ThunderBolt

Congrats, my friend.

Do they have a general team suckitude bonus? Greinke doesn't get to face the Royals, Verlander does.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Sep 8, 2009 -> 05:56 PM) What do we do during the 60-110 games in which he's on the DL? Flower Power sound good to you?

I'm game for Cody Ross. He has MASSIVE pop, he'd be an absolute beast in our ballpark.

Nick Johnson is an OPB machine. We could put him near the top of the order, and he could actually set the table for some of the other guys.

I think swapping Pods for Figgins solves a lot of problems.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Sep 8, 2009 -> 03:23 PM) A 7th or 8th inning reliever will appear in an average of three games per week, while a starter will appear only once. A bad starter affects a team every fifth day. A bad bullpen affects it every day. No, what separates Hudson from those other pitchers is that he was the talent to dominate at the major league level. Pitchers who can't get major league hitters out have no place in a major league bullpen. Given that Kenny just dealt Poreda and Richard, there's a lot less pitching talent in our farm system than you seem to believe. Torres, Nunez, Hernandez, Link, Egbert have 24 major league innings combined between them. What gives anyone the right to just write them off immediately?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 8, 2009 -> 03:27 PM) High fastballs only. We can pound him inside too. I'm a bit worried about Torres, because unless his cutter is working, the majority of his breaking ball spots seems to fall near Cust's happy zone.

We should look into not pitching to Jack Cust this series.

He's not even in our system anymore, but he's always been a guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now, he's just too old.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Sep 8, 2009 -> 09:33 AM) These are AAA-quality pitchers. As 2007 showed, you can't stock a bullpen with minor league yahoos who can't get major league hitters out and expect positive results. People need to get rid of the notion that middle relief and setup roles aren't important. There's a reason that guys like Linebrink, Scot Shields, and J.J. Putz got big contracts in recent years. And all three of those players that you named, are currently failing catastrophically in their roles. Not really the best example you could have given me. In fact, this is more of a testament to the overvaluation of most bullpen arms. It interest me how you’ve just written off half of our system in one sentence, especially, given that some of these guys have just as much experience, and just as good a chance at succeeding in a bullpen role as Dan Hudson does. In fact, you know what separates Hudson from all those players (perhaps, barring Egbert?) Hudson has a pretty clear future in a rotation

I really think that Greinke's going to get screwed out of this thing in favor of Sabathia. I can just see it coming.

The draft picks are a primary factor here. Offer him ARB, if he accepts we got a good bullpen arm, if he rejects we get to let Doug Laumann go to work.

These are some of the realistic in-system options to take spots in the pen next year. Torres, Hynick, F Hernandez, Line, Nunez, and Egbert. We can also assume that KW will make some waves in the free agent market as well. All of these arms have enough promise to make a one or two inning impact from Hudson somewhat negligible. His true impact comes from being stretched out to 5-plus innings. Also, add Garcia as a long-reliever to this pen, and we see a similar positive impact.

Exactly, having a front four of Peavy, Buehrle, Floyd and Danks is the kind of insurance policy that would allow us to take a chance on a rookie near the back end. Given what we know about Hudson it’s a worthwhile risk to take.

It's pretty cool watching CR, and knowing just how much of his approach came from Buehrle. He works fast as hell now

Shelby his his 10th home-run. He had a rough year, but made some decent strides in the second half. Primarily, in plate discipline.

Juan Uribe was awesome today. He seems to be having a blast playing with Sandoval, Molina, and Velez.

5th starters don't generally throw 200 innings. In fact, 180 would fall right along with what the majority of you expect from Hudson.

Now, that was a fun game. Buehrle had about one pitch working for him today, and he gutted though a great game. TCQ delivered right when we needed him too, and the back-end of the pen shut it the hell down. Tony Pena was damn impressive today. He had that slider working to perfection, and his fastball placement was the best he's had all year. That’s a White Sox Series Winner.

Exactly, pusing Hudson past 200 is a natural progression for the kid. Given his minor league pedigree he deserves to have a shot at the #5 spot.

This is starting to remind me strongly of the Brandon Allen threads. Are we really going to start devaluing Dan Hudson as a prospect just to justify putting Freddy Garcia into the rotation? Do we really need to break down every good thing that comes along?

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Sep 6, 2009 -> 08:45 PM) Okay, explain these things to me: 1. How does Hudson have better stuff than Freddy. I counted a better fastball, that's it. 2. How is Hudson a power arm but Freddy is not? Freddy works about 88-92 when he's not taking something off, Hudson reportedly about 91-94. Freddy has an assortment of breaking stuff that can be nasty, mostly that curve and splitter. Hudson has supposedly a pretty good change and a slider which personally I know nothing about, but I've never seen it rated highly. In the FutureSox interview Hudson basically says he uses his fastball to both get ahead and put people away, with his change being a primary weapon against lefties. And Hudson himself doesn't even think he's a power arm, he actually says he's in between being that and a finesse guy. And I think you're highly overrating Freddy Garcia. Freddy is a fraction of the pitcher he used to be. He has lost the majority of his stuff, while maintaining a decent feel for his breaking stuff, and admirable placement on his fastball. He still tends to leave the ball up high in the zone, but has experience success due to some great location work, and some fantastic game calling from the catcher. The way I see it this: Daniel Hudson is a kid who is sky rocketing up this system. He'd experienced success at every level, and right now, he reached the pinnacle. He's in the big leagues. Hudson has the raw stuff to get anybody out. His fastball is a plus-pitch, his slider is filthy, and everything else in his repertoire seems to be developing quite nicely. It's natural to assume Hudson is going to struggle at some point either this year or next year, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, it's to be expected The simple question is this: say both Freddy and Hudson have good years next year: who has more value to this organization? The 34-year old World Series hero with maybe another year in front of him, or the 22-year old fireball with his whole future ahead of him? I think the answer is easy, even if Hudson fails I think the answer is easy. Call me a blind optimist, but I think Hudson has a hell of a future in this rotation. Putting him back a year in exchange for Fat Freddy is delaying the inevitable.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Sep 6, 2009 -> 06:32 PM) Does he have better stuff than Phil Hughes or Homer Bailey? . Its best for Hudson to work him in slowly. He rose a lot this season. You love those guys. The major leagues is a bigger jump than Hudson has taken yet. Throwing him in the fire usually doesn't work right away. See Danks, John. See Floyd, Gavin. Working them in through the bullpen is smart. See Buerhle, Mark. If Freddy is healthy, he's one of the most dependable 5th starters around for a very cheap price. That is as long as they are trying to win, which I assume is the goal. If it was a rebuilding season, I would agree with you. See, I think this is a really interesting question. Are we rebuilding? By a lot of measures this was a rebuilding year, and a preliminary sketch for 2010 shows only two gaping holes to fill (Corner OF, Pen), at the same time, given the success we’ve experience with what I like to refer to as the, “rapid rebuild.” I don’t think having Hudson as our #5 is really out of the question anymore. Also, you know how I love my power arms, DA.

This voodoo thing isn't cutting it.