Balta1701

QUOTE (elgonzo4sox @ Sep 13, 2010 -> 02:25 PM) Maybe Ozzie's main screw-up (since KW ultimately controls who's on the roster, not him) has been in not playing Jones enough. Really, this has to be challenged. We actually did try playing Andruw Jones nearly every day for a good part of April/May and we saw pretty quickly what happened; he got hurt and his body broke down. That was followed by a good long slump after he'd had to sit out for a while to rest and recover. Jones has played just about as much as you can possibly play him without breaking down. What we ought to have understood though is that with guys like Jones, and yes, Thome...if you push them beyond the point where they start breaking down...their performance suffers. So...the Sox got worse average production from Thome than the Twins have...but that was fully predictable from Jim's splits; each of the last 4 years he wore down in the 2nd half, and his OPS dropped by an average of about 75 points from 1st half to 2nd half. The Twins got around that...by limiting Thome to 175 PA's in the first half, and now he's killing the ball in the 2nd half. Jones has put up good numbers for his role...but he's put up good numbers for his role because we haven't pushed him too far beyond his role. Try to get more out of him and he's going to tire out and break down.

QUOTE (thxfrthmmrs @ Sep 13, 2010 -> 01:47 PM) 1) that is not saying much. 2) Lillibridge didn't reinvent himself, he is still a poor hitter. He got off to a hot start and that was a fluke, his post ASB OPS is .500 3) With hard work, some players may turn out to be pretty decent defensively. But Viceido is way too big, lacks the quickness and the range to be a sufficient third basemen. (There is a reason they call him Tank) A similar case would be Miguel Cabrera, who was terrible in the outfield and third base, and eventually switched over to first base. Viceido is the same path. 4) Why put Viceido at third when we have Morel who is almost MLB ready? His glove at third is great from what i've heard. He should be ready by ST next year, if not definitely by June. We can resign Omar and put him at third until Morel is ready. I think I have to half-disagree with you here. No matter how big DV is, he's still fairly quick getting to the ball at 3b. He also has a major asset that you've neglected to mention...he has a rocket launcher for a right arm...so he'd be able to cover up somewhat for deficiencies with his speed. That said...if both of them turn out...Morel at 3b and Viciedo at 1b/DH is a better option than Morel blocked by Viciedo and traded for peanuts. Even if he took a big, big, big jump up this year...I wouldn't pencil Morel in at 3b any time next year just yet. He's got an injury to recover from and his bat still needs development time. He could easily be ready by next June...or he could hit a slump and need some time to work through it. He raced upwards this year with doubles power; with time, some of that might turn into HR power. I'd hate to see us rush him when he clearly is a guy who could benefit from more time in Charlotte. I think Omar will be back next year unless he decides to retire. I'm not sure how else to structure things though...there's a whole lot of other decisions to make first.

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Sep 13, 2010 -> 01:34 PM) That would be another Josh Field experiment. If defense isn't there to begin with, how much can a guy improve in that area? Hitters go in slumps but they can still be helpful with the glove. Guys can improve an awful lot with the glove given experience at the position. Case in point; Alexei Ramirez. Careless and disappointing at SS last year. Experience and an offseason of work...and the best fielding SS in the league this year.

QUOTE (ChWRoCk2 @ Sep 13, 2010 -> 11:52 AM) If he didn't have possession when he initially caught it but fell to the ground while regaining possession towards the end and then the ball comes loose once he hits the ground, yes I agree it is not a catch. I'm arguing he had possession from the very beginning, clearly had the ball in both hands with two feet, I mean heck, he even had possession with 1 hand till he let it go when going to celebrate. Idk if he made a football move but 2 feet and possession should be enough imo. To me rules need to be consistent across the whole field of play and the end zone shouldn't be an exception. I feel that had this same play happened on the 20 yard line (lets say) it would be a catch because the ground can't cause a fumble. Whatever, all that matters is GB won and should have a cakewalk next week vs. the Bills. It wasn't a fumble that the ground caused, it was an incompletion. Here's my counter-example...let's say the same play happens on the 20 yard line...It's a 3rd and 25 from the 45 yard line, Johnson goes up, gets the ball, gets bumped on the way up, goes down backwards, and as he's going down he shifts his body position to try to stretch his arm out for the first down, and while he's stretching his arm out, the ball hits the ground and pops out. He's had possession the whole way down but the first legitimate movement he's made after the catch winds up jarring the ball loose. What do we call that? I think it' gets called an incompletion. The only difference here is that he might have been trying to spike it instead of trying to stretch out.

