caulfield12

Okay....just bad positioning and the typical Avi route to the ball apparently....nothing new there. 46-14 now in the 1st. Two sliders, two wipeouts. This should be interesting with Gallo. The early book on him is don't throw him a fastball over the plate, lol. Well, that could have been a LOT worse, but our defense gave up another "earned" run that it shouldn't have. Rodon missing up and down with the FB, not to the inside and outside of the plate. If DeMuth stays consistent with this smaller strike zone, it's going to be a challenge for Carlos to get past 5 innings.

His slider velocity's only 85 too (usually it's upper 80's)...fastball and slider just not as crisp as usual. Got a K, though.

Sanchez not familiar enough with the speed of that Texas infield.... That DeShields' double, who misplayed it? Eaton or Avi?

Either Rodon has a dead arm, or there's a big red flag tonight with his fastball velocity disappearing. Last start, he was 92-98 MPH. Tonight, he's 89-91, and those aren't sliders. Okay, now he's up to 93. Just not getting out of the gate with his good stuff...well, we know our first inning history this year.

On the other hand, as badly as they've played recently, they're still only trailing the two leaders in the NL Wildcard race by 1 game. And they do have the expendable pieces (and money) to go out and make significant moves at the deadline.

With the White Sox luck, all those teams closer to the bottom of the first round like Detroit and KC develop one of those injured pitchers into the next Cy Young candidate. Unfortunately, the White Sox aren't in a position where they can afford to wait another full year and go the Hoffman route according to all observations of their "new and revised" drafting philosophy. http://www.vivaelbirdos.com/st-louis-cardi...louis-cardinals This is an interesting (albeit unlikely) take on the Cardinals going crazy overslot on all their players in the draft trying to gain a competitive advantage by gaming the system...spending twice as much as allotted and incurring penalties. In the end, the numbers just don't work out for it to make sense like teams have judged with the Latin American under 23 rules.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Jun 4, 2015 -> 04:12 PM) We are 2 1/2 out of a wild card spot. The season is like 50 games done and over 100 left. I think we still have a chance so dump the sky is falling routine please! However, that very same argument could have been made the year of the White Flag trade. We were just 3 1/2 games behind ONE team at that particular time, the Cleveland Indians, with a full two months of play left that season. By my count, we currently have TEN American League teams all within 4 1/2 games of the wild card. If you want to add the Oakland A's, who are playing about as well as any team in baseball recently and have 4 solid starters and a "positive" runs scored/runs allowed differential (compared to, say, the Tigers, who are in negative territory but over .500 still)...then you have ELEVEN. So which team had better odds of making the playoffs? The 2015 White Sox being better than ten other teams (without being able to add significant additional resources at the deadline in all likelihood because using our best trading chip would be another version of surrendering, and almost zero history of 2nd half comebacks) OR beating all FOUR teams ahead of them in the American League Central? Or the 1997 Chicago White Sox? The sky isn't falling, but it's also not like the odds are greatly in favor of the White Sox, either.

QUOTE (Brian @ Jun 3, 2015 -> 07:53 AM) Up may or may not have been the only animated movie where it got dusty in my living room. Can't confirm. Up! is great. Highly recommended. If you have older parents who are nearing retirement age (or one/both have passed away already), then you'll find it nearly impossible not to get sentimental about this film. Kind of like the idea that once you're a parent...you pay a LOT more attention to all things related to kids or parenting examples (both good and bad).

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 4, 2015 -> 07:13 AM) I guess I am part of the Thibs army, but the real problem I had was not with the Bulls dismissing him, although I don't think they will be a better team because of it, it was how it was done. The hatchet job the day of the firing was over the top, but they, the guys who have been crying about leaks, have been leaking crap for months. Players in their exit interviews want to avoid Thibs, this must have come from Thibs. So and so leaked this and that, whether that is true or not we will never know. What we do know is Gar Forman's quotes during the press conference announcing the dismissal and the press conference naming the Mayor was full of lies. I hope the Mayor wins 75 next year, but if players keep getting injured, like Noah did before Thibs was around, who are they going to blame? Robin Ventura, Rick Hahn or KW.

www.fangraphs.com/scoutboard.aspx This is also a very handy tool...Cornelius Randolph has shot up all the way to the 10-15 spot. Haven't heard much about him. 3B. HS kid.

QUOTE (flavum @ Jun 3, 2015 -> 09:19 PM) I'd feel pretty damn good if the Sox win the next three and get to 27-27 at the 1/3 mark of the season. You just had to do it, haha. Okay, well...now you promised everyone 27-27, let's see how well that holds up, starting with Rodon tmrw.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/move-aside-bea...=trending_now_1 Move aside Bears, the Blackhawks are taking over Chicago Wall Street Journal "sociology" take on the budding dynasty nearing 3 titles in 6 years...

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Jun 3, 2015 -> 05:42 PM) To the Mariners: Mark Trumbo and Vidal Nuno To the DBacks: Wellington Castillo, Dominic Leone, Gabby Guerrero and another prospect. Vladimir's cousin...looks like the spitting image of him, except for the way he Vlad the Impaler played.

