caulfield12

Then you also have Cueto, an even more accomplished pitcher than Shark, struggling just as mightily in the same division. And pitching extremely well after he escaped it. You had four pretty darned good offenses in the division last year. At least on paper.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Jun 17, 2016 -> 08:11 AM) Frazier has a .191 BABIP. You would think that a torrid stretch is coming. Rodon would not have signed if he weren't in majors last year. This was the price of poker. Therein lies the problem...because of Boras, he probably came up at least 2 if not 3 months too soon. Of course, it's easy to say that NOW, because he did finish the year quite strongly his final 10. Then again, some of those starts were against teams with AAAA rosters or playing out the string. Would have to look back closely at the game logs. And, it's also easy to say in retrospect Beckham was rushed because of what happened after 2009...and, we can say the same thing about Tim Anderson if for some reason he never makes an All-Star team. There's no clear right or wrong way to treat prospects. Each one is individual and unique.

Robertson is close to an elite reliever (but not quite, probably 6-8) who is paid Top 3-5. The only thing you can see about Lawrie is this...career OPS of 732 and he's at 696 currently, which is underproducing (although he'd been in the high 700's for most of the season until slumping recently). His first two years in TOR were very good, and then's been about a 2 WAR player on average the last 3, with that number looking close to a 1 projection this season. Saladino's a career 629 OPS who just happens to be at 694 right now...or 02 points behind Lawrie. The funny thing is Saladino's a year older than Lawrie, but Lawrie's been in the majors for five plus years already. Tyler projects to a slightly higher OPS this year because of his defensive ability, but it's also unclear that he can put up a 2 OPS playing everyday at 2B. Not to mention the fact that Saladino's minor league OPS is much lower than Lawrie's. Overall, with the numbers Saladino and Sanchez put up offensively last year, it's understandable that Hahn would try to upgrade offensively if he could do it at little cost, which certainly defines the Lawrie deal. And it didn't preclude him from having Saladino or Sanchez still around if Lawrie continued to regress (which may or may not be happening right now). Overall, it's hard to see a significant difference in how the Sox played this out....Lawrie in the past has been a 3-4 WAR player, projected to be around a 2 and Saladino...it was hard to imagine him even as a 2+ until the last month or so.

Round up all the white Christians who are anti-gay...you'll have at least 30-50 million in jail cells. Don't hear any Republican politicians touting this brilliant idea. Actually, their "for profit" prison patrons (oodles of PAC donations) would love to get the extra customers to profit off of. That idea seems insane, right? Well, so should rounding up those who follow another religion, at least if you believe in the Founding Fathers and the intentions behind the way in which the US Constitution was written.

GREENSOX: You're talking Trout, S.Marte, Betts, Bradley, Jr., George Springer, Ian Desmond, Fowler, Pillar, Piscotty, Duvall, Yelich... The players who can contribute both offensively and defensively. Maybe Pearce is the closest right now to being available, but he's not a great defender by any stretch. Logan Forsythe, Marcell Ozuna, Kiermaier, Michael Saunders, G.Polanco, Leonys Martin, your next tier. That leaves Reddick and Cargo again, unless you want to gamble on Ichiro having a seventh life. Do you see anyone who the White Sox have the pieces to obtain that meets your qualification/standards?

But every team in the division can make that same argument, right? If the Tigers' bullpen hadn't completely imploded for a month and JD Martinez/Upton not gotten off to such terrible starts. If KC hadn't already had to use ten rookies, and not just put them on the roster, but nearly all receiving regular playing time. If Michael Brantley and Carrasco and Salazar hadn't gotten hurt, and Byrd and Almonte suspended for PEDs. If they hadn't lost 4/6 to the Twins when the other three teams had 0 or just 1 loss to them so far. In the end, we're probably exactly where we belong to be.

Well, it would make sense for a number of reasons. We would be guaranteed to control Myers' rights through 2019, at a time when we're losing Lawrie/Frazier/Cabrera in all likelihood. The only players you can pencil in past next year are probably Eaton, Abreu and Anderson, so that's a lot of line-up to replace. Morneau at DH and Myers in RF, Eaton in CF and Melky in LF would give them their best possible offensive combination by far. You'd be taking Garcia and Shuck (currently) and replacing it with two far superior (theoretically, in Morneau's case, as of now) hitters, not to mention Jackson would be perfect off the bench as a 4th OF/defensive sub like last year with the Cubs.

John McCain's trying to get on the short list by "sort of" blaming Obama for Orlando. He has nothing to lose at his age except for remaining shreds of dignity and respect.

