iamshack

My only question with Stroman is that we don't really have that big need for an RP soon, so I hope we don't put too much weight on that in making our selection.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 4, 2012 -> 09:47 AM) Konerko is also hitting .360 and still putting up pretty much his average in traditional power numbers. His OPS is .100 points over his career high right now. I don't dispute PK with the A as much as I do that in relation to Adam and his C. I think Adam has had as much to do with this team's success as PK.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 4, 2012 -> 09:42 AM) To his expectations... Your expectations are insane then... What the hell does he have to do to get an A? Meanwhile, Konerko is spending half his at bats trying to serve singles into RF and he gets an A...

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 4, 2012 -> 09:40 AM) Try reading the first post in the thread again. I never said he was an average player. Ok, fine, a "C" player. I consider that to be average.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 4, 2012 -> 09:37 AM) If he is hitting .220, he is no where near MVP discussion. The lowest AL MVP in history was .269, and that is the year Maris hit 61 homers. There hasn't been an AL MVP under the high .290s since the 60's with the higher mound. And throughout the history of the award, there has been a ridiculously high degree of weight put on batting average instead of OBP. Compare his OBP to the last 20 AL MVP's if you must. And for the record, I'm not saying Dunn would or should win the MVP, just that he'd be a hell of a lot closer to that discussion than to the "he's an average player" discussion you are advocating.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 4, 2012 -> 09:30 AM) I do. Those are worthless AB's and they are coming at a way higher rate than any year but 2011. Well it seems incredibly odd to me that you would weigh them so heavily compared to his run production. If Adam Dunn hits 50 home runs and drives in 115, I am sure he will be in the MVP discussion...not the "this guy is a C+" discussion.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 4, 2012 -> 09:22 AM) I get what is being said about Dunn's homers, but those are being balanced out by his non-2011 career low batting average and his 88 strikeouts in 54 games. That is insanity. That would put him about 70 higher than his previous career high. Add in the fact that he gives you nothing defensively (if not hurts you), and I am pretty content with where I put him. Gordo I wrestled with putting higher, but settled there because the offense hasn't been there most of the season. Ohman is being used more against lefties than pretty much any point in his career, and has had some just awful outings. He deserves his F. Who cares how many times he K's? He's doing everything and more that you brought him here to do...hit big home runs and drive in runs...at least by striking out all those times he's not grounding into double plays. You're just not going to convince me that a guy with a .375 OBP and a slugging percentage of .545 is a "C" offensive player. That's nuts. And he gives you nothing defensively? I think he's been quite solid in the field. For all the accolades PK gets defensively, has he really been that much better than Dunn this year?

Finished Season 1 of Magic City last night...a little anti-climactic, but still a very solid first season...eagerly awaiting season 2. Hoping to get the third disc of season 1 of Shameless today and finish that up. Have season 2 on the DVR. Hoping to get to Mad Men soon after the season finishes airing, although I screwed up recording it this season, as DirecTV finally got AMC in HD and I had some issues with it recording on both channels....grrrr

