witesoxfan

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 11, 2012 -> 11:45 PM) What do you mean? You guys always pick one point in my longer posts and zing me on that. You essentially have one point, and that's that Ozzie is awesome. You are pretty much the only person on the face of the planet who isn't blood related or f***ing him that believes that.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 11, 2012 -> 12:32 AM) How has he mismanaged that club? Heath Bell has been ridiculously bad. A team w/out a closer is in trouble. Heath Bell has given up 2 or more runs 10 times in an appearance this year. Fool me 9 times, shame on you. Fool me 10 times, shame on me. He did the same thing with Bobby Jenks in 2010 and it, along with his stubbornness in wanting Kotsay over Thome to be a full time player (Kotsay, you might remember, was as good at his peak as Thome was when he was, say, 37? And during his peak years, he was mostly valuable because he played a good CF. Lot of defensive value coming out of a guy DHing lemme tell you what Wimpy). He still doesn't know how to manage a bullpen period, and when he's not given a ridiculously talented group of pitchers that Williams brings in pretty much every single year, you are almost always going to be left with one of the worst bullpens in the NL, and lo and behold, the Miami Marlins are 14th in the NL in reliever ERA. And do you think perhaps there's a problem with the way he motivates and prepares players day in and day out? For all the hubbub about the park being a pitcher's paradise, it's really only hard to hit home runs there, because it's actually scoring pretty well this year. Yet Jose Reyes is about to have his worst offensive season since his rookie year. Hanley Ramirez, who has been healthy all year (well, until he punched a fan and cut open his hand) and is a career .301 hitter, is hitting .248. Gaby Sanchez, who in his first 2 seasons hit .270 and was an adequate 1B, was hitting .202 and was demoted to the minor leagues. John Buck, who's never been the greatest of hitters for average but can knock a few out and be a relatively good offensive catcher, has an awfully familar looking batting line after 64 games (hint: SCROLL DOWN). Note that I'm not attacking the guy who he's sent up to the plate 105 times this year in Chris Coghlan, each time lowering his average closer and closer to my skin-and-bones thin 5'6" brother's weight, because he's been without his CFer. You would have thought that he could get try and get creative and maybe play Stanton in CF a bit, even if he's bad out there, so you can get someone who atleast has a bat in the lineup as opposed to a guy so bad in Coghlan that it is literally the epitome of a blackhole every time he comes up in the order. Oops, I sorta did attack that, but I'm not holding it against him. There are only 3 guys in that lineup having even moderately good seasons, and considering Logan Morrison is in his 3rd year, yet has seen his OPS+ slip yet again, I tend to leave him in the "treading water" section as opposed to the "good" section. He's atleast found a AAAA bench player with a long, funny last name to catch fire, because through 96 plate appearances, Justin Ruggiano has been good. Regression will set in quickly enough and he'll fall by the wayside eventually. There's about 1 thing Ozzie Guillen even sort of does well, and that's manager a rotation, and even there, he has a guy who started for him opening day who put up an ERA of 2.64 in his previous 70 starts who is sitting at 4.06 right now. "But, but, but, none of that is Ozzie Guillen's fault! That's on the bullpen coach, and the hitting coach, and the pitching coach." Sure, I'll play along. But guess whose job it is to get on his coaches to get the players to work on what got them to where they are, to help these coaches get ideas on how to get players out of slumps and get them going, and to get creative about lineup ideas and how to score runs, and to figure out how to manage his pitching staff so he can hold a lead that his starting pitching and offense have given the team, and to just generally make the entire clubhouse strong and cohesive? Mr. Domino Drunky Guillen's job, that's who. And yet, the saving grace of Ozzie Guillen's entire 8 year tenure in Chicago - even when he was letting Will Ohman face a good righty or leaving the starting pitcher in too long or hitting Mark Kotsay 5th or 6th or anywhere but 9th or on the bench - was that he took the pressure off his players, particularly his veterans, and put it on himself so they could focus on the game and the media could focus on Ozzie. You stay classy, Domino Drunky.

