Jake

QUOTE (Marty34 @ May 23, 2012 -> 06:41 PM) My view is the most important pieces to this rebuild are on the roster currently and if they don't produce there's nothing on the farm for awhile. If KW is right about Sale, Danks, Viciedo, Reed, and Beckham we win the division or are within 5 games this year. If he's wrong about them, I don't want him heading up a 3-5 year rebuild. I can go with that. You need success from 4/5 of them or else, like I said, or someone has to appear out of thin air quickly.

QUOTE (iamshack @ May 23, 2012 -> 05:54 PM) I'm not sold on Viciedo... Where did the Honel comment come from? DV has a little more to prove, for sure. There's some chance that he's on a Josh Fields type of run. Luckily, he's more talented than Josh Fields and had a reputation/history of hitting fastballs (what I think is holding him back) in the minors. Younger than the Josh Fields we once used up too. I was looking at old MLB drafts and came across Honel, he was the first prospect name I ever remember hearing. Shame how that never worked out for him.

I miss Kris Honel. In other news, I like the look of this lineup. It really has the talent of a playoff team. If we assume that Beckham and Viciedo have turned it around for good, you're just waiting on the veteran bats of Alexei and O-Dog to turn it on. ^^ could be a big if, I suppose.

QUOTE (greg775 @ May 23, 2012 -> 04:44 PM) I didn't like the line in the story that said he was not any help or not interested in being a help to young players. Me neither. Again, can't seem to figure out what it means. I have to wonder if everyone was disappointed that he didn't turn into a 100 RBI player or something.

I can't come to a conclusion as far as the "badness" of DUI. Where does it rank among other things we consider crimes -- theft, assault, rape/sexual assault, murder? I don't know. While on one hand there may be less malicious intent, there is a serious lack of security thinking about people operating a car in such a manner that may result in seemingly random, unmotivated deaths. We enjoy a certain amount of security because we feel generally certain that we have to give someone motivation to murder us or steal from us (having nice things available) or rape us (even if it is just being a woman that motivates). The generally systematic choice of victims in these crimes is in that way comforting. There are things about me and my life that make me not fear certain crimes...but every time we get on the road, there is reason to fear a drunk driver. So you have random victims yet very much non-random offenders. People are doing something that they know may result in random death when they do it. This is the part that makes me understand why they should be dealt with harshly. The lack of malicious intent (I would classify this as careless) makes me more okay with less jail time. Instead they get parts of their lifestyle taken away -- money, ability to drive, and by extension oftentimes employment. I think oftentimes folks are required to have their drinking habits/psychological state scrutinized, but I'm not sure of this.

Stat of the day -- Alexei Ramirez 2012 BABIP: .239 Career BABIP: .290 Bad luck?

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ May 23, 2012 -> 03:24 PM) Scott Podsednik went 2-for-3 with a homer Wednesday in his first start for the Red Sox. Some things never make sense. Prepping for pulled hamstring.

KW may be doing a good job since around the time he offered himself to be fired. I'm basically evaluating the time before that separately, given the core that we had and the "win now" and "all-in" mentality. Seems like now we're in "future first" mode, but with the intention of remaining competitive. We'll do what we can to put a winning on-field product out there, but not if it is likely to mortgage our future (don't expect us to ship farm players to get the missing piece if we're in the race) So...most of the shuffling we've done since the end of last season is the acquisition of young guys, especially young arms. It seems like we're likely to get some MLB starters out of the bunch, especially if we include some of the upper-level, low ceiling guys that we already had in the system. But here's the truth -- we've hardly seen any of these guys play. Even if we had, there's probably a reason we don't get paid by the White Sox to evaluate those guys. We are forced to take scattered reports from varied sources (some of whom have seen these minor leaguers as much as us) and try to determine if Kenny has made a good decision. A far cry from trying to decide if MLB players X and Y for MLB player Z is a good deal. We basically have to wait to know if these players are going to pan out. There are encouraging signs and less encouraging signs. I'm not a KW lifer, but I like the philosophy of stockpiling young arms and buying low on many of them. Since he's been given the keys to the car, I'm going to take a wait and see approach for now -- why call for his firing now? Because the rebuilding team isn't winning? Winning too much? Nothing to do but wait and hope that the team remains fairly fun to watch. Thinking of home-grown players on the MLB roster...I will for these purposes not include just draft picks, but guys who were minor leaguers or fringe major leaguers when we acquired them. I make this distinction because if these guys are good, that suggests that management made the right call when the call was not obvious (signing Adam Dunn, for instance, was a move that anyone could have predicted would result in him hitting a bunch of bombs): Pitchers -Danks -Humber (given the amount of releases, I consider him a non-MLB player at the time of acquisition) -Sale -Reed -Jones -Santiago -Stewart Batters -Flowers -Beckham -Escobar -Alexei -ADA -Lillibridge -Viciedo -Morel The success or non-success of many of these guys will likely determine KW's fate. Some of them don't matter (Escobar comes to mind), but obviously some of these guys need to become fixtures. Only a few of these homegrown guys are fixtures -- Danks, Alexei are basically the only ones and Alexei may be nearing the end of his run as a fixture on the South Side. I think you're going to be happy with the following on your roster for the near future (maybe 2-3 seasons from now) -Danks ($) to remind us he's not cheap -Alexei ($) to remind us he's not cheap -Humber -Sale -Reed -Viciedo -ADA These ones are toss-ups IMO that need to work out or KW really has to pull something out of thin air to replace them: -Jones -Beckham -Morel -Santiago ^^ they don't all have to work out, but they can't ALL fizzle out or else we're spending valuable dollars to fill those holes. Santiago probably at a different level than the other 3, especially given all the arms we have. Sorry for all the lists, just my thoughts. I hope I have stated opinions in this long post

