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QUOTE (Heads22 @ Aug 21, 2011 -> 01:47 AM) You can sell beer at college sporting events. They are considering it at ISU, Iowa and UNI. Yes. It is a team by team/conference by conference thing, but there is no general rule against it. I think the Big 10's policy is no beer sales. That could be wrong, though.

QUOTE (Cerbaho-WG @ Jul 31, 2011 -> 10:06 AM) Seems like a meh haul for the astros. Man, they are going to be some kind of awful for the next fifty games... yeah. And if that's the type of package that was offered for Quentin, I'm glad KW didn't make the trade.

QUOTE (MLB Fan @ Jul 30, 2011 -> 12:48 PM) This is how our lineup is constructed currently when healthy: This week's heap of trash CF Prado LF McCann C Chipper 3B Freeman 1B Uggla 2B Heyward RF Gonzalez SS This team hits tons of HRs, but can't get on base for anything, which is what we need in front of McCann, Freeman, and Uggla. There is no place in the lineup for Quentin. Beachy, Teheran, Vizcaino, and Salcedo are absolute untouchables. Minor and/or Delgado could be traded at the right price. Bourn and Upton are our targets for CF and we also need a cheap RH bat to platoon with Heyward in RF and play LF when Chipper needs a day off (Prado to 3rd). But the Braves aren't healthy. That's a huge part of the impetus for them to make a trade.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Jul 29, 2011 -> 08:12 PM) Rios is not going anywhere. Except the bench!

QUOTE (danman31 @ Jul 9, 2011 -> 07:27 PM) Frankly, I don't see all the recent optimism around Flowers. He's hitting .255 with 84 K in 220 AB in AAA. Yeah, he walks and has power, but that contact rate should put him barely above Adam Dunn's territory right now. He has an OPS around .890 in AAA at a position that currently has miserable hitting depth league-wide. What's average production this year in the MLB at that position? .700 OPS? Yes, he still strikes out far too often, and it is a legitimate question just how far his production will far off unless he cuts down on those strikeouts at least a bit (and whether he could even keep up this level of production at AAA). But the good news: he is playing catcher. Being a successful hitting catcher is a pretty low threshold. Not saying they should pencil him in as the future starter. But I am definitely interested to see how he can do going forward, both at the AAA and the major league levels. Also, while strikeouts are a part of Dunn's problems, by far the bigger issue is his lack of power: .164 ISO, infield fly % that has shot up, HR/FB rate that is half his career rate all point toward weak hitting even when he makes contact (as everyone can tell just by watching him). Not trying to start a debate about Dunn, but the point is: Flowers can strike out 35% of the time and still hit a lot better than Dunn this year. Like I said, skepticism is warranted, but so, I think, is optimism (or at least interest) given his solid production this year and the production by catchers in general in the majors.

Konerko, going 1st to 3rd like an All Star.

QUOTE (Palehosefan @ Jun 12, 2011 -> 11:42 PM) You really still are hanging on to hope? Even after the interview with Buddy Bell basically said his swing didn't respond well to the coaching and reverted back to the norm? He's going to be 25 years old in less than two months, I just don't see it. You mean the interview where Buddy Bell said, "Jordan Danks looks better than I've ever seen him"?

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ May 21, 2011 -> 10:22 PM) I think it's less than $4M now that we've played almost 2 months. Not even that. Sox owe him $4M regardless of whether he plays. That should not factor into his playing time (I'm sure it does, but it shouldn't).

QUOTE (J.Reedfan8 @ Sep 2, 2010 -> 12:25 AM) Michael Blanke. Ima predict that kid will be our best catching prospect next season. (no matter what happens to Flowers and I know a couple here love Miguel Gonzalez, as do I. Just a hunch..) Definitely a guy to watch next year, in my opinion. Especially impressed by just 28 strikeouts in 214 at bats.

