witesoxfan

Thornton is going to have good value this offseason, relatively speaking. There is really no left handed pitching on the open market and he is a mere 1 year removed from being the best lefty in the game. He will have enough value. I don't see him coming back.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 31, 2011 -> 12:35 PM) So...Pirates hitting coach. Did he have his hands on McCutcheon? Only in Spring Training, if ever. 2006 and 2007. On Jose Bautista - "If we can get him to replicate his swing three days in a row, Jose Bautista could hit 25 homers a year. In fact, I think he could hit 40. He is just so easily frustrated when it doesn’t go right that he blames himself and forgets what he’s learned. Or ignores it. But of all these guys I have, if you want one of them who will eventually do something special in this game, I’d pick him. I wouldn’t be very surprised."

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Oct 31, 2011 -> 03:48 AM) Year before: Lions - Stafford. Tebow doesn't get picked. Rams - Jason Smith. Didn't take Sanchez, no Tebow. Kansas City Chiefs - Tyron Jackson. Had Cassel. No Tebow. Seattle Seahawks - Aaron Curry. Had Hasselback comign back from injuries. No Sanchez. New York Jets - Sanchez. You can argue this one, but NY loved Sanchez, who knows on Tebow. He would have floundered in NY and as a starter, he's been nothing other than overrated. I'm pretty sure he was talking about Leinart.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Oct 30, 2011 -> 05:06 PM) Maybe this is finally the offseason that Kenny finds a way to get Gerardo Parra! Woo! That is me barfing all over your post

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Oct 30, 2011 -> 08:47 AM) I'd say the Blue Jays and the Cardinals won it. The Cardinals got a needed starter for a talented, albeit struggling outfielder. The Blue Jays got a high-upside outfielder and a Kenny contract for Jason Frasor. The White Sox got a Type B reliever and a SP spect. Lest you forget. I also remember when that "busted" SP prospect, as you call him, almost threw a perfect game late in the season. Perhaps you should actually let him pitch before you call him a busted prospect. There is a lot that can go right for all of these teams still. The Cardinals won a World Series and a lot of it has to do with this trade. Toronto might win one soon too. So might the White Sox. You don't know anything yet.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Oct 28, 2011 -> 07:18 AM) Actually I remember Ventura quite well. He was after all one of the greatest players in college baseball history. Also Flowers has a long history of strikeouts, and hasn't shown he can hit .215 yet in the major leagues and as you pointed out, isn't exactly 21 years old. If you don't think there is a "trend" with Flowers and lack of ability to make contact...................... I never suggested that, merely that pointing out batting average from a 164 plate apperance sample size is stupid, as is suggesting de Aza is a fantastic hitter in the same number of plate appearances, as is Ventura a terrible hitter in 4 times the amount of plate appearances. Oh, and the fact that he's a power/patience type hitter? Probably should have mentioned that too. If he hits .220 and plays adequate defense, he's a perfectly viable option as a starting catcher. And if he hits better than that and maintains his adequate defense, than he is an incredibly valuable asset to the White Sox.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Oct 27, 2011 -> 11:29 AM) That's pretty uncalled for... I read the Munoz article expecting some sort of payoff and got nothing. So stick your member into your own behind. You know, I have been trying this for years, and it simply never works. Is there another way?

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Oct 28, 2011 -> 05:52 AM) Tyler Flowers has a .197 career batting average and strikes out about as much as Adam Dunn. Its amazing how many people are even slightly excited about his future. Player V - .243/.322/.312/.634, 5 HR, 26 XBH, 623 PAs Player F - .197/.317/.365/.682, 5 HR, 11 XBH, 164 PAs Player dA - .329/.400/.520/.920, 4 HR, 18 XBH, 171 PAs one of these players is managing the White Sox and had a fantastic career, one of these players is going to be a 26 year old catcher who will likely start full-time as a 27 year old unless AJ Pierzynski is traded in the offseason, and one of these players is going to be 28 years old and has, for the most part, spent his entire career in the minors. I don't think I need to explain who is who. Moral of the story: Don't cite a statistic when the player hasn't had a statistically sustainable amount of plate appearances to suggest a trend. You are old enough to remember Ventura coming up - did you foresee another 289 homers and being one of the greatest 3B of his generation after 623 PAs? Do you think Alejandro de Aza is a .330 hitter? Because you should IF YOU ARE CITING FLOWERS' CAREER AVERAGE. C'MON MAN /Keyshawn'd

