caulfield12

Let's not overlook that Keuchel was 15-0 at home and the Cy Young winner. There's no guarantee the Blue Jays or Royals can't win two or three in a row. Lots of parity, other than when Keuchel, Greinke and Arrieta start a game. It has nothing to do with Alex Rios...or the absence of Aoki. The playoffs are simply a crapshoot and sometimes just one pitcher (Bumgarner) and a little offense can carry a team. The Royals don't deserve to advance if they can't beat McHugh and Kazmir. It's also true the Royals' momentum stalled the last 4-6 weeks because there was no competition in the Central, compared to the Cards/Pirates/Cubs pushing each other all season long. Guaranteeing Yordano Ventura will get ripped is pretty silly, imo.

Reminiscent of 2006 when the "core" of Konerko/Dye/Thome told KW they were "good" and didn't need to make any major changes. It's like asking the starting pitcher if he wants to come out of the game. You're never going to get an honest answer. Of course the players are not going to say that the only position players assured of starting jobs heading into 2016 should be Abreu, Eaton and Cabrera...and that they don't have enough talent at those other six spots to compete. I imagine if the Royals are bounced out of the playoffs, they're going to be in true double-down mode because 2016 is going to be their last/best chance in awhile, with Hosmer/Moustakas likely to move on as free agents before 2017, following Alex Gordon out the door. With a rotation of Ventura, Volquez, Duffy, Medlen and Kyle Zimmer/Miguel Almonte (or a FA addition like Zimmermann), they're not going to be an easy out because of the additional off-season additions they'll make. They won't have Holland next year, either, but losing guys like Gordon and Guthrie frees up some money for replacing Zobrist/Infante at 2B and finding someone like Cespedes for the OF. Since Capuano is the only pitcher in history with 10+ starts after two TJ surgeries, they're going to have to be ultra-careful with Medlen, but it's assumed nearly everywhere they're picking up his $10 million option.

Former Iowa State head coach Dan McCarney got the axe at North Texas. He always figured out a way to get his undermanned teams up for the Iowa game, though...especially in Ames.

Probably Joe Maddon's Sunday breakfast caterer. Actually, it's a no-win situation for the White Sox. Name someone who is a threat to be named full-time manager, they're undermining Ventura or not showing enough confidence in him. Of course, maybe imposing a sense of "immediacy" will actually be helpful in this organization. On the other hand, a no-name guy immediate makes everyone think he's meant to be more of a "buddy" (Cora to Ozzie) and that the White Sox are basically content with their managerial situation and simply naming a Spanish-speaking candidate as a form of outreach to the Sox Latino players, as this was apparently an issue in the past couple of seasons (communication). Anyone taking the job has to know that if the White Sox get off to yet another terrible start, the job will probably be theirs for the taking.

QUOTE (BlackSox13 @ Oct 11, 2015 -> 06:37 PM) Wait, now the Astros are getting Hanley? Zobrist or Valbuena is debatable. Personally, I'd rather have Valbuena due to reasons I've already mentioned but that's just me. As far as Hanley goes, I think Boston would have to eat more money than they are willing in order for the White Sox to be interested. If the Sox look at a deal where bad contracts are exchanged I'd rather look into Ethier since he does give a little pop from the left side, can still hit and best of all is not a mental basket case. LA has some decisions to make. How confident are they to trade Ethier and hope for rebounds from Puig, Pederson and Crawford at this point is what he is...a declining speed-based player with an ugly contract (not unlike their situation with Manny Ramirez, Juan Pierre and Andruw Jones five seasons ago). The problem is that they have less incentive to trade Ethier now...if not exactly an asset, he's not a huge liability either. The biggest problem is whether Hahn's ready to throw in the towel on Garcia (send him to the minors for one year and then move Cabrera to DH?)...do they honestly believe they can compete with Ethier, Eaton, Cabrera, LaRoche and Abreu as the offensive core? Maybe they do. Who knows?

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 11, 2015 -> 01:07 PM) Have you listened to him? Listen to the interview with Herman Cain. He's a businessman and like I said, if there are no good candidates, why not give Donny a shot? He isn't going to bring down the USA single handedly and his business tactics might help. The Republican Congress might pass his stuff. I mean seriously, Trump vs. Hilly, what would it hurt giving Trump a shot for 4 years? We know what we get with Hilly. Trump would be entertaining at worst; an economic hero at best. p.s. I did hear an interesting take on radio. Somebody said Trump doesn't stand a chance. The Republicans are going to find a way to doctor the numbers and ultimately get one of the traditional boring candidates in, even if they have to doctor the electronic voting illegally. They said Trump and Carson have no chance even if Bush numbers remain 5 percent and they are over 20, 30 percent. This guest said the system is totally corrupt and a scandal should, but won't ensue. 2012 disqualified Herman Cain from being someone with much credibility as far as I'm concerned.

Frequent Sox trade target Castro, despite five k's already in the series, with a huge go-ahead single. Chris Carter with two hits.

We will see, when you have Heyward and Gordon equally valued or moreso for defense and Zobrist for positional versatility.

