caulfield12

It would be a lot easier to stomach if not for: 1) LaRoche leaving too late in ST 2) Having Avi/Beckham/Viciedo forced on us year after year 3) If we actually had a treasure chest of minor league prospects champing at the bit for playing time 4) Missing on all those opportunities in the off-season (but hey, at least we didn't sign Jason Heyward!)

QUOTE (pettie4sox @ Apr 21, 2016 -> 08:15 PM) PEDS If it wasn't for exposing McGwire/Sosa after that historic 1998 season/HR chase...you could almost argue that protecting Arrieta from being outed would be worth a lot more to MLB than "heartbreaking" news of a PEDS violation and the Cubs' season being upended.

Is this the low point for Sox fans in terms of their relative position against the Cubs? If it wasn't last post-season, or 2003...it feels like it is coming soon. Would hate to compare the tv and radio ratings for the respective series this week...but it would be interesting to see how many more were watching Arrieta tonight (granted, the no-hitter will attract more the last three innings, but the "average" over the broadcast) and compare it with the Sale start. Of course, that's not altogether fair since it was a day game, but the Cubs are just sucking all the air out of the room. It almost makes you cringe HOPING that something bad happens (not an injury to Arrieta)...that strange sensation of rooting almost as hard against the Cubs as for the White Sox.

We'll also throw in a set of instructional videos from the Todd Steverson "How to Hit Like a Big Leaguer" collection done in conjunction with world-renowned coach/guru Tom Emanski and Fred McGriff absolutely free if you call in the next 9 minutes. 1-800-SOX-RAKE

QUOTE (SoxSteve @ Apr 21, 2016 -> 05:07 PM) True but those guys knocked in 100 plus runs and hit 30 homers. And when it's your average for the last 3 years that tells me something and its not the kind of player i want on my team. I don't need to see what his WAR IS. That's says it all And putting up those RBI numbers are completely different contexts if you're comparing the 2016 White Sox with the Cubs or Cardinals. That's the whole point of statistics, after all, to account for those differences. As far as the error and strikeout numbers go, once again, context. From a SS, you can have your Royce Clayton or Jimmy Rollins who make all the routine plays or you can have a Valentin or Uribe that will probably make more total errors but have a lot more total chances due to range, and a lot more outs recorded due to their arm strength. If a SS fields the ball cleanly but can't get the ball to 1b in time, it's never going to be recorded as an error unless he throws it away. Then you have to look at the average offensive production of players at that position. Ian Desmond is still mentally in a funk that dates back to passing up that $107 million contract, but Jon Daniels in Texas is one of the smartest GM's in the game. Surely they took more into consideration than errors/strikeouts when signing Desmond to play in the outfield when he'd never done so before.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Apr 21, 2016 -> 07:20 PM) This thread should be stickied every early march as well. Spring doesn't mean s***. My name is Wilson Betemit, I'm the second most interesting man in the world and I fully support this message.

QUOTE (SCCWS @ Apr 21, 2016 -> 06:32 PM) To think the Red Sox offered Iglesias and we said no. You have two evaluation errors there, perhaps three (remains to be seen)... One, on Avi Garcia. Two, on the fact that they weren't ready to let go of Alexei Ramirez (until it was too late and they'd already missed the chance to get Iglesias. Plus they got nothing in return for him.) Three, the assumption Anderson would play that position in the future. Looking back, it's always those little things. Granted, the Tigers have a payroll nearly $80 million higher than the White Sox, but if you put JD Martinez (released), Salty and Iglesias on the White Sox, you likely have a first place team that can compete with almost anyone.

QUOTE (ewokpelts @ Apr 21, 2016 -> 07:45 AM) The sox get free rent if attendance falls below 1.2 million. They haven't hit that in the new park. And last year saw an attendance increase from 2014. I'm not sure why that would be an issue for a club that makes its 125 million dollar payroll simply with tv money. Because that 3,000 extra in attendance per game is going to provide them the additional $9 million (+$13 million saved on LaRoche) that it's going to take to afford a Carlos Gonzalez or Jay Bruce. https://www.baseballprospectus.com/compensa...cago-white-sox/ The White Sox are at $114.5 million, KC at $131.5 million and the Tigers at $198.5 million, fwiw.

