caulfield12

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Oct 28, 2015 -> 06:29 AM) Maybe see if he's open to being a lefty reliever. If not, we don't really need him barring a trade. He wouldn't hang on for one more season in that role unless the White Sox were a true pennant contender. Maybe come back in July?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 28, 2015 -> 05:55 AM) Ignoring the typical list of names post... Paulo Orlando came from where? Also the Sox had a couple of the leading SB players in the minors both of the last couple of years. From Brazil of course, along with Andre Rienzo and the now infamous Anderson Gomes, who was supposedly even faster than the sprinter/footballer Orlando at age 16-18. He never got out of A ball. He also had only 18 sb's with all that speed. http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/pro...=Anderson-Gomes We shall see with Anderson and especially Micah how that transalates in terms of effectiveness at the next level. Micah doesn't have defense OR positional flexibility on his side. Adam Engel's a long ways off. Semien had good speed too, but they never really took advantage of that, either. We shall see if they just end up dumping Micah for a back-up catcher how valuable they perceive him to be.

Having his brother and advisor/Attorney General and listening to him instead of the Joint Chiefs of Staff also arguably saved the wprld from nuclear annihilation during the Cuban Missile Crisis. So there's that. And the 1968 version of Kennedy was basically more of a populist liberal than Gore or Obama. His whole campaign was about reaching out to all the disenfranchised groups in society such as Appalachian mine workers' families, Native Americans and migrant farm workers (Cesar Chavez/Dolores Huerta).

http://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-colum...le41654622.html The Volquez story with father's death and also Chris Young and Moustakas losing parents in the last two months of the regular season, Young's father exactly a month ago and Moutakas' mom Aug. 9th...

Scaringly, agreed. Nobody can forget those images of Willie Mays hanging on at the end, a shadow of his former glory and unrecognizable to fans who followed him from the early 50's.

They definitely would have been out of Vietnam sooner.

It's just as worthwhile in terms of wins and losses to invest in a plethora of "speed/defensive first" players and sprinkle them throughout your system. With the Royals, guys like Dyson, Paulo Orlando, Gore and Mondesi. For the Mets, Juan Lagares. The White Sox had Leury Garcia, but the most memorable burner was Rodney McCray back in the day. We're lacking that guy who can automatically take second or even third in the late innings when you need to manufacture a run (not to mention everyone wanted to run Yost out of town already for not having Gore to pr for Zobrist and steal 3rd base in the late innings to give KC three opportunities to drive him in.) We always waste an out bunting, even with Eaton on first. When you're scratching to win games by one or two runs like we will for the immediate future due to a below average offense, you especially need speed, defense and a bullpen in the late innings. Starting baseball academies in Jamaica, Brazil and Colombia would have a bigger payoff imo. Maybe Australia, China or India. Or taking over and operating a struggling team in the KBO that would be a feeder to the Sox, etc. Also, being the first into Cuba when they open it up.

Well, KC has something of a dilemma now for Game 4. NY has Matz, the Royals had been planning to start Young (probably). That leaves them Duffy and Medlen to choose from, assuming that Guthrie's not on the roster (just checked, he's not). Or they can go to Young again when he threw 3 innings and 53 pitches. Since Game 4's on Saturday, presumably that three days of rest will be enough since he's not a high effort/velocity pitcher in the first place. He struck out 83 in 123.1 innings during the regular season. Young, who works with a fastball in the upper 80s and a slider, even touched 90 twice Tuesday night. It was the first time he's hit 90 MPH since 2009 according to FanGraphs. "It's the World Series," Young said. "If you were in the World Series you'd be throwing harder too." He's also still on schedule to pitch in Game 4 on three days rest, according to Yost. Young threw 53 pitches in his three innings Tuesday. "Our plan going into it was we could go 45 to 50 pitches with Chris and bring him back a day early, he'd be fine with that," Yost said. "Once it got to the 50-pitch mark, it was okay, we're going to go all out to win this game, and Chris is going to go as far as he could go, "But we ended up winning the ballgame in kind of our threshold there." www.yahoo.com/sports/mlb

