Balta1701

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jun 23, 2010 -> 12:16 PM) The 1990 White Sox won 94 games, which was good for 2nd most in the AL that season and 3rd best in all of baseball, and were led by a great pitching staff. Alex Fernandez (as a 20 year old, having just been drafted that year) and Jack McDowell had solid seasons, Eric King and Greg Hibbard had great seasons, and the bullpen was phenomenal, which was led by Thigpen, who put up a 1.83 ERA and 1.04 WHIP. It's not their fault that the A's won 103 games and that the Wild Card hadn't been invented yet. Really? I thought he put that up on the 89 squad. My mistake.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jun 23, 2010 -> 12:19 PM) Your team has one of the three lowest payrolls in the league, but its the managers fault he cant win a division against Philly & New York. Of course. I think he did a great job with what he was given, and if Atlanta does get him, should be a great hire for them. There's certainly an argument that he hasn't done the kind of job developing players that he needed to do in that role. How many talented failures does it look like they've run into? A few years ago, that team looked supposedly loaded, and it seems like only half the guys I can think of are actually still with the team.

Love it. Still love seeing nontraditional matchups. Only slightly bothered by the unbalanced schedule.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jun 23, 2010 -> 11:39 AM) Nice. Where do you find those splits? You can get them at ESPN.com, just go to the team stats and sort by position. The issue with them is...they're including everyone who has played SS, including people who have sucked as replacements/bench players. Of course, this does appear to be a down season for SS stats as of now, but here's a different way to look at Alexei's bat so far: Alexei Ramirez has an OPS 20 points lower than Yuniesky Betancourt.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Jun 23, 2010 -> 11:03 AM) Also the first week is the only thing holding down his June numbers, which are steadily climbing. June 8-13 he went 3/22 (.136 average).

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Jun 23, 2010 -> 10:51 AM) Just go back and watch some of those Royals games. Or ask Caulfield, he was watching them. The guy turns easy plays into thrilling adventures, and to put a guy like that out there, you need a bat a hell of a lot better than one with a career .268/.331/.417 line. I thought we had standards for f***s sake. If you can be the one to convince Carlos Quentin to start putting up a line better than that, I'd be absolutely thrilled.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Jun 23, 2010 -> 10:47 AM) but if a Flowers deal gets you Dunn then you wake up and do it. If I were the Nats, I wouldn't do that deal, not when Dunn is going to get me 2 draft picks for walking.

NASA says hi again.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Jun 23, 2010 -> 10:36 AM) 3. Dude, CQ isn't some gold glover out there in RF but if you really think Teahen is comparable to CQ in the OF you're nuts. How do I know this? By watching Teahen play out there when he was with the Royals. The guy plays the OF like dudes are hitting whiffle balls out there. He looks like a cat chasing string. He's an uncoordinated hack who would make people long for the days of Rob Mackowiak. Going to the numbers, Teahen's career UZR/150 in RF is -2.0 and in LF is 5.9 (only 31 career games in LF). Of course, his numbers at 3b this year are down from his career numbers significantly as well, so either he could be worse now than he was beforehand on defense, or there could be some statistical blips going on.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 23, 2010 -> 10:30 AM) I'd rather have the 2010 Alexei who has been spectacular at SS, except for a couple of naps. Now that he's playing solid defense, can he take the solid defense into the batters box with him?

QUOTE (Chet Kincaid @ Jun 23, 2010 -> 10:27 AM) I saw Beckham strike out in his last ab last night. He looks like a defeated man. Is he having confidence issues? Sending him down might destroy the little confidence he has left. What happens if he sucks in AAA too? I know I was jokingly calling him Mike Caruso, but wow... this has a chance to be an epic failure if he doesn't start righting the ship. I mean the guy was talked about being traded straight up for Adrian Gonzalez last year... and a lot of Sox fans said no way to that. Now he can't hit over .210? I don't know if the Sox broadcast showed it, but the Braves broadcast followed him into the dugout, and man he looked despondent. Threw his gum across the dugout, sat down looking pissed, etc.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jun 23, 2010 -> 09:48 AM) I see your CNN story, and raise you an MSNBC story with direct quotes: By the way, it's worth noting that McCrystal apparently still hasn't learned how to say "no comment" to the press when there's a situation that requires a no comment.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Jun 23, 2010 -> 10:19 AM) Maybe Kenny grows a pair? If Kenny thinks we've got a shot he's going to go for it. Kenny isn't going to let Ozzie cockblock him out of a division title if he feels he's got a chance. Yeah, but the question in terms of going for it is...what does KW have that he's willing to give up? I still think trading any of Flowers, Viciedo, Morel, or Hudson is basically suicide for next year since by my count we have 10 open roster spots for next year and only about $10 million or so available for free agency. Out of those, I think Morel is the most tradeable...but that means you're comfortable with Teahen at 3b for the remainder of his contract.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Jun 23, 2010 -> 10:19 AM) Monday Turns out he sat against the Cubs last week. Wasn't counting "offdays", was counting the kind of extra off days that Konerko and Rios get.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Jun 23, 2010 -> 10:16 AM) Like I said, we need help. Replace Pierre with someone who is better and add a big bat - whala! Now we're killing people. The SoxTalk Hate Club was making it out like there was no realistic way to fix the offense this year, but that's not the case. Juan Pierre isn't getting replaced and we all know it, so let's stop pretending otherwise. I can't even remember the last time he had a day off.