Wait, someone who's ignoring me can still accurately predict my post will be about Erik Johnson? Hmm...this site is too funny sometimes. It probably should ONLY be Greg talking about Bachelor parties and Hillary Clinton, that would be more enjoyable. As far as James Shields' go, there's really nowhere to go but up. It had a bit of a desperation feel, but that has worked out perfectly fine with Tim Anderson (so far), so I guess we have no choice but to roll with it since we're stuck with him for the next 2 1/2 years unless he has a dramatic transformation.

Erik Johnson getting rocked again tonight, this time against the Nationals. The only former starting pitcher to get "up in arms" about tonight is Junior Guerra if you're inclined to do so.

Hopefully Game 7 will be a good one. The series is close, but none of the games have been early as exciting as OKC/SA or OKC/GSW.

Tigers with five homers already in a very balmy KC. 6-4 Tigers going to the bottom of the 7th. Rare blown save by Hochevar. V.Martinez (2), Castellanos, McCann and Miggy Cabrera. Lucky we mostly avoided Sox-killer Victor! Victor hit three. Steven Moya was recalled, he's expected to get the majority of JD Martinez's bats for the next 4-6 weeks.

With JD Martinez out with a radial fracture, the Tigers just entered the market for another bat...they're not going to want to have to trot out Gose/Maybin/Romine/Aviles (2 of the 4) any more than they have to along with a still-struggling Justin Upton. Nor do they want to use the outfielder who gave the finger to his home fans.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 16, 2016 -> 06:15 PM) They happen to do pretty well against Sale as well, don't they? http://espn.go.com/mlb/player/batvspitch/_...0948/chris-sale Maybe historically, but all of the current Red Sox hitters are only OPSing at a 578 clip vs. Sale. Betts, Bogaerts and Ortiz have hurt him the most.

If it was 2-3 years ago, the White Sox would have considered it. Of course, the cost would have been more prohibitive. This time, it would be more of a PR hit. Plus, they already signed Justin Morneau and promised him that opportunity if he can get through a rehab assignment successfully.

Jay is definitely more realistic in terms of minor league talent ... the typical KW "veteran" experience with winning org (StL). Kind of strange, Shields for Myers/Odorizzi was a huge AL Central trade 3 years ago, and now all three of them are potentially coming back to the AL Central again with the latter two names on the Top 10 of many current trade market lists. Cleveland could definitely use Myers. The Tigers could similarly use Odorizzi, as they have three very good starters in Verlander/Zimmermann/Fulmer and huge question marks with Pelfrey and Boyd/Sanchez/Norris. It's one of the main reasons that teams in the AL Central are struggling to get on extended runs, the back end of their rotations. White Sox obviously with the same issue. The problem is that it's not the type of move that puts the Sox over the top, it's more of an incremental..."one win" improvement. It all depends on the status of Austin Jackson's injury/projected return. There's no guarantee Jay would outproduce him. http://espn.go.com/mlb/player/splits/_/id/29691/jon-jay This season he's only a 694 OPSer against RHP, and that's in the NL West. So it still doesn't address one of the biggest issues. Myers has an 832 OPS against RHPers, is "only" 25 (same age as Avi, but seems he has been around forever)...very little difference between lefty and righty splits, period. He isn't a very good defender, but he's still head and shoulders better than Avi. He probably would play over Cabrera, with Melky moving to DH. Cost, though?

Eibner back up from rehab assignment, Fuentes back down despite hitting .317. Alex Gordon could be starting his rehab assignment as soon as this weekend. David Wright (yes, I know the Mets) had possibly career-ending neck surgery in NYC as well. JD Martinez, non-displaced radial (forearm) fracture tonight...just below the elbow. You can bet they'll be in the Bruce/Braun/Myers sweepstakes if he has to miss longer than 4-6 weeks.

Guess he went into that press conference (pre-game) deliberately trying to make national news by getting Ventura to blow his top...which of course just doesn't ever happen. As far as the topic, as to Southsider2k5, they're definitely going to have to outscore the Red Sox in Fenway. Not sure about the pitching match-ups, but the Indians are already excited to get a series with the Sox and not have to face Chris Sale.

Danks is retiring? Haven't heard anything about him at all for about a month. Guess he's hanging out in Nashville.

