iamshack

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ May 30, 2011 -> 07:27 PM) Anybody else really excited for "Gettysburg" on the history channel tonight? Aww s***, I forgot about it... Just watched Takers, entirely because I dig Idris Elba. Pretty slick movie, and Paul Walker even managed to not be a total douche.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 30, 2011 -> 10:20 PM) Jesus, 4-6 is a good f***ing stretch from the White Sox, and it's the beginning of the end for the Indians. I don't care what their record is. The magic is starting to go away. They're comi g back to reality. Only question is will we be there to challenge them.

This is all stuff that goes on in pretty much every major football program in Division I. And if you aren't willing to give the top recruits these perks, someone else will. I don't care for Ohio State, but I certainly think it's silly to pretend as though Jim Tressel is a bad or irresponsible person and OSU is running some outrageously dirty program ala SMU in the early 80's or something. Notice how many of these schools get caught because some other episode turns up the evidence of wrongdoing. Not because the NCAA is on them, or because other ADs and coaches are alleging wrongdoing. They are all doing it, it is a fact of life in major collegian athletics, and for people to pretend as if the schools that get caught are the bad apples is just burying your head in the sand.

QUOTE (greg775 @ May 30, 2011 -> 09:01 PM) I hope. It'd be kind of stupid to bat him higher than seventh against any lefty starter however. Has he got his first hit against a lefty? I'd bat him 7th or 8th vs. all lefties if he has to play everyday. Yeah, a sweep is a bit aggressive, and we did win the first in Toronto and then lose the next three. But we normally play the Red Sox fairly well in Boston, it seems. Dunn has got to get hot at some point. It may not be for another several weeks, but it will happen. And we will benefit from his hot bat if we can get ourselves in some kind of contention.

QUOTE (greg775 @ May 30, 2011 -> 09:51 PM) Wins like tonight make you wonder why we can't play like this/win more often. Maybe it's cause Mr. Whiff didn't play. I don't want to be too negative, but Lilly in right, Quentin at DH might be a better option than Dunn for a while. Hard to argue with that. I love what we're starting to see out of the three youngsters, Lilli/Morel/Beckham. Great defense by all three and they are starting to hang out some ropes and show some decent plate discipline. Things may not be so bad afterall.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 30, 2011 -> 09:48 PM) I've been saying that all month and theyve only crept upwards. They really need these next 2 games with Humber and g! on the mound I've been saying it as well. We were making steady progress until this Toronto series. But apparently, we aren't the only ones to get pounded around by Jose Bautista and Co. Let's get two more here and it'll be a 5-5 road trip. I can live with that.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ May 20, 2011 -> 12:22 PM) Yeah, and I try to keep up the routine on the road with the bands. But when I've got a 6AM flight, then drive straight to the plant and don't get back to the hotel until 8 or 9 at night, it's a little hard to get motivated for an hour+ (with abX) workout. Yeah, but if you just force yourself to get through it, you feel so much better for the rest of your night, and sleep more soundly. I work 12 hour shifts for work, and always hated trying to get the workout in after getting home at 6 and being up since 4:15 am. But if I just made myself do it, basically treated it as if it was my job and not some workout, I always felt 10 times better after getting through it. Now after I just encouraged you to get your workout done after like a 14 hour day, I must admit today was the first day back on P90X since I got my dog back on February 19th. That's not to say I haven't been getting exercise, because I have...I take him to the park almost every day. But today was the first day back, and boy it was a bit tough. Not as difficult as the first time I did P90X, but definitely as hard as it ever was for me. Had to wait til the dog was a bit more grown up so that he wouldn't try and stand on my back or something while I was doing pushups I'm hoping to be a lot more active in this thread now that I am getting back on the wagon. Here's to a good summer of working out, everyone!

