caulfield12

Five two out hits? Hmmmm. Tyler Naquin now has about a 50/50 chance to win the CF job for CLE. Two more first round draft picks are on the way in Bradley Zimmer and Clint Frazier, probably another reason they're reluctant to add for just one season. Forgot they now had Brady Aiken as well. Pretty rich to have an Indians' radio guy criticizing the attendance...but at least they are carrying games all weekend.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Mar 3, 2016 -> 07:41 PM) I don't really understand this...perhaps they didn't have a whole lot of money to spend this season...that doesn't necessarily dictate a change in the longer term plan, especially if you don't necessarily believe the results on the field last year truly represent the talent that was in place. I feel like we are going to take a big step this season, not only because of the additions this offseason but because of some additions from last offseason. I feel very similar to how I felt going into '12...like we will be pretty competitive. In a nutshell, it comes down to believing in LaRoche, Avi Garcia and Cabrera, and Lawrie to a lesser extent (most would be happy with a 2 war contribution and anything above would be gravy). Obviously, that also means expecting Abreu, Eaton and Frazier to be as good or better than the last two years as well. The one difference with 2012 is that I'm not sure this defense (as currently constituted) can be one of the best in the majors the first four months. We're surely not going to use 12 rookie pitchers again. Quintana was the huge positive surprise of that season, and, unless you're counting on Anderson or Fulmer making early contributions, maybe it means Latos or Rollins have to make the same type of impact.

QUOTE (gosoxgo2005 @ Mar 3, 2016 -> 07:38 PM) The worst owners in all of sports might be the Wilpons. It's unbelievable how much Mets fans hate them. Yeah, forgot about the whole Wilpon fiasco with Madoff and the lack of excitement about the new stadium, compared to many others. Then again, with that young core of pitching and bringing back Cespedes, it would be hard to be TOO upset, and they are in the biggest market in baseball. If I was on the fence, bringing back Yoenis would be at least one positive sign. The next big question will be how they handle the decision to trade or re-sign Harvey. It's also hard to blame the ownership for what happened to David Wright's career. For worst, it's hard to top Daniel Snyder...although the Browns are doing a good job. 76ers? Loria? Donald Sterling with the Clippers was always at the top of the list before he was ousted.

QUOTE (fathom @ Mar 3, 2016 -> 06:13 PM) Watch Tigers sign him now. I really don't know what Hahn is waiting for. Which would be worse, the Cubs signing Zobrist (who can also play RF/LF), Heyward, Fowler AND bringing back Jackson as well...or the Tigers/Indians signing him? Not sure which would be more annoying, obviously he would have more impact on the Sox playing for a division rival, but geez, can we win ONE bidding war?

QUOTE (BlackSox13 @ Mar 3, 2016 -> 06:13 PM) Nobody said anything about comparing or feeling better. Just noting that as bad as some Sox fans feel about Sox attendance and spending, it's even worse for Cleveland fans. As a baseball fan, I feel for them. Their highest payed player makes just over 8M. The point is that Cleveland is a competitor as is and if they had more money to spend ( payroll at 90M due to being 29th in attendance in '15) , they could potentially be even more dangerous. If they had the money this winter, they could have been looking to sign one of the top FA outfielders instead of signing a guy like Davis. Also, just because the Tigers and Royals spent alot of money doesn't guarantee them winning the division. Well, in fairness, they had the longest streak of consecutive sellouts in the early to mid 90's at Jacobs Field of any MLB team in history (maybe the Red Sox beat it since?)...but those fans have had to go through two quite dramatic teardowns, one beginning in 2001-02 and then the other after 2007. If there is one fanbase who has suffered the most at the hands of ownership, other than the Marlins, it's pretty hard to think of one. TB and Oakland, there's not so much that can be done about those stadium situations.

http://nypost.com/2016/03/03/how-one-relie...e-nl-landscape/ Nice to be in the NL where you now have just eight teams realistically fighting for five playoff spots...

QUOTE (Jose Paniagua @ Mar 3, 2016 -> 04:57 PM) Indians have multiple question marks OFwise though Yeah, losing Almonte hurts...and Rajai Davis will be merely adequate. They have two huge holes just like the White Sox have, except in the outfield and 3b. But having Lindor, Kipnis and Gomes up the middle...arguably the three best at those positions in the Central unless you want to argue Sal Perez...certainly helps. They also picked up Napoli and Uribe.

