caulfield12

More than meets the eye to this story... "He's going through some things in his life right now that are very personal and very emotional," Zduriencik said. "We firmly believe that we manage people first. Certainly we are about winning baseball games ... but most important is the employees that work with us. We will join together and help him receive the assistance that he needs." Two hours earlier, Bradley revealed yet another emotional side. Joined by fellow speakers Wakamatsu, Ichiro Suzuki, Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Sweeney, Bradley stood before students and teachers at Lakeridge Elementary school in south Seattle and openly discussed what motivates him. The man who in March told The Associated Press he was baseball's Kanye West interrupted himself at one point because he was getting overcome with emotions during an impassioned five-minute talk to students on the Mariners' annual education day. "I grew up in Long Beach, Calif., me and my mother," Bradley said softly through a microphone while in front of a stage in the school's lunchroom. "She worked in a grocery store, checking out groceries every day, 40 hours a week. Every day she'd come home, get the mail. She'd get in the same chair with the bills. She'd put in one pile the bills she could pay. In another pile she'd put the ones she couldn't pay. Bill collectors would call. I saw her fall asleep in that chair. "I saw that every day. That was my motivation," to reach the major leagues. Then, Bradley - who recently complained that no one ever asks him where he's from, what he's about - shrugged. With a previously buzzing student body nearly silent and teachers watching intently, Bradley said through glistening eyes: "I'm kind of getting a little emotional right now, because this is my heart." Then he waved his hand over the kids. "The whole world's ahead of you," Bradley said. "Someone in here might change the world. Motivation is what's most important." As Bradley sat down, Sweeney hugged him. The five-time All-Star then gave Bradley's back a comforting pat. The slugger smiled. After the school event, Sweeney said the Mariners are going to help Bradley. "The way we're going to do that is just, to love on him," Sweeney said. "His track record shows he's had some ups and downs. But we can embrace him and get him to click the way he did in Texas (in 2008, Bradley's All-Star season). "He's a beautiful man, with a beautiful heart." --- AP Sports Writer Tim Booth contributed to this report Seattle Post-Intelligencer from yahoosports.com So, Bradley isn't producing and he's acting out. But this is worse than giving fans the finger. This is giving the finger to your team. Here's part of what Baker (Seattle Times) reported: From what I'm told, Bradley came back to the dugout and told manager Don Wakamatsu something along the lines of "I'm done. I'm not helping the team.'' Those probably were not his exact words, but that was the message he conveyed. Wakamatsu had Ryan Langerhans(notes) warm up immediately and followed Bradley into a tunnel between the dugout and clubhouse to talk him off the ledge and tell him not to quit on his teammates. At some point, Bradley was about to return to the dugout, but once he saw Langerhans playing left field in his place, left again and returned to his locker. From there, he quickly packed and exited the stadium with the game still in progress. It will be hard for the Mariners to forgive him for literally walking out on his team in the middle of the game. Look, I've given Milton the benefit of the doubt before. I even like him — or one of his personalities, anyway. He was a good Answer Man back in '08. But his inability to cope in a game that is all about how one deals with failure is pretty telling. No amount of hugs from Ken Griffey Jr.(notes) and Mike Sweeney(notes) are going to fix him. The Cubs told him to leave last year. Before it happens again, I guess, he's telling the Mariners: "You can't fire me! I quit." OK. See ya.

Not unless JD pulls a BA or Sergio Santos and uses his "legendary/epic" arm to hurl us to the World Series.

Edwards (W, 3-2) 6.0 6 0 0 2 1 0 2.25 Bellamy (H, 2) 2.0 1 0 0 0 2 0 0.93 Infante (S, 4) 1.0 1 0 0 0 1 0 2.84 Nice pitching by the PURPLE PHALLIC SYMBOLS of PRIAPISM

Rios and Andruw Jones continuing to carry the offense, along with Paulie Konerko. Great outing by Garcia, who has clearly been our #2 starter for the first five weeks of the season, keeping us afloat so we can wait, lurking in the weeds for an inevitable Minnesota slump. Pierre even had two hits and now with 15 SB's, as we continue to be leading the majors or close to it in that category. Teahen also had a couple of safeties. Still worried about Beckham, Ramirez, AJ and TCQ...Beckham and TCQ remain the biggest wild cards for our offense becoming at least an "average" one, along with Alexei Ramirez getting back to being at least a 725+ OPS shortstop. He's still mired in the high 500's. We've now won two series (over M's and Royals, split with the dreaded Jays 2-2). YAY! If we hadn't played the CLE Indians this season, we'd be a robust .500, haha, and only 5 GB.

