caulfield12

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jun 28, 2011 -> 01:05 AM) On a lighter note, have any of you seen the ESPN 30 30 series piece on Michael Jordan's year in the minors? He's a former Sox farmhand so I figured he could go in the catch all thread. I just watched it and it was so well done. He hit .205 in a full season with Birmingham. The man stole 30 bases. He struck out a lot and had 11 errors in the outfield, which really isn't that many when you think about sticking a man out in the pasture who hadn't played baseball since high school. In the fall league, he hit .250 and was showing improvement. They showed clips and he did sting the ball some in fall league. It was a great piece about an obviously complex man - Michael Jordan. Oh yes, he won 3 more world championships after returning to basketball. I know conspiracy theorists say he was kicked out of basketball for a year for gambling. I just don't see that as being true. Any opinion on whether Mike could have been a serviceable big leaguer? He obviously had some speed and some skills in baseball. The piece was so well done I did feel good inside when they showed his first home run. He hit 3 for the Barons. The team mobbed him. I'm not a Michael apologist. I know he gave a s***ty Hall of Fame speech and was brutal toward some Bulls teammates (his minor league teammates could have been an ass to him and weren't) and had his epic gambling binges (hell I love craps and blackjack), but I don't think he's Satan either. He's complex probably in part trying to please his dad. Greg, open the books! Yeah, a lot of that goes back to having to prove himself the early part of his high school career. It wasn't until his junior and senior years that he started receiving national acclaim....nothing like Marcus Liberty or Jamie Brandon, for example. Even the kid who played at Simeon who died. When you read those accounts of the Bulls at that time, he just tortured some of those guys like Perdue and Wennington and Cartwright in practice. Probably nobody has ever been so competitive and driven. Maybe Tiger Woods, but then there are so many questions circling now because of his personal life and the breaking down of his body and intimations of steroids/PED's.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jun 27, 2011 -> 09:46 PM) I know, it makes too much sense for them to do it. Today would have been the perfect day to bring him up too. In one way, this is Pierre's "last gasp or last stand" playing NL style ball for six more games. On the other, Viciedo could actually decapitate some fans with line drives out in Denver.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jun 27, 2011 -> 04:15 PM) I dont really think that is a theory that is in play here. It is an origin story, this is how it was told. I dont think the directors are trying to outcompete the X-Men cold war story by coming in with the Nazis. Also, it is hard to put Thor/Captain America in the same conversation as the green lantern. the primary goal of Green Lantern is to get the DC Universe more exposure to characters outside of Batman and Superman(with which Batman is really the only true successful franchise at this point). Thor/Captain America has a much bigger goal, to introduce these characters into a much bigger storyline as well as establish their own identities as tentpole franchises like they did with Iron Man, and like they keep trying to do with the Hulk. In regards to the saturation point with lesser comics, there are complete hits(hellboy) and complete misses(watchmen). A lot of it has to do with the material. Watchmen is an incredibly difficult story to bring to the theatre, there was a lot of the story that was either wrapped up quickly or completely left out altogether. It also didnt help that there was some really shoddy acting(Malin Ackerman, im looking at you). I think one thing that either lets a director succeed or makes him fail is the amount of artistic liberties taken with the subject material. These characters have very well defined back stories, and comic book nerds KNOW what these stories are. You cannot just make up Wolverines history and expect everyone to like it. I don't think it was intentional either, as you said. The arguments I've seen just projected more interest in Captain America simply because of the "coincidence" that the backstory (historical) just happens to be more interesting to the majority of filmgoers. Certainly, Reynolds is probably the more acclaimed and talented actor than Chris Evans. Transformers 3 will make HUGE, top 5 all-time bank and it will have nothing to do with the Space Race, Kennedy, Nixon, the moon landing. Doesn't matter what the story is there. The first 30 minutes could be about Ozzie and KW and as long as Chicago was ravaged by a giant robot war for one hour in CGI/IMAX/3-D, it wouldn't even matter.

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ Jun 27, 2011 -> 05:35 PM) So how long before we see a Jermaine Dye appreciation day? I don't think his number gets retired, but it would be nice to see the White Sox acknowledge his retirement and his contribution to the team. I hope there's something in the works... Or maybe he will replace Dunn, at this point, how much worse could it get?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 27, 2011 -> 05:18 PM) Do we really think that's a problem in this organization? It was implied in the Beckham article.

