Dick Allen

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Jun 20, 2007 -> 01:32 PM) Hawk + DJ trying to ease the public into accepting Buehrle's leave I think they should ease KW into seeing this team isn't very good.

QUOTE(BearSox @ Jun 20, 2007 -> 12:24 PM) Yeah, I meant to ask that. So the wind was blowing out? That was a MAJOR league flyball by Fields though. It was sky high. Usually you can't tell how the wind will affect a ball by looking at the flags at USCF. The were blowing almost straight out. I think he hit it so high, it was above the scoreboard and roof and it gave it a big push. He was so resigned to being out, he damn near passed Dye on the bases. When he saw it was a homer he was a little stunned.

QUOTE(BearSox @ Jun 20, 2007 -> 12:19 PM) or was it shear power by Fields? I was at the game. Fields was pissed at himself. The CF was camping under the ball until it started going 100 feet over his head. The wind was gusting, and he hit it very high.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jun 20, 2007 -> 11:16 AM) What %age of our offense in the last week or so has been accounted for by Josh Fields? He's either scored or driven in 11 of the 34 runs the last week. He was pretty fortunate last night's 3 run homer caught a jet stream. That was a can of corn.

QUOTE(Nokona @ Jun 20, 2007 -> 11:47 AM) He was also under 50 at that time Maybe. Contreras had a pretty good stretch earlier. He's been struggling recently. I think he'll be ok.

The last time this board was clamouring for Contreras to get traded, he won about 15 in a row.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jun 20, 2007 -> 09:28 AM) I have to say., this is a bad trade for the Cubs. They really downgraded their catching position with this deal. Barrett must be a real ass. QUOTE(Greg The Bull Luzinski @ Jun 20, 2007 -> 09:42 AM) ... One of the great names in baseball. He was great until he got nailed in the face.

Linebrink makes way above minimum. You can't have that in the bullpen. Eric Patterson is supposed to be a decent prospect.

QUOTE(Grebeck Fan Club @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 09:33 PM) Taste of Chicago isn't getting a lot of votes. Daytime stuff is still up in the air for sure. What other daytime activities are recommended? Thursday and Friday are open. No, we aren't going to see Oprah. Go to Navy Pier and take a ride on the Seadog.

QUOTE(IlliniKrush @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 11:22 PM) God damn injuries/umpires/duck farts...we'd be right in this thing My buddy who I go to games with and I were talking about this tonight. Actually laughing. Last night when they blew the call at first in the Sox favor, Hawk kept praising the guy as being a great umpire. If he was safe and Tschida called him out, I'm sure he would have had a different opinion. QUOTE(fathom @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 11:22 PM) Hall needs to get surgery on his labrum done ASAP so that he can be ready for next year. He didn't even bother throwing tonight on the steal attempts, but then again it didn't appear Johnny Bench in his prime would have had a chance. He also bounced a couple to Fields on strikeouts.

QUOTE(BearSox @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 11:19 PM) I really like Dusty on BBTN. He is very good on analysis. Same goes for Eric Young, but I can't stand his voice. Orestes Destrade as Donald Trump would say is a total disaster. Its amazing how the way someone speaks can turn you off right away.

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 11:17 PM) I agree with you, but it seems Williams and Co. don't. This francise right now should be at Defcon 4. With Thome having more issues, I think the little get together has become a non issue. They need to start getting ready for 2008. I'm not KW's biggest backer, but I don't think he's stupid.

QUOTE(Big Hurtin @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 11:09 PM) I don't know what he's talking about. Between the injuries and departures, this team is hardly the same team. The bullpen is almost entirely different. The DH is different. The lead off hitter. Tonight's starting pitcher. He's just as frustrated as all of us. It probably eats at him he has no answers.

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 11:12 PM) I really think tonight is a big turing point in the season. Williams seemed to really do the press circut today, htting the local media, then going national on PTI, stating the Sox battle cry, that they aren't out of it yet. Game starts, and its the same old s***. Few runs early, hits stop, and bullpen blows lead. Same s***, different night. Then you get Ozzie blowing up, throwing his players under the bus, having the players take the blame for the mess. Really though, you have a team where Andy Gonzalez is leading off. He wouldn't lead off for most AA teams. How can you really expect to be an upper echolon team?

