southsideirish71

QUOTE(fathom @ Jun 29, 2005 -> 07:18 PM) I would love to see a Sox hitter take a nice, simple swing like Polanco just did. Nah, you want to fall over trying to park every single freakin pitch. You dont want to get cheated.

This poor excuse for an offense cant put up more runs on Jason Freakin Johnson. This is sad. We usually crush this guy. But I forget.....he is hitting the corners, throwing his curve for a strikes...did you see the break on his curveball, good lord Arod himself could barely even touch that.

5.1 innings 6 R 6 Earned 4Ks 4BB I hope its. 6 innings 3 R 3 Earned 6Ks 2BB for a win.

Lineups are in. No Arow tonight. Starting Lineups No. Chicago White Sox 1 Scott Podsednik, CF 2 Tadahito Iguchi, 2B 3 Frank Thomas, DH 4 Paul Konerko, 1B 5 Carl Everett, LF 6 Jermaine Dye, RF 7 A.J. Pierzynski, C 8 Joe Crede, 3B 9 Juan Uribe, SS Detroit 1 Brandon Inge, 3B 2 Placido Polanco, 2B 3 Carlos Guillen, SS 4 Dmitri Young, DH 5 Ivan Rodriguez, C 6 Craig Monroe, RF 7 Chris Shelton, 1B 8 Alexis Gomez, LF 9 Nook Logan, CF

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Jun 29, 2005 -> 03:29 PM) Don't trade for Burnett UNLESS you can work out a long - term deal with him. Jason Schmidt will struggle at the Cell, and is not worth giving up someone like Brian Anderson or Brandon McCarthy. Once again, I throw forward this name, as a starter / closer. Miguel Batista. 4-0, 2.29 ERA. He is not stretched out to be a starter. As a reliever I would be for it, as a starter NO. This also sounds real promising. Sounds a bit like the Count. Pitching No pitcher shook off Blue Jays catchers more than Batista, who throughout his career has alternated between falling too much in love with his fastball and cut fastball and not using them enough. Batista can hit 95 MPH with his four-seam fastball and has a wide repertoire, but his sinking fastball and cutter should be his bread and butter. Ultimately, his success as a closer will depend on his ability to decide which offspeed pitch he best throws and then sticking with it.

QUOTE(kyyle23 @ Jun 29, 2005 -> 03:22 PM) thier whole infield is a mess. Punto was hurt, Rivas was hurt, Cuddyer is hurt, Williams is hurt, Tiffie has been moved back and forth, Bartlett was already sent down. They need to make some sort of move. But that aint my problem!!!!!!!! Well it does if they take Randa who they have been scouting over the last week or so.

QUOTE(Dam8610 @ Jun 29, 2005 -> 03:19 PM) I'd really like to know why everyone seems to be so in love with a struggling 32 year old with velocity problems. This is precisely why the Sox should go after Burnett. With Schmidt's past couple of years, the Giants are going to want a HUGE package for Schmidt, who may or may not be fading into mediocrity as his velocity has dropped. Not a good sign from a 32 year old. Meanwhile, Burnett is entering into the best years of his career, has put up the stat line of an ace over the past year (go back 13 or so pages and look at my post about it if you don't believe me), and he's throwing 100 MPH. If you're going to give a huge package away, that would be the guy to get in return. When did he become available? AJ Burnett would be great. You cant argue with 100mph from a starter. Schmidt would be good as a plan B. Lilly should be a plan NO.

QUOTE(kyyle23 @ Jun 29, 2005 -> 03:16 PM) havent they been starting some Williams kid there anyways? He is hurt also. They moved Cuddyer over to 2b.

QUOTE(AirScott @ Jun 29, 2005 -> 03:11 PM) thankfully there is another month until the trade deadline. Burnett and Schmidt wont be there by the deadline. Boston/Baltimore will make a run at either. Cuddyer got hurt today. Hit by a pitch. They took him for xrays. If he is hurt and out for a while, the twins will have to make a move. They cant rely on Terry Tiffie as a viable 3rd baseman.

And for all of the people who state we shouldnt trade or make any deals because we will disrupt chemistry or we will cause ourselves harm in the future. This should give everyone chills. Sounds very very familiar. I dont want to mess up our chemistry. We have the best record in baseball. Make a few trades and lets get ourselves a championship.

QUOTE(kyyle23 @ Jun 29, 2005 -> 02:57 PM) Cubs have the 6th best batting average in the league http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/stats/aggreg...t=0&season=2005 they are anything but a bad hitting club At the time of the first series the cubs where not the 6th best batting average team in the NL.

