Dick Allen

QUOTE(bmags @ Nov 4, 2007 -> 01:14 PM) I don't know about damon though. It did seem like he fell off hard this year. But his fallen off bat is still pretty consistent comparitively. As bad as Damon supposedly was in 2007, his OBP was exactly the same as Pods' OBP in 2005.

QUOTE(bmags @ Nov 4, 2007 -> 01:14 PM) I don't know about damon though. It did seem like he fell off hard this year. But his fallen off bat is still pretty consistent comparitively. Didn't Damon have some sort of foot problem at the beginning of the year? He was pretty good in 2006.

It also can start when organizations compare young guys to current players. Ron Schueler back in the day compared Kip Wells, Jon Garland and Jon Rauch when they were minor leaguers to David Cone, Kevin Brown and Randy Johnson. Didn't quite turn out that way. So while a guy like Garland has had a decent career and made a ton of money, I would suppose one could say he is/was overrated. Its a lot to put on a young guy, saying he reminds you of a guy who has had a great career.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 4, 2007 -> 09:18 AM) Take it any way you'd like. He has a record of continuous improvement at every level, including the major league level. Owens is not my first choice for starting in CF, believe me. But your bizarre idea that any of us who even hint that he might be a major league player is akin to us thinking he'll hit .340 is pretty ridiculous. Especially when you then ask in another post, how come there is no doubt? Its clear that with Owens you decided long ago what he was capable of, and now have a death grip on defending that opinion. That makes it utterly pointless to discuss it with you, so, I guess I give up. I hope we end up with someone better than Owens in CF. I just don't think that list is quite as long as others do. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one with a "death grip" believing Owens in nothing more than a 4th OF. I never said he wasn't a major leaguer. I said he's not a starter if you are trying to win. And if you go back to my posts, my argument was against the post that claimed Owens>Crisp. Do you think Jerry Owens is better than Coco Crisp? The argument is based on Owens' September.

The more I think about this, the more I wonder why would the Yankees want to trade for Crede right now.?His back is still a question mark, and aren't the Yankees a little bit upset with his agent? Of course if they traded Damon, it would be a wash as far as agents go, but the contract negotiation clock would begin ticking again. Although I wouldn't do it, I'm really starting to believe the White Sox are going to non-tender Crede, and hope to bring in an Eckstein in his place, and bring back Uribe in his 2004 role.

QUOTE(29andPoplar @ Nov 4, 2007 -> 07:49 AM) Dick Allen, You have to remember they told him to not worry about his offense to take the pressure off him. However as time went on and he was still making the same plate discipline errors he took the "woe is me" approach. Not good. That is where a player with good makeup and intangibles pulls himself up from the bootstraps. I blame the White Sox for overestimating his talent so I suppose at one level we agree. The White Sox are not blameless in this, I agree although I think we view it (the blame) from different angles. Which is fine. The "woe is me" approach worked for a .296 average in July and a .313 average in August.

QUOTE(klaus kinski @ Nov 4, 2007 -> 07:36 AM) Yes I agree-the Yanks are definatly anxious to fill 3B to make a statement to Bora$$-and nostayRod. Then wouldn't be ironic if they acquired Crede, another Boras client?

The other ironic thing about Anderson's "bad attitude" about winter ball, is the guy who is apparently getting a much better shot, Jerry Owens, walked away from Joey Cora's winter ball team a couple of years ago.

I wonder how yesterday's deadline for season ticket renewels went. It would be interesting to see how big of role that has in the plan. If they talked to KW yesterday, it must be pretty decent. The faster they can get the remnants of 2007 out of their system, the better.

Its probably not a bad idea, although Boston probably will re-sign Lowell and if they don't, I'm sure they would want to see Crede play a little bit before trading for him.

