caulfield12

http://www.ajc.com/news/sports/baseball/re...domestic/nq4t9/ Probably the end of that one...although I'm sure with the recent assault and battery charges, you could get him for an extreme discount to DH. Now whether JR/KW/Hahn/Ventura would risk bringing him in and the fallout (hey, nobody will notice because the Cubs are soaking up 90% of the spotlight) is another question altogether.

You can probably put Melky Cabrera (bigger total contract) and LaRoche together...

Latos, Albers and Lawrie are the only ones better than advertised (so far)...perhaps Rodon if you really want to push the definition.

As long as they continue to play good baseball, that will be enough for most. Obviously the margin for error is razor thin when you're not scoring...and we saw that today with Quintana's error being the difference in the final score. At any rate, it's hard to "expect" to win 2/3 at Tampa, and the Sox faced some pretty tough pitching as well (I know, I know...it's too early for tip your cap to Erasmo Ramirez) in Odorizzi and Moore.

Almost wish they would have doubled down on the pitching (instead) and signed Kenta Maeda...but it would have been so risky for the Sox based on the medical reports over the winter. And Tanaka looked REALLY good two seasons ago but I doubt anyone here would want that contract on the books now.

There was an article at SSS that stated we had the worst OPS in the major leagues the first time 1-9 in the order facing a pitcher. Obviously that didn't improve on Sunday. I think we were something like 8th/9th worst the second and third time through the order against the starter. With the increasing specialization in the bullpen department, it's obviously not ideal to be playing catch up and relying on scoring runs in innings 4-6 instead of jumping out to early leads and having the confidence your defense and bullpen can close it out. I don't know what the hell it is about playing in that terrible stadium, but just winning 1/3 shouldn't be entirely shocking. You almost felt it like HAD to happen after Quintana missing the bag with his foot (overran it, poorly-timed throw, whatever). We can point to the Royals losing 2/3 in Oakland, whereas we won 3/4...or the fact we've only played two homes games so far the entire season. All I know is that it seems like a century since the last time we had really good offensive teams....2006 for 4 1/2 months and then 2008 when Quentin and Alexei were on fire. Almost miss that time from 2000-2004 when we didn't have enough pitching to go with our explosive (but highly inconsistent) offense. Bottom line, we're still at least one impact bat (not absolutely sure it HAS to be LH but that would help, too) away from being a really good team. We're also one major injury to the pitching staff or bullpen (Robertson/Jones/Albers) from being a below .500 squad as well.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Apr 16, 2016 -> 01:48 PM) He has been extremely unlucky though. He's barely missed out on 3-4 homers...one, because of the weather/wind at USCF, the other a foul ball down the LF line foul by 4-6 inches that was followed up by a huge two run single up the middle.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Apr 16, 2016 -> 09:54 PM) If Petricka and Putnam are going to pitch like this, they're dispensable. Petricka should be good for a clean inning of ground balls...he doesn't need to be walking guys. Kahnle has been killed by walks his entire career...so far,he has 1 in 4 Charlotte appearances. Walks are the only thing that have held him back. Small sample size to be sure, but if that's cured, this team can use him. On the other hand, how many guys with "plus" arms like Cleto or MacDougal or Aardsma ever figured things out 100% and got their control issues dealt with... Doesn't happen very often. Politte is one of the (temporary) examples. Obviously, Matt Thornton. But the "success" rate must be something like 1 in 50. Statistically, we have the best bullpen in the AL. In reality, we have a near elite closer, a sketchy (also because of the lack of a big wipeout pitch) lefty set-up guy in Duke, an unproven (because of the injury/rehab aspect) 8th inning set up man in Nate Jones (maybe we will be able to check his name off as dependable if he's consistently holding leads in significant August/September games)...then a bunch of "serviceable" but not elite guys like Putnam, Petricka and Jennings who would get picked up instantly from the waiver wire but also wouldn't garner much of a trade return. In April, that list looks fine...but will it hold up?

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Apr 16, 2016 -> 08:07 PM) Jennings has pitched in 2 games this year with 4 IP and hasn't given up a ER, today included even if he wasn't ideal. He was on 8 days rest. He's not struggling. His last 37 innings pitched, he has an era of 1.22. His splits career wise aren't ideal, but whatever. He should not be cut. Duke should be on the chopping block, contract be damned. Sometimes statistics for those "junk" innings can be fairly useless. The White Sox have had a string of guys over the last decade whose numbers were better than reality, such as DJ Carrasco. I'd love to see numbers for high leverage situations, or the times he's been effective when we've had a 1-3 run lead from the 6th inning onwards. It's pretty telling that with all those seemingly great numbers, there hasn't even been a whisper about Duke being replaced by Jennings (eventually). Obviously, Duke will keep that top lefty job for the next 4-6 weeks regardless (contracts baby!), but he needs to start showing some better results.