QUOTE(ZoomSlowik @ Jun 29, 2005 -> 02:51 PM) Since when are Baltimore, Minnesota, and the Angels (twice) bad hitting clubs? He wasn't dominant in those games, but he wasn't awful either. Also, he absolutely dominated Detroit when he faced them. The Angels didnt have Vlad he was on the DL. And at the time they were near the bottom in hitting. They were struggling to score runs. Minnesota didnt have Morneau who was hitting about 400 at the time. And that start wasnt exactly dominating as he went 4.2 innings with over 100 pitches. Yes the hits and everything looks good. But when you dip into your pen after 4.2 innings because your pitcher couldnt find the plate it doesnt look too good. He gave up 4 runs in 6 innings to Baltimore.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Jun 29, 2005 -> 02:35 PM) Let's remember this with his bad starts this month. 1st one - Chris Widger was catching him. Big NO-NO. 2nd one - Gave up a grand slam which really hurt against the Flubs. Other than that, he's given up 2 ER, 1 ER, and 3 ER in his other outings so far this month. His merit will be tested when he faces a good hitting team. So far he has 15 starts. He has faced only two good hitting teams DET and Arizona.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Jun 29, 2005 -> 02:32 PM) Diaz wasn't a highly rated prospect. Neither were Munoz or Barcelo. Wright had arm problems. Brandon McCarthy IS a highly rated prospect. Just because B-Mac has pitched at a higher than AA for less than a season now, (he had a good start at Wrigley BTW), and because he hasn't automatically come in and put up uber like stats, people are already waiting to give up on him. I think BMAC will be fine. Anderson still has a high K rate. I think Sweeney is diamond out of them all.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Jun 29, 2005 -> 02:29 PM) Gotta remember some positives with the Count though like these; AWAY - .194/.289/.339 .BAA - .225 One bad month, shouldn't take away the 2 great months he had to start the season. If we need a SP in a playoff series away from the Cell, he'd be ideal if Buerhle, Garland or Garcia couldn't take the hill. It depends a lot on which one we get. The one who falls in love with his forkball will get murdered in the playoffs. The one who works faster and doesnt shake off AJ will be ok in the playoffs. He still has to prove that he wont s*** the bed when he faces Boston.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jun 29, 2005 -> 02:30 PM) Reed was expendable last year because we had 2 guys named Anderson and Sweeney coming in behind him. Show me who's coming in behind those 2 and I'll start saying a trade is fine. Ditto McCarthy. you are not trading both Sweeney and Anderson.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jun 29, 2005 -> 02:18 PM) No one could guarantee that any trade will win a team a W.S., and that's the real problem here isn't it. You could trade for the best player and pitcher in the game and still lose to the Red Sox in game 7 after going up 3-0. My point is this; if you want to build a team that can really make a multi-year run, be good for a while, and give your team several shots to get over the hump and actually win a W.S., the solution is not found in making the 1 big trade for that 1 guy, it's found in developing your own talent and finding the right pieces around hit. The real key here is cost - we're a middle market team, so every player we have on our roster who makes less than $3 million per year is a player who opens up room under our salary limits. This means young guys are a necessity. If we want to be able to resign Buehrle, Garland, and Garcia, we need a couple guys like Gonzalez and McCarthy who are young and who haven't yet hit arbitration/free agency. Otherwise, we'll be looking at needing $50-60 million to hold together the rotation alone, and for this team, that's just not practical. The same thing goes for guys like Anderson and Sweeney - if we trade them away now, then during the years that they're good an inexpensive, we'll be left with either a hole in the order or a really inexpensive sub. And that's just not a good place to be. If we trade away guys like McCarthy, Anderson, etc., we're dooming ourselves to mediocrity in the hope that nothing will go wrong in that 1 year that we really shoot for the stars. We're hoping there won't be an Aaron Boone who makes some magical hit to beat us, or there won't be a Josh Beckett for another team who just gets on a roll and can't be stopped. Personally, I think we're far better off holding pat and building, unless something comes along really cheap. And for the people we're talking about here, the cost will be very high indeed. I heard this same banter last year. Oh no we cant trade our future away. We will be trading a future phenom catcher and the best prospect in the majors, Reed. Prospects are Prospects. Until they perform at the major league level they are nothing but fodder. Felix Diaz lit up the minors last year with his pitching. He got up here and wet the bed. Arnie Munoz, Danny Wright, Lorenzo Barcelo, Rauch, etc, etc. We have sat here for years watching highly touted prospect after another wet the bed when they come up. Some of them never to be heard from again. If you are so worried about next year and beyond. Do you really thing we are going to resign the Count for his current salary if he sits status quo? Do you think we are going to pick up the 10 million dollar option for Thomas next year? The money will be there. I would rather have a few years of being average, than to sit on our laurels and not make a trade because A.) We have the best record in baseball and dont need to(See the 116 Win Seattle Mariners) or B.) We will mess up our long line of divisional championships. The timing of having the Yanks on a down year, and the other teams are beatable only comes once in a while. The possibility of winning it this year is a very good possibility. I say go for it all this year. We havent been to a WS since 1959( I wasnt alive for that one) and we havent won it since 1917(see 1959).

