witesoxfan

QUOTE (sircaffey @ Apr 23, 2010 -> 11:25 AM) He was 3-16, with ERAs and WHIPs of 4.80/1.51 and 4.72/1.34 in his last 2 seasons as a RP. That's pretty awful to me. Seriously. And in his "good" seasons as a reliever (04-05...3.28 ERA over 112.2 IP), his WHIP has been 1.43. That's pretty terrible for a reliever, and considering his K/9 was under 9 during that time, it proves that it was unsustainable.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Apr 23, 2010 -> 03:14 AM) Hangzhou...1 1/2 hours from Shanghai by train, more or less 15925642611 (cell number) I will be in Shanghai for a preview of the upcoming WORLD EXPO all day Sunday. I will actually be in Shanghai while the World Expo is going on. I am assuming that is going to be one giant clusterf*** of people. I'm looking forward to it.

QUOTE (Jenks Heat @ Apr 22, 2010 -> 02:16 PM) The odd thing about this move is if it was for the good of the team Wells or Dempster would be moved to the pen. This is just odd to me. Why would you move guys who have been good at going 6+ innings to the pen for the good of the team? The point of moving Zambrano is to motivate him, get him back on track, improve the bullpen, and, in the very, very short-term, improve the rotation. Moving Wells or Dempster to the bullpen would be like moving Danks to the bullpen.

QUOTE (Chi Town Sox @ Apr 22, 2010 -> 10:16 PM) Who have they chosen in the top 10? well, no one in the top 10, but Lynch was the 12th overall pick and McGahee was 23rd overall. There were a ton of other places they could have gone with that pick, but Spiller isn't the worst case scenario. Atleast he's got freakishly good talent.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Apr 22, 2010 -> 10:44 AM) Give me a good reason to feel optimistic, then I'll stop...I guess everyone can just tune out and stop caring. Probably what will happen to most posters here if this season continues like this...the only thing to be excited about will be trade threads and following the minor leagues. That's okay I guess. If you want me to stop being honest, maybe I should stop posting altogether. I looked through all the past White Sox teams because I really WANTED to find a reason to believe. It's just that there is very little in our club history to support that belief, unfortunately. From April 17 to May 5th during the 2008 season, the White Sox went from 9-6 to 14-17. That's a record of 5-11 during a 16 game stretch. That's a rough stretch early in the season that is 1 game worse then the one the Sox are currently on, and that team won 89 games and a division title. That offense really wasn't any better or much different, and they were just fine. Sit down, relax, and enjoy baseball. It does take about 40-60 games to determine how good a team really is. I'm not about to say that everything will fix itself, but we don't know what this team is or is not capable of completely yet.

QUOTE (soreal35 @ Apr 21, 2010 -> 07:30 PM) Its the same reason that Alexei thinks he should pull every righties slider....terrible approach. They are professional players that have loads and loads of talent that have never had to make an adjustment to get to where they are and are afraid to make a change Every single one of those players has had to make an adjustment to their game at some point in time to get and remain where they are. If they didn't, they'd end up out of baseball faster than Mike Caruso.

Jim Thome had one of the 5 best seasons of his career under Greg Walker. Joe Crede had his best (and only good offensive season) under Greg Walker. Juan Uribe put up an .833 OPS under Walker. I'm not a supporter of Walker at all, but there has been success under him, and anyone denying that is wrong.

