caulfield12

QUOTE (Vance Law @ Aug 10, 2014 -> 01:28 AM) Pretty genius move by Ventura to call up Danks from AAA and pinch hit him in the 10th and have him steal 2nd and score the winning run and have Guerra and Petricka not give up any runs. I'd say even more genius was Don Cooper for saying he could fix Noesi after that Rangers/Sox game. He's helped to put two critical losses on the Mariners this year, and they're now 1 1/2 games behind the Royals for the WC. That will haunt them if they miss out on the playoffs. Guerra looked good last night...and statistically has been one of the best Sox pitchers since his recall. Petricka's got to stop throwing straight cheese down the chute and hoping he can get away with it like he did in the minors...that said, thanks for the shift working out. Seattle's is probably worse than ours. There's Cano, Seager and that's about it in terms of real threats. Zunino has some pop, but K's a ton and has a much lower batting average than Viciedo. That said, he's also tied for the lead for catcher's homers (with Mesoraco) and you can tolerate a catcher with an OPS between 650-700 much more easily than a LFer.

This is going to be like the Mary Joe Kopechne situation with Teddy Kennedy...no matter what happens with the court case, he's going to have his reputation ruined forever. It's impossible for any reasonable person to watch the video, hear the accounts of witness and actually see it without coming to that conclusion. The woman on the Score overnight show was refusing to say it was intentional and people were getting upset with her, I get it that the media has to be "fair and unbiased" and not jump to conclusions, but this one's going to be impossible to explain as it happened under a yellow/caution flag. Just the comments of the person next to the one filming are going to live forever in everyone's minds if they don't take that video down. Update (12:29 a.m.): The Sporting News's Bob Pockrass has some more details: Rich Willis, who was at the track, said he didn't see exactly what happened but his sister down in Turn 1 did. He saw Stewart and Kevin Ward get into the wreck. "People (who could see it better) said the guy got out of his car and was gesturing angrily at Tony Stewart when Tony Stewart came by during the next lap under yellow," Willis said in a phone interview. "He approached him and evidently when he was driving by the guy standing on the track gesturing at him, he gunned his engine. "What happened was the back end kicked out and clipped the guy and the guy flew across the track." Update (1:06 a.m.): More from Pockrass: Tyler Graves, a sprint-car racer and friend of Ward's, told Sporting News in a phone interview that he was sitting in the Turn 1 grandstands and saw everything that happened. "Tony pinched him into the frontstretch wall, a racing thing," Graves said. "The right rear tire went down, he spun on the exit of (Turn) 2. They threw the caution and everything was toned down. Kevin got out of his car. … He was throwing his arms up all over the place at Tony for most of the corner. "I know Tony could see him. I know how you can see out of these cars. When Tony got close to him, he hit the throttle. When you hit a throttle on a sprint car, the car sets sideways. It set sideways, the right rear tire hit Kevin, Kevin was sucked underneath and was stuck under it for a second or two and then it threw him about 50 yards."

Just goes to prove the old axiom that closers often struggle in non-save situations. Jenks was notorious for that. Also, not sure how Hector Noesi wasn't the player of the game. When the M's look back on this season and when/if they miss out on the wild card, these two games Hector started against them and they lost both will rankle.

Doesn't seem Danish will ever hit any top 100 lists unless he throws 92-94 MPH consistently as a starter. Results matter less to guys who make up those lists than raw stuff, and they often don't account for the difficulty of hitting someone with such an unorthodox motion until they prove doubters right at the major league level (think Chad Bradford, for example).

