caulfield12

Was trying to post this into the last game thread but it just archived. As far as the #2 hitter, our choices are AJ and Ramirez. That's it, nobody else profiles well up there. You could theoretically stick Fukudome up there if he was to start sharing time with Rios. Lillibridge is probably better at leadoff or down in the line-up. He strikes out too much for the 2 hole, unless he can learn to tighten up his swing with 2 strikes. Morel's approach in the game yesterday was the opposite of the way he started last year. Intead of looking just to make contact and hit the ball up the middle and to RF, he's pulling his head off and pull happy. No way he could make contact with anything on the outside of the plate or off the plate, especially a breaking ball or offspeed pitch.

Santiago's definitely one of the top 3 candidates for the rotation next year. We have to replace Peavy and Floyd. Theoretically, at this point: 1) Molina (based on projections) 2) Santiago 3) Stewart OR Axelrod (whichever remains a starter) 4) Simon Castro 5) Doyle 6) Shirek 7) darkhorse candidate who emerges from A ball, probably Petricka or Jefferson Olacio

Let's face it, one of those 42 games per season that could have gone either way. You just want to get at least 1/3 in Texas and hopefully 2/3 or 1/3 in CLE, as long as you don't start the season 0-6 or 1-5. The Rangers weren't in the World Series the last two years for no reason. Lewis is a very crafty pitcher, he had our hitters behind all game long, second-guessing themselves, throwing first pitch strikes, taking pitches they should have swung at and swinging at pitcher's pitches. That's what a good pitcher does. He doesn't throw more than 89-91, but he definitely knows how to pitch, a poor man's Greg Maddux.

Billy Wagner says hello. But yeah, there haven't been so many of them. John Franco, Jesse Orosco, Tug McGraw, Sparky Lyle, former Sox pitcher Wilbur Wood, BJ Ryan, Brian Fuentes, etc.

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ Apr 6, 2012 -> 03:03 PM) 4 K's and an error that led to the go ahead run? Good to get your worst day out of the way early. The first one wasn't an error, but it did allow Hamilton to get to 2nd base. Beltre was out at first, but Young followed with the hit to give them the 3-2 lead.

Despite his ST success, Escobar's probably never going to have the stick to be more than a super-utility guy. Just going on his minor league track record. If he becomes the equivalent of Jose Oquendo or Joe McEwing, that would be great. If we're ever going to replace Morel, it's going to be with Lillibridge or McPherson (if he's still with the organization, not sure).

When you have the luxury of using Addison Reed in the 7th inning, and it's the first game of the season, it's the right decision. And not just because it actually worked, but we have a deep bullpen for a reason. You can argue that Fukudome should have been PH for Rios, but it's a bit early to undermine the confidence of what has to be one of our most important players in Rios, whether we like it or not. The real question will be how much rope Ventura will give to an Alex Rios before he starts PHing for him.

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 6, 2012 -> 02:37 PM) IT IS! When did people get the idea that the Sox are actually trying to contend this year? KW doesn't make the trades that he did and then not bring in free agents to play a key role if he was trying to get this team into the 2012 postseason. Opening Day, there's always the HOPE/FAITH that we can actually surprise when we're huge underdogs coming into a season, or flying under the radar. But that's about it, blind fan optimism, nothing else.

Typical ending against Joe Nathan. Thanks Gordon and Brent for not giving us much confidence (again) that you'll ever be major league regulars because of your hitting woes. Well, on the bright side, maybe Adam Dunn can be productive again, and Lillibridge can cover for one of Rios/Morel/Beckham, but that just leaves this season as a developmental one. Hopefully, at least one of Beckham/Morel can have a good season offensively.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Apr 6, 2012 -> 02:23 PM) thank you. It's more the lack of execution, those dreaded little things, that's frustrating. If they were just getting beaten, that would be one thing. Not getting Viciedo over to 3rd, not hitting with RISP, DeAza getting thrown out stealing with Dunn/Konerko coming up, Morel getting eaten up a couple of times by that super-fast infield when supposedly he's our best fielder after Ramirez. The Rangers have played better fundamentally and they responded quickly when we tied the game. And their bullpen is one of the better ones in the game. But we'll see about Nathan. And moral victories this season will get old if Beckham, Rios and Morel look this bad on a consistent basis again.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Apr 6, 2012 -> 02:21 PM) I'd say Mike Winters #1, Brent Morel #2 Rios might be a close 3rd. So not only the four K's, but the ball that ate him up allowing the 3rd run to score, another error this inning...and striking out with Viciedo on 3rd, although that's more on Beckham and DeAza for watching 5 strikes fly by without even swinging once.

