Leonard Washington

Walker 2-2 with a 2B and SB so far tonight.

QUOTE (TheBigHurt @ Jul 9, 2011 -> 03:31 AM) Careful, careful! That might be a little too much logic for some people to handle! lol. Seriously, it amazes me to no end how people downplay the concept of personalities and attitudes as an epidemic. Your environment takes a big toll on you as a person yourself. This is pretty simple and shouldn't need to be explained to anybody. I think anybody that has ever had a job realizes the importance of management's attitude. I remember when I first started as an intern with the Blue Jays. Ricciardi (who was always nothing but super friendly to everybody in my experiences) had basically accepted defeat, both publicly and internally. I was essentially a fly on the wall, but it felt as though the entire office was spinning their wheels. Ricciardi got fired. My boy Anthopoulos took his spot. At his first quarterly union address he challenged the entire company to erase the self defeatist attitude. He argued the Blue Jays had once led MLB in attendance/payroll and could do so again. He argued that through proper management the Blue Jays could prosper once again. Almost immediately the mood of the office changed. I remained a fly on the wall, but the change in attitude was tangible. My point is...the attitude of leadership absolutely matters in the big scheme of things. Sometimes a change of voice makes all the difference.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 9, 2011 -> 02:41 AM) You can make an argument that Alexei is at his "natural" home of a 725-775 OPS at shortstop as well. That's true....forgot about Alexei. I expected bigger after his pretty good start. Thought he was destined for a huge year. I also thought the same of Floyd. Silly me.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 9, 2011 -> 02:26 AM) "I felt good at the beginning, and as the game went on, I lost command with my fastball," said Floyd, who hasn't won in six starts since June 1. "Chalk it up to a bad start. You just keep working hard and get on to the next start." Love the enthusiasm, Gavin!!! "We are halfway through the season, and there's a long way to go," Rios said. "We still have some guys — me included — that are struggling, and when we get them (hitting), we'll have a totally different team. The only thing we can do is to keep playing hard and wait until that happens." Dunn also struck out twice to raise his season total to 115. "I feel like me and Alex, we've been as bad as you could possibly be," Dunn said, "and if we're doing half of what we normally do, we're not even talking about this. We talked about it, and we're putting it all on us in the second half basically." GREAT, because putting all of the pressure on yourself as a hitter really tends to work well!!! www.chicagotribune.com/sports The only guys in the lineup performing better than most expected are our two remaining 2005 members. Quentin's at about what people expected, given his health, and the rest are well below. I'm not sure what to make of this, but I find it interesting.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jul 9, 2011 -> 01:10 AM) Didn't ALbert Belle have a pretty crappy start to his White Sox career before kicking some butt. He was a disappointment, but he also had 76 XBH's. Adam Dunn is on pace for 77 hits...total. Richie Sexson, Troy Glaus, Pat Burrell in his top 5 comps at Baseball Reference. Washouts by 32. Dunn has them beat by a year.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jul 9, 2011 -> 01:59 AM) Supposedly his speed is there. I hope so. Only 6 for 10 in steal attempts leaves a lot to be desired, though.

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Jul 7, 2011 -> 01:28 AM) No? Well, again, going off preseason scouting reports he wasn't exactly highly thought of in terms of his "stuff" This is BP's scouting report, ranked as the Braves 10th overall prospect (3-stars) Again, things can always change. Adjustments, new pitches, refinement of stuff, etc. I just wanted to know if anybody has actually seen him this season, and what they thought. But before this season, he had #4 upside according to most.

QUOTE (Wanne @ Jul 9, 2011 -> 12:37 AM) Agreed...kinda silly isn't it? This is my biggest beef. Don't you think players reflect the personalities of their coaches. Ozzie's a different animal...and I think everybody has pretty much excepted the fact he's an enigma. But the personality of the other coaches...zzzzzzzzzzz. Walker, Harold and Cora have the personalities of a house plant. You don't think that rubs off?!? Oh...but they're professionals right!?! Horses***. Tell ya what...do any of you get stagnant at your job? Don't you need a lift?...somebody to stir things up once in a while or intrigue your senses to excel further? I know I do. If I'm bored (which I am completely)...I honestly check out. I collect my paycheck and don't really give a crap about going that extra yard. It gets hard motivating myself all the time. I'm good at what I do...but I get bored and complacent. I need some motivation. So does this team...I just don't see it coming from the current coaching staff. I often wonder what the hell Harold Baines is doing as a first base coach. It just doesn't make much sense to me.

Maybe I'm being cynical, but the video I saw of Hamilton, all he talked about was himself and his support system in his time of need. It seemed like he thought this was all about him.

Mitchell has been hitting the ball extremely well lately. The strikeouts are still a concern, but it looks like he may be getting back on track which is obviously very nice to see. Any reports on his speed? Is it back to his pre-injury levels? Also very nice to see another Viciedo BB.

I bet those announcers feel like dicks for laughing at the guy.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 6, 2011 -> 11:46 PM) The Indians have an almost identical ERA to the White Sox, right around 3.85. Masterson just shut out the Yankees. Sure, they could use a replacement for #5 in their rotation, but they've already got first round draft pick Alex White on the mend. Carlos Carrasco has been one of the better pitchers in the game in the month of July. Carmona has always had the stuff, and we all know about Masterson from firsthand experience. They also just got Matt LaPorta (LaFatta Ozzie calls him) back from the DL. Offensively, they could certainly get better at 3B and they need another outfielder with Choo out but they're not going to make any drastic moves because he'll be back this season. Brantley has been decent in CF, Hannahan at 3B (good glove, so-so bat) and Orlando Cabrera providing steady leadership. Lonnie Chisenhall is their 3B of the future. He's legit, too. I'm more than sold on their offense. Even before the season started, I liked their offense. I'm less sold on their pitching, however, and that hasn't changed.

