caulfield12

The main thing with that Tigers series out of the ASB is not getting swept. 1/3 is fine...a sweep puts the White Sox on their heels a bit and brings all those 2nd half slide questions back into everyone's minds.

Escobar, when you take into consideration his fielding and age, definitely Top 3. The Myers blocked by Cain and Francouer scenario is kind of a nightmare in the making... Agreed about Betancourt, that was another version of Willie Bloomquist...better to give those opportunities to a youngster. In the end, the Royals have been bitten hard by all those injuries, moreso than most teams. That said, they will have to spend money on a Hamels or Greinke caliber of frontline starter. They did it b4 with Meche, although he was really more a 2/3 guy and obviously injury-prone. Maybe an Erik Bedard...that at least has the ABILITY to be a 1/2, even if his stats or injury history is questionable. Francisco Liriano would be another possibility. Two guys like that....or one "surefire" frontline starter, and they'll be in much better shape moving the rest of the rotation back on spot.

Mitchell ends the day at .251 after going 0/5 overall. Trayce Thompson 0/4, 2 K's, .232. Needs to be at least in the .240's or .250's.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jul 7, 2012 -> 08:24 PM) You'd have to think about it...hell, give them Gavin to make it seem better and see if you can squeeze any money out of them EDIT: It still blows my mind that teams do that stupid backloading. Why won't one team just frontload a contract so the player is likely to get paid a fair rate based on his age. The problem is that with Floyd returning to form, you have to once again start considering that $9.5 million team option for 2013. Especially with Danks' situation so mysterious, Molina falling off the map and Castro's situation a bit up in the air as well. Still, we have a LONG time to figure everything out with all of those guys, including Gavin. So adding Buehrle and subtracting Floyd doesn't do anything at all for the depth issue...unless you can get two starters back somehow.

We did it with Magglio. In 2004, his contract had escalated all the way up to $14.5 million and it created an argument from the standpoint of management that there was just no way his next contract year would be better than $15 per year or could even average 15...therefore, Magglio was going to look at any offer as a cut. We backloaded AJ's two year deal as well, as another example. Or Dunn's, I think. But none quite so dramatically as the Buehrle one.

Until Humber proves otherwise, or Axelrod REALLY gets rocked in his next two starts (it's not really fair to judge him tmrw on 3 days' rest against a TOR team that's ultra-dangerous, trying to fend off a sweep and playing in a day game when the ball should be jumping out of USCF)...it will be Dylan's spot for now.

QUOTE (oldsox @ Jul 7, 2012 -> 06:08 PM) Anybody here follow the Boston papers? Pretty soon we'll be talking about signing him for 2013. He has a $12 or $13 million team option for 2013....or a $1 million buyout. No signing or re-signing argument, the numbers are already clear.

My Floyd for Liriano deal is looking silly now, but probably in another month it might look good again. Obviously, Floyd's going on one of his hot streaks again. Definitely was due.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 7, 2012 -> 11:21 AM) 26 year old with 24 career big league innings doesn't scream "more experience" to me. Well, somehow you have to have a feeling Cooper saw him somewhere and mentioned him. In the Ozzie book, Morrissey mentioned how one of the bigger conflicts last year was Cooper wanting to pitch Santiago and Ozzie preferring to go with veterans in the pen like Ohman and thinking they were still in it...

Not sure if it was announced, Axelrod will start on short rest Sunday with the whole bullpen ready to go from the get-go.

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ Jul 7, 2012 -> 07:05 AM) I was also at that game. I probably will be making the Athletics series in the second week of August, work schedule does not allow for anything sooner. Have to fly back to Shanghai/Manila the 6th...so only two series are possible for me this year.

Beckham (0 for 9) and Alexei (0 for 12) don't have a hit against Romero. Rios, ex-teammate, is 5/12 with a homer. Youkilis has to be the pick to click. 8/23, 3 HR's.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Jul 6, 2012 -> 11:58 PM) Kenny said that Chris Sale is going to get at least 1 more "two week break" at some point in the season to give him a rest and hopefully delay his shutdown at the end of the season. Now that last half was speculation on my part, but the "two week break" was straight from Kenny. Didn't they just have another MRI in the last 2-3 days to compare the results from the first one? White Sox enter today's play with only three teams having better records....NYY, Rangers and Washington Nationals.

The Submission was simply excellent. Now on ALEPH by Paulo Coelho, the Tiger Mother book (Amy Chua) and just finished the Guillen/Morrissey tome. Then a HUGE book, IQ84 by Haruki Murakami. Does anyone else here like David Foster Wallace?

