lostfan

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 30, 2008 -> 08:50 PM) And, on top of that...right now, our backup OF, who happens to have one Hell of a glove in CF, pushed his average up to .300 today. OPS is still lacking, but that may well simply relate to a lack of at bats and associated lack of chances to turn things in to doubles/home runs. The way I see it, considering Anderson had to scrap his mechanics completely and start from scratch, he's needed to redefine his entire plate approach and since mid-2006 when he first started doing it, only just now has he had any real opportunity to work on it at the MLB level. So right now he's just trying to show he belongs here, and that he can hit MLB pitching. If and when he establishes that comfort level the power numbers will follow, we know he has power, we saw it in the minors.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Apr 30, 2008 -> 09:32 PM) That doesn't make it easy. You have to be rangy, agile, and quick. I'm not sure Fields is any of those 3. 3B is all reactions, and Fields' reaction time is fine. But to be able to cover 15-20 feet of ground - I don't see Fields being able to accomplish that. Fields would probably be a worse defensive player at 2B than D'Angelo Jimenez. Fields is pretty quick and athletic actually, if I'm not mistaken the reason he didn't get to show that last year was because he had a lingering leg injury for much of the year but it didn't affect his plate approach. So there is room for him to improve at 3B eventually although he'd need to work hard on it. However, his problem seems to be inconsistency, he just looks erratic on those routine plays. That would be uuuuuugly playing 2B.

QUOTE (rangercal @ Apr 30, 2008 -> 06:10 PM) How do Yankee fans have Higher IQ? I am here on the east Coast and I have run into plenty of "yankee fans" who have no idea who Robinson Cano is. Serious. Eh, there are Sox fans out there that don't know we traded for Nick Swisher this offseason too. Now, by that same token, I have NO IDEA how the Cubs are in the top 10 here. Even their fans will tell you the bleacher bums are dumb as s***.

Taking away any of my homerism for a minute I have to say that honestly Camden Yards > US Cellular. The Cell has better concessions though.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Apr 30, 2008 -> 05:40 PM) Mediocre K/BB, low ground ball percentage, and teams are starting to be patient and just wait for their pitch. I'm a fan of Floyd, but he's just looked a bit lost at times. His change is pretty damn good now a days though...if he can work his fastball in with that and use his breaking stuff a little more sporadically, I'd love him. Basically, good lineups will hit him, bad lineups generally will not...about a #4 starter. I optimistically expected #4 quality out of him actually and pessimistically expected him to be s***-canned and have Broadway replace him, but what he's been so far is like potential ace stuff. Far exceeding anything I thought he'd do. I can't reasonably expect him to have a sub-3 ERA all year. But frequent QS's, probably.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Apr 30, 2008 -> 05:29 PM) Floyd looks like he's ready to fall apart any outing now and I don't know how much confidence you can have in Contreras. How so? I don't get to see every game. The one time I saw Floyd pitch in person was at Baltimore, and he looked dominant.

QUOTE (BearSox @ Apr 30, 2008 -> 05:23 PM) 2B is the second easiest position to play in the infield, and third easiest to play in baseball. Fields would be no GG at 2B, but he'd certainly be able to handle the position. 2B is not an easy position. If it was, there wouldn't be so few offensive powerhouses compared to other positions. The skillset is similar to SS and it's not something just any player can do. I do not want to see Josh Fields anywhere near 2B unless he hits a double, steals second, or is rounding the base.

QUOTE (southsideirish71 @ Apr 30, 2008 -> 04:48 PM) His bat would be a welcome addition to our offense. I cringe thinking about all those errors, especially after watching Uribe play it near-flawlessly so far.

