caulfield12

Apologies to the White Sox for giving up too early on this game. The Sox would never rally for Danks, lol. For some reason, they've bailed out our "ace" Jake. Guess we need to go back to Omar Vizquel at 3B to spark this team again, just like 2010.

QUOTE (southsideirish71 @ May 11, 2011 -> 09:57 PM) I wonder how bmac can contain his excitement to face our offense in Oakland. I mean facing our offense must excite opposing pitchers. Gio got blasted last night, but it would have been nice if we're just going to simply sink into an abyss to see KW getting asked questions by all the baseball writers like Rogers about Gio, Sweeney and McCarthy. Maybe that would make him angry, but at this point, I highly doubt it. Seems he's mellowed too much in the last 2-3 seasons, especially after all the strife and controversy last season. There was even quite a bit of talk recently they would give Gio a guaranteed 3-4 contract to buy out his first year of free agency. Nothing like a 7-20 stretch to create excitement.

Rosenthal was STILL predicting tonight at the Yankees/Royals game in NYC that Cleveland, DET and the White Sox would fight it out for first. That's becoming more and more of a remote possibility. I'm not even concerned with what the Indians are doing anymore. You would never understand that the White Sox are 8 for 25 and Angels are 7 for 25 and yet they're kicking our butts by looking at the box score. Unless you figure in the fact that with the possible exception of Michael Cuddyer, we're clearly the worst hitting team with RISP (except for the Twins and maybe Mariners) since the first 10 games of 2011. At least the Twins can point to Morneau's not being 100%, Mauer out, Young out, Nishioka out...they have some excuses. Our line-up has been basically healthy the entire year. That's what is most infuriating.

They should bunt every single ball down the 3B line until Teahen gets in playing shape...probably sometime in July/August. Great defense, as usual. It's like every above average MLB play has an automatic double or triple against everyone but Buehrle and Danks once they reach 1B.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 11, 2011 -> 09:41 PM) Teahen's batting average in free-fall mode, down to about .225 And he still has a higher OPS than Beckham. Who has a higher OPS than Pierre, AJ, Rios and Morel. Yikes. Looks like all of Peavy's pitchers are within 5-7 MPH of each other. Not exactly the 10+ MPH spread that's ideal. He is throwing sliders, change-ups and cutters according the play-by-play, in addition to the FB.

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ May 11, 2011 -> 09:41 PM) When does Teahen's contract with us expire???? After 2012 I hope.

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ May 11, 2011 -> 09:39 PM) except teahen Teahen's suddenly switch-hitting?

Has Peavy thrown any pitches over 90 MPH? I just picked up the game at mlb.com and he was at 88. That's Freddy Garcia territory. Or was it a sinking FB and his four seamer's in the low 90's?

The Randy Johnson trade didn't go so well, either.

I'll say one thing. The record of the Twins' AA and AAA teams these last seasons is a serious concern. Development is one thing, but they've compiled the worst record in the minors in 2010 and 2011 and it's now reflected at the major league level as well. When a major league team is having difficulty succeeding in terms of w/l record, they group all their prospects together and hope that they'll developing a "winning" habit that won't be so negatively counteracted when they get to the big leagues with a team like the Royals or Pirates.

There's a situation where Ozzie would have been grilled. 1 out, runners on 2nd and 3rd and you don't want the Twins' best hitter to beat you. It would have put the go-ahead runner at 1st, but geez. Schlereth already had given up a homer to Kubel, I think it was last night even, and there's Ozzie's dreaded L/L match-up. Morneau does have 2 doubles in this game, but he was the 2nd coldest hitter on the Twins of their "veteran" players. I think 90% of MLB managers would have walked Kubel to face Morneau there, setting up a force at any base. We'll see how well Mijares and Capps can do with the lead. Seems like one of those typical Twins' victories that might get their season turned around. Of course, Sox fans have said the same thing at least twice in the last couple of weeks. ONLY THE 3rd TIME THEY"VE SCORED 5 OR MORE RUNS THE ENTIRE SEASON.

Nope. That's the equivalent of having a 2-8 record in every 10 games against a team for 3 years running. By the way, the Twins have received 5 free passes to the basepaths (by the Tigers) in the last 1+ inning and still haven't come up with a hit with RISP. Not to mention a passed ball. If they don't win this game or at least tie it, they really are worse than the White Sox.

Same reason we lose in Oakland usually. We've only won 6 of our last 30 against Minnesota.

