caulfield12

KW could care less about Charlotte...the only problems he'll have to deal with are complaints about what a horrendous team he has there (in terms of fans and attendance and "atmosphere") if he wants to keep that affiliation with the Sox. We have the worst AAA and best AA team in the minors. It's all about development...winning is secondary at the AA level...especially if the major league team has a competitive/winning atmosphere. Maybe winning would be more important for Nats, Padres, Pirates, Royals, Astros, Orioles, etc., farmhands. I'm sure that if Poreda does well, he will be promoted sometime this season to Charlotte...same with Beckham and Viciedo. It will take longer with Allen, Flowers and Shelby, for sure. But even Allen could be in Charlotte by July/August and then September call-up, too.

QUOTE (Princess Dye @ Apr 13, 2009 -> 04:40 PM) Anderson and Ryan Sweeney went through the same development system. Why is Sweeney having success? He's just flat out more talented with the bat. Far more likely than an organizational conspiracy against Brian - the simple possibility that BA spent a long time being unable to shorten his swing. It seems better to the eye now, but we need results at some point. One of these two guys figured out major league pitching, the other hasnt. Opportunities have been there. Brian even showed more promise than Sweeney with the bat when both were a few yrs younger. But ML pitching stops some guys' careers in their tracks. We call the Sox bad developers of talent, but theyve traded away so much that I dont know how well we can fairly evaluate this. Sweeney MIGHT develop a little more extra-base/gap power someday, he'll need it in order to play everyday, against both lefties and righties. I would be fine with Ryan, as a platoon player, or on the corners (where he doesn't really fit, just like David DeJesus in KC)...but his lack of power forces him into CF, where he's not an ideal player. I think KW knew that he would never have more than warning track power (even at USCF), so he tried to put together a package that would give him a player that could play everyday in Swisher...of course, that didn't work out as KW planned, or Nick, for that matter. As a CFer, Sweeney is average or slightly below average MLB...and his offensive numbers there are going to be roughly the same...750-775 OPS, good, but not great. I am sure KW would have traded BA instead of Sweeney to get Swisher, but Beane wouldn't have taken it...just as we would have loved to trade BA/Vizcaino for Vazquez instead of Chris B. Young.

KHP, there's a corollary to your thoughts on JD. The White Sox picked a player who they felt was athletically talented, yet, like many of our top choices in the past 10-15 years, he was far from a refined baseball player, he was an athlete playing baseball. It worked all the way through the minor leagues. Where BA has gotten in trouble is with his attitude, and that's something that you can't coach or overcome with some players. It's possible BA will blossom in another organization, but how many times has that happened? How many times can you count that KW has gotten rid of a player that went on to have huge success with another organization??? If anything, KW has been great at 2 things...1) finding undervalued/injured players via trade from other organizations, but also FA's like Takatsu, Jenks, Loaiza, Iguchi, AJ, Hermanson, Ramirez, 2) trading overvalued players within our organization (Garcia deal, McCarthy, etc., the list goes on and on) As they mentioned in the broadcast today, the organizational philosophy has evolved into NOT trying to change a player's swing after they draft him. In other words, if what got you drafted works, why try to fix it? The problem with BA came in not being able to make adjustments at the major league level, not being able to make his swing more compact and perhaps not responding well to coaching or isolating himself/pouting when things weren't going well. If you look at Rowand and Crede, for example, they had horrible swings when they came to the majors, especially Crede...but, with time/patience/coaching, they were able to maximize (in my opinion) the ability of those two particular players. Sure, there was a huge "miss" with Joe Borchard, but, if anything, he falls into the athlete/football player who just wasn't meant to be a major league ballplayer, despite having a great character/personality and huge power (when he hit the ball). Back to BA. I think he's been a good teammate the last couple of seasons, but he really was a pain in his first couple of seasons in the organization. He's not one of those guys like Getz or Fields that everyone roots for...he's either hated or beloved. Why is that? If you're going to blame the organization, 50% of the blame is at BA's door. Other examples: 1) Reputation for partying/staying out late/BA's "hunnies"...which has led some to believe he wasn't as serious about the game as he needed to be 2) Skipping winter ball at least one season when he was asked to play...and being very resistant in general to offseason "commitments" to improve his game...look at the "miracle" that has happened with Josh Fields from making a commitment just for a weekend or two to work out with Cora in the offseason down in Miami....has BA ever done anything like that? 3) Showing very limited abilities to change his "lift and pull" stroke and make more solid contact...bunting...hitting to the opposite field...even hitting the cutoff man or just improving his baseball "acumen." Ramirez and Beckham are instinctive players, whereas BA still has a lot of areas to make improvement, especially in terms of baserunning. All that being said, he's a guy with 650 OPS against RHP over 300+ MLB at-bats. He didn't prove himself as a consistent hitter this spring until coming on late...but he was a disaster the first 2 weeks of spring, he looked even worse than Owens, to tell the truth. This is the time of ST that Wise was taking off and landed in "first" in the competition for CF. If anything, as an organization, we've maximized the values of our "Jeremy Reeds/Morses/Olivos" to get first-line major league talent like Freddy Garcia. From 1990-1998, we had the most wins in baseball after the New York Yankees. From 1990-2008, we have the second or third most wins following the Yankees and Braves...how can anyone say that we haven't done a good job as an organization (overall) for the last twenty years?

