Balta1701

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Oct 18, 2011 -> 06:30 PM) I'm making no judgement here. As I said in a previous post, Kenny does have a right to have a spy in the clubhouse, but when things go in a dysfunctional way he has to be held somewhat accountable for it. And KW has now taken an action to resolve that problem...removing the single individual he judged to be most responsible for that dysfunction. If everyone in an office hates one worker and can't get along with them, the boss doesn't fire himself or herself.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Oct 18, 2011 -> 06:18 PM) If Kenny wants to have a spy in the clubhouse that's his right. It does add to the dysfunction of it all though. This is the general manager of the team. He spends Spring Training with them. He's turned over a table mid-season before. The General Manager being present should not add to dysfunction.

Ronnie Brown to the Lions for a backup RB and a 7th round pick.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Oct 18, 2011 -> 05:29 PM) I don't. He would still be a great weapon off the bench, and there would be no better teaching tool then going up to the plate, hitting a ball 480 feet, and going back to said pupil and saying "see, that is how you hit the curve" I gotta think "The time I need to stay in shape enough to swing a bat" and "The time I need to get in work with 25+ hitters" would have to be mutually exclusive.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Oct 18, 2011 -> 05:36 PM) Who knows what they didn't trust him with? Maybe the coaches talked amongst themselves about what a terrible signing Dunn was and Coop told Kenny about it.

An all-electric DeLorean. I really can't add anything to that description.

QUOTE (onedude @ Oct 18, 2011 -> 03:24 PM) Yeah, I mentioned McGwire in another thread....No experience and he was dropped in to coach hitting? He doesn't come across as a guy you would expect to coach anything let alone hitting. Very similar to Thome's general style too...with you know the "massive increase in muscle mass" exception. Lotta home runs, lotta strikeouts, very unique hitting style, big uppercut swing, lotta walks, weak on batting average. I probably didn't think Mac was a very good choice as hitting coach for them, but hey, they were the #6 offense in the NL Last year and the #1 offense in the NL this year. Yeah, they added Berkman, they had issues with Rasmus, but thems the results.

I used to think the Bears needed to have Hanie come in and play 1-2 really good games so that they could trade him and load up on picks. Now I'm convinced what they really need is to convince Cutler to retire, temporarily. Someone will empty out a decades worth of drafts for him based on that standard.

For a more needle-filled comparison, Mark McGwire hasn't yet been treated as the enemy in St. Louis as a hitting coach, and he not only never coached anything else, he took 5 years away from the game to hide in a hole surrounded by steroid investigators.

There was also a lot of talk when he was here of Thome working with Konerko in particular on hitting.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Oct 18, 2011 -> 03:04 PM) I thought you were pointing out that the compensation was comparable and thus justified. I couldn't figure out your angle. I now think you are agreeing that it's an insane overpay. If that is the case, then I commend you on your greatness. Yes. Just pointing out how truly insane of an overpay that was.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Oct 18, 2011 -> 03:00 PM) This is where the experience argument makes a lot more sense to me... Managing a game you have been a part of for your entire life is one thing, teaching someone a very particular and technical skill without any experience is quite another. But again, I am too ignorant on the subject to really have a strong opinion. You and I never agree on anything in baseball do we? I think the experience one impacts a manager's job a lot more than a hitting coach's job because the manager is much more about dealing with personalities than the hitting coach's job. Both the manager and the hitting coach have a technical side (actual moves, actual mechanics), but a manager has to massage egoes and deal with crises in a way I don't think a hitting coach must do.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Oct 18, 2011 -> 02:59 PM) Are you trying to compare the two? An up-and-coming hot 26-year old commodity vs a declining, retired 32 year old? The book isn't closed on Kolb yet, but that f***er is about 98% shut on old Palmer. Yes, I'm trying to compare the 2. The hot up and coming commodity got a 2nd round pick and a nickel back. The declining, retired 32 year old got a first round pick and a conditional additional first rounder. What conclusion do you take from that?