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ May 30, 2011 -> 09:41 PM) Indians got raped by Toronto. It appears they're coming down. Now is the time to make a push. 8.5 out I believe. Let's just get to .500 somehow...no one in this division is going anywhere fast.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 30, 2011 -> 01:35 PM) Why you say that? Because he just had the worst outing of his career, and insulted the game's best hitter on the field. I sure as hell hope we're not dealing him at the lowest value of his career.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ May 30, 2011 -> 01:33 PM) It'd be an odd time to send down Sale so I don't think that's happening. He just pitched the 3 scoreless the other day. They're not going to send him down to work on his stuff now.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 30, 2011 -> 01:26 PM) You have Marquez taking Harrell's spot. Bruney is either taking Sale's spot (very unlikely, as that's basically throwing in the towel for this year) or he's going into the pen as we go from a 6 man to a 5 man rotation with one of the starters no longer being on the roster. Well it sure as hell isn't going to be Danks getting dealt then.

Dave Martinez, Dave Martinez, Dave Martinez.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 29, 2011 -> 08:14 PM) Could you honestly say that you would equate success of the 1994-2001 Indians with the 2000-2008 White Sox because despite all those playoff appearances, they didn't win a World Series once? Or the Braves for about 13-14 years, because of only one title? Or the Angels, etc.? (I'm not going to compare us to NYY, BOS and now Philadelphia, although I'm sure many would argue that in our market there's no reason for us NOT to have similar success as the Phillies). Outside of 2008, would you say Ozzie and KW have done a good job in 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2011? And if you realistically look at 2008, it's not that we were anything close to a "great team" that year, we survived to get to the post-season (and Carlos' season-ending injury) 33% due to the Twins' collapse down the stretch, 33% due to a coinflip and 33% due to getting on that mini-roll the final stretch of games where they were all "do or die." Even the Twins' system hits a snag when allocating so much of the payroll to Mauer, Morneau, Pavano, Nathan and Cuddyer results in all of those players underperforming and the lack of fiscal flexibility forcing them to give up their entire bullpen and middle infield. However, as an objective fan, it's hard to argue the Sox have been more successful than us over the last decade. That whole argument is based on one stretch of 9 months of play and the coinflip/Game 163. I'm sorry, I was unaware Kenny was our GM during the 1990s. Secondly, I think he deserves a little credit for 2006. And I am sick of this coin flip bulls***. We won the game. Get over it. And yes, I think Kenny did a great job in 04/05/06/08/10/11. The execution has to occur on the field.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ May 29, 2011 -> 08:47 PM) Again, you're going back 5-6 years to support your argument. I'm talking right now. What has this franchise produced the last three years? Nothing. And it shows. A list? I'll humor you. I'm going to assume international free agents and trades count. Because we suck at that former and have been bad at the latter the last 3 years. Red Sox: Ellsbury, Pedroia, Lester, Youk, Buchholz, Papelbon, Bard. Braves: Heyward, McCann, Hanson, Jurrjens, Kimbrel, Venters. And I won't even get into the stable of pitching studs they have waiting in the wings. Now the Phillies are a bit different. Yeah, they've developed Howard, Utley, Rollins and Hamels. But they've had the talent in their system to in like a year and half to add Halladay, Lee and Oswalt. That's f***ing getting it done. Why do you mock the Rockies? They've obliterated Latin America to the tune of Ubaldo, De La Rosa, Chacin. Then they made the spectacular trade to acquire a true 5-tool stud that is Carlos Gonzalez. They've got studs on the way and they're competitive every year without near the payroll as us. And don't pull the NL west crap. The AL central has sucked as well save the Twins. Tampa? Are you serious. Ben Zobrist, Matt Joyce, Matt Garza, Carlos Pena, Wade Davis, Hellickson,. They lost like 50 players last year and they're still holding their own in that monster of a division. And let's not get started on what's in their minors. Texas? Oh I don't know. How about Kinsler, Cruz, Holland. Two amazing trades, the Tex trade and the Hamilton trade. And they had enough to land an ace to lead them to the World series last year. And again, just because they had all those successes don't mean you just stop. They've still got guys to go to. We have NOTHING. And I get so sick of the requisite "they sucked for all those years. they had first round picks every year." crap. If you do your homework, you'll see a lot of the core guys on those teams, past or present, were not first round picks. The MLB draft is 50 rounds. Talent all up and down the draft. Talent falls all the time due to signability issues. The talent has been there. And we've failed miserably. You believe in vain. Or you're just naive. This roster for the money being allocated is horses***. Yeah, some guys are horribly underachieving. But to be at the mercy of them turning it around is not a good thing (think Mets). Especially guys like Peavy, who is just about as risk for injury as Mark Prior was, and Rios, the ultimate underachiever. And