QUOTE (flavum @ Oct 27, 2015 -> 10:04 AM) That just seems wrong to be a kosher move. http://www.kansascity.com/sports/mlb/kansa...le41535603.html Zobrist isn't hurt, wife is due on Nov 10. More about positional flexibility, ph in NL park. Gore can only pr. Mondesi can play def, pr, hit/bunt, play multiple positions. http://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-colum...le41507676.html Interesting article for wanna be GM's. Hadn't realized A's were paying the remainder of Zobrist's deal this year...for the inclusion of pitcher Aaron Brooks. Reading this, seems even more certain they won't be able to keep Alex Gordon around. Overpaying for past production in late twenties at 31-35/36 usually doesn't end well in fa markets. Injuries and just general physical decline.

QUOTE (whitesoxjr27 @ Oct 27, 2015 -> 04:41 PM) Cubs did not make the playoffs in 2009. Diamondbacks sweep in 2007 and dodgers sweep 2008. Nlds vs nlcs

What good will Prado do for just one rebuilding season? If they're clearly upgrading at least 2-3 other positions, maybe. But having Cabrera back in LF, LaRoche at DH...they would have to change at least two more from 2B, RF and catcher to be in a "go for it" position...and few NL players have come in and hit the ground running, just Eaton recently. Not to mention the 90% probability they bring Alexei back.

But it's the classic case of supply and demand. It's not like there aren't hundreds of basketball players laboring away for 360 positions in the world when the odds are twice as stacked against them. The difference is that baseball isn't as popular as basketball in many countries around the globe that can afford to pay foreign players more. It's just that opportunities are more lucrative in Europe or China now. Baseball players only have Japan, Korea and Taiwan...and, to be fair, those countries do have limited opportunities for fringe players and certainly anyone below AA level neednot apply. Going back to the the day, the CBA didn't pay anyone but their former NBAers more than a pittance. It's like buying a lottery ticket. The typical MLB draft provides 3-5 players that ever see the majors. But, compared to the NFL, those players do have much longer careers and earn more money in MLB. We don't hear about subsidizing golf and tennis because the parents are often rich, but the odds are equally against those players on the second and third tier tours. I actually believe part of the reason is because of the proliferation of Latin American players. If it was 100% an American player (mostly white and African American) issue or problem you'd have more outrage about conditions and pay in the low minors. In those Latin American countries, and that's roughly 40% of baseball now...with the buscone system and despite constant kidnappings/threats in their home countries, none of those players would give up that lottery ticket because of the relative poverty they often come from. Read the story of Sal Perez and why he was elated to sign a deal for $7 million and five years. The cost/benefit is worth it despite the odds being stacked. If anything, there should be subsidies provided by Venezuela and the DR to provide extra assistance to their most important exports culturally, if you want to look at players as commodities. At any rate, the perception is 1) most white and Asian baseball players come from (relatively) priviledged backgrounds and 2) there's not the political will in America to protect essentially foreign/migrant workers who are victims of racism and in some cases disdain for pushing out more "domestic" or white workers. Of course, there's also the issue of baseball being a non revenue sport at the collegiate level, except for the Pac Ten, SEC and parts of the ACC. The flip side of this argument is Scott Carroll, who has a generous lifetime pension for barely making a dent in the majors. Plus, there's a lot more sympathy for veteran football players these days because of all the suicides, concussions and PtSD like symptoms. If someone working for Wal-Mart at minimum wage with no health care benefits couldn't even unionize or gain protection for most of their working career...and the government never intervened, why would MLB feel compelled to do so when they're a corporation whose goal is maximizing profits? Just because they're covered by anti trust laws and the uniquely American support doesn't mean there will be sympathy, because for every Carroll, Rios, Dunn, Beckham, Viciedo, LaRoche, whose families are set for life financially etc., there are millions who will never have the opportunity to earn the pension money that Carroll will be getting for basically one year of service time. Social Security doesn't come close, and many government run plans like Illinois are risking insolvency...hence, not much sympathy for a game where white players are now technically a minority.

