caulfield12

What about if we trade Abreu for something valuable, THEN get him back for the 2020 season? How's that?

Good logic. Will the White Sox be bold and step up to correctly identify the next Joe Maddon when the time is right, instead of being loyal to Renteria? Because they haven’t (yet) paid a Top 3-5 manager salary under Reinsdorf...

He’s huge...fastball, slider and change guy many looked at for MLB bullpen future.

$14/2=$7...$7-$6=$1 Morton became an incredibly valuable asset. Holland became driftwood. As far as McCullers goes, the Padres could have done the same...his father pitched for them, after all. They threw a barrage of money at Latin America instead. Neither team did anything illegal under baseball’s rules...but exploiting loopholes.

Would we still be rebuilding without those three recent successes to market/sell?

Well, bunting a guy that hit two homers the previous night (and not a very good sac bunter to start with) to set up one of the worst hitters/players in all of MLB just defies logic.

Who polarized this country so much? You're probably going to find 15-20 posts in a decade of Filibuster by me before Trump announced he was running for office. Surprising the two state legislators who are most upset about this are African-American Democrats. The only thing that's NOT shocking is that the Milwaukee County DA is actually a Democrat, John Chisholm. Back to your normally bipartisan mediation of this forum... Chisholm’s decision not to issue charges provoked outrage from state legislators Chris Larson and David Bowen. “All indications show the two West Milwaukee police officers, who did the 100% opposite of helping our neighbor by invading his home and repeatedly attacking him in the shower, were found not to have contributed to his death and are each still on duty,” Larson said in a Facebook post. “If this is the law of the land, the law needs to change.” Bowen said he had spoken with Chisholm and disagreed with his conclusion that the officers’ conduct wasn’t criminal because they were trying to get Trammell medical attention. “We need to be sure the D.A. recognizes it's a problem that it’s being seen as appropriate to tase someone 15 to 18 times,” Bowen said. “It doesn’t send the right message and we have to get focused on how do we do this a lot better.” Chisholm concluded there was “no basis to conclusively link Mr. Trammell’s death to actions taken by police officers.” To issue criminal charges, Chisholm “would have to demonstrate that the officers intentionally or negligently subjected Mr. Trammell to abuse under circumstances that were likely to cause bodily harm,” Chisholm wrote. To prove negligence, the prosecutor would have to “demonstrate negligence to a high degree, consisting of conduct that the officers realized created a substantial and unreasonable risk of harm,” he wrote. The prosecutor also would have to show that the officers’ conduct was not subject to a state law that prohibits criminal charges against police if their conduct is “in good faith and is an apparently authorized and reasonable fulfillment of any duties of a public office” or is “a reasonable accomplishment of a lawful arrest.” Bowen said he planned to contact the U.S. attorney to discuss the case. In the past, federal prosecutors have charged officers who were not charged or were found not guilty in state court. Reached Monday, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office said he could neither confirm nor deny whether officials there were investigating Trammell’s death. Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Online

Keuchel was a 7th round draft pick, fwiw. Charlie Morton was signed for only $14 million, 2 years as a FA from the Phillies (was injured for most of the year). Basically, about the same we were willing to spend on Derek Holland for one year... McHugh was claimed off waivers from the Rockies. McCullers was available all the way down in the compensation round, at the 41st pick. They also had Carlos Gomez and Carlos Beltran in the mix during this timeframe, but no HUGE free agent deals...the biggest was Reddick, and adding Verlander's salary, as well as McCann's.

But they were better off WITHOUT Aiken, because the following year they ended up with: 1) Bregman 2) Tucker 3) Daz Cameron, bundled for Cy Verlander Appel was the obvious miss, but having Springer, Altuve and Keuchel more than made up for that. Not to mention they were able to supplement with outside talent such as Gurriel (Cuba), Marwin Gonzalez, Reddick (FA), Gattis, McCann, McHugh, Morton, etc. Then they leveraged the excess to get Verlander/Cole/Giles.

