caulfield12

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 29, 2016 -> 03:22 PM) Because the White Sox are the 2nd team in the smallest market with multiple teams. Oakland is behind the Sox...Washington/Baltimore are lumped together now as well, by most.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Sep 29, 2016 -> 01:35 PM) HRC being a better candidate than Donald Trump adds nothing to her allure as a candidate. I never did what you claim with the bolded. My parents vote. My grandparents had voted in every election when they were alive. I don't feel the need to waste my time voting when the state I live in is a foregone conclusion. The rest of your post is all over the place and a task to respond to. I am not sure why you and many others think the government is out here trying to save children. Sure it happens, but like Napoleon said, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." Something happened during the 1984/1988 elections where the funding elections and money in politics started to blow up. Both parties ended up sucking the tit of the powers traditional liberals used to hate. The banks, wall street, the military complex, etc. Past that, the liberals went so far left that their popular opinions aren't capitalistic or anywhere near in line with the idea of government this country was founded on. This has led to the expansion of government, more ugly foreign affair efforts and a smaller middle class yet the Democrats still scream for more government. With the history of human beings as my basis, it probably won't end in our favor. Yeah, the CHIP initiative is absolutely corruption at its finest. Ironically, Trump fashions himself another Napoleon. Hopefully he ends up exiled as well. So Michelle Obama's wife would have been excoriated had she taken the more active role Hillary did in 1993-94. What should she have been doing, exactly? Besides getting ripped for excessive vacations and spending money on travel expenses, she's been very similar to both Bush wives. Why don't you start your own Ayn Rand Party? Citizens United is 50% to blame for the money issue, and Republicans still aren't smart enough to figure out how to use that huge fundraising advantage to their benefit on the national level. We didn't have Republican presidents for 28/40 years from 1968-2008? From 1994 on, what did the Gingrich Revolution accomplish? The Tea Party Revolution? Did you miss all the inane foreign policy decisions and needless interventions under Nixon, Reagan and the Bushes? In the end, there's no screaming for more government. Social security, Medicare, military spending and interest on the debt is about all we're going to get...so we should believe that trickle down or voodoo economics actually works, and that every politician isn't limited to just two difficult choices, either investing into higher education OR increasing immigration? God help the USA if Melania is First Lady. Although it would be nice to undercut his central campaign theme of being anti-immigration. Mexicans and Alicia Machado, stay out, but if you're a Czech or Slovenian supermodel, come on down. We really don't have enough beauty in America, might as well import some more.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Sep 29, 2016 -> 02:29 PM) But what do you want Robin to do differently? What would you have a new manager do differently? I mean, I think we can all think of some instances where we disagreed with some of Robin;'s bullpen moves, but like really, what is this team lacking from a manager that is preventing it from winning? I get that it's attractive to use the manager as a scapegoat. But if you really JUST want someone's head to roll, I think it's all a waste of bluster. Because if the front office fires the manager and then trots the same half-assed team out there, are you really going to be satisfied? Yes, Robin has a losing record as a manager. So does the janitor, I guess. Who cares? Neither of them win or lose games. Front offices use managers as "fall guys" to placate angry fan mobs. It's a nearly meaningless gesture and it SHOULDN'T be enough for you. Don't let them pass off a different manager as a proxy for change. If the White Sox want to act the opposite of all of MLB teams in regard, great. But at least provide some evidence their plan is working or at least has a decent chance to work. They just shouldn't be surprised when a majority of the fans reject their operating philosophy. Has a school district under pressure from parents ever kept a principal in place with a record of such poor results without trying a change in leadership? Why are they trying to prove they're smarter than everyone else (especially their own fans) when there's almost nothing they can point to as reasons why he should be retained? I'm almost ready to believe they can just change the tagline for 2017 to Returning the Pride, change little of the roster and still believe nobody will be any the wiser.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 29, 2016 -> 02:43 PM) Didn't you just post that all of the teams in post season contention are all top revenue teams except for one? Nope. That was top half though...the White Sox were #16 coming into the season. If we can't operate in that 8-16 space (and 8 was the franchise value according to Forbes less than a decade ago), what's the point?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 29, 2016 -> 01:30 PM) Again, even with another $100 million, or a 40+% increase in revenue, they would STILL be closer to last than first. I get people hate JR, but I wish they wouldn't let that color the actual facts. What is the average revenue of the middle 10 MLB teams? #11-20. Get out of here acting like we're Tampa. 25 other teams in baseball are also closer to Tampa than the Yankees. All this does is suggest the team be sold because there's no shot to compete, but at least we don't have to deal with the Cubs and Cardinals and Pirates every year. The AL Central doesn't have any financial juggernauts like the east and west coast teams.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 29, 2016 -> 11:38 AM) The reality of revenue is this. The White Sox are no where near the big market teams in terms of dollars earned. The Yankees brought in $516 million in revenue last year. Tampa brought in $193 million. The White Sox brought in $240million. But there's no correlation there with winning recently...and the Yankees, especially in terms of the World Series. Otoh, you can obviously compete where the Royals, Astros, Pirates, Indians, etc., are in terms of revenues but the margin of error is that much much smaller. That's why you have also the Red Sox bouncing up and down but having the ability every year to finish in first, at least, if things go right. The common denominator is a superior farm system talent and quality depth. Nobody has ever compared the Sox with the Yankees, Red Sox, Giants, Dodgers or Cubs. It's irrelevant. Of course, we only hear how Ilitch is creating a train wreck with reckless spending in Detroit, but the Tigers' fans have had a good product there to consume for going on 11 years now at least. Finally, Minnesota, Cleveland and KC all have/had much smaller revenue streams than the Sox the last 15+ years and almost always seem to kick our butts, too. Tampa Bay has been much more cost-efficient as well, since you name-dropped them.

