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QUOTE (bucket-of-suck @ Jul 25, 2010 -> 10:39 PM) Hudson may have cost the Sox more than one game today. He may also have compromised their chances in the trade market to improve the ballclub. The Sox can't afford to have Hudson to cr.ap the bed like he did today in front of what was assuredly scouts from WAS, MIL and other clubs assessing his value. This was an important start not only for the front office, but also to allow the club to split a road trip that should have already assured them of a .500 finish were it not for one Bubba Jenks and his sudden lack of stuff. Hudson has shown a nice ability to command in the minors but if he can't attack the zone against what is considered a weak hitting Oakland team, how will he fare against real AL hitters? Not just his results, but his lack of control and more importantly, lack of aggression could force Kenny to not only shift focus to replacing Peavy with an acquired 5th starter, but also really handcuff our options to make an impact-bat move this week. Somewhere Dan Hudson just threw a drifting fastball out of the zone again... The Sox can't deal Hudson anyways. If you think Hudson is bad, wait until Torres is your fifth starter, and that is completely ignoring the fact that I'm still not entirely sure what we can expect out of Freddy. After the Peavy injury, we completely lost all of our depth for our starting rotation. They not only need Hudson, they need him to pitch better than your average fifth starter because this team wasn't built to win on offense.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Jul 26, 2010 -> 01:08 AM) See Chris Sale. Fact is the Sox currently are trying to fix the farm system stemming from the whole Wilder fiasco.There were teams who passed on him because of signability issues. The Sox capitalized on that by promising the kid he'd get a shot at the majors this year. They made one really good pick, and then went on to be mediocre for the rest of the draft. There is some risk in rushing Sale to the majors as well. How long can Dave Wilder be the scapegoat for all the Sox' woes? Fact of the matter is that the organization has to move on from that whole fiasco and stop shooting themselves in the foot by being too squeamish to actually try to improve their farm system. QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Jul 26, 2010 -> 01:08 AM) Now I've seen the Red Sox used as a great example of a team doing it the right way. I've seen no one bring up the fact that the Red Sox are the 2nd richest baseball franchise behind the Yankees. The Sox come in 2nd in a 2 team baseball town. Do the math. The Sox priority is having a team to compete every year under the KW regime. That means a high major league payroll. The reason for that strategy is if the Sox don't put out a winning product there will be no butts in the seats. The fans who clamor for a great minor league system ,no matter their "intelligence " as a fan, are outnumbered by perhaps 5000-1 by actual people who pay to see a winning team. So the minors suffer because of that. We can't overpay for everything which is exactly what the Red Sox do. The problem is that their approach in spending on the major league club hasn't worked. Yeah, they've had their best decade in the history of the franchise, but since that burst of spending after 2005, what has happened to their payroll every year? Their strategy of investing heavily in the major league club already has them retreating towards the smaller side of $100 million, with realistic projections of them receding even further. The less money that they have to spend, the less they will win. The less they win, the less money they have to spend. Now, I'm not saying the priority of the franchise shouldn't be the major league club, that is something I can agree on. However, they really need to invest a little money at least on some prospects. Right now, KW has backed himself into a corner. He can deal his only three prospects with value in an effort to fill a hole that could have been filled, very very cheaply I may add, in the off season for a chance to win a mediocre division with his best pitcher on the DL, or he can decide that he wants to compete next year too meaning that he has to keep his three prospects who have value and hope to god that they can fill in the gaps left by Freddy, Paulie, and AJ. QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Jul 26, 2010 -> 01:08 AM) Our young or semi-young talented players include Danks, Floyd, Quentin, Ramirez ,Thornton (core players), Jenks ,Santos, Viciedo,and Lillibridge have all come by means other than the draft. The first 6 in that group are 2 very good starting pitchers, a near MVP, a SS who is pretty damn good and an All Star reliever and another reliever who made 2 All Star teams and was huge ( no pun intended) in bringing a title to this team. Consider the talent we gave up to get those players .Really not much at all in terms of major league talent. What KW has done to me is quite impressive. I will never underestimate a World Series win or competing nearly every year for a division title for a franchise with a piss poor history. There is no doubt KW has made some fantastic trades an acquisitions over the past few years. Unfortunately, those good, young players are all just about due for a pay day. John Danks has shown absolutely nothing since dumping Boras that he wants anything less than big money, and I know I can't be the only poster on this site who thinks we may not be able to afford what he wants us to give him. Jenks hasn't been very good at all this season and is very clearly overpaid. Certainly, he is no all-star. I may be speaking heresy here, but I don't trust Santos going forward. I mean, this is a guy who's pitched only 1 year of major league ball before this season. I'm not entirely sure how big of a pay day Alexei is due, but if he manages to get the gold glove somehow, I can see him using that to secure himself a big one. I don't have the slightest clue why you included Lillibridge in this list... I don't think there's anybody on here who doubts KW's ability to pull off some great trades. The problem is that he has completely neglected the farm system for way too long. There really is no excuse for how bad our prospects are; I don't care how many injuries there have been. Even if all Kenny does is package off his prospects for more proven talent, at least he would have something to work with instead of having to face the dilemma of mortgaging the next season just so he can put his team in contention for one year. And, let's not forget he has made some less than good moves, too. Is there anybody on here who thinks the Linebrink contract is good? How about the idea to trade for a non-tender candidate in Mark Teahen and then sign him to a long term deal? I bet he wishes he could redo the Swisher trades. Speaking of Swisher, how about the center fielders he's thrown out there? What about him playing second-fiddle, presumably at least, to Ozzie in setting up this debacle of a rotating DH, causing this whole issue with trading our young talent in the first place? Does anybody remember him offering tons of money to Hunter and Fukudome? On the whole, I agree KW has been more good than bad, but for our particular team I believe you have to invest more in your farm system. As you mention above, we aren't the Red Sox. We can't go out and buy a bunch of free agents to fill our holes, which is why it is all the more important to have good prospects on the farm. QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Jul 26, 2010 -> 01:08 AM) As far as the 2nd bolded part goes, you will drive yourself insane thinking that way. As Caulfield said "hindsight is 20/20". Albert Pujols was drafted in the 13th round. Every team in the majors passed on him 12/13 times. It's a crap shoot. Sure you can improve your odds by putting more cash into it but "can't miss" prospects miss a lot more often than they succeed. High draft choices help and the Sox just haven't been in a position to draft very high thanks to having one of the most successful franchises in baseball in the last 10 years or so. Maybe the Sox should be the model other teams ( other than the Red Sox and Yankees) look to for building a franchise instead of the other way around. Like who? I don't see why you wouldn't try to model your franchise around the best run in the mlb.

