Chisoxfn

Wow, Ball 4 looked like a strike to me.

Rios keeps hitting the ball hard though. On a normal day thats a HR.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 26, 2011 -> 12:53 PM) Unless it forces the White Sox to bring up Viciedo to replace him earlier than they would have replaced Pierre. Was Nick Swisher close to this bad in August, 2008 when he was benched? Nick was pretty horrendous for the Sox. He was in a tough spot with chicago. Led off early and got so focused on OBP and changing his approach for the leadoff spot that he was mentally all out of whack. Taking good pitches, swinging at s***. He was a mess and was having a hell of a time hitting it hard. Add to that some bad luck (real low BAPIP, partially because he wasn't hitting it hard, but also due to below average luck) and you had a guy that was a mess. Defensively he was in a tough sopt too as he wasn't exactly a stellar CFer.

QUOTE (FlySox87 @ Jun 26, 2011 -> 12:52 PM) He had 35 doubles in 2008 and 41 last year. He won't come close to that this year, I'll admit. But to say he's very below average really isn't fair. He's sort of a poor man's...John Olerud? OBP is a lot lower, but other than that, they're quite comparable. Or maybe a Wally Joyner. And nobody ever gave those two any slack for their lack of power. I'm not saying Loney's one of the best first basemen in baseball. He's decent, for sure, and when talking about having a guy with .174 BA and record-breaking K pace replace him, he definitely doesn't deserve to be called below average. I agree. He's significantly outproducing Dunn at a fraction of the cost.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 26, 2011 -> 12:49 PM) Those weren't fastballs. The fastball upstairs he was a little late on but fouled it off. The inside pitches he hit hard but foul were much slower and breaking Maybe I zoned out on one of them, but I swear they were 87 and 86MPH pitches, which for Livan, is the fastball.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 26, 2011 -> 12:47 PM) Couple decent swings this AB for Dunn, just out in front on the slow stuff. Great, he can get around on an 87MPH fastball. I still haven't seen him get around on decent fastballs and he's having a hell of time hitting anything off-speed. And the breaking ball he whiffed on in this AB was up in the zone (and a little in) but it didn't have much movement. Hard to hit though when you have that much head movement during your swing.

A slow breaking balla nd he's out.

QUOTE (Cerbaho-WG @ Jun 26, 2011 -> 12:41 PM) This is so dumb. People are falling all over themselves to extrapolate 1/8th of a contract to make Dunn one of the biggest busts of all time. Or less than 1/2 of a season to say that Dunn is having the worst season ever for a DH or some other horses***. Look, he really sucks right now. Like really, really bad. But at least let him fail for the full season before evaluating his worth over an entire season. It is pretty difficult to do what Dunn has done over this amount of AB's. This isn't a small sample size. This is almost a full half-season's worth of at bats. Add in the 2nd half of last year (which was bad) and that is a full season of being below-average. Add in the fact that he's not exactly young and I think you have plenty of reasons to call him a big bust. Could that change a year from now, absolutely, but I'm not about to give him the benefit of the doubt. I see a guy with a long swing and slow bat. That isn't exactly a recipe for success.

QUOTE (elgonzo4sox @ Jun 26, 2011 -> 12:39 PM) Not even the Dodgers, if MLB takes full control? When they controlled the Rangers last year they spent money to build a postseason team. Maybe Bud Selig will do his buddy Jerry a favor and take Dunn off his hands... They didn't spend much. They just had to pay Lee for the remainder of his contract. Picking up Dunn would mean that they were picking up 3 more years of that contract. Additionally, they have James Loney at 1B and unless they planned on moving Loney back to the OF or were trading Loney, there is no spot for Dunn. Not that Loney is very good.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jun 26, 2011 -> 12:38 PM) I happen to love watching Paulie play defense, too. He might have bailed out Alexei in that extra inning game on Friday. Wow, Quentin was lucky to make contact on that slow curve. Livan is pretty much a knuckle-baller without a knuckler, haha.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Jun 26, 2011 -> 11:04 AM) I agree. I have been really disappointed this year by his plate discipline and lack of power, but he has one his best games of the year and then gets the bench. Quite an incentive to perform well. His defense has been great and his bat continues to improve. Seems to be like he's been about exactly as advertised. And he should grow and as he grows he'll learn to drive a bit more. But he never had a ton of power and has never shown ridiculous patience. The beauty is he has always shown an ability to adjust and he's done that at the major league level. He will never be a regular all star at 3B though because he dosen't possess the overall power ability to do so.

QUOTE (Cerbaho-WG @ Jun 26, 2011 -> 12:33 PM) Are you talking about Dunn? Because if you are, how can you say this when the season isn't even over? I think somewhere I said if he keeps this up. But you are correct, there is still a half season for him to make some noise.