QUOTE (Chet Kincaid @ Oct 18, 2011 -> 02:54 PM) This. Thome doesn't seem all that scientific. Can you imagine him trying to help fix Beckham? Please no. Thome has a unique style but unlike say, Thomas, he's never been described as being particularly abrasive personally, and I can't recall hearing hitting coaches complain about him like we can think of with Frank. He's a guy who has been hitting in the modern era, is one of the guys that modern statistics love because of his OBP and power numbers, and has probably gone through a large number of hitting coach styles in that time. I'm less inclined to immediately cast chagrin on this idea than I am with, for example, Frank. If I were putting together a coaching staff and he were interested, I'd at least sit him down and chat.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 18, 2011 -> 02:30 PM) That article made it sound like Mark's return would screw things up in part because of Humber and Stewart who both reeked the last half. Mark's return isn't making anything inconvenient IMO. What do you guys think of the two of them? Are they just average or 2 guys to get excited about? Stewart needs to start the season at AAA. He's never had a full season above AA and only had about 6 AAA innings before we called him up. He's raw, and not unexpectedly so, since he was only recently converted from relieving to starting by the Blue Jays. He's a good candidate to be the "6th starter" next year, the guy we stash at AAA as a starter to use if Peavy gets hurt or to give Sale some time off in late July when the innings load comes back to hurt him. He has a better set of offspeed stuff than I expected but he doesn't have good control on it yet, that means sometimes he has games like the one against the Twins where he's locating it, and some days he gets shelled because no one swings at anything other than his fastball. I wasn't really impressed with the sink on his 2 seamer just yet either. I'd really like to see that ball become "Heavier" in the forcing ground balls sense. Altogether though, the stuff is possibly there long term but needs some improvement. Philip Humber...I'm genuinely excited about. He might pull a 2004 Loaiza on me, but this is a classic Coop Fixed him case. Suddenly goes from having no confidence in his stuff to throwing strikes, making people look silly, and winning ballgames. His 2nd half was entirely predictable and any manager who wasn't drunk off his tail for the first half could have seen his problem...he never threw more than 140 innings and wasn't stretched out at all, so he'd get past 4-5 innings and his arm would tire out. Then, later in the season, he was genuinely tired until the Sox gave him a rest, then he came back and threw some solid games afterwards. Intelligent use of Humber and realizing where he could/coudln't have been pushed would have made his season look a lot better. But otherwise, there's reason to be excited about him especially since we pushed him to 163 big league innings this year.

I originally read that and thought "Doesn't that sound like an insult? Congrats, you made the AFL Hall of fame!" "Really? How many years was I stuck here?"

Kevin Kolb received a 2nd round pick and Dominique Rogers-Cromartie as compensation.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Oct 18, 2011 -> 01:27 PM) Carson Palmer was literally one of the worst qb's in the nfl last year. It was torture to watch him play. He did look a lot better once Owens and Johnson were out of the way. His last few games, his completion percentage, rating, yards per attempt all shot up, they won 3 games, he threw fewer INT's.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Oct 18, 2011 -> 12:07 PM) Exactly my point. Advanced metrics love him, classic metrics (like those used by Elias) don't love him, hence type B. This is the exact opposite of what I wrote. The Advanced metrics think 2 guys with fewer innings pitched and ERA's nearly a run higher were just about as valuable as Mark!. The advanced metrics hate him.

QUOTE (mcgrad70 @ Oct 18, 2011 -> 01:28 PM) I'm glad Guillen's gone too but nothing would surprise me about Cooper. He's grossly overrated as a pitching coach. The entire staff and Kenny should have been terminated. What exactly about the last 10 years of White Sox baseball suggests that our current pitching coach is anything other than one of the top ones in the game?

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Oct 18, 2011 -> 11:04 AM) I'm pretty sure Elias doesn't use any 'advanced metrics.' In fact, WAR likes Buerhle more than anything else because he's such an innings horse. Fangraphs had Buehrle at 3.4 WAR last year, Danks at 3.2, and Floyd at 3.6. If you believe those numbers actually truly reflect their relative performance on the mound last year, I have a bridge to sell you.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 18, 2011 -> 10:47 AM) There is zero chance the Bears trade Forte. At worst he is their franchise player next year. They'd probably move him if they got the same package the Raiders just offered up (First rounder and a conditional first the next year).

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Oct 18, 2011 -> 10:43 AM) You are crazy. If you think the team can just easily replace the productivity of Danks, Floyd, Quentin etc with in-house guys (you name Sale, Santiago, Viciedo), you are crazy. Those three players, albeit not superstars, are quite productive. I'd be shocked if Sale and Santiago matched 75% of the innings tossed by Danks and Floyd. As for Viciedo, the jury is still very much out on him. The team needs to not think about contending if it really wants to contend any time soon. Let's be honest though...the guys you mentioned simply weren't great last year. G put up a 4.37 ERA, John Danks a 4.32. Quentin missed a month again, and was still only a low .800's OPS bat most of the year. You can't replace all 3 of them, but 2 of those 3 going can still be covered...if things go right. And if things go wrong...having them wouldn't matter anyway.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 18, 2011 -> 10:40 AM) He already had 2012 in his pocket by forcing the extension last year. He should have gotten that extension anyway when the team decided not to dump him. No way you let a manager sit there with 1 year on his contract and a team that ought to be a contender...you don't want a manager to win a W.S. and then wind up being a free agent.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 18, 2011 -> 10:34 AM) That is crap. There is nothing in baseball that says you have to go down with the ship because you boss is a raging lunatic, especially when you have that lunatic didn't bring you in. Ozzie took the ship down by going public with his "demands". I think that Ozzie took down the ship by failing to win the Central 3 years in a row, personally. I thought it was plenty clear that his job was at risk last year, and then the chairman decided to give him one more shot this year, with basically an $125 million ultimatum.