caulfield12

Bobby Jenks. Esteban Loaiza. Jayson Nix. Scotty Pods (2nd time around). All acquired at NO cost to the Sox. And, by extension, Contreras through NY. Alexei putting up RBI's Juan Uribe style....2 on the night on 2 sac flies. This is the first meeting of the season between Twins and Rangers, Twins take tonight's game 5-3 to momentarily move into a tie with us. D. Wise, BOO!!!!

That's what happens when you go with 7 out of 8 71-72 MPH curveballs to SLAYER. You die. Wise sporting a .523 OPS coming into this AB. I think Beckham can chase down Romero and Andrus and hold off Wieters for ROY....he's going to need to put up at least 55-60 RBI's by the end of the season.

But not farther out than Borchard's? The biggest bombs I have seen hit at USCF were by Pasqua, McGwire and Canseco. PS: Maybe Cooper can fix Rich Hill and Felix Pie? PS2: I think we can live with Chris Getz at a 690-710 OPS.

These are those "garbage" innings when Dotel usually gets 2-3 strikeouts, making his stats appear like he's the most dominant set-up man in the game of baseball unless you actually pay attention to his performance in important/clutch situations.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 17, 2009 -> 08:32 PM) Mora sucks, and for what Teahen will cost, I want no part of him. Caulfield, the weather was pretty bad here around 4 PM today. Maybe KW needs to hire the Chinese scientists who were trying to "control" the weather patterns west of Beijing during the Olympics last year. Normally, we're fine when we get to June, but the weather has been so crazy even during the summer months this year. Wonder if KW regrets not going after Andruw Jones, who's sporting an 869 OPS as of this moment???

31013 attendance for tonight....would have hoped for 32-33K, but we'll take anything in the 30's. Orioles are just not a very good team, although they are entertaining offensively. I was thinking Melvin Mora would look nice at 3B for us, but he still has a sub 700 OPS at 3rd, although he's been much hotter recently than the overall season stats would indicate. Keep going back and forth about Chris Getz as a starter...or whether Teahen/Mora (etc.) with Beckham at 2B would be better.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Jul 17, 2009 -> 08:25 PM) You were saying. Or was that to save our hitters? I was trying to jinx him...Baez sucks, signing Walker and Bradford and Danys for big money, very questionable use of resources by the Orioles, especially on Walker, lefties like that are always fluky from year to year, unless it's the Twins' Reyes against us.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 17, 2009 -> 08:22 PM) Considering I think Tillman will have a better career than Kazmir or Liriano, and Adam Jones is likely to be more valuable over his career than Nathan, I give the big edge to Baltimore (not to mention they got Sherrill) The O's announcers were talking about Tillman replacing Berken in the rotation. That's 8 or 9 starts for him without a win, and a mid 6 ERA. On the hook again right now for the loss, barely.

Can we just trade Linebrink and Fields for Baez? Liney in 2010 and 2011 doesn't seem too promising.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 17, 2009 -> 08:16 PM) That could go down as one of the 5 worst trades in the last 100 years of baseball. Brock/Broglio AJ SF trade Zambrano/Kazmir Colon for Phillips/Sizemore/Lee Borchard for Matt Thornton (just kidding) Smoltz for Doyle Alexander

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ Jul 17, 2009 -> 08:16 PM) wonder if seattle regrets trading Jones Surely they never expected to be almost to the point of waiving Bedard coming into this season. Being as offensively-challenged as the M's are, that kind of plus hitter and defender is much harder to replace in CF than finding pitchers who can use Safeco to their advantage to hold down the opposition. BOO! BOO!! Wise, you are a one-year wonder and completely worthless.

QUOTE (OilCan @ Jul 17, 2009 -> 08:12 PM) Yep, really bad one. Despite his "decent" ERA, appearances can be deceiving with Linebrink. Obviously he's going through a dead-arm period again or is just sore-armed. Does anyone have confidence in him holding a one run lead or tie game in the 8th inning anymore?

