southsider2k5

Baseball America ‏@BaseballAmerica 30m VIDEO: Rusney Castillo To Hold Showcase In Miami - http://ow.ly/yRO2w

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jul 7, 2014 -> 02:11 PM) LOL. Josh McRoberts? For real? That's their big move? LOLOLOLOLOLOL McRoberts is a decent player, but if I'm LeBron, he doesn't convince me of anything. So that means no new free agents that would put them over the cap, correct?

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 7, 2014 -> 02:06 PM) BA just recalculated their top prospect list. Bryant, Baez and Russell are in the top 7. We do the Irish jig if the Sox trade for someone in a team's top 7. And we quit going to games. I wonder how many season tickets Addison Russell sold?

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 7, 2014 -> 12:31 PM) Because they don't think he's an ace, in my opinion. Also, don't forget the possibility of them going after him next offseason, which was reported a few weeks ago. By then he will be on the open market, and you will be paying market premium for him, along with the risk of losing him to a team that is actually contending.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 7, 2014 -> 12:23 PM) 2016 still seems to be the year where they hope to compete. The core young guys will get a ton of experience in the majors next year. From there, if they trade someone like Castro for a good young pitcher like Wheeler, and then go sign someone like Price, Lester or Scherzer, their rotation will be pretty solid to go along with what could be a big time offense. That makes no sense to me. Instead of offering a $100 million contract to Smarj, they are going to offer a $150-$200 million to one of those guys? I'll believe it when I see it. Especially with the financial situation there are in. They won't be seeing a major cash infusion until 2019.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 7, 2014 -> 10:39 AM) Hoyer's been everywhere since the trade telling fans they're going to be spending money this offseason. While Crane Kenny has been out crying poor over falling attendance and shrinking advertising.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jul 7, 2014 -> 08:51 AM) That's the thing I don't understand. What's the Cubs' ultimate end game here? Is it "acquire ALL the prospects?" They seem to be collecting talent with no real direction moving forward. I don't understand what they're shooting for. That is just it. Eventually you have to target an end game. The Cubs just pushed their backwards a year or two.

Welcome to Soxtalk!

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 7, 2014 -> 02:21 AM) Why is SoxTalk promoting a sale at Target? Are we getting sponsorship kickbacks? The game is at Target Field this year.

The texting A5 thing is awesomely easy.

Chicago White Sox ‏@whitesox 2m Vote for Chris Sale for the 2014 #ASG at http://whitesox.com/vote or text A5 to 89269! #TargetSale

Chicago White Sox ‏@whitesox 2m Vote for Chris Sale for the 2014 #ASG at http://whitesox.com/vote or text A5 to 89269! #TargetSale

Jeff Passan ‏@JeffPassan 1m Chris Sale in the AL Final Vote with Garrett Richards, Corey Kluber, Dallas Keuchel and Rick Porcello. The most stacked one I can remember.

NO word on the severity. Doug Padilla ‏@ESPNChiSox 3h Gillaspie diagnosed with a bruised right knee.

Jeff Passan ‏@JeffPassan 11m Clayton Kershaw: 87.1 IP, 13 starts, 10-2, 192 ERA+, NL All-Star. Chris Sale: 87.1 IP, 13 starts, 8-1, 188 ERA+, not an AL All-Star.

Doug Padilla ‏@ESPNChiSox 1m Jose Abreu and Alexei Ramirez both named all-stars by the player vote.

