Jordan4life_2007

QUOTE (DirtySox @ May 18, 2010 -> 10:33 PM) The safe picks haven't yielded much, but I'm not advocating a safe approach. I just won't be surprised in the least if we don't select Wilson or Ranaudo even if both are available. I guess I'm not fully sold on the organization's "commitment" to this new draft philosophy yet. Drafting a toolsy college player like Mitchell with a late first round pick for slot is drastically different than taking a high leverage high school player with signability issues and a huge bust chance (Wilson). I'd love for them to go out on a limb this year with both tools and upside and what they are willing to spend, but I don't fully believe that is the M.O. until I see it happen with my own eyes. Excellent post. I totally agree. This draft will go a long way in showing that they really have committed to a new philosophy.

QUOTE (Jenks Heat @ May 18, 2010 -> 10:48 PM) It is the NL. Also Z is being stretched out to moved to the rotation. Can't play the NL card tonight. The Rockies have a pretty good offense.

QUOTE (DBAHO @ May 18, 2010 -> 11:00 PM) Going to be very hard from here. Quite simply, Rondo's play is just carrying the Celtics right now. Nelson hasn't shown the form he displayed in the 1st 2 series, and Lewis needs to be a lot more aggressive. I thought we looked better with Gortat and Howard out on the floor instead of Lewis. Howard had a very nice game, showed he can score well against the Celtics, but the other guys need to step it up. I think Rondo is gonna carry the Celtics to the title though. I don't see Fisher being able to guard him 1 on 1. The Celtics are also one of the few teams that can match-up favorably with the Laker front-court. And Pierce/Allen have a long history of either matching or outplaying Kobe. It's amazing how far the Celtics have come in the last 10 days.

QUOTE (Cowch @ May 18, 2010 -> 07:28 PM) It's kinda sad really. I imagine this increases the Bulls chances of Lebron? 70 losses and not even a top 2 pick. I would imagine this would take the Nets out of the running for Lebron, if they ever had a chance to begin with. I know Wall and Lebron are pals.

lmao@the Nets.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ May 18, 2010 -> 05:51 PM) I enjoy reading your posts. Please continue. He's one of my favorite posters. He sticks to his beliefs no matter how unpopular (and this is just about all the time) they might be.

I wouldn't care if Hanley dissed my mom. He's welcome in Chicago anytime. Give them half the organization if that's what it took.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ May 18, 2010 -> 05:51 PM) Then the next day they give up four homers and lose 11-2. Thats what a good team looks like. Shaun Marcum has gone at least 6 innings with 3 ER or less in every one of his starts so far except one (and in that one he went 7 innings and gave up 4 ER). Marcum and Romero make up a pretty nasty 1-2 punch.

Andre Ethier to the DL. http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20...sp&c_id=mlb Leading the league in BA, HR (actually tied with Kelly Johnson), RBI, OBP and SLG%. This really blows. Could he have kept this pace up? Maybe not. But you never want to see in injury derail what was looking like a historic individual season.

QUOTE (SoxAce @ May 18, 2010 -> 04:00 PM) I would say getting your knee drained and saying you feel 5 years younger afterwards helps as well. I'll go with the week off. Or is that the first time in months Kobe's had his knee drained?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 18, 2010 -> 03:59 PM) Then why would he be there at #13? Why didn't Heyward go until #14? Why did Stanton make it to the 2nd round? Most mocks I've seen have Wilson going a few picks before or after ours.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 18, 2010 -> 07:46 AM) Dude, more likely what's been happening is Kobe's been hearing about how important Lebron james is for the last week and so he decided to drop 40. It helps when NBA teams are now getting bye weeks in between playoff games. Kobe hasn't looked that fresh since November.

QUOTE (DirtySox @ May 18, 2010 -> 01:42 PM) One wonders when/if the organizational tendency to take college players with the first pick will deviate. Austin Wilson would be a fine starting point. I think many people see some Heyward in him. I also wouldn't be averse to Cole/Covey if pitching depth is first to be addressed. (Assuming they plan to pony up for Cole) We should be getting some more accurate assessments of what teams are thinking in the coming weeks. I believe Jonathan Mayo's first mock goes up tomorrow. Scouts LOVE this kid. You would think they were working for him the way they talk him up. I've read about 5 different scouting reports on him and I've seen comparisons to Andre Dawson, Moises Alou, Juan Gonzalez, Jason Heyward and Mike Stanton.

