caulfield12

Reminds me of the decision not to re-sign DJ Carrasco. He's the kind of guy who serves as an inspiration for hundreds of minor leaguers of perseverance being rewarded...but instead the White Sox usually stick with veteran players like Pierre, Pena and Teahen.

I still think they'll have him (Harper) in High A ball for at least 4-6 weeks before jumping him to AA. A month ago it seemed ridiculous to consider promoting Harper until the 2nd half of the season, if at all. Now it is no longer a question of ‘if’ but when, and I think that answer will be decided within the next week or two. Harper simply doesn’t have anything left to prove at Low-A Hagerstown, and needs to make the jump so he can work against a higher level of pitching prospect. Harper has just dominated every aspect of Low-A ball and has shown the ability to hit both lefty and righty pitching: Against lefties: .395/.447/.558: In 43 AB’s he has 17 hits (5 for extra bases), and 4 walks to 11 K’s Against righties: .396/.488/.809: In 68 AB’s he has 27 hits, including 7 doubles and 7 HR’s, 12 walks to 15 K’s Now obviously the numbers against righties are more impressive, but remember Harper is a LH hitter, so the fact that he is doing so well from that side is really impressive. The Nationals have already been aggressive moving up some of their top prospects this season, most notably moving two members of Harpers 2010 draft class, Robbie Ray and A.J. Cole up to Low-A before giving them a shot at short-season ball. I would expect to see Harper promoted in the next two weeks with the likely target date May 23rd. The Potomac Nationals begin a 6 game homestand that day, which would make it the perfect time to bring Harper up. Potomac also has a huge 14 game home stretch in the beginning of June which could be a target as well. I Think though the more prudent move would be to move him up in 10 days, as it will allow him to see more advanced pitching (as well as help sell tickets at the Nationals closest affiliate). The earlier move could also potentially put Harper on target to advance to Double-A by August, which could make him a potential mid-year call up to the majors next season. That might be too aggressive of an approach, but the Nationals could have a pretty good team next season with Ryan Zimmerman, and Stephen Strasburg back from injury, and Jordan Zimmermann, Jayson Werth, Ian Desmond, and Danny Espinosa forming a quality corps of players. http://fanspeak.com/washingtonnationals/20...-up-the-ladder/

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ May 13, 2011 -> 04:19 AM) Available for "only" a $6.15 million rental for the last two months of the season. ALL IN!!! Might end up reminiscent of the Manny deal if they made it, but the odds are 1 in 100. Has KW ever expressed a "man crush" for him on the record?

Or Felix Hernandez in recent years.

That was about as good as the move to acquire LHP Javier Lopez and then trading him away....and watching him go on to enjoy a long career in the majors. I think he was the only lefty of the 10-12 we auditioned that offseason who ended up having a decent stint.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/m...-the-race-card/ Interesting article on Milton Bradley and the "race card" issue with a quote from KW prominent in the story.

24-33 (11-22 this year) 9.5 Games Back (11 GB) on June 8th...

Trying to stay loose Torii Hunter once showered with his bat. Matthew LeCroy once ate a cockroach. Doug Mientkiewicz would sit on a lucky spot on the dugout floor in hopes of sparking a rally. Mike Redmond would take "the naked walk'' through the clubhouse. The Twins of recent years kept loose -- and fought off prolonged losing streaks. "We don't have those characters on [this] team,'' Cuddyer said. "We don't have Nick Punto with the green thong. We don't have some of the other stuff. And you can't make people be like that.'' What about fiery players? "I don't think we've had [fiery] players in the 10 years I've been here,'' Cuddyer said. The Twins have been successful with their characters and without fiery ones. In 2006, they were 12 games back on July 13 and came back to win the AL Central on the final day of the regular season. Can players motivate -- or agitate -- a team into winning? Twins broadcaster Jack Morris, who played in the postseason with the Tigers, Twins and Blue Jays, said every winning team he was on had a couple of players who wouldn't mince words with teammates. He doesn't see that now. "It's not just this organization,'' he said. "Guys are just quieter. They are afraid to step out of bounds and challenge a teammate.'' Morris said if a team is like a family, it should be easy to chew out your brother. "There's nothing wrong with that,'' he said. "You do that inside. Don't let you or I see it, but you know where everyone stands.'' ㅈㅈㅈ.ㄴㅅㅁㄳ갸ㅠㅕㅜㄷ.채ㅡ

Ozzie, told Mike Scioscia does not have a Twitter account, points out, "He weighs 300 pounds more than me. He's bald, I'm not. He reads scouting reports, I don't. So?" Um, just sayin'.…...Jeff Passan, commenting on the now 26th ranked team (although how they went from 19th one week ago to 26th after winning 4/5 makes absolutely ZERO sense). from yahoo.com power rankings/Passan That pretty much sums up the current state of the White Sox when Ozzie jokes about reading scouting reports and preparing for future opponents.

