caulfield12

5 years ago, he would have been an awesome acquisition. Now, it's too late. Which of course means the White Sox will attempt to add him as well to their collection of players past their "sell by" date. And actually, he still will be a credible hitter for the next 2-3 years, compared to the likes of JB Suck and Avifail Garcia. But we just signed Justin Morneau to be a hero, so they won't make a bid out of respect to Morneau.

Still awaiting a response to the question posed...

Why not? It couldn't get any worse than 8-22 and 4-11 vs. our primary AL Central rivals. http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/colum...613-column.html AJ column. Ventura will love fielding those questions...probably none from the local Chicago media, though.

QUOTE (CB2.0 @ Jun 13, 2016 -> 05:57 AM) The only prospects that are any good are pitchers and that has little to nothing to do with Hahn. It's the only thing the Sox have ever been any good at when it comes to the farm. See 2 of the 3 names floated, for example. Except for Thompson, Semien and Anderson. What pitching have we "developed" recently? Rodon had a grand total of 10 minor league starts, that was it. Nate Jones, I guess. But that dates back to 2012, along with Q/Santiago/Santos/Reed. Petricka, if you really want to push the definition.

Because Hahn isn't the one who is the primary talent evaluator in the organization, that's Hostetler/Laumann/Fabian for the draft and some combination of KW and scouts for trades/FA's.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jun 13, 2016 -> 08:06 AM) Yea...no. Not even close Go ahead, ask me any question about the Tigers, that's not something that is factual but requires analysis/evaluation/opinion.

And then 25% blame their fellow White Sox fans. It's a neat trick. Maybe the most successful thing KW has done in the last ten years, getting the fans to take responsibility for the product on the field rather than poor judgement/inefficient allocation of resources.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/batting/_/sor...outs/order/true Lawrie is 7th in the majors in K's. Besides Justin Upton, everyone else in the Top 17 has more homers. If you can't make contact, nothing positive will happen with RISP, other than avoiding hitting into a DP.

QUOTE (CB2.0 @ Jun 13, 2016 -> 06:34 AM) Is Caulfield a KC fan? Sure likes to post about them....a lot. Almost like veiled gloating. Ask me any question about the Tigers, Indians or Twins. I will be more than happy to address those as well.

With the luck of the White Sox recently, their record will be even worse under Renteria and there will be a spate of injuries. Anderson will have to be sent back to AAA or AA and everyone will freak out about them rushing him and worrying constantly he'll be the next mishandled prospect to come through the pipeline. A lot of opposing teams' radio announcers have really been questioning why the Sox "rushed" Rodon to the majors as well, at least recently.

With the luck of the White Sox recently, their record will be even worse under Renteria and there will be a spate of injuries. Anderson will have to be sent back to AAA or AA and everyone will freak out about them rushing him and worrying constantly he'll be the mishandled prospect to come through the pipeline. A lot of ppposing teams' radio announcers have really been questioning why the Sox "rushed" Rodon to the majors as well, at least recently.

Of course, no one has attempted to answer the question or explain why this is the case... We prefer to just stick our heads in the sand and pretend everything's just fine and dandy. The thing is, this was the same exact case with the Twins for a decade. The White Sox are more talented, the Twins are just lucky. Heard that year after year after year while the Twins were making the playoffs six out of nine years. But 2005 I guess cancelled out anything the Twins did because of their playoff record, until KC actually won it all with essentially the same strategy (minor league development, pitching/speed/defense, core of three or four really good players surrounded by a bunch of utility guys whose sum is greater than their individual parts, etc.) And actually, there's a very simple answer. 2012. The White Sox got unexpected production out of 10+ rookie pitchers. The problem was down the stretch, they couldn't withstand the challenge from the team with the superior talent, the Tigers. In this case, we'll see if the Royals' system is still stronger, or the Indians/Tigers will prevail and the KC window will be closing, with only 2017 left to compete.

