Dick Allen

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 13, 2015 -> 09:51 AM) That was FAR from true 3-4 seasons ago. They finally lowered prices from higher levels when it was already too late...the team had missed the playoffs for too long and the 2011 disaster happened. Fans actually perceive cheap tickets to be a lesser value than much higher prices for an exciting/interesting/entertaining product. So White Sox fans would prefer higher priced tickets?

QUOTE (shysocks @ May 13, 2015 -> 09:50 AM) None of that represents a consistent winner. If the Sox were the Tigers and had won the division four years in a row, do you really believe the attendance would be lower in 2015 than in 2010? My judgment is categorically that it would be higher, probably significantly higher. To the bolded, I think you'll find the same constitution for most fanbases in sports. What part of my post was untrue or an excuse? The Twins have averaged 95.5 losses the last 4 years, their attendance has blown the White Sox away. Of course in 2005, when the team was never not in first place and won the WS, a 3 game home series vs. KC in September drew a total of 50k.

QUOTE (shysocks @ May 13, 2015 -> 09:17 AM) Good post. The Cubs are an exception to every rule as tourists will always help fill up Wrigley, and because it's there slurping up market share, the Sox can never really be considered a big-market team. It sounds like an excuse, but it's not, it's just a fact. I attend as many games as I can so I don't feel compelled to make excuses for other people anyway. A consistent winner would do a lot to push casual Sox fans to go to games. They made the playoffs in 2008, yet their attendance was lower than 2007 when they had the worst record in baseball for most of the season. And it was lower in 2009, then lower in 2010, then lower in 2011, then lower in 2012 when they led the division most of the season. They have lowered prices to where you can pay $20, $15 on Sunday to see Chris Sale pitch and they give you a t-shirt. 50 people a game take advantage of that. If you need 3 or 4 playoff appearances in a row to attend games, you are a fair weathered fan. As was stated previously, White Sox fans are excuse makers. It will always be something.

Noesi is in the bullpen. I think the White Sox have answered the question.

Why is Eaton leading off? This is the worst team ever.

QUOTE (Condor13 @ May 11, 2015 -> 08:31 PM) Calling it now, everything low and away he throws one strike and the rest out of the zone to Abreu Good call.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ May 11, 2015 -> 04:08 PM) Wisconsin just got a kid named Andy Van Vilet. Every time I see it I think of Art Vandelay. They do have a top architectural program I believe.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ May 11, 2015 -> 03:21 PM) Yeah I saw that article, I think the biggest differences in the two interpretations are the BaseRuns model, which is basically a much, much more sophisticated version of Pythagorean record. According to BaseRuns, the Sox should actually be even worse (10-18), which isn't surprising considering how many late-inning comebacks they've had. So I think that's why Cameron was painting the A's with a different flavor of "optimism" than Sullivan with the Sox. But yeah, as downright ugly as this season has been so far, 12-16 really doesn't look that bad. When Sale/Samardzija/Abreu/Eaton/Melky return to form, it should far outweigh the negative regression due to Garcia/Beckham/bullpen. The only thing that also lingers is those late-inning comebacks, which will most likley slow down as well. Cameron also gave them no shot a week or so ago. He even mentioned Garcia, who at the time was on fire, so I am guessing he had that particular article sitting in his drawer for a while. The Sox may suck, but I think it is way too early to determine. If no one gets hurt, I like their chances.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 11, 2015 -> 02:18 PM) Which is a timing issue, not possession. Thibs review probably cost his team the game. Timing at least makes sense. Possession was incredibly obvious, and wasn't in question. If that is what he was looking at, someone really screwed up on the Bulls side. Like Ventura with the challenge screwed up. It is possbile Thibs did it for the free TO. I know on the telecast they were saying it gave Cleveland a chance to set up a play, but maybe Thibs thought setting up his defense trumped that. I'm guessing that would have been reviewed for time anyway.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ May 11, 2015 -> 02:20 PM) It has, indeed, been ugly. Fortunately, regression works both ways. If they can manage to not sink themselves while they're all simultaneously slumping, then they've got a shot to get back in it when the pendulum swings the other way. I guess it has to do with where they projected teams but Cameron had an article about Oakland still having a shot and they are 12-21, which would be the White Sox record if they lost their next 5 games, and they have 3 starters with ERAs under 3.00 and have several guys hitting at levels that more than likely will not be sustained. I'd take the 12-16 team with Robertson and Duke putting up unsustainable numbers, maybe Beckham, but he's a bench guy, and everyone else due to improve. But they supposedly have next to zero chance.

