Jerksticks

What I find interesting is outside of his 5 game 1 for 19 in August the kid had some pretty ridiculous stats. His OPS is like a 1.000 I know sample sizes, sample sizes, but he did crush the heck outa the ball. And as a 21 year old? Where are most 21 year olds..A-AA ball? Yea he doesn't have good discipline but he can actually hit really bad pitches; remember that shoe-string homer? You can't use the plate discipline argument for him like you would most players, as he seems like somewhat of a unique case.

Look in your crystal ball and predict Tank's future, especially next year. I personally think he's KW's boy and will be our backup 1B and half a DH combo. I think his bat is ready but where do you fall in all of this? More seasoning in AAA?

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Oct 30, 2010 -> 05:51 AM) He's put up a .231/.411/.478/.890 line with RISP in his career. Which is a better sample size - 1707 PAs or 191 PAs? He's put up a .214/.429/.443/.872 line with RISP and 2 outs in his career. He's walked more than he's struck out in those situations. Which is a better sample size - 771 PAs or 90 PAs? Yes, his average is low, because he does not hit for average. His OBP is higher with RISP w/ 2 outs because teams won't pitch to him unless they have a definitive advantage in that circumstance, hence the 9 IBBs this past year and the 69 IBBs in those situations throughout his career. Food for thought - Konerko is a career .284/.372/.479/.851 hitter with RISP in his career (2109 PAs) and a .236/.348/.415/.763 hitter with RISP w/ 2 outs in his career (976 PAs), and teams are obviously not afraid to go after him considering he only has 27 IBBs in his career in those situations (again, Dunn has 69). The first is worse than Dunn, and the second is considerably worse than Dunn. If you suggest that Dunn isn't a great offensive player, then Paul Konerko isn't either. Totally agree. I just fail to see how signing Dunn over Konerko is an upgrade; slightly better offense in theory with WAY worse defense. There's no way he picks balls as well as Paulie so the entire infield takes a step back too..sorry Buehrle. Add to that the fact that we have to sign him for more money, more years and lose our draft pick. No thanks, let's resign the captain. Let the cubs have Dunn.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Oct 29, 2010 -> 08:57 PM) Prince Fielder is not a FA This doesn't matter at all for his point. Moving the conversation forward...I'd like to resign PK simply because our offense would be awful without him. I think Tank is our future 1B and I would love if he backed up PK next year and was 1 half of a GOOD DH tandem.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 28, 2010 -> 11:22 AM) Adam Dunn's career numbers close and late: 47 HR, .858 OPS. High leverage: 77 HR, 925 OPS. Career OPS in Extra innings: 1.291. You can make a case that he isn't that great in the 8th and 9th innings overall, but the close and late stats and the leverage-stats suggest he'll do damage when it counts. The one thing taht will hurt him is that he has an .817 career OPS against LHP, which is good but nothing like the damage he does against righties. The "40 garbage time home runs" line makes you look worse than Adam Dunn's defense. Not really. He hit .217/.335/.427/.762 with RISP this year, and a paltry .169/.344/.366/.710 with RISP and 2 out- add to that a total of almost 100 strikeouts in those 2 situations. Those are the stats that count to me. He's not a horrible offensive player, he just isn't great. His defense IS horrible. I'd take PK any day of the week over that dude.

Ok, so where is the BIG offensive upgrade though? We need more than Nick Johnson. It seems we have RF 1B DH and C to address, so where do Quentin, PK, Viciedo fit in next year if we add Johnson? The same team plus Johnson is not good enough and I hate that we don't have a spot for Viciedo's bat.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 28, 2010 -> 07:39 AM) Like when the Sox made a substantial commitment to the Pontiac Fundamentals deck? I've still never been on that stupid thing, although I did randomly figure out how to get to it this year. Is it always jam-shacked with kids or is it just the one kid trying to hit the homer?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 28, 2010 -> 07:21 AM) I wouldn't be surprised at all to see KW go after him. I know. He'll bring balance to that lineup if it kills him.

