caulfield12

QUOTE(gosox41 @ Jun 1, 2007 -> 11:12 PM) In light of the recent events, I just wanted to know how everyone felt about signing this guy. I don't want to get into how much he'll make and for how long. Assume it's affordable to the Sox and fits in their payroll. I know there is a lot of love around here for this guy, but he hasn't been impressive this year. Is it due to the pressure of being an FA? Is he hurt? Is he certifiable? Personally, I wouldn't sign him because there's something not right about him. How would signing him affect the clubhouse. Isn't 'Big Z' the guy who shows up fielders after he makes an error? We all know he's emotional, but there's a point where it affects performance. As much of a horse as he's been, the flip side is he's thrown a ton of innings and pitches the last 5+ years and isn't getting any younger. He also has never won more then 16 games in a season which makes me wonder why he's an ace. Bob Not only would it be unwise to sign Zambrano as a "rehab project," it would still be prohibitively expensive. The irony of this whole situation is those 7-8 punches Big Z landed on Barrett meant that Mark Buehrle's value in this post-season FA market went up another $5-10 million as Zambrano is going to start scaring off all but the most determined of suitors.

QUOTE(greg775 @ Jun 2, 2007 -> 12:32 AM) We could argue this forever about whether it was wise to rid ourselves of Rowand, but how can you say he's not a good player???? Because for at least half of his career, Rowand has been closer to a fourth outfielder than a legit, 800+ OPS starter.

Has looked very good, although it's one of those cold, brisk (57 degrees plus wind chill) nights at the Coliseum. Fastball 86-90, not overwhelming by any stretch, but very calm/poised and in command for a 23 year old (Winthrop). He pitched most of last season for Ft. Wayne in the FSL and then pitched the last six weeks in AA, with good success. He's thrown a shutout through five innings, but has had to use 88 pitches in the process. Has a slider or cutter that he throws around 78-80 MPH. I find it interesting that the Twins promoted Baker and Slowey over Garza, but Garza and Baker are very similar pitchers, so that might have been part of their thinking.

QUOTE(SoxFanForever @ Jun 1, 2007 -> 09:23 PM) I hear they are also undefeated this season when he K's twice. on breaking pitches!

QUOTE(CWSGuy406 @ Jun 1, 2007 -> 08:59 PM) Vazquez was fantastic -- my new favorite word -- tonight. Without actually looking through every start, this was probably his best start since his last effort in Toronto when he K'd 12 (?). For the gun watchers, Jenks was at 97 and Javy hit 93 several times. I think it's time to send Day or Gonzalez down and get Craig Wilson up here. That'll give us an averagish platoon in LF. Nice 'aesthetically pleasing' game to watch. Burnett had a sick breaking ball working. Wilson had his first homer tonight for Charlotte.

QUOTE(SoxFan101 @ Jun 1, 2007 -> 08:57 PM) The whitesox are undefeated when Owens starts and leads off a game for the whitesox . Does that count last year too, lol?

QUOTE(Soxfest @ Jun 1, 2007 -> 08:33 PM) JV with 8 solid I guess we will see if Jenks is hurt or not! This Wolfe has a nice arm, very good cutter at 94, throws 96-98.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jun 1, 2007 -> 08:24 PM) At this point, who hasn't punched AJ? Didn't Javy jave a game exactly like this one last August in Toronto, where a few of us suddenly hoped he'd turned it around after finally getting through the 6th inning and going a full 8? Yeah, that was a SAT or SUN day game and it was the only time we bunted, sacrificed and ran the bases well as season...it was after Ozzie instituted "boot camp" for bunting and fundamentals that week, I think he did it a couple of times.

QUOTE(santo=dorf @ Jun 1, 2007 -> 08:14 PM) Drop Willy Taveras for Owens? I need me some steals! Owens now 5 for 13 (.385) so far in his big league career...keep it up!

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ May 31, 2007 -> 05:07 PM) Its genius. Call Jerry Owens the Igniter, lol. Couldn't have had a more auspicious start to his 2007 season. Let's hope it's not all downhill from here.

QUOTE(TheOcho @ Jun 1, 2007 -> 07:20 PM) How many pitches for Javy? Mid 50's. Ends the innng at 64, probably 3 innings left in him

QUOTE(Greg The Bull Luzinski @ Jun 1, 2007 -> 07:18 PM) IS Mackowiak in the line up really that much better than Brain Anderson? DeLosSantos just gave up 3 runs (two singles and a homer) in the Top of the 4th. Oh, well. Maybe KAN can come back.

QUOTE(Heads22 @ Jun 1, 2007 -> 07:08 PM) He's still got time to make the FS Top 5. As long as Jason's in charge. Or Egbert? LOL.