QUOTE (thxfrthmmrs @ Sep 13, 2010 -> 12:33 PM) But then having both Jones and Quentin in the lineup means that we will have two homer happy guys in the everyday lineup who will not hit above .250, and possibly 3 if we go with Flowers at catcher, do we really want that? First of all...I wouldn't care about that at all if they put up decent OBP's. More importantly though...what makes you think Andruw Jones will be back next year?

So...guys...the ones who keep pointing at other things that went wrong or that hurt the Sox this year are missing the point. Yes, lots of things have hurt the White Sox this year. There is, however, a reason why we keep coming back to the Thome thing and the DH spot; unlike so very many of the other things that have hurt us, the DH spot being a problem was entirely predictable, and it was a completely self-inflicted wound. By that, I mean, first and foremost, we didn't lose out on Thome because we were outbid (although you could slightly make that case regarding Damon). We didn't come into the season with Kotsay and Jones as the primary DH's out of necessity, we did so out of choice. Go up and down the list of other things that went wrong for us...and Hell throw in the Twins...you won't find a single example of a self-inflicted wound anything like what we did to ourselves with that decision. Some examples of things that went wrong; Jenks imploding; yeah it was predictable, but we took steps to cover it (Putz, Thornton). Peavy getting hurt; yeah, predictable that we'd lose a starter, so we went into the season 6 deep there. Teahen struggling on defense? We've got Vizquel as a backup/late game replacement. Quentin struggling on defense? Jones is a solid defensive replacement. Joe Nathan getting hurt? Hardly missed a beat. Justin Morneau going down? Didn't miss a beat. Bad things are going to happen to teams. Some times you can't plan for them; the Twins wouldn't have recovered had they lost both Mauer and Morneau. The Sox got hit hard when not only Jenks struggled, but Thornton and Putz hit the DL and Santos hit the rookie wall simultaneously; you can't recover when 4 different parts of your bullpen suddenly stink. The difference with the Kotsay thing is everyone paying attention could see it coming. Even if he was very good, Kotsay would still have gotten too many at bats, been a defensive liability in the OF, been week against LHP, and at best put up a .750 OPS. There really was no way that the DH spot wasn't going to be a weakness even if everything turned out right...and the team managed to, through some mental gymnastics, convince themselves not only that this wouldn't be a problem, but that this would be a major asset, and that Jim wouldn't do any damage to us if he was on the Twins! Listing other things that went wrong doesn't change the fact that this error was entirely predictable in January. That's why we keep coming back to this, whether we like it or not. It was a mistake on day 1. It was never going to work.

QUOTE (ChWRoCk2 @ Sep 13, 2010 -> 10:52 AM) The rule kind of conflicts with other rules too, I like what the announcers said at the end that it is just like a guy crossing the plain and losing the ball. An RB dives in and the ball crosses the plain but he loses the ball, technically a TD but now I'm not so sure. On a side note, they should have never gotten rid of the force out rule. The difference for the RB crossing the plane and fumbling is that the running back would already have firmly established possession before fumbling the ball. If a receiver goes up outside of the end zone and does exactly what Johnson does; catches the ball but goes to the ground and loses the football on the ground by extending his arm/showboating a bit too much, they're not going to call it a catch and I don't think they should. If you go up for the ball you need to keep it in your control the whole way through your landing for it to be a catch. Being in the end zone shouldn't save you.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Sep 13, 2010 -> 10:44 AM) What jinx are you referring to? I believe it's the "The White Sox playing the Twins" Jinx of this decade.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Sep 13, 2010 -> 10:39 AM) Never underestimate this team's ability to give up. I do it a lot easier than they do. For example, down 6-0 in the first inning, I put football back on. They came storming back.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Sep 13, 2010 -> 10:25 AM) As I thought about it more last night. Here's what I came up with: The rule is dumb. It was obvious to everyone he clearly had possession. Given the rule as it stands, the ruling was right. You cant "prove" he had possession of the ball with his one hand. His hand and the ball could have been falling at the same rate, therefore not a completed catch In summery, right call, DUMB rule I really disagree that it's a dumb rule...I think 95% of the times I can think of that the rule has been applied it's probably prevented things that I think weren't touchdowns. If a guy goes up for the ball, gets control of the ball, comes down hard, and the ball comes out because he hits the ground, i don't think of that as a catch in the field of play and I don't think of that as a touchdown in the end zone. The only thing that was different in this case is that the ball came out because Johnson carelessly let it out of his hands rather than having it jarred out of his hands, but nonetheless...I think you should have to hold onto the ball through the whole catch process for it to be a catch. If Johnson had done exactly that same thing on a catch in the middle of the field, it would probably have been ruled incomplete

Jimmy Clausen might wind up being the starter in Carolina next weekend. Moore went down with a serious enough concussion that they took him to the hospital.

