crede did in the first 2 months of this year (with the possibility of putting up a worse April, but also likely a better May), and it just didn't make sense, not even now. No, the Sox should not have traded Crede in the offseason, even in hindsight. It's just a situation that was never going to work out. I bet Juan Uribe puts up a higher OPS over the next 3 years than does Erick Aybar. And I also bet he's rated better defensively overall, considering all stats and types of information. Considering his IsoSLG this year is .023, and it was .130 in the PCL last year, and that he's never proven to be an effective base stealer at any minor league level, and that he, admittedly, does not walk, what's the upside? Hell, he 29 of his 32 hits this season have been singles. He sounds more like a grinder than anything else. I mean, plain and simply, he's probably going to have to hit .300 to put up an OPS around .720. If Juan Uribe hits .250, he's got .725 in the bag, and anything above that is money in the bag. At any rate, it seems like the big competition in terms of the trade market for 3B will come from Troy Glaus at this point. Also, there's always the option of moving Uribe over to 2B if we could bring in someone like Jimmy Rollins. That would be a pretty darned good combination, IMO.

QUOTE(southsideirish @ Jun 6, 2007 -> 08:18 AM) Don't you think the Padres pitchers can afford to throw more strikes and "allow" the batters to get themselves out? The ballpark is made for that - it is huge. If "strike throwers" worked for everyone then everyone would do it. There really aren't many secrets. Kevin Tower's philosophy works in SD. Would it work in US Cell? I don't think the Sox need so much a hard thrower, but at least someone that keeps the ball down consistently or has consistent sink to their pitches to reduce the number of fly balls hit. Wouldn't you agree? The whole theory for trading McCarthy in a nutshell. I think Broadway was adding a "two seamer" like Garland's, and I think we need to concentrate on sinker ballers or pitchers (like Vazquez) who have enough stuff to avoid contact. With "pitch to contact" approaches (see Garland, Buehrle or Baldwin), our infield defense has to have range and above average throwing arms to counteract all the ground balls hit. It looks like Danks could evolve into a pretty good strikeout pitcher, not 9/9 IP, but 6.5-7.5 I would think, especially if he can refine that curveball just a bit. I really wish they could move the fences back to their old dimensions, but that doesn't seem practical. But it would force Iguchi, Uribe, Anderson, Sweeney, AJ, Pods, Fields, etc., to concentrate on not trying to jack the ball out of the park. And Thome/Konerko have enough power they would still hit plenty of homers with Old Comiskey dimensions. QUOTE(southsideirish @ Jun 6, 2007 -> 08:22 AM) Uribe has always swung for the fences. This is is M.O. He is known for this. He always was. Come on - how do you know who is more athletic? You are opening up a big can of worms there that is impossible to tell. Plus just because someone appears to be more athletic does not mean anything as to how a body will break down or how they will produce. I really have no idea where you are going with this. Simple, measuring times to 1B from the batter's box, first to third, second to home....triples would be another category. We are a slow, station-to-station team. It's incredible the difference when you watch someone like Owens out there compared to the rest, or Ray Durham, or even Willie Harris (in the past). Of course, those times indicate speed and quickness/explosiveness, there are lots of other indications, such as stolen bases or fewest times grounding in a DP per plate appearance. Nobody will dispute the fact that we're one of the slowest teams in the majors, if not THE slowest, without either Pods or Owens in the line-up. There are no positions that we are above major league average in terms of athletic ability for that particular position, just think of it like that.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Jun 6, 2007 -> 08:06 AM) KW's going nowhere. For the posters hoping that he'll be fired, that ain't gonna happen, because of what he's done for this team especially over the past couple of seasons. However he's coming up to an important time in his tenure as GM now. His motto has been an aggressive GM to make moves to help put us over the top, and our system has suffered because of that. Now he probably needs to do a complete 180, and build up that system and get this team younger and quicker. KW even said it himself when he said he wasn't happy with our system, and we needed to do a better job in the draft, hence why Duane Shaffer is no longer the man in charge there and Dave Wilder is. I think pitching wise we're getting better, but we need to stop taking safe college pitchers in the 1st round. We've hit on late - middle round picks such as B-Mac over the years which is good, we just need to do a better job earlier on in the draft, because our record there, especially over the past couple of seasons so far doesn't look too good. Right now I think if Ozzie would want our team to be modeled on anyone, it'd be the Angels. Good top of the order hitters, lots of speed, great pitching and a very nice bullpen. Instead we have a team that's loaded in the middle of the lineup, but when they're not producing our lineup is going to struggle to score runs because it's not that deep. And of course the bullpen has just been a MAJOR dissapointment. We acquired a lot of hard throwers, but they haven't gotten the job done. Compare that to a team like the Padres who always have a great pen, and Kevin Towes says the secret is to acquire "strike throwers". If you look at the Angels, they have Willits, Murphy, Matthews, Cabrera, Figgins, Aybar, Wood, Kendrick...Anderson is breaking down, but Vladdy is still a decent athlete, although his body is breaking down a little. Even from what I've seen of Kotchmann, Morales and McPherson, they're much more athletic than say Thome, Konerko and Crede.