But the way the Astros have operated isn't that far off from the Cardinals' business model in recent years. It's just that StL has been a lot more successful, AND they obviously had the fortune of Mr. Pujols being in their organization.

Viciedo becomes the starter in LF and Ramirez/Beckham/Teahen/Vizquel all lead off until one keeps the position, I'd imagine. Not unlike 2008/2009.

So Bonds and A-Rod are the only ones to get in (eventually)? Has Piazza escaped 100% with his reputation intact? I wasn't sure...haven't followed it as closely as many others, as it's too depressing to me as a fan.

I saw the other day he's averaged 34 homers and 97 RBI's for the last 7 years. Still, not quite dominant numbers considering he's a 1B playing in a hitter's park. Gary Sheffield has over 500 homers and I'm not sure I would vote for the guy if I had a ballot. Probably. But I'd have to think long and hard about it.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/mari...?prmid=obinsite Good article on the inner workings of the M's clubhouse and what Bradley did to get released finally...a lot of it had to do with the series against the White Sox, at least the final straw. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/mari...?prmid=obinsite

When times are bad, we expect good players to step up. That's what Michael Cuddyer did in 2009 when he filled in for Justin Morneau at first base and did a lot of the heavy lifting in the final weeks as the Twins rallied to win the AL Central in the season of 163 games. This year, so far, it's not happening. And this is the most telling manifestation: So far this season, Cuddyer has three home runs and four RBI in 122 plate appearances. That means he's driven in exactly one player who isn't named Cuddyer. That was Jason Kubel with a fielder's choice on April 23 against Cleveland. Save for the solo home runs, Cuddyer does not have a run-scoring hit in the 52 times he's batted with runners on base -- including 27 with runners in scoring position. Howard Stringer (Section 219), www.startribune.com/sports

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ May 11, 2011 -> 03:02 AM) Also, WTF Drew Lee? Who the hell is he for hitting .431 this year? The Brandon Short, CJ Retherford or John Shelby, Jr., of 2011?