QUOTE(AirScott @ Jun 1, 2007 -> 07:06 PM) Flashback Friday Didn't Vazquez give up a huge crooked number last year on a weekend game against TOR in the middle innings when he'd cruised through the first half of the game?

QUOTE(Greg The Bull Luzinski @ Jun 1, 2007 -> 06:55 PM) A moment of reflection ... Sweeney comes up for a couple of weeks and is our best offensive weapons (In just one game) Owens is outshining much of the rest of our offense. Is our offense that bad, are the rookies actually good, or a little of both. That makes him 4 for 11 (.364) in his major league career, SO FAR.

QUOTE(Brian @ Jun 1, 2007 -> 06:15 PM) Why would you want to swing at a pitch down the middle, Jim? Harrelson just HAD to acknowledge Mariotti's comments, lol. You knew he wouldn't be able to avoid taking the bait. Not quite as enticing as the Cubs, Barrett and Zambrano (or shall we call him Big Z?) falling apart...

QUOTE(MHizzle85 @ Jun 1, 2007 -> 05:00 PM) Owens, CF Iguchi, 2B Thome, DH Dye, RF Konerko, 1B AJP, C Cintron, 3B Mack, LF Uribe, SS Javy on the mound. Is Crede's back bothering him again?

QUOTE(Gene Honda Civic @ Jun 1, 2007 -> 04:55 PM) I think this is overstated. He's obviously not as defensively inclined as Anderson or even Sweeney, but from what I've seen of him in spring training, he was not a disaster out there. He played the first 4 months of last season in Charlotte's CF before the mandate came down from the front office to give Sweeney some work there. He's been relegated to LF this season not because he CAN'T play there, but because the organization wants to maximize Sweeney's value. And I'm not an Owens fan. I wouldn't be opposed to seeing him in CF, at least until he had a couple of Mack-like screwups out there are proved the scouts here right. Owens needs to prove that he can be a true 4th outfielder, one that can cover CF when Torii Hunter injures his foot next season. Hasn't anyone noticed that Mackowiak can't even run these days? There's no way Ozzie puts him back in CF. It's either Terrero or Owens out there for the next two weeks.

QUOTE(South Side Fireworks Man @ Jun 1, 2007 -> 12:12 PM) IMHO, your opening post to start this thread was a excellent post. It was neither optimistic nor pessimistic, it was informative and a good conversation starter, exploring many options. I always thought that's what these message boards were for. I've seen you make several quality posts over the years at the Sox MLB board, WSI, and here. I can't stand your "fire sale" gloom and doom posts when things are going bad. I like your posts when you are not posting out of frustration. Again, just my humble opinion. Thanks, I think...for me, the message boards are a form of "Sox therapy," mostly. Abraham Lincoln used to write letters to all of the commanding generals in the Army of the Potomac (especially Hooker) expressing frustration with their ineptitude...then he would promptly throw them in the trash, knowing they could only serve to make things worse. With the cyberspace world, we don't tend to filter ourselves as well as Lincoln did. Everything is instantaneous. For instance, Ozzie doesn't use Jenks and there are probably 50 posts in a 5 minute span after that happened. News cycles through instantaneously, and then we scramble to cnn.com and other sites to "analyze" and rehash what just happened. It's quite fascinating, actually. Eventually, someday, the non-profit and more beneficial applications of the internet will become less focused on reaction and more on collaboration, on figuring out ways to solve problems, borrowing on knowledge from experts all across the world who have dealt with similar problems. I guess many posters think of themselves as aspiring GM's, and it's a fun game to play for most of us. It does get repetitive and redundant. Nobody is going to be convinced that Darin Erstad was a "good" player for the White Sox, you decided long ago (you meaning the collective "you") and nothing will change your mind. Maybe watching Knocked Up this afternoon will put me in a better mood.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Jun 1, 2007 -> 11:27 AM) I see absolutely no reason the Devil Rays would want Dye. To make that sort of a deal you would need to get a 3rd team involved (potentially the Angels) who would give up the prospects/pieces necessary to allow the Sox to get Crawford (however, at that point, you would have to realistically wonder if the Angels wouldn't just get Crawford themselves). But if the Sox could pull a 3 way deal involving Dye/Broadway/Haeger or Phillips or McCulloch (reality is this opens up a spot for some of the AA guys to get to AAA as well) that netted the following teams something like this, than I'd be all in and I think both other teams would at least have to consider it. White Sox Get: Erik Aybar - 2B Carl Crawford - OF Give Up: Jermaine Dye Lance Broadway Charlie Haeger/Heath Phillips/Kyle McCulloch (if necesary an additional mid-level prospect and if one of the teams had interest in Brian Anderson that could be the guy to sweeten the deal) Tampa Bay Gets: Earvin Santana Lance Broadway One of Kyle McCulloch/Heath Phillips/Charlie Haeger Additional prospect from Angels (or Brian Anderson or some other mid-level prospect) Angels Get: Jermaine Dye (If interested they get Brian andreson and swing over another prospect to Tampa Bay). The main question is would the Drays do it. They would significantly upgrade there rotation in Santana (great arm), a guy like Broadway (who is ready to pitch for a team like the Rays and projects as a #3, maybe a #2 if everything goes right), Haeger or McCulloch (Haeger was once ready and maybe a change of scenery fixes that, or they could get another first round pick and hope he can continue to develop) plus at least one more prospect (it could be a pretty solid one at that). Either way they now have arms to go with Shields/Kazmir and they really have enough bats to replace the production of Carl Crawford. I do believe the Angels would easily make an Aybar/Santana for Dye move (in fact they probably would give up more). Sox significantly upgrade athletically with Aybar projecting as a potential #1 or 2 hitter in the future who would start off at the back of the lineup. Crawford would move up to the top of the lineup and we are talking about a duo that would steal 100 bases combined in the future. More importantly, Sox also cut payroll and now have the ability to swing Tadahito Iguchi to a potential contender to get more parts to kind of remake the offense (while still keeping Konerko/Thome together). This would also be no indication of a white flag move, rather a GM realizing his team is old and slow and doesn't fit the personality of his manager and making a mid-season adjustment to compliment what is a very strong pitching staff. If Broadway projects as MAYBE a #5 with the White Sox, and we aren't even a playoff contender, why would a team hoping to contend for the playoffs think he could be a centerpiece of their rotation? Same with Haeger or Phillips. By the way, we can't trade McCullough until exactly one year from his signing date. I can see us getting Aybar for Dye, but not Aybar and Santana. Most likely, it would be Saunders and Aybar, if that. I think these scenarios are a little optimistic. It would be the biggest coup since the AJ/Giants trade, but I'm not betting on it happening. If you substituted Dukes or Baldelli for Crawford, it's a possibility.