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jun 4, 2012 -> 07:52 AM) Why not just crate her all day? People thank that's abusive, but dogs prefer a safe den if they have to be alone. Especially as young dogs. It's not quite that simple...yes, a dog enjoys a place where it can feel safe and comfortable. But if you're talking about an active breed and keeping it crated for 8 hours during the day, I'm not sure it wants to feel that safe... The key for me is going to be what are you doing with the dog the rest of the day? If you're going to be gone for long hours, and you have an active breed, you need to get that dog out somewhere to run and burn off some energy. Not only is that healthy for the dog, but its going to make the rest of your day easier because the dog will be content, behave better, and most likely sleep a lot more.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 4, 2012 -> 08:56 AM) So we have made it through 54 of the 162 games, 108 more to go. I figured I would do my usual grade the players thread today. Go ahead throw your grades out there if you like. For my scale, expectations are a part of the final grade. Players who have higher expectations are graded harder than ones who don't. The A's Paul Konerko-What can be said? Chris Sale-Ditto Konerko AlejandroDe Aza-Has kept up his call up numbers for two full months now AJ Pierz-Has had a great offensive year, and his Sb against numbers have done a 180. Teams aren't really trying to run anymore Nate Jones-Incredible year so far, could be in closer conversation if Reed falters at all. Jake Peavy- nice to finally see JFP. BAA is barely above .200, averaging almost 9k/9 The B's Alex Rios- Real nice bounceback so far. Many clutch hits, playing a great RF, and even power is coming back Dayan Viciedo-Very slow start, and a big hot streak lately. Still scary defensively Jesse Crain- Jones has bumped him down to the #2 set up guy, but still having a very Crain season, despite nagging injury issues. The C's Adam Dunn- Nice to see the power numbers rebound, but the guy is on pace for 264 K's and average is back into the .220's Tyler Flowers, could easily rate lower, but has had very little playing time Eduardo Escobar- Maybe should be lower, but hasn't had much playing time, has played well defensively whereever put, and I didn't have much in the way of offensive expectations anyway. Hector Santiago- Wasn't cut out to be a closer, but doing well in spot relief duty. Zach Stewart- Has filled in solidly in long relief and sporadic work. BAA is pretty high, but ERA is league average or better. Addison Reed- Closing work has been outstanding. Has had a couple of very high profile blow ups. ERA is still almost 5, and WHIP is higher than you want to see. The D's Gordon Beckham- Awful start, has started to rebound, close to a C because of defense Alexei Ramirez- Has been awful at the plate pretty much all year, still very good defensively Brent Lillibridge- another who hasn't played much, hasn't hit much and has 21Ks in 48 ABs Matt Thornton-Hasn't been quite right this year, but getting better. K/9 is way down. Phil Humber- Outside of perfect has had a pretty bad year.] Will Ohman- Peripherals look great, but has had some spectacular fails pitching to anything but lefties. The F's Kouske Fukodome-has done nothing so far this year. John Danks-Has had a miserable year so far, velocity is way down, hopefully it was injury related. Gavin Floyd- Super inconsistent this year. Great or awful, unfortunately awful has won out most of the season. The Incomplete's Brent Morel- Would be an F, but I want to see him and see if his back is better. Orland Hudson trainwreck so far offensively, though does work the count. really re-learneding 3B Jose Quintana- Would be an A, but only a few chances so far. Dylan Axelrod- Has been solid in his brief work with the big squad. Eric Stults-He GAWN! Wow, that seems a bit critical of Dunn and Gordo.... You expected Dunn to hit a lot BETTER than this? I agree we'd like to see him be in the .250-.260 range, but he's on pace to hit 50 home runs and knock in 118 runs...PK is on pace to hit 33 home runs and knock in 100 runs...granted, PK has been great this year, but an A while Dunn is a C? I have a really hard time with that...something has to be said for Adam's run production...to me, he's at least a B+ and that's only because he's been struggling a bit the last 5-10 games. Gordo has started slow, but the 8 home runs and the sterling defense are worth more than a D...I'd have given him a B-...he certainly needs to be better than a .700 OPS player with his talent, but he's been hitting the ball hard for a month now with not as much to show for it as he probably should have. IMO, De Aza is my MVP through the first 54 games.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 3, 2012 -> 07:19 PM) You aren't insinuating that he isn't very smart, are you?! Nope...his wife is making him do it.