Lebron also got away with pushing Butler, but they would never call that. MJ used to get the same treatment.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 11, 2015 -> 01:14 PM) Then you're qualified to say Marcus Semien is terrible defensively after just 28 games in the MAJOR LEAGUES at a position the White Sox wouldn't let him play because of the presence of Alexei Ramirez, who the metrics say has provided the same exact level of defensive value? Okay..."fun with numbers," especially when you've never even actually watched him play SS this season. Actually I have seen him play SS, and I have seen him play 2b and 3b with the White Sox. I am qualified to say he is bad at SS just like, even though he never played 1 game there professionally, I am qualified to say Frank Thomas would be terrible at SS. There is absolutely no way you would be defending a guy who is on a 46 error pace if he were a White Sox. But you still turn it to anti White Sox with the it's their fault he is no good there. I really don't understand why a guy who hates the White Sox so much wastes so much time on this board and paying attention to their games. And you do hate them. Any positive mentioned you have a rebuttal.

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ May 11, 2015 -> 01:16 PM) The Flying Saucer is about a half mile away. Good beer selection and the food was much better than I expected. 900 Spruce Street Thanks. I'll be there.

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ May 11, 2015 -> 01:03 PM) Maybe, but I'm not sure if I know exactly what you mean. PM me if necessary. Going to the Rush show Thursday night at Scottrade. Need a place to drink and eat beforehand. Nothing too fancy, just drinking beers, eating a burger or something.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 11, 2015 -> 12:10 PM) David Kaplan ‏@thekapman 1h1 hour ago I spoke w/former NBA ref on yday’s TO fiasco. “Referees not trained to look at bench when team is out of TO’s. They watch off ball, etc." That's pretty funny. Like they really are going to call a foul off the ball there. The coach was on the playing floor.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ May 11, 2015 -> 11:18 AM) Tax subsidies for sports teams are almost never a good investment for taxpayers and although an "indirect subsidy" this setup seems a particularly egregious example. I'm sure the locals can fill in the blanks how exactly did such a deal come to fruition? What son did JR promise to marry off? If they aren't going to move out of state, and not replaced, I would agree, but the state does make money on White Sox employees and other teams' players by taxing them the now 3.5% of the portion of money they made. It does create jobs, again, those people all have to pay state taxes, and this was financed by a hotel tax which theoretically puts the cost on visitors. You have to figure they ultimately got their money back. There IMO, is a better place to spend the hotel tax than financing stadiums, but utimately, the state isn't taking a bath on this even though Reinsdorf has quite the deal.

Theo signs Paulino. Bosio will fix him.

Does anyone know a good place to get chewed in downtown St. Louis?

QUOTE (LDF @ May 11, 2015 -> 11:20 AM) i think everyone knows that this was one charm sweetheart deal the sox got, look what happen when the northsiders tried to get something similar. Sweetheart deal without a doubt, but they had something the Cubs did not. A viable alternative. The Cubs had zero leverage. This promotion by the White Sox didn't cost the taxpayers anything. They distribute tickets that would have been unsold anyway. And at $29 or $49 per package, and limited packages available, it's not like they are making millions on this. It may inspire some to go to more games later, which would actually help the taxpayers' cause. I haven't seen one article crying about taxpayers with the Wrigley renovation. The Cubs got $8.5 million in property tax breaks.

