caulfield12

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Jun 16, 2011 -> 02:22 PM) Guillen should be fired today down 1-0 his moves from 8th inning on were horrid. Down 1-0 43 yr old is your best option with 2 out because you f***ed the pooch as usual. Pirates are over .500 Sox have no clue how to get there! Why do we care what the Pirates are doing? They haven't done a thing for two decades, and now they're a measuring stick for the Sox because they've had about 15 Top 5 draft picks in a row?

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 16, 2011 -> 02:20 PM) Major roster changes have got to be made on the offensive side. But where? That means you're going to have to eat AJ's contract, give up on Beckham....can we give up on Morel if he's not walking or showing enough power? Doing anything with Quentin/Konerko/Alexei Ramirez would be COUNTERPRODUCTIVE, so that always leaves Juan Pierre's position. Or would you just waive Rios? That would be fine, if ANYBODY could predict with some degree of certainty he's (Lillibridge) an everyday ballplayer over the course of a six month season. Personally, I'd much rather cheer for Viciedo and Lilly...but KW has consistently shown he doesn't care what fans think, nor does Ozzie.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Jun 16, 2011 -> 02:14 PM) The way I see it is that the Sox develop pitching decently well, they just tend to draft pitchers with little upside/not a whole lot of talent, which ends up not producing much. They can't develop hitters worth a lick, even if they draft talented players. Chris Young, C. Carter, Sweeney, B. Allen, Morel...it's not like they have developed NOBODY.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 16, 2011 -> 02:12 PM) No one ever argues that our drafting has sucked. It's when you argue that perfectly well-reasoned and intelligently made decisions at the time, that failed to turn out well due to circumstances beyond our control, are signs of incompetence on the part of our front office - that's when people find your stance to be untenable. And picking someone like Justin Smoak isn't exactly a surefire move when you still have a healthy Konerko producing .... especially when you're selecting what looks like a franchise middle infielder (remember all the Jeter comparisons?), that NORMALLY has more value to a team, historically.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Jun 16, 2011 -> 02:09 PM) Not one young hitter has progressed under Walker. I think they've done a pretty good job being patient with Morel this year. Hopefully the power will come later.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jun 16, 2011 -> 01:58 PM) That was nearly two years ago. When I see Andrew McCutchen, Mike Stanton, Buster Posey (before he got hurt), Logan Morrison, Gaby Sanchez and Eric Hosmer making their marks on this game, and Gordon Beckham doing his best '92 Steve Sax impersonation for a year and a half, yes, it was a bust of a pick. And who do you suggest should be playing 2B for the White Sox instead? And how will they possibly acquire said player? Should they just waive him? I don't think it's fair to compare Eric Hosmer to Gordon Beckham, but go ahead. What about all those teams that didn't give Mark Buerhle a chance? Should their scouting departments be fired, too? The Sox drafts have absolutely sucked, but there are numerous organizations that have had terrible drafts....cherrypicking is too easy to do.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 16, 2011 -> 01:58 PM) He is just dumber than f***ing rocks. Ozzie, you are dumber than f***ing rocks. My balls have more baseball intelligence than you. I guess he didn't want to waste 2 players making one move. Teahen would have had to come in anyway to play defense for Paulie. This way, he still has Lillibridge available to run for Dunn. That's the theory.

It's getting pretty bad when our own announcers (DJ and Farmer) are arguing that the Twins have no reason to fear the White Sox at all.

QUOTE (docsox24 @ Jun 16, 2011 -> 01:49 PM) I would like to see what a guy like that would look like out there. Andy Gonzalez?

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jun 16, 2011 -> 01:49 PM) Players drafted after Beckham: Smoak, Wallace, Weeks, Lawrie, Ike Davis. All are better prospects than Beckham, who's talent was greatly exaggerated. Greatly exaggerated by all his peers who voted him as the best rookie of 2009??? It's pretty easy to be down on him now, but things always even out. Maybe a new coaching staff/hitting coach will change things up for him. Carlos Gonzalez isn't exactly lighting the world on this fire, either. Does he suck and his ability has been overexaggerated a bit? I can't imagine what you'd be saying had we taken Tim Beckham and he was still foundering in the minors. Well, one things for sure, Blackburn's more than gotten his revenge for Game 163 by now. Jesus.

