CWSGuy406

QUOTE(maggsmaggs @ Jun 2, 2007 -> 04:24 PM) Francisco is still young and doing solid in low-A. He may not be the potential all-star catcher that people thought he might be a couple years ago. But I still feel like at worst he is a solid back-up catcher because he is great at defense, has a terrific arm and can switch hit and actually hit pretty solidly. The others though are pretty much busts. Liotta had a tough season last year since his family was hit pretty hard by Katrina, so he might just need a season to shake off the consequences of that. Yeah, Hernandez is okay. He's a little older than you would (ideally) want, but 21 isn't terribly old for the SALLY league. If he can have a solid year down at A-ball, he'll put himself back on the map as a top ten(ish) prospect for the Sox again.

If your a poster who goes by the name of "Flash Tizzle", I warn you about looking at the box score from Kevin Slowey's first major league start. All I have to say is uggggghhhhhh. Can't 2009 be here already with Johan out the door? If Liriano comes back fully recovered in 2008, I don't think we will score a run off of Minnesota pitching all year.

Vazquez was fantastic -- my new favorite word -- tonight. Without actually looking through every start, this was probably his best start since his last effort in Toronto when he K'd 12 (?). For the gun watchers, Jenks was at 97 and Javy hit 93 several times. I think it's time to send Day or Gonzalez down and get Craig Wilson up here. That'll give us an averagish platoon in LF. Nice 'aesthetically pleasing' game to watch. Burnett had a sick breaking ball working.

QUOTE(maggsmaggs @ Jun 1, 2007 -> 11:04 PM) Overall, I really feel like this pick needs to be a high schooler with potential. I see Main as a riskier pick than Mesoraco, but I feel like both could help the organization immensely, especially with Mesoraco being a very good catching prospect. Thoughts? I haven't looked a whole lot at individual prospects yet, but I hear high school players is where it's at this year. Unless someone has a drastic fall due to signability -- I'm thinking about that catcher that's a Boras client -- I think the Sox should be looking at a high school pitcher. I know they have a higher propensity to bust, but the Sox should still be looking for the 'home-run' with this pick.

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Jun 1, 2007 -> 11:37 PM) Oh, and the "intensity" thing is a crock of s***. Do I want my players to show intensity? Yes, of course. However, maybe it's just me, but "intensity" isn't showing up your catcher in plain sight, then proceeding to take the first swipe at him. Thats being a douche. If you want to do that, fine, do it in the clubhouse(which apparently they did) but don't do it in front of the cameras, thats just dumb. Sorry, but fighting with your own teammate is not being "intense", it's being an hothead. In all fairness, Barrett acted like a dick in this, too. I know Zambrano made the first move in the dugout, but Barrett pointing to the scoreboard was stupid as s***. And then to go into the clubhouse to try and take on Zambrano was dumb, too. Both of them acted in very poor judgement, that's for sure. I also hate Michael Barrett. From last year's suckerpunch to this episode, he just comes off as a b**** in both occurances. That being said, I wouldn't throw money at Zambrano this winter. Pitching isn't the Sox' problem, even if they aren't able to resign Buehrle. Sure, we don't have a pitcher with the potential of a healthy (I say healthy because there's good evidence suggesting Zambrano is throwing from a lower arm slot which is a warning sign of a hurt pitcher) Zambrano, but you have to figure that at least two of Broadway/Haeger/Russell/Gonzalez/DLS/Egbert will make an impact as big league starters, that to go along with what the Sox already have. As I'm sure everyone knows, however, the Sox need some position good position players.

