caulfield12

Wise with an RBI on an infield FC...runners on 1st and 2nd with one out, Owens cut down at 3rd, no attempt at a DP. C'mon Nix, come through with a big hit. Nix apparently gets a break on a call that could have been the 2nd out and takes the walk. Bases juiced with AJ up, only one out, Sox up 3-2. Somehow a ball that should have been a double ends up only scoring one run...Wise had tagged up at 2nd and misjudged the ball, so the runners could only advance one base at a time. Wow...Konerko with another hit...5-2 White Sox. Konerko 3/3 with 3 RBI's. Owens up to a "blistering" .219. Anderson stuck at .179 in shades of his 2006 batting average in early June of that year.

Aha....didn't Lui (Liu) Rodriguez (utility infielder) come up with the Twins? Maybe I'm confusing him with someone else. Jerry Coleman thinks the White Sox look FAST, lol...after Lillibridge ends up at 2nd base on the hustle double. Owens with the infield single to the left side...3B couldn't make the play, Lilli had to stay at 2nd. Floyd with a chance to bunt the runners over, only 1 career sacrifice in his career so far. The "wheel" play was on, Floyd flails at a ball and ends up with an infield single that hits the bag at 2nd...Lilli somehow doesn't score but bases loaded for D-Weezy.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 02:40 PM) They actually left Floyd out there to run, huh? I wonder how well he runs. Gavin was timed running down to 1B on the walk at 2/10th's of a second faster than Owens running from home to first on the weak grounder to Chris Burke. God, Brian Anderson is really making this hard on KW and Ozzie...really hard. At least you can "argue" that Owens is walking occasionally. Cliff Floyd rips a homer and we're all tied up like that.

BTW, that was Fields' 3rd double of the spring. Beckham has five, leading the team...I think he had at least one or two doubles against Australia in the exhibition game as well. Gavin Floyd, auditioning for the leadoff spot, shows Anderson and Owens a thing or two by grabbing a walk on the full count. Fouled off a pitch even.

Owens leading Anderson in the race to the Mendoza Line, .194 to .185. Gavin Floyd gets a strikeout with his slider? Sure it wasn't his curve? They keep call him throwing his slider and not curve....interesting. You think they'd be more familiar with Gavin Floyd from his time w/ the Phillies...it's not like he wasn't one of the best pitching prospects in all of baseball. Owens blasted by announcers for diving for a "marginal" flyball that allowed the typing run to score and letting and ball get past him all the way to the wall. UGH. Well, this is the only time some of us can get away with rooting AGAINST the White Sox and not feel TOO guilty. I'm marking that as an unearned run in my scorebook, lol....Gavin had a ton of those last year where the defense didn't pick him up like it should have.

Well, at least our two big offensive threats in this particular line-up came through. Fields is fouling some balls off and making better contact. Anderson advances the runner to 3rd...productive out. Lillibridge doesn't get the runner in, comebacker to the mound, Fields still at 3B. Owens' reputed speed doesn't come through as he fails to pick up Lillbridge on a MEHHHHHHH grounder up the middle and is thrown out at first.

You know you're in trouble when the hitter you're most looking forward to is the pitcher....I could see if it was Rick Rhoden, Dontrelle Willis, Tom Glavine, Rick Ankiel, Brooks Kieschnick, Jason Dellaero, Carlos Zambrano, etc.

Nix just lost .89 points on his BA, lol....infield pop-up. It will take him some time to get his timing back. Predictable. 1-2-3 inning, AJ lazy pop to the outfield. Let's hope we never see AJ in the 3 hole anytime during the regular season. Chris Burke, who used to be a pretty popular leadoff target when he was w/ the Stros, looks to be hitting fairly well in ST for the Padres. I think Jody Gerut might look okay for us in CF the way things are going for the Sox at this point.

Wise, CF 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .412 Nix, 2B 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .714 Pierzynski, C 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .444 Konerko, 1B 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .280 Fields, 3B 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .313 Anderson, B, RF 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .192 Lillibridge, SS 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .269 Owens, LF 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .200 Floyd, P 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 Wow, talk about your anemic offensive line-ups...this is one of the most anemic possible that Ozzie must have drawn out of a a hat. No Quentin, no Alexei, no Dye, Thome still out with the iffy back, no Viciedo, no Beckham. And pitchers batting.