I could just see Jordan Danks coming up, failing more horrifically than Brian Anderson in 2006, then that being used as the reason how Ozzie ruined his career and his brother left the organization to become a free agent. I kid. Well, just sort of. It does seem like we're back to another Wise, Erstad, Mackowiak, etc., situation. It's not like Ozzie hasn't benched players like Swisher in the past that had big contracts. The problem is that doing so made Swisher's value negligible to our organization. And you can't argue that going with veterans in the past like Uribe down the stretch in 2008 and Vizquel in 2010 hasn't worked out quite well. But it seems Ozzie always prefers the fading yet "professional" veteran. By benching him, it's not like you undermine Pierre's value. You're not going to recoup anything for him at this point, so they should defer to putting the personnel on the field that give them the best chance to win any given game. Viciedo does 2 arguments against him, Bell and the minor league staff might not think he's quite ready defensively AND/OR the plate discipline issue.

The fact remains that he's the only true impact bat we have in the minors and we're not going to be adding to the payroll, so it will have to be Viciedo or Danks. I suppose in a very worst-case scenario they could try McPherson, but that's about as likely as them giving a starting job to Michael Restovich, Maurice Gartrell, David Cook or that LH 1B we picked up from the D-Backs who was like a poor man's Ross Gload without a position.

QUOTE (Lillian @ May 12, 2011 -> 08:55 AM) There is another point here regarding something a little less tangible. When you have 4 key players under performing as badly as Pierre, Beckham, Rios and Dunn all have this season, perhaps you need to make a change just to let everyone be reminded that there is such a thing as accountability. You need Rios' defense in CF. Dunn is a big contract, and a potential force, with a very consistent long term track record. He has to be in the lineup if just by virtue of his left handed presence. Beckham has so much promise, and has shown flashes already in his young career. You can justify giving him some slack. Therefore, by process of elimination, J. P. has to sit, or be gone. Moreover, you have to consider the young player toiling in the minors, in an attempt to prove he is worthy of being promoted. What kind of signal does it send to all minor leaguers when they have to remain there even though they are doing their job, while veterans take their spot on the Big League roster, even though they "suck"? Imagine how demoralizing it would be to be putting great numbers at AAA and not be given a chance, because Juan Pierre was "untouchable" at your position. When you put it that way, it really does sound absurd, doesn't it? We're not talking Mike Stanton, Eric Hosmer and Heyward here waiting in the wings. Viciedo is still in the first 6-8 months of making yet another defensive transition (his 3rd at most recent count) and Jordan Danks was recently K'ing at a 40% clip. The White Sox would be doing Danks a disservice to promote him simply based on a hot 2-3 week time span if he's just going to end up like Brian Anderson. In some ways, we're lucky we're not the Twins. Because of the contracts for Nathan, Mauer, Morneau, Pavano and Cuddyer, they were forced to jettison JJ Hardy, Orlando Hudson, Punto, Guerrier, Rauch, Crain and Fuentes. As you can tell by glancing at their current stats (and these guys are coming from AA/AAA teams that had the worst combined winning percentage in all of baseball last year and are close again this year), none of those guys (especially in the bullpen) are close to ready. They have their Tosoni, Revere (one of their top prospects but by all reports not 100% ready defensively), Butera, Rene Rivera, Repko, Tolbert, Casilla, Hoey, Burnett, Luke Hughes, D. Hughes, etc. All of those guys are failing miserably. Of the whole group, Luke Hughes is the only one who legitimately should be in the big leagues right now. Hoey is up to justify his being one of the key components in an offseason trade. At least the White Sox have the luxury of veteran players like Teahen and Pierre and Pena/Gray protecting other prospects from being overexposed or having their confidence undermined. If this team fails and is out of the race, there'll be at least 3 months to see with Danks, Flowers, Viciedo, Escobar, Milledge (maybe) and some of the relievers like Bruney, Kinney, Lindsay, Carter, etc., can do. Lillibridge isn't a top prospect either....not since 3-4 seasons ago. No worries about setting back his career. And Vizquel provides even more insurance, with Castro.

Believe it or not, the Mets' low point last season was 5 games under .500 at 74-79 and 18 GB near the end of the season.

I'm just looking at getting out of the month of May around 6 games under .500. That means we still have to go 11-9 over the next 20 games. (As Balta I think noted, the Rangers have been struggling recently but they've been REALLY tough on the Sox for the last 5 years, almost as tough as TOR and OAK) If we can figure out a way to beat DET this season, and take out the Mariners, we could be fairly close to .500 by mid-May. I always go back to 2003 when both the Sox and Twins trailed the Royals by 6.5-7 games at the Break and quickly made that up by the beginning of August. So I'll set the "competitive" mark as being within 7.5 games at the All-Star break and no more than 2-4 games under .500

Only 16!!! I think this might be the first time in recent MLB history that a team with a $100+ million dollary payroll was sitting on the same number of victories for the season as games back in the standings already on May 11th. That at-bat by Valencia was among the myriad things eating at manager Ron Gardenhire. "Man on second, doesn't get him over, flips a weak fly ball," Gardenhire said. "That's not good enough. That's not how we play. And [he's like], 'I'm trying.' "OK, you are trying. Get it done. That's how we have to do it. Get it done because I'm tired of 'trying.'" Gardenhire said he would have preferred a ground ball to the right side of the infield. It's the little things the manager wants. He's not asking everyone to be Kubel. www.startribune.com/sports Another amazing stat. Without Kubel added to the team offensive stats, they're at a .219 BA and something like a 270-280 OBP. Only 3 games all season with five or more runs scored (including the loss last night, which included a blown save in the 8th and a blown tie game in the top of the 9th).

