Jake

Another fairly solid out for Rios.

This game is looking like regression to the mean time.

Fukudome must be lonely in that dugout, with no one speaking his language.

DAYAN!

Dempster not sharp so far. Hope DV hits well enough to make them pitch to Dunn.

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ May 19, 2012 -> 06:23 PM) De Aza is a good leadoff hitter. Yep.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 19, 2012 -> 06:16 PM) Have you watched the last 2 decades of baseball at all? 2 different 30/30 hitters multiplied by 1.5 in size and hit 60-75 HR a year for a 5 year stretch. I didn't mean to argue that they are ineffective, trust me I know what they do. They affected the game and still do. Baseball fans tend to think that certain players are competely ineffective vs all-star minus steroid use...I don't think that's true. There are possible exceptions but generally speaking.

Most baseball fans overestimate the usefulness of steroids.

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ May 19, 2012 -> 06:08 PM) What channel is the game on? FOX

We also are pretty sure we're paying league minimum for him. When you don't have any prospects at that position, what difference does it make to sign a cheap veteran?

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ May 19, 2012 -> 06:00 PM) Hudson isn't being brought in to help groom young talent. He is being brought in as a stopgap replacement at third base because Morel either shat the bed or his back is f***ed, or both. I could care less about him helping to groom young talent, I want a 9 hitter that isn't an automatic out. My problem is that I am unsure if Hudson isn't an automatic out at this point in his career. From what I can tell, he's hitting better recently. BABIP is much lower than normal as well. He also might like contending a little better than whatever you call what they are doing in San Diego.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 19, 2012 -> 05:45 PM) Here's the phrasing: If the Sox were picking up his contract, it would be termed "Claiming Hudson on Waivers". The fact that he's being "Signed" means he's cleared waivers, had his contract essentially guaranteed/bought out by the Padres, and the Sox can sign him for the league minimum. So, short answer, no. The language led me to believe that too, thanks. QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 19, 2012 -> 05:47 PM) Oh, one more Trib blurb: Good.

Wait, we're not picking up his contract right?

Nice low-risk move to solve the HUGE problem at 3B. He can't hit worse than .170.

QUOTE (flavum @ May 19, 2012 -> 02:23 PM) De Aza cf, Beckham 2b, Dunn 1B, Viciedo LF, Pierzynski C, Rios RF, Ramirez ss, Escobar 3B, Danks P I have a good feeling about Danks tonight for some reason. Big game Danks!* *based on Game 163 only

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 19, 2012 -> 02:21 PM) I honestly don't know if it is possible to make the membership transfer over to another domain, and still be cost effective (aka basically free). Yeah, the way I see it you'd have to can that website. Folks would have to re-register (not a problem since almost every frequent poster over there was a Soxtalker) at SoxTalk. I'm not sure if IP Board would allow you to make different subforums have different layouts -- if so, you could give the Bulls, Bears forums the feel of its own site. You'd still be within Soxtalk though, making the probability higher that Soxtalk users post in those forums like they do in this forum/thread. No one likes registering for separate things, as easy as it is. For instance, if there were Bulls game threads in this forum, they would have been active during the playofffs because the NBA thread was. Imagine if users actually knew what the hell happened in these threads, they might participate. With this, you'd effectively have a Chicago sports forum with little to no more maintenance than Soxtalk alone has. This definitely works, but obviously is easier said than done. The early stages of a message board are very delicate. Interesting...that could probably get that base of users going and posting again.