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Aug 9, 2014 -> 10:28 PM) Winning run tonight No thanks to their SS (Taylor), who also hit into a DP ball to end the game. He did at least get the patented One-Dog jump to get to 2nd and put himself in scoring position...there's that.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Aug 9, 2014 -> 08:19 PM) Yeah, I'm no prospect guy, but it seems like he's the real deal for sure. Ryan Braun a good comparison? (Stats-wise. not PED-wise) Houston really f***ed up the last two drafts. They would look a whole lot better with Bryant & Rodon as opposed to Appel & nobody. Don't forget Correa got injured...can't remember who else they could have taken first, and it's not like he has been disappointing. Buxton (2nd to the Twins), Zunino, Gausman and Zimmer all went in the top 10, along with Almora at 8. So essentially, you're looking at Buxton/Bryant/Rodon vs. Correa/Appel/nobody until 2015.

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Aug 9, 2014 -> 06:03 PM) Baez has 6 hits out of the 13 balls he's put in play. Pretty sure that's unsustainable. No walks in 23 at bats. All 3 homers in coors against the worst pitching staff in baseball. I wouldn't get too excited about that .957 OPS because it's only headed down from here. And Alcantara is the 2013 version of jordan danks, sweet. Let's see how these guys' numbers translate at the mlb level over 200+ at bats before getting too excited. Possibly this is just the first chapter in the development of the best offense in baseball but I'm skeptical. Oh yea and their pitching still sucks. Thought I'd go ahead and reiterate that small piece of information. Well, nobody ever said Jackson was good without Cooper. As far as Alcantara, a 700ish OPS out of a rookie is acceptable if he can play as well as he has been defensively in CF (and stay healthy, unlike Eaton). Those numbers are way down from where he was a week or two ago, so these are his first offensive struggles...up to him to respond. I don't remember anyone taking Danks seriously as a Top 80-100 prospect in all of baseball for five years now. Let's wait before we start comparing him to Danks, Marcus Semien, Junior Lake and Mike Olt, etc. I guess we could have said the same thing about Abreu and Avisail in Coors Field. Up to Baez to perform against every pitching staff, obviously.

Defensive range is off the charts, but they still need to see him make improvements on the routine plays, turning the DP, etc. Confidence is one of his biggest assets, never gets too down on himself...can always find a positive way of making a contribution, like moving a runner into scoring position. Reason for decreased success on the basepaths...1) lingering hamstring issues this season, 2) better catchers with better arms/experience and pitchers better at holding runners, and 3) his reputation from last year causing opponents to be more careful. Says the White Sox need him to be that dynamic, game-changing presence and utilize all of his tools to be successful at the next level as a regular. No discussion about a move to the outfield. Banged his head getting off the bus this weekend, they thought he might have had a slight concussion, but test results were negative...also battling the flu and the iffy hamstring throughout the season, but it's not bad enough to keep him from playing or causing them to want to shut him down completely. Needs to work on command of strike zone/plate discipline and "aggressiveness within the strike zone" offensively. Not far away now from the big leagues. Biggest comment about Marcus was that he seemed to be putting too much pressure on himself to get back to Chicago, and that had affected him adversely after he was sent down but has been doing better recently. Great tools/athleticism....noted his "clutch" late game performances and said would obviously like to see his batting average come up.

10 strikeouts in 23 AB's for Baez, 43.4% OTOH, a .957 OPS with 5 RBI's with 4 of his 5 hits for XB, which is basically what Leury Garcia has given us for an entire season. Alcantara with a 705 OPS but stellar defense, especially considering he mostly played IF up until recently.

I feel like it's a repeat of the same thing we heard about Brian Anderson over and over again... If only he hits .240 with 15-20 homers, he'll be like Tori Hunter-Lite. Likewise, I am confident in saying that Jordan Danks being anything other than a 4th/5th outfielder is a sign we're farther away from being a competitive baseball team, not CLOSER. The bigger problem is Eaton staying on the field. You can't count on someone to lead the team who's constantly hurting himself and out of the line-up one out of every 3 games, roughly. The DiamondBacks knew that Eaton had a lot of upside, but it was similar to the situation with Quentin staying healthy.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 9, 2014 -> 02:00 PM) Yeah for my two cents, it would be much more valuable for the young core to keep moving forward, than to lose games because those guys sucked and get a better pick. It would leave Hahn to wonder who he could count on for 2015. He's still not going to know with Flowers and Viciedo, no matter how they finish. The bullpen, who knows? At least they can get some kind of read on Semien, Sanchez, Wilkins and Avisail, although Garcia's going to be the RF/LF/DH in 2015 no matter what happens one has to believe.