QUOTE (Hatchetman @ Oct 26, 2015 -> 07:42 AM) I did not know Hostetler was originally a Sox scout. Now I am depressed. Thanks a lot guys. Haha, you're welcome. By the way, the Twins were basically able to cycle through two waves of players from 2001-2010 and remain competitive in the AL Central for nearly a decade. No guarantees it will happen with KC. The Tigers really just had four years, the Royals will probably have a good chance next year to repeat and 50/50 at best in 2017 depending on the eventual fate/s of Ventura, Duffy and Zimmer, to name just three. As far as the Royals go, talking about the 1990s decade of wasted draft picks well before Dayton Moore arrived on the scene is pretty pointless since 1986-2002 has absolutely nothing to do with his regime at all. It's like talking about 1960-1986 when discussing the White Sox and connecting it to KW somehow. Now sure, 1995-1999...okay. From 2004-2007 the Royals were terrible, worst or second worst in the majors. Moore wasn't involved in the draft until 2007 with KC, it was Allard Baird. So he personally was responsible for six Top Eight picks. Including Gordon Beckham, the White Sox will have had four Top Ten picks and are still least two years from the playoffs. Not to mention Courtney Hawkins at 13 and not realistically close to a major league promotion after four seasons. For a high schooler in the top half of the first round, you should be knocking on the door in year five at least.

You can search at chisox.com, wsi.com and any Royals' site in the universe. You won't ever find caulfield12 there. I will bet Greg's house on it.

In the final summary, Schuerholz did have a world of resources behind him when Ewing Kauffman was running the Royals. They had the first or second highest payroll for many of those years from 1976-1985, along with the Yankees of course under Steinbrenner. With the smallest media market in MLB...but they also worked harder than any other team in the majors (along with the Cardinals) to expand their radio and tv networks. Imagine an owner who loved his team and city so much he was willing to do and spend whatever it took to provide fans the best team every year no matter what the cost. The results speak for themselves. Yeah, you can say they were lucky to get the Denkinger call in 1985, but they didn't force the Cards to implode any more than AJ's play running to first against former Sox catcher Josh Paul did. So Schuerholz left for the Braves, Dayton Moore learned everything about talent evaluation and especially the intersection of talent WITH character, Moore learned under him (and also what KC used to be like as a great baseball city) and was recruited to bring that back to KC again after it was lost for so many years. I sincerely hope the four seasons Nick Hostetler spent with the Braves made more of an impression than his time with the White Sox... Schools University of Akron, Youngstown State University Nick Hostetler has been a scout for the Chicago White Sox (2001-2004, 2007- ) and Atlanta Braves (2004-2007). He signed Gordon Beckham, Daniel Hudson, Tyler Lumsden and Jeff Lyman. Hostetler's roots are in the Braves organization, where he learned the methodology that built a 90s juggernaut. While there he also worked closely with Dayton Moore, now the man in charge of the Kansas City Royals. Hostetler values analytics, especially when they prove something that had been just a hunch. "I believe we should incorporate them more and more with what our eyes see." While of course valuing the "best player available," he admits a past proclivity for high school players, an area where the Sox have not had success. He uses social media discreetly to keep up with college rotations, and to check out potential personality issues of prospective picks. http://www.dailyherald.com/article/2015080...orts/150809304/

