caulfield12

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 29, 2013 -> 01:15 PM) Utley should certainly be more expensive, but he's also injured again and there are a lot of teams that will be competing that are already set at 2B. Rickie Weeks is another guy who could very well be available for pennies on the dollar, but there's far more inherent risk with him. Beyond that, the guys the Sox are looking to acquire don't and won't cost a lot. The Sox gave up minor league fodder last year for the guys they acquired with the exception of perhaps Pedro Hernandez (4th or 5th starter potential) and Eduardo Escobar (poor starter/utility guy potential). No one is missing those guys. If you can do the same this year - give up a Saladino or a Morel or a Short or a Loman or whoever...someone in that range...nobody is going to be upset and you can acquire upgrades by packaging a couple of those guys together. Except that the Sox don't have to trade either Santiago or Quintana. They have that option, but they could certainly just maintain that depth and use Santiago out of the bullpen next year, or Quintana, or whoever. I think we have seen that, unless this regime (going from Williams over to Hahn, though we haven't had a lot to see out of Hahn yet) receives what they perceive to be equal value or better, they simply won't make the trade. I seem to recall the White Sox and Red Sox in heavy discussions for Jermaine Dye in 2007, and the Red Sox wanted to give up Wily Mo Pena and Craig Hansen whle the White Sox wanted Justin Masterson. They never made a deal, and the Sox eventually resigned Dye for the next 2 seasons. Hey, I'm sure all of us are more than willing to roll with the "just add to the payroll" approach, but how likely is that? It doesn't square with the last decade, with the exception of the Dunn/Rios/Peavy acquisitions. And giving Danks an extension. We'll add to the payroll at the All-Star break, but aren't quick to take on long-term commitments.

Moreland and Hughes saying Feldman doesn't have very good stuff today, but battling through it. Don't need to battle too hard with this White Sox offense.

Didn't realize Jean Segura was leading the NL with a .365 average. Unfortunately, we don't have a Zach Greinke available to trade in order to get his equivalent. Good change-up there in that inning, pulling the string, Danks has now set down 5 in a row. 1 ER in 3 IP isn't too bad with the weather heating up and wind blowing out.

We're another couple of weeks from Dunn/2011 at this rate. Amazingly, his average is actually lower than the .159 he put up then, but he's been more productive with homers and RBI's at least.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 29, 2013 -> 01:09 PM) He got sent to the minors again during the middle of an inning? Haha. Oh, well.

Danks is 3-1 with a 2.3ish ERA career-wise against the Cubs in 6 starts. That's his first homer allowed in 3+ starts at Wrigley.

That's familiar. I remember him hitting a few of those against us for the Rays. This is the danger with Danks' reduced stuff. Hotter weather, wind blowing out, higher humidity....he's going to give up a ton of homers if he doesn't keep the ball down.

29 pitches for Feldman there in the heat/humidity. Except for Flowers, not coming through with RISP today. DeAza is getting to the point you wish you could platoon him against LHP'ers.

QUOTE (WHarris1 @ May 29, 2013 -> 12:54 PM) I'd rather have Danks up than Flowers Can Danks catch?

Meanwhile, Oakland has won five in a row (two over the Giants) and 10 of their last 11. Keppinger comes through after a prolonged at-bat. Kept making contact...good for him. But now can Flowers drive him in? He should have a decent chance to get to Feldman.

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ May 29, 2013 -> 12:44 PM) I want Jordan Danks back up. You're going to bench Viciedo or Dunn, then? If we bring up Danks and Phegley to play everyday, they're punting on the season. That won't be happening. Gillaspie has been our best hitter, after Rios. IF he could just manage 12-15 homers per season, that would be quite valuable.

Even the Cubs can't sell out against the White Sox, lol...lots of seats left, apparently.

QUOTE (bbilek1 @ May 29, 2013 -> 12:40 PM) There is no excuse for Dunn there. He did not even look. That is the catchers call though, I wonder if Flowers messed up. One way or the other, you make a decision. Go home or try to start the double play...hesitation killed him. It's what tends to happen when you don't play 1st everyday.

QUOTE (Jake @ May 29, 2013 -> 12:38 PM) I love how Danks forgot to cover 1B Didn't matter. When Dunn delayed going home right away on what was a crisply hit ball, the DP was lost. Probably at least 65-70% they turn that DP, 100% DeJesus is out at home unless Dunn throws it away.

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ May 29, 2013 -> 12:32 PM) I give up. this defense is f***ing hopeless No matter what type of pitching we're getting, it's not nearly enough to overcome this type of putrid defense and offense. Dear John Danks, you can't by pitching from behind in the big leagues for long. Weird that Dunn didn't bother to throw home.....more stupid baseball. DeJesus was dead to rights. Took too long starting the DP, and didn't get that either. Error 2 (this one unofficial) in the inning. Dunn's back in "we can't stand him anymore" mode.

More bad defense. We're going to have to bite the bullet and move Viciedo to 1B next year....his arm/outfield assists can't overcome his lack of range and bad routes, at this point.

Dunn has 43 career homers against the Cubs, Pujols is first among active players with a whopping 53.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 29, 2013 -> 12:16 PM) Not at all. Hahn has to get the team that gives Ventura and Cooper the best chance to win games. Things like trade value and value only matter if this team is selling off. Except even if parking Sale in the bullpen gave the Sox a better chance to win for those two years, it wasn't the best thing for the long-term future of the organization to delay his evolution into a starting pitcher. It wasted time. His first season, sure, but not the 2nd. That's the problem. Because he was so effective in his rookie year, it was hard to convince them to take him from a role where he was valuable but 5X less valuable to the organization than as a starter. At any rate, I was referring more to the offseason, not something they will do this June/July.