KW will sign Bradley and Dukes to replace Kotsay and Nix on the roster....

BUT BUT BUT he still has the physical tools and overall game that scouts seem to love, compared to someone like a Retherford or Getz. In my feeling, he's kind of a tweener type like Willie Harris (more pop, less speed) without one really defined position he is superior at and who ends up sticking as a bench/role player for 3-5 years in the majors.

What were the odds that Freddy Garcia essentially would be our #2 starter the first five weeks of the season? We'll take it, those starts might end up being what keeps the shift afloat before the Twins go into at least 2-3 inevitable tailspins.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ May 5, 2010 -> 05:35 PM) What. Now that thats out of the way, I'll just say my top 4 Trayce Thompson Jared Mitchell Jordan Danks John Shelby III Doesn't Shelby's inability to play CF limit his potential? He really has to be like Chone Figgins with lower OBP but more power to occupy LF/DH on our roster. Then again, we DH the likes of Pierre, Kotsay and Vizquel, and he probably will put up higher OPS numbers than all three of those guys at this point in their late careers. With Shelby, you're talking 15-18 homers, lots of doubles and triples sprinkled in, streaky streaky hitting, maybe 18-24 steals??? Kind of like Ray Durham (albeit lesser version of Ray-Ray playing LF instead of 2B). The question will always be K's/contact and OBP with Shelby, yes? Fair comparison? If not, who would you compare Shelby to in terms of current power/speed combo players?

Can I get a "gold star"? With the way this season's going, we might have to present "poster of the week" awards to encourage anyone to talk about the White Sox, other than minor leagues and trade winds. BTW, can Brandon Short play CF? Just corner OF? Hasn't he played infield before at some point in his career, before he came to the Sox? How would we compare Shelby III and Short as prospects?

STRIKEOUT LEADERS Teahen 21/76=27.6% Beckham 20/94=21.3% A. Jones 20/70=28.6% ON THE PLUS SIDE Pierre (4), AJ (5), Vizquel and Kotsay (2/48) rarely strike out. The problem is that they wouldn't be feared by the Chinese Taipei 13 and under Little League infield playing on a mini-field at Williamsport. HOWEVER, Paulie, Rios, TCQ and Sexy Alexei are all striking out at improved percentages compared to their career numbers. So, to summarize...big concerns about Teahen and Becks, although Gordo's walks are encouraging the last 2 games.

When does your contract run out, Hawk? Because it might be a REALLY long season for you, Ozzerooo and KW. Hope you can make it through the remainder of the season! FWIW, we don't have that many "bad" contracts on our team. Right now, it's limited to Linebrink, Pierre and Teahen. If you want to argue (with someone here), you can also include Peavy, Rios/Konerko (with the start he's having, you can't easily argue that his contract is "bad value") and Buehrle. I don't really care about Castro, Kotsay, Vizquel, etc., although maybe you start adding their numbers up cumulatively, it's enough to afford Damon/Matsui/Vlad The Impaler. All water under the bridge now, that ship has sailed.

Finally. :begood

Every 15 seconds? Isn't that a little hyperbolic? You also have to consider one factor. I'm in China now, it's 653 am here. So because I post at a totally different time, like in the morning when everyone is sleeping the US, I could see where you would have that impression. But actually count thread starters in the last week or so in PHT. I might have just a couple, at most. Everyone has annoying habits here and become predictable. Would you like to hear everything that's wrong with your posts, lol? I'll save that discussion for another day, I think.

Thad, I don't think they could go past 2011 with it (Teahen's MEHHHHHH version of baseball).... Truly, I am much more concerned with Pierre and Beckham, though, for the moment. And Gavin Floyd.

But that's how they pronounce David Beckham's name in the Barclays English Premier League. Maybe he was thinking of that...or Posh Spice was on his mind?