Famously, Joe Mauer once put a bunt down (can't remember the specific game) last season with the bases loaded or RISP and their entire fanbase went apeshi- over it that he wasn't swinging away and was shirking his responsibility off to a lesser batter who was following him in the line-up. If you were to ask Joe Mauer right now what kind of play that was, I would hope that he . . They WANT you to try something stupid like bunting. C'mon, Joe. . Jul 21, 2010 . Bunting. In that situation? Believe me, I get what Joe Mauer was thinking, and he is a very good bunter. No question about that. Joe Mauer bunting with the game on the line (and no Justin Morneau batting behind him for protection?)

If Harper's raking in AA next season at this time and still not up, you might have a legit point. Obviously, they're gearing towards having both of their franchise players on the same roster at least by mid-season 2012. Let's not forget Harper skipped a year or so of high school (for home tutoring/GED) and started his pro career at a legit 18. Viciedo has gotten a TON of experience the last 2 1/2 seasons in the minors, all of it at the AA level or above. As for Jennings, that's probably more of a monetary/arb years issue. With Viciedo, he's already on a major league contract. We've invested tons of money into him compared to say, Morel or Sale.

Or Beckham, since has the "Most Interesting Man in the World" cut-out in the clubhouse to pose with the Sox individual game MVP's.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Jun 27, 2011 -> 09:22 AM) LOL, of course we would be involved in this and somehow get screwed. Kenny can't catch a break (many of his issues are brought upon by himself though). But certainly those players and creditors would have to be paid out of the proceeds of an auction before any money went to the McCourts, correct?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 27, 2011 -> 08:44 AM) Of course you're always thinking about a replacement, but you're not going to overpay for it. There is nothing wrong with adequate production from an OF spot as long as you make up for it somewhere else. Beane's biggest offensive problem to me is 1b, with a 2nd spot at DH. He needs more power out of his 1b position. Edit: Give you some more details here. Right now, in the American League, the average OPS for a LF is .675. It's .715 in baseball overall. Nearly half the teams in MLB have sub .700 OPS's out of their LF spot. In RF, the situation is a little better, .774 OPS overall, but still 9 teams have sub .700 OPS's from their RF spot. This is post-steroids-era baseball...you can't be used to .850 OPS's out of every position any more. Also, worth noting, the .581 OPS the White Sox have from their LF spot is the worst in baseball. Oakland has gotten a .656 OPS from it's RF spot...the .713 OPS that Sweeney has put up would be a significant improvement if he was only playing RF. Hence the moves for the veterans in Crisp, Willingham and DeJesus. Not that it has done them much good.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 27, 2011 -> 06:34 AM) Brent Morel is still doing exactly what he should be doing. Unfortunately, it would be much better were he doing in on the 2007 White Sox when there was no concern about being "All In." I know the response. Rios/Beckham/Pierre/Dunn are the ones responsible, not Morel. Same things that were said in 2006 when Anderson was struggling and then offense fell off in the 2nd half and it was harder to justify playing him, even though his OPS picked up quite a bit. We'll see. They gave up pretty quickly on Chris Getz. Of course, they had Beckham to replace him, but they never gave him much time to prove himself, either. You can argue that by Chris' play since then the trade was still the right move, but we've never been noted for our patience with younger players. Even Viciedo sat quite a bit last year and was only used in "favorable" match-ups by Ozzie.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 27, 2011 -> 06:33 AM) Wow, I think this post is right on. Who's actually faster than Viciedo in our starting line-up? Pierre, Alexei Ramirez and Rios, that's probably it.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jun 26, 2011 -> 10:27 AM) I missed play in question. I assume it was Alexei making an error in the 14th inning of a game against the Nationals where the White Sox had 15 hits and 21 baserunners and scored 5 runs. If you in any manner even coincide Alexei with that loss, you may as well blame the catastrophic floods in the Missouri River region on the surplus rainfalls in eastern Montana in May, when everyone knows it was the snows from October through March that actually did it. With as many prospects as they have, trading him for one more good young player doesn't do a goddamn thing. You trade him for a "sure thing" who is struggling. You get another good prospect and give up a player to replace said struggling player in return. Thank God for Santos, because the concept of Beckham and Viciedo for Soria and Aviles just crossed my mind. Seriously?

