Dick Allen

It started out bad, but Buerhle looked good tonight. I wish Jenks had a couple more MPH on the fastball, but he looked OK and Thornton was impressive.

QUOTE(jphat007 @ Mar 30, 2007 -> 06:52 PM) Good pitch. Hopefully he can take those one or two great abs, and one or two terrible abs location wise and get them down to solid location for pretty much every hitter. His control is even more important than the velocity he lost last year. Even at 87, if he gets the ball up and too much of the plate he will get hit hard. He's been able to paint for so many years, I just hope he can get back to that. When he's on a roll, its a 2 minute inning.

Hawk never says Buerhle reminds him of Catfish anymore.

Boy, Buerhle can't catch a break with that thin Atanta air.

QUOTE(Gene Honda Civic @ Mar 30, 2007 -> 03:25 PM) I'm an Iowa fan, and I'm a Majerus fan -- You can dig through the archives here to find my story about watching the 2000 NCAA Championship with him -- but I don't want him coaching my basketball team. The Hawks are going to suck for a coupla few years once the dust settles and guys transfer out and decommitt. And once that happens, Majerus will either be dead or at the very least done coaching again, putting them back in the same position looking for a new head coach. I'm an Iowa alum and like Majerus a lot but I don't want him coaching the Hawkeyes either. I agree the next couple of seasons don't look too promising, but that could change quickly with some decent recruits. The problem I have is he quit Utah and had health problems there. He quit after 1 day USC saying he was physically unable to work the 16 hour days he works when coaching. His weight has been mentioned to be at least 370 but I have heard he has lost some. He's 59 years old, and I would be willing to bet his body is a very old 59. Giving him a coaching job may be doing him a disservice. Forget if he could last 4 or 5 years, He could have something serious happen to him at any moment. Keep him in his stress-free environment of color commentary. Hire Lon Kruger.

QUOTE(ScottyDo @ Mar 30, 2007 -> 11:52 AM) Where else are they supposed to hold auditions? Yeah, that's all fine but Floyd IS on the AAA team so clearly KW's biases didn't get in the way. If they made the right choice in the end, what's the problem? They didn't hold auditions for any starters in 2006. They were hoping Floyd would be what KW erroneously thought, and perhaps still thinks he is. If you can't, by what THEY say, evaluate pitching in AZ, then having a competition for a role makes little sense if you're basing it off of what they do in the environment where its supposedly impossible to evaluate them properly. As to the second part, KW traded one of his biggest chips to get Floyd, so like Sisco when he unbelievably was chosen over Logan (Sisco's numbers in 2006 were worse than Cotts' and he didn't exactly show he was improved in Tucson) Floyd, unless he is hurt or his ERA is 5 or 6 runs above everyone else, will most likely get the first crack when and if Danks needs more seasoning, or someone goes down. Remember, KW said his trades this offseason where going to help in 2007. Haeger should be the 5th starter, but that would make KW's trades look puzzling at the very least for this season.

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Mar 30, 2007 -> 10:03 AM) So let him make excuses. Maybe he doesn't want to make Gavin think the organization has already given up on him after one spring training. That may be exactly what he's trying to do. Although I would say if Floyd is that fragile, its a longshot he's ever successful in the major leagues.

QUOTE(jphat007 @ Mar 30, 2007 -> 09:43 AM) I'm not seeing that anywhere in the story. Is there another article out there I missed? Yes. Just find any article that has KW talking about Floyd this spring. Its almost laughable the excuses he has for him.

QUOTE(Jenks Heat @ Mar 30, 2007 -> 08:57 AM) If Tucson is so bad why are they staying in AZ? Why not move to Florida does it make sense to stay there if the conditions are not conducive to a successful spring training? JR lives in the Phoenix area in the winter. They have great facilities and they have a better $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ situation in AZ. The have also won more championships training in AZ than they have training in FL. I just don't understand if they claim they really can't evaluate there, why they set themselves up to have to evaluate there. I'm sorry KW fell in love with Floyd based a lot on his performance in the ARIZONA Fall League. Now he uses Arizona as an excuse for Floyd's failing. If its because of AZ that he blew this spring, why isn't he with the team? Maybe KW is trying to show confidence in Floyd, but the fact that he's in Charlotte shows that not all of his problems are AZ-related, as much as KW would like you to believe it.

Just a couple of days ago, Ozzie was concerned talking about how you can't just flip on a switch. Now he says the pitchers have looked good the past 2 weeks. The other puzzling thing to me is Cooper says you can't evaluate pitchers in Arizona. If that's the case why were the White Sox holding auditions for the 5th starter slot there this year, and for the bullpen with all those minor league busts last season? And if its so tough to pitch there, why is a guy who went through the entire spring unscathed opening the season in Charlotte? I am looking forward to the White Sox being 0-0 again, but nothing KW or Ozzie say will get me to stop worrying about the pitching.

The disconcerning thing to me is in the past when the Sox were losing ST games, you could blame a lot of it on guys who were not going to be anywhere near USCF during the summer. Its been brutal all around, and has been worse the last week. The broadcasters are spinning away. When they sucked at the beginning they would say good teams really get going the final couple of weeks of spring, now we hear how it always gets sloppy at the end of spring training. Maybe they will get all the losing out of their system. I think a lot of White Sox players are a little overrated on this board, but they can't be as bad as they have been this spring. I am still very much looking forward to Monday.

