caulfield12

Having Lillibridge at 1B instead of Dunn is already "winning." Forget about anything he might provide offensively.

Balta, do you really think season ticket holders are going to buy Peavy/Floyd/Humber/Sale/Stewart? I wouldn't call that "stacked." I would call it arguably the worst rotation in the division except for KC...that's four huge question marks. Even if Peavy pitches as well as he has the last 2-3 starts, like a 2-3 starter and not a 5. Does anyone want to count on Humber for next year, with how things have gone south the last month? DET has Verlander, Scherzer, Porcello, Fister and Jacob Turner locked up through 2014. CLE has Jimenez, Masterson, Carmona, Carrasco and Tomlin. http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/6827458/...rong-top-bottom Minnesota looks to be better than us with Liriano, Baker, Blackburn, Duensing and Kyle Gibson. We obviously don't have the hitting, our bullpen will be weakened losing Thornton/Crain/Frasor (possibly 2 of the 3) AND Sale. Ohman or Santiago would be the primary lefty, unless we get one in return for Danks or Quentin. Theoretically they keep the suddenly expensive Thornton, but payroll has to go down. It's certain they won't be able to keep Thornton/Crain/Frasor when they cut the payroll. As much as we might not like it, 2012 also is riding entirely on the shoulders or Rios/Dunn/Beckham. All of them have to be great because Konerko won't or can't keep this up forever, and Viciedo still we be essentialy a rookie, so expecting him to replicate Quentin's numbers from 2011 is pretty much unrealistic. Balta, do you imagine any season ticket holders being enthused about ponying up for tickets solely based on optimism about Viciedo and the prospects we get back for Quentin/Danks? And with the better than 50/50 chance now of losing Buehrle? It looks scary. KW simply HAS to get any trade for Crain/Frasor, Danks and Quentin 100% right. ZERO margin for error at all.

Even if you add Humber/Sale/Santos/Viciedo to your list, we're still close to screwed. Tell me how you plan to bring back Buehrle, Quentin, Danks, Floyd and Konerko next year. The numbers will never add up no matter how much you tweak things. I'm sure they can trade Thornton for a Type B prospect and/or Frasor (or take the compensation pick back) OR Crain. But every move that eliminates one of those five remaining core players from the team puts your further away from contention in 2012. Trade away Ramirez and it's still hard to imagine how that can make you better short-term.

Against RHP the last 6-8 weeks or so, what are Brent's numbers? They have to be pretty darned abysmal. Obviously the homer off Joe Nathan was nice, though.

Sign him to an extension in the offseason and then trade him. Joking...well, sort of. That wouldn't go over too well with other players, obviously. Although I wouldn't put it past KW.

1. Allen/Pena flop 2. Swisher I 3. Swisher II 4. Javy deal (unless you feel Lillibridge was the main target and not Flowers and are willing to buy it just as a salary dump) 5. Jackson/Hudson/Holmberg 6. Teahen acquisition and extension 7. Juan Pierre 8. Manny Ramirez 9. Crain hasn't even looked like a great signing considering our commitment going forward 10. Paying Thornton like a psuedo-closer with his extension 11. Rios 12. Dunn 13. Peavy (not the deal itself, but what has happened since) 14. Ohman (mehhhhhhhhh, wasted money) 15. Being "All In" with a one pitch closer and Brent Morel as your starting 3B Everything KW has touched has turned to crap. If this team just stood pat after 2006 (with the exception of the Thome deal) or 2008, we'd be 200% better off than we are today without all of Williams' incessant tinkering and fixing and adjusting. Allen's power numbers, Carter's power numbers....even Brent Morel's last year in the minors, pretty much meaningless at this point.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 9, 2011 -> 10:34 AM) What on earth are you talking about? Allen's power is his best attribute and is going to be the reason he has a career in the majors at all. In 250 games at the AAA level, he hit 57 homers with an Iso of .266 and he showed excellent plate discipline. Recently, Allen has actually been hitting lefties quite a bit better, which is what actually turned him into a legitimate prospect. He doesn't appear to hit with near the same power against lefties, but he can absolutely be a quality, .850 OPS type 1B at the MLB level. And this is coming from a guy who has never really liked Brandon Allen and hasn't been overly harsh on Williams about the Pena trade. He's not going to have to hit .320 or .330 - that's absurd, really - because he's going to be able to produce 25-30 homers a year. Do you really think KW would have traded Allen for a middle reliever if he truly believed he would have put up those numbers with the Sox? At the time, there was a TON of uncertainty about whether Konerko would still be with the Sox long-term. And, just as importantly, with uncertainty about Thome going forward, they desperately needed a LH power bat in the pipeline. So if he was really going to put up 25-30 homers per year, why did the White Sox and DBacks give up on him so quickly? Why aren't the A's playing Allen or Carter there (1B/DH) TODAY? Their season is already over, playing Conor Jackson does them no good at all for the future. 850 OPS? Really? Is that in a platoon or with everyday playing time? Are you sure you're adjusting those numbers for the PCL or wherever he's been putting up those 57 homers? He is striking out once every 2.5 at-bats at the major league level and hitting around .200. We should have just kept Joe Borchard and stuck him at 1B if those numbers were the goal. We already have Adam Dunn to do that, we don't need another.