Would rather have Mike or Dez Cameron.

Austin Jackson makes more sense here than the Indians, but still believe the race will be so tight nobody will need to make desperation spring training trades or provide overpays on fa's. Upton and JD give them plenty of offense. They'll just have to use Gose more often.

Cleveland is out because Brantley is coming back earlier than expected...that's all. And comparing ourselves with the Indians/Twins on spending and "feeling better" would be more palatable if the Tigers and Royals hadn't each spent $200-300 million in new money since October.

I honestly wonder if these annual visitations of the same theme of stretched or limited financial resources have been market-tested as the best way 1) to push fans off the fence to sell tickets and 2) to create the perception fans are more responsible than the organization itself for team's state of affairs? It gets really old to be told they're doing us a favor signing the likes of a Rollins instead of Desmond and how competitive ol JR is when the results are what they have been. If he is really THAT competitive, I'd really hate to see the complacent Reinsdorf. Btw, there are never quotes like that from Illitch. They just announce signings and speak with their actions.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/clinton-stil...--election.html What will happen to Sanders' millenial supporters should he lose the nomination?...a big opening for Trump to exploit, more in the sense of dampening their desire to get out and vote for her rather than getting them to cross to another candidate.

Saw a statistic where a bit less than half the current Republican governors would support Trump were he to be the nominee...of course, that could change if he convincingly wins Florida, Michigan and Ohio.

Imagine a white comedian made a joke about slavery...yet child labor jokes are apparently not newsworthy because Asians in the US are comparatively doing better than whites, thus the easy minority to pick on and not get yourself in hot water. At least no joke about Native Americans in connection with The Revenant, he was smart enough to pick the easier topic. More Bill Cosby jokes are not going to bring out many defenders or BLM, I suppose.

Hard to believe Danks has been around almost a decade with the Sox. In actuality, that ten year anniversary is late December this year, so he probably will no longer be with the organization at that point. But it will be his tenth overall season with the club. Alexei had eight years.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/page/spring...icago-kind-town "We're gonna make some noise this year, man," Frazier says. "Everybody talks about the Cubs and the young guys they have. Don't get me wrong -- they're a good club. But people are gonna remember us this year, because we're going to come out with guns blazing." ... One minute he's showering praise on third-base coach and infield instructor Joe McEwing. Then he's pledging to buy a cake in honor of Danks' 10th anniversary with the club. After designating Frank Sinatra's "Come Fly With Me" and "Fly Me to the Moon" as his walk-up music in Cincinnati, he plans to switch to "My Kind of Town" in Chicago. An official announcement will come later in camp. One of the first "puff pieces" in recent weeks to get your blood really flowing...

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Mar 2, 2016 -> 05:05 PM) Can't argue with that. I just don't think he deserves the beat down, considering the other offensive (and defensive) luminaries on this team. WAR is what's killing him. Ten or fifteen years ago, before there started to be more compelling defensive metrics (other than TC vs. errors for infielders), you could hide a younger/youngish Avi Garcia on a team. Now, his baserunning lapses, defensive weaknesses and unexpectedly bad offense for a player of that size are out there for everyone to dissect. Another element of this is the fact that very few White Sox players (especially younger ones) have improved appreciably on the defensive front...so you've got all these factors conspiring against him, the low walk totals, lack of patience/swinging at balls out of the zone, not often making strong contact to the pull side except for hanging offspeed stuff, etc. Austin Jackson is more or less the antithesis, with the main commonality being the strikeouts. On the other hand, you know what you're getting with Jackson in terms of his baserunning and defense. Now the question is whether the expected win/loss difference is worth roughly $5-6 million dollars and basically throwing in the towel on Avi. It's the same type of issue with Rollins vs. Saladino, but the opportunity cost is much lower for the club.

Kelly and Fox News would love to have Clinton in office for four years, it means much higher ratings (and revenues) for FOX than when a Republican is in office. Comparing Adam Eaton and Hillary Clinton isn't going to get us anywhere. A lot of that incident was staged as an "ambush" at a private fundraising dinner, it was more or less a calculated stunt meant to provoke a confrontation and not a legitimate attempt at real dialogue. As always, there's a double standard for what a Clinton, Trump or Bush can get away (heck, anyone on Wall Street the last decade), compared to a normal, middle class American.

