caulfield12

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.

Fine, Lindor is not technically international, we just don't know how to scout Puerto Rico like other organizations can somehow manage to do. Or Japan/Korea. Btw, Lindor went at exactly the same slot as Fulmer.

What other fan base in MLB is blamed for the team's failures other than the White Sox? Did Houston support the Astros by buying tickets or watching on their RSN in 2012~2014? Not at all. It's like blaming Sears' customers for them going out of business, MySpace blaming Facebook, etc. If you're not willing to do what it takes to provide the fans more value for their money, they will turn elsewhere with their entertainment dollars. Quite simple, really.

Yet they were able to find/scout/acquire Lindor in PR, Carrasco, Gomes, Brantley, Santana, even Kipnis from our own backyard. Developed Kluber when little was expected of him, not unlike Clevinger this year.

WAR/$ for Cespedes, Darvish and Puig on their original deals? It's not rocket science to identify talents like Ohtani, but you at least have to be in the game to win. The Sox since Belle have typically been conservative/risk~averse with their spending. Isn't the Danks extension still the second biggest in Sox history? How pathetic is that?

Some teams manage to consistently do better with international and conventional free agents, such as CLE. Especially in Latin American scouting and development. It's the margins and niches. There's really no excuse when we have all the competitive advantages in the world compared to that franchise.

Well, you keep Thome instead of giving him away to the Twins, sign Victor later (not Dunn) and also have Miguel Cabrera (until his recent falloff), you have at the very least, additional titles in 2010 and 2012. Same with spending money on Kenny Rogers in 2003 instead of letting the Twins have him for a fairly low salary.

If they had signed Cespedes originally, Puig in 2012, Darvish to his original deal, Tanaka, Grandal, Ryu...they were completely unwilling to break the bank. They sort of lucked into Ramirez and Abreu, but our spending on international free agents before Luis Robert was pretty consistently among the bottom 3~5 teams. Just a couple of those guys could have made a significant difference.

Might want to look at some alternative areas like REITs or small and mid-caps to diversify. Emerging markets are getting killed right now. At any rate, no point to sell Alibaba, Ten Cent, JD.com, TSM, Ping An, ZTO Logistics (still net positives compared to purchase price)...the Chinese economy looks to be slowing down, finally, but those companies are more hurt by domestic issues/government actions than anything to do with tariffs. The best bets right now are the 3 large telecom companies here, that are consolidating into essentially two entities to increase their economies of scale for the 5G buildout.

They’re usually either geeks with 2 (incomes combined) $100k+ careers working in Silicon Valley or cashed in on IPO shares, have significant inheritances/trust funds, lucked into houses or parents loaned down payments or simply couples who would rather have a life without kids. Then there are the financial bloggers, as well as the travel/tourism bloggers...

Between Osuna, that terrible call on Altuve and Joe West, MLB and the baseball gods are conspiring to force feed us Red Sox/Dodgers.

Do we honestly want to start threads for 150-200 different players of interest? They’re both in the post-season on the same team, and Bradley’s name has been mentioned around here for at least five years. At any rate, pretty unlikely they can do without his defense, despite underwhelming offensive production.

In my mind, it's having somewhere between $2-3 million in my fifties... I still have to travel around the world (been to 40+ countries and 47 states), but it's now on hold with a 3 1/2 year, except for coming back to the US once every summer and maybe one "international" one week trip per year, and another one week trip somewhere in China or SE Asia. Most importantly, I want to do more volunteer/service-based work for non-profits...still not sure if I want to devote myself to actually running an agency, prefer to pick and choose and not be weighed down by a long-term, 3-5+ year commitment. It means being able to have a primary residence in Iowa and then a vacation or timeshare somewhere in Central America, Colombia/Ecuador or, more likely, somewhere like the Philippines/Vietnam/Malaysia/Indonesia. Maybe running a small boutique eco-resort on the ocean if the right opportunity presents itself. Of course, I also need to think about my son's future college/university expenses, that's the big one.

Jackie Bradley, Jr., with two arbitration years left? I think that ship has (probably) sailed.