Yet another reason we went out and got Pena. Hopefully Linebrink doesn't become as unbearable to watch as MacDougal the next 2 seasons. Double plays not turned....ground rule doubles, feels like the lead should be a bit more comfortable. Luke Scott is very dangerous...hopefully he doesn't give them the lead here.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 17, 2009 -> 07:59 PM) As much as we love Dye, his option of 11.5 million I believe is just too much in this market. It's very strange from two months ago thinking we SHOULD be thinking of ways to jettison Dye/Konerko/Thome to now wondering if it wouldn't be a better to keep 2/3 of maybe all three of them around for 2010. Hopefully, the attendance will pick up and we'll stay in the race for the entire season so KW won't have any excuses about going after players like Hunter/Fukudome/Rowand and coming up short time after time. It's interesting to think how good we would have been the last two years with Hunter, but that contract as he ages the next three seasons scares me a little bit. Then again, I never thought he would even put together an MVP half offensively, let alone season, in his 30's.

Thome "quietly" has a .902 OPS, higher than Konerko. Really interesting decisions coming up with Dye and Thome in the off-season. If Dye keeps hitting the way he has, you almost HAVE to exercise his option for 2010...and if Quentin is going to be uncertain going into next year, even more of a priority for KW. You can't see us going after someone like Vladimir Guerrero, even coming off 2-3 "down" seasons and at the back end of his career.

Supposedly, there are velocity and stamina concerns, based on his AAA performance at OKC to date...to the point where they didn't feel they could take the risk of letting him get his velocity and control back by experimenting in the heat of a pennant race. Kind of the same issue we already have on our hands with Freddy Garcia and Bartolo Colon.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 17, 2009 -> 07:21 PM) It's very possible Webb is a FA this offseason. There's also reports his injury is much more serious than the organization is stating it is. So the question is will KW be willing to go into one of those incentives-based contracts like the Red Sox put together for Penny or Smoltz? David Wells is the last pitcher who had a somewhat similar contract in 2001. Mark Mulder is another guy in this category, although it looks like he might be done. Ironic, but far and away the best move the Indians made in the offseason was Carl Pavano, a move that almost everyone in baseball discounted. But 85% of SoxTalk would take Pavano as the fifth starter right now I bet.

QUOTE (beautox @ Jul 17, 2009 -> 07:14 PM) Absolutely, if we can get average production out of third base with a steady glove and move Bacon to 2B, along with a healthy Quentin we've got a very potent line up, esp if Jermaine can continue to keep it up. The idea of Teahen and Hermida in our line up excites me. We would have a balanced attack from both the left and right sides of the plate and the potential for breakouts(backs?) from them, neither one of them would be expected to carry the line up; simply produce for the rest of the season and going into 2010 while AJ, Paulie and Dye ride off into the sunset. With all the money we would have coming off the books after this year i would look to lock up core; much like the rays and tribe. The sox are going to have a very solid foundation to build off in nearly every aspect across the board and depth in the minors to supplement the major league roster in one fashion or another. My mouth salivates at the thought of this around the Diamond. DH L/R Thome/Dye C R Flowers 1B R Konerko 2B R Beckham SS R Ramirez 3B L Teahen LF L Hermida CF L Danks RF R Quentin Then you add in the potential "hitability" of Viciedo at 3B and you really have something...

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/spli...ng3&three=1 Haren has a 3.73 ERA away from home (around 3.30 in the desert) and has given up more hits than IP on the road over the 2006-2008 seasons. That's a little worrisome, just like we talked about with Peavy. That would translate to a 4.00-4.25 ERA in the American League. So I don't think Haren or Halladay are worth that kind of package...Halladay because we wouldn't be able to keep him for more than 1.25 years and his age, Haren because he's not really a proven ace in the AL. A Brandon Webb or going after Peavy coming off an injury are more KW's style, with the exception of the Freddy Garcia trade, when he was still pretty close to his prime but still declining a bit because of the abuse to his arm/shoulder.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 17, 2009 -> 05:20 PM) Average is a lot better than what we've gotten out of CF and perhaps 3b so far this season. Another problem with Teahen is that he's pretty much abysmal in RF/LF and at 2B. He's so-so at 3B, which MIGHT be better than Beckham, but not by much. So the question is whether the offensive upgrade of Teahen over the Getz/Nix platoon is worth it, and the cost of acquisition. And a lot depends on CQ. If we know he's not coming back, getting Teahen's LH bat in the line-up does make a lot more sense, because we're definitely at least one bat short still with Pods' injury history, Anderson/Wise and Getz/Nix (maybe still a tick below MLB average if you combine them, but they're not killing us, either).

