caulfield12

Moustakas is coming back Tuesday for the White Sox weekend series. Will sit out one extra day (Friday) to avoid facing Quintana in the opener.

QUOTE (RegionSox @ May 18, 2016 -> 11:55 AM) The situation with Theranos is kind of crazy. I have been following it a bit because I had a former coworker go work there about a year ago. It is a shame, they had a lot of good ideas. http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/theran...re-blood-tests/ And we would never have heard of the company and they wouldn't have piled up angel investors and an All-Star board (without any knowledge of the medical field other than Frist)...were it not for the Holmes aspect of the story. Stanford dropout, "pretty" girl with a can-do spirit who's taking on Silicon Valley all by herself and changing the world for the better. It would have been a perfect American success story if it had actually lived up to the hype. Now it will be a Lifetime movie about all the excesses of the current venture capital/easy money years. You would think they would have learned their lesson from 1998-2001.

You were probably confusing him with Pedro Alvarez...as those were the two DH candidates who sat unsigned for a LONG period this offseason.

Anderson doesn't have a Uribe/Valentin arm but he does have the athletic ability/range/quickness to make up for it. For now, all signs point to him being an above-average SS, but probably not a great one unless you look at it from an all-around perspective.

So I'll reiterate: Really wanted Desmond, but knew the only way that was possible would be if he (or Fowler) made it all the way to June without any draft pick compensation. Was lukewarm about Fowler, mostly because his background was comprised of offensive stats put up in Colorado AND the fact he really seemed to want to play elsewhere. Yes, I forgot he played for the Astros and that they were now in the AL, but it doesn't mean that Fowler was simply going to waltz into USCF and put up the same exact numbers he's piling up with the Cubs. I also thought we'd take a run at Austin Jackson, and was right on that front. It was a logical move on the part of both sides.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 18, 2016 -> 07:37 AM) You said Desmond in June because he wasn't worth the draft pick. You also said absolutely no to Fowler because of the draft pick and you said he wouldn't be able to hit in the AL despite the fact he played in the AL one season and hit pretty well. A No, I said that the White Sox/Hahn would not feel he was worth the draft pick. Totally different. Whether he's worth the draft pick to me, as a fan, that's another issue altogether (and one that's not really relevant). At any rate, if we opened that closed thread...I was consistently arguing the merits of a Desmond acquisition (and most of the criticism amounted to his defense at SS and falloff offensively/declining OPS, etc.). I noticed you've gotten much, much quieter about that one now that Desmond's hitting like he was expected to. Now it's that I didn't want him, lol. It's easy to take the position as a fan they should just spend on every free agent out there and ignore the draft pick compensation. I suppose it's easier to live in that unrealistic universe. From now on, I'll write two halves to every post. What the White Sox should do, and what they're likely to do in reality...anticipating the fact they weren't going to give up Shark's draft pick because it would make that trade (at least temporarily) look even worse.

Kemp's definitely on the market, along with Wil Myers...that dude is one of the streakiest hitters alive, other than Justin Upton. We'll see if JR/KW have the cojones to add that kind of contract. And it still doesn't solve the LH hitter issue/imbalance. Not to mention the fact that Matt Kemp is great to have on a winning ballclub when he's assured of playing time, but not the best presence when everything's going south or he's not getting the attention or credit he feels that he deserves. Not sure how he would respond taking him away from the Southern California lifestyle he's so accustomed to. Seems like it would work out great or be a total disaster.

That's a pretty considerable investment for the White Sox to take on...for a far from certain "fix." If they had $25-30 million cushion to play with over the remainder of the season, sure, no problem. But they also have to figure out ways to add a reliever and at some point probably another hitter (preferably LH). There are probably enough red flags with Santana that would cross him off their list. In all likelihood, the Twins would look to deal Nolasco first, then Hughes or Santana. Until all their young pitching prospects are ready, they don't HAVE to do anything. So far, the results from Meyer and Trevor May (moved to bullpen) have been disappointing, Gibson's hurt, their fans are not going to stand for a rebuild again because they've been patiently waiting since 2010 for another playoff contender. Many were fooled last year by their performance, but the fans there are 10X more upset with the Pohlad Family than the level of discontent with JR around here. They didn't do anything in the offseason, except for adding Park (pleasant surprise)...it was quite obvious their bullpen needed to be patched up, and that's playing out this season with disastrous results. Buxton wasn't ready and might never hit better than Cameron Maybin. Sano was forced into the outfield when they should have traded Plouffe at his highest value (Dozier has been a big disappointment as well). They're sitting on another bad contract with their closer. I won't get started on the fanbase feelings towards Joe Mauer.

