caulfield12

QUOTE (SCCWS @ May 16, 2016 -> 06:36 AM) No last offseason. Bradley had a sub-par year last year again w the bat. Now he has exploded offensively. They had Young, Castillo, Betts, Holt and Bradley Jr as outfielders and already decided to move Ramirez once they signed Young. But they were desperate for starting pitching . They went out and paid a bundle for Price but they still were short and now are really scrambling for starting pitching. I wouldn't have done the Castillo package for Q and I didn't think the Red Sox would do a Betts package. Oh well. With Rodon struggling it may have best for White Sox in long run. http://m.mlb.com/player/598265/jackie-bradley-jr He had an 832 OPS last year and is an excellent defender. In 2014, he was at 531 and his prospects were slightly dimmed...looked like the classic all field, no hit type. It was pretty obvious that Castillo and Hanley were the ones that were going to be out of luck in terms of maintaining their outfield positions. Red Sox also seemed to be satisfied with Holt. Castillo just wasn't hitting for enough power, isn't a very good defender and doesn't light up the board with lots of steals, either.

The problem with paying for a 3rd starter (right now) under multiple years of control is that we don't have enough chips to trade for one...and still be able to acquire a LH hitter and bullpen help as well. It's more likely we spend money unless we can give away anyone not named Anderson/Fulmer in order to pick up such a "pretty good" pitcher. Let's say Teheran with the Braves. That's going to cost Adams and more.

Well, if you're going to have someone drill Bautista, it might as well be a kid with pent up energy for the last decade throwing 97-98 MPH...

Free State of Jones is the movie I'm most looking forward to... Any historical/Civil War drama fans out there? http://www.amazon.com/Rebel-Born-Defense-B...t/dp/0982189915 Not sure how well this Nathan Bedford Forrest movie will do outside of the Deep South... http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2014/...ie-2912448.html

Odor: Drops down on the relay throw and tries to take off Bautista's head. And then punches Bautista in the jaw with a quick right hand. Code ruling: Violation! Some will say Odor's throw was within the guidelines of the code, because you're taught to drop down on a relay throw to make the player slide. It seemed, however, that Odor had intentions of trying to hurt Bautista. Why? You have a game to win. You should be more concerned with completing the double play than trying to exact even more revenge for something that happened last October. Plus, Bautista was already sliding, and he wasn't out of the basepath. If Odor's throw was within the code, then the code is stupid and broken and even more illogical than it already is. It was a great punch, though. David Schoenfield/ESPN http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/i...-with-blue-jays See? We don't need these pansy new slide rules. Let the boys handle it themselves. Keep the nerds out, this game has always policed itself. — CJ Nitkowski (@CJNitkowski) May 15, 2016 Joe (Sheehan) argued that "nerds" had nothing to do with the new slide rules. I guess I fail to understand Nitkowski's point, although that's what players and former players say all the time. Let the players handle it. Is he saying fights are OK? Because that's what happens when you do let the players police themselves, you get stupid stuff like this, ending up in stupid fights that could have ended in with multiple injuries. Baseball is stupid sometimes.

Who's the pitching coach in Charlotte again? Britt Burns? Richard Dotson?

Bautista, Gibbons and Stroman (have to find it again) providing bulletin board material for the Rangers “That’s the only reason why he got me, and he got me pretty good so I have to give him that,” he said after the game. “It takes a little bit of a bigger man, I guess, to knock me out.” Gibbons said it was “gutless” for the Rangers to go after Bautista when they did. “The other 29 teams out there, if they’ve got an issue they come at you right away,” he said. “To wait until the end (of the season series) it just kind of tells me something about them.” Bautista admitted he went hard into second, which he suggested was within the boundaries of the code, while the punch was not. “It shows a little bit of the apparent lack of leadership that they have over there when it comes to playing baseball the right way,” he said. “Baseball plays are supposed to be taken care of by baseball plays.” https://www.thestar.com/sports/bluejays/201...as-rangers.html "Zero respect for Odor. Never had respect for him, never will." Marcus Stroman on twitter

One scout when Rougned Odor debuted: "The thing I love about him the most is you do not want to [expletive] with him." That's a good scout. — Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) May 15, 2016 Jose Bautista should start a support group with Robin Ventura http://sportsday.dallasnews.com/texas-rang...ce-rougned-odor Lots of funny quotes from around the sports world on the punch heard round the world. http://sportsday.dallasnews.com/texas-rang...-jays-melee?f=r Shortly after Texas Rangers second baseman Rougned Odor went all Muhammad Ali on Jose Bautista's face, his Wikipedia page got an edit. Check it out below. Under "throws," where the hand that baseball players throw the ball with is listed, someone put "a mean clean shot."