QUOTE (balfanman @ Oct 28, 2010 -> 08:07 AM) I'm one who cares big time about 1st base defense. Ramirez would not of had a stand out defensive season in my opinion if it wsn't for Paul Konerko. If Ramirez would have been charged with a few more errors because our 1st basemen couldn't handle his throws, then his confidence probably goes out the window and we would of seen a much worse version of him. Not to mention the effect that all of those extra outs would of put on an already mediocre (results wise) pitching staff. I believe that we won a game this year because a 1st baseman, namely Washingtons' Adam Dunn was a complete hack at 1st base. If we somehow acquire Dunn and he plays even 1 inning in the field I personally would not be happy. We wouldn't even play Thome at 1st and he was at least adequate. I, for one, think that 1st base defense is highly under valued. JMHO I don't think anybody here would be happy with Dunn at 1B for 3 years. That defense is SOOOOOO bad it almost makes you forget about his offense and the 40 garbage-time homers.

Rangers have a bunch of guys playing out their ass all year, especially pitchers. It smells like a team of destiny just like 2005. I'm picking them.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 20, 2010 -> 07:33 AM) Not really my point, I was saying things don't last forever. That's one thing that has been pretty constant in this game, over time, teams ebb and flow in terms of how strong they are. The Yankees are sort of the one exception to that rule. But BOS for example, had decades of awfulness, before a relatively recent renaissance. BAL was a big time team for quite a while, their suckage is relatively recent too. Things change. You can't just say the AL East gets the wildcard forever, that simply won't happen. But you also can't just say it's a natural ebb and flow of team strength. 2 of these East teams spend considerably more money than the other 3 because they have bigger markets for baseball. I don't see Boston ever returning to the days of mediocrity because they sell such a likable and profitable product now. The Rays have become a force through young talent and the Orioles and Blue Jays might be on their way too; but the Yankees and Red Sox will still always be there because of payroll. It's not a natural cycle like most other divisions.

0 for his last 15 with a BB. I like it. Nothing like getting totally humbled to make a man work harder

News Alert: Frank Thomas was really freakishly good.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Oct 20, 2010 -> 12:34 PM) So the fact that the A's have a young, cheap, quality under control starter for the next 4 or 5 years and a potential dominant reliever who sported a 14.0 K/9 in the minors while all we have to show for it is a couple months of Wilson Betimet is not a major failure? The Pena trade? The Teahen extension? The Javy trade? You said other than the Rios pick-up it's a fact he's been all failure. I'm saying that's not fact but your opinion. I feel like you only use hindsight when judging KW. At the time of the Swish trade he looked like a really good fit (a cost-controlled switch-hitting outfielder, who by the way, is a type of player we could have used these last few years and going forward- not Swish but a player like Swish). The trade hurt because Swish didn't produce or fit in, not because it was a dumb trade. He had A TON of value at the time so it took value to get him. Sweeney had no spot here at The Cell, cmon you know that. Gio looks like a good player but it's 2010 now, not the end of 2007. DLS might never get past AA so don't act like he's some sure thing reliever 3 years later and after major arm surgery. I mean, do you want to wait til 2013 for the next batch of prospects to get to the majors? I'd hate it if we were like the A's, always waiting for some young group to suddenly gel and get hot.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Oct 20, 2010 -> 11:45 AM) And I feel the same way about the chronic homers. I admit I haven't been Mr sunshine of late. But don't act as if I'm one of the guys who declared the season over 10 games in back in April. I gave Ozzie and KW the benefit of the doubt back in March when it was clear to most that the rotating DH was a potential disaster in waiting. I even stood behind the despicable Teahen extension. Both were/are spectacular fails and criticism is warranted. But I can get over that. What I can't get over is the fact that we have a GM that refuses to learn from past mistakes. Consistently ignoring the future to "go for it" every year no matter how many times we come up short. Other than the Rios claim, KW has been brutal the last three years. This is not opinion to me, but a cold fact. One year can be dismissed as a fluke. Three years is a trend. But yeah, if I'm supposed to be the board version of Hawk Harrelson or a ranger clone because of 2005 then go ahead and ignore me. Cuz that s*** ain't happening. No, it is your opinion. Since when is fact subjective? I don't blame him for Swish because he looked like a pretty good player. And I certainly don't blame him for Peavy- we aren't losing that trade YET. And I sure as hell don't blame him for trying to strengthen our pitching staff last year when Peavy went down. KW wants to win at all times, there's no debating that. Masset trade sucked, I'll give you that. Now please, go put my dossier in your homer file.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 20, 2010 -> 08:11 AM) Not really. We have a team full of ground ball pitchers. The difference in this team between Vizquel and Teahen was night and day. Teahen still hasn't proven he's a productive MLB player. Can't we have a judge annul that contract.

