Swisher Named to Centerfield and Leadoff Positions

and either BA or alexei will start in center against some lefties.

"Manager Ozzie Guillen announced after Wednesday's 12-10 loss to Milwaukee that Nick Swisher will bat leadoff and play center field most of the time while Jerry Owens recovers from a small tear of the right adductor muscle."

about 4 years ago larry 41 comments 0 recs |

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Ahem...

-"Nick Swisher will be our starting CF if Jerry Owens doesn't do the job."
Jan. 20, 2008, winningugly post

Damn, the old guy occasionally gets it right (at least when it comes directly from Reinsdorf hisself).

I took the "under".

by winningugly on Mar 26, 2008 7:24 PM CDT reply actions

just a small question

who's in left?

by larry on Mar 26, 2008 7:25 PM CDT up reply actions

Q

I took the "under".

by winningugly on Mar 26, 2008 7:28 PM CDT up reply actions

at least we'll get to see

an ideal (offensive) outfield for a time.

by larry on Mar 26, 2008 7:29 PM CDT up reply actions

I'm sure the defense will be quite offensive

I took the "under".

by winningugly on Mar 26, 2008 7:55 PM CDT up reply actions

No, who is on first...

Quentin's in left.

I swear, these jokes write themselves.

I'll bring the awesome.

by Hazymania on Mar 26, 2008 9:51 PM CDT up reply actions

I was a few minutes to slow on this one...

We may need a system that detects duplicate links for FanShots

AIM: SouthSideCheat

by The Cheat on Mar 26, 2008 7:26 PM CDT reply actions

i didn't really know whether to post it or not

the fan posts are so far down and off the beaten path that i didn't think most people would see it anyway and it doesn't really qualify as a diary. i'll probably just leave the news to other people.

by larry on Mar 26, 2008 7:32 PM CDT up reply actions

Actually, I appreciate the news and the effort

Keep it comin', counselor.

Old dog = new tricks. I like the new site.

I took the "under".

by winningugly on Mar 26, 2008 7:34 PM CDT up reply actions

well

i've always posted news links in the comments because i read that the sox blogs and all that other crap all the time. but most of the stuff i link is really not worthy of even a fan post and wiz and cheat and others seem to be on this stuff a lot more than on the old site. it may just be better to leave this stuff to the administration.

by larry on Mar 26, 2008 7:37 PM CDT up reply actions

Your call - just wanted you to know

it's appreciated. I've seen you break more "news" the last couple of weeks than all of last year, IIRC.

I took the "under".

by winningugly on Mar 26, 2008 7:42 PM CDT up reply actions

if it's not posted, post it

a lot of times I miss some BREAKING news

I wish the tribune blog had an RSS feed...

by The Wizard on Mar 26, 2008 7:43 PM CDT up reply actions

it does...

http://feeds.feedburner.com/chicagosports/hardball

AIM: SouthSideCheat

by The Cheat on Mar 26, 2008 7:44 PM CDT up reply actions

wtf? when they introduced that?

I remember looking carefully a while ago and not finding anything

thanks cheat!

by The Wizard on Mar 26, 2008 7:47 PM CDT up reply actions

My hope is that we can make the FanShot section quite active

SSS has trailed most of the other similarly trafficked sites in diaries posted, but we made up for it by having one big discussion thread per day.

I think lowering the bar by introducing FanShots will eventual help overall participation. And it makes my job easier, by simply being able to click a button or two and make a front page post.

We've had more FanShots on the frontpage than I would have expected, but I think that's just a product of it being the last week of spring training and there being a bunch of newsworthy stuff.

In the future say during the season, I could see 1-2 making the front page per day, with 5-15 posted in total per day. I'll use them for links to anything baseball related (and occasionally unrelated) that is interesting, but that I'm not necessarily going to write a proper post about at that particular moment.

AIM: SouthSideCheat

by The Cheat on Mar 26, 2008 7:43 PM CDT up reply actions

the problem with them

is they're so far down. maybe they need to let us cut the number of fanposts so we can actually see them when the page loads.

by larry on Mar 26, 2008 7:46 PM CDT up reply actions

one of the things i always liked about the site

was that there was just one discussion thread. pretty easy to find out what's happening. these multiple comment sections, fan shots, etc. make it a little more cumbersome to be clicking one thing and then another to keep track of it all.

by larry on Mar 27, 2008 8:38 AM CDT up reply actions

I agree

I think Wiz said something that new comments can be highlighted in red or something on the home page to make them stand out. Right now it takes a lot of focused scanning and scrolling to see if there's anything new in here. In addition to highlighting "new" in red, I'd suggest putting it in a different sized font - or push any content with new comments up to the top of the page.

by ChicagoPete on Mar 27, 2008 8:45 AM CDT up reply actions

Thirded.

by SSH2005 on Mar 27, 2008 11:33 AM CDT up reply actions

I think I could flop them

but that would just change the problem.

AIM: SouthSideCheat

by The Cheat on Mar 26, 2008 7:49 PM CDT reply actions

In response to Larry

here

AIM: SouthSideCheat

by The Cheat on Mar 26, 2008 7:51 PM CDT up reply actions

Nope...

