JohnCangelosi

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ May 26, 2011 -> 05:19 PM) Ugh, how do you take that pitch He looks utterly lost up there at the plate. We'd been 10x better off just DH'ing Viciedo this year and not spending the 14M per. Unreal who would've ever thunk it

QUOTE (flavum @ May 25, 2011 -> 05:05 PM) 29 quality starts, and the Sox are only 17-12. 58.6% quality start conversion. Good teams convert on about 75-80% of quality starts. Sox should be 5-6 games better if not for the bad bullpen in the first couple weeks, and the awfulness of Pierre, Dunn, Rios, and our manager. Bingo! And on another note, how SICK was it to see us march out JUAN f***ING PIERRE in the 8th inning with 2 outs and RISP. We should have just conceded his AB as an out and save us all the pain of watching that easy ground ball we all knew he would hit...

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ May 25, 2011 -> 04:22 PM) Once again we talk of trading players who are producing for us. I understand the argument is to trade those who might bring in young talent, but then we have young talent-maybe not major league ready-and mesh them with the non-producers and we suck worse then we do now. Trade the non-producers, whoever they may be. I am not buying into the "free up money" stuff either. We might have a player or two (Viciedo for one) ready at the minor league level and you can trade a position player or two and bring him up plus maybe find a relief pitcher to help out. I don't know what the pieces are at this point as the guilty paerties seem to change from game to game, but I don't think Paul Konerko, Carlos Quentin or Buerhle are the problem I agree, let's trade Juan Pierre

Realistically who thought we'd be able to take 2 of 3 in Texas anyways? Usually we get swept. Toronto doesn't usually bode well for us either- if we can get through this road trip somehow around 4-5 I don't think it's time to throw in the towel just yet. We can always wait till the trade deadline when teams get more desperate to trade away the pieces at that point as well. But as stated there is a lot of baggage with a lot of our guys whether it be contracts or 10 and 5 guys that won't be easy to get rid of at a premium price. It's almost like we're all in...literally.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ May 25, 2011 -> 02:56 PM) They played over it 99 times. Not buying it YET Let me say that I have always liked Ozzie as a "clubhouse guy" and also after having Manuel, Lemope, etc as managers that I liked the fact that he is the BOSS. However, his decision making sucks...always has and always will, unless he can get a Bobby Cox on the bench to make decisions for him.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ May 25, 2011 -> 03:51 PM) The intelligence of our team represents that of our manager quite well. Smart play and managing=a win today. I am not 100% willing to chalk this up on Ozzie, but it's close. Let's just face it that Ozzie's decision making is amongst the worst in baseball. It even was in 2005, we just played over it, whether you want to believe it or not.

f*** YOU JUAN f*** YOU OZZIE f*** YOU KENNY There I said it

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ May 25, 2011 -> 07:12 AM) Beckham had a really good may, didnt he? Not yet. There's still 5 days left and I want to see him start hitting the ball with authority to the gaps again, that game is rarely seen from him any longer