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Jul 10, 2012 -> 11:59 PM) Am I the only one to find the ESPN The Mag Body Issue...weird and creepy? Gronkowski with a pinata on his nuts? I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be getting from this. Duh, salted nut roll inside

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 10, 2012 -> 11:20 PM) Dunn was here last year and had arguable the worst season in modern major league history. Can't sneak anything by you. FUN FACT OF THE DAY: At the All-Star break, Dunn, Konerko, Pierzynski, Rios, and Viciedo have combined to hit more home runs than the entire Miami Marlins team. Oh, and just to further prove that Ozzie is a brilliant manager and not some idiot who is the constant force behind all of his teams underachieving, HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THAT THE MARLINS RECORD IS 41-44 BUT THEIR PYTHAGOREAN W-L IS 37-48? OZZIE THATS WHO The most hilarious piece of all of this is that the Marlins are in the first year of their new stadium, and they are 12th out of the 16 NL teams in attendance. and just so I can sneak one in...Ozzie is a terrible manager who should quit at the end of this year because of how ridiculously poorly he has managed that club. If you gave that team to about 29 different active managers and 10-15 retired managers, they'd be over .500. Hell, they may as well name Joey Cora the manager because it seems like he's doing all the work anyways. VIVA LA OZZIE!

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 10, 2012 -> 07:49 AM) What would we be trying to get back with Humber though? The team's biggest needs right now are on the pitching staff...starting pitching and perhaps bullpen help if Crain can't get healthy. Basically, the thing this team needs...are 2 roles that Philip Humber can fill, if what you propose is true. And for the postseason...whoever gets this team into the postseason is the 3rd/4th starter. They're not going to appear in the playoffs if their #3/#4 starters put up ERA's of 5 in September. Whoever pitches well enough to get the team there starts ALDS game 3. If the Sox were to acquire, say, Anibal Sanchez (who's in the final year of his deal), a guy like Phil Humber makes a lot of sense to not only fill that void in the rotation for the remainder of the year, but also for the future because I imagine that team is going to atleast try and be competitive in the next 2-3 years.

QUOTE (Lemon_44 @ Jul 9, 2012 -> 02:10 PM) Money is always an issue. They are a losing team with him and he'd be their biggest trade chip to rebuild the talent pool. If they can do that and shed 18.5 million in salary, they'd have to look at it. What team in that situation wouldn't look at it? http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/blog/jon-heym...ying-in-seattle

QUOTE (RZZZA @ Jul 9, 2012 -> 05:00 PM) I don't know, maybe you're right and Stafford deserves to be higher. But stats in the NFL are so misleading, QB's don't perform in a vacuum. Their performance is so heavily dependent on external factors. Having the best WR in football on that team, catching passes and drawing defensive attention, helps every other person on that offense including the other WR's and Stafford himself. I don't think the talent gap between Jay and Stafford is so wide and I hope Jay will prove that this year or next year. No more excuses. I understand what you're saying. I have a friend who is a huge Tom Brady fan, and he and I would always debate Peyton VS Tom. I still believe Peyton Manning is the greatest QB of all time because he can pretty much pick apart any defense with anybody lined up around him so long as they know the playbook and that he was basically another offensive coordinator out there. Meanwhile, I believed that Tom Brady was more of a system QB whose offenses simply frustrated defenses with the constant short passes followed by a couple bombs down the field. I then used the Matt Cassel to Curtis Painter comparison. He then asks if I think Tom Brady would suck like Matt Cassel did in KC with any other team. We do this for an hour and then realize we are in the middle of a hand of poker and we're both hammered. Oops. In the end, I still think I'm right, he still thinks he's right, and neither of us are wrong. When I think of the best QBs in the NFL, I try to think of them based purely on talent alone. I think Ben Roethlisberger is better than Drew Brees, but Brees is a far better fit for the system he is in and thus is more effective. Before his arm went all limp this past year, I loved Philip Rivers as a QB, but I don't know how well he'd fare in more of a West Coast offense as opposed to the generally vertical offense the Chargers run. At the end of the day, it's really hard to rate the QBs because there are way, way, way, waaaay too many independent factors to have this be anything more than conjecture and debate. Jaws has Ryan Fitzpatrick behind Mark Sanchez, but gun to their head, which QB do you think Mike McCarthy or Bill Belichick are going to pick? I'm going to guess Fitzpatrick. Gun to their head, who do you think Tom Coughlin or Norv Turner are going to pick? I'm going to guess Sanchez. Because that's who fits the system. --- After that philosophical digression, Jay Cutler and Matthew Stafford are pretty similar QBs overall. I think if you could go back in time and flip flop those two in 2009, we'd be having the exact same debate we are now, except you'd be arguing that Cutler probably deserves to be higher, and Steve would be saying "Dude, Cutler, 5000 yards, who cares about Calvin Johnson." Both have health issues, both have cannon arms, both have bouts with inaccuracy, both can move outside the pocket. It's the same debate my friend and I have over Tom Brady and Peyton Manning.

