greg775

Not being a jerk here, but I just gave my take on Abreu in the Jose thread. Peace out.

This is a no brainer. See how Abreu hits this season (and how he fields). If he heats up and has an Abreu-like season, you try to sign him. His last contract was huge, so he obviously doesn't need the money. Next year will be his age 36 season. Sox need to see how he progresses in his age 35 season. Again, if he turns back into Jose, you sign him for 3 years, 45 million and call it a day. If somebody wants to pay more than that, well, regrettably let him walk. Now if Jose hits between .200 and .220 and dips to 15 home runs or some such total and he wants to keep playing, see if he'll take 3 years 21 million total. If he's insulted and your talent evaluators (I can't believe I'm trusting Sox scouts here) think he's toast, let the Blue Jays have him for 54 million over 3 years. I hate to say it, but you have to let this year play out with Jose. He's at 'that age' where most fans want you gone and most baseball statmeisters say you are of extremely low value. Since I love Jose I say keep him. If he stinks all season, obviously I'm a realist and I'd be OK with letting him sign with somebody else. All depends on the kind of year he has.

I would think no rational Sox fan is high on Eloy any more. If Eloy produces in the future, fine. But he's no longer a viable piece to the WS puzzle cause of his being unable to be available. He's a bust (only cause of injury) as far as I'm concerned. So yes to Vaughn in LF.

I could see Vaughn or Burger have a really rough day or two or 10 if either played second. I wonder what the MLB record is for errors in one game and one week. Either would break those records easily unless they got lucky and had few chances in the games they played. If either plays second over a healthy Harrison, then Harrison has the best job in Sox history. Just show up, go through pregame warmups and batting practice and receive mega dollars for being a spectator. I don't like Harrison but if he can't beat out Vaughn/Burger option, LOL.

Yes. With the current options, it's Leury at 2B every single day. No Harrison. Bad acquisition. Leury must step up and get his 500 at bats if necessary. Cmon. Burger and/or Vaughn at 2B is a total embarrassment to MLB. I understand not wanting to move Yoan, but just ask Yoan what he thinks of helping out the team til Sox get a real second base option someday.

Yeah, he does not project as a second baseman at all. Good post. He will be an unmitigated disaster at 2B. Now Moncada is different. He could play 2B. I wonder if he'd take one for the team. He's a fantastic third baseman but it'd be nice to have Burger's bat in the lineup instead of the lousy current options for 2B slot. Are there any second basemen out there the Sox could pick up off waivers soon? Anybody but Harrison at 2B is my motto right now, even Leury.

Just read the game thread. To the fans credit Vaughn did not get hammered badly. More Tony/Hahn for having so many DHs on the team. I love me some Vaughn but I'd like to ask the Sox front office why they never put guys in positions they are unfamiliar with during their time in the minors? That's the time to teach some of these guys new positions. Sox have a terrible organization.

I'm sure he realizes his production blows (.203, 2 HRs, just 6 RBI) but what's he supposed to do, hold a news conference and say: "I am not producing (bleep) and until I am I shouldn't be in the lineup." Ballplayers don't do that.

I worshiped Avi Garcia in a non religious sense. One of my faves.

Getting ready to read the game thread. I'm assuming Vaughn got roasted for that bloop to left that fell in as the Sox were blowing the 3-0 lead.

I apologize for ripping Vaughn a bit the other day. I've always 'liked' him as a prospect. I made a mistake regarding my recent 'eye test' on Vaughn. Today's eye test was awesome. Just the fact he had the great baserunning play to go with the bomb and double make my eyes dance in happiness. I'm sure Tony will find room for him in the lineup almost EVERY DAY the rest of the season. He deserves that kind of playing time to get his career well under way. Cease looks for real (I know he's been good before), the bullpen was fine and Burger just might be getting comfortable at the plate to where Tony needs to find him a lot of at bats. I can see why the people wish Moncada could move to second and have Burger's bat in there at third, ending the bizarre Harrison experiment/acquisition. I can see why Moncada would not want this move. WInning is everything; nice win finally over a pathetic KCR team.

I hear you about umping. Your plate is already full. I wonder if our LL just made sure the coaches who had to ump games made sure if they couldn't do it, they'd get some other adult to fill in for them. Not sure. ... I was thinking about this even before reading your post. Bak in the day, I can think of only one of our LL and Babe Ruth teams that had a dad of a kid coach his kid's team. I realize the past many years parents almost exclusively coach teams with their own kid or kids on it. That's fine. I'm not blasting you. You obviously from your posts are a stellar individual. It's just curious back in the day at least on the south side coaches rarely if ever had a kid on their own team. I can remmeber one team, the Larks, had a dad/son combo of coach/player and u know how kids are, that poor kid got teased a lot. Times have changed. I do think in your instance it'd be too much if you had to ump two nights a week in addition to all your coaching duties. But perhaps you could make sure a representative of your team umped. Hassle, for sure. I think parents who have a clue such as yourself should be welcome to coach their own kids' teams, but I can also see the value of way back when having parents involved NOT AT ALL. I tell u, it made for a stellar childhood. I remember my team, the Bears, made the Mt.Greenwood world series and my dad got wind of it, maybe I told him (dads didn't talk to kids much back then) and wanted to go to our "World Series" Game One. We lost a low scoring well played game and I remember driving home my dad the grump said, 'You played a good game (at 3B). That was a good game." Of course it wasn't good nuff for him to come to Game Two of the three game set the next night, LOL. I don't even know if he asked me if we tied up the series at 1-1. We didn't. Lost 2-0 in best of 3.

