Dick Allen

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Nov 8, 2009 -> 11:48 AM) You can't argue with results, DA. Buddy Bell has played a pretty fundamental part in this organization since his hiring, and his focus (the minor league system) has only gotten better since he's gotten here. Sometimes you got to call a spade a spade. Buddy Bell has only helped out system improve. I think he has had very little impact on the talent level improving. Until the Sox start calling up guys with a little consistency that have a clue as to what they are doing, I'm holding out buying something just because Buddy said its so.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 8, 2009 -> 11:43 AM) I don't get how being a manager of bad teams means he has no idea how to recognize talent. Even getting past this, his big thing is supposed to be teaching fundamentals to some of these kids coming through the system. I said if he thinks a player is major league ready, like he said of Jordan Danks, to take it with a grain of salt. He managed groups of guys that apparently were no where near major league ready for 9 years.

QUOTE (scenario @ Nov 8, 2009 -> 11:34 AM) I think you're way off base here. Bell has an outstanding reputation for identifying/developing talent. And he's completely revamped (and dramatically improved) our minor league system in the last 3 years. Who? The system improved because the draft improved. No Beckham no Viciedo who they spent money on, no Flowers who was with someone else, the system would be near the bottom. What did Buddy have to do with their acquisitions? With whom did Buddy earn his reputation? Jordan Danks leading off for the 2010 White Sox would be a disaster.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 8, 2009 -> 11:11 AM) Being able to recognize talent is much different than actually able to coax it out of players. Who has he recognized that no one else could? I think he has very little impact on draft selections. Isn't he supposed to be developing players? Being around those bad teams, he may have a warped sense of what major league ready is.

QUOTE (Jenks Heat @ Nov 8, 2009 -> 09:57 AM) Starting each season knowing you have a very limted chance of competing has got to be tough and then when June rolls around and your season is over every year has got to be even harder unless you are Miek Sweeney then it is fine because your are on the IR anyway. On top of this Teahan was moved all over the place. I think Buddy Bell and Greg Walker are key in this. Buddy Bell managed 9 seasons in the major leagues for 3 different organizations. His teams came in last place 6 times, 4th twice (one of the 4th place finishes he was fired during the season and the team was in last place when he got the boot) and 3rd place once with a 79-83 record. I know he's highly respected but I would take his reccommendation about players being major league ready or contributing to winning with a grain of salt.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Nov 7, 2009 -> 12:41 PM) Yeah, I think it's kind of unfair to judge Swish's numbers here. We were jacking him around, putting him in defensive positions he wasn't accustomed to, asking him to bat leadoff, etc. Let's face it, we were asking him to do a lot of things and he didn't perform particularly well doing them, and then it got kind of ugly. Nothing to do but move on. I do miss the dirty 30 thing though... Yeah, really unfair. You have got to be kidding me. Except for June, when he was tremendous, he was horrible, a minor leaguer, and it was all his fault. Batting leadoff screwed him up? Check the facts: Split G GS PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS TB GDP HBP SH SF IBB ROE BAbip tOPS+ sOPS+ Batting 1st 29 29 130 105 20 22 3 0 3 8 1 2 23 27 .210 .354 .324 .678 34 6 1 0 1 2 0 .250 86 81 Batting 2nd 8 7 31 25 6 3 1 0 2 3 0 0 6 7 .120 .290 .400 .690 10 1 0 0 0 0 0 .063 85 85 Batting 3rd 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 -100 -100 Batting 5th 11 7 33 28 2 7 1 1 0 2 0 0 3 8 .250 .313 .357 .670 10 0 0 1 1 1 0 .333 81 73 Batting 6th 17 16 68 57 9 13 5 0 3 11 0 0 9 19 .228 .324 .474 .797 27 2 0 0 2 0 0 .270 113 108 Batting 7th 56 56 215 187 35 44 6 0 11 33 2 1 25 48 .235 .335 .444 .779 83 2 3 0 0 0 0 .258 109 112 Batting 8th 27 27 104 90 14 19 4 0 5 9 0 0 14 23 .211 .317 .422 .740 38 3 0 0 0 3 2 .226 98 114 Batting 9th 4 1 6 4 0 1 1 0 0 3 0 0 2 2 .250 .500 .500 1.000 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 .500 173 244 Looks like he couldn't bat just about everywhere, and the White Sox never asked him to play anywhere he had not played before. Boo hoo, poor Nick didn't perform. It can't possibly be his fault. GMAB.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Nov 7, 2009 -> 10:55 AM) I can't seem to find the position I've played my whole career," "When the offseason started, I was kind of locked into thinking I would play third," . "It seems like the weight was off me coming into the offseason knowing I had a full year at third base under my belt. So, now I kind of have to re-do learning how to play a new position. " I guess part of me was thinking at least I wouldn't I have to figure out something new because I felt comfortable at third. "Ultimately, it's not my decision," "It's hard for me because it's another new position " "I'm not sure the politics involved in it, and it's not for me to say anything about it. OK I took all the positive things out now and left in the somewhat perplexing or negative ones. According to the quotes it's basically hard on him, he has to figure out something new or re-do learning a new position, he'd rather be a SS and he sees politics involved in it. I don't think I'm out of line nor the only one who see's these quotes as a mixed bag of saying the all right things along with his personal feelings about it mixed in. I think he's more bummed out that his two best buddies are gone.