QUOTE(BigEdWalsh @ Jun 1, 2007 -> 11:20 AM) Precisely the reason that I left WSI behind for good in the middle of the 2005 season. It got very hateful towards the "realists". People got banned left and right. I got so sick of all that hate-filled dark cloud crap. Right now it's obvious that the Sox are, in my humble opinion, in need of a shakeup or something. As stated they have been playing pretty bad baseball all in all since the middle of last season. On a happy note, I'm about to embark (by car) from Utah for Wisconsin for a quick little summer vacation. My son and I will be at our first White Sox game in 2 years Tuesday night. It'll be my youngest daughter's introduction to White Soxdom. YEAH!!! Congrats, I'm going to vacation in the Philippines for six weeks (leaving on June 13th) and then teaching in China for a year, so I'll have to follow the White Sox at 7 or 8 am in the mornings, I guess. Even worse, a day game would start at 2 am!!! That will be really weird. I'm hoping my mlb.tv at 700K will work with my laptop, otherwise I'll be listening to mlb radio and be stuck with Farmer and Singleton.

QUOTE(StrangeSox @ Jun 1, 2007 -> 10:47 AM) I love SoxTalk hyperbole. Don't think the team is very good? Then I'm a much better fan than you! This team will ROXORZ!!! Just wait until the weather heats up/ pitching comes around/ bullpen settles in/ offense starts clicking/ whole team gels/ cliched excuse. Think this team is playoff-bound? You've got your head up your butt! Don't you see how bad they are?! They're going to finish behind the Royals! I don't think this team will make the playoffs. That doesn't make me a bad fan. That doesn't mean I won't support the team and go to some games this summer. It just means that, looking at the current situation, I don't think this is a playoff-caliber team. I'll still watch a majority of the Sox games this year. If they win, great! If they lose, oh well. I won't be keeping my eyes on the standings. By the way, a more appropriate analogy would be down 12-2 in the 4th. Sure, its possible that you'll come back, but not very likely given the current level of play. I saw this last year at WSI, except multiplied tenfold. The posters who saw the imminent collapse coming, they were shouted down. If you're a "realist," you're a "Dark Cloud." I find the whole "sides" (since everyone here loves the White Sox) very amusing, but it's polarized, whether the subject is Erstad/Anderson, who's to blame for the current mess...there's no "clear cut" person to blame, although Ozzie and KW will take turns falling on the sword for each other and for Greg Walker and the scouting department. Williams will say "the buck stop here" and promise to redouble his efforts and not allow the word "rebuilding" to be used. I'm still waiting for Ozzie to call KW a "loser" for trading some of his veteran players in June and July. From the end of August through the end of September in 06, nary a peep out of the "positivists," they simply disappeared and everyone tuned out the White Sox, except for Garcia's no-no flirtation in Anaheim.