both contracts are virtually untradeable. I agree with you as far as the late 80's/early 90's go. But that was a long time ago and is not going to happen again with KW and this crap staff in charge. First of all, settle down. Second of all, go call your best buddy naive. I am not naive. I gave credit to the Red Sox, Braves and Phillies. And I don't believe I was mocking anyone. I was merely pointing out that you love everyone else's players but not ours. Matt Joyce? Why does Matt Joyce get a pass but Phil Humber does not? Why is there a double standard with White Sox players? Maybe because you see them all the time? None of those lists are really blowing away the list Kenny can put on his resume. He's built 3/5 of a rotation from nothing. We can only add so many players to the roster, J4L. If we still have these guys under team control and they are above average major league starters we can't very well fit more people on the MLB roster at any given time. Let's face it, outside of the Phillies/Red Sox/Braves, you can't really name any team outside of the Yankees who has had more sustained success than the White Sox over KW's tenure. There have only been 9 organizations that have won a World Series title since KW took over. His organization is amongst them. For all your Dodgers/Angels/Twins/Rangers/Rockies/Braves/Rays talk, not one of those franchises has won anything more than the White Sox have. You love young players. Face it. You'd rather watch the Royals with a bunch of "could be's" any day of the week than our club. And that's fine. But you may want to switch allegiances if that is how you truly feel, because it causes you to be completely blind and impartial. Now I may be a homer, but you're the anti-homer. It still doesn't make KW bad at his job. It makes you a fantasy baseball fan though.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 29, 2011 -> 08:00 PM) The team won games in 2008, and the chemistry seemed to be HORRIBLE. The team in 2008....how many of us thought we'd have any chance to win anything that year after the way 2007 went? This is why I am so hesitant to buy into this rebuild philosophy and this fire Kenny philosophy.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ May 29, 2011 -> 06:05 PM) The bold is crazy talk. Who the hell are you talking about? This hasn't happened since '07. Danks, Floyd, CQ and Ramirez. And two of those 4 are getting expensive. One is destined to walk via FA. And there's nothing at all in the cupboard. What has happened since then? Are you really that sold on Humber? Or are you just looking for anything? How dare you compare us to organizations like the Braves, Phillies, Rockies, Red Sox,. And then the Rangers and Reds of recent years? Or even Tampa. And I'm not talking about Longoria and Price. What they've done in that division is nothing short of spectacular. And that's not just because they've had some high picks a few years back. Matt Joyce is an MVP candidate right now and they got him for the underachieving guy Coop supposedly loved and he's walking after this year. But let's forget about all this for two seconds. What Kenny has or hasn't done or what's his fault or what isn't his fault. How do you feel about this organization going forward? The future. The outlook. Because that's ultimately what's most important. We can get ito a battle royal over how good KW really. But going forward. How do you feel? You're so much of a "grass is greener" guy. Add Bobby Jenks/Sergio Santos/Phil Humber/Jose Contreras/Matt Thorrnton/Jim Thome to that group....all for basically nothing. I mean produce a list from other organizations of developed players or FA acquistions where virtually no resources were expeneded that blows that away.... I'll give you the success of the Braves/Phillies/Red Sox, and I am not saying we are the best-run organization in baseball. There are certainly others out there that do things extraordinarily well. But I'm not going to slurp on Texas and Colorado and Tampa, who were able to take a developmental path while sucking for years with little or no pressure to succeed. And over the long haul, these organizations have accomplished absolutely nothing that we haven't. But because they happen to have young talent now, you are slurping them, with the luxury of ignoring the past when they were doormats while we were competing for division championships year in and year out. That is a bulls*** way of looking at things and you damn-well know it. As for our future, I continue to believe we can succeed with this core. There is too much talent here for it to just dissolve like a fart in the wind with no explanation whatsoever. And when we do indeed decide to go young again, and at some point we will, I am confident that some of the assets we have will net us a good start towards rebuilding a talented young nucleus. If we pair that with a development strategy that can exist with the luxury of a poor big league club (that the fans know is a rebuilding organization), I am fully confident that we can be back. We did it in the late 80's/early 90's and we've managed to compete virtually EVERY year since then. We have not always gotten the results we strived for but we have been competitve for a 20 year span. Not many other organizations in all of professional sports can boast a winning percentage like we have over that span of years. Nonetheless, we may have finally exhausted our resources and this model may have run it's course. But when that time comes, I feel we have some assets that will give us a lot bigger head start than a lot of you guys do.

