Knucksie
03-11-2005, 09:50 AM
Great to have a chance to see some ST games and get a look at the team. I can't make it to ST this year as planned, but I did take a 1/2 off yesterday to watch the game. Here are a few observations of mine...
1) B-Mac is the real thing and he's ready to come north! B-Mac is not the mental midget like many of our recent pitching prospects and he is ready to handle The Show. I feel he will accomplish nothing down on the farm this year. He could be "the" unknown commodity that makes for a special season. He's 24 and has thrown plenty of innings in the minors. His arm and his mind are ready. Only question would be if he needs another pitch in his arsenal. If he does come north, he has to be in the regular rotation soon.
2) Crede's swing looked better yesterday. Shortening the leg kick helps. Still not awesome, but looks like he could be moving in a positive direction.
3) Guch is pretty smooth at 2nd base. He looks a bit uncomfortable at the plate and pulls off of pitches, yet, he handles the bat well, knows the game and is a major upgrade, IMHO. He took a lot of pitches, put the ball inplay and advanced the runners when he needed too. He made a nice play in the field sliding to his right and easily threw out the runner. Hawk and DJ were right when they compared that play to a YOUNG Robbie Alomar.
4) Josh Fields is far from being ready to help this year.
5) I love seeing all the left handed bats available to start or come off the bench. I believe this could be a major factor for the SOX this year. LH hitting has been a weakness in the line up for some time. The line up is very different from recent years (as promissed by KW and OZ).
6) Back up middle INF... I was not impressed at all by Ozuna. He looks to be a bit slow for the big leagues. Valdez looks more ready for a bench role (if it's not Harris).
7) The SOX D-Fence looks solid. Much better than in recent years. We all know what Crede, Rowand, Dye and Konerko bring to the field. Uribe is vastly improved over Valentin, Iguchi is excellent as I stated, Pierzinski is adequate behind the plate and Pods will be better than Lee with much more ground covered.
8) The SOX are loaded with contact hitters and will put the ball in play a lot more this year. I also think this team will fare much better against the the off speed, junk ballers and unknown pitchers than they have in the past. This has been a major frustration for me watching the SOX for several years. How many times have we seen the unknown spot starter with an ERA over 5.00 shut down the Sox? I think those days are numbered.
9) Great to hear Hawk and DJ (I'm not so opposed to DJ as many are). They had a couple of good exchanges. One being talking about the game in Japan. When DJ stated how hard the Japanese players works and they sometimes work too hard and get stale, Hawk's comment was "Whaaaahhh, whaaaaahh":whiner: Then DJ continued by giving an example of a player he played with that was struggling and was taking "100's of ground balls" before each game, Hawk's only comment was "Huh!":?: Best Hawk line of the day: "I Loooove hamburgers in the morning!"
1) B-Mac is the real thing and he's ready to come north! B-Mac is not the mental midget like many of our recent pitching prospects and he is ready to handle The Show. I feel he will accomplish nothing down on the farm this year. He could be "the" unknown commodity that makes for a special season. He's 24 and has thrown plenty of innings in the minors. His arm and his mind are ready. Only question would be if he needs another pitch in his arsenal. If he does come north, he has to be in the regular rotation soon.
2) Crede's swing looked better yesterday. Shortening the leg kick helps. Still not awesome, but looks like he could be moving in a positive direction.
3) Guch is pretty smooth at 2nd base. He looks a bit uncomfortable at the plate and pulls off of pitches, yet, he handles the bat well, knows the game and is a major upgrade, IMHO. He took a lot of pitches, put the ball inplay and advanced the runners when he needed too. He made a nice play in the field sliding to his right and easily threw out the runner. Hawk and DJ were right when they compared that play to a YOUNG Robbie Alomar.
4) Josh Fields is far from being ready to help this year.
5) I love seeing all the left handed bats available to start or come off the bench. I believe this could be a major factor for the SOX this year. LH hitting has been a weakness in the line up for some time. The line up is very different from recent years (as promissed by KW and OZ).
6) Back up middle INF... I was not impressed at all by Ozuna. He looks to be a bit slow for the big leagues. Valdez looks more ready for a bench role (if it's not Harris).
7) The SOX D-Fence looks solid. Much better than in recent years. We all know what Crede, Rowand, Dye and Konerko bring to the field. Uribe is vastly improved over Valentin, Iguchi is excellent as I stated, Pierzinski is adequate behind the plate and Pods will be better than Lee with much more ground covered.
8) The SOX are loaded with contact hitters and will put the ball in play a lot more this year. I also think this team will fare much better against the the off speed, junk ballers and unknown pitchers than they have in the past. This has been a major frustration for me watching the SOX for several years. How many times have we seen the unknown spot starter with an ERA over 5.00 shut down the Sox? I think those days are numbered.
9) Great to hear Hawk and DJ (I'm not so opposed to DJ as many are). They had a couple of good exchanges. One being talking about the game in Japan. When DJ stated how hard the Japanese players works and they sometimes work too hard and get stale, Hawk's comment was "Whaaaahhh, whaaaaahh":whiner: Then DJ continued by giving an example of a player he played with that was struggling and was taking "100's of ground balls" before each game, Hawk's only comment was "Huh!":?: Best Hawk line of the day: "I Loooove hamburgers in the morning!"