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 25, 2015 -> 01:50 PM) He said that? Caufield? He does appear to like KC but did he say that? Wow. I didn't see that. There are two ways of getting a point across about the current state of the White Sox. One is to follow in the wake of Thad Bosley (including the 35 years line repetitively about JR), or to mirror Lip, Balta (preseason/preparation, etc.,) Flash Tizzle...which gets kind of boring and redundant since that leads to endless nobody can prove quantifiably that Robin Ventura isn't a good manager OR the lack of loyalty from White Sox fans (and not the ineptitude and lack of a clear vision from the front office) endless black holes. So at least I can praise teams that are doing things right because, in and of itself, that's inherently more positive and optimistic (hoping your favorite team will eventually wake up) than endlessly whining. Blind faith, hope and loyalty doesn't cut it for 98% of White Sox fans. Trust has to be earned. If I wouldn't have lived in KC for a decade, it wouldn't have mattered. The whole time I resided there, the White Sox just ran over the Royals, like the Globetrotters and the Washington Generals. So I suppose if it was the 90s Indians, the 2002-2010 Twins or the 2011-2014 Tigers, I rooted against those teams because I hated them for beating the White Sox so consistently and bringing out every frustration possible as a fan. Because the Royals were so terrible, it almost forced you to empathize with them when the Yankees or Red Sox would come to town. KC was flyover territory, irrelevant to everyone on the East and West Coast. As a native Midwesterner, this mentality of pity, disdain and ridicule from afar (pretty much any reference in the movies to Iowa or Kansas is poking fun at you) almost forced one to pull for the underdog against the big, bad bullies. This post has been edited by caulfield12: Yesterday, 08:44 PM This is where I professed my eternal hatred for the White Sox, lol...and somehow what was written has been bent, but what else would one expect?

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Oct 25, 2015 -> 09:46 AM) Dayton Moore is so awesome. He took over as GM in 2006. 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 they wee horrible. Decent in 2013 , WC in 2014. So it took him 8.5 seasons to reach the playoffs. KW gets ripped for not reaching them in 7. Their first division crown in his 9th season. Amazing how that works. 6.5 seasons to be ten games over .500. Realistically, we could say six since it's impossible to turn around a season for a losing organization with no resources committed when you're hired in the middle of the year. Interesting math system there. 7.5 seasons for the WC and World Series. 8.5 seasons for the division and World Series. Best record in the AL from 2013-2015 and two consecutive playoff and World Series appearances, something the White Sox have never done in franchise history. All this coming from MLB's smallest media market and with a very limited payroll until Glass approved adding James Shields. By the end of the World Series, more playoff/postseason games in two years than the White Sox have had in the past 55. The White Sox had 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16...which is 8 years MAYBE getting back to .500 in Year Eight (and Year 2 of some plan or another) but right now even that's highly unlikely to most. If the White Sox made it to the World Series in both 2017 and 2018 they'd still be behind schedule. I don't think anyone will take that bet, though. Last year it was luck or a fluke in the WC game...this year it was the umpiring. What will it be next season as the excuse? If Ned Yost is worse than Ventura and Moore isn't that good either, why haven't the White Sox with exponentially more resources been able to pull off the same seemingly easy feat?

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Oct 25, 2015 -> 09:57 AM) Not necessarily directed at you, but when did buying starting pitching on the free agent market become attractive? I've seen this idea thrown out a lot in Cubs-related discussions as if it's a no-brainer. Sure, teams sitting on tons of cash can go out and sign a top starter to a monster deal, but how often have those signings worked out for the club? IMO, there's nothing riskier than signing a frontline starter in free agency and most organizations know this. Doesn't mean they're betting giving up half their system for a cost-controlled alternative, but it does clearly demonstrate why a guy like Quintana is so valuable. It's tricky. With the Red Sox, Masterson, Porcello, Sandoval and Hanley all flopped and it cost Ben Cherington his job. Two years before that, almost all of their offseason moves turned out perfectly. In the end, teams like the Dodgers, Cubs, Rangers and Red Sox do have surpluses at both the major and minor league levels. Dombrowski is likely to be aggressive. We'll see if Hahn does the most obvious thing in trading Q.

