Dick Allen

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 25, 2015 -> 02:17 PM) Jay Williams ‏@RealJayWilliams Rumors circulating that people within the Bulls organization are interested in Fred Hoiberg of Iowa State as their next head coach. This is so Krause/Floyd all over again. A perrienial Coach of the Year candidate in place, (has won games with a roster depleted of it's best players for years), yet almost openly romancing an Iowa State coach. Gar/Pax has to go. I hope Michael Reinsdorf can see through these guys. If the Bulls didn't luck into DRose, what is Gar/Pax legacy?

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Feb 25, 2015 -> 02:06 PM) Ehh. I'm not convinced that Fred Hoiberg wouldn't be very successful as HC of the Bulls. Tim Floyd was great at Iowa State.

QUOTE (bmags @ Feb 25, 2015 -> 01:55 PM) I have to say, I love Thibs, but I don't think he's a transition coach. The bulls are about to head into a weird couple of years. Cartwright, Skiles, Del Negro...these are the types these clowns hired until they lucked into Thibs, and now just try to piss him off whenever they can. I have no doubt the tension between the FO and team has cost the Bulls on the floor this season. When Thibs is traded or mutually departs after this season, he will get hired in about 5 seconds. The Bulls will hire someone they will be pissed off at in a year or two because they won't be able to win when Pau is 2 years older, and Noah and DRose are constantly injured. J4L is kinda crazy, but one thing he has harped on in the past is how other teams really go after titles vs. the Bulls who do spend their cap money but really are about as conservative as can be, and really never make bold moves, and when it doesn't work out because the entire roster is always hurt, it must be Thibs. Other teams think way outside the box. The Bulls...not so much.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Feb 25, 2015 -> 01:41 PM) I'm not ignoring that. I just didn't bring that up. Thibs is a great coach. Probably one of the 5 best in basketball but the man definitely has flaws. And those flaws + his relationship with management are the reasons why he won't be coaching in Chicago next year. Many in this town treat him like a deity when he's never won anything. That's my point. And that's fair why? If anyone really thinks the Bulls will win more games or advance farther in the playoffs with the same players but without Thibs, they are going to be sorry for what they wished for when, and I agree with this part, he does depart. JR still wonders why LaRussa was allowed to leave. Thibs is better than LaRussa. He will rue the day he lets Gar/Pax send Thibs packing.

Russell Westbrook had 3 surgeries on a knee and he is OK. I guess tearing the meniscus again after having it repaired and not removed is pretty common for athletes.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 24, 2015 -> 12:42 PM) After the year that Cleveland had like 6 games snowed out I vaguely recall seeing a study showing that simply having the most obvious, at-risk cities start a week later would cut down weather postponements early in the year by some ridiculous fraction, like 75% or somewhere close to that. They are starting about a week later this year. Last year the White Sox opened at home and the weather was pretty nice. It was awful a few days later when the Cubs opened. It's not just the postponements, it's playing in bad conditions, and the likelihood those conditions could occur, that will keep people away. How many out of area White Sox fans plan a trip to Chicago to watch the White Sox in April?

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Feb 24, 2015 -> 12:15 PM) Exactly. Nice weather teams get to know they'll always host true Opening Day and bad weather teams get to know their first home stand has a better chance of not being terrible weather (attendance). Pretty much a win, win throughout the league I would think Most April dates in the northern cities are crapshoots. It might be really nice or really awful. If I owned the Sox, I would prefer to open the season on the road, but more important to me would be as few April home dates as possible. People just aren't going to buy advanced tickets when they can wait a month or two and know they can wear some shorts to the game.

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ Feb 24, 2015 -> 11:50 AM) I like 154. It works better with the added wild card to the post season. But how funny that he wants to speed up the game AND add more offense, which are opposites. The more offense you add by taking away the low strike, the longer the innings, the more frequent the pitching changes, the higher the pitch counts, etc. And no matter how effective the clock would be on pitchers and hitters, it won’t offset the added time for longer offensive innings. If they can eliminate 30 seconds per half inning, that's 9 minutes right there. Keeping guys in the box will eliminate even more than that. You elimate 15-20 minutes of down time per game, it will keep fans more engaged, and IMO grow the game. They don't have to cut an hour out of it. There is plenty of down time in baseball. Eliminating some of the unneccessary delays is good. Most people don't really care if it is a long game if things are actually going on. But if it's waiting for a replay or hitter to get back in the box, or the constant trips to the mound not only by coaches (I'm looking at you Mauer), it gets old quick. I read an article last year where a 1-2-3 inning with no pitching change took almost a half an hour during a game last year.

Hopefully this helps him defensively. The last 2 years he seemed at least average defensively at the beginning of the year, and left you questioning why he is even standing on the field towards the end. His OPS was actually better than Panda's last year. Maybe the additional weight will help him hit a few more over the fence.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Feb 24, 2015 -> 10:44 AM) Right, but no matter where you set the bar, Danks is among the absolute worst of the people who will be pitching a bunch of innings for baseball teams. Therefore, we have a competitive disadvantage. So he represents a massive weakness in the rotation. But the alternative is splitting up his starts with pitchers who are worse than him. There were several hundred of starts made last season by pitchers who even you wouldn't consider as good as John Danks.

8 less games of revenue, plus the give back some teams would most certainly have to do with their local TV contracts, IMO makes a 154 game schedule impossible to be approved.

