caulfield12

Pythagorean Standings Minnesota should be 78-55, the White Sox project at 75-58. Gardenhire has "undermanaged/underperformed" his team by 1 game, Ozzie by 2. Sounds about right. Neither manager has been horrible, but I wouldn't say either has been great. Once again, Ozzie does deserve credit for holding things together in June...to the point where we still follow every inning and every pitch, it didn't seem possible then.

Greg, FWIW, even though this is the Manny Ramirez thread....you might have a point. There's a new paradigm shift, where the unemployment rate and frozen/stagnant wages and workers being asked to work 50% harder for the same salary or underemployed isn't being given equal importance with GDP growth...something like 60% of Americans would now be in serious trouble if they lost their primary source of income for 3 months or longer. OTOH, the "general" economy is basically in a malaise, there was growth until we hit the 3rd quarter but now that the home buyer credits are expiring and credit is tighter, especially for small business loans, things are looking bleak to many Americans. If you work for a bank or are in the Top 10-15% of Americans in terms of income, you're doing just fine, and haven't been greatly affected. Still persisting is the general feeling that this generation will be worse off than their parents, that many won't have enough money to retire or that Social Security won't exist in its current form or they'll have to work longer or move in with relatives...that neither the stock market nor housing is a safe or automatic slam dunk for future earnings, people are really just trying to pay down their debts and cut down on spending, but that obviously is going to slow down the economy, because you can't both save and spend simultaneously, and the rich of the US can't sustain the entire economy, either. Some have argued that we should have just allowed the housing market to completely fail...not rescuing any homeowners, but the problem is that the banks are still not willing to take those losses onto their balance books, so the housing market is basically paralyzed with those holding money waiting for it to fall further and getting a bit greedy before they buy depreciating properties and those whose houses are worth less than the loan values wondering how long it makes sense to hold out when they've seen so many of their friends and neighbors simply walk away. Back to Ramirez. This is the only way I can think to put it...let's say your army wins a major battle, you'd say that you can't question the general/President/manager because no matter what happened in the battle, you won, right? The problem is that in winning the battle, maybe you lost half your troops or committed atrocities against a civilian population to the point where even though you win every single battle, you lose the war, which would be like finishing in 2nd place. Robert E. Lee won almost every single battle he fought in the Civil War, and yet his troops were so weakened with attrition and losses over time that he was finally forced to "go for broke" at Gettysburg with Pickett's Charge and that was ostensibly the end of the war. Or to make a bigger example...the US developed the atomic bomb and won World War II. We won, right? But let's say 100 years from now, the world is destroyed by a nuclear war, maybe we didn't really win after all. Yes, you could argue someone else more dangerous (like the Nazis) might have developed the nuclear bomb first or it would have been developed eventually, but I'm not sure all the scientists involved with the project would feel like they "WON" a great victory those first 8 days in August, 1945. Or let's say you play a football player too long in a blistering hot August game where your team wins but the kid ends up having a heart attack the next week on the practice field...I don't think you can automatically say when you win, you're right. Many times we have lost games that Ozzie has managed well, we just lost because the other team had better players or executed. To look at every win or loss in black and white is counter-intuitive. Yes, managers can win and lose games, but it's overstated after each game to say Ozzie won the game or lost the game or he was right/wrong based on the final result.

