caulfield12

Looks like there's at least a 50/50 chance Miguel Cabrera misses the first two games with a mild oblique strain. http://www.freep.com/article/20110710/SPORTS02/110710025 10 Reasons the Tigers will win the AL Central for the first time in history Twins All-Star outfielder Michael Cuddyer frequently has pointed out through the years that they often have surged once they begin playing more games within the division. After being 20 games under .500 and 16½ games out in early June, the Twins will charge out of the All-Star break thinking they have a real shot at another title. “We didn’t give up,” Cuddyer said. “We never folded.” And the rest of the division expects another charge as the Twins get healthy and sort out their bullpen. “It seems like every year they do something miraculous and get themselves back in it,” Detroit righthander Justin Verlander said. “You can never write them off.” Detroit slipped into first place Sunday, and Verlander wants his team to pull away. The Tigers have had issues on the mound, leading to the recent firing of pitching coach Rick Knapp. There are questions about their defense, and it doesn’t help that the Tigers have played .459 ball after the break under manager Jim Leyland over the years. But with Verlander, slugger Miguel Cabrera, emerging catcher Alex Avila and closer Jose Valverde, the Tigers might be the most dangerous team in the Central. “I don’t think you have seen the true talent on this ballclub yet,” Verlander said. “I think we are very well-suited to do some special things during the second half.” Cleveland lost Sunday and fell a half-game behind Detroit. The Indians have been the surprise team, opening 20-8 and leading the division by seven games May 23. But a 4-14 skid enabled the rest of the division to catch up. Their bullpen is strong, and manager Manny Acta said the leadership in the clubhouse is even stronger after the Indians went through a rough patch in the schedule. They will continue to have their skeptics, but they believe they are in it and make it no secret they are looking for a hitter before the July 31 nonwaiver trade deadline to help their cause. “We have guys who get after it,” Acta said, “and that’s what fans in Cleveland like.” The White Sox have been one of the bigger disappointments in the league. The Twins can point to injures for their poor start, but not the White Sox. Designated hitter Adam Dunn, second baseman Gordon Beckham and outfielder Alex Rios haven’t produced. With a strong starting rotation and a hot bullpen, the White Sox could surge with a more consistent offense. “Everyone likes to jump on the hitting,” Konerko said. “If you watched a lot of our games we’ve had a lot of small mistakes in a lot of areas that have cost us.” Chicago, five games back, is 8-18 in the division. With most of the schedule against Central foes, Chicago could fall out of contention if its offense can’t get going. And how can the White Sox consider themselves contenders when they have lost 31 of their past 39 games to the Twins, including three of four last weekend at U.S. Cellular Field? http://www.freep.com/sports

QUOTE (FlySox87 @ Jul 13, 2011 -> 06:04 PM) I'm a moderate KW supporter right now, but if he goes out and gets Carlos Gomez (or Figgins, or Bedard, or Hunter), I'm done with him. Straight up. Michael Young, on the other hand, I have always liked. As far as I'm concerned, he's one of the most underrated players in baseball and always has been. I'd love to see him on the southside. 09-13:$16M annually (total of $15M deferred) no-trade protection 2007-09, limited no-trade protection from 2010 to May, 2011 (submits list of 8 clubs to which he'd accept trade), before receiving 10-and-5 rights in May, 2011 (current list of 8 includes Colorado, Houston, LA Angels, LA Dodgers, Minnesota, NY Yankees, St. Louis, San Diego) award bonuses: $50,000 for All Star selection; $25,000 for Gold Glove Carlos Delgado?

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jul 13, 2011 -> 06:36 PM) Thats kinda what Ozzie was. How many All-Star teams has Adam Everett made?

Eric Chavez No way they'd take on Morneau's contract. Not even KW is that suicidal to let the foot off the neck of the financial stranglehold that's being caused by Mauer, Morneau and Nathan.

Miguel Cabrera Brad Radke (joking) Jason Kubel Michael Cuddyer Willits Ichiro Fukudome

Yeah....Juan Pierre has that Luis Polonia stroke to LF and how many balls have outfielders just been parked there waiting when the ball off the bat looked like a sure double? You can't afford to play THAT shallow (and right on the line) in a much bigger outfield unless Willie Mays in his prime is playing CF. Of course, Pierre's never succeeded (at least I can't think of a time) in plugging that LCF gap. When he hits the ball hard to the outfield, it's always a pitch he turns on and pulls right down the RF line or foul to right.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.d...VIEWS/110719994 Ebert with 3 1/2. Will be seeing it today.

Well, those Ozzie offensive statistics were also put up in a totally different era. And, the Old Comiskey Park was not exactly "Home Run Central," not that Ozzie ever was a power hitter. He's one of those players who would have fit in any era...and certainly in the first 5-7 years, he had the added dimension of hitting for more triples and piling up some decent stolen base numbers. Ozzie Smith is another player (and Ozzie wasn't quite his caliber defensively, of course) who put up very average offensive numbers. Or Omar Vizquel, although Ozzie wasn't his equal with the glove either. You have to look at the position, and what his peers did. And that's where Ripken's power and RBI's shined, although he never had the range of the great shortstops, obviously. Things changed when Jeter came into the AL in the mid 90's. Then you had that offensive (steroids too) explosion at the position with Jeter, Garciaparra, Miguel Tejada and Alex Rodriguez all putting up MVP numbers.