Rios That said, Zobrist and Morales were huge additions. Young vs. Matz (lhp) in Game 4 will be key, if they don't use Medlen or Duffy instead. Young is a bit more predictable, and a bigger change of pace from three hard throwers in a row. Blanton and Medlen essentially replaced Jason Vargas. Even if Familia=Davis, the Mets don't have anyone as good as Herrera or even Madson. Defensively, the Mets are a tick or two above average but nowhere close to KC.

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ Oct 25, 2015 -> 08:20 AM) How much nicer would it be to be reading about Mr. Reinsdorf talking about how it felt to be hugging the William Harridge trophy AGAIN cuz he won the pennant AGAIN, and how electrified the Sox fan base was as a result. TV ratings and attendance going through the roof down there in KC. Wouldn't you rather be hearing the Chairman waxing eloquent about that same phenomenon going on with the Sox rather than him sharing his uninteresting point of view on whether the '05 WS had more of an impact on the city than the '85 Bears Super Bowl championship. Who the heck cares about any of that! LOL - win, darn you!! WIN! Start winning and talking about that already!!!!! Enough of the fluff! And Glass was more hated/reviled/despised than Reinsdorf ever was in Chicago. At least JR had Michael, Scottie and Phil to fall back on. Glass was basically Darth Vader. He was basically accused of bringing a Wal-Mart "cheap/maximizing profits" approach for at least a decade. He followed Ewing Kauffman, who was even more beloved in KC than Bill Veeck could ever be in Chicago because he gave KC all those great teams from 1976-85...but he was finally willing to admit they needed to bring in someone from an organization like the Braves who knew how to properly evaluate both talent and character. That he needed to hire experts to build things correctly from the ground up instead of extrapolating Wal-Mart systems methodologies to the operations of a professional baseball franchise without the advantage of economies of scale in the smallest media market in MLB.

The Red Sox won't have to give up that talent for Quintana when they can buy it on the FA market without wiping out 1/3rd or 1/4th of their top prospects.

While We're Young is an excellent film. Noah Baumbach is on a roll. Ben Stiller, Naomi Watts, Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried. Reminiscent of This is 40 but much better. This one was way out there but uniquely compelling. "The Tribe" Director: Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy Cast: Grigory Fesenko, Yana Novikova, Rosa Babiy Synopsis: A shy boy arrives at a boarding school for the deaf. There he tries to find his place in the hierarchy of the school community, which operates like a Mafiosi group ungoverned by the outside world. Verdict: We need more bold, purely cinematic films like “The Tribe.” Playing like an even more disturbing combination of “City of God” and “Lord of the Flies,” debut Ukrainian director Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy takes a potentially gimmicky conceit — all dialogue is spoken through sign language with no subtitles — and infuses it with dread, political subversion (it directly comments on current Ukrainian politics) and incredible filmmaking bravado. Nearly all scenes play out in impeccably choreographed long takes, with a camera that rarely stops moving — its style is akin to Michael Haneke’s “Code Unknown” and features a similar foreboding, disquieting sense that things are going to end badly. And what's so impressive is that although its formalism is so rigid, it rises well above gimmick to become a truly great, unique piece of cinema (and a very fine crime movie to boot), conjuring its own world, commenting on ours and giving the audience something actually, palpably new. Our Review: Jess' A grade Cannes review Release Date: Will play Sundance prior to a theatrical release and VOD via Drafthouse. http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/the...y-seen-20150107

There you have it. Greg just presented the World Series to the Royals on a golden platter. https://sports.yahoo.com/news/the-royals-ar...-100548685.html

http://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-colum...le41341293.html Maybe Thad Bosley can use his persistence to deliver this column to JR before it's too late...

http://espn.go.com/mlb/playoffs2015/story/...sas-city-royals Kurkjian of EsPn picks Royals in 7...provides five compelling plot points for the series. It will be Cueto and Ventura at home and then Volquez in Game 3 in NYC. Mets are going Harvey, deGrom, Snydegaard and then presumably Matz. Royals will choose from Young, Medlen and Duffy for Game 4.