QUOTE (Ozzie Ball @ May 18, 2010 -> 04:18 AM) Well be prepared for disappointment then. Getting yourself all amped up over selecting Wilson is stupid. He doesn't fit the mold of White Sox 1st round picks. They haven't gone with a high school player in round 1 since 2001 (Honel) and they don't go over slot. Sure it would be nice to see the White Sox break their budget and select him, but he may not even be the best player on the board at 13. Please don't remind me of what the "mold" of White Sox 1st round picks has been. That's one of the reasons this organization is in the mess they're in now. And you're right. Will continue to avoid Boras guys; avoid raw yet toolsy/high upside HS guys and go cheap as possible. That's what's worked so well in the past. Not. But you are right in that it's dumb to assume that even if Wilson is available at #13 that it's automatic there wouldn't be a better player. But it BETTER not come down to Wilson and Brentz. Brentz screams "safe" and "polished." Those words should be abolished from the White Sox dictionary.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ May 18, 2010 -> 01:36 AM) 1. You did... 2. What do you have against Caulfield? He's a far better poster than you are. You're out of your mind if you think I read any of that slop. And I don't have anything against him. But I'll definitely go slit one of my wrists now that you've deemed him a better poster than me. No coming back from that.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ May 18, 2010 -> 12:51 AM) --Because it isn't a smart way to run a business? Cost control is an important part of every major league team, and the really good ones are able to develop talent internally while acquiring major league vets to complement a young, talented core. If you want to say that Sox prospects tend to fail more than other teams, that's fine, and it may be true, but that says some pretty awful things about the way this team is run and points toward needing major restructuring.-- It's easy to talk about developing players internally, but look at how long that takes and how much that costs. We don't spend that kind of money on the draft or through international free agency, so we can't be like Boston. And we don't lose over and over so we can't be like the Rays or maybe the future Orioles. We can be better than we have been, but coming up with Hudson and Beckham in one draft is already about as good as you can expect to be. So the need for a major restructuring might be a bit overstated, but I've always b****ed about the way we allocate resources in terms of the farm and the bench. We always seem to spend too much on the bench and too little on the farm, and I've had those gripes for a long time. --I think you'll find that the returns for players with question marks, especially MAJOR RED FLAG question marks like Danks, are minimal. D2 could maybe net us a bench player or middle reliever, and not a particularly good one. Flowers could get a marginal MLB starter. Meanwhile, Flowers himself could become an All-Star.-- I disagree 100%. I personally am not in love with either of those guys but realistically, prospects of that level bring good returns. Teams that are more or less forced to trade veterans don't have a ton of leverage and usually the returns for the veterans look a bit underwhelming. I definitely think we could get a pretty decent player for D2 and a pretty awesome player for Flowers. Also, while Flowers *could* become an All-Star, he also *could* become an absolute nobody. --Payroll is a major issue for this team, because despite being in a large market, it has lost the lions share of it to the crosstown rivals. The Sox are, in essence, a mid market team stuck in a large market city. They have attendance issues every year, even when they win, and while they had some wiggle room coming in to this season, there was a definite limit to what they would spend. As to Kenny's MO, I think we're starting to see the logical consequence of his actions - Marginal major league talent, very thin minor league talent, and 100 mil in payroll.-- Disagree again here. The Sox had more money than they let on and we didn't know this until the Damon negotiations. The Sox are in the position they are in now because Kenny Williams listened to Ozzie and neglected the offense. This was a moronic thing to do and now they are paying for it. The idea that they lost money to the Cubs is nuts. The Sox fans are there, they just don't want to show up in droves to see the s***ty NL-style offense that everyone with a brain knew would fail squander decent-to-strong pitching performances, nor do they want to see Mark Teahen let everything get by, etc. They want to see a winning baseball team, and I think Sox fans by and large are disappointed (as they should be) with Kenny Williams and his absolute failure of an offseason. I absolutely do not see this as a dire situation, and I don't think it means we're a small market team. I think Kenny needs to put a f***ing winner out there and then the fans will show up. Make an effort at least. Kenny's actions outside of this offseason though? Let's see... where did he go wrong? It's easy to say he traded the farm and now it's bare, but where are all these great players he gave up? The only deal that really has hurt so far is the first Swisher deal and even that one wasn't all that bad, all things considered. We gave up solid and potentially solid players, but no All-Stars, no franchise cornerstones. The problems are with the minor league situation, everything from s***ty draft budgets to poor scouting to Dave Wilder to lack of a presence in countries like Venezuela, and so on. There's only so much Kenny can do. --Certain teams DO have to trade vets for prospects. This includes small and mid market teams and teams without a lot of payroll flexibility. The Sox fit into the second category right now because of the Rios and Peavy pickups. They can make those moves work for them but if they want to maintain payroll or, god forbid, have to trim payroll because of poor attendance, they are going to have to do something. That means trading vets, or non tendering underachievers and replacing them with average guys. This team doesn't need average players, they need good players, but they don't have the money to sign them nor the minor league talent to trade for them. Trading vets for more possible pieces, at least, makes a lot of sense for this team. Otherwise they are getting into Astros country.-- Possible pieces are pieces we have to play - and suck with - while we figure out whether or not we want to keep playing them. Sox fans were thrilled in 2005 because we brought in a bunch of veterans to replace all those "possible pieces" we had been sucking with in the past. Good God were fans excited to see Ben Davis and Willie Harris replaced! These possible pieces usually suck pretty hard. Astros territory? Dude, look at our f***ing pitching staff. Seriously, look at it. Just do that. It's sick. If there's any possible way to get to the playoffs we could run the f***ing table. Peavy-Buehrle-Floyd-Danks in a row with Big Balls Freddy Garcia in the bullpen as insurance? Have you seen the kind of dogs*** other teams run out there in the playoffs? Kenny needs to get off his ass and get a bat. Then we'll see what happens. IMO we need to try to win because that's the best cure, winning. Blowing up the ship and losing just makes it tougher to win. And as for the money part of it, I mentioned that in an earlier post in this thread, but the Sox were bulls***ting all the way. They had the money to fix the offense but they listened to Ozzie's moronic opinions and opted against it, and now they're going to cry poor? f*** them. You just put caulfield to shame. Do you really think anybody is going to read this?

