witesoxfan

QUOTE (knightni @ May 26, 2010 -> 02:03 PM) I bet the Phillies liked what they saw today. Jenks proved he can work his way out of a jam as well as anyone. I mean, bases loaded, 1 out, up by 1, and he got the next two guys out. What a clutch performer.

Pena's a stud. Bobby Jenks needs to be firmly entrenched as this team's long reliever, because he obviously can't handle closing duties or any close game. Put Putz, Santos, Pena, Thornton...any or all are better options than Jenks right now at any point during a winnable game.

Oh dear god

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ May 26, 2010 -> 11:06 AM) Can you explain this a little more? I mean I understand that its more difficult to pitch in the AL because of the DH, but with the frequency that players move from team to team, I don't get calling the entire league inferior. Hyperbole, but the entire league really is inferior. There is a reason that a guy like Carlos Silva gets absolutely destroyed in the AL and can go to the NL and pitch well.

If Jake Peavy, throughout his tenure with the White Sox, ends up with an ERA of around 3.50 or lower, it will be a good trade. That, at the very, very least, qualifies him as a damn good #2 and really, it qualifies him as an ace pitcher. I'm hoping he ends up with an ERA of 3.25 in his career as a Sox pitcher with about 45-50 wins, but I don't think he's going to be anywhere near as bad as he's been in his 9 starts this season.

It's worth mentioning that their bullpen has been incredible and JP Howell has yet to throw a single pitch. And their pen has a ton of depth too. Soriano, Wheeler, Balfour, and Howell all have good stuff and have had great seasons previously, and then they have Benoit, Sonnanstine, Choate, and Cormier in there too as 6th or 7th guys in the pen. Benoit is a guy that could have a very good season for them under the radar. It will be interesting to see how they shuffle their pen when Howell comes back...you have to imagine it'll be one of Cormier or Sonnanstine that will go, but both of them have been pretty damn good this year and Cormier was good for them last year too. EDIT: Oops...just saw that Howell is done for the year. That's what 2 weeks in China will do to you.

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ May 26, 2010 -> 09:25 AM) By AAAA, do you mean the entire NL? Precisely. QUOTE (Lillian @ May 26, 2010 -> 09:34 AM) Richard has actually pitched pretty well on the road, as well. Moreover, just not having to pay Peavy's huge contract would be worth undoing that trade. And we're not even mentioning Poreda or anyone else in that questionable deal. Personally, I really regret that trade. Aaron Poreda has been converted to a reliever. He currently has a K:BB of 19:21 in 20 innings in AA. Dexter Carter has a put up a BB/9 of 6, K/9 of 8, and a HR/9 of 1.3 in 56 innings for the Padres' A-ball affiliate. Adam Russell is a mediocre reliever. That leaves Clayton Richard as the only piece of the deal that has hurt the White Sox in any way, shape, or form. Considering his mediocre peripherals (1.36 WHIP, 3.5 BB/9, 6.6 K/9, all of which fall in line with his career norms) and his unsustainably low HR rate of 0.2 HR/9 (where he is at 1 HR/9 throughout his entire career), I would say that Richard is not only likely but is bound to regress toward his career averages sooner rather than later. Just to prove the point...Clayton Richard put up a 4.65 ERA with the Sox last year and a 4.08 ERA with the Padres. His ERA+ with the White Sox was 100 and his ERA+ with the Padres was 91. That means that, due to ballpark disparities and the general inferiority of the National League, Clayton Richard's 4.65 ERA with the White Sox was better and more valuable than his 4.08 ERA with the Padres. Just wrap your mind around that for a minute. --- At the end of the day, by suggesting you regret the deal, you are stating that you'd rather have Clayton Richard, Adam Russell, Dexter Carter, and Aaron Poreda - 4 very mediocre arms who are afterthoughts in other organizations - than Jake Peavy, who has a legitimate arm and is, at the very least, a generally damn good pitcher. I know which of those two groups I am picking, and I'm not going to let a month and a half of baseball fool my judgment.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 26, 2010 -> 09:15 AM) If "EVERYTHING" went well, and that includes very improbable events like Soriano hitting 30+ HR and staying healthy and Carlos Silva pitching like a #2 starter and Carlos Marmol never hitting that mid-season slump he usually seems to find, and on top of that, an injury hits the Reds or Pujols continues to struggle, I could see them competing for the wild card, but that's about it. It's funny that Pujols is struggling yet is putting up a .941 OPS. Not that I disagree...comparatively speaking, he is struggling...just that it's awesome when a player is so good that what is generally regarded as very good for a player is struggling for him.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ May 26, 2010 -> 12:36 AM) Babe Bautista strikes again. 10 years ago, Tony Batista hit 41 homers for the Blue Jays (and put up an .827 OPS). Maybe Jose is gonna do it this year.