I guess. Don't know the Chicago media market well other than radio/print. Someone who works for a t.v. station and doesn't ordinarily come out every day to cover the team...asked about 5 questions regarding the issues with Avi Garcia, why he wasn't getting coaching/improving or why he was playing in the field, etc. Then it turned to why Sale didn't get a visit from Ventura or the pitching coach "quickly enough" when he was in the process of surrendering those 3 runs. http://www.southsidesox.com/2016/6/16/1195...e-for-white-sox

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 16, 2016 -> 05:24 PM) He shot down being Deadline sellers , no mention of selling the team. How in the name of Hector Santiago would you get that? Bruce Levine/Jim Margalus Meanwhile, in other media speculation, Jerry Reinsdorf shot down Bruce Levine's idea that the Sox might consider selling at the All-Star break: As for the speculation in my story, Reinsdorf told me in his own instructive way that he had no plans for anything but a full-out attack on helping his front office find a way to win now. The meeting was brief and friendly. Knowing Reinsdorf for many years, I knew he was suggesting that although I wasn’t hurting anyone with my "panning for gold" speculation, rebooting and selling off wasn’t in the organization’s plans. Star-divide As far as the unabated rude questions to Ventura at the press conference (pre-game Wed), it was some dude named Benkowski I've never even heard of...that was the first time he's ever walked out, from my recollection.

Trump Superstation....just like the YES Network, Fox and NESN. The irony is that it just might work. Of course, he'd have to cut off access to all of the free tv/cable news organizations that have given him so much unpaid coverage. That would end up backfiring. And it's even a thornier issue as a sitting US president to try to monetize your own brand when politicians have to set aside all their assets in a blind trust when in office to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. (We're already seeing it play out with the PGA and his massive DC restaurant project, where politics are intruding into business and vice-versa, or the Miss USA/Miss World pageants, etc.) Would it just be t.v., or to the full array of other media avenues such as print and radio, because those formats aren't his specialty (anything that requires substance or him speaking articulately, even to the extent that Limbaugh or Huckabee do.) In the moment, anything seems possible. Just look at the Kardashians, for example. And yet someone like Sarah Palin, with her fervent following, wasn't able to go in this direction...granted, she makes a nice living giving speeches and doing appearances and taking to twitter occasionally, but it's not a 24 hour thing for her.

The obvious problem is that you want players like Myers in years 1-3, not their 4-6 arbitration years. That said, they should be "prime" production years, and still much cheaper than FA...not to mention the possibility of extension. We're in that same boat with both Frazier and Lawrie, although neither is exactly screaming out for an expensive extension at the moment. There are 10-12 contending teams with surplus talent in their minor league systems who are much better trade partners for SD, unless there's a particular player in our system they're absolutely in love with or have a simple mechanical fix for.

And, if the MAIN culprit is the offense, then you'd think Steverson would be more under the gun. But the accumulation of slides in 2012, slow start to 2015, collapse after 23-10 start in 2016 and poor fundamentals/defense/execution/general sloppiness in 2013 and 2014 have basically forced the issues. It's not just bullpen management or line-ups or any one particular thing, it's just the general lack of results and inconsistency. However, if the entire team starts to fall apart because of Austin Jackson no longer patrolling CF, then more of the blame has to be on Rick Hahn because of the lack of internal depth to fill the majority of positions on the diamond...which forced him into adding James Shields, has caused something of a bullpen merry-go-round and has still left the Avi Garcia/DH/RF issue unresolved at least a year later than everyone declared it to be an obvious issue. It shouldn't be THAT hard to find, at the very least, a relatively cheap way to cobble together a couple of platoon hitters like a Pearce or Raburn in order to confidently trot out a 775-800 OPS out of that DH spot. Finally, in what has become an "all in" season again, having Ian Desmond's numbers at SS or LF/CF/RF/DH would have the White Sox in first place or darned close to it. And the draft pick would simply have been deferred one year. The price tag went from $8 million this March to what is likely to be closer to the $107 million he turned down from the Nationals 18 months ago. As usual, the blame goes around to Ventura, Hahn, JR, Steverson and KW...assessing a percentage of blame is impossible, it's "soft math" for saber guys so it remains an area without any emerging consensus. (Things are still much better than idiotic Pythagorean wins and losses, though.) Don Cooper continues to have lifetime tenure, for good or bad.

http://www.southsidesox.com/2016/6/16/1195...on-the-hot-seat DA, Really, fans should be "extra supportive" of Ventura because he's a nice guy? Surely we can have higher expectations as Sox fans than that. If Ty Cobb was managing the team right now and we were 40-26, the majority of the fanbase would be quite happy. Do fans "owe" him anything after the last 4 1/2 years? If this was 2012, you could certainly argue "yes" because it wasn't his fault he was given the keys to the team without even having a driver's permit. But, at this point, patience is wearing thin, especially when the division seemed so winnable...and still largely is, barring huge additions to KC or Detroit (Indians unlikely to be able to pull off a huge trade unless they finally show a willingness to trade one of their starting pitchers).