witesoxfan

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jun 22, 2010 -> 08:15 PM) The White Sox have raised Tommy Hanson's ERA by a full half run tonight. It's like the difference between pitching in the NL and the AL! He is also at 59 pitches after 3. Danks is at 53 after 4

The White Sox have raised Tommy Hanson's ERA by a full half run tonight. It's like the difference between pitching in the NL and the AL! He is also at 59 pitches after 3.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Jun 22, 2010 -> 07:41 PM) So you're basically saying that he was rushed big-time last year. So why rush him again this year? Again, he's only 21. Not at all. There's nothing wrong with challenging a very talented player at a tough level of competition. He more than held his own. Which is another way to state "hot streak in AAA." Beyond that, any increased productivity in the minor leagues, especially by a 21 year old in AAA, have to be looked at as some sort of development, wouldn't you agree? You can surely make the argument that a player performing very well for 25% of the season is a small sample size, but it's all we have to judge him on. I would imagine it's because the Sox believe that Viciedo can hit a fastball, and that he can hit LHP better than Jayson Nix. Getting a young player acquainted to some sort of major league lifestyle can also have its own benefits as well. Beyond that, seeing how he actually handles major league pitching is a good stepping stone as well. I truly believe you are reading too far into the Sox calling up Viciedo. I don't believe it's a big deal either way, and I don't think calling him up for a month or so is really going to stunt his growth as a player.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Jun 22, 2010 -> 07:06 PM) Viciedo also sucked balls last season. Agreed that he's looked nice over this very small sample size, but there's still little evidence that he's ready for the bigs. Numerous Sox prospects have raked for several years in the minors/college and have struggled big-time in Chicago. Throw Viciedo's age into the equation and I see little reason to bring him up right now. Let him have a sustained year of success first. To say Viciedo sucked balls last season is a bit of a stretch. He was a 20 year old living in a foreign country virtually on his own playing baseball. If that's not culture shock, I don't know what is. After an adjustment period (namely, his terrible April, where he put up a .511 OPS in about 80 PAs), he went on to have a pretty solid season (about a .750 OPS) while being 4 years younger than the league. I'd say that's a pretty good season. It was calculated at one point in time that, with a rough translation of his AA stats to I believe high-A, he would have put up an OPS of like .875. And the reason he's coming up now is because he's put up a .900 OPS over his past 160 plate appearances. He's hot, the Sox have depth concerns at 3B, and he's the most ready for the task. If, by chance, he gets hot for a while and wins a game or two, it's perfectly acceptable. If not, it's a hell of a lot better to see where his game is at opposed to seeing the mediocrity that is Jayson Nix at the hot corner considering that there is a chance that he'll be thrown into the fire at the opposite side of the diamond next year.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Jun 22, 2010 -> 06:55 PM) Last I heard, he's not anywhere near ready to hit ML pitching. - .298/.353/.606/.959 in May - .302/.351/.547/.898 in June - K% (in terms of ABs) of 17.7% in May and June - .365/.431/.827/1.258 against LHP He won't draw many walks at this point in time, and he'll almost certainly struggle against RHP, but he can hit, and it appears as though he will destroy LHP right now.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Jun 22, 2010 -> 06:24 PM) The problem with this approach is that neither of these guys can hit. As bad as Teahen is at 3B, he's been the fourth-best hitter on the roster. If you want to move him from 3B, you need to find a way to keep him in the lineup. Why can't Viciedo hit?

QUOTE (pktmotion @ Jun 21, 2010 -> 03:33 PM) I think you're discounting this. National league pitching is certainly not weak. And on his translation as an AL hitter last year he had an average OPS of .905 against BAL, BOS, NYY, TB, TOR. An OPS of 1.472 against the Yankees, a hitters park like ours. IMO, Dunn would work out just fine in the AL. *edit I re-read your post and saw that you weren't saying Dunn would do worse in the AL just wouldn't become a better hitter. Apologies. I would imagine that he played something like 18 games against those 5 teams. You can't use 18 games as a justification that a player is going to be good against the AL if he were to make the transition.