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Jul 6, 2011 -> 11:26 PM) What's really sad is fans believe the biggest hope is playing in the minors right now. Imagine what it will be like for him to get called up in a race and tries to over do everything and doesn't get the same results. Let's not forget he just starting to play the outfield and I guess he's using to playing in a smaller outfield. If I remember correctly, Viciedo played some outfield in Cuba so I don't think it's a totally new position to him. I also seem to recall him saying the move to RF has allowed him to relax a little bit more and focus on his offense. I think he'd be more than fine, provided #29 doesn't teach him an exaggerated leg kick or something ridiculous. But I do agree he's not going to single handedly turn the season around. Viciedo can replace 1 person, not 5 of them.

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Jul 6, 2011 -> 11:34 PM) I wonder what they got in their farm system they could trade to help get them some decent pitching. They have a decent farm. Not great, but pretty good. For a team that's had such favourable drafting positions in recent years they could be much better, but they're OK. I'm still not sold on them this season, however. In all honesty, the Twins are still the team that scares me the most. The Tigers are similar to us in that they rarely finish strong. The Twins, however.....I think we all know how they finish.

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Jul 6, 2011 -> 11:15 PM) They were the same two guys last season saying Adam Dunn is a necessity for this team. Adam Dunn is a necessity for this team. Not the Adam Dunn we've seen, but the Adam Dunn that's been Adam Dunn prior to 2011. I can't really fault their failure to predict his legendary downfall.

I'd be interested to get a consensus on his speed. Reports I've read have it ranging from 60 to 80.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 6, 2011 -> 09:00 PM) Well, that's a short list. Chris B. Young and Michael Morse never even worked with Greg Walker, except for Spring Training. Walker didn't "DO" anything to Jeremy Reed or Jeff Abbott and many of the other 53 "TOP 30" Sox minor league prospects who were traded and busted in other organizations. Chris Carter and B. Allen haven't lit the world on fire as projected by some. Cynics would argue that those players didn't have the opportunity to have their swings ruined. Sweeney has turned out to be exactly what many thought he would be....more of a 4th outfielder, as the power still hasn't developed that was projected based on his swing, height and frame. It's not the players that have left....it's the famous (or infamous) cases of Borchard, Brian Anderson, Getz (who's basically the same exact 600-625 OPS guy he was in Chicago)Josh Fields, etc. So you can blame Walker or you can blame KW for not seeing the holes in their games and approaches from the very beginning. And that's a legitimate point. Maybe there was such a dearth of talent in our system that Brent Morel HAD TO BE a top minor league prospect, whereas in other systems he would have been outside the TOP 10. Aforementioned prospect fails to meet "expectations" based on his ranking and it's easier to blame on Walker than Kenny. Because if someone's actually talented and a "good baseball player," there has to be an explanation for their failures, logically. Really, 90% of the angst is about Beckham. If Viciedo succeeds, it will because Walker wasn't allowed to ruin him or change his approach....he came up "big league ready" and Walker didn't need to make a single adjustment. Morel was pretty well regarded. He would have been in pretty much every Top 10 except maybe the Royals. He was a top 100 guy in BA and a 4 star guy by BP.

QUOTE (JPN366 @ Jul 6, 2011 -> 08:58 PM) Anything for Pierre would be fine. Hell, take Brooks Conrad, he's at least clutch. Oh, absolutely. I've just never seen him pitch. Trying to get some opinions on him from people that have. I read some stuff from preseason lists, but things can always change.

Isn't Beachy's upside pretty minimal?

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 6, 2011 -> 08:44 PM) If the personnel was in place to be a real great offensive team, I would agree with you, but again look at the line up. It would be like judging the manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates the past 20 years on the win loss record. I disagree about our lineup. If our guys are performing to their career averages (or in the case of our younger players like Beckham or Morel, performing to reasonable expectations) we have a lineup with very few holes.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 6, 2011 -> 09:38 PM) Logic is on my side. Firing a guy not responsible for the woes of the team accomplishes nothing. He's the hitting coach. He is directly responsible for the offensive woes. That's pretty much his job description.

QUOTE (flavum @ Jul 6, 2011 -> 04:00 PM) Charlotte is facing Teheran tonight. Should be a nice test for Viciedo. I'd say he passed. He just gets better and better.

I feel kinda bad for Pierre to be totally honest. I feel more confident with him at the plate than I do half our lineup (Morel, Dunn, Beckham, Rios). I agree our team would be better if he was replaced with Viciedo, but he's hardly been the only problem. So, yes...replacing Pierre with Viciedo will help. But it's not going to make Beckham hit like he can/should, it's not going to make Rios live up to his potential, it's not going to get Dunn back to his old self, and it's not going to make Morel live up to his marginal upside.

When is his contract up? End of the year, right?

QUOTE (DirtySox @ Jun 21, 2011 -> 12:20 AM) Editor's note: To be eligible for the Top 50 list, players must have rookie eligibility. To qualify for rookie status, a player must not have exceeded 130 at-bats or 50 innings pitched in the Major Leagues, or accumulated more than 45 days on the active roster of a Major League club or clubs during the 25-player limit period, excluding time on the disabled list or in military service.) I think that's the guideline most lists use. Viciedo only has 106 career plate appearances, though.