caulfield12

That Top 125 number is supposedly right around $12.5 million. The only one on our team we'd offer that is Peavy, possibly. But it's moot, since we will decline his option and buy him out. It remains to be seen what they'll do with Youkilis. Hard to imagine going back to Brent Morel (or trusting him) after how Youk has performed, but still a LONG way to go.

QUOTE (Jeff Liefer @ Jul 27, 2012 -> 08:34 AM) I remember the rumor a few weeks back about the White Sox having interest in Betances. KW could easily sell some of our current MLB talent for a contending teams prospects and then flip them in a frankenstein type creation package for a top flight SP like Hernandez. That would be incredible. Also Seattle is open for business as far as I know, look at Ichiro. They have guys like Danny Hultzen in AAA that I bet they're dying to bring up into their rotation. Ichiro asked his own Japanese ownership group to let him go, preferably to the Yankees. He had an OPS under Beckham and Viciedo with less power, and a huge contract few teams could pick up. They are not into rebuilding completely, but they're clearly frustrated with Ackley and Smoak regressing.

There's the theory that the Cubs and Braves will revisit that trade and that the Cubs will throw in $1-2-3 million as a bribe to get Dempster to leave for the Braves so they can get Delgado. He's in a precarious place though...if he really wanted to come back to Chicago after a trade, this is not the way to go about doing it.

[email protected] 11:37 pm on July 26, 2012 | PermalinkRangers starter: RHP Yu Darvish (11-6, 3.88) allowed two runs in seven innings during a win at the Los Angeles Angels on Saturday. This will be Darvish’s first start against the White Sox. Darvish is 7-1 with a 1.70 ERA when facing a club for the first time. In Darvish’s last eight starts, he has held right-handed hitters to a .136 average in 81 at-bats. Matchup of note: A walk is likely when designated hitter Adam Dunn faces Darvish. Dunn has taken an American League-high 75 walks. Darvish has given up 11 walks in his last 151/3 innings and is third in the league for walks allowed with 61. Chicago White Sox starter: LHP Chris Sale (11-3, 2.37) had a personal eight-game winning streak end Saturday when he gave up five runs in seven innings during a loss at Detroit. Sale has three “out” pitches: fastball, slider and change-up. He ranks second in the AL for ERA and third in opponents batting average at .211. Matchup of note: Sale allowed one run in 71/3 innings during a win against the Rangers on July 3, but Josh Hamilton reached base twice in three plate appearances against him. That was noteworthy because Sale has held left-handed hitters to a .205 average and .248 on-base percentage

QUOTE (Frank_Thomas35 @ Jul 27, 2012 -> 08:55 AM) I hate to say it but if you look at these Blockbuster trades for pitchers in the past. The team trading the pitcher always gets this sick package of can't miss prospects back in return. But really how many of those trades have panned out now? Moat of those center pieces had fizzed out or have been average players, basically Beckham and Floyd now. The only return I can think of recently was ATL and Tex swapping Texeria for basically half of the current rangers team. But other than that there is not that great win for any team. Colon for Lee, Sizemore, Brandon Phillips

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 26, 2012 -> 11:07 PM) If I was a baseball manager I'd fail just like Ozzie, cause I'd go with the guy (for a long long time) that the GM and owner acquired for me in the offseason. I mean ultimately I think what Ozzie told Bell in that meeting is true: "We are not gonna win without you as closer." I find it pretty wild that the owner and GM wanted Bell demoted since they and their scouts wanted Bell in the first place. But I'd stick with the hi paid acquisition a long time and deal with the fallout in the offseason if the rotten closer didn't get me fired first. Somebody mentioned Ozzie to the Royals. That actually is just what KC needs. KC has a pathetic team and starting today (Chiefs training camp) will not again draw more than 20,000 for a game. KC could use a loudmouth like Ozzie to steal the headlines for a while. KC can't win anyway; might as well have the sideshow. KC is too cheap to pay for a name manager, however. Oh well, forgive my ramblings. GO SOX. That's not necessarily true. He removed Thornton from the closer's position in May last year for Santos, and Matt was being paid something like $5.5 million. Maybe it wasn't a FA deal or $27 million (like Heath Bell)...but he removed Takatsu as well, in early 2005. Guess Shingo also didn't have such a big contract, compared to Bell or Jenks his last couple of seasons in Chicago.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Jul 27, 2012 -> 05:35 AM) Players on the ML roster I can see being traded: Floyd Humber Reed Thornton Jones Santiago Beckham Escobar Hudson JorDanks Anybody else really can't be traded if the Sox are trying to win this year. The guys I listed the Sox can either live without or replace somewhat easily via another trade. You can add Septimo to that list. http://www.jsonline.com/sports/brewers/gre...-163958826.html Latest from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on possible Greinke trades

