bigruss

QUOTE (chisoxt @ May 26, 2011 -> 01:17 PM) Would it not have made more sense to tie up this wasted money in player development? I have never seen this organization, supposedly one with limited financial resourses piss away sqaunder so much money and get so little back in return. Their player development is so awful, they have to overpay enormously just to get back replacement level talent. What's interesting, is that before the 2009 season began, Sox management explained their lack of off season moves on the fact that the economy was awful and that revenue streams would be drying up. Then, inexplicably, they go out during the season and make the peavy and Rios moves. So what happened, from an economical standpoint to change their minds? They had some money coming off the books that they figured would be balanced out by taking on these contracts. It was a huge gamble, and so far it's been a big loss for the Sox, and they didnt have enough other resources to shore up the team for the future. Now we're stuck being all in with that really only being the option to compete with, unless we develop some guys out of nowhere real fast. As better as the drafting has been, they need more out of the system for replacements and trades if they hope to build a consistent winner again.

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ May 26, 2011 -> 03:06 PM) To A: Sluggers should have been in quotes. We really have just one guy in Dunn who fits the Thome mold. And yes, I'll always be down on that type of player but I understand the trade-off you're mentioning. It's the other 6 or so guys taking slugger-approaches at the plate that bothers me. To B: The Thome's Ghost comment is a facetious explanation of the same problem we've had for years and years. Only 1/3 of our lineup is ever productive, it sucks, and I'm sick of it. Maybe my wagons are finally circling in the "Fire Greg Walker" camp. I feel like Paulie is the only guy not listening to him. Alright, so let's look at the players that possibly are taking on the "Thome" approach: Rios Beckham Quentin Ramirez Morel/Teahen AJ Rios has flat out been terrible since the first half of last season, they tinkered with his mechanics and it helped until pitchers figured him out again. Beckham is so screwed up mentally and physically that one can't blame one single thing as his wrongdoing. Quentin has been inconsistent but still one of our best performers, that's just his style of play. Ramirez is another guy who has been solid to good this season. Morel hasn't had enough ABs to really know, Teahen basically the same. AJ could be the biggest victim of an all or nothing approach (which can be debated on what that really means) but he's been showing his age more than anything. So your trying to blame this one approach when really it most likely has nothing to do with the players' current faults.

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ May 26, 2011 -> 02:15 PM) Demolished my eye. I think Thome epitomizes the all-or-nothing approach. That'll just have to remain my opinion. I hated every one of his at bats. Y'all loved him, good for you. In my eyes he fooled you. To each his own. Edit: I'm just not amazed with 120 hits per season. I don't care if he hit some to left or center. it's still a pathetic amount of hits from your hitting position, but whatever. Meanwhile the Sox are under .500 with your sluggers, and all I want is for our players to stop swinging hard as f*** at 3 outa the first 4 pitches every time. Paulie gets it, Morel does to an extent, Carlos has flashes of it, Beckham used to and Pierre is just too weak for it to matter. QUOTE (Jerksticks @ May 26, 2011 -> 02:28 PM) I'm not down on sluggers. I'm down on everyone trying to be sluggers. Swinging hard as f*** at every pitch is what bad sluggers do, and I see a whole bunch of that up n down the lineup. I don't think the supporting cast is full of bad players, but moreso bad approaches. It's Thome's ghost, there's really no other explanation. A) You did indeed say you were down on sluggers, and if your down on Thome's style, then yes you are down on sluggers. You may have to trade some K's for HRs and walks, nothing wrong with that. Not everyone is going to hit .300, just try and find a team that is built with career .300 hitters up and down the line up, you just won't. B) Thome's ghost!? I still can't believe someone with half a brain is using that as an excuse, fact is the team has some garbage hitters and some guys playing like garbage, so when you put both together only 1/3 of your lineup is really being productive. You just won't win games like that, no matter what team.

