caulfield12

QUOTE(RockRaines @ May 8, 2007 -> 09:00 PM) Is there any doubt, whatsoever, that Ryan Sweeney is a flat out better ballplayer than Brian Anderson? Only if drunk German brewgirls (or is she Czech?) met both Anderson and Sweeney at a surfer's convention would Anderson be the pick right now...

QUOTE(The Ginger Kid @ May 8, 2007 -> 08:55 PM) my money says torii hunter is playing in st. louis next year Oh, no, that means we will have Edmonds in LF, Erstad in CF and Rowand in RF.

QUOTE(TheOcho @ May 8, 2007 -> 08:44 PM) Thank f***ing god Aj, THANK YOU. Maybe we won't be last in the AL in BA with RISP after this game?

QUOTE(TheOcho @ May 8, 2007 -> 08:02 PM) That's the third pic I've seen as your avatar in the past 30 mins. Keep it. I went from my wife (separated, she's Russian) to Keeley Hazell and have now settled with the "white" connection with Jessica Alba until we score 6. It might be up for awhile, unfortunately...

QUOTE(TheOcho @ May 8, 2007 -> 07:59 PM) I hold my breath for double play balls. Oh Pablo.. I've brought out Jessica Alba and the "white bikini" to rally our offense...it will stay as my avatar until we score at least 6 runs in a game.

QUOTE(Mr. Showtime @ May 8, 2007 -> 07:40 PM) Is this where I'm supposed to say where's our Morneau? Joe Borchard?

QUOTE(TheOcho @ May 8, 2007 -> 07:34 PM) Boobs. Gio looks like a cross between Ralph Macchio (Karate Kid) and Wilson Alvarez.

QUOTE(fathom @ May 8, 2007 -> 07:33 PM) Ha, nice uppercut swing by AJP. And you can't cancel the post-game show.

QUOTE(shawnhillegas @ May 8, 2007 -> 07:28 PM) the last two fastballs to Cuddyer had better placement. Okay Joe, go out and put up better numbers that Chavez and maybe you can get your first GG

QUOTE(elrockinMT @ May 8, 2007 -> 07:20 PM) I missed where Uribe has been. I assume it was not an injury but personal? Taking care of sick mother. We already lost one DP due to teamwork around the bag. And Tyner will steal, and AJ will be 2/15 on throwing out runners.

QUOTE(TheOcho @ May 8, 2007 -> 07:15 PM) That.. was... rather quick? 11 pitches, 11 strikes

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ May 8, 2007 -> 01:09 PM) The reason the A's have never won was that their best teams, by far, lost years ago. Their best chance to win were their early 2000's teams that had Tejada, Chavez, Giambi, Hudson, Mulder, Zito, etc.....but they ran into the 2000 and 2001 Yankees back when those Yankee teams were still awesome, and in 2002 they suffered that shocking upset loss to Minnesota (although Giambi was gone by that year). You don't luck your way into the playoffs, but you luck your way to winning a World Series. Even our great championship team, which went 11-1 in the postseason, very well could have headed to Anaheim down 2-0 if not for the horrendous umpiring of Doug Edings. Your telling me the 83 win Cardinals winning it all and getting 6 errors in 5 games from Tiger pitching wasn't luck? Your telling me coming down from 0-3 against the Yankees, with the last 2 games in New York, isn't luck? Your telling me the Bartman incident wasn't luck? Your telling me Dusty Baker's bad pitching staff decisions (SEE: Ortiz, Russ) leading to an Anaheim rally wasn't luck? Your telling me Mariano Rivera BLOWING GAME 7 OF THE WORLD SERIES wasn't luck? Let's face it, to win it all you have to be great but you also have to be lucky at some point in time. That's how it works, period. Those World Champions were great teams which is why they took advantage of those lucky breaks, but the lucky breaks had to present themself in the first place. Exactly. The Marlins have won ZERO division titles in their history and have 2 World Titles, the Braves won 14 in a row and have 1 to show for that timespan. If that isn't luck I don't know what is. Our playoffs, EVERYTHING went our way... 1) Two calls against Escobar with AJ at bat 2) Easy ball through Graffanino, followed by Iguchi homer when we were down 3) Pods taking Lidge deep 4) Rallying against Oswalt 5) Geoff Blum? Who? 6) Rallying against Lidge to win game 2 after Vizcaino's hit off Jenks 7) Buehrle getting a save...when we close to using Ozuna as a pitcher 8) El Duque getting 3 outs against Boston 9) Cotts getting out of 2nd and 3rd, no outs, with Jenks' help against Bagwell 10) The fact that they had to lead off with Clement in a short series

