rowand's rowdies

Frank Thomas Paul Konerko Mark Buehrle Aaron Rowand Herbert Perry and Ken Griffey, Jr

Actually no I would never be for a hitter with a problem with his swing taking up golf for 2 months. There's a million other ways to replace other negative things.

GLENDALE, Ariz. — To escape his tortured thoughts after last season, Alex Rios returned home to Puerto Rico and dabbled with golf for the first time. Rios guessed he hit the course daily for two months. "I took my head out of it a little bit and wanted a restart,'' the White Sox outfielder recalled Tuesday. "But it was very frustrating. I played every day, but I didn't get any better.'' Proof came in Rios' low score for 18 holes: 126. So breaking 100 would make it a good day for the bad golfer, right? "Definitely,'' Rios said, laughing. -Chicago Tribune Article So you have a terrible year at the plate...what should I do to fix my swing....i know, I'll play golf! Just what we needed more lazy fly balls from Rios. And how terrible is it that he cant even improve his game, the athlete he is, to a decent level after playing for 2 months? 126 is an average of 7 per hole. You can buy the nicest golf clubs and play any course you want, are a world class professional athlete, you play for 60 straight days, and cant shoot in the low 100s? Alex Rios, congrats, you are my least favorite White Sox player in history. I have no hope you will turn it around, because you lack the ability to adjust. To say you are a professional athlete is a disgrace to professional athletes. What a waste. Just awful.

At best a nice contributor to a team playing to it's potential - competitive in the AL Central At worst he doesnt cost anything and we can eat his contract or trade him mid season for a prospect. So at worst this is a move that doesn't hurt us at all. I like it. Makes some cubs jerseys have a sox player on the back...that's sweet. Suck it cubs.

As the worst off-season for any of my favorite teams ever in the 20 some years I have been old enough to follow pro sports, I have never seen a worse, or maybe less exciting is a better way to put it, off-season as far as changes goes than this one for our sox. No additions (sorry Dan Johnson, Adam Dunn outhit ya last year), get rid of Buehrle, Quentin, and Santos, 3 of the players I actually still liked on this team for a 3 pitching prospects (although 2 of them do excite me a little I'll admit in Castro and Molina). The board is stale with no new info and old topics. I live in Tempe and am ready for spring training to start so let's talk roster spot competitions. There are more knowledgeable people on this board then I when it comes to the Sox minor leaguers (why I come to this board mainly) so enlighten the rest of us of the competitions and spots open for spring training so we know what to look for....

Fair enough, but plenty of those 25 have been in the 9th inning. Not sure how many but I've seen him struggle in enough 9th innings to know he's not closer material. 9th inning is a different animal. I like Thornton as our 8th inning guy, I just don't think he's got closer mental makeup. He lost the job last year and is in his late 30s. Why does he deserve another shot to close. He's not our closer on our next division winning team most likely, so let's move towards that solution imo.

Matt Thornton - Career 20 Saves 25 Blown Saves. Enough said. He's NOT a closer. He's a solid 8th inning set up guy or situational lefty. Not sure it's Juan Pierre's fault he has blown 25 saves out of 45 (44% success rate)... I hope Robin is bluffing, because that's not a good start as a manager by saying you are going to throw a guy into a position where he has repetitively has failed. Just like Dunn in the field. If Robin is as smart as we think/hope he is, neither of those things will happen more than a few times or by neccessity.

Impact on our White Sox...thinking KW signs Cespedes now that he has established residency. Kenny can't hold back from countering this move because in his head he is competing with the Tigers in 2012 and 2013.... also can't let Cubs outbid us...they are taking a shot at the sox with their new marketing (baseball is better during the day, our baseball is better) also can't let the marlins take ozzie, buehrle, and cespedes from us... i think kenny overpays to get him.

Cespedes goes 0-3 with 3 Ks and a hit by pitch in his DWL debut...could it have gone any worse for him? Scouting report say he couldn't handle slider.