Before Hoops the Gym and back when my brother was a member at the Athletic Club in Illinois Center we played pick-up games a few times both with and against Michael Jordan. I can tell you the guy that he is guarding does usually take a lot of shots just in case he makes one he's got something to brag about the rest of his life. A couple prayers did fall but not many when it was pretty much man on man half court. I do think 5 Michael Jordan's have the potential of shutting down 5 guys who never played high school varsity for 48 minutes, but chances of a shutout if its a regulation game are slim. If you're playing to 15, it probably would happen from time to time especially if it was important to the NBA guys.

QUOTE(Steve9347 @ Nov 3, 2007 -> 11:07 AM) I've had a conversation with my buddy for many years (before he was a Bull) that I could score a single poitn in a game of 1-on-1 with Ben Wallce to 21. I just know I could! I've never met you, but I would agree. You'd probably have about 80 chances to tickle the twine before he got to 21.

QUOTE(SEALgep @ Nov 3, 2007 -> 05:11 PM) The talent is there to possibly be a good MLB player, he just hasn't shown it yet. Releasing him would be a bad idea because he at least as some value in trade, even if it is a low level prospect or an addition in a larger deal. Maybe there's more, but going by what we in fact know, Anderson appears to be a whiner to me. . One thing to keep in mind with Brian Anderson is this was probably the first time he's ever failed at baseball. He most likely has always been a star and treated like royalty. Especially in basketball, its amazing how 7th and 8th grade kids are put on a shrine now. Then something goes wrong and they really don't know how to handle it. I think KW understands. He was a guy who was highly regarded, came in had a nice year as a 22 or 23 year old, stardom was predicted and he then couldn't hit. Up until that point, I really doubt KW had many failings in athletics in his life. I really don't think its as much an attitude problem as it is confusion and frustration as to why everything just hasn't worked out.

QUOTE(SEALgep @ Nov 3, 2007 -> 05:01 PM) The big difference between those guys and Anderson is that they have performed at the MLB level. Setting him up to fail? Was Josh Fields set up to fail? Was Crede, Garland, MB, Rowand... Rowand was sent down twice, and he stayed resilient. What's Anderson's deal? I liked him sticking up for AJ as well, but when that's your best argument to bring him up to the majors, we had better start getting into some major brawls in 08. If his attitude is bad and he can't hit and he won't work on it, he's not going to get better so he should be released. But the White Sox aren't releasing him. Something tells me there's a little more to the story.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Nov 3, 2007 -> 03:26 PM) Explain to me how his performance in Sept means nothing? I dont get totally throwing out one month of the season because you deem it worthless. Based on Jerry's numbers, and his improvement, there is no doubt that him and Crisp are very similar players at extremely different price tags. There is no doubt from you. There is a lot of doubt with others. As I stated, Owens was hitting .239 with an OPS under .600 one month before the season ended. How does one month in meaningless games qualify as being better than another player who even in a down year had a higher BA, OBP and SLG than Owens? The games aren't as intense when you are playing out the string. David Aaardsma should have been lights out in 2007 the way he pitched with nothing riding on the outcome in 2006. I didn't invent the September numbers are teasers train of thought.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 2, 2007 -> 12:41 PM) The Newark Star-Ledger seems to think the Sox might non-tender Crede. I find that highly unlikely, but there you go. There's a few people on this site who have said Crede must be non-tendered. To be fair, non-tendering him, although they don't have to do it just yet would cement Fields position as well.

The 2007 White Sox could have had the 2005 version of Pods, the 2006 version of Dye, the 2006 version of Crede, the 2000 version of Erstad and they still wouldn't have won. KW can make great moves to improve the offense, but if the bullpen is as bad as its been the past 2 years, and if Danks and/or Floyd don't make huge strides, it just means that instead of losing 90 they might only lose 78.

