iamshack

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Sep 3, 2009 -> 02:02 PM) What is the fastest fastball Torres has thrown today? I saw him just hit 92 on the gun...

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Sep 3, 2009 -> 01:59 PM) You could get him for cheaper than that. Give him a million and a team option for year 2. I don't know...some team may be willing to cough up $4-5 million because he is going to end up hitting over .300 with 30 sb ability out of the leadoff position. The thing Scott has going for him right now is a fairly decent shortage of leadoff men around the league.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Sep 3, 2009 -> 01:54 PM) I really wouldnt mind if he was brought back next year. Me neither. I say we offer 2/$7 and take the chance that he can hit like this for another year or two. That way, if Mitchell comes along earlier than expected, you aren't killing yourself too badly with a bench player making $3.5 million.

I refuse to give CQ a pass. What a piece of crap he has been. He's been no better than any of our other hitters drawing criticism around here, but seems to avoid the Soxtalk venom. While I enjoy his effort, I see no reason why he should be playing every damn day as opposed to others.

Beckham hit a grounder back to the pitcher. Podsednik broke for third on contact, then realized he was caught between second and third. However Dempster did not field the ball cleanly, so if Podsednik would have just ran hard to third, he possibly could have beaten a throw there. Instead, he accepted that he was caught in a rundown, and tried to buy time for Beckham to possibly reach second. Unfortunately, the Cubs ran Podsednik back to second pretty efficiently, and Beckham didn't realize he was going to get tagged out so quickly, and himself got caught between first and second while entertaining the notion of getting into second while Podsednik was in a rundown. In short, Beckham should have just stayed at first. Podsednik should have not left second in the first place or should have run hard for third base. Of course, both did the stupid thing.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Sep 3, 2009 -> 12:23 PM) All I'm saying is this year's record should not surprise anyone. There were many publications that thought it would be even worse. Its not that great of a team. Isn't it KW's responsibilty to field the best team possible? Didn't he think he had a WS contender? If he did, he was pretty wrong, wouldn't you agree? Dick, I am not sure it does surprise a lot of people. I think what many are trying to point out is that we had a veteran team that Kenny gave a shot to win in from about 2005 to 2008. 07' was obviously a complete disaster, but 08' was a surprise. I think a lot of people understand though that 08' and 09' have been big rebuilding or retooling (whatever the hell you want to call it) years. We just so happened to get lucky in that the Tigers are in a similar position to us as a franchise, the Indians are a complete freaking anomaly, and the Twins had their pitching staff fall apart over the past two years. All these things allowed us to compete when we probably should have been focusing on acquiring and developing younger players to form a core for our next run. Well, we've been able to do a lot of that on the fly, because as I said, the division has stunk, the economy has made some very good players available via trade for little in terms of talent, and we have been lucky with many of our acquisitions and draft picks (Q, Alexei, Floyd, Beckham). Simply because we didn't get it done this year, but are still massively ahead of schedule, how does that somehow make things worse off? Of course KW is going to claim we have a contending team, and we actually have. Sure, he might give the fanbase the best-case scenarios on some players, but that's because our fanbase is sometimes a bit slow to recognize and accept what the limitations of this franchise actually are.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 3, 2009 -> 11:48 AM) You want to trade low on Linebrink, and get that disaster of a player in Bradley in return? Trading Linebrink makes little sense, since right now we'd get very little or nothing for him. If someone does come along and offer something decent, well, great. But not likely. So the best thing to do really, is see him again in Spring Training, and see if he's gotten back on the rails. If he has, great. If not, bury him in the front of the bullpen or release him. One of the better ideas I saw regarding Linebrink was about a month ago when Fathom suggested maybe trading Linebrink to the Dodgers for Juan Pierre. Pierre's contract runs through 2011 and he is owed $10 million in 10' and $8.5 million in 11'. Linebrink is also signed through 2011', and is owed $5 and $5.5 million respectively in 2010 and 2011. If you traded Pierre for Linebrink, you'd essentially be taking on $7 million and getting rid of Linebrink. The problem with that is you could probably just take that $7 million, resign Podsednik to a 2 year deal, and keep Linebrink. While many of you would probably rather have him gone, I'd probably rather have him around, all things considered, on the chance that he rediscovers his breaking stuff. I think the difference between Pierre and Podsednik comes down to defense, where Pierre holds a clear edge, but the money being relatively equal, I would rather have Pods and Linebrink rather than just Pierre.

