caulfield12

Ozzie had his Sunday line-ups, and they did tend to help the regulars get enough rest to survive the season. It certainly worked in 2005 and 2008. 2010, the Twins just had the better team, overall. The irony is that it feels like Ventura is playing "the long game," because he learned what can happen in September, 2012, if a team wears down and is just gassed. Obviously, they can still beat Ventura, theoretically...but that's the kind of line-up he's going to feel more confident facing. Getting swept at this point feels like there's no way to stop the bleeding until Tuesday with another Sale start. The problem with that way of thinking is that eventually even Chris Sale's going to lose one and then what will be the reaction of the team? Somebody has to step up, other than Chris, Eaton and Frazier (not going to be Abreu today, unless he pinch hits).

Strange to see three lefties in the top 6 against Rodon. Right now, with Cuthbert just sent down, they don't have a natural back-up at 3B because they're going to attempt to convert Cuthbert to 2B with Infante struggling defensively. Cuthbert has more offensive upside, so does Colon, but they weren't just going to eat Infante's horrific contract at this point. Carrying an extra reliever and only have Dyson/Merrifield/Butera on the bench (Morales is sitting out today from his weaker side). Still haven't heard confirmation if Greg bet on any of the games this weekend, lol...this game feels pretty pivotal psychologically. Get swept at home and the bleeding continues. "Here we go again." Stop it now, split the DH tomorrow, who knows?

I can just see it now. The Other Guys and The Nice Guys combined into The Other Nice Guys with two comedic pairings. Can't remember the last time Russell Crowe's had a movie the critics actually liked. Seems like ages. At the beginning of his career, it felt like he was going to win 3-5 Academy Awards. His personal life, weight gain, prickly relationship with the press and just about anyone that crosses his path as well as the affair with Meg Ryan kind of derailed things for him. I'm not going to count Les Miz as a great performance, but at least it was watchable...compared to, say, a Gerard Butler movie. Apparently it made $11.9 million over the weekend. Hopefully positive word of mouth allows it to hold for a month. Summer movie season is tough though, X-Men is coming next I think, lots more competition in the marketplace, wish these kinds of movies would be placed at "dead times" on the calendar where it feels like 3-4 weekends before you get a movie you actually might want to watch.

Josh Fields, Courtney Hawkins and Borchard all came from that same drafting philosophy of just projecting power and hoping they can teach all the other aspects of baseball around it... Then they went through that time period of trying to develop their own leadoff hitter, so you saw the drafting of Walker and Mitchell. In many ways, Brian Anderson fit the same mode of "great athlete" with a questionable work ethic and perhaps lacking the desire to make himself a great player or study the game because everything came so easy to him in college or the lower minor leagues (his teammate Kinsler, who was overlooked by some, is ending up as borderline HOF guy when all is said and done). Then he was shocked to go through failure and never made the adjustment. Might actually have gotten one right with Trayce Thompson, but we'll never know now. Always thought Semien, because he wasn't a super high draft pick with a lot of attention on him, had a better chance to progress at his own pace as the top prospects always get "challenged" by the organization, rather than their level of play forcing the organization to make a decision on them.

I still don't quite get why they PH Rollins late in the game for Sands...when there was basically zero chance for Rollins to go deep against Herrera. Head scratcher. It's not like Rollins was going to be able to steal off Perez, anyway, had he reached.

Rain should be ending in Boston around 2 p.m. Looks promising for them to get the game in at some point. Otherwise, they should let Johnson start against Salazar and put all their effort/s into gaining a split.

The White Sox are in a terrible position to get a multi-billion dollar t.v. deal at the moment. Obviously, it's three years in the future, but the White Sox are going to be lucky to get something in the same vicinity as the ROOT Sports deal for the Mariners in Seattle. Nobody knows how long the bubble will last with these deals, for one thing. There's lots of concern about the economy going into a period of flat/lower growth, higher interest rates, less corporate profits, credit/loans much harder to come by. Houston had all kinds of problems. Or look at LA, where they overbid by so much and tried to pass the costs onto consumers and none of the service providers were willing to go for it, with so many non-sports fans already cutting the cord (the last time a month or so ago there were attempted re-negotiations they rejected a 30-35% discount from the prior asking price). Point #2 is the Cubs are getting 80% of the attention and that means the lion's share of the marketing/advertising dollars in Chicago. Unless something changes dramatically in that dynamic (the Cubs' current young core) it doesn't make any sense to project a huge tv contract for the White Sox. Where's the profit going to come by paying the White Sox $120 million per season when they haven't made the playoffs (potentially) in over a decade at/by that time? We are well aware how bad the tv and radio ratings have been the last couple of years, in the bottom 3 of the major leagues, if not #30. This assumption that the new tv rights deal is going to "save" the White Sox somehow is pretty ludicrous unless they dramatically change the way they evaluate and procure talent.

