caulfield12

QUOTE (Lemon_44 @ Jul 21, 2012 -> 02:47 PM) why is that not true and the other story is? Baseball-wise, it's a good move. He's had one incident, disputed at that, I'm not going to judge the guy. Except there were many witnesses. It happened in a public place. And being drunk or bombed or lit is no excuse for ever hitting a woman, period. I hope you wouldn't accept that excuse if a brother-in-law of yours used it.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 21, 2012 -> 02:41 PM) Which is why it's very unlikely he'll be made the closer. Brett Myers, Astros - $10MM option vests with 45 games finished or based on a points system. Myers has finished 23 of the club's 70 games and is a trade candidate. If he continues to close, the option seems likely to vest. If Reed fails again soon, there might be no other choice. And the other thing to consider is they're already going to be paying him $3 million NOT to close...a little bit like the issue of filling Peavy's spot in the rotation with his $4 million buyout.

Northsidesawx, it's on the borderline of something that's hard to excuse. We wouldn't be saying "relax" if it was rape or something like the Sandusky case...but it's going to be very polarizing for the fanbase. Some won't accept him no matter what, others will be more forgiving if he goes out and performs. If it was your sister or relative who was beaten up, you might feel differently. I read the "PR spin/feel good" story earlier in the thread, but that doesn't necessarily make it the truth.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 21, 2012 -> 02:35 PM) Doesn't Myers' 10 million dollar option automatically kick in if he finishes 16 more games? For that reason, I doubt he's going to replace Reed. It's not clear whether it's finishes/closes or just appears in....from the looks of it, it's 40-50 appearances. That must have been something that KW and Luhnow discussed in terms of future payroll obligations. OR, KW really has grave concerns about Reed and just picked up a $10 million veteran closer for 2013, the antithesis of the youth movement in the pen. That really makes the money tight for AJ, Youkilis, Floyd and another starter for next year. Only 2 of those 4 will fit.

Myers is in the final year of his contract, but he has a vesting option that could guarantee his $10 million option next season if he appears in a certain amount of games. Rosenthal reported in June that the best estimate would be between 40 and 50 games, because the Astros reworked his contract when they converted him from a starter to closer before the season. The move makes sense for the White Sox, who have the third-worst bullpen ERA in the American League. Rookie Addison Reed, the team’s closer for most of the season, has a 4.24 ERA and has converted 15 of 18 save opportunities. SI.com (Rosenthal)

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Jul 21, 2012 -> 02:32 PM) For a rookie closer, he has had a great season. Demote him? WTF. I'll go back to the Greg/Rongey response. Guys who are paid $11 million to close aren't going to be setup guys for rookies making the league minimum. We'll see.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Jul 21, 2012 -> 02:24 PM) I've never booed a Sox player before, but I'll boo this piece of s***. Just goes to show you, KW isn't always a stickler about bringing questionable (at best) character guys into the clubhouse. It has blown up in the past with the likes of Lofton, Swisher, Cabrera, Javy, C-Lee, Magglio and D'Angelo Jimenez, to name a few. I'm pretty sure winning with a DV assailant is probably worse than being a fan of a player who used steroids, because the steroids just cheated the team, the fans and the game, but didn't actually injure or hurt another person in the process of abusing them.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 21, 2012 -> 02:25 PM) I think he'll do well as a set-up man. His stuff has been impressive, and his numbers got blown up by one really bad game he had. One would guess they would demote Reed and take the pressure off him. Santiago or Septimo...one of them will go, hopefully Hector. Could be Veal, though. Actually, just for last night, Donnie deserves another chance for nutting up.

QUOTE (Baron @ Jul 21, 2012 -> 02:23 PM) Itll be really interesting to see what we gave up and what his role will be here. Who cares if no one likes him? No one likes AJ. Except AJ never punched his wife in the face in public...well, not that it even matters whether it was public or private, but it's a whole different animal when you're talking domestic violence versus playing cards in the clubhouse or watching Florida on tv instead of prepping the pitchers.

On June 23, 2006, Myers was arrested and charged with assault after witnesses saw him punching his wife, Kim Myers on a downtown Boston street after an argument.[24] The Phillies received criticism from some media members and women's organizations for not benching Myers.[25] Myers took a short leave of absence from the team.[7] During a pre-trial hearing on October 5, 2006, Kim Myers indicated that she did not want her husband prosecuted, and despite the prosecutor's insistence of filing charges, the case was dismissed. The couple has been in marriage counseling since the arrest.[26] wikipedia.com

QUOTE (danman31 @ Jul 21, 2012 -> 02:17 PM) That's awfully optimistic. I don't expect Meyers to hold much value, but what would be the point of them trading for those two? Maybe Heidenreich and someone with a bit more value than Wilkins. The Sox have a history of trading guys soon after a promotion to try and improve the player's value though. That $3 million buyout will lower the return, plus his salary this year is 11 million, so you're looking at something like $3.5 million in salary alone....it won't be a great prospect if they're taking on all that salary and the buyout as well.

