WCSox

QUOTE (TCQ @ Jun 25, 2008 -> 06:32 AM) On the pregame show, King of all knowledge Beltin Bill Melton said with the upmost confidence that Credes back is sore because of sitting on a plane for four hours... He may have even tweaked it by sleeping awkwardly, and aggravated it during BP. This doesn't sound like a big deal, but it's worth keeping an eye on.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jun 24, 2008 -> 05:17 PM) I'm not talking about next season, I'm talking about this season. If his option vests, it vests and then it becomes a concern. If he stays in the lineup, it's going to vest. He's hitting .229 and on pace to whiff 162 times this season with less than 100 walks. That's not "fine." His OBP (which is still almost 50 points below his career average) and his HR power (also on the decline) are the only positives at this point. It's a good thing that AJ is able to provide a solid left-handed bat in the two-hole, because Thome can't hit 3rd in the lineup anymore. He's more like a #6 hitter at this point.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jun 24, 2008 -> 02:14 PM) If I were Jim Thome, I'd blow up Soxtalk for getting on my case when I've been the 4th best hitter for the White Sox. DO YOU PEOPLE NOT WATCH GAMES OR LOOK AT NUMBERS? no, Jim Thome just strikes out a lot and he's kinda ugly and he's old so therefore he must suck Thome is currently hitting .229, has already struck out 70 times (with only 41 walks), and can't do anything but DH. He's clearly lost bat speed and is in decline as a hitter. If it's not bad enough that we're paying him $14 million this year to do this, we'll automatically owe him another $13 million next year. While I don't necessarily advocate asking to him revoke his no-trade clause or DFAing him, as he's one of my favorite players, it's understandable that some people would rather not watch him get blown away by 89 mph fastballs next season and would like to see JD or Paulie moved to DH.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 24, 2008 -> 01:57 PM) Thome's NTC covers some 30 MLB teams. You'd need his approval to trade him to the White Sox. Either that or DFA him to open up roster space before he hits that 400-some at-bat milestone where next year's option kicks in. But I don't see them doing that. Everyone in the organization likes Paulie and he sells tickets/merchandise, so he won't be going anywhere soon either.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 24, 2008 -> 01:19 PM) If you look at his 2006 numbers, pre-injury, he was pretty ridiculous for a couple weeks when he came up. .872 OPS, 9 home runs in his first 152 at bats. Full season that's a 100 RBI, 35 home run pace coming in as a rookie. When he had his injury problems, that's when his 07 numbers went down hill. Agreed but, injury or not, "for a couple of weeks" doesn't really make him an "ML producer." Quentin didn't really "produce" at the ML level until this year. Too bad that the D-back gave up on him so quickly. But good for us.

QUOTE (the People's Champ @ Jun 24, 2008 -> 12:52 PM) To me getting a ML producer for someone that "has a chance to be a good player" is next to nothing That's a pretty silly way to look at it, as we never would've acquired Garland from the Cubs with your logic. And calling the Arizona-era Carlos Quentin an "ML producer" is a heck of a stretch.

QUOTE (the People's Champ @ Jun 24, 2008 -> 11:54 AM) maybe you should actually read entire threads before you butt into other peoples conversations The entire point of a message board is for multiple people to "butt into other peoples [sic] conversations" to discuss an issue.

QUOTE (the People's Champ @ Jun 24, 2008 -> 12:43 PM) Magglio Ordonez undrafted Carlos Lee undrafted Mark Buehrle 38th round Joe Crede 5th round Bobby Jenks 5th round Of all those players you named John Garland was the only one drafted in the 1st round. My point is that it doesn't matter where they're drafted. What matters is how they perform at the ML level. Your obnoxious posts are a waste of everybody's time. Is the fact that many first-round picks don't turn into All-Stars supposed to be new information or something?

QUOTE (the People's Champ @ Jun 24, 2008 -> 10:52 AM) Joe Borchard Jason Stumm Matt Ginter Kip Wells Jason Dellaero Scott Christman Need I go on? And these are just the White Sox picks. Sure its easy to pick the ones that make it, but for every one that does there is probably 10 that dont Magglio Ordonez Carlos Lee Mark Buehrle Joe Crede Jon Garland Bobby Jenks Need I go on? Seriously, are you this obnoxiously negative about life in general, or just the Sox?

QUOTE (the People's Champ @ Jun 24, 2008 -> 11:40 AM) The vast majority of these so-called "significant prospects" are all hype. I'd say that Danks and Floyd have certainly lived up to the hype.

