ScottyDo

QUOTE (greg775 @ Feb 10, 2012 -> 10:57 PM) Balta, not trying to flame, explain to me how this year isn't "all-in" compared to last year. Just because we don't have Mark? The same bodies are here with Sale filling in for Mark. What young guys are we playing to not be all-in?? Many consider Tank an upgrade over CQ. DeAza over Pierre is an upgrade as well. There's definitely a more complicated answer to this, but you can see we're not "all-in" simply by comparing last year's payroll with this one. Also, expectations of veterans' performances this year are miserably low. Not the appropriate time for large gambles.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 10, 2012 -> 03:19 PM) If Rios and Dunn repeat their years from last year, we've got a shot at 90 losses. If you just subtract Quentin, Buehrle, and Santos, the Sox lose more than 8 WAR compared to last year. For a 79 win team, losing 8 WAR puts them pretty close to 90 losses if people can't step up and replace those numbers. And at some point, you do have to factor in AJ and PK14 wearing down/stepping back too. I think our pitching staff is decent enough to keep us from 100 losses without much trouble. Yes, our hitting is going to be terrible but somehow I feel like it'll still be better than 2007, and we didn't lose 100 that year either...plus, our pitching that year was probably worse than it's likely to be this year. I don't feel like we have any holes in our roster quite as gaping as Jerry Owens/Andy Gonzalez.

QUOTE (kwolf68 @ Feb 10, 2012 -> 02:13 PM) The only thing on this team remotely decent is pitching and everyone is pitching too high a spot in the rotation (Danks should be a 2, Floyd a 3)...Sale has better than bottom end potential obviously, but this White Sox team is going to make us remember years like 1989. I think 90+ losses is a most likely scenario. In a best case situation they could MAYBE take a run at .500 with lights out years from the pitchers, but then again I could also see 100 losses here. The lineup is atrocious. It would take not just a 1 or 2 guys having career years, but 5 or 6 players for this team to come close to competing. Man, I get the pessimism given the recent dropoff, but I think 100 losses is a little off the deep end. If a good portion of our roster has career-average years, not career-best years, we're hovering around or just under .500, IMO.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Feb 10, 2012 -> 01:59 PM) No, because I actually like Greg. I disagreed with him in the past on stuff, but his side was reasonable. Now he's a caricature of himself since Ozzie's firing. It's not the Greg bashing that makes me like that post (I'm generally pro-Greg as well), it's the impassioned breakdown.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Feb 10, 2012 -> 05:35 AM) Oh for Christ. f***ing. Sakes. No, it's a f***ing stupid hindsight post. Almost everyone in Soxdom LOVED the Dunn signing aside from your father, Whitesoxrandy, and my brother (who was for the E-Jax trade because "Prospects never do anything!"). If by "a lot" you mean ".5% of all Sox fans" then sure, maybe that number comes out to more than 10. That might be considered a lot to someone from Kansas. But stop lauding every damn post that agrees with you as "post of the year." I get that they're more rare then a blue moon or J4L being sober, but just because they spew the same ideology as you does not make them good posts. I f***ing teared up and was sad as hell when Mark when to go join the Oz Show. He was my idol when I would play baseball. I didn't pitch, but I knew he made it because of hardwork so he was my inspiration. Each game I wore a Mark Buehrle #56 shirt underneath my jersey and it's so tattered now that I probably couldn't wear it even if he was still here. And if 3 bad moves are enough to can Kenny, how many would it f***ing take to can Ozzie? Is he also like a Tootsie Pop where the world may never know? Was it playing Rios? Pinch hitting Dunn against lefties? Leaving in Humber or Peavy? Frasor? Benching Morel for performing? Dicking around players in the lineup? Falling in love with mediocre s*** like Randy Williams, DeWayne Wise, and Jerry Owens? Explain those to me Greg. He made the f***ing lineups and no one man is more responsible for this team not making the playoffs in recent years or stunting the growth of players like Morel. Kenny, Dunn, Rios, Peavy, JR, Coop, none of them did as much damage as this one greedy, selfish asshole who had to make them the "Chicago Ozzies" and made bad moves because he was either being spiteful or he was just a terrible f***ing manager. This is much more in line with POTY in my opinion.

