caulfield12

It's pretty funny that the Cubs are in a bad position now because they swept the White Sox last year. Ironic. And if the White Sox go with ANYONE outside the big 3, they better have the best #44 pick in the history of the draft and sign him for overslot with the money they save on the #3 (someone like Hoffman or Fedde, for example). Baseball America reports that Fedde, who was recently shut down with an elbow injury, will be undergoing Tommy John surgery. Like Hoffman, you can consider Fedde now off of the board for the Cubs in the first round. The top names remain high school pitchers Brady Aiken and Tyler Kolek, college lefty Carlos Rodon, and high school position players Nick Gordon and Alex Jackson. There are some other interesting college arms – Aaron Nola, Kyle Freeland, Brandon Finnegan, and others – but none appear to be in quite the same tier as the guys expected to go at the top (or with Hoffman/Fedde, either, apparently). Like Hoffman, Fedde is considered such a strong talent that it seems unlikely he’d slip all the way to the Cubs when they pick again at number 45. If he did, of course, he would probably receive strong consideration by the Cubs, because the upside is almost certainly worth the risk of post-surgery recovery. The only question with a guy like that at a pick like that is whether he’d be signable for something close to slot (which won’t be much more than $1 million). As I said with Hoffman, it’s hard to see a guy improving his draft stock too much after a year of merely rehabbing, so the decision not to sign could be the decision to risk the recovery period and a year of pitching in independent ball before being drafted again. That’s quite a risk when stacked against $1 million and a year of rehabbing with the best possible treatment. Fedde will be a name to watch, then, on that first draft day, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up at 45. bleachernation.com

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseb...0,4007567.story Ooops. Victoria Beckaham, lol.

QUOTE (greg775 @ May 14, 2014 -> 12:30 AM) When are we gonna call Adam Dunn an elephant in the room. He's good for five home runs and 12 ribbies right now. Oooh. Such power. Such production. NOT. He has been the elephant in the room since 2011, not much point commenting upon him until we see how he's doing in June/July/August.

QUOTE (South Side Fireworks Man @ May 13, 2014 -> 10:56 PM) Where's Danny Richar these days? Probably hanging out with Willie Harris, Geoff Blum and Joe Borchard.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 13, 2014 -> 10:48 PM) One of the worst games in a long time for the Sox. Nothing positive has come from this game. Leading to even more questions about preparation/the Sox "being flat" or simply a matter of Pomeranz being better than Sox hitters. And you're going to have to deal with the wounded pride of DeAza, as well as Semien completely falling apart. Francisco probably is one more game away from being released...with Guerra or De Los Santos the replacement. Or Cleto, if we end up being able to hold onto him.

QUOTE (South Side Fireworks Man @ May 13, 2014 -> 10:49 PM) Yet some already want him replacing Ramirez. It's scary that Semien being able to handle SS defensively was THE issue with him in the off-season, now it's both sides. Back to the drawing board. Heck, you might even see Saladino or Sanchez first before you see Semien again...dependent on how he hits in Charlotte.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 13, 2014 -> 10:47 PM) Beckham has never come close to striking out at the rate Semien has. I really don't know where this liability came from with Semien. Maybe the AFL was a warning he wasn't ready yet? It's going to be hindsight...but it's not like he was ever a top prospect until recently, he had one really solid year and then the lack of top prospects in the system kind of forced him into the limelight, in the same way that guys like Saladino and Miguel Gonzalez have been there before, just because they had to pick SOMEONE/ANYONE for the Top 5/Top 10. The contact/K/BB rates are befuddling though. We won't know until 2-3 years from now if this MLB experience ended up helping or harming him. At least we have spared Davidson this, as he needs more seasoning as well, so Beckham, Ramirez, Gillaspie and Keppinger can hold down the fort for last 2-3 more months.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 13, 2014 -> 10:41 PM) Golden sombrero for Semien...thankfully he's been clutch this year to make up for his disappointing season. Let's just hope this season doesn't totally get away from the Sox in the next two weeks. The attendance numbers/revenues are going to start to have a bit of an effect on who we can sign in the off-season, so it would be nice to stay in the wild card race until at least the trading deadline.

Who's our next option on the starting pitching front? Johnson's not 100% ready, even though his AAA K/BB rates are decent. You can't run him out there at 88-90. Paulino's obviously not going to cut it. Leesman is pitching well again but probably won't get another opportunity. Beck's a long ways off, but it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to see what would happen, depending on the opponent and stadium.

QUOTE (ron883 @ May 13, 2014 -> 09:33 PM) The sox have a lot of infield prospects. Micah Johnson will be ready for 2nd base at some this season hopefully. Semien should be adequate at shortstop defensively while posting above average offensive numbers IMO. Given the complete lack of pitching prospects, the sox should fetch the best pitching prospect they can for alexei. If either Semien or Carlos Sanchez could do that, they would have no problem trading Ramirez. But that's a HUGE assumption to make at this point. And trying to replace a SS is incredibly difficult if you have to go outside your organization and bid against the rest of the teams needing one...and give up young talent from your organization as well. It's not like signing Stephen Drew would solve any problems for the near future.

Mitch Moreland was supposedly throwing an easy 95. Where is Casper Wells these days?

QUOTE (greg775 @ May 13, 2014 -> 10:23 PM) When a good team DFA's a player you have to figure he's probably no good. Like Jenks and Sergio Santos?

QUOTE (South Side Fireworks Man @ May 13, 2014 -> 08:13 PM) At least it took six pitches to get him out. Maybe they can trade a couple of those IF prospects for a good outfielder. At some point, even that's not going to be enough. He battled back and made the pitcher work, but he's unable to put the ball into play and use his speed. If he could just put the ball to the left side of the infield, he could pick up some cheap hits like Eaton gets frequently.