Look at it like the negotiations between the Cards, White Sox and Luis Robert. There will be pluses and minuses for every situation. Chicago is one of the best cities to live in...great nightlife, lots of things to do for single players or guys with families. For a Hispanic player, it might be the best place to play in terms of the coaching staff and feeling 100% comfortable. Now, in the end, whether that's Machado, Harper or Arenado...who knows, right? We've been involved in this mating dance for decades, and have almost always finished in second or third place (Belle/Dunn/Abreu/L.Robert/Robertson some of the more notable exceptions). With all the talk of opt outs, it might actually be better for the White Sox to end up with two of Pollock/Kimbrel/A.Miller instead of spending 50% more for just one single player. From an excitement standpoint, I certainly "get it," but I'm not going to be wedded to those three names. That would be foolish.

Mexico City and Montreal two of Manfred's "favorite" expansion possibilities... https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/rob-manfred-gives-expansion-timeline-names-two-possible-cities/ https://nesn.com/2018/05/rob-manfred-reveals-two-possible-locations-for-mlb-expansion-franchise/?src=rss

Blame it on David Clarke and his epaulets!!!

Jirschele...that's another possibility. Royals ties, so that eliminates him to those who never bought into Getz as a development guru, lol. Guess we might as well throw that name into the hat/ring as well, because...why not? Knowing the White Sox, the odds of the candidate coming with loyalty ties are much greater than coming from outside the organization.

The Dodgers have more payroll on the DL than the entire payrolls of 4 MLB teams (including the White Sox)... For those counting at home, that makes eight players on the DL for the Dodgers. Rich Hill is now expected to return on Tuesday, but until that happens there’s a significant amount of money piling up for guys who aren’t playing. Like $100 million worth of inactive players. Well, $93,465,000 million to be exact. That’s higher than the total payroll of four MLB clubs, including three (Oakland, Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay) that have higher winning percentages than the 15-18 Dodgers. Among those injured Dodgers, Justin Turner (wrist) is out until at least mid-May, Tom Koehler (shoulder) won’t be ready until after the All-Star break, Corey Seager (UCL) isn’t expected back until 2019 and there’s still Julio Urias (shoulder) who is working his way back from surgery last June. Which is to say nothing of Yasiel Puig (hip, foot), Logan Forsythe (shoulder) or Hyun-Jin Ryu (groin). Before Kershaw’s injury, Los Angeles had already paid out $6,032,720 to players on the DL. In terms of wastes of money, that’s more than Mets are paying Matt Harvey ($5.6 million) this season. What a preposterous road trip. Day 1: Pedro Baez falls off mound. Day 4: Corey Seager blows out. Day 6: Hyun-Jin Ryu tears groin muscle off the bone. Day 8: 1st combined no-hitter in franchise history. Day 10: Clayton Kershaw injures arm. https://sports.yahoo.com/dodgers-add-clayton-kershaw-baseballs-expensive-disabled-list-175709473.html

I've been saying all along it will be Vizquel. 1) He's not far removed from this generation of players...the respect factor, especially from Latin American players. Other than the Padres, we might have the biggest collection of Hispanic talent in the game today. 2) Language fluency/communication skills 3) He has a lot of experience working on the staff with Leyland and even Lamont over in Detroit, and obviously played with the Sox in 2012 as well 4) One of the clear weaknesses of this team is defense...and that SHOULD be his specialty (not to mention he was quite effective in mentoring Alexei and coaxing some improvement out of him IMO) For a long time, it looked like Sandy Alomar, Jr., was the so-called favorite. Now, it could be McEwing (LaRussa protege), it could be Vizquel, and probably 50% betting odds for the remaining potential candidates.