Ya I didn't call him a disgrace as a person. He's a disgrace as a player because he was just released due to his awful performance as a player. I'm sure he's a nice guy. Who is a disgrace is some losers who sit on a message board and get offended and call people names when a guy who sucks at his job is called a disgrace, which he is as far as baseball goes, which is what I was saying. Lighten up Francis.

Victory for us, we don't have to eat that contract. Nice work KW. Teahen....you are a disgrace. And no im not suggesting we bring him back.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Dec 14, 2011 -> 07:13 AM) Let me make this easy. f*** Cowley. f*** Danks. f*** Danks' talentless brother. f*** Peavy. Very well said. They aren't champions. They've let us down. Coop won us a series. He is regarded as one of the top pitching coaches in baseball, no arguing that. The fact that his job was on the line is the pitching staff's fault. Peavy and Danks were part of that. Stop reading Cowley, trade Danks after the market runs dry for whatever we can get, danks brother wasnt even selected in the rule 5 draft, and if we could...we would trade you in a second peavy if anyone would even take on half your undeserved contract. I side with Coop, and milkman. Let's move on from these future opponents and out of baseball players the DDP trio.

Exactly, it doesn't happen often, but it does happen. You can look at Rios Dunn and Peavy as sunken cost but if you can get one of them gone (along with a Danks or Floyd) thats a lot of savings. Brings us back to a level where we can add or keep the rest of our guys, see how we do during the year, and trade them during the season. The Tigers took back Willis with Cabrera. I think Willis has 2 years and $20+ million on his deal. They also gave up Maybin and Andrew Miller, two of their top prospects at the time along with another few prospects I believe. If that happened, can't it happen again? Especially if we dont ask for the prospect haul? I realize we don't have a Cabrera calibur player, but is Danks close enough to rid us of Rios to the right team? Do the Marlins and Ozzie have enough $ left to want Dunn since they missed Albert and probably Fielder if they can also get Danks or Floyd? Thorton since they need a set up guy for Bell? As bad as Dunn was last year, his potential to hit bombs might entice a team for 3 years $42 million? Maybe if we throw in some cash? Aramis just got 3 years $39 mil and he is inconsistent and injury prone. Lots of possibilities, hopefully KW is checking into them. Can't hurt to dream. I know these scenarios arent likely.

We have been waiting for KW to get our trading chips moved. His demands are high and not being met. Sounds like he's waiting out the market and trying to get someone desperate, which is fine. However, should he be working on getting rid of a bad contract with one of our trade chips? Would you rather him get as much as possible for a Danks, Floyd, Quentin, Thornton or Would you rather him get virtually nothing to move a Peavy, Rios, or Dunn with one or two of those guys? The "addition by subtraction rule"? Worked for the Blue Jays on Rios. I think I would hold onto Dunn and Peavy unless someone offered to take the majority contracts off our hands. But what about a Danks/Rios for a low level prospect for a team with no farm system or who doesn't want to give in to KW's haul of mlb ready players? Would you accept that as a win if we got Rios off the books without paying any or much of his remaining $? Or do we need a big haul of mlb ready players for our guys? Interesting topic in this boring time I thought about. Some team might be desperate enough and not of spent their offseason $ (Nationals, Orioles) and may bite at that chance at getting a Danks/Floyd/Quentin for nothing if they take on Rios, maybe even Dunn or Peavy?

Ryan Sweeney has been a pretty good player. Not saying all of our prospects turn out great, but I don't think we've produced much below league average for success rate of "top" prospects. We have had some good ones in the past few years, you can't deny that.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Dec 8, 2011 -> 09:48 AM) So the Sox have no prospects in the minors, yet every time we lose one they are an All-Star waiting to happen. Got it. Gio Gonzalez Daniel Hudson David Holmberg Faustino De Los Santos Need I continue?