Honestly, the guy has huge power. He hit a ball out last night at Chavez Ravine (which is not easy to do at night) where the right fielder did not even hardly move. Granted, he also struck out two other times and looked horribly overmatched, but the power is certainly there. Let's just say this...the trade is done, we have to live with it...but if I could go back and reverse that one, I would.

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ Sep 3, 2009 -> 11:03 AM) JD is hitting .417 in 12 AB's against Dempster, Kotsay and Rios have never seen him and Wise is hitting .286 in 7 ABs. Dye is hurt. He has some sort of back issue. You could clearly see him struggle with it yesterday. I don't think the Sox announcers commented on it (they may have been told not to), but the Twins announcers mentioned it more than a few times.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 11:20 PM) I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Allen had probably no future with this team, but he was a very, very nice trading chip. We just traded him for the wrong guy. Why would you say he had no future with this team?

QUOTE (b-Rye @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 10:46 PM) I'd rather have a everyday power hitting first baseman, cheap, for five years over Tony Pena. I have to admit, while being one of Kenny's biggest supporters, that this one looks like it was a mistake. Even if Pena rebounds and turns into a very effective reliever, I would be extremely tempted to deal PK this offseason, while paying $5 million or so of his salary, and having Allen become our everyday first baseman. He is a power left-handed bat at a position of need. Would have enjoyed watching him develop amongst the other young players developing on this team.

QUOTE (hammerhead johnson @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 02:40 PM) LOL, so let's look at some splits since he got traded. In Petco: 4 GS 3 Wins 24 IP 22 K 12 BB 1.88 ERA 1.17 WHIP .190 BAA Outside Of Petco: 3 GS 12 IP 13 ER 6 K 10 BB 21 Hits Allowed That's right - he's allowed 31 hits & walks in 12 IP away from Petco. Do the math - that's a WHIP ratio of worse than 2.50. We're talking worst in baseball here. Y'all know that I could probably pitch complete game shutouts at Petco, right? I had some fake minor league expert douche try to tell me that he's gonna turn into something because he added velocity. Don't talk to me. Do you also realize that even in Petco, where he has a sparkling ERA under 2, he still has only gone 24 innings in 4 starts? With that ERA? Pitch count, pitch count, pitch count.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 02:26 PM) He should of got us Holliday. Now that was an acquisition. Rios has sucked; Peavy? Are you serious? He hasn't done a thing. That's all about next year hopefully. And Castro has been average at best. Pena has been awful. Simply awful. Randy Williams? Was he a minor leaguer in our system or another horrid pickup? I like KW but his acquisitions have sucked this year. And he could of gotten us Holliday. Would you have wanted Holliday for half a season in exchange for Gordon Beckham? Because that is what St. Louis had to give up for 70 games of Holliday - Brett Wallace, their first round pick in 08'. You still want Holliday?

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 01:53 PM) can't wait until they post this game up on mlb.tv so i can catch dick bremer's call of the 9th I turned on the Twins broadcast when Alexei came to bat. You could tell Dick and Bert were devastated, but not nearly as much as I would have liked...

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 01:50 PM) What players exactly s*** the filed that we didn't expect to s*** the field? Fields/Wise/BA/Count/etc - expected to s*** the bed, and did. All players had been going through significant rough patches and all did not perform and were counted on for more than a lot. Yes, Dye had a down year, but it's not like you just plug in veterans and they hit .311 every year. IMO, a .260 year isn't great, but it's not totally unacceptable. I was told Konerko would never hit .280 again last season by many, and oops...he's hitting .280. Thome had an .864 OPS, nearly .900 for most of the season. With the jacks, I'm not sure how much more you could have expected from him. Beckham and Pods obviously exceeded expectations. AJ hit .312 Ramirez -.280 is certainly not s***ting the field Quentin was injured - is this s***ting the field? The top three starters were all fine - Buehrle gave us ERA/WHIP as expected, Floyd exceeded my expectations and met a lot of other peoples, Danks was fine. We had no major league solutions for #4 and #5 going into this season and it was a disaster waiting to happen. Again, that is not on anyone but the GM. The bullpen didn't perform well, but there were players in that bullpen that again were problematic. As far as most of the lineup and starters - nobody was that bad. The team was not built by spring training to win this season. We were in contention, and in my opinion, arguably placed with the most talent to win this division as late as 4 weeks ago. Then the middle of our lineup decided to stop hitting and our bullpen decided to stop getting outs. There was little or nothing to be done at that point. I'm not sure what you expected to be done. If the players just completely drop off a cliff, after the trade deadline, what is the GM supposed to do?