Did the Cubs or Astros do that with their top prospects ahead of time just to impress Jon Lester? The fact of the matter is that Jimenez is about as close to a guarantee in terms of being a productive hitter as it gets. HOWEVER, we all know from watching the Mets in 2015 and watching them again in 2018 that "pitching dynasties" rarely conform to our expectations or can prove 100% resistant to injuries. In the end, money will win 90-95% of the FA bidding battles. And Kopech's got to work on his control and secondary pitches...there are too many pitchers (see almost every bullpen now) with guys who can throw 95-100 MPH and get lit up like a Christmas tree even at that velocity. It's all about his change and secondary stuff, getting ahead in counts and honing his control. To throw him to the wolves based on the number of minor league innings he has thrown so far in his career would be the definition of insane. It wouldn't make any fanbase happier...any agent...any potential FA who wouldn't want to see a year of control blown needlessly until both those players are 100% ready to hit the ground running and succeed/build confidence.

One thing is hard to argue. Renteria wasn't good enough for the Cubs...at least, not when they had the resources to get one of the top tier guys in Maddon. It does kind of get old when we're supposed to believe that Hahn is actually smarter than Epstein about staff/personnel decisions. What exactly would our belief be based upon there?

Fine, the Royals and Astros are better examples...

The majority of young players in those situations (Royals/Cubs) were promoted level by level through the minors...stayed together with their same draft class, experienced a winning culture together and learned to rely upon each other for 3-5 years in the minors as teammates. Moncada, Anderson, Jimenez and Kopech are the main guys who could theoretically be affected (by the overall lower level of talent and cohesiveness at Birmingham and Charlotte while they were moving up.) Hansen, Collins and Burdi as well. At any rate, we really won’t see this until 2020-21 when the Winston-Salem group hits the major league level together.

Wonder if we can break the trend of Sox managers being quite effective in their debut year (Ventura 2012, Renteria 2017) and then struggling thereafter to keep the team’s attention...?

WV GOP Senate primary continues to amaze and befuddle... https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/05/blankenship-polls-west-virginia-senate-primary-570752 His (Blankenship’s) scorching attacks have veered into deeply personal, even racially charged territory. This week, Blankenship began airing a TV commercial labeling McConnell “Cocaine Mitch,” an apparent reference to a 2014 report that drugs were once found aboard a shipping vessel owned by the family of McConnell’s wife, Taiwan-born Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao. Then, a few days later, Blankenship began airing another spot declaring that McConnell’s “China family has given him tens of millions of dollars.” ... But after lining up behind losing candidates in Alabama and Pennsylvania races — electoral defeats that ultimately proved embarrassing to Trump — many Republicans are skeptical that he will forcefully repudiate Blankenship ahead of the primary. Particularly concerning to Republicans is Blankenship’s TV spending. Over the final six days of the race, the self-funding coal baron is set to spend over $640,000 on commercials, according to media buying totals — more than Jenkins and Morrisey combined. Blankenship has spent over $2.5 million on TV ads in total, far more than his rivals. Senior Republicans say they are also distressed that Jenkins and Morrisey spent nearly all of the campaign savaging each other. Further complicating matters is that a Democratic super PAC, Duty and Country, convinced that Jenkins would pose a formidable challenge to Manchin, has invested $1.8 million targeting him in an effort to keep him from winning the GOP primary.

The White Sox might be shut out of the playoffs for another decade if they go to that option...

On the plus side, we’ve produced 3 of the top 12 shotstops statistically in baseball this year. #5 Escobar (who might not be ranked so high without Sox pitching to feast upon) and #9 Marcus Semien. Plus yet another for AJ Preller. http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/23424256/bruce-bochy-san-francisco-giants-laughs-brandon-mccarthy-reply-rare-tweet Next, hilarious Brandon McCarthy Twitter humor!!! And at least we’re not Yadier Molina about right now, so there’s that. Finally, passed the Royals for 3rd pick, closing in on Balt and Cincy!

Watching highlights now...why didn’t Yolmer throw home? Forgot there was only one out? He didn’t even look...he was playing in on the grass. Abreu was pissed, you could tell. Well, at least we brought the Twins right back into race. Indians are only 17-17.

Yeah, and Oakland padded their numbers as well with a free night (40,0000+) for the 50th Anniversary of the Coliseum. Strip those numbers away, they’re at 17,180 pg, not 19,055. White Sox currently at 15,732. Cleve should beat us, but Balt and Cincy are in sight. Detroit and KC will struggle all year long as well.