QUOTE (DBAHO @ Nov 7, 2009 -> 08:05 AM) Cali the question you'd have to ask yourself is would Gordon Beckham give you better defense at SS than what Alexei Ramirez gave this season? That is debatable to say the least. As long as Ramirez is paying attention, he's pretty good. If Frank Thomas was the White Sox first baseman in 2009, Alexei would have had 40 errors. One article I read about the SS/2B debate with Beckham is the injury factor. It is easier to get hurt as a 2B especially on DPs.

QUOTE (beck72 @ Nov 7, 2009 -> 06:52 AM) I know Kenny is talking up Teahen at 3b. But his best fielding year was in 2007 in RF. He had 17 assists in 137 games, and had a UZR of 6.8. Personally, I would take Uribe over Teahen any day of the week.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Nov 6, 2009 -> 12:29 PM) wow, looks like I am in the minority on this. I understand UCF might have told him he could wear the Nikes, but sorry it didnt work out with Adidas, sorry. You are still a scholarship student-athlete at a university, they are paying for your education. (I realize he could pay for it himself, but being a scholarship student-athlete is a privilege, not a right.) Adidas provides the university with athletic gear for every sport, and now they canceled the contract so you can wear your daddys shoes. Marcus told them upfront if he couldn't wear the Nikes he couldn't play at their school. He shouldn't be obligated at all to wear the Adidas and the university obviously agrees or they would have had him sit in street clothes rather than risk losing the contract. Obviously they are either sticking by their word and/or feel having a Jordan on their basketball team is more lucrative than the shoe contract. I do find it odd that a shoe company could possibly make money off contracts like the one in play here with this particular school. Do you think that if he agreed to wear the Adidas there was any chance that Adidas would not promote the fact that even MJ's kid is wearing Adidas? The school was wrong if they didn't get the proper OK, but Adidas is real slimy if a lower level person gave the OK and then upper management changed their mind.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Nov 7, 2009 -> 01:00 AM) When you say Royals fans are glad he's gone, should it really matter? I mean, they're Royals fans. There's not too many of them and I really doubt most of them care since they've been so bad for the past decade and a half. Saying they hate Mark Teahen doesn't validate anything. A lot of us here hate Alexei Ramirez, does that mean Alexei Ramirez is a bad player? Not necessarily. As far as Teahen's offensive abilities... Well, here's what Teahen is from a Sabermetric point of view: A very average hitter in terms of line drives. He's around the league average in that. However, the biggest problem with him is the amount of ground balls he hits, nearly 50% of his balls in play are hit on the ground throughout his career. Unless you're Juan Pierre, that's a very bad thing. Teahen also strikes out more than the average hitter, which doesn't make too much sense due to the fact that he's a contact hitter. Another thing to look at is Teahen's protection. Playing on the Royals definitely doesn't help you get better pitches to hit. That might be a reason why he doesn't drive in many runs. Not that RBI matters in player evaluation. Teahen's low walk rate is also incredibly uncharacteristic of a guy drafted by Billy Beane. Thus, Teahen is incredibly prone to cold streaks since he's a ground ball hitter that is prone to strikeouts and does not walk enough. Since Teahen hits the ball on the ground so much, his fly ball rate takes a huge tumble, suggesting why he's had such low home run totals even though he was projected as a good power hitter out of the draft. Part of the reason for this might be because of Kaufman Stadium, which has taken a lot of power away from guys like Jose Guillen, Mike Sweeney, and etc. over the years because of its large dimensions. This can also suggest that Teahen deliberately stopped swinging for the fences due to Kaufman, meaning more line drives instead of deep fly balls on the warning track. However, it should be noted that he had a high fly ball rate in 2006 (5% higher than his career norm), where he put up a .500 SLG%. His line drive rate that year was also extremely low while he posted his career high in average. In other words, 06 was pretty much a fluke in terms of the numbers he put up (although his BABIP wasn't that much higher than his career average). However, that does not invalidate the fact that when he hit more fly balls, the results were better. How does this benefit the White Sox and