6th or 7th. AJ should be 8th, Getz 9th.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 10:52 AM) Wise isn't going to put up anywhere near a .340 OBP, barring the strangest player jump I've ever seen. His career OBP is below .300, and was only .309 in the minors. Look, I should say, it is POSSIBLE that Dewayne Wise has suddenly "figured it out", at age 31 with 6 years bouncing between AAA and the majors. But using that logic, how is it that we are dismissing that possibility entirely for a 27 year old Owens with a lot less time in? Or for that matter, with David Cook, who I think is 26? You can just forget David Cook...before we see him batting leadoff, we'll go through the following: 1) Owens 2) Wise 3) Getz 4) Lillibridge 5) Nix 6) Beckham 7) Josh Kroeger 8) Jordan Danks 9) John Shelby III 10) John Thain 11) Ken Lewis 12) Bernie Madoff 13) ex Krispy Kreme CEO 14) Brian Cook (ex-Illini F/C) 15) David Cook http://www.baseballprojection.com/CHA2009.htm And the WINNER IS....David Cook or Noah Hall, lol. Interesting website, they have Wise and Anderson neck and neck statistically and Owens lagging a little bit. I guess this "projection" would probably favor Chris Getz or Alexei Ramirez of all the possible candidates and MAYBE Owens. But .327 for JO isn't going to be enough to get it done.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 10:45 AM) Am I the only one who's noticed that Figgins is now 31 years old and hasn't played a full season either of the last 2 years? Or that last year he stole bases at a 72% clip and his success rate is trending downwards fast? (Hey, I have the same birthday as Figgy. Who knew?) I wouldn't be willing to give up much, if anything, for Figgins, unless he proves 100% healthy in the first half, and then it's doubtful they'd want to trade him anyway. The main argument is that he's blocking Brandon Wood, but Wood might turn out to be another McPherson or Kotchman who never achieves anything in Anaheim. McLouth will give you .338/.461/800+ OPS, good defense and 20+ steals. That said, before we give away important components of our farm system, I think we could do just fine with Beckham there eventually. If Ozzie REALLY wants to, he can lead off with Wise against RHPers or possibly Getz. Still don't like the idea of Ramirez hitting first or second. Lillibridge's swing still needs major retooling.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 10:33 AM) Frankly, I'm not totally sure I agree with you that Owens will have a substantially higher OBP. If I go strictly by their minor league numbers, Owens has a .359 minor league OBP and Wise has a .309 OBP. But that's not telling the whole story. Wise has a .259 minor league batting average, while Owens has a .291 batting average. In other words, the difference between their OBP and batting average is .05 in Wise's case and .06 in Owens's case. Their OBP is therefore for both of them highly dependent on their batting average. Owens will give you 1 walk every 10 ab's, for Wise it's about 1/14. Owens is more patient than Wise and will take more pitches. But here's the key...Owens will only put up a higher OBP than Wise if they have identical batting averages. If Owens's batting average is 20 points lower than Wise's, they'd have very similar OBP's. Now the question...as of right now, as of how they're playing right now, which of the 2 do you think will have the higher batting average? I can't answer that by saying Owens. Well, we do know that Taveras, Owens and Juan Pierre would all end up with an OPS of around 650-675 (being optimistic) if they played everyday. We need either a .740-.750 OPS OR a .340+ OBP out of CF. Wise and Anderson in a platoon will definitely do the first. Owens and Anderson in a platoon might do both OR neither.

The White Sox could certainly afford it with Dye, Thome and Contreras coming off the books. But it would be a huge PR disaster for the Orioles, that's true. But they're not going to be competitive with or without Brian Roberts in that division. Figgins would make a lot more sense, because he'll be a FA after this year...and Beckham has at least 50% chance to end up 2B anyway, so Roberts doesn't make AS much sense because it would be better to find someone for center AND leadoff, killing two birds with one (Steve) Stone. There are plenty of other options out there that might be had in this economy, Nate McLouth from the Pirates comes to mind right away. We passed up on Furcal because of the presence of Ramirez and Beckham. David DeJesus can be had for the right price.

QUOTE (shipps @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 09:57 AM) This made me dizzy. Its like one of those pictures if you stare at it long enough you will see an elephant or something. Mr. Pitts??? You still can't see it?

Simple, Wise put up a 310/487/796 line last year against RHPers...if you count the playoffs, he ended up over the magic 800 OPS mark. Now Wise shouldn't be coming within 100 feet of the batter's box against a lefty, ever, but he's fine as part of a stopgap/bandaid solution with Anderson to get us through the first half of the season. Then we can swoop in around the trading deadline and pick off a player like Figgins or Brian Roberts, putting Roberts at 2B, Beckham at SS and then moving Alexei to CF...or we simply get a player like Figgins for CF, it doesn't matter. KW and Ozzie are too competitive and they won't stand by and let another season get away from them like 2007 did.

