Dick Allen

QUOTE (Swingandalongonetoleft @ Jun 9, 2012 -> 09:25 PM) Cowley's on the Score till 11 with Joe O. Oh yeah and- This post has been edited by the Soxtalk staff to remove objectionable material. Soxtalk encourages a free discussion between its members, but does not allow personal attacks, threats, graphic sexual material, nudity, or any other materials judged offensive by the Administrators and Moderators. Thank you. Kenny Williams has inexplicably become a topic of discussion. Kind of interesting stuff, but I'm not sure the Score does weekend show podcasts. Cowley's talking White Sox? He's been writing White Sox. Its funny, he said they would be irrelevant.

This "poll" is the result of the heat caulfield received for knocking Dan McNeil for being pessimistic about the White Sox. This guy thinks the entire team is only being kept from a total rebuild by Sale returning to the rotation. Wouldn't THAT be reason for pessimism?

A poll that makes no sense. One option says still clearly the best team in the AL, and I don't think anyone has claimed that. Another says still in a rebuilding mode. You even Mitt Romney your polls. Sill the best team in the AL, still in a rebuilding mode? Which one is it? But I'm going with none of the above. They clearly would be in last place and in total denial. They probably would be double the amount of games played out of first place. Sale in the bullpen makes the impossible very possible.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 9, 2012 -> 08:17 PM) The link is Chris Sale is the best pitcher in the AL right now. Jose Contreras was the best pitcher in baseball as well in 2005-2006. You believe the White Sox can just trot out any minor league journeyman and would have won those those same starts...and had the same record, or a nearly identical one. If that was the case, the 2002-2004 White Sox just won three more AL Central championships thanks to your logic...because those teams had all the offense in the world and still lost to the Twins. How can you explain that, when the Twins were clearly inferior, and the White Sox were much better offensively in those years than they have been in 2012. If Chris Sale wasn't in the starting rotation still, the White Sox wouldn't be in first place and would still be a lot closer to rebuilding than adding pieces for the stretch drive. Who would you have started in those 5 games....this pitcher who was going to go 5-1 or 4-2? Should be an interesting answer. 2003 Esteban Loaisa may have been the best pitcher in baseball. He lost 2 games 1-0 and another 2-1. The pitcher doesn't have to go 5-1, the team just has to win the game. When the team scores 6,6,4,2,10 in those 5 starts, there's a pretty good chance 3 are wins and getting 4 against Seattle is usually a win. In fact, the White Sox, even with starters with inflated ERAs have a great record scoring 4 or more runs. But ignore facts, try to impress people throwin out some big word, and maybe they will think you must know what you are talking about. Its clear to quite a few, you don't.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 9, 2012 -> 07:56 PM) Obfuscating again. So Nestor Molina would be 4-2 if he took Sale's starts, too? In your idea, yes. It's the same reason you're going to argue that the White Sox could have just trotted out any minor leaguer in August, September, October, April and May in 2005/2006 and won all of Jose Contrera's starts as well. You believe there's no link to who the starting pitcher is and how the team performs independently. I believe there's a synergy between the two. But whatever. Yeah, Nestor Molina. Whatever is right. You are making yourself look like an even bigger fool. And I don't think there is any link to Chris Sale returning to the rotation and Dunn, Rios, Konerko, Beckham, AJP and De Aza hitting well. None. Sale doesn't even appear in 80% of White Sox games.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 9, 2012 -> 07:24 PM) Coming from the same person who says there's no connection between the results of the offense and who the hitting coach is, then tries to act like Greg Walker miraculously transformed the Braves single-handedly from this offseason's sense of desolation, lol. The White Sox would be 3rd in the AL in runs scored if he was still the hitting coach, too. Sure. You can believe that if you want. It can't be proven to be true or false subjunctively. I'll believe that the White Sox play better when Chris Sale is on the mound, expect to win, and the results would have been dramatically different with any of our minor leaguers out there in his place. Again with Greg Walker. You do need help. Obviously Chris Sale is the reason the Sox started scoring runs. I'm agreeing with you. We'll just ignore April when they couldn't score at all and he was in the rotation. You're truly a baseball genius.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 9, 2012 -> 05:06 PM) What was the record of White Sox 5th starters from 2001-2004? So Dylan Axelrod, Terry Doyle or Eric Stults was going to go 4-2? Really? The answer to question 1, what does that matter now? Question 2, Yes they would. The Sox scored 6,6,4,2 and 10 runs in those starts. They didn't need shutouts, but I'll take the offense riding the inspiration of Chris Sale returning to the starting rotation as the reason they scored these runs. GMAB. You defintely are the Soxtalk version of Mitt Romney. As Frank says, no doubt about it. Just flip flop. Don't try to justify it with things that aren't connected.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 9, 2012 -> 09:47 AM) Once again, you believe we'd STILL be in first place had Chris Sale missed his last 5 starts and been posing as the closer instead? True/false? You believe the White Sox wouldn't be in rebuilding mode with Chris Sale in the bullpen for the entire season and foreseeable future? At worse. 1 game worse which would leave them a half a game out clearly not the nowhere near first you claim and if you haven't noticed they are rebuilding. Sale should make you his agent.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 9, 2012 -> 07:11 AM) None of those pitchers were AS bad as the stats you're throwing out there three weeks later look. When's the last time Danks pitched? Why didn't you include Quintana in there, who has pitched more innings that Danks recently? Yes, I'm sure there was a psychological effect on the team knowing that Sale was going to be a part of the rotation again. When the team knows it has a chance to win nearly every game a starter's out there, it helps the offense to relax and not put so much pressure on themselves. You can argue all you want that the White Sox would have gone 4-1 and would still be in first place without Sale, but you should put down the bong yourself if you actually believe that's true. He was the best pitcher in the AL this past month, no way we could have replaced that. With Sale in the bullpen, 75% of the talk around here would still be about rebuilding. Now we have good hitters? Why weren't they good last year? Which is it? Yeah you're right Konerko,Dunn,De Aza, Viciedo and Beckham and Rios decided fo hit when Sale was returned to the rotation. No chance they would have hit otherwise. We should just ignore the thread you started earlier this season bashing 4 of these guys for not hitting when Sale was in the rotation.

