caulfield12

QUOTE (jeffro2525 @ Jun 23, 2015 -> 07:09 PM) Soto rivaling anyone on the team as far as meaningful RBI/hits goes. Clutch does not exist. #juanuribejoecrededontlie He was VERY close to throwing the ball down to 1B away...

Over the last 7.5 road games....14 runs scored. Yay. Alexei's durable, there's that. #searchingforpositives The funny thing today is there's probably an even split about what will happen first, a Quintana trade or a change in manager. It's incredible they would even start to contemplate trading away core pieces without first at least trying to do something different with the coaching staff and see how the players respond.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Jun 23, 2015 -> 07:03 PM) They talked about team not working the count ever and swinging down to the ground on everything. Could not believe Sox swept them. Cabrera and Avi Garcia maybe.... I don't know who else they would be expecting to hit with power....maybe Alexei as well?

Why didn't Soto slide? If he slides there, he's safe...what the heck is going on with the baserunning? Did he really get deked that easily? Even Conor got a horrible jump there.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Jun 23, 2015 -> 06:55 PM) Was watching the Astros game last night they talked about why can't the Sox hit homeruns. It was interesting from out of town eyes. Observation, or theories as to why that was happening??? It's kind of sad, listening to Molitor explain why they felt Buxton would feast on Danks but felt that it was better to protect him by moving him back down to the bottom of the order against Samardzija, who's not exactly lighting it up this year so far.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 23, 2015 -> 06:32 PM) For the love of God, those were hits against any team in baseball. Not according to the Twins' own announcers...they were really questioning if the one on Ramirez would be called an error instead.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Jun 23, 2015 -> 06:29 PM) Keep playing Alexi RV IDIOT! But then you're stuck with Beckham or Sanchez at SS and one of them at 2B. Despite Gordon's homer this past weekend, he's in a terrible funk. Then again, nothing can be worse than what they're producing. I guess they're simply hoping that Ramirez can turn it around (he's a good career hitter against Minny) enough to rebuild some trade value.

They can't let this keep going on for another 3 1/2 months, CAN THEY? Two base hits, two plays that legitimately could or should have been made behind Samardzija. That ball deflected off Alexei's leg somehow, lol. Then you have LaRoche who probably had a better play on the first single and doesn't quite have that comfort level yet knowing which balls Sanchez will get to...and which to go for himself.

Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Cy Young, Sandy Koufax and John Danks would have this White Sox team around .500, MAYBE. 19 runs given up by Samardzija in the first inning, and counting. Expected Twins' runs come in response after blown bases loaded situation (that must happen 75-80% of the time to the Sox since 2012). The Shark looks...legitimately shocked.

And that's probably the game, lol. Pelfrey, by the way, hasn't beaten the White Sox in 7 career starts. 0-3, 6+ ERA. White Sox counter-trend, losers of 7 consecutive road games and have scored 13 runs in that stretch (1.86 RPG). Minnesota 8-3 against us this season.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Jun 23, 2015 -> 06:13 PM) Hunter plays out his ass against the Sox. And he was already a net negative defender in RF as early as 4-5 seasons ago with the Angels.

Surprised? Even when they come out more aggressively and hacking away early in the count with Pelfrey....there's the bottom of the White Sox line-up to destroy a rally.

Might want to change the thread title to ??? before we get any more depressed and pessimistic around here.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jun 23, 2015 -> 01:55 PM) I agree. I think the premise from Cameron is awful. Trade everyone and blow up, no. But it might make sense to trade one of the cost controlled guys and Q would probably be the best bet. I would have to get blown away though (3 top prospects, 2 of which are top 50 guys). Small market (and big market teams) can both be players, which increases potential return, imo. I think between Shark and Q, we should be able to land 4 top 100 guys and 2 top 50 guys, but again, I might be delirious (plus some other fill in's). I still say a trade centered around Puig and a top prospect from Dodgers could make a ton of sense for Sox. Is the world coming to an end? He would end up like Sosa in his brief White Sox career, somehow. The Sox will lose Shark off their payroll next year and with five cheap starting pitchers can go out and sign two or three high priced free agents to make the team better. From earlier in the thread...one thing is for sure, I hope there's a better plan than this.