If only the Rangers had signed Jermaine Dye as a RF defensive replacement because he makes extraordinary plays that most players look easy, the Rangers would have won the World Series with the most clutch catch of all time. If you didn't understand what I was implying, I'm suggesting that Jermaine Dye would have made that catch. Pretty easily too. Nerves got the best of Cruz because he was too afraid that he was going to overrun that ball when it turned out he was actually short. A RF who makes good reads on balls makes that catch. Thus, Jermaine Dye makes that catch. --- My dad, an avid Twins fan, said that Freese is like Puckett. There are quite a few differences, namely Freese not saying before game 6 "jump on my back and I'll carry you home" or something to that extent. And he is quite clearly not the best player on the entire Cardinals team. But when the time came, he was there at all points. Oh, and he's got that whole "20th anniversary of 'The Call'" (and yes, I'm sure there are other times where 'The Call' is appropriate, but that Puckett game takes the cake in my mind) going for him too. Oh, and to anybody who dislikes Joe Buck using "The Call"...you suck. That was an incredible moment and there was nothing better that could have been said, Cardinals homer (Buck, not Freese) or not. If he had been typical Joe Buck, he would have said "and a long drive to center and this one is gone and the cardinals win." Yeah, I'll take the tribute to his father.

I could make it exist.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Oct 26, 2011 -> 06:02 AM) I guess my question to you is who are the players the White Sox should be protecting rather than Danks? That's not a question I can answer at this point. I don't recall exactly when the protection deadline is - December 1st maybe? - but it's obviously before the Winter Meetings because that's when the draft itself is. If the Sox have made enough moves by that time frame - which I strongly doubt will be the case - to tie up all of the roster spots, then I would say they need to protect those players. If they haven't, then I'm obviously protecting Danks because he actually has the potential to be better than fodder. So, as an economics major, all I can say is that it depends.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Oct 27, 2011 -> 09:16 AM) That Munoz article was completely pointless. But fun. I'd also rather have that than Cowley's incessant rants against the Sox front office. At least pointless is better than stupid.

QUOTE (NHDadUmp-RI @ Oct 26, 2011 -> 11:16 AM) What gets MLB hitters out, "stuff" or good pitching and good defense? Bit of a loaded question, no? Good pitching is the obvious answer, but you need to have the stuff to do so. Name most pitchers who succeeded in AAA and didn't in the majors and most likely those guys are/were great pitchers, but they simply don't have the stuff to make it in the majors. On the flip side of that are guys like Shane Lindsay who have incredible stuff but are terrible pitchers and get absolutely destroyed for any number of reasons. It's very much a combination, so those two items are not mutually exclusive. Mark Buehrle is the prototypical example of a guy with "no stuff but great pitching" who made it, but as I have mentioned on this board before, Mark Buehrle's entire arsenal makes him have great stuff, even if it doesn't appear to be to the naked eye. He can throw 3 different fastballs and has a solid curve and change too. Still, pretty much all of his success is predicated upon his control, and if his control is off on a few of those pitches, he gets destroyed. QUOTE (NHDadUmp-RI @ Oct 26, 2011 -> 12:17 PM) So all we need is 5 #1 starters. Ok, problem solved. No, but you need guys who can be successful over the long haul - John Ely comes to mind. I'm pulling like crazy for Terry and he's been a great pitcher thus far. I'm hoping he continues to move up and continues to pitch well because his peripherals have been good enough that he will deserve a shot if he does maintain this success. Hopefully he can become a gem for the Sox and throws for 10 years.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Oct 25, 2011 -> 02:19 PM) Can you remember ever hearing a story and thinking how incredibly unlikely it was? JUST GIVE ME SOMETHING TO WORK WITH, PEOPLE! I seem to recall reading or seeing at one point in time that a person was struck by lightning twice in the same day and lived.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Oct 26, 2011 -> 06:06 PM) What was the DVD of the Sox World Series that was narrated by Michael Clarke Duncan? I have my Sox Pride DVD and the set of all of the World Series games, but I'm not sure where that one is. Holy f*** that is him. I always knew that voice sounded so familiar but couldn't figure it out. Goosebumps every single time.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 26, 2011 -> 07:27 AM) They did have issues with each other when Thomas was on the team. I hadn't really though of Konerko, but that is a really good point. I remembered them having issues a couple different times - I seem to recall in 2002 when Thomas was really struggling and Konerko shot out of the gate like a cannon they were asking PK about Frank and he'd criticized him pretty heavily. Hell, I may have even found the location of that article at some point in time here within the past 2-3 months, but it cost $3 to access it and I'm not going to pay money for that kind of stuff. That's I don't recall if Frank did the same in 2003, but it's quite ironic that Thomas and Konerko had flip-flopping slumps to start seasons in back to back years. I think both have cooled down tremendously from that point and I think they'd be able to co-exist. It's just a concern.

