Dick Allen

QUOTE (Princess Dye @ Mar 14, 2009 -> 05:47 PM) The Sox havent sounded all that interested in leading off Getz or Lillibridge. So BA has always been kind of cemented in 4th OF to me. And of course late innings replacement, they liked the way he handled that role last year. Lillibridge hasn't shown the last 18 months that he could be anything close to a good leadoff man. I'm still hoping KW makes some sort of trade.

QUOTE (Heads22 @ Mar 14, 2009 -> 05:42 PM) And somewhere in Glendale, a lone tear slowly rolls down Jerry Owens' cheek. He's been given opportunities most would not have. If he blows it, he can only blame himself. If he doesn't make the team, I wonder if a team would claim him. I can't imagine him having better opportunities than he was presented with the White Sox.

BA sucks. It appears reports of his demise was premature. I still think he should play CF everyday.

Edmonds could be a nice stopgap. Wise isn't a lead off hitter and really Owens isn't either. Edmonds isn't the CF he used to be, but he is still better defensively than Wise, and throws much better than Owens, and is an upgrade of the Ken Griffey Jr. statue they set up in CF the second half of 2008. As far as rejecting coming to the White Sox before, he said he was given just a little window to make up his mind and didn't want to rush so he had to say no. I really think if KW was going to sign him, he would have been signed by now. He supposedly is high maintenence. KW and I agree the best of the 3 is BA, but either Ozzie doesn't agree or he believes the CF must be a guy batting first.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 05:12 PM) How many times do we hear that BA hit two homers off Felix Hernandez...as if they means he has a lifetime get of jail free card??? Probably about 1/10th of the time you hear BA's 2006 performance means he cannot play well at the major league level. These games mean nothing. I don't know how many guys tell management, " I hit .400 in spring training, I need a raise" I would imagine its zero. Right now, even the good pitchers don't want to be peaking. With Beckham, its just a matter of time. Who really knows if he's ready right now? But if his mechanics are good, and he appears ready, they probably will give him a shot. He's going to be at 2B or SS real soon anyway. What's interesting about Beckham is he changed his swing a little bit in the Fall League and changed the opinion of the scouts who thought he wouldn't amount to much. He may turn out to be one of the top 2 or 3 players from that draft.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Mar 12, 2009 -> 01:13 PM) I coached travel baseball teams from my hometown in the summers and one year we went to a tournament in Cooperstown. We were a really good team, I mean we lost two games the entire summer. We had some big kids, too. One was 6-feet, but lanky. So we thought we would be competitive there and we were, but we got blown out by one team from Texas who had a kid 6-2, built with facial hair. Seriously, these kids were 12 and 13 and this kid was enormous. He won the HR derby and set a record for most HRs and hit moon shots. Funniest thing is that kid has nothing on this kid. I still can't imagine how big kids are getting at such a young age. Why is this kid catching? If his future is hitting, why hurt his knees. It's already stunted Mauer's growth. I was at a Bears game a few years ago and the were holding some sort of Punt, Pass and Kick competition. The 12 year old had a beard just like Joaquin Phoenix. He won.

Any Jerry Owens love comes from his spectacular Sept 07 performance. Other than that, the guy has been a dog in the major leagues. If he leads off the majority of the time for the White Sox, I say they don't play .500. I really thought KW would make acquiring a lead off hitter a priority seeing how its been a problem now for several years. Wise, Owens....those guys are lead off guys for minor league teams or teams that plan on losing 100 games. Having them lead off with this team is like giving a 16 year old a Ferrari. Ridiculous.

QUOTE (Melissa1334 @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 10:08 AM) i dunno. all im trying to say is that wise is what he is. he is nothing more than a aa/aaa player(i guess a back up). and he showed last year that he cant play every day. he is not the answer. like you said, for the most part, ST numbers mean nothing. and no one deserves to win a job bcuz of 20-40 good ST ab's. I think the ironic thing is Ozzie said in 2007 "don't believe what you see in September when you are out of contention and spring training", yet it seems the White Sox are moving more towards spring training competition to earn jobs. I suppose you almost have to with younger guys, but to base things almost entirely on spring training results doesn't seem like a good plan.

