caulfield12

In the end, it was in the top 10% of Whitlock columns. Whether Baltimore was burned down or just rioted into submission, the point still stands. It wasn't the Rodney King riots, or the late 1960's, but it was still some pretty scary stuff. While the majority of column inches he writes are just meant to provoke or elicit page views, every once in a while he does have something insightful to say...and it is good to have African-American voices out there who don't always march lockstep in line with "mainstream" African-American ideology, whether it's about sports, or cultural/political issues.

Nobody even notices Raburn with Story, Arenado and CarGo hogging all the headlines out there.

So I guess that means Sands gets some extra playing time...

That movie that came out with Thomas Jane was probably one of the least-viewed superhero movies, but it actually wasn't too bad.

Well, Cooper has to get SOME credit for Latos (he's already arguably earned his $3 million) and the rest of the pitching staff, other than Danks, who Leo Mazzone in his prime couldn't have done much with...Quintana has clearly taken a step forward this season as well. Rodon, as PTAC mentioned over and over again, is always going to have intermittent issues with his control because of his delivery/mechanics.

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 29, 2016 -> 08:22 PM) Watched some highlights...was Rodon's velocity down? Reimold homered on a 90 mph fastball No. He was throwing some fastballs at 94. He's definitely backed off on overthrowing the fastball this year in favor of gaining some control. Seems a lot of that has to do with Cooper and Sale (although Sale goes through some starts where every FB is 95-98, others where he lets up off the gas and ranges from 90-96 depending upon the opponent).

I think it's ludicrous to send him out there against a Red Sox offense that will eat him alive. Not releasing him...no surprise there. But the fact they haven't come up with some mysterious DL trip to try to get things figured out on the side, it just goes to show how much they 1) don't trust any of the other options or 2) value Danks' contributions to the team/clubhouse/veteran leadership. And that last part...might be a reason to hold onto him for now, or maybe hope he can rebound in the last spot in the bullpen, but at some point he's got to get outs or get his 89-90 MPH velocity and/or control back. Otherwise, it's just going to demoralize the team every time he goes out there.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Apr 28, 2016 -> 10:02 AM) All these guys the Sox should have signed or traded for, why were you saying Parra and Desmond at the time? Desmond's got his OPS back in the mid 600's. Too early to write him off. It's probably a wash between Parra and Austin Jackson, neither have set the world on fire but Jackson allowed the Sox to move Eaton to RF, where he's obviously adjusted quite quickly, so just that move alone has markedly upgraded two positions because it got Avi off the field and it's also had a positive impact on Melky, who is playing a bit better defense (rising water lifts all boats) as well. Francona just did something quite gutsy in Philadelphia. He used his closer (Allen) in the BOTTOM of a tied extra-inning game in order to escape a bases loaded situation with one out. You almost NEVER see that on the road, unless it's the playoffs. Refreshing change of strategy.

Trading Anderson is how we got into this 2013-2015 rut in the first place. We keep trading away what minor league talent we have for veterans...then end up replacing the veterans with more fliers or "prospects/suspects" who more often than not don't work out. The other issue is the obvious point that Anderson's not going to bring back the equivalent major league talent until he proves something at the major league level...let alone struggling in AAA. Now the counterargument is the best position players we've traded away in the past decade are guys like Chris Young, Chris Carter and Marcus Semien and nobody other than Gio Gonzalez and Daniel Hudson (while he remained healthy) have really hurt the White Sox in terms of removing a future major league contributor from the roster. It's nevertheless still a prevailing fact that we don't produce enough revenue or have a high enough payroll to outright buy talent or win every single trade or waiver transaction, and we're still far from consistently producing results from our Latin American efforts (outside of Abreu/Ramirez).

Baltimore is an unreal 9-1 at home so far this year. Have to win at least one of the next two. Questionable decision to leave Rodon in there, but those are the types of situations a good pitcher has to fight through, especially when his pitch count was still around 95. Not sure again about leaving him in after the double, but it's his runner in Ventura's mind, he has to pitch his way out of it and it's too late to use Albers there. Some improved hitting from Abreu, an impressive homer from Lawrie on a high fastball along with Eaton's throw home to get Rickard were the highlights.

First Kahnle appearance nearing...

Shouldn't have sent Rodon back out there in retrospect...or at least pulled him after the single on the 0-2 count when he was getting visibly frustrated out on the mound.

Rollins got a terrible jump there. Sigh.

MLB AT BAT is showing two earned runs for Rodon...3.96 ERA on the season.

Only two of those runs are earned, for what it's worth. Can't assume a double play.

Meanwhile, Adam Eaton continues to be the best defensive outfielder in baseball...a bargain compared to Heyward.

Well, so much for the stellar defense. Two errors, and another miscommunication or hesitation with Rodon seeming he would make a play...which forced Frazier to take a step back towards 3B before he realized he was the only one who could make a desperation throw and the only way to execute it would be a bare-handed pick-up. Rollins apparently got his cleats caught in the ground...there wasn't much contact with Schoop.