QUOTE (miracleon35th @ May 15, 2016 -> 05:50 PM) As Dan Plesac correctly pointed out, Gonzo was afraid to pitch in the strike zone because he knew that anything he threw in the strike zone would probably get torched. Gonzo walked his way off the roster, or at least I hope he did. RH and KW would be crazy to keep this guy on the roster and give him one more start. That was more painful to watch than looking at his sideburns. Then the bullpen - Zach Duke was awful and Matt Albers stunk it up again. Even Nate Jones gave up a bomb. Rome crumbling before our eyes again. The good news is that the Sox have time to find someone else for the 5th starter spot. Maybe go to a 4 man rotation for one turn. Okay, things are getting quite amusing when I have to be the voice of "reason." Rome crumbling? Not quite yet, lol, but they definitely took some body blows this week and have to figure out a way to right the ship. Any "strike" throwers we have in the minors are going to be guys that we probably don't want throwing the ball over the plate because it will get crushed. That was the Twins' philosophy for years, pitch to contact, let the fielders do the work and limit the walks. Of course, if you have little command inside the strike zone and don't have enough stuff to put hitters away, it's also pointless. If you put any pitcher in that "bubble" where every single start out could be his last at the major league level, you're going to have a tentative pitcher afraid to make mistakes or give up a huge inning. In a way, that worked in his favor for most of Sunday, although it won't always when you put that many runners on base. As soon as our next sacrificial lamb is slaughtered (Beck, I think), then there will be a new punching bag to focus on...or maybe it will be Hahn, although it's pretty fair to say nobody expected to be 5 to 7 1/2 games in first place in the AL Central six weeks into the season. That said, it's up to Hahn to address the bullpen and find another starting pitcher before the end of July. Whether it's Lincecum or not, we'll just have to wait and see. Really, they could use Lincecum more in the pen...but that would require him throwing mid 90's in short bursts and I'm not sure if he could do that or not. We all had a sneaking suspicion Matt Albers wasn't going to be able to sustain his near dominance for the entire season. So you look to improve, but don't do anything stupid like desperately overpaying when you don't have any compelling need to do so.

Luckily, the Twins and Royals aren't putting much pressure on us, YET. I have a sense that will change pretty dramatically once we start playing them head to head. Either we'll bury them in June or we'll muddle through and it will be a dogfight until the very end. Technically, the White Sox have won 2 of the 3 starts that Gonzalez went out there, and he's kept them in the games, which is all you can ask for someone you didn't have to give up anything to acquire. Status quo for now. http://espn.go.com/mlb/player/batvspitch/_...miguel-gonzalez Based on the 628 OPS against him from current Royals' hitters, there's no way he doesn't start SUN. Interestingly, Jarrod Dyson is 5/6 against him, Salvy Perez 4/11 and the rest of the team is pretty much terrible.

Another example of the Bautista bat flip posing and bad blood carrying over from last post-season and into the final game of a series. Not sure when/if they play each other again this year.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ May 15, 2016 -> 02:56 PM) There is no way that Shields' price is anything more than a single C prospect; anyone who pays more than that is insane. This team has holes. They may win anyway, they may not. Cleaning out the farm for the other team's veteran du jour won't change that. It be fixed in the future with an influx of YOUNG talent. Yes, for his contract alone. Otoh, if they're sending $15-20 million, it's going to cost a couple of decent prospects. Depends on how motivated they are to save half of his payroll space (just like with Matt Kemp). They're not winning anything with Kemp or Shields on the roster in the next couple of years, one way or the other. Myers will go into arbitration next year and start becoming more expensive. He's the one I would be most interested in from that roster.

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ May 15, 2016 -> 03:34 PM) Except Olt was a claim. Looking to trade Davidson for a major league piece may not be realistic (unless maybe it's for a reliever or something). He has to go in a package with Erik Johnson and Carlos Sanchez. At any rate, our minor league return is starting to look a little bit better. Chris Devenski had three consecutive solid starts for the Astros before getting rocked today against Boston. I think he was something like a mid 20's selection, 25th round I want to say.