It's baseball. You can blame whoever you want and give others amnesty all you want but at the end of the day... Jerry owns the team and chooses his employees Those employees choose and manage men who play a game. Those men either score more runs than the other team or they don't. It's not a life or death thing and honestly 162 baseball games a year (81 at home) is a rediculous amount of games. It's hard to care about anything in this cut extra spending where you can/abundance of entertainment world we live in for too long. I like our stadium (especially our AZ one since I live in Tempe), but they aren't going to draw consistently unless we are a top team. Because we the fans expect it. We are White Sox fans, not Cubs fans, not Yankees fans, not Red Sox fans, etc. We like things you can put on the board, duck snorts, and seeing the opponent grab some bench. Once everyone in the White Sox organization starts producing more of those things consistently at a top quality rate, we will come.

Never hurts to allow one of your rivals to take one of the few pitching prospects you have. Oh wait. Fail.

Even better then if it's a minor league deal and ST invite. Why not. What the hell.

Bring back AROW! Well if we need a 5th OF and can get him for very cheap. He's getting $12 mil this year from the Giants anyway. One year 1.5 mil? Would you really say no to him for $1.5 mil? Not like we have a MLB ready OF prospect ready for 2012 anyway. De Aza, Rios, Quentin, Viciendo, Lilli. CQ is prolly gone and Lilli can be a util IF. De Aza, Viciendo for sure and Rowand/Rios/? as 3-5. Ugly but when Rios takes up all that $ you have to find deals for your other OFs.

Keep Lilli. He's a great utility guy to have to fill in any spot we may have open (which could be many at this rate). He won't bring back equal value in my opinion. I would want a couple of solid prospects for him and I don't think we will get that.

What if KW pulls off a miracle and packages rios and half his salary along with danks or thornton in a trade? do you still trade cq? he is injured a lot but can carry a team for weeks at a time if he's hot. id hold onto him until midseason if you find some way to move rios. de aza plays cf.

With this team hitting a very important offseason as we all know, what do we expect to happen? It's obvious KW needs to make the right moves if we have any chance in the next 2-3 years to compete. We are about to see some movement, but while it's slow and KW is taking his time getting to the meetings... Let's put our cards on the table and state here an now what we expect for our biggest trade chips. This way we can compare what we do get for what us, White Sox Nation, expect. I think this will be interesting once trades do start happening to see how people react based on what they expected.... Trade bait: Danks - 1 SP (young with some MLB experience and top end of roto potential), SP/RP Prospect (Top 10 Prospect in good system), Young Hitter (Top 10 Prospect in good system) Floyd - 1 SP (Stewart type prospect), Top 20 Position Player Prospect Thornton - 2 Top 10 Prospects or 1 young Pitcher or Position Player with some MLB experience and starting potential Quentin - 1 SP (Young arm with MLB experience middle of rotation potential), Top 10 Prospect (Pitcher or hitter) Beckham - Same type of young player with star potential who needs new situation Crain - 2 Top 20 Prospects (Salary dump) Frasor - 2 Mid to lower level prospects (Salary dump) Santos - 2 Top 10 Prospects (at least 1 with star potential) and MLB ready young arm Alexi - 2 Top 10 Prospects (both should have star potential) and a MLB ready Position player or arm AJP - 2 mid level prospects (one with starter potential) (salary dump) Let's see who knows the trade value of our guys and set our standards.

Very nice story. Good for them. However.......would you expect a lot of love if you gave $133 to someone for a surgery like this? That's the same % of a person's income who makes $40,000 a year compared to Gavin who gets $7 mil per year giving $21,000. It's very nice and all, but it's all relative. Not a story that needs to be trumpeted through the streets, but good to hear at the same time.

I keep seeing all these free agent news stories and 2 of our starters from the past 2 years were 2 of the 4 top starting pitcher free agents. Normally if you added 2 of the top free agent starting pitchers to your team, that was some accomplishment. This year you can pick up Mark Buehrle and Edwin Jackson and of accomplished that. Those 2 failed to help the White Sox make the playoffs 2 consecutive years (let's put our love for Mark aside) in a very winnable division with a very good rotation around them (Peavy, Danks, Floyd, and then add Humber in 2011). So my question is what's worse, the offense that couldnt get that rotation to the playoffs in 2011 or the starting pitching free agent class that features 2 starters from those underachieving teams as the #3 and #4 best starting pitchers available? Boring time in baseball.....