Royals have the best combined record in the AL since the beginning of 2013. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/magazine...pable.html?_r=0 In other news, Maddon and Yost aren't that different after all.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Oct 11, 2015 -> 09:51 AM) Why not? I'm not a Trump person, but that doesn't mean others cannot be...despite on a lot of "opinions" I see posted on this board disguised as fact, it's ok for others to like candidates even when you guys don't approve. Something about this mindset bothers me. I guess that while I can understand the "protest" mentalities undergirding support for the top 3 in the GOP now as well as Bernie Sanders or H.Ross Perot in 1992 (my father supported him instead of Bush Sr. when he broke the no new taxes pledge)...that doesn't mean at some point they won't be eaten up and spit out by the system, eventually. Perhaps believing the GOP or Dems could never nominate an "outsider" or non-establishment candidate should bother everyone. Maybe it's better to be naively idealistic about the system changing or evolving for the good of the country.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 11, 2015 -> 09:17 AM) [/b] lol, wut? Can Ventura actually manage? I will ask again. Can Ventura actually manage after four years of OJT? It's certainly not a question that we know less about the answer than Opening Day, 2012. LaRussa fired by White Sox despite winning AL West in 1983...yet he didn't last two full seasons after that, whereas Ventura has gotten three plus now. Joe Torre with the Braves and Cards before the Yankees. Jim Leyland with the Rockies. Piniella and Baker couldn't win with the Cubs. Etc. All we keep hearing is that it's only about the players, and that Robin Ventura would likewise be on the same Hall of Fame track had he been given the Cardinals' job instead of Matheny, or Don Mattingly's Dodgers team. We did, after all, have a team that was expected to compete (and promoted as such) that had almost 100% health all year long. What are the odds of that repeating itself? Once again, there are no arguments actually FOR Robin Ventura, just intimations that he will be the next Tony LaRussa or Joe Torre if we fire him...well, just because.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 11, 2015 -> 01:07 AM) I listened to Trump on the Herman Cain show tonight. Folks, if our choices remain crap, why not give a businessman a shot at it? He definitely has his opinions and he definitely wants to fix the economy which none of the traditional leaders have a rat's ass chance of doing. What harm can Trump do more than the traditional candidates who all suck? He actually sounded like he had a plan. Why not give Trump a shot? If he sucks at least it'll be funny as hell and I doubt one man can single handedly bring our country to its knees. How bout a Trump-Carson ticket and victory? Again, what harm can it do? If it's not them you seriously want Hillary-Biden to run the show? Boring.... Seriously?

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Oct 11, 2015 -> 08:59 AM) The naming game with you is always amusing. Your dot connecting even more so None of these dots you have connected have anything to do with Hanley Ramirez. He was on a team two years removed from a World Series with a manager noted to be good at working with different personalities and making them work together. In short, it isn't the manager, it's the player. But please, continue to name all kinds of different sports and players and act like it is so easy to make it work because of a coach/manager. In comparison to John Farrell failing with this year's team and getting his GM, Don Orsillo and Larry Lucchino fired in the process...we have Robin Ventura, who MIGHT (according to KW) have been AL Manager of the Year in 2012 had they actually held off the Tigers. Basically, you're making a great case for dumping Hahn/KW. Why exactly would Ramirez play harder or better for Ventura when Robin hasn't earned the respect that comes from regularly getting your team to the post-season? At any rate, like Harbaugh in SF and Ozzie in 2011, Ventura lost the White Sox as well over the last three seasons. Can't understand why the fans are the only ones who can identify something that is broken.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Oct 11, 2015 -> 08:18 AM) Not one part of this has anything to do with Hanley Ramirez Sure it does. Ventura hasn't had much luck getting positive performances out of veterans. Connect the dots. It's not too hard. So you have someone who has worn out his welcome 3-4 times in different places...you have the White Sox recent history and then you have uncertainty over whether Ventura can actually help to maximize the performance of those players. Either Hahn really sucks identifying the right players or Ventura can't get them to play. Harbaugh has turned around Hoke's program in less than six months. Somehow, there has to be some positive impact from having a good manager outside the NFL and NBA. Would the Cubs be in this same exact position without Maddon?

http://nypost.com/2015/10/11/utley-is-abou...you-play-dirty/ NY media declares war on Utley. In other unsurprising news, Addison Reed still sucks.

Michigan, Utah, LSU and Florida are probably the top four right now. Then Clemson. Iowa basically has to win in Evanston and beat Minnesota and they go 12-0 and end up 10-15+ point underdogs against OSU, Michigan or MSU in the championship game. Honestly they're not close to the Brad Banks/Dallas Clark/Bob Sanders/Rob Gallery or even the 2009 team that played Ga Tech in a BCS bowl. That said, CJ Beathard has been a revelation and things are definitely looking up compared to 2011-2014. Hard to imagine MSU beating the Wolverines with the way the past month has gone. Finally, what happened to the Bob Stoops of 1999-2006?