I've got the FanShots as high as they'll go...

There is, however, a link at the top of the site, which will make the FanShots the center column of content.

AIM: SouthSideCheat

by The Cheat on Mar 26, 2008 7:59 PM CDT up reply actions

Damn

since I went back to chicago for Easter, i havent caught up at all with the new site changes and everything. i love it so far.

Good to see Swish batting at the top of the order with pods jr. hurting.

12/12/07- We'll miss you Andy Gonzalez

by The Deacon on Mar 26, 2008 8:25 PM CDT reply actions

So with Swisher in CF, who will start in LF?

I haven't seen anything said about left field or Quentin.

by SSH2005 on Mar 26, 2008 10:08 PM CDT reply actions

i'm waiting for the press release

by thatshortkid on Mar 26, 2008 10:17 PM CDT up reply actions

i imagine this should go a ways towards resolving it

But here is the Sox's starting lineup against Arizona and All-Star pitcher Dan Haren:

Nick Swisher, CF

Orlando Cabrera, SS

Jim Thome, DH

Paul Konerko, 1B

Jermaine Dye, RF

A.J. Pierzynski, C

Carlos Quentin, LF

Joe Crede, 3B

Juan Uribe, 2B

http://blogs.chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports_hardball/2008/03/thursdays-updat.html

by larry on Mar 27, 2008 12:14 PM CDT up reply actions

I would rather see Quentin batting ahead of Pierzynski...

but I really can't bitch much. It looks pretty good, even though Uribe is starting and Fields is in AAA.

by SSH2005 on Mar 27, 2008 12:28 PM CDT up reply actions

Larry needs an avatar

I'm thinking a blindfolded Ozzie holding the scales of justice would work well...

AIM: SouthSideCheat

by The Cheat on Mar 26, 2008 11:50 PM CDT reply actions

This really underlines...

how much the insistence on having Jermaine Dye around and playing right field every day really hampers the team, all the way around.

Well, I guess it could be worse. It'll be nice to see what Quentin can do with a (somewhat) regular job, and maybe Swisher will prove me wrong and be adequate out there.

by The Jerry Royster Experience on Mar 27, 2008 10:04 AM CDT reply actions

Swisher in center a majority of the time?

Thome hitting THIRD vs. lefthanders? Not a good managerial start for Ozwaldo. At all.

by dantesox on Mar 27, 2008 11:15 AM CDT up reply actions

Well...

I agree, but I won't annoy larry by saying something I've already said multiple times in the past.

We'll see how it goes. I do feel sorry for the Sox pitching staff, though - all the fly balls landing for extra-base hits will make them look pretty bad.

by The Jerry Royster Experience on Mar 27, 2008 11:18 AM CDT up reply actions

Furthermore,

for the very few lefthanders I would even consider him in the lineup against, he would not hit higher than sixth. And I like Thome.

by dantesox on Mar 27, 2008 11:56 AM CDT up reply actions

No problem

with Swisher hitting leadoff.

by dantesox on Mar 27, 2008 11:56 AM CDT up reply actions

The Swisher

in center is a harder call....I can see the angst. Even so, A majority of the time is TOO much. Gotta do some creative mixing and matching, though, that's for sure. There's NO rational argument in Thome's case other than my obvious stance.

by dantesox on Mar 27, 2008 12:01 PM CDT up reply actions

Swish goes to right

Alexei to CF, and JD to DH against lefties. Thome, grab some bench. What do you think?

I took the "under".

by winningugly on Mar 27, 2008 12:47 PM CDT up reply actions

i think

one of the primary reasons for the acqusitions made this offseason was to get thome more rest and the logical place to do that is against lefties.

by larry on Mar 27, 2008 12:54 PM CDT up reply actions

That makes some sense...

and, of course, they wouldn't come right out and announce a platoon situation, because that would just antagonize Thome.

by The Jerry Royster Experience on Mar 27, 2008 1:08 PM CDT up reply actions

i honestly don't think thome would care

i don't think it would be a strict platoon. i'm not sure how well thome would react to not seeing much live pitching for a few days if, say, we faced three lefties in a row. i'd have to see what he's done after interleague and i'm not sure that's necessarily the best way to measure it, either. thome's not a guy i want to mess with all that much just to wring out a few extra bits of OPS.

by larry on Mar 27, 2008 1:52 PM CDT up reply actions

Unfortunately,

I think it's a bit more than a few points, judging from the stats I remember seeing vs. lefties the past three years.

by dantesox on Mar 27, 2008 2:09 PM CDT up reply actions

But, yeah,

if you mean a situation like the three game deal, then that might be a time where you start him against a lefty.

by dantesox on Mar 27, 2008 2:13 PM CDT up reply actions

i'm thinking in aggregate here

and the fact that whomever is DH is likely to face a specialist once the starter departs. if we were to use, say, fields as a replacement he'd face the lefty starter 2-3 times and then a righty the rest of the way for obvious reasons. it's not like all of thome's 175 PAs or whatever it was are against "avoidable" lefties. the benefit of sitting him against lefties is real for sure but we're not talking a particularly substanial difference in practice.

by larry on Mar 27, 2008 2:17 PM CDT up reply actions