The Astros had a really good reputation until the World Series team was dismantled and they started awarding idiotic contracts like the Carlos Lee one. A lot of the Stros fans really identified with Bagwell, Berkman, Biggio and Oswalt and they all left at approximately the same time. I know it was a decision that McLane agonized over for many months, particularly the parting with Oswalt. They're also suffering a bit because of the success of the Rangers, IMO. And the fact that Nolan Ryan is now identifying himself with that rival organization, well, basically he's the face of the Rangers to Texans.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ May 11, 2011 -> 02:04 AM) Completely do-able w/ this team. Can you imagine if we had Viciedo in LF instead of Pierre? KW will have no other choice if this team obviously isn't competitive at the ASB. The other big concern is leading off with Ramirez, Rios or possibly Lillibridge/Teahen. There aren't many good options. Beckham's simply not walking enough to be there...they're better off leaving him at the bottom of the line-up where there's no pressure until he gets his confidence back and/or the games become less and less meaningful, except as spoiler games and auditioning for 2012.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 11, 2011 -> 02:20 AM) Rebuilt to a fluke division winner in 2000 that was 23 games over .500 in the first half of the season and saw Cleveland close the division lead to 5 games by the end of the season after having 32 different pitchers appear in games. They lost quite a few players to injury in 2001 and ended up finishing .500, but those teams were built almost exclusively on the offense and really didn't have much of a chance to have any sort of sustained success. They had a chance to have a really good team in 2003, but neither 2002 nor 2004 were that good of teams either. That's not much of a rebuild. To rebuild the way people here have and the way I suggested, it's going to take far longer than 3 years. If the Sox try to rebuild with the same organizational philosophy of trading away young, talented players that they "think" will fail or don't "project" well to the majors according to them but keep those guys that they do feel strongly about, they will be left with the same exact situation they're in now. The only team I can think of in the majors that is not the Yankees or Red Sox that has been able to do what the White Sox would be trying to do is the Phillies. They finished in 2nd or 3rd place for like 5 straight seasons, Gillick came on for Ed Wade, and the first move he made was dealing Thome for Rowand, Gonzalez, and Haigwood. They had some dude named Ryan Howard waiting in the wings. On top of that, they had Utley at 2B, Rollins at SS, Burrell in LF, and Abreu in RF - who they traded in 2006 along with Cory Lidle for 4 prospects, none of whom did much of anything in the majors (though Monasterios looks OK for the Dodgers). They still had Brett Myers and Cole Hamels in the rotation too, and a young Madson coming up. There had a good, young core of players to build around, so it didn't take much, and they were STILL selling off. The White Sox don't have an offensive core like that. It's going to take quite a bit more to build something in Chicago. I still think it's a lot easier to rebuild/repair an offense than to find quality/young starting pitching. I guess a lot of this is dependent on Peavy, whether he can return to 1/2 starter form and/or be traded to free up payroll. Of course, we'd prefer the former, because in all likelihood that money wouldn't remain in the payroll if we tank. Looking at things optimistically, we are set offensively with Rios (because we have no choice), Quentin, Ramirez, Dunn, Beckham and Konerko. Viciedo (and possibly Jordan Danks) can take the place of Juan Pierre eventually. That means we merely need to find a catcher and 3B. We have Danks/Buehrle/E. Jackson to trade in order to get there. Of course, if Peavy and Rios DON'T ever return to form, we're absolute screwed for another 2-3 years. Not much of a choice but to have faith that both of them eventually will be fine. Same with Gordon. With a rotation of Peavy, Floyd, Sale, Humber and another young prospect that we get in return for Danks/Buehrle/Jackson, we COULD be okay. The other area where we MIGHT be able to get something in return is trading Thornton, but it would be dangerous to do so since Sale will be in the rotation and we don't have anything close to legitimate proxies for them in our minor league system. And yes, that leaves a rotation with four huge question marks in Peavy, Sale, Humber and mystery "major league ready" pitching prospect. The Royals have been confronting that type of situation with their starting rotation for nearly 15 years and have never adequately filled in their back 3 starters.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 10, 2011 -> 11:27 PM) I just want to say that for the White Sox to get to the point that you guys want, it's going to take, at the very minimum, 5 years. Said changes would require a complete organizational shift in philosophy, because what they're doing in the minors, from top to bottom, clearly is not preparing these players well enough for the major leagues. So you have to bring in new coaches, new front office personnel, and new players. It's going to take 3-5 years to get those players prepared for what the White Sox want them to do at the major league level, and then you have to worry about getting the right players in place at the highest level. Perhaps this is something you can incorporate along the way, but I don't believe that. The Yankees and Red Sox have been able to get away from it because they've spent anywhere between 50-100% more than the rest of the league during these transitional periods. That's not to say that the White Sox aren't spending at all - they quite clearly are - but they simply don't have the resources to "purchase" playoff appearances. The teams with similar payrolls to them are teams like the Cubs, Dodgers, Angels, and Mets - no surprise that they are all in the 3 largest markets in the country - and those teams have only been so-so at getting to the playoffs and only the Angels - 10 years ago - have had success in the playoffs, perhaps suggesting that part of their success had to do with the suckage of the A's, Rangers, and Mariners as opposed to them actually being very good. It doesn't surprise me in the least that they struggled last year when a couple other good teams came along and it won't surprise me this year if they finish 3rd in the division. The Sox are also similar to the Twins, Tigers, and Giants who have had varying (used quite loosely) degrees of success over the past 2-5 years. Oh, and this is by far the team's highest payroll ever, by like $20 mill. Every other young and successful team around the league has taken their lumps, and they've usually done so for around 10 years. I don't think it would take the Sox 10 years because they do have the financial capabilities to make it work, but it certainly shouldn't surprise anyone if it does. If they were to sell off and go into a complete rebuild, it's going to be at the expense of the major league team until like 2016 at the very earliest. There are going to be an exorbitant amount of people who are upset about it and attendance will almost certainly drop to the bottom 3rd of the league again. We're already in the bottom 3rd of attendance, it's just that we can generate higher revenues due to our market, broadcast rights/regional sports network/WGN, average ticket prices, promotions/advertising, etc. The 80's rebuilding effort was painful but finally ended with Thomas, Ventura, McDowell, Sosa, Alvarez, Radinsky, etc., arriving at the same time. We "rebuilt" in a way after the 97/98 seasons (it was kind of a two year movement of dumping higher salaries) and were back in the playoffs by 2000 with a team led by Thomas, Konerko, Ordonez and El Caballo. I'd say 3 years with our payroll and the Twins falling apart too, although there's always the possibility that the Indians and Royals will delay our success until 2016 or 2017. You just wonder how much the Indians' payroll can come up....they're going to have to have success for 2-3 seasons in a row to start closing in on their 1990's-2002 attendance numbers with all the consecutive sellouts. Otherwise, they'll have to continue to part with their higher priced pieces like Carmona as they get into Years 5 & 6 of their contracts.

I think the exact quote is, "because that's the way we roll."