caulfield12

Various websites have been posting lists like this for weeks and the Sox haven’t appeared once that I have seen. With marketing being more important to the Sox than others, you’d have to think the player Reinsdorf would be (justifying) spending $300-350 million on would be Harper, but that’s considered even lower odds at the moment.

If we’re not in the Top 10 for Machado...and Arenado and Rendon would be switching to the arguably tougher and unfamiliar AL, how would you describe the odds, exactly? There’s even been talk about Rendon retiring, he’s been a bundle of injury issues throughout his career, his desire to play has been questioned and Washington still needs to hold onto some of their young studs or retrench/rebuild around Soto/Robles. Arenado is THE franchise player for COL, like Goldschmidt but even more integral due to his defensive prowess at a critical position. I’d put it right around Iowa’s chances of winning the Big Ten this year.

This is equally relevant to the White Sox...especially with Chili Davis gone. "It has to be more about production than talent going forward," Epstein said. "And that includes our own assessments. Beyond that, it's also trying to understand why we're not where we should be with some individual players. In other words: If you look back, players who do certain things at 22 and 23 should be progressing into a better, more productive phase of their career at 24, 25 and 26. "I'm the first one to talk about how development and progress - those aren't linear things all the time. There are a lot of ups and downs. But I think there's a trend where Javy took the big step forward, but there are other guys who went the opposite direction or have been trending the opposite direction a little bit. We have to get to the bottom of that. "It's our job not just to assemble a talented group, but unearth that talent and have it manifest on the field. Because that's ultimately all that matters. It's an assessment on those two fronts. The talent that we have and who's going to be productive, who's not or where we can find that production. And then also understand the environment and are we doing everything that we can in creating just the right situation to get the most out of these guys."

Yes somehow he’s one victory away from having played/started in 3 of the past 5 World Series, in both leagues. Must be doing something right.

I don’t recall seeing any of the mods around here go on record asserting we will sign Machado, Arenado or Rendon. 12 months ago, it was a completely different story. The odds are also fairly high that one of the latter two might be amenable to an extension with the Rockies or Nats. Its absolutely ridiculous as a Sox fan to expect it, because we’ve gotten our hopes up so many times about acquiring prominent, in their prime free agent talent. Adam Dunn is about the closest, going back to Belle in the 1990’s.

The White Sox need to be competitive/respectable beginning at some point in 2020... Who’s going to play 3b that year, Moncada? Madrigal’s going to be ready that quickly? Maybe, but that’s asking a lot. And we know the odds of signing Machado, Arenado and Rendon are pretty much slim to none.

https://www.mlb.com/news/best-2018-19-hot-stove-value-may-be-in-trade/c-298301320 Jonathan Gray, Realmuto (the most unlikely), Schwarber and Castellanos are all players that deserve consideration as trade targets. The average MLB roster production is typically going to be 35-40% via players acquired from elsewhere than internally.

Moustakas at 3b for two years with a 3rd year option makes a lot of sense. Or Donaldson, even. One additional big bat in the order to go along with Jimenez suddenly suddenly makes our lineup at least competitive in the AL. We don’t have any legit internal candidates at that position. Moncada deserves another full year at second before they consider moving him. One or two veterans on incentive based deals to hold the rotation together and 2-3 similar deals for bounceback candidates like Swarzak or Kahnle in the pen. Dont see many catchers or CFers available. We are stuck with Castillo until we can dump him for salary relief at mid season.

Poor Reddy, his race is back in play after it was considered all but over. Should be an interesting stretch run, with the GOP gaining some traction after the Kavanaugh appointment. Now it all comes down to 223. Dems are guaranteed to pick up at least 15, but there are roughly 75 competitive races still out there. The Senate is going to stay in Republican hands, so more divided government is likely. At this point, cooperating on an infrastructure bill (afterwards) is an iffy proposition, at best. Reddy can more accurately make the argument that 2020 will rank as the most important/defining election for the direction of the country. This election seems that way to him because he’s right in the middle of the action, the can’t see the forest for the trees thing.