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 02:32 PM) This is what this team and it's fans needed. One last win in the dome is now a possibility. I'd love it if we could actually climb back past MIN to end the season. We need much more than this...but it's certainly nice to do this to the Twins. I actually turned the Twins broadcast with Alexei up just for a chance to hear Dick Bremer's pain. Oh, it was glorious.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 01:26 PM) I realize that most people think we had no other options, but it seems pretty obvious to me that Ozzie is saying here he had nothing to work with in the beginning of the season. When you have the kind of averages that Wise and Fields sported this year, ANYTHING would have been better, particularly with Wise. They started behind the eight ball but sputtering to a 15-22 start and even despite the recent slide, they've been over .500 ever since they made some fundamental changes and got the roster closer to where it is today. When you have a contending team, starting out behind the eight-ball like that is just too big of an obstacle to overcome if you don't have a lot of pieces you can rely on. I was fine with it being a rebuilding year. I had the sox pencilled in for 77-81 wins this season, but it was clearly billed early on as "we expect to contend and win". I don't have exact quotes in front of me, but jettisoning players earlier and getting more for them, evaluating Hudson earlier, I dunno. Seems like the Sox were just in between on just about everything and it pisses me off. Did they not contend this year? Seriously, if your players are going to go out and s*** the field, there is nothing you can do. The players did not play well. It is as simple as that. There are plenty of teams out there that are competitive and are worse than we are on paper.

QUOTE (jphat007 @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 01:24 PM) Only 2 starters did not reach base in any AB today. Can you name them for $1000 Rios/Nix

Dye is injured. Do we really need anymore excuse not to play him?

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 01:16 PM) The team is hitting about .125 on the road trip. Can't blame it on bad luck. Nice to see Beckham at least starting to get his mojo back.

How many balls have we hit into that crevice just to the right of the foul pole down the first base line? Just bad luck.

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 01:11 PM) i'd rather see Rios sit down - at least JD's starting to show signs of life Rios has a future with this team. Dye does not.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 01:06 PM) For the record, I don't really trash Williams in general, as I think he is a premier GM, but I am pissed at the way this season was handled. I am stating the truth - either he was disingenuous about the players like Wise and Fields that he put on this roster or he evaluated them poorly. There simply aren't other possibilities. What did he say that was disingenuous? The club was in a position where they might have needed another year and they might have been able to contend because our division sucks. He took a few months to evaluate that. Then he went out and got Peavy and Rios. Granted, it hasn't worked out as planned. But that's because of guys like Jermaine Dye and Paul Konerko and Jim Thome and Alex Rios and Alexei Ramirez not stepping up and doing their jobs. Kenny cannot bat for them. Sometimes, it just comes down to the players. The players let us down. Not our GM.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 01:00 PM) we win 8 out of 10 and det loses 8 out of ten before our series with them. Then what? Then the Twins have a 4 game lead in the division.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Sep 2, 2009 -> 12:59 PM) This quote says it all to me. Ozzie is basically stating that the White Sox could simply not contend this season with their opening day roster. So, a little speculation is in order: Does Williams believe the same thing, and did he believe it at the beginning of the season? If the answer is YES, he is disingenuous for what he sold us as a "contending team", if the answer is NO, he was a piss-poor evaluator of starting talent when it came to several players. Were Williams and Guillen at odds in terms of the way they evaluated this team going into this season? Most disturbingly, here in print Wise gets thrown under the bus after being publicly defended by Ozzie many times. What else was said about guys like Betemit, Fields, etc? I am a little peeved that the company line was "we're contending, we're winning this division", when a quote like this makes it seems like they were always rebuilding this season and knew with their opening day roster they had no chance. Honestly, the trashing of Williams is ridiculous. Every team goes through a down period. EVERY team. We pretty much managed to limit that to 1 year because of the work Williams did. Of course there were holes. You don't think the Twins have holes? They have Nick Punto and Brendan Harris and Manship and Duensing and Jon Rauch. The difference is their key players don't go run and hide during important games because they have no spine.