caulfield12

QUOTE(Flash Tizzle @ Apr 27, 2007 -> 08:04 PM) Old people typically develop back problems. There's a 4 MPH difference between his peak and where he's throwing at now (97 versus 93), but it's very cold and it's April in Chicago. I expect him at 94-95 again, not sure if we'll ever see the peak Contreras of late 2005 and early 2006.

QUOTE(Jordan4life_2007 @ Apr 27, 2007 -> 07:46 PM) It was quite obvious Thome was in much worse shape than anybody was letting on. Possible options if not Ryan Sweeney... J. Burnitz Alexis Gomez Aaron Guiel Hollandsworth Terrence Long Q. McCracken Michael Tucker Bernie Williams QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Apr 27, 2007 -> 07:39 PM) It might very well spark our team. It wouldn't be the first time a team lost a huge player in trade or injury then rallied. The Twins of last year are a good example, I think, with Liriano and Hunter (if I'm not mistaken). It wouldn't even be the first time with a Sox team -- Ventura, 97! The Twins were playing really well before Radke and especially Liriano went down...I wouldn't say the injury inspired then so much as they survived it with Baker, Bonser, Garza. It was really the turnaround of Morneau in early June and the insertion of Liriano into the rotation, along with the release of Batista and the insertion of Punto into the line-up that really sparked that team last year.

QUOTE(TitoMB345 @ Apr 27, 2007 -> 07:40 PM) Wow, looking at our bench (Anderson, Ozuna, Molina), I've decided Cintron was the best option, and that we need to reassign someone and get us a damn good bat off the bench. Logan maybe? Thorton to DL or something? It will probably be someone like John Mabry.

QUOTE(santo=dorf @ Apr 27, 2007 -> 07:37 PM) Anyone else think Garrett Anderson is overrated? He reminds me of an Erstad with a little more power and more durability. Four or five years ago, he was a very underrated "almost superstar" player. Now he's just an aging outfielder, like Tim Salmon a couple of years ago. Still, you look at his overall stats over a career and they're pretty darned impressive.

QUOTE(fathom @ Apr 27, 2007 -> 07:33 PM) Sweeney isn't ready to hit at this level. Perez would help, but we'd still have no one vs RHP. What other choice do they have? EDIT: Dye's almost ready to be a full-time DH, and you don't pay $10-15 to that type of player, especially when his bat speed is slowing down a little bit (unless you're the Royals and Sweeney is your franchise player).

QUOTE(fathom @ Apr 27, 2007 -> 07:31 PM) Missing hangers and leaving men on base....seen this show before. How was Thome after the ASB vs LHP when his wrist was hurting? I'm assuming they'll recall Sweeney...or do they bring Eduardo Perez back?

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Apr 27, 2007 -> 09:10 AM) OH TQ, I miss your POV on here. But please dont bring up Royce Ring comparative to Gio. Royce was a closer at all levels, Gio is a young talented lefty starter, who has been very successful in the ranks. Gio has two plus pitches, Royce doesn't have one. At the time (2002), we needed a LH set-up guy. Damaso Marte eventually developed into the pitcher that KW drafted that June. Essentially, it was a wasted move...and Alomar was a bust for us as well. There are questions about his durability, but Gio, at least to me, looks like a deadlier version of Danks. While Danks has a better change-up, their curves are comparable (although neither rival Barry Zito in his prime) and Gio throws quite a bit harder and is even more of a strikeout pitcher. Ring and Fogg were both college closers, and neither made much of an impact for the Sox, although Fogg pitched very well when he had the chance, along with Bradford.