QUOTE (LDF @ Jun 3, 2015 -> 02:41 PM) with all due respect, i don't see the comparison. For the White Sox plan to work, he has to hit 30-40 homers per season. The failures of Beckham, Viciedo, Melky (this season) and pretty much the entire infield/C to hit with any power (or to utilize their speed efficiently) have brought the White Sox to this relatively desperate position.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Jun 3, 2015 -> 02:24 PM) The problem is Balta can't be objective with past PED users, so he honestly believes Melky will be 60/70 wRC+ type hitter. Which is still much more likely with our free agent history than 130-140+ on the other side. It's a coin flip, at best. And even with the likes of hitting on a PEDs guy such as Nelson Cruz, and signing Cano...the Mariners (Ackley, Miller, Zunino, Seager) are still not much better off than the White Sox offensively...which just goes to show how hard (and costly) offense is to come by when you you don't or can't develop it yourself. Same can be said for the Red Sox, Yankees and Phillies, teams with far bigger payrolls than ours. It's likely the Angels will also fall short on the offensive side as well. If you can't have at least 50% of your offense be homegrown, the odds start to get very long unless you are a starting pitching assembly line.

The only thing we have in common with the Phillies is holding onto older cores beyond their shelf life and Amaro/KW both putting their feet in their mouth occasionally. If you could prove to me today that Anderson, Hawkins, Micah, Sanchez, Montas, Danish and Adams would all fail to make it as big league regulars, trading Sale and Abreu would be the best possible solution. Of course, then you'd have to trust the same front office team not to screw up those moves...which seems even scarier to the anti-rebuild group. Assuming Eaton and Avi are both going to make it, that still leaves six other line-up slots to fill if you're going to hold onto Abreu (which also assumes that Melky Cabrera was/is done as a better than average player). That's just way too many positions to fill with our current "pushing the limits" payroll situation. Even if dealing Samardzija provides you with another above-average position player (far from a sure thing at the moment), you're five players away....so you're needing at least 3/5 of the remaining to be good to make up for the 2 that will be busts an weigh down the bottom of the line-up. That means a .667 success rate on trades for position prospects with just Samardzija and Alexei to deal...and let's say a trade of our struggling top minor league prospects. The best argument for holding onto everyone is Anderson becomes a stud at SS and Hawkins another Mike Stanton in the OF, allowing you to push Melky/Avi off the field to DH. And one of the four pitchers (assuming we draft another college arm, to go along with Adams/Montas/Danish) makes it. Even then, you've got three players in Melky, Avi and Abreu who should be DHing, but maybe some miracle allows the offense to overcome the defensive inadequacies. To be perfectly honest, it doesn't seem possible unless we get extremely fortunate and find our own Yadier Molina/Sal Perez/Gomes at catcher.

The myth of the Red Sox Empire/Nation and new metrics http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2015/06/...WFYL/story.html Basically, if you take away that 2013 World Series they're not much different than the White Sox over the last seven years “There’s no issue with the coaches. The issue is with the production on the field. That’s either going to change or this is going to be a terrible year,” Henry said. “Did this whole team become a collection of poor hitters? I don’t think so. I think that the production has been poor. I think that there are adjustments that are needed to be made.” “Did we spend too much on offense and not enough on pitching?” Henry said. “With hindsight you could perhaps say that. But we don’t have enough offense. As far as I’m concerned I don’t remember seeing our offense look this badly maybe ever since we’ve been involved here.” http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2015/06/...JwK/story.html#

Nick Martinez , #22 RHP 4-1, 2.03 ERA, 35 SO Martinez had a streak of four straight winning decisions snapped Thursday, but he has allowed three earned runs or fewer in 16 straight starts. That's the longest such streak in club history. He lost in his only start vs. the White Sox last season. Something's gotta give with either the offense or Sale...who will blink first? One of the scariest and guttiest Sale performances was the time Chris was pitching with an 86-88 mph fastball and using almost all offspeed stuff down in Arlington. How he got through that was beyond me.

QUOTE (Brian @ Jun 3, 2015 -> 05:33 AM) Lots of nonsense in one paragraph that an "outsider" shouldn't throw out there. How do we know he's not an upgrade? Donovan may not last a full season? This isn't MLB. Coaches get a few years. If the Bulls don't take the next step in 3 years, Hoiberg probably will be gone along with everyone as the rebuild. There haven't been many top coaches from the college ranks who could succeed equally well in the NBA. Wooden Jr. /Stevens with the Celtics and Larry Brown immediately come to mind. Lon Kruger wins everywhere but in the pros. P.J. Carlesimo had moderate pro success after Seton Hall but is mostly remembered today as the coach Latrell Sprewell choked. For every example like that, there are five or ten Pitinos or Caliparis. http://abc7chicago.com/sports/college-coac...ts-them/762899/

