caulfield12

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 1, 2011 -> 02:48 PM) Dude is also making $19 million a year, which means there is no way we would have spent for an Adam Dunn anyway. Cabrera>Dunn/Teahen

Why is Princess Leia drinking? Hopefully Carrie Fisher isn't a White Sox fan this season. THE FORCE is not with us.

Greg, I don't see how you gave up on Buehrle versus Andrew Miller so quickly yesterday. Tonight's game, or Saturday night's, yeah...that's a bit more understandable. Or at least waiting until Quentin and Dunn left the bases loaded. That was undeniably the time to head for the cinemas or swimming pool.

Daniels and Epstein I'd have confidence doing better....he very quickly learned after the Danks/McCarthy fiasco and then Chris Young/Adam Eaton/Adrian Gonzalez/Aki Otuska mess. Trading away Francisco Cordero. He started off looking like one of the worst GM's in major league history and quickly learned on the go...with one of the most interesting "non-baseball" backgrounds ever. Good testament to trust the staff underneath you, instead of trying to micromanage everything yourself, like most super egotistical Beane-like GM's who think they walk on water and can never step in shi- because it simply doesn't exist in their world. With our revenue streams, there's no way we couldn't have a comparative level of success with the Giants, Cardinals, Angels, Phillies or Mariners (early 00's). The Yankees, Red Sox and Cubs, those are unfair comparisons. And the Rangers not so long ago were technically bankrupt thanks to Tom Hicks risky real estate buyouts and leveraged buyout of soccer teams.

If we had the players in our system, we would have gotten Miguel Cabrera instead of DET. With Cabrera, we don't need Dunn probably, since Konerko would be at 1B (and some DH). Cabrera getting majority of AB's at DH. Or if we had traded Beckham, we'd have Adrian Gonzalez there now. If either of those two things happen, we're leading the AL Central now going away. Last year, you can point quite easily to the Thome swap. Keep him around....deprive him from the Twins when Morneau goes down and they're screwed. They would have had to trade Wilson Ramos for another hitter and then they wouldn't have had a closer down the stretch. Rauch would have been getting battered out there in the 2nd half. Or if we'd kept Chris Young instead of trying to save money on the Javy acquisition (getting money back from the DBacks when we were absolutely FLUSH with cash and season ticket buyers going into 2006), we'd have never needed Alex Rios. Those four things changed the future of this franchise from very bright to pretty so-so. We could have easily survived the Peavy situation if almost any of those four things had happened. Luckily we didn't get Fukudome when we outbid the Cubs for him, or things would have turned out worse (or Hunter, or Rowand). Well....maybe not, because we'd have had a disappointing player instead of still owing Rios $43 million.

But now that he's adopted the Captain Crunch diet, we're really doomed. You can't go wrong with the Captain.

Rios against CC 8/33....3 doubles, 3 HR's, 5 RBI's Chances of that past history having any relevancy on tonight's Rios performance? About ZERO.

Depends on what the definition of "is" is. Haha.

Fair enough, like Dick Allen defending Walker, it's nice to have a good debate and not just "so and so sucks." And you're right, if we had Dan Evans instead of KW, probably we don't end up hiring Ozzie or putting together the 2004-2005 offseason and our team is now completely irrelevant....like the Astros, Mariners, Orioles, Cubs or Padres. But I really wonder if Alex Rios genuinely spends as much time trying to think of ways to improve as we do writing about it here in our "free time"???

Don't forget O-Cab, Swisher and Javy...not to mention Daniel Hudson's not-so-veiled shots at the Sox.