QUOTE (Jenksy Cat @ Jul 22, 2010 -> 12:17 AM) Then you have to move someone up to take Putz's place and pray we don't lose games in the 7th instead of 9th. I'm a fan of common sense, so wishing they DFA "that f***ing fatass" is idiotic to me. You do what you did earlier in the year, give him a break, slowly work him back in and hope he finds it again. We need him to be June/July Bobby or hope every pitcher goes at least 7 from here out. And that "he was due" is still BS. He's had those numbers all season, it makes no difference. If there were a starting pitcher with an era over 5 who had no losses, would you not say that he was due to lose a game eventually? Looking at a closer's saves is exactly the same as looking at wins for a pitcher. Getting saves, much like getting wins, is an entire team stat, not just one guy who happened to pitch at a certain time.

QUOTE (BearSox @ Jul 10, 2010 -> 02:15 PM) No one is gonna get him for a s***ty C or B prospect. But they aren't going to get a Hudson, Flowers, or Viciedo for him from any team. No team is stupid enough to give that up for a rental player. And if that is the Astros asking price... well, you could see why they are one of the most f***ed organizations in baseball right now whose cornerstones on their team are past their prime and a weak farm system that isn't much better than ours. The problem is that Hudson, Flowers, and Viciedo are kind of B level prospects. They might end up being very very good players, but I don't think anybody views them as top tier prospects. Then there's the whole issue where he wants his option to be picked up in order for him to waive his no trade clause. I just don't see a match here unless both Berkman and the Astros lower their expectations.