Teahen? For beginners, Teahen had a .500 SLG% at the Cell in around 150 plate appearances. Not a big enough sample size to gauge anything drastic, but it's definitely a start. Here's the kicker: he has 8 home runs in those 150 plate appearances. What's even better is that he only has 28 home runs at Kaufman Stadium in 1366 plate appearances. Talk about power sap! To simplify things, if we give Teahen 600 plate appearances this year, he'd hit somewhere near 25-30 home runs, 16 at U.S. Cellular Field alone. Of course, it is completely unrealistic to think that way, but the fact that Teahen has more than 1/4 the amount of home runs at the Cell in comparison to his home runs at Kaufman Stadium in a sample size ten times smaller is just mind boggling. We can pretty much say that Kaufman held Teahen back. Even if it didn't, the Cell is definitely a much better home for him. With Greg Walker telling him that he should try to hit more home runs, Teahen will definitely swing for fly balls more often this year. Two things can come out of this: more home runs and more strikeouts. Teahen's power numbers will go up by a lot, those doubles he hit at Kaufman might turn into home runs at U.S. Cellular Field. But since he's most likely going to change his approach to be more of a fly ball hitter, his average and OBP will most likely decrease while his K rate goes up. However, as mentioned before, when he did swing for the sky back in 2006, he had a career year where he posted an all-star caliber OPS. In my opinion, Teahen is slated for a mediocre year in terms of average and OBP. He will most likely hit anywhere from .250-.260 with a .310-.320 OBP. However, his SLG should be around .470-.480, giving him an OPS of about .780-.800, which translates to an OPS+ of around 105 and a wOBA of .340. In other words, he'd be a slightly above average hitter with good power. As a 3B, that's all you can really ask of him. In the end, Teahen should be around a 1.5-2 win player given his bad defense. Counting on USCF to be the savior and make this guy go from below average to anything close to a force, while its possible, is probably really reaching. It was only 2 years ago when the Sox got Nick Swisher out of Oakland into USCF. A lot of "experts" and I'm not digging at people here, I'm talking about guys who get paid a lot of money to talk about baseball, were predicting 40 homers, .400+ OBP, .900 + OPS. Teahen is really liked by a lot of scouts, and of course Hawk has been an admirer for a few years, although even he seemed to sour on him a little bit this past year. He could break out, and maybe playing one position will help him, but on the other hand he also was playing in total obscurity in KC and their meaningless games began rather early. How will he handle a little more scrutiny? I think there's a better chance he is what he is, but hold out the 2% hope he has a Ryan Ludwick breakout. The K's concern me, a lot. I know a lot of people think a strikeout is no different than any other out, but a strikeout doesn't get a guy at third home with one out. A strikeout doesn't make a SS boot a ball, a strikeout doesn't advance a runner especially considering the White Sox really don't have many basestealers on the roster. Obviously that can change, this isn't the big splash I was hoping for. I still think they better do something about the bullpen.

QUOTE (bobryansson @ Nov 6, 2009 -> 03:51 PM) Pods at $7,500,000.00 per year for 2 years? You must be kidding,... or... something. I'd guarantee him $1.5 million, like Kotsay, and throw in some incentives. Anything more would be silly, but I'm like most, I don't blame him for trying to cash in.

I'm hearing a lot of talk that this trade should it happen, opens up the doors to a Figgins signing. Don't Figgins and Teahen basically play all of the same positions? Wouldn't adding $4 million + to your payroll make it less likely you would be willing to give Figgins the money he would require? Polanco makes some sense but he's older and slipped a little this past year. Damon I would love, but Rios would probably weigh 140 lbs. by July with all the ground he would have to cover.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 5, 2009 -> 07:32 PM) Teahen starting at first? No thank you. That definitely wouldn't be progress.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Nov 5, 2009 -> 07:26 PM) Phil Rogers is commenting that the deal allows the Sox to potentially explore a Konerko trade, which would than free up payroll to make a FA splash. An unnamed scout is indicating that the Sox are likely going to get cash. I hope they get cash. It makes no sense to add $4 million to your payroll for this guy.

