caulfield12

QUOTE (raBBit @ Mar 2, 2015 -> 04:07 PM) I asked him to expand on his role in the organization because it's very obvious that he has a prominent role, but a role that is somewhat ambiguous. He first reiterated to me the only information that had been public (at least to that point). That being his influence on hitting coach search, compiling candidates, background work and recommending Steverson. Other than that, the beat writers talk about his work on arbitration cases, which really could be taken as an endorsement of his craft as the Sox almost never make it to arbitration with their players. Other than the info that was already known, Haber, who seems entirely prepared in his speech much alike Hahn, expanded on how he works hand-in-hand with Dan Fabian. That is a tell, to answer your question, that yes, he is an analytical/information guy. For those who don't know, Dan Fabian has been an integral piece of the front office despite rarely being mentioned in the press. He's the Director of Baseball Ops and has been with the team for 20+ years. In any case, he has been given credit for creating the "portal" for the White Sox analytics department. While the Sox have been noted as behind the curve in the sabremetrics game (largely because of a couple pot-shots by Michael Lewis in Moneyball), those within the organization feel differently and that could be attributed to Fabian's longstanding contributions. But getting to Haber, he talked about working with Fabian on player targets and player evaluations. Perhaps delving into the portal with Fabian led to him spearheading the movement to extend Quintana which was released today by Dan Hayes as well as others I am sure. In any case, Haber has been very active in the White Sox organization and I am sure will begin popping up on other team's radars if he hasn't already. I was very impressed with him. One of the things that drew me to Hahn when he was still Assistant GM was the way he spoke as if he had known the questions in advance and prepared his answers. Haber has that same trait. I am sure the multiple degrees from top flight institutions speak towards their intelligence but socially, neither of these guys miss a beat like say, Kenny Williams (for sake of convenience) had in the past. Haber's clear and concise with a soft humor and was much more comfortable than other members of the White Sox front office. Judging off what is known about Hahn, there should be no doubt that Hahn looked at Haber and saw a lot of himself. If the Sox build a winner out of this new team, I imagine Haber takes on a more prominent role in either the White Sox organization or elsewhere. I don't want to draw out this post any longer but it's broaching on a topic that bothers me. People talk about whether front offices are "sabers" or "old-school" and it's silly. For 90% of organizations it's a hodge-podge of 3-7 individuals making the decisions and these individuals have different backgrounds. There may be a few exclusions, say the Diamondbacks on one end of the spectrum and the A's on the other but with out a doubt, a successful front office needs individuals who can characterize and weight performance financially/statistically as well as guys who have "been there before" and can offer a nuanced outlook on the dynamics of a baseball team. It's not like Stanford's a crappy school, haha. One of my students here in China got turned down by them but accepted at MIT (also not wanting to get into the argument about the quality of a state school, versus, let's say Northwestern or Notre Dame). At any rate, like Ozzie, KW got a little bit lazy and started resting on his laurels. Call it cockiness, overconfidence, whatever you want. The most blatant example was the misunderstanding about the Nestor Molina acquisition, and his status over that winter. Seems he was delegating too much (in that case, to Paddy) and, in other cases, to Dave Wilder to have carte blanche to run his own show in the Dominican.

That's nearing Sosa 1998 size. Or Puig.

Penn St./Paterno/Sandusky it is certainly not. And there's no pattern of cover-ups/abuse of power, etc.

So one would have to assume Rasheed Suleimon was one of the players... Or is this an older story going back to decade or two? http://nypost.com/2015/03/02/coach-k-waite...ssaults-report/ Here's the story. And it was Suleimon, going back at least 10 months...and two alleged sexual assaults.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Mar 2, 2015 -> 10:37 AM) Also a disciplined hitter who had an OPS just under .800 with Cincinnati. But his first 3-4 seasons he was terribly inconsistent...and he was on the verge of being banished to the minors or being out of baseball.

Looks like Viciedo will make $20K per month if he doesn't make the major league roster. About $850,000 (total) if he never sets foot on a major league diamond this year, not bad. With the Saunders injury, though, the door is at least ajar to be a platoon DH and part-time OF through mid-May.

QUOTE (oldsox @ Feb 28, 2015 -> 06:55 PM) Who had the movie rights? https://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view...mp;fr=yfp-t-252 https://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view...mp;fr=yfp-t-252 Cinemax Friday Nights, haha

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/110819666/ph...hicago-treasure Very good Phil Rogers column on Minnie. Didn't realize his WAR and BB/K stats were so amazing...

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/02/20/mcfar...y-sports-movies What has Disney done to neuter the sports movie genre?