It just seems close to implausible the White Sox would give Coats the starting job at the end of April or in early May when they're in first place or within hailing distance of KC/Detroit. After passing on all those available hitters (and yes, a large part of it was the late timing of the LaRoche decision), it's going to feel like a slap in the face to fans having to watch the likes of Upton and Gordon in the same division while the White Sox continue as a bottom 8-10 MLB offense. You can argue the Tigers have Gose getting at-bats, the Royals have Dyson/Orlando/Fuentes...but both of those offenses are much more balanced top to bottom. Garcia's spot was EXPECTED to be roughly the 4th or 5th most productive in the line-up (after Abreu, Frazier, Eaton and Cabrera)...at the very worst, the equivalent of Lawrie. That's a lot of pressure to put on a rookie, and a test that has been failed more often than not. The last homegrown rookies who held their own were Fields and Owens in 2007, and those were pretty meaningless games that they excelled in...same with Trayce Thompson last year.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Apr 21, 2016 -> 06:32 AM) Todd Frazier cost Montas, Thompson, & Johnson. No way in hell CarGo costs two top 50 type prospects. Outside of a few select trades (Shelby Miller, Cole Hamel), teams simply aren't giving up high end prospects and definitely not without years of control or limited payroll obligations for the player being acquired. Don't forget the Giles and Kimbrel trades. Philadelphia's sitting pretty right now in terms of young pitching. Of course, the Devil's Advocate position is that there is no compelling reason for the Rockies to trade CarGo, either...not with Story doing so well and the team at least semi-competitive in the early going (Blackmon's apparently out, too). Colorado isn't hurting financially, and the focus has come off Jose Reyes and onto more positives for that franchise. They have the second best young 3B in the game (to Machado) in Nolan Arenado as well. As for Cincy, the Reds will want to ride Bruce's positive start and hope if he can extend it for 2+ months that it will increase his trade value and they might not even end up having to eat anything on him or Phillips (who's also off to a solid start, but has no that no-trade clause).

http://www.freep.com/story/sports/mlb/tige...-moya/83275764/ Here's another attempt from a Detroit writer at stirring up the trade market. Moya is blocked now by Upton/JD Martinez, but they would be unlikely to help a division rival (the year of the Garcia trade, the White Sox were well out of it already)...and then how much do we trust someone from the Tigers with how Avi's panned out? They seemingly are making the better choices (Salty, JD Martinez, Iglesias) while their castoffs like Avila and Jackson (he's doing better than it looks statistically) are struggling. Joey Gallo's an interesting name, if you like your hitters in the "all or nothing" Dunn/Thome/LaRoche camp. Seemingly blocked at multiple positions, value's down quite a bit. Billy Hamilton...not sure I want to touch this one with a ten foot pole. Danny Duffy...KC bullpen (see Moya, and he would be adding more to our overall left-handedness again)...don't see a match, unless Cooper really coveted him (plus KC might need to replace Young/Medlen, etc., at some point) Matt Kemp...this name has been much discussed, depends upon the financials, similar to Hanley Ramirez in terms of status (how much would the Padres be willing to pay to get rid of him?) Like CarGo, can absolutely carry a team for 4-6 weeks but is the negative baggage worth it? Another name would be Jurickson Profar...who also appears to be blocked in Texas, but they're going to wait it out and see if they can keep him at middle infield before they give up and move him to the outfield.

12,093 for the night game, 12,785 for the day game (WED)...for an increase of 5.7%. Seems they're fighting for every possible fan they can get with those promotions (flash sales) for selected seats at $10 in different locations. Cincy (team in complete rebuild mode) at 12,979 and CLE at 9,890 today.

Even with the presence of Sale (Trout for the Angels games), Abreu, etc., it hasn't meant much because of the team simply not winning and/or playing entertaining AND sound baseball for three years now. We're 27th in the majors in attendance at this point. The only teams behind are OAK, CLE and TB. Two of those are teams with stadium issues, one a team which had the longest streak of consecutive sellouts at Jacobs Field but has simply never recovered from two complete sell-offs/rebuilds and another factor was CLE being hard-hit by the 2008-2009 financial crisis. CLE drawing 9,890 instead of the White Sox or Reds (today's crowds) drawing about 3,000 more is around the worst-case scenario...and then you have the stadium lease agreement which has a controversial clause subsidizing attendance if it falls below a certain amount, can't remember if it's 1.2 or 1.4 million. As of this exact moment, we're in first place by 1/2 game over KC and 1 game over the Tigers, with Cleveland trudging along around .500.

Matt Latos, Chicago's answer to Jarrod Saltalamacchia. That has to be one of the highest return on investments through 3 starts of any free agent pitcher. Of course, otoh, returns on Avi Garcia, Rollins, the catching corps and Austin Jackson leave something to be desired. At any rate, the plus of having a competitive team is it's exerting some pressure on Hahn not to allow another Beckham/Viciedo "development year" for Garcia. At best, he has six weeks to prove himself.

http://www.ajc.com/news/sports/baseball/re...domestic/nq4t9/ Probably the end of that one...although I'm sure with the recent assault and battery charges, you could get him for an extreme discount to DH. Now whether JR/KW/Hahn/Ventura would risk bringing him in and the fallout (hey, nobody will notice because the Cubs are soaking up 90% of the spotlight) is another question altogether.

You can probably put Melky Cabrera (bigger total contract) and LaRoche together...

Latos, Albers and Lawrie are the only ones better than advertised (so far)...perhaps Rodon if you really want to push the definition.

As long as they continue to play good baseball, that will be enough for most. Obviously the margin for error is razor thin when you're not scoring...and we saw that today with Quintana's error being the difference in the final score. At any rate, it's hard to "expect" to win 2/3 at Tampa, and the Sox faced some pretty tough pitching as well (I know, I know...it's too early for tip your cap to Erasmo Ramirez) in Odorizzi and Moore.