The Astros have a lousy record but they went toe to toe offensively with the Red Sox for three straight games. Need to right the ship. 1-3 since blowing that game Tuesday night in epic fashion. Luckily, the Indians wet the bed against the Twins, and that happened at home. Easily could have been a Twins' sweep. In fact, the Indians are 2-4 against Minnesota and we're 6-0, so that right there is one big chunk of the 5 game spread in the standings. Still tied for the best record in the AL, but technically percentage points behind the O's.

Yeah, LeBron still feels he's the best overall player in the game...is maybe a little jealous of all the attention the Warriors are getting, this idea they're making a mockery of the league and that LeBron's prime is nearing an end...it would have been better to say "Hey, the dude's a deserving MVP. All you had to do was watch him light it up for 17 the other night in OT. But I still believe when it comes down to it that I'm the best player in the world and I look forward to proving that in the Finals." The End As someone noted, last year there was the injury excuse. This year, he doesn't have that to fall back on, nor can he blame not having his own hand-picked coach, either.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ May 15, 2016 -> 10:31 AM) How many f***ing times do people have to say that it's not a fear of transgendered people--it's a fear of straight people taking advantage of the situation? It's only been said fifty times in this thread? Are you that dense or just intentionally ignoring what's been said because it doesn't jive with your far lefty commie views? And yes, there are already plenty of cases of straight guys doing exactly that. I think Greg's argument (which is all over the place, but with a different orientation or trigger) and yours are quite different. That some mischievous youths will use this new law/rule as a way to gain access and/or make a mockery of the law itself by deliberately trying to circumvent the intentions and dubious enforceability of the legislation. I would then ask if there are plenty of cases of straight men doing that....how many have actually ended up with an assault/rape/crime committed or were they just trying to be "cute"?

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ May 15, 2016 -> 10:13 AM) This dude is telling people to toughen up when he had to leave a subway because of how someone dressed/looked. Fantastic. To be clear, it was a Subway restaurant and not the world-famous Johnson County to Lawrence, KS subway.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 15, 2016 -> 09:49 AM) You have opinions, I have actual numbers. I am not sure where you got your numbers, but the figures you are quoting here are not at all right. Even if you want to give Caray the credit, and not the team on the field, you are ignoring the fact that the longer he was with the Sox, attendance wasn't still going up. It was down a full 25% off of its peak. So if you are right, and attendance depended on him, and not the team, he must have been losing the effect, because numbers were down a full 400,000 fans over his last full four years here, 700k if you include 1981. Also, if you want to key attendance off of who is in the booth, Ken Harrelson must be a freaking Sox fan magnet, because since he started with the Sox, he tripled their attendance at its peak, pushing it from just under a million when he started, to almost 3 million at its peak. Even last year it was still at double what it started at. By your silly standard, Harrelson > Caray, by a mile. http://www.baseball-almanac.com/teams/wsoxatte.shtml If you look at 1971-1981, there is a 30-35% increase over that time period in attendance. 1981, obviously the numbers were down because of the strike, I think you must have forgotten about that. (You're comparing everything back to 1977 onwards, the most important aspect is comparing the 1960's, especially the last three years before Harry Caray started with the Sox, which was 1968-1970). Even in the 1959 World Series year, the Sox were only a 1.423 million and then 1.6+ million getting the Series bounce. That was their "modern" peak in attendance at that time. Look at 1966-1970. The White Sox were at less than 50% the average league attendance in 1969 and 1970 (once again, look at the numbers in Chicago in 1968-1970)...the year before Harry Caray started, the White Sox AVERAGED 6,115 fans per game. That went up almost 70% the first year Harry Caray was there. In general, there was an upward trend of attendance all those seasons from 1971-1981 (1975 was an exception). If you want to attribute all of it to Caray, then obvious the 1977 Southside Hitmen might disagree with you. That was the peak of the Harry years. From 1979-81, it was a below average attendance draw, but still MUCH MUCH better than the late 60's. Of course, the records of the 1979-1981 teams were pretty pedestrian, so no surprise to see the attendance shrinking. Even in the year where they competed in the final days of the season (1967), they only average 12,168 fans per game. Both arguments have points, but the main one is/was how badly the White Sox were doing from 1968-1970 (you could argue that's the time the team could/should have moved from a financial standpoint to Milwaukee)...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/15/us/polit...p-news&_r=0 Crossing the Line: Donald Trump and His Complicated Relationship with Women... https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/imag...mp;action=click Not so shocked he was willing to help this pageant contestant...she's like a younger version of Melania (Bulgarian originally)

The number of arrogant parents who feel they can effectively teach their children...versus the percentage who are really qualified in terms of content knowledge and effective pedagogical style, there's HUGE disconnect there. And, as mentioned, the "I'm always right/#1/the best because my parents told me so" and social awkwardness issues tend to be lingering ones as adults.

