BearSox

If this is completely Bryce's decision, I got no problem with it. But I highly doubt he wanted to spend his childhood and teen years doing nothing but play and practice baseball and miss out on the two best years of high school. It's because of this stuff that I wouldn't be surprised if Bryce's parents have/had him take HGH or Bryce took HGH to live up to his parents expectations. Also, think about the risks that go into signing him. He is gonna be demanding a lot of money (and from what I've read in stories, it sounds like his dad is gunning for an early retirement), and think how much of a risk it is to give a 17 year old who's never been by himself and never had a childhood several million dollars. Plus, the whole thing with him being by himself finally, he could go the Todd Marinovich route and get addicted to drugs and waste all his money. Also, I've heard some reports of him being a very lazy player on the field and being extremely cocky. From all the attention he's getting, he could feel like he's the best player since Babe Ruth.

QUOTE (JPN366 @ Jun 14, 2009 -> 05:21 PM) If the call up Danks, then Beckham will need to change numbers. 15 is Danks preferred number. Danks needs to switch to number 6 anyway.

QUOTE (Baines3 @ Jun 14, 2009 -> 05:27 PM) I'm starting to think that things are heading in the right direction. Go White Sox. Don't get your hopes up... A lot of us were feeling positive after that Toronto series. Also, we are facing an NL Team.

Did we have more offensive production out of pitchers than we did from our center fielder this series? That's sad... Maybe we should platoon Buehrle and Richard out in CF when they aren't pitching...?

In all fairness to Wise, he did hit the ball hard twice today... he still sucks though. Also, did he always have that tat on his right arm?

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ Jun 14, 2009 -> 03:20 PM) not on TV he wasn't, where did you hear that? I'm mistaken... I thought someone said that in the gamethread, but when I watched the game on my tivo, Stoney agreed with Hawk.

Maybe we're DFA'ing Wise and calling up Danks

I heard Stone was defending Black Jack... and I'd hardly call what McDowell wrote as stupidity.

QUOTE (Brian @ Jun 14, 2009 -> 01:33 PM) Not sure why we ever got rid of Tim Raines. I heard he had some medical issues and couldn't stand out there anymore, so we switched him and Baines... then we had to promote Cora to bench coach cause he and Ozzie are bff's, so we had to let Rock go.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 14, 2009 -> 01:31 PM) Hawk thinks Ozzie is the greatest manager of all time. Thus, he's immune to criticism and anyone who dare criticizes is an enemy. Hawks also thinks Daley is one of the greatest mayors in the country... he's just a huge homer. I love Hawk, I love some of his calls, and I love some of his old time baseball stories, but he needs to shut up at times. There's no doubt that Ozzie has gone about the whole Beckham and Poreda situations all wrong. You don't tell your two best prospects that if you don't preform you're outta here and s*** like that.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 14, 2009 -> 01:28 PM) Getz forgets how many outs there are. It's really disappointing how out of it our players seem to be. Of course that's bound to happen when you have a mute 1st base coach. I would love to get Ricky Henderson as our 1B coach.

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Jun 14, 2009 -> 01:07 PM) DH? I mean maybe someday when Phegly is ready, but this kid is going to play catcher for us in the near future. AJ is an awful defensive catcher who supposedly calls a good game; again, supposedly. I don't see how Flowers could be any worse defensively. His bat is special and it belongs in the major leagues. And average??? haha who cares what his average is when he gets on base over 40% of the time. Haha average. You guys that still think we are going to have a bunch of guys who hit over .300 one day crack me up. What evidence suggests this? Do you not realize that AA and MLB are two completely different levels? So what if he gets on base 40% of the time in Birmingham. With his average and strikeout rate, I'd say he'd be lucky to get on base 33% of the time right now. I love Flowers. But by just looking at his numbers, the only stat that really stands out is OBP. And there's more to baseball than just OBP. His high K rate and mediocre average are indicators to me that he isn't completely ready. Considering we suck this year, I wouldn't mind calling him up at all. But I think he's still at least a couple years away from really producing at the major league level. As for defense, yes A.J. sucks, so we likely don't lose much with Flowers... but that doesn't mean you want a s***ty defensive catcher out there. The ideal situation is if Phegley pans out and stays behind the plate with Flowers moving to DH.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jun 14, 2009 -> 01:13 PM) He's played in several wooden bat leagues and I believe an HR derby as well and still hits for power. I've seen some of those videos with him using a wooden bat and he does have very good bat speed. But in the home run derby where he's hitting 500 foot home runs (this is probably the video people have seen most), his bat speed seems ridiculous thanks to the aluminum bat. Personally, I hope all college ball and varsity high school switch over to wooden bats (at the very least D-I college). It just makes more sense that way, IMO. As someone who has played both with aluminum and wood bats, wood bats just seem so much more genuine, like how the game is suppossed to be played. Also, playing with wood will weed out the good from the bad. The only problem though it'll be more expensive because you need multiple bats (although some composite wood bats are almost as durable as aluminum bats).