Beck's best pitch is a sinker? If Shirek was throwing THAT well, up to mid 90's, why didn't he come close to making it?

It's simple. Cooper and Hahn are going to have to pick the guy who has the best future as a starter and deal the other one...it will come down to Santiago vs. Quintana. It's hard to imagine that value being increased by parking Santiago in the bullpen as the long-man or loogy, though. Santiago doesn't ever fit the traditional LH/RH bullpen match-up by the book thing anyway (like Thornton), because of his repertoire.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ May 29, 2013 -> 11:29 AM) The problem is that our system is so bereft of talent that we have the least amount to offer teams in trades. Right now, there is probably only one player we have that you can say very likely will be an solid ML player (Johnson). I also don't believe Hahn is going to be as reckless in trading cost-controlled players as KW was, especially with starting pitching where average pitchers are getting $10 million per season. Granted, KW traded players who had high value at the time and ended up doing nothing with a couple exceptions (Morse, Hudson, Gio). And Morse was a total bust for the Mariners. Hard to say with the PED's as well, obviously he became productive for the Nationals almost half a decade later, with many stops in-between.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 29, 2013 -> 10:41 AM) Here you go taking both sides. The Sox have to trade these guys, but when is the last time any of these prospects actually was worth it? You keep mentioning the "Cardinals model", the "Tigers model", the "Rays model", yet the model that most closely resembles what the rebuilders here want to do is the Mariners model. The Mariners have been selecting dud minor league hitters for years. Remember Jeremy Reed. Smoak and Montero continue the tradition. You're forgetting Ackley. Although Seager hasn't been too bad. But he's not the kind of hitter you build your team around. And it goes back and forth, lol. If we do rebuild, we cannot fall into any other set of results other than the Astros or Mariners? If you look at how badly most of KW's moves have been ever since the Viciedo signing, and we're still a .500 team, you'd have to think we would be due for a change in "luck" at some point, right? And nobody that knew his limitations was all that high on Jeremy Reed...he was the equivalent of a Duke basketball player who looked great on paper but didn't have the raw tools and physical ability to translate that into results at the highest level. It's one of the reasons the White Sox have steered away from limited potential/collegiate outfielders for most of the past decade. Borchard, Mitchell and even Fields all fell into the unrefined athlete/toolsy/multi-sport star model. For every example from the Astros or Mariners, there's ones like Colon for Cliff Lee, Grady Sizemore and Brandon Phillips. (This is where 15 people will jump in and argue those kinds of trades with 2-3 Top 100 prospects going back and forth just don't happen in this day and age of baseball.)

QUOTE (BigHurt3515 @ May 29, 2013 -> 10:24 AM) If the Sox are so worried about Phegley handling the pitchers just have the guy DH over bum Dunn. And catch sometimes to get him accumulated with the pitchers. I am sure there is a way we can have him play 4 or 5 games a week with catching once or twice. This is back to the Lillibridge vs. Dunn 2011 argument, all over again. I don't think anyone in the front office is ready to go there, YET. As with Dunn's entire White Sox career over the last two seasons, he's likely to feast on some pretty average pitching in the next month...the weather will be heating up in June, some of those warning track balls or robbed homers (Hicks in MN) will be going out and he'll be looking like the first half 2012 Dunn (for a couple of weeks) and everyone will be forgetting Josh Phegley was mentioned as a possible DH candidate. That said, we do need a reliable RH bat to use against LHP. If they brought in a better catcher, Flowers could take those Dunn AB's against LHPer's, but I don't see the Sox doing that, either. They seem wedded to the notion of playing Dunn nearly everyday for now, and keeping him in the middle of that line-up card.

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ May 29, 2013 -> 10:19 AM) Totally. Part of the problem is that many of us are still blinded by steroid-era SS syndrome. We have arguably the best defensive SS right now and he's locked up cheap. That's all that should matter. Miguel Tejada took roids. At the rate he's going, he's going to end up with 30+ errors. He's still very good, but that's Jose Valentin territory in 2000. And I have no doubt he'll be in the high 20's in error totals, at least, if they continue to play him everyday without resting him occasionally.

QUOTE (The Ultimate Champion @ May 29, 2013 -> 10:16 AM) John Buck or someone like John Buck on a John Buck type of deal is a very smart move for the future. I don't care what he's doing now, he's someone who could help us next year and beyond. I've said it over and over, but I hate trying to develop catchers. It's such a hard position, so few come through, and you have to sit there and watch them turn into busts on the Major League field. There are probably a lot of things I'd do if I had a time machine, but one of the things I'd do is going back in time to just a few years ago when the Rangers had Saltalamacchia, Teagarden, and Ramirez all garnering attention in the prospect world & then let them know they're all garbage and that you'll be happier with Napoli the butcher who is already on the Angels & an older version of AJ who isn't going to leave the Sox for several more seasons. On the other hand, Miguel Olivo was the key piece with getting Freddy Garcia back, even if Morse turned out to be the better player in the end, and was considered a big guy with not enough power for 3B/LF and too big for SS...more like a super-utility guy.