caulfield12

QUOTE (Brian @ Jul 8, 2015 -> 02:10 PM) Terminator: Genysis was nonsensical garbage. My one buddy said it wasn't good but fun. It's neither. 1) Jai Courtney sucks and always will. 2) Emilia needs to stick to blonde hair, nalf nude and GoT. She just didn't fit into that role, something was just OFF. (I'm joking about the nudity part, lest someone who was upset about the black cocktail dress girls at the Women's World Cup lays into me for sexism, lol). 3) Arnie is just too old to sustain that type of physical role, since the one liners were stale about 20 years ago. 4) Jason Clarke as John Connor didn't work either...miss the charisma of someone like Christian Bale. Of course, if it was Bale against Jai Courtney, that would have been laughable as well. 5) Even JK Simmons can't elevate bad scripts with 3-5 minutes of screen time. On the plus side, ME and EARL and The Dying Girl was a pleasant surprise and took the bitterness of Terminator away. Waiting for Greg775's Magic Mike XL review with bated breath. Will he dare go when the it's a 95% female audience? Seems an interesting way to meet a concupiscent girl at an afternoon "Bachelorette Party" matinee, haha.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jul 8, 2015 -> 03:45 PM) What double standard. We could go back to 1990. Our whole point was the Bulls franchise was changed for the better the day Jordan arrived. The Bulls become a show and a phenomena and backed it up with 6 titles and that gave them staying power through a down era and now they are back (not to the level previously) but have been a consistent playoff team and a perennial title contender (favorite, no, but Vegas has long had them amongst the front runners for the title). There is no comparing the Bulls & Sox from 1990 onward. It is a horrible argument. If you want to go back to the pre-jordan era and when the Bulls largely sucked, sure, but fact is, product took a turn for the better and the Bulls became the face of the NBA internationally and did so far a long time (Jordan was a god before he ever won his 1st title so the stretch really was well sustained). It feels like the White Sox are reminiscent of the Bulls in the late 70's/early 80's and waiting for their own Michael Jordan (which, of course, in baseball is usually not one superstar but a winning collection of players). Right now, it's the Quintin Daley and Jay Williams Curse...except it's the FREE AGENT/ALL IN Curse, because there certainly haven't been many injuries or drug problems with our players. We just can't select and/or develop a player to save our lives, other than pitchers. Ironic, of course, because the team on the other side of town that's getting 95% of the column inches has the opposite problem. Yet one has the feeling that Epstein and Hoyer won't panic and try to force something one year early, they're going to wait until July 31st and pick up a starting pitcher on the cheap....instead of taking advantage of a seller's market early in July like they've done the last 2-3 seasons.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jul 8, 2015 -> 03:42 PM) 10 teams since 1990 have had fewer playoff appearances then the Sox (I believe): Nats, Rockies, Marlins, Mariners, Orioles, Royals, Mets, Padres, Blue Jays and Rays. On that list, 3 are expansion teams and the list includes 3 world series winners (Blue Jays (1) & Marlins (2)). I'd also say that one thing almost all of those teams has in common is lousy attendance (w/outlier being Nats (new stadium / relocated franchise), Rockies (solid attendance, beautiful stadium, big city, Mets (new stadium pickup, but prior attendance had its own issues when team stunk at Shea) and Mariners (just a strong fan base in general...nice stadium and they benefited heavily from Ichiro and market (heavy Japanese / Asian population). 1994 nearly destroyed the Expos, baseball in Montreal in that stadium was just never going to work....just like it (the STRIKE) did in the Midwest (along with the 2008/09 financial crisis). Revisit the theme of exceptions again, the Sammy and Big Mac Show in St. Louis and Chicago. The Rockies, Mariners and Orioles all had very strong attendance with the opening of their new stadiums....but eventually that fell off with the lack of success on the field (and the Rockies had 2007 and 2009, more recent success). The Mariners have a market all to themselves and still have been struggling with attendance over the last 5+ years, despite adding the likes of Cano and Nelson Cruz (to go with King Felix). Luckily, they have that new tv rights deal, but even that alone hasn't been enough because of the failures of young players like Smoak, Ackley, Zunino, Montero and whoever they've stuck at SS or CF (no Adam Jones). The Twins, Royals, Reds, Indians and White Sox are the norm...the Brewers/Cubs/Cards/Tigers are the outliers that don't fit.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 8, 2015 -> 03:33 PM) It is the double standard being used in this thread. One note talks about only the most recent history for the Sox, but then is going back to before a good portion of the Bulls fan base can ever remember to explain them. It is silly. See Cardinals since 1940. When you have a winning tradition established (actually making the playoffs, not just finishing 2nd/3rd or over .500), you can go through a down decade (relatively speaking), and still emerge on the other side. For example, St. Louis from end of the 80's into the late 90's (eventual arrival of Pujols) was pretty much similar to what the White Sox did over the last decade. Winning builds trust and good will. That has all but been erased in the minds of most Sox fans. If the White Sox had won 4-6 World Championships in a 10-15 year period, this thread wouldn't exist.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jul 8, 2015 -> 03:27 PM) I really don't care about any factor other then performance. Yes, cubs have benefited for whatever reason, but most teams are going to struggle with performance when they haven't had a lot of sustained success and post-season appearances. That is just the reality and more recently we have had some pretty awful teams to watch and as I've alluded to this team this year is probably the worst of the bunch to watch play (even more so then last years team that was horrifically frustrating to watch). When the product on the field stinks and the cost to go to games is their, what incentive does a person have to go pay. You don't get some huge discount on tickets when product sucks. Not much incentive to walk up and in 81 game season and with stadium capacity ~40K, that is a lot of potential seats to fill each and every night. Add in worse defense on the planet, cost, and poor fundamentals and I don't see why you'd watch. Do you pay 10 bucks to see a great movie, sure, lots of people do. Do you pay 10 bucks to see Gigli, hell no (or at least I hope not...that would be a bannable offense). Yes, the 2015 White Sox are the theatric version of Gigle. As a huge movie fan, I would definitely pay to see Gigli 3-4 times over ONE White Sox game, at least this season. With that said, I'm making the quite LIKELY idiotic decision to go watch what might be Samardzija's last start with the White Sox tmrw afternoon in a game which will be lucky to attract 12,000 fans with beautiful weather forecast...including a total drive of 6-7 hours (back and forth to the Quad Cities).

