caulfield12

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 14, 2012 -> 03:13 PM) Yep, Wilk seems to have found his release point on his pitches. At this point, I'd take CoJack over Dunn against LHP. I'd take Herve Villachaize over Kojak. Should have played Brent today to give Dunn a mental break.

This almost feels like the 2005 season, where the starting pitching dominates, we get a few clutch hits and the bullpen shuts down the opponent and rarely blows a lead. Obviously, that team had a lot more power, but not by much (Dye/Everett/Thomas when he was healthy, along with Konerko/Crede/AJ).

11 k's in 24 AB's for DUNN, 60 K's for the team. First time that Wilk's mother has seen him pitch in-person in the big leagues. She's a teacher in CA. 61 K's, Paulie still without a homer, but coming up with the clutch RBI's. Rios, well, at least he didn't strike out.

Shades of Carlos Quentin there with D. Young. Payback there for Young from his days with the Twins? Three DP's in four innings, could have had a fourth if not for the super close call at 1B with Boesch running. (Of course, that would have prevented the subsequent DP). But can't count on the defense carrying us all season long.

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 14, 2012 -> 03:01 PM) He almost has to get sent down if this keeps up for a few more weeks. Another reason the Fukudome pick-up was a good one. Lillibridge can play 2nd, otherwise we'd be using Jordan Danks as our 4th OF. It will be interesting to see if they prefer to use Lilly as a starter or give Kuhn a chance. Probably will be Brent first, Kuhn as last-ditch option.

Rios and Beckham both have only 3 hits so far, Gordon 3/21 (143). Morel looking no better. 2/21 for Morel now. Yikes.

Floyd dialing it up against Cabrera, pulling out a 94 MPH fastball to get the final strike. Our percentage of throwing out runners is much better this year. Yay for small improvements in fundamentals. 50 pitches now for Gavin, that was a much more reasonable 10, thanks to the double play.

QUOTE (knightni @ Apr 14, 2012 -> 02:46 PM) Like Buehrle...? More like Jamie Moyer, Bruce Chen or Tom Glavine in the latter years. Tigers still don't have a win from a starting pitcher yet. You can partially blame Papa Grande for that, as well as Verlander choking the other day with a 2-0 lead in the 9th against the Rays. Both hits to Jackson on 1-2 pitches. NOT GOOD, GAVIN. You've got to put a guy who is perennially a strikeout leader away.

White Sox offense is the Cuban Connection. Otherwise, not so much. 59 k's. Still looking for any differences from the Walker years. I guess it's the fact that we're getting some clutch hits and hits with 2 outs.

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 14, 2012 -> 02:39 PM) Pretty strong crowd there today Low 30's, high 20's? Not making Wilk work hard here...not even making solid contact yet. Last April 2nd, we were 2-0 and in sole possession of first place in the AL Central. Haven't been in 1st since that moment. The Cuban Missile launches, whereas the North Korean missile failed.

Raburn was among the league leaders in homers this spring, started 2/23 now. Reminds me of the spring Wilson Betemit hit 8 dingers. Meaningless. Around 40 pitches already, so we'll need the bullpen in the 5th or 6th inning in all likelihood. Dirk only threw 82 MPH in high school, has always had other pitchers throwing much harder than him as long as he can remember. Raburn was 12/32 (.375) before that AB against Floyd. Got off lucky.

Good hustle and positioning by Beckham to back-up Konerko on the put out at 1B.

2 games in a row Young got hit. White Sox now with 58 K's and essentially leading the AL, but only ahead of 3 AL teams in runs scored. The only two teams ahead of us, Oakland with 64 and Seattle with 59 K's, have played 8 and 9 games respectively. As Fathom said earlier, Floyd doesn't throw hard enough to leave those fastballs over the plate, needs to use his offspeed stuff to put hitters away with 2 strikes.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 14, 2012 -> 02:36 PM) Ellsbury to the DL, separated shoulder, could be out 2+ months, not decided yet whether or not surgery is necessary. Maybe they need Alex Rios, haha.

Along with all those guys who succeeded, Jon Rauch was the #1 prospect, or at least in the top 5-10, on every list that came out. Matt Guerrier would later be traded for Marte. Josh Fogg would become part of the trade for Todd Ritchie, ouch. The likes of Lorenzo Barcelo (White Flag trade), Brian West and Jason Stumm wouldn't make it, lots of injury problems, particularly with Barcelo, Stumm and Rauch (labrum and an attitude that didn't sit well with KW and many) Danny Wright was productive for a couple of seasons and then flamed out. Matt Ginter was on the US Olmpic team with Rauch and in the Top 5 of our system. For most of that time, the two pitchers (other than Garland/Kip Wells) who made the most impact ended up being Buehrle and Josh Fogg, who were just on the outside of our Top 10 or in the 9-15 range during those years. Just before that, you had Parque and Snyder, not to mention Durham/Ordonez/C-Lee. We also got Foulke and Howry from the White Flag deal, Caruso, etc. Of course, this was the "These Kids Can Play" era and we had a lot of high draft picks at that time, to be fair. Oh, and I just remembered Rocky Biddle and Gary Glover, although I think Glover came from either the Jays or Brewers. Scott Eyre, too. So many.

