caulfield12

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ May 15, 2010 -> 07:15 PM) what's with this gun in KC? They had Meche hitting 98, now Hochevar? Peavy at only 90 or 91 to start this game.

Well, Ozzie said he decided between Gordo, Ramirez and Teahen for that spot tonight. None of those options are pleasant. I guess Rios or AJ could figure in there as well, but you need Rios 3-4-5-6 in this order right now.

One hour rain delay. Pierre tries to bunt...once again, Pierre's lack of an extra gear that he used to exhibit has cost him 5-8 extra infield base hits this year. 96-97 MPH "sinker" down the pipe K's Beckham. No hitter stuff so far from Hochevar. 1-2-3 top of the first, what else is new?

Well, on the plus side, we have Viciedo rising and Flowers having a great season so far. Marquez has sort of pitched his way back into some level of consideration as a 5th starter at some point in the future. Daniel Hudson dusted himself off and got up from the deck, just like Peavy. I'll be honest, I never had a great expectation that Danks, Retherford or John Shelby III figured into our long-term plans. But we do need to get something good (eventually) out of Dayan, Flowers, Hudson and Morel (not to mention Mitchell when he comes back).

More solutions: Gordon Beckham at SS Magglio Ordonez was screwed over by the FO, should have been re-signed Rowand shouldn't have been traded with Brian Anderson as the only remaining solution for CF with Chris Young traded Frank Thomas should have been given a long-term contract instead of bringing in Thome (Surprised someone didn't want Carl Jurassic Everett back.)

Originally, 645/635 but obviously that's not happening. If only we had Aaron Rowand, Scotty Pods and Joe Crede still with the White Sox, EVERYTHING would be A-OK. According to some callers to rain delay theatre. Gordon Beckham needs to "choke up" on the bat and start aiming his hits to the "green part of the field." Great! KW has destroyed the franchise single-handedly. Rongey at least stood his ground about Guillen/KW over roster construction and seemed to hold KW more accountable than Ozzie, basically saying that Guillen was "spinning" the moves in the offseason and SoxFest because no manager would say "these moves really suck, I'm a great manager but even I can't do anything with this piece of crap roster..."

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 15, 2010 -> 05:18 PM) It's also worth pointing out that there was no guarantee that the other options out there as DH would be doing that well either. Matsui, for example, has a .716 OPS, which is only good in comparison to Quentin or Kotsay. Brent Lillibridge has a 700+ OPS with Charlotte. When (OR IF) we start talking about replacing Pierre or Beckham with Lillibridge, that's when we'll know the season is pretty much unofficially over.

Someone named Freddy Sweaty Garcia.....along with Michael Morse and Jeremy Reed.

Rain delay until at least 645 CST. According to Cowley, very unlikely this game even gets played, they're trying to find at least a two hour window to cram it in. On the plus side, we can't lose if we don't play. We end the day at 7 1/2 GB of the Twins, who are proving once again they don't belong up there with the big boys just quite yet. http://www.weather.com/weather/map/USMO0460 I think they'll play this one after all, it's not a HUGE unending weather system. BTW, the two best bets for the 2 spot according to Ozzie (after Gordon), were, tuh-dah, Alexei Ramirez and Mark Teahen, yikes!

Brent Lillibridge is OPSing (704) ahead of or equal to Jordan Danks, Maurice Gartrell and CJ Retherford. That wasn't predicted by ANYONE.

Not green or teal, Sergio Santos would legitimately be a more dangerous option to homer than 70-80% of our hitters these days.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 15, 2010 -> 02:33 PM) The last 5 times the Sox started the season 14-21 per Gonzalez: 1983 99-63 First place, AL West 1987 77-85 Fifth place, AL West 1995 68-76 Fifth place, AL Central 1997 80-81 Second place, AL Central 2001 83-79 Third place, AL Central I think that 2001 team actually would go into an 8 game losing streak from that point, pretty sure they reached bottom at 14-29 or something very close to that, then made it all the back to 6 or 8 games over .500. The 1997 and 2001 teams are good examples of teams with very high expectations entering the season (Belle signed as FA, David Wells and coming off the playoff appearance in 2000) that are quite comparable to our current situation. Although I can honestly say I don't EXPECT that this team will get to 6-7-8 games over .500. MAYBE....