I would trade Floyd for Liriano... Although it probably would be a wiser move to ADD Liriano without subtracting Floyd. The problem is that the Twins don't need Mitchell, they already have Span and Revere, who are similar players. The question is how long they want to hold onto Denard, and whether they believe he's worth the money they will be paying him in arbitration. The next question is what besides Mitchell would it cost to get Liriano for the rest of the season. Probably at least one other piece...they will, like all teams, ask for Nathan Jones and get turned down. So maybe Liriano for Mitchell and Santiago. That would be a trade which accomplishes things for both organizations.

July 24/25 or August 3rd/4th? Would love to meet up with anyone, even Marty34, haha. My last Sox game (in Chicago) was the one we lost 20 something to 1 or 2 to the Twins (2009, I think)...so the goal/objective of this pilgrimage is to "reverse the curse" and also because we have 16 road games (not worried, we are better on the road) out of the 19 coming out of the All Star Break. PM me if interested. I'm probably going to be driving up from the Quad Cities with my best friend's dad, he's also a huge White Sox fan...was going to go this week/weekend but it's just too hot.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 7, 2012 -> 02:43 AM) Hey, could it be Ozzie had a bad year last year, as Kenny had a bad year and the players had a bad year last year? Actually the last 2 years of pretty bad baseball? If you think it's all on Ozzie, fine. If you think Ozzie's performance is why the players failed, fine. I happen to not think that. I think it's shared blame with the majority of it on the ballplayers. Is ozzie imperfect? Of course. But they call it a "team" for a reason. I look at the big picture and I think the big picture indicates Ozzie was an unqualified success in Chicago. When people blast away on him, I can't help but stand up for him even though he and his millions of dollars do not need my support. Even though he'd tell me to f*** off if I met him in a bar and told him I stand up for him on soxtalk. He'd call me a loser. Too bad, I think he was a good Sox skipper. If the answers to all your questions are "it's Ozzie's fault," fine. I do not believe this to be the case. Yet I also do not believe Ozzie is perfect. Now you're sounding exactly like Ozzie. Why does his financial success always get brought up? Many would argue that actually he's not a very happy person in actuality, hence all the drinking. That he has become a victim of the monster that he created in 2005 and is trapped by the Ozzie "public persona" of always having to one-up himself to get attention. Ready my signature for further clarification.

SAVAGES is freaking awesome. One of the best movies of the year. And Blake Lively...never a huge fan of hers, but that was one of her best performances. Taylor Kitsch was actually decent even. Del Toro was right up there with one of his most detestable performances. Stone still has it, occasionally, at least, despite all the conspiracy theory stuff.

Ranking the system right now would be a huge pain in the ass. Thankfully, there's the new infusion from the June draft. But, for example, the Dominican kid (16 yo SS) we signed, there's just no way to know where to stick him in the rankings. A few guys have been pooh-pooing Hernandez, for example, because of his K rate, but at some point, where do results start to move him up the charts, ala Axelrod and Quintana, versus more toolsy/stuff pitchers? Where do you put someone like Molina, who KW would still probably say with a straight face is one of our top 3 prospects? Which Mitchell is the real one? Same thing with Thompson and Saladino...how do you rate a bullpen arm (Soptic for example), versus a starting prospect, like Simon Castro?

Jared Mitchell must have gotten a call from KW. Get hot for at least one month again kid so I can package you for Hamels/Greinke.

1) Ozzie Guillen ALWAYS defends his veterans over the younger players, see Pierre/Viciedo or playing Rios all last season or Dunn over Lillibridge. Already publicly defending and then simultaneously not defending Bell is going to get him nowhere in the clubhouse. 2) Greg, how can you explain why the White Sox have the best outfield defense in recent years when last year it was probably the worst? 3) Greg, how can you explain why the White Sox are actually having very good success throwing out and holding on opposing baserunners? 4) Greg, how can you explain why the White Sox actually having a consistent line-up from day to day hasn't been a stabilizing influence? 5) Greg, how can you explain why some of the players like Peavy, Dunn and Rios who have been pretty bad in recent seasons with the Sox (to the point where a lot of fans wanted them waived/released/salaries dumped) are suddenly playing the best and carrying the team this year? 6) Greg, how can you explain why Ozzie and Cooper are now dealing so well with 10+ rookies on a team when Ozzie struggled to deal with 1-2-3 on a roster? 7) Greg, why have Robin's "Sunday line-ups" been working, whereas that strategy hadn't worked for Ozzie for YEARS? 8) Greg, why are we now having some decent success against journeymen/left-handers/soft-tossers/AAAA pitchers? 9) Greg, why are we hitting so much better with RISP this season?

