Balta1701

QUOTE (iamshack @ Aug 10, 2011 -> 01:34 PM) Wow...seems pretty obvious that they were cheating...may seem harmless since they haven't won s***... But my guess is this may have help Alex Anthopolous ditch Vernon Wells' contract just a bit... Slimy... OPS with the Blue Jays, one "Alexis Rios": 2006: .865 2007: .852 2008: .798 2009: .744

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 10, 2011 -> 01:29 PM) Romney's is easy for me. McCain was the same guy until he ran for President and feared losing the future Tea Party group of his party. Romney doesn't have any kind of record close to McCains of being predictable and reliable for issues. After the election McCain has pretty much gone back to where he started, which tells me he probably would have governed towards the center after he got elected. You and I have watched 2 incredibly different John McCain's.

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Aug 10, 2011 -> 01:46 PM) French banks have 350 billion dollars exposure to Italian bonds, I guess. And French banks are taking a hit this week. The entire structure of the actions on the PIGS countries from the European Central Bank has been geared towards protecting the French and German banks at the expense of the rim countries. Actually having the ECB buy up the bonds of those countries is the first move they've made that doesn't protect those banks on the backs of the citizenry.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 10, 2011 -> 11:07 AM) Mitt Romney is the Republicans version of John Edwards. He stands for nothing and everything all at once. Here's where we're running into differences. McCain's switchovers were lightswitches. In 2000 he was a "Maverick", voted against the tax cuts, etc., that persona seemed to give him the best shot to compete for the presidency. Then by 2004, he needed to play to the base that didn't trust him, so he lightswitched the other way and on everything except notably torture, he was as far right as you could get. He's pretty much stayed that way...on then off. Romney says we need to take care of carbon pollution and then 2 weeks later says carbon isn't a pollutant. McCain's changeover was complete and total. Romney's happens every time he gets called on something. Which is a bigger changeup?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 10, 2011 -> 11:22 AM) scottmerkin Scott Merkin White Sox since ASB-- July 19: 3 under, 4.5 back. July 26: 2 under, 4.5 back, Aug. 2: 3 under, 5.5 back. Aug. 9: 1 under, 4 back I'd call that treading water.

Phil her up!

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 10, 2011 -> 01:17 PM) Very interesting. The players splits were amazing. Batista had a 240 point OPS difference from home to road. IIRC, when we were discussing Q versus Hamilton in the 2008 MVP race, Q had >.900 OPS both on the road and at home and Hamilton had something like 1.100 in Texas and .750 on the road.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Aug 10, 2011 -> 11:36 AM) In all the debate about field turf or natural grass, I have yet to see someone bring up the fact that field turf is terrible in the winter. I can only assume that the people writing all of the articles have never even been on field turf and instead are basing their arguments on google searches. The grass the Bears play on appears terrible in the winter too.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Aug 10, 2011 -> 01:08 PM) Interesting article on the Blue Jays possibly stealing signs The Yankees were going through their full set of signs with no one on 2b the last time they were in Torotno, it seems.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 10, 2011 -> 10:48 AM) Yep. Which means I have no idea what he actually stands for and what he is saying to get elected. McCain at least had a very moderate voting record to stand on. Romney has been all over the place. Romney has a moderate record of governing in Mass to stand on, and he's been as all over the place as McCain in trying to campaign for higher office.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 10, 2011 -> 10:34 AM) And Morel too (replacement level stats at 3B), although it's not as fair to pick on him as Rios/Dunn/Peavy. Beckham and Pierre deserve just as much, if not more, criticism. And we don't really know how much the White Sox have got back on Peavy's contract...if he pitches the final two months like he has the last 3 starts, he might actually come fairly close to the level of his contract if you include all the payouts from insurance. That's another figure not figured into salary/payroll projections for the Sox. Morel and Beckham are being paid the league minimum. Even though they haven't performed, that's not an excessive use of resources. And although we don't know how much the team has gotten back on Peavy's contract, I'd say it's a safe bet that the payoff level determined how much salary we had to cut at the deadline.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 10, 2011 -> 10:29 AM) Of course, they're already saving some money with Edwin, Teahen and possibly Frasor leaving at the end of the season with Type B comp. coming back. With current commitments, they're at about $110 million if Q and D1 stay and Buehrle departs, give or take about $2 million depending on exact arb numbers.