QUOTE (bucket-of-suck @ May 29, 2011 -> 06:02 PM) Designing a team around some kind if mythical "chemistry" is ridiculous. You win games - you get chemistry. That's it. Well, then it's difficult to fault him IMO. If you look at the rosters he's given Ozzie to work with over the last 6 seasons, we should have many more division titles and playoff series' wins to speak of.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ May 29, 2011 -> 06:41 PM) Kenny really has done nothing good since '07. How is this a debate? His crowning achievements are Phillip Humber and Sergio Santos? That's all you could come up with? Now I'll totally give you Dunn. I don't know what to say there. But Peavy and Rios were major risks. And he took those risks. I'll give him credit for that. But they haven't worked out. At all. So he deserves criticism. I won't get into our embarrassing mess of a farm. But he has been pretty much the centerpiece of the demise there. The bottomline is this team is a coinflip away from 5 and it's looking like 6 straight missed postseasons since '05. If it's not KW? Who the f*** is it? Ozzie? Well f***ing do something about it. This s*** year after year is gross. He adds 2-3 players a year at basically no cost that turn out to be above-average players. If you look around at other organizations, he does this as well as anyone. This vaunted Twins system you speak of...does it really ultimately produce anything more than what we are able to produce? You and others like to rag on the farm system all the time, but we ultimately produce the same outcome through other means, via trades, waivers, or international free agent signings. We can go down the list and pull out cost-controlled players we have acquired that will basically match or exceed what other organizations are producing. There has been plenty of talent here over the years to win division title after division title, and to advance deep into the playoffs. The problem is the execution on the field. And honestly, I have a hard time pinning that on Kenny. Maybe he isn't getting the chemistry right, perhaps that is his biggest fault But in my opinion, the players have been there, we just aren't getting it done on the field. I blame that on the players first and Ozzie second.