QUOTE (Pants Rowland @ Jun 24, 2008 -> 10:41 AM) Despite his recent struggles, Jose is still integral to the rotation right now. With that said, if a team lacking in starting pitching depth (say the Mets as a good example) came to the Sox and offered something the Sox need such as speed and a more solid bat/OBP/situational hitter type (to keep with the Mets theme, say Luis Castillo, although he is hurting), would you do it straight up? What if said team threw in a pitching prospect to boot? What if someone took Uribe as well? Just curious. I think there might be a market for Jose and I am not sold on him giving a great return on the investment over the remainder of his contract. I am also not sold on this being a championship team, even if they win the division. If the Sox were relatively confident they could fill his spot in the rotation with someone in the organization, it might not be the worst alternative to unload his contract and free up a spot for Broadway (or whomever) or cash for a better alternative either via a trade this year or a free agent signing in the offseason. As long as the Sox are remotely competitive, I don't see it happening this season. When he's on, Jose can dominate. Plus, you never know how Danks and Floyd are going to do down the stretch. The Sox also run the risk of dealing their playoff hero from '05 being perceived as White Flag II, and I'm sure that Kotex Boy and many of the other tools in the Chicago media will present it that way. That said, I'd love to deal Jose at the end of this year, regardless of where they finish. They need to begin dumping aging veterans and rebuilding around younger players this winter.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jun 24, 2008 -> 08:23 AM) I'm not comparing BA and Jose Contreras, rather comparing Jose Contreras and Freddy Garcia basically indicating that some poeple said they knew Garica was done. I wanted to point out that everyone at Soxtalk assumed Count was done too and that hasn't stopped him from having a very good first half of 2008. Sorry, I got lost in your earlier post. Agreed to an extent, although Garcia went from routinely hitting 93-94 on the gun to 86-87 in one year. Contreras has lost some velocity as well, but not nearly as much. With Jose, it was more of a question of health. A healthy Jose still had the stuff to be successful. A healthy Freddy didn't.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jun 23, 2008 -> 08:56 PM) This is true, but lets think back to the end of last year. Jose Contreras after being absolutely horrid puts together a few solid starts in a row. People like me think they need to do everything possible to get rid of him (reality was no one would have taken him as now people are putting a much greater focus on prospects) but instead the Sox stick with him and he's at least given us a quality half of a season (still have no idea what we get from him last year) when everyone here wrote him off for dead (despite him being much improved after his short benching last year). I'm not sure if I'd use that comparison. Contreras has a long and storied history of excellence, so it's fathomable (no pun intended) that he may put up a decent season or half season. BA, on the other hand, doesn't have a history of success in the majors as a hitter. Therefore, it's understandable that people would have less faith in him. That said, he really hasn't had much of a shot and I agree that he needs more time. We probably won't know what kind of hitter he'll be until the end of next year. He was hitting the ball well a couple of weeks ago, so it's evident that he can hit ML pitching... it's just a matter of him doing it consistently. I think that a lot of BA's problems in '06 were due to his attitude. A friend of my sister's knew Anderson when he was at the U of A and what I've heard second-hand is that he was very immature back then, even by pro athlete standards. That may partially explain why Ozzie went with Mack in CF during the latter half of that year. Ozzie doesn't seem like the type to put up with rookies who have a bad attitude. From what Ozzie has said this year, it sounds like BA has matured significantly.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Jun 23, 2008 -> 02:19 PM) Learning MLB pitching like Alexei has is definitely the exception and not the norm, btw. I can't recall anybody who's done that recently. Wasn't Alexei a professional in Cuba? I imagine that he was facing better pitching there than most minor-leaguers do here.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jun 23, 2008 -> 01:57 PM) You mean the Freddy Garcia who won 14 games in 2005 and had a sub 4 ERA? the Freddy Garcia who pitched in the clinching game of the World Series and threw 7 shutout innings? the Freddy Garcia who put up a more than respectable 4.53 ERA in 2006 and was absolutely phenomenal in September, leading some to believe he may have "re-invented himself?" Just to be fair, it was pretty obvious to everybody here back in '06 that Garcia was in rapid decline. He pitched with a ton of heart that year, but he was reduced for getting hitters out with junk. QUOTE (Heads22 @ Jun 23, 2008 -> 01:46 PM) We have nothing to gain by trading Anderson. +1 If for no other reason that we don't have another ML-ready natural CF in the organization. Anderson has shown enough thus far to merit a spot as a 4th outfielder, IMO.