QUOTE (michelangelosmonkey @ Jun 23, 2015 -> 01:53 PM) I don't know why the extreme pessimism on this site...and Cameron is an idiot for talking about getting rid of Sale. The Cubs went into the tank for years and used it to build up a darn good potential lineup...but they have no pitching. The Sox, with a bit of luck, could have Sale, Rodon, Eric Johnson, Q and Fulmer and have maybe three 1's and two 2's...all under 27. All cheap. Sure they have holes at 2b, 3b, SS, C but they don't need STARS there. They need a team that can score four runs a game and play good defense. The Phillies and Giants have both used that strategy to build recent championship team. The Braves in the 90's were a great pitching team, the Mets in the 80's, the Orioles in the 70's. The Dodgers in the 60's, The Indians in the 50's. This is a legitimate strategy for winning and when the Sox stumbled upon Sale, Q and Rodon...dammit we need to keep on that path and not blow it up. We've lost more than one run per game from LAST season's offense by trying to improve it in the off-season, and somehow simultaneously managed to degrade the defense as well. That said, they have no choice but to try to fix it on the fly again and hope like hell that either Tim Anderson, Micah Johnson or Courtney Hawkins are legit big league regulars (two out of three).

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jun 23, 2015 -> 01:20 PM) But you defined that distinction specifically on popularity, which is irrelevant. Billboards sell when the brand is popular, and the brand is popular when the team wins. We should only care about talent, not likeability. There are some obvious exceptions, like Stanton/Jose Fernandez in Miami, Harvey in NYC and Trout when the Angels weren't making the playoffs, Harper/Strasburg too, although that team reached the playoffs quickly enough...but the last couple of seasons.

QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Jun 23, 2015 -> 12:43 PM) They don't have stars as it is. They have some great players, but they aren't stars. It really couldn't be worse. Sale and Abreu don't sell tickets. Baseball doesn't work like that anymore. Winning and beer sells tickets. The team is abysmal. Attendance is abysmal. They don't have the assets to build around the 3 or 4 good players they have. They're dangerously close to being the Raiders of baseball. I don't know if there's a single player in baseball who would draw crowds by his mere presence on a .500 or lower White Sox team. We tried this Albert Belle, albeit one of the most unlikable players in the game. This offseason, at least part of Samardzija's addition was marketing-related. Even guys like Mike Trout, Stanton, Bryant, Puig or Miguel Cabrera aren't going to move the meter after so many years of not making the playoffs. I remember quite distinctly, living in Kansas City....they would get at least 5,000-7,500 more fans per game when Greinke was pitching in that Cy Young season and the rest of the team was terrible...or Toronto, getting a similar bump for Roy Halladay starts when they weren't close to sniffing the playoffs. With this current Sale streak of greatness, you could probably chart all those home starts and not see an appreciable cause and effect attendance-wise between him and John Danks or Jose Quintana pitching. Same thing with Rodon and Fulmer...exciting prospects, but very few fans are buying tickets to watch pitchers unless it's Nolan Ryan, Dwight Gooden, Fernando Valenzuela, Mark The Bird Fidyrch (rookie phenoms). And that's another area where KW's philosophy of "entertaining" home run hitters (crowds like offense when the the team's not winning) is coming to fruition under the Cubs now with their growing collection of hitters.

QUOTE (SCCWS @ Jun 23, 2015 -> 05:23 PM) Boston will be a seller and Buchholz and Kelly will be available. Everything coming out of Boston has them holding onto Clay and ready to throw in the towel on Kelly, but definitely not just dumping him until he reestablishes some sort of bottom and comes back up (once again, another victim of the NL to AL switch). According to many, Brian Johnson is the "next big thing" in their rotation, although some of their other top prospects are struggling (Owens). I'm sure there's a team in the NL (West, especially) who thinks he would be a useful piece for them. And if TB can get something meaningful out of Erasmo Ramirez and a cast of AAA journeymen (along with David DeJesus), optimistic teams wouldn't be completely wrong to believe that. Of course, that's TB, worker of miracles even without Friedman and Maddon.

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Jun 23, 2015 -> 10:21 AM) Can we really get that much for Samardzija given that he's struggling and the team would only get him for two months? What would we give up for him from our system if we were in a position like Toronto is right now? Right now, it would be 3+ months, but they're probably going to wait as long as they can and see if he can get on a roll.

QUOTE (flavum @ Jun 23, 2015 -> 09:04 AM) Saw an idea on Twitter that makes some sense....Samardzija and Duke to Toronto. I could see them wanting both. The question is what could the Sox get in return? Then dump Danks in the pen the rest of the year, or at least until they shut down Rodon. But for 2016, they need to look at Danks as sunk cost and release him after this season. http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/2015...rospects-video/ Probably not enough for Hoffman unless Samardzija goes on a huge tear the next month. One of those two SS prospects, would be one place to consider. Or Pentecost (catcher).