My father died at 63 from a heart attack. Never got to enjoy all those things that people save their whole lives for because we led a simple middle class life other than 2+ week family vacations every summer. Never took out a loan for anything but mortgage on house with 1976, paid off in 15 years. My mom never worked more than part-time, places like Hardee’s and Bishop’s Buffet. She worked for the Federal government in clerical work in the 50s and 60s but was unable to adapt to technology changes when she tried to go back in the 80s when I was in middle school. To this day, she’s never had a computer or cell phone, and has only travelled a couple of times on an airplane. But she’s almost 90 now and was driving a car up until last year. My father ate everything he enjoyed, didn’t care to exercise and almost never went to the doctor unless there was no other choice. Pretty typical of that generation. At any rate, I’m extremely happy I went to Iowa for BA English instead of Northwestern or Notre Dame. (Two Master’s were basically free due to teaching assistant positions, the other was like Teach for America and subsidized by a grant.) When he died in 1999, he’d managed to save about $375,000 (mostly Vanguard and value investing, like BRK.B), plus his government pension (some still goes to my mom now), the paid off house, gold coins (not a good ROI), etc. Not bad for a person who never earned more than $44000 per year in a civil service position, and only one family income. The only big decision we had was long term care coverage or not. No was the choice. Now, it’s costing $4500 per month out of pocket for assisted living, which is more or less offset by incoming money from pension, small amount of SS, dividends, forced distributions of taxable accounts, etc. We’re much better off having invested that money (despite 2001-02 and 2008/09), rather than investing it into a pricey “elite” school. It’s a bit ironic, since the students I’m working with here in China are going to Oxford, Cambridge, London School Of Economics...all of them are 1500-1600 on SAT, maybe 1530 average, and they’re all going to spend the maximum as international students at top 30-50 US or Canadian universities if they don’t go to UK, and that’s after $20000 per year for 3 years of high school, another $15-25,000 for training centers for IELTS, TOEFL, SAT, ACT, another $15,000 for agents to help with the overseas app process, like financial forms, essay editing, etc., and that doesn’t even count ESL training and expensive tuition for KG through Grade 9, music lessons, art classes to boost creativity, robotics or design, martial arts. I would guess the average family invests at least $250-350,000 on just one child’s lifetime education, and $500k isn’t unheard of if you count MA/MS. They also at the very least give their kids the down payment on a house upon marriage, another $150-250000 on average if you include the wedding/honeymoon. Kids never get a job here until after they finish college, it’s all study, summer camps and extracurriculars to improve their admission opportunities.

That’s what all the financial/economics magazines are claiming. I guess we’ll find out with the next series of franchise sales. $3 billion would really be shocking? There’s inflation bleeding into the economy from many different sources, whether it’s gas prices, food prices or foreign investment attracted by more attractive interest rates/higher stability. That tends to inflate asset bubbles, especially in areas with severely limited supply of product...in this case, pro franchises actually up for bid.

Another thing to consider, with professional sports franchises rising 50-100% in value since the decision to legalize sports gambling, the various owners are likely not going anywhere soon unless they are suddenly cash poor or overleveraged in other areas.

1) Can’t change location 2) Can’t change ballpark and make it suddenly historic or a regional/national tourist pilgrimage “bucket list” item 3) Made some limited attempts to invigorate experience around and inside ballpark but it’s certainly not an entertainment complex or destination district now 4) Still at a massive disadvantage in terms of generating media coverage vs. Bears/Cubs/Hawks Other than winning more than the Cubs, which would require 3 ALCS’s in a row and another World Series title...and getting past the Red Sox, Yankees, Astros, Indians, A’s, Angels, Rays, that’s a tall order to fill even if everything had gone exactly according to plan.

2. Only the Mariners and Padres have longer playoff-less runs.

B is 100% the responsibility of the front office and marketing department to break through the clutter somehow.

All you do is make vague references to Wrigley and their “loyal” yuppie fans when there are NUMEROUS franchises who are better comparisons and who have also lost that same exact 50% over the last 10-15 years. If I cited ALL those numbers, you still would be casting the same aspersions, which is that fans of the team with the worst record in baseball the past six years are being unusually disloyal when it happens nearly everywhere (see Houston 2012-14 as well.) If you can’t accept that the Cubs or Cardinals (due to their historic success and franchise history) are anomalies and not the norm, there’s really nothing to say, is there? You’re also basically the only one consistently making this same argument. Or we can look at Mets/Yankees, A’s/SFG, Angels/Dodgers...the only team even close to getting out of its neighbors shadow is the Angels, and look at how many hundreds of millions more that Arte Moreno has spent to attempting to close that gap. Repeating this same line over and over again doesn’t make it more true. In fact, compared to other franchises, the Sox ROSE in the attendance standings while being less competitive. Other franchises are bleeding even more fans than we are.