QUOTE (balfanman @ May 25, 2011 -> 06:40 AM) Fire Greg Walker !!! Seriously, How much credit does Greg Walker get for this? Maybe he is useful after all. Not to hijack the thread but... I wish Walk would get Beckham back to this swing: http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=5277447 Can you do a breakdown on this swing (2009) versus his current one? I mean, this swing was just SO SWEET. Short, quick, and seemingly he could cover anything that anyone threw at him. I legitimately thought we had a star within the first month of watching Gordo. Why can't Walker get him back to this place? Edit: here is another AWESOME shot of that great swing GB had in 2009: http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=6428277 Now he looks totally different up there....total joke.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 25, 2011 -> 04:32 AM) I make this thread not because Quentin hit 3 home runs and was the main reason the White Sox won yesterday/today's game, but instead because of a mechanical adjustment I've noticed in his swing that has been generally absent since that season. Quentin has always had a bit of a jerky swing and he tends to dance a bit at the plate and he's always reminded me a lot of Jose Canseco (without the use of performance enhancers, in all likelihood). He's gone through a number of different stances and approaches throughout the years with mixed results throughout. He was obviously most successful in 2008 and I saw a lot of similarities in his swing tonight to the one he had in 2008. In 2008, Quentin used a crouched, open stance and only used a single foot tap to time the pitcher. He also kept his bat relatively parallel to the ground. 2008 Video In 2009, he retained the crouch, but closed up a bit and added an additional foot tap to his swing. He also increased the angle at which he held the bat. Other than the crouch, I don't like any of those adjustments. 2009 Video In 2010, he stood up a bit more at the plate, but stayed closed at the plate and kept the double foot tap. I don't really care for any of those either. He had a 16 game stretch where his OPS was about 1.700 or something along those lines - no real exaggeration - but was otherwise pretty terrible. Further, he was also standing straighter as the year went on, which is easy to see when comparing the video in July to the video in September. However, he was again holding the bat relatively parallel to the ground, which I think is where he should be holding it. I'll explain later. July 5, 2010 September 29, 2010 And then, here he is yesterday/today. He's once again in the crouched stance, slightly open, holding the bat parallel to the ground, and he has gone back to the single foot tap. With regards to his stance at the plate, I think the crouched position allows him to drive the ball better and even get a little bit of lift when coming through the ball largely because it involves his legs much more and increases the power of the lever within the swing. As you crouch at the plate and swing, you are increasing the distance which the bat travels because you increase the size of the semi-circular path which the bat travels through, so you have to turn your hips faster to get around. So long as the bat speed is sufficient, which Quentin's is, this is preferred. It also allows you to get to low pitches better, though leaves you more prone than usual to missing high fastballs. However, considering most pitchers pitch down in the zone, you should do what will give you the best chance of making good contact. Considering that point, it makes sense that he set a career high in FB% last year while standing virtually straight up - he has an extreme upper cut when he swings, so those pitches low in the zone were hit off the end of the bat and usually into the left fielder's glove (though a lot of time, he hit them into infielders' gloves too, as shown by his 14.1% IFFB% last year). I think he prefers crouching too, which is why he's generally done it 3 of the past 4 years, which leads me to believe that he was, to some extent, injured last year and couldn't get into his crouch without aggravating his injury. I think this is evidenced by the fact that he is standing even straighter as the year went on. He could have also been tinkering with his swing a bit too because the Sox had long been eliminated by that point in time last year. I like that he is holding the bat parallel as opposed to angled up, as he did in 2009. It would seem to me that holding the bat at that high of an angle would increase the likelihood of hitting a very, very high flyball, which most of the time end up in outfielders' gloves (or sometimes even infielders' gloves). Quentin's always been a flyball hitter, but his FB% of 47.2 and IsoFB% (subtracting IFFB from FB) was 37.3% were the second highest and highest of his career (though his current ratios blow those away, though it's extremely unlikely they remain). He did hit a ton of line drives that year, so some of his struggles that year were due to tough luck. Again, I wonder if he was holding the bat so high in 2009 due to pain or discomfort in his wrist. I am a big believer in being open as you stand at the plate, as it gives you a better view of the pitcher. The problem is that, to create the power, you either have to increase the torque with which you rotate your hips, ala Jose Bautista, or you have to bring your foot back over, which Quentin does. This can cause some head movement, which will also cause you to simply lose sight of the ball and miss. The best example I can think of is Tony Batista, and the fact that he was an overly anxious hitter didn't help him at all. So, because it causes head movement, you need something by which you can time the pitcher. That leads me to the single foot tap, which I honestly think is the most important change he's made. Having the single foot tap actually appears to keep him on the ball longer, as he plants the foot and waits for the pitch. In 2009 and 2010, with the double foot tap, he would plant the second foot and would swing almost immediately, which, a lot of times, either leaves him out in front or behind pitches. By simply cutting out that additional foot tap, he makes him a more patient hitter and allows him to time the pitcher more. This is clearly evidenced by his first and second homers tonight...last year, he would have been way out in front of that first breaking ball Holland threw and would have hooked it into the stands, and Hawk would talk about right size, wrong shape. But, by only having the single foot tap and waiting for it, he was able to keep it fair and hook it over the fence. On the second homer, he was again able to allow the ball to get deep into the zone before pulling the trigger and by doing so, was again able to keep the ball fair...the previous 2 seasons, that ball would have either been fought off or simply missed because the second tap would have slowed him way, way down and gotten him behind the pitch. His third homer would have been gone in any of the previous 4 seasons, mostly because it was a hanging breaking pitch from a bad pitcher. Quentin looked really good at the plate tonight and he needs to continue to be physically patient because that will allow him to be "baseball" patient at the plate, drawing walks and working counts and it will continue to allow him the ability to let the ball get deep into the zone before swinging, which will result in a lot of home runs. He's on pace to hit like 35 homers after yesterday/today's game, that is an extremely attainable goal, and it will help the Sox win a lot of games. Without that single foot tap, the Sox lose the game and the series and would be hoping to avoid a sweep today. If the Sox do get back into the race, he's going to be a big reason why. Great post. We need TCQ in the 3rd slot this year and him to be close to the 2008 version to have a chance this year, especially given the fact that Pierre, Dunn, Rios and Beckham haven't decided to play just yet.