Well, I'm 100% sure KW talked to Gavin about him. ■11:$7M, 12:$11M, 13:$10M club option ($3M buyout) A commitment of $6.5-7 million dollars, with that buyout. One would think we didn't give up much at all to clear that buyout from their payroll obligations. So we have buyouts now for Peavy, Youkilis, Thornton and Myers now.

Make him a starter, make him a starter. LOL. Well, closing in the NL Central is a lot different than doing it against the Yankees, Red Sox, Tigers, Angels and Rangers.

Look at the Sox this year. Santiago, Thornton, Sale and Reed already have struggled. Jones would surely get pounded right now. Crain? Or CrainWreck? We know he doesn't do well against the Tiggers consistently. Really at a loss....maybe Omogrosso, but he can't throw an offspeed pitch either. He'll get it about 15-20% of the time to work, but that's it.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-leag...21968--mlb.html Poor Gordon is now officially "posterized." The equivalent of getting dunked over in the NBA...haha. Something about Reed's fastball, it's not consistently crisp, either. Sometimes it's THERE, other times, it's a liability. For a closer, you need to have more consistency with your #1 pitch, if it's not going to be the slider.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Jul 21, 2012 -> 10:36 AM) Sale Viciedo Quintana Reed Jones Beckham (I still believe he can turn it around. Likely? Maybe not, but I think he can.) Konerko (I want him to retire here). Not with that huge hitch in his swing. Look how fast YOUK gets to the ball, with a similar set up. And he's 7 years older. Or Rios, compare last year's swing with this year's. Beckham has no chance to hit a fastball anywhere but into RF these days. The ONLY pitch he can possibly pull is a breaking ball. With that stance, when he tries to turn and burn, he just fouls it back or into the 1B/RF stands....EVERY time.

QUOTE (bucket-of-suck @ Jul 21, 2012 -> 11:14 AM) Anybody else have an awful feeling about these next two games...? I will have an awful feeling about Sunday, if we lose today. We usually don't do well against rookie pitchers we've never faced before. Turner has either been great or horrible, no inbetween so far.

QUOTE (Benchwarmerjim @ Jul 21, 2012 -> 04:39 AM) Liriano has had an insane amount of swing and misses the last 2 game. its somewhere in the neighborhood of 50. It's funny. Ryan has to be considering trying to re-sign Liriano (if they want to compete for the AL Central anytime soon), because he's far and away their best pitcher now. Unfortunately, the Mauer and Morneau contracts make that close to impossible.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Jul 21, 2012 -> 09:53 AM) Walker is looking more and more promising. I think he's the guy I'd least like to lose in a deal. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't he profiles as a Kenny Lofton-type leadoff hitter? That's a stretch...he'll probably be more like Juan Pierre or Pods. Lofton was an exciting, dynamic game changing player, both offensively and defensively.

Broken record. DeAza needs to get on base like he was the first 2 1/2 months, Youk needs to continue to be superman...seriously, the Tigers and Red Sox just have much more dangerous and balanced line-ups than we do. Beckham hasn't a homer in like 6 weeks, but we keep worrying about Viciedo? Dunn's striking out every other at-bat and not giving us many productive outs? Even if our line-up is scoring, we don't have the bullpen to hold leads. It's like the perfect storm now, with the Tigers cresting and the White Sox trying to ride out the storm. Konerko will not be moved down. He's either hitting clean-up or out of the line-up entirely.

Inexperienced pitchers in the bullpen that throw 90%+ fastballs=15 blown saves The end.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Jul 20, 2012 -> 10:41 PM) My point was that I normally don't hop in a thread and declare BEST MOVIE EVER. I am declaring best movie ever. It's not even in the Top 5 of Nolan's career. 1. Batman: The Dark Knight 2. Inception 3. Memento 4. Batman Returns 5. The Prestige