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Jun 4, 2012 -> 08:30 AM) So we ended up buying one of those standard play pen things for the dog, that way she wasn't always locked in a small crate or in a bathroom when we were gone or when she couldn't be left alone in the apartment (because she's shown she'll chew things like a tv stand, crown molding on the wall, etc. Been pretty good for a while, but she sure leaps at the thing and tries to get out. She's got some hops. Well this morning she was in there and going crazy, and all the sudden she got out. We didn't see it happen, but I'm guessing she either was able to get her front legs over and pull herself over, or she did it all in one motion and essentially tumbled over and landed awkwardly. It's a problem not only because she got out, but because she could end up hurting herself continually trying to do that now. I figure that if she knows she could do it once, she'll just keep doing it every time until she gets out. How do we fix this? Few ideas crossed my mind: Go back to the crate only until she can be trusted Go back to putting her in the bathroom with a closed door until she can be trusted Put towels on top of the pen and basically tie them down so it's a roof. Currently we have one draped over half of it so it's more like a "den" Prop up the pen from the bottom all the way around to make it higher Build something on top of the pen to make it higher Put the harness on her and tie it to the inside of the crate so it won't allow her to get out Anyone have any experience with something like this? What is the best plan of attack? Some solutions are much easier than others. But we'd love to be able to have her utilize the pen, as she has been much calmer than when she gets locked in a bathroom separated from everything. We've also had her sleeping only in the actual crate, and I think she's slowly associating crate with sleep time and she usually goes to bed without a fuss now and doesn't bark at all during the night. My initial thought was towels on top of the cage to build a roof but somehow tying them down with zip ties or something so they can't be pulled down either. My concerns about putting something over the top is her somehow getting tangled up in it and hurting herself worse...

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Jun 3, 2012 -> 11:35 PM) I'm done w/ Thornton. Crain-Jones-Reed. That's a fine 7th-8th-9th. Except none of them are left-handed.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jun 3, 2012 -> 11:23 PM) That's my thinking. I don't want to give them a young guy and I don't want to take on that whole Youk contract without sending a pricey vet their way. I don't want to regret not having Matty down the stretch...as much as he has struggled in big spots this year, it's not like the ball is getting hit hard. What does Youkilis add to this mix? More offense? It seems to me we have enough offense. It's defense and pitching that we need...

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Jun 3, 2012 -> 08:21 PM) I wouldn't mind giving Floyd up for Youk. I think Quintana can be a solid backend rotation starter for us. But you know what Gavin is. He is a solid big leaguer starter in the AL. Never gonna be a stud, but definitely solid as a mid-rotation guy. My biggest problem with Gavin (and I do not have any stats to back this up, this is purely observational), but in big starts, he doesn't pitch well. When the pressure is on, I feel like Gavin shrivels up and wets the bed. I don't think that is necessarily true...he's pitched well against the Tigers and Red Sox in his career...he has lost a lot of big starts to the Twins, that is for certain. I truly just think he loses focus easily and that costs him when he's pitching out of the stretch. For a guy with such a dynamite arm, he's just utterly frustrating to watch.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jun 3, 2012 -> 06:23 PM) At the same time, why did he choose not to disclose it? Seems pretty stupid since we would all find out about it anyways. If he tells the court about this, he isn't sitting in jail. Probably for the same reason he's done all the other foolish things he's done.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Jun 3, 2012 -> 04:50 PM) The weather was awful. It was too sunny!

QUOTE (flavum @ Jun 3, 2012 -> 04:09 PM) CSN Postgame...Bill Melton didn't think Frank faced Randy Johnson. Frank Thomas Drinking Game...every time he says "Bottom Line", drink. Or "elite." Damn, he is a big dude. Thought Melton's line about Sale going through hitters like Frank going through wings up in the suite was pretty good...

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jun 3, 2012 -> 02:56 PM) OVA! YES! Slim Unit! Randy was so fat

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 3, 2012 -> 02:40 PM) Would have to guess Sale at least gets to go out and start the 9th. Off-day tmrw. Hate to bring in a reliever with a runner or runners on base, but he's earned the shot at the CG if he can keep his pitch count down. This is going to be the problem all year long. He's so good, you keep telling yourself you have to protect him, even though it's so tempting to leave him out there. He does have that extra day of rest, right? Yeah, he's on 5 days

QUOTE (flavum @ Jun 3, 2012 -> 02:40 PM) 23,062 Ick

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jun 3, 2012 -> 02:38 PM) That was going to be the issue eventually. They just don't have good pitching. Hammel might be their only legit starter. Arrieta really went down fast

QUOTE (Heads22 @ Jun 3, 2012 -> 02:38 PM) If Sale can get the third guy quickly, could see him come out for the ninth. Yeah, I think he's finishing this b****

Orioles coming back to earth quickly...they can't get anyone out anymore

Did we get an attendance figure yet?