Molina - disappointing? yes. awful? no. Easily a good few starts away from nice looking numbers.

QUOTE (greg775 @ May 23, 2012 -> 01:26 PM) Sounds like a Rios type of guy. Hope he stays just this one season unless he re-learns how to hit. Nothing I know about OH reminds me of Rios. But I'm interested in exactly what the people that don't like him don't like. All I've heard is "talks too much" -- is there something wrong with what he's saying? and "gets thrown out 8 times a week making dumb hustle plays" -- what? It's hard for me to evaluate based on this non-specificity. Maybe it'll be easier for us to like him since this may very well be his first gig with next to 0 expectations.

I'm down to do whatever. I've enjoyed the conversation with Soxtalkers on basketball and I'd love to see it grow, be easier to navigate, and get more posters involved. I've offered plenty of input as to how that could be done, and I'm happy to post my tail off wherever as long as I'm not alone

QUOTE (iamshack @ May 23, 2012 -> 12:39 PM) My problem with the whole DUI thing is that we encourage and enable this result by revolving so much of our society around alcohol, and then we seem shocked that these people actually get in their cars and try to get back home again when they are finished. Then, the municipalities and states bend these people over as if they are murderers and rapists to try and extract as much cash as possible in order to make up for other shortfalls in their budgets. The entire process is extraordinarily punitive without doing s*** to actually try and address the root cause of the problem. Welcome to...uh, Earth. We just punish because that has some remedial ability and noone feels bad for being "easy".

All I know is my brother got a DUI (BAC .18 blood test) in CO and it will not be fun on first offense. He's already lost $10k paying for random BS related to the case. Before he is allowed to have permit to drive to work, he has to be completely driving-free for at least 30 days. I am going to move in with him to drive him to work so he doesn't lose his job. Also has to have a breathalyzer in the car for 3 years (not free!) He isn't even out of the woods yet for jail time. I can't even imagine how much a pain in the ass 3 would be. Might as well just quit and reevaluate your life. I know my brother keeps thinking about how many thousands each beer he drank that night cost him...I can't imagine someone who isn't dealing with a serious addiction could repeat offend. My favorite thing that my brother has had to pay for is for the paramedic they dispatched when he was pulled over. Since he blew a high number on breathalyzer, they decided to take him to a hospital. Paramedic may not have even left the garage, but still $1200 bill for that.

