What to do With Mark Teahen

Look I’m sure Mark Teahen is a nice guy. He was a hotshot prospect coming up with the Royals. He even had a little bit of success at the big league level. But he absolute stinks now. Awful. Disgraceful. Painful to watch. He’s a man without a position, that lacks the bat to DH. He’s not a bad hitter, he’s actually pretty serviceable. But my goodness his defense. What an adventure at third base. Give him a mask and some pads over there, they might help. His bat does not make up for the atrocity at third base. You can’t stick him in the outfield either unless Quentin’s taking a day off. It’s unfortunate that you can’t flat out fire people in baseball because Kenny Williams would have done it yesterday. Speaking of Kenny Williams he’s a terrific GM that consistently puts his team in a position to be successful. But this one was not his finest work. Being stuck with this guy for three more years is painful. God willing they can dump him on the Red Sox somehow. They deserve each other. With my luck though he’d probably hit .300 with 40 homers. If you ask me I’d have him be the fifth outfielder and an insurance policy at the corner infield positions. There is really no position for him if Morel plays as well as people are projecting and if Viciedo made progress in the offseason. With Kotsay backing up at first and DH, and hopefully Viciedo getting a day or two a week at third we should be spared of seeing too much Teahen. The outfield is the most realistic place for him, but there is a cluster of young talent there that can hopefully produce just as much as Teahen for a fifth of the price. The best thing for Teahen would be to get shipped to Pittsburgh or back to Kansas City, where he could try to figure things out on a non-competitive ballclub.

Why Jake Peavy Coming Back in Mid-April is Bad

Some White Sox fans are pumped that Jake Peavy is ahead of schedule on his rehab. Not this one. I’m scared shitless. Peavy is the first pitcher to ever try to return from totally separating his shoulder muscle from the bone. He’s also notorious for trying to rush back from injury as quickly as possible, which you have to respect and appreciate. The offense is strong enough this season to be able to carry the pitching staff for a month or two for Peavy to really rehab and make sure he’s at full strength. Not to mention they have four guys (Beuhrle, Floyd, Danks, and Jackson) who I would take over most guys front four. But Peavy is the ace. That’s why they traded for him to be the big time guy and the best pitcher on a borderline great staff. So why rush back for mid-April? You win World Series in October. You ruin them in April and May. Relax bro Beuhrle’s been around the block a time or two. Let him be the ace til June then BAM! the A.L Central won’t know what hit they’re facing two aces and two number two’s in a four game set. Please just pull a Clemens, go kill a couple of bucks and we’ll see you in June.

Why I Hate The Red Sox

           There are so many good, legitimate reasons to hate the Red Sox that I’m just hoping I don’t forget any of the major ones. I'm going to preface this with why it is relevant. I will be referencing my hatred for the Red Sox quite often throughout this blog and figure I should explain why. I think this will help everyone better understand the blog. Let’s start with the pink hat fad. Look ladies if you want to like the team I got no problem with that. But learn to love the colors. Your teams are blue and red. If you don’t want to wear those don’t wear team gear to the game it’s that simple. I understand most of the people that are wearing the pink apparel aren’t actually fans, and are only at the games because they got dragged there by their rich boyfriend who barely likes the team either but got the company seats for the nights and couldn’t say no to his boss. It’s not a requirement to wear team gear to a game. Simply wear regular clothes so I don’t have to see you when the camera pans the box seats and half the women are wearing pink shit.

Now let’s knock out the main reason why I can’t stand the Red Sox. I understand you guys didn’t win the World Series for a little while. But you have to understand what you had was only the third longest ACTIVE drought at the time. Yet your fans acted like the rest of the league was taking turns sharing the World Series and were leaving your poor Red Sox out. At the time the city of Chicago hadn’t won a pennant since 1959. That’s only 45 years without even being in the World Series. For a city that has two entries every year. So if I hear “Why Not Us” one more time I’m seriously going to shit my pants right in the middle of class. I’m at wits end. Or let’s talk about all through my childhood having to listen to idiots on the TV and in the paper say this, “I just hope Grampy gets to see the Red Sox win one in his lifetime.” Guess what sweetheart, Grampy just soiled his third diaper of the day and it’s barely noon. He barely liked the Red Sox when he was a real person. So now that he’s senile do him a favor and stop pretending like he was a season ticket holder at 81 games a year. What Grampy really wants is a beer and to see Grandma naked. He’d tell you this himself, but he lost his words two years ago. And also I feel bad for the half of Red Sox fans that are real fans and have watched the team their whole lives. I know there’s some of you out there hiding in the sea of bandwagon fans who thought it was cool and popular to “suffer” during the Curse of the Bambino. If you like the team, but are too busy having a life to be a die-hard fan that’s fine. I just don’t want to hear about your suffering. You’re not.