They did trade Reed and Santos, fwiw. Devenski to the Astros for Myers. As far as other competitors for Frazier, the Indians were very interested, as they didn't have a solution at that position coming into the year. Right now, they're using Uribe.

They did trade Reed and Santos, fwiw. Devenski to the Astros for Myers. As far as other competitors for Frazier, the Indians were very interested, as they didn't have a solution at that position coming into the year. Right now, they're using Uribe. As far as the 2005-06 teams go, a lot of players were never the same...Iguchi, Politte, Hermanson, Contreras after he got injured in May of 2006, Pods just never got back his aggressiveness on the basepaths, Crede and Jenks eventually fell apart physically. But yeah, they calculated wrong on Anderson vs. Young in CF, Javy became more a "big" game headache, you could name about 25 things. Freddy Garcia and Garland eventually started to lose their effectiveness as well. It was a veteran team, and all those players peaked, with just a few exceptions. So many what ifs...if Borchard became the player he was projected to be, or Josh Fields, just one of those guys making it would have made a huge difference, and they never would have had to trade for Thome. Of course, we don't know how long Rowand would have lasted in a White Sox uniform before he was permanently injured with his reckless style of play.

Well, as far as the Thompson trade goes, it might as been as much about the Dodgers believing he would be happier in his home state and closer to his brother. Plus, it's more beneficial for their marketing (which doesn't need so much help, except for the tv viewership issues) for him to play in SoCal. He's also very good friends with Nolan Arenado, who makes his home in the NL West. That elevated comfort level has to be a significant part of his success. If you realistically look at it, with Pederson, Van Slyke, Puig, Crawford, Hernandez (can play everywhere) and Ethier, at the time of the deal....he seemed quite superfluous (even more than Micah). Now with Ethier injured and Puig/Crawford struggling, he's become vitally important. 930 OPS with 7 homers and 19 RBI's in only 88 AB's is pretty darned impressive. So far, he's actually raised the OPS he put up with the Sox, which was heavily inflated by a hot streak for 3 weeks or so in the beginning. It is a bit frustrating we haven't even come close to producing even an 800 OPS guy since Beckham's 2009 season and now we have Carter at 893 and Trayce well over 900. Marcus Semien also has 10 homers and a 742 playing half his games at 0.C0. 7 of Semien's homers have come in that park, where there aren't any cheapie homers, especially at night when it's cold and crisp. It would have been awesomely exciting to see a Sox line-up with Thompson, Eaton, Avi Garcia, Semien, Tim Anderson, Micah Johnson/Saladino/Sanchez and Carter take the field together as a unit. Well, MAYBE not Avi.

The Jose Paniagua game in 2003 (even though they barely held on in the end and actually won) was the turning point for sure in that season with the Twins...along with the Burke/Torii Hunter takedown. 2010, Thome's homer off Matt Thornton. 2005, Sizemore dropping that ball in KC and Riske giving up the homer to Crede

QUOTE (SpankyEaton @ May 21, 2016 -> 06:47 PM) The only players that appeal to me are: Kenley Jansen Gio Gonzalez Carlos Santana Josh Reddick Colby Rasmus Ian Desmond Matt Wieters Wilson Ramos I don't know much about the minor league system that we have but I hope that at least one or two of the guys you've mentioned can come in and contribute. I don't regret trading Thompson to get Frazier either - they needed smeone to play third that didn't suck. Who knows what will happen, I just hope they draft better, play better and get better overall. Otherwise, we'll have to hope they sell the team when JR passes. Ramos might be the only one (along with Jansen) you can get for less than $50 million on a 3 year contract. With Robertson's presence for another two seasons, hard to imagine they'd invest another $10-12 million per season on a reliever with all the other positional holes. Santana probably will have his option picked up for 2017, especially if the Indians make the post-season. Bringing back Gio a 3rd time would be pretty humorous...and result in a Shark-like season in the AL. It does go to show how hard it is to find catching solutions that are not just band-aids. Even someone like Francisco Cervelli is earning over $10 million per season.