QUOTE (Middle Buffalo @ Jun 23, 2008 -> 10:46 AM) My point in comparing Anderson to Crede is that we need to have patience with young players who struggle. Now is the perfect opportunity (with Konerko on the DL) to give Anderson some meaningful, consistent playing time. He's not hurting us defensively, and isn't killing us offensively. Sadly, on any given day, he has one of the top 6 averages in our line-up. Let's see what he can do with two weeks of at bats. If he plays well, he can get 3 or 4 starts a week in center while we rest Dye, Swisher, Quentin and Konerko the rest of the way. I completely agree. In fact, I'm happy that BA is in the lineup right now.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jun 23, 2008 -> 09:06 AM) As there were adequate defensive third basemen who could hit better than Crede, hence our fascination with getting Joe Randa way back when. But none that had Crede's potential. It's a lot easier to be patient with somebody who has Crede's minor league background than BA's. Of course not. I'm happy that he's getting time out there and that he's produced on occasion (although he's looked bad lately).

QUOTE (Jake @ Jun 23, 2008 -> 08:34 AM) Until I read this post, I had forgotten the years of Crede hate I had. He really struggled at the plate at the beginning of his career, but his defense earned him a lot of extra chances. Even in 2005, his average really wasn't too good and the rest of his numbers weren't eyepopping but since we were winning games it wasn't questioned much. He was a key offensive player in the ALCS and WS though. Nonetheless, once can draw some parallels between BA and Crede although it is of note that BA was not the caliber of run producer that Joe was in the minors. That's the key difference. IIRC, Crede won multiple batting titles in the minors and was projected to be the next Mike Schmidt. No wonder they were so patient with him. Also, Crede plays a relatively difficult position and does it extremely well. While CF is also very important defensively, there are CFs available who can play the position adequately well and hit better than Anderson.

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Jun 23, 2008 -> 09:05 AM) bottom line is unless this team can find some form of consistency they aren't going anywhere. even if they somehow survive the regular season you cant win 5 in a row and then lose 4 in a row in the playoffs if you want to win the world series. +1

QUOTE (DBAH0 @ Jun 23, 2008 -> 08:44 AM) We just need to get the consistency back with our pitching. Not to mention the hitting. The bats failed miserably last night and on Friday. Even without Paulie and JT, a combined 4 runs over two games is unacceptable.

QUOTE (CanOfCorn @ Jun 23, 2008 -> 07:04 AM) Here's the thing about interleague play. It isn't worth it, until October. Right now, it's another series...and the Sox were swept. Big deal. Of course it hurts more because it's against the Cubs, but I'd much rather be swept AT Wrigley, during the FIRST interleague series, than being housed this weekend. Now if the Sox are swept this weekend, THAT will leave a bad taste in everyones mouths. Interleague or not, the Sox and Cubs are rivals. And this is amplified by the whole "Second Team in the Second City" label. I'm sure that the news media outlets in Chicago are going ga-ga over the Cubs and crapping on the Sox right now. That should piss them off. If the Sox don't enter this weekend's series with a chip on their shoulder and play their asses off, I doubt they'll be playing in October.