QUOTE (FlySox87 @ Jun 27, 2011 -> 12:35 AM) I don't follow prospects at all (I don't give a damn what someone does at Charlotte, it's worthless unless it shows up in Chicago), so I am totally ignorant. But having read this thread, I think Kuhn sounds a lot like Ryan Sweeney. No power, no speed, nothing spectacular in the field, but a good contact hitter. Am I close at all? And as far as I'm concerned, a high BA is only worth anything if you use it to produce runs. Wade Boggs and Ichiro, they got lots of hits, but more importantly, they scored lots of runs. Ty Cobb, he got lots of hits and scored runs and drove them in. A guy like Rod Carew, who had 100 RBIs and 100 runs scored only once, I'm just not all that sure what his great average and high number of SBs are good for. Speaking of which, the same goes for stolen bases. I don't care if a guy steals 70 bases if he only scores 80 runs. Juan Pierre, I know we all hate him now, but he used to get praised. And for what? The dude hit .327 and stole 46 bases in 2001, and with Larry Walker and Todd Helton behind him, only scored 108 times. People think that's some sort of excellent season, but I'd rather have the 1998 Ray Durham who hit .285 and stole 36 bases, and scored 126 times. I'm just sort of baffled by all the love for BA and such. It's kind of pointless. We had a higher BA and hit total than the Nats today, but oddly I don't recall us winning. High BAs are nice because often they're tied to more run production, but if they're not, I don't see the worth in it. Ryan Sweeney hits .286 for his career, but his 162 game average is 71 runs scored and 59 RBIs? Blah. You can deal with a Ryan Sweeney and his 700-750 OPS if he's playing 2B. Where you can't live with it is at a corner outfield spot...or in CF, where he's mostly an average defender with the exception of having a stronger arm than most.

Almost starting to wonder if it wouldn't be better to use Jordan Danks or Tyler Flowers as the DH. It's gotten THAT bad. Or Teahen, he's probably the first internal option, after Viciedo. Lillibridge definitely needs to stay ensconced in his role.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jun 26, 2011 -> 09:39 AM) I interpreted "The added twist of the nazis" and "Were more of a subplot of the Xmen" to mean that it was strange to see the Nazis in a Captain America feature No, I meant the theory is that Captain America will do much better because there's more of a fascination with the Nazi's than the Cold War/Cuban Missile Crisis/Russia. I just threw out those movies because they came to mind right away. The movies themselves, of course, are very dissimilar in and of themselves. The prevailing notion is that "period comics" don't do as well (in general)...to cite another example, The Watchmen. In the end, the saturation point has been reached with the second and third tier comic book heroes. With Batman, Spiderman and the Avengers, the studios are going back to the "wheelhouse" franchises that are almost guaranteed to succeed instead of spending $75-150 million marketing Thor or The Green Lantern into relevancy. Green Lantern isn't doing well at all overseas, compared to Thor's earlier track record. Both have relatively unknown leads, and certainly Reynolds (because of The Proposal if nothing else) is more familiar to audiences than Chris Hemsworth.

QUOTE (bucket-of-suck @ Jun 26, 2011 -> 09:34 PM) The Tigers don't have dominant starting pitching. They have a dominant starting pitcher. Scherzer has had very good stretches. Who would you take off our current staff over him for the next 3 seasons?