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 8, 2015 -> 03:17 PM) For whatever reason, Sox fans are the only ones in Chicago who seem to hold the logic that not showing up makes them better fans. As long as that mentality exists, there is no REAL comparison between Sox fans and anyone else in Chicago, because they are the ones who are different. It isn't neighborhood, or safety, or bars, seat color, the direction the stadium faces, or anything else. I will never get why people take such personal offense to that, when it is White Sox fans who say stuff like that. And to go back full circle to the begining of the recent discussion, when you don't go to games, or take in games, FOR WHATEVER REASON, the media isn't going to cover you as much either, because they know they will make more views, clicks, ratings, attendance, phone calls, etc off of Cubs fans. Pretty much the only thing Sox fans respond to these days is to be offended about something. How is that any different in Oakland, Citi Field or Anaheim (who are bleeding thousands of fans this year despite a playoff appearance last year and the presence of Mike Trout, the best young player in the game, along with Harper)? Where are these fans who show up season after season and support consistently losing teams, other than the Cubs (and they had big drop offs too over the last 2-3 seasons)? Please don't try to argue the Giants in the seasons between their World Series appearances....or HUGE market teams with historical parks like the Red Sox, who've still enjoyed 3 World Series titles basically in the last decade. Which team that has enjoyed LESS success on the field than the White Sox in the past decade (starting in 2006) has much better fan support/more loyal fans?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 8, 2015 -> 03:12 PM) If only the White Sox had only taken a 20% after their title years. Then even when the team was awful, the attendance started going up again. They gained fans after a .366 and .280 winning percentage. The White Sox lost fans after winning a division title. But, let's hear about all of things that make it different for the White Sox again. 1) MJ 2) MJ 3) MJ 4) MJ 5) 6 titles vs. 1 6) Numerous playoff appearances versus a roughly 14% chance of even getting to the post-season. 7) Coaches fired for having one of the five all-time best winning percentages when our current regime has one of the most pedestrian records in team history 8) No compelling or exciting personalities...(Rodman vs. everyone in Chicago other than Bo and MJ when they were with the Sox) 9) Marketing, marketing, marketing 10) Complete lack of excitement...product is inferior...fans always will flock to something that's cool/trendy/popular/hip....to be "part of something" bigger, but they certainly don't want to be part of 10-12,000 fans unless they're huge baseball addicts 11) If you asked 1000 casual baseball fans outside of Chicago who was the best player for the Sox over the last 15 years or so, maybe 3-5% could come up with the name Paul Konerko.

The Cell and Kauffman are virtually identical...the slope or rake of the upper deck. USCF was almost an exact replica of that stadium, with the obvious difference of the outfield fountains. Nobody complains in KC because they have a winning/exciting team now. It's the smallest market in baseball and they're in the top 10 in MLB attendance and didn't even win the World Series last season. Very simple. Put a winning (and dynamic/interesting) team on the field, even the small markets can do well attendance-wise. The opposite is just as true. A team that doesn't score many runs...in fact, is one of the most boring teams in baseball if not for the presence of Sale and Abreu, well, the results are patently obvious. Attendance was terrible for the last 25 years in KC because they only flirted with winning in 2003 (first half) and finally had a winning season in 2013. This whole idea of the White Sox fanbase being unusual just doesn't have any support. Look at the Twins...who are playing in a very new stadium. They're not drawing very well and they're leading the race for the Wild Card. Nothing to do with bandwagon fans. It has everything to do with being terrible for 3-4 seasons in a row. Heck, the Twins also have Buxton, Sano and Berrios to be excited about. We have? Tim Anderson and Carson Fulmer? Okay. Not quite equal. Instead of thinking of the White Sox fans as "disloyal," we have to look at the Brewers, Cubs, Cardinals and Tigers are being successful anomalies that create the perception by their juxtaposition that Sox fans are "lesser thans" when it's just not true. The White Sox simply can't put together a consistently compelling product. They can't string together consecutive years of success (and 2006/08/10/12 don't count for much, except in comparison to the wasteland of the 60's, 70's and 80's).

