caulfield12

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ May 3, 2010 -> 10:12 AM) It doesn't really work for losing teams. The 2003/04 White Sox were undoubtedly very talented, more than a .500 team, especially the 2003 version. You look at our starting line-ups offensively (Maggs, Thomas, Ordonez, Valentin, Konerko, etc.) back then, they were light years ahead of this current reincarnation. Catching lightning in a bottle once was like the mutual fund director who had a 1351% rate of return and crushed the S&P, causing him to think he could beat the index consistently year after year. It can't be done, everything absolutely broke perfectly in 2005, a once in a 25-50 year eventuality for the White Sox organization historically.

Balta, why would a team like the Nationals take the risk that he (Dunn) accepts and they end up with a contract they don't want on their hands? Not that they have a clue what they're doing over there, but their philosophy is hard to discern....more like Dayton Moore, for every Hochevar/Moustakas/Hosmer, there's a Gathright, Crisp, J. Guillen, Bloomquist, Ankiel, Pods, Kyle Farnsworth, Juan Cruz, that's kind of a head-scratching veteran sign when they should be in total youth rebuild, etc.

Since we're not the ones signing the checks, is there anyone who will go on record and argue how/why trading Flowers/Hudson as well as Danks OR Morel for Gonzalez and THEN signing Edgar to a $200 million dollar, 8 year contract extension would make sense at this time and place?

Yeah, agree on the head movement part, it's obvious to him I am sure watching tape, the problem is correcting it once the lights come on, I'm sure he's 100% confident in BP. I must throw in with the others who think that working hard is not the same as being an effective hitting coach. The Sox have had trouble for several years now with hitting in critical situations. Although the team has been largely re-constructed, the problem continues. When Gordon Beckham came up last year, he may not have had a perfect swing, but he was hitting with confidence and getting on base. After Walker "helped" him, he can't seem to get a hit and he looks confused at bat. Item No. 2, Pierre. He's got to be one of the worst outfielders in the major leagues. At bat, he looks even worse. I don't know if that is Walker's fault, but he was a better hitter before he came to the Sox. Now he, too, looks confused. -- Garey Conrad; Urbanna, VA Well, many of you asked what Walker does. So I told you he (and Mike Gellinger, the major league computer systems analyst) work endlessly with all the hitters. After Gordon widened his batting stance (under the suggestion of Walker), he went 4-for-8 before striking out in six of his next nine at-bats. Sure, the jury is out on the stance but Gordon told me before Saturday's game that he felt comfortable. I still think his swing tends to get long, although Gordon doesn't think so. Walker was a first baseman, so he has nothing to do with Pierre's defense. And I think you'll see Juan as the designated hitter more often when Carlos Quentin is healthy and Alex Rios returns. answer: Mark Gonzales/Tribne.com How can you defend the coaching staff? Just as an example look at the number of players who were sent to the minors for rehab and came back hitting or pitching better only to fall back in a slump when Greg Walker or Don Cooper were in the picture. It appears they help no one. Then you have Ozzie's attitude that they are pros and should know themselves what the problem is. If that were the case, why not save a bunch of cash and get rid of them. Walker says the(y) (sic) need to find themselves. -- Randy A.; Reno, NV Sergio Santos is the only rookie currently on the squad, and he's pitching great. That's a tribute to him and the player development staff.

I'll beat the Uribe horse dead into the ground again...or Orlando Hudson. Or both. At any rate, that ship's sailed. I do know one thing...he's really hesitant down there to make reads and commitments, and he ends up putting himself in a bad position, letting numerous balls "play him" instead of the other way around. Not to mention that, being "in between" as a fielder works the same as hitting, with the same negative consequences. You either come in too quickly and misplay the ball or hop or get off balance, or you're back on your heels making wild flat-footed throws and pressuring your 1B. It also seems he lacks range and first step "range explosiveness" (Crede had it despite ZERO actual 40-50 yard dash speed) to his right or left. He also plays a lot of balls off to the side, which only works for Juan Uribe. The arm is a nice TOOL, but it's like going to work as a handyman with a hammer and no nails.