Considering he testified in Congress (via teleconference) and was the only active player to willingly participate in the Mitchell Report, I'd have to agree that anybody who questions Thomas is an idiot.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 18, 2010 -> 11:27 PM) So you're saying he's not hitting with a ton of power? .214 Iso. He's just walking a ton right now. AB/K of 3.8 (about 26%), PA/K of 4.9 (just above 20%). K:BB of 1 exactly. He's still got work to do.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 21, 2010 -> 02:16 PM) And if he can't hit close to 40, he's going to be a fringey/platoonish catcher unless he's really good on defense. 0 players hit 40 home runs in the AL last year, 5 hit 35 or more, and 15 hit 30 or more home runs. I think if you are expecting Flowers to either boom or bust based off of his ability to hit close to 40 homers, you need to temper your expectations of what makes a successful catcher.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 18, 2010 -> 11:11 PM) The reality is...there are zero amazing performances between 1985 and 2005 that aren't going to get people suspicious. http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/...atting_standard

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jun 21, 2010 -> 12:27 PM) With the emergence of Hughes and Javy pitching much better of late, do they even need Lee? No, which is why them having interest at all was ridiculous in the first place. Their starting rotation is as legit as it gets. Acquiring a true rent-a-player has never been the Twins MO, but considering they've never had a team this talented before, it makes sense that they would in a push to win it all.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Jun 21, 2010 -> 09:49 AM) 1) Absolutely everything seemed to go the Sox's way vs. the Nationals. We got a strike zone very favorable to us on Saturday (which resulted in Riggleman getting tossed), one bang-bang play was miscalled in favor of us, and it seemed as though every line drive off of Peavy late in the game Saturday was caught. Yesterday, every time we needed something, it seemed to happen for us, ditto friday. 2) We have the most wins of any major-league team and best winning percentage in 1-run games (14-8). When you glance at that statistic, and our run differential, which is still -20 despite our .500 record, it makes me think the ball has really been rolling the Sox' way of late. In regards to #1, that happens. It's also about time that every line drive being hit off of Peavy was hit right at someone, considering that every little ball that was hit during his first 10 starts was landing for base hits, hard hit or not. That's how the game goes sometimes. In regards to #2, it also indicates a good bullpen. Santos has come back to earth after a magnificent 2 month stretch to start the year, and Williams is obviously terrible, but Thornton and Putz have been rocks in the pen all year, Jenks has 13 scoreless appearances in his last 15, and Pena has been great outside of 3 appearances all season. Beyond that, it also reflects a great pitching staff and a mediocre offense. It's been better, but it still is not that good.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 21, 2010 -> 01:17 PM) Very true, but the power and the walks are still there. I think, looking at his stats, the difference between him being useful and useless is going to be whether he's a 25 HR guy in the big leagues or a 40+ home run guy. With his strikeout rate, if he's hitting 40+ home runs, he's still taking walks and has a high OPS, so he's basically the catching version of Mark Reynolds, and his HR will carry his batting average. If he's only hitting 20-25 home runs, he's striking out so much that he'll be hitting in the low .200's and he'll look like Nick Swisher did when he was with us. Yeah, but he should be doing it as a catcher, as long as he's good enough defensively. If he can put up a .219/.332/.410/.743 from behind the plate, you take it and run with it. The problem with Swisher was that Ozzie apparently didn't trust him in CF, didn't trust him in the leadoff spot, and then didn't trust him to even start games towards the end of the year. When someone's confidence is that shoddy, they're bound to fail. If Flowers can put up .230/.330/.430 in his first couple years in the league, I'll gladly take that, simply because it's solid production from a catcher and Flowers has room to do much more than just that.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Jun 20, 2010 -> 05:34 PM) That's weak. I'm quite obviously not being serious too.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Jun 20, 2010 -> 05:28 PM) How does Booger relate to his name? with a nose that big, I'm sure he has a few of them

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jun 20, 2010 -> 05:17 PM) Looks like we got to .500 ahead of schedule. So realistically, we should probably go 3-3 on this homestand. We'd be lucky to go 4-2. And I expect a sweep of KC. So 6-3 the rest of the way until July? I think 6-3 is a very realistic expectation, no matter how they get them.