QUOTE(quickman @ Apr 26, 2007 -> 09:49 PM) Agreed to a certain extent. Our future pitchers may not come from our system at all. They could come from free agency or through trades. but I do agree with most of your assessment. they are 4's and 5's, and floyd, right now has not proven anythign except being the next brian Anderson only from a pitching perspective. The bigger question would be if you could get a freel would you give up two of these guys, and that I would. i understand why you say what you say , but really the sox need to do a better job of proving that your right. You like these guys which is fine, but most won't make it. I will gladly trade any of them for a proven player that can help me win now. The sox are great at drafting and developing third baseman to be good players but they are truly hit and miss on pitchers which most organizations are and god forbid they can develop a catcher or middle infielders. Just a note Royce Ring had simular stats and quite frankly he is a fringe guy. I can go on with more and more and so on. I don't know if I would say we're great at developing 3B. The jury is still out on Fields. Snopek and Norton were disappointments. Ventura was already a polished player coming out of Okla. State. I guess you can give them credit for Carlos Lee, but everyone had a sense he was not a legit corner infielder and that he would need to be moved. Most organizations are "hit" and "miss" on pitching prospects. We still have Josh Fogg, Kip Wells, Majewski, Rauch, Matt Guerrier, Josh Rupe, Frank Francisco (mostly a Red Sox prospect), Grilli (SF prospect, mostly) and a few others who have made contributions at the big league level. Of course, there's McCarthy (looks like he is now in the Texas bullpen in favor of Cameron Loe) as well. Buehrle was a low draft pick we spotted and incubated. Garland was largely a product of our system.

QUOTE(Craig Grebeck @ Apr 26, 2007 -> 09:48 PM) And through his first 400 or so AB in the majors has not been considerably worse than a lot of stars/solid MLB players were in their first 400. It's called maturation and development, something our stupid no good couldn't manage his way out of a paper bag Larussa esque over managing bigot of a leader has no use for. If you think I'm being too hard on Ozzie, read what he had to say about BA last night. How f***ed are we gonna be when we're employing more than one young white guy in new positions over the next few years? You're kidding, right? You think Uribe hasn't been hard on Uribe, Padilla, Escobar, A-Rod or Magglio over the last two years? He loves Konerko, Thome, AJ, Crede and Erstad. He talks about Ryan Sweeney in God-like terminology. That's as WonderBread white as you can get. It's not like he's playing Luis Terrero over Anderson. Heck, they axed Eduardo Perez for Anderson, who many thought was going to be sent down. If he's a racist, why wouldn't he keep the son of a family friend (Tony Perez)? I guess his taking Molina (countryman) over Wiki Gonzalez also proves his blatant bias for Venezuelan players too. I think next week, he will bail Ugueth Urbina out of prison and replace Logan (who he hates and deliberately left in the game last night to conflate his ERA) with Urbina in the White Sox bullpen. You're also forgetting African Americans now make up only 9% of MLB players.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Apr 26, 2007 -> 11:26 AM) Masset is a future guy in our rotation for sure. The guy has the stuff, makeup and size to be durable. Its possible our rotation a couple of years down the road will look like this: Gio Danks Masset Russell Fill in the blanks Eggy, Heath, Floyd etc It would also require trading Contreras and Vazquez for that to happen.

QUOTE(quickman @ Apr 26, 2007 -> 11:13 AM) First nobody cared or even considered Russell until spring training. Jury is still out on him. GIO will be a bullpen guy. But we will see who makes it, most won't but I do agree they will keep GIO. Trouble I see, is most people here believe we have some great talent in the minors, which we really don't, we are a C grade minor league system, so I think we tend to over evaluate our system. Ryan Freel is a good outfielder with speed. Giving up our crappy minor league players won't cut it. need not worry about belaboring the point, they won't trade him anyway. Broadway, McCullough, Phillips, Haeger, Egbert, etc. I think most would agree they would profile as 4 starters at best, 5 most likely and career minor leaguers just as easily. That leaves Floyd, Gio, Danks and Russell to POSSIBLY take Buehrle's or Garland's place. Other than that, we have to trade (since we won't sign a FA pitcher) or convert Thornton, Sisco or Masset to a starter.

QUOTE(quickman @ Apr 26, 2007 -> 10:40 AM) heath Phillips is a career minor league pitcher who most likely will hang on for a cup of coffee in the pro's, but that is it. Personally I would trade any of our minor league pitchers for Freel. in fact I would trade two of our minor league pitchers for freel, plus I would give them brian anderson to boot. Just saying Phillips sucks. If we trade Gio and Russell for Freel, we would have ZERO chance of developing a 1-3 caliber starter in the next 2 years.

