caulfield12

QUOTE (WCSox @ May 19, 2010 -> 01:43 PM) You can't spend on free agents like the Yankees or Red Sox without their cashflow. Unlike these teams, the Sox don't have the luxury of operating with their foot on the pedal every single year. Your comparison with the Tigers is silly. They're still living off of high draft picks from a string of last-place finishes in the early/mid portion of this decade, they've spent stupidly in FA in recent years, and they still haven't won anything yet. Unless you're suggesting that the Sox play like the Tigers did from 2001-2005, drafting alone isn't going to do it. I've been following the Sox longer than you've been alive, so I don't know where you get off telling me that I should follow a different team because I have a problem with spending $100M/year to finish in third or fourth place. Let's just relax. Many posters (myself included) irritate the heck out of some people, but I came off the ledge a long time ago and now am just looking for individual performances/progress more than team ones, from either the MLB or minor league rosters. There's no need, though, to say someone isn't a Sox fan or should follow the Yankees/Red Sox/Cubs/Cardinals/Phillies or whatever model franchises you can come up with. That's kind of silly to fight each other, isn't it? KW f'ed up, let's just admit it, going into both 09 an 2010. Let's be honest. Let's not blame KW's decisions on Ozzie either, as if that somehow exonerates him. I still think he's a #8-12 GM, and I'd MUCH rather keep him than Ozzie going forward....but he's made some very bad decisions with the likes of MacDougal, Teahen, Pierre and Linebrink (although we don't get to playoffs in 08 without him, is that worth paying him for 09-10-11, you tell me). Are Hudson, Viciedo and Flowers for real? Are Floyd, Beckham, Quentin and Ramirez as good as we think they can/should/might be? You could even say the same thing about Thornton and Santos as the closer, for that matter. If the answer to these 7-8 players turns out to be positive for 5 of them, we're okay. If not, Rios/Peavy/Buehrle are luxuries that we don't have the time to build around and this whole thing needs to be gutted. I will admit that the Rios decision now looks like one of the better ones in recent years, KW had a ton of guts....few GM's would have gone out and put themselves on the line like that, and that's precisely why you keep KW and part ways with Guillen/Cora/Walker. It's easier to change the coaching staff than the entire roster. (Note to Greg, yes, I know your feelings on Ozzie...lol...no need to defend him every time his managerial prowess is questioned, right?)

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 19, 2010 -> 01:42 PM) I know this...they're a lot more likely to be poured back into the club if they do exist. Dick Allen? Your comments are sought.

Good discussion. As far as the Twins not building dominant rotations, this isn't the reason for their losses in 2002-2004 and in 2006, to me, it was much more being 1-2 impact bats short on offense. They had the speed (Hunter, Jones, Stewart) and infield defense (Koskie, Guzman, Rivas, Mientkiewicz) and fundamentals/execution. In fact, it's very easy to see in hindsight, but if David Ortiz matured and became the player he late morphed into (illegally) with the Red Sox but had done it for the Twins, it's a COMPLETELY different story about this decade in baseball, with the White Sox in 05, Tigers in 06, Indians in 2007 and the best of all these ALCD franchises being the Twins, overall, on a consistency basis. Now, their pitching is a little soft, nice depth, but not really the unquestionable dominance of Liriano and Santana in tandem in 2006, paired with the steadying veteran presence of a bulldog in Radke to lead. I'll give you the fact that a lot of the Angels' prospects have busted, but they still had success with Kendrick, Morales, Aybar and an infusion of young/er pitching. It's not like all of their prospects have flopped like Brandon Wood, Casey Kotchmann, Dallas McPherson, etc. Plus, they have a much better manager and stick to a consistent, year in, year out organizational philosophy instead of grasping in the dark for a new spark. At least you have to give KW credit in one sense, he showed a willingness to try something new in 2009 by ridding the club of Dye and Thome. However, getting Juan Pierre 3 years too late and even thinking Mark Teahen was anything was more than a glorified utility player, these were two of the biggest mistake a GM could possibly make. Not because we gave up Ely too, but because we're stuck with both those guys, it hampers our roster reconstruction and payroll in ways that are hard to compensate for. Putz and Andruw Jones will be viewed as good/great moves, and they still won't make up for the two I mention and giving at-bats to Kotsay/Vizquel over a quality MLB HITTER/DH. All this discussion about AJ coming and going...KW and Ozzie are the only ones who know if the rotation can "accept" Flowers at this point. As fathom said, the time is drawing near to see what we have with him, and trading him and keeping AJ for 1-2 more years doesn't make much sense. The only way this whole thing works is: 1) Viciedo, Hudson and Flowers are all legit and adequately replace Paulie, Freddy and AJ 2) Quentin, Beckham and Ramirez play up to their potential, at least what MOST think they can do, especially from an offensive standpoint Along with the AJ decision, the most interesting one will be on Jenks. Are Thornton or Santos really ready to close? Is Thornton's arm about to fall off, like Mike Sirotka's? Jenks has enough stuff left in the tank to get the attention of 3-5 NL GM's who are looking for the final piece in their pens (like Wagner being added last year)....I just don't want to see any more Adkins/Durham or Felix Diaz/Lofton type trades. It woul be nice for once to get back some more legit prospects in a trade (like the Vazquez trade to ATL, or the anti-Swisher trade). Jones and Putz will make their own fates clear over time. TMK and Vizquel are irrelevant. Maybe Nix can put himself back into consideration moving forward as well, he's at worst an "interesting" player.