QUOTE (gatnom @ Jun 26, 2011 -> 08:46 PM) I understand what you're saying, but KW was the one who took on these gambles. It's like signing a free agent to a lucrative contract; injuries and poor performance are a definite possibility. He acquired Peavy while injured, and Peavy has more or less stayed injured for that duration. Rios has been terrible for the majority of the time he's been here. The fact of the matter is that KW has been in a massive, massive slump over the past three years, and that is part of the reason we are not in the greatest shape at the moment (though definitely still in it). What was the last trade KW actually won? Quentin for Carter? Now obviously the jury is still out on a couple of the trades since then, but the Swisher, Jackson, Teahen, and Pierre trades have all been losses while the Peavy and Rios deals continue to look poor. I'll put it another way. Let's say KW is Bill Miller, a legendary mutual fund manager who beat the S&P average 13 years in a row (no, I won't argue the equivalent is the White Sox winning 13 AL Central championships consecutively, but let's just say their performances are similar, before 2009). Then the stock market crashes....but your fund is STILL performing in the bottom quartile or quintile. Do you excuse it due to "market conditions," meaning that Rios/Peavy/Dunn/Teahen/Linebrink/Pierre, Swisher 1 & 2, Javy, Jackson/Hudson, were all "reasonable" trades at the moments they were made? Do you move your money to another manager...ignoring his past track record, chasing one of the hot young prospects from another hedge fund? Do you hire someone internally (Hahn), someone who's learned the ropes from this former genius...in your belief that KW's style of operating is conducive to putting together a long-term winning team? Or that a combination of his risk-taking and a more measured, statistical/analytical approach is the best combination. In real life, I'm still leaving some of my eggs in this basket (Legg Mason), because I can't ignore those 13 years of results and seeing things that others didn't see. Still, I'm hedging my bets and making lots of other bets because I can't trust Miller due to his overall abysmal performance the last 3-4 years. On the other hand, everyone can be in a slump or lose their confidence (see Dunn)....the question is will that person recover his former magic touch? You never like to sell low and buy high...and that's the position we're in with retaining KW, Ozzie and nearly 1/3rd of our roster at this point.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 26, 2011 -> 07:02 PM) I don't boo players except Jaime Navarro, but I do think people have the right to boo someone making a ton of money playing a game. If its too much, I'm sure Adam has made more money already this year than millions will make in a lifetime, he can go home. That said, when the game begins, Dunn is not booed. He's not booed when they announce the line ups. He's not booed when he's announced as the hitter, he's booed when he strikes out, and we haven't seen this rate of strikeouts for a long time. It looked to me like Friday night he may have something to build on, but something is very wrong. He's late on 86 MPH fastballs. He's fanned 16 times his last 6 games. He has 11 games with at least 3 strikeouts. He's only had 9 games with at least 3 plate appearances where he hasn't struck out at least once. Farmer's been on the fans for this, and it goes something like "booing a guy will never help him out of a slump (it will only make things worse...)" What will his family, his children attending the game think about Chicago fans? He's a part of the White Sox family...it's our responsibility to support him. How does being negative help the situation? DJ's response was more like "it goes with the territory...when you're scuffling or playing under your expected level of performance, you know it's coming." Just have to take it an at-bat at a time and slowly put together a good game, then a good streak of positive at-bats, etc. Get back to basics, see the ball, hit the ball. Basically, the fans are paying good money for tickets and its their right to express their feelings and emotions, as long as they're not profane or disrupting others' enjoyment of the game. I never thought at any point in this season I'd be much more concerned about Dunn than either Rios or Peavy, that's for sure.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 26, 2011 -> 06:34 PM) In my opinion, it's two different situations. 2006, the Sox played like they were one of the top two or three teams in baseball for an extended stretch. That run during interleague play in 2006 was as exciting a Sox team as there's been for me since I've been a fan. This year, we just haven't come close to putting it all together. Still time though, but let's face it, if you have 3, 4 or 5 hitters in your everyday lineup struggle all season, it wasn't meant to be. Good news is we're still in it when we could have been 10 out by now. And those Tigers and Twins teams were flat out good or better than us that season. We ran out of gas. But the first half, we just crushed teams. I remember, in particular, feeling sorry almost for the Cardinals. We were a juggernaut. 26 games over .500 and yet the Tigers were there with us every step of the way. And then the Twins with their amazing stretch. I can't imagine anyone expected the 2011 team to be nearly as good as 2006. I was hoping for 88-90 wins, but wasn't sure that would be enough to win the division. In some ways, I was more excited going into 2009 because I was buying into the hype that Viciedo would be ready to contribute right away. And I thought the Twins "fear" was past us with the breakthrough in Game 163. This year, the Tigers have that dominant starting pitching, closer, and they have Boesch, Avila, Cabrera and V-Mart, but their offensive punch is nothing compared to what it was 3-5 years ago. They used to have dangerous hitters at every spot in the line-up. Magglio's on his last legs, too.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 26, 2011 -> 06:55 PM) Rongey with the return on the investment crap is just spewing what he believes to be the company line. He also stated that one hitter isn't going to make a difference. So I suppose he probably believes that if Adam Dunn was hitting like most thought he would instead of how he actually is, since he is only one guy, it really wouldn't matter. He can't really believe that. I bet you if you got him hammered and he was spilling the truth, he would tell you it was time for Juan Pierre to either sit down or go home. That was the convenient excuse when it was Anderson/Owens/Wise/Erstad out there in CF, or Kotsay DHing with Jones (over Thome), but this year, there's 5 holes in our line-up. Surely, logic dictates that we have good enough pitching to win our division, clearly. Heck, we have more quality starts than any team in baseball since 2003. You can't do much about Rios, so you have four places to fine-tune (especially since Rios seems to be showing lots of tangible signs of improvement, including another wind-blocked homer today). This leaves you, obviously, with Morel, Beckham, Dunn and Pierre. Morel's a rookie, he's still yet to show that 700-ish OPS power and his OBP is a mess, but he seems to do more harm than good at least when he's out on the field. Realistically, you can't play Teahen or expect Omar to repeat last year's stretch. That only leaves Pierre, Dunn and Beckham. Something's gotta give.