You can go through all the drafts and do this... But the most recent ones, missing Garza in the first round for a collegiate "control" pitcher...not having the guts (and this is true of the rest of baseball, unfortunately it was a division rival) to pay Porcello's demands, not having a Maybin/Miller who at least LOOKED good enough to pry away Miguel Cabrera from the Marlins instead of him coming to the Southside...or the more recent Trout/Mitchell one. If we don't go over slot in the drafting process, then you can't come up total ZERO in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. For christ's sake, our manager is one of the most famous celebrities in the history of that country and we have what...Gregory Infante or Clevelan Santeliz (I know he's gone now) to show for it? The irony is that Ozzie's machisimo nonsense...he has to challenge every single Hispanic player like Miguel or Victor Martinez when he has the chance instead of showing them the respect they deserve and walking them. Maybe it all started with how he had that sniping contest in public with Magglio Ordonez? Yeah, yeah...we got Omar Vizquel 5-10 years too late, yay! And if you blame Dave Wilder, then the lack of accountability STILL bounces back to KW. If anyone in Obama's administration messes up, who does the GOP point the finger at? It seems like KW has gotten a lot of slack for his lack of institutional control and trusting or being loyal to his "lieutenants" too much. And congrats, we've finally gotten away from drafting football/baseball hybrids and deferred instead to finally picking "pure/refined" baseball products like Gordon "Future Jeter" Beckham and Keenyn Walker instead of the Mitchells, Fields and Borchards of the world. Losing that draft pick with Adam Dunn just about adds enough insult to injury...God hope that Chris Sale becomes the next Randy Johnson as a starter and shuts everyone up for awhile. In the end, letting Ozzie overrule KW on the Thome situation...for the flexibility of Kotsay/Andruw Jones, great if it was Kotsay/Jones closer to their primes. Same with Juan Pierre, or Manny Ramirez, or Ken Griffey, Jr. or Darin Erstad or nearly every veteran we've added the last 10 seasons. Every time KW does something that doesn't work out, it's blamed on Ozzie Guillen...such as Juan Pierre. Everyone knows that speed players lose their burst in their 30's, and Pierre's gone from leading the league in stolen bases on year to Michael Cuddyer the next. Pods, same thing. If you play 81 games at USCF, how can you possibly have so many low OBP/low OPS players on one roster? Well, it's because Ozzie wants NL-style players. If the 2005 roster was the blueprint....great starting pitching, just enough offense, lockdown bullpen, was evidence right there in front of your nose, why did that concept just totally get abandoned over time? Because we got more obsessed with beating the Twins and copying their system than having our own? Well, that worked out quite well, thank you very much. 7-29. None of our players came up together through the same system. That's why you had Alexei Ramirez never trusting Mark Teahen to his right...or this year, not trusting Juan Pierre behind him. You have some of the worst fielding fundamentals in the AL that are hidden behind the best fielding percentage. You have almost 10 pitchouts where the runner's going still end up unsuccessful. And yet Tyler Flowers is clearly worse than AJ. We might as well have made Dayan Viciedo a catcher. Orioles? Same thing as the Royals until about 5 years ago. Or the Pirates. They couldn't decide whether to totally rebuild from scratch or keep adding in expensive veterans and trying to compete on the fly with Angelos' money instead of a strong minor league system. We're not quite in the same position as the Mariners, but we're not far off either. Fortunately we have a lot of built-in advantages in the AL Central....nothing like the Rangers or the LA market to deal with (especially with the Dodgers' franchise foundering). Other than Konerko (and it's an anomaly how he's gotten better in his mid 30's without steroids), giving any slugger a 4+ year contract in their 30's is almost never ever a good idea. You have to give those deals to players who are 27-29 when the contract begins. We're totally outside of the prime window of Dunn's career, but we're paying premium/prime dollars to what is ostensibly a DH-only player when those kinds of dollars should be going to superstar players in CF, SS, C, 3B and 2B that are difference makers in a line-up....like an Utley or Pedroia, Hanley Ramirez or Jose Reyes.

I'll agree 100% about Dunn and Peavy. With Rios, they just didn't do their homework. KW prides himself on doing his "due diligence" and talking to people all around baseball about a guy before an acquisition....as well as the key members of his own team. Physically, he's one of the most POTENTIALLY talented players in baseball. And GM's/Scouts fall in love with these guys and never give up on the idea of acquiring them or being the guy who finally turns their career around. It's just not about talent with a baseball team. We've always been more talented than the Twins until the last season. It's just that you can't keep turning around 6-7-8-9 players from the roster every single season unless you're willing to oscillate up and down like the stock market. KW tinkers way too much...for most of the last 3 seasons, this team and organization has had ZERO identity. Who are they? I think that's one of the 20 or so reasons fans just can't quite get behind this team. And KW's secondary moves.....Pierre, Teahen, Linebrink, Manny Ramirez...almost all of them have been colossal busts recently. But if you didn't have Gio Gonzalez and Hudson pitching well for other teams and Beckham flailing away for two consecutive seasons when we were promised and hyped Pedroia/Utley-esque numbers, there wouldn't be a problem for so many with KW. And then there's been the failure to even countenance a change in the hitting coach or just shaking up the coaching staff in general. I guess we fired Tim Raines, yay! That had a big impact, clearly.

Rosenbloom's article today is one of the most direct shots across the bow against the White Sox (not cheap shots from Cowley) that you're likely to ever see. And every Sox fan can't find a single word to disagree with, for a change.

