caulfield12

What happened with Ethier and Mattingly? Dodgers lose this game, it will be the end of his tenure in LA, for sure. Ventura Highway to the Dodgers? One can only hope and wish...

QUOTE (BlackSox13 @ Oct 15, 2015 -> 08:19 PM) I think you missed the obvious sarcasm. Let's not read too much into it. I was obviously joking, too. In all honesty, since a lot of the information we get is unsubstantiated/secondhand/not sourced, we're either left to guess, parse the tea leaves or completely ignore everything we hear, especially the dreaded "conspiracy theories." SoxTalk=X-Files of baseball sites

First, Maddon, not to be confused with the former Raiders' coach/broadcaster. Next, Greg, you never cease to amaze me. It's almost like I am imagining Donald Trump typing in your place about sports instead of politics, but in the same inimitable style. You're really beginning to mirror him with your dramatic pronouncements. At any rate, blah blah blah....managers don't matter when the team isn't talented enough, so we just keep retaining Ventura and then dump him when we finally have a good team again and actually need an experienced hand at the helm? Sounds logical, and par for the course with this franchise. After all, there are FOUR (count 'em!) 4 teams in all of professional sports with even worse ratings for coaching (ESPN rankings) than the White Sox. We're not THE worst!!! We might have even moved up 3-5 spots by jettisoning Voldemort Parent.

See, we can't even agree that Rick Hahn's important enough to even put up on the banner!!! The last two posters included KW in their groupings but not Rick. Interesting.... I mean, if Mark Parent can single-handedly disrupt the clubhouse morale/chemistry and turn players on each other and Ventura, isn't Hahn capable of at least doing something besides negotiating contracts?

QUOTE (Vance Law @ Oct 15, 2015 -> 05:27 PM) Sensible comment displaying ability to hold two thoughts in head at same time. What is it doing on this site? Two years being the key point. Pushed back being able to compete by one full year and lots of financial flexibility removed for next season due to LaRoche and Cabrera. Money wasted on Bonifacio and Beckham as well. Uncertainty over Duke and Robertson but both have bigger contracts for relievers. Garcia and Flowers are borderline starters at best. 3b especially has nobody viable. If we keep Alexei, having roughly $5-10 million to spend this offseason makes it impossible without hitting on one huge trade or 2-3 smaller ones that break perfectly like 2004-05. And it also requires Tim Anderson being a better than average major leaguer, along with two of Johnson, Fulmer and Montas.

Brandon Phillips, Grady Sizemore and Cliff Lee for Bartolo Colon The Rangers' net when they dealt Tex to the Braves. The Royals had much less control remaining with Greinke and got back two All-Stars in Cain and Escobar. Etc. Not every trade has to work out like the Sabathia one to Mil or Halladay to the Phils... If there's so little confidence in this front office to execute a trade, sign a FA or develop a hitter effectively, why are they still gainfully employed?

Shark shut down the Blue Jays...so anything's possible.

Dunn and LaRoche...with Blowasavio benignly smiling in between. Throw in Jose Paniagua for good measure to rid the bad karma. Olt, Saladino, Sanchez, Micah, Thompson, Montas....boom! Holding Davidson and Erik in reserve for expected implosions.

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Oct 15, 2015 -> 08:34 AM) On the bright side our playoff trio of Sale/Q/Rodon would easily best any of the other AL playoff rotations, and is at least on par if not better than the NL playoff rotations. And that will sell how many season tickets next year?

McEwing is LaRussa's favorite son, so by proxy. Cooper has a thirty year history with the organization in some capacity... Steverson, because Hahn and KW kept Ventura, so, if the manager's not at fault, how can the hitting coach be more to blame than Vince Coleman, for example? Besides, he did enjoy some success his first year and with selected minor league hitters (supposedly). Coleman never played for us but has ties to KW personally and LaRussa through the Cards.