So they deliberately misled the fans the last two years that they could compete...? You can't now retroactively say the 2015 wasn't at least designed to be a playoff team but was rebuilding instead. And Frazier was a pretty huge acquisition at the time...just no follow up from that point onwards.

Hello incoming flood of "collateral damage" civil action lawsuits against the U.S.

You know things are bad when more than half the moderators (the die hardest of all) are pretty down, if not despondent. Even if Renteria is the manager next year, a lot of fans are close to fed up with how this all has played out over the last 24 hours.

Cue the Anderson was picked 17th, Hawkins 13th refrain...

Theo Epstein would be the sixth biggest contract in Sox history. Abreu, Danks, Buehrle, Ordonez and Konerko...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/colum...928-column.html The juxtaposition between the Cubs' and Sox announcements was jarring, to say the least. AS THEO EPSTEIN RECEIVES COMMITMENT ($50 million for 5 years), VENTURA TWISTS IN THE WIND I'm pretty sure the White Sox haven't spent $50 million on the GM's salary over the history of the entire franchise.

Ventura is only four more victories away from a 3-5 year contract extension. 81-81 OR BUST.

Arizona Diamondbacks manager Chip Hale is expected to be fired, with Phil Nevin the leading candidate to replace him. Even the DBacks/LaRussa/Stewart are smart enough to fire their manager when they arguably have been the worst front office over an 18 month period in recent MLB history... They could take the top 3-4 guys behind Theo/Hoyer/McLeod...starting with Bush and Rehman, randomly throw darts at their organizational chart and bring those guys over to the SouthSide, and undoubtedly have a heckuva lot better (and more cohesive/vision-oriented) organization than we currently do. http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/team/front_office.jsp?c_id=chc