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 6, 2012 -> 02:18 PM) To me, the league realized he has no plate coverage and knows he can't do anything with a pitch on the outer half. Teams should never, ever throw a pitch on the inner half to him, as that's his only chance to be dangerous at the plate. Hawk kept talking during ST about how good he looked, but whenever I saw him bat, he was hitting pop ups off the end of the bat. DJ said the same thing, and yet the guy had an OPS around 600 in spring training. I guess the "institutional" story is that he's taking a different approach and going up the middle more often, working hard with Manto, blah blah blah, but he still hits more weak fly balls to RF than Frank Thomas and Joe Crede combined.

What's that now, 0 for 7 with RISP? Morel is having an all-time horrible game. At least Beckham had cheap hit to RF, even though he was overmatched most of the game and perhaps had the worst AB of the game when he had an early chance to get Viciedo to 3B with one out. And Alex Rios still sucks. Reed looked great at least.

And Rios supposedly has more value (in trade) as a RFer than a LFer. If Rios even keeps his job for the whole season.

Santiago's definitely still in the mix, too. In fact, lots of roto league articles are popping up around the net with that exact speculation.

Well, the fact that we're pretty clearly one of the perennial 5 worst teams in terms of drafted talent...but have a top 5 record in baseball for most stretches of the 90's through today, says something about the jobs that our GM's have done during that time stretch, particularly the last 10-12 years. It's not like we can say the $100+ million payrolls from 2006-2011 really were primary reasons we had winning teams, although that also certainly hasn't hurt, either. We've just not allocated our money as efficiently ever since 2005.

No relation to Jose Can You See (Offerman)? That's the dude from THE OFFICE, right? At first, I thought it (Craig Robinson) was going to be Michelle Obama's brother who coaches BB at Oregon State, I think.

Even though it's NSFW, it reminded me of the SI Swimsuit issue and how tame that used to be, compared to now. Especially with that whole body-painting trend, which seems to give license to nearly any woman to be sort of provocative and "artistic" without being completely slutty...if you think of all the female athletes who've gone this route for pictures in the last decade. See-through (I was surprised by THAT look in one of the pictures) is definitely tacky, comparatively. I think the same 3 girls must have changed into 5 different outfits or more during the course of the night.

He was very good his first 2-3 years in Pittsburgh, playing away from the Chicago spotlight. Of course, that was 10 years ago, but he had some serviceable seasons recently, with the Cardinals, among others. I wouldn't be any more shocked to see Kip Wells as our 5th starter in 2013, compared to Dylan Axelrod, for example.

Rubio is scary, as a DEM, for the future. He'll be hard to stop, if he survives the vetting process, and he will easily turn the 25/75 disadvantage to 75/25 the other way around in terms of driving the Hispanic vote. As far as debaters in my lifetime, that I've seen personally: 1) Mario Cuomo 2) Bill Clinton 3) Jesse Jackson 4) Barack Obama Picking Santorum is insane. Hilary Clinton has the same exact demographic in terms of her appeal, and his presence on the ticket will scare almost every woman in America out to vote. Obama's ego is too big, and so is Biden's, but the perfect countermove to that would be placing Hilary on the ticket as VP.

365 days now from today, the Kip Wells signing will look even more genius than the Mitch Mustain one.

http://larrybrownsports.com/baseball/frank...pictures/127997 Frank McCourt's new g/f. Is it just me or does it look like she has a black eye in the shot without the shades?

Is that Chuck Norris?

QUOTE (flippedoutpunk @ Apr 5, 2012 -> 08:05 PM) Thanks Brian. Btw, what is up with the pricing on the authentic Miami Marlins jerseys? I was trying to order an orange Giancarlo one and the thing was 320 dollars! An authentic Konerko jersey is around 215? Anyone know why the 100 dollar difference? With how cheesy they look you would think that would be enough to make people avoid buying them, but setting the price at 320?? I remember when an authentic jersey price over $100 was a bit steep, just more than 20 years ago. Or New Era caps were available for under $20. Now they're selling for about $50 here in China, the real ones, not the fake/knock-off ones. With Stanton, probably because of all the newfound excitement around that franchise, the colors, his rising status as a superstar, let's call it "dynamic pricing" for jerseys as well as tickets. Supply and demand, interest is much higher in Reyes/Ramirez/J.Johnson/Stanton jerseys than ever before in the history of the franchise.

Nor has he shown any ability to 1) hit for any power or 2) stay healthy or 3) play adequate defense.