QUOTE (Ozzie Ball @ Nov 5, 2009 -> 06:55 PM) He projected Chris Davis to hit .300 with 40 homers this year. James goes way overboard on the young players. Jaramillo screwed him up.

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Nov 5, 2009 -> 07:11 PM) My god people we talk about Chris Getz like he accomplished something here. Is he the new BA? The new Sweeney? Is this what we're trying to do here? There's no raw data to support Getz being anything other then a utility player. Intangibles are fine, but if a player lacks the track record and skill set to back said intangibles, it's pretty much a dead issue. I like Nix no doubt about it, but i can't write him in a starter. Why? Becasue he has enough issues to make his place on this team, a legitmate question mark, but he has the skill set. He has that potential, he doesn't rely on some distant intangibles, he relies on good d and solid pop. It usually produces results. And if it doesn't? We cut our losses and move on. I like Getz but if they trade him they trade him. I don't like the idea of picking up mediocrity and adding $5 million to the payroll of a team that has never said they were flush with cash, but has said the exact opposite for years. I really believe Teahen was a non tender candidate.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Nov 5, 2009 -> 05:50 PM) way to go jordan. Pretty selfish move to cost your school the contract that supplies all its teams with their athletic gear cause you want to wear your daddys shoes. I'm sure Nike was so concerned whether or not a crappy player on a crappy conference USA team was wearing their shoes. He was told during the recruiting process that the shoes were fine. It would be like selling your house for 300k. You go to the closing and the buyer has 250k. You should still do the deal or your a jagoff, right? The university wanted a Jordan on their basketball team and thought this pub was worth more than the shoe contract. Lay off the kid, he did nothing wrong.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Nov 5, 2009 -> 06:50 PM) I get what you're saying, but this reported deal came out early this morning in the newspaper and as of the evening both Getz and Teahen didn't know what was going on. Clearly the Sox and Royals both know the report is out there. If a deal was being worked on but not pretty much agreed on and finished, then both clubs would have notified their players and said nothing was going on, don't you think? There was a report a couple years ago that came out saying we traded Garland to the Astros, and another report last year saying we had dealt Dye to the Reds for Bailey. The Sox IIRC reacted pretty quickly on those, but not this one. Plus Cowley has supposedly gotten enough confirmation for the Sun Times to put the story up. I agree that it was all leaked early and that both teams are probably very pissed about it. But I think the talks are real, the names are right (although there could be others), the framework is pretty much all there, and they haven't said anything because they're expecting to finalize it soon. I agree the principles have probably been agreed upon, they may be haggling about money, perhaps the Sox want some money as well, or maybe the Royals have to make another deal first, or maybe the Sox were moving Teahen along and that deal has to be completed. I know a lot of scouts have had a hard on for Teahen for a while, but he's been pretty mediocre for a while now and is going to make around $5 million. I know he can play several positions but so could Andy Gonzalez. I hope Teahen isn't being acquired to be an every day White Sox.

Sullivan said this rumor is totally bunk.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Oct 31, 2009 -> 02:17 PM) Um...anyone else feel like the announcers are giving Stanzi too much credit for this 4th quarter? He made a couple of good albeit simple throws where Iowa's receivers were wide open and then the receivers ran wild. Granted I'm used to seeing Illinois QBs miss those throws but still. Yeah, they weren't bombs.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Oct 31, 2009 -> 02:10 PM) It is amazing how fast this IU team can fold when things don't go their way. A bunch of mental midgets. I'm surprise Indiana isn't using timeouts right now.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Oct 31, 2009 -> 02:04 PM) I know you're not really gay. Doesn't matter, Indiana is folding again. I'm honestly happy for the Big Ten, but this Iowa team will get annihilated in a BCS bowl if it were to get there. I don't think so. Ohio State lost pretty bad to Purdue and you probably wouldn't say the same thing about them. Talent-wise, or I should say hype-wise, Iowa can't compete with the top 20 probably, but they get the job done. They do pretty well in bowl games.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Oct 31, 2009 -> 01:57 PM) I just went frame by frame on my freaking tivo. Doesn't make them right. Just as on field officials make errors, so do replay officials. You're clearly biased, being a gay Iowa fan. I'm biased, but not gay. I went frame by frame when they were revewing it because I didn't want to hear the result, and I honestly thought he was out of bounds. I really am pretty good about being objective about calls.

Stanzi has thrown for 150 yards and 2 TDs the last 2 plays, good thing they didn't take my or Davies' advise and go to the back up. The wind must be howling.