Braun would take Cabrera's place sometimes and Avi's place sometimes at DH. I don't see the White Sox taking on that contract though, especially adding another former PEDs guy to go along with Melky. http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/03/2016...ree-agents.html It's a HORRIFIC market coming up, especially for outfielders and pitchers. If there's one certainty about their current predicament, it's that offseason FA fixes won't do it...and the farm system, almost 2 months in, is bereft of new prospects who can contribute for next year in Chicago. Unless you're confident in Nicky Delmonico and Danny Hayes (obviously there's Anderson, maybe Fulmer or Danish). And about half of that $23 million is getting eaten up by automatic raises/salary escalators...not to mention arbitration for guys like Avi, Lawrie and Abreu, assuming they're all still with the club. Frazier will be more expensive, too.

Dragan The Last Fire-Bender And Definitely Not Chief Bender? That kid has Celtics/Stevens written all over him.

Nicky Delmonico will save the day (or not)! I guess Tyler Danish is looking like he MIGHT be a legit prospect again, although he still seems to be slated more for the pen. Last year was a lot more fun to keep track of on the prospects front when Montas started to go on his tear.

Yeah, you'd hope Fulmer would get himself straightened out but he's having enough issues you just wonder if our recent run of success with pitching can continue forever...I'm sure he'll be fine in the end, and there's no reason to talk about him being a reliever (for now), but dang. Between him and Engel, taking some definite steps back on progression tracks this year. May hasn't shown that he's much more than a 4th/5th outfielder, either. Trey's muddling along with a 675ish OPS.

QUOTE (Alexeihyeess @ May 21, 2016 -> 01:54 PM) A day off is needed Those offdays on Thursday and Monday seemingly made things worse, except giving the bullpen some rest. But yeah, four games in 3 days against the Indians, then 4 in KC (where we actually are much better than at home), then visiting NY and we also never tend to play well in DET, either. Brutal. Erik Johnson might be forced to take one on the chin MON to preserve the pen.

Sale/Q/Eaton/Robertson/Frazier for...? I would have included Rodon (just to pacify Boras) but his value is down a bit for now.

2012 was fun until that 4-11 finish. It was totally unexpected. 11 rookie pitchers. Q became a stud from out of nowhere. For 2-3 weeks, Youkilis looked like he had rediscovered the fountain of youth. Breath of fresh air with Ozzie's drama gone. Wonder if Greg backed up his talk by betting his house on the Royals these first two games? That would have been ballsy. Ventura/Rodon would have been the most logical one entering the series to wager on.

I blame this loss on the curse of the // // // in the opening post. Looks too weird. Bad omen. Mariners, Red Sox and Orioles all out in front of us now.

QUOTE (Baron @ May 21, 2016 -> 03:24 PM) You dont blow the front office apart now. You see what they do during the deadline. You fire Robin and elevate Anderson for now. See what that does. You acquire players during the deadline. See if that helps. If none of that works then you fire the front office and begin the rebuild. But they should explore all those other avenues first. Saladino's doing just fine. The biggest problem isn't SS or even the 5th starter at the moment, or the bullpen. It's Jose Abreu, first and foremost. Without him being at least his 2015 version, forget about it. Then you have a long list...Jackson, Lawrie, Avi Garcia, the catchers. I think Hahn actually should be fired if they push Tim Anderson up before he's ready to try to "save" this season. Not with that walk rate.

QUOTE (Lip Man 1 @ May 21, 2016 -> 03:22 PM) Typical White Sox garbage. How many days until the Bears open training camp? Mark Is anyone really excited about the Bears this year?

Feel bad for all the former White Sox greats who had "Homecoming Weekend" and One Dog, Black Jack, Rock Raines and Roberto Hernandez have to watch this meltdown...then go out to dinner and pick up Farmer and DJ's checks? Depressing...4 against CLE, 4 against KC, then the Mets and Tigers. FUN FUN FUN.

Great, now 8-23 against the Royals in their last 31 games at USCF. Red Sox up 4-0, so still probably up 1 1/2 on the Indians and now just 2 1/2 to the Royals. Tigers will be 4 1/2 or 5 1/2.

Talk about going out with a whimper in this game after the bases-loaded fiasco...can they at least get a baserunner on? Usually Davis puts a runner or two on, despite his 25/26 saves coming into the blown one against the Braves last Sunday. This year...just three hits surrendered in his last 12 outings and simply hadn't been given enough opportunities to pitch. White Sox with runners on base every inning in this game except for the 8th. Eaton has a shot at least. Give 'em a thrill.