whitesoxfan101

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Jun 24, 2010 -> 12:57 PM) I think Tony said it best. He should be the first priority this off-season. Scotty Bowman loves the kid, so I think Stan and the Hawks are gonna do everything to keep him here. I've never been too worried about Hjalmarsson or Sharpie moving, the team seems to value them too much to do that, even with the cap hell sentence they're now serving. Side note: I laugh out loud everytime I see your avatar thingy.

I think you sign LeBron and Bosh if you can and worry about shooting guard later considering you'd have the best 1-2-3 punch in the league in such a scenario.

Little suprised they are still trying to move Campbell between Sopel gone and the unlikelihood there will be takers. I guess they figure they can find a suitable replacement at a lesser price for Campbell if they can dump him though, which makes sense. I still think Versteeg ends up being the guy to go though obviously. And i'm with you Steve, Kaner as 1st team center over Crosby is bizarre.

QUOTE (Vance Law @ Jun 24, 2010 -> 11:23 AM) Precisely, we will never know. All we do know is that Soxtalk posters will continue to disproportionately ascribe blame to Walker for the failings of any hitter rather than give credit for their successes. Is Quentin qlutch? I don't know. But look at: Konerko, for example, for his career: .273/.346/.498/.844 with no one on .284/.363/.489/.851 with runners on Quentin for his career: .215/.309/.434/.743 with no one on .293/.385/.544/.929 with runners on Does Quentin manage to focus more with men on? Does he just hit a lot better when the pitcher is out of the stretch? Wow, thanks for those numbers, that's bizarre. The Konerko splits there are typical, but those Q numbers are hard to explain. I simply don't buy that you can just focus more and perform better with men on base. But maybe he does lose concentration with the bases empty or something, but even that is really strange.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Jun 24, 2010 -> 10:50 AM) Buh-bye Italy Wonder if Giuseppe Rossi is currently regretting his decision... Yeah i'm with the others that say, if anything, Italy feels even worse for not picking Rossi than Rossi does for trying to make the Italy team instead of ours. Both squads could certainly use a player like him though, especially the Italians apparently.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 24, 2010 -> 11:18 AM) They need catching prospects, so you don't think Fontenot for Chase Blackwood wouldn't work? They need a lot more than catching prospects right now. I think pocket rocket for Chase is pretty fair though.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 24, 2010 -> 11:16 AM) But does it really, really make sense to trade Flowers, Hudson, Danks/Morel (etc.) for Prince Fielder? I'm not even convinced it makes complete sense to trade Viciedo for Fielder, simply because 6 years of an affordable Viciedo might end up providing a lot more production than a season and one-half of Fielder, and then there's the fact that he will have to adjust to the AL pitching as well. (Yes, I'm well aware Fielder is a proven commodity...and that the trade would be much bigger than Viciedo for Fielder anyway.) That's a riskier move than adding Rios and Peavy, because we lost a fifth starter/long reliever out of that, not 2 or 3 key future pegs on our roster. Because if we can't keep Fielder long-term (or afford him, and we haven't exactly shown a proclivity for handing $100 million+ contracts out), then this franchise is really going to be in a huge hole, and it would also make it nearly impossible to keep Danks as well. If you don't think Flowers can be the guy, think this team would be a legit threat to do big things if Prince is added, and only think Hudson is a middle to lower rotation guy, I'd say yes. But those are all tough questions.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 24, 2010 -> 11:10 AM) They should trade for Mike Fontenot. He's not getting much playing time for the Cubs, and he'd provide some nice hitting from the left side. That's actually not a bad idea, but all things considered, I can't see any way that happens.

If you're going to platoon Beckham, just send him down. He's not going to find his confidence in a platoon system, and he's actually been worse against lefties than righties.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jun 24, 2010 -> 11:08 AM) Prince would be a huge get for KW and for this season, but it is really the anti-move for KW. Under contract for only one more year, AND a Boras client. I just cannot see KW wanting to part with the prospects necessary for such a player only for a year and a half rental Certainly. It's a HUGE risk (no pun intended) and you'd be giving up a lot of what little non established in the major leagues young talent we have left for a short term fix. But if anybody has the balls to do that, it's KW.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jun 24, 2010 -> 11:05 AM) I bet you there will be whispers on the internet of FatPrince to the Sox here in the next week or so. He makes alot of sense for both teams, we have some decent young players to trade. Agreed 100 percent. Do we have the bullets to acquire him though?

Dayan at 3rd, Omar at 2nd, Beckham down is the clear choice in my opinion. I'd be a little more keen on the Edwin Encarnacion idea if we hadn't just called Dayan up. Either way, I don't think you can make Teahen the everyday 3rd baseman again when he's healthy.

