Dick Allen

I think they are looking at what is available as far as free agents and probably realizing its better to pay JD than to give Aaron Rowand pretty close to Garry Matthews Jr. money. The thing that is scaring me is it seems the Sox may be bringing back basically the same team again next year except subtract Pods, Iguchi, maybe Crede, add Fields, Richar, Owens. I still think that isn't good enough. I hope KW has something big up his sleeve.

QUOTE(BearSox @ Aug 12, 2007 -> 09:02 AM) We are the only team in baseball that would have Darin freaking Erstad bad 5th... No, there are a couple of American Legion teams he could bat 5th on. Against right handers. I don't mind Erstad, especially at his price, but he's a utility guy now. If he plays a lot he will get injured, and he's not a leadoff guy or a 5th place hitter at this stage. If he were used for what he is, not for what he was 7 years ago, I think he could still be a contributing player, definitely worth what he would get on the market. The problem is everyone in the White Sox organization still sees the guy who hit .350 and could run through walls. Make him the 4th OFer and back-up firstbaseman and use him as a defensive replacement or a guy to come in and get a bunt down, and now you're talking.

Sisco was only able to net Ross Gload last season. After his major league performance this year, I really doubt you would be looking at anything better than that. He has a lot more upside than that so the Sox should hang on to him unless they throw him into a bigger deal to sweeten the pot.

QUOTE(3E8 @ Aug 12, 2007 -> 02:46 AM) Did you watch the start in Detroit? He dominated a good-hitting Tigers club and showed stuff that you would expect from a number four overall pick, Floyd indeed 'had it'. Hawk considers it the best stuff we've seen from any of our starters this season, and Steve Stone has mentioned multiple times this past week how impressed he was. I think those of us who back Gavin realize what a coup this could be for the Sox, if he can work things out and be a just semblance of the pitcher we saw in Detroit. It would give us a solid back-of-the-rotation starter for the next two seasons at a total of no more than $800k. That adds a lot of flexibility to our team. From my perspective it feels like you have an axe to grind. Are you just rooting against him just to back up something you posted on a message board before the season started? I don't know how you feel about these guys, but there are other young players who have gotten a chance recently to prove themselves (Anderson, Masset, Owens) more than Floyd has and haven't been great, and I do not know that had they worked out it would bring the same upside to our team. Floyd at this point hasn't had more than two consecutive starts still. So my thinking is, we're clearly out of contention, put Gavin in the rotation the rest of the year which will be about 6 or 7 starts. That way we'll know for certain if he can work with Coop and make strides to actually harness his talent with some sort of consistency, or if he is just mentally/physically incapable of being a successful pitcher at the major league level. For a guy with supposedly great "stuff", Floyd certainly gets whacked around a lot. His walk rate is actually not bad so far this year, much better than its been in previous big league tries, but 10 homers in 24 innings, including 7 in 11 innings at USCF, and a .361 BAA indicates to me he isn't worthy of more starts. He has had a great start each of the seasons he has pitched in the big leagues, yet always snaps back to what he is. He did pitch well against Detroit, but he certainly caught them at the right time, as they were struggling and Rodriquez and Sheffield were out of the line-up. They lit him up previously. I just have a hard time understanding why he is deserving of an extended look, but others need more time or aren't worthy. I understand Floyd is going to be out of options, but we are seeing why he is out of options.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Aug 11, 2007 -> 11:28 PM) I''ll only say this once....Paul Konerko gets full days off, he wasn't going to pinch hit (ozzie wanted to give him a rest and a full rest in baseball means you don't play at all in the game...even a pinch hit appearance). For guys that sit more often he's happy to pinch hit, but in Paulie's case you will rarely if ever see it because he takes a day off so rarely. Hell I'm surprised Ozzie's even managing at this point, if I were running the team the only thing I'd be managing is the development of the team and whatever served me best for 2008 (and I actually think Ozzie has done a good job with that). He just had a couple of days off a week or 2 ago. I wonder if he's fully healthy.

QUOTE(dasox24 @ Aug 11, 2007 -> 06:22 PM) Damnit I believe the word you're looking for is dadgummit.

Brutal. He's a tease. He looked like a Cy Young contender against Detroit, but he's just not very good.

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Aug 11, 2007 -> 04:02 AM) I'd rather have a 3rd of the payroll placed on like 4 other players rather than spending $30 mill a year on Arod. I love ARod to death, but that's ridiculous to have on the roster. Boras is pricing ARod at around $36 million a year. ARod is great, but you are right, you can't spend that much on one guy.

Rooney is not coming back. Maybe if the Score and White Sox think the Sox fans miss Rooney so much, they will hire Wayne Hagin. Didn't they let him go many years ago and replace him with Farmer because he sounded too much like Rooney? The Score can hire him and everyone can pretend. I've always enjoyed listening to Stone, and could be wrong, but I really don't think he'd be interested in being a White Sox broadcaster at least for the long haul. A year or 2 tops. I think he's hoping either Brenly gets a job in a dugout or the new owners of the Cubs have a front office position for him.

