caulfield12

QUOTE (Knackattack @ Jun 25, 2012 -> 07:03 AM) And playing daily With an iffy back, you just never know. It can go at any time, but you have to trust Hermie and Allen Thomas to get everything possible out of Youk. They've already had this experience with Crede, Thome and Morel. I'd actually argue that playing almost every game in the heat is the best way to keep his back "playable," rather than playing, sitting, playing, sitting. Especially in the heat of the summertime. One wrong swing and he's toast. Could easily happen. But I wouldn't be shocked if he goes on a run, either. Impossible to predict.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 25, 2012 -> 06:59 AM) I don't think the division or his mental state has anything to do with his performance. If he's healthy he's going to find a groove quickly. If his body just isn't strong enough or is too broken down, then he'll continue to be Brent Morel bad as he has been the last couple weeks. With how many mid-season moves haven't exactly worked out and how many post-2008 moves have gone bust, it's time for a reasonable gamble other than DeAza, Humber, Viciedo, Santos and Quintana to pay dividends. Actually feel pretty good about the new vibe it will bring to the team and around the clubhouse. Always good to have those guys with so much playoff and World Series experience around a team that's essentially mostly comprised of either veterans or 1st/2nd/3rd year players.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jun 25, 2012 -> 01:51 AM) I have very strong right hand from many years of use. Now time show what made of. Now you only need to use some of the Moises Alou "special treatment" and you're good to go.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 25, 2012 -> 06:45 AM) It ends up being about a million dollars added for a guy with a bad back. If he can leg out a triple (you could see him turning at least into a 2nd gear round 1B on the replay), then maybe he'll be okay. If nothing else, you have Hudson and Escobar behind him still. Not ideal, but it would be pretty amazing for him to come to a new team (and an easier division) and put up less than a 500 OPS.

It's nice that KW was willing to see the writing on the wall with Stewart and not stubbornly force him on Ventura when it was pretty clear that he was struggling in his role and was going to be hard-pressed not to be passed by other starting candidates like Axelrod, Castro, Molina (crosses fingers) and possibly Santiago. Would love to see Beck from GSU lose some of that weight/muscle and get his mid 90's stuff back. Still believe he'll be better than the four guys listed as well as Pedro Hernandez (who could move into a lefty set-up role with another move or two with the major league roster). With Quintana continuing to be one of the most amazing unknown stories in baseball this year, it's pretty amazing we've lost our last 4 or 5 consecutive Peavy/Sale starts and are still in first place. That's without Danks and/or Humber figuring in... The big (perhaps biggest) concern right now would have to be how hard can Sale and Quintana be pushed in August and September. Danks coming back solves one of those two issues, but not both. That would still leave you starting Humber/Axelrod.

QUOTE (Stan Bahnsen @ Jun 25, 2012 -> 06:00 AM) Our return from the Javy trade just went up. And there's still some hope for Santos Rodriguez...especially when/if Thornton gets dealt this year or in the offseason.

Pirates to Braves to Red Sox. At any rate, the best move KW has made since Sergio Santos was obviously Jose Quintana. His "big impact" moves have tended to backfire since 2008, but this one isn't an unreasonable risk at all and will pay for itself, largely. If nothing else, we'll probably make up half that revenue from Red Sox fans when they're in town who also want to see Youk playing for another team.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jun 25, 2012 -> 05:52 AM) Don't forget that this is a guy who didn't get along with his manager. Bobby V is an ass, but Youk is no saint. Hopefully a change of scenery will benefit him. Carl Everett, AJ, Jenks, Rios, Javy, Swisher, O-Cabrera, Manny...we've had a mixed record in that area taking players with "bad reputations" and incorporating them into our clubhouse. Griffey, Jr., had a reputation for being next to impossible to deal with and he was great for our clubhouse and as a teammate, if not so good on the field.

Nothing to complain about here at all. Reasonable gamble, better than the Manny Ramirez one, less expensive for a lot more of the season AND you give him numerous chances to get back at the Red Sox and prove his true worth for next season and the FA market. Stewart was done here and Lillibridge never became a RV favorite. Just had too big a swing for his approach to be conducive to limited bench play. We will miss his speed and pinch-running abilities, but Jordan Danks can make up for the OF defensive and has above average speed, if not a base-stealer per se. It also should be a popular move from a team marketing/attendance standpoint...it definitely won't hurt.