Something's rotten in Denmark...or is it "rotting"? The Royals have one of the worst minor league systems in the major leagues, behind the White Sox entering this season. Their top four guys are all basically terrible (Starling, the Borchard/Mitchell/Fields of KC history), injured (Zimmer/Almonte) or suspended for PED's (Mondesi, Jr.) The only player from their top ten who has contributed at the MLB level this year is Cheslor Cuthbert, their 10th rated prospect...essentially the equivalent of Jason Coats at this point in the 2016 campaign I think most of our prospect experts/followers would agree. Agreed? http://kingsofkauffman.com/2016/01/08/kc-r...pects-for-2016/ Think about the results even higher-rated White Sox prospects such as Carlos Sanchez, Micah Johnson, Frankie Montas, Erik Johnson, Tyler Saladino, Marcus Semien and Trayce Thompson have produced for the White Sox in the last two years. Thompson is the only player to really hold his own and seem like he belonged, also agreed? Rodon was the other, although I'm not sure we want to discuss his last 10 big league starts. Severe regression from the last 10 in 2015, and completely a different pitcher in terms of "swagger." Then you have this list (all players who were between 11-30 in the Royals' system entering 2016: Cheslor Cuthbert #10 704 OPS, better defense than Moustakas (Nicaragua)...704 OPS Paulo Orlando, White Sox castoff and career minor league journeyman...771 OPS Whit Merrifield (Zobrist Lite)...724 OPS, solid at 2B and OF Christian Colon (terrible draft pick for where he went in the first, but still better than Omar Infante)...629 (plus a Greg775 fave) Sal Butera...Twins' castoff, father played for Brewers...856 OPS Brett Eibner...best hair in the minor leagues, Prince Valiant, always injured...1.192 OPS (limited AB's, killed Sox) Raymond Fuentes....high draft pick of Padres, another castoff, 753 OPS Btw, Hunter Dozier/Jorge Bonifacio....next up in case of yet another injury (corner OF/DH/3B) The White Sox STRUGGLE with an admittedly higher rated system to get just ONE player to produce like that (not to mention bringing up players like Tim Anderson before they're actually ready). The Royals have had SEVEN players step in and hold their own just this year. That's not even counting Dyson and Terrence Gore, who have also contributed a lot from 2014-16. All of them, with the POSSIBLE exception of Jason Coats, would have been LOWER RATED in a farm system that's cumulatively lower rated than the White Sox 2016 system and whose top four prospects are complete NON-FACTORS this year. The same system that has traded away W.Myers, Odorizzi, Lamb, Montgomery, Manaea, Finnegan and Cody Reed...who would probably comprise a better system ALONE than the entirety of 2016 White Sox and 2016 Royals' current minor league prospects put together. Remember, this team BLEW draft picks on Colon, Zimmer and Starling, and are still ahead of the White Sox. It's just luck, though. Same thing with the Minnesota Twins' Piranhas from 2001-2010. Robin Ventura would have them in the same exact position over the last 3+ seasons were he to have been managing the Royals and Yost switched to managing the White Sox. Remember, Ned Yost is one of the worst managers in baseball (according to almost all experts), so surely Ventura would have won TWO World Series titles and even gotten KC to the playoffs in 2014 when they finished 10 games over .500.

QUOTE (GhostofDickeyKerr @ Jun 12, 2016 -> 10:35 PM) Funny, since Himes was the best GM he ever had and the only one who gave a deuce about developing the minor league system. KW. 1999-2001. #1 minor league system in the game, according to Baseball America. Mostly that talent was used for trading for veterans (Everett/F.Garcia/Ritchie) but Buehrle/Garland stuck around. Biddle and Danny Wright for awhile. Fogg/Wells/Reed/Olivo/Morse/Webster/Myette cut loose. Barcelo succumbed to injuries. Rauch, Borchard and Ginter the biggest busts.