QUOTE (Wanne @ Apr 13, 2009 -> 04:20 PM) Hell...why not Pods?!? I'd take Pods and his noodle arm out there over Owens and his noodle arm anyday. At least Pods can hit. He looked pretty damn good this spring at the plate. Pods was horrible in 2006/07 and now he's 3 years older...and he really just can't play CF any better than Swisher or Mackowiak. Owens is a much better CFer than Pods, both of them have lousy arms, but we have Alexei at least to take 60% of the cutoffs, he has one of the best infield arms in the game. If KW takes Owens (even though he wasn't even on the 40 man) and skips over Pods, what does that tell you about what KW thinks about the idea of bringing back Mr. Dergan?

QUOTE (southsideirish71 @ Apr 13, 2009 -> 04:18 PM) How many times have you seen him play with your own two eyes to make a judgement on his defense. Simply based on the videos I've seen of him, from watching him play at UGA, College World Series, from watching almost all of the ST games that he played SS and a few at 2B, from listening to the descriptions of the minor league announcers and commentators from multiple organizations, from our beat writers and the impressions they're given by the front office, by BA, by MLB Scouting, by BP, etc. Merely the compilation of all the "anecdotal" or "qualitative" analysis I've seen on him.

QUOTE (Kalapse @ Apr 13, 2009 -> 04:08 PM) Um, you f***ing stick with Getz? There's your leadoff hitter. As far as CF, you go with Brian full time. The odds are better than 50% that Getz will fail at leadoff and that BA will be terribly exposed playing against righties. When's the last time a White Sox rookie was able to just enter the line-up and play everyday...by that, I don't mean Ramirez, who was an international player and already 26...but someone we drafted or even traded for? Maybe everyone has fallen in love with Chris Getz because of how well he played in ST...and he did have a good season last year...but you look at players like Rowand and Crede, it took them 2-3-4 years to establish themselves in the White Sox line-up. Just count me skeptical. I will be more than willing to admit that I was wrong whenever you want to revisit this, but I would be glad to "on the record" state that I don't think Getz will do well enough at leadoff to stay there and I don't think Anderson will succeed as an everyday player with that swing of his. As I said, maybe it's because the last middle infielder even having a decent season as a rookie was Mike Caruso, and he was acquired via trade and rushed to the big leagues before he was ready.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Apr 13, 2009 -> 04:05 PM) Lead-off hitter is not a position on the field. Centerfield is. This is not a complicated issue Caulfield. You're a very intelligent Sox fan and a very good poster, so please don't (as Hawk would say) out-dumb yourself. If we're going to be forced to put a sucky hitter at the top of our lineup then it doesn't matter how much speed this sucky hitter has because he's already a sucky hitter. Ignore the speed, go with the defense, and let Ozzie put out his dumbass lineups if he's going to do that anyway. I'd like to say also that I ragged on D-Wise as a starter and still wouldn't have wanted him out there every day even if he hadn't gotten injured, but I was very impressed with the balls-out Aaron Rowand OMG catch today. It may have easily saved us the game. I hope he recovers quickly and is back as a 4th OF. Maybe I just enjoying playing Devil's Advocate...because sometimes players here get picked on too much, while others (see BA) with similar records of non-achievement are hoisted on pedestals as if they are the