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ May 26, 2011 -> 02:15 PM) Demolished my eye. I think Thome epitomizes the all-or-nothing approach. That'll just have to remain my opinion. I hated every one of his at bats. Y'all loved him, good for you. In my eyes he fooled you. To each his own. And Sweet Fancy Moses with the "you'd rather have less offense" comment. Where do you get your material? Do you scrape it off the walls of yer septic tank with yer fingers? I'm clearly talking about guys who work counts, but that's cool, go ahead and continue to think there is only one type of good offensive player. Go ahead, you'll fit right in here. Meanwhile the Sox are under .500 with your sluggers, and all I want is for our players to stop swinging hard as f*** at 3 outa the first 4 pitches every time. Paulie gets it, Morel does to an extent, Carlos has flashes of it, Beckham used to and Pierre is just too weak for it to matter. Why do we put so much pressure on our pitchers to be perfect, and simultaneously let other pitchers do cartwheels through our lineup...well except once, or maybe twice a week? This isn't new for 2011. Every team will have sluggers, the biggest problem with the Sox offense is that they rely on guys like Pierre, AJ, Lillibridge, Teahen, etc for significant ABs, and we have some vastly underperforming players that really expose these weaknesses. And look at the lineup, Dunn, Konerko, and Quentin are sluggers, that's it. 3 batters, two of them have been your most productive, the other one is slumping big time. So how exactly are these guys hurting the team compared to guys like JP who has been dreadful? And agreed, it's not new in 2011, we've had some crap ballplayers, many of them slap guys. We've had decent sluggers on the team for years, it's the supporting cast taht we can't seem to figure out.

Thanks for the responses so far! Just some more info, the company currently attends career fairs and does oncampus interviewing which can lead to offcampus interviews in the 2nd round. They hold prenights (dinners before the 1st round of interviews) also, but they tend to struggle getting their name out there as a place to work for interns/recent grads. Most times when you ask a student on campus what they think the company does, they either say they've never heard of it or think it's the library (which is named after the company's founder). The area I want to focus on is the reputation on campus needs to be built first of all, and it needs to be about being a great place to work, even for those right out of school. Im trying to get that image to students, through the traditional methods (career fairs, etc) but also through new creative events on campus, but trying to come up with viable, low cost solutions that are effective can be tough .

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ May 26, 2011 -> 01:45 PM) I honestly don't believe Jordan Danks will ever cut it on this team. He'll get his shot, but I'm sure it won't last. I'm pretty confident that he was only drafted and continues to get the push he's receiving because of his brother. Once John is gone and they are forced to accept the fact that Jordan is no longer of any use at all, he'll be gone. The lack of development for Jordan is extremely disappointing, Buddy Bell was quoted saying he received too much coaching. Well s***, this organization is clueless when it comes to player development, shouldn't we be making changes to prevent these issues in the future!

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ May 26, 2011 -> 01:25 PM) Sad but true. We have to pay Rios a ton of money just to field well, as we can't produce even a non-horrible CF. Danks 2 would probably be worse at the plate (which is pathetic for how Rios is hitting right now), but he would deliver the same or better defense and for $11.5 mill less at least, just sayin'.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 26, 2011 -> 01:23 PM) I have no problem thinking that Kenny looked around to see what was out there and what it would cost him. It makes a lot more sense than just assuming he took the very first offer he got for a trade. Actually I am telling you exactly that. There was a school of thought in the scouts that Allen had too many holes in his bat ala Borchard and Fields. It is seemingly turning out to be true, as he hasn't even been able to stick in a place that has a bad 1B situation. Plus you unknowingly justifying this deal when you talk about how prospects usually turnout. If there is a big risk bust, you can't hold their value at what their potential is, because of the very real chance of a bust. Especially in a hitter of the Allen-ilk, the bust risk is higher than normal. You can't fairly make the argument that he has a big bust risk, and he has a big trade value. One effects the other very directly. I wouldn't be surprised at all if a reliever was all that was offered for Pena, but Kenny missed out on Pena, who just flat out sucks.

Many airlines already offer a feature to have your boarding pass on your phone, fwiw.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 26, 2011 -> 11:32 AM) 529 G .265 BA 134 HR 369 RBI .391 OBP .542 SLG .933 OPS 138 OPS+ in 4 seasons. If that is useless, I want a whole team of useless. If this really is a new "pitcher's era" hitting becomes more important, not less, because it is harder to replace. That's too much production, it's useless.

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ May 26, 2011 -> 11:27 AM) Na, just another reason people grasp to turn a blind-eye to his overall uselessness. I don't care if it was one of the greatest hits this team has ever seen. It's still bad baseball, and in this newly formed pitcher's era, it ain't gonna fly. Hitting home runs isn't good baseball? Tell me how that works again?

Anybody can leave input here, but really calling out the current college students or recent grads. What would you like to see in terms of campus recruiting for internships/full time jobs from a company? What type of events have you been a part of that really got you interested in that company, and weren't just fun? Im looking for ideas for a side project at the company I am working for, some background: Fortune 500 Fortune's Top 100 place to work for (2010) Named one of the top places to work for in Chicago by the Tribune (2010) One of the top places to work for in IT by ComputerWorld (2009) Im sure some of you can find out the company, but it's more about getting ideas to recruit college talent for IT, SC, and Finance. Thanks everyone!