QUOTE (jphat007 @ May 26, 2010 -> 08:34 AM) I don't think Richard has given up more than 3ER in any start this year. 16 million and him instead of Peavy would look pretty neat right now Because comparing Clayton Richard pitching in AAAA ball in the best pitcher's park in the league to Jake Peavy pitching in the MLB and in a huge hitters park is completely fair.

Williams acknowledged that they scouted Swisher poorly. From what I remember, they thought they were getting a guy who was basically a quasi Jim Thome, and he is quite clearly a step below that and was 2 or 3 steps below that in his only season with the Sox. Beyond that, his antics did get old and he earned his way into the doghouse and there was no chance of him coming back.

QUOTE (chisoxfan09 @ May 25, 2010 -> 08:23 PM) Way too early to call him a bust, but with Rios dong so well this year you figure he will be our CF barring something seriously changing so do you try and package Dank2 in a trade if the team gets to a point when even Danks1 is fair game in a firesale? John Danks being on the Chicago White Sox has no effect on what the White Sox do with Jordan Danks. The fact that they are brothers is ironic or coincidental or even just cool, but if the Sox felt there was a good deal on the table in which they could move Jordan, they would do so without talking to John, and if John doesn't resign with the Sox because the White Sox traded his brother to attempt to improve the team, then I'm not sure you want John in the long run.

Long-term you have to imagine Lucy is the backup catcher, but for this year, Castro is getting paid more money and Lucy has an option (that has already been exercised so there's no need to worry about it anymore). For a position that is not vitally important, you may as well get whatever you can out of the $800k that Castro is being paid. It is kind of funny/scary to consider that the Sox could have a very experienced pitching staff being caught by two rookies next season.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ May 25, 2010 -> 05:25 PM) I'd obviously rather have Wilson, but I certainly wouldn't be disappointed to end up with a guy like Castellanos (assuming Wilson is off the board). He totally goes against what has become a typical White Sox first round draft pick. HS kid, high risk, ect. I'll believe it when I see it, though. Like dan said, this upcoming draft will prove just how serious the White Sox are (they talk a good game) about their dedication to building a top-flight system. If Wilson is dead set on going to Stanford, teams probably won't draft him in the first anyways.

QUOTE (DBAHO @ May 25, 2010 -> 10:59 AM) What was the best part about China wite? I was in Shanghai and Beijing about 10 years ago, but I imagine it's probably changed quite a bit since I was there last. It's hard to pinpoint just one thing as being my favorite, but one of the best things about the trip was the cost of goods. Obviously there are tradeoffs and most of the goods' quality suffers, but I still got quite a bit of stuff for right around $300-400 (and it would have cost easily twice that over here if not more). But just the general experience of being in a huge city and completely immersing myself into an entirely different culture was a scary yet wonderful feeling. It was easily one of the best times of my life. QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 25, 2010 -> 08:17 PM) Out of curiousity did any of you see the Leshan Budda? I saw a special on it the other day on NatGeo. I had never heard of it before, and it seems like it would be amazing. I did not, but that would be amazing to see.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 25, 2010 -> 04:21 PM) Ellsbury will be heading back to CF for the Red Sox, even though Cameron is just about to come off the DL. It certainly sounds like the Red Sox have almost zero confidence in Cameron's ability to stay healthy for the rest of the season, if they're making this move. Cameron's believed to be a much better defensive CF than Ellsbury based on most of the metrics and based on the eye test as well, and he hasn't played anywhere but CF since 2000 except for a stint with the Mets in 2005. I know others disagree with me on this one...but if the Sox go into full firesale mode, and Boston wins a couple more games to pull close to the Yankees for the wild card...that's a team that could both benefit from and afford to take on Rios. They'd have to give up a huge package to get him, considering Rios's all around value. I don't care that he has a big contract or that he had a bad year last year - I'd say he's easily a top 10 CF in the game, and those don't get traded for pennies on the dollar when they have 4 years left on their current contract. And, not that I particularly care to add another slap hitting speedster, but Ellsbury would almost certainly have to be involved in it as well, which would make Pierre available to be dealt (and he is a guy you deal for pennies on the dollar)