QUOTE(SoxPride56 @ Aug 8, 2007 -> 10:36 AM) I am with you man! His act is getting pretty old. But there is nothing like the solo home run. Thome is second in the AL in OBP and he hits with power. Yeah, his act is getting really old. They need to bring in someone who never gets on base.

Anyone still think Rowand's only getting $7 mill. a year?

As long as we are going with what ifs, what if the Sox swept the Cubs at USCF instead of the other way around? The team that allegedly is WS bound and the team playing out the string would have the same record. I sure am glad those games don't mean anything.

Contreras is/was available for nothing except the balance of his contract. Nobody bit. The only way the Sox get rid of him is if they take on an equally unappealing contract or pick up most of whats left on Contreras' deal. If its the latter, they are much better off keeping him.

Ozzie said that everyone would be impressed with the names on KW's "list". He also hinted at difficulty getting the players. I just don't want to hear about the "crazy market". They should be prepared for it.

SS who can leadoff are few and far between and cost a lot of money and the clincher, most likely aren't available.

The bullpen is the key. Rip Uribe all you want. The only 2 SS in the AL with more RBI than him since the beginning of 2004 are Tejada and Jeter, and Uribe is solid defensively. I'm as frustrated as anyone by his lack of OBP, but its proven that the Sox can win with him at SS. Its also been proven that the Sox won when they had a great bullpen. The bullpen has to be strong, except if they play the Angels in the ALCS.

QUOTE(Buehrle>Wood @ Aug 5, 2007 -> 08:02 PM) I get all the waivers rules and everything except for one thing, what prevents a team(we'll say in this case a weaker team) from just claiming every single player on waivers to prevent any trades working out? The problem is the possiblility of claiming someone with an undesirable contract and the his team says fine just take him. You would be on the hook for the balance of the contract. The White Sox claiming Tejada is because they wanted him. Not to block him.

QUOTE(South Side Fireworks Man @ Aug 5, 2007 -> 01:01 PM) Fields is talented but he is not a fundamentally sound baseball player, at least not yet. Could be a lack of baseball experience. When you play football in college, even if you are on the baseball team, you do miss out on a lot of playing.

QUOTE(CWSGuy406 @ Aug 5, 2007 -> 12:59 PM) It helps that they're winning, but this team is a helluva lot more enjoyable right now. My only hopes are that they're able to deal Podsednik for a live arm by the August 31st deadline (BP suggested they're going to do so), and a decent two-month stretch by Jerry Owens doesn't convince the Sox that he's anything more than a fourth OFer. Yikes -- Josh must be hungover. I agree. I now don't dread having tickets for the rest of the season.

As the trashing of ex-Sox continue. Hey Hawk why don't you say anything when the current roster jogs around the bases?

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Aug 5, 2007 -> 01:57 AM) Can you think of anything funnier than you dismissing his not even full season of at bats and then admitting that they are a full view of what he will be. Yes. Implying that the second month being a little better than the first month of a guy's career means he will do nothing but improve. I'm not dismissing anything on Crede. It takes time. You think the Sox have one option, non tendering Crede, because of all Fields has shown in his 2 months. I'm saying he hasn't shown all that much to be a regular 3rd baseman on a championship calibur team. Crede's already done that. His $5 million or so arb figure isn't going to blow the budget. The Sox also had another ex football player player moved to thirdbase who was a very highly thought of prospect. He hit the scene and initially had better numbers offensively than either Fields or Crede. Then it just all fell apart. He is now the team's GM, although in all fairness the move to 3b may have helped bring down his career.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Aug 4, 2007 -> 07:42 PM) I wonder if Hawk realizes that there were more than the 7 or so baseball players that played during his era. Catfish Yaz Sam McDowell Frank Howard Rocky Calavito Luis Tiant Hawk I think 7 is correct.

QUOTE(santo=dorf @ Aug 4, 2007 -> 07:34 PM) Anyone else think Bonderman is way overrated? Even last season, his first season where he wasn't below the league average, he had a 1.30 WHIP. He's pretty good and he's still young. He was in the same draft Floyd went 4th, the Sox took Honel and Bonderman went later on to Oakland.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Aug 4, 2007 -> 07:33 PM) Someone needs to choke the opera guy hot dog salesman. He's not quite as annoying as the hot dog guy at USCF who yells "hot dogs" at the top of his lungs every 2 seconds.

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Aug 4, 2007 -> 07:14 PM) Did you expect the doctor that preformed the surgery to say "We really f***ed this guy up. He won't even be able to play catch again"? There is a reason Boras tried everything he could before having Joe go under the knife. If there was a guarantee that Joe would be fine after the surgery, he would have had it after 2006, and had all of 2007 and 2008 to play at full health to get the biggest deal he could when that contract year comes up. Any time you cut into the back, it's a scary thing. In terms of brining Joe back, it all depends on how the payroll is going to shake out. If the Sox go out and spend the money to try and make this team competitive( I think they are going to) then you bring Joe back, give Fields every chance to learn LF, and see where you stand with Joe after 2008. However, if they are going into re-build more, you keep Josh at 3rd. Crede had the procedure done that the White Sox originally suggested he have done. From what I have read, as far as back surgeries go, its not all that risky, but of course anything can go wrong. I would be absolutely shocked if the White Sox non-tendered him.