We have a lot of risk that Thome, Dye, Quentin or Ramirez won't produce like they did last season and/or they will get injured. OTOH, Konerko seems to be in position for improvement on last year's overall line. Fields should also improve on the offensive numbers from 3B last year. CF can't get much worse, Cabrera can be replaced by Getz/Nix, AJ will do about the same probably, barring an injury, which might be the most catastrophic loss the White Sox could suffer on the entire team outside of Danks or Buehrle going down for an extended period. That also doesn't take into account the looming presence of Beckham and Viciedo on the horizon.

WORST POSSIBLE WS LINE-UPS (notice two of the most popular choices for #2 hitter right now, along with Mr. Getz???) 5.269 Josh Fields AJ Pierzynski Gordon Beckham Paul Konerko Alexei Ramirez Ichiro Jim Thome Carlos Quentin Jermaine Dye 5.270 Josh Fields AJ Pierzynski Jim Thome Paul Konerko Alexei Ramirez Ichiro Gordon Beckham Carlos Quentin Jermaine Dye 5.273 Josh Fields AJ Pierzynski Alexei Ramirez Paul Konerko Gordon Beckham Ichiro Jim Thome Carlos Quentin Jermaine Dye 5.275 Alexei Ramirez AJ Pierzynski Gordon Beckham Paul Konerko Josh Fields Ichiro Jim Thome Carlos Quentin Jermaine Dye 5.276 Alexei Ramirez AJ Pierzynski Jim Thome Paul Konerko Josh Fields Ichiro Gordon Beckham Carlos Quentin Jermaine Dye 5.276 Josh Fields Alexei Ramirez Gordon Beckham Paul Konerko AJ Pierzynski Ichiro Jim Thome Carlos Quentin Jermaine Dye 5.277 Josh Fields Alexei Ramirez Jim Thome Paul Konerko AJ Pierzynski Ichiro Gordon Beckham Carlos Quentin Jermaine Dye 5.277 Josh Fields AJ Pierzynski Gordon Beckham Paul Konerko Alexei Ramirez Jim Thome Ichiro Carlos Quentin Jermaine Dye Back to reality with BA out there instead of Ichiro (notice some trends???) Runs per Game 5.170 Josh Fields AJ Pierzynski Alexei Ramirez Paul Konerko Brian Anderson Jim Thome Gordon Beckham Carlos Quentin Jermaine Dye 5.170 Josh Fields AJ Pierzynski Alexei Ramirez Paul Konerko Brian Anderson Gordon Beckham Jim Thome Carlos Quentin Jermaine Dye 5.171 Josh Fields Brian Anderson Alexei Ramirez Paul Konerko AJ Pierzynski Jim Thome Gordon Beckham Carlos Quentin Jermaine Dye 5.171 Josh Fields Brian Anderson Alexei Ramirez Paul Konerko AJ Pierzynski Gordon Beckham Jim Thome Carlos Quentin Jermaine Dye 5.178 Josh Fields AJ Pierzynski Gordon Beckham Brian Anderson Alexei Ramirez Paul Konerko Jim Thome Carlos Quentin Jermaine Dye 5.179 Josh Fields AJ Pierzynski Jim Thome Brian Anderson Alexei Ramirez Paul Konerko Gordon Beckham Carlos Quentin Jermaine Dye 5.180 Josh Fields AJ Pierzynski Gordon Beckham Brian Anderson Alexei Ramirez Jim Thome Paul Konerko Carlos Quentin Jermaine Dye 5.180 Josh Fields AJ Pierzynski Alexei Ramirez Brian Anderson Paul Konerko Jim Thome Gordon Beckham Carlos Quentin Jermaine Dye 5.180 Josh Fields AJ Pierzynski Alexei Ramirez Brian Anderson Paul Konerko Gordon Beckham Jim Thome Carlos Quentin Jermaine Dye 5.180 Josh Fields AJ Pierzynski Brian Anderson Paul Konerko Alexei Ramirez Jim Thome Gordon Beckham Carlos Quentin Jermaine Dye 5.180 Josh Fields AJ Pierzynski Brian Anderson Paul Konerko Alexei Ramirez Gordon Beckham Jim Thome Carlos Quentin Jermaine Dye 5.181 Josh Fields Brian Anderson Gordon Beckham AJ Pierzynski Alexei Ramirez Paul Konerko Jim Thome Carlos Quentin Jermaine Dye

http://www.baseballmusings.com/cgi-bin/Lin...475&Model=0 Even with Ichiro Suzuki as the leadoff hitter, we only score 5.686 RPG (921 runs in a season). We'll be just fine with BA and Wise/Owens as a platoon...along with Beckham, Ramirez, Getz/Nix (platoon) and Fields/Betemit (modified platoon).