QUOTE(Craig Grebeck @ Apr 26, 2007 -> 09:50 AM) If a guy has ZERO power, ZERO discipline, and ZERO line drive ability then you have to reexamine why he's playing. His ability to "put pressure on the defense" with groundouts to the right side is not an adequate reason. Anderson is not perfect, but he could provide the things Erstad doesn't excel at (if he develops like he has in the minors). Apparently you haven't watched any of the last six games. QUOTE(Craig Grebeck @ Apr 26, 2007 -> 11:02 AM) Cool. He found a hole. Still sucks at baseball. The ball in KC of Meche was a line drive up the middle, hit as hard as any ball this season. He also ripped a double down the right field line on Tuesday night and then his double last night, which apparently was lightly hit as well.

QUOTE(Craig Grebeck @ Apr 26, 2007 -> 09:50 AM) If a guy has ZERO power, ZERO discipline, and ZERO line drive ability then you have to reexamine why he's playing. His ability to "put pressure on the defense" with groundouts to the right side is not an adequate reason. Anderson is not perfect, but he could provide the things Erstad doesn't excel at (if he develops like he has in the minors). Erstad has three late-inning tieing or go-ahead RBI's in less than a week. Anderson might not have that in a single year.

QUOTE(Craig Grebeck @ Apr 26, 2007 -> 09:20 AM) Striking out is the same as grounding out. Outs=bad---whether or not you ground out a lot or strike out a lot the end result is the same. Umm...I'm sure with a runner on 3rd with less than two outs or a runner on 2nd with no outs, I would rather have the ball put in play. Striking out once every four at-bats puts ZERO pressure on the defense.

QUOTE(Jimbo @ Apr 26, 2007 -> 02:21 AM) Can we place BA on a mormon trip for 2 years....god hes awful. Hey, I resent that comparison. Sincerely, McKay Christensen

QUOTE(Craig Grebeck @ Apr 26, 2007 -> 09:06 AM) Anderson could develop that kind of power with adequate playing time. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/stats/battin...nd=a&pos=cf The only players who ARE even in the remote vicinity of not being power hitters yet striking out a ton are Granderson and Figgins (once every six at-bats). Sizemore strikes out a lot, but he's producing tons of extra bases AND stolen bases. Figgins and Granderson at least have the ability to steal a base. Anderson hasn't hit for power or learned how to steal, and he's made errors in two of the last three games. The White Sox would be ELATED if he could just replicate Mike Cameron's career. Lower on the list, you have Freel, Taveras and DeJesus, but they're also stolen base threats (to some extent at least).

QUOTE(jackie hayes @ Apr 26, 2007 -> 08:49 AM) Anderson's not a slap hitter, and other cfs with moderate power have similar strikeout rates. Mike Cameron strikes out 1 in 4 abs, Torii Hunter about 1 in 5. It's not by itself very important. That would be fine, if Anderson could be counted on for 24-30 homers per season.

QUOTE(chisox72 @ Apr 25, 2007 -> 08:23 PM) It was a wretched at bat. He helped Cy Durbin out the whole time.... Frustrating.... "Right now, I think Erstad is playing the best center field in the league," Guillen said. "If you look at the games, the balls in the gap he chases, he has been great. Our defense is better with him playing center field right now. In right field, I want [Rob] Mackowiak to stay there. If I lose Mackowiak, I can't switch one of those guys during the game. It's easy for me to make a change when Mackowiak's on the field

QUOTE(daa84 @ Apr 25, 2007 -> 07:51 PM) i feel like there was a lineup that had borchard timo and sandy.... Maybe Blum too.