This coming weekend will be gut-check time for the Sox. While they need to focus on winning the AL Central, they also need to show up and send a message after getting punked in their home town by a rival. The way that they respond at home against the Cubs will set the tone for the rest of the season.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Jun 22, 2008 -> 07:31 PM) Again, not talking about this year's team. I thought we already agreed on Kenny not making any big moves this season. I wasn't involved in this conversation prior to today. Wrong. He moved him because he was in a terrible slump. If Swisher had performed at his career average, he'd still be hitting there. He WAS on Kenny's list, before he signed Swisher. I don't know why you're so certain that he's still on Kenny's radar. If I were Kenny, I'd be somewhat put off by the season he's currently having. Gee, I never would've guessed that with a $100+ million payroll, a just-above-average team, and a number of aging sluggers whose contracts expire soon. Taveras with an OBP of .305 indeed does suck. That doesn't mean that the Sox can't take a flyer on him in the offseason, but he absolutely does suck right now as a hitter. On our team, he'd be worthless because his OBP is way too low for a leadoff hitter and O-Cab's presence means that he can't hit in the 2-hole either. He also has absolutely zero power (career .344 career SLG), which is a huge negative. He's never eclipsed 3 homers or 19 doubles in a season. Meanwhile, Swisher has averaged 31 doubles and 26 homers over the past three seasons. So even if Taveras steals 33 bases (and gets thrown out 9 times), a guy like Swish (who has a higher OBP, to boot) is going to be more valuable in at the top of the lineup because he's able to put himself in scoring position with his bat. It's no wonder that Kenny traded for Swisher this winter, rather than Taveras. And when evaluating a player, I take into account factors beyond their plate performance. Obviously, Taveras has other skills - namely his base-steadling capability and very solid defense in CF. So, no, I'm not saying that he "sucks" in general. His career numbers suggest that he sucks AT THE PLATE. Similarly, Anderson more or less "sucks" as a hitter as well, but has value elsewhere. So, no, your characterization of my remarks is completely off base. Taveras has a lot of talent and is a good fit on a number of teams that are deficient in CF. I wouldn't characterize him as completely worthless, but his value is certainly limited. He's basically Owens with the ability to play solid defense in CF. He's had his moments, but he's incredibly inconsistent. If he were as good as you think that he is, the Astros never would've let him go. And until the Sox move Thome or Paulie, Swisher will be in CF and there will be no room for Taveras anyway.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Jun 22, 2008 -> 04:54 PM) Taveras isn't going to put up a .305 OBP forever. Yes, I'd buy low on a good player depending on the cost. I would too, but there's pretty much nothing left in our farm system. I'd feel more inclined to hold onto what we have right now than trade away more talent for an average player that won't help this year's team very much. Kenny has dealt A LOT of minor-league talent over the past four years. If he's going to do it again, it'd better be for a big impact guy like Roberts or Figgins. Funny, Swisher was our opening day leadoff hitter, no? I know what Ozzie likes, but he hasn't had that type of player since 2005. So you're advocating trading for a player to hypothetically fill in for an injured player who hasn't gotten hurt yet, or to fill out a 2009 roster that's still completely up in the air? That's pretty silly. If the Sox are going to make a move this year, it's going to be FOR THIS YEAR. Not next year. As for acquiring Taveras in the off-season, that's fine with me because the Sox are going to be in rebuilding mode then anyway. I'm not relying on Anderson or Swisher to be a long-term option at CF. I'm hoping that Thome is gone next year, that JD moves to DH, that Quentin moves to RF, Swisher moves to LF, and somebody is brought in to compete with Anderson for CF. If it's Taveras, that's fine with me. But this isn't the time to trade for him. I never said that he "sucks" and I find it sad that you're using these stupid straw man arguments. I've repeatedly said that Taveras is a "nice" player. Your posts in this thread have become downright dishonest.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Jun 22, 2008 -> 02:38 PM) Look, I know you don't like Taveras. Yeah, my response is based on a personal vendetta against Taveras. Good one. Oh, he's CAPABLE for sure. But WILL he do it? He's currently sporting an Anderson-like .305 OBP. Do you want to risk giving up a prospect, hoping that he improves and doesn't get hurt again? I don't. Wrong. That said, I don't think that Owens is a solution, either. He's inferior defensively. They're very different hitters, but I'll give you that Taveras is slightly better at the plate overall. Then again, at least Anderson fits the "defensive sub" role well. Taveras would be a downgrade as a defensive sub. Then why in the hell do you want to trade for a mediocre hitter like Taveras? Despite what you claim, he's not much of a contact hitter. Why not just go with a solid OBP guy like Swisher in the leadoff spot, who isn't much of a runner and has some power... rather than a base-stealer like Taveras, who can't get on to steal the stupid base in the first place? Speed is nice, and I'm all for it. But you need it at the top of the lineup, and Taveras can't hit there. Just like Owens. Also, some of the guys that you mention in that list (Rollins, Sizemore, Soriano) are valuable leading off because they can get into scoring position with one swing of the bat. Taveras and his .344 career SLG can't do that. Not nearly as idiotic as your posts. Taveras isn't worth crap with his current .305 OBP, even with his speed, because he can't freaking get on base. If the Sox want a mediocre-OBP base-stealer, they might as well promote Owens to Chicago for free. Your man-love for Taveras is mind-boggling. Is he a nice player? Sure. But is he worth trading a solid prospect to land when the Sox already have TWO center fielders on the 25-man roster? Hell no. And if the Sox DID trade for Taveras, who would you remove from the lineup to make room for him? Paulie's coming back in about a week, which means that Swisher (likely) moves back to CF. Are you going to bench Swish for Willy Taveras? I hope not. How about Quentin or Dye? Or Thome? THERE'S NO FREAKING ROOM FOR HIM! This isn't a fantasy team. You need players to fit specific ROLES. Taveras would be a 4th outfielder on this team, and he lacks the defensive prowess to be an improvement over Anderson as a defensive sub.