That bullpen is nowhere near as bad as the Diamondbacks this year. Not even in the same league. The Diamondbacks have had three guys close games this year. Qualls has a 7.58 ERA. Gutierrez has a 5.96 ERA. Heilman has by far the best ERA from pitching well as a setup man for a while, but he has blown as many games as he has saved. The proposed Sox bullpen would lack depth, but Thornton and Putz are far better pitchers than any RP for the Diamondbacks, and Santos probably is as well. Even Linebrink is much better than Qualls, who was the closer for much of the season.

QUOTE (knightni @ Aug 6, 2010 -> 05:56 AM) Pete Incaviglia and Jim Abbott went right from the draft to the majors. Neither spent any time in the minors. Both of those guys (along with Mike Leake) did not make their debut until the next season, though. Ryan Wagner was in the majors about a month after the draft.

We fell to 11th in CBS Sports Power Rankings, while the Twins are up to 7th. The reasoning: mostly because the Twins have a plus-91 run differential on the season while the White Sox run differential is plus-53. Of course, since June 9 (a period of nearly two months) our run differential is plus 90 while the Twins' is plus 36. If you are going to use run differential to justify a power ranking, you should probably take that into account... Their other reason is that Pierre's OBP at the top of the order is a "sinkhole." Over the last 30 days, Juan's OBP has been .367. If this is a power ranking, it should reflect the fact that Pierre is not killing us right now.

QUOTE (beck72 @ Jul 29, 2010 -> 02:07 PM) Would it be meaningless if he went 0 for 22 vs the sox top competitor this year? No. Success [or failure] vs. Minn. pitching is relevant if the sox added a player. I'm not saying it should be THE factor. But success or failure--even limited on a limited basis--should be considered. Esp. if we're just looking at having success this year. A hitter has a comfort factor facing a pitcher they've hit well off of. Things may change year by year. But Scott seems to have a comfort level facing Twins pitchers-whether its because they have mostly RHP or throw a lot of offspeed stuff, who knows. IMO, I'd rather have a guy who has had some success off AL pitching [twins included] than getting a NL guy [i.e. Dunn] who hasn't faced much AL pitching. Yes. It would. 22 at bats is not a statistically relevant sample and cannot be counted on to be representative of how Scott will hit against the Twins. Our expectations of how Scott plays against the Twins should not change if he is 0 for 22 or 9 for 22. There is far too much room for random variation within a sample that small.

QUOTE (beck72 @ Jul 29, 2010 -> 01:29 PM) I could see Guthrie as an option. He's doing OK this year. Yet had sub 4.00 ERA's in his 1st 2 full seasons in the rotation, in '07 and '08. With Guthrie signed for 2011, he may be looked at to replace Freddy next yr. Freddy is likely to get a better offer than the sox somewhere else. He could be a good back of the rotation guy if we didn't have to give up much to get him

QUOTE (beck72 @ Jul 29, 2010 -> 12:27 PM) That Scott has hit well vs. the team the sox are battling for a playoff spot, who they play 9 more games vs, is meaningless? Certainly Scott hitting well vs. Minn. this year isn't the reason you acquire him. But it is a positive factor. I didn't see who he hit the 5 xbh's off of. But it could make a difference Meaningless because the fact that he has hit well in 22 at bats against Minnesota in no way indicates that he will continue to hit well against them.

QUOTE (beck72 @ Jul 29, 2010 -> 12:00 PM) Still a very positive "sample". But meaningless.

QUOTE (BearSox @ Jul 29, 2010 -> 11:57 AM) He's not having a spectacular year... he's just hit a lot of home runs. I meant by his standards. Compared to his career .729 OPS entering this year, a .951 OPS is pretty spectacular.