QUOTE (fathom @ May 18, 2010 -> 12:49 AM) Last I heard, the Sox haven't even scouted him due to his contract demands. Typical White Sox if true.

QUOTE (danman31 @ May 18, 2010 -> 12:41 AM) We don't have any prospects on the untouchable level and we won't and shouldn't be buyers at the deadline anyway. The way Viciedo is hitting, you could argue he's on par with Hudson and Flowers. The walks aren't there, but he's 21 and showing almost as much power as Flowers while posting a much better contact rate. They're untouchable to me not because I think they're that good (good, not that good), but because of the fact we have nothing even close to ML ready at C or the SP department. If we do end up trading AJP, I'm not looking forward to a catching tandem of Castro/Lucy. Even if Freddy makes it through the whole year healthy, he's a temporary fix. And we still don't know what's going to happen with Danks. And like it or not, if the Sox can somehow get to even 5 games out before or right around the deadline, Kenny is going to make a move.

I want to make sweet love to Elvis Andrus. http://texas.rangers.mlb.com/video/play.js...49&c_id=tex

QUOTE (BaseballNick @ May 17, 2010 -> 10:16 PM) MyMLBDraft.com's updated mock draft has the White Sox selecting OF/RHP Bryce Brentz from Middle Tennessee State. They previously had the White Sox taking OF, Austin Wilson. Baseball Rumor Mill has this to say about Brentz. Wilson > Brentz And I'm saying this right now and not after the fact. I'll be extremely disappointed if we don't take Wilson at #13 if he's on the board.

QUOTE (SoxAce @ May 18, 2010 -> 12:07 AM) And I thought Viciedo had a one-two year stint down there in AAA that would help the kid. I like Jordan taking walks (and the XBH), but when you are K'ing more than a power hitting who is also 3 years younger, that is not gonna help your chances. He's on a Mark Reynolds K pace with about 1.7% of the power. The only two untouchables in the system right now should be Flowers and Hudson. Hopefully word has gotten around the league of Danks' supposed stellar defense. I wouldn't have a problem at all if KW traded Danks or included him in a package to get an impact player (assuming we can get back in the race).

REALLY glad that Viciedo for the most part has alleviated a lot of the concerns I had about him just a month ago. The BB% is very disturbing, though. There's no way to spin 4 BB in 37 games at the AAA level into a positive. And I'm really getting worried about Jordan Danks. The K pace he's on is beyond embarrassing. This guy is nowhere near ML ready.

Pau Gasol is amazing. I honestly think he's one of the top 15 players in the game. Other than being "soft," he really doesn't have a legitimate weakness. You can say whatever you want about Kobe. But Kobe's ass wanted out when they were getting their asses kicked by the Suns a few years ago. It wasn't until the Lakers got Gasol for a used tampon that the Lakers went from .500 to title contender.

QUOTE (Brian @ May 17, 2010 -> 10:00 PM) Papelbon gives up 4 in the 9th to lose it for Boston. No river dancing tonight. Only took 4 hours to play the game. I can't wait to peep Sons of Sam Horn later tonight.

QUOTE (chw42 @ May 17, 2010 -> 09:15 PM) That's one of the guys I've had my eye on from the start of the season. He and Seth Smith. I watched those two hit like mad last season and just fell in love. You'd be hard pressed to find 10 players in all of baseball that have been more productive than Gonzalez from the second half of last year up to this point. And that's not even mentioning his insane playoff series against the Phillies. Beane better hope Michael Taylor pans out. That Holiday trade is looking horrible.