QUOTE (Lillian @ May 12, 2011 -> 05:58 AM) I'm not convinced that he couldn't handle the "hot corner", but if you're right, why not consider letting either Beckham or Vizquel play 3RD? Lillibridge could certainly handle Second. You understand that the motive in all of this is to get Viciedo in the lineup. Don't you think that lowest defensive liability would result from putting Viciedo in RF and Lillibridge in the infield? Maybe. But Ozzie almost always has preferred going with the steady, veteran hand. In this case, he'll defer to Omar Vizquel first. There's just no way with Beckham struggling again offensively and seemingly having adapted to playing an above average MLB 2B that they'll move him again. If you put Viciedo in LF, you're also changing Quentin away from a position he's finally grown comfortable playing. Probably not the wisest idea to do that in the middle of the season, it's more of an off-season move that you prefer him for mentally. If Quentin was also struggling offensively, I'd take a chance and think about moving him to LF, but not at this point in the season. Heck, they might be more likely to stick Dunn in LF and DH Viciedo than they would be to move both Quentin and Beckham again.

Because Lillibridge would be overexposed as a starter, and he's hardly ever played 3B in his career. http://www.thebaseballcube.com/profile.asp...llibridge.shtml In fact, he's NEVER played 3B in his life that I can see as a starter. Only SS, 2B and CF. His career at the University of Washington, he spent a lot of time in the outfield but none at hot corner. The White Sox aren't going to risk this kind of grasping for straws move with a $128 milllion payroll. Ozzie will stick with Pierre. You'd have a lot stronger argument if you put Viciedo at 3B again, but they're simply not going to do that, either. In all likelihood, they'll give the playing time to Vizquel first, like last year.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 11, 2011 -> 10:55 PM) Who's this Louis Coleman reliever on KC? Fantastic strikeout numbers in the minors, and he's doing well in the majors so far also. http://www.peekyou.com/ext/?target=http://...ty=&region=

http://www.startribune.com/sports/twins/121677159.html Reporters and questioning fans already turning on pretty boy Mauer.

Another thing. If the major league affiliate consistently provides their minor league teams with inferior talent that hardly ever put together winning/competitive seasons, the best minor league organizations (which are privately held) have the right to terminate their operating agreements with the major league teams and find better matches. There's a huge difference playing in new stadiums with pristine, well-groomed infields in front of sold out crowds and the alternative. Cany anyone argue that developing the habit of winning championships at the minor league level at some point down the line DOESN'T have a positive effect, especially if the draftee hasn't played for successful programs in high school, JC or university??

QUOTE (T R U @ May 12, 2011 -> 03:41 AM) Well technically yes it did, they got to the playoffs but obviously didn't win the world series.. they ended up winning 102 games and Randy Johnson went 10-1 with a 1.28 ERA and 4 CG shutouts for them.. but up until 04/05 they were notorious playoff chokers That's kind of like saying the Tigers went to the playoffs with Doyle Alexander and it made the Smoltz trade a good one, or Bagwell for L. Anderson. If they had both Carlos Guillen and Freddy Garcia long-term (and John Halama as their fifth starter), they would have been much better off IMO.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/odds/ Right now, the Tigers are the clear favorites to win the division. The only one that surprised me was the Royals finishing at 70-92. Don't think that will happen. They should win in the mid 70's. They have the Sox pegged at 79.5-82.5 for the season, but I guess that would be almost exactly .500 after last night's late result is added in.

found this story from last fall when I was doing some research, I wasn't surprised in the least that none of the teams that climbed all the way back in to make the playoffs didn't win the World Series....including last year's Sox team, well, there's always a first time, right??? http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ys-f...comebacks081809 A couple of teams they didn't mention because they were already 5-10 games over .500 at the All-Star Break. 2006 Minnesota Twins, 26-33 (low point, actually this year's team at 11 games under .500 NOW is the all-time worst record for a Twins' team under Gardenhire) 11.5-12 GB 47-39 at ASB 70-33 record to finish the season 2009 Colorado Rockies, 31-33 low point, 11.5 GB 47-41 at ASB 61-37 record to finish the season 2005 Houston Astros, started 15-30/21-35 (low point was 16 GB) ASB 44-43 Finished the season on a 68-38 run

4-2 now. Hopefully we can take 2/3 from Oakland, but as a Sox fan, you've learned that you have to be relatively satisfied not getting swept.

Now "only" 9 1/2 GB, break up the Sox, break up the Sox. Ahead of the Astros and leaving the Twins in the dust by 1.5 28th and rising.