Puckett's not a Hall of Famer? 10 times an All-Star, 6 Gold Gloves, 6 Silver Sluggers, 7 times a top 7 MVP finalist, 3 times a top 3 MVP finalist, 2304 hits in 12 seasons (had he been able to stick around for another 4-5, and he really hadn't gotten any worse at the plate, he could have gotten to 3000), and he was the star of one of the greatest games in MLB history. Hell, his career resembles Roberto Clemente's other than coming up at age 24 as opposed to 20 quite a bit. I can say a lot of the same things about Gary Carter too. I really don't like it when players campaign for the Hall of Fame, because it should generally be an unbiased honor to be selected to the Hall of Fame, but he absolutely deserved it too. How is Don Sutton not a Hall of Famer? Leaving wins out of it, he had a good 5 year period as a young pitcher before he hit his prime, threw really, really well for 6 years, and then went on to have another pretty damn good 13 years after that. That's like Ben Sheets, Kerry Wood, and Mark Buehrle all rolled into 1. I'm going to say the same thing about Phil Niekro that I did Don Sutton, except that Niekro stuck around 1 year longer and he was obviously a knuckleballer. I do personally think he's right about Jim Rice - he was a great ball player. He came up, was one of the best hitters in the league for a few years, and then he sort of faded away with only one real good year and a few other solid ones after that. His offensive numbers stack up pretty comparably to guys like Kevin Mitchell, Eric Davis, Darryl Strawberry, and Ellis Burks. If not for the rampant drug use, Davis and Strawberry may have been Hall of Famers, but Burks and Mitchell are definitely not Hall of Famers. They belong in the Hall of Very Good. 1 for 5 with 4 strikeouts for Reggie Jackson. Bet he's heard that one before.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Jul 9, 2012 -> 11:21 PM) Greg what's the one common denominator between last years under-performing Sox team and this years under-performing Marlins team? You're gonna tell us that it's PURELY coincidence? Obviously Mark Buehrle getting the f*** out of town was the best thing to ever happen to the White Sox.

Thought I just had: if Humber comes back and has a couple decent outings, what do the Sox do? (this is assuming John Danks doesn't make it back pitching well) At that point, you have the rotation depth that is necessary to win the division, but after Sale and Peavy, do you trust Quintana and Floyd/Humber in the postseason? I'm not entirely sure you can. The reason I bring it up is that I think Humber can be a trade chip too. He had a good season last year and it wasn't smoke and mirrors either - he was legitimately good. He's been bad this year, but there a couple of things he can do - limit walks, produce more grounders - which will get him right back to where he was. He's cost controlled, is 29 (which might be good enough to get him another 5-7 years in the league), and can probably eat a few innings for teams too. It would absolutely be selling low on him, so there's a lot of give and take that goes along with it. But if the price is right, I'd be more than OK with it.

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Jul 9, 2012 -> 09:52 PM) I wonder why Kenny has Axlerod on the team; anybody can tell he has no stuff, he's a righty with a limp fastball, and on top of that he walks guys. Am I right to assume no GM would want anyhting to do with Axlerod except maybe as some kind of minor league filler? Clearly not a MLB caliber pitcher, and it has nothing and everything to do with yesterday. Just not good enough and there doesn't seem to be any way he ever could be good enough. And he has one of those weird heads that goes way back instead of pretty much straight up from the neck like most humans. And his grill is scary. Even if he was good nobody is gonna buy that thing's jersey. "Indiana, let it go." He's on the roster because there is a need for a 6th starter/mop up guy right now, especially considering that they're going to treat Sale with kid gloves and the general health of the rotation this year in general. If Danks or Humber were healthy, Axelrod would be in AAA. Even considering Sunday's mini-disaster, he's been everything you could ask for. QUOTE (scenario @ Jul 9, 2012 -> 10:23 PM) Humber will pitch Wednesday for Birmingham. Good to hear.