QUOTE(southsideirish @ Jun 6, 2007 -> 08:08 AM) ML Rank - 21 in 2006. So what does this mean? Shouldn't total bases mean more than doubles? Why are we looking at doubles in order to assess this team? The Sox were still ahead of the great double producing Twins and only 3 behind the other great double producing Tigers. Doesn't this have a lot to do with your home ballpark as well? There are a lot of things that can affect doubles. I think total bases is a better gauge. Where do they rank in that category? I know they must be in last this year because they suck in every possible hitting category - but how about over the last couple of years? 1 TEX 357 2 CLE 351 3 TOR 348 4 KCR 335 5 ARI 331 6 BOS 327 7 NYY 327 8 COL 325 9 NYM 323 10 WSN 322 11 ATL 312 12 LAA 309 13 FLA 309 14 LAD 307 15 MIL 301 16 SDP 298 17 SFG 297 18 DET 294 19 PHI 294 20 STL 292 21 CHW 291 22 CIN 291 23 BAL 288 24 MIN 275 25 HOU 275 26 CHC 271 27 TBD 267 28 OAK 266 29 SEA 266 It doesn't mean much, besides the fact that doubles in many parks turn into homers at Comiskey and that a majority of our hitters are (or have morphed into) homer-oriented sluggers, even Uribe and Iguchi (until this last hot streak).

QUOTE(GreatScott82 @ Jun 5, 2007 -> 05:43 PM) Saying that KW is not going to trade his veterans for prospects, and saying that KW seems to be not giving up on the 2007 season just yet, I would definitley go after a guy like Weathers as Airscott said or even Isringhausen from St. Louis. The Cards completely suck and are out of it and Isring is having another good year for them and he is heading into free agency. He would be a great setup man for Jenks. Our outfield situation still bugs the hell out of me. As much as I love Owens out there, a veteran player who can hit for average would be a great asset. Some names that come to mind are Adam Dunn and Aaron Rowand (I know i know...) Personally I would much rather get younger and trade guys like Contreras and Crede for prospects and let Fields and Gonzales get a chance to develope for next year. But KW will not go that route. So that is why i even brought up Aaron Rowand. Dunn is not a high average hitter, and is Rob Deer/Joe Borchard with a somewhat higher BA. Gonzalez is not a true prospect in any way, shape or form. We'd be much better off with Uribe, Ozuna or even Cintron at 2B than Getz or Gonzalez. If we want Getz, we might as well bring back Aaron Miles and give him the job. QUOTE(IowaSoxFan @ Jun 6, 2007 -> 08:01 AM) Its not about the bad contracts, name impact players that Kenny has brought through the farm system. Our drafts have been terrible, our international scouting a joke. We are in a division where Detroit has loaded their pitching form their farm system with Bonderman, Verlander, Zumaya, Miller and added pieces around them. The Twins continue to find and trade for minor league talent - Santana, Liriano, Slowey and have had some great drafts getting Mauer, Garza and Morneau. The bottom line is you cant stay competitive over the long term by building teams through free agency, the Cubs and Yankees are the poster children for this, and the Dodgers have been until now. And as far as being competitive for the last 15 years it depends on your definition: 2006 90-72 .556 2005 99-63 .611 2004 83-79 .512 2003 86-76 .531 2002 81-81 .500 2001 83-79 .512 2000 95-67 .586 1999 75-86 .466 1998 80-82 .493 1997 80-81 .497 Looking at those numbers it appears to me we have only been competitive 4 of the last 10 years Well, on the other hand, look how long the Tigers had to be horrific to get those draft picks which ended up as Miller and Verlander. OTOH, they had to be smarter than the Royals to take the "right" pitchers, and the jury's still out on Miller, and we'll see if Zumaya manages not to end up like Rocker, Wohlers or Farnsworth. If you go back 15 years, you have the 1993/94 White Sox to include as well, so that's 6 of the last 14 years. Look at it this way, the Brewers haven't even been in the playoffs since 1982.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jun 6, 2007 -> 07:43 AM) The Sox are last in doubles in the majors by an astonishing margin of 19. 30th in OBP, 29th in SLG PCT, for what's supposed to be a "slugging" team. QUOTE(southsideirish @ Jun 6, 2007 -> 07:51 AM) Who are these bunch of wanna be sluggers who cannot put the ball in play? Who is in this group. Please explain. Thank you. I bet you will mention a lot - if not all - of the same players that won the World Series in 2005 but are failing to produce now. Just a hunch. And that is KW's fault. Yep - your right. That hurts - where do they rank last year and the year before with almost the exact same cast members? 2006, 9th (291 doubles) 2005, 14th (253 doubles, last by six) AL Team Ranks

I was listening to a conversation between our local (KC) sports talk host and Jayson Stark yesterday, talking about Piniella, along with the "interesting" Sheffield revelations (Stark admitted he hasn't talked to Sheffield for years after Gary disagreed with one of his columns when he was with the Dodgers). At any rate, he (Stark) basically argued that Piniella was "disengaging" from this current team, because he had been privately telling friends in the game that the pieces just didn't fit together in Chicago, that while there was the potential certainly, he didn't have "his type of team" and there wasn't much that could be done about it. Of course, now that rumors are flying he's lost the clubhouse, he's probably going to tighten the reigns a little bit, but Piniella has done a lot of player blaming over there...his "bring in some damn players who can play the game" and constant swipes at them in the press the past two weeks are not helping either. If you were Ozzie and had to choose between Bukvich, Logan, Prinz and Dewon Day to stay in a game, I bet you'd pretty much throw your hands up in frustration too. This is definitely not Ozzie's type of team, and I'm willing to give him a year or two with a White Sox team with a different composition...faster, younger, more fundamentally sound players. I think these "homer or bust/push-pull" teams are more a creation of KW and this annoying theory that White Sox fans have always preferred home runs and .500 teams to "small ball" and playoff contenders...or maybe, it's the idea that if the majority of teams are going to be "average," it's best to entertain them with offense instead of defense? At any rate, I think Ozzie knows the writing is on the wall with this team (the current version) and he is disengaging a little bit, which coincides with our second half slide and first half fizzle this year. And I think the whole Mariotti flap really changed him too, for the worse.