ILMOU

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 10, 2014 -> 03:44 PM) LOL, I read that as a misspelling of Ethier. Funny. I may have been fooled by the non-capitalization style. I guess it could be eithier.

QUOTE (peavy44 @ Sep 10, 2014 -> 03:38 PM) I want either on the white sox in 2015. Pretty sure you mean neither, and I agree. "Going for it" means not planning on Danks as one of the five, unless they decide to give him until, oh say, mid-May/early June to make himself tradeable. Otherwise he's our $14.25M LOOGY.

MB56 needs to average 6 IP over his final three starts to reach 200 for the 14th consecutive season. He's the freakin' Mohican.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 10, 2014 -> 06:04 AM) And to think, everyone couldn't figure out why Hahn hadn't made room for these guys already, and people were looking forward to this. Welcome to letting the kids play. It ain't pretty. Gamethread hyperbole carryover a little? Where's the patience? Kids are going to look bad early. Wins are meaningless or potentially detrimental anyway. Who gives a damn if it's ugly, really? The prospects in question have all demonstrated that they've required adjustment periods, of various, sometimes significant lengths, and folks are judging on sample sizes constituting a tiny fraction of those periods. Semien, at a minimum, has demonstrated enough high-end OBP skill in the upper minors to deserve some patience. His defense was also much better in the minors. Seems pretty clear to me that the kid needs to clear some mental hurdles.

Quite frankly, if one game has that large an effect, he wasn't substantially anything, good or bad, coming into it, relative to his peers. Looking back at all the catcher trade targets that have been discussed before and during this season, few seem worthy of the probable cost, relative to Flowers' $/performance. He's 14th in catching WAR - middle of the pack. Unless Martin is unexpectedly cheap, which I can't imagine, I'm now in the camp of utilizing the available resources elsewhere.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Sep 4, 2014 -> 11:01 PM) Not gonna lie, I LOVE Soler QUOTE (buhbuhburrrrlz @ Sep 7, 2014 -> 10:59 PM) Jorge Soler : “This is my time. Watch me.” Louie Eljaua, the Cubs director of international operations: "(There were) five Cubans in the All-Star Game. That might have lit a little fire underneath him. He said: ‘Well, I’m as good or better than those guys.’ He definitely looks great, so far, but this all has a too-soon Cubbiness about it that makes me think a measure of patience is needed. The sample size of his terrific run both in the minors and in MLB is beyond tiny, and he hasn't been anywhere long enough for any kind of book to be developed. In two seasons,he's had a MiltonBradleyesque bat wielding incident and been benched for not hustling down the line. He's had four slow-to-recover stints on the DL. Superman, already? This guy might be a bigger prima donna than Puig. Time will tell if he has a similar talent. Just looking at his stance, positioning and swing I think he's going to be more susceptible than most to sliders down and away from RHP.

I do believe the Cubs are going to become very good within the next few years, but allow me to coin the term "Kubs", as I think you'll be seeing that in print before too long. Between Baez, Mendy, Olt, Bryant, Soler, Castro and others, they're going to set all kinds of strikeout records - but should still have a potent offense in a run-starved league. Apologies if it's already out there. Oh, and OT, but as a guy who grew up in the 70's-80's and had lots of friends working at the CBOT, allow me to hang "Johnny Eightball" on Mr. Manziel. Again, apologies if it's already out there. I expect to see it on a Browns road game banner at some point.

QUOTE (hi8is @ Sep 6, 2014 -> 01:14 PM) You've dedicated your life to a career that will end in three weeks. You're injured and will never again be able to step onto the field... You take a week off and try to get back out there a few times. It's called having dignity. Yeah, this whole season for Paulie is about getting a lot of love in the final week, as well as departing from a situation a little less stinky than last year's 99 loss debacle. He can still do that.

Agreed that Courtney's stock has to be up, just because of where it started. This, however, is a very different question than say "confidence level that player becomes a major leaguer - up or down?". I would say that, for me, the answer to this second question is a very slight and qualified up, but I'm not sure that CH's level of improvement was significant enough. Gigantic fleas remain, and he mostly limped home in the best hitter's park in a league where he was repeating a full season, albeit still much younger than the average. Not exactly brimming with confidence that he'll make the big leap to AA successfully, and, of course, I sure hope to be wrong. Though Hawkins has retained more power than, for instance, Keon Barnum or Trayce Thompson, in a transition to improving contact skills, it's a sacrifice that I have a hard time equating with real progress. As NSS has said, it only takes 1 in 20 becoming a star to make drafting raw high-ceiling talent worthwhile. But where's our ONE? Going back to Borchard through Mitchell, Walker, Hawkins, Trayce, Barnum and the rest, not only do none currently project to be MLBers, it's even questionable that any of them have experienced any discernible improvement, at all. I expect nothing beyond a cup-o-coffee from any of them. It would be very difficult, bordering on the absurd, to do a scientific study of the level of improvement a hitter experiences in one team's farm system vs. another, but having followed this stuff closely for many, many years, I would venture to say that our org is near or at the very bottom in this regard. Not too crazy about Trey M. being promoted at 19 with such a glaring Low A K rate, either. Frankly, I think the org is borderline incompetent in this area. Would love to see a complete MiLB purge of all position player development personnel, but know that'll never happen while JR is in charge. Oh well. EDIT: Looking at CH's stats again, maybe he deserves a bit more credit for improvement than I've given him as his ISO remained in the same range this year (~200) vs. his all-or-nothing '13, so perhaps not sacrificing power too much. There's hope.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 6, 2014 -> 08:35 AM) Daryl Van Schouwen ‏@CST_soxvan 10h Also, Leury Garcia's sacrifice that took bat out of Abreu's hands didn't come from dugout or coach's box. Not sure that this is any less damning to all involved. Didn't see the game, but were the fielders positioned such that Leury was trying for a hit? Regardless, Leury, of all our MI "prospects" is the one who needs MiLB ABs the most in an attempt to become a legit big leaguer. He isn't there currently, and really should be getting zero PT now that Sanchez and Semien have arrived. EDIT: I see he entered game for injured Lexi, OK, but we'll see if he's in any regular lineups going forward. If it takes a single PA away from Carlos or Marcus, he shouldn't be out there.