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ May 8, 2007 -> 09:52 AM) I don't care what anyone says, for the most part that's bulls***. There are exceptions to the rule but to say you just have to luck your way to winning a world series is nonsense. Although it's really hard to make an argument that the Cardinals were the fifth best team in the NL last year or that the Marlins were the best team in 2003... The Cardinals had a better record in the post-season than the regular season. The Marlins got really hot at the right time and rode their pitching staff, just like 1997. You can't win the WS without talent, obviously...and it's not luck, being able to assemble a team without talent...but the Braves would have won more than one World Series if there wasn't a certain element of chance involved. They've had 14 chances and we've had 3 in that same time period, yet both teams have one title.

QUOTE(fathom @ May 8, 2007 -> 07:20 AM) The fact Garcia is healthy right now and not giving up 10 runs every start justifies the whining on that awful trade. The 6 IP, 2 ER outing last night was his best so far. He has been throwing 89-92 pretty consistently this year, when I've watched him. He's picked it up a little more than I thought he would, but his stats should be better with his stuff in the NL. That we have Gonzalez and Floyd is better than waiting 2-3 more years for compensation picks to develop. Also, does anyone think the Freddy would be a disaster these last 2-3 weeks with our offense? He'd be pointing fingers...saying he did enough to get the win....that he's only motivated by big games. At any rate, I wouldn't want to pair Garcia's attitude problems with our anemic offense. It's a bad recipe. The way he has pitched, he would have the same record as Danks but 10X more clubhouse issues. And the Angels would have recorded 5-6 steals against him in one game.

QUOTE(spiderman @ May 7, 2007 -> 09:54 PM) How much easier does the schedule really get ? Hell, even KC has given us problems, and those are supposed to be the easy ones. Except TB, and a few other teams like Baltimore, there really isn't some stretch of games, outside of interleague play, where the schedule just becomes a bunch of gimme's - the AL is just stacked. What are you talking about ? We'll play KC a ton, but we don't play Baltimore or TB as much as our divisional opponents. The Tigers have won something like 14 of their last 15 against the Royals. Thanks KC!

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ May 7, 2007 -> 07:17 PM) Well, it sort of depends on a couple things, first, what are we asking for, and second, how are the folks performing. If Mark Buehrle keeps up his potential All-Star first half again, and looks solid, and someone like the Mets take another blow to their rotation, then its all going to be a question of price. Or if Dye starts hitting and the Dodgers/Angels finally decide how desperate they are for an OF bat, then it all depends on the price. If we're locked in on a young potential #1 starting pitcher for either of those guys, we're not going to get it. If we're locked in on a top 10 prospect in baseball, we're not getting it. But if we target someone a step back from that, or a couple players who could fill in and who aren't pitchers, then it becomes more possible. The Dodgers have soured somewhat on Billingsly, the Mets have soured somewhat on Milledge, a ton of the Angels' guys not named Brandon Wood have been let downs. If I'm in KW's chair, the simple question you have to weigh when thinking about a sell-off, if your record winds up in the place where you should, is...is the talent I'm getting back better than what I would get with 2 high draft picks? What type of ERA and record does Buehrle need to qualify as a Type A FA? I'm assuming it's not going to be a 4.99 ERA, but what are the criteria for this classification? Some complicatd SABR formula with quartiles and VORP correlation coefficients?

QUOTE(BigSqwert @ May 7, 2007 -> 03:06 PM) We will play KC, Baltimore and Tampa Bay as many times as our other division rivals when it's all said and done. As far as injuries are concerned: Minnesota lost Liriano and now Maueur is on the 15 day DL. Tigers have Zumaya on the 15 day DL. Indians had Cliff Lee miss the month of April. Westbrook and Marte now on the 15 day DL. Losing Marte is actually a bonus for Wedge. He can play Blake and doesn't have to worry about sitting a top "prospect" that probably will end up as a bust before all is said and done.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ May 7, 2007 -> 10:09 AM) There is a big difference between wanting to play, and doing something stupid that costs your team games. The problem is, you never know when you're 100% with that injury. You can not feel it at all taking swings in BP, and then one swing in a game and you're history. It's not the type of injury you can easily measure or do MRI's on...for instance, he had ACL surgery and his range of motion is 85% of normal, there's no modern medical miracles that have been invented to treat this type of injury, shark cartilage (Hawk's thing), copper or magnetic bracelets, etc.