It was an oblique, right? http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/eye-on-baseba...r-several-weeks Doubtful they would make any type of move with Jackson until they see that Dyson has a recurring problem that will drag on into the regular season. This means they'll give Travis Snider and Orlando more playing time, but they're probably okay going with that strategy. At the beginning of December, I thought they were going to pick up both Parra and Jackson and end up losing out on Gordon, so who knows, they've already spent $200 million in new contracts since the off-season started. And there is a pretty good relationship there with Boras since he reps Hosmer and Moustakas.

Trump has only "loaned" himself (well, his campaign, actually) $17.5 million for the campaign so far...that's nothing, in the overall scheme of things. By the way, that rise of American authoritarianism article (in Vox) is a "must read" for anyone interested in politics. With roughly 55% of the GOP in the "mad/angry/fearful" group (aka authoritarian or recently activated), there's just no way to stop Trump from getting the nomination. It's basically the tradition since the 1960's of the Republican party being the party of "law and order" and "status quo/protecting traditional social values" that has led to today. Ironically, it's the tendency of news networks like FOX fomenting fear and distrust of foreigners/illegal immigrants, gay couples, terrorism, gun violence...you reap what you sow, as they say. There's a real-life consequence for creating bogeymen around every corner.

The same reason we can't do that with Adam LaRoche, Melky Cabrera or John Danks.

Greg, if Condoleezza Rice or Colin Powell were running for president this year, would you be making the same accusations towards them, since they basically did the exact same thing she's accused of? (Actually with Secretary Powell, he also---unknowingly, since he was obviously lied to---lied to the United Nations on behalf of the president, so you can add that as well.) As soon as you can find ONE Democratic official crossing sides and pushing for a criminal indictment of her, that's when your argument will actually have some traction. Otherwise, you won't find more than a handful of "reasonable" Republicans like John McCain arguing she SHOULDN'T be indicted. A lot of them were probably lining up to impeach Bill Clinton in 1998 as well. I guess I am also curious if, to your knowledge, you've been able to change the mind of one person or more about Hillary Clinton...or are you actually having a counter-effect of forcing those who don't have a strong opinion one way or the other (maybe some independents or moderates) to support or defend her? People will believe whatever they want to believe, and nothing will convince them any differently. Any of us who talk about politics here could come up with a LONG list of pages and pages of quotes and comments from Donald Trump and present it to a Trump supporter and surely none or very few would be convinced to change their vote...in fact, they'd probably be even more likely to dig in, accuse you of being part of the Republican establishment and pledge to go out and bring in more voters on his behalf. In South Carolina, a CBS News exit poll found that 75 percent of Republican voters supported banning Muslims from the United States. A PPP poll found that a third of Trump voters support banning gays and lesbians from the country. Twenty percent said Lincoln shouldn't have freed the slaves. Would you honestly rather join ranks with THAT group? Because that's likely to be the choice, unless you write-in a candidate or vote 3rd party.

Let's say you do sell Eaton. It's going to be quite difficult to find the major league equivalent of him on another team. Maybe, just maybe, the Marlins would trade Ozuna for Eaton, but is that really an upgrade? It's more of a "change of scenery" deal for both teams, especially Miami. Trading Eaton for prospects doesn't do much unless they're advanced players close to the big leagues...and then you're looking at success rate of maybe 25% at best in those types of trades. Finally, you trade your younger/cheaper player for a veteran/more expensive player...you simply push the payroll up to the point where you can't make additions in June/July without offloading equivalent salaries and/or you impact the ability to pay for talent in an already shrinking pool of players the following offseason. Which inevitably pushes you back to the trade front, where you don't have the quality depth (we have depth, sure, but high-caliber?) at any position to make significant additions...unless you believe that Erik Johnson is being targeted by multiple teams AND they're willing to give up quality for him. Unless you want to take the risk of trading Rodon or Quintana, you're pretty much stuck.

http://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11142390/chris...ian-joke-oscars What Chris Rock's lazy Asian joke revealed about "diversity" at the Oscars

Bmags is right. No way those numbers hold proportionally going forward. Rubio getting blown out in his home state and still staying in would hurt him for 2020 unless there's a new compelling development with Trump. Kasich has no valid reason to stay if he loses Ohio and even a small win leaves him at such a huge financial disadvantage for the rest of the race that donors aren't going to continue throwing money at a losing cause. Carson will be kicked off the debate stages and start to damage his brand to the point his advisors push him out...and he certainly won't spend his own money to stay in.