caulfield12

Wells had a huge homer for them last night in the comeback against BOS. Porcello gets out of it, but damage is done. Huge 0-2 double by Kendrick, great so far by Greinke and they get Pujols back tmrw.

On the BA Prospect Hot Sheet yet again this week. No. 8 TRAYCE THOMPSON, CF WHITE SOX Team: Double-A Birmingham (Southern) Age: 22 Why He's Here: .476/.593/.810 (10-for-21), 1 2B, 2 HR, 4 RBIs, 6 BB, 4 SO, 2-for-2 SB. The Scoop: Some teams like to treat prospects like an index fund. Buy the stocks, check up on them every now and then, but in general, be patient and watch them slowly mature into a big league ballplayer. The White Sox aren't ones to buy an index fund, they prefer day trading. They draft a prospect and then push him up the ladder as quickly as possible. When it works, like it has with Chris Sale, it pays off very handsomely. In other cases, we end up wondering what happened to Gordon Beckham. Thompson is another player climbing the minor league ladder as if he's on an express elevator. Not long after center fielder Jared Mitchell was promoted to Triple-A Charlotte, the White Sox bumped Thompson up to Birmingham to replace him, despite a .252 batting average, a .321 on-base percentage and strikeouts in 32 percent of his at-bats. (The promotion to Double-A also qualified him to play in the Arizona Fall League.) It's not been long, but Thompson has handled the jump with no problems up to now. He's hitting .382/.475/.647 in 10 games since his promotion, including an excellent showing this week.

No idea. 3B? C? Lots of guys competing for Myers' spot, probably need to sign a veteran FA although Omogrosso, Heath and Marinez could obviously factor in. In an ideal world, Nathan Jones takes a step forward and improves to the point of trustworthiness. I've advocated since last off-season for ditching Matt Thornton (Santos Rodriguez, Veal, Leesman could figure in as replacements). We could get some savings there...to help pay for AJ or possibly Youkilis. Beckham is going to be pushed by Sanchez...possibly in 2013. It will be interesting to see if they have Trayce Thompson and Carlos in the AFL. Saladino and Morel could also figure in the equation. Would like to see Liriano back for a full season. Would like to wave goodbye to Gavin Floyd, although if Dylan Axelrod's the replacement, or Molina, no thanks to that. Jared Mitchell's striking out 40% of the time in Charlotte, but that wasn't completely unexpected.

That's true...if you look at all those pitchers who come straight over the top, most of them succumb to injury sooner or later. PTAC might be able to support this, but I remember reading once where the shoulder is not meant to take the strain of that motion and that pitching from a 75 degree angle, parallel to the ground or Bradford-style is actually healthier for the shoulder and elbow, ceteris paribus.

Amazing game between the Red Sox and Angels. Trout continues to re-write the record books.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 23, 2012 -> 09:46 PM) Haven't looked, but I'm sure he hit homers 2, 3, and 4 on the season. Jake is going to be mad reading those comments.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 23, 2012 -> 08:36 PM) Gonna end up in last place with a top 5 pick. Love that experts were talking about how they had a chance and to sell off more parts to go for it because the division is "weak." By general assumption, to win a weak division, you can't be part of the reason that it's weak in the first place. Besides, it's got this whole Chinese gini coefficient going on right now which I'm OK with since the Sox are apart of the wealthy group in that particular graph. Minnesota's probably in the same ballpark as far as revenues (for now), but their attendance is overwhelmed by our media/market advantages. Long term, Chicago has the huge advantage over Detroit, without Illitch as the owner. By the way, the Chinese gini coefficient is by most accounts over 0.5 now, although the government here refuses to announce figures because of the priority of showing that income levels are actually equalizing rather than branching apart at an exponential rate. The last time they announced an official government number was way back in 2000. Independent studies show 0.435 but because of the "unofficial market" almost $1 trillion is hidden and off the books.

That probably puts Hawkins' KANNY OPS over the 900 mark. Nice to see the progress he's made since hitting Bristol, obviously he's made some adjustments and is growing more and more confident.

QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Aug 23, 2012 -> 08:56 PM) You ever heard of that Nolan Ryan guy? Yeah, there's that. Although, to be fair, he never gets thought of as a "winning pitcher." When you think of all the arms in history you'd want for the 7th game of the World Series, would you even put him into your Top 10 possibilities?

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Aug 23, 2012 -> 08:27 PM) Just kidding about what Law said...... He ACTUALLY said.....Hawkins is the most exciting draft position player the Sox have had come through the system in a long time. He said Hawkins gives the Sox a good chance to finally develop a homegrown impact position player since Ray Durham in 1990. Apparently Magglio, C-Lee, Joe Crede and Aaron Rowand don't count on his list. Not to mention Michael Morse and Chris Carter. No doubt, Konerko/Dunn/AJP/Rios is an older core...Alexei's been slipping in the power department as well. That's why Viciedo is so important, as well as DeAza and Trayce Thompson/Hawkins/Barnum eventually.