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ Jun 26, 2011 -> 12:32 PM) Problem is, Dunn usually takes full off-season away from baseball. I guarantee he'll be making some sort of change to his off-season this year.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 26, 2011 -> 12:28 PM) Assuming that a player must be the worst of the worst because you don't know how to look for data is either hyperbole, laziness, or naivete. He's been bad. Plain bad. People have been worse. Lots of people have been worse. Brandon Wood's epic .382 OPS last year was a pretty good example. He might well be one of the worst ever to put up these numbers while being paid this kind of money. That narrows the list down considerably. For the money, he's clearly one of the biggest busts of all times (in one season). But Jamie Navarro was terrible for the Sox. Mike Hampton was clearly a bust as well. I will say this, when you add in the fact that he is a DH, this has to be the worse season out of any DH (to date) who gets paid this amount of money (injuries aside). And when I say this amount of money, I'm saying it relative to what the avearge payroll was during any one given season.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jun 26, 2011 -> 12:26 PM) The lack of power displayed by this team in the past two days has been extremely disturbing. Nothing, outside of injuries, can truly be that disturbing over a 2 day span.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 26, 2011 -> 12:23 PM) What do you think of this thought: Dunn is type of guy who if he just stinks the rest of this year and next year, he might just walk away from baseball and retire? Other than Dunn coming out of this and playing out his contract at least close to his career numbers (with a small decline for age each year), that would probably be the best thing that could possibly happen to the Sox. But how often does that happen. I'm sure he'd still want to get his money. I really hope he figures this s*** out, but the longer you are like this, the more mentally you get f***ed up and then the only thing that can help is just a full off-season away from baseball. Kind of like what happened with Rios 2 years ago or Swisher a couple years back. Or even Konerko back in the early 2000's when he had that disasterous season.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jun 26, 2011 -> 12:17 PM) wOBA actually weighs singles more than walks. In comparison, OPS says single = walk. So take it for what it's worth I guess. Ya, I was speaking more to your standard number. But I also hold things to a principle which state that guys that hit that s***ty are going to hit real bad against good pitchers and tend to get most of there offense against bad pitchers. Which than means they are going to be pretty worthless late in games and in key-situations. That is because typically in those situations you have specialized set-up men in the games that are typically pretty decent (assuming it is a close game). In short, I really don't like Dunn and have very little hope of him amounting to anything. I didn't like him at his prime, but I at least figured he'd hit 30 HR's with a crappy average and good OBP and I could have lived with that.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jun 26, 2011 -> 12:14 PM) Only the pre-swing stuff. He's either wiggling the bat when he's getting read to swing or having it rest on his shoulder. That's the only alteration I've seen him make. The big thing is he's staying on top of things. Keepg the elbow/hands higher. Guy has such quick hands. Unfortunately his swing is very hit or miss because there is so much pre-swing movement. Much like Beckham's swing. Rios has much quicker hands than Becks though.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jun 26, 2011 -> 12:12 PM) One's horrid, the other, especially this year, is actually very acceptable. I believe a .342 wOBA is something like 10% above league average this season. I'm not saying it's okay for Dunn to put up a .342 wOBA, but I'd definitely trade that for what he's done at home so far. And I will always say that certainstats can be highly over-rated. A walk isnt' the same as a hit. It just isn't. And some of those stats pretty much rate a walk as a pure equivalent to a hit. In close games, a walk doesn't knock in the winning run. When you aer hitting .217, you are worthless, unless pretty much every one of your hit is a HR.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jun 26, 2011 -> 12:08 PM) It's obvious home games are taking a huge toll on Dunn's mind. He's hitting .131 at home. He's actually hitting .217 on the road with a .370 OBP and a .342 wOBA. The pressure's getting to him. If you want him to hit, you don't boo him. For once, I'll have to go with the company line. Both are incredibly unacceptable to me.

That was a bad call by the ump. Either he leaned into it or it hit the back. Heck, the pitch was practically a strike.

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ Jun 26, 2011 -> 12:04 PM) Rios is just as bad as dunn one K's and walks the other K's and pops out on the infield Rios has been hitting it hard by and large the past week or so. Heck, even more than that. His slugging percentage, ops, and average have been on the rise the past couple of weeks. He's also coming off a 3 hit game. I realize its sexy to hate on Rios, but unlike Dunn, he's actually coming around and also plays some good defense.

QUOTE (BigEdWalsh @ Jun 25, 2011 -> 06:29 PM) I totally understand the fans' frustration and anger but I just don't agree with booing "our own". My big thing is when you are hitting under .200 and you have that whole side of the infield, at some point, dont' you just try to beat the shift a bit and do something decent. Heck, anything to give you some sort of confidence.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 26, 2011 -> 11:56 AM) And if the Sox haven't taught you yet how much damage you can do by calling a guy up too early, I'm not sure what else they can do to convince you. The club is doing serious damage to Sale. It sickens me. I hope somehow he can pan out, but I'm very very concerned for the long-term future of both Beckham and Sale. Both had so much potential and neither has really been able to develop. The majors are a very tough place to be and it is very difficult to make decent size adjustments at the big league level. I think both would be best suited from making adjustments down in the minor, seing some success with those adjustments (and thus building confidence) and than seeing time in the majors. Heck with Sale it is more than him learning but just getting him a lot more innings so he can better develop his secondary stuff and better learn to repeat his delivery.

I'm a CPA (well, almost officially, pending paperwork, haha) mothaf***a!!!!!