Really excited to see how fast Alvarez can move next year. I imagine they'll be aggressive with him. Will be an interesting follow.

Much appreciated. As others have said, I always check all the individual boxes first, but would go straight to your recaps if there was an anomaly in the box, such as a player leaving the game early, looking for info about a player's health, etc. Much appreciated, and great job.

QUOTE (flavum @ Sep 1, 2014 -> 02:18 PM) Davidson will be due up 3rd in the 9th. He needs a hit, or he'll finish under .200. edit: K to end the season. Bad year. Understatement. He flirted with that crazy b**** Mendoza all year. Can't imagine he'll get a callup - he really shouldn't be a part of any future plans unless/until he completely destroys AAA pitching in a third go-around. Likely a AAAA player when all is said and done, sadly.

QUOTE (StRoostifer @ Aug 31, 2014 -> 06:26 PM) Pretty impressive first full season for a 19 year old. Curious if he will start of 2015 with Winston or if he will be moved up to Birmingham. Montas and Danish in the same rotation for Birmingham sounds pretty damn good to me. Can't imagine it will be anywhere but B'Ham.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Aug 31, 2014 -> 04:32 PM) With really no signs of slowing down. That bodes well for next year. Barring setbacks, he should be able to get to 160 innings or so next year, putting him in position to join the rotation in '16. Helluva year for the kid. Big offseason upcoming for his conditioning and strength. 130 professional innings for a 19 y.o. with barely a blip should stifle the "Can he be a starter?" debate - at least among the sane.

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Aug 30, 2014 -> 10:38 AM) JPN is going to enjoy watching that Barons team next year. Hell, I might have to take a trip up there. Montas, Danish, Anderson and probably others (May, Hawkins?) will be there in April. Some of them may be moving fast, so don't plan on July.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Aug 29, 2014 -> 05:56 PM) His coach told him to go for it. But by all means, pile on. It seemed dumb on Gameday.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Aug 29, 2014 -> 05:53 PM) Just a stupid ass. A boatload of dumb. Why is he here still?

QUOTE (thxfrthmmrs @ Aug 28, 2014 -> 08:20 PM) Adolfo's ISO is up to about .160 now, that's impressive for a 17 year old first year player who's playing against competition 2-3 years older than him. His power is legit, if he cuts his K% down to a respectable rate next year, you will start seeing him in many Top 100 list. Way, way too early to pass any judgements on the kid, but this has me concerned a bit, or more. He just fits the profile of the type of hitter the Sox are oh-so-terrible at developing - great raw power, but having contact/approach/recognition issues that are virtually never properly taught/reinforced/improved by the system. Another guy, whose power the org is smitten with, who may or may not have the ability to improve, but it's not likely to happen here. And the list is long, sadly. Micker should ask for a trade. I'm worried about Hawkins going into next year. I assume he'll be in B'Ham (should I?). A few blips notwithstanding, he kind of limped home this season. It seems like the Carolina League figured him out as much as he did it. Hope I'm wrong, of course.

I'm excited to see the Hound on the South Side and it looks like it's the night game on WGN. Thought this callup might be a good idea, considering he'd just gotten up to speed again - why wait around for the AFL?

Might this help for a last gasp attempt at moving Dunn? http://sports.yahoo.com/news/brewers-claim...-150040339.html We can hope, I guess. 3 more days until his value is officially nada.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Aug 17, 2014 -> 03:52 PM) Adam Dunn is blocking Tyler Danish. Made me laugh, thx.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Aug 17, 2014 -> 09:20 AM) He mentions that their pitching is always deceptive in the motion, and hitters always drift to the ball. And he calls them orientals This is being old, not racist. This change happened a long time ago, granted, but it's tough for folks to change old habits and does not indicate anything racist, imo. "Colored" became "black" for our parents' generation, but you may still hear an elderly (non-racist) person use the term. "Hispanic" has been mostly replaced by the preferred term, "Latino", but you still hear the former a lot. Yes, Hawk should probably know better, being in the public spotlight, just that this part of it seems rather innocent to me.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 17, 2014 -> 12:39 PM) If stop and think about it a bit, there might not be two veteran major leaguers who can teach Jose about how to handle failure in baseball. Both of them had some of the longest stretches of continued failure for guys considered very good MLB players for their career. To invoke Adam's prophetic walk-up tune, it's time to "Turn the Page".

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Aug 17, 2014 -> 11:56 AM) Yea and maybe his hands are tied from upstairs and cutting guys just simply isn't an option in some cases. Didn't we eat Kepps salary? Have wondered this is as well. Don't want to cast my lot with the "JR is cheap" crowd, but yes, there may be limits to how much he's willing to eat beyond Kepp. But if nothing is yielded by the 31st, it was clearly an org mistake, whoever the culprit.