To be fair, the Sox and Tigers were also much better teams up to that point in the season than the Twins and Tigers are now. On that date, the Tigers were 48-25, and the Sox were 46-25 as opposed to the current records of 40-29 for the Twins and 38-30 for the Tigers. They will certainly need to have the other 7 players of our offense to start hitting better, but they won't need as much of those ridiculously fluky numbers just by virtue of only needing to make up half the games as the twins did.

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ Jun 5, 2010 -> 11:53 PM) There's nothing that remarkable about the quote. I was just suprised to see him make himself part of the discussion. Not a huge deal. I just thought his quote would be more like, "Yeah, i expect a lot of changes around here." Rather then, "Yeah, i expect a lot of changes around here, i could be one of them, i'd understand it if Kenny wanted to trade me" Even the first quote is probably putting himself more into it than necessary, to be honest.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 5, 2010 -> 11:20 PM) Sounds like Peavy would be really upset to get traded...not! http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseb...0,6040482.story I'd almost feel bad for him if he wasn't reason #3 for us sucking so hard this year, but congrats on getting your ERA below 6 Jake, keep earning that money.

QUOTE (WCSox @ May 24, 2010 -> 11:46 PM) Given Q's injury and mental issues, Rios very well may be our #3 hitter of the future. Unless that Beckham guy wasn't a fluke.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ May 19, 2010 -> 06:35 PM) Or Floyd. Wouldn't make sense to trade him while his value is so low.

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ May 18, 2010 -> 03:57 PM) Well, he is sure taking a lot of the blame for the bad luck so far this year. It should go both ways. There is a difference between Ozzie being part of the problem with this team and Ozzie being the sole problem with this team. I don't think anybody on here is blaming this entire season on Ozzie, but his decisions have been consistently, well, stupid. You can't let a poor performance by this team's players completely mask the faults and mistakes of its manager just because even the best decisions wouldn't have saved/resurrected the season. He was here in 2005, which was a great, great season, but it's now 2010. When can we stop living in the past?

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ May 8, 2010 -> 07:34 PM) Way to jinx it guys!

Call me crazy, but I think this team is just one big bat away from being able to do some serious damage. Whether or not that is going to be enough to catch the twins is another matter, though.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ May 4, 2010 -> 07:16 PM) God I love Teahen! So glad we traded Getz for him. The same Getz that's hitting .171 right now?

OMGSCOTTYPODS

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ May 4, 2010 -> 06:48 PM) Well Jones is playing LF. I care about Quentin's health over Jones' and Pierre's. DH Q-uperman. I would have expected Ozzie to start him out slow since he's had that hamstring issue or whatever the past few days. Just seems like something Ozzie would do.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ May 3, 2010 -> 05:59 PM) Thanks. That was very much appreciated. I didn't know that JP offers nothing outside of BA and speed. Glad I could help.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ May 3, 2010 -> 05:41 PM) He does if he's hitting .280, let alone .300. I mean it's really that simple. JP is a career .301 hitter in 6064 career plate appearances coming into this year. He's hitting .202 this year. Has he declined so much over one 6-month off-season that his average has dropped 100 points off his career mark? I'd say hell no. 2003 was a long time ago. He probably will end up in the .290 range, but that still doesn't mean he's a very good baseball player.

QUOTE (chw42 @ May 1, 2010 -> 12:55 AM) For a 3 year old, he has some serious power. When Brent Lillibridge grows up, he wants to be just like him.

QUOTE (Jenksy Cat @ May 1, 2010 -> 01:21 AM) Then why didn't the padres trade him to any of the other teams who wanted him? Nobody else called after he got injured.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 28, 2010 -> 03:28 PM) If we are going to have someone bunting in the two hole, why not have it be someone who can't hit anyway? How often has that person bunted this year?

QUOTE (Melissa1334 @ Apr 23, 2010 -> 10:12 PM) everything that goes wrong is ozzie's fault but no one gives him credit for wanting andruw jones Did he specifically want him though? Good to see a win even if we are still relying on the solo shot.

Honestly, I kind of hope the kid fails. From the little I've read about him, he just comes off as a very unlikable guy, and it seems the scouts agree with me.

20% of Wade Davis' pitches on that last at bat by Jones.

Beckham

Teahen