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Apr 25, 2007 -> 02:51 PM) Sorry Balta, but I don't buy all that. Coming into the season, we had OF of Podsednik-Erstad-Dye. That was the starting 3, and it was awful. The Sox were counting on a guy for LF that was one of the worst regulars in the big leagues last season, and was oft-injured. As it stands on April 25th of 2007, nothing has changed. I really don't need to go into Erstads previous numbers, because if you read this site at all, you have seen them more than once. My problem goes beyond Anderson. That really isn't my issue right now. I beleive he would be hitting better if he was playing regularly, but there is nothing to back that up, and he hasn't done much to back up that claim. He really has done nothing to show he should be the starter, and thats why I really don't have a problem with him not being in the lineup. BUT, if your not going to have Anderson in lineup, get someone in here that is significantly better. Williams didn't do that this off-season, and he should have. Heads mentioned Brady Clark. Perfect. I'm sure we could have offered the Brewers a little more than Elmer Dessens, especially due to the need we had for a quality OF that can hit LHP. I don't agree with the way Williams constructed this OF, and I expect more from this club. After the OF adventures we had last season(you were one of the Macks biggest critics), it should have been significantly upgraded. It wasn't. Brady Clark is two years older than Erstad and is another fourth outfielder. I would hardly call him a significant upgrade, plus he makes a lot more money than Darin will make this year. You can throw out OPS and it doesn't mean much, because he's never performed any pressure like Erstad has with the Angels and even on the college football field. It's like assuming Kip Wells would have pitched as well for the White Sox in 2002 and 2003 as he did for the Pirates.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Apr 25, 2007 -> 10:41 AM) OH RLY. Do you happen to know his numbers as a lead off man? And hes still better defensively. Yes, because a .344 OBP at leadoff deserves a trip to the waiver wire.

QUOTE(Craig Grebeck @ Apr 25, 2007 -> 10:11 AM) Wrong. He has a six year track record of being pretty god damn terrible at hitting. I could f***ing care less what he did during the Clinton administration. If .278 is "god damn terrible" from 2001 through 2006, what is Anderson? Anderson tries to get started April 25, 2007 BY JOE COWLEY Staff Reporter KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- While White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen was the first to admit that being a bench player and getting a start once a week, at best, wasn't the easiest way to make a living in the major leagues, he also wasn't going to have any sympathy for Brian Anderson. The seldom-used second-year player finally was in the starting lineup Tuesday night against the Kansas City Royals, and his manager wasn't about to cut him slack. ''That's his job,'' Guillen said. ''Everybody has a job in the big-league level. Everyone has a job in baseball, and unfortunately that's the job for him this year. ''I expect him to get good at-bats, like everybody else does. I'm trying to find a better situation for him right now, but it's still early in the season.'' Guillen said the biggest obstacles to getting Anderson playing time have been frequent days off, few matchups against left-handed pitchers and the stellar play of Darin Erstad in center field -- Anderson's natural position. ''Early in the season, it's hard to get him playing time,'' Guillen said. ''I try to put him in against righties just because I know how hard it is to go 10 days without playing and then all of a sudden try to perform.''

QUOTE(Controlled Chaos @ Apr 25, 2007 -> 09:18 AM) I missed the error...what happened? There was a ball hit to RCF that was a gapper and he booted it around and made a mess out of it up against the wall. This just so happened to come at a time when our bullpen was falling apart, Ozuna was running around on roller blades at the Boston Garden and we needed someone to man up pitching-wise or defensively.

QUOTE(Craig Grebeck @ Apr 25, 2007 -> 09:21 AM) CREDE HAS A HISTORY OF SUCCESS AND DOES NOT HAVE A YOUNG GUY ROTTING ON THE BENCH WHO IS BETTER THAN HIM. Caulfield, stop comparing good baseball players to Erstad. It is not the same thing. Erstad is a whole other beast just because of the situation. Yeah, Erstad is 32 and has an 11 year track record of being an above average MLB player. Crede is 29 (I think) and has one and one half seasons of real success and another 3-4 years of being a top quartile defender and a third quartile hitter. Is Crede better now? Yes, but don't assume anything in baseball. And don't keep saying someone is bad because they're coming off a season of injuries (see Dye in April/May 2005) when they have a track record behind them and you would prefer the ballclub played someone else.