Tigers might be in trouble. Nathan blew another save, but Soria bailed him out of a bases-loaded one situation by getting a pop-up and fly out. Six blown saves, 80 saves for the Rangers. 6 blown saves, 24 converted for the Tigers. YIKES. Sanchez went down yesterday and had an MRI today, not sure what the results are...Soria today with some sort of back/side/oblique problem. Joba blew the game in extras. Royals only 2 games back.

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Aug 9, 2014 -> 01:09 PM) You are assuming all those prospects turn out. The royals were thinking the same thing a few years back. I don't think hosmer, starling, moustakas, etc. are helping the royals much this year. Or Cameron Maybin and Miller with the Marlins. That was enough to get the AL MVP the last two seasons. Prospects are worth even more than they were back then...so, if they so choose to do so, they can trade those guys while they're still in the minors, the same thing Kenny Williams did nearly every season with his prospects to fortify the major league roster. They don't have to be successful at the major league level to be worth a lot to another organization. If the Cubs were closer, they easily could have put together the package for David Price, for example.

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Aug 9, 2014 -> 12:54 PM) I believe that has a lot to do with more teams being bad or not up to their usual standards. They can't seem to play good baseball in August. That and the schedule's going to be rougher from here on out...Minnesota and Texas were that last great opportunity to get to .500 or at least just 1 game under and now they're back to only one game away from their low water mark (-8) for the season. Mostly, they've been at -3 to -6, in that range, never winning 4 in a row and never bad enough with Sale/Quintana/Abreu/Eaton/Ramirez to go on a prolonged losing stretch until now.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Aug 8, 2014 -> 05:01 PM) His players respect him. His "strategy" isn't nearly as bad as some advertise. When you don't have benefit of hindsight, the moves he was "supposed" to make don't always work out, and the "stupid" moves he makes often do work out and are called lucky. For some, he is wrong even if he is correct. And just like the made up Greg Walker philosophy of lift and pull, the lack of fire and passion Robin supposedly has is totally false. He isn't Ditka, which apparently is the model Chicagoans believe to be the best model, yet no one wants to work or play under that kind of buffoon. Robin keeps White Sox business in house. I don't always agree with every move he makes, every line-up he makes out, but you look at the talent level. At some point this year the Sox absolutely needed a new C,2B, LF, RF,DH, a totally different bench, the SS needed to be traded. The 3 positions people have been happy with 1B, 3B, and CF all spent time on the DL. Only one AL team has a higher team ERA, yet, the team is damn near .500. I cannot believe that could possibly mean the manager was horrible too. That's a bit of an exaggeration. Of course, one week ago, it would have been true. But nobody would be surprised if they finished 10-14 games under .500, as opposed to anywhere close to 80-82 wins.