CLE Weaknesses: 1) Brantley's hurt again, and Gomes' bat isn't quite back yet. 2) The rotation hasn't really clicked yet, and Kluber especially has fallen off from 2014 in terms of stuff. 3) Lack of resources to make big additions, have to trade from their farm system. 4) Bullpen in front of Cody Allen, and Allen has walked a lot of people for a closer although he flies under the radar except for roto owners/daily fantasy gamers. 5) Defense 6) Back end of the rotation, Tomlin and Anderson 7) Health Strengths 1) Core of Kipnis/Lindor in the middle infield is one of the AL's best. Lindor is an even better fielder than Carlos Correa, more speed but less power and highly deserving of more national acclaim. 2) Additions of Uribe, Napoli and Rajai Davis have helped to stabilize the club. 3) Santana's OBP. 4) Potential of Bauer if he comes back to the rotation, 5) minor league system 6) stuff of Carrasco (when healthy) and Salazar ROYALS I'll just go through their weaknesses, lol. 1) Injuries to Moustakas, Medlen and Young (partially due to ineffectiveness as well, those DL trips) 2) Morales has looked like the version who sat out the beginning of 2014 and never got his stroke back 3) Escobar has a terrible OBP and has gone backwards offensively...Alex Gordon also has struck out too much and hasn't looked like the same player from 2014. 4) Swapping out Soria for Madson has been a disaster. The rest of the bullpen, especially Hochevar and even Herrera recently has been more human than the 2014/15 iterations. 5) Infante's basically toast and Mondesi's suspended, so no quick fixes there. 6) Cain, until recently...has struggled offensively and had single digit XB hits a week ago 7) Duffy hasn't stretched out his arm and Dillon Gee's a waiver claim...putting a lot of pressure on Volquez, Ventura and Kennedy to carry the rotation 8) Ventura hasn't emerged as the "true ace" he was projected to be and his stuff has degraded a bit in terms of crispness Tigers... Why bother discussing them for now? If they get closer to .500 I'll waste some time on them, but for now they're toast just like Ausmus.

QUOTE (SCCWS @ May 15, 2016 -> 07:04 AM) Too late. I posted several times last winter that we should move Q for Bradley Jr, Swihart or vazquez and Owens. Obviously at the time Bradley jr was coming off an off-season and Vazquez off Tommy John. I knew they had 5 outfielders and they desperately needed pitching. Now Bradley Jr is probably an untouchable for them. I thought Vazquez would be available rather than Swihart. But Vazquez won the starting spot and now Boston thinks Swihart is better as a left-fielder and have moved him there. I would be worried just trading for Swihart unless White Sox think he still is an ML catcher. I think you mean the 2014-2015 offseason in terms of targeting Bradley, Jr. It was clear this year that they needed his defense and Betts' in the outfield, and that Hanley Ramirez and probably Rusney Castillo would be the odd men out (Ramirez was moved to 1B.) So they would have offered Castillo/catcher/Owens instead...or we would have gone after the same targets that were traded for Craig Kimbrel (or maybe not, since they were too far off in their development to impact the White Sox until 2017 at the earliest, but probably 2018).

Of course, that's also true of about 85% of Latin American hitters (swinging at sliders off the outside of the plate with 2 strikes/down in the count)...and a large majority of US born players as well. Guys like Miguel Cabrera, Victor Martinez or Abreu when he's going well will foul all those off until they get a pitch they can square up and drive.

"The next president (Clinton) is going to inherit a recession that this president has largely been able to avoid due to the timings of things. Regardless of the party politics, out of a recession you are faced with a political opportunity to redirect the message," Bahnsen told CNN. In his article, which is making the rounds with social conservatives, Bahnsen added: "We simply must prepare ourselves for the fight ahead, which is in diminishing the power of Hillary Clinton by preserving divided government, and then in replacing Hillary in 2020 with a pro-growth candidate of character and seriousness." http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/14/politics/202...race/index.html This all sounds sort of vaguely familiar...where have we heard this before? Obstructionism, so good for the country.

Trump, $1.5 million per speech...Bill Clinton $750,000 Nobody wants to hear Hillary Clinton speeches, that's why they're remarkably cheaper compared to the big guns. http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-do...one-else-2015-8 Although I'm not 100% sure you're going to get accurate numbers. In all likelihood, his accountants write them off as donations to The Trump Foundation or other charities.