QUOTE (Dunt @ Sep 28, 2016 -> 10:19 PM) If you want an idea how the White Sox FO really feels about the fanbase, read that follow up Nightengale piece. f*** this organization. http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2...-hale/91226072/ Apparently, Nightengale had a certain SoxTalk poster ghostwrite the second half of that article. Or his account was hacked. The irony is that even college football programs like LSU and maybe Oklahoma are in the process of firing guys who make MANY multiples of Ventura's $1.5 million salary before the halfway mark in the season. The last five seasons would make a perfect case study/textbook for any business school's "EXACTLY WHAT NOT TO DO IF YOU'RE IN PUBLIC RELATIONS." I suppose if the business side of things is completely irrelevant and you're satisfied with your profit margins and content that thousands were conned/tricked into buying partial season ticket plans in late April/early May only to end up eating most of those tickets...then you should go ahead and throw yourselves a "Mission Accomplished" party. Good job, JR!

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 28, 2016 -> 04:41 PM) My version is that JR has created a system where there is no accountability at any level and as a consequence everyone tried to keep things just as they are so that their jobs never are put under pressure. No one in the org is willing to challenge their current formula as fundamentally flawed because they would be the disloyal one if they did so. So everyone just insists they did a good job and there's no problem. If Hahn changes managers then someone did something wrong by hiring and extending him - can't admit that. The one place where this started breaking out was having two players come out and say that this team didn't care about winning, in various ways. They've brought in Haber, Hostetler and Paddy. Basically the only evidence of ANY attempt at changing. That said, keeping KW, Hahn and Buddy Bell in charge of this whole debacle almost begs belief. My first reaction was more along the lines of Thad Bosley, that it was just a "graceful" exit, but the vitriol being expressed at different websites where this story is being carried is worse than I've ever seen it...it feels like the mid to late 80's as a White Sox fan again, when the team was tottering on the abyss of moving to another city. Hahn has said there was going to be a careful analysis of ALL THE REASONS FOR THE MEDIOCRE PLAY, and since none of them are apparently the major league coaching staff, that means we essentially have to trust a front office that can't even see its nose in front of its face to fix the talent mix in the face of the worst free agency class in recent history. Unbelievable. My only joy this off-season again will come from rooting AGAINST the Cubs and rooting for the Rangers/Banister to win the World Series finally...and moments like the Dee Gordon homer off Colon, that any baseball fan can appreciate regardless of their allegiance.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 27, 2016 -> 09:23 PM) This is an example of the bias against Trump. This is in a news story on CNN.com not an opinion piece. ... The sentence says: "With no apparent consideration for the political recklessness of his crude comments, Trump once again went after Machado's physical appearance, bringing her up on his own." The writer said the comments were "crude" and says they were politically "reckless." Says who? This is how you can tell the writer of the story favors Hillary over Trump. And don't get me started with the TV folks like Chris Matthews. He basically issued a love letter to Hillary making sure he had the first crack at who won the debate. He screamed that it was a shutout with HIllary hitting five home runs to Trump's none. Cmon Chris. Any Trump supporter could point to five zinger lines Trump had that would look good as soundbites as well as Hillary's. If Hillary won, it was by a very very small margin. The bias amazes me. Name one occasion when a female candidate commented on the attractiveness of male candidates, or heck, her opinion on Brit Hume's appearance? Nobody would crucify them for "hiding behind being female"? If you're alienating 14.5% of voters by attacking a female and Hispanic, and your weakest numbers are coming from women and minorities, how is that not a reckless strategy if you're attempting to make inroads with that group? Even if EVERY male in the US agreed, it would still be a losing line of attack because more and more females are voting than ever before. Female and non-white voters are 62.2% of the electorate...why would he want to continue focusing on this topic?