Well, since Rios is stepping into the bucket and/or pulling his head off nearly every pitch, opening his stance couldn't make things any worse. Or could it? But he won't give up that stupid Bagwell/Canseco/mini-CQ crouch that's killing all his power. That and the hand position.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=Aju5...s_losers_073111 Look for the Red Sox or Yankees to possibly claim the $39 million remaining on Wandy Rodriguez's deal....and work out something. Unless KW claims him first.

Well, we certainly spent a lot of money on Pena to prove he isn't good....which we already knew before this season. Should have been non-tendered, but KW would have looked bad again.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 1, 2011 -> 07:54 AM) I could certainly see Kuhn getting some "Beckham Day Off" at bats. They'll probably go to making Vizquel's career numbers look better with a few more hits on the resume. Because that's how Ozzie rolls.

Hey, he's an aggressive tweeter. How can that be lazy? I hate Teahen the player, but the off-field/clubhouse guy has a great sense of humor.

You'd have to say Jose Contreras was the biggest "off the scrap heap" move that KW ever made. And B. McCarthy wasn't a high draft pick, and he netted us Danks...who will be getting a payday contract from SOMEONE (not us) for close to $100 million. Quentin, too. Alexei. Pods and Iguchi. AJ. Dye. Many, many examples. But these last three years have almost worn out the patience of most Sox fans. There are fewer and fewer willing to defend either him or Ozzie these days. Especially with Rios/Dunn/Peavy rearing their ugly heads on a nightly basis.

The Ellsbury play I didn't notice that part (the late break)....only letting Pedroia get to 2B when there was absolutely ZERO reason he should have been able to get there. That run didn't score, but it easily could have.

QUOTE (Lillian @ Aug 1, 2011 -> 07:00 AM) The physics of the swing are that the longer the arc of the swing, the longer it takes the bat to travel to and through the hitting zone. The length of the arc is determined in part by the length of the batter’s arms and the length of his bat. The longer his arms and his bat, the longer the arc. A tall player, with long arms, can reduce the length of the arc by choking up. Choking up also provides that added advantage of increasing the hitter’s control of the bat. A big strong guy like Dunn could choke up, reduce the length of the arc, increase his bat control, and still hit the ball a very long way. The greater number of times that a guy that big and strong can make contact, the greater the number of times a ball has a chance to leave the park. Why is this not obvious to baseball people? He should choke up, and then emulate Konerko’s short and quick swing. If it were that easy, they could fix Gordon and Rios, too. 75% of it is confidence...his long swing and "slider speed bat" has always been there. Power hitters will never be comfortable choking up on the bat. Even singles hitters rarely choke up these days. And there's a larger issue. He's so far off the plate, he needs that bat length to reach the outer half. Now whether he should be so far off the plate...that's another issue altogether, but he obviously feels comfortable there compared to crowding the plate like Quentin does.

It's the implication that because Detroit (as a metro complex, real estate or auto industry) was on the verge of total collapse and due to the fact that Chicago's comparatively healthy (healthy enough to be wiped out in Transformers 3, imagine if Detroit was the target!!!)... But the Tigers are the ONLY game in town, everything is cheaper, they're in first place and have been for a good stretch and they've got the best pitcher and arguably the best hitter (or 2nd to Pujols) in the game today. There's a whole lot more entertainment value there, that's for sure. For the good of baseball, it's nice to see the revival, temporary as it may be...in CLE and Pittsburgh. Those cities have been hard hit, too.

It all depends on what KW is planning for Sale. Rotation....then it's certainly justified to keep Thornton. If not, he's a bit expensive and superfluous if we're in salary-cutting mode. Ohman is certainly not a solution in any important situation. Santiago might be the answer, but he's a ways off. Or Santos Rodriguez from the Javy deal.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 1, 2011 -> 06:02 AM) Why in the blue f*** would you cheer for the goddamn Indians? Not now. Eventually, if the White Sox are eliminated. As long as it's not the Twins. Verlander could actually put a scare into the Yankees in a short series.

QUOTE (JPN366 @ Jul 28, 2011 -> 02:38 PM) I think it is, because the male is considered more valuable. Plus, my boy's a carnivore. That would be more true if you guys were both Chinese, lol. Has anyone seen Friends With Benefits yet? For the record, Brooklyn Decker isn't that hot either. Or maybe models always have a way of coming across so flatly onscreen. I remember way back when when Cindy Crawford tried a movie called "Fair Game" with one of the Baldwin Brothers and it was, quite simply, an unmitigated disaster. I guess there's always Charlize Theron or Cameron Diaz. They've done well making that same transition.