LDF

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 1, 2015 -> 03:10 PM) Not too worried. Their run differential is a little out of whack from that 5 game disaster of a road trip where they were -29. The 1990 White Sox were +7. If the players start hitting and pitching like they are supposed to, this is a good team. in that case, i should step back from the ledge uh.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 1, 2015 -> 04:02 PM) The only big injury they had is Rozeval who won't skate for months. good i really was hoping for the main core players healthy. btw, in chicago any word on Bickell and playing 4+ mins last game.

QUOTE (VAfan @ Jun 1, 2015 -> 03:03 PM) I think the Sox might be bad, for many of the reasons given above. I just don't think we're close to being "out of it." And I think the potential for improved play is there for the reasons that many of us saw before the season. If we got even career average hitting out of our lineup, we'd pretty quickly move into contention. Where we go from here is anyone's guess. What I'm mostly reacting to are the multiple "trade everyone" posts I saw when I came here yesterday. that is the "What if" factor of being frustrated.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jun 1, 2015 -> 02:47 PM) Any word on whether TVR will be available? better yet, any update on the injury side going in the finals.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 1, 2015 -> 03:44 PM) By this same definition, Theo Epstein and Jeffrey Luhnow with the Astros should both be fired. They've done nothing differently than build the best farm system in baseball, something Moore and the Royals did 5 years ago. Basically, the only players that the Royals/Moore inherited were Alex Gordon and Billy Butler. (Not to mention the fact that they had to go through a complete rebuilding process of Alex Gordon because of the position change to LF, mostly through the help of former White Sox OF Rusty Kuntz). Then you had Zach Greinke (who they traded for Alcides Escobar and Lorenzo Cain). And that was basically it. Ever heard of Jeff Austin, Kyle Snyder, Mike Stodolka, Colt Griffin and Chris Lubanski? All of them were Top 10 draft picks from previous GM's that flopped. as fans, we can keep posting name of success and failures. but, it goes back to a long time of failures from the sox org on drafting and scouting. let alone the development of hitters.

QUOTE (Dunt @ Jun 1, 2015 -> 03:42 PM) Good. Anyone think Robin should mess around with the order a bit this series? i do, but then again what in hades do i know. i am a fan.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Jun 1, 2015 -> 02:24 PM) I like Avi at 2. I'd put LaRoche in front of Abreu because he draws a ton of walks and hopefully Jose would bat with men on base more often. but the other point is to move the other players down until they start to click. get that extra pressure off their back. anything to jump start this team.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Jun 1, 2015 -> 02:13 PM) I don't think the lineup really matters that much but If I changed it I'd go with: Eaton Avi LaRoche Abreu Melky Ramirez nice..... and i will say this, lets do, i am game. i am for playing the hot hand now.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 1, 2015 -> 02:01 PM) Al Goldis was the scouting director, and he has had a nice record drafting players. Not just his brief stint with the White Sox which got him McDowell, Ventura, Thomas, Fernandez, he also drafted Durham, signed Magglio. When he went to the Cubs, Kerry Wood. I think he was with KC when the got Bo. Was with the Angels when the drafted Devon White and Dante Bichette, and was instrumental in the Sox acquiring Roberto Hernandez as an Angels farmhand for junk. He and Himes were about as successful a duo as can be with the most limited budget in baseball. The 1990 Sox won 94 or 95 games with the lowest payroll in baseball. I think Adam LaRoche alone makes more money this year than that team made total. that was a time to be a fan and that was when i was defending jr and the soxs for not going that extra mile in a fa. but that was before, what has the GM has done and what notable players was drafted between 1999-2012??? how can anyone run a business and not see it wasn't working, and to hell with the minority card here. btw, 2005 the sox got real lucky. but lets not obsessed with the WS, lets look at everything else.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 1, 2015 -> 02:46 PM) Larry Himes exactly, first Himes, who had a great eye on talent, then Schuler and then Williams.

QUOTE (Whitey @ Jun 1, 2015 -> 12:46 PM) The only reasonable adjustments I see at this point are to: - Fire Robin. - Do not let Melky near a bat against lefties at this point (he currently has a .087 BA against them). Platoon him with Bonafacio (who's career splits favor lefties), or trade for someone to take those at bats. - Swap roles for Sanchez and Beckham. - Swap roles for Soto and Flowers. for me, i would really think about moving Melky down and switch with Conor and / or Aelexei depending on the pitcher. think about switching Avi and Adam. in stead of using the sabe formula of coaching, go back to the hot bat.

the biggest problem is or has been the ability to recognize talent esp in the area of drafting. lets take a look on who drafted Big Frank and Robin for starters. it goes back to the FO and lets see how that really worked? next, with the FO lack of ability to drafting, how can anyone judge the coaches, if the product is not there. the one thing that i did like was the hitting coach, when he went to the minors and talked to the other coaches. the coach Todd Steverson made it a point to see if the coaches are on the right page. now whose idea was that?? this is a great way to develop a cohesiveness thru out the whole system. great idea. before i started my campaign against the FO, i mention that i am not going to look the other way. this team with the pitchers and Jose A, was too good to waste. i was going to be truthful and critical.