QUOTE (Little Nell @ Oct 19, 2010 -> 01:53 PM) No to everything especially the plexi-glass extension. I don't want USCF looking like a hockey rink. That's pretty funny. Ever since we started calling it the cell I've wanted our outfield wall to be prison bars full of the roughest inmates on earth that harass the other team and scare them to death. Especially around the other team's bullpen. The real Cell, if you will. I should write Brooks.

Is it possible that something else is actually wrong with Peavy, like a shoulder/elbow kind of thing, and to stop irritating that he changed his pitching motion which led to his freak Lat injury? So maybe the real injury is still there? Something I think about from time to time.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Oct 19, 2010 -> 11:48 AM) Except we didn't sell high. We overpaid and have nothing to show for it. And Escobar's bat wouldn't allow us to sell high anyway. Ehh but he's a good shortstop which gives him some life as a prospect, wouldn't ya think? I'm just thinking with a good AFL performance someone might be enticed like we were with Bust Flowers a few years back. With a good AFL maybe he becomes one more guy we can use to actually SWEETEN a package for the bat we so desperately need. Cincy needs a SS....

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 19, 2010 -> 11:30 AM) Careful with that sample size. If he finishes AFL competition and still has solid numbers, that will be something to cheer about. So the question becomes..should we sell high on the kid this offseason? Kinda like DLS? A lot of you seem to think he is playing above his capabilities right now.

Didn't you hear the news? The farm sucks and can't produce players who contribute. If we were more like the Rays then maybe. But since we aren't the Rays, even our good prospects aren't really prospects, just the top of the fodder pile.

So we'd have to suck for years to replenish the farm. No thanks. I like what's been done down there the last few years, especially the drafts. Morel, Viciedo, Beckham, Sale, Lillibridge, Danks, Floyd and Quentin are all cost-controlled guys we've brought up in the last few years. Those are all major league players in some capacity with some looking like stars. We're doing ok. Our pitching staff is so good that we have to try to win next year with some of these kids. I wish the pressure wasn't so high on them here but it is what it is. The Swisher and Griffey trades are the only ones I don't like. Swisher looked like a good player but didn't fit in here. I give KW a pass there. You can't predict a guy won't fit in. He didn't have a Milton Bradley reputation or anything, he just sucked. Griffey for Masset was just retarded though. Peavy trade is a winner for us if he pitches. Only Richard is pitching for them now and he sucks away from Petco. Dex Carter, Poreda and Russell all regressed this year in the minors; horribly regressed. That one looks good if The Peav gets on track. Farm seems better than ever to me even though that isn't saying much. We just have a bunch of guys who have graduated from the minors but have yet to fully dig-in up here. Middle ground sucks but whatever.

QUOTE (hitlesswonder @ Oct 16, 2010 -> 07:04 PM) KW has had about one decent move in the last 2 years: picking up Rios for the cost of his contract. This year at least, he played to his contract and gave the Sox their first decent CF since the fire and the passion left. But even the Rios move isn't a pure win, he's really expensive. But the Sox are so bereft of position talent they can't be picky about acquiring anyone that can play. This offseason, at least one of Danks or Floyd has to/will be traded. It's basically all the Sox have to move. But even then I don't think either of those guys will bring anything close to what this board wants. CQ, Danks, Santos, and Morel might be enough to get Rasmus but I don't see CQ and Danks alone being close.... No way man! Holy overpay. I think Danks is close to enough to get Rasmus. Talent-wise it's a good swap, but since Rasmus plays everyday and Danks is more expensive, I would understand us having to give another piece. But not 3 more major leaguers, cmon a bit.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Oct 16, 2010 -> 04:54 PM) Unless Jackson thoroughly outperforms Hudson for the next 6 years this trade is a fail. I hate this argument. Our entire front office thought this was a good trade. They weren't confident in Hudson, period. You have to understand that they didn't want to send an unproven kid out there every 5 days in a tight race. Jackson was awesome and more than any of US expected him to be, but the front office knew the whole time what they were getting. Our team is better next year...plus 8 mil. We have Edwin Freaking Jackson now; talk about yer all-time Peavy insurance.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 16, 2010 -> 01:42 AM) Not to flame, but we have Edwin Jackson now. We don't have the guy we traded for him. So no sense looking back. It's time to hope Edwin is a dominant pitcher. He showed flashes this year. Bingo. He's our boy now. Let's look forward to him being one of our best, if not the best.