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ May 25, 2010 -> 10:27 AM) He did hit 10 HRs with a slugging percentage over .600 during Sept/Oct of last year. So I guess you could say that was a little preview of what was to come. LOL, so 24 homers over his previous 77 games and 223 PA's. That's a sweet little 9.3 PA/HR.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ May 23, 2010 -> 05:37 PM) Edwin Encarnacion just hit his 5th HR in the last 3 days. Jose Bautista hit his 14th HR (tied with Konerko for the major league lead). And I suggest anybody who really, really likes offense to start watching more Arizona games. Chase field has become the new Coors. I leave for two weeks and Jose Bautista is hitting like Mark McGwire. I mean, I didn't expect 14 homers out of Konerko by this point in time, but atleast there is some history of power within Konerko's game. But Jose Bautista? I also looked at Bautista's career numbers after Gaston named him the leadoff hitter to open the season, and I was wondering what the hell he was leading off for when he's like a career .240 hitter with mediocre plate discipline. Dude's actually been a really solid utility player his entire career, generally around .240/.335/.415, and he's gotten hot for a month. Maybe he can keep it up and hit 30 homers or something crazy.

Oh yeah, I saw a s***load of famous people in airports. On our flight to Beijing, Shawn Johnson was on the plane from Minneapolis all the way to Beijing. Upon getting through the gates in the Shanghai airport, we got up to the Burger King there (first burger in 2 weeks, BTW) and Usain Bolt and company were hanging out, waiting for their flight out of Shanghai. We got to the Minneapolis airport around 2 PM and my friend said he saw the girl from the Resident Evil movie right behind him in line in the Customs area, and on the way to my gate, I saw to guys wearing NBA Draft Combine '10 shirts. I didn't get a good look at them or have a chance to take a picture with them because it was like 3:05 and my flight was scheduled to leave at like 3:25 and I still needed to get to my gate, but the shorter one (looked about 6'2 or 6'3) looked like John Wall. I just got a glance of him, so that's probably wrong. I got a better look at the other, but haven't been able to match the face in my mind with a face on the interwebz...the person who has the closest resemblance of the 20 or so pics I've looked at is Al-Farouq Aminu, but I'm not exactly sure. Pretty crazy though...apparently I need to hang out in airports more often. I was in Minneapolis when we were heading to China the same day the Sox were in town (11th), but after looking around a bit, didn't see any of them. Not sure about MLB travel policy and if they go there they night before and get some R&R in Minnesota or what, but it was worth a shot anyways. Had a phenomenal time, but I'm glad to be back.

ohai

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 10, 2010 -> 02:45 PM) Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the pitch that went 3 miles yesterday was a fastball down the middle. I wasn't watching, but I'm sure it was. Hitters generally don't have problems with pitches right down the middle of the plate, no matter how much they may or may not break.

QUOTE (qwerty @ May 10, 2010 -> 02:22 PM) One of the top 10 pitchers in baseball ERA has a 1.0 strikeout to walk rate. I knew exactly who it was too. I'm smart.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 10, 2010 -> 02:31 PM) Well, in this case, I'm going to dispute how useful an "Average" is, especially for a guy who tends to vary a lot over the course of a season. To me, last year, he took longer in working in to his good fastball than he did this year, and I think his good fastball is actually pushing the gun a little higher than it did last year (I've seen him pop 97-98 on guns this year, if they're right, and i don't think I ever saw that last year). I'd argue that average is biased by the fact that we see him take a week or two (this year) and a month or so (last year) throwing in the low 90's before his arm loosens up, and this year's number is a little lower because there's been less of a full season. IMO, it's not velocity that is his problem. Oh, I don't believe his velocity is a problem at all, I was just stating it was down...more or less miscellaneous information. He's actually had his most effective and best seasons when he averages around 93 with his fastball. I honestly believe his problems are that he's using his changeup too much (the only time it was an effective pitch was 2005 when his fastball averaged 97 and his changeup was below 83 MPH) and that he's not using his curveball enough (which has always been his best and most effective pitch). Of course, part of the problem right now might just be that he's pitching like total s*** too.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ May 10, 2010 -> 01:59 PM) I recall, I think it was 2006 or 2007, MB gave up something like 7 runs in the first inning - stayed in the game - and beat the Twins. QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ May 10, 2010 -> 02:01 PM) Didn't we complete a triple play in that game too??? I remember that game being ESPN Sunday Night Baseball. Great memories. May 14, 2006. Dye hit a 3-run homer in the 1st, Twins put up 7 runs (6 unearned runs) in the first. Sox put up 1 in the 3rd (Thome homer), 5 in the 4th (AJP homer plus a few other things), and turned a triple play in the bottom of the 6th.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 10, 2010 -> 02:20 PM) Really? Then some of these radar guns are lying to me. Yes, it's down some. He averaged 94.8 last year and is at 94.2 this year. It isn't a lot, but there is a difference.