For all the Fukudome haters, he's 6th on the team in OBP.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 8, 2012 -> 10:29 PM) But you're acting like there's a vacuum in which the team would have performed exactly the same way had Sale stayed in the pen. First of all, he probably would have at least one blown save, based on his only (very shaky) relief appearance. Second, there's just no way the whole team comes together offensively without the added confidence of knowing we had an ace back in our rotation that could go out and we'd win 80-85% of the games he started. Remember the effect that BAD 5th starters had on the White Sox from 2001-2004? You can assume all you want, that we would have won those games. We can argue back and forth. I can say that the Atlanta Braves would be hitting exactly the same with ANY hitting coach in baseball, and you can't prove I'm wrong. Just like there's no way to prove that the White Sox offense wouldn't have gone on this same tear with Walker as their hitting coach, yadda yadda. So you're saying the White Sox hitters went on a hot streak because Sale remained in the starting rotation? How come they weren't hot when he was in the rotation earlier? Put down the bong. If the BAD 5th starter is condusive to bad offense, how do you explain the White Sox still winning and hitting with Floyd 5.38, Humber 5.68 and Danks 5.70? And the Sox hit pretty well during the time period you mentioned. If you have good hitters, you'll probably have a good offense. And more Greg Walker? Really?

I actually think there is a lot of reasons to be optimistic this year. The Sox are in 1st place on June 9th despite gettting 1 homer and a sub .200 AVG out of the left side of their infield, and 60% of their starting rotation hasn't pitched anywhere near what is expected: Floyd 5.38 ERA, Humber 5.68 ERA, Danks 5.70 ERA.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jun 8, 2012 -> 10:12 PM) We always seem to have a guy like that, though I guess to be fair, most teams do as well. Yeah, I don't think any team has 12 studs.

When I see Ohman coming in, I want to grab a bat.

Ohman is Robin's white flag.

When Brian Bruney is being pined for, it may be time for KW to make a few phone calls.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jun 8, 2012 -> 10:04 PM) I would like to give our team a thumbs down for tonight but applaud Rios. If he played like this every year, he'd be a rather likeable player. He's hitting to all fields, doing great. My question to you is ... why does he stink some seasons? I mean really suck? You would think a guy with consistent at bats who never gets hurt like Rios would be more consistent. I mean he was a piece of dung last year and now he's fine. WTF? I think he goes through stretches where he really wants to play, and some where he doesn't. I think he's in a stretch where he looks forward to playing right now, hopefully it lasts for a while. The scouting report when he was claimed was he didn't feel like playing all the time.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Jun 8, 2012 -> 10:03 PM) Hector being Hector. What I don't understand is some thing he'd be a better starter. I think he'd be near 100 pitches by the 4th or 5th inning.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jun 8, 2012 -> 10:01 PM) Hide your wives, Brett Myers is getting loose He'd be very hard to root for if he played for the Sox.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Jun 8, 2012 -> 09:58 PM) Kind of sad to see us with 12 hits to the Astros 5 yet we trail 5-3. Floyd and the home run ball haunt us again The funny thing was his curveball was HOF material tonight. They had no chance against it. The fastball was hit hard, although not very often.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Jun 8, 2012 -> 09:54 PM) My comment had nothing to do with Danks and I never said it did. Then your timing was coincidental. You made the comment right after Danks got a broken bat hit.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Jun 8, 2012 -> 09:52 PM) What the f*** has Fukedome done? Wow WTF! What has Jordan Danks done?

This is the biggest strike zone I can remember.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Jun 8, 2012 -> 09:46 PM) Anyone else think Fukedome has played his last game with the Sox? Because of a broken bat single?

I was at the game Saturday right behind the Seattle dugout when Prior came in and struck someone out. The catcher threw the ball to the guy next to me. It turned out it was Prior's first career K, so they needed the ball back. They gave him a ball and a bat.