QUOTE(CWSGuy406 @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 11:09 PM) I'm thinking the same thing -- he looks awful. Yeah, he's pissed, and rightfully so. I think at this point even part of Ozzie would want this thing blown up. At least with young guys he could 'expect' the losing and the mistakes, whereas with this group, he's expecting winning (whether he's right to think that really isn't the point). That's a good point. I think KW is making phone calls as we speak. QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 11:11 PM) You're right about the facial hair, he just doesn't look quite right without that s***ty goatee. He's put on a lot of weight and the bags under his eyes are about the size of a garlic clove right now. He should really just walk away with a few million dollars under his belt and a World Series Ring. I doubt he'd have much trouble finding work that's a little less stressful. ESPN would hire him in a heartbeat, even if nobody could understand him.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 11:06 PM) The end of his press conference was very interesting. He backed himself, KW and JR while throwing his players under the bus. The losing is starting to get to Ozzie. I'm watching him on Comcast right now, he looks like s***. I really think Ozzie might just end up quiting. Ozzie looks weird without facial hair. Maybe I've seen him for over 20 years with it, but wow. Of course, I used to get freaked out when my grandpa took his glasses offf. Ozzie does appear to be packing on pounds.

This game was the epitome of the 2007 White Sox. Score some runs early don't score for the last 7 innings against relievers. Sure Danks could have been better, he's really struggled lately, but he did leave with the lead. Have the bullpen blow it, and lose again.

QUOTE(South Side Fireworks Man @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 11:02 PM) Actually, Ozzie is handling this with as much class as anyone could. Ozzie has shocked me lately with a little maturity. Is he taking as much blame for the failure as he accepted for the success?

QUOTE(CWSGuy406 @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 05:30 PM) You have to be kidding me. Kenny Williams has ALWAYS gone cheap with his bullpen. The main six guys in the 2005 bullpen -- Hermanson, Politte, Cotts, Jenks, Marte and Vizcaino -- averaged just a hair over $1 million dollars. Hermanson, Politte -- these guys weren't considered big relievers. Hell, IIRC, people b****ed that Kenny went cheap even when he DID go into the free agent market for relievers like those two. Oh, and BTW, Speier got a four year, $16 million dollar deal from Anahiem. I'm sorry, but it would have been dumb as hell to outbid Anahiem for a very-good-but-not-elite, 33 year old reliever. Actually he paid Hermanson $2 million a year. Politte got $1 million, Vizcaino 1.3 million, Shingo 1 million, Marte 1.25 million. And that was with a payroll a lot lower than it is now. Pitching wins. The bullpen is pathetic and since I'm an idiot and never bought KW's everyone throws 97 the bullpen is awesome BS I'm the fool. Pretty dumb getting a guy who gets people out, while you send pitcher after pitcher out there who either can't throw the ball over the plate or get anyone out. Good argument.

QUOTE(South Side Fireworks Man @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 04:56 PM) Tonight's Lineup Gonzalez, LF; Iguchi, 2B; PK, 1B; Dye, RF; Fields, 3B; Terrero, CF; Uribe, SS; Cintron, DH; Hall, C. Danks pitching No Thome. I hope its because lefties have no chance against Willis. Thome was running pretty gingerly after his homer last night. Gonzalez leading off is a joke.

QUOTE(iamshack @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 03:20 PM) Ok, so Justin Speier. You can name one guy. If we'd have only signed Justin Speier, we would be well on our way to another division title right now. I agree, bullpen's are incredibly volatile. But the only thing you can do is hope that guys who succeeded in critical innings last season maintain some semblance of what they did last year. I suppose maybe it's getting to the point where it might be advisable to trade your solid pen guys for prospects each year because the odds of them repeating are not good. I also liked Otsuka from Texas. He was available, but makes over the minimum so no dice. How can anyone possibly think the White Sox bullpen coming into this season was anything but a question mark? As I said in the winter, at least KW didn't do what he did the previous season, and just totally ignore it when he had the pitch off of crap in Tucson. If you are going to compete for a championship, you better have a decent bullpen, and relying on a bunch of guys used to losing is playing with fire.

