Dick Allen

QUOTE(SoxAce @ Mar 3, 2008 -> 05:22 PM) I thought so as well, but Kalapse said no even though EJ, who is usually good at the options stuff said he does have one left, and I believe I read an article saying the same thing.. Who knows. Gonzalez wrote something in the Tribune a month or so ago that said MacDougal still had an option. Something about his minor league stay last year being short and it didn't count. Here it is: Pitchers Gavin Floyd and Nick Masset are out of minor-league options and face waivers if they don't make the White Sox's Opening Day roster. But the same status doesn't apply to veteran reliever Mike MacDougal even though he was optioned to Triple-A Charlotte last June. MacDougal still has one option remaining as a result of a longstanding rule in the Basic Agreement. MacDougal was optioned on June 4, only to be recalled on June 15 when reliever Bret Prinz was designated for assignment. Because MacDougal was optioned for less than 20 days, his stint in the minors doesn't count as an option. Therefore, the Sox still can send MacDougal to the minors without exposing him to waivers if he doesn't earn a spot on the Opening Day roster. The Sox view the 30-year-old middle reliever as a serviceable pitcher despite his 6.80 ERA in 54 appearances last year. MacDougal had a 1.80 ERA in 25 games for the Sox in 2006 after coming in a trade from Kansas City.

The concern about Ramirez is his ability to adapt to major league pitching. He's not seeing major league quality pitching yet. Of course, he's still ripping the ball, but I'll wait before getting too excited.

Javy getting lit up, no big deal. Wes Whistler getting lit up, he's not good.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Mar 2, 2008 -> 03:23 PM) Sure. Let Crede play, pay him the $5 million a year, block Fields, and get nothing at all for Crede. It makes sense to me. Sign Crede to a $5 million contract instead of nontendering him. See if he can play during spring training. If he can, trade him for garbage maybe even throw in some money, or just pay him the $5 million to sit down. Yeah that makes sense. The White Sox refuse to pay over slot in the draft. Would they risk $5.1 million in order to acquire a couple of C prospects?

I'm not a Javy guy, but I don't even think twice about a veteran guy getting lit up right now. It doesn't mean anything. If it is continuing 3 weeks from now, I probably would change my mind.

QUOTE(SEALgep @ Mar 2, 2008 -> 01:37 PM) As of now, Owens has proved himself the superior hitter. I wish Anderson proves himself better, but to this point he has not. I don't agree. Neither has proved anything. It would probably shock most that Anderson hit over .300 with and OPS over .800 for July and August 2006 combined. He put together 2 consecutive months of hitting. Owens hasn't.

QUOTE(almagest @ Mar 2, 2008 -> 12:59 PM) Yeah, but that line of thought completely neglects that Fields is younger, cheaper, not represented by Scott Boras, doesn't have potential health issues, and only has 2/3 of a season of ML experience, compared to Crede's 4 full years and 2 partial years. So even if Fields is mediocre, he's still a better choice. And I'd like to find the method by which you predict the stats of a player who doesn't even have one full year at the ML level. Seems kind of silly to say that someone with that little experience has as much of a proven history of mediocrity as someone who's been in the league full time since 2003. I'm of the belief Joe Crede will be better than Josh Fields in 2008. I am one of the few that hasn't annointed Josh Fields an All Star yet. Home runs are all he's proven thus far. If Crede plays 2008 anywhere like he did the first 5 months of 2006 before his back gave out again, he would ridiculous to move unless the Sox get something useful for him, which when Noah Lowry and his swollen elbow draws excitement, appears doubtful.

QUOTE(almagest @ Feb 26, 2008 -> 09:30 PM) I disagree. Good and putrid essentially cancel out. Mediocre != good, and mediocre != decent. Mediocre == "well, at least he's not Timo Perez." According to your standards Josh Fields has had exactly 2/3 of a mediocre season in his career and really nothing else. So you move out Crede for garbage to make room for "well, at least he's not Timo Perez."