One difference this year is the games are expected to be won. Sometimes that inspires guys, sometimes that causes performance to drop significantly.

QUOTE (LDF @ Feb 24, 2015 -> 09:11 AM) i do have faith in Danks and i believe he may find a way to get the job done. he is a throw back to the old school pitchers, but i guess, we as fans will see how spring trng pans out. He does have a bulldog like mentality. It's one reason I give him the benefit of the doubt.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 24, 2015 -> 09:17 AM) He is taking full season stats to make the comp look worse. I actually just misread the ERA as I need to get myself some glasses.

QUOTE (glangon @ Feb 24, 2015 -> 08:45 AM) It's all very well to say he'll be fine but the only way to deal with this is to look at what went wrong in the 12 games where he gave up the runs. Was his arm tired? was he on short rest? Did Robin leave him in too long and not go to the pen quickly enough. If Coops can work with him and reduce either the number of games where he is terrible or the amount of runs that he gives up when he is not pitching well, then he has a chance of becoming much better, however if Coops can't "fix" some of those 12 games, then he will remain what he is, an overpaid 4th starter. I think he is kind of like Buehrle now where his "stuff" is short pretty much every start. It's just a matter of locating. Danks' change is pretty sweet, but sometimes that can't save you, and when he pitches up, the ball tends to leave the park. When Buehrle can't paint the corners, he is basically batting practice. Danks doesn't locate as well as Buehrle anyway, and when he is forced to throw the ball over the plate, he generally is going to get hit hard.

QUOTE (shysocks @ Feb 24, 2015 -> 08:37 AM) I hate this argument for about 100 reasons, but the main one is that most guys will look awesome if you only take the best 63% of their season. Danks has always been prone to horrendous outings, even when he was at his peak. There are just more of them now.

QUOTE (shysocks @ Feb 24, 2015 -> 08:26 AM) You mentioned that they both qualified but then discarded the inherent value of that. If you're on the qualifying list and your WAR is higher than 0, then there are probably at least ten guys I'd take after you. Here's a handful of them, for example: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=...0&sort=17,d I agree with you there definitely is some value from a guy who qualified, but the Hector Noesi, Coop has fixed him love isn't coming from reality. There are probably going to be players that dissappoint this season. He is a prime candidate if you are expecting much. The other guy I would be careful to put too high is Zach Putnam. He had a lot of shoulder issues last year. He was really good, but it wouldn't be very surprising to me he turns into the Zach Putnam that has bounced from team to team the past several seasons.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Feb 24, 2015 -> 07:35 AM) No I don't think John Danks sucks either. He just makes too much money and was way better before. The fact remains, Noesi wasn't very good with the White Sox last year. He was better than he had been, but so was Leury Garcia and Adam Dunn when they took the mound. Hopefully he turns out to be good, but to think he is legit at this point is a reach.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Feb 24, 2015 -> 07:22 AM) Well he didn't suck for the White Sox last year but alright. Do you think John Danks sucked last year? Noesi's White Sox ERA was 0.05 lower, and his FIP was higher. The emergence of Hector Noesi is very overblown.

Noesi probably still sucks.

Coop told a little different story at Soxfest. It didn't include KW, which I find a longshot to call the dugout during the game. Coop said they were looking for another starter and said to Robin when they were killing Noesi, watch this guy wil be on our team next week.

QUOTE (shysocks @ Feb 23, 2015 -> 01:34 PM) Moving this over to the dedicated thread. I would agree if that super utility guy wasn't also potentially needed for an uncertain infield situation. I'm gonna stick to my guns and say that if our next best outfielder was better than JB Schuck this would never be considered. Even still I don't think it's a great idea. I don't know much about Shuck but if he has an average glove and can run a little bit, he probably helps out more than an 8th reliever when you have at least 3 days off the first 11 days. I do agree, if they had something better at the moment, this isn't even a story.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 23, 2015 -> 01:32 PM) Opens up another potential spot for Rodon The Sox play 1 game then day off. 5 games then day off. 2 games then day off. That would be an excellent time to have Rodon on the farm working on his change so the Sox can control him another season.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Feb 23, 2015 -> 12:28 PM) In non punting years the Sox seem to want a backup catcher that meets the criteria of "would the staff not mind throwing to him if the lead guy goes down for a few weeks". Nieto obviously didn't meet this criteria, but they weren't really trying last year either. Whoever has the most comfort with the staff will win the backup role IMO. Personally, I'd much rather see Kottaras win the job because of his OBP skills. Hahn really likes Soto. I read some article that claimed Soto would wind up playing more than Flowers.

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Feb 23, 2015 -> 01:21 PM) Scott Merkin ‏@scottmerkin 15m15 minutes ago Robin said team could break camp with 8 relievers Dan Hayes ‏@CSNHayes 13m13 minutes ago Robin Ventura sounds very open to starting season with eight relievers. Bench flexibility makes it possible. #WhiteSox Scott Merkin ‏@scottmerkin 8m8 minutes ago With versatility of Bonifacio and Beckham, assuming Johnson or Sanchez start at second, could go with 8 relievers at outset Interesting. Thoughts? I don't like it in April. There are a couple of built in off days. The weather usually washes out another game or 2. Maybe later on in the season it makes some sense, but at the beginning, I would rather see at least some flexibility if you need pinch hitters and runners, especially when a couple of defensive players are pretty weak with the glove.