QUOTE (soxfan49 @ Jul 9, 2012 -> 05:39 PM) On CTL, Phil Rogers just said that Dale Sveum has done a better job than Robin this year in most categories. LMAOROFLLOLHAHA what the f***ing f***? It's amazing how long one can last in the Chicago media when you are a harmless village idiot as opposed to loud, offensive, and rude. Phil Rogers is a dope.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 9, 2012 -> 02:09 PM) Jones averages almost a strikeout an inning. If you throw out his performance 2 games against the Cubs and Houston, his ERA is 1.42. I really don't know what people expect. Apparently if you give up a run or don't strike just about everyone out, you have major flaws. There isn't a team in baseball that wouldn't love to have Nate Jones right now. I fully support this. I think Nate Jones probably has the best stuff in the bullpen, and I adore Addison Reed. He's a 26 year old rookie pitcher who throws a million miles an hour that has some control issues. There have been many other pitchers with worse stuff who had bigger problems with control than Nate Jones. He's just fine and he's been handled pretty much perfectly this year. QUOTE (Lemon_44 @ Jul 9, 2012 -> 02:10 PM) Money is always an issue. They are a losing team with him and he'd be their biggest trade chip to rebuild the talent pool. If they can do that and shed 18.5 million in salary, they'd have to look at it. What team in that situation wouldn't look at it? The Mariners aren't going to be in any rush to move him considering he's under contract through 2014, they're going to want a monster package (which I honestly doubt the Sox can offer at this point), and they're probably not going to kick in any cash if they do move him. On top of that, if they were to kick in cash, they'd want even more in return. We're talking like "Mark Teixeira to the Braves" type of package here. There are cheaper options, both in money and players, that will be more than effective enough if that's the route the Sox want to go.

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Jun 26, 2012 -> 11:34 AM) Dawnguard, the first DLC for Skyrim is out on Xbox today. Looks pretty awesome. I haven't downloaded it yet but plan to in the near future. How near depends upon how much that extra $10 is worth to me. It actually hasn't been getting great reviews (I've been seeing a lot of 8's), but I think that's because Elder Scrolls and Bethesda always set the bar so high that when it doesn't meet the gaudy expectations they've set for themselves, people are disappointed. I'm sure it's loads of fun and they even give you two paths to take too (replayability!11!!)

QUOTE (gatnom @ Jul 9, 2012 -> 04:08 AM) He's been hitting well since May 1st, but he's also had an OPS of .639 in the last month, which is below average. I'm not saying he's a bad player (or a good player for that matter), but I just don't think he can get credit for turning it around when he's remained largely the same. Hitting well is subjective. I think overall, Beckham has looked better as a hitter than he did at any point in the last few years, but overall I tend to agree with you. There's a mini-superstar somewhere in that man's body but it has yet to come out of hiding. I seem to always suggest it, but a bat about 2 inches shorter would do wonders for him, because it seems that his swing is just a little long. That would shorten it up just a bit and all him to get around pitches quite a bit faster. He's 6'0 190 but it looks like he swings about a 36-37 inch bat.

QUOTE (Lemon_44 @ Jul 9, 2012 -> 05:37 AM) People always say that and then a guy gets traded and you hear things like, "that's all it took to get him." Felix would cost alot but the Sox, or any team, has the assets to get him. What was Seattle's motivation for letting Griffey, Johnson, Arod, or others leave? They all made, or were about to make, big money. Seattle isn't winning so stocking up on assets isn't a bad option. All that being said, I seriously doubt the Sox trade for him. Felix Hernandez is making $18.5 million this year. I don't think they're worried about him making a lot of money.

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ Jul 9, 2012 -> 12:42 AM) That's what we were speculating in the other thread, any confirmation? I highly doubt there will be any confirmation, but it's going to be extremely hit or miss and a general waste of money sending a scout to see a reliever seeing as how there's no guarantee that said reliever will pitch and if they do, it will be for 2 innings at the most if they're a general middle reliever and more likely 1 or fewer, and the Sox certainly aren't going to be trading for anyone in either starting lineup. That leaves 1 player who hasn't been eliminated. Now, if they were there for the whole series, then Ricky Nolasco is a possibility too, albeit not a very appealing one. But if the Sox can get the Marlins to eat most of the contract and give up very little, he'd be worth a shot. They certainly aren't going to be scouting Carlos Zambrano because getting melodramatic fools like him would leave the possibility of tearing that clubhouse apart. Anibal Sanchez seems like the likeliest person of the group.

QUOTE (soxfan49 @ Jul 8, 2012 -> 05:13 PM) Any chance the Sox scouts were in St. Louis today to scout Randy Choate? He'd be a nice situational LHP. Lefties are hitting .148 vs him and his WHIP vs lefties is 0.70. Also, he's only due about $500K the rest of the year and his contract is up after the season ends. If they were in St. Louis today, they were scouting Anibal Sanchez.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 7, 2012 -> 11:52 PM) Mitchell ends the day at .251 after going 0/5 overall. Trayce Thompson 0/4, 2 K's, .232. Needs to be at least in the .240's or .250's. If you are going to complain about batting average, you should shoot a little higher than 3-6 more hits. That .232 is fine, it's the strikeouts that are alarming. Dude is going to strike out a lot, but you'd like to see him decrease the rate at which he does it just a little bit.