I think Dunn will end up being not the worst DH in the division, but after having the worst season of anyone in over a hundred years, how can you put him anywhere but last?

Time will tell on that RF ranking...I have a feeling the end of the year won't look like that. However, can't disagree on much else, and that's okay(ish) given that this is a lost season. Maybe the bullpen rankings are iffy too.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 9, 2012 -> 11:37 AM) "The number that the person wears on the back of their jersey". Oh..............s-m-r-t

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 9, 2012 -> 11:00 AM) @BaseballDigits New #WhiteSox numbers: P's Donnie Veal (no. 46) + Nestor Molina (no. 63), INFs Osvaldo Martinez (no. 28) + Eduardo Escobar (no. 38). #mlb Sorry if this is a stupid question, but what do those numbers represent? Eduardo Escobar is clearly not the #38 overall prospect, and Molina is definitely not the #63 player in our system. Are these ratings on a 100 point scale or something?

This part is kind of B.S....like Reinsdorf is some lone maverick with enough power to make his will reality? It was a Selig initiative that falls in line with Reinsdorf's (and others') philosophy. Reinsdorf was a sidekick at best, not some despotic villain. Can't argue with the rankings, though.

I will admit that part of me wonders if Konerko is too aloof to provide guidance on top of leadership-by-example, but I will also admit that that part of me has no evidence to either support or refute its position. The fact is, we have no idea what happens in the clubhouse, where he very well may be the type of leader to take folks aside and set them straight or offer advice. At the same time, any public comments to the press by players regarding Paulie's leadership are destined to fall in line with his status as Captain. Even the players likely to stray from the party line a little bit are not dumb enough to question Paulie's leadership in a public forum. Even if he is a weak leader, there's no reason to assume younger players' failures have anything to do with him. There have been a plethora of clubhouse presences that all combine to form the Sox environment. It's silly to place any/all blame on one player. Besides, maybe our young players are just bad. Leaders are not supposed to develop talent, that's why we have a bajillion positions in the minor leagues. Finally, Paulie is my current favorite Sox now that Buehrle is gone, so I give him a pass on any/all weaknesses he may have. EDIT: Unless McFly somehow makes it so his Granny didn't happen. McFly!!!

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Feb 7, 2012 -> 12:55 PM) I like the Simpsons reference in your signature. Good, I was hoping someone would! It's the best reference to generic "talking" ever.

Ozzie was loud. What a leader!

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Feb 3, 2012 -> 10:18 PM) http://www.sportspickle.com/opinion/9843/w...-the-super-bowl Ozzie likes the Heat and Bulls. "bad ass mother cow"...oh, Ozzie, your Twinglish is truly amazing.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jan 25, 2012 -> 04:34 PM) Thornton was lousy, but it might be wise to let he or Crain try it in April and let Reed work into it slowly. If Reed gets lit up and blows a couple saves the first week or in the home opener, it could be ugly for his confidence. Agree with this. Let the kid be sure he can get major leaguers out before throwing him into the pressure cooker. He can move into the closer's role relatively quickly depending on how he responds to the transition, but there's no need to start him as the closer out of the gate, as this is a lost season anyway. Take the appropriate developmental path.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 20, 2012 -> 10:24 AM) I know he knows it's not scientific, but I do remember when he came out with this. It may be something I do over the next 2 weeks or so, but if anyone else has done it, I'd like to see some sort of working percentage within this group. Injuries, regression, progression, stability...anything. It's a decent guideline to follow, and it makes sense in a lot of regards, but there's obviously more to it than that, because CJ Wilson, not even caring about age, jumped 130 innings in 2010 and he was much better this year. Derek Lowe made a similar transition and he was mediocre in his second year and awful in his third year of the transition, but he's been generally fine ever since. My hypothesis is that it has no statistically significant effect, but that there may be certain characteristics that can be traced to it. Part of the problem is that he uses ERA as a measuring stick, and we all know how notoriously flawed that particular metric is. Additionally, I've never seen any information about a control group (i.e. what is the likelihood of regression/injury from players off that list?). The age factor also seems rather arbitrary, and I'm not sure I buy into the idea that major league innings are more stressful in any physical sense just because some ML manager thinks so. We all know that baseball lifers tend to be less than pragmatic.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 19, 2012 -> 03:16 PM) This year's Verducci effect article is out, and the White Sox take 2 of the spots on it, with Axelrod at #2 and Stewart just barely making the list. I had no idea the Sox had jumped Axelrod's innings by 60 last year. Well, I guess Chris Sale is a lock for that list next year. Like Verducci says, it's not that scientific of a study but worth looking at for very loose guidelines.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Jan 17, 2012 -> 12:58 AM) "Peter Principle" Yeah, that's the one. Applies perfectly here, I think. Just let him be an awesome bench player.