QUOTE(YASNY @ Mar 1, 2008 -> 07:39 AM) Then again, maybe he's trying to teach him to cut down on his swing with two strikes and used the hit and run as a mechanism for doing so. You have no idea what was on his mind or what he was trying to accomplish. To criticize a manager in the first week of ST for an in game move is bordering on asisinine. I really doubt it was a hit and run with an 0-2 count, but if it was, it doesn't matter if it was little league, pony league the WS or spring training, it is asasnine. Committting Josh Fields to swing at a pitch almost certainly not to be a strike isn't going to teach him anything. I wasn't watching or listening to the game, but if there were 2 out, they might have sent the runner to either get in scoring position or if he was thrown out, give Fields a new slate.

Supposedly they are taking pictures of his shoulder so they can take more in a couple of months to compare them to. I heard Freddy won't be back until August at the earliest. Ozzie thinks he won't pitch this year.

QUOTE(kyyle23 @ Feb 28, 2008 -> 07:50 AM) I was thinking the same thing. You would think some of the scheduling would cross at some point and things would have to be moved around. Basically the entire MLB schedule would have to be shuffled to accomodate the Chicago teams. It really wouldn't be that big of a deal, they usually both aren't home on the same dates very often.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 28, 2008 -> 07:44 AM) Well, the Sox don't own the stadium. Are you thinking maybe their lease has some sort of first-refusal stipulation in it or something? Or maybe that JR would just use his sway with the owners to not approve such a move? I believe its in their lease.

I don't even know if this idea is even true, but I do know the White Sox have some sort of power that could block it from happening and if you remember when the concrete started falling at Wrigley, Reinsdorf made it clear the Cubs wouldn't be at USCF.

The White Sox have been notorious for jogging to first base on routine grounders. I read an article in 2004 where a scout was quoted as saying they could never get correct times of White Sox players because none of them went all out on routine balls. As far as last year, Andy Gonzalez led off occassionally. That's really all you need to know about the offense, and the bullpen was pitiful. Maybe they could have won a few more games if everyone had a Pete Rose attitude, but they were just a bad team.

After Nick Swisher led off with a single, Williams yelled down to his new player, ''We run hard to first base in Chicago!'' Williams then paused, turned to the coaching staff and said, ''Make sure he [bleeping] hears what I said.'' It appears they aren't screwing around this year. Not even in intrasquad games.

QUOTE(Felix @ Feb 25, 2008 -> 02:30 PM) But could he beat up Fields' dad? Thats the real question. I didn't see the mean streak. He probably would get hurt.

QUOTE(ptatc @ Feb 25, 2008 -> 02:19 PM) This is true. In the minors Crede was known as a good hit-no field 3B. As was Ventura at OSU. A lot more guys considered bad fielders in the minors continue to be bad fielders than the amount of bad fielders who turn into GG quality guys.

QUOTE(almagest @ Feb 25, 2008 -> 02:23 PM) Let's settle this once and for all -- Crede's dad vs. Fields' in a no-holds-barred television free-for-all! "My Dad is Better Than Your Dad", Mondays at 9/8 C on NBC. I met Crede's dad during spring training a couple of years ago. He was really nice. Probably still is.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Feb 25, 2008 -> 01:57 PM) Funny in the wayback machine, we were talking about how much of a stud that Ventura was and how Crede wasn't near his offensive prowess and how could Crede take over for the defensive wizardry that Ventura showed. Now a few years later, people act like Crede was a gold glover coming up. In 2002 Crede received his first taste of the big leagues, he had a 2.36 RF9(Range Factor for 9 innings played) with a zone rating of .766 while Fields had a 2.69 with a zone rating of .713. Crede had 8 errors in 53 games while Fields had 9 errors in 79 games. The almighty's Fielding Percentage was .938 for the god of Gold Glove while Fields has a .958. So as much as we remember the DVD's and the Hawk comparisons to Brooks Robinson, Mr. Crede wasnt Brooks out of the gate like some people believe. How did their offense compare?

His medical reports must be awful. Boston didn't have to give him any guaranteed money.