QUOTE (Brian @ Jun 1, 2015 -> 11:45 AM) LaRoche is the 2nd NL lifer in a row we have signed as a FA to DH for us and has struggled. It's not an easy transition. Thome was a freak of nature. Maybe next time we need a DH, we get someone who has some experience in AL DHing. in the 80's and 90's that was my take, but in today's baseball, the hitters or hitters. yeah i look at his stats and if you look, he may be a little behind in is overall stats, esp he avg. but i also see that he gets better as the season progress. then yeah maybe it is me wanting to see anything positive in this team.

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Jun 1, 2015 -> 05:42 AM) Well the pattern seems to be players worse when they join the Sox. you know, i really disagree with this, and i mean no offense in it. but these players the sox have done a lot better with other teams. i just don't buy they just forgot how to hit, how to play basic defense. except for the holes, this team will get it together.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 1, 2015 -> 02:32 AM) If you want to be entirely honest about this club, we have a pitching staff with the potential to be top3-4 in the AL. If the offense can be a little more consistent, and not run into outs on the base paths, they could certainly be in the running for a wild card. Thats really all there is to say. Now i they would just fire this coaching staff... i am with you on this. in the back of my mind, i was hoping for the W/C push. but i didn't want to jinx anything. re coaching.... at this point i really don't give a hoot, i just want to see this team string a couple more winning streaks and get their stuff together. btw, i like the post.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 31, 2015 -> 11:19 PM) There would be no point in sniffing around the kid if they weren't at least thinking about it. He will sign for a multiple of the entire international draft allotment all by himself. my take is this system needs a big influx of prospects to help the many yrs of lousy scouting and drafting. it doesn't matter who is to blame, just get it done and bring in the players.

QUOTE (bmags @ May 31, 2015 -> 08:38 PM) I feel like it's easy to keep expectations low with international signings. oh i truly agree here.