QUOTE (Melissa1334 @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 09:49 AM) i dont get whats so hard about getting a cfer. even willy t seems great compared to those 3! but i agree with kalapse, how can u say wise deserves it and has put his 12 minor league seasons behind him, ITS BEEN 17 AB'S! It happens every spring, but it is what makes the game so great. This spring is even more deceiving as it is longer and a lot of guys are at WBC, so you are playing against guys who will never make it or are pretty far away, and I think the good pitchers are pulling back the reigns a little bit and the guys fighting for their major league lives who have been working all winter, tend to look better. I think OBP is very important for a leadoff guy. Maybe they should change it to "out percentage", instead of a .310 OBP they would have a .690 out percentage. Its hard to imagine a team could be successful when the guys coming to bat most make a higher percentage of outs than the guys who bat far lower.

Compared to Wise and Owens, Coco Crisp sounds like Rickey Henderson. I wish KW had Coco. The last guy the Sox developed who could lead off was Ray Durham. Drafted by Larry Himes, a draft genius, although he was very lucky too. Before Ray, I can't think of anyone halfway decent the White Sox brought up.

Does anyone remember what Carlos Quentin hit last spring? .227 Joe Crede hit .135 and was a big reason for the White Sox early wins. Nick Swisher hit .294. Brian Anderson hit .365 and led the team in homers last spring. He hardly got to play. If he were Cuban, Cubano would have been up in arms. Tomo Okha's ERA was 0.90. He couldn't get batters out in AAA. Floyd's ERA last spring was over 6.00. Spring stats mean nothing. All the Josh Kroeger excitement will be forgotten a year from now. Any worry about Quentin will be forgotten as well. You just have to hope your better players are healthy.

It all depends on how everyone does in a couple weeks. At the end of March, or the first few days of April, nobody is going to care if you hit .500 or .000 the first couple weeks of March.

The scout Olney talked to said he was the best pitching prospect he had ever seen. He had 45 ks in 21 innings, throws 99-102 with movement. The scout said batters look like they are attempting to play a video game they had never seen before when he pitches. They have no idea how to handle him. The scout said he's better than AJ Burnett right now. He said he would be a #1 or #2 starter right now. Of course I also read back when Gavin Floyd was drafted out of HS, that he was ready to step into a major league rotation. His agent is Boras so he may not be signable except for a couple of teams.

QUOTE (103 mph screwball @ Mar 9, 2009 -> 08:23 AM) I can't argue with the negatives about Rodriguez. However, catcher is the one position that if the Sox suffered a major injury, there would not be someone in the organization that would be able to adequately fill the void of losing AJ. Flowers is clearly a defensive liability until he gets some minor league experience. Having Rodriguez catch and DH could win the Sox a few more games which could be the difference even if AJ stays healthy. If AJ gets hurt, Rodriguez could save the season. I know the free agent market is down, but the Sox paid 2.25 million for Toby Hall. If they sign IRod cheap enough and some steroid story comes out or he is a clubhouse cancer, then just release him. I agree 100% about the Sox catching situation. I don't think Rodriquez is the answer though. I think he's cooked. If AJP goes down, the White Sox are screwed. Big time. Flowers is the only guy who may be able to handle the job offensively everyday, and even then we are talking about a guy who hasn't played above A ball, and a guy, who if he caught everyday would be on a first name basis with the M&Ms guy within a week what with all the time he would be back by him to pick up a ball. I have always liked Lucy, but he's a back-up at best and I don't know about his injury. Stewart hit lefties well last year. Can he do it again? Very questionable. AJP going down for 2 or 3 weeks could be enough to knock this team down several pegs in the standings. Of course, they have gotten away with it for a few years now, but AJ is getting older and at the age catchers start to decline rapidly. If you could actually downgrade from Toby Hall, the White Sox have done it.

Ozzie's last name is supposed to be pronounced Gee-shen, and during his first couple of years playing Tony Kubek would pronounce it that way but it apparently bothered people. Ozzie has said he doesn't care how it was pronounced, just that it was spelled correctly on his paycheck.

QUOTE (daa84 @ Mar 9, 2009 -> 09:28 AM) yep, and stewarts is .188...though corky miller has had had a nice batting eye in his career in the minors...im still pretty disappointed KW didn't go after Blanco who would have been a perfect fit here IMO.... Yes he would have been, but perhaps he did go after him but playing time was an issue. He's probably going to play a lot more in SD.