QUOTE (MexSoxFan#1 @ Jul 6, 2014 -> 03:20 PM) If basketball and football were never invented, and soccer was the US most popular sport, they'd be the most powerful team in the world. Imagine athletes like Jesse Owens, Jim Brown, Walter Payton and Derrick Rose playing soccer since they were kids and with the US putting their enormous resources to develope them like they do in basketball and football, the world would have no chance, I honestly believe this. I've also heard this view being expressed in Mexico among the most respected soccer analysts, they really think highly of the US soccer program and they say the US are not that much off from being legit contenders, not favorites but serious contenders. If I had to guess, I'd say the US will win one before Mexico, especially if they get to host one before. The US has the athletes, they just need to get technically better. Mexico has the advantage in skill (right now), but they don't have the pure athletes the US has. Just my two cents worth. I could buy this. Soccer is somewhere around the 4th or 5th sport in America. It is far from the first thing kids dream of.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Jul 6, 2014 -> 01:52 PM) It was a joke. $100M per year. As in he makes $100M each year. A five year deal would be $500M. That's the going rate now. 5/$75M wouldn't have been an insult to Shark a few years ago. Now? Easy $100M. Makes Sale and Q's deals look amazing. D'oh. Totally misread that.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Jul 6, 2014 -> 01:51 PM) Hector through 2.1 with just 21 pitches. A lot of first pitch swinging. edit- 28 through 3 innings Getting 7/8 innings out of him would be really nice after 14 innings yesterday.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Jul 6, 2014 -> 12:17 PM) Not many pitchers are worth $100M per year. And it won't be packed till they're winning. A lot of casual Cubs fans I know HATED that deal and told me they're done with prospects and want to just win a couple games. The more baseball fanatic ones get excited, but the casual ticket buying fan couldn't give a f*** until they're at least in playoff hunts. Maybe in years prior, but more and more, that is becoming a "normal" contract for a good pitcher, not just a great pitcher.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Jul 6, 2014 -> 11:59 AM) This isn't true though. That place will be packed as soon as next year when the kids are there. They didn't want to sign Samardzija. They offered him that lowball deal so that he'd turn it down and they could trade him. He is already going to be 30 and not worth $100 + annually. They could have signed Samardzija. They chose not to. The team has blown through their waiting list, and it is hemmoraging fans right now. The longer this goes on, it will take more than just "kids" to bring people back. Their attendance hasn't been this low since 1997, and it is down 8500 per night over their peak. As Sox fans know, you don't make that up overnight. I know many Sox fans have this built in inferiority complex and irrational fear of the Cubs, but the facts are the facts. The longer this drags out, the more it takes to make up the fall in numbers. Trading off your top pitcher will make this process years longer. Even if they kids do start arriving in 2016, it will take them a couple of years to fit in and see a comfort level. They also aren't all going to arrive at the same time. They aren't all going to make it either. There will be some failures of those "can't miss" guys. All you have to do is look at the ups and downs of their first wave of guys like Rizzo, Castro, and Smarj to see that. We have seen this scenario play out over and over and over, through out major league baseball. A full rebuild takes an incredibly long time, if ever, to succeed. The longer it takes, the more it will eat away at that fan base.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 6, 2014 -> 02:43 AM) Another example is Rebel Wilson, aka Fat Amy in the Pitch Perfect movie, and first seen in Bridesmaids as one of the weird roommates of Kirsten Wiig. She's a lot funnier to me than McCarthy. But a little bit goes a long ways. That Awkward Moment...C+ A Long Way Down...B- The Other Woman...C (not as funny as I thought it would be, and Kate Upton's appeal is starting to diminish for me) Transcendence...D+ That's just it. Small bits. Not a whole damned movie.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 6, 2014 -> 09:41 AM) Not to mention ending the chance for him to extend his hitting streak. Oh, well. Stop there. Any manager who is more worried about a players personal streaks, versus winning a game, deserves to be fired.

QUOTE (hammerhead johnson @ Jul 6, 2014 -> 10:03 AM) Come 2016 or thereabouts, they'll sign a couple guys to mega deals. You can't tell me that they won't have the cash. At about that time they will be trying to reverse nearly 10 years of falling attendance. And they don't have the cash, otherwise they wouldn't have lowballed Smarj and then needed to trade him.

So serious question. When do the Cubs hit .500 again for a season? 2018? Later?