QUOTE(iamshack @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 02:55 PM) So in the current marketplace for pitching, which the White Sox unintentionally contributed to by having such a great staff in 05' and winning with it, what pitchers would you have brought in this year? Look at what's happened to MOST of the big money relievers that teams signed in the past few years. BJ Ryan, was great, but now he's out for the year. The guy makes what, $8 million? Flash Gordon...been out much of the year, makes $7 million? Look at Scott Eyre. He's as bad as Aardsma or Mac have been. Or you could do what the Indians have done- signing old fart has beens and watching them suck terribly. I guess I just keep seeing you complain and complain and complain about the bullpen and yet you offer absolutely no alternative plan besides throwing more payroll and fantom relievers that don't exist. Lead us all to this "marginally cheap yet consistently effective" reliever tree you have found. Can you imagine where we might be had we signed the relievers that pitched so well in 05' for us to extensions? Look at where all those guys are right now. If that doesn't show you how volatile bullpens are than I don't know what will. I'll tell you what, I agree that KW's bullpen has failed us this year. But I'm amazingly thankful that what has failed has accounted for only 3% of the payroll. Imagine the situation we'd have been in had we been shelling out big money to our relievers over the past several years. Additionally, it's very easy to see how things have fallen apart when they might not have had to. Had Mac and Thornton pitched as we all thought they would this season, there aren't a whole lot of other critical innings needed by guys like Aardsma or anyone else. And yet Mac has been horrible and Thornton amazingly inconsistent. That's just more proof of how volatile bullpens are from year to year. As another poster has said, our offense has let us down more than the bullpen. The bullpen has not been anywhere close to acceptable, but it doesn't have to be very good if the offense had been scoring runs as they should be. And if they were, we'd be looking extremely similar to Cleveland right now. Well for one, if you've been watching me complain I have mentioned Justin Speier about 10,000 times. I know he's on the DL, but its an intestinal infection, not an arm injury, and its probably debatable whether or not he would have had the infection in a different environment. But his $4 million a year was deemed too much, so a team with a bullpen far superior to the White Sox signed him. If they had pitched like you thought, you say about MacDougal Thornton and Aaardsma. How, if you are of the opinion relievers are a crapshoot can you have any reasonable expectation as to how they will perform with such little track record. MacDougal is an injury waiting to happen, Thornton was nice last year, but sucked so much previously he wasn't going to make the Mariners and Aardsma was horrible until he had a little success in meaningless games for the Cubs. If bullpens are such a crapshoot why is it when I said trade Politte right after the 2005 season, because it was so far and away better than his norm and he was almost a lock to fall apart, was I laughed at by the guys who say bullpens are volatile? If you really believe that, you can never say a bullpen is solid coming into the season. And there were plenty of people on this site that thought the Sox had one of the best bullpens in baseball coming into this season. Building a bullpen from within would be ideal, but the White Sox don't have the pitchers to do it.

QUOTE(SoxAce @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 02:01 PM) Danks alone is giving me a reason to be excited about this game. He has sort of struggled recently. Hasn't made it through the 6th in any of his last 4 starts. I hope he will cut down on walks and pitch count tonight. Turning the game over to the White Sox bullpen early is just asking for trouble.

QUOTE(kwolf68 @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 01:58 PM) I know we need a firesale, but I want to resign Buehrle. He wants to remain in Chicago, he is home grown, he helped bring home a Title, he is a rock, a stud, he eats innings, he wins, he battles. He is the face of this franchise (w/ PK). I want a boatload of spects, but I want this kid in our rotation for the next decade more. Trade him, and go after him when he becomes a free agent.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jun 19, 2007 -> 01:49 PM) Well there is one problem with the example you just sited... The Sox have been lambasted for signing guys with injury histories, and if you look at that pen, that is pretty much what it is. Vizcaino is the only guy who has stuck around and been healthy. Shingo was a fluke, as much as I liked him, and the other three have had major injury problems. The only reason we got any of those last three guys was because of their injury histories. If those guys had been healthy and/or good, they wouldn't have been here in the first place. It was blind luck that they came together how they did, and that is bore out by their results since then. Kenny caught lightning in a bottle that year, and he has been trying to do it ever since. He paid Hermanson and Gordon almost what he's paying the entire bullpen. He didn't want to sign Justin Speier for $4 mill a year because it was too much. Speier was great so far this year, but he's been on the DL with an intestinal infection. Maybe he doesn't get that if he's on the Sox. Maybe he blows his elbow out if he's on the Sox. The thing is MacDougal is a guy with an injury history who wouldn't have been available if he hadn't had one. Aaarsdma wouldn't have been available if he could throw strikes and keep the ball in the park. Sisco wouldn't have been available if he could throw the ball within 5 feet of home plate. Thornton, the same. If the Sox can't develop them, they must go out and pay for them. No one should be shocked at the bullpen's ineptness. I just hope Jenks doesn't have a post ASB meltdown like last season. He probably won't, he's had a ton of rest.