QUOTE (BearSox @ Mar 8, 2009 -> 10:11 PM) I agree with JPN. Miller has the best chance to backup AJ. I thought he was just a body for camp as well, but so far he has shown he's somewhat competent with the bat, and from what I have read, he's suppossed to be really good defensively. But it will likely be one of Stewart and Miller, and the loser gets sent down to Charlotte with Armstrong. And speaking of Armstrong, my oh my does he look lost at bat. I'm not surprised that so far major league pitching (for the most part) has shut him down. I am surprised that he actually hit good at times in the minors and in the AFL however. But he and Stewart/Miller should provide Charlotte with a decent backstop. I agree that Lucy will be sent back down to AA. He's still recovering from that injury (if not physically, mentally), and just like a major leaguer in a similar situation, you start them low to get back to speed and go from there. Also, he should see plenty of time catching due to the fact Flowers doesn't look like much of a catcher anyway. Does Birmingham have the DH? If so, I could see Flowers spending some time there (with Allen at 1B). So far, all four of our affiliates look good. W-S and Kanny should benefit from our strong draft class from last year, and AA and AAA look pretty solid from what I can tell. I wish the White Sox had all their affiliates centered around Illinois and the midwest instead of down primarily in the south east. Despite what he did the first week of spring training, Corky Miller cannot hit. I think he has a .176 career batting average.

QUOTE (JPN366 @ Mar 9, 2009 -> 01:39 AM) Yes, the Barons use the DH. I still think that Flowers will catch 4 out of 5 and Lucy will get the other game. Unless Tyler is just horrible, then I can see him DH'ing a lot. He could even DH when not catching. If they are both here like I think, I'm sure I'll see them talking catching frequently. I can't see them DHing Flowers much. He either needs to catch and try to improve or find a different position. You don't want someone his age to be strickly a DH. I think Flowers will catch everyday until they decide he just will never be able to do it, and then move him to another position to see if he can handle that. DH has to be the final option.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Mar 8, 2009 -> 07:52 PM) The Twins also tried that s*** with Liriano last year, sticking with Livan Hernandez instead of calling Francisco up when there was no doubt he was ready and better than anyone else there. Liriano either did file a complaint or thought seriously about filing a complaint with the MLBPA. Anyway, the Sox aren't known for pulling that kind of crap. IIRC when both Anderson and Sweeney were highly regarded prospects, the Sox added them to the roster much earlier than they had to. Didn't both players first come up as injury replacements prior to the September roster expansions? The Sox could have easily made a small trade for a AAAA player or called up a AAAA player to use as a sub temporarily instead of getting them service time, but they went the prospect route instead. The Sox as a whole under JR don't cut a lot of corners. They like to play things pretty much by the book, i.e. no MLB contracts or record-breaking signing bonuses to draft picks, etc. Borchard and Viciedo are the recent exceptions as Alexei was at least considered ready to play as a UT guy. Also this year with OC was the first time I can remember them really taking a chance through the arbitration process looking for draft picks. Generally if there's any chance a player will accept, and if the Sox don't want that player to accept, they don't offer arb. I'm sure there are other examples too, but overall the Sox would be one of the last teams I'd ever expect to end up in hot water over holding a player back to gain another arb year. Agents and the MLBPA don't like that s***, and the players definitely know what is going on. I agree. Holding guys back because of arb clock considerations is a loser mentality. The White Sox don't do that.

QUOTE (thedoctor @ Mar 6, 2009 -> 01:47 PM) but it was a damn good hit. The problem with having him as a back up is if he's going to hit that poorly, AJ is eventually going to have to enter a lot of games when he's getting the day off. I think its best AJ gets some rest in 2009. He's getting to the age a lot of catchers hit a wall, and has had a pretty heavy workload the last several years. I think Miller would be a mistake. Stewart would be perfect if he continued to hit lefties like he did last year, but I don't know if that's reasonable.

QUOTE (Melissa1334 @ Mar 6, 2009 -> 01:42 PM) wow, u werent kidding lol corky's numbers Between 2004-2006 he was 1 for 55.

QUOTE (SadChiSoxFanOptimist @ Mar 6, 2009 -> 01:09 PM) I recall reading in the Tribune that Nate Silver from BProspectus predicted that Jayson Nix would win the starting job. Well, I guess that ends this thread. Silver says these things but his book, BP, says something very different. I guess he's covered.

It will be interesting to see how all this changes in a couple of weeks when some of the guys really playing well struggle a little bit, and some of the guys who are struggling put it together. I really don't see how anyone can come to any conclusion based on what has happened so far. I'm sure nobody has been ruled out, but nobody with the positions in play, have been ruled in either. Corky Miller is on fire. The reality is, he hasn't hit better than a pitcher during the regular season in 6 years. Odds of him doing it in 2009 are slimmer than Jerry Owens hitting 20 homers.

Not that Clayton is Johann Santana Jr., but I'm surprised the voting is as close as it is.

Its way too early to make much of results, although it is better they do good than bad.