QUOTE (Paint it Black @ May 25, 2011 -> 10:22 PM) Peavy: Why? He has a chance to be a major contributor to this team. I fully understand the injury risk and cost, but why do people want to think Clayton Richard was every really that good here? Pena: Sox fans really need to stop this weird obsession with Brandon Allen. He's still in AAA. We're a below average team not because we're missing a slow corner position player who won't ever get a shot. Rios: There are MAYBE 10 actual, legit CF's in baseball and he is one of them. Tying up $17 million a year on an injury prone player (especially when he was currently injured) was not a smart move. For him to earn that money he would have to be a Cy Young candidate each year, and that risk is just too high. The players we gave up were decent, probably could have gotten a different starter for that haul, but it was the opportunity cost of tying up that payroll in an injured player that has hurt the Sox. Pena just sucks, don't care too much for Allen even though it would be nice to have another option for LF/RF/1B, but he wasn't a big loss. It's just that Pena himself sucks. Rios is not a legit CF, he has been awful for us 66% of his time here, and I mean AWFUL. His defense has been good, but it pretty much ends there, and for $12 million a year, he better give more than that.

If anybody lives in the NW burbs, check out Barleyhouse. Pretty good food, and awesome beer selections. They tend to have 10 or so good to great beers on draft, and have a weekly or monthly beer flight (can't remember which). You won't ever have to worry about having a Bud Light or Miller Light there.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 25, 2011 -> 12:52 PM) Well then the Cubs sure as hell can't point to Albert Pujols leading the Cardinals to anything. Fine, teh Cubs suck. Pretty sure I said that already, if not here in another thread. The Sox have been just as bad with money this year as the Cubs and Mets. Wite, I respect the hell out of you as a poster, but you really can't let a small thing go, hell you corrected me in the "I am drunk" thread.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 25, 2011 -> 11:04 AM) Like we did with Mark Teahen? $5.5 mill for a bench player is a ton of money, just like $12 mill is a ton of money for a below average CF.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ May 25, 2011 -> 10:57 AM) For a team that drafts so damn well, they make some very curious personnel decisions. The Wells and Rios contracts were albatrosses. Different GM, fwiw.

QUOTE (Chet Kincaid @ May 25, 2011 -> 10:07 AM) This is the only reason payroll ever crosses my mind. You're right though. I have a hard time believing that MLB ticket prices would decline if there was an overall decline in player salaries. You can't put the genie back in the bottle. They may not decline, but if the Sox went back to an $80ish mill payroll I don't see the tickets rising in cost for a few years, so as to attract more people. And really people, if you are concerned about personnel decisions in terms of who is on the team than you care about payroll, there's no way of getting around that.

QUOTE (Bighurt52235 @ May 25, 2011 -> 09:44 AM) My point is, is that none of us are Jerry Reinsdorf. For example, I don't care if your cell phone bill is expensive, unless of course it prevents you from getting Netflix, (overpaid reliever), which I'm not sure that it would. If you do understand that it's a business, then you should understand that they can only spend so much on payroll. Thus, if they overspend on one person than it affects what they can do with the rest of the payroll. It's pretty simple cause and effect, and as a fan you should be concerned because it also is cause and effect on ticket prices, etc.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 25, 2011 -> 12:05 AM) But the White Sox can't point at the Twins having Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, and Johan Santana? That doesn't make a lot of sense. Specifically this year, nope.

QUOTE (southsidepride15 @ May 24, 2011 -> 09:33 PM) Not trying to start s#$%...and I know I don't even have an av or a sig, but please take the "Hot Fire" off ur sig. As bad as I want to see Viciedo, that is one HORRIBLE nickname. (Sorry, I know you are the self proclaimed nickname man and all) LOL You're not alone in this wish.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 24, 2011 -> 09:08 PM) maybe he hasn't heard of this Ramirez kid, I hear he is a pretty good SS. Supposed to be an even better CFer, which if I remember correctly has been a position void of production for quite a long time.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 24, 2011 -> 07:13 PM) Nobody thought he'd get half the salary until the market collapsed that winter. Look, the Sox were confident enough that Cabrera would take a deal elsewhere, and apparently cabrera had enough of the Sox organization to turn down a lot of guaranteed money so that he could sign elsewhere, and that was the risk he took.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 24, 2011 -> 07:08 PM) Because the sox really wanted those picks so they screwed him a bit. Yup, the Sox felt confident enough that Cabrera wanted nothing to do with the Sox that he would turn down arbitration to go to another team for less than half of the salary.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 24, 2011 -> 07:06 PM) In other words he was an unrestricted FA. In other words, the team signing him still had to give up a 1st or 2nd round pick no matter what, even had to include a clause that they wouldn't offer him arbitration the next offseason.