Let's see. The Indians have been without a "revitalized" Travis Hafner for over half their games. LaPorta has missed a lot of time. Shoo and Sizemore nowhere close to their career levels and/or injured. So basically you've got a team led by Asdrubal Cabrera (offensively) in first place. Some of their most important contributors in the first half have been Hannahan, Orlando Cabrera, Lou Marson, Michael Brantley, Travis Buck and Shelley Duncan. They've only got 2 hitters with over an 800 OPS in Hafner and Cabrera. Nobody in baseball was predicting that we expect too much from Carlos Carrasco, Tomlin, Talbot...and that bullpen looked like it was full of more holes than Swiss cheese preseason. Carmona/Masterson always were loved by scouts but hadn't produced consistent results in recent seasons. Oh, and they also lost first round draft pick Alex White to a freak injury. He served as their main pitching depth and looked very good when he was able to take the mound.

Why would we want Lowe over Pierre? Are we dumping Rios' contract on the Braves, too? There's just no way Lowe for Pierre makes sense for us....and some combo of Rios and/or Pierre for Lowe makes any sense for them.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 13, 2011 -> 12:32 PM) The top three guys were dumped as quick as humanly possible. MacD even got bought out and released. And MacDougal/Linebrink are the first two times in KW's tenure we admitted a mistake and sent money the other way or just flat-out ate a contract. My argument is that he stuck with those guys forever and gave them way TOO many chances before he cut them loose. At their point, their value collectively was basically less than zero. Well, I guess we saved a couple of million with Linebrink, but we ate the majority of his 2011 deal. He's stuck with Rios over 3 seasons when he's been worse than Brian Anderson for 80% of that time.

The only ones he really dealt or wrote off quickly were Cabrera (who was already a FA) and Swisher. Look how long he held onto Javy. MacDougal. Linebrink way too long. Teahen. Tony Pena. Contreras after his last Sox contract. He had dealt guys like Julio Ramirez where there was very little financial risk....D'Angelo Jimenez, Lofton, etc. But very rarely when he's given up something significant in acquiring aforementioned player. And undoubtedly he was backed into a position of weakness where he got the lowest possible return on Swisher after buying at the highest possible value. If he didn't give a shi-, then there was absolutely no reason 4 weeks ago NOT to AT LEAST TRY Viciedo and see if he'd catch fire. Ramirez could have hit leadoff. Pierre's value wouldn't have been affected in the least. In fact, we're not going to get anything for him if he plays everyday for the next 15 days or doesn't play at all.

I don't think they would acquire Beltran because that means KW admitting: 1) Pierre/Dunn/Rios are failures 2) With Pierre being THE leadoff guy with Ozzie, probably that Dunn or Rios would be sitting the majority of time 3) It puts him closer and closer to declaring Rios a dead weight or anchor 4) Without Viciedo, this team has zero future hitters in the pipeline...would JR sign off on it after the Hudson trade backfired (so far)?

Maybe. The majority of sportswriters usually go for the "surprise" team that nobody expected to be in it at all. With the Rays a contender in every season since 2008, they're probably a victim of their own success here. And maybe there's this idea that their minor league system has been so productive that they can just plug in new pieces and automatically be successful...like the Twins seemingly do.

•Francisco Rodriguez's agent Scott Boras spoke with Brewers GM Doug Melvin shortly after last night's trade, at which point Heyman says "Boras made the case that K-Rod should close, suggesting he wouldn't do nearly as well setting up." Melvin was apparently noncommital in that conversation, as he has been publicly. K-Rod would become the highest-paid reliever in baseball history if his option vests, though Boras wouldn't get commission on a contract brokered by Wasserman Media Group in 2008. Heyman suggests an unhappy Rodriguez is a scary concept, but based on the player's tweets (in Spanish), he's content. www.mlbtraderumors.com

Where the heck was security? Why wasn't he thrown out of the ballpark for standing on the table? With an event that big, certainly there had to be some additionals ushers or security personnel in every section of the outfield in case fans were fighting over foul balls?

It would still be a toss-up to me between Gardenhire and Acta. Depends on how close the Indians finished to the Twins. If you go back to the expectations game, Minnesota was predicted to finish first by the majority of prognosticators, yes? Not unlike Shapiro beating out KW for GM/Executive of the Year for the 2005 season.

But Twins fans would retort with the, well, we already have 1987 and 1991 card in our pockets. To which someone would probably retort...well, they wouldn't have won all those playoff games without the home field advantage, etc. (In the same way that we do about the "luckiness" of actually having the Twins fall apart that final week in 2008 after they'd ripped through us....winning the three games in a row, coin flip going in our favor...which would now be nullified, etc.) Leading to the...we were "lucky/fortunate" in 2008, but in 2003, 2004, 2006, 2009, 2010...the Twins just flat out beat us head-to-head. If you tip the scales to the Twins winning 7 of 9 and the White Sox just ONE of the past 9 years, it's pretty damning. OFC, you can include 2000 in that stat....make it 3 for the Sox, 6 for the Twins, 2 for the Indians. Makes the Tigers look like the real underachievers in the AL Central, doesn't it? Of course, does DET getting to the World Series in 2006 trump all those Twins' playoff appearances, even if they lost? I don't think so. But you can't just pretend the Twins didn't win 4/5 from 2002-2004/2006, either.