Well, there's that 400 back. There's something perversely exciting about this level of volatility.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 10, 2011 -> 09:55 AM) And not counting the obvious higher number of non-spending by no shows. Especially with the vacant park from April/May, this has to be huge too.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 10, 2011 -> 09:59 AM) It goes way, way beyond Daniel Hudson. You could cut $50-75 million from our payroll and come close to the same record with replacement level performance at 3-4 key positions. Well yeah, thanks to Dunn, Peavy, and Rios. Only 1 of those commitments was entered into last season...and I'm still shocked it's turned out this poorly.

Enterprise.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 10, 2011 -> 01:59 AM) 25,317 in attendance and most stayed until the end. The Sox are at 25k on the season, down from 27k last year, and that's before the late-season doldrums, if they happen.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 10, 2011 -> 09:41 AM) Even if we hadn't, those still would have been the options out of the pen. This team wasn't spending anymore money than it already had done. Then it needed to find a way to use its resources more wisely. (maybe if we had one more cost controlled starting pitcher? Ugh. If only...)

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 10, 2011 -> 09:28 AM) It would have been better if Sale wasn't so darned good out the pen last year...but, even then, they STILL had Thornton, so there was no pressing reason not to let Sale start (in 2011), because Thornton was also in the fold. Like I said though, a big part of the reason why he was so effective last year was that he'd already started 140 innings in college and had his mechanics 100% down after a full season.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 10, 2011 -> 09:24 AM) Judging by what we got out of Brian Bruney, Jeff Marquez, Lucas Harrell, and company I am not sure that is really true. Hector Santiago would be a maybe, but I don't think there was a chance at him starting the season with us. The problem with that thinking is...we planned the whole offseason to have Sale in the bullpen and Thornton closing. Both of those plans wound up being mistakes. I said the Sale one was going to be a mistake, I didn't think the Thornton closing one would be, but either way, the team was wrong on both decisions.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Aug 10, 2011 -> 01:32 AM) If we're looking at it in hindsight then sure, it was a mistake if we don't at least make the playoffs. But when you're "all in" to start the season, you want your best players up here and Sale being in the pen was the best move for the 2011 Chicago White Sox. We didn't realize this detail to start the season, but now it's apparent that there's one more reason why he needed to start the season. His control was, as far as any of us could tell, erratic for the first 2 months of the year. He had 11 walks in 20 innings and a 5.31 ERA through May 31. Now, he found his groove...but if you watched him the first 2 months of the year, the thing he was struggling with was consistency. He'd demolish one guy then walk the next guy. I think it's pretty clear...he couldn't get his release point down, probably because he'd never had to get it down in limited innings before. Even if Sale was our best LH bullpen pitcher, he struggled for 2 months because he usually had a ton of innings to get down being consistent, and he didn't get that this year. We literally would have been a better team with Sale starting for 2 months in the Minors...because we'd have gotten a better Sale.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 10, 2011 -> 07:42 AM) Quite frankly, we should be close to elated with a 675-725 out of either Morel or Beckham at this point. With Morel, yeah, because he's a rookie and not nearly as talented. I'd still be annoyed with that from Beckham.

The 3 extra offdays coming up will help.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Aug 10, 2011 -> 01:25 AM) This I know but I really can't see his swing translating to anything more than 15 hr's in the Majors. Hope I'm wrong. I see no problem with him being a 10-15 hr guy, but I'd really like to see more 2b out of him as well. If he can get himself somewhere long term in the .750-.800 ops range we all should smile.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 9, 2011 -> 10:01 PM) Yeah, we have argued it before. It killed it for me. Like say...a murderous mobster?! Eh? Eh?