Home > Texas Rangers Blog Rangers vs. White Sox, 7:05 p.m.: Why Yu Darvish could be in for a big night 0 0 comments (1) By SportsDayDFW sports [email protected] 11:37 pm on July 26, 2012 | PermalinkRangers starter: RHP Yu Darvish (11-6, 3.88) allowed two runs in seven innings during a win at the Los Angeles Angels on Saturday. This will be Darvish’s first start against the White Sox. Darvish is 7-1 with a 1.70 ERA when facing a club for the first time. In Darvish’s last eight starts, he has held right-handed hitters to a .136 average in 81 at-bats. Matchup of note: A walk is likely when designated hitter Adam Dunn faces Darvish. Dunn has taken an American League-high 75 walks. Darvish has given up 11 walks in his last 151/3 innings and is third in the league for walks allowed with 61. Chicago White Sox starter: LHP Chris Sale (11-3, 2.37) had a personal eight-game winning streak end Saturday when he gave up five runs in seven innings during a loss at Detroit. Sale has three “out” pitches: fastball, slider and change-up. He ranks second in the AL for ERA and third in opponents batting average at .211. Matchup of note: Sale allowed one run in 71/3 innings during a win against the Rangers on July 3, but Josh Hamilton reached base twice in three plate appearances against him. That was noteworthy because Sale has held left-handed hitters to a .205 average and .248 on-base percentage

Comment From Tucker ... Elvis Andrus and Mike Olt for Yovanni Gallardo and Zach Greinke... do you pull the trigger assuming Profar is ready? Cowlishaw: No. I don't like that deal. In general, trading sure thing every day players for hit-and-miss pitchers is a bad idea. See Edinson Volquez for Josh Hamilton, Ernie Broglio for Lou Brock (for you old-timers like me) for more details. Comment From Tucker ... Hit and miss pitchers... Gallardo and Greinke come on... Holland is far more hit and miss than those two and would become your #5 starter immediately! Cowlishaw: Talking long term. Pitchers are all hit and miss in that sense. How's Tim Lincecum doing? How's James Shields, who owned A.L. hitters last year, doing? Why do you want to trade away players who will have value for years for a shot at 2012 when you already have a good shot in 2012? That's what makes no sense to me.

"The White Sox have a good ballclub, and to add a pitcher of his caliber (Greinke) will make a rotation better and bring a lot of confidence to a team," Tigers catcher Gerald Laird said Thursday. "He would make our division a lot tougher. "But I really liked the moves we made, and I still think we're the best team in our division. We've got five quality starters, and that's where it starts -- on the mound. We've gotten a lot better defensively, with the addition of Infante and with (Quintin) Berry in the outfield. Up the middle we're really strong defensively, and now guys have started to swing the bat. "And the 3-4 punch we have (Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder) is the best in the league." www.freep.com/sports (Lowe) Maybe we really will have a repeat of 1908, when those three teams went to the wire for the AL pennant before the Tigers won it. Verlander said that by the second batter of the game, he could detect the Indians' strategy: swing at first-pitch fastballs. "A lot of teams have done that off me, and I feel like that plays into my hands more than it does theirs," he said. "It doesn't really matter (as long as) I hit my spots." In the seventh, he didn't. "I threw both pitches to homer-happy areas to lead off the inning, and they hit them," he said. Verlander had allowed three hits leading up to the seventh -- Shin-Soo Choo's double off the centerfield fence to open the first and a pair of bloopers. "I didn't really feel great," Verlander said. "I never got in a groove. But I was able to battle. A lot of balls were hit at guys." He considered it one of those handful of games all season where he doesn't have his good stuff.

