Princess Dye

There's no reason to be upset about us potentially being bad. If you know what's good for the organization, and are a fairly calm person, you can spend the year enjoying things for what they're worth. A year like this is has been overdue in order to maintain the talent in our system.

Stop overvaluing athleticism. Jared Mitchell, Keenyn Walker, now Herm Schneider. Enough- all of you.

Quick note... apparently Metropolitan Brewing will have their Krankshaft (a Kolsch) available at US Cellular next year. If you haven't tried it, by all means check out this local product (brewed in Andersonville). Kolsch=ideal for summer, in a way it's kind of between ale and lager. perhaps ideal for someone kind of on the fence about either

QUOTE (daggins @ Feb 14, 2012 -> 04:38 PM) But not as exciting as the most electrifying man in sports entertainment. No, naturally Though didn't KW once break a clubhouse table? That's WWE-like..

Still have to play the games. Sure, things look dim. But an off-the-map young guy coming in and having a big year, it's not out of the question. We might not be taken seriously as contenders, but if our youth produces with this chance its been given...things could be a lot more exciting. Even more exciting than hearing managers and GMs rant and rave on a mic, if you can believe that.

I think everyone knows he's good enough to start on a roster this bad. But 2012 will grant Viciedo and De Aza a ton plate appearances. Regardless of performance, frankly. The platoon with Rios makes sense, even though Alex getting on track also would be a greater victory for the organization, for the hopes of getting out of the later years' $$ with a trade.

QUOTE (Cali @ Feb 14, 2012 -> 01:02 PM) I still haven't backed off my thoughts the 2012 Sox could be a 95 loss team. That is a bold, full of courage stance

Lillibridge could start at 2b for this team. Build up his value that way for half a year and maybe he's traded, maybe he just sticks here as cheap labor. While Beckham's defense could entice teams, I just don't see us trading him anytime soon. Once you held onto him during AGon negotiations, you pretty much anchored yourself to him. Trading him now for a prospect would be an admission of failure. So you can experiment with Lilli since he's been trending upwards. It doesn't hurt you to sit Gordon. You could say it hurts Gordon's development, but how long do we want to say that? Sample sizes are growing.

QUOTE (HeGone33 @ Feb 14, 2012 -> 11:05 AM) Just watched Moneyball this weekend...... I keep thinking of KW sitting in a room acting like Beane coming up with this crazy a@@ signing.... The problem is every offseason he acts like a different GM. Always with a new plan totally contradicting the plan from the prior year. At least that's the way it has come off in the last five years. Easy to say that perhaps when the L's have piled up.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 13, 2012 -> 04:49 PM) Do you really think that $9 million a year for a guy who has effectively never played above A ball is exploting a market inefficiency? Especially given where the A's are in terms of who they already have in their OF and the number of players they have sold in recent years. This is only a "New trend" in that the new trend is spending a fortune on these kind of guys from Cuba. Kenny Williams clearly pulled off the moneyball here in finding the market inefficiency, then Beane came in with big money later once the inefficiency had ironed out. And in fact, he may have paid a premium, given that the international-cap takes effect in only a few months and that has pushed this price up. To be clear, not saying I'm sure it's going to be a great or even good move. But before anyone here calls this reckless Oakland spending, it bears noting that we're hearing they had four or five years worth of scouting done on Cespedes. Oakland is meticulous and it will be interesting to see how a team that does everything in measured fashion handled this one.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 13, 2012 -> 03:20 PM) But spending $36 million on him (and winding up in a position where he is forced to trade him because there can be no arbitration/compensation) is not a Billy Beane move. Moneyball is not as some purport (not you) solely about OBP. It's about exploiting market inefficiencies. So no matter how much A's payroll goes to one player is immaterial. What it's about is getting bargain buys, and what Beane is betting on is that right now major league teams are undervaluing Cuban players. It's a Beane move, in that it's taking a new trend by the horns and looking for an advantage through it. The sheer dollars isn't anything crazy, because Oakland's payroll isn't $1M per player or something crazy like that. There's a total amount he gets to spend, and it looks like from here on in a lot of it will just happen to go to one player. But obviously this contract isn't Pujolsian.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 12, 2012 -> 07:01 PM) Then LaRussa is stuck with a bunch of players that KW picked up that he wouldn't have wanted. That's nuts. Stuck with? If LaRussa values his year off over getting youngsters that happen to not be named Molina/Castro etc, then that's all that matters. I don't see why you think the opportunity cost of keeping KW an extra year is so high. It's one thing for you to find it unlikely (of course that's normal) but I don't see why you pretend it'd be something disastrous. It may be Tony wants to be home for a bit. It could even be JR is flat out indecisive. His history is to wait out GMing changes past the point when the public expected them (Krause). But in the end we have no idea what goes through his mind on the topic. My guess would be KW gets more chances at this thing, but I have no way of knowing that's in stone simply from the circumstantial.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 12, 2012 -> 03:12 PM) Not at all. KW keeping his job for 2013 is already pretty clearly going to happen, probably 2014 as well. The evaluation for him already happened. How do we have any idea what kind of conversations the White Sox FO has had in the last year? A whole range of possibilities could be on the table. KW could have an agreement where he moves on after another year. JR doesn't necessarily have to love Hahn and be in a hurry to shift the reins to him. LaRussa could want a year before getting an important position here. There are all kinds of possibilities. The story is JR chose KW over Ozzie, but we still had rumors last year that KW was wearing thin on JR as well and that they could both be out. Seeing as how it's a rebuilding year, it could very easily be JR deciding to postpone a decision on KW a year since stakes are low. Point being, we have no idea what's going on with them. All guesses are just that.