Edwin Encarnacion then.

QUOTE (sammy esposito @ Mar 1, 2015 -> 12:08 PM) Orestes " Minnie" Minoso He may have been the only Orestes in Mlb history. I met him one day at restaurant or bar on the day the white sox game was called of to snow or low temperatures, he was signing autographs. I was so awestruck I couldn't think of any thing intelligent to say. I finally just said, Are you really Minnie Minoso" Minnie replied," who else would I be. " https://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=Ak3prh...restes+destrade There's a Saturnino...Armas....Arrieta in Minnie's name as well.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Mar 1, 2015 -> 07:37 AM) What? That's ridiculous, who wrote this? Merkin yesterday....that he MighT start a b game or split squad, but not any regular spring training games Also another Jared Mitchell/Buddy Bell puff piece, incredibly.

Big games for MSU (at Wisky), OSU and Purdue tomorrow. Iowa at Indiana next week...a loss there puts Indiana closer to the bubble. And Illinois will have to knock off Nebraska and Purdue to go 10-8...needing to win at least one in the B10 tourney.

There was an article stating Rodon probably wasn't going to be starting any spring training games. This might open the door a bit. Sale's injury will give Rodon even more of a chance to shine in the spring, especially if Beck, Johnson and Penny struggle.

American secularist writer hacked to death in Bangladesh. http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/28/asia/banglad...dead/index.html

Sure way to stir up controversy and sell tickets.

It does bring Rodon's name more to the forefront.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Feb 27, 2015 -> 09:16 PM) Lip service. I expect improved technique but not overall more attempts. Perhaps. It's all dependent on how the core of the offense (Cabrera/Abreu/LaRoche/Garcia/Conor) are hitting. If they're collectively scuffling, you're going to have to see runs manufactured one at a time by Eaton, Ramirez and whoever's at 2B.

Not to mention that most of the better candidates to work with for Coleman are already with the White Sox. Other than a few guys, like Tim Anderson, Engel, Jacob May...we're not exactly swimming in speed-based players. Hawkins can run a bit, but his body is more like Avisail, where he needs more time to reach full acceleration. At this point, they're not going to invest too much time in Mitchell or Thompson.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Feb 27, 2015 -> 07:07 PM) I like your style keep posting. And I agree on your point. With 2 outs, I'm sending most guys, most of the time. Even with a great hitter like Jose up next the odds he gets him in or a wild pitch aren't better than 50%. Except for the final out of the World Series...when the runner's going to be out by 20-40 feet.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Feb 27, 2015 -> 09:47 AM) 88% of my 401k's overall value is in the S&P500 Index. Though that WAS over 95%, over the years I slowly started upping my contributions to foreign index and bond index while lowering my contribution to the S&P500 index (just to slowly bring a bit of balance), without doing a forced rebalancing. That obviously makes sense when much of the projected world growth is in Asia, the Middle East and pockets of South America and Africa. Trusting foreign companies to report accurate results/earnings, though, not an exact science. (Of course, we went through a slew of companies like Enron and Worldcom gaming numbers over a decade ago, too.)

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/02/25/focus-ew-review Nice to see Margot Robbie back in action with a meatier role. Maybe not so nice for Jada Pinkett, though. Thankfully, 50 Shades of Grey is starting to fade away from memory already.

Yadier Alvarez. The next Yordano Ventura.

QUOTE (asindc @ Feb 27, 2015 -> 11:38 AM) What MLB and NHL have in common is a minor league system full of teenagers away from home for the first time. NBA scouting is worse because they started drafting many more younger players than before (Kwame Brown, anyone?). I think most scouts recognize raw talent. Fewer scouts recognize personal character and maturity. That's why so many baseball and hockey prospects wash out. After all, Brien Taylor's 95-mph fastball was overcome by his immaturity. And who assessed Brown's talent? Probably the greatest player the world has ever known. It wasn't a SABES geek who got that one wrong, anymore than Ivy League MBAers were drafting Bowie over Jordan, either.

QUOTE (LDF @ Feb 27, 2015 -> 09:08 AM) yeah you are right, that is why i mention the yanks of the 90's, b/c they spent and spent to get a team they hope will win it all. you are right about the yanks not spending. i was surprise this offseason, refraining to spurge. but i was mentioning SF gaints being smart and not to drive into and spend on salary. But they also developed from their farm system Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, Bernie Williams, Andy Pettite...while they brought in some guys via trade and FA like Boone, O'Neill, Clemens, the heart of those teams were homegrown. When the Yankees really spent like crazy was from the early 80's until the mid 90's, without a whole lot to show for it. Don Mattingly, and that was about it.