Dick Allen

Ozzie on Lillibridge, this is funny: “He's got to work on a lot of things,” Ozzie said. “If this kid keeps swinging the bat like that, he's going to be in Triple-A for a long time. We need him; we want him. That's the reason we made this trade (with the Braves) _ we liked him for the past two years. But when you continue to try and play a big man's game when you're only 5-11, 120 pounds, that's not a game you should be playing. “We talked to him clearly three times, the message was there. You've got to use your legs, play baseball, and when you have warning-rack power, you're going to go from the minor leagues to the Mexican League to the Korean League. “In the big leagues, he's got a tough road to come back here. He's not doing what he's supposed to do. I'm just being honest. He's got the message three times and he's got to change his ballgame.”

I've heard KW say the coaching staff is entirely Ozzie's call. If Cowley is accurate, and that is a huge if, either things have changed or KW was lying.

QUOTE (SoxAce @ May 19, 2009 -> 11:00 PM) BA had more bad luck. Hit some solid shots, but Crede just robbed him twice. His first AB was real good. A lot of pitches and a liner snagged by Crede.

Gonzalez is speculating that Contreras could eventually take Floyd's place in the rotation. According to BA he was throwing first pitch forkballs for strikes last night. Floyd is out of options so I presume he would move to the bullpen if this longshot (IMO) comes true. Here's the question. If Floyd has another 3 or 4 starts like his last 3 or 4 do you risk losing him and his new contract by exposing him to waivers? Considering in his last 21 starts his ERA is about 6.00 it would have to be a consideration.

QUOTE (heimel @ May 19, 2009 -> 07:57 PM) D-train with a surprisingly solid outing. 6.1ip 0r, 1h, 5k, 2w. Pretty impressive against the Rangers. The Rangers couldn't score against Willis? They need to fire their hitting coach.

For a guy who get ripped as much as almost any player on this board, there was an interesting note on the scoreboard tonight. Jim Thome has the highest home run percentage in the AL since he joined the White Sox.

Buehrle was great. Josh Fields had a game to forget. The boo birds have a new target. If Josh Fields made $1.5 million a year, I'm pretty sure he would make it through waivers.

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ May 19, 2009 -> 05:56 PM) any updates on Q? He's available to pinch hit tonight and tomorrow night.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 19, 2009 -> 05:41 PM) Oh believe me, there's more of the Lillicurse to come. I'm very scared that Quentin's going to go on the DL, and Lillicurse will be right back up. Maybe not. I heard Ozzie gave Brent a beatdown to the media today. He said if he doesn't change his approach, he will be in Charlotte for a long time.

The Mets aren't going to pick up the $20 million or so left on Konerko's contract. If Delgado comes back in a few months they would have no place to put him.

QUOTE (whitesoxmanager @ May 19, 2009 -> 05:25 PM) official line: over (4) -125 I'm telling you, the over is a lock tonight.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ May 19, 2009 -> 04:59 PM) I don't know why anyone is happy about this. The best case scenario to me would have been Lilli going to the bench to sit there with Pods getting taken off this team. Lilli is the one guy on this team that Ozzie wouldn't start in CF over Brian. Now we're going to end up with Pods in CF every day, you just watch. We'll be 10 games out and Pods will be in f***ing CF and BA will be riding the bench. Anderson will get marginalized in a platoon role and go hitless in like 3 consecutive but sporadic starts, and then he'll sit there the rest of the year. And don't think that Pods is going to pull his groin again this year; oh no, he only does that when we're counting on him. With Quentin out, BA would be in LF and Lillibridge in CF tonight if Pods was at home playing Mr. Mom.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 19, 2009 -> 03:16 PM) How stubborn do you have to be to have people tell you that the only way you're ever going to be a big leaguer long-term and make anything more than a pittance in earnings is to make changes and for you to not do them? I remember the press conference about the Vazquez trade. KW was talking about how he had been after Lillibridge for a while and when he talked to him he asked him what happened to him in 2008? Lillibridge said he had too big of a swing trying to hit everything 9 miles. He obviously is having a hard time correcting it, if he's trying to correct it. The guy hit .220 in AAA. It should be no surprise he was overmatched in the American League.

I predict the Sox score at least 7 runs tonight.

Podsednik lf Fields 3b Dye rf Thome dh Konerko 1b Pierzynski c Anderson cf Ramirez ss Getz 2b