QUOTE (MurcieOne @ Jun 20, 2010 -> 05:06 PM) I'm not trying to heap undeserved praise on Aromashadou. I just think he's the best option in what I consider to be a pretty bad receiving corp. His two good games last year were, at least in my opinion, the two best performances by a WR for the entire season. I'm willing to concede that Hester isn't devoid of talent at WR, but I haven't seen him display the type of skill that DA displayed down the stretch in 09. Hester is really just Chicago's version of Reggie Bush, because he's simply not good enough to be a receiver, he's undoubtedly not good enough to be a running back, but he's so talented that you need to find ways to get him onto the field, even if it's merely as a decoy. I agree with you that Aromashodu is the best receiver the Bears have and he should be the #1, but in Martz's offense, I'm not sure if it matters whether you are numbers 1-3 or even 1-4, you're still going to get the ball thrown your way a ton.

5 IP, 4 BB, 6 K, 1 HR. Meh.

QUOTE (sin city sox fan @ Jun 20, 2010 -> 04:55 PM) When I made this original post a week ago, I may have underestimated. If we can take 2 out of 3 against the Braves (and I think a sweep is possible), we should be able to end the month 3-5 games above .500. Twins have got to be scared as we are right in their rear view mirror now! 5.5 games back in third place is in the rear view mirror now? All we as Sox fans can do is be thankful we're not in the AL East. Toronto would almost certainly be leading the division in the AL Central, but they're in 4th place. And all the Sox can do is keep on winning.

It's entirely possible that Martz and Lovie don't feel that Aromashodu is the best WR on the team. In his entire career, he's had two decent games (8 catches, 76 yards, 1 TD against the Packers, 5/46/2 against the Lions)) and one great game against the Vikings (7/150/1). Or it's entirely possible that they want to make him earn it. Or who maybe they're clueless. It could be any number of hypothetical reasons that, until you talk to Martz and Lovie about their actual plans for Aromashodu, you won't know.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Jun 18, 2010 -> 05:07 PM) Not a Chappelle Show fan or what? Just because I didn't want to let this slide, this is a bogus, loaded argument. I could nickname Viciedo "Booger" and if people didn't like it, all I'd have to say is "what, you didn't like Revenge of the Nerds!" It's a bad nickname because it's a bad nickname, not because we don't like Chapelle's Show

Lance Berkman is probably the most realistic best-case option for the team. He's obviously available, in the final year of his deal, and, even if he is a Type A (I'm sure he is), it would cost too much for either the Sox or Astros to offer him arbitration, which brings his value down. I wouldn't give up Hudson, Flowers, or Viciedo for him, which really limits the number of players who you can trade for him while still being able to attain him, so I'm not sure what you do. One thing I really like about Berkman is his ability to hit opposite field home runs. It really had no bearing on Thome, who was a beast of a man and could hit the ball 450 to any direction, but having a guy who can get it into the jet stream into the LF seats would be a great asset to have. All 4 of Berkman's homers this season at Minute Maid have gone to LF, and 12 of his 14 went there last year. If the team actually does look for a piece to help this club out, getting someone who can be an absolute difference maker would be preferable to getting an additional piece. If the lineup was already good, I'd say that LaRoche would be fine, but at his absolute best, Lance Berkman is one of the better hitters in the game (whether he can still perform at his absolute best is a different issue all together).

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Jun 18, 2010 -> 02:17 PM) I don't even get it. And I assume that it's because Dylon and Dayan sound similar.