QUOTE (T R U @ May 29, 2011 -> 05:13 PM) Ozzie has avg 86 wins a season at the helm, as I already said in the other thread.. And a lot of those times, its been without the same level of talent as the other contending teams.. Is it really Ozzies fault that Rios cant hit water if he fell out of a boat? It must be because of Ozzie that Adam Dunn suddenly forgot how to be worth a damn.. Where is the line here of who is to blame? The coach who seemingly HAS been able to get the most out of what hes been giving, or the dude who gave him these mediocre players in the first place? Weve already gone over a million times how KW hasn't really made any good moves in years.. well what if someone was GM that WAS making good moves.. do you think this team would still be under performing with Ozzie as manager? I don't. This notion that Kenny has done nothing good is pure nonsense. We just freaking signed Humber and turned him into one of the better SPs in the AL thus far. Sergio Santos has become one of the better closers in the league. These players are under team control at practically nothing if we want them. Kenny went out and signed Adam Dunn, and while it hasn't worked out, I don't really understand how we are going to fault him for a guy that just inexplicably falls of a damn ledge overnight. I realize that Alex Rios is not hitting and Jake Peavy has been injured and hasn't lived up to his massive contract. Fault Kenny for being overly aggressive there if you'd like. But some of this stuff is just ridiculous and inexplicable. The performance of Matt Thornton, John Danks and Adam Dunn thus far this year is so far off their career norms that I am not sure a GM in baseball, or anyone for that matter, could have predicted this. I don't know if it is Ozzie, I don't know if it is the collection of guys in the clubhouse, I don't know if it is the gods of baseball or what...but there is all kinds of talent on this team that that continually underperforms in ways that no one saw coming. I know people want heads to roll and accountability, but I've got news for most folks...there are not too many people in baseball that didn't think Adam Dunn wasn't exactly what the White Sox lineup needed this season. Faulting the FO, and even the on-field management for the way these guys have played is just applying results that could not have been forseen retroatively in some sort of cruel joke. I'm baffled. I didn't love the Dunn signing, but this? No f***ing way did anyone see this coming.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ May 29, 2011 -> 03:38 PM) Another very good point. In all honestly, this awful 2 month stretch has basically guaranteed that I won't be wasting money at the ballpark very often this year. I'll head out to 1 or 2 games this summer and that's about it. With discretionary income at a premium with a newborn in tow, wasting money to watch AA quality baseball isn't a high priority for me right now. And that is what the risk was here. Now we're payroll heavy and not going to be drawing fans, yet we can't really move any salary. They've got to get rolling here on this next homestand or this could get really, really ugly.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ May 29, 2011 -> 03:30 PM) Excellent point. This doesn't account for the possibility that I die in the meantime.

QUOTE (greg775 @ May 29, 2011 -> 03:21 PM) Is Dunn the worst hitter in White Sox history? Not even close.

QUOTE (greg775 @ May 29, 2011 -> 01:33 PM) Because in a rebuilding, we have to first dump the salaries. I thought my 5-6 suggestions in that order were pretty good. But if the team doesn't go 9-1 in the first 10 games with a new manager/GM when they are fired tonight or after the Boston series, you have to try to get rid of all that salary dead weight. You say nobody wants Rios/Peavy/Dunn, etc. Well why the f*** did the Sox want them? Somebody might want them. You have to dump the salary and take your lumps with the lousy minor leaguers in their place. You gain nothing by trading them at their absolute lowest value. In order to create roster space for a rebuild, you've got to move the current players off the roster. To do that, you either have to trade them, which, considering their performance, will require eating huge amounts of salary over the course of at least the next TWO to THREE years, or DFA them. But you also have to actuallly have something to rebuild with. And we have very little with which to do that with, and you certainly aren't going to get much back in any deal for Dunn/Rios/Peavy right now. You may be able to get something for Jackson/Danks/Konerko. But certainly not enough to achieve anything more than what we are now. The only thing you can do is try to maximize the value of the assets you do have, which right now, is probably Floyd/Danks/Beckham/Ramirez/Thornton/Santos/Sale/Konerko/Viciedo. Those are the guys that have some value. And considering the guys you're probably going to be stuck paying, i.e. Rios/Peavy/Dunn, it makes more sense to hope for some sort of turnaround over the course of the next few years rather than pay all their salaries anyways and not even have them on the roster.

QUOTE (greg775 @ May 29, 2011 -> 01:27 PM) Will anybody think Rios/Peavy/Dunn/AJ/Jackson can contribute? I think you can trade them. Unfortuately you may have to eat salary and Jerry may not want those type of deals. Greg, I am sorry, but you just have no concept of how the business of baseball works. Tell me what sense it makes to trade players who have relatively no value on the market because of BOTH their salaries and their production, especially when you have no one in your system worth a damn to replace them? You're going to end up eating a ton of salary to ship them out, meanwhile you're not going to receive anything other than token warm bodies, which you will then have to pay as well. You then replace those players you are still paying with players that are even worse. Far worse, actually. It makes absolutely zero sense whatsoever.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ May 29, 2011 -> 01:16 PM) Any "it's early" folks still out there? I'll admit I certainly am not willing to concede the season is over.