Trading Anderson makes little sense if you look at how many position players potentially will be gone after 2017...which is pretty much everyone but Abreu and Eaton. You simply can't continue to not produce ANY regular position players internally and continue to compete at a mid-tier payroll number and with mid-tier revenues. Realistically, the only way to do that is to be able to find a Jose Quintana, Latos, JD Martinez, Colin McHugh, etc., with your scouting department and not ever have to pay top free agents. That's just incredibly difficult to do consistently against 29 other organizations that are all looking for the exact same assets you are. Whether Anderson is at SS, 2B, CF or DH, he needs to be in our future batting order.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Apr 29, 2016 -> 05:32 PM) Hawk just said Avi is the most talented player on this ballclub. *sigh* Old ballplayers can never get away from that "five tool" way of thinking, comparisons to guys like Mays, Mantle (before the knee problems) and Clemente. Avi has elements of all five of the tools, although it's hard to argue at this point that "defense" would still be one of them. He does have a strong arm, has power (potential), batting average (potential) and can run well for his size, but needs a bit more time to get going full-speed and isn't first-step quick but is quite fast after he gets a full head of steam going. Realistically, he could say Tim Anderson is the most talented (potential) player in the organization and it would make more sense than saying Avi is the most talented.

He doesn't need to be an 800+ OPS guy, although that would be great and what Dunn was producing even when we perceived him to be relatively terrible compared to expectations. 725-750 would probably get the job done. What won't work is a sub 700 number. Just had an RBI triple. Batting average up to .224 with 3 homers and 9 RBI's. At any rate, we all know that Jose Abreu is the key batter that has to get going and put up his historical numbers (average of 2014/15)...around 900-925 OPS.

QUOTE (Black_Jack29 @ Apr 29, 2016 -> 05:09 PM) DFAing and under-performing veteran less than one month into the season is going to be noticed by other veterans and will not help the Sox's ability to sign free agents. I agree. That's why a trip to the DL/bullpen makes more sense. It's this line of thinking that had us giving almost all of the playing time to Alexei Ramirez in a lost season in August and September, instead of discovering what Tyler Saladino had to offer there. 95% of the time, the team that offers the most money wins the free agent, Drake LaRoche notwithstanding. And that's beside the fact that the White Sox just don't sign $100+ million, premier free agents. Or haven't yet at least.

I'm not sure about being counterproductive PR-wise... How smart is it to start him against one of the better offenses in the game in the Boston Red Sox, at home, where the fans will have what reaction if he gets bombed again? Wouldn't that be even more sad/depressing? What are the odds he can shut down Boston the way he's been going? As we keep reacting to those "relax/chill-out" comments...even Connor McKnight just said the same thing, well, we can "afford to keep sending Danks out there because we're off to such a good start/have a 3 game lead, etc.," that's wrong-headed thinking. If we were in the position of the Minnesota Twins instead, and looking up at the rest of the AL Central, what would the spin on that be? That we're already finding ourselves in a position X number of games back so we might as well wave the white flag and throw every fifth game away, yet still believe the other four starters can carry the team back into contention? Yes, the Royals and Tigers have been struggling, and the Indians were without Brantley...this is when we should be stepping on the gas and trying to extend that lead for when the rest of the pitching starts to return to merely human.

What's the worst stretch Viciedo went through in that same category? Has to be a pretty similar one, maybe not at the AA/AAA level but in Chicago.

Greg, it's not a matter of getting arm strength back. It's the shoulder/capsule, which isn't nearly as resilient and has proven to be an enigma for even modern medicine and improved surgical technology/techniques. The weird thing is there was a period there where he was consistently throwing 89-91 last year and even touched 92/93 on a few occasions. It's like that version completely disappeared at some point in the last 12 months, never to be heard from again. It's almost like his shoulder has deteriorated or he's hurt another part of his arm/elbow and is compensating for that. At any rate, the end is near. Before the season, I would have said that they would try him over Jennings as the 2nd lefty/long man, but I'm not even sure that's a realistic option at this point with how well the bullpen has been doing and how unlikely it is that Danks can re-establish any value pitching in mop up innings out of the bullpen. Sunk cost. Move on. Thanks for the memories in 2008, especially that Blackout Game. He'll always have that, and 2010 was pretty sweet, too. Both Danks and Gavin Floyd ended up being pleasant surprises and were main cogs in that rotation for a number of years while we held onto our 2005 core (probably too long, in retrospect). It's a sad thing neither Danks or Brandon McCarthy have been able to stay healthy. Both have been snakebitten, especially McCarthy, but he's been able to bounce back when it looked like his career was on the ropes a number of times.

Mark Buehrle OR Tim Lincecum, c'mon down, the price is right!