I think relieving the pressure on DD and Leyland with those contract extensions was meant to mitigate Leyland's tendency to push Verlander to the brink of his arm falling off...you do wonder how long his arm/shoulder/elbow can hold up with that kind of workload. Can anyone who's a "freak of nature" like that continue to defy the odds forever? Bo Jackson certainly didn't. Nolan Ryan, for the most part, did.

http://thebiglead.com/index.php/2011/06/28...in-mlb-history/ TED SIMMONS, 84 Brewers It was appropriate to see two players (Bell/Everett) with White Sox connections on this list. Would Kotsay have made it last year based on a full season of at-bats? I was guessing someone like Jim Sundberg was the actual answer.

I was joking about the Olympics thing. If the Greek team finished Top 3, it would have been more of an upset than the US over the Soviets in 1980 at Lake Placid. Or the Russians beating us in 1972 in basketball.

Okay, now I'm watching Gladiator, The Patriot and Braveheart. Feeling better and not so emasculated.

Let's just hope we see Verlander only one of those series and not both.

http://www.thestar.com/sports/baseball/article/705131 A little more insight on where Alex A. (sounds like someone on the Bachelorette) came from...

And Tim Collins on the Royals was part of that deal too, with Pastornicky. Hmmmm.... Still not too confident that Yunel Escobar will anything remotely resembling a star, will just have to wait and see. Now back to the Blue Jays, oops White Sox game thread.

Anthopoulos served as an advanced scout for the Greek National Baseball Team for the 2004 Summer Olympics. The Greek team finished in 7th place.

Sorry Chisoxsonic. Sorry, will now go back to Death Race, Tarantino, Machete, Sin City, The Watchmen, Tombstone and Easy Rider to make myself more macho again. Hey, when you're an English Lit major and you have to study all those authors, it's kind of interesting to see all those writers enacted/portrayed in a movie. The Hemingway character is hilarious...must have had a lot of fun with that role. And, FWIW, I liked Daniel Craig in Defiance a lot. He was very good. Golden Compass, that was a disaster for all involved, from Pullman on down. I just hope the next Bond movie (whenever it gets ironed out) is more like Casino Royale....the last one was super-disappointing.

Sounds like they're facing a Hispanic version of porn star Dirk Diggler.

Allen's like the poor man's Mark Grace, or the rich man's Ryan Sweeney (or however that goes). He better hit .320 or .330 every season because he's only going to give you 12-18 homers per year. That's not enough for 1B/DH. In some ways, he's reminiscent of Michael Morse. Long, athletic build. Doesn't really have a position (at the moment) where his bat's a "plus" tool.

But giving the contracts to Mark in 2007 and Konerko twice, I think it will make the decision that much harder for JR. None of those blew up in the face of the White Sox. Nothing like Dunn/Rios/Peavy have. You have to go back to 2004-05. We have to be more efficient with how we spend our precious resources. At that time, KW would never hesitate to deal a Danks (or Garland or Rowand or whoever) when they became too expensive. The question is what KW was offered for Danks this past deadline...it has to be a heckuva lot greater than any draft pick compensation we'll ever receive. If the White Sox were situated like they were coming off 2007 and Danks was in the same situation (then) he's at today...then there would be a lot more reasons to sign him than there are now. The main reason to sign him is because they're stuck in "All In" mode and have no other choice but to double down until they end up winning the division or setting the franchise back five full years. We're already almost to that point with what KW has done the last 2-3 years.

Yes, he does. But do you really think JR will go there, in your heart of hearts? Maybe the odds are 33% at best. I think this whole "All In" stuff has made the Board of Directors a little gunshy and uncertain of what to do with KW. The White Sox somehow rally to win the division, Buehrle expresses a desire to return...then things can obviously change again.

$18 million will be "crazy" money to JR. Anything over $14-15 million, anything over 3 years, he'd be advised to walk away. Danks is just not consistent enough or dominating enough to get that kind of money from the White Sox. If they didn't have all the other bad contracts on the book, you could at least think about it. I wouldn't be surprised to see a period where no contracts for longer than 3 years went to a Sox player (except someone like Konerko/Buehrle who's already on the team). Danks makes little sense to this team going forward without Floyd/Buehrle also staying in the rotation. Humber's just too shaky and we don't have a clue what we might have with Sale as a starter yet.

JoeCoolMan is.

Fister vs. Masterson AT CLE Porcello vs. Jimenez Verlander vs. Carmona. Indians will take 2/3. We have to take 3/4 from the Orioles. That puts us at 4 GB heading into the weekend. Then another 2/3 from Kansas City. By the way, please tell me we don't have to face Bruce Chen again!!

Unless Paulie was REALLY hurting from trying to bust it down to 3B on Quentin's "single." But yeah, it would have made more sense to replace Dunn defensively. It's not like Lillibridge can just go out there and swipe bases at will against Wieters.

Petricka didn't pitch too poorly but took the loss. Viciedo seems to either still be fighting off rust or frustrated that he won't get up to Chicago until September. Milledge has rebounded nicely this season. I'm sure he'll figure into any "going cheap/er" plans they have for 2012 with DeAza, Lilly and possibly Jor. Danks. No Mitchell, maybe needed a mental health day. Thompson needs to try to rally to get his average up to the .240 mark.