His parents seem like bad people. From everything I have read and how they're taking him out of HS early, I think it's a possibility that they are just using him for their own gain.

QUOTE (kyyle23 @ Jun 14, 2009 -> 12:49 PM) yeah, but we are starting to see kids that arent dumb that are considering going overseas now, because they want to get paid. And this makes me wonder as well, why isnt this kid going to a major school for a year? If he is going to get his GED and compete in JUCO college sports, what is preventing him from going to a major Div 1 school? If you go to an NCAA school, I believe you can't be eligible until you are 21 within 40 days of the draft or something like that. So, in simpler terms, not until you are a junior or redshirt sophomore... but once in a while you'll get a guy who's a true sophomore who's eligible as well.

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Jun 14, 2009 -> 12:40 PM) His bat speed is insane. He's got really good bat speed, but don't forget, in most of those video's he's using an aluminum bat, and considering it's a home run derby, he doesn't have to use to standard -3 bat. His bat speed in the home run derby video is very impressive though. If you want to see insane bat speed, Ted Williams still has the most bat speed I've ever seen. Just watching old videos of him, one frame you see him start his swing, and in the next frame, his bat is already through the hitting zone.

QUOTE (kyyle23 @ Jun 14, 2009 -> 12:37 PM) I was actually thinking more along the lines of Brandon Jennings, trying to speed up the process of getting into the draft. According to his wiki page, Jennings was just to dumb to get into college though.

The next Todd Marinovich?

I wonder if we got Broadway back in the deal....

Depends on how well we think he can handle the pitching staff and if his D behind the plate is any worse than A.J's (A.J.'s D behind the plate has really gotten bad as he's really slow behind there now). However, I wouldn't say he's completely ready. His average is decent, and he's on pace to K almost 170 times. I'm sure most of the hitting numbers aren't all that impressive (besides OBP) is because of the ball park he plays half of his games in. If we could get something for Pierzynski at the deadline, I wouldn't mind trading him and calling up Flowers. However, I think the team suspects his future is at DH.

QUOTE (kyyle23 @ Jun 14, 2009 -> 11:11 AM) Konerko protected by Wise in the lineup, never thought I would see that. What a pitiful lineup we have. We have a guy with a total of 14 RBI batting 3rd, and the season is more than 1/3 over.

QUOTE (dasox24 @ Jun 13, 2009 -> 01:27 AM) It's not a bad idea. Justin Cassel was pretty helpful in a writeup I did right after we drafted him, so facebook can be a good source. But, I know I messaged Shelby about an interview right after we drafted him and got no response, so it may not always work. Worth a shot, though, I guess. It's probably best to wait a little bit cause right after they get drafted, they are probably getting tons of messages of congratulations and such, plus, they have to make all their new living arrangements, etc. It's probably a pretty hectic time for them.

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Jun 14, 2009 -> 12:43 AM) In the plate appearance in question, Jared Mitchell saw one good pitch and took it. He was clearly looking to get on base. Had he had a few more strikes on him, i'm sure he would of swung away, but in this sitiuation he was well in his right to take the walk. Also, it's never a bad idea to take a few pitches and seek a walk. It should never be a hitter's priority, but you take what the pitcher gives you. From what I've read, and by looking at his stats, this is far from a one time occurence. Besides, from what Dam said, he took a fastball right down the middle in a hitter count. I'm sorry, but was he really not looking fastball over the plate in that situation? There's nothing wrong with being patient, but you gotta be aggressive as well.

Yankees might have some interest, but I'm not sure. They have Austin Jackson who's a top prospect in baseball who's knocking on the door. Melky seems to finally be putting it together. They have to decide on what they're gonna do with Nady and Damon, and they already have Swisher, Cabrera, and Jackson. Perhaps the likely scenario is to let both Damon and Nady go, sign Holliday, and have Jackson play CF (his arm won't play in RF) with Melky in RF. Swisher could also get plenty of playing time taking pressure off of Jackson and play in RF with Melky shifting to CF.

I want our farm system to be like little Havana. Bring as many of the Cubans in as we can.