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ May 7, 2007 -> 10:01 AM) Jack Morris and Mark Buehrle will head the staff. The grinderness will be unequaled. Personally, I would go with Hibbard or McDowell.

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ May 7, 2007 -> 09:46 AM) so what kind of pain would we be in if the Sox signed Eckstein in the offseason? Only if we have Eckstein at SS, Miles at 2B, Rowand in LF, Erstad in RF, Byrnes or Kotsay in CF...maybe Scott Brosius at 3B and Sean Casey or Scott Hatteberg at 1B.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ May 7, 2007 -> 09:48 AM) Don't discount Widger. He got Kenny. He'll get you too. PS: I'd much prefer Widger to Molina. At least he homered off Randy Johnson. Something we could never imagine Molina doing, unless he changed bodies with one of the "real" Molina brothers. Heck, Alfred Molina, Doc Oc from Spiderman 2, would be able to at least make contact with all those arms swinging...and at least it wouldn't be a Crede/Konerko pop-up.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ May 7, 2007 -> 12:19 AM) Sweeney and Anderson both have very similar tools. One projects as a better corner outfielder (Sweeney) the other as the better center fielder (BA). However, both are capable of playing all three outfield positions. But the difference is that Sweeney has baseball skills and when I say baseball skills I mean he has a baseball swing. Brian Anderson has a mechanical mess that gets exploited like crazy against mediocre major league pitching (let alone good major league pitching). We can hope Anderson eventually changes things, but there is absolutely no reason BA should be at the major league level unless he's replacing some other player because he is not better than Ryan Sweeney. I think Sweeney is a much better thrower...he just has better "baseball instincts," he's a player instead of an athlete playing baseball, however you want to look at it. I think it would be great to keep him in LF, but we have to either keep Dye or sign another power-hitting RFer for us to be able to keep two outfielders who will hit less than 15 homers, possibly combined.

QUOTE(retro1983hat @ May 7, 2007 -> 09:37 AM) Last night on the radio post game show, someone called in and told Chris Rongey that this team has been cursed since we release Chris Widger. I laughed at this, but then I thought about it. We were great all of 2005 and won the WS. Last year we were one of the top couple of teams in the game through the first half until we released Widge. Does anyone have any supporting facts what our record was in 2005 and early 2006 before the release of the Widge and since? By August 1st last year, we'd already started to tail off and were only 20 games over .500. We fell to 90-72, and we're .500 this year. So we're 2 games under .500 since the release. I think the health of Pods and Thome have a lot more to do with it, and the lack of production from Konerko and Crede in particular.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ May 7, 2007 -> 09:29 AM) I think he learned his lesson the first time around. If he doesn't get back in the line up too soon last time, he could be playing by now. I would rather have a player that wants to be in the line-up too soon rather than one who always seems to be injured and milks his time on the DL. I think Thome knows his body...those rib cage injuries are so delicate, you can feel 100% and then you're back to zero after resting it for as much as 3-4 weeks. It's the worst injury a player in a sport where there's a violent swing can have, with the possible exception of golf or tennis. Maybe, just maybe....we can tread water and will have discovered that Sweeney can be the answer in RF or LF and we can survive and adapt without Pods in the second half.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ May 7, 2007 -> 08:01 AM) My theory: BA couldnt hit at the big league level with his new swing so they sent him down to get more at bats. Looked like his "old" (April/May 2006) swing to me....what's the difference? QUOTE(kyyle23 @ May 7, 2007 -> 07:46 AM) It is tough to keep "interesting" situations out of the media nowadays. I would be somewhat surprised if something happened that p*ssed Ozzie off that badly, and it didnt hit the papers or airwaves in some form or another. Somebody always sees something. I think BA's arrogance/confidence would grate on anyone if the performance isnt there to back it up. We all know that BA needs constant ABs right now, and he is in the best place for that. Sweeney very well may take an open OF spot if he continues to show the moxie and signs of improvement, and I actually think that Ozzie would be open to letting Sweeney take the job from Pods because he likes Sweeney so much, provided Erstad continues to be a decent leadoff hitter. If Erstad starts to tail off, Pods will be back in the lineup as soon as he gets back, even if Sweeney is smoking the ball. I think he's willing to play Sweeney in CF and Pods in LF if Erstad tails off like Lofton did in 2002. However, Sweeney in CF is obviously not the long-term solution, he needs to be on one of the corners to maximize his contribution defensively. Some also think that Erstad will get injured again b4 the end of the season.