Len and Bob are SO bad. Talk about saying nothing for a whole broadcast. The only time I ever notice them saying anything is when they say something way off base. I wonder if Len Kasper had ever been to a baseball game before he started broadcasting.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ May 23, 2012 -> 11:03 AM) I don't need an announcer to cheer with me for the White Sox. I can do that myself. I just want to know what is going on in the game and why. Also, maybe I can learn a thing or two. Hawk does little of that. I'm interested in this. 1. I don't think there's any way to determine whether the "right" thing is for the local announcer to be a homer. I do think that most fans prefer this, however. 2. While the broadcast team has to narrate some of the action just to fill the airtime, I really don't see why this is useful. You can SEE the game! I don't care how well they explain whether the pitch was a strike or a ball -- I can see the umpire and the pitch. 3. I'm also curious as to what we hope to learn. There are neat statistical things that we get independent of Hawk since he is just handed information like that. I just don't see anyone offering any real insight because I'm not sure what we hope to learn as people that follow baseball -- "you see when they hit it to the outfield they are supposed to hit a cut" ... it's a fairly simple game once you watch/play for a long time. I enjoy the vast experience of our broadcast team because they have seen a ton of players and events over time and thus can draw comparisons that I would not be able to. When you think about it, there's not much flexibility in what a broadcaster can do and I think this is why many of them seem flat: -say what's going on. Not going to captivate anyone that can see. -repeat statistics passed to you by the stat crew. This can make you look good but has little to do with you. -explain complicated plays that folks that are new to baseball won't understand. Your wiggle room is in word choice, homerism, emotion, and a little bit of analysis. Honestly, I've enjoyed doing radio myself quite a bit more since you are forced to fill the air with exposition. Not as much pressure to spice up the audio when there is no visual.

QUOTE (Jillian Michaels' Abs @ May 23, 2012 -> 10:21 AM) Being a Dodgers fan as well as a Sox fan... I can tell you that Dodgers fans called O-Dog 'SloDog" and couldn't wait for him to leave. *shrug* For what reason? I'm confused on this because every naysayer hasn't quite articulated what he did wrong.

I remember a poster here who's profile picture was always him and Hawk. What happened to that guy?

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ May 23, 2012 -> 12:09 AM) Thank you, Dr. Phil. You don't know what you're talking about. If somebody calls me out then I'm going to respond. Simple as that. insert combative comment here QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 23, 2012 -> 08:40 AM) Now that Rose is down for the count this actually makes some sense...but it makes the most sense in terms of "clearing the Bulls' big contracts". Howard isn't going to turn them into a champion next year without help, Howard's never going to get along with one of the NBA's best coaches, Howard's not going to stay in a situation that doesn't grant him total authority over everything. But, basically what the Bulls would be doing would be trading 2 long-term contracts for 2 shorter ones. Howard could still be movable at the trade deadline, and the Bulls could get to the "Cleared space" point fairly quickly if they got rid of both Deng and Noah's deals while still having the amnesty option. That's actually very interesting. That could work... QUOTE (Steve9347 @ May 23, 2012 -> 09:29 AM) Yes, they certainly do. I think this could be one of the better series in the NBA over the last decade, and could possibly make this season less s***ty. I think it will be tight, but for some reason I can't get excited about it. I can't put my finger on why, but it might be due to the lack of hatable players/storylines/bulls***.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 23, 2012 -> 08:27 AM) Mark Gonzales ‏@MDGonzales Hudson tentatively scheduled to start at third and bat ninth Wednesday night woohoo! QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ May 23, 2012 -> 08:53 AM) It's a pet peeve of mine when someone who is paid to write about baseball doesn't understand the difference between at-bats and plate appearances. Dunn did not have 11 at-bats in the weekend series. He had eight at-bats with two hits, and an additional six plate appearances that resulted in walks. QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ May 23, 2012 -> 09:11 AM) Even saying he had 11 at-bats is inaccurate. He had 14 plate appearances with 2 hits and 6 walks. It is annoying when professionals can't get stuff like that right. Agreed. I wondered if it was a semantics issue, but it seems that 11 was a number he just pulled out of his ass

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 23, 2012 -> 07:43 AM) They showed about three different shots of him at 1st after his single, and there wasn't a single second where he wasn't talking. I have officially decided that I like this guy. And for some reason I feel like guys with double ear flap helmets look more like baseball players.

Can someone recommend broadcasters that are better than Hawk that I can listen to for some comparison? I'll take this with an open mind and see what I think of others.

QUOTE (chw42 @ May 23, 2012 -> 09:24 AM) The Twins only looked good in 2 innings last night and most of that was Gavin Floyd's fault. In other words, they still suck and they're still like 15 under .500. Win the next 2! This. They suck and they benefited from a well-pitched game, a lot of hard outs, and Gavin Floyd/poor defense. Gordon Beckham's batting average wants blood!

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ May 22, 2012 -> 11:07 PM) Holy s*** he talks fast. I couldn't understand what the f*** he was saying, I needed to play it in slow motion or something

You guys are getting in arguments about s*** that has nothing to do with anything....just let it go....argue about basketball instead

That kid pitched a great game today. Pitched brilliantly and benefited from SEVERAL very hard outs.