What's up with characterizing something as "strange"? (From now on, I think I'll just say the opposite of what I actually believe, in an effort to be exceedingly positive and cheerleaderish....so the comments about Revere and Hicks will fit into that overall paradigm shift over time). It's also "strange" to me that the White Sox season is about to be over before it even started...I'm frustrated, because as a baseball fan, I actually wanted to be able to care about my team. It would be nice to at least hope we have meaningful games in the second half of the season. So I promise for the rest of the season not to bring up the TWINS, nor will I create a discussion about abysmal attendance in a thread (as the topic of any "new thread" here or anywhere in PHT). You can ban me for life if I do that, fine. Then you will have new posters to concern yourself with...

2nd line....NO, NO, NO Also Dye seems like he'll be better in RF than TCQ $9 million in incentives? considering he will miss at least 2 months of the season....he would never believe they were attainable There's no need to trade/release Kotsay...he just shouldn't bat 5th (or 3rd) EVER nor should he play more than 1-2 (max) times per week

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ May 5, 2010 -> 04:21 PM) Those amount of strikeouts are simply not acceptable for a player who does not hit for power. Agreed. He's just not the fundamentally sound player you build future Ozzie Ball offenses around with ill-conceived contract extensions that are PREMATURE judgement by KW at best. Not criminal by KW, but negligent, considering how tight our payroll will be getting in the days and weeks to come.

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ May 5, 2010 -> 04:17 PM) Not one thing premature about any of these assessments made so far. Teahen is the same player now that he was in KC for the past five years - a poor defending, light-hitting, strikeout machine. "Under-rated performer" could not be a more misused phrase if it's being used to describe Mark Teahen's baseball playing ability. And with all due respect, I could care less if Teahen spends all of his free time helping old ladies cross the street and saving cats stranded in trees. He's not here to win a Mr. Congeniality award. He's here to play third base for our White Sox, and so far he's not doing a very good job of it. I was being sarcastic in an effort to try to appear positive (since I genuinely have never had anything positive to say about Mark Teahen the 3B, as a person, great guy, one of the best, most personable in the game)...to see my actual thoughts, you'll see I more or less agree with you if you read the next couple of posts in the thread.

SouthSide, I lived in KC before I moved abroad and have seen him play a lot in person. I never liked him as a player or prospect....off the field, great "media-friendly" addition, a lot like Joe Borchard, but much more confident in himself. We'll see 14-18 homers, a good number of doubles, 120 K's, maybe 55-70 RBI's (with our offense as presently comprised)...260 - 275 BA. Nothing horrible, but his defense makes him a liability on a very good/great/elite team. Still better as an Xavier Nady type that can play multiple positions off the bench, but certainly not a starter that will lead us to the playoffs or be anything more than a complementary component. We put up with Crede at 725-775 OPS because of his defense and "clutch" hitting, not to mention a bit more overall pop in his bat. Teahen will more or less provide the same (less homers, more walks), but, once again, it's a net negative due to his defense and his lack of 800-950 OPS ability at a corner/power spot on diamond.

LOL. Maybe I will become a member of the board grammar police. Beware!

How would Dye fit in as DH here? Andruw Jones has been very very productive. Granted, that PROBABLY won't last the full season, but the only way you bring in JD is if there's some type of injury to Quentin or Jones that knocks them out for a long period of time. Or a second half like Jones went through in TEX. At that point, the White Sox are probably out of contention anyway, so JD would just block getting at-bats from a part of the solution for our future teams. I wish the Royals would sign him, they seem to enjoy picking random veterans to mix in with the young up-and-coming players (Guillen, Bloomquist, Meche, CoCo Crisp, Ankiel, Pods, Jacobs, Olivo, Kendall, Callaspo, etc.)

Okay, fair enough. Would you trade Gavin Floyd to the Padres for Jon Garland or Clayton Richard right now?

Garland was a myth of a "good" pitcher for most of his Sox career. He was really an average fourth starter or great fifth starter with the exception of the World Series season. I guess what I am trying to say is that Garland didn't really "take off" to the next level and become anything close to an elite pitcher, as befitting his initial draft status. He's had a good major league career, nothing more, nothing less. So was 2005 just a fluke year, like it was for so much of our team? Was Cooper responsible for the success, but not also the failures of 2006/2007/2009 and so far this season?

Premature evaluation!!! Give Teahen some more time. It's EARLY. He's a great clubhouse guy, does interviews for anyone who asks (even school newspapers) and an all-around good guy with a great sense of humor. You will come to know and love him like many Kansas Citians did with Joe Randa, another under-rated performer at the hot corner who never got the full amount of respect he was due because he played for the Royals and Pirates mostly.