Well, the obvious problem there are Turner, Erik Johnson, Carroll and Beck not exactly being enticing options, and Fulmer clearly going through his own set of growing pains. Agree they will need to do something, and Gonzalez is probably going to be the first option. Thankfully they have LaRoche's deal off the books, but looking for pitching AND hitting at the ASB without very much to entice teams in terms of trade return isn't exactly an enviable position to be in. That said, we added Hudson, Liriano, Myers and Youkilis at no major expense in 2012, other than Eduardo Escobar.

And then you had Putnam and Jennings and Duke struggling. Duke could eventually become a big issue if he doesn't establish any respect for his fastball...he hasn't been particularly effective getting lefties out. Offensively, we're still that one bat short...no surprises there. Hopefully Avila or Navarro can get into some type of offensive rhythm at some point. (Of course, Salty is tearing it up for the Tigers.) With Danks, the most logical thing is replacing Jennings and trying to get his velocity to 92-93 and hope he can be somewhat more effective in that loogy role, and it wouldn't be totally surprising if he supplanted Duke IMO. The Royals have Chris Young who is 0-3, we have Danks...it's a trade-off, but that's not good enough to overtake them because they have superior depth in that area. (Shout out to Dick Allen, Brandon Finnegan is coming around now.)

.746 for his minor league career...

Sonny Gray for just Tim Anderson....don't think so. Now since we're on the subject of the A's, Josh Reddick is a much more realistic and relevant name to our discussion. Presumably, Dan Jennings would be the one to go in possible Danks demotion to pen/long man/second lefty. And, with the way Duke has been pretty shaky against LHB, there's zero chance they just cut him.

Should also be praised for developing Marcus Semien. The quietest four homers from any hitter in baseball. If we could get that type of pop with just league average defense at SS, this team would really be dangerous.

I think "we're all in" is closing in on needing Carlos Rodon or Robertson to replace Cespedes/Gordon.

The only thing better would be if the Royals and Tigers were both struggling out of the gate...but we'll take what we can get. Now we just need to figure out a replacement for Garcia, and June would be better than July/August. We missed our big chance to get CarGo in the first half of last year and now he's back to being close to untouchable. Jay Bruce is still out there, though...theoretically. Finally, must be pretty miserable to be a Twins' fan. Last year they were 1-5 and came out of it to go on a 20-7 stretch at one point and briefly even take first place for a spell. Sano and Buxton are definitely going through growing pains. Sano's is a bit of a shock, but not really...pitchers/scouts make adjustments the second time around (see Beckham, Gordon).

That said, 6-2 is HUGE for this organization. Going back a decade, since 2007...we've never been more than 2 games over .500 at the end of April and are typically 3-5 games under. Of course, we've arguably played three of the worst (CLE will be better) teams in the AL at this point. The real test is yet to come, but Rodon pitching so well is encouraging.

We expected that Rollins, Avila, Jackson and Garcia weren't going to set the world on fire. Had no idea about Danks and Latos (well, maybe a PRETTY good idea on JD 50). The funny thing is if you could just re-start the 2014-15 offseason and purge Beckham, Duke, Bonifacio, Samardzija, LaRoche and Cabrera (basically, Robertson is the only one who has come close to earning his money, but he's tied for the highest paid closer in baseball fwiw)...you would have the White Sox in a position to be one of the best teams in baseball. As it is now, it's going to be a huge battle with KC plugging along and Detroit decidedly improved.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/adam-laroche...-151844831.html Adam LaRoche "on practical/applicable education" is quite the hot topic... Btw, this whole Bangkok trip puts the "battle of good versus evil" quotes into their rightful context of pimps/traffickers and away from an accusation against KW and the Sox.

It's left unsaid, but the writer obviously didn't push too hard about the KW angle...just some intimations. Hopefully this puts the "hard feelings" to bed for good and everyone can move on. The LaRoche camp can rest with the idea that his side has been told in more explicit detail and that should be that. Kenny Williams, be smart enough not to comment for once in order to get the last word in and leave it alone.

It's left unsaid, but the writer obviously didn't push too hard about the KW angle...just some intimations. Hopefully this puts the "hard feelings" to bed for good and everyone can move on. The LaRoche camp can rest with the idea that his side has been told in more explicit detail and that should be that. Kenny Williams, be smart enough not to comment for once in order to get the last word in and leave it alone.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/15159499...p-decision-walk

Makes the Shark deal look more like a bargain for Hahn? Wasn't he sidelined in spring training for awhile? Seemed like he couldn't get going last year with any consistency without being sidelined with injuries. At any rate, you can guarantee the only way we see him is in a blowout loss...or in atrocious weather conditions or if the starter goes out and there's a 2-3 hour rain delay.

Winning the likes of Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota and Colorado isn't just dominating lily white rural states. The irony here is that states like Ohio, PA, WV, Indiana, KY...that's where she clobbered Obama 8 years ago. Now she's losing almost all of them to Sanders. The only realistic way for Sanders to make this a race again would be to win NY. Otherwise, it's just white noise with all the focus on the GOP and the fascinating political machinations going on behind the scenes over there...are they pretending to support Cruz vs. Trump, only to turn to the likes of Kasich/Ryan, etc.?

I think you meant the centerpiece of the Shark deal...