Matt Kemp: Age 22: .342/.373/.521/.894, 10 HR (311 PAs) Age 23: .290/.340/.459/.799, 18 HR Age 24: .297/.352/.490/.842, 26 HR Age 25: .249/.310/.450/.760, 28 HR Age 26: .324/.399/.586/.986, 39 HR (this was last year) Justin Upton: Age 20: .250/.353/.463/.816, 15 HR (417 PAs) Age 21: .300/.366/.532/.899, 26 HR Age 22: .273/.356/.442/.799, 17 HR Age 23: .289/.369/.529/.898, 31 HR Age 24: .267/.350/.384/.734, 7 HR (323 PAs, current year) If Viciedo is the only important major league piece that you have to give up, in a heartbeat yes. I haven't been big about trading Viciedo because his ceiling is through the roof, but Upton is absolutely a special talent and I'd give anything in the minor leagues up for him.

July 16th was Buehrle's debut. July 19th was his first start. That was the game I saw. Didn't know the dude's name. He turned out OK. I saw the division clinching game that year too. Dont remember the date of that either, but Sean Lowe pitched 6 innings of 1 H baseball. Some young f*** named AJ Pierzynski had a big homer, like the 2nd of his career, and Matt Lawton walked it off with a homer. Who cared, the Sox were going to the playoffs!!!

Oh, Steve, as a special something, because I don't do birthdays and I don't give a f*** about this, I feel this is the right time to call you out over the offseason dealings. I never did hate Mark Buehrle. I saw his first career start AND win. July 16th, 2000, if I recall correctly. Didn't look it up because I might be incorrect, so it's there. I love Mark Buehrle. His name is so badly misspelled that I use it as passwords where you don't need numbers and symbols, yet it's so natural to me that I type it into anything and it's just there (free pr0n sites, so no passwords there either). There is nobody that epitomizes pitching more than Mark Buehrle does, and if he wants to retire after his current contract, and he never throws another game in a White Sox uniform, then by all means, induct him into the White Sox Hall of Fame. And if he does throw another pitch with the South Siders, and I know he will, then let's let that incredible pitcher we know as Mark Buehrle (because any nickname for him in the history of his nicknames has sucked more than Anna Nicole Smith, rest her heart) throw his ass off and get hitters out on what will be an 85 MPH fastball at that point in time. The guy has gone from a 90-93 to an 86-89 pitcher, and hasn't lost a beat. If he keeps that arm in shape, he might be able to outlast Moyer, if he wanted to get to 400 wins anyways. My lone hope, my lone prayer, my lone wish as a White Sox fan - I've seen a World Series title, and I've seen my boyhood idol (and I'm sure many others') retire in a Blue Jay uniform - is to see Mark Buehrle do one more tarp slide during a rain delay in a White Sox uniform. BTW, bright orange and green look ridiculous on him (note to FB friends: do not look at birthday photos of me with my nephew. if you do, simply look at the nephew, ooooooh and aaaaaaw, and pay no attention to the shirt). GLOVE YOU

(points to knight) you're cool (points to Milk) you're cool (points to Quin) you're super cool (points to Ace) F*** YOU but you're cool anyway (points to ss2k) you're cool (points to shack) you're cool (points to Steve) for you, LATER (points to BLAZE (because calling you just would just, uhhhh) YOU'RE f***ING COOL BRO

QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Jul 6, 2012 -> 11:09 AM) He's had a good year in AA? To be fair? Seriously? Who gives a s*** what he does in AA? People who give a s*** how a prospect develops and how he projects the Major Leagues, mostly. He's a 20 year old in AA holding his own. He's not a superstar but all signs point to him being, at minimum, a middle of the rotation starter and possibly as high as a #2. And, if you had read, you would see that he hasn't really had that good of a year in AA, but he's 20 years old so it's forgiven. There aren't many guys who are 20 years old pitching in AA. Merely stating that the Jackson-Hudson trade doesn't begin and end with those two. I have no problem with Kenny Williams or the Chicago White Sox, so if you were trying to start a flame war instigating such, you have failed. The Kevin Youkilis move is one of the best he's made in several years, even if it was a no-brainer.

You know, people talk a lot of s*** about Jaworski, but I love watching anything Jaws does with game film.