Another real winner is “How are we supposed to compete with the Yankees they buy all their players!” Sure the Yankees have roughly an extra 40 million on their books this year. But let’s be realistic both teams have absolutely no discretion about throwing money around. The teams around every major free agent are generally the Yankees, Red Sox, Angels, and recently the Phillies. Obviously, every once in a while a random team surfaces around a certain big name player willing to risk the next four years of their franchise on that one guy. This is how a team should be built. You put together some good home grown talent, meaning at least three solid starters, a closer and five position players. Fill the bullpen with knock around guys and some younger pitchers that don’t yet have the repertoire to start, but have a couple dynamite pitches. Sign a couple of decent veteran starters to throw at the back end of the rotation. Now, once you have this assembled is when you should go to free agency for the missing piece that puts your team over the top, as well as a few other veteran players to play roles and fill out your bench. Or you can always take the Red Sox or Yankees approach, fire your scouting department to save a couple mil and throw your cash at every player with a big name that Baseball Tonight tells you is good. Ignore signs like injury history or down years and spend baby spend. Then when the guy gets hurt or proves that it wasn’t just a down year give up on him quick and say “He just couldn’t handle Boston or New York” and repeat the cycle. Newsflash guys…your city is not too tough to handle. It’s actually just like every other city that has a baseball team. The only difference is you guys think every player has to hit .380 with 50 home runs every year. People have bad weeks, months and years guys its part of baseball. And Red Sox fans please don’t tell me you are any different than Yankees fans. You are literally the same people so please learn to live with it. The Red Sox might even be getting better at this game seeing as they pwned the Yankees and signed Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford.

Should the White Sox Trade for Michael Young?

       I think I speak for the majority of White Sox when I scream YESSSSSSS!!!! at the top of my lungs to this. With the White Sox "All In" motto for this season they have to at least see what the Rangers are looking for. Obviously the Rangers would have to absorb the majority of his contract, but I think the White Sox have enough talented prospects that they could make this worth the Rangers while. The package I'd offer would feature Dayan Viciedo and or Brent Morel, Tyler Flowers and throw in Mark Teahen (please God) and Edwin Jackson seeing as the Rangers starting rotation is paper thin behind Tommy Hunter, Colby Lewis and C.J Wilson. None of those three guys should be expected to carry a rotation. The White Sox would have to get back Young and hopefully a half decent reliever to throw in the 6th or 7th inning. If they do get Young that fills a chasm at 3rd base and really clears up the only weakness left in the lineup.
       Going around the horn you have Paul Konerko at 1st, Gordon Beckham at 2nd, Alexei Ramirez at short and Michael Young at 3rd. I dare you to find me a better infield in the A.L Central (you can't). Defensively this is a solid infield, even if Young is in decline at 3rd. They have the real Gold Glove winning shortstop to cover a little extra ground deep in the hole as he proved he can do. To go totally off topic for a second Derek Jeter winning a Gold Glove is borderline criminal. Yes I know he only made 6 errors the whole season. That's not tough when you have literally the worst range of any qualifying American League shortstop. He had the second fewest chances per game of any qualifying shortstop in either league. Alexei on the other hand had the highest chances per game and also the most chances. Not to mention the 115 more chances Alexei had were tough balls in the hole that Jeter wouldn't have tried for since his range has diminished. Does some of this have to do with both teams respective pitchers? Of course. But you can't tell me Alexei, Cesar Izturis or Elvis Andrus didn't help there teams more at the shortstop position.
       Back to Michael Young, adding him gives Ozzie the ability to put together a dream lineup.
1. Juan Pierre
2. Michael Young
3. Paulie
4. Adam Dunn
5. Carlos Quentin
6. Alex Rios
7. AJ Pierzynski
8. Beckham
9. Alexei
       Pair that lineup with a top flight pitching staff that we'll save for another day and they have World Series contender written all over it. If you don't add Young and are stuck with Morel or even worse Mark Teahen at 3rd and the lineup doesn't have the same feel to it. It's still good, but it can't be compared with the top flights lineups. It just wouldn't have enough pop at the bottom of the order. Realistically, it's probably a long shot that they add Young. But knowing Kenny Williams, I'm sure he is working the phones to try to get something done. Here's to hoping.

Blog Description

This blog is going to focus on all things White Sox. There is no shortage of things to blog about right now with pitchers and catchers reporting. I will also put up the occasional list and random thought pertaining to the White Sox. Keep in mind all opinions are mine and are coming from the mind of a critical, sometimes belligerent fan. With that in mind I am extremely optimistic about the upcoming season.