To summarize, White Sox and Tigers likely to make playoffs because AL CENTRAL pitching is so terrible... A year ago, Verlander was 12-5 through July 15 -- he would win his next 12 starts as the Tigers went 46-23 over their final 69 games to run away with the NL Central title. Maybe they'll do that again, although I get a feeling the White Sox will hang around to put up a challenge. And despite the trade that brought in Anibal Sanchez and Omar Infante, the Tigers don't seem as likely to get on that kind of roll. Similar to last season, the Indians seem to be hanging on by their fingernails. Zach McAllister scuffled through 6.1 innings and 117 pitches on Thursday, escaping a couple jams, but he has been the best Cleveland starter of late -- maybe the only one. In fact, in looking at the rotations of the Indians, Royals and Twins, I'm starting to think the AL Central will be sending two teams to the playoffs. Cleveland Justin Masterson, while not quite as dominant as 2011, is solid along with McAllister, but let's look at the rest of the current rotation. Derek Lowe: Let's be honest, Lowe is staring down retirement. Over his past 11 starts he has an 8.07 ERA and has allowed 83 hits in 58 innings. He has the lowest strikeout rate of any qualified starter. Ubaldo Jimenez: He's 8-9 with a 4.97 ERA and thanks to a league-leading 69 walks has allowed the third-highest opponents' on-base percentage of any starter (Lowe is worst). Josh Tomlin: The finesse righty just doesn't miss enough bats to be consistently effective. He has a 5.34 ERA. He had a 5.24 ERA over his final 16 starts of 2011. He throws strikes, but it's difficult to win striking out three batters per start. Kansas City Remember a couple years ago when all those Royals pitching prospects were being highly touted? Well, Danny Duffy and John Lamb got injured and Mike Montgomery struggled so bad in Triple-A that he had to be sent back down to Double-A. Even Felipe Paulino, stolen from the Rockies a year ago, blew out his elbow. It has been a lot of bad luck, which means Kansas City's pitching is as bad as ever. Let's skip over the gory details; Royals fans have already suffered enough. But we'll point out the Royals have a 5.40 rotation ERA and that's not all Jonathan Sanchez's fault. Minnesota Amazingly, that 5.40 figure isn't even the worst in the league. The Twins' rotation has a 5.77 ERA, which factoring in the overall decline in offense and Target Field being a pretty neutral park makes this one of the worst rotations ever assembled. And Francisco Liriano may soon be shipped out of town (not that he has been that great overall, with a 5.31 ERA). The rotation is so bad that the Twins are still throwing Nick Blackburn out there every fifth day despite a 7.99 ERA. Not to pick on a guy when he's down, but Blackburn has made 15 starts and has just two quality starts. Only six pitchers since 1901 who made at least 15 starts have ever had a higher ERA. Four of those came during the steroid era; one came in 1934; and the other was Steve Blass, who had a "disease" named after him after he lost the ability to throw strikes. Stop it, Minnesota, stop it. So you get the idea. The Tigers have 28 games remaining against the Indians, Royals and Twins (their final 13 games are against the Royals and Twins; imagine the starters they'll be throwing out by then). The White Sox have 27 games against those three clubs. That's a lot of games against Triple-A caliber opposing starters and it's why I think the Tigers and White Sox can both make the playoffs. That doesn't mean I believe the Tigers and White Sox are two of the five best teams in the American League. It's all about strength of schedule, which we can see in the season run differentials by division: AL East +84, AL Central -134, AL West +158. In fact, imagine this worst-case scenario for a club like the Angels. Say they win 94 games but lose the division title by a game to the Rangers. And then get to face the 86-win Tigers in the wild-card game. Your reward for winning eight more games while playing in a tougher division: Perhaps Justin Verlander in a do-or-die game. http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/i...d-make-playoffs doniebrasco30The Tigers will be bankrupt in a few years. There owner spends money on fat people because he is old and thinks he can throw money away and win before he is gone. The White sox are a group of players playing in a contracted year or trying to justify the stupid contracts they got. They being in the second city have the revenue to spend to compete long after the tigers. Thats right I said revenue and not money. Dose anyone Know what revenue is? The money you take in. The Dolan's aren't cheep they just take in less money then say the Chi sox and Yankees. Based on the size of the city's that should make sense to dumb people. Or people that think its easy to run a business. I will laugh my $@% off in a few years when Justin V is wearing pin stripes. Not because I like the Yankees , but because I hate the Tigers more than I hate the Yankees or Red Sox or White Sucks.