Therein lies the problem....if a slightly above average veteran like Reddick is way out of their price range (supply and demand imbalance) or comfort zone...that leaves only two choices, high risk players who are subsidized like Sandoval or the likes of Puig, change of scenery types that are rolls of the dice at best. If they pay anything close to the going rate in free agency, their budget will blow up quickly before they come remotely close to a team projected at 85-89 wins.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 27, 2016 -> 10:50 PM) LOL it's just as I predicted. Everybody says Hillary won. All the "legit" cable outlets, newspapers, etc. There's absoultely no proof of her winning. You can spin it any way you want and the media is spinning it as "well prepared Hillary" shuts up mean ol Trump who kept interrupting her of all things! LOL. You ever watch a political TV show? Except for Meghan McCain's show, all they do is scream over each other. And Trump is seen as evil for doing this and Hillary the great shrugged it off and WON!! She is the clear cut winner. No matter there is no proof she won. She in fact was so boring it's hard to comprehend. But she's already been deemed a modern American hero for her epic debate performance vs. the INTERRUPTOR! Give me a fricking break please. And the pundits say how could Trump not attack Hillary on Emails, Benghazi, her husband's infidelities. And if he'd have done that it woulda been WE DO NOT WANT A PRESIDENT that rude! How dare he mention those things! Round Two ... more of the same, then Round Three the heavy knockout punch. The media will beat Trump into submission with the KO after debate three. And in reality ... the debates will all be boring ties. VOTE JESSE VENTURA! 84-86 million Americans were tuning in for fireworks. At any rate, I don't believe anyone in the universe described her as a modern American hero. If anything, she might be the last Baby Boomer to run for the presidency, although theoretically a sixty-year old born in 1960 could run in 2020. Just think the next leader has to be closer to 40 than 70. And, if you care nothing about the details of governing, evidence of preparation or policy knowledge, then I suppose it could be be considered a tie.

That and the fact that Morneau is just as likely to put up a 700 OPS as an 800 at this point in his career. You really need to be at 775-825 to be a plus for your team at the DH position...unless he could play 1B 4-5 times per week at a higher level defensively than Abreu, you're only going to get a 10-15% improvement on Avisail Garcia's potential production. That's a certain recipe for another .500ish team. If the primary goal is to save money/increase profitability, sure, makes sense I guess.

Somehow, Avila has an OPS 5 points higher than Morneau. Not sure if that argues more for Avila's OBP/viability as a starting catcher next year or that Morneau has been a bit overrated and isn't the automatic re-sign that some have been projecting (obviously his cost will increase, too).

Trump at least is actively making attempts to speak to the African-American community, but not sure he's really listening. What has he proposed that 50%+ of African Americans would support? When you constantly assail foreigners, women, Chinese, the Latin-American community, are blacks thinking "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" (whites often look at minorities as competing with each other rather than relatively unified in the struggle for a better life/standard of living, especially black vs. Hispanic)...? That Trump has empathy and really cares about fixing a problem dating back to Jamestown and Plymouth Rock? And if Alicia Machado is fat (maybe he missed her Maxim shoots a decade later) and Miss Housekeeping, why did he marry two foreigners from Eastern Europe (Ivana/Melania) if he believes immigration is so terrible? At some point, he might realize 99% of Americans originally came from other parts of the world. He even kept that "un-American" name for his favorite, Ivanka.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Sep 27, 2016 -> 02:43 AM) Why is someone who dislikes Hillary watching he MSNBC post game? Gleaning evidence of media bias...

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 26, 2016 -> 03:26 PM) The only player of this stature I can think of is Roberto Clemente, but he was much older. Thurmon Munson could also fit into that description Yes, Clemente was 37-38 and had just gotten exactly his 3000th hit against Jon Matlack nearing the end of the 1972 season. But he nearly dominated the 1971 World Series against the Orioles.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bas...g_their_careers Read this link last night... Had no idea that Jeremi Gonzalez (hit by lightning) and Andujar Cedeno had passed...guess I was travelling then. Gonzalez actually gave up Pods' first post-season bomb in that 15-2 playoff game against Boston in 2005. The one that really got me was the Edmead story, that might be the most gruesome baseball death in history, albeit on the minor league (Carolina League) level. Ptac would be aghast.