Just general banter here-- I'm not going to just default to putting this down. Get talented people, get creative. That line of thinking worked with Sergio Santos and increased his value dramatically over a short period of time. This is more of a reach than that, but I'm not opposed to low risk-anything

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Feb 6, 2012 -> 03:57 PM) Sucks for Bogans but this is pro sports. The Bulls had a clear upgrade in Hamilton ready to go and frankly Bogans didn't even really fit on the bench anymore. Be glad he had a really fun season but not so bitter that it wasn't forever. "but this is pro sports" and not citing you specifically, but as soon as a player makes a business decision, he's called "greedy" or solely in it for the money I like that he's bitter. More players should care about fit, winning and teammates. He played like 9 minutes a game for us and was begging to stay apparently because he loved the vibe here. Bulls are better with Rip and did what they needed to do. But I feel for this guy, and I dont like hearing that we kept him hanging while other teams filled needs elsewhere, then cleared out his contract from our books.

Trayce Thompson's brother Mychel waived by the Cavs

There are sooo many other things to go after besides Alexei. Alexei's fine. PK and a few starters. The rest of it is botched.

QUOTE (flavum @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 11:13 AM) Can we get away with a bench of Johnson, Flowers, Lillibridge, and Martinez? Who's Martinez, I'm embarassed to ask

So sad how excited I am to see something. anything.

#3 - statistics... i mean "given his position" is already taking it out of what-deserves-a-statue realm. He's fine as a hitting catcher. Merely decent since he's allergic to taking a walk. and then #2 is too small to matter for high honors. statue is career achievement #1 i'll give you. And I'll get Pat Mannelly a space outside Soldier Field while i'm at it

AJ is not statue worthy. No way. Swing at everything / can't throw. Intangibles can't be everything, jeez.

what level will Trayce be at this year?

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 26, 2012 -> 02:45 PM) Does that make Greg Walker the greatest hitting coach in White Sox history? Greg Walker, mere advisor to untalented hitters is what his tombstone should read

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Jan 26, 2012 -> 10:49 AM) Meh, Ozzie put himself in this position. He had Kenny build him that 2010 team the way he wanted and it didn't work out but he kept looking for excuses. JR chose the guy whose family hasn't tarnished the Sox name in the media countless times in the past few years. If you don't think Ozzie was playing Rios ahead of guys like Viciedo just in spite of KW, then you obviously don't know the Guillen family. I am no KW apologetic, but this s*** is Ozzie's s***. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Rios was playing as a spite move, but I also will need to see all the great talents that were benched in favor of Rios during that time. Kenny won the press conference when De Aza had a nice stretch last year, but I find it hard to believe that there was this huge movement by Ozzie to suppress De Aza's advancement. And Viciedo didn't exactly turn into a world-saver last year. Again, we get back to a poor bag of groceries to work with. And yes a sometimes unfair manager. But when he had proper talent to work with, he too was easier to live with. It was also nice when his kid was a bit more anonymous.

I'd hate to see an all-time Sox great have his legacy tarnished by this cloudy mess For a smaller example... Magglio should be remembered as one of the great Sox players (assuming we never get the conclusive call on his possible PED use). It's a shame he's vilified or at best forgotten. Ozzie did a lot of good here, and I think to say he "quit" is a shorthand way for the way people really want to describe it, which is that his feud with Kenny got him to the point where he lost sight of what was right for the team, and affected his motivation for going forward (with Kenny specifically) JR was in a position to choose between KW and Ozzie, and JR chose the guy who brought in Dunn/Peavy/Rios. The very guys that were causing Ozzie's L's to pile up. It was a bad situation and we should just be glad it's over, and that all sides can get on with it. No manager is eternal, and honestly-- this is less messy than it could have been. As strange as that is to consider.