QUOTE (SoxWS05 @ Apr 30, 2008 -> 04:48 PM) JD 0-4 2K's (again). How many times can this guy go 0-4 with 2K's before Ozzie takes him out? He's killing the team. Yeah, I mean he must've been doing this all year because his overall stat line is just abysmal.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Apr 30, 2008 -> 03:22 PM) McCain on the Minnesota Bridge collapse... It was Porks Fault or... it could be from lack of inspections. I also heard Apollo 13's o-ring failure was porks fault. As was the Titanic and Princess Diana's death. Actually I'm pretty sure that when Congressmen/Senators slip in wording in bills to give them funding for local infrastructure projects like that bridge, it's called pork. And then legislators from other regions call it wasteful. That's part of what pork is from the way I understand it.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Apr 30, 2008 -> 03:21 PM) Once again false, they are tops in the MLB in batting avg with RISP. I'm not really trying to make a case for or against anything here, but while they're high up overall (not tops) with RISP, but when you go look at after the 7th inning it drops sharply, and it plummets to below the Mendoza line when you look at RISP w/2 out.

I still do not have much confidence in this offense to be consistent.

Brian Anderson finally gets extended playing time and consistent ABs one after another, and he sits pretty at .300.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Apr 30, 2008 -> 03:17 PM) Good luck finding that in the next 48 hours on this board. I mean I thought I was bad, but everyone on this board turns into BearSox after a loss.

QUOTE (SoxWS05 @ Apr 30, 2008 -> 03:11 PM) Then we should bench him. He's worthless. If you want to talk about how Dye's performance has declined, fine, fair enough, if you want to talk about how terrible he is in RF, that's also fine, but if I had to guess I would say the number of "worthless" major leaguers who hit .300, slug close to .500, and have an OPS that's usually comfortably over .800 and flirts with .900 at times is pretty low. Dye is slumping right now and he is getting awful at-bats, but let's have some objectivity here.

QUOTE (SoxFan562004 @ Apr 30, 2008 -> 03:01 PM) I agree with this, but I don't want to trash Alexei. I think he has some talent, but he needs to get regular ABs every day, he has had little to zero chance to adjust with this spot duty he's been asked to do. Exactly. I think we stole a high-ceiling international prospect with Alexei. But he is not ready to play in the major leagues, and we kind of have him in no-man's land right now and he's not going to get better like this.

QUOTE (Brian @ Apr 30, 2008 -> 03:54 PM) And has put guys on in all of his 3 appearances. Why point this out?

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 30, 2008 -> 03:52 PM) Today might be the defining game of the Greg Walker era. The Twins put Delmon Young 20 feet off of the LF line, as they knew the Sox would try and pull everything. That's like when Purdue didn't even have someone guard Chester Frazier on the perimeter. Or how nobody ever guarded Ben Wallace. Then again Young is a pretty damn good LF. I guess it's kind of like how Anderson likes to play shallow in CF.

QUOTE (Brian @ Apr 30, 2008 -> 03:47 PM) Wasserman has done a good job of putting guys on base since he has come up. He has been up for like 4 days and has pitched in 3 games, barely even a full inning.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Apr 30, 2008 -> 03:46 PM) The pen gave up 1 run in 3 innings. They were the least of the team's problems. And that is an ERA of 3.00... I will accept that if they're consistent.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Apr 30, 2008 -> 03:39 PM) BA is now our only .300 hitter...ugh AJ is still over .300

QUOTE (daa84 @ Apr 30, 2008 -> 03:38 PM) right about now would be a good time to have owens on this team instead of alexei Anderson is fast enough to not really need a pinch runner... unless you want an almost-guaranteed stolen base which Anderson hasn't really worked on.

Anderson suddenly re-discovering his MLB power stroke against Nathan would be sweet.

QUOTE (SoxFan562004 @ Apr 30, 2008 -> 03:33 PM) well, I'll take the positive spin for the month, because I need to put a positive thought in my head about this team after the offensive output the last 3 days... I remember seeing the schedule and seeing how ridiculous the schedule was for April and May. If they can't get to Nathan they'll be above .500 and 1 1/2 games in front for 1st with very good SP If I had to choose between a very good offense and mediocre-to-bad SP and vice versa, I'm going with the good SP and weak offense, that's usually easier for a franchise to fix.

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 30, 2008 -> 03:29 PM) We face 4 tough righties in Toronto, and thanks to our brilliant decision to only have 3 lefties on the whole roster, it's going to be a low scoring weekend likely. Unless Owens is called up and Richar miraculously heals and becomes a MLB-caliber leadoff guy overnight I don't see how anything can be done any differently.