It's a wee bit premature to be giving up on Mitchell as well. With how some gave up on Viciedo after 2009...you would think there would be some patience...especially with the "rushing" of Beckham and Sale now being consistently raised as an issue in a bit of 20/20 hindsight revisionism. Nobody was complaining about Beckham being rushed in 2009 or Sale last year in August. In fact, many thought Ozzie and KW were too hesitant to bring up Beckham.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 16, 2011 -> 01:43 PM) The shame of it is that Buehrle really is pitching a hell of a game. And hasn't given up more than 3 runs in ANY game since April 28th.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Jun 16, 2011 -> 01:41 PM) I am no batting expert but I was watching some games where a hitch in his swing is mentioned and then shown. I know it's hard to change your approach over nigbht, but if it is shown by broadcasters on TV do you think GB also sees it later? Well, the new "spin" on Beckham is that Farmer and DJ keep claiming he's he best defensive 2B in the American League, so an OPS 200+ points lower than we expected out of him is now acceptable.

Recipe to beat the White Sox. 1) Don't respect them at all 2) Run at will on everyone but Buehrle 3) Simply throw a sinker over the plate and induce a double play to clear the bases 4) Pick off Pierre if he's ever on base, run for the extra base if you hit the ball in his direction 5) Erase from your memory that Dunn, Rios and Beckham were once all-star caliber players when facing them 6) No matter how many errors you make, they won't capitalize, so just relax if you're playing defense 7) Very few Sox runners can score from 2nd on a base hit or 3rd from a sac fly...so make their hitters put 3 hits together in an inning

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Jun 16, 2011 -> 01:23 PM) I'm more sad about Holmberg than Hudson. Because he was included as well or because you believe he'll actually be better? Really?

Note to White Sox. Blackburn will throw centercut fastballs at 90 MPH to start off most AB's. God, Rios is amazingly predictable. Sure, he hit the ball hard in that first appearance but he's paid to produce. Same with Dunn. And a timely base hit from Beckham wouldn't be too bad, either.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jun 16, 2011 -> 10:07 AM) Should Phil Humber be asking to pitch on 3 days rest today? Should he say "Forget Mark Buehrle, I should be pitching today cause I'm better than him!" I'm sure they do look forward to attempting to beat their divsion rival, but you can't step on the toes of your rotation mates like that. I just find the fact that they were FINALLY working in the morning before the game on the slidestep with Gavin a bit disconcerting. Even more troubling is the "it is what it is" attitude about our attempts by pitchers to hold runners and/or AJ's ability to throw them out. No problems with Buehrle starting at all. That's not my point. It's just that we never, EVER seem to learn from past mistakes against this team. Liriano could be out there on the mound and our batters would be taking swings like it was the first time they'd ever faced him. Oops, they already did that the last couple of times they faced him. You thought with Santana and Radke gone, Liriano and Nathan injured....that sooner or later our luck would have changed. It's like that classic movie "Groundhog Day" although not nearly as amusing. I halfway expect to see the ghosts of Lew Ford, Denny Hocking, LeCroy, Corey Koskie, Mike Redmond, Henry Blanco, Nick Punto, Jason Bartlett and Jason Tyner taking the field today in a tribute to past triumphs over the Sox. I hate that Peavy's been a disaster with us, but he's at least the type of guy who would publicly accept the challenge of beating them...and confronting this "jinx" we seem to have against the Twins. It's going to have to come from some of the players (or future players) who don't have such long histories of consistently losing against the Twins. Instead of signing aging NL players, we should be signing all ex-Yankees not named Swisher. Or signing Twins players away from Minnie. What other options are left?

Honestly, if we had the Phillies' Big Four as our starting rotation, I'm not 100% sure it would matter against the Twins. As soon as they slipped on White Sox pinstripes, the "Twins Fear" would creep into them. Maybe they all need Green Lantern rings to counteract the effects.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Jun 16, 2011 -> 09:44 AM) Can we win a game against the undermaned Twins please! If the Twins were either horses at Arlington or nascent members in the Hair Club for men, they'd still be owning us. No, no, no to Mark Teahen!!!!! Konerko has to play. Unless you're sticking him in LF for Pierre. In which case, you just KNOW about 5+ balls would be hit his way which he would play into doubles and triples. Whatever weakness they have to exploit against us, they always seem to find it and hammer us into submission.

I guess Cooper simply wasn't able to get through to him....for some reason, with young pitchers, that "change of scenery" trade to a non-contending team in a division with spacious ballparks and fewer offensive standouts seems to work wonders. I was trying to think of a comparison and Kip Wells came to mind right away. I guess we'll find out in the second half of this season if Hudson has the cojones to pitch in a real pennant race this time around. It's pretty hard to argue (even to his biggest supporters) that Hudson was going to get things turned around last year in the heat of the race. Perhaps they could have waited 2-3 more starts to give him a fairer shot, but the way he pitched in those outings...KW obviously got caught up in the moment, just like the rest of us after that 26-5 run (along with sole possession of first place) and thought it was possible for them to sustain that momentum and go even farther.