QUOTE (WHITESOXRANDY @ May 19, 2010 -> 08:36 AM) I don't see the value in spending $ 100 mil. a year in payroll to continually battle Cleveland and KC to stay out of the AL Central cellar. And, I disagree, there will plent of good prospects to be had for this group of players. But, that's why they need to dump them all. They need a lot of prospects and because the organization has been rn so poorly for so many years they have very few good prospects currently. Which, again, is my point. They need to gut everything and start over the right way. I don't want to watch this crap anymore. I'd rather watch a bunch of excited young kids win 60 games a year for the next few years while we pile up high draft picks, prospects, and develop them the right way. The problem is that Ozzie and KW have a pretty spotty record with developing and nurturing young talent (particularly position players)...especially with Ozzie lacking the willingness usually to play rookies over veteran players. One of the few exceptions to this was the promotion of Beckham so quickly last year, although Ozzie constantly bristled against high expectations being placed on his shoulders. We do have some "decent" examples of at least SPOTTING talent in recent drafts in players like Boone Logan, Clayton Richard, Chris Getz, Chris B. Young, Brandon Allen, Ryan Sweeney and Chris Carter. That's not a bad list.

Retherford 2B 4 1 2 1 0 0 1 0 0 .225 Danks, Jor CF 4 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 .234 Viciedo 1B 4 1 2 1 0 0 0 0 1 .294 Viciedo almost up to .300, Danks climbing, CJ finally with another 2 hit game. Hudson, D 5.0 8 5 5 2 8 1 5.36 Whisler 2.0 1 0 0 3 1 0 6.41 Hudson hit pretty hard. Short RF 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 .388 Escobar SS 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 .269 Gilmore 3B 4 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 .355 Lewis DH 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 .341 Sierra 2B 3 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 .295 Greene CF 3 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 .328 Leesman with a very good game, 7 IP, 6 H, 0 R, 2 K's Colligan LF 3 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 2 .272 Shoemaker, B DH 3 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 2 .306 Thompson, T CF 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 .220 Gonzalez, Mi C 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .219 Vera 3B 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .267 Thompson seriously slumping, 3 K's in 3 AB's. Not unexpected. We knew he'd go through his peaks and valleys this year. 2nd game, Thompson 1/1 with a R, 2 BB's, that's better. Now at .228.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 18, 2010 -> 05:34 PM) He has also resigned a lot of them to multi-year deals, such as AJ, PK, Contreras, Buehrle and others. And Teahen/Linebrink/MacDougal.

Surely Beckham was expected by most to be better than Iguchi. Didn't Gordon's rookie numbers in 2/3rd's of a season come pretty close to what Tadahito did in his full seasons in 2005/06 (plus, those 06 offensive numbers were so sick the first 4 months). Ramirez, same thing with his being a better overall player than Uribe. He's not showing it, but it was there in 2008 and for flashes over the last 18 months. Uribe's only really good offensive years happened early in his Sox career. as he faded late. Of course, AJ is older now. 2010 Rios is head and shoulders better than 2005 Rowand. Andruw Jones is certainly playing at a level equal to what we got out of DH overall that year (Thomas/Everett).

Thanks for reverse JENKSING a .216 hitter. Now you've guaranteed an Ordonez at bat with a chance to tie the game. It's like the don't talk about no-hitter rule. Every time we say that about a Piranha, they manage to beat us somehow.

Jenks just got one up to 97 MPH.

I don't like Jenks over Pena with the four run lead and non-save situation. But you have to get him some work so he can TRY to get a feel for his offspeed stuff. Otherwise, if we needed him tmrw against the Angels, he'd really be shaky(ier) coming out of the pen with so much rest. 96 MPH from JENKS, Santos at 95-98, Zumaya was around 100.

QUOTE (docsox24 @ May 18, 2010 -> 01:10 PM) nice work kid!! who goes the 8th, putz or pena? They stay with Santos until he gives up a hit/walk or PUTZ. No way it's Pena. He just hasn't been in that situation very often with us. Jenks has TOO MUCH REST. That means he'll be either lights out or struggle mightily to close the door.