Good win. Let's hope Gavin finds his curveball tomorrow and we'll take the series.

That actually worked out for us there, now we got the bottom of the order for the 9th. Let's get some runs!

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ May 25, 2011 -> 12:56 AM) Thornton's control absolutely SUCKS. He was squeezed bigtime on that. This ump's strikezone sucks. Hawk needs to relax though, geeze

QUOTE (fathom @ May 25, 2011 -> 12:52 AM) Beckham's stance makes it impossible for him to hit a good fastball. Walker's strategy of having his hands out front and close to his body is crazy. I was just thinking what the Gordo of 2009 would have done to ANY of those fastballs Lowe threw him. Most likely they would have been hit hard somewhere into right center. That was before Walker could sink his teeth into him though. Was it Beckham's idea to change his stance???

If Flowers can contribute next year and we replace JP with Lillibridge ASAP (you can always hope), that wasn't as bad of a trade as initially suspected. I do agree KW pulled the trigger on that trade too early and didn't truly see what the market was for Javy. Since Brent has been playing better the trade looks a lot better, naturally. The two Swisher trades have done more to hurt this team than anything IMO, absolutely awful

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ May 24, 2011 -> 02:58 PM) Same exact thing happened to me. That's because last nights game wasn't added. His 2 for 2 night took him from .273 to .298 this month. Always hit ctrl + refresh if you want to ensure getting the latest page instead of a older cached page.

I hope he's being honest when he says he hasn't lost his confidence. He just has never looked like the same guy to me in a save situation, even before this year in previous tries. When he's on he's one of the best 8th inning guys so let's hope we can continue to see the real MT the rest of the way here.

All we can hope is that Rios has a second half like his first half from last year. But ya, it's a crime a guy with this amount of talent is hitting .200 at the end of May.

Still way too many strikeouts this month but yes it's a good sign, hopefully he's turning it around.

This is a big road trip. To me we're really going to see what we're made of on this trip as Texas has never been an easy place for us to play the last few years as well as Toronto. And of course Boston is never easy although we tend to play ok in that ballpark. The bottom line is our pen is settling down, our starters are starting to find their groove and this team is finally starting to hit and if we're not able to kick some a** here then we're not going anywhere this year...

Hopefully Thornton will be available tomorrow if we need him in a tight game- if not I really don't get why we used him there in the 9th. Anyways, good to get a W here and win another series. Could have been a great homestand there if Sergio could've gotten that last out on Friday night.

Who's going to go for us for us in the 9th?

QUOTE (BigEdWalsh @ May 22, 2011 -> 04:12 PM) I wasn't gonna say a word beforehand. I think I jinxed Sale in the 7th. Way to go, Matt! Juan hasn't lost a step....he's lost two it seems...usually that play at first is much closer with him

QUOTE (fathom @ May 22, 2011 -> 04:09 PM) Great inning for Thornton. I think he's settling back into the setup role again generally speaking. I'd rather not have to use Santos in the 9th- let's get some runs here...

QUOTE (JohnCangelosi @ May 22, 2011 -> 03:55 PM) Sale's going to need to work through his problems up here unless you guys think we have something better in the minors. Which, I am sure we probably don't knowing how light our farm system is. Who do we go with in the 8th? Crain again or Thornton?