Which fanbases in the Heartland and Rust Belt haven’t experienced the exact same phenomena when their teams were losing on an extended basis or rebuilding? The Royals are WAY down now just three years removed from a World Series title. Detroit is struggling mightily after filling the park under Ilitch. Pirates are worse than Sox with much more competitive teams, and certainly an amount of relative/recent success. Twins are way down despite a playoff appearance and new outdoor stadium. Cleveland is still back up to just 23-24,000 after all those years of sellouts at Jacobs Field, and that’s with a long run of sustained success and more recent run of historic fan loyalty. Tearing playoff teams apart twice really hurt, and they’ve never recovered after the 90s and financial crisis. Baltimore, the same. Cincy, the same. 7 in the same geographic region (roughly) that behave exactly like Sox fans, especially if you correct for newness of stadiums. The reality is that unless you’re talking Cubs, Cardinals...nearly every franchise’s fans behaves fairly similarly. Not too long ago, the Cubs and Sox had attendance numbers exactly on par, unless you accounted for the additional “tourist” fans who are mostly from outside of Chicagoland or traveling fans of teams visiting Wrigley. And it’s also not typical for the Cards to give out a plethora of deals for over $100 million, they have always maintained a mid-market mentality when spending. Now if you want to argue Mariners, Brewers, Rockies and Padres fans are “better” somehow or more loyal...go ahead. It certainly hasn’t resulted in much on-field success or immensely increased spending, other than those teams with $50-100 million more to allocate due to new RSN agreements.

I wish we could get back to the "cockiness" of Balta from last off-season, talk about decimating/owning the AL Central year after year beginning in 2020/2021. Those days seem to be like a half-decade ago right now.

And it can't all be blamed on Moncada's "ADD," Kopech's injury, Tatis/Shields...it's something more endemic, or, if you prefer, systemic. Steverson supporters will point to Palka and Narvaez, but those two guys are probably "complementary" pieces, at best, on a really good/contending playoff-caliber squad. Maybe Minnesota misjudged Palka, but they already had Mauer/Kepler/Vargas/Romero/eventually Morrison...and Minnesota's outfield dimensions are certainly more expansive than Guaranteed Rate Field. He pretty much HAD to be a DH over there. You'd think that there would be even more of a premium on power in that organization, playing in a stadium that's far from hitter-friendly.

And even the Marlins have those 1987 and 1993 championships. The Brewers were in terrible straits in the 70's and for most of the 80's....with the exception of 1982, and then for the last decade enjoying all of the advantages of having your former owner as MLB Commissioner and all the ancillary benefits that accrued to that franchise, as well as a wonderful new stadium. The Mariners, Brewers, Padres, Reds, Indians, Orioles, Pirates, Twins and Tigers should all be considered "peers" of the White Sox, although the Sox have/share the largest media market of those particular teams. TB, Oakland and KC are "anomalies" in the first tier. Also surprising the Braves are 'only' 13th after their run of success in the 90's and early 00's.

But that still doesn't explain why it hasn't it prevented the Twins, Indians, Royals and Tigers from having more success than the White Sox over the last 20 years. You can argue Ilitch was willing to spend well into deficits each year, but that's no longer the case with his son in charge. Which teams that are perennial losers get consistent attendance/financial support? The Mariners and Padres? Well, you have a much nicer stadium, a LOT more revenue coming in from ROOT Sports than we get...but their attendance the last 3-5 years has pretty much been in the bottom 18-22 as well. The Pads are investing all their money into a rebuild, too.

The Cubs, Yankees, Red Sox and Dodgers are all iconic franchises. Perhaps you can add the Cardinals/Giants (Silicon Valley), and Braves because of TBS/TNT (Turner Broadcasting). You also have the two oldest and certainly most historic stadiums in the sport...and a million other advantages that have been belabored over the years. But the other 25-ish franchises still have to operate more like typical businesses, and not tourism juggernauts.

FIRST MAN is well done, but, for my money, still prefer Hidden Figures and Gravity. This movie's getting criticized on the right and the left of the political spectrum...so it must be doing something right. It's not a feel good story, it's more about "stoic heroism" and really tries to give you an accurate feel for what the 1960's pioneering astronauts went through on the way to the moon landing. That said, it probably will end up as one of the 10 Best Picture nominees, slotting in somewhere between 7-10. Maybe it's just me, but I'm not quite understanding what's appealing about Claire Foy. Maybe her t.v. work is much different? At any rate, kudos to the up-and-coming director for pulling off something so different from Whiplash and La La Land.

Sure, but shouldn't that apply to Giolito and Moncada at the end of 2017? Delmonico at the end of last season? Do we still know anything conclusive about Davidson, Yolmer or Avi, other than the fact they're all "flawed" players, especially the first two? Can we really count on Omar Narvaez to replicate his offensive "breakout" in 2019?

Name the other professional sports franchises (or just MLB) that blame the fans for their failures. This should be good. The Montreal Expos and Marlins? Seems they had Loria in common. The A' s and RAYS? TERRIBLE STADIUMS. Maybe the Pirates, but they never gave fans a pennant winner and dealt their two franchise players in McCutcheon and Cole away. At least the Indians did something to bring their fans back after betraying them twice. Something called repeated success that we are unfamiliar with. Other teams also give their fans weather protection (Brewers/Rangers/Astros/Mariners/Jays/D-Backs) or much better climates in general for the sport, like the Padres.