QUOTE (daggins @ Jun 25, 2012 -> 05:40 AM) Yeah Lilli is a p decent return for the Red Sox. Stewart is just depth, they DFA'd a better pitcher earlier this year. Stults

QUOTE (pktmotion @ Jun 25, 2012 -> 12:11 AM) Half of that were Brewers fans. I generally dislike when front office complains about attendance, but KW has an argument. We go to ~10 games every season, last night was my 3rd game so far, It's a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of things but its what I can do to help. If there's fans here who haven't been to a game yet this season, do me a favor and cancel your soxtalk account and go to a game (you're going to have fun). Yes Brewer fans are cordial, knowledgable and nice; but their cheering is the last thing I want to here when the Sox are down. There were so many Brewer fans last night, you could here booing when the Sox got the benefit from a call. That drives you crazy if you're out there supporting your home team. Back to the same argument. They shouldn't price tickets in a way that they're MUCH more attractive to fans in the Milwaukee area who maybe only come down to Chicago a few times per year...they can justify hotel rooms, paying $90-105 for tickets, because it's a series that now happens between the teams only a few times every decade, where the Brewers are playing on the SouthSide. In other words, that's a unique experience for those particular fans, the whole Chicago/weekend trip experience in general, versus being just 1/81 games on a home schedule. The same phenomenon happened with Tigers' fans invading Wrigley not so long ago. If the Brewers were a better team, if Fielder was still there, there would be a lot more interest on the part of most Sox fans.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Jun 24, 2012 -> 11:41 PM) I agree but the bothersome thing is WE continue this speculation and the under valuing of our own players. For one thing I don't believe Floyd will go anywhere this season as we seeing our own problems with starting pitching suffering injuries. If we are going to compete we need major league picthers and Floyd is one. I don't see us competing with stop gap replacements from the minors. Quintana has worked out but Stewart and Axelrod have struggled. Matt Thonton is a quality left handed relief pitcher. He might be trade bait but not for Youklis. I see is a story that the Sox are looking for pitching too. Maybe we will take a chance on Jamie Moyer? We don't trade anyone and we get a professional lefty starter probably still able to be effective for 5 or 6 innings. The problem is that our ability to lock down games this season hasn't been great...so then we're exposing more innings of our bullpen (with Moyer in the rotation in the heat of a July/August pennant race in Chicago), particularly the back end. Jones has gotten roughed up a lot more recently...will he turn it back around or implode? Could go either way. Then you have the constant issues with Ohman and whoever is in Stewart's spot going forward. That's why Quintana and Peavy have been godsends with all the innings they've pitched, as well as Sale.

QUOTE (oldsox @ Jun 24, 2012 -> 10:13 PM) You trust Kenny more than I do. If it's mostly money Kenny gives away, then it's another Manny deal. If it's prospects, we'll get shafted. We have several prospects worth keeping, and Boston knows who they are. Funny, they weren't so smart to hold onto Reddick when they had no outfield depth coming into this season. That led them to a desperation pick-up of Marlon Byrd, and the likes of Sweeney, Ross and Darnell McDonald starting numerous games. David Ortiz wants out, so does Youkilis, Beckett won't be far behind...it's not like they have recently been the blueprint of a well-run organization. A lot of those bad contracts are finally coming home to roost, it's just that Theo's not around to be held accountable for the mess that he 75% created.

QUOTE (ScottyDo @ Jun 24, 2012 -> 09:06 PM) Wait, since when is Q on an innings limit? Makes sense for Sale whose fate is critical to the future of the team, but Q is not worth handwringing over http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/pro...P=jose-quintana 112 and 39 innings pitched the last two seasons. He's already in the mid 80's. They're going to have to be careful with him when he gets to the 140+ mark. The fact of the matter is with all the uncertainty around this team, they can't just risk injuring Quintana this year without repercussions for the future. Even though he's not a "top prospect," he's becoming a key part of our future nevertheless.

Another major consideration was the contract situation for each. Contreras, who had to waive his no-trade clause to come to Chicago, has $17,382,978 remaining on his contract. The Yankees are giving the White Sox money to cover $1 million of his $7 million salary next year and $2 million of his $8 million salary in 2006. Not nearly half....they actually took on salary overall, because Loaiza was making $4 million that season for the entire year. http://espn.go.com/mlb/attendance White Sox passed the Mariners for 26th. Within hailing distance of the Astros for 25th. KC and Pittsburgh after that.

Greg, if you're going by pre-season expectations, whether reasonable or not: 1) Tigers/Marlins 2) Royals 3) White Sox Most prognosticators had us somewhere between 3rd and 5th, with 4th being the average choice. In the NL East, there was the belief that the Marlins, Phillies and Nationals all had a great deal of talent coming in (obviously the Howard and Utley injuries affected the Phillies greatly), maybe that the Nationals were still a year away, the Mets were in rebuilding mode (certainly they didn't expect much from Santana), and then the Braves were a big disappointment down the stretch and nobody knew what to expect after their late-season collapse. Most people were picking the Marlins for 1st, 2nd or at worst 3rd and everyone had them in consideration for a Wild Card berth.

http://espn.go.com/blog/chicago/white-sox/...de-for-youkilis This Levine article says any pitching/prospects going to the Red Sox would likely be Class A pitchers. No names. Mitchell makes zero sense because of their glut of outfielders already. Other teams are looking to trade for some of their excess. Trading Gavin Floyd makes zero sense at his lowest possible value (well almost, one start isn't going to raise it SO much) and with Danks' return uncertain...as well as how well he would pitch upon return, Humber out, Quintana and Sale looking at IP limits in August/September, etc. Not to mention while Peavy looks great so far, he has to prove he can pitch one full/healthy season in a Sox uniform.