QUOTE (Frank_Thomas35 @ Jul 29, 2010 -> 11:37 AM) I may be putting too much into to this but I believe some teams may be turned off by the fact Viciedo is owed 10 mil a year (I believe) for a guy who is still a work in progress. Viciedo signed a $10 million initial contract, but he is not owed anywhere close to that level of money per year. He is owed $1.25 million next year and $2.5 million in 2012 and is under team control for the same number of years as any other rookie. edit: http://chicago.whitesox.mlb.com/news/artic...sp&c_id=cws link discussing his contract

QUOTE (IowaSoxFan @ Jul 29, 2010 -> 10:34 AM) Overbay and Scott could be fits, especially since Overbay is in the last year of his deal. I think the target could have been Guthrie though who is supposedly very available and there have been rumors of KW eyeing him in the past and would be a solid 4/5 for the team this year and next. Bautista could be a KW darkhorse, but I don't know how excited I would be about giving up much for a mediocre hitter having a spectacular year.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jul 26, 2010 -> 08:24 AM) Fantastic movie, really glad I saw that.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jul 13, 2010 -> 02:24 PM) Kenny inherited the best farm system in baseball back in 2001. With it, he got Todd Ritchie, David Wells, Billy Koch, Bartolo Colon, Carl Everett, Roberto Alomar, Freddy Garcia, and Carl Everett again. There might be some more, but he didn't use it in the best of ways. Outside of Colon, Freddy, and the first year of Jurassic Carl, it was pretty much complete fail. The good thing is that none of the guys he traded turned out to be anything of importance. Really does tell you how hype of a farm system can turn into absolutely nothing. Like you said, he didn't really give anything up for any of those guys. The worst trade was probably the Todd Ritchie one since Ritchie was incredibly bad and Josh Fogg and Kip Wells were at least serviceable (Wells had a couple of nice years at least). Whether through luck, skill, or some combination, Kenny has generally done a tremendous job of not giving up players that developed into guys we wish we hadn't given up.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jul 13, 2010 -> 11:37 AM) Law was hired in 2002 by Ricciardi, so that was after all of the Wells/Sirotka stuff. I think it has more to do with him just having a disagreement with the Sox organizational philosophy in general. Law preaches that teams should build from within, making well calculated risks during the draft and bringing in players via international free agency and only when a team is close to competing should they go out and spend money in free agency or trade players away. Williams, instead, uses his minor league players to bring in major leaguers and has rarely used the Sox minor league system to directly impact the White Sox. Law, I would imagine, was pretty pissed off that the Sox won in 2008 considering the year before they looked like a franchise that was doomed to fail for 3-5 years. That is, he would be pissed off if he cared. I'm not sure he did. I looked around the web last night, and it seems as though there are several teams that believe that Law "hates" them, the Nationals being one. Agree completely.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Jul 8, 2010 -> 07:58 AM) People keep bringing up the BB:K rate and rightfully so, but it's not as if the guy was a K machine down at Charlotte. it was slightly above 20%, which is fine for someone if he's gonna hit 30+ HR. He's young so patience could come, but also he seems to swing at the first pitch a lot too. That doesn't always mean he's pitch or plate recognition is bad, just that he likes swinging at the first good pitch he gets. If he's gonna put it in play and get on base that's acceptable for someone who will be counted on to drive in runs. Even the K rate is a little misleading... Viciedo struggled in April and had 23 K (2 BB) in 83 at bats. The rest of the time in Charlotte he had 29 K (6 BB) in 155 at bats, which is more in line with his Birmingham numbers (struck out 89 times in 504 at bats, around 17%). So while it would be nice for him to draw a walk a little more often, he was only striking out around 18% of the time in Charlotte.

You can hear a "pop" with any injury involving a muscle, tendon, or ligament. The pop doesn't really narrow it down too much.

QUOTE (ScottyDo @ Jul 6, 2010 -> 01:20 PM) Does anybody know exactly WHY he hates us so much? Does he have a problem with Reinsdorf or Ozzie or something? I mean, he's obvious enough about it that I feel like it has to be personal on some level. I could be wrong, but: I've always thought it stems from the fact that he fundamentally disagrees with how Kenny runs the team and is essentially constantly trying to prove that he is right and Kenny is wrong. KW is pretty much seen as the opposite end of the spectrum from the Bill James/Billy Beane school of thought, so I think on some level Law is just biased against KW.