I'm pretty much in the middle on this one. Danks really has no value to the White Sox right now, he's not that good of a prospect, but he's shown a bit of power in the past and plays good defense. If a coach within your system can get through to him and he hits a little bit, you have a 2-3 WAR player on your hands in his good seasons. If I'm Houston or Minnesota - especially Minnesota who pretty much have jack squat in the minors for OFers right now - I'll take a chance on Danks in a second.

I wouldn't mind Frank as a hitting coach. I generally think that Hriniak's style would do wonders for a lot of hitters on this team, notably Rios and Beckham but also Morel and even Dunn too. My biggest concern would be with Konerko. Konerko was a huge advocate of Walker and, even as great of a professional as Konerko really is, I think their egos could clash. I could see Thomas wanting to make some sort of adjustment with Konerko's swing if he were to get into a funk, and Konerko would shrug it off which would lead to confusion amongst the players as to who is actually in charge. That would be a situation where having a well respected manager who is good at dealing with conflict would really come into play, and, as has been mentioned, Ventura has done that with Thomas before.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 20, 2011 -> 04:02 PM) You're probably right that a majority of managing "Can" be done without ever having been a manager or even bench coach anywhere. The issue is...it clearly is much more likely that a person does those things effectively after other managing experience. Basically, picking a guy with no experience is to me taking the 1 in 100 bet, when maybe 1 in 2 bets were available. The only reason why you'd do the former is if the payout is much, much larger on the former bet...and it's not only hard for me to see how Robin is guaranteed to be a "much larger payout", it's impossible for me to say how you judge that without even interviewing the other guys (and seeing what their odds are). As a preface, I'm a guy that wanted Dave Martinez as manager. Who were you legitimately going to hire as manager? And yes, with regards to this one, I would like examples. The big two or three going around the board were Martinez, Cooper, and Francona. Martinez does not have a good history in Chicago and, due to that history, it's easy to associate him with being an a-hole and perhaps somewhat untrustworthy. That's Ozzie without the belligerence and humor. Perhaps good on the field, but not good with PR. The Sox didn't feel Cooper was capable of managing but felt enough about him to give him an extension. He's still here. Francona has dealt with enough problems in the past 8 months that bringing him in might not only be bad from a management perspective but bad from a personal point of view, perhaps for his health. There are other candidates out there, but I'm perfectly happy with Ventura. If anything, he should understand the importance of NOT bunting. That in itself should add a full win to the Sox. The hiring does deserve criticism, but again, who would you have legitimately hired as manager?

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Oct 24, 2011 -> 03:03 PM) OK, I have an odd question. I got the idea from Futurama. What do you think is the least likely thing to have ever happened? Life itself is probably the best answer, but I'm thinking about one particular event. Me having sex?

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Oct 24, 2011 -> 10:08 PM) Never thought I'd see Octavio Dotel pitching in the 8th inning of perhaps the most important World Series game. Crazy, I wasn't that comfortable when he was pitching the 7th inning for the White Sox. Yet there he is... I never had any problem with him. Once every 7-10 outings he'd blow up big time and couldn't find any of his pitches, but pretty much every other time he was filthy.

The only thing I see that is so offensive about that is that he suggests he's a middle reliever in a perfect world. In a perfect world, he improves his curveball and adds a couple MPH and becomes a force in the rotation. Realistically, he projects as more of a middle reliever. Seeing him succeed in the AFL is a good sign, so hopefully he continues to do that.

QUOTE (Cali @ Oct 24, 2011 -> 05:50 PM) I'm more looking forward to '13 or '14. 2012 White Sox: 67-95 AT BEST... My parents had yet to graduate from high school the last time the White Sox won 67 games or fewer over the course of a full season. They are 51. I could see 75 wins, but considering how many players had poor offensive seasons along with (hopefully) a highly motivated group of players with a new manager, I am thinking closer to 85 wins.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Oct 24, 2011 -> 09:23 PM) I don't think KW is quite as philanthropic/altruistic as he makes himself out to be. It's usually self-serving, whatever "nuggets" he provides to the press...I mean, was it really necessary that he publicize something like this? I get the idea behind it, but I would rather see results than idle talk. Kind of hard to do anything to get any sort of results at this point of the year.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 23, 2011 -> 08:25 PM) Oh, I see, so someone else's players won 95 games his first year. Yep, but I'd say he was just fine for the next 8 though, wouldn't you?