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ Jun 3, 2015 -> 06:07 AM) The 2013 team was more Rick Hahn's than it wasn't. It wasn't like he came from another organization to inherit that mess. As Asst. General Manager, he had influence on every single individual comprising the roster that year. He also had an entire offseason beforehand to make changes to the roster, and he didn't, really, other than adding Keppinger. So I'd say he is as much to blame for that horrific '13 season as his predecessor. It seems a little far fetched to me to suggest that from 2002-2012, when Kenny was GM and Hahn was Asst. GM, that somehow Kenny was solely responsible for baseball decisions made to the team during that timeframe, and that subsequent to 2012, it has all just been "The Rick Hahn Show". I think Kenny's periodic interviews suggest rather strongly that he is still very influential on any baseball decisions made. So as far as I can tell, since 2002, the White Sox have essentially been run by the trio of Reinsdorf, Williams & Hahn, with only a change in titles for the latter two a few years ago, while maintaining a consensus view between the three in terms of strategy and decisions made throughout these past 13 years. And, if anything, the push to sign Abreu came mostly from Williams and Paddy on the scouting/talent evaluation side vs. Hahn's contracts/ROI/financial obligations expertise. I would love to know who pushed the most for Melky Cabrera, in particular. And who among KW, Hahn and Ventura most actively supported keeping Flowers as the starting catcher.

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ Jun 3, 2015 -> 06:07 AM) The 2013 team was more Rick Hahn's than it wasn't. It wasn't like he came from another organization to inherit that mess. As Asst. General Manager, he had influence on every single individual comprising the roster that year. He also had an entire offseason beforehand to make changes to the roster, and he didn't, really, other than adding Keppinger. So I'd say he is as much to blame for that horrific '13 season as his predecessor. It seems a little far fetched to me to suggest that from 2002-2012, when Kenny was GM and Hahn was Asst. GM, that somehow Kenny was solely responsible for baseball decisions made to the team during that timeframe, and that subsequent to 2012, it has all just been "The Rick Hahn Show". I think Kenny's periodic interviews suggest rather strongly that he is still very influential on any baseball decisions made. So as far as I can tell, since 2002, the White Sox have essentially been run by the trio of Reinsdorf, Williams & Hahn, with only a change in titles for the latter two a few years ago, while maintaining a consensus view between the three in terms of strategy and decisions made throughout these past 13 years. And, if anything, the push to sign Abreu came mostly from Williams and Paddy on the scouting/talent evaluation side vs. Hahn's contracts/ROI/financial obligations expertise. I would love to know who pushed the most for Melky Cabrera, in particular. And who among KW, Hahn and Ventura most actively supported keeping Flowers as the starting catcher.

Over the last 24-48 hours, we've had both a micromanaging owner and KW describing their team's current level of play as embarassing or pathetic...but nothing from the GM or manager of those two respective SOX organizations. We've also had two dreaded votes of confidence. So who really wears the pants? It seems to me that KW is speaking for Reinsdorf.

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Jun 2, 2015 -> 09:57 PM) It doesn't take other teams very long to realize a guy can't play baseball. He played well for them last year in a limited role and had his typical hot streaks...but he wasn't an everyday player any longer.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jun 2, 2015 -> 09:38 PM) But name another team in which he'd be a starter? Are there any? He's actually way worse than DeAza. There are at least 8-10. He's got a guaranteed contract from Hahn for the near future...his OPS has rebounded in May to more or less his normal levels in 2014, the problem was that atrocious start will weigh down his overall stats for another month or two despite how well he plays. There are plenty of problems with his decision-making both defensively (mostly on throwing) and on the basepaths, but he's a Top 8-10 CF in MLB when he's on his game, like he was for most of last season. He also needs to pick up his walk rate...anyway, DeAza's no longer with the Orioles, and the White Sox don't have ANYONE who can play everyday to replace Cabrera, Eaton or Garcia. Most common theory is the new contract caused him to put too much pressure on himself to "be the man" and "stir the drink" instead of staying within himself. http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/batting/_/pos.../OPS/order/true

And he's "The Mayor" for crying out loud. A couple months ago on CyFan they had a legitimate thread started trying to garner enough votes to convince the powers at be in Ames to change the name of the town to Hoiberg, IA. Little did they know it appears he's been looking for a ticket out of that hell hole for quite awhile. #3 is exactly what I was thinking as well when I read Jon's post from earlier. TJ's ability to recruit players to come play for him will be the biggest key to his success. He was able to convince guys to come play for Hoiberg quite well, but he had Fred Hoiberg to sell. Fred's NBA experience both on the court and in the front office. His NBA style of play and his hands off mentality that he takes to coaching his players. Fred is well known for his long distance shooting ability as well so I'm sure that was a big selling point too. Learning from a shooter like Fred is huge. TJ doesn't have Fred to sell anymore, but he did spend a lot of time learning from Fred himself. Whether or not that will be enough to attract good players remains to be seen. It certainly won't be as easy. Sampling of comments at hawkeyenation.com, haha Actually, with a consensus Top 10 team coming into next season...it's both an enviable but also "pressure cooker" situation where the fan base expectation is an Elite 8 appearance right off the bat. If the new coach can do that or something similar, he can leverage it in recruiting. If the players turn on each other or the coach and things don't work out so well, then you're going to have a much harder time rebooting and building a solid foundation from the very ground up.