States rights are just another example of NOT IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD. Unless it's something I actually want in my neighborhood...so I'm willing to make exceptions if it's advantageous.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Jun 23, 2015 -> 08:49 AM) Did Andrew Miller get paid for all the saves he has in his career? No. He got paid because he's awesome. Robertson is a really good pitcher. And it's the same reason Jose Quintana has a lot of value on the open market, despite his W/L record. He's also a really good pitcher. But he's not an All-Star either. I think we've let the pendulum swing so far to the other side where traditional statistics like ERA or RBI's or save conversions don't matter at all to some, as we can always find some statistic to throw out in support of almost any flaw. (And some have tried to do so with John Danks or Melky Cabrera's 2015 season).

QUOTE (BamaDoc @ Jun 23, 2015 -> 08:31 AM) Thanks all for responses. I had thought about him managing but there I could see lack of MLB experience making it harder. Multi millionaires may have a hard time buying in. I came up with player selection and development being a better role. It's what they already do all the time. Dick Allen: Thats part of my point. Would someone like Corbin be better at identifying who can teach it and who can learn it? Caufield12: I agree that you would have to have sweeping significant change throughout the system so therefore it would not be without huge risk. Perhaps as you move up the minors you could have a increase in ex MLB players coaches to fine tune or polish prospects. If you think about it, the lowest levels are where the most teaching needs to be done and biggest personal adjustments are going on like guys first time away from home or living in a new country. The lowest levels are where the first time coaches are sent. First time coaches are learning how to coach and may be least equipped to handle anything. My lowest levels would often have the best and veteran teachers, it's where you learn to do it our way. Young coaches could be there but also for them to learn how we do it from vet coaches. Not to pick on a player but Micah came into our system in 2012 and has moved up from rookie league. You/he should be taught and learn. It's kind of like veteran/distinguished teachers getting the oldest high school students or the honor's/distinguished scholars. Agree that the first 2-3 years in the system are the most important, and yet the salary/wages I'm pretty sure are higher for AA/AAA coaches than they are for the short-season, extended spring, AZ, DSL, etc. There's certainly much more prestige with the higher level managing gigs. One of the arguments for that is so many of the players from those lower levels aren't going to make it to AA even, so you're wasting a lot of valuable (coaching) time and effort in the beginning...or you're also having the problem of a lot of prospects feeling they're being ignored if they don't get nearly as much attention from the staff/roving instructors. Another solution would be more SPECIALIZED roving instructors dealing with issues like defense and base running specifically. The next issue is the fact that we never had a Venezuelan instructional program (even with Ozzie as manager) and we've just recently started to put things together in the Dominican, but that effort still hasn't borne much fruit. Having those top level instructors that are willing to work outside of the US (and you'd have to pay them commensurately) would be a big help. And they'd also have to speak Spanish fluently, so it would mostly be former players. It's hard to find a really good team today that doesn't have at least 2-4 homegrown Latin American players.

However, the flag received criticism on ideological grounds for its aesthetic resemblance to the U.S. flag, which many Confederates disliked, seeing it as symbolizing of abolitionism and emancipation, which the Confederacy was officially in opposition to. As early as April 1861, a month after the flag's adoption, some were already criticizing the flag, calling it a "servile imitation" and a "detested parody" of the U.S. flag.[16] In January 1862, George William Bagby, writing for the Southern Literary Messenger, wrote that many Confederates disliked the flag. "Every body wants a new Confederate flag," Bagby wrote, also stating that "The present one is universally hated. It resembles the Yankee flag and that is enough to make it unutterably detestable." The editor of the Charleston Mercury expressed a similar view, stating that "It seems to be generally agreed that the 'Stars and Bars' will never do for us. They resemble too closely the dishonored 'Flag of Yankee Doodle' … we imagine that the "Battle Flag" will become the Southern Flag by popular acclaim." In addition, William T. Thompson, the editor of the Savannah-based Daily Morning News also objected to the flag, stating in April 1863 that he was opposed to it "on account of its resemblance to that of the abolition despotism against which we are fighting."[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] In 1863, Thompson would go on to design the flag that would succeed the "Stars and Bars", the "Stainless Banner".[4][5][6][7] wikipedia

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jun 23, 2015 -> 08:27 AM) You're playing semantics, so I'll do the same. It makes perfect sense that it wasn't attributed to them until after the war ended because most of the people never would have seen that flag. Opposing military may have, but regular people wouldn't have. You know what confederate flag the regular people of the south would have seen? That's right, Johnny!!! THE ACTUAL OFFICIAL FLAG OF THE CONFEDERACY! This response neatly sums it up about the flag controversy: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-e-price...kusaolp00000592