Not to mention there's SOME semblance of hope for the future with Dayan up. Pierre has ZERO future in this organization. I'd almost rather see KWJR leading off for the White Sox than Pierre...!!! If he's stowed away in AAA or traded, what the heck do we have to look forward to offensively the next 3-5 years? The next Matt LaPorta that we'll inevitably acquire for John Danks in trade?

Why don't we have any pitchers in our organization "champing at the bit" to pitch against the Twins...saying they look forward to the challenge of beating them? Who actually want to have their starts or order in the rotation changed around specifically so they can face Minnie? It's almost like nobody wants to acknowledge the elephant in the room....so whether they blow these series up bigger than life or downplay it like they're facing the Pirates or Mariners, it doesn't seem to matter, as far as the end results go.

So essentially, the parameters should be any team with a .500 record or above the last 2-3 years (or longer) having a string where they're only winning 20% (or less) of the games between two teams (7-27). I'm sure there are some examples....but not very many....where you could name teams with payrolls of over $100 million (besides the Mets or Cubs) playing so poorly against a division opponent. It's not the only record on the road. It's the failure in the 2nd half of seasons so frequently. 2002 6-9 after All-Star Break 2003 2-5 after All-Star Break 2004 2-7 after All-Star Break 2005 7-6 after All-Star Break 2006 2-7 after All-Star Break 2007 4-2 after All-Star Break (that was a weird anomaly of a season for both teams) 2008 2-6 after All-Star Break (including Game 163) 2009 1-8 after All-Star Break 2010 3-10 after All-Star Break So that's a 29-60 record over a period of nearly a decade. Home and away. Winning only 32.5% of the most important games against our biggest division rival. 4-18 (18%) over the last two seasons.

Greg, sometimes I don't understand why you think it's your role to defend Ozzie or Bobby Jenks or Juan Pierre. Is everyone disappointed in Beckham and Rios and Dunn and Peavy? Of course, but realistically, we know we're pretty much stuck with all of those guys for the duration of their contracts. As someone else mentioned, players like Rios with all the talent in the world but none of the courage/fearlessness/drive/heart drive me nuts. If you put Juan Pierre's "head" in Rios, you'd have a superstar. Unfortunately, we're stuck with Juan's drive in a body that's been beaten up and abused for too many seasons....you could probably say the same thing about AJ. Maybe we'll see glimpses of the former player, but not on an extended basis. So because of his caught stealings, lack of arm, atrocious defense THIS year, lack of walks, lack of power, lack of ability to sacrifice bunt....what tool of the five does he still possess? Unless he's hitting at .300 or above, he's not bringing anything to the table. In his best incarnation at this point of his career, he's still in the bottom quartile of AL LFer's in terms of production. And then there are those frustrated he's getting so many AB's, that Ozzie keeps defending him (he's THE reason, basically, that Viciedo isn't up), that Lillibridge hasn't been given more opportunities when he's clearly outplaying Juan at 1/50th the salary. Add all these things up....Juan Pierre will be okay as a man, as a person, no matter how this year turns out. He's one of the good guys in baseball, hardest workers....it's almost because he represents everything that is good, that's standing in the way of his being benched or waived. If he was pouting like Swisher or isolating himself from the media and teammates like O-Cabrera, this wouldn't be so painful for everyone watching the soap opera from a distance.

Green Lantern, not as good as Thor, but the complete disaster that critics are falling all over themselves to describe. Still, odds are at least 50/50 that the suggest sequel at the end of the movie never gets made....not with that $300 million plus budget. My first thoughts when the movie started 1) aren't there just one too many superhero movies in the marketplace this year? and 2) I can't believe audiences are putting up with the 3-D upcharges without significant viewing experiencement enhancement. Overall, I thought Reynolds was pretty close to the perfect actor to cast in that role. Blake Lively, I found myself wishing she went back to blonde hair...I guess fighter pilots/corporate executives with blond hair can't be taken seriously unless they're Pepper Potts. It kind of felt like a cross between Thor, the Star Wars movies (the Jedi training sequences) and Indiana Jones: Kingdom of the Crystall Skull. I also couldn't believe that the same director responsible for CASINO ROYALE put this movie out there, with an immense budget. The four screenwriters working together (one of them originally was going to direct) kind of turn this whole thing into a hodge-podge, but it was still "watchable." I wasn't thinking it was Speed Racer or something that was just immensely, egregiously bad. Overall, the international box office and opening weekend might save the franchise, but don't count on it. With all that said, I think Reynolds (like Hemsworth as Thor) did as good a job as possible with the material in front of him. He has qualities that an actor like Chris Evans doesn't possess on screen, although perhaps Captain America will change my mind. At least in Fantastic 4, he really irritated me. Reynolds, like George Clooney, has that way of being smug and overconfident...but still being likeable at the same time.