Firing him won't turn this team into a contender, but he wouldn't be missed if Jerry canned him. Can you imagine Hahn making the call to Jerry asking if it's OK to fire Tony? That scenario will not occur.

Hyperbole should be allowed starting now. Lot of people I'm sure want to say some very negative things about this pathetic team.

Maybe it's the curse of Madrigal. Royals announcers say they're surprised Sox traded him.

Sox offense is so bad. Hope they sold a lot of season tickets. Can't imagine folks who don't already have tickets deciding to save for a night at the ballpark this season.

Thanks for your posts ptatc. Let's see how long Eloy is out ... I'll go 12 weeks if Sox are lucky. He won't be back from surgery in 8 weeks IMO. They'll have to be cautious with him for obvious reasons. That said, best of luck to Eloy. Has to suck being out.

I've moved on (mentally) from Eloy. He's no longer a great prospect. He gets hurt a lot and that's that. He's not going to stay healthy period. Maybe if he changes his body. Actually lose so much weight he looks like Claudell Washington rather than the current adonis figure, Eloy. Big Hurt was a big guy. Maybe Eloy should meet with Hurt and ask him his secret to staying healthy. But I'm mentally done with Eloy. In "my mind" he'll never be healthy for more than a very short period of time. Not with the sudden movements u need to make in LF as well as racing back into the wall; and the sudden bursts it takes to hustle out ground balls. Next man up. Eloy is injury prone, folks, and it ain't changing (IMO).

Parents were certainly flawed "in my day" on the south side. They took little to no interest in their kids, never went to our Little League games in Mt. Greenwood, in fact didn't even drive us to the games. We rode our bikes. However, and this is a big however .... no parents at the games and at the practices was GREAT! Our two 60-something coaches NEVER had to deal with bossy parents. We were left to learn and enjoy baseball from 10 to 12 years old without parents doing stupid things. For some reason, every generation since ... parents have felt the need to get overly involved, intimidate coaches and managers and never let their kids be kids. I'm so lucky our parents didn't give a bleep. In the summer we played ball during the day without parental supervision and to cap it off we had organized Little League sans parents. What a life! And nobody got kidnapped ,nobody got murdered. We just did fine without our parents ruining everything. Shame on future generations of parents who felt the need to monitor EVERYTHING involving their kids. p.s. our Little League made coaches of all the teams serve as umpires. That's how they covered the games. I guess if you refused to ump you couldn't coach. Case closed. I remember seeing our coaches ump some games and laughing about it bak in the day. None of the kids dare argued a call; nor did the "fans" at the games, one or two onlookers. I would think you'd have to be missing a brain to coach or ump nowadays.

True. .300 with 3 hrs and 8 RBIs is pretty good. I shouldn't have included him. I assumed from the greg eye test he was more around .240ish. My bad. I like Vaughn and Sheets overall. ... I still don't think it's worth jumping me for this mistake. He's done OK and I like him and want him to remain a Sox. i just don't think of Babe Ruth yet when I see Vaughn, but stand corrected, my bad. ... Even tho Mendick rapped two hits the other day, the 7 8 9 slots in the lineup would make it tough for any skipper to win games on the south side right now.

To those who 'hate' Tony and want him gone, please answer this serious question: Do you think anybody could manage this team to a better record at this time considering all these injuries? I mean examine the current roster. With Vaughn and Sheets not tearing it up (yet) and all the injuries, it's a monumentally bad lineup, I mean White Sox historically bad. And pitchers? The closer blows chunks (at least in April) and two starters were hurt badly. also it's Mr. Hahn's fault the defense is so bad. Haters ... please comment. INJURIES!

They are not going to fire LaRussa. No. 1 he's a Hall of Famer and Sox would be mocked big time. Jerry isn't going to embarrass his great friend over 3-4 bad weeks in April. No. 2, cmon. The team has so many injuries it's ridiculous. When a team is this banged up, you basically write off the season and try to get something out of it personnel wise while realizing the team in its injured form has absolutely no chance of winning.

Sox have rarely put a high premium on defense since the Hitless Wonders. does pitching and defense still win?

Wouldn't that be cool if Tony resigned, said he didn't have the energy and didn't like modern baseball and Oz took over as interim? It'd give Oz a full season to show if he'd changed (the mouth that roared) and I'd like to see Oz add his personality to this team. Oz wouldn't allow starters only pitch five innings. He'd up that baby to seven innings for starters in a hurry IMO. I can dream. But Oz would wake up this team, which needs to be inspired amid all the injuries. If he didn't do a fine job, hire some genius sabermatrician next offseason.

Baseball has a way of changing quickly but the banged-up White Sox are not going to contend for the division title as the team is currently constructed. Seven consecutive losses does indicate a huge problem. I'll stick with the injury explanation but the Sox have so many holes right now they are not division contenders. Team is below average defensively, has no reliable bullpen, starters are only expected to go five innings per modern baseball, and has so many injuries the offense is mediocre at best. Ouch.