To summarize: 1) The White Sox supposedly bid $25+ million on Soler, meaning they arguably have at least $5-7.5 million in reserve for this season, as the Soler contract would have required something like that in upfront money/payment/signing bonus anyway. 2) There's the possibility Gammons is not credible, but that's unlikely. For example, there were tons of rumors that AA and the Blue Jays really didn't bid as much money as the story "planted" in the press on Yu Darvish. That it was just a PR or spin move to make the fans believe that they were "back in the conversation" as a legit player on the free agent market. Of course, how would this "false story" or "Conspiracy Special" support the message that the White Sox are sending out about being poor and lacking fan support? 3) Roberto Alomar, Carl Everett (twice), Scott Dunn, Scott Schoeneweis, Freddy Garcia, Contreras, MacDougal, Geoff Blum, Riske, Sandy Alomar. Jr., Ken Griffey, Jr., Peavy, Rios, Manny Ramirez and Edwin Jackson would all support the idea that the White Sox historically have always had the money they needed to make acquisitions in June/July/August to support their teams. 4) Perhaps they've done internally marketing that actually demonstrates there's a net positive uptick in attendance/support after one of these stories makes it into the media...that the fans who are "on the fence" do go out and attend a few more games and that part of the boost in revenue is then quickly used to improve the product on the field. If this wasn't the case, why would they consistently put out these same 50 cents/$1.00 stories, especially this year in the face of the dynamic pricing debacle. Call this the "White Sox as charity/non-profit" approach, where the fans are "guilted" into supporting the team and having it continue to exist as some type of community service/philanthropic endeavor by the ownership group. I think while they are making "decent" revenue this year and still not losing money, the overall lowered attendance has gotten so bad that it can't NOT be noticed by fans and media. It's one thing to be 20th-22nd in the majors, but to be 27th and trailing teams like the Royals and Astros is pretty incredible for a team that was in sole possession of first place for 3+ weeks, and much of that time when school was out of session and the weather was decent or great.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jun 21, 2012 -> 01:34 PM) I don't think we're gonna sweep Milwaukee; just a hunch. Going out on a ledge there....

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jun 21, 2012 -> 02:15 PM) I'd honestly take Santiago, but then Ohman is replacing Santiago which won't work. Both Thornton and Santiago have the ability to get righties out, something Ohman is virtually incapable of doing. For perspective's sake, Santiago's numbers since the Oakland blow-up: 2.75 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, .194/.318/.306/.623, ~ 9 K/9, ~ 4.5 BB/9, in 19.2 IP, 16 games And the control has actually been better than that, because in his first appearance versus Cleveland after that Oakland game, he walked two and allowed a hit in 1 IP. You just simply can't trust Ohman against right handed pitching, and that's where the problem lies. If the Sox are interested in doing that at all, then they have to believe that one of Leesman, Septimo, Veal, Rodriguez, or Hernandez can handle being the second lefty out of the pen so Ohman can remain a garbage and LOOGY guy. Without knowing anything about what they throw, my gut tells me to go with Veal, but the 3 I'd look at right away would be Veal, Septimo, and Rodriguez, probably in that order. Like I said though, no idea what they offer, but there are, even for minor league and advanced age players, interesting choices among the minor league pitchers. That's if you were to even trade Thornton for Youkilis. At this point, I'd say Youkilis is worth a shot, but Thornton has more value than that. Haven't looked at the splits yet, but Quintana was death to righties in the beginning this year. Maybe it has evened out. Of course, the problem is that you need him to stay in the starting rotation.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Jun 21, 2012 -> 12:44 PM) Not that you are wrong, but 3 of the 4 seasons we have had Rios, he has been worth more than he has made. 2011 being the odd-year-out, and it just so happen to be SOOO bad that it actually negates all the positive value he provided in those other 3 seasons for us. Huh? 2010 the first half and 2012 (so far)....but 2009 and 2011?

I just hope he's better than the lost former phenom hotshot we got, Felix Diaz. Although Feliz at least beat the Cubs, that was one of his career highlights.

Indians up 8-0 behind Masterson...StL up 2-1, top of 8 in Motown

All things considered, to get through 3 innings with no runs or just 1 scoring is a minor miracle. Now if the Sox only could find their offense.

QUOTE (RZZZA @ Jun 21, 2012 -> 08:50 AM) I'll never understand why athletes show up to work out of shape. I know its baseball but still. Viciedo is fat, ramirez is skinny....its like dude, come on. Your body is your paycheck you gotta take care of it. Tony Gwynn says hello. It seemingly worked with Dunn...and don't think Dayan would lose any of his power if he slimmed down 10-15 pounds. He's never going to be svelte, any more than Carlos Lee or Josh Kruk could be, or Spanky Lavalliere. We'll have to watch it with Hawkins, our draft choice. He was around 270-300 when he was 13.