QUOTE (RZZZA @ Jul 6, 2012 -> 10:47 PM) The pitching and fielding on this team is so awesome! How does it all come together like this? It amazes me. Even the rookies who nobody expected anything out of are coming up and pitching beautifully. When things come together like this you can only say...championship? Hold on. We still have to get Sale, Quintana and Peavy through August and September. We still have to get another starter and probably one more piece for the bullpen. That bullpen is doing fine for now, but they're all ntested in the heat of a pennant race. Who knows, that might actually work in their favor, but not counting on it.

Maybe they just want someone with more experience over Septimo or Omogrosso? Not sure. Their bullpen could use another veteran, especially if Crain's out an extended period of time.

3 years is just crazy, unless it's a team option only, like with Gavin.

Remember John Van Benschoten, lol...? That didn't work so well. Yet another relief candidate for our deep pool. Obviously, at some point, he was highly thought of by at least ONE GM, haha. This is the pick that got Littlefield axed. The Pirates selected Moskos with the fourth pick in the 2007 draft. Although Baseball America rated him as the 8th best player in the draft, there were better players available, including several potential impact hitters. The Pirates, however, were unwilling to pay the money needed to acquire Scott Boras client Matt Wieters. For some reason they also passed over Georgia HS prospect Jason Heyward even though scouting director Ed Creech lived in Georgia. Instead, they fell back on their Littlefield-era default choice of college pitching. Moskos signed in mid-July for $2.475M. Moskos’ high rating by BA and other observers was a little puzzling all along. He was Clemson’s closer in 2006, but converted to starting partway into the 2007 season. He threw in the low- to mid-90s with a lot of life as a closer, but only 89-92 when starting, and by the end of the season he was down in the high 80s. Moskos supposedly had a “wipeout” slider that served as his out pitch, along with a curve and change that were not as well regarded. BA described his command as average. He has a high-effort delivery and had little projection at the time of the draft, so he was probably about as good as he was going to get. His college numbers were good but not overwhelming; for one thing, he allowed far more baserunners than the typical dominating college hurler, especially one pitching mainly in relief. As a starter, scouts projected him in the middle, not the front, of the rotation. Many observers thought he’d return to the bullpen as a pro and, in fact, the Pirates said after the draft that he’d be a closer. It’s difficult not to draw the conclusion that, aside from money, the Pirates were influenced by two other factors in making the pick: Salomon Torres’ struggles as closer shortly before the draft and the desire to get bullpen help for 2008, when they figured to be trying to avoid tying the record for consecutive losing seasons. If so, the selection belied former GM Dave Littlefield’s statement, made shortly before the draft, that the team would take the best player available regardless of specific needs. As if the questionable ceiling wasn’t enough, Moskos had to face the ominous prospect of being a first round Pirates’ pitcher. At the time of the selection, the Pirates had taken pitchers first seven times in nine years. Five of the seven saw their careers derailed by major arm surgery and one other went nowhere due to arm problems and poor command. Two of the seven were relievers in college yet still ran into major health problems as pros, so the fact that Moskos had less wear than some college pitchers did little to reduce the risk factor. His high effort delivery also contributed to the injury risk. For all kinds of reasons, this was a baffling and frustrating selection. It also created a furor among Pirate fans that seemed to catch management off guard. In fact, the best thing that could be said about the selection is that the resulting, and justified, criticism probably contributed to Littlefield’s long overdue firing. 