fathom

Nice play by Alexei. Offense continues to make things so stressful for the pitchers.

That wasn't even close. If you can't make that call correctly, you're not going to be a very good umpire.

Really nice throw by Flowers

Oh boy, just amazing some of the things that are taking place.

What happened on the play at the plate? Just got home and all I can go by is this thread.

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ May 15, 2013 -> 01:15 AM) this is one of those stretches where you know DET is going to sweep HOU...can't fall too far behind. It truly seems like a MLB team vs AAA team.

Josh Johnson is totally the type of player that KW would have been interested in. I can't recall if we ever heard of the Sox interested in him.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 15, 2013 -> 02:01 AM) Can we stop with the sky is falling posts that bring those on? If there's a post that says "this organization is doomed forever, trade Sale immediately", I would say the same exact thing about stopping it. When there's literally nothing to a post besides just trying to mock marty or someone else, then it takes away from actual discussion on the board. There's really good discussion in the hold/fold thread in my opinion cause people are actually discussing why they feel certain ways.

QUOTE (Jake @ May 15, 2013 -> 01:32 AM) Irrelevant, Sox suck 4 evar Can we stop with these type of posts please?

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 14, 2013 -> 11:53 PM) You're going to sit/bench Konerko or Dunn for him? That's where this gets tricky, like bringing Rios on board when Jermaine Dye was one of the veteran leaders. If it's 3B, okay. Can he play third well enough? (If that was actually the case, there would be no reason to move him over to 1st because his value would be 5X higher over there). We need Viciedo to play everyday, and RF is Rios' until he's traded. If you make a trade like that, you absolutely bench someone like Dunn.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 15, 2013 -> 12:24 AM) Iva Rodriquez, Maggs, Fielder, Martinez...they aren't a playoff team without shelling out big money for hitters. They wouldn't have been able to get Cabrera without taking Willis. But they aren't able to get Cabrera without drafting Miller and Maybin. The Tigers took advantage of going way above slot in the draft, so thankfully the new draft regulations has stopped that.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 15, 2013 -> 12:17 AM) How did Detroit do it? How did Boston do it during their heyday? Detroit did it by striking gold on their trades for Cabrera and Austin Jackson/Scherzer and Sanchez/Fister.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ May 14, 2013 -> 11:15 PM) And you can't rebuild the offense through free agency. You can patch some holes, but judging by the farm system, there are no significant instant contributors on the offensive side coming for a few years (if at all). Sox are going to have to find some cost-controlled offensive starters, which is why they absolutely have to allow Flowers the whole year to try and prove he can play at this level.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ May 15, 2013 -> 12:10 AM) Exactly, peavy has to go whether your plan is to compete next year or rebuild. This team has a chance to survive on the mound next year without Peavy. I can't see how this offense can survive without serious additions. Someone like Gillaspie or Beckham should be the worst hitters on your team if you want to contend.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 15, 2013 -> 12:02 AM) Granderson would love to play for the Sox. There's no bigger fan of Granderson than me, as I grew up playing against him. He could fit into CF, you're correct. If anything, his injury this year might have made it more likely the Yanks wouldn't go after him. Great DA, you've gotten my hopes up now

QUOTE (Jake @ May 14, 2013 -> 11:58 PM) Alexei for Matt Adams is my favorite thing I've heard all day. Count me in. I'm all about finding a way to get some of the Cardinals players into the organization. I was hoping the Sox were going to try and get Matt Carpenter this offseason to play 3b for them.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ May 14, 2013 -> 11:51 PM) Who do you improve the offense with on the list of free agents for next year? Sign as many free agents as they can, but no one for more than 2 years as that list is a bunch of old guys. Looking at the top 20 free agents for this coming season list on mlbtraderumors, and there aren't a lot of answers there to the holes the Sox are likely to have. Cano, Choo and Ellsbury aren't likely options due to the money they'll get from the usual big spenders. As I just mentioned, one of the main reasons to use someone like Peavy as a trade chip is to get back prospects that you could potentially then use to acquire everyday MLB offensive players.