Is it true that Logan and Floyd are being sent down and Sisco and Aardsma made the team? I'm not a huge fan of his, but if Logan didn't make the team, what exactly does he have to do to make it?

This DBack pitcher has an ERA over 10.00 and has allowed 20 hits in less than 9 innings. I bet KW has his eye on him.

QUOTE(Flash Tizzle @ Mar 28, 2007 -> 05:19 PM) MacDougal is sure wetting the bed this inning. You mean he's not getting squeezed by the umpire and the Arizona weather conditions aren't getting the best of him?

At least Danks' ERA for the spring will be a little below 6.00. Not exactly the stiffling spring training competition KW envisioned I would guess.

CC's x-rays were negative, but there is still question whether he can go opening day.

Well if anyone thought Ozzie may try to get his buddy Urbina to help in the bullpen sometime, you can forget it. He supposedly has been sentenced to 14 years in the big house. He'll be locked up longer than the Sox have Vazquez locked up.

QUOTE(santo=dorf @ Mar 27, 2007 -> 10:41 PM) Honestly, this team in a vacuum is around 83 wins IMO. But because baseball is such a great game, we have no idea how the other teams will show up or what might happen when Cleveland puts their catcher at first base. I still think the Sox can win the division, but it just seems everyday there's not much good news to report. KW said he wouldn't trade a SP unless the players in return would help contribute to the 2007 team. Garcia was traded for Floyd and Gio with KW saying Floyd would compete with Brandon for the 5th starter's spot. Brandon is traded, 5th spot is in Floyd's hands. As expected, Floyd sucks, but thankfully a player we got back in the McCarthy trade is ahead of schedule, or maybe he's going to be a little rushed, and Floyd is no longer a 5th starter canidate. The Erstad signing was completely worthless and made because KW has always liked him, he felt the Sox lacked a "grinder effect," and because Darin was cheap. This signing makes Pods' signing look worthless, but I think Pods has more to offer this team, and Darin is going to hurt this team more than help by blocking Anderson, batting like crap, and forcing guys who can help this team off the roster (see Perez, and in the article Ozzie said the Sox were looking to move players to get him on the team [Mack?]) I'm glad baseball is coming, but I'm not pumped. I'm more worried about the pitchers. Erstad could be the version who had 240 hits, and Pods could have the best season of his life, if the pitchers throw like they threw last season or even worse, like they have in spring training, except for Danks and Logan, and to a certain extent Contreras, it wouldn't matter. The Sox have at least half their staff 6 days before the start of the season still looking for their velocity. That's pretty scary.

I'm predicting a huge year from Uribe, and I think Anderson will be improved, so I think the Sox should be a little better against lefties although they still appear to have a few automatic outs against them. Pablo in LF, Anderson in CF, Dye in RF, Crede 3b, Uribe ss, Iguchi 2b, Konerko 1b, even if Molina is an automatic out catching, and Thome is struggling against the left handers, the offense shouldn't be too pathetic against them. I think they will have a little more success against lefties this year, the problem is they may be required to score even more runs than last season.

QUOTE(kevo880 @ Mar 27, 2007 -> 05:49 PM) I bet that's what Greggory_Pratt would be saying Easy on my guy Pratt.

QUOTE(fathom @ Mar 27, 2007 -> 05:40 PM) They're not fooling anyone, which is scary (besides Boone). It's hard to argue about our strength/conditioning coach due to the lack of injuries we've had the past few years, but you have to wonder what these guys have been doing over the past two offseasons. I've never seen a team just have their velocity drop almost across the board like ours last year, and the stories so far this offseason are scary. Its as if almost the entire bullpen has had a Billy Koch loss of velocity. We kept hearing how his would pop back until they dealt him to Florida.

The White Sox have pretty much sucked in spring training the past several years, but the amount of hits they are giving up now is alarming. I hope the cold air wakes them up on Monday.

I hope all the guys we have that supposedly throw 95-98 suddenly find their fastballs this final week.

QUOTE(CWSGuy406 @ Mar 26, 2007 -> 09:56 PM) Oh, and one more thing. WTF, White Sox scouts? Maybe they were just watching tapes and it said 90 kilometers per hour.

QUOTE(Flash Tizzle @ Mar 26, 2007 -> 06:56 PM) That's so easy to say. Imagine this -- you're in a position, as a new guy, where the manager comes up and asks whether you're comfortable at first base. Even if you're not, do you think you'd risk looking bad by rejecting the request? Then teammates may say, "he's not a team player." The concern here, after Hall began fielding at 1B, was whether anyone noticed any trouble he may have been having. If there were obvious signs, Guillen absolutely has to be held accountable. I've been on Ozzie as much as anyone, but its first base. How many firstbasemen experienced or unexperienced have torn their labrums diving for a ball? I would bet it is not very many. I know Hall was a weapon to fight the lefthanders in the division. And I'm sure he would have helped against the Kenny Rogers and Cliff Lees. He is 4-25 lifetime against Santana and Sabbathia. With no homers. I hope KW doesn't feel like he can fill this position internally, but he needs to get a better than average back-up now in case AJ goes down for any time. Nobody will do him any favors if that happens. QUOTE(Kalapse @ Mar 26, 2007 -> 07:04 PM) KW was interviewed on Comcast and said the backup catcher position will be filled internally. THE WIKI ERA BEGINS IN CHICAGO! That's a big mistake.