QUOTE (dmbjeff @ Sep 2, 2010 -> 12:05 AM) Mark makes an absurd amount of money considering what he brings to the table. I love him as much as the next guy but if you had a comparable SP, let's say Ted Lilly to compare him with, I am sure that guy isn't making $14 mil. His biggest asset is his ability to eat up innings and be consistant but you can get that from alot of other guys in baseball and for a cheaper salary. I just don't think too many GM's see Buehrle as being worth it. Ted Lilly is making $13 million this season! I think your last sentence, you've answered the question...it would be very difficult to trade Buehrle, it would be a public relations nightmare if he was pitching in the AL and not for the Cardinals and it's one of those things where you don't realize how much you miss a player until he's gone, especially in the clubhouse. Yes, you can find cheaper pitchers. If you look at the Top 40 MLB ERA leaders, you'll find the names Gio Gonzalez, Jon Garland and Clayton Richard.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/team/_/stat/p...nded/order/true What's strange is that we have 14 blown saves out of 48 SO. Minnesota has 14/45, so our successful save conversion rate is actually higher. Maybe it just seems that when Minnesota blows a game, they usually win it at least half the time. We have the games against Minnesota, Seattle, the Tigers, the Royals...it seems we've had at least one blown save per series after the ASB.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Sep 1, 2010 -> 11:45 PM) So if Danks is more valuable overall, why are we trading him? Danks+ a player, perhaps Konerko's new paycheck is worth more than what we would get back in a trade. On the logic side, we should be able to use the money saved from Buehrle's contract to improve our CLUB, if KW makes the right moves. The problem with letting Buehrle or Konerko go is that it's also going to adversely affect your season ticket sales going into 2010...so we might save the money from Mark's contract, but end up actually doing more harm than good to incoming revenues. Sure, if we ended up leading the ALCD in April and May next year, we could theoretically make some of it back over the course of the season like our July-July stretch has done for us the last couple of months, but it's a big gamble no matter what KW does. All we can do is go by past history. KW has approached the starters in the past and parted company with the one who wouldn't sign a long-term contract...there's no reason to think he wouldn't do the same thing again with Danks. Danks has a lot of value to the White Sox, obviously...but he has incredible value because of the cost controls over the next two seasons to other clubs as well. Maybe I'm underestimating the Buehrle market, he has run off an impressive string of quality starts in the last 3 months, but what clubs out there are going to take his contract and give us equal talent? It's going to be more of a salary relief move...and maybe it's possible for just one season, but I'm not convinced the cost savings won't be undermined by public relations damage from dealing Mark. It's the classic Catch 22, your head says to try to trade Mark and your heart says to keep him and Konerko. Of course, that's how we ended up signing Jose Contreras to a bad contract, so we have to be careful...every possible move (including standing pat) is fraught with risk.

QUOTE (Jenksy Cat @ Sep 1, 2010 -> 08:19 PM) How do you magically get a team to trade more or equal amount of talent for MB over Danks? Therein lies the dilemma...we're not going to get anything substantial of value in return for Buehrle, and it's going to be difficult to replace those innings. The biggest risks would be trading either Danks, Floyd or Thornton (if Sale's to stay in the pen), but those are the players who can bring equal talent back. We're obviously not going to trade Beckham or Ramirez, Rios' contract is at best "fair" but certainly not a bargain and everyone in baseball knows all the issues associated with Carlos Quentin. After Danks/Floyd/Thornton, you'd have to look at trading either Viciedo or Mitchell, and I don't see that happening either. The idea of trading Jackson isn't logical to me, because where in baseball are we going to find someone who is an ace for $8 million?

I think we have a new fastest player in baseball. Darren Ford with the SF Giants.

It just seems they get every possible call to go their way...Santiago seemed like he was safe and would have been at 2nd with a chance to be the winning run, and he was deemed out. Especially playing at home, anything to do with Joe Mauer, it's like the umpires anticipate them being the better team and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. That's now 8 losses in 9 tries for the Tigers there. And Scherzer pitched like an absolute ace, throwing 97-98 in the 9th inning. Plus the Tigers made some mental errors, running into a DP they shouldn't have.

Brandon Allen hit a go-ahead Grand Slam and has made some nifty plays in LF today for AZ. Chris Young with another HR and his OPS is higher than Quentin's. 5-2 D-Backs now, the Padres are starting to hear the footsteps, not unlike the 2005 White Sox...they have a season-defining homestand versus Colorado and SF coming up. Aaron Cunningham also hitting fairly well, albeit without much power...hard to put up huge numbers at PetCo even if you're A-Gon.

Chops is promoting a pig "food product," not pigs themselves. Maybe if when the movie BABE came out, a team changed to that name, but then it'd still be the Babe Ruth connection there, too. And Razorbacks are close, but it's still not the same thing close, because they're "fierce" animals, not unlike wolverines...Warthogs is another name I thought of, Winston Salem's minor league team. Still not PIGS, lol.

If you give Konerko more than 2 years, it's like the Contreras "appreciation" contract all over again. You can see discussion of a club/mutual option on that third year, or a set of incentives like Ordonez had to achieve for that third year to kick in, that's probably what I would do if I KW...and tell Paulie that you will go back to JR if another team betters that contract and at least ask for the right to come up with the same deal or better it before he officially decides to leave.

BA's "hunnies" have already petitioned for an image on the CF wall immortalizing his catch to end Game 163. Some religious freedom groups will protest Hamilton's selection because Hamilton fired his original Jewish agent (Sosnick) because "God told him to" in a dream/prayer/revelation/epiphany he had after he became a born-again Christian. That's a bit of a strange story if you read more about it.

