caulfield12

24 K's for Hawkins in 38 AB's. Still has a 700 OPS. .158 AVG. It's going to be interesting to see how long they let this go on...if he can make adjustments or they'll try to rebuild his confidence by sending him to Kanny. IMO, you have to give him at least 100 AB's to right the ship.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 17, 2013 -> 05:25 PM) He is so much better of a hitter when he is thinking through the box and right center. Just like Beckham, Ramirez and Quentin... Flowers just doubled his season output in RBI's in one swing there. Now, Quintana....HOLD the opponent after scoring, please.

Haha. Guess I reverse jinxed Flowers. It's like Borchard playing catcher. 400+ foot homer in a direction you wouldn't expect him to have that kind of power.

I guess we can stop picking on Viciedo for a couple of days. Back to Dunn/Keppinger... The main thing for Dayan is going to be cutting down that swing plane on fastballs. Happ and Buehrle were predictably good match-ups. DJ saying Flowers had a great BP session and was crushing balls out of the stadium. We'll see if that translates to game action...doubt it. Pitching around Ramirez to get to Flowers...

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Apr 17, 2013 -> 09:17 AM) I dont think any of these guys were strengths or even depth last year. Septimo never recovered from that bomb he gave up in Boston, Heath barely pitched, Omogrosso was meh, I dont even remember Marinez pitching. Santiago, Jones, Reed, Veal at the end, Axelrod here and there. That was the depth. Omogrosso pitched some very important innings last year...where you were surprised Ventura had such confidence in him. Same with Septimo, before the Gonzalez homer.

uh-oh. 2 run homer given up by Johnson to John Peterson, probably wind-aided. HBP, 3-6-3 double play but then a four pitch walk and a homer by Peterson, who now has 2 hits. 2-0 Lookouts. Puig hits a frozen rope almost right at Saladino.

Puig strikes out against Erik Johnson after trying to lay one down on the first pitch to move the runner over. Maybe all Cubans have a hard time SAC bunting...announcers joking he's probably not going to be doing that much at the major league level. Has given up a line drive to the 2nd hitter in the CHATT line-up (Peterson)...who has a 10+ game hit streak going. It's SaladINO, not SalaDANO, lol...at least the guy's radio partner corrected that one. Saladino picked off 1B after a walk. 1-2-3 for Johnson in the bottom of the 2nd, another K.

QUOTE (Jake @ Apr 17, 2013 -> 08:45 AM) Jordan deserves to be an MLB ballplayer IMHO. This is a case of 1. not needing 13 pitchers and 2. trying to get the best 25 we have on the roster, regardless of matchups, etc. Except last year, the real strength of the team wasn't our bench, it was the depth of the young bullpen. Guys like Omogrosso, Heath, Marinez, Septimo, etc.

Addison Reed's 7th in the AL Cy Young prediction standings....at ESPN. Ahead of Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer, but behind Anibal Sanchez. Matt Harvey is 2nd in the NL, currently. http://espn.go.com/mlb/features/cyyoung

What a line. Hawkins has 23 K's in 37 AB's, along with 3 BB's. 711 OPS with a .162 BA. 4 HR's and 10 RBI's, along with 2 SB's.

Have you ever seen him play in person, just curious... He's one of those players who grows on you over time. He's an above average runner, an above average fielder...and has something we're completely lacking in at the minor league level, plate discipline and the ability to take a walk. When's the last time we had a hitter whose K and BB numbers were pretty even? He's also shown himself in the last 12-18 months to be a pretty decent contact hitter. Now without the 20+ homers or 40-50 stolen bases, he's not going to be a SABR/rotisserie league owner's dream....he profiles as a complementary piece, and not a game changer...like a Tadahito Iguchi. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that at all. The problem is we're going to have to be patient and wait for his XB power to come, and that's going to put even more pressure on the rest of the line-up to put up big homer numbers at USCF.

Or the typical Chris Rongey post-game defensive response...

Or the typical Chris Rongey post-game response...

It's pretty sad when most of us are hoping if he doesn't hit again like 2012 that he retires from shame and embarrassment. What a crappy situation, for everyone involved. That said, giving Dan Johnson those AB's (or fill in any random LH hitter) wasn't going to be and isn't the long-term solution, either. And it's almost beyond the point where you believe they could do anything BUT eat his contract...at least with Rios, that has turned around. But we have two contracts (Danks/Dunn) currently taking up $25-30 million in payroll with negative or negligible value. I just can't imagine giving those DH ab's to the likes of Wise or Jordan Danks. Even Gillaspie, with how he's been hitting...assuming someone else was playing 3B.

QUOTE (CWSpalehoseCWS @ Apr 16, 2013 -> 10:32 PM) Even if that's his future, I'll take it. When's the last time the Sox had a nice solid UTIL guy off the bench? The last few years, I think that has hurt the Sox. Eduardo Escobar, lol? Andy Gonzalez? Lillibridge, when he could actually hit worth a lick for 1/2 a season.