QUOTE (SexiAlexei @ Jun 24, 2010 -> 10:58 AM) I would like to throw something out there that I have been thinking about, but no one really has mentioned... How come no one is bringing up the possibility that this is just a game being played by LeBron in an attempt to better his and Cleveland's chances at getting back to the finals? Let's assume that he has already decided to stay with Cleveland. What would be a better way to help out your own situation than to give false hope to Chicago and New York. If Chicago does trade Deng and/or Hinrich, they are a shell of a team with just Rose and Noah. New York is a pretty empty team as well. Chicago is hoping to get LeBron, and so is New York. They sit this out and keep hoping to sign him, as other teams suck up the top free agents. Now say Miami gets Bosh, Amare goes to the Knicks, and Bosh stays in Miami. LeBron's only competition is now Miami, Boston, and Orlando. I think that would be the best case scenario for him if he planned on staying in Cleveland. Chicago now has one of the lesser free agents, and lost Deng. They don't pose as much of a threat as if they were to keep Deng and sign amare or bosh. New York doesn't get the top flight free agents they were hoping to get, and with the rumors of Amare and Bosh wanting to go to the Heat, they would have been this good anyways... Maybe this makes no sense, but it's something I've started to think about these past few days. What better way to help your chances than to have teams think they have a chance for you and destroy their chances of getting better by waiting you out. Hopefully you guys can explain why this makes ZERO sense, but to me right now it does, and is ruining my excitement for July 1st. I could actually see this scenario to a degree, it's not THAT crazy. The one reason I don't think that could be what is going on though is the Cavs firing everybody and then offering the world to Tom Izzo. I don't think the Cavs do all that if they secretly know LeBron is coming back.

Wow, looks like the last 20 to 25 minutes of that Slovakia/Italy game was absolutely ridiculous. Wonder what kind of odds you could have got on Italy of all teams having a 3-2 game? It's too bad New Zealand couldn't get the goal they needed to advance, but wow at Slovakia going from dead last before today in the group to advancing.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jun 24, 2010 -> 10:53 AM) Jones hasn't played in a while. You know Ozzie's not going to take Pierre out of the lineup, Quentin's on a monster rampage, and Rios hasn't been blowing the world away recently. I'd prefer if Jones played for Kotsay, but eh, whatever. I'd prefer it stay that way honestly But if you have to get him a game (and you're right, can't sit him everyday), put him in for Kotsay, not Rios.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 24, 2010 -> 10:46 AM) My guess is you're probably right...I doubt he has developed some penchant to get hits when runners are on base but not when the bases are empty. But the bottom line is, he has done it up to this point, and he has been valuable to this team because of it. Does that mean he should be expected to continue to only hit well with runners on base? No. But the simple fact is that he has up until now, and that cannot be overlooked. I will say up until the recent improved streak, he was as valuable as a high 600's OPS guy who doesn't play overwhelming defense could possibly be.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 24, 2010 -> 10:48 AM) It's only dumb insomuch as Rios is out of the lineup, and we don't really know why. We do know he had a rough game yesterday and was uncharacteristically ejected. Who knows? Maybe he is banged up a little? Maybe he hasn't been getting much sleep with the new baby. I'm not going to make judgments based on information I don't have and the person making the decisions does. Wouldn't you want to let him get right back out there after a rough game? It's not like he's a bad player, he just had a bad game. IMO, today is the last day you'd want to give a guy like that off, especially since we were just off on Monday and he had a day off Saturday too.

QUOTE (flavum @ Jun 24, 2010 -> 12:20 AM) Interleague tally... AL 102 NL 96 ..and that includes the White Sox, Rangers, and Red Sox a combined 33-9. The other AL teams are 69-87. That's incredible. Also explains how the Sox have made up so much ground, other than them obviously not losing. And yeah, not sure i've seen an ending quite like the Dodgers one last night, wow.

Yeah, have to have options left to be sent a player down without his permission.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 24, 2010 -> 10:41 AM) I really don't care our lineup is right now. We're going to win. It really does feel that way right now. It's still a dumb lineup though.

QUOTE (southsideirish71 @ Jun 24, 2010 -> 10:36 AM) Kenny next year needs to do a better job Ozzie-proofing the lineup. Giving him an Erstad-type play like Kotsay has been terrible. Kotsay is fine off the bench, and to play once in a while. Ozzie in his usual fashion overuses a role player making him a starter for all intensive purposes. The writing was on the wall with this with the comments Ozzie made when they resigned him. Timo/Erstad/DWise, all you need to do is to be a certain slappy grindy not so good left handed hitter and you make it into the lineup way too many times. I'm not sure how you can Ozzie proof a lineup other than not having any grindy veterans on your bench, and almost every team has one of those.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jun 24, 2010 -> 10:33 AM) Now it's time to all laugh at Italy... Haha yep was just coming in here to say that. I'm not sure how shocking this is though, seems like a lot of people thought they'd have issues.

We're stuck with Linebrink and his awful contract, nothing really can be done. As long as Thornton, Putz, Santos (although he's had some expected regression lately, but I still think he's good), and now Jenks lately pitch well, we're fine though. Overall, our bullpen is in better shape than a lot of teams now that Jenks seems to be finding it.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 24, 2010 -> 10:25 AM) But you needed to qualify your statement. Yes, when evaluating a player, you should not weigh his RBI total too heavily. However, when evaluating how valuable that player has been to the team's success, his RBI total is one of the most important numbers one can look at, at least a player who has Q's role on our team. Well I think Q has helped the team in the sense he's made a ton of outs with the bases empty and put up a lot of numbers with men on base, so that distribution is a plus. I don't think that's a skill though, I just think it's a fluke of good fortune that won't last. He just needs to be a good hitter in general and overall, and the good news is he's shown signs of that recently.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 24, 2010 -> 10:24 AM) Wow, Ozzie doing his best to help his buddy B. Cox not lose 3 straight games to the Sox. HORRIBLE lineup Well Viciedo getting a game is good, and Lillibridge honestly might be a better option than Gordo right now. But no Rios again?