QUOTE (Brian @ Oct 11, 2015 -> 07:36 AM) Maddon said something to the effect that the Cardinals are "overwhelmed" by the Cubs. And Cubs fans call the Cardinals pompus. Who is holding up the "Its Gonna Happen" signs everywhere? Carrying the dumb W flags to opposing parks? Who has all the World Series titles? GMAB It's almost as annoying as that "Go Cubs Go!" theme song.

The assumption is that with all his baggage, he will be a disaster. Yet Ozzie got veterans guys like Everett, Jenks and AJ with bad or questionable character reps to come together and make huge contributions. Whereas all of the Sox veterans since Myers/Liriano/Hudson in 2012 have performed below previous back of the baseball card levels...with a few rare exceptions like Matt Albers this year and Youk for three weeks in that season. Crain would be another positive surprise before he fell apart physically. I guess you could count Soto, but he's just a back-up.

How was the show itself? Anyone listen?

Here's the thing. We keep comparing Ventura to LaRussa or Leyland or Torre or Cox or Francona. Isn't that making an even more dubious decision to automatically assume Ventura becomes one of the best managers in the history of the game if he joins an organization with better talent at the MLB and minor league levels? I'm sure if you asked the GM's of the second teams to hire those guys, they could have identified 5-10 positive qualities that made them quite confident in their decisions to give those managers second and third chances. So what teams out there would possibly want to hire Ventura, especially without Cooper as the pitching coach coming along with him? Nobody is articulating any or all of Ventura's qualities, they're just citing historical examples that may or may not apply but obscure the crux of the argument.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 10, 2015 -> 09:58 PM) That is a load of crap. Sox fans aren't showing up to watch a bad team with a good manager. The manager is just another in the list of things to complain about. It's one thing to watch a bad team. It's quite another to watch a team that consistently makes defensive mistakes, suffers from constant mental lapses, has terrible fundamentals, can't make adjustments from at-bat to at-bat, poor baserunning, hitting with RISP, inability to throw to right base, inability to be selective or patient at the plate. Every season now, they're seemingly unprepared coming out of spring training ad get off to tepid starts. About the only things we do well are pitch and pitch frame. Now if you want to deny that Balta and Lip Man and Fathom and Stan Bahsen and Flash Tizzle and Flavum and kite are full of crap...put it 100% on the players/Hahn or absolve the position players since most came from other systems and had fundamental flaws already, you're welcome to that conclusion as well. Not even Joe McCarthy would win with Dunn/LaRoche, Keppinger, Bonifacio, Leury Garcia, Saladino, Sanchez, Flowers, Thompson, Olt, Gordon Beckham, Avi Garcia, Dayan Viciedo and Micah Johnson. However, they would at least play the game the right way. How about this...let's have a poll of only the moderators, "do you believe the next White Sox playoff team will be led by Robin Ventura?...why/why not/discuss...I would love to see Ventura win this poll and, more importantly, passionate defenses for what he does well or really well that make him the perfect or at least right man for this job despite evidence to the contrary piled up over the course of essentially four seasons of on-the-job training.

You can't start Lynn. Either Garcia or they go really radical and start Wainright for symbolic/emotional motivation, knowing he can probably only give you 2-3 innings. That's assuming a 2-1 deficit.

Just think of it like a teacher. If you let students show up tardy, don't take away their cell phones and never hold them responsible for doing homework, then the whole system falls apart as they realize there are no consequences or will to enforce them...the threat of tickets is what keeps the system in balance. If the majority of people believed they could get out of tickets the majority of the time, you'd see the overall standards of driving fall precipitously. Or if the class leader who is a pretty and popular girl can get away with everything but others are held to stricter standards...you'll see a similar erosion of respect for the system.

Greinke only gave up two homers for an entire game twice in 32 starts. Did it in one sequence tonight. Something is just not gelling with the Dodgers. Puig has been hurt or off his game pretty much the entire year. Pederson and Grandal slumped, along with Rollins. At any rate, we'll see about a billion articles about the 1969 Miracle Mets and the Cubs that season. The psychic karma is worth it just to not have to deal with StL and LA again. That Mets' rotation is just a beast. That's not even counting Matz, Colon and Wheeler.

For everyone supporting Ventura despite everything, those fans can't help but acknowledge it's starting to drive even the best White Sox fans away from something they used to feel so passionate about. While Maddon isn't a genius, he's at least competent...it doesn't take much to see what a positive and enthusiastic manager can do to revitalize a franchise and get renewed buy-in from veteran players rather than falling off a cliff. The Cubs with Maddon, the Rangers with Banister, the Royals with Yost..they recognized changes were necessary, the Astros with Hinch, etc. If you listen to their post-game press conferences and read their quotes, you'll see a world of difference. Or Matheny's confidence in the Cardinals' methodology continuing to succeed with all the players essentially being interchangeable parts of a greater synergy. If nothing else, they need to find an experienced manager like Terry Collins who has the patience to deal with younger players and rebuilding...like Torborg and Manuel back in the day. Robin always seems exasperated, like he has no idea of what he can do or try to get a different result.