Quiet? Definitely not on a personal/twitter level, but in terms of his national level of recognition as the White Sox are constantly overlooked, even Chris Sale.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 18, 2016 -> 12:42 PM) The White Sox were also stacked in 2004 and might have won something then had Thomas and Ordonez not been hurt. We could say that about 1967, 1977, 1994 (no strike, Sox win the World Series!!! except JR was one of the biggest leaders on the ownership side, that's one area Thad Bosley has a point about sabotaging your own franchise), 2000 (pitching wore down in the second half and offense cooled), 2003 (no 5th starter, Twins took Kenny Rogers), 2004 (injuries), 2006 (injuries/pitchers wore down in 2nd half...Twins and Tigers were unreal in the 2nd half behind quality pitching), 2008 (Carlos Quentin self-sabotaged his season and career), 2010 (Twins had Thome, we had Ozzie's Kotsay-headed monster...Twins wipe us out again, Thome crushes Matt Thornton and they never look back), 2012 (either got tired, were beaten by a more talented team/manager or simply choked depending on who you ask).

Have they tried something with Marvel or DC Comics...to try to attract younger fans? I don't know what it would be, Sox Captain America Bobblehead giveaway, Mascot Race with the main characters, comic books giveaway...heck, they could give away those Andy Skanberg White Sox comics, but something to take advantage of the "moment" marketing-wise? I guess Boyer's retort would be that they've been struggling to develop corporate sponsors at "fair prices" over the last 3-4 years, so money has been tighter in terms of filling the schedule with more giveaway/promotional nights or days. For example, the Twins have a Trevor Plouffe as Luke Skywalker Bobblehead promotion. And back to our regularly scheduled Robin Ventura Talk...

Obviously the Garcia trade was made with the knowledge through the Guillen family that he was willing to sign an extension...it would have been a ridiculous overpay had he just stayed for 2 months and left as a FA. It also would have meant no World Series trophy, in all likelihood.

The poster has a duty/obligation to prove his point. Where is there any direct evidence/correlation with increasing MISL or even Men's/Women's World Cup viewership and decreasing baseball ratings? There seems to be very little crossover between fans of the two sports. The youth participation rates have been quite high since the 1980's, especially for girls, but it's not translating to more and more soccer on tv. If anything, the main reason driving the futbol viewership is 10X illegal gambling throughout the world vs. a fall in baseball fandom. You can PARTIALLY attribute the fall in youth baseball participation to soccer, but not necessarily broadcast revenues. There are MANY young people who enjoy playing the game, but they don't necessarily enjoy watching on tv. Same with golf, for that matter. Boom, nobody other than PTAC is truly qualified to discuss anything here. Do all the movie and film threads require a degree from a film school or job writing reviews for the Tribune or Sun-Times?

Well, since we don't have any great internal candidates to replace him, Albers would probably be pushed back to the "second unit" with Petricka, Putnam and Jennings. Of course, that would leave the question of who can hold the lead in the 7th inning an open question. In all likelihood, they're going to have to trade for someone if it continues to linger as an issue. Personally, I think Albers is just a bit gassed. He doesn't seem to be in the greatest physical condition, he's an older/veteran player and he's been utilized a LOT by Ventura in the first quarter of the season. He SHOULD bounce back. It does seem his stuff isn't as crisp, not as much movement as before. They're unlikely to just DFA him at this point when he's been one of the major strengths of the team until the last 10 days or so.

Vizcaino can bring it. Has a Top 10 average velocity for MLB relievers and would fit with Nate Jones quite well in the set-up role. Right now, we have a huge issue with Duke scuffling and Albers falling back to reality. There's no clear 7th inning guy. But is Hahn willing to trade Fulmer this early? And add a much more expensive starting pitcher in Teheran when he was projected the much more affordable Carson in the rotation at some point next year.