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Aug 9, 2014 -> 12:47 PM) I'm not comparing the sox to cubs. I'm talking strictly about the cubs. And regarding the braves, A's, and twins, they never had the offense to compliment the pitching. Like I said, you need both to win. Not that you need a 95 Indians offense or a 95 braves pitching staff but generally speaking you need to be very good on both sides of the ball to win the world series. Of course there are exceptions, but more often than not, the team that is balanced both offensively and defensively wins the World Series. Relying too much on either offense or defense is a recipe for failure in the playoffs because as soon as that one side of the ball struggles you need the other to pick up the slack to get through a 7 game series. When was the last time a team won the World Series while being in the bottom third in runs allowed in their league? To get that pitching they are either spending big money (which is a big question mark right now) or trading away their offensive prospects. What would it take to get a guy like Chris Sale in a trade? Russell and Baez maybe? Well there goes 40% of their big time offensive prospects just to get an ace. How about rodon and Quintana? Soler and bryant? It's not easy to build a strong staff without spending money on big time free agents (Lester, scherzer, etc). Until they get the pitching, they aren't winning the World Series. That's not jealousy or envy or anything of the sorts. It's just a fact. What players in the majors WOULDN'T a package of Castro or Russell (let's say Russell for argument's sake), Almora and/or McKinney, Vogelbach and Schwarber get you? Maybe Pierce Johnson or CJ Edwards if the other team is balking or wants a pitcher. That's four former 1st round draft picks that are "expendable" and don't force you to trade Baez/Soler/Bryant. Right now, they're getting plenty out of Coghlan, so it's not imperative that they add another outfielder when they have Alcantara and either Baez or Bryant who could possibly be shifted to LF/RF, not to mention Soler. That still leaves you: Coghlan LF/RF Alcantara CF Soler LF/RF Sweeney 3B Bryant SS Castro or Russell 2B Baez 1B Rizzo C ???? As far as pitching goes, I think unless they can get Lester, they're going to pass on Scherzer and Shields. Shields SHOULD get no more than a 4 year contract, and the Cubs still might not be able to legitimately compete for the playoffs until 2017 and 2018. 2016 is kind of the same situation for the Cubs as 2015 for the White Sox. That said, let's say they signed Shields for $90 million over 4 years. That leaves: #1 Ace (acquired via trade) #2 Shields #3 Arrieta #4 CJ Edwards #5 Edwin Jackson #6 Jacob Turner #7 Pierce Johnson #8-10 Wada/Kendricks/Beeler That said, if they don't want to go that route until the 2016 or 2017 season, they can always bring back Hammel as a bridge to the big time free agent/trade acquisition. And Turner, Edwards and Johnson still have time to emerge as well. Take all those players I highlighted in bold, and you can get just about any pitcher out there.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 9, 2014 -> 11:40 AM) But MLB pitchers throw harder. We should leave him in the minors so that he doesn't get hit by one of those pitches. It makes just as much sense. Just wait until he's had 10-15 games in AAA. It takes most guys longer than that to find a groove in spring training. That's not unreasonable, that's 1/2 of a full minor league rehab stint. If he wasn't hitting over .500 and he was at .091 instead, striking out a ton and making weak contact, I would agree that 15 or even 10 games would be better. In the end, it's not his decision, so they probably will hold him back and take the conservative approach. So we have the major league pitchers throw harder theory vs. the higher probability of being hit by a pitch in the minors (although I'm sure AA has a higher rate than AAA, and harder throwers on average than AAA).

And who's going to take the blame when/if Avisail Garcia gets hurt in AAA, especially by a wild pitch that gets away from a AAA pitcher featuring Maikel Cleto's command? He's clearly been busting his butt to get back to Chicago ASAP, if the doctors have cleared him (and I'm not sure how he can be cleared to play in Charlotte but not for the Sox, that's illogical), then there's no reason he can't be back fairly quickly. We all know there's a big difference between 45 games down the stretch (especially against pennant contenders) and the September games against teams with worse records than the Sox and experimenting with rookie pitchers for 2015 rotations.

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Aug 9, 2014 -> 09:05 AM) No one expected Barney to be an all star, they do with Baez. Main reason sox fans have been riding gordon so hard. No one expected an average 2b, they expected Dustin pedroia. Cubs fans going to get pretty impatient if he hits .220 with 25 hr and 200 strikeouts the next 3 years. Even with all this potential offense, where's the frontline pitching needed to win? Best lineup in modern day baseball, 95 Indians, couldn't even win the World Series. 2 hof (thome and Murray), 1 would be hof if not for peds (manny), best hitter in the game that year (belle), and 8 guys that were all stars at some point in that era. All world pitching (braves starting staff) beat the all world offense. Goes without saying that you need both to win And the White Sox still have two huge holes in their rotation, even under the assumption that Rodon starts out as a 3. The ONLY player they have to use as trade bait with any value to the rest of MLB is Alexei Ramirez, who just so happens to be our best defender, when we have one of the five worst defenses in baseball. Besides, the easy rebuttal to that is the Braves winning only once in 14 years with all that Cy Young pitching, or the A's and the Twins.