That's a list of 7 players, 3 of whom have OPS values above .800. It's decent, but not great. Then you throw in 2 sub-.600 OPS values into that lineup in Beckham and Jones/Kotsay, and at best it's "average" but it's no where near capable of carrying the pitching staff if they have a bad stretch again.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Jun 23, 2010 -> 09:53 AM) Huh. Interesting. I guess he's also a player that needs to be judged later in the year since he hibernates until summer. We haven't really seen a stretch for Alexei since 2008 where he hits everything that is thrown to him and shows occasional power. Either he'll do one or he'll do the other, he hasn't had any real consistency since 08.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jun 23, 2010 -> 09:48 AM) I see your CNN story, and raise you an MSNBC story with direct quotes: And right there, he's doing nothing but protecting himself, such that if Obama decides to fire him, he can say he was "fired", or if Obama decides to keep him on, he can deny he ever offered it. He's never going to answer that question with an "affirmative". It'd be almost as bad of PR as having a case of bud light lime and then ranting about how much you dislike Biden and Holbrooke. Either way, the Obama/McCrystal showdown was supposed to start 5 minutes ago.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Jun 23, 2010 -> 09:44 AM) I'm not gonna look it up, but is that seriously a below average line for a major league shortstop? I know he'll never be an OBP guy but I just figured his offense was at least major-league average for the position. Right now his OPS+ is 81. Last year it was 87, when he put up a .723 OPS on the season. It was 103+ when he put up a .788 OPS as a rookie. He probably needs to get that OPS up in the .750-.775 range to be an average offensive SS.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Jun 23, 2010 -> 09:45 AM) I just don't think there's much else you can do but rotate Viciedo/Vizquel/Teahen for the rest of the season at 2b/3b and hope for the best defensively There's more than can be done than that, but it depends on who picks up their game. If Becks and Q could ever find a groove, then things get a lot easier, but until that happens, we're struggling with too many lineup wounds and not enough gauze.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jun 23, 2010 -> 09:43 AM) He apparently is denying that he ever offered his resignation. CNN is running that a Pentagon source expects he will in fact have his resignation accepted and the Obama admin has asked the Pentagon to suggest replacements.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jun 23, 2010 -> 09:42 AM) Well, drinking Bud Light Lime should also be a firing offense, so get rid of his ass. Apparently it's his favorite beer.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 23, 2010 -> 09:34 AM) Simple. Beckham down for at least 2-3 weeks to try to catch fire at the plate and then come back up. Vizquel at 2B, Viciedo at 3B. Right now, we're probably pushing our luck in how hard we're riding Vizquel. I wouldn't be surprised if they try to get to Teahen's return and then if GB is terrible, I'd have Teahen take his roster spot.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jun 23, 2010 -> 09:38 AM) Speaking of which... When was the last time the Sox won 7 straight? I assume you have to go back to the 8 straight they won, multiple times, in 2005. I know they had a 9 game winning streak in 2006, because that was the first 9 game winning streak the franchise had since the 80's. They also had an 8 game winning streak in 2008, Wednesday, May 14 to Thursday, May 22

QUOTE (Tex @ Jun 22, 2010 -> 08:11 PM) I see the need, but the state can't pay for everything. The remarkable thing is...if a "fresh fruits and vegetables program" actually worked, it would save a lot more money than it cost, because after a few years you'd start slashing away at health care costs and increasing productivity.