Hmmm.... Whatever it was, I guess at 85-87, those pitches had to be change-ups? I could only tell from the MLB.com AT BAT images...so Sale's slider is a hard breaking one like Liriano's that's 89-92 MPH? No wonder everyone is worried about an injury with that kind of torque.

QUOTE (SoxFan562004 @ Sep 1, 2010 -> 01:32 PM) yeah, it will be interesting to see how they handle PK this year. I think Danks will be the lynchpin for the Sox offseason, they'll make a push to resign him and if not I think they'll move him, and if they resign him I think E-Jax and Gavin will be in play for trade. Also, the market will be up in the air again, I don't see a major jump in FA dollars outside Crawford and Lee getting mega-deals, so I think a lot still has to play out, I'm sure KW has Plan A, B, C, D, etc... I don't think anyone would feel too happy if Konerko's money went to Carlos Pena, would they? Hopefully Kendry Morales comes back at 100%.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Sep 1, 2010 -> 01:26 PM) I didn't say I agreed with our current set of statues either. I just think Paulie is really on the fence IMO. It's not like they were putting players like Pods and Crede out there. Buehrle and Konerko are the 00's White Sox, period. You could have made an argument for Ordonez had his career continued here, and that's basically it. There's no Ron Kittle statue, or Bill Melton, Dick Allen, etc., I think they've done a very good job with their selections.

Texas also has Michael Young, Kinsler, Cruz, Guerrero, Andrus, they've got more offensive talent overall than the White Sox...but no way Konerko wins the MVP unless we win like 32 games in a row (Paulie with a consecutive games hitting streak during that entire time), Konerko ALSO catches Bautista for the HR crown and Hamilton falls off or gets injured like Quentin in 2008.

The most impressive thing is that he pitched over the most made-to-order DP in the history of the game and didn't blink or make excuses, then let the game get away from him. You know Carlos Zambrano would have flipped out there. He was aiming the ball a little bit after the 2 walks, his radar readings then were "only" 93-94-95 (versus 95-100, consistently 97). What's most impressive is his ability to already control a much better slider than Thornton...and from what everyone says, his change-up might be his best pitch, and he's not even using that out of the bullpen. I realize Chapman and Henry Rodriguez with Oakland are getting a ton of hype too, but I can't think of two more impressive arms joining the White Sox (E-Jax, too) in the span of 2-3 months that didn't exist at the beginning of the season in our imaginations. A lot of scouts would take Chapman over Sale, and there are going to be concerns about his durability because of his slight frame and his mechanics/delivery...but we should just enjoy it while it lasts. Sale took down the toughest hitter on the Indians in Choo and Ozzie/Cooper had their faith in both Santos and Sale. Proves that Ozzie will trust a rookie, although the choice was pretty obvious to most. Right now, with Jackson, Danks, Floyd, Buehrle, Peavy and Sale, we have a combination of the the best six potential starters collected anywhere in MLB. There's no debate about it. Quite a turnaround from June 9th when many thought our talent was in the bottom 5-10 teams in MLB.

How about that White Sox scouting department? Beckham and Sale...coming up huge for the Sox in the 2nd half. Juan Pierre continuing to hit, walk, steal...and cause problems for the opposition. Carlos Quentin, you suck and Andruw Jones might start playing over your mentally-driven disability to hit on the road. Mark Teahen, I hope you never ever again are playing defense in the late innings at 3B again. Paulie having his best season ever considering his age and the final year with us possibly...without him and Rios, there's no whiff of the playoffs. Alexei continuing to be a dangerous hitter, and also had a clutch RBI to add a critical insurance run.

UGH. DAMMIT. Now the question will be why was Santos pulled after one inning, lol.

Well, you knew it wouldn't be easy...never good to walk the 9 hitter who's batting under .200.

KEITH LAW IS AN IDIOT.

When's the last time a pennant contender relied on two relievers with as little experience pitching in the minors as Santos and Sale? Okay, we all have to shut up and be quiet if Sale blows the save...EVERYONE asked for this, now we've got it, and there are three hitters who aren't exactly imposing. But closing any game in the majors can't be easy.

Ozzieball Execution at its finest, you go Greg!!!! Whatever Ozzie did, it was the right move if we won I guess....well, I'm not going to argue if we escape with this win.

Perfect SAC bunt by Castro. If he wasn't the slowest player in the majors, we'd have bases loaded. Suicide squeeze play?

Carlos Quentin, 810 OPS Andruw Jones, 800 OPS I think we might have passed the Rays the past month for not having the worst DH numbers in the AL.