Well, he is in the top 5 of the AL in terms of exit velocity as the ball leaves his bat, so Garcia does have that going for him at least. He's looked absolutely terrible the last month or so, though.

nm

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 3, 2015 -> 04:21 AM) Amazimg Esconar has a .696 sluggling pct when his OPS is .670. Santiago has an fWAR of 0.9 right in line with the 1.2 fWAR he pit up with the Sox, and which would make him 5th compared to White Sox starters. And if last years stats are what was important, why are you ripping Alexei? Check again... http://espn.go.com/mlb/player/stats/_/id/3...eduardo-escobar Escobar and Semien are both outperforming Ramirez....in the meantime, we have no SS next season. You do realize that war is a cumulative stat over a season, right? Are you taking all of his time as an Angel and comparing to his White Sox career? Are you willing to state for the record the Angels would be better off with John Danks than Hector Santiago, as I see you moved the bar again....? And are u also saying he pitched just as well for the White Sox as the Angels this season? Sigh.

Alexei was projected to be a utility player in the Ramon Santiago range, and some had him as a CFer. Can the White Sox take credit for his defense? More than Omar Vizquel as player coach? Once again, let's just try for players who were projected to be well-above average defenders...Joe Crede evolved into one, so the White Sox should get some credit for him and Rowand, although Aaron's defense ended up a bit overrated. Brian Anderson would be another. Jordan Danks as well. But there aren't many.

QUOTE (woods of ypres @ Jul 2, 2015 -> 02:07 PM) Ken Macha, Ron Washington, Bud Black, Ron Roenicke, Dave Martinez or the bench coach of a team that's been successful lately like the Pirates, or the A's. Jeff Bannister was the Pirates' bench coach last season.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jul 2, 2015 -> 08:21 PM) Alexei's D has been dropping off from year to year, so you can't just say this is some unexplainable act of God. Melky and Samardizija both had similar rough seasons just in 2013, so I don't see how this completely out of a standard deviation for them. Either way, those two players aren't the only thing keeping this team from being a contender. I mention Flowers & Beckham because they are on the roster and have to start the majority of the time. That's not Robin's fault, he didn't make up the roster. Then who's fault is it? Maybe the people who put together the roster? The people who acquired both years ago and are too stubborn to give up on them? Fire the organist...Nancy Faust leaving jinxed the Sox.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 2, 2015 -> 06:53 PM) Escobar has a .281 OBP with Minnesota, and Semien's OPS which was .673 with the White Sox is all the way up to .701 with 25 errors. John Danks xFIP. 4.53 Hector Santiago xFIP 4.46 And what did Escobar do last season? You've solved the whole mess with one stat...we can just trade Danks and get Santiago back from Stoneman, who's very old and might not be thinking soundly. Could be senile. Santiago is 11th in the majors in ERA...Danks is 11th on the White Sox roster probably. Whip of 1.13, war of 2.1 and top 30 for k/ip in the entire major leagues. He's also 11th in the majors in batting average against. http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/pitching/_/so...ing/order/false There's not a single pitcher on that list ahead of Santiago that it wouldn't require half of our minor league system to acquire. Scherzer, Liriano, Keuchel, Cueto, Archer, Greinke, Felix Hernandez, Sonny Gray, Chris Sale and Shelby Miller. Yeah, Danks belongs on that same list, lmao. Marcus Semien 11th out of 23 qualified SS. A bit younger and cheaper. They thought enough of him to bring in Ron Washington to work with him. Alexei, well....he should be thankful for Jimmy Rollins. http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/batting/_/pos.../qualified/true Finally, Eduardo Escobar has a 696 slg percentage in a non hitter friendly park, yet you focus only on his on base percentage. Weird. 721 ops and 1.1 war last season is something the White Sox would die to have about now. You also forgot to mention that you're not correcting for Semien's ops at O.com vs. USCF...as obviously those stadiums are identical for offense. "0%."

The place Pujols used to own in St. Charles was like that on game days, too. Ozzie Smith had a restaurant, broadcaster Mike Shannon too...McGee, McGwire, Lou Brock, Bob Gibson, Jack Buck and Whitey Herzog are like gods there...along with Stan the Man, of course. McGee even had his own brand of cookies.

4. With Correa gone, we can't help but take note of the so-called Brain