http://www.baseballmusings.com/cgi-bin/Lin...475&Model=0 Willy Taveras in the line-up with Beckham and Ramirez at SS and 2B only gives us 5.516 RPG. Better options are the BA/Owens platoon with Beckham and Ramirez up the middle OR Ramirez in CF, Beckham at SS and a Getz/Nix platoon at 2B. With Covelli "CoCo" Crisp, you'll get 5.555 RPG. Both models show the best place for Crisp and Taveras is the 9 hole in the order. http://www.baseballmusings.com/cgi-bin/Lin...475&Model=0

You could put Thome at #2 in the order and get 5.633, 5.632 and 5.629 Runs Per Game 1. Carlos Quentin (all four line-ups) 2. Jim Thome (all four) 3. Fields (2), Konerko or Beckham 4. Jermaine Dye (all four line-ups) 5. Beckham or Konerko 6. Alexei Ramirez (3) or Josh Fields 7. Konerko/Ramirez/Fields/Beckham 8. AJ 9. Getz or Nix Eventually, I think you'd see Beckham hitting 3rd, with Fields 7th. I just think Ozzie wouldn't put the pressue of hitting 3rd on Beckham right away...not his style as a manager, no matter how confident/cocky Beckham is at this point. It would actually make a lot of sense, after the first at-bat. If you switched AJ and Ramirez, you could have the combination of Beckham, Ramirez and Getz running on the basepaths in front of Quentin and Thome from the 2nd inning on. With BA in the line-up and Thome hitting 2nd, you'd get 5.528 RPG. 1. CQ 2. Thome 3. Fields (once again, this is all based on Fields replacating his minor league numbers, not what he's done so far in the majors with us) 4. Dye 5. Konerko 6. Ramirez 7. BA 8. AJ 9. Getz When you use Josh Fields' major league averages of .303 OBP and .454 SLG, you get something even more interesting with BA in the line-up. In the first six examples that score the highest number of runs, BA is hitting 3rd, of all places!!! 5.500-5.497 RPG 1. CQ 2. Thome 3. BA 4. JD 5. Konerko 6. Fields 7. Ramirez 8. AJ 9. Getz Seems strange to imagine either BA or Fields hitting 3rd, especially Anderson...

Dick Allen, coming into the offseason, I targeted CoCo Crisp and Casey Blake...Blake would be superfluous now with potentially 3 better players in Fields, Viciedo and Betemit (at least hitting-wise), but CoCo Crisp was a player that KW obviously passed on, along with Willy Taveras and many others. Mike Cameron is the only name that comes to mind...although he was certainly a flawed leadoff hitter in the Chris Young mold in terms of OBP and strikeout ratio. Sosa, when he originally came up as The Panther, was leading off, too, if you can remember back to the skinny Sosa days. Jeff Abbott didn't last long, either. Ironic, but Kenny Williams was also once considered a top prospect at leadoff and potential 30/30 guy, lol. Lance Johnson, but he was incubated in the Cardinals' system.