RHP Kevin Correia would benefit from change of scenery, so #Pirates are seeking trade partner who wants pitching. Correia was moved to bullpen to make room in rotation for Wandy Rodriguez. "I'm not happy about it," said Correia (8-6, 4.24). Pirates shopped Correia earlier this season. Angels might be interested, which would be OK for Cali native Correia. "Starting pitching is what I want to do," Correia said. "I think that's best how I help the team." less than a minute ago See more posts on Pittsburgh Pirates by other experts > Recent posts by Rob Biertempfel Rob Biertempfel #Pirates OF Starling Marte called his 1st-pitch HR tonite. Well, sort of. "Before the game, I told somebody in the dugout that if (LHP Dallas Keuchel) threw a fastball over the middle, I'd take a hack at it," Marte said. "That's exactly what I did." The ball flew over the LF wall. Keuchel was stunned: "I figured he would take a strike just to see what I got. I never thought he would hit a home run on the first pitch of the game. That's a career first for me." Rob Biertempfel OK, one more quick #Pirates OF Starling Marte story ... Marte's mother died when he was 10 years old, so he was raised by his grandmother. She was the first one he called about his promotion to majors. "She was pretty proud. She was crying," Marte said. "Then I started calling friends, girlfriends and everybody else." Um ... girlfriends -- as in, more than one? "Well ... he's an honest kid," coach (and translator) Luis Silverio said, laughing.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 27, 2012 -> 12:06 AM) If you are the Royals, do you fire Yost? Probably not until you have one year with a healthy pitching staff.

QUOTE (Frank_Thomas35 @ Jul 26, 2012 -> 10:28 PM) Come on no chance. Seatle is a long long way from success. Sox are probably looking at bullpen help. Or maybe Figgins to take Beckham's spot after we get Grienke. If SEA is trading The King the are getting a King Ransom of young stud prospects like a return we have never seen. If he is available it's everyone for themselves, NY isn't helping us with Spects for him. And too many teams have the farms to get it done in a second IMO. KW should be fired for acquiring Chone Figgins. I'm sure it won't happen. Yeah, it came from a White Sox mailbag to Mark Gonzales. Everyone's getting caught up in speculating...with Ichiro going, the Marlins' situation, just about ANYTHING seems possible, but on trade day it's usually a massive fizzle out.

Youkilis and Quintana (back) to Yankees for Chavez, Betances/Banuelos and another 3-7 prospect in their top 10 Beckham to 3B, acquire either Weeks/Greinke from Milwaukee OR Acquire Hernandez/Ackley from Seattle for all the Yankees prospects, Reed/Jones, Thompson/Mitchell/Walker

QUOTE (OilCan @ Jul 26, 2012 -> 10:20 PM) I believe in Beckham. I also believe the children are our future, teach them well and let Viciedo lead the way Show all the beauty Sale possesses with a slider inside

QUOTE (bucket-of-suck @ Jul 26, 2012 -> 10:54 PM) There is always the "mystery team" scenario but it may be down to Tex, Sox & Braves for Greinke & Johnson and the pieces may start falling in the next day or so. They want KW's pictures of the Great Pyramid, the Sphinx, Zoraida, his kids and his mom to acquire Johnson. Too injury prone.

Greinke was just offered a contract for $30 million by the Yokohama Giants.