But still lost house. Getting the score flip flopped doesn't help us beat the line. Although I suppose a few out there were betting over/under on total runs scored. Hard to predict with Cueto so inconsistent and a 4.76 ERA since joining KC.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Oct 13, 2015 -> 12:00 PM) Higher then I expected tbh. But we fell 28 spots. Big tumble. More at link: http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/13830149...t-losing-season Curious who were the four teams in professional sports with worse coaching? And that's with Don Cooper, supposedly one of the best pitching coaches in baseball. What does that say about the rest of the staff? Where were the Cubs, Royals, Twins, Tigers and Indians ranked in this coaching stat?

QUOTE (chw42 @ Oct 14, 2015 -> 11:27 PM) No he'll be ready for game 4. Why wouldn't he be starting game 3 on full rest next Tuesday?

The Royals already have something of a difficult decision. They can start Ventura on 3 day's rest, and they would be going back to back with that. On the other hand, he didn't pitch close to a full game in the (first) rain delay (in middle of the game) start. Volquez is the other option here. So it's an interesting decision. Cueto definitely won't go until game 3, and he's basically refusing to go on 3 days, so that means some combination of Volquez/Ventura in Games 1/2. http://espn.go.com/mlb/player/batvspitch/_...edinson-volquez .714 OPS against by the Blue Jays (active players), but only a .227 average. http://espn.go.com/mlb/player/batvspitch/_...yordano-ventura .693 OPS for Ventura against Toronto, .217 BAA. Game 1 starter would have to go on 3 day's rest on Tuesday (Game 4/October 20th) or they will have to start Medlen/Duffy/Guthrie/Chris Young instead. I'm not sure they can afford to do that if they're down 2-1 in the series. Finally, Cueto would be unavailable until a potentially-deciding Game 7, so the huge/pivotal Game 6 starter is a huge mystery as well for the Royals...

Meanwhile, the Royals are bringing in millions more in revenue each series they advance to refortify for one last go at it next season with Gordon, Hosmer and Moustakas all likely gone after 2016. On the other hand, Sal Perez's 5 year, $7 million contract is the biggest bargain in baseball, replacing Alexei Ramirez's deal quite awhile ago. I'm actually quite curious to see where Zobrist eventually ends up, and what kind of deal he signs. At age 34/35, is he more concerned with playing for a winner or getting a final, 3-4 year deal from the highest bidder? The Royals are going to eat Infante's deal, so they're definitely looking to improve at 2B. They're getting rid of Rios' $11 million ($1 million buyout), and Guthrie's $9 million, buyout ($3.5 million)...the biggest problem is still owing $18 million to Infante (basically more worthless than Danks and LaRoche at this point) and Jason Vargas, who will be coming back from a major injury at some point next year. Luckily for them, they have those favorable deals with Perez/Escobar as well as Wade Davis, Herrera and Kendrys Morales. Big decisions looming on Kris Medlen ($10 million option) and whether they want to pay Greg Holland to rehab from TJ for a year...they'll probably cut ties with Holland reallocate that money elsewhere.

At my international school in China (average SAT score's in the 2100 range), all of the students are doing physics and chemistry in middle school... Seeing the quality of work at that age level, there's almost no way that all but the best American students can compete in STEM subject areas against the Chinese and Indians (to a lesser extent). IT/Computer Science tends to be a bit harder to master, because of the language barriers, fwiw. I think nobody in the entire school got an A or 4 or 5 for A levels/AP. Just getting a 5/7 in IB Computer Science HL is a minor miracle. And, of course, those students tend to be more hungry/motivated and willing to work for less to get their foot in the door.

QUOTE (flavum @ Oct 14, 2015 -> 08:53 PM) I hope it's great baseball but without all of the bulls***. Probably going to be disappointed with that wish. The Rangers' announcers were super-pissed that their team (Chris Gimenez in particular) was getting involved in fighting with the Blue Jays when they were only down by 3 runs at that time. I guess shock with Andrus, Moreland (maybe the best 1B in the AL making that throw, but he babied/guidd it) and especially Bautista's swagger/bat flip. They were probably just shell-shocked and in disbelief.