For some reason, I don't think the Sox are the first to use loopholes that ultimately leads to "a loss to taxpayers".

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 11, 2015 -> 09:21 AM) How many games have you actually watched Semien play? Have you seen each one of his errors? How many games have you watched the White Sox play? Do you disagree with the statistics, then? Actually, DWAR has Abreu higher than LaRoche (although Adam doesn't have a big sample size), Conor as doing okay (maybe that's gone to negative since the weekend)....Melky Cabrera in the 2nd half of LFer's but close to the middle. Other than Beckham, which White Sox defenders have been AVERAGE or ABOVE AVERAGE from the good 'ol eye test? It's not a surprise you disagree with dWAR because it's inherently biased in favor of Lorenzo Cain, Jarrod Dyson, Alex Gordon, etc. Just because! http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/fielding/_/po...ARBR/order/true Not surprisingly, Gordon is 0.2 dWAR. Because he's playing the position well and the numbers reflect that, albeit limited sample size again... Go Royals. I think almost everyone would take dWAR numbers with a grain of salt through 28 games.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 11, 2015 -> 08:58 AM) So is Conor, so is Avisail...our catchers, Abreu...Alexei is slowing down, too, a 1/2 step a year. http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/fielding/_/po...true/order/true According to DWAR, Ramirez and Semien are on par, about neutral or 0.00. The list of the Top Ten defenders isn't much of a surprise. The fact that the White Sox constantly moved Semien around from 3B to SS to 2B...maybe it's another surprise that playing the most difficult position on the field without having been allowed to play there by the White Sox (at the MLB level) should consequently lead to some initial struggles. http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/fielding/_/po...true/order/true Micah Johnson is far and away the worst 2B among all qualified...it's not even close, -0.8. http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/fielding/_/po...true/order/true Adam Eaton is 25th, with only Wil Myers (who doesn't belong in CF but has to play there) behind him. Eaton is at -0.6. And Avisail is in negative territory but not quite so bad, 17th out of 26. Tyler Flowers is 20th/23. Basically, our entire defense sucks right now. In your idea, Jose Valentin was probably much worse than Royce Clayton as well if you went by simply errors and not range, UZR, total chances, all the outs he recorded with his arm that ended up as infield singles with Royce, etc. Advanced defensive numbers through 28 games is gospel to you as long as they show the White Sox suck and everyone else is great. I know the White Sox have bad defensive players, so does everyone else. I also know that Marcus Semien is an awful defensive player. Now that he is an ex-White Sox, you can't bring it on yourself to admit it. If he still was with the team, you would mention it daily. Go Royals, Cubs, Astros, and just about anyone else not the White Sox.

QUOTE (Feeky Magee @ May 11, 2015 -> 08:30 AM) Firstly we wouldn't be playing him at short, we'd be playing him at second where he's probably above average. Secondly errors are not a great way to judge a defender, he's not been great at SS, but he's held his own, with his offence being more than enough to compensate. It was a bad trade. 9 errors in 32 games is holding your own. LMAO. I wasn't huge on trading for Samardjiza, but judging a trade 28 games in can make you look foolish later. Funny you failed to mention his .354 BABIP.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 11, 2015 -> 08:27 AM) http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/batting/_/pos...ARBR/order/true According to WAR, his offense is more than compensating as he's leading all AL shortstops...and among all qualified MLB shortstops, 5th (1.0) out of 21 players. Alexei Ramirez is 15th. Samardzija, fwiw, 0.8, tied for 22nd in the AL with Hector Santiago among pitchers. Take those WAR numbers on May 8th. That is how they will finish up. Semien looks like he will be able to hit, but he is an awful defender. Awful.

QUOTE (Feeky Magee @ May 10, 2015 -> 10:00 PM) Semien hit two homers today. .307/.353/.488. Gave up 6 years of control of him + 3 interesting pieces for 1 year of Samardzija and a possibly interesting reliever. Sigh. EDIT: And two homers off King Felix at that. He's also on pace to make 46 errors at SS.