Wow, Cabrera was at .458 with the bases loaded b4 that at-bat. Playing with fire there. Good job not to give up the tying runs. That's called "stuff" to bail you out.

Fell asleep. Pierre just made one of the five best defensive plays of the season it seems. Surprised that F. Garcia has held up so well at this point.

Tendon inflammation has Matt Thornton out of this game but not on the DL quite yet...

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20...sp&c_id=mlb Anyone for trading our entire minor league system (minus T. Thompson, Mitchell, Hudson, Viciedo and Flowers) for Hanley Ramirez?

Viciedo with his 9th homer of the season, 19 RBI's now, .279 BA. Almost a 1.000 OPS in the month of MAY. Quite a tear. In other related news, Jordan Danks struck out yet again. http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/gameday/index.jsp?gid=2010_05_17_chraaa_swbaaa_1

The problem is that Beckham doesn't profile as a "plus" player offensively at 3B. Even his OPS last year when he was going well would have put him in the middle of the pack, closer to Top 8-12, I'm just guessing, I'm sure someone could post where his OPS at 3B would rank his versus at 2B. He's a much better defender at 2B as well, that was always his projected position when he was drafted. The mistake we made was trading for Teahen and signing him to an extension. There were a lot of other options out there...for example, we could have gotten Miguel Tejada for one season (+ option year) and held the position for Morel, but we got in a hurry to pick up another Royal, ostensibly because of how he plays against us? Would still love to pry away Alex Gordon, leaving us with a MUCH MUCH better looking infield. As noted here, we need to get Nix a lot more playing time (than Vizquel) and see what we have. If that includes playing time for CJ Retherford and/or Brent Lillibridge, I'm all for that, because we're going nowhere with Omar and he's not a part of our future, except perhaps in Ozzie's bizarro universe.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 17, 2010 -> 02:41 PM) I agree, I think he's the most overrated Sox prospect of the last 5 years. However, the organization seems dedicated to having him on the fast track. I'll go with Silverio and Anderson Gomes. And LOL at Dave Wilder's club BURN in metro Phoenix.

I'll agree trading Floyd at low value now is borderline insane. Doesn't make any sense at all...we have to wait for him to get straightened out, just keep sending him out there every 5 days. Wally Backham?

It's not surprising, because guys like Kotsay, Vizquel, Pierre, Beckham, AJ and Teahen haven't been hitting the ball with much, if any, authority. When Quentin doesn't get an XB hit, he pops it up somewhere or pulls a pretty weak grounder somewhere on the left side of the diamond the majority of the time. Alexei has struck out less and hit a TON of foul homers because he's just a bit too quick at the plate....but he has also got himself out a ton on pretty weakly hit groundballs as well. Konerko and Rios have been the hitters who have squared up the most balls, and Konerko's gone into one of his patented "mini-slides" now as well.

It all comes down to trading Rios, Danks, Buehrle or Peavy if we really want to create significant payroll space. Quentin is another big enigmatic mystery that we have to decide upon before 2011 starts. He's certainly not hitting like a player worthy of $4-6 million in payroll space, as he's basically a glorified DH. But, if you compare him to Teahen, I would gamble 100 times in a row that Quentin still has the upside to get things together offensively over TMT. Linebrink, Pierre and Teahen, stupid deals like those three hem KW in, especially the last two (as I can understand the Liney and Dotel deals, just not the length of contract for him)... I think $75-95 million is a more legitimate range, with the actual number coming in closer to $90-95 than $75 million. ($65 million was the 2005 WS championship team's payroll number).

QUOTE (Chet Kincaid @ May 16, 2010 -> 04:40 PM) Didn't Troy Tulowitzki have a similar meteoric climb to stardom his rookie year, only to come crashing down to Earth in his sophmore season? He turned it around though. Maybe Beckham will be the same? Kip Wells was kind of the same thing. Sosa and Cameron really tanked/cratered in their second seasons. Kenny Williams, too. Who are you guys most concerned about at this point, being the player we expect AGAIN in the future: Beckham or Quentin. Alex Rios has already proved that the back of his card didn't lie, pretty much.

Well, I was with two girls in China last night, but not at the same time. I guess that sort of counts, lol. By osmosis or the "associative" theory in algebra.

How to Train Your Dragon is simply excellent animation. I rank it right up there with UP! as far as my all-time faves in that category.

QUOTE (knightni @ May 16, 2010 -> 03:56 PM) There's no prize for having the most pretty abattoir. What about beaudoire or bedroom? menage a trois? The race to the bottom of the standings, AKA first draft choice. 1. Baltimore Orioles 2. Houston Astros 3. KC Royals 4. Seattle Mariners (Jack Z. on the hot seat now a bit) 5. Arizona Diamondbacks 6. Chicago White Sox 7. Chicago Cubs Milwaukee Brewers