next Torii Hunter, even though they have shown no signs of this happening at age 26 or 27. Personally, I'm all for bringing up Beckham and putting Ramirez in CF. It's better than putting Beckham or Getz in the outfield (although Beckham isn't the equal of Ramirez defensively, nobody can convince me of this). Shelby and Danks obviously aren't ready yet for CF. Screw this arbitration clock stuff...as Hawk noted, as soon as they signed Longoria to a 7 year extension, he was in Tampa within days. We either bring up Beckham or we make a trade for a legitimate, everyday CF if we really want to win this division. It's just frustrating because if we would have signed Kenny Rogers in 2003 for peanuts or traded for CoCo Crisp this season, you'd have two teams that could have gone a long ways....even capable of winning a World Series.

QUOTE (Kalapse @ Apr 13, 2009 -> 03:53 PM) Jerry Owens should NEVER hit leadoff for the White Sox again regardless of who fails. You start Anderson in CF and hit him leadoff before you stick Owens back in that role. You do something proactive like acquiring a new, more talented player to fill your leadoff role. Owens is out of chances. You do not give the worst hitter on your team the most PA especially when he's giving you close to nothing in the field. He's a bad baseball player. And yes you hit Alexei at the top before Owens. Jerry Owens isn't even fast! He has no business hitting at the top of anyone's lineup. Okay, who would you target and what would you be willing to give up? We can all say, gee, it'd be great to have Blanco or Denard Span or Chone Figgins or Vernon Wells or whoever, but are none of those options are realistic ones (well, maybe Blanco if the Braves are 100% confident in Schaffer). It doesn't matter if in Ozzie and KW's mind that BA has already had enough chances/opportunities to prove he's not an everyday player either...we can whine and bellyache and complain until the cows come home about Ozzie's vendetta against BA, but if really didn't want him, he'd be off the team, just like what happened with Vazquez, Swisher and Cabrera. Why would they keep him on the roster? Just to torture him and those who post on message boards?

QUOTE (qwerty @ Apr 13, 2009 -> 03:18 PM) He suggested michael bourn also, what else do you really expect? Seems to be a trend of him liking players that make a team worse and not better. Maybe we should bring in Belle, Wil Cordero, Toe Nash and Dukes...why not Barry Bonds while we're at it? You can go back to multiple early off-season threads about this problem, I said that we needed to pick up/trade for Crisp and Blake. I was wrong about needing Blake, Josh at 100% health is a better player, and certainly cheaper. We've debated any number of players here, like Willy Taveras. Here's what I would like to see someone do...tell me what CF that's decent BOTH offensively and defensively and that will give you a 350+ OBP and that wouldn't even cost someone in our Top 8 prospects would you have gotten? Also, keep in mind that it would be better if this player also had at least "decent" character...so we can cross Dukes off that list, if he was actually available for a Danks/Allen/Shelby (doubtful).

.275 BA .323 OBP .320 SLG .643 OPS That's Jerry Owens career-wise against RHP. I'm not sure how that is so different from BA's averages against RHP over his career. Can we be assured that either Lillibridge (doubtful) or Getz (maybe, he's had a couple of 350 OBP's in the minors) will do significantly better than a .330 OBP? Yes, BA is a better defender, but he's not a leadoff hitter. If Getz/Lillibridge fail at this position, who do you want to use, Alexei Ramirez???