QUOTE(rockren @ Nov 3, 2007 -> 02:41 PM) Let us not forget about Podsednik's role that season. We also had Rowand and Iguchi swipe 16 and 15 bases respectively. Putting pressure on the defense and opposing pitcher is a big deal in consistently scoring runs every day. That was overblown as well. Pods scored 80 runs, he was second to Konerko in that category. The Sox were 9th in the AL in runs scored. Hardly stellar. To win consistently, you must keep the opposition's run totals low. The Sox won several more games that year scoring 3 or less runs than they probably have in the 2 seasons combined since then. You can have an all star line-up like the Yankees, but if your pitching staff is average or below, its wait until next year.

The White Sox ranked 11th out of 14 in OBP in 2005. They had a pitching staff that was outstanding. That is what wins.

QUOTE(29andPoplar @ Nov 3, 2007 -> 02:02 PM) Guillen wanted Allen Thomas to come up with a better program for those guys and others. You may know Guillen has a unique way with the English language. If Brian Anderson were half the blameless saint you paint him out to be, he'd be the starting CF for the White Sox. I'll stand by my comments too, because they aren't speculation, I've heard them directly from White Sox personnel. Maybe they were lying to me just for kicks though, who knows. Your status on the team is what matters. Its Allen Thomas' fault if Buehle and Garcia go eat steaks every night for dinner during the offseason, because the proper program is not in place. Its Uribe's fault showing a lack of desire to get better if he does the same thing. Anderson would still have to hit to be starting. That has nothing to do with attitude. They said there was to be a competition for the CF job in spring training, you yourself admitted Anderson slightly outperformed Erstad, yet Erstad got the job. It really doesn't matter, its not like they would have been any better with Anderson in CF. If he really is this awful human being though, its time to get rid of him. So what if you can't get anything for him. Cut him. I think KW isn't as down on him as most think.

QUOTE(fathom @ Nov 3, 2007 -> 01:51 PM) I don't care about overall speed. It's all about finding more guys who can get on-base. I'm still of the belief that Ozzie Guillen is not the proper manager for a team with a 3-4-5 of Thome, Konerko, and Dye. I'm cringing at all the talk about having everyone on the team bunt, etc. With our mediocre pitching staff, playing for one run isn't going to help. This is true. You can bunt all you want, but if your pitching staff has the 12 th lowest ERA in the AL, you're going to battle for the cellar.

QUOTE(29andPoplar @ Nov 3, 2007 -> 01:35 PM) He's still here because they don't want to give him away, and "not much" is probably what the Sox could get for him right now. It's understandable. He needs to get healthy and show some talent. Unless and until that happens, the only way they'll deal him is if some other team really wants him and will pony up talent the White Sox want. They told him they didn't care what he hit for a reason, they wanted to take the pressure off him and show confidence in him. Maybe they shouldn't do that I guess. They miscalculated on Brian's maturity level though, and it was a bad miscalculation. They didn't think he'd constantly do the "woe is me" act. As for Buehrle and Freddy, they did hold them accountable. Buehrle was in the best shape of his career because Cooper told him he needed to work on conditioning more, and they took Buehrle's commitment into account with the contract extension. Freddy, we know what happened to him. How much money did they pay Buerhle and Garcia for 2006? They were out of shape. Allen Thomas was the fall guy. Buerhle realized his mistake and got in shape for 2007, which is nice, but doesn't excuse not being in shape for 2006. Why was it Allen Thomas' fault? If it wasn't, why did Ozzie say it was? There's a double standard. I've never heard anyone ever question why the two veterans weren't physically fit enough to pitch a full season successfully. Isn't being out of shape a sign of not so perfect attitude? And I stand by my comment. If Anderson is half the poison you paint him to be, a release is in order. Players who have had far more success than Anderson have been released because of poor attitudes.

I wonder if Damon would bring the caveman look back. The only thing that kind of makes me leary is how many times we would hear Hawk mention "Gucci High".

QUOTE(santo=dorf @ Nov 3, 2007 -> 01:09 PM) Hopefully Posada goes to the Mets so we can dump Hall on them as well. If KW can dump Hall on anyone and not eat most of his contract, he is a better magician than David Copperfield.