I don't see any team in the Central being so awesome the next few years that the White Sox need to go into full rebuilding. I wouldn't trade guys you wouldn't mind having around in 2010. There's no need to trade Thornton. I would probaby trade Linebrink or Jenks but not both. Dotel should be shopped because he won't be here next year. Konerko is limited because of his contract and his no trade. If you were to deal him, you wouldn't get much back. Same with Thome and Dye. You can't trade AJ until Flowers can show he can catch 130 games defensively and not kill you. Fields will get you nothing. What about trading Ramirez? He's signed cheaply, has shown a big bat in the past and you have Beckham waiting in the wings. As far as all the guys on the Barons. It would be great if they all panned out, but chances are one or two or maybe 3 actually will. I wouldn't want to base the entire future of the franchise on them just yet.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ May 19, 2009 -> 12:16 PM) I agree with that. I disagree with what he said, which is not what you are saying here. Strikeouts are a lot more tolerable if you bring something extraordinary to the table. Thome, Dunn, they bring 40 homers and a ton of walks. Granderson brings a lot of speed, a leadoff guy, some power, muti-faceted offense and plus defense. Unless he's doing something else high above average, the strikeouts at the current pace will make him an insurance salesman. The guy putting up the same numbers with the same defense with 75 strikeouts is a lot more valuable.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ May 19, 2009 -> 12:07 PM) The bolded really makes no sense. So, you can K a lot, if you hit homers, or play defense, but not if you have a high average or OBP? Simply put, saying he can't be successful going middle and right is ridiculous. If that is what he needs to do to improve his hitting, then add power as time goes on, that is what he should do. I agree with him. You can't strike out close to 200 times and hit 15 homers with a low OBP and an average at best glove. Maybe if he starts going to RF he will cut down his K rate, but how many guys strike out as much as he does but don't also get on base a lot? Not too many. Although I have never been a fan of his, I personally think he is Ron Kittle Jr. at the plate, it is too early to write him off now. I wish they would let Betemit, even with a bad glove play against some RHP and let Fields play when his chances of success are higher. I think eventually he won't be considered a main piece in the White Sox core, but set him up a little better for success and maybe something clicks. When he walks up to the plate and sees 2 homers on the scoreboard under his name, its not doing his game any good. I'm sure he thought he would be a 30-40 homer guy.

Contreras hurt his back in mid-2006 and has never had the same stuff.

Some reasons the Sox stink right now are Ramirez and Quentin and Floyd and Danks. I'm not counting Contreras because he wasn't even supposed to be around for a couple more months. One could expect some sort of regression out of each, but the regression has been so extreme. The White Sox current team was set up for them not to be a team that could possibly win 100 games, but it was constructed to compete for a weak division while guarding the teams bank account. That is where the problem lies. Quentin, Ramirez, Danks and Floyd all came up aces last season. The odds of it happening again for all of them and for guys like Lillibridge, and Marquez and Nix are slimmer than Ramirez. That said, they'll probably sweep the Twins and score about 30 runs in the 3 game series.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 19, 2009 -> 10:37 AM) This season was almost set up to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. White Sox struggle in a very winnable/average division...end up with 68-76 wins. KW and JR preach the need for being "fiscally responsible" while heading into next season. Attendance numbers of 1.6-2.0 million are also cited as evidence. "We've had one of the top ten payrolls in baseball for four years now and the attendance is only, let's say, 22nd or 23rd in the majors..." This situation is very frustrating. I've been reading whitesoxinteractive a lot the last 2-3 days and they've even started a VERY long "Fire Ozzie Guillen" thread, which makes absolutely no sense at all. Some people are saying we should have hired Gaston instead of Guillen, thinking that might have led to multiple World Series championships instead of quite probably zero. One thing almost nobody can match is Ozzie's passion for the White Sox. And yelling, screaming, knocking over post-game spreads, it's not going to change things for a beaten up team lacking in talent. As much as the idea that the payroll is going to dwindle to $60-70 million seems crazy (since it was $115), it's really the only logical thing to do. We can't easily rebuild on the fly because starting pitching is almost impossible to find from outside the organization. If there's any lesson from the last decade, it should be that the Sox win when they pitch well and have a decent offense (not 2000 or 2006 level, just between 8th and 14th in MLB). The payroll was going down there anyway. Do you really think after they get rid of Thome, Contreras, Dye, Dotel and have to pay Viciedo $4.3 million less next year, that they are going to sign someone for big money? No way. They will indeed use the economy as an excuse for this year, but all the other teams in town have no problems filling their places when they give the people buying tickets something good to watch. Its like a guy opening a restaurant saying he's going to use old food because he's afraid no one will come to the restaurant. When no one comes, he lets everyone know how he was right. Its total BS. Its the defeatist attitude KW claimed he didn't have.

QUOTE (JDsDirtySox @ May 19, 2009 -> 08:47 AM) I bet we could get Chris Young back... and his .170 BA. Couldn't decide if this should be green or not He just has a bad hitting coach. If he had a good one, he'd be hitting .340.

QUOTE (La Marr Hoyt HOF @ May 19, 2009 -> 08:48 AM) Greg Walker Career Stats: G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO AVG 855 2,864 368 746 164 19 113 444 268 28 520 .260 Hal Baines Career Stats: G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO AVG 2,830 9,908 1,299 2,866 488 49 384 1,628 1,062 187 1,441 .289 ... Who do you want to be giving you hitting advice? Michael Jordan should be coaching the Bulls. Who knows more about basketball than him? This is a ridiculous argument. For one thing, being a hitting coach requires communication. Harold? Hello.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ May 18, 2009 -> 04:14 PM) I'll just have to very much disagree with you here. I think Getz and Fields are doing about what you'd expect them to do at this point, maybe a little under for Fields. Alexei Ramirez at this point last year was worse than Fields or Getz are right now. You expected Josh Fields to be hitting .224 with 2 homers at this point? Fields has had 125 AB this year, after 125 AB last year Alexei was hitting .293 with 4 homers. I don't know what he did today, but coming into today's game Fields was hitting .109 when he fell behind in the count 0-1.

QUOTE (Texsox @ May 18, 2009 -> 03:38 PM) So he is only able to help guys to hit more home runs? I believe that is what has been said. Guys come here and become better sluggers, but they never seem to raise their averages. Who has left the Sox and gone on to become a better hitter elsewhere? It may be the players and not the coach. I'm sure it is. I don't know Greg Walker, but how does he get slammed for a guy hitting .230 and Cooper gets no grief for Floyd's 7.71 ERA and inability to hold a runner on?