What's the point? We've been in the Top 5 in the AL for most of this season in runs scored. Now we're suddenly worried about offense and KW's position player picks over the last decade? HUH?

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jul 26, 2012 -> 08:49 PM) The Indians' announcers and crowd were more shocked. Lots of jinxes and reverse jinxes calling Tigers' games prematurely this year.

QUOTE (hammerhead johnson @ Jul 26, 2012 -> 09:54 PM) Nobody is talking about pitching in this thread, though. I have no beef with Kenny as far as that's concerned. Who has done better with pitching? What team leads the majors in quality starts since 2003? It's easier to win with good pitching than it to build an offensive powerhouse and add pitching to go with it. Look the Royals for the last 20 years.

You can add Jordan Danks, Escobar, Veal, Omogrosso, Marinez, Heath, Axelrod, Santiago, Nathan Jones, Reed, Septimo, Molina, Hernandez, Castro, etc. Tyler Flowers, too.

QUOTE (hammerhead johnson @ Jul 26, 2012 -> 08:26 PM) Uh, this is what a Top 20 list of K-Dub's offensive draft picks from 2001 to 2009 might look like (and no, he did not draft Michael Morse). Chris Young Gordon Beckham Brent Morel Jeremy Reed Brian Anderson Ryan Sweeney Chris Getz Chris Carter Aaron Cunningham Josh Fields Donny Lucy Brandon Allen Clinton King Robert Valido Jon Zeringue Jay Mattox Tyler Reves John Shelby Jared Mitchell Josh Phegley Trayce Thompson I've never heard of some of those guys - I mostly just included players who were drafted in the first 5 rounds. This is probably the worst offensive run of any GM in baseball, correct? Like I said before, he's getting by on payroll. Anybody can bring in a Dunn, Thome, Dye, Rios, etc if they have the financial backing. You seem like a pretty intelligent guy - it's shocking to me that you don't understand this. But you're missing 2/3rd's of the picture. Nobody gives a freakin' trophy for best farm system or best attendance. You're missing all the pitchers that have been acquired like Sale, Contreras, Garcia, Javy, Thornton (for Borchard), Loiaza (flipped for Jose), Floyd, Danks, McCarthy, Holmberg, Hudson, Richard, Jenks, Santos, Humber, Quintana ON and ON and ON. International free agents, they got Iguchi, Takatsu, Viciedo, Ramirez, etc. PITCHING IS MUCH MORE VALUABLE THAN POSITION PLAYERS, with the possible exceptions of SS, C and CF. Got AJ for nothing....DeAza for nothing....Alexei for virtually nothing (his original contract). Alex Rios for nothing. Got Quentin for Carter, who took 4 years to make a significant impact. K. Walker should be on the list, too. In the end, drafting position players is only 15-20% of what a GM does. KW has compensated in a multitude of other areas.

““I agree with what Ozzie (Guillen) said, how we’re all grown men. If you can’t the take responsibility and not let him (Hanley Ramirez) rub off on you if you think he’s doing something you don’t like, then that’s not really fair,’ Choate said. “That’s putting way to much on one guy and not assuming the blame yourself as a player. I know all of those guys in the (Marlins’) clubhouse and I know they didn’t necessarily mean it that way, but sometimes somebody can become the easy target, the one to blame. “I think it’s unfair to put it on one guy when it’s basically the team as a whole because we didn’t win. One guy can’t carry the whole team all the time. To say it was all Hanley I don’t think is a fair statement but maybe that’s why they made a change — that it’s good to get him out of that clubhouse and get a fresh start in a new clubhouse.” .” palmbeachpost.com/sports

35,000+ in CLE tonight. Good for them. Probably 10,000 Tiger fans. CLE gets two shots to drive in the runner from 3rd to give Perez a 3 run leading heading to the top of the 9th. Avila/Santiago/Infante due up, bottom third of the order. Lillibridge THREE FOR 36 against LHP this season. Amazing. He has a chance to put the dagger into DET. Stealth Elf K's on 3 99 MPH fastballs from Villarreal. What new, Stone Pony?