OTOH, Darwin Barney's low 600's OPS was so boring and predictable (offensively AND defensively) in the same way a Gordon Beckham season is... No Cubs' fan wants to watch that, anymore than Sox fans want to continue watching Dunn/Beckham/DeAza/Konerko.

QUOTE (LDF @ Aug 9, 2014 -> 08:16 AM) while I don't know the thoughts of the sox brass, I don't think the plan was not to, but to do the best and continue to rebuild. this plan needed to chg, b/c of the performance of the players. which is compliment for them, b/c their not mailing it in. I also think they the sox brass weren't prepared for all the bad luck, injuries and players not performing as expected. I wouldn't say Ventura's in danger of losing the team again, but they do need to make some personnel changes to breathe some new life into final 44 or so games and remove some of those veterans. They held on for 4 months of the season, but things are really rough right now. We're out of contention and playing some teams with everything in the world to play for. It's a transition phase...I think all those guys like Dunn/Konerko/DeAza/Beckham can feel the writing on the wall and the team's just kind of stuck waiting for everything to play out. Even Abreu's homer bat has disappeared for the time being.

Don't forget Avisail. Garcia, Wilkins and Semien all need to get extended looks right now, like ASAP. No matter where Gordon is placed in the batting order, it's not helping. DeAza DFA if no takers on the trade market. Viciedo and Flowers need to play nearly everyday to see how they finish out the season...with Minnesota locking up Suzuki, that's yet another option off the table for catching in 2015. Sanchez is going to have a position unless you platoon Gillaspie and Semien, rest Alexei with Semien (and also let him DH or play some OF) and then give most of the 2B at-bats to Carlos. Guess it all depends on what Hahn's thinking in terms of Semien and Sanchez, and who has more upside overall to be a starter, with the other more or less taking Leury's role over.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Aug 8, 2014 -> 10:54 PM) Making a change to my earlier post. Been reading up on Kenta Maeda and I think dude can hang in the States. At 27 he probably makes more sense than Masterson esp since the team might be more realistically looking at 2016 instead of 2015. I'd guesstimate a deal in the 7 year 100-125M range. I don't think after what happened with Tanaka they're going to be willing to go that high on someone who doesn't quite have ace/superstar talent written all over him. Sure, it's a possibility...but you could see the White Sox spreading that money over 3-4 different holes rather than taking the risk of another bad pitching contract to go with John Danks. At some point, they're going to almost have to dip their toe into that water again, but I think it's more likely to be for a 4-5 back-end starter rather than a 2-3 $100+ million contract. That's assuming Rodon becomes a #3 or better in 2015, or LOOKS like he could be in 2016 heading in that year.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Aug 9, 2014 -> 01:49 AM) Suck for draft picks or what? I think I'm there now. At 55-62, we currently sit with the #11 pick. Only 4 or 5 GB of a top 5 pick. I think we can do it boys. BELIEVE! http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/reversestandings Now things become quite interesting, as there's really no compelling argument why finishing in the 6th-10th position wouldn't be a lot better than finishing out of the Top 11...as that provides us not only with a higher pick/slightly higher likelihood of getting the exact player we want but also the ability to get a top free agent bat or pitcher without surrendering another high draft pick. It would be pretty hilarious if we passed the Cubs and ended up 6th and took their player again before they could choose at 7.

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Aug 8, 2014 -> 11:44 PM) Has this team ever played decent baseball in August? It's like a curse. 2003...until the Twins mowed us down late.