Question with no agenda: Did anyone catch Robin's immediate reaction to PK getting hit? I didn't see it but also wasn't looking for it. I thought it was interesting that in the highlight of PK taking one in the face in 2010 that Ozzie was seemingly out of the dugout before the ball hit the ground and was the first to get to Paul. Stuff like that reminds me why the players really liked him before the nonsense got so nonsensical. I once had a similar injury and as I walked off the field under my own power holding my own teeth in my hand, my coach stood up and said "are you okay?" God that irritated me. Anyways, no agenda here, just curious.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 19, 2012 -> 12:56 PM) You'd have to get everyone to go over there all at once, otherwise it won't work. Plus you'd have to convince the people over there to recruit their bulls fan friends to start to build the kind of base that Soxtalk has. It can be done, but it has to be a group effort. The important things are recruiting and making sure there are lots of new topics and discussions to convince people it is worth making the switch for. Can you make a TalkBulls message board, with a TalkBulls domain, TalkBulls layout/look, yet is actually a part of this board? The membership would be one but your google searcher will see that they are joining a TalkBulls message board and wouldn't realize until later that it is part of a White Sox/Chicago board. You can't change SoxTalk to a TalkChicago or anything because SoxTalk has immense popularity that you don't want to mess with. But if you have these boards within this large board, you'd see more activity and might entice non-Sox fans to join Soxtalk to post on them. I don't know if this makes sense on the page like it did in my mind.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ May 19, 2012 -> 12:47 PM) So basically you're chastising out GM for baseball being the hardest sport to qualify for the playoffs in. 8 teams out of 30 go. In any other sport, our record in 2010 and 2006 would have sent us. Here is a list of other teams that have has 1 or less playoff win in the past six years; Toronto Baltimore Minnesota Kansas City Seattle Cubs Cincinnati Pittsburg Houston San Diego Florida Washington Atlanta 14 out of 30 teams haven't won more than 1 playoff game in the past 6 years. How many current GMs have won a world series anywhere? This is true and I'll go ahead and make the counterargument for Marty -- Chicago is an immense market and the White Sox do spend like they are in such a market. Our expectations should be significantly higher than average for achievement. Now...we have a World Series title. That's a big one. We also are a team that no longer spends time in last place. While some people don't distinguish between last and second, there's a difference. Contending is better for crowds and obviously it is easier (at least in the short term) to turn a second place team into a first place team -- these teams are a big signing/trade/fluke away from 95 wins. I will say that the past 6 years with just 1 playoff appearance is not enough. That 6 year stretch is not acceptable (though 2006 was a squad that makes the playoff under the current format/most years 90 wins gets you in anyway). I distinguished in this thread between moves that basically have no chance of working out and moves that should work out, but don't. I feel that the latter have cost us by far the most -- see last season. That does not necessarily get you job security. The end of last season was a time when KW was very vulnerable and had he been fired, as a fan of both the Sox and KW I would not have been angry. I do believe that KW is a GM capable of putting together a consistent winner. He's done 1 thing in particular that not many GMs can say they did, and he did it with a middling payroll when he did it. He's also done a good job of keeping the Sox out of the cellar, but that is a minimum requirement. The fact is that JR chose KW to bring things back for the White Sox. We deconstructed last year's team as much as we could (given contractual constraints and a desire not to trade assets just for the sake of trading them like Gavin Floyd). We are now trying to do something that I believe a large market team should be able to do...rebuild without having a completely pathetic onfield product. This is a team with a reasonable chance to make the playoffs despite having a significantly lower payroll than the year before and no outside acquisitions...again, this is something large market teams should do while rebuilding. By the end of the season we should either be in the playoffs or have gained value in young players due to non-contention. cliffs: -KW didn't do a terrible job, but the team didn't win -this makes you vulnerable to lose your job -JR chose to keep KW to move forward -bad teams change management in the middle of rebuilds (see Oakland Raiders coaching) -this season has the makings of a successful start to a rebuild in the Chicago market

QUOTE (Chet Kincaid @ May 19, 2012 -> 12:50 PM) I missed yesterday's game thread. Seems like the board was live, too. I thought it would be a Soxtalk meltdown when Samarsklfkjb hit Konerko in the face. There are 1 or 2 that are still in meltdown mode. I think the proper punishment for Samardzija was supposed to be assassination or something like that

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 19, 2012 -> 12:42 PM) Prediction, two weeks from now, it will be back to "Molina sucks! KW must go!" because criticizing Viciedo will 1) get boring, and 2) what's the point whether he's more like Beltre, Vladdy, Carlos Lee, Bobby Bonilla, Juan Uribe, Magglio Ordonez, Rey Ordonez...he's young and under our control, and relatively cheaply, through 2018, all the prime years for a young hitter will be encompassed. Whereas the A's are spending over 4X as much for a player in Cespedes that will be gone to another team for even more money in 4 years when he's at the very top of his game and has figured out how to adjust to MLB pitching, theoretically. At least we set up our contract with Viciedo in a manner in which if he performs as expected, we don't lose him right at the most critical juncture for the rebuilding effort. That part is unbelievable. Really shortens the A's window for winning and almost assured that they won't retain him. Makes me wonder what higher dollar amounts he may have turned down in exchange for getting to be a FA early.

Brent Morel...not even once

I feel like there is a difference between making a decision that doesn't work and making a very bad decision. Bringing in Manny Ramirez to a team without a DH? Good decision in theory, didn't do much in practice. Choosing Mark Kotsay over Jim Thome as your DH? Bad decision in theory, worse in practice (thanks Oz) Extending Mark Teahen before seeing him play 3B? Bad decision in theory, worse in practice (at least we dumped him) To me, there is a distinct difference between the first decision and the latter two. People keep harping on KW for decisions like the first one which happen fairly frequently.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ May 19, 2012 -> 09:15 AM) I've tried posting there, but just no activity. ^^ I wonder if there is some way we could integrate all of the forums, without it being at the expense of Soxtalk

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 19, 2012 -> 09:36 AM) It was Ozzie's idea, but he supposedly was Ozzie's boss. He eventually overrode him in September when he claimed a fresh off steroid suspension Manny, in what was perhaps the biggest waste of $4 million in his reign, and he's blown some money. I'm still not against that deal. Rolled the dice on one of the better hitters ever. Didn't work out. We were trying to win and obviously someone told KW we had $4 million to spend.