Luol's Dong: March 2011

Crush. Kill. Destroy.

You know what time it is boys and girls? It's time for some motherfucking baseball. Normally, I'd be picking up all sorts of interesting tidbits on the news about the Sox and Cubs and I'd probably have some sort of semblance of how our team is shaping up and where to find some gems this season. Instead, I live in New York now and typing "White Sox" in Google returns the question "Are you sure you didn't mean, 'fuck the red sox?'"

Even so, I'm going to do my best to be excited about that other team that wears black and white on their uniforms. Let's take this one step at a time:

The Pitching:

I'm not even being overly optimistic when I say that the White Sox have one of the top 5 rotations in all of baseball. In terms of sheer expectations, I rank Mark Buerhle as the fifth starter. You think I'm crazy, but look at this:

1. Peavy

2. Jackson

3. Danks

4. Floyd

5. Buerhle

That is a fucking filthy rotation. The only "weakness" we have is proneness to injury. Aside from that, the Sox are flat-out stacked with guys that are either dominant or wily. Love it.

The Lineup:

Hey, remember when the Sox destroyed people with Rios, Konerko, and Ramirez last year? Let's add Dunn to the mix, and holy shit:

1. Pierre

2. Beckham

3. Rios

4. Konerko

5. Dunn

6. Quentin

7. Ramirez

8. Pierzynski

9. Teahen

Again, that is flat-out filthy. Sure, this has a few more question marks associated: can Beckham rebound? Are AJ and Quentin washed up? Will Dunn adjust to the AL? Is Teahen worth two shits? And so on. So what? Fuck you. On paper it's good.

Bullpen

A little trickier here. You know there's a problem if I can't name all the Sox bullpen pitchers without looking it up, but as is my understanding, it's something like this:

RP - Crain
RP - Ohman
RP - Pena
RP - Santos
RP - Sale
CL - Thornton

A little too much dependency on Ohman and Pena for my taste, but still not a bad 'pen. Seriously reminds me of '05 a little bit (in the sense that we need Ohman and Pena to become Cotts and Politte of '05 inexplicably). Even with those weaknesses, if Pena is the worst guy in the 'pen you could do worse.

Bench

Also not looking bad! Not sure who the Sox are going to use this year, but I suspect the Opening Day roster will include some combination of Vizquel, Viciedo, Morel, Castro, Lillibridge, and De Aza. Most likely Viciedo gets stuck in the minors and maybe Lillibridge (the former being too inflexible defensively, and the latter being too much of a spaz offensively). Look for Morel and Vizquel to back up the infield as needed with De Aza and Lillibridge cleaning up in the outfield and Castro serving as the backup catcher for AJ.

Maybe Flowers and Viciedo get called up in case of emergency, but you could do worse.

Bottom Line