Can't wait for the Lawrie drama to be rekindled, haha... Actually, the best way to get rich gambling is just do the opposite of whatever Greg predicts!!! Poor Gregster, these last few weeks with a $140 ticket, Hillary Clinton resuming her front runner status, Kansas football being a complete embarrassment to the Big 12, the Royals continuing to haunt him... I predict that in the next 48-72 hours, a Royals' fan with a souvenir flag flying from the window frame will intimidate Greg into rolling through another stop sign with their exuberance and devil-may-care attitude...OR, they will smash into his back-bumper and he'll be forced to get a rental car, which will only be 25-50% covered by insurance and will end up costing more than the original ticket for rolling the stop sign. All we would be missing would be some type of random gun crimes lost amid the celebrations taking place in KCK and the northeast section of KCMO.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-leag...-181323651.html Apparently Schwarber's bomb last night landed resting on top of the scoreboard. Too good to make it up. They're going to leave it up there, enshrined in a protective glass casing until the end of the playoffs. The anti-Billy Goat, Bartman Ball, 1969 Mets, Leon Durham (1984), Bill Buckner (well, he mostly played for the Cubs, so the associative theory), the Brant Brown error in 1998, lost to the Giants in 1989 but nobody remembers because of the earthquake, etc.

Buddy Bell, Hahn, KW, Steverson, Robin, new bench coach, Vince Coleman... Can cross each of them out when they're no longer with the organization and only the bench coach is left standing. McEwing, if he doesn't end up taking another job, can probably stick him up there too.

Neshek and Keuchel perhaps too late...if they were going to bring Keuchel in, it should have been to face Rios where Hinch used Fiers instead. Hinch isn't going to come out of this series smelling likes roses. We'll see if Yost gets second-guessed not going to Herrera or Davis here and rolling with Cueto. Hard to argue with 16 in a row...but, on the other hand, you have the best bullpen in the majors. Tough call. Don't like bringing in Herrera with someone on base, and he's not as comfortable in the 8th as the 7th. I'd go with Davis if Cueto gets in trouble, but that's kind of an obvious call when he's had a sub 1 ERA or whatever for two consecutive seasons.

Cueto just earned $25 million back. Still down another $25 million for that 9+ ERA he had over a 4-5 start stretch there. At the very least, he's at least halfway redeemed/rehabilitated in the minds of KC fans now. If he would have imploded in this game, he would be as well liked as Javy V. by White Sox fans when he returned in the future....a cascade of boos. http://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-colum...le39009429.html This homemade Cueto video looks hilarious...

Logically, you go Sale/Q/Rodon (three lefty aces)....until one of them is traded. Or you choose from Sale/Q/Eaton/Abreu...with Robertson and Rodon on the outside looking in for the moment. Or you could have Cabrera, Duke, Bonifacio, Beckham, Robertson, LaRoche and Shark and cross them out whenever they leave the organization. That Cubs' banner will be too big. Forgot to add Baez and Russell. Can't fit them all in.

I was referring to pre-steroids Bonds. Well, never mind. http://sports.yahoo.com/news/the-cubs-are-...-032206186.html It's starting. Passan basically arguing that the Cubs in the NLCS and World Series will be one of the first times in recent history baseball has gotten more attention in October than football, probably going back to the 2004 Red Sox championship...oxygen remaining for the White Sox in the media, critical and failing.

I was referring to pre-steroids Bonds. Well, never mind. http://sports.yahoo.com/news/the-cubs-are-...-032206186.html It's starting. Passan basically arguing that the Cubs in the NLCS and World Series will be one of the first times in recent history baseball has gotten more attention in October than football, probably going back to the 2004 Red Sox championship...oxygen remaining for the White Sox in the media, critical and failing.