2007 R: 0-0-0, 0.00 ERA, 1.33 WHIP, 3 IP, 0.0 BB/9, 9.0 K/9 A-: 0-0-1, 4.26 ERA, 1.97 WHIP, 12.2 IP, 4.3 BB/9, 9.2 K/9 Moskos’ performance after signing didn’t help quell the uproar. After a couple warmup outings in the GCL, he went to State College and pitched poorly. A .328 opponents’ BA in short season ball is not exactly what people expect from a guy taken fourth overall from a very strong draft pool. There were conflicting reports about Moskos’ velocity, but most indicated it got into the low 90s at least some of the time. 2008 A+: 7-7-0, 5.95 ERA, 1.51 WHIP, 110.1 IP, 3.5 BB/9, 6.4 K/9 Opened in the Lynchburg rotation, as the team’s new management believes that pitching prospects should at least initally be brought along as starters to get increased work. Unfortunately, Moskos pitched poorly from start, getting hit hard, struggling at times with his control, and posting a K rate far below league average. He regressed over time, culminating in a horrid July with an ERA of 11.81 and more walks than strikeouts. The Pirates blamed the July collapse on fatigue, but Moskos wasn’t pitching well even before then. His offerings left scouts thoroughly unimpressed, as his fastball was generally only in the high 80s and his slider bore no resemblance to a “wipeout” pitch . Scouts also questioned his conditioning. The only positive was better pitching after Moskos moved to the bullpen in August, posting a 2.61 ERA and fanning 20 in 20.2 IP, with 17 hits allowed. For the year, his problems came mostly against RHP hitters, as he was effective against LH hitters. He also had a high groundout to air out ratio of 1.89. 2009 AA: 11-10-0, 3.74 ERA, 1.46 WHIP, 149 IP, 3.5 BB/9, 4.7 K/9 The Pirates promoted Moskos to Altoona and put him back in the rotation. He showed improvement from the start, but for much of season his walk total was higher than his K total. He survived by inducing large numbers of groundballs, as he had a 2.10 GO/AO ratio for the year. Late in season, he started putting up better numbers. He fanned 27 while walking only six and allowing 31 hits in his last 33 IP. Moskos’ stock took another hit, though, in the Arizona Fall League, as he struggled there and generated abysmal scouting reports. 2010 AA: 3-1-21, 1.52 ERA, 1.02 WHIP, 41.1 IP, 3.5 BB/9, 9.4 K/9 AAA: 0-5-1, 10.38 ERA, 2.65 WHIP, 17.1 IP, 10.4 BB/9, 9.3 /9. Back at Altoona in 2010, Moskos opened the season as closer and seemingly turned things completely around. His fastball was in the mid-90s regularly and his slider was effective again. He dominated both right- and left-handed hitters, fanned more than a batter an inning, and got a lot of groundballs. At end of June the Pirates promoted Moskos to Indianapolis and he seemed finally to be on fast track to Pittsburgh. Unfortunately, he completely imploded in AAA due to an inability to throw strikes. He struggled in pretty much every outing and eventually went back to Altoona, where he picked up where he’d left off before the promotion. It’s hard to understand how he could have such different experience from moving up just one level, but evidently AAA hitters weren’t chasing pitches that AA hitters were chasing. Even at Altoona the one, seemingly minor flaw in Moskos’ pitching was somewhat shaky control. 2011 AAA: 1-1-3, 3.43 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, 42 IP, 2.4 BB/9, 6.2 K/9 MLB: 1-1-0, 2.96 ERA, 1.56 WHIP, 24.1 IP, 3.3 BB/9, 4.1 K/9 The Pirates added Moskos to the 40-man roster after the 2010 season and sent him back to Indianapolis to open 2011. He pitched well in April and got called up late in the month. Except for one brief spell in May, he stayed in the majors until July. He continued pitching well in AAA until August, when he struggled. His numbers in AAA were good except for the low K rate. He was very tough on left-handed hitters (.533 OPS), just decently against right-handed hitters (.729 OPS). As the WHIP shows, he didn’t pitch as well in the majors as his ERA indicates. He tended to fall behind hitters and didn’t show the stuff he supposedly had in 2010. His fastball sat at 92 and topped out at 94, and his slider wasn’t very effective. He had a huge reverse platoon split that was probably a fluke. He did continue to be a strong groundball pitcher and allowed no HRs. The Pirates generally tried to use Moskos in low leverage situations, in contrast to Tony Watson, so it’s clear that Watson has surpassed Moskos on the depth chart. Moskos adapted much better to AAA in 2011 and pitched decently in the majors, but he didn’t show the outstanding stuff that he supposedly had as a closer in college. Combined with his shaky command, it’s hard to see him as more than a middle reliever unless his stuff takes a step forward. He did have a good spring in 2012, but lost out to Tony Watson for the one lefty spot in the bullpen. He’ll open in AAA and will probably appear in Pittsburgh at some point. UPDATE: Moskos continued to get uninspiring results in AAA in 2012 and, in late June, the Pirates designated him for assignment to clear 40-man roster space. It wouldn’t be surprising if he cleared waivers. piratesprospects.com