caulfield12

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ May 22, 2014 -> 11:13 PM) The Rangers were blowing out Detroit so Detroit puts in backup infielder Danny Worth to pitch . This was the first time he has pitched on any level. He proceeded to K all 3 TX. hitters he faced with knuckleballs. He might have a better future as a pitcher (Steve Sparks/Wakefield) than an infielder. He messed up two routine plays (one because of the sun) in just a couple of innings the other day, and has never been much of a hitter. http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/76156...0023#!PMFOM Argues that MLB needs to look more closely at the Japanese PBL for a model/template for preventing TJ injuries...including the introduction of the six-man rotation, with one more roster spot added as a sweetener for the MLBPA because of the diminished stats/salaries for starters used to getting paid for 30+ starts per year. Maybe they could actually pitch deeper into games, and it would come close to balancing out.... 5 man rotation=32.4 starts per season 6 man rotation=27 starts per season Let's say a starter was averaging 6 innings per start with the old way. He'd have to pitch 7 or 7 1/3 IP per start over 27 to balance out his total innings for the course of an entire season.

QUOTE (Brian @ May 22, 2014 -> 10:20 PM) Disney with a great hire as Gareth Edwards will direct one of the Star Wars spin offs. Depending on your opinion of Godzilla. Well, it's making a lot of money so far, which is equally important.

QUOTE (Brian @ May 22, 2014 -> 08:24 PM) Intriguing trailer. Gives very little away. I like it. When the screenplay is derived from a book written by a Cal Tech professor (Kip Thorne), you know it's going to be pretty deep stuff to digest.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ May 22, 2014 -> 09:21 PM) You are so random... How many one-two-three saves have the White Sox had all season? ONE? For those who keep saying that pitching in the 5th-8th in a high leverage situation (Petricka, Putnam, Webb) is more important than protecting a 3 run lead in the 9th, it sure hasn't proven to be so easy for one of the best middle relievers in the AL the last month and a half.

The Rangers have been the darling franchise of baseball for much of the last half-decade and look how things have gone so bad, and relatively quickly...with all their pitching injuries, Beltre, Profar, Cruz's PEDs, Kinsler's and Michael Young's parting comments, Fielder's looming contract issues, etc.

Is there any such thing as a lockdown closer anymore? http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/pitching/_/sort/saves Street, Robertson, Uehara and Soria are the only ones without a blown save so far this year. Of course, Belisario's not expected to be an elite closer...but the White Sox have sure made things interesting in the 9th this year, that's for sure.

Thank God. Those are two of the shakiest saves this side of Bobby Jenks and Matt Lindstrom that you'll ever see.

Do we really want to walk Soriano to face the Yankees' best hitter this season? SIGH.

So much for it's just as easy to pitch in the 9th inning as the 6th-8th.

QUOTE (bmags @ May 22, 2014 -> 08:39 PM) This tape needs to be sent to league for why nobody watches baseball anymore Well, except for the Chris Sale striking out 10 in six innings part...for those who love pitching. It's not like the Yankees are putting a modern-day Murderer's Row on the field these days, either.

Eaton only at a 546 OPS in away games. Hopefully he'll get back up around the 700-750 level overall. That's where he has to be in order to be effective, especially with him not stealing as much (and of course part of that's natural hesitancy with all the leg problems this year).

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ May 22, 2014 -> 08:34 PM) Yup, Saladino should be a non-factor here. Just send Semien down to AAA and rotate him between 2B, SS, & 3B with Johnson, Sanchez, & Davidson DHing when Marcus is in their spot. Obviously this is not ideal, but it makes ton more sense than Semien playing once a week for us. This makes sense in only one way...that Semien isn't better suited than Carlos Sanchez to stick at SS at the next level. Because the rule of thumb is leaving your best/better prospects at SS/C/CF until they prove they can't handle it.

QUOTE (Jake @ May 22, 2014 -> 08:20 PM) I wouldn't be pissed off about Nola - he's Wacha-esque to me in that nobody sees the upside in him because of how high his floor is. I would be a lot more excited if we could get Fedde or Hoffman to go along with Freeland/Nola but that's probably not in the cards. Maybe there's just a bunch of gamesmanship going on with the Astros and Kolek...when they have no intention of taking him? Pretty elaborate ruse to have all their scouts, Bo Porter, Nolan Ryan, etc., at all of his starts, though.