Then again, the early returns on the Javy Vasquez deal don't look so good) Give it some time. Lillibridge was never realistically expected to be a major league regular when we acquired him. If Flowers doesn't make it as a catcher, then that's a pretty big hit as far as that trade goes, but Gilmore and Santos Rodriguez (especially) are interesting prospects, albeit ones we won't see for another two seasons, if not 3. Look at it this way....Vazquez sucked for us when it counted, just jettisoning his contract would have been enough for me. Instead, we got a Top 50 catching prospect who's very intriguing and Gilmore/Rodriguez as part of the deal, both of who could emerge eventually at the big league level. It's nothing to get worked up about now regardless, that trade was alway a "way down the line" move in terms of evaluation. If you want to dissect any move/s, it's both Swisher trades that have been pretty horrible in terms of an overall "net" return to the Sox. However, I'll cede KW's company line that Swisher wasn't going to play CF for us and that he allocated the money from Nick's deal to the signing of Viciedo. Only when/if Dayan fails to contribute can I completely write off every element of the 2 Swisher moves and call it a complete loss.

The Twins are flukey and will struggle in their new ballpark over time. Dick Allen said so. So I'll trust his judgment on that one.

It's a disgrace to logic we're even having this thread. You have to look at the big picture, Castro's a veteran with proven results on the back of his baseball card, he's got a decent-sized contract, Lucy was close to being DFA'ed at different points over the last 2 seasons. He wasn't even a starter for most of his career at Stanford. Castro, you can make a case that he could get hot and carry a team offensively as a DH for a week or two and also can spell AJ more reliably with his veteran experience and repoire with our staff. Lucy hasn't built up that knowledge-base at the major league level, not even close.

Donny Lucy opened some eyes up while he was here. Daniel Hudson returned to future ace form with the Knights. http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/news/ar...b&fext=.jsp Let's start looking at the big picture here...we'll be fine. In Ozzie, Cooper, Walk and KW we trust!!! Well, Cora, not so much...

1) Beckham has proven he can successfully adapt and transition defensively to 2B (his third position in a year), and only needs a few more weeks to get things straightened out mentally. If he's still struggling at the end of May, we can always send him to Charlotte and we have capable replacements in Nix and Vizquel to hold down the fort in the meantime. 2) Sergio Santos...watching him well up in THE CLUB preview is perhaps the coolest thing to happen this year, along with #5 and #8 on this list. 3) Alex Rios is the player who we're no longer worrying about carrying that long-term contract anymore. 4) Andruw Jones has been better than anyone could ever have expected in his role. 5) John Danks has become one of the two three lefty starters in baseball. 6) Matt Thornton, despite his occasional glitches, has been one of the top 2-3 lefty set-up guys in baseball, and would fetch us as much as any player on this team at the moment if KW placed him on the market. 7) Bobby Jenks has gotten the job done, just look at his Saves/SO stat, the back of his TOPPS baseball card begins and ends there. 8) Paul Konerko is the AL Offensive Player of the Month, giving KW flexibility to trade him if necessary in order to clear salary space. Even if traded, there's a better than 50/50 chance KW could bring him back to the White Sox for a 2-3 year extension if they decided Viciedo wasn't ready to go at season's end. 9) Pena and Putz have acquitted themselves well, and Putz will only get better (as he builds his fastball and splitter back up to previous "closer form" each day removed from surgery). Along with Andruw Jones and Konerko, Putz will be among the most sought-after pitchers on our roster due to KW's insightful contract. Pena's making the minor league guys forget about Brandon Allen. 10) We have immediate, impactful prospects at the AA/AAA level in D2, Flowers (murdering the ball), Viciedo, Hudson, Santeliz, Shelby and CJ Retherford. 11) Trayce Thompson has a better than 50/50 chance of becoming one of the Top 20 prospects in baseball, and a dominant offensive force that you build an organization around, to go along with Beckham, Danks and Quentin as franchise centerpieces. 12) Biting the bullet and trading Buehrle to the Cardinals nets us a boatload of prospects....and they'll be willing to pay a "premium" to acquire him. 13) We stayed afloat on this road trip and can start to do some damage in the standings to the Twins'/Tigers' hot starts with a good 5-2 or 6-1 streak, led by the starting pitching all winning and each performance building on the previous one like in 2005 and 2008. They're simply too talented to not get it figured out for at least a 2-3 month stretch in a season. Just like the 2001 team that started 14-29 only to get to 8 games over .500, or the 1983 team that stumbled to 16-24 and ended up winning the division going away, by 30 games. Shall I go on?

Are we really bunting Konerko over to 2nd? Seems like a good way to get him thrown out at second or home on a single...

QUOTE (fathom @ May 2, 2010 -> 12:57 PM) It's a long season, but he wouldn't be the first Sox player to have a strong first year and then fall on their face (Caruso, Fields, and even Quentin). It's more of a rule of thumb instead of a freak happening so far. Ramirez comes to mind. Sosa and Cameron really struggled in their second years and ended up being traded.