QUOTE (Kalapse @ Apr 13, 2009 -> 02:58 PM) So Getz goes 1 for 9 in the leadoff spot over 3 games and that proves that he's no better than Owens? And what exactly disqualifies him from leadoff duty? It's just a hunch, just like with Wise...a feeling that Getz fits into this line-up and is much more comfortable batting 2nd, 8th or 9th. At least Owens is conditioned to hitting first. Maybe we'll catch lightning in a bottle while KW is trying to find another solution...or maybe Owens will play so badly that Ozzie has no choice but to play BA everyday, one of those three things will happen (hopefully).

QUOTE (Princess Dye @ Apr 13, 2009 -> 02:47 PM) Some (not all) of the biggest Anderson supporters read off Wise's career numbers as a reason why he's not worthwhile. Yet if you just do the same thing for Owens w/ his career numbers, it's not thaaat horrendous. At least not enough for the hate level it brings. Owens at .268/.321 in 381 at-bats in the majors....... Obviously it's not what you want in a leadoff hitter - but it gets so much hate in comparison to .221/.276 for BA. Owens cant get an extra base hit to save his life but he at least projects to be somewhat of a basestealer, essentially making some 'doubles' that way. Doesnt it pretty much come down to Jerry playing this week over Brian because you have less of a hole in your lineup that way? Plus the whole vs. RHP aspect. I think we face several righties in a row here. It will be interesting but I'm sure Owens bats #9 right? We've only had two hits from Wise, Getz and Lillibridge out of 30+ AB's so far from leadoff. I'm sure we have the worst AVG/OBP/SLG/OPS from the first spot compared to every major league team...so I don't see why starting Owens would be any worse. Getz is a 2 hitter, not a leadoff guy.

316 AB's 6 Homers 30 RBI's .228 Batting Average .284 OBP .361 SLG .645 OPS That's BA against right-handed pitchers over the last three years...why would anyone think he's suddenly going to be even a 725-750 OPS player against righties? We always say how bad Betemit is against LHP, but the OPS is almost EXACTLY the same over that time span.

QUOTE (southsideirish71 @ Apr 13, 2009 -> 02:42 PM) So what kind of fail is it, when a guy can't start for your AAA team and he will come back here and immediately take over for Wise. Anderson is going to be back to the bench. But if BA struck out 3-4 times against Rick Porcello tomorrow afternoon, everyone would be complaining that BA didn't get any favorable match-ups, he had to face Liriano, etc. No matter what Ozzie does with BA, he's always going to be second-guessed. Now after he had 2 walks and 2 stolen bases today, I'm sure that will be used as the evidence that he could be the next Torii Hunter and be a 30/30 player.

Elijah Dukes? Really? And that Nationals aren't going to just give us Dukes, or the Astros Michael Bourn. We would be better off going after Blanco than that. Lillibridge hasn't proven he can be effective as an everyday player in AAA, let alone at the major league level. To think of moving Ramirez to CF when he's just getting comfortable there just isn't going to happen. The ONLY question is whether he will put Owens in the line-up tomorrow against Porcello and go w/ the straight platoon everyone envisioned at the beginning of ST. One would THINK after the way Owens played that BA would have another chance to start 5-6 times per week (and after Owens was removed from the 40 man roster), but who knows? We're just lucky one of our division rivals didn't claim Owens just to keep him in AAA...because it's far from clear that either Lillibridge or Getz can get the job done leading off.

Late April supposedly for Nix.

3 choices....Owens, Kroeger or Miguel Negron. All three are lefties. Kroeger can't play CF, but he had the most consistent spring training of any of our hitters that didn't make the team. He can also play LF, RF and 1B...about as well as Wilson Betemit plays 2B/SS. Negron has the most natural ability and is a better CFer than Owens, but he's very raw/inexperienced in many facets, even though he is older. You have to guess they'll bring up Owens, simply because Getz and Lillibridge have been so-so leading off so far, and that's a lot of pressure on both those youngsters without any back-up. Why oh, why, KW...didn't you trade a B/C prospect for Josh Anderson???