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009906200344 Older article, but interesting take defending Ordonez's benching. Is Ordonez done? PEDS? At 35, I would like to see him try to make a comeback with the White Sox as a DH against lefties (I think we have to get a LH DH to replace Thome) and 4th outfielder, but that will never happen with KW and Ozzie running the team. But it's more Boras hate than anything personally I ever had against Magglio. He wasn't really a leader, but he certainly wasn't the WORST guy on the team or in the clubhouse, either. Not Herbert Perry or Jose Valentin, though.

QUOTE (CanOfCorn @ Jul 17, 2009 -> 04:51 PM) I bet they don't trade Freddy Sanchez. They've already got enough bad press. And they are supposedly talking about extensions for he and Jack Wilson. I do like your idea to trade for Snell though. Another consideration with Snell is the fact that he's in the Top 20 in the most "pitcher abuse" points...so a pretty good candidate to break down and have an injury, on top of all the other issues (confidence/mechanical) Cooper would have to deal with.

Which has higher odds, Alex Rios putting up another 800+ OPS season at USCF in our new "reinvigorated" line-up in 2010/2011 or Jordan Danks? Obviously, Rios has more of a track record and he's still a young player, one of those "change of scenery" moves that have worked so often with pitchers, and SOMETIMES hitters in KW's tenure. Although we don't see nearly as many "Walk will fix him" (teal/green or not) comments, so that's a bit of a concern if you do swallow that. Getting the Jays and JP to give up a Thome like subsidy will cost the White Sox Danks/Poreda OR Richard OR Hudson and probably one more piece. It kind of goes against everything that's been said recently about attendance/economy/sponsorships going forward, but it's really depressing to think with all that money coming off the books that we couldn't even afford ONE contract like Alex Rios, then we're in for an interesting ride. Of course, the Rios trade idea has one flaw...it still doesn't address the leadoff hitter issue. Getz is more valuable to us (or Nix, for that matter) than he is in trade to another team. But I don't see Chone Figgins getting anything approaching $10 million per season over more than 3 years because of his age and injury history. Speed players always decline as they reach their early to mid 30's, especially in the post PED's era.

Flowers, Poreda, Viciedo, Danks and one of the young arms get it done That's suicide, Kevorkian style for KW. Phegley is far from a sure thing at this point, and Flowers is probably the most likely of all of our minor league hitters to be an impact bat SOMEWHERE in the line-up in 2010/2011. A Jordan Danks trade is questionable because of the presence of his brother, although KW would trade his own mom and son if it got him a Reyes/H. Ramirez type. In a heartbeat. Viciedo's value is down a little bit (or maybe a lot, depending on perspective...although scouts still seem to be happy to project his future positively rather than being discouraged by the results of just 3 1/2 months in America). Poreda or Richard, fine, but ALSO including Hudson and/or Carter??? No way. Seems like a recipe for disaster, like Phillips, Sizemore and Lee for Bartolo Colon. Of course, during KW's tenure, he has never traded away ONE player who had the individual impact later on of those three players (Brandon with the Reds after the Indians grew too impatient)...so it's not likely to be quite the disaster, and our farm system recently has been nothing like Montreal's, but you never do that trade in a million years. (Morse/Reed/Olivo and Wells/Fogg/Lowe were the closest but not nearly reaching the Nathan/Bonser/Liriano debacle). Dombrowski would be pretty crazy to trade 5.25 years of Porcello for 1.25 years of Halladay, as well. In this economy, a cheap 2 starter (they've already paid most of his money due, right?) is gold, just like Alexei Ramirez with his contract.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ Jul 17, 2009 -> 01:33 PM) Good thread. To be perfectly honest, I think the Tigers may eventually take a significant tumble and finish in 3rd place, and the main reason I believe this is they have abused their starting pitching. To be fair, they kind of have to do that in order to keep winning ballgames so I can't blame them, but it's going to catch up with them eventually, and in a big way. I actually think the Twins are going to end up winning the division due to them probably being the most predictable, consistent squad at the end of the day (consistently mediocre, but that might be enough in the AL Central), but obviously I hope I'm wrong. With Seay, Zumaya, Dolsi, Lyon, Rodney and Perry, they have perhaps a better or at least comparable bullpen with the White Sox in terms of ability/potential. Maybe our lefties (Richard/Poreda/Thornton) give us the advantage overall, but those five righties all have pretty nasty stuff, or had in in the not so distant past. You throw in Zach Miner as the long man, they're not bad. At any rate, I can understand with how well Jackson (all year) and Verlander (since the middle of May) have been going and with their middle relief struggles last year, but it's going to come back to bite them, surely.