QUOTE (Heads22 @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 08:15 AM) I would like Mr. Christopher Getz at leadoff. Please. Thank you. It's going to take one more week of Owens struggling like he has before 1) you start to hear more about the options of Getz or maybe Lillibridge at the top of the order and 2) KW scouring the waiver wire/trade winds for a better option. If we can get a combined .740-.750 OPS out of any combination of players in CF, we'll be just fine. Anything worse and you have to make a trade or move Ramirez out there and bring Beckham up from the minors to compensate. We're not going to have the luxury of 3-4 months carrying a bat like Brian Anderson demonstrated in 2006. We can't afford to get buried like in 2007 or the Tigers/Indians last year. All the mathematics formulas I ran showed we don't want a line-up with AJ, Alexei or Fields anywhere near the top of the batting order. We might be able to get by with Getz, but the best possible choice to score the most runs is Beckham (see the thread I started). In a perfectly balanced MLB line-up that scores 900 or more runs, Getz is hitting 9th.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Mar 13, 2009 -> 07:53 AM) Yeah for Lilli in CF. If he can play there, the leadoff spot might be a short jump away. I'd say the "break-even" point for us NOT to move Alexei Ramirez to CF is an OPS from the combination of Anderson/Owens/Wise/Lillibridge of .740-.750. Based on his last two years offensively, the switch to the AL, the swing changes he's been working on after the injury last season and the mental aspects of playing a position he hasn't played regularly for 5 seasons but now at the big league level with a microscope on him, I don't think it's such a good idea. Or it's an idea born of desperation on the part of KW and Ozzie. Based on last year's results, a platoon of Anderson against lefties and Wise against righties would certainly work, at least THEORETICALLY. Still, you have to take into consideration the jump of around 150 OPS points from Wise coming into last season against RHP and what he produced last year (almost 800). Can you realistically expect him to continue that for a full schedule of playing 4-5 days per week over a 162 game season when he hasn't demonstrated that ability for well over a decade of his baseball career, even at the minor league level? Anything below that mark and you make your line-up much more dangerous moving Ramirez to CF, inserting Beckham at the leadoff spot and starting SS and Getz/Nix as the LH/RH platoon at 2B. That and playing Betemit against tough righties to protect Josh Fields as much as possible...and occasionally Alisay Ramirez and Konerko, too. Stewart would also rest AJ against tough lefties and Sunday day games after night games.

The only other issues to be settled... 1) How many times do you sit Fields, Ramirez and Konerko for tough RH pitchers and insert Betemit? Betemit will give you a 339/460/799 line against righties. Fields has been bi-polar coming into this season, 363/667/1.030 versus LHP and 646 OPS against RHP. Still, you don't think think that Betemit will end up getting more AB's (strict platoon) than Fields, because it looks like Josh is finally healthy, his knees are fine and his eyesight is better with the Lasik (although he has been striking out more in recent games). 2) Is there any away to take Corky Miller (based on his arm/defense) over Chris Stewart, who's a much tougher hitter against LHP and could give AJ some needed rest? Based on Miller's career offensive statistics, you'd have to give Stewart the edge. 3) Do you do the platoon with WISE or OWENS and Anderson or do you let Anderson play full-time??? Before last season, BA's numbers were pretty similar against righties and lefties. But he put up a 262/563/824 line in 2008. Wise and Owens put up similar numbers against RHP's career-wise (Wise...261/401/662 versus Owens' 323/320/644) but Wise really had a statistical anomaly of a year versus righties in 2008 (310/487/796). Or did he? Right now, you'd have to think Ozzie would go with the Anderson/Wise platoon in CF. No idea who would hit leadoff when Anderson was/is playing. 4) With 2B, it would seem Getz would get all of the AB's against RHP and Nix would make the team (KW has also said he prefers the idea of Nix on the bench with his approach and experience) and play against LHPers. The only "fly in the ointment" is Lillibridge. He gives you a better defensive SS than Getz or Betemit and also another option for leadoff, pinch-running and CF. I just don't know about his swing, confidence and mechanics at this point...I can't imagine it would get any better sitting on the bench. I think he needs to play everyday in Charlotte at SS and be ready to fill in at SS, 2B or CF, wherever needed. Getz can also play SS occasionally to give Ramirez a rest every once in a while, or you can stick Betemit there and take your chances defensively. Then the only questions left are 6 or 7 relievers and do Marquez/Richard/Carasco make the team or does Marquez go down to Charlotte as a starter with Richard as the 2nd lefty and swingman out of the pen...you'd have to say right now Marquez is your 6, Richard your 7 and Poreda your 8. It's also completely dependent on Contreras/Colon and what Cooper/KW/Ozzie decide is best for this season with Poreda, Marquez and Richard (probably two of them inserted into the Charlotte starting rotation). Obviously, they like Poreda's arm a lot, and you'd rather see another power righty (what Russell was supposed to be) instead of three lefties. It doesn't look like Russell, Jimenez, Wasserman, Nunez or German have distinguished themselves. We haven't even seen very much out of DJ Carasco, although the assumption by most is that he will be on the team...Broadway and Egbert continue to be longshots. I'd really like to see more out of Santeliz and Omogrosso. Link hasn't really stood out either, kind of an afterthought. Many were mentioning him as a candidate to make the team this spring but it doesn't look like it's happening.