Greg, I advise you to look at the board of a collapsing unicorn start-up called THERANOS. If you look all around the world, there are former politicians working as hugely paid K Street lobbyists, on the "prestige" list for the most famous law firms in the world even though they haven't practiced since leaving office, making speeches, serving on corporate boards, tv/radio shows like Mike Huckabee/Alan Keyes/Ben Carson, etc. It was a good night for Bernie in the sense that winning KY doesn't mean anything because delegates were split 25/25, he ran away with Oregon and most already expected Clinton to win KY because she contested it the last two weeks, it was a closed primary (no independents or Republicans could cross over to vote for Sanders), etc. The results tonight pushed the campaign at least to California and potentially to some type of movement/disruption/protest at the Democratic Convention. The lead in ACTUAL delegates is still a spread of something like 300. That's not counting all the superdelegates where the Clintons control 90%+ of them, with only 40 something for Sanders. There's no way he can win at this point. However, Clinton now has to fight a "two front" war with Trump and Sanders at least through June 7th (California) and things are getting increasingly nasty and rancorous on the Democratic side after all the events in Nevada at the convention and the resulting letter from Sanders which showed he's not backing down (you should read that if you want something to cheer you up). And, Trump's actually polling ahead of or within the margin of error in states like WV, KY, Indiana, PA, Ohio and Michigan. The survey results show he's leading Clinton by 10-15% across all those states in terms of potential trust for dealing with the economy.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ May 17, 2016 -> 11:33 PM) The board was definitely all over the place on Desmond but fathom never waivered in wanting him on the Sox. I do vaguely recall starting a thread on bringing in Jackson and Desmond in December...before it was closed by the mods. Whether they could have brought in Fowler is another issue altogether, probably not. They certainly weren't going to surrender two draft picks for Desmond and Fowler, although that would have left them sitting pretty for this season and likely recouping the picks with QO's in 2017.

Tim Anderson won't be heading to Chicago until September 1st unless something dramatic has happened with Rollins/Saladino/Sanchez.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 17, 2016 -> 10:54 PM) Awesome game in Oakland. Davis walk off slam for his 3rd homer. And yes I'm still mad Fowler or Desmond isn't on the Sox Nobody agreed about Desmond all off-season (Desmond now has an 803 OPS). Rollins has a 664 OPS with below average defense/range and Saladino's at 598. Fwiw, that's the rare second three homer game in a week, KC lost the game Cain hit them.

QUOTE (SoxAce @ May 17, 2016 -> 10:18 AM) Already 6 homers in 72 PA. Had 5 in 132 with us last season. I know he's their 4th outfielder, but Dodgers need to stop f***ing with him and leave him at CF. He'd easily be a 1.5-2 WAR player right now. You can't bench Joc Pederson, so that means either Puig or Crawford...whose contract they still want to extract SOME type of value out of. Not to mention Ethier will be coming back at some point as well.

As someone who has played soccer since 4th/5th grade and coached it and watch all the World Cup, UEFA Champions' League etc., there's no way that soccer is the sport lowering baseball viewing. Part of it's about baseball representing an older generation of fans (comparatively), and also many in their 40's-80's actually prefer to follow the sport via a radio broadcast, which doesn't work quite as well for the other major sports. As someone mentioned, along with At Bat (I-pad/mobile phones), you have GameDay audio, you're starting to get free games/content at YAHOO and Facebook and Twitter, etc. Actually, the Cubs winning the World Series this year would be great in general for baseball as a sport because it would bring new fans (especially youngsters) to the sport, and that's where baseball has been losing to basketball, football, NASCAR, extreme sports/X-Games, Esports, mixed martial arts, etc. Right now, the NBA and MLB are about on even par in terms of profitability and team valuations.

The Manager's RULEBOOK says you play for the big innings at home...granted, he wasn't just playing for the tie, as there were two runners on, but our sacrifice bunting has been horrible since, yeah...the year 2000. And the other factor to consider is that holding a 1 run lead (well, ANY lead) has been far from automatic for this team in the past week. Playing for a big inning (especially with Jones unavailable) seemed to be the better play.

QUOTE (raBBit @ May 17, 2016 -> 11:42 AM) LOL, classic. Wow...burn! You and Dick Allen should have your own comedy routine duo booked by now.

Why would the Astros want Tim Anderson? They have the best young SS in baseball in Correa. To move Correa to 3B? At any rate, they're definitely not trading an established and successful big league hitter for someone who hasn't had the chance to prove himself at the next level.

1-5 including the Tuesday night Ryan Rua debacle in Texas. No extension forthcoming. 3 1/2 up on the Indians, 4 1/2 on the Royals and just 6 on the Tigers. A week ago it was 6/7/8 games up. Fans still on the fence about this team, 13,481 in attendance. Lots of little things, lack of clutch hitting, the defense has started to make some mistakes, the bullpen has completely turned into the Cuyahoga River in the early 1980's other than Robertson, no Frazier, etc. On the plus side, Adam Eaton continues to be one of the best players in the majors. But Jose Abreu, where art thou?