QUOTE (FlySox87 @ Jun 26, 2011 -> 06:24 PM) Jake Peavy didn't reveal himself as a total china doll until after he came to our side. There was nothing in his history with the Padres to suggest that he was more fragile than...well, something that's really fragile. And the Alex Rios acquisition looked brilliant last year. It's not KW's fault the guy stunk to start this year. Jackson might have been a dumb call, but the jury's still out on what Hudson's going to amount to. Our scouts were never all that convinced, IIRC. And how about all the players he acquired that have really panned out for us? Floyd, Danks, Crain, Thornton, Humber, AJ, Alexei, Quentin...and that's just this year. I guess you can blame him for not strong-arming Ozzie into benching Dunn, but I would say that's more Ozzie's fault than his. Ozzie needs to have some sense and bench someone who's struggling that bad. KW shouldn't have to intrude on Ozzie's job description and handle his business for him. That being said, I will respect KW even more when he just fires Ozzie outright and hires someone who will do the job correctly. According to Chris Rongey, no team in major league baseball would bench Adam Dunn. Since that seems to be the front office/institutionalized thinking on the subject, that he certainly won't break out of this by sitting, why doesn't KW force him to the DL with some flimsy reason and call up Viciedo? On our current roster, who's a better candidate to replace Dunn? Lillibridge? Really? As an everyday DH? And that's a great recipe for the future when Lilly is overexposed at this position and then you have no choice but to eventually go back to Dunn? Viciedo can't cover 2 positions, eventually he has to replace Pierre. Ozzie benched Nick Swisher in 2008 and it worked, in a way, because we hung on to win the division. In another way, it was a disaster, because we were forced to dump Swisher's contract for nothing in return when he'd cost us three of our top prospects. So that's the potential cost....we bench Dunn and risk making him a drag on the roster for 2012, 2013 and 2014. Certainly you can't think the trades of Swisher and Javy brought us back a very good return. And in the process, we lost one of the best young LH pitching prospects in baseball, arguably an even more valuable pitcher than Daniel Hudson. What happens to GM's when every gamble they take turns out badly, even if it's "not their fault." Should you give credit to Ozzie for "nurturing" those players like Danks/Ramirez/Quentin/Thornton/Floyd/Santos/Viciedo/Humber along? Would they have done so well in an another organization? Humber's bounced around to something like 4 or 5 teams. Even the Twins. And yet he's found success with Cooper. And Cooper goes/stay with Ozzie, wherever he is...how many organizations would Santos successfully be closing for? You have Peavy, Rios, Dunn, 2 Swisher trades, the Javy trade, the Hudson/Jackson trade. Everything KW has done since the end of 2008 has turned to crap EXCEPT getting Viciedo and Santos. Even Beckham (the "surest" home-grown prospect since Thomas/Ventura) and Mitchell's fate in the minors now is very much up in the air as well. If you want, you can put Chris Sale in the "win" column but the jury's still far from out on that one as well.

"There isn't a single team in baseball that would bench Adam Dunn." Rongey

The White Sox had won 17 interleague series in a row before today. Listening to Ozzie, he said he had a sit down with Dunn and KW even came in to say they weren't panicking, that the front office was behind him. Ozzie says "he can't bench that guy," he's paid too much to sit, so many millions of dollars, etc. Seems like he's still determined to play Dunn once or twice against Colorado and the Cubs at 1B or RF. Didn't even know anything about Santiago, like what pitches he threw...."he's another Puerto Rican kid from New York," great Ozzie. Acknowledged he doesn't know much about the minor leaguers, haha.

Saw highlight of Espinoza's homer...that stadium is really empty in the lower level down by the foul poles. I think the business side of "All In" has to come back into the conversation soon enough. Ozzie's not going to be able to keep starting Dunn much longer at home. Hopefully he'll go off on the fans again and say something that's a finally a fireable offense because there's no other way to get Pierre out of that line-up.