QUOTE(WhiteSoxfan1986 @ Jun 1, 2007 -> 04:07 AM) Chris Young has a .314 obp right now. I think he's going to be a good player, but if Fields came up and put up those kind of numbers everyone would be ready to crucify him. Young has 18 extra basehits and is slugging .465. He's already a league average hitter in his first full season in the bigs. I'd kill for a Sox prospect to perform so well.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jun 1, 2007 -> 01:35 AM) Well said....this crap started during the offseason. KW isn't a good enough manager to try and build a WS contender AND get younger during the same offseason. Fathom, I think that you'd agree that even if Kenny put together the PERFECT, ideal winter, the Sox still wouldn't be much better than where they are now. For example -- for me, the ideal offseason would have been dumping Podsednik for nothing and bringing in someone else on a one year deal for LF -- let's say Trot Nixon. I know you didn't like the Garcia trade a heckuva lot, and I fault Kenny Williams for his questionable 'crush' on Gavin Floyd, but in reality, one year of Gio Gonzalez throwing league average 'ball and we will, at the very least, be even in that trade. That doesn't change the fact that, at the time, it appeared Garcia would have a little more value than a B prospect (at the time, Gio) and a project pitcher in Floyd. McCarthy trade? It's tough to see this trade ending up as a loss for the Sox, although I think B-Mac will wind up being a solid #3. Cotts trade? More of the same -- I don't see how one could call that a bad move at the time the move was made or even now. Cotts was a one pitch pitcher, while Aardsma was coming off a pretty good year as a Cubs reliever. The Vasquez kid is having success at Charlotte, too, and is looking like he can eventually help a big league club, if only as a LOOGY. Sisco trade? Ehh... Everybody loved it at the time, myself included, but after watching Sisco for now (about) three months -- spring training included -- it's tough to envision Sisco ever being anything more than a mediocre LOOGY. My not-trained-to-be-a-scout eye tells me his motion is very wierd -- I don't know how to put it into baseball terms, but it looks awkward, almost 'forced' (if you know what I mean). Meanwhile, Gload, a guy who was ALWAYS underutilized and (dare I say) underappreciated by this organization, would be this team's third best hitter (world's tallest midget with this offense, I know) and would have looked good filling in for Thome when he went down and right now as our LFer. Hall signing? Don't need to talk a whole lot about him, great move, unfortunate injury. Erstad move? I'm not going to talk about this a whole lot. I'm glad that Kenny didn't throw big money at any of the other free agent CFers, but I didn't particularly like the Erstad move (in a starting role). Then again, Anderson has gone down and sucked an egg at Charlotte. I guess this goes back to one of the real fatal trades of the organization, Vazquez for Young. So basically what this comes down to is that I'm not close to calling for Kenny's head yet. He's still a top ten GM in baseball (that's off-the-cuff, but if someone challenged it, I'd be willing to put my personal list of those better/equal to him). What it comes down to is, if Kenny made all the perfect moves this winter, I still don't think we'd be in sniffing distance of Detroit or Cleveland. This year's problems are mainly here for two reasons; first, Kenny tried to have 'one more go' with this core group of players. Most of this 'core' were over the age of 30 -- and sometimes you're playing with fire there. The second lies in the lack of production from the farm system finally biting this team right in the ass. That one lies directly on Kenny's shoulders. He has called attention to it, let's see if things change. Oh, and I know a lot of people are calling for Crede to have been traded, but I'd like to see some posts from the winter calling for Crede to be traded. It's easy to say it now, after he's sucked for two months, but off the top of my head, the only person actively wanting Fields up here on April 1st was beatox -- maybe I'm wrong and missed some posts, though.

It's gotta start with one of these (I wish I knew how to link a video properly): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8BcG6SUqpU

QUOTE(fathom @ Jun 1, 2007 -> 12:54 AM) As much as we overrate their prospects, the Angels might get desperate for a 3rd baseman. I know that Santo is going to come after me after I mention this, but I'd still try and get Santana. Where would he play? I don't know, see if the Mets want a pitcher for Milledge and a decent pitching prospect.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Jun 1, 2007 -> 12:48 AM) 2 solo home runs and Mark is looking at a Loss because our rotten horrible Walker lead offense cant hit pitching when they spot low and away. I don't think it's "officially" summer yet. Perfect storm, too, with Podsednik, Erstad and Thome all missing a good amount of time. And Iguchi, too! Perfect storm!

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Jun 1, 2007 -> 12:13 AM) Bye Bye 6 Mil. As sad as this sounds, we're all thinking it.

QUOTE(santo=dorf @ May 31, 2007 -> 11:59 PM) Grinderstad is slugging .319 in the month of May (not including today.) AND HE HAD A 13 GAME HITTING STREAK. Pathetic With that avatar of yours, you better be in possession of one of these t-shirts... http://www.spreadshirt.com/shop.php?sid=32...5Btext%5D=Obama

QUOTE(fathom @ May 31, 2007 -> 11:42 PM) Have you seen Owens play? I laugh at everyone thinking how he'll come up here and make a big difference. Mackowiak's actually been hitting well lately....it's just his base running has been idiotic. Owens is slugging about .360 last time I checked. When major league pitchers find out that he can't hit the ball past the outfielders, they're going to come right at him. He could make a decent enough 4th outfielder, although knowing this manager, he'll be our starting left-fielder and leadoff man next season.

QUOTE(Steff @ May 31, 2007 -> 08:11 PM) OK, I hope I get a bit of a pass on this since I was not around when this was posted.... But I was down in AZ for 4 weeks and none of the above was true at that time. edit: 4 weeks not 7.. don't I wish. Wow, Steff, reading that makes me all the much happier that this organization decided to hand Scotty ~$3 million dollars this winter.