You also have the "readjusting to AL pitchers" dilemma with Beltran. He's been out of the AL Central so long, he would be behind the 8 ball catching up...and you know with how good our scouting is, well, it would seem a better fit to add players who are already familiar with the opposition, since the advantge almost always goes to the pitchers.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Jul 13, 2011 -> 08:49 AM) Or about Juan Pierre if Greg is involved. Or Jenks. Or Ozzerrroo.

Except we also know that Quentin is one of the few guys that seem capable of carrying this team offensively right now...we know his streakiness, and usually when you're about to give up on him, he'll put up another hot streak and look like the CQ of 2008 and you feel silly to even think about moving him. I don't know how we can say that we can't afford to pay Quentin $7.5-8 million when we want to pay Danks the same amount...and we're paying Juan Pierre the same as Carlos this year. Maybe you're right. Dunn/Rios/Peavy force us into this cost-cutting mode, but I think it's not sound decision-making unless the player we get back in return will be with the White Sox for at least 4-6 seasons. And we have to remember we're committed to paying AJ $6 million next year. Seems silly to be forced into giving up your second best player offensively (at USCF no less) when offense is the MAIN issue standing between the White Sox and being a competitive team again. We're not even close to being able to count on Dunn and Konerko's due for a return to mean AT SOME POINT, and Quentin's also due to get hot again...so I'm not buying that KW will actually pull the trigger unless it is for Beachy or a similar pitcher.

Looks like with Beltran available that will cool down the CQ market a bit. The White Sox are one of the teams being listed as potentially interested in paying Mr. Beltran $6 million to play out the remainder of the season. Guess he'd have to play CF again in that scenario...which would continue to the trend of the White Sox acquiring veteran CFers who aren't really fit for everyday play at that position anymore (Mackowiak, Erstad, Griffey Jr., etc.)

It's an interesting point QUINARV made. I served in AmeriCorps (the domestic version of the Peace Corps that President Clinton started) for two years and our education award was about 20% less than someone serving the same amount of time in the military would receive. Which I find interesting...because if you research how many of the children of Congressman/women are actually serving on active duty in the US military (four branches), it's under 10, maybe even 5. Those same politicians who are so quick to "fly the flag" and wax patriotic are scared to death of their kids actually getting killed. In the end, I get the point. I wasn't risking my life in exactly the same way...and yet volunteering everyday in Kansas City, Kansas...well, it's about the same as East St. Louis was 15-20 years ago. You can make arguments either way, depending on how you define service. I guess the way I look at it is this...my dad spent his whole life in the military and was what you would call a "fiscal conservative" in the same sense Colin Powell is...and he was also a little bitter because (in his eyes) he lost advancement/promotion opportunities working for the US government in the 80's and 90's simply because he was an older, white male. Yet my dad wanted to give me a great life...to have the freedom to make my own choices, not to service in the US military unless it was something I chose (and not out of economic necessity or having no other options)...I feel that being a teacher or doing non-profit/volunteer work contributes all the same to our society. Flysox made the argument about doing military service. Well, I have always felt the same way about Congress. If they spent just a week in a typical inner-city school or volunteering with a project not unlike Obama was involved with (churches, community organizing), they'd have a slightly different perspective on poverty and what was the best way to "empower" poor people. P.S. PLEASE CONTINUE WITH PREVIOUS CONVERSATION WHICH WILL NEVER END UP CHANGING ANYONE'S VIEWPOINT BUT HAS BEEN IMMENSELY MORE ENTERTAINING THAN THE WHITE SOX 2011.

Yeah, that's the problem with trading Quentin. We were able to discard Magglio, C-Lee AND Valentin (and basically get by without Frank Thomas) because we 1) signed Dye, 2) had a number of players with "good" pop like Crede, Rowand, AJ, Everett, Uribe, etc. That would leave the majority of power numbers coming from Dayan, Konerko (who's certainly going to cool off at some point) and THEORETICALLY Adam Dunn. They're at least one hitter short, if not 2. Bourn would be an upgrade, but how he helps long-term isn't clear, because basically he's getting more and more expensive (just like Quentin) and unless 2012 is another "All In" year, which seems impossible at this point, renting Bourn for just a season makes little sense in the big picture perspective. QUentin for Beachy, that makes a TON of sense. But a move I'm sure the Braves are hesitating on more and more.

QUOTE (hi8is @ Jul 11, 2011 -> 06:37 PM) Well, one thing that also needs to be accounted for is salary. Quentin is making what - 8MM and is in line for more next year - where as Beachy is under team control for another 6 years. Some people would say that Q for Beachy is too strong a trade from the Sox perspective. $5 million....you'd have to guess $7.25-8.0 million next season in arbitration.