QUOTE(ZoomSlowik @ Jun 29, 2005 -> 01:56 PM) He also outdueled Grienke twice in close games (think one of them was 2-1, the other was 1-0). I'd like to see a couple more starts before we condemn him. He was pitching great before his last two starts. I don't see how everyone can be so concerned about two bad starts from Contreras and so excited about two good starts from Schmidt when both go against their norms for the season. Hanging our hats on the Count beating a bad Royals team twice or a bad Rockies team isnt looking into history. The count for years would look dominating against bad teams, and then would choke against good ones. The ironic thing is that the minute someone would hit his fastball hard at all, he would completely abandon it and go into the forkball mode. The count is tipping his pitches again, he is working real slow again. We have one of the best game calling catchers that he shakes off over and over. Watch AJ during the game, he and widger both look at wits end when they watch over and over the shake off on the fastball. No one is denying the count has filthy stuff. I am confused why he doesnt feature the 95-96 mph fastball more and use the fork as the out pitch. But he doesnt. The minute someone puts good wood on the ball, he is the forkball machine.

QUOTE(ZoomSlowik @ Jun 29, 2005 -> 12:48 PM) I never said he was a fluke. I said he isn't the same pitcher that he used to be. There's a difference. Why don't we go get Chan Ho Park too, he used to be pretty good. Take a look at his stats for this season and tell me that he is an ace that is going to get us to the series. I'll believe it when I see him put up a few more good starts. Well according to people on the SF board he was hitting 94 and 95 on the gun last night. Granted its not the 97 he was throwing last year, but I would take him throwing 94 over El Duque and his 84mph any day of the week and twice on sunday.

QUOTE(kyyle23 @ Jun 29, 2005 -> 11:55 AM) You know what pisses me off about that is that Contreras cannot understand that calling his own game and doing things his own way are the reasons that he hasnt had the career that he has expected. Put 2 and 2 together, Jose, it aint hard. Cooper should make a deal with him: Let AJ call the entire game, no questions asked. If you get lit up, we do it your way. If you dont, then you do it our way. They should just have Conteras watch Bull Durham. Have them edit all the susan sarandon crap out, and just focus on the catcher and meat dialogue. DONT THINK MEAT, IT HURTS THE TEAM.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jun 29, 2005 -> 11:43 AM) Hell, as good as our catcher's have been at calling games, the less people shake them off the better. Go ask Buehrle. When's the last time he shook off a catcher? 2002? Conteras only shakes off pitches if you put anything but the forkball down. If you use the forkball sign like 90% of the time. He wont shake off any pitch.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jun 29, 2005 -> 11:32 AM) My sig is not tongue-in-cheek. Crede has a great swing. If you are the opposing pitcher, its a perfect swing. Its also perfect for missing fastballs low and away. Also sliders low and away. Fastballs over the middle, fastballs in.

QUOTE(Milkman delivers @ Jun 29, 2005 -> 10:48 AM) Boston Gammons flips and flops all year long. Last night he proclaimed that the Angels are the best team in the AL. This was because their pitching and defense is the best in baseball. Give him two weeks and he will proclaim someone else the best.

I wouldnt throw Dingo out as the closer just yet. Cliffy has been as tough as nails this year. That changeup that he developed has made him a new pitcher. That and of course getting strike one on every batter. He has the best stuff to fill in this role. My prayers are to you Dustin and your family in this difficult time.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Jun 29, 2005 -> 09:23 AM) According to the SF Chronicle, there were White Sox scouts watching Schmidt last night. Oriole scouts also. Looks like KW is aiming high. This is from a Giants board.