X-Men will be fine, from everything you read. Godzilla was terrible. The MUTO's looked like overgrown staplers with spindly legs that were bootlegged from a discarded Atlanta Falcons' NFL helmet design from a decade ago. The lead actor made Freddie Prinze, Jr., Orlando Bloom and Ryan Philippe look like Masterpiece Theatre thespians extraordinaire. I think I would actually rather watch the 1998 movie again rather than see that particular film a second time. As far as movies to be excited about in the future, try Nolan's INTERSTELLAR.

Will see X-Men tonight here in China. Reviews have been great. Godzilla was borderline terrible to me. Some pretty polarizing reactions to that film around here. I like the description of the MUTO's as overgrown staplers with spindly legs. Their heads reminded me of the Atlanta Falcons' mascot. I won't go so far as to say the 1998 version with Broderick/Jean Reno and a now-forgotten actress as tv reporter/ingenue was better, but that wasn't close to as good as Pacific Rim. Were you referring to "The Other Woman," about the movie with three girls/chicks, including Kate Upton?

Speaking of impact, what in God's name did Cooper and the bullpen coach to turn Zach Putnam into Cliff Politte 2005?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 22, 2014 -> 03:36 PM) Why on God's green earth do you keep pretending that the pitching coach would have major inputs on position players? We can certainly "selectively credit/blame" cooper when it comes to the pitching staff. Obviously I was being facetious. Still, I'm sure if our first round draft pick becomes a Cy Young winner, Cooper will be given more/most of the credit for selecting him, especially if the other two blow up injury-wise or don't make a huge big league impact.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 22, 2014 -> 03:31 PM) I was going to start a thread in PHT about Beckham playing 2nd the next few years with the Sox and moving Johnson to LF. The only way I'd want the Sox to do this is if they're using all their resources on pitching. Theoretically, you could propose a lineup of all returning players with: Eaton- 8 Beckham- 4 Abreu-3 Viciedo-0 Gillaspie-5 Garcia-9 Ramirez- 6 Flowers- 2 Johnson- 7 They're obviously not going to be able to fit Johnson, Beckham, Gillaspie, Davidson, Semien and Viciedo into one line-up. The problem, of course, is that Semien and Davidson would get us exactly what via trade right now? So the ideal situation would seem to be if all six of those guys looked like viable options heading into the off-season, with Garcia's recovery on schedule.

QUOTE (Feeky Magee @ May 22, 2014 -> 03:27 PM) Do you honestly think Viciedo is a better left-field defender than De Aza The 2012 version, compared to 2014 ADA, yes. We can't discount how many bases are taken on DeAza versus those 3rd base coaches who have learned to respect Viciedo's arm.

Changing from CF to LF hasn't really helped DeAza's defense either, he actually seems to be worse in left than he was in CF last year, if that's possible. No matter where you put him, he can't read the ball off the bat and tends to start off going in the wrong direction and usually struggles to recover from that point onward. Viciedo played well in LF for most of 2012. He's shown that he's capable of doing it, at least.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 22, 2014 -> 02:49 PM) 90% of that stuff isn't nearly the same sort of thing. No idea what Don Cooper has to do with Brian Anderson and Chris Young. Edwin Jackson was a salary dump, and he hasn't been nearly as good since he left the Sox. Gio Gonzalez never pitched in the majors. Dan Hudson just had his second TJS. Brandon McCarthy hasn't sniffed John Danks jock over the time after that trade. Mark Buehrle was here before Cooper, and was pretty f***ing good after Cooper got here. Sergio Santos was a closer, and that deal traces back more to our recent hire from Toronto than anything else... and oh yeah, Sergio Santos also blew out his arm. Mostly this was a chance to ramble off a bunch of names again, I think. C'mon, you honestly don't think Don Cooper had any opinion about Gio TWICE? Wasn't familiar with him at all? That KW just went all rogue twice and traded him without any commentary from the best pitching coach in baseball? The point is that we also have to hold someone accountable for misjudging talent, if we're going to give Cooper all the credit for choosing to protect Quintana over Santiago (and trading Santiago wasn't even an option, in all likelihood), then who do we blame for Mark Teahen or Nick Swisher? Picking Anderson over Brian Young? Mitchell over Trout, etc.? Davidson looking like he's a bust so far? Ozzie Guillen? Buddy Bell? Why wasn't Cooper able to see that Danks/Floyd would break down and that Buehrle would be a 8-1 and 2ish ERA in 2014? If we want to ascribe all these magical powers to Cooper for the Santiago trade, then shouldn't he also get the blame for Danks/Floyd never taking the next step after 2008 and then breaking down? With the Sox cutting ties to Mark Buehrle when they would have been better off giving Mark $17.5 million per season than Danks $13.5 million? Is Cooper also responsible for Paulino being atrocious, and Erik Johnson regressing? Shouldn't Cooper have been able to see that Zach Stewart and Nestor Molina wouldn't ever amount to anything? We can't just selectively credit Cooper.