Almost wish they would have doubled down on the pitching (instead) and signed Kenta Maeda...but it would have been so risky for the Sox based on the medical reports over the winter. And Tanaka looked REALLY good two seasons ago but I doubt anyone here would want that contract on the books now.

There was an article at SSS that stated we had the worst OPS in the major leagues the first time 1-9 in the order facing a pitcher. Obviously that didn't improve on Sunday. I think we were something like 8th/9th worst the second and third time through the order against the starter. With the increasing specialization in the bullpen department, it's obviously not ideal to be playing catch up and relying on scoring runs in innings 4-6 instead of jumping out to early leads and having the confidence your defense and bullpen can close it out. I don't know what the hell it is about playing in that terrible stadium, but just winning 1/3 shouldn't be entirely shocking. You almost felt it like HAD to happen after Quintana missing the bag with his foot (overran it, poorly-timed throw, whatever). We can point to the Royals losing 2/3 in Oakland, whereas we won 3/4...or the fact we've only played two homes games so far the entire season. All I know is that it seems like a century since the last time we had really good offensive teams....2006 for 4 1/2 months and then 2008 when Quentin and Alexei were on fire. Almost miss that time from 2000-2004 when we didn't have enough pitching to go with our explosive (but highly inconsistent) offense. Bottom line, we're still at least one impact bat (not absolutely sure it HAS to be LH but that would help, too) away from being a really good team. We're also one major injury to the pitching staff or bullpen (Robertson/Jones/Albers) from being a below .500 squad as well.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Apr 16, 2016 -> 01:48 PM) He has been extremely unlucky though. He's barely missed out on 3-4 homers...one, because of the weather/wind at USCF, the other a foul ball down the LF line foul by 4-6 inches that was followed up by a huge two run single up the middle.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Apr 16, 2016 -> 09:54 PM) If Petricka and Putnam are going to pitch like this, they're dispensable. Petricka should be good for a clean inning of ground balls...he doesn't need to be walking guys. Kahnle has been killed by walks his entire career...so far,he has 1 in 4 Charlotte appearances. Walks are the only thing that have held him back. Small sample size to be sure, but if that's cured, this team can use him. On the other hand, how many guys with "plus" arms like Cleto or MacDougal or Aardsma ever figured things out 100% and got their control issues dealt with... Doesn't happen very often. Politte is one of the (temporary) examples. Obviously, Matt Thornton. But the "success" rate must be something like 1 in 50. Statistically, we have the best bullpen in the AL. In reality, we have a near elite closer, a sketchy (also because of the lack of a big wipeout pitch) lefty set-up guy in Duke, an unproven (because of the injury/rehab aspect) 8th inning set up man in Nate Jones (maybe we will be able to check his name off as dependable if he's consistently holding leads in significant August/September games)...then a bunch of "serviceable" but not elite guys like Putnam, Petricka and Jennings who would get picked up instantly from the waiver wire but also wouldn't garner much of a trade return. In April, that list looks fine...but will it hold up?

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Apr 16, 2016 -> 08:07 PM) Jennings has pitched in 2 games this year with 4 IP and hasn't given up a ER, today included even if he wasn't ideal. He was on 8 days rest. He's not struggling. His last 37 innings pitched, he has an era of 1.22. His splits career wise aren't ideal, but whatever. He should not be cut. Duke should be on the chopping block, contract be damned. Sometimes statistics for those "junk" innings can be fairly useless. The White Sox have had a string of guys over the last decade whose numbers were better than reality, such as DJ Carrasco. I'd love to see numbers for high leverage situations, or the times he's been effective when we've had a 1-3 run lead from the 6th inning onwards. It's pretty telling that with all those seemingly great numbers, there hasn't even been a whisper about Duke being replaced by Jennings (eventually). Obviously, Duke will keep that top lefty job for the next 4-6 weeks regardless (contracts baby!), but he needs to start showing some better results.

Well, the obvious problem there are Turner, Erik Johnson, Carroll and Beck not exactly being enticing options, and Fulmer clearly going through his own set of growing pains. Agree they will need to do something, and Gonzalez is probably going to be the first option. Thankfully they have LaRoche's deal off the books, but looking for pitching AND hitting at the ASB without very much to entice teams in terms of trade return isn't exactly an enviable position to be in. That said, we added Hudson, Liriano, Myers and Youkilis at no major expense in 2012, other than Eduardo Escobar.

And then you had Putnam and Jennings and Duke struggling. Duke could eventually become a big issue if he doesn't establish any respect for his fastball...he hasn't been particularly effective getting lefties out. Offensively, we're still that one bat short...no surprises there. Hopefully Avila or Navarro can get into some type of offensive rhythm at some point. (Of course, Salty is tearing it up for the Tigers.) With Danks, the most logical thing is replacing Jennings and trying to get his velocity to 92-93 and hope he can be somewhat more effective in that loogy role, and it wouldn't be totally surprising if he supplanted Duke IMO. The Royals have Chris Young who is 0-3, we have Danks...it's a trade-off, but that's not good enough to overtake them because they have superior depth in that area. (Shout out to Dick Allen, Brandon Finnegan is coming around now.)