With the Dunn and Danks contracts, we do have SOMEWHAT limited financial mobility, but it's 100X better than last offseason. We jettisoned the Santos deal. Peavy off the books soon, after the buyout. Rios and Dunn situations looking MUCH better. Still have to figure out what to do with AJP and Youkilis. Floyd's another dilemma...picking up his option and trading him?? Whether we want to be "stuck" with Floyd at $9.5 million. Can or do we make an attempt to keep Liriano? If Santiago's figuring into the starting mix for 2013, having 4 lefty starters would be a bit troublesome. What do we do with Humber going forward? Beckham? Morel?

With the Dunn and Danks contracts, we do have SOMEWHAT limited financial mobility, but it's 100X better than last offseason. We jettisoned the Santos deal. Peavy off the books soon, after the buyout. Rios and Dunn situations looking MUCH better. Still have to figure out what to do with AJP and Youkilis. Floyd's another dilemma...picking up his option and trading him. Whether we want to be "stuck" with Floyd at $9.5 million. Can or do we make an attempt to keep Liriano? If Santiago's figuring into the starting mix for 2013, having 4 lefty starters would be a bit troublesome. What do we do with Humber going forward? Beckham? Morel?

QUOTE (chw42 @ Aug 23, 2012 -> 05:34 PM) He's nowhere near bad. I'd take him over Viciedo in a heartbeat. Alex Gordon has a .799 OPS. On the other hand, he was already-developed and the #1 draft pick overall in the country. If Viciedo doesn't put up 30+ homers per season and an 800 OPS at age 25-26-27, it would be pretty surprising. We already know Gordon's upside. We don't with Dayan at the major league level.

QUOTE (knightni @ Aug 23, 2012 -> 07:38 PM) You can paraphrase, just not post the article. http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/...-2012-nos-16-30 In this case, there's no way to get at the White Sox "synopsis"...maybe someone else has ESPN Insider and can paraphrase then.

The coolest thing is the $3000 Millenium Falcon and the special LEGOs room...

which is supposed to look at the current major league roster, minor league depth/talent, finances, management and "organizational mobility." Tigers were highest in AL Central, at 13th. http://www.freep.com/article/20120823/SPOR...-Power-Rankings Unfortunately, ESPN INsider article so no way to quote any of the particulars on the White Sox future. (And, on the plus side, things are even bleaker for the Royals, Twins and Indians, there's that at least). The top five: Rangers, Yankees, Cardinals, Angels and Blue Jays (yay for AA, and no surprise with Keith Law involved and despite the fact that so much of their pitching depth has been wiped out by injury). You have to wonder how well off that veteran Yankees' roster will be a couple of years from now, and the Angels already have Vernon Wells, they have to worry about Pujols declining...on the other hand, Trout is the ace in the hole, but we'll see if he can repeat his success in the dreaded sophomore campaign.

QUOTE (RME JICO @ Aug 23, 2012 -> 06:39 PM) All it takes is one bad start for any of these guys to drop out of contention. Or one bad start from Gavin Floyd to drop out of the rotation. Well, Verlander was typical self today. After the 2 run bomb to Encarnacion, he went on to get stronger in the 6th-9th innings and ended up with something like his 18th TWELVE or more K game of his career. Bartolo Colon could get stronger as the game went on, and Scherzer's a close 2nd now in MLB, but there's never been a pitcher who could sustain his success and actually improve in pitches 100-140...at least none that I've seen in my lifetime.

In that sense, Quintana was hardly in our system as well. He was in the Yankees' system 95%, except they didn't value him as being worth a 40 man roster spot. So better to say our scouting staff has a knack for finding guys like Jenks, Santos, Iguchi, Quintana, Quentin, Thornton, Septimo, DeAza, Humber, etc. We didn't really DEVELOP them, though. Definitely deserve some credit for Santiago, too.

Curse of Ozzie Guillen strikes. Infante's not on the Marlins if not for their total tailspin this season.

Ironic that Gose was 0/7 with 5 K's and he rips a ball and Jackson makes the play of the series against him. After Mathis reached, that was 4 consecutive Jays hits against him (Dotel) but they couldn't push across the go-ahead run. Only chance is if Encarnacion can hit next inning.

Can't believe that play by Jackson. CRAP. Austin has been close to a superstar or MVP for them this year.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Aug 23, 2012 -> 02:37 PM) Brad Lincoln is in. Ugh. Where is Steve Delabar? Happy not to be teaching, lol. Echevarria might never be able to hit...but that kid has a ton of range. He ALMOST came up with that play in the bottom of the 8th. Gose is another uber talented athlete in the same category...but hasn't hit, either.

Lincoln into the game. He's struggled a lot recently.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Aug 23, 2012 -> 02:31 PM) The Tigers have certain games that they call "premium games" that they charge more for as well. When you have three superstars, you can get away with it...and that payroll. They still don't know how long Cabrera's going to be out with that ankle injury, either. It could be they win the battle today but lose the war. We've got a "budding" or baby superstar in Sale, but there's not much evidence that there's a huge upturn in home crowds when he pitches, like Greinke in KC, Halladay in Toronto, Verlander in Detroit, etc.

Tigers are just amazingly tough to beat at home with those crowds. It's the advantage they're always going to have over us with dynamic pricing. They still have 10 games remaining with the Royals...that's not exactly comforting. Of course, we control our own destiny, but we're going to have to show up in DET next weekend this time. Hopefully, Morrow comes back tmrw and wipes out BALT and TB can sweep the A's at home to take some pressure off.