QUOTE (Jake @ Jul 21, 2012 -> 08:02 AM) The Sox are all professionals, and they know that these series 90 games into the season don't mean s***. You want to win every game against the Tigers and you'd like to always be in first place, but there's a lot of baseball ahead of us. "Biggest series of the season" is a tremendous overstatement with all of the games left to play. The guys on the team are just trying to win because wins are good, not because their fans get too worked up over every divisional game. They also know that there a few guys on offense not clicking, we're short two starters, and our bullpen is full of unfamiliar names. Some of that will change and the sky won't be falling anymore. You just have a feeling each season when there are key points. Two years ago, it was the Jenks blown game and then the Thome GS off Thornton to put the icing on the cake. The White Sox are like a boxer who was just knocked down. They have these two games to get up off the canvas. All those conditions you're using as excuses have been there all season long, nothing's different...and Ventura isn't about to start making excuses now..."Well, the Tigers were always the favorite, they have more talent and a higher payroll, we have too many rookies to contend, they don't have any holes in their line-up other than 2B, we have 3-4-5 on any given night, etc." We all knew 16/19 on the road was going to be a b****, and it has been. The Tigers also have a difficult schedule from here on out, too, but they also have a huge home field advantage with sellouts every game for the rest of the season...another advantage the White Sox won't have. To top it off, they have the advantage of being able to go out and add a starter or 2B...and the luxury of having Smyly and Turner for the future, depending on who they trade (Castellanos, they've got 4-5 other really good prospects to go along with him). The final game of that Red Sox series was an inflection point in the season. I highly doubt the Tigers if they get going are just going to collapse like the 2008 Twins did at the end. That said, worst case scenario, we have a decent shot at edging out Boston and Tampa Bay simply because we have so many games against the Twins and Royals, if we can prove that we can beat them. In all honesty though....Ellsbury, Crawford, Pedroia, Gonzalez, Ortiz, Middlebrooks, Ross/Sweeney, Salty and Aviles...there's just no way in hell to argue the White Sox have anything approaching the firepower of that line-up. They're better. But it will come down to pitching, as it always does, in the end.

QUOTE (Swingandalongonetoleft @ Jul 21, 2012 -> 01:26 AM) It's one and the same. Movie theaters are a big part of our culture. Opening fire on a packed theater brings the same results as airplane hijackings, suicide bombers, or hostage takers. It makes people wary of going about business as usual because their sense of security has taken a hit. Armed robbery and gang violence typically have a specific target. Unless something comes out saying otherwise, this guy didn't have a specific target in mind. His target was anything breathing that he laid eyes on- just like the shooter in Norway. It doesn't matter who's behind the gun firing and for what reason- it matters that there is a gun being fired to begin with. Slippery slope is the concern here. People like to feel safe and the ones who make the rules are well aware of this. This was my school's topic for Model United Nations this spring. They first had to agree with all the other represented countries on a definition for terrorism. Obviously, that's not so easy to do. For example, the British representative brought up the idea that Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Revere, Madison, Hamilton, etc., all would would have been tried and executed for "terrorism" had the US lost the Revolutionary War. Fair point. Terrorism is in the eye of the beholder. Bane in Batman is by most people's definition a terrorist, even though he's not a "foreigner." Some people get caught up in this idea it has to be a person with a different religious belief, which is patently false. Or skin color. This kid was suburb looking (for some reason, he reminds me of Jude Law when they keep showing that picture), honors student, budding scientist...so he's therefore NOT a terrorist, at least in the minds of most. Heck, George Martin could be defined as terrorist by the African-American community....or the police, for that matter, totally depends on your POV. We want to put people in the box of "other" or "that would never be my child." To find somewhere to assess blame. Movies, parenting, computer games, lack of control, everyone should have guns and therefore it wouldn't happen because people would think twice...did the shooter actually plan on dying when he went into that theatre, like the two kids at Columbine when they went to school that day? It doesn't seem like he was quite sure what he wanted as the outcome. The guy in Norway clearly was selfish enough that he wanted to live so that he could go on spreading his "message" in perpetuity. If there's no reason for doing something, specifically, does that make it any more or less terroristic? Heck, you can argue that "pointless" or non-strategic violence and murder creates more fear than anything else, even if it's not the original intent.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jul 20, 2012 -> 08:42 PM) The question is better phrased as "Who is our most valuable asset?" The answer is clearly Chris, even with the injury concerns. Then I think you've got Alejandro, Quintana, and Dayan. Of the well-paid players, I'd have to say Alex. Ooops, somehow forgot DeAza. Probably because I couldn't conceive of a situation anytime soon where they would be trading him, with Mitchell going south and Rios so comfortable in RF. He's one of those guys who has a lot more value to the White Sox than what we could get back for him if we put him on the trade market. But it would be interesting to see what AJ, what Alejandro, what Dayan, what Quintana, what Alexei are worth right now to other GM's. Still don't imagine there are any GM's who would take either Rios or Dunn for their remaining contract numbers with no player coming back to the Sox.