QUOTE(Leonard Zelig @ Feb 24, 2008 -> 02:52 PM) LaRussa's made similar moves. He did move the pitcher to the 8th spot, but did he move his 3 and 4 hitters up a spot?

QUOTE(The Beast @ Feb 24, 2008 -> 12:01 PM) I do not play World of Warcraft, so stop saying that I do. I do know why some people make different decisions, but I'm just saying, it's hard to hang with people on the weekends when they are drinking and you are trying to have an intellectual conversation with someone. Regardless of what the belief is, it is STILL against the law. What the heck is this supposed to mean? When I was going away to school, I knew what I was going to do, and that was to maintain my relationship with my girlfriend when I was going away. I do not feel like doing this whole, going to a party or hanging around people who are drinking kind of thing. When I'm 21, I probably will have a beer or two when I watch a baseball game, but I'm really not one to like to go to bars or go hang with people who are drinking to get drunk. I've never been around people drinking underaged and I've never in my 19 years of existence had a drink in my life. The life I want to live is what I have right now, with a healthy relationship (which I will not go out and ruin by doing said things), a close family, a few close friends, hobbies, a job when I return home, and just overall, the life I want is not too shabby. No need to change things, IMO. And I'm not going to go hit on some girl or drink and do something I regret to hurt things in my relationship---that would just be dumb. I guess I think a lot of people at my campus are not in control of their drinking, so that makes things ridiculously idiotic. I am social without drinking and hang around others who don't as well, and as I mentioned, things are going well in my life, so there's no need to change to drink, among other things. When I went to college, I drank underage, I joined a fraternity, got hammered a lot. It really never affected my grades as far as I could tell, and really the people I was around were doing the same thing as me so I really never even thought how my behavior would affect others in the bars and restaurants and parties where I was drunk, although I was a happy one. Now several years out of college, I don't drink that much, maybe a couple of beers at a game, or some cocktails at a party. There are a few occassions when I know I'm probably going to be overserved, so I'm pretty much prepared for it. The thing is, when I go to places sober like I used to go in hammered and see people acting like I did, to a point I see they are just having fun, but in a way I do see your point of view. While I was a lot different than you when I was a student, and may not totally agree with all of your views, I do admire you sticking to you them.

QUOTE(thedoctor @ Feb 23, 2008 -> 11:03 PM) it's really not all that difficult to get a drinking "ticket" at the u of i. So that makes it OK.

Ned Yost, a questionable manager at best in my mind, is thinking about doing something that sounds interesting. Jason Kendall batting 9th, and moving Braun and Fielder from 3/4 to 2/3. Theoretically it should provide a couple more AB for those 2. If it works, we probably will see it with a lot of NL teams.

QUOTE(thedoctor @ Feb 23, 2008 -> 03:38 PM) i think there's a big difference between beating women and dui. that's just me. From wiki In 2002 Pierce was charged with third degree sexual abuse. At a parole hearing in 2005, he described the event, "It was a friend I knew."[1] Pierce eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of assault causing injury. Pierce sat out the 2002-2003 season, completed 200 hours of community service, a year of supervised probation, and counseling. Afterwards, since he had successfully completed the terms of his plea bargain, the charge was expunged from his record. Since Pierce had no prior criminal record, he was held out of competition for one season, taking a redshirt year, but he was allowed to remain on the team. That decision sparked a number of campus protests by students, who wanted Pierce removed from the team. The protests also objected to what some felt was excessive involvement by school officials and Coach Steve Alford in mediating the criminal charges against Pierce. [2] Misdemeanor, no jail time on the first offense, expunged from his record, doesn't even seem to be as serious as Smith's, using your criteria, and we all deserve a second chance. He got to redshirt, just like Jamar. At least with him there was a he said/she said leaving doubt. Smith was plastered and almost killed Carwell who was in the hospital for 4 days with a bad concussion. I believe he spent time in ICU, but drunk driving is fine, boys will be boys. Whether he was charged with it or not, Smith was quilty of more than just your run of the mill DUI, and Pierce made Alford look the fool for sticking up for him. Once again, if either of them were average or below average players for their schools, they both would have been long gone hours after these incidents occurred.