Supposedly, Danks is going to be in the clubhouse and working out with the team in Chicago on Friday. Then, he's going out on a minor league assignment sometime next week. FWIW, from Farmer and DJ in the radio booth.

Axelrod and Gimenez are very close...does seem to be this emerging storyline that Gimenez is doing a better job with pitch selection, although we have no idea with Cooper gone who's doing what exactly. Is it Parent? The individual catchers? Ventura?

Well, 1/4 with RISP improves our BA but didn't score a run because of Konerko's lack of speed, haha. Wonder if we've ever lost 2 consecutive games to starters with ERA's over 10?

Your apparent dislike for Viciedo is now overwhelming all logical thinking here. The only players who are going to get us anything significant back in return at the moment are Sale and Peavy. Period. The idea of replacing DeAza or Viciedo with Jordan Danks and thinking that's somehow contributing to any sort of positive direction for the franchise is laughable. It's the kind of move 12-13 year olds playing around with Strat-O-Matic cards would make in their basement. Major league teams, thankfully, don't operate in such fashion.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Apr 16, 2013 -> 11:50 AM) Why not? Let's see if he can be anything useful. Obviously not, or the coaching staff wouldn't have Wise on the roster instead. If they believed Danks would hit 20+ homers and not strike out 150+ times, he'd be in Chicago. It's another version of the Brian Anderson story all over again....without the hype.

Because the direction and CLEAR message to Sox fans with a line-up of Gillaspie, Sanchez, Keppinger, Gimenez/Phegley/Anderson and Danks is... LOSING 100+ games and looking more like the Astros than anything resembling a contending MLB team. That would give us a clear direction all right.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Apr 16, 2013 -> 11:31 AM) There doesn't appear to be a clear direction. I don't understand how they can't find a spot for Jordan Danks. Platoon him with Viciedo and put him in center to see if he can become anything useful. JORDAN DANKS is not a POWER HITTER. He will strike out way too much for the power he will give you. If we're going this route, we might as well bring back Ryan Sweeney. Giving Danks 300-350 AB's against RHP only will prove that we've wasted a year of Viciedo's development. Going from what you've said in your last year of comments, our outfield would be BJ Upton, Ichiro and Danks/Viciedo...assuming you didn't trade Rios to cut salary and clear payroll space. We play 81 home games at USCF. We have to get homers from SOMEWHERE, and it won't be coming from an infield of Gillaspie/Sanchez/Keppinger or whoever's catching (fill-in-the-blank journeyman/retread/AAAA filler).

QUOTE (LVSoxFan @ Apr 16, 2013 -> 11:29 AM) Never liked this move. Nothing against him personally but I never saw the value in having somebody who is HR-or-bust, most often bust. Typical KW overcorrection. Went from Thome, which wasn't working according to Ozzie and/or KW....to Kotsay/Andruw Jones, which contributed to costing us the 2010 division (75% the fact that Jim went to the Twins and played so well in the place of Morneau)....which left a HUGE power gap from the LH side which couldn't be addressed internally because of our weak minor league system. If they actually found the right combination of hitters, they could have filled that position with the same production at a fraction of the cost....but Mark Kotsay wasn't the right hitter for 300-350 DH AB's at that point in his career.

QUOTE (LVSoxFan @ Apr 16, 2013 -> 11:29 AM) Never liked this move. Nothing against him personally but I never saw the value in having somebody who is HR-or-bust, most often bust. Typical KW overcorrection. Went from Thome, which wasn't working according to Ozzie and/or KW....to Kotsay/Andruw Jones, which contributed to costing us the 2010 division (75% the fact that Jim went to the Twins and played so well in the place of Morneau)....which left a HUGE power gap from the LH side which couldn't be addressed internally because of our weak minor league system. If they actually found the right combination of hitters, they could have filled that position with the same production at a fraction of the cost....but Mark Kotsay wasn't the right hitter for 300-350 DH AB's at that point in his career.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Apr 16, 2013 -> 11:13 AM) Ditto. Wouldn't give up starting pitching prospects for him. Replacement for Konerko has to be a youngish player with credentials to be middle-of-the-order hitter. Yep, easier said than done, but that's what it has to be. Like it or not, that hitter is likely to be Viciedo. You're better off reviving your "Trade Alexei Ramirez" threads because we actually have a replacement in the pipeline in Carlos Sanchez. What we don't have is anyone close to major league ready capable of hitting 25-35 homers, and, despite your protestations to the contrary, it's just NOT THAT EASY to find a young hitter who's cost-controlled and who can put up those numbers. If it was that simple to hit based on minor league numbers, Cris Carter wouldn't be bouncing around so much at this point in his career. Why would a team with that kind of young impact bat trade him to the White Sox when there's a premium now on exactly those types of hitters?