I haven't followed the Cubs as closely this year as in year's past, but when did they start leading the NL in extra base hits? Thankfully their bullpen was a mess the first month of the year and they haven't been able to hit with RISP, or else they'd have a pretty good record.

QUOTE (Big Hurtin @ May 14, 2013 -> 11:47 PM) The pick-to-click should be revamped to which inning does the collective tv audience *click. Or the inning Hawk starts taking shots at the players/team.

On the subject of signing free agents, count me in for trying to extend Beckham to a 3-yr deal if it's team-friendly in terms of money. He's not great by any means, but he's probably better overall than anything you could get via free agency and allows you to use significant resources elsewhere. Of course, I'm the idiot who started saying last week that I wish they'd give Beckham some practice time at SS to see how he'd do there in case they use Alexei as a trade chip (for Matt Adams). With that said, if there's a team out there that wants to trade for him and give up something promising, then you have to consider that.

Also, I know you mentioned the next 3 years balta with the Sox being competitive. It seems like a daunting task to put together a better team on paper than what the Tigers should be able to put on the field during that time period. If this was the AL Central of the last decade, there would be more optimism around here about the future in my opinion. Baseball is cyclical, and for many years, the Sox were probably the most talented team in the division while the Tigers, Royals, etc. were futile. Now, it's their turn to have the most talented teams in the division.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 14, 2013 -> 11:33 PM) Why do you assume that the White Sox will be able to completely tear down and then rebuild to being competitive in 3 years? The Astros, one of the examples you cite, are on their way to their 3rd straight 60 win or fewer season. I can't imagine anyone who thinks the Marlins will be competitive next year either. I don't think they're going to completely tear down and rebuild in the fashion the 3 teams I mentioned did. The Astros tried to trade any valuable piece they had in Pence, Oswalt, Wandy, etc. The Sox, even if they starting unloading the likes of Peavy, Ramirez, Rios, etc. would still have a very good starting rotation in place and enough money to spend to upgrade the offense. I'm not in the "unload the franchise" camp, but rather I'd like to see them accept that it's just not their season if this continues the next 30-40 games from now and try to bring in some young talent to help with the future of the organization. As we've seen from the past with the Sox, the young talent isn't just to develop into everyday players for the Sox, but it's a vital resource they use to trade for established MLB players (since they don't exactly love getting into bidding wars for outside FA).

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 14, 2013 -> 10:29 PM) You want to know something really scary? The Sox are through 1/5 of the season this year. They've given up 17 unearned runs so far. The entire last year, the Sox gave up 30 unearned runs. I don't know how to look up the unearned run stat for last year through this time, but let's assume they were evenly distributed. That would mean for the first 1/5 of the season last year, the Sox would have given up 6 unearned runs. Based on that estimate...11 of those 19 additional runs given up are due to extra unearned runs. Good stuff, it's crazy there's been so many unearned runs already. Also, that doesn't take into account all the extra runs that have scored due to bad plays in the field that haven't been given an error. Last night was a perfect example of that.

QUOTE (gatnom @ May 14, 2013 -> 11:23 PM) The reality is that whatever the White Sox decide to do during/after this season, if we don't want to sink to the depths of the Pirates and such, they need to not f*** it up. The reason the future seems bleak right now is that nearly everything KW has done since 2008 has backfired to some degree or another. It doesn't matter if they rebuild or compete or whatever you want to call it. If the moves turn out like Dunn, Peavy, Rios, Molina, Danks, Thornton, etc. we will suck regardless of the strategy used, and the hemorrhaging of fans will continue. That is the bottom line. I happen to think that selling off in July if we are still in last place is the best move in the long term for the team. Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't see us competing next year if we can't this year. I also can't see the Sox having as small of a payroll as the Marlins, Pirates and Astros have had during their rebuilding years. Heck, just having Danks on the roster is more money than anyone on those teams were getting paid.

QUOTE (Jake @ May 14, 2013 -> 10:01 PM) They also sucked until Mid-May last year, but we all know the season is never lost just 30-some games in. 17-19 on this date last year with zero run differential. It's not like the Sox are on the same pace they were last year (15-21, -19 run differential).