For all the s*** Swisher gets for his time in Chicago, the dude still put up a .354 OBP as a leadoff hitter, even if he didn't hit for average or power. He was getting on base.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Apr 21, 2010 -> 10:03 AM) Yeah, I guess, in retrospect, that was uncalled for... You can argue all you want about our "fair weather" fanbase, but we've always had a pretty dedicated core of both season ticket holders and corporate box/ticket holders through thick and thin. Ozzie, in 2005/06, the White Sox owned this town....there were articles about paradigm shifts in the fanbases with young fans who saw the championship being swayed to the South Side. Pitching dynasties (second time we heard that, first was when all the young pitchers were coming up together 1999-2001), etc. Now the only way to sustain that 2006 season ticket base was a run of division championships, and 2007 simply killed that, along with the disheartening collapse in the second half of 2006. Mariotti always used to do this...but: 2006 2nd half=-8 2007 -18 2008 +15 (-2 for playoffs) 2009 -4 2010 -4 That's 19-21 games under .500 over a 3 1/2 year stretch. With a $100 million plus bloated payroll. So if you want to blame anyone, blame yourself and KW for giving us mostly boring, underachieving and very mediocre (sometimes unwatchable) teams that were better individual pieces than they were cohesive units with the proper "mix." so you just cherry picked the 2006 and 2010 statistics? Yeah, I understand that team collapsed, but they still finished with 90 wins and 18 games over .500. And using the 2010 season statistic 14 games into the season? That's ridiculous. Sure, they could end up finishing exactly 4 games under .500, and you'd look like Nostradamus, but odds are it's going to be different than that. +18 -18 +15 -4 That's 11 games over .500, a 90 win season, and a division championship. And in that 90 win season, the Sox finished in 3rd place because the two teams ahead of the Sox won 95 and 94 games respectfully, and the Tigers made it to the World Series that year. In the past 5 seasons, the Sox have won a World Series, 2 division championships, and have 3 very good seasons mixed with 2 poor seasons. That's it.

Roethlisberger suspended 6 games with the chance to reduce it to 4 games.

From everything I've heard about my China trip, traveling abroad when you don't have a ton of experience traveling is strongly not recommended. There are just too many things that can go wrong, and having some type of buddy system works the best.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Apr 21, 2010 -> 07:40 AM) I think baseball purists have an appreciation for the overall talent of the Rays, but how many of them are going to see the game because of that? They're coming off a rare road sweep of the Boston Red Sox in Fenway, that might cause some to stand up and take notice of the opposing team...perhaps. They're a fun team to watch though, compared to many....one of the most exciting squads in baseball these days. I mean, if I was in CLE/TOR/BALT/KC/OAK, I'd much rather see the Rays play than to go to see the White Sox when they came to town, trying to be objective about it. It would be interesting to see our bump in road attendance in 2006 (coming off WS win) compared to some other recent seasons. Fairweather fans fill up ballparks. Yes, there are quite a few die hards in every crowd, but in general, you market to the common man. Fairweather fans don't want to come and see you play Tampa, no matter how good they are.

QUOTE (T R U @ Apr 20, 2010 -> 08:07 PM) Yeah the Jets are so scary, aside from the fact that Mark Sanchez defies science by sucking and blowing at the same time.. they added a worthless LT, Thomas Jones could have given them way more than Tomlinson.. Jason Taylor is their answer for their 2nd to last pass rush last year? Good luck.. Antonio Cromartie hasn't been good since 2007 and apparently comes with a lot of baggage.. I wouldn't be shocked if they started the year 1-4 with losses to Baltimore, New England, Miami, and Minnesota.. Miami actually looks really, really tough next year. I love Chad Henne. I think the AFC East is going to be fun next year. I expect the Bills to finish in last place again, but atleast they look like they might be an exciting football team if they get a QB...though he's not the answer, Jason Campbell would be a great pickup for a team that has f***ing Trent Edwards, Ryan Fitzpatrick, and Brian Brohm as their QBs. Maybe trade a 4th round pick that can escalate to a 3rd or 2nd based on performance in next year's draft and then dump one of Edwards and Fitzpatrick. Or take another QB in the draft and dump both of them.

Jason Heyward is still amazing.

The only games I would even consider using Kotsay in now are against tough right handers, and even then I'd be wary of doing it. Jones is real good right now.

Danks is awesome. Come back and get them again tomorrow.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Apr 20, 2010 -> 02:04 PM) Kila Ka'ahuie, thus far with Omaha AAA: .325/.491/.700 for 1.191 OPS, 4 HR, 12 RBI in 11 games I've been off the bandwagon previously, but he needs a shot at this point.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Apr 20, 2010 -> 06:36 PM) Probably my favorite memory, besides going to Hooter's every night with the coaching staff and having an unlimited free supply of ballpark food...was going on the road in 1995 to beat Jaret Wright in Colombus in a one game, sudden death playoff. That guy was an absolute monster back then...just scary good. We somehow beat him 1-0. That's when Cleveland was producing all those young quality hitters like Sexson, Casey, Giles, etc. Ha, I remember when the Sox almost signed Wright after his great year with Atlanta. Thankfully the Yankees swooped in, because he was awful again. I remember being fully on board for that signing, because I thought he looked like he'd figured it out again.