The same way it's possible to have Juan Pierre and Omar Vizquel DHing, that's how. I wouldn't be surprised if JP had more RBI opportunities than anyone on the team, or at least with RISP.

If there's no dreaded "vote of confidence," like Moore just gave four days ago to Hillman before the diastrous Rangers' series.... Then the media will circle like sharks with blood in the water and that will be THE story every night if we're losing and falling further and further behind MIN and DET. If there's not a rift now, there certainly will be one soon enough that's exposed for the world to see, and not through Oney's twitter account alone.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 14, 2010 -> 10:08 PM) Huh? Maybe I misunderstood your post. (What savings from Thome and Dye? Dye never left, and Thome they saved about $1 million from.) It seemed like you were saying Thome didn't cost us that much money last year (obviously Andruw and Kotsay are cheaper, that's given). Okay, now I get it, you were talking about 2007 I guess?

So Ozzie would agree to working under Jerry Krause, a "basketball guy" who messed up the Bulls and pissed off MJ to no end? Ozzie won't stand for that, his ego's too big. They would have to agree to build a brand new Venezuelan Baseball Academy (hopefully better results than Wilder's DR one) and name it after Guillen, Vizquel and Aparicio. Not the worst idea in the world. As long as you keep him away from Chicago and the media. Which is why he will get another job or go directly to the broadcast booth for one year hiatus, waiting out the best offers. ESPN, Fox, etc., will be fighting to get Guillen.

QUOTE (flavum @ May 14, 2010 -> 10:05 PM) No team will take Mark Buehrle this year. If he's traded, he makes $15 mil this year, and $15 mil in 2011 and 2012. The Sox have him at $14 mil this year and 2011, and then he'll probably sign with the Cardinals, for a true hometown discount. Quite frankly, I think by the time 2012 comes around we'll be ok with Mark moving on. They might have to kick in $2-3-5 million, but every contract in baseball is moveable if there's a will. FWIW Freddy Garcia or Danks or Peavy would make more sense for STL, sure.

QUOTE (greg775 @ May 14, 2010 -> 10:01 PM) I realize it's a business. My take is Jerry will save a lot of cash by dumping Mark. Cards will want him and offer something. I'm just saying my belief is we'll get s*** back for him even though he should get us good players. After going to a 51s game this week in Vegas, wow I'd love to have that third baseman in the Halladay deal who plays for the 51s. Some lefthande hitter, forget his name. 4-5 and whacking balls all over the field. Hot prospect for Toronto. Barry Zito's deal isn't looking as bad either, another soft-tossing LHP in his 30's. The Cardinals will make a run at Buehrle again this year.

So Balta, you know for a fact that the Phillies paid Thome's contract for his "option year." Where is this reported? Because officially, it was $12-13 million, yes? At least on our payroll, it certainly looked that way. Why would the team have been concerned in 2008 about his 2009 option kicking in if they didn't have to pay his salary, Pat Gillick's "secret" handshake agreement did the trick?

Greg, that's interesting. First time I thought of it that way, that Ozzie believes he has more credibility because of his big league career, in comparison with KW's. You might be on to something there. Plus, he has the boosted confidence from having been around the Marlins and Braves organizations when they were winning, combined with being "King of Chicago" after 2005.

But the Cardinals thing is a 50/50 chance, it seems....either he retires, is traded, stays with Sox or goes to STL as FA for his final big contract.

Okay, couldn't resist. Maybe someone will have their day brightened by attacking my starting a thread after a "competitive" loss. Go for it.

Why would AJ block a trade....to stay on this White Sox team? He's as good as gone.

I can honestly say it's a pleasure to hear Paciorek again. He was always my favorite. Also, John Rooney and Wayne Hagen. Sad when the announcers being paired (Hawk and Hurt, good radio show appelation) and Whimpy and Farmio is more interesting than the game.

QUOTE (Capn12 @ May 14, 2010 -> 08:21 PM) I honestly don't have as big a problem with Juan Pierre on this team as I do with Omar Vizquel, Mark Teahen, Randy Williams, Ramon Castro. Those guys have absolutely no value to this/ANY team whatsoever. Actually, I'm fine with Castro. Look at the back of his baseball card. But Schneider really needs to work on his conditioning. He's called some very good games defensively, has some pop in his bat and can throw the ball a lot better than AJ and V-Mart.