He swung through 90, 90 and 89 MPH cutters....not straight fastballs, apparently.

But aren't his minor league defensive metrics "solid" or at least 2nd quintile in RF? I think I read that somewhere...once upon a time.

Can anyone theorize as to what happened to Carlos' defensive abilities, particularly as everyone thought he'd be more comfortable in his more natural RF position? Injuries can't be the only excuse...can they?

Not too many guys put up 120+ k's with limitless power like Teahen does. I'm only saddened they didn't sign him, Kotsay and Vizquel to lifetime, guaranteed contracts. Great work as usual, KW.

I was waiting for 40 minute LATE tour bus at 500 am. Of course, I was already up, but who tells someone to meet a bus at 500 am and then is 45 minutes late picking them up? ONLY IN CHINA...at any rate, simply had to come back to check the score, even though I was hesitating...too much time invested NOT to know. Great jobs by Jenks and AJ, not to mention Putz. FWIW, we have to put Teahen, Rios, AJ or Ramirez in the 2 hole...to temporarily alleviate some of the pressure Beckham's putting on himself. Happy that wasn't the 25 year old Winn out there, he might have corraled AJ's double, just saw it on the replay. But PROBABLY not.

Let's just hope this is the absolute low point of the season for Beckham (0/5, 3 K's) and it's only up from here...nothing else you can say, his problems have been dissected to the point where it's counterproductive for him to think up there.

$4.5 or $5 million this year and next, something like that...I didn't bother to look it up, just guessing.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 1, 2010 -> 02:22 PM) Nice splitter! Yeah, you called that earlier. That's the difference with him and Linebrink, the confidence to use his secondary stuff in big situations. Liney has been reduced to relying on a BP fastball (well, for a short reliever, the equivalent, 91-94).

We've made it to the 8th with the lead. Yay!!! Please get some insurance runs...I don't think I can stomach Jenks with anything less than a 2-3 run lead against the Yankees.

Why is Ozzie so hesitant to use Santos? Just overprotecting him after what happened to Aardsma?

QUOTE (iamshack @ May 1, 2010 -> 02:11 PM) I welcome CONSTRUCTIVE criticism and discussion. It doesn't have to be all shiny happy people in here. Trust me, I throw s*** and swear at my tv all the time. But some people need to learn to take deep breaths. This place has the emotional stability of a pregnant woman on a roller coaster sometimes. Which is no different from how KW has acted until he's made a concerted effort his year NOT to get upset and live and die with wins and losses on a daily basis. Except we NEED him to be that post-game buffet overturning lunatic again, as long as he thinks rationally when he calms down and makes good moves. Abraham Lincoln wanted to fire almost every general that led the Army of the Potomac until Sherman and Grant came along...he would write 100's and 100's of letters tearing their predecessors apart and relieving them of command, then throw them all in the fire. The only difference in 2010 is that we put our immediate reactions into cyberspace instead of taking a deep breath and step back. I've been upset twice since 2004, the game where I woke up and we blew the big lead late (against KC) in Sept. 2005 and the Jenks/Carlos Gomez series sweep towards the end of 2008 where it looked inevitable the season would get away. That last week of baseball was probably the most interesting I've ever seen, except for 05, because expectations were so high that year with the lead almost the entire year, running away until the Indians showed up in the 2nd half.

QUOTE (iamshack @ May 1, 2010 -> 02:05 PM) Look, this is a FAN forum. The general definition of that is a place where one goes to CHEER on his team. Not beat down others who still have some enthusiasm, unlike yourself. If I wanted that, I would go down the street to one of the casinos and play Let It Ride all day long til my bank account is empty, then stumble down to the strip club and get my ass kicked by a bouncer for trying to touch a stripper inappropriately. I do not need it here. Which is why I very rarely say anything negative in the minor league forum...because I still have hope that things will turn around, SOMEHOW. Not that there are a LOT of tangible reasons to hold onto that belief, but just because you have no other choice. Yes, I'm disappointed because I wanted Mitchell to be able to doing things on the diamond so we'll forget JUAN PIERRE ever existed. And I'm not even a Beckham worshipper (nor was I Brian Anderson one, I was crucified over him last year until he decided to prove he wasn't a major league ballplayer instead of the victim of a JFK-worthy conspiracy), but you would like to see signs of him not regressing like Ramirez and Quentin did in 2009.

This game is filled with irony. Swisher's homer, now the White Sox raking against 2005 WS ring holder Damaso Marte.