QUOTE(Wedge @ Jun 1, 2007 -> 10:34 AM) There is such a thing as the pythagorean index. Your winning percentage should be roughly RS^2 / (RS^2 + RA^2) Where RS is Runs Scored and RA is Runs Against. This method has been remarkably accurate. What it is saying is that the 2005 team won 8 more games than it should have, according to the Pythagorean Index. For reference, here's Gardenhire 2002=+8 2003=+5 2004=+5 2005=-1 2006=+3 For comparison, 2003 Manuel=-2 2002 Manuel=-5 2001 Manuel=+2 2000 Manuel=+3 1999 Manuel=+3 1998 Manuel=+5 1997 Bevington=+4 1996 Bevington=-5 1995 Lamont=-4 1994 Lamont=-2 1993 Lamont=+2 1992 Lamont=E 1991 Torborg=-2 1990 Torborg=+7 1989 Torborg=-6 1988 Fregosi=+4 1987 Fregosi=-4 1986 LaRussa/Rader/Fregosi=-3 1985 LaRussa=+2 1984 LaRussa=-1 1983 LaRussa=+3 1982 LaRussa=-2 1981 LaRussa=-5 1980 LaRussa=+5

QUOTE(elrockinMT @ Jun 1, 2007 -> 10:24 AM) The so called controversy with A-Rod is nothing more than some disgruntled losing team and sour grapes. A-Rod played hard and didn;'t do anything wrong. There isn't going to be any trade of A-Rod over this flap. That would be just like us trding AJ becasue of the twinkies flap. 1) AJ won a ring for us 2) He's not the highest paid player in baseball, with the most expectations surrounding him 3) He's not constantly compared to his alter-ego, Jeter...if Jeter makes the same play as A-Rod in TOR, it's 24/7 media cover with the following message: "he's a gamer," "he's the ultimate grinder," he'll do anything to help his team win, he's the ultimate Yankee, he's trying to fire his team up, yadda, yadda. 4) There are not front page stories about AJ's personal life, nor does anyone care about AJ's personal life...heck, he was criticized last year for taking his shirt off in the morning of a night game at Central Park

QUOTE(santo=dorf @ Jun 1, 2007 -> 10:10 AM) Bulls***. BTW, "your" =/= "you are. Why are Kenny and Ozzie the only options here? KW puts the pieces in place, and it's Ozzie's and the coaches' jobs to motivate an ensure the players play to the best of their abilities. Is it KW's fault Konerko, Crede, Iguchi, and Dye aren't hitting? No. How could have KW improve this situation before the season started? He should've traded Crede at his peak value along with his slimy agent and back concerns. I'm holding that against him. You could argue Iguchi and Dye as well, but they are cheap, soon to be free agents who can net us draft picks. Crede can't do that after this season. Is it KW's fault Erstad is a below average hitter? No, but he should not have signed him. Ozzie would have never had the chance to overplay him (Guillen's fault) and let him make a ton of outs if KW never signed the guy. I'm holding them both accountable. Molina being an automatic out for a month and a half? That's Guillen's fault. Bullpen? Mostly KW getting too young and cheap, but Ozzie certainly has not been managing them to the best of his abilities. There is no cut and dry answer (well, maybe Walker if they want to send a message) at this point in the season. Who would you have played in CF INSTEAD of Erstad? Anderson? Sweeney? Terrero? And you're SURE Anderson would have done a much better job than last year, and this is based on what, besides speculation? How would you manage Sisco, Aardsma and MacDougal differently right now? Even Masset, it seems the best way to "manage" him is to make him a starter, but that doesn't really help the pen. Is Logan now a proven reliever? Nobody knows what to expect out of anyone besides Thornton and Jenks. Molina is 100% KW's fault. Why do you think Ozzie never played Molina, and always brought AJ into those games in the late innings? Because he HAD to play him once every two weeks, or AJ would die a slow death in August and September. Personally, I would have gone for Wiki Gonzalez for the offense, but he's a lousy defensive catcher, not that this is anything new with Hall now on the team. We're without Pods, Sisco, Erstad and Ozuna, as well as Thome for a major stretch? What are KW's answers to those problems? Terrero, Andy Gonzalez, Owens, Sweeney and Dewon Day. How are these "non-options" also Guillen's fault? According to the Impact Factor of measuring success above and below expected Pythagorean, Guillen was great in 05, above average in 06 and 07 and one game under expected in 04. Maybe KW should name himself manager and show everyone how it's done? C'mon. And if you really believe that OG and not KW are down on Anderson, doesn't Williams have the ultimate decision-making power there? You can't tell me KW is intimidated by Guillen and would deliberately not use a player that could help the team win, can you?