We keep saying players like Peavy and Rios didn't "cost" us anything. But they cost us a ton of payroll flexibility and limited further moves to improve the team. Same with James Shields, potentially. Say whatever you want about the Royals, but they've lucked into prolonging their window through 2017 by gaining the benefit of knowledge (White Sox can never be patient enough with their younger players) about Cuthbert, Colon, Merrifield, Eibner, Orlando, Fuentes, Butera right now while still competing "on the fly." If those players can at least hold their own (and none of them are Top 10, other than Cuthbert)...then if Moore can just keep Cain/Moustakas/Gordon/Perez together as the core with a bunch of Piranhas around them (see Twins 2001-2010), then it's a workable model...along with that bullpen/team speed/defense. One that won't cost over $140-150 million at any point in the future because they'll have to let Cain/Hosmer/Moustakas/Duffy/Escobar?Volquez/Davis all go after next year. Perez, Herrera, Gordon, Ventura, Kennedy will be their remaining core after 2017. The Royals certainly didn't anticipate Kendrys Morales going from DH of the Year to one of the bottom ten OPS-wise or for Escobar to be a complete black hole offensively, but the model isn't that hard if you develop players the right way who can do the little things...like making contact, not hurting you defensively, having some speed, advancing runners for the big boppers, etc.

Abreu hit a 98 MPH fastball today, there's something more mental and/or mechanics oriented going on there. The problem isn't even Abreu (or having a clean-up hitter) so much as the fact that Brett Lawrie's our fifth best hitter. That tells you all you need to know. We need at least 1 if not 2 BETTER hitters. That said, if you look at that 2012 team, it should have been converted into more assets. You had building blocks in Sale/Q/Santiago already to serve as your rotation. Peavy wasn't converted into Iglesias, but Avi instead, who we couldn't trade for more than Erik Johnson or Carlos Sanchez right now. Rios brought back Leury Garcia. Dunn was a perennial All-Star or at least put up 900+ OPS seasons at the very least. You had assets in Santos and Reed (maybe Santos had just been dealt for Molina to open the role for Reed, would have to look it up) which were turned into absolutely nothing. Obviously a lot of the players on that team just didn't last, especially the rookie pitchers. Nate Jones is still around, though, along with Sale and Q. We had a number of busts there also with Beckham, Viciedo....not to mention the eventual deterioration in the play of Alexei Ramirez and DeAza to look forward to. The end of the AJ years and the "coming" of Tyler Flowers. If we had made the right trades, drafted better players who were ready to contribute in 2013-14 (see the likes of Gillaspie/Flowers)...just too much patchwork (see Jeff Keppinger) and band aids, not enough high ceiling talent. At any rate, I still don't trust Hahn as a judge or evaluator of talent. I would rather give the job to Hostetler today and let him rebuild the system than let Rick Hahn make those same decisions.

1) Was Dayton Moore expected to have a "playoff" window within five years of taking over the team? 2) Had the White Sox been twenty years removed from the sniffing the playoffs? 3) Did the White Sox have a MUCH bigger operational budget to work with and many built-in advantages? If you guaranteed every Sox fan a ten team games over .500 in Year 7-8, two World Series appearances, one title and one near miss and a two year window remaining after that, you wouldn't find many fans who wouldn't take that...even if it meant waiting until 2024.

Why would anyone in their right mind trust KW or Hahn to "rebuild" this roster? What has Hahn done to earn that trust? Stayed a "loyal soldier" for a decade? Bringing up Anderson before he was 100% ready should be the last straw if you're JR...along with overpaying for James Shields.

Doggone it, Shuck. Aww, Shucks. More offensive frustration, this time with RISP. Needed to score at least one there...couldn't get the job done.

Finally, a good half inning out of Rodon. White Sox don't have an XB hit since Friday's homer parade.

Rodon and Jim Joyce getting into it a bit. No way that he's going to get the benefit of the doubt on strike calls after those first four innings.

QUOTE (flavum @ Jun 12, 2016 -> 01:24 PM) Royals are just as dead as the Sox this year, just with injuries. They have the Indians at home starting this week...big series for both teams. more for the Royals to hold serve after getting swept in Cleveland. CLE sets the tone of being the favorite or KC sends a message they're not going down so easily. Meanwhile, the Tigers are lurking right there, too.

56 k's for Frazier now. Offense still befuddled.

Rodon with yet another sky-high pitch count early in this one. What new? He pitched well his first three starts of the year, but this 10 game run has been pretty terrible and well into the low 5's for an ERA. Basically, what we expected to get from John Danks minus the K's.

Perez broke 2 bats there, maybe 3 on that hit. Tony Gwynn went for an entire season without breaking a bat. Perez hitting over .390 now in his career at USCF.