QUOTE (VAfan @ Jun 1, 2015 -> 02:04 AM) Fortunately for my sanity, I haven't been watching these first 49 games that closely. They have certainly been putrid, especially on offense. But that actually gives me cause for optimism. - We're only 3 games under .500. - The Minnesota Twins are in first place, and lead us by only 7 games. - The AL East is led by two teams that are each only 1 game over .500. - The AL West second place team is only 2 games over .500 - There are only 3 AL teams more than 5 games above .500 - In other words, we are within 3 games of all but 4 teams in the AL, and 5 teams make the playoffs - The offense CAN'T remain THIS BAD. Eaton, Melky, Abreu, LaRoche, Alexei, Gillaspie, Flowers, Soto. ALL have hit better than this. - The only guy who is possibly overachieving is Avisail, and who's to say he can't get better? - The starting pitching is starting to come around - Chris Sale threw a masterpiece against Baltimore. He's not going to finish with an ERA in the mid-3s. He seems to be past the setback from missing spring training. - Samardzija is not going to end up with an ERA closer to 4 than 3. - Quintana may still be the unluckiest starter in baseball, but his ERA in the 4s is not where it's going to end up. - Carlos Rodon is now in the rotation, and is likely to give us a lot of good starts - John Danks just pitched his first shutout since 2011, and looks capable of pitching at least as well as last year, when he was a .500 pitcher. - The bullpen can pitch better than it has. And we may have reinforcements coming at some point this year. - Our expected W-L is 19-30, but we're 4 games better than that. Not sure if that's good or bad, but I'm taking it as a good sign, since we are maximizing the return on the performance we're getting. If I were the Sox brass, I wouldn't be planning on making any kind of fire sale. I would stay the course, and expect the team to shake itself out of its offensive doldrums. When it does, the starting pitching and bullpen could still let the team get on a roll. One 8-2 stretch would put us 3 games over .500, which would rank us 5th in the AL. This is a very different team than last year. Melky, LaRoche, Garcia (who didn't play much last season), Soto, Sanchez/Johnson, Beckham at 3rd, Bonafacio, Shuck -- all are new. Samadzija, Rodon, Duke, Robertson, Jennings, Albers (DL) are all new. That's more than half of the roster. It's far too soon to throw in the towel, just 49 games in. Let's see what happens through the All Star break. I hope Hahn is looking to improve, not cut and run. GO SOX!! real nice post. btw i haven't seen you around as much. back to the post, you are 100% correct. this beginning of the season is hard to swallow, and i believe many sees that and well do want to give up. anything can happen. i see little steps in improvements, little winning streaks here and there. i just can't wait to see this team put everything together at 1 time. look out AL.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 31, 2015 -> 09:49 PM) There were suggestions for players that would have been worse, at least until this point. While many complain about Danks and Noesi, what if they signed Masterson? . It is a very long season. I think Bonifacio's role will grow. Masterson performance on a another team will not tell the story if he was with the sox. plus lets look at what he was done this yr. 2-2 win/lost and a 1 yr contract. filling in on the sox as a #4 starter, who knows what that could have done or helped.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 1, 2015 -> 01:27 AM) And that's pretty obvious, because just think of all the big contracts we've given out (or taken on) and how easy they would have been to dump (that answer being not very): Konerko Buehrle Magglio Ordonez Jose Contreras Peavy (original deal with Padres) Rios Dunn Robertson LaRoche Me.Cabrera Danks In that category of not so big but not super easy to unload nevertheless, you have the likes of Duke, Bonifacio, Teahen and Jeff Keppinger. The one example of someone who who was pitching well (in Edwin Jackson), we still didn't get anything back in return because we had to dump Teahen. The only counter-example is the Jake Peavy deal...which worked out almost impossibly well. We also got away with one other bigger contract, being able to dump Freddy Garcia on the Phillies. So two. (Thankfully, Albert Belle opted out of his deal 17 years ago or we would have ended up with the Orioles' problem/s). QUOTE (bmags @ May 31, 2015 -> 09:03 PM) If you are bad at something that's important you better be excellent the other important things. The sox had a great run with free agents, now they have not. The sox had a good run of acquiring pro ready prospects and plugging them in, they have still done pretty well here. The problem with relying on FA is obvious, when you are already paying players full value you get much less when you try to trade them. Drafting and developing players just makes everything easier, and the sox who are good at pitching but horrendous at hitting, are seeing what happens. these 2 post are very good one. but i would also like to add, when in that time, the farm doesn't produce squat, the team has to field a team and how to do it. but what Hahn did. but the org did rush some players and didn't quite have backup in others area. the problem is, we as fans saw this, why couldn't the sox FO do the same. these players on paper are better than what they are showing.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ May 31, 2015 -> 11:23 PM) Comment was directed to those who cannot understand why everyone does not love Danks. Yes he got the win good for him. I love it when he starts and gets bombed the Danks lovers are nowhere to be found, he gets a win then guys are negative for not kissing his ass. i am one of his backers and i wasn't going to post. why, i figure that the win, should be enuf for a positive feel good thread. enjoy the moment and enjoy the fact he completed the game and with a shut out. i thought that would in itself be enuf.

QUOTE (bmags @ May 31, 2015 -> 02:30 PM) Was at a wedding. During the fathers speech downloaded nbc sports app and turned on game and a geico ad auto plays at full volume. Not a good look. that is funny. at least people will know you are a die hard fan.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 31, 2015 -> 02:23 PM) Considering how a lot of people can't take 2 weeks of Carlos Sanchez struggling, even though there was a walk off hit in there, it pretty much answers the question why a total teardown and rebuild will never happen frustration, whether anyone like its or not. it really shows that the fans do care.

QUOTE (StRoostifer @ May 31, 2015 -> 02:36 PM) Honestly I did not expect the Sox to do much of anything against Keuchel yesterday so the results were unsurprising to me. The AL's worst offense going against the AL's ERA leader was just not going to favor the Sox. Its a game the Sox can rebound from though. I can understand the bi polar aspect. Its been a long time since the Sox were able to get consistent production out of the 2B position so I think its only natural to want to make a change and try something different. If this team went into 2015 as another year in the rebuilding process I think the patience would be there but since the team is trying to contend, the patience is on a much shorter leash. loosing for me is hard, regardless of the expectation of who or what ace player the sox are facing. is it an unrealistic idea in this state of the sox. maybe, but i will not give up hope. on you last para. nice...... but loosing brings out the ugly in people.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 31, 2015 -> 02:24 PM) They were pissed he was signed, and even more pissed he made the team out of sprimg training. i was, and i still thought they could have address the hole by fa's. these were still fa available. lets not forget 1 thing, while he helps in defense, which is needed, how is his avg, now and lets see if he can carry it in aug.