46 K's in 142 AB's (not PA's) for Semien...whether Keppinger's 100% ready or not, they need to give Marcus a breather and a chance to rebuild some confidence in Charlotte. The problem is you have four middle infielders there now with Saladino, Sanchez and Micah. 45 in 159 AB's for Abreu. Not the most promising of starts. LOL.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/batting/_/sort/OPS/order/true Puig 7th now in OPS. Trout and Cabrera in the low 20's. Tulo far and away #1. Stanton a clear 2nd as best NL player.

QUOTE (qwerty @ May 13, 2014 -> 07:48 PM) Caulfield... is Aamir Khan the best actor in the world? Damn man is a chameleon in my eyes. Which movie did you see him in just now? Yeah, he's definitely in my Top 5. For India, surely #1. I tried to slog my way through "God's Not Dead" and barely made it. Watching Kevin Sorbo as an atheist philosophy professor was entertainment in and of itself, along with Dean Cain playing playing himself in real life, essentially. That was priceless. If only there was a Teri Hatcher sighting.

The one in that Bond series that really doesn't fit was actually one of the better ones that very few have seen...the one with George Lazenby (On Her Majesty's Secret Service) where he's briefly married.

It's depressing that we're going to be stuck cutting DeAza or buying out his contract instead of getting ANYTHING in return. Keeping DeAza still makes sense, because he was insurance for any injury in the outfield (and we've had two now), but the fact that he's not a better option than Sierra or Leury Garcia against LHP is telling. You can guarantee in Oakland that SOMETHING will happen with Garcia out there in CF. It's Oakland. Expect fog banks to roll in.

in other news, Gallo has 14 homers... Hawkins' OPS finally fell below 900 for the first time all year yesterday. 7 doubles and 9 homers is quite nice, though, for this time in the season. I don't think anyone projected him to be a .280-.300 hitter at this point in his career. It's when/if he falls below .220 that you start to worry a bit.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ May 13, 2014 -> 02:55 PM) His middle name is Dariel, not Daniel. And Hawk seems to like El Cañón Okay, then I blame that on poor Spanish pronunciation by one of the Sox opponent's announcing teams, haha. Sure sounded like he said Daniel on air. Oh, well.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ May 13, 2014 -> 04:42 PM) ADA seems to express how he doesnt like playing Cf and now doesn't like leading off. He doesn't seem to like sliding very much either considering he planted his face into the ground on an attempted steal of 2nd and planted his spike into the ground and flipped himself over without even a play on him at home plate. For a guy who's career may depend on him being more versatile he certainly is being a whiny pain in the ass ( and his own face). Wasn't DeAza also leading off at least part-time his first 2-3 months of playing with the White Sox, when he put up a 900+ OPS? Or the following season? He was also fine in CF then, more or less. So what happened?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 13, 2014 -> 01:16 PM) Only if you make it go in circles. The team is much better so far this year. The are either at, or exceeding the expectations that were put upon this team for ideal conditions, and that is without factoring in some very big adversity this year including losing their #1, #2, and #4 starters, their top set up guy, their starting 2B, 3B, CF, RF, and other assorted small injuries. Firing Ventura now would be a Steinbrenner type move, not a Reinsdorf one. If the Sox had the Cubs record, it might be a different story, but this team being around .500 right now is a minor miracle. Personally I think Ventura is closing to being a manager of the year candidate than an unemployment candidate. If the team collapses down the stretch after getting healthy I might change my tune, but as of today, there is zero chance that Robin Ventura is getting fired any time soon. I don't even see it as a possibility in this organization. If anyone really believes that Johnson and Paulino weren't 4 and 5, they're crazy. You could have made an argument that Johnson for one month pitched better than Danks, and that Johnson was a 3 starter coming into the season, but that's more a testament to how mediocre Danks was coming off his injury, which was expected/predicted. Or maybe it's indicative of the general weakness of the starting rotation coming into 2014. Or the lack of top prospects in our minor league system, that Johnson was so highly-rated and is now one of the biggest question marks going forward in less than a month.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ May 13, 2014 -> 01:11 PM) Your capacity to misunderstand (or at least pretend to misunderstand) the difference between "no such thing" and "not predictive" is baffling. If you don't believe something, fine, but stop misrepresenting what others say by twisting arguments into dumbed-down nonsense. .364 .364 .545 .909 -0.1 We can play the same game with Sierra. 8/22 so far with the White Sox. LOL at the WAR because of his terrible defense, even at a corner.

QUOTE (Charlie Haeger's Knuckles @ May 13, 2014 -> 01:07 PM) I was really wondering if they intended on making the bullpen a little more flat. I mean, some of these guys are pretty round. If being in shape is so important, I suppose round is a shape though, right? See Bartolo Colon, Terry Forster, John Kruk, Tony Gwynn, pre-dramatic weight loss Pablo Sandoval, Prince Fielder and CC Sabathia.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 13, 2014 -> 01:04 PM) If Ventura wants to manage this team, he will be, unless the team takes a major step backwards when it shouldn't. If he was going to be fired, he would have been last year, and not given an extension. The fact that this is about a .500 team with all of the injury problems this year will go a long way towards securing that. What do you think the team's record would be right now without Abreu? And what do you think Viciedo/Ramirez/Flowers would be hitting without his presence in the line-up and the hiring of Steverson? It's an argument that will go round and round in circles. That said, you can't judge the results this season...but you can look at some of the micro-managerial decisions and how he holds the team together in periods of adversity. Obviously, with Erik Johnson pitching how he was projected to, with Eaton healthy for the first 40 games as well as Garcia (which means a LOT less of DeAza/Danks/Sierra), Chris Sale, a real bullpen with a better LHR than Downs and a healthy Nate Jones...it would also be a different story.