Probably figures no reason to shake things up when we've won 3 in a row...and then the mysterious "rainout" line-up with Beckham leading off which might have been tongue-in-cheek. Surely there'll be some changes if Beckham, Morel and Rios struggle today again with multiple K's. Maybe Dunn too, although Porcello's a righty so not sure you'd want to sit him in punishment for a bad performance against a LHP when he should be playing every game against RH pitching.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Apr 14, 2012 -> 08:48 AM) The FOX games today are at noon. So there shouldn't be any blackout for the Sox game at 3, as FOX's window is from 12-3. But I'm pretty sure they can black out anything from 12-6, nevertheless. They do that for MLBTV games even, unless you're outside of the country.

Fernando Vina also comes to mind, but his career was wrecked by injuries, too, not just Beckham's psychological "malaise." The question with Kuhn is how many more runs would he give up defensive, compared to the possible offensive payoff? Can he really put up a 700-725 OPS at the major league level? If he can, it's probably enough to offset Beckham's 575-625 OPS. But that's a big if. Clearly, KW isn't convinced or he would have protected Tyler. If he (Kuhn) can have a career like Aaron Miles or Joe McEwing, I'd be elated. Tyler has an 804 career OPS in AA and 773 in AAA. He started out almost at 1000 OPS with Great Falls and struggled more in Kannapolis and Winston-Salem, but was still promoted to BIRM the following year.

It wasn't so much as getting to the ball, it was more the effortless way he shovelled it instinctively to Beckham. Very few players in baseball can make a play like that, regardless of the position. You could tell Beckham was surprised...he almost fumbled it and double-clutched, which would have allowed the tying run to score. There are very few shortstops in baseball today that can field worth a darn and put up a 725-775 OPS.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Apr 14, 2012 -> 09:40 AM) If this bullpen is for real, comprised of Jones, Reed, and Santiago, these minor league rankings will have been rendered meaningless. They're not meaningless. 1) KW forgot to mention that he built the #1 farm system in baseball in the 1999-2001 time frame. He wants us to believe that with a decade of experience, he's somehow become "worse" at promoting the system? 2) Producing relievers (even closers) is great, but you can't have more than a .500 or so team without producing All-Star caliber position prospects and starting pitchers. At best, the jury's still out on Beckham, Morel and Flowers. Viciedo and Ramirez were experienced international players from the time they were 15 or 16. Brent Lillibridge and Alejandro DeAza, at least at this time, our looking as good or better than anyone we've produced internally in the last 5-7 years in terms of position prospects/hitters. Saladino, Mitchell, Walker and T. Thompson are all a long ways from contributing at the major league level. Stewart and Molina (albeit 2 starts) have been disappointing. Still, if the White Sox win the AL Central or make it as a Wildcard, nobody will care if our system is ranked 20th or 30th. As far as promoting the system, that falls just as much on Buddy Bell as it does Williams. If the team is worth $750-900 million, they can afford to hire five people in the front office who do nothing but promote Sox prospects. Heck, they could find five here at SoxTalk who would do it for free. It's not even so much about promotion, it's about production. Right now, all we can do is brag about identifying and drafting Gio Gonzalez, Daniel Hudson, Brandon McCarthy, David Holmberg, Clayton Richard, etc.

Yep, only six teams in the majors have a better record. And we're 2-2 against arguably the two best teams in the American League...all while setting a pace for the most strikeouts in American League history. "We're not here to dictate what his managerial style should be," Williams said. "So far, what I've seen is an aggressive, intelligent approach to making his decisions. That's all you can ask. "He's got such a strong presence but a humbleness about him. (Combine) that with the confidence you just don't find very often ... and when you are like that and not pushing people away with their opinions, you are going to get the (best) of their knowledge." Ventura joined Guillen, Jerry Manuel, Terry Bevington and Gene Lamont in winning his first home game as Sox manager. And how did he plan to celebrate? With a quiet meal with family. chicagotribune.com/sports

Maybe Angel Berroa with the Royals...

QUOTE (greg775 @ Apr 13, 2012 -> 11:00 PM) Just read the espnchicago column. I wonder if Robin will turn to Lillibridge at second if Beckham continues to be this bad at the plate. That's the most logical place to play him, because you have Fukudome to replace or platoon with a (predicatably) struggling Rios. Lillibridge can take Beckham's place. The one area you can't fix easily is Morel failing too, because Escobar, while he hit well in ST, is going to be a 550-650 OPS bat in the majors, unless he's miraculously improved....but no scout in baseball projected him as an everyday starter at SS due to his weak bat. That means you're left with the likes of Dan Johnson or Conor Jackson if Adam Dunn completely falls apart again. Let's hope it doesn't reach that point. The best replacement for Morel is probably Dallas McPherson, but "best" there is nothing to brag about. Not only that, but then we have to put AJ (our second best power hitter) or Ramirez in the 2 hole to replace Brent, unless you have Lillibridge or Fukudome there.

Guessing 80-85% of America will be stuck with Yankees/Angels/Pujols, right? Then you've got Cubs/Cardinals and Mets/Phillies at 3. So forget seeing the Sox, lol.

I'd just like to know where the Morel from the last 6 weeks of 2011 and the Adam Dunn from ST and the first two games of the season went? Adam's 2 for his last 17, saw 30 pitches yesterday and didn't put one in play, sigh. Morel's numbers would look a BIT better if you gave him a hit instead of an error the other day in CLE. And he did contribute positively with an RBI single and a well-placed bunt, his 2nd in 2 consecutive games.