There's a problem in American management whereby people are promoted until they exceed their capabilities, then are stuck in a position at which they do not excel, leading to incompetence at every level. I agree with the people who think we should avoid that problem with Lillibridge and keep him in a spot where he excels: the bench. Additionally, I don't think there should be an open competition with Beckham because Beckham is still significantly younger, offers a much greater potential reward and played GG-caliber defense last season. Unless Lilli shows he can play that level of defense on top of his bat (which has probably peaked) it doesn't make sense to bench Beckham. Particularly not in a year that, by all accounts, is meant for development and the long-term good of the club.

QUOTE (DirtySox @ Jan 12, 2012 -> 08:59 PM) Can watch a bad quality stream of the game Cespedes is playing in here. He's batting 5th. Woah nice find! Way to dig deep!

QUOTE (ewokpelts @ Jan 11, 2012 -> 03:51 PM) PAID in 2012. he was SIGNED in 2011. I don't think that's how it works. FY is different from calendar year. I know nothing about the Sox fiscal calendar. Does anyone else?

I know I'm late to the party but...WTF is happening???

QUOTE (SOXOBAMA @ Jan 10, 2012 -> 12:54 PM) AJ PK Thornton Crain Ohman Beckham Floyd Alexei Danks I'd hope for some of these players we would get some great young prospects into this organzation. Peavy gone after this season and with all the money that the Sox saved, they can use it on next year free agency AJ - Untradeable because he's getting old, isn't good defensively, is only passable offensively, has a tough contract and nobody wants him PK - Potentially tradeable for the right deal but you don't take the PR hit unless the return blows you away. You can't go into negotiations without a price in mind, as it seems you're advocating Thornton - Tradeable. Crain - Tradeable for almost no return. Ohman - Has no value. Beckham - Would be foolish to trade a lottery ticket like we have in Beckham for a few B or C-level prospects. Beckham may still be a cornerstone around which we rebuild, while the prospects we'd get back for him would almost certainly not be. Floyd - Tradeable. Alexei - You don't trade SS's with his combination of defense and offense unless you know the return you get will be stellar. Who knows if that will ever come along. Beyond that, he may be a useful tool in keeping the Cuban pipeline open. Danks - NTC for the first year of his deal. Plus, he's young, cheap, talented, and a lefty: exactly the type of player you build around in the future. Among your nine, I see two moves that just make straight-up sense. KW is obviously on the phone about the Floyd deal, and Thornton is not an earth-shaking move.

QUOTE (SOXOBAMA @ Jan 10, 2012 -> 12:39 PM) I am sure PK & AJ would gladly accept a trade to a real contender.. Yes, so that limits our trade opportunities to about 10 teams already limiting our return. Some of these teams they probably wouldn't go to for geographical reasons. Most contending teams already have 1B filled, and probably have no use for AJ. And neither of them will accept a trade if they're going to be backups. They are faaaar more valuable to our revenue than anything we'd get in return. Like it or not, Sox revenue is a concern, because it's all that separates us from the perennial bottom-dwellers at this point.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Jan 10, 2012 -> 12:38 PM) There is a ton of truth that fans don't really know the true value of a player, just because every circumstance will be different (market for the player, economy making salary mroe appealing or less, etc). That said, how do you think many GMs view value of players in a trade? They look at precedence in a big way, it's like buying real estate. How much was a similar piece valued, and what is the current market climate. I agree, except that real estate comps are very easy to find, whereas MLB comps are sometimes next to impossible. I can't think of a Santos comp, given his age, history and contract status. I'm with Jenksy on that particular trade...no way to tell. The only thing I feel like KW can be criticized for there is the Red Sox rebuke for not coming to them before pulling the trigger.