Has Gio added a sinker or cutter to his repetioure? After a 9-2 GO/FO performance last night, Gio's GO/FO ratio is now up to 1.37 which is well above his career high which, IIRC, is around 1.00. Didn't Heads or somebody put in interview questions for Gio? It'll be interesting to see if he talks about adding a pitch to get the ball on the ground more.

QUOTE(RibbieRubarb @ May 31, 2007 -> 06:22 PM) And then when Jenks gives up the winning run in his second inning of work this place will scream for Ozzie's head again. "Doesn't he know Jenks wouldn't perform well in the second inning of work!?!" Were you watching the game? No, just pulling this out of your ass? Oh, okay, right. It wouldn't have been a "second inning". Jenks faces Hunter. Hunter gets on base, game over. Hunter makes an out, inning over. That's a third of an inning, and most likely 3-8 pitches. I know it would go against everything you stand for to admit that the Almighty Oz made a mistake, but anyone who looks at baseball with an objective eye -- Ozzie hater or not -- knows how stupid of a move that was. That's it -- that's all that's being said here. I'm not going off on a tangent on whether Ozzie is a great or bad manager. I'm calling a spade a spade, a dumbass move a dumbass move. It's a joke that anyone in this thread is trying to defend it. I'll leave the whole "Ozzie -- good manager or bad manager?" debate to another thread.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ May 31, 2007 -> 05:15 PM) At home you bring in Jenks, on the road you don't. Oh okay, so you don't use your best reliever in the most crucial situation when the leverage is highest. Thanks.

QUOTE(caulfield12 @ May 31, 2007 -> 03:33 AM) I'll wait until Cunningham succeeds in AA before jumping on that bandwagon....same with the Faustino De Los Santos fan club. I don't think it has anything to do with "jumping on a bandwagon". When you say "important", that can be interpreted in different ways. I took it like this: for this franchise to succeed, here are the top ten guys who really need to pan out/play well. It's actually a tough list to put together because the way you phrase the "question" is sort of vague.

Heap of crap for Bartolo Colon. Maybe the results weren't as top notch as you'd like but that's as good a deal as you can ask for.

To be fair, how should Kenny have made the bullpen differently? I'll give everyone a head start and say Sisco never should have made the roster, and that his performance was reasonably predictable. But even then, they had good depth at that second lefty spot in Boone Logan, who seems ready to dominate the Hafners, Morneau's and Mauer's of the world. People act like Kenny has ever thrown money at relievers -- that's not his "style", and generally I'd say he's right in not throwing money at relievers. Look at the Sox' best relievers since 2000 -- Keith Foulke, Bob Howry, Damaso Marte, Flash Gordon, Shingo Takatsu, Neal Cotts, Cliff Politte, Dustin Hermanson, Bobby Jenks etc etc -- the highest paid out of ALL of these guys was Keith Foulke, and that was all of $4 million dollars. I'm also pretty sure that was arbitration. Kenny made a couple of mistakes (in my mind) this winter: - Bringing back Podsednik. - This plays into the first one, but not bringing in a real LFer. - I won't bash the Erstad move, as it's pretty clear even his mediocre performance this year is better than what Anderson would be doing, but I'll bash having Erstad lead off. He's not a leadoff hitter. - Falling in love with Floyd (see Cheat's latest post-and-comment at SouthSideSox). There are other mistakes here, but these go back a couple years. For example, the lack of offensive depth on this team relates to the farm system not producing s*** over the years.

QUOTE(daa84 @ May 30, 2007 -> 08:06 PM) can't complain one bit about the pen today...they did their job, except aardsma i guess, but our D was horrid not only in that inning but basically all game Yup -- specifically Logan and Thorton did admirable work out there, and even MacDougal was fine outside of his walk. The defense was pitiful while you see Twins players making jumping and diving catches. Ditto the offense -- absolutely pathetic effort against everyone not named Baker.

Wow, much thanks, Showtime -- that's good stuff right there. Very clear explanations.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ May 30, 2007 -> 07:58 PM) Jenks is being saved for October guys. Dont worry. They're waiting till the weather heats up to use Jenks. Oh, s***, that's the offense's excuse.

Fathom, get ready for a new addition to the signature. No Jenks here? Oh, right, we're saving him for a save opportunity that's never going to come about.

QUOTE(SleepyWhiteSox @ May 30, 2007 -> 07:21 PM) Nocioni sign and trade with front-loaded contract, as someone mentioned before? Can someone explain to me why Noc would have to be signed-and-traded for this to work? I'm pretty oblivious to NBA contracts, so any insight would be appreciated. As far as a deal, if I'm Pax, I'm insisting on Gordon going to LA and not Deng. I'd definitely give up Thomas, but would the ninth overall also have to be included?