QUOTE (Jake @ May 22, 2014 -> 01:36 PM) Conor has been great and there's no reason to be moving heaven and earth to get him moved. He's clearly solid at 3B, but not remarkable. Maybe not above average. I don't have much beyond hearsay/Baseball America subscription to base this on, but it seems Davidson is probably a similar defender at 3B. They at least have similar ceilings as defensive players. And we have to start this off by acknowledging two things: -Davidson has put himself in a position where has something to prove in AAA again before we bother thinking about making space for him in the MLB lineup. He wouldn't have had to set the world on fire to be a constant source of speculation all season, but his bad start has demanded that he now really get hot before we think about this Gillaspie/Davidson situation very seriously. -Gillaspie has proven a lot more than Davidson, but still, he hasn't proven s***. I don't think anybody would be surprised if he started to regress towards the average to slightly below average offensive player that we saw most of last season. Gillaspie is very much a "solid" guy at the plate, but his ceiling is relatively low and he doesn't have a prototypical corner IF bat. With all that in mind, let's assume everything works out. Can either of them play a different position? Probably. Before the season, I was lobbying hard to get Gillaspie some reps at 2B. A left-handed bat like him would become lots more valuable if you could play him around the diamond, especially considering that he's never going to be a guy that starts 150+ games due to his struggles vs lefties. You have to think that just about anybody could learn LF, too. Same goes for Davidson in terms of LF. I think he's a decent enough athlete to maybe learn 2B. If Davidson and Gillaspie are on the same team, Davidson is almost certainly going to get starts at 3B against lefties. It's a matter of where he is against righties. Maybe rotate guys into the DH role? Maybe Davidson goes to LF? Does Micah Johnson turn into a guy incapable of playing IF, going to OF? Then you have inevitable injuries and such that could make these decisions simpler. I don't yet agree that Johnson's a better prospect, but it's getting really close. It's looking more like Micah can cut it defensively, which was really up in the air before the season. Also, before the season, it looked rather unclear whether Micah was going to hit well in AA. He hadn't really done that well after his call-up to A+ last season. Now we can see that his bat is ready for AAA, if not ready to dominate AAA. The only thing about Micah's stock that has dropped this season is he has lost his touch stealing bases. I'm not sure if that's going to take care of itself or not. I also don't know the cause, though his efficiency went way down last season after moving out of A-. Luckily his bat is starting to look like he can be more than just a fast guy who gets on base adequately. Marcus has been a little disappointing in MLB this season and lacks any of the exciting tools that Johnson has (though we might say Johnson's only plus tool is his speed, which he's not using - either way, Semien doesn't appear to be the same caliber of athlete). On the other hand, we've seen in the MiLB that Marcus has "plus" plate recognition, can swipe a bag, and has more than a little power. Even as he struggles, he appears competent. He looks good at both 2B and 3B and he's the only infielder in the near-MLB-ready organization short of Alexei that is likely to have the chops to play SS on a regular basis defensively. Maybe Carlos Sanchez, but again he's a guy whose bat isn't going to force us into doing anything with him. It's close at this point, between the two. It's a good problem. Alexei has added to the "problem" since Marcus looked like a SS of the future. I still think Marcus should go to MiLB to get regular at-bats, but Mark Parent said in an interview that he thinks he'll learn more by being with the big league club. We'll see. See Billy Hamilton with the Reds, OPSing in the mid 600's and 16 steals/6 CS (only 73%). But very good defense at a premium position. We opined all last season that those steal numbers weren't going to hold up at higher levels. That said, he might have been asked by the minor league coaching staff to focus more on his offensive production and less on stealing to protect his body from injury, who knows? If Semien can't play SS, that really knocks down his value future-wise to the Sox. Then he's pretty much forced into a utility role, unless they really want to try him in LF and move Viciedo to DH, but that's an iffy proposition at best.

If that's the case, then Cooper also felt that Gio Gonzalez and Edwin Jackson couldn't be worked with, too. Or that Brian Anderson would be better than Chris Young. Or that Daniel Hudson and Brandon McCarthy would never amount to anything. That he should have known from looking at Buehrle and Danks that Buehrle would never miss a start and Danks' career would be derailed because of a flaw in his delivery. That Sergio Santos was worth less going forward than Nestor Molina.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ May 22, 2014 -> 08:02 AM) Should be in AAA Duh.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 22, 2014 -> 07:45 AM) Juan Uribe. Mark Buehrle will be Opening Day starter, too. Sure, that's the ticket! SIGH.