QUOTE (WCSox @ Apr 20, 2010 -> 04:00 PM) If the Sox aren't competitive this or next year, I get the feeling that Kenny's hand will be forced to do some major rebuilding. Many of our current productive players will be gone at that point (Mark, PK, AJ, Thornton, etc.) and it doesn't look like our current crop of prospects is going to replace that level of talent (Hudson and Flowers notwithstanding). Fluke or not, pretty much everyone on this board felt that way after 2007 too, and the Sox won the division in 2008. He may have to make major changes, but I don't know that you'd call it rebuilding.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Apr 20, 2010 -> 03:02 PM) I'd assume that his suspension begins once he clears the DL. No it begins immediately, atleast according to rotoworld. Even if it didn't the Reds could activate him and his suspension will play out through the duration of his injury time, and they can use another player from their minor league system (or in this case, another player already on the MLB roster) as his "replacement"

I seem to recall teams under Manuel being relatively strong in the second half, and specifically the 2003 team. That team collapsed in September, but they were like 3-4 games under .500 and 7 games back at the ASB and ended up winning 86 games. I don't really recall any single Ozzie led team being strong in the second half of the season.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Apr 20, 2010 -> 02:52 PM) So the Reds literally GAIN about $140k from this suspension? They don't lose any starts from him, and they save a little bit of money. That's f***ed up. I don't know whether or not it's similar to the NFL, but teams as well as players get fined for the suspensions in the NFL (the Steelers were/are set to get fined like $200k for Roethlisberger). Teams in the MLB may get fined, but either way it's a rather incremental amount considering most baseball teams are with hundreds of millions of dollars, and some are even in the billions. For comparison's sake, it's essentially the same as someone saving $1.40 when making $40,000 a year. At the end of the day, whoopdees***.

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Apr 20, 2010 -> 01:25 PM) I'm not hoping for us to tank, but i can't lie that I am slightly interested in seeing what kind of haul KW could fetch in a firesale. Kenny is not great at selling and I imagine it's because he just generally doesn't like to do it. The only true time I ever remember him selling someone well was Garcia. He "sold" McCarthy, who still had like 5 years of service left after being dealt, so that's not really in the firesale mode at all, but rather capitalizing on the value of someone who he didn't think was nearly that good. But looking at a lot of others...he just doesn't do it well. 2007 was a perfect time to sell off some pieces, and rather than trade them (guys like Pierzynski, Dye, Buehrle) he not only kept them throughout the remainder of the season, but actually resigned them. The guys he did trade, Mackowiak and Iguchi, he got jacks*** for them (Link and Dubee). He sold a few very highly valued minor league pieces for Swisher, and, in return, got back Betemit, Marquez, and Nunez, none of whom have done a whole hell of a lot with the Sox. The Vazquez return looks good at this point, but only time will tell. If this team gets blown up and a fire sale occurs, I want it to be someone other than Kenny doing it.

QUOTE (Ranger @ Apr 20, 2010 -> 11:23 AM) Beckham is perfect where he is. And it wasn't Ozzie to first decide Beckham wouldn't be an ideal SS. That came from the guys that scouted him. And pretty much everybody that scouts for a living said that about him two years ago. They are right. I have no scouting training (obviously) and I don't watch nearly as many games as others on here because I live in South Daf***ingkota, but when I compare Beckham to Alexei, Alexei has something about his defensive game that Beckham simply does not. It might be range, quickness, length, arm...I don't know exactly...but there is something about him that makes him a much better SS than Beckham. Beckham would probably be similar to Michael Young defensively at SS...on the 20-80 scale, that's probably about a 30, whereas I think Alexei is closer to a 50.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Apr 19, 2010 -> 09:41 PM) Or Nix/Beckham in very desperate circumstances. Dude was talking about getting rid of Alexei. You can't count on Nix or Beckham as a full-time SS, and thus, they were not listed.