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 13, 2010 -> 09:50 AM) They just benched him two straight games without having any obvious physical ailments. When's the last time they did that with a starter? Am I wrong or haven't they done that regularly with people who have been struggling? I could have swore that Beckham got that treatment back in June, and he deserved/needed it. AJ sort of got it but he has the "the pitchers love him" deal going for him. I feel like Alexei got that last year. Rios definitely did.

If the season ended today, Jason Heyward would wind up with a .397 OBP. That would be the 7th best OBP ever for a guy age 20 or younger. His OBP has been .520 for his last 100 at bats, so he's got a chance to move that beyond .400 soon.

Link

I see the 2009 version of Cliff Lee came out yesterday to rip apart the Yankees.

Overall I think everyone would admit that at some level, the Bears performance was a mixed bag. Lots of reasons to be negative, but just as many for optimism. They moved the ball well the whole game, but they moved it against the Lions. But, it was also a better Lions D than they've seen recently. The defense shut everyone down, but they shut down the Lions. The Lions moved the ball, but it was against the prevent defense only. The Bears moved the ball, but they couldn't hold onto it and had enough blown plays and TO's to hand the other team the win. They got themselves in position to make plays but failed to do so. Like it or not...where they go from here is going to depend on how the coaching staff reacts to this game. If this game is Forte's last 2 fumbles of the season and DA spends the week looking over video of how those balls bounced off his hands while he was wide open...they've got a shot. They spend the week ignoring those problems and letting them fester...and they're in trouble.

QUOTE (thxfrthmmrs @ Sep 12, 2010 -> 09:18 PM) I think he usually sits at 95 this season. When he was having weight issues the previous years, he throws 93-94, and he allegedly lost weight coming into this season, so figures. The funny thing is, the guys throw over 100mph Strasburg and Chapman are skinny dipsticks also, it really depends on the guys arm speed to a good fastball, so Sale should be fine even if he stays Alexei skinny Bobby's "Average" fastball this season according to Pitch F/X data has sat at 95 mph...but he's been a wide bell curve around that number. He's thrown 22 pitches this season that have broken 97 mph.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 13, 2010 -> 09:06 AM) You'll see this offseason, I think, that Ozzie will no longer have that sort of control over building the roster. What gives you that impression?

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 13, 2010 -> 02:52 AM) Me too. They must sell a s***load of merchandise. We have great hats and uniforms. Does merchandise go to the individual team or does it go into an MLB shared account?

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 12, 2010 -> 10:28 PM) Ozzie is "saving" Quentin to face Liriano and Duensing. Good call Ozzie, Quentin destroys LHP. At this point, seems like Quentin has played himself out of the organization. Very rarely do we see guys fall out of favor with Ozzie, KW, etc. and get back into their good graces. What has given you the impression that he's fallen "Out of favor" with these guys? Despite Jones performing better, Quentin has continued to get at bats, and probably gotten more at bats than he deserved.

QUOTE (JPN366 @ Sep 12, 2010 -> 08:09 PM) That trade would never go down. I think he meant in terms of "mass".

QUOTE (thxfrthmmrs @ Sep 12, 2010 -> 07:54 PM) i still remember the good ol days when Jenks was throwing 100 mph then he "bulks up" and couldn't even strike out Mark Reynolds. Bobby was still touching 98-99 earlier this season.

QUOTE (J.Reedfan8 @ Sep 12, 2010 -> 06:19 PM) He is actually the perfect "rotating DH" that Ozzie was preaching for. Might not be great defensively, but can play there (both LF and RF) in a pinch, and is a much better hitter than Kotsay/Jones. Hopefully KW can find a much better overall RF next season.. or find a CF and stick Rios and his still stellar D in RF. Actually, I disagree...he's not exactly the perfect "Rotating DH" because he's a righty who doesn't have severe splits against LHP. In fact, he's sort of been quite a bit better (.116 points in OPS) against righties than against lefties...which kinda makes it impossible for us since Ozzie would never platoon a righty with a righty.

Kevin Kolb with a concussion, the Eagles have Michael Vick as their QB in the 2nd half. He started off with a 25 yard run and a first down completion that ended in a fumble by the WR.