I've seen a couple of 93 and one at 96 after he was pissed off after the homer, when he was facing Inge. Cold weather...Gavin just doesn't seem to be loose and he has no confidence with his command and he's standing straight up (as noted by Hawk and Stone). A lot of times, it's simply throwing two seam versus four seam fastballs, too. HOME RUN DERBY. So much for the theories about Quentin's wrist not being ready to go.

Hafner, Garko and Victor Martinez are already DH's, basically. He would make no sense. Manny would make MORE sense, but there's no way in hell that Dolan will shell out $25 million (or anything close to that) for one season of Manny. They're a lot better off with DeRosa AND Wood and another player for the same price.

We've been "spun," whether you want to go along with that or not, that it's really getting Swisher off the books that allowed us to throw the money at Viciedo. So if you think of it as Betemit and Viciedo for Swisher, it's not so bad at all...and Swisher 1) couldn't be a CFer again for us 2) or a leadoff hitter. His act will eventually wear thin in NYC, too. If you want to extend it even further, all the money that we saved with Betemit/Lillibridge/Nix over Uribe has been invested elsewhere, too...and/or gives us the flexibility to make a move (adding a salary at midseason).

WHITE SOX VS. MINER Wilson Betemit 2 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 .500 .500 .500 1.000 Paul Konerko 13 6 1 0 0 2 1 2 .462 .467 .538 1.005 Jermaine Dye 12 5 2 0 2 5 1 0 .417 .462 1.083 1.545 Josh Fields 5 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 .400 .400 .400 .800 A.J. Pierzynski 11 3 0 0 1 2 1 1 .273 .333 .545 .879 Alexei Ramirez 5 1 0 0 0 0 0 3 .200 .200 .200 .400 Carlos Quentin 6 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 .167 .375 .167 .542 Jim Thome 11 1 0 0 0 0 2 1 .091 .231 .091 .322 Brian Anderson 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 .000 .500 .000 .500

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/chi-1...0,1589155.story Sox fell from 9th to 15th...I guess that's a little bit harsh, but I think he did that before the results of all the Sunday games were in. Then again, maybe it is fair when you go only .500 at home against 2 divisional rivals, where you'd hope to go 4-2 in that stretch. The Indians took the biggest fall, all the way down to 28th...but you can't really imagine them staying there all season. Surely, they will have the patented Indians' statistical comeback when nothing is on the line and they're trying to chase down the leaders in July and August and look suddenly like the best team in baseball for 3-4 weeks.

I'm assuming they took x-rays and it was just a "soft tissue" injury or bruise/contusion. If not, we would have heard about him going on the DL...and then the clamor for Beckham could start again. By the way, has anyone heard a progress update on Nix's rehabilitation? When he might come off the DL...or pass through waivers? It doesn't seem that they will send Lillibridge down, so I guess they'll just outright him to Charlotte eventually. The only thing I can find on-line is a comment that Nix will be out until late April with a quadriceps injury.

I think it's safe to say at least 1/3rd of White Sox fans weren't sure of Chris Getz...probably even more than that coming into ST. Many thought (and a few still still think) he was more suited to be a utility infielder or Aaron Miles type of player, but not an everyday infielder. And, if you took a poll today, there's many fans who would have preferred Orlando Hudson/Figgins/Roberts or even starting Beckham right away at the major league level. I think that comment goes to that uncertainty among people outside Soxtalk who don't really even know much about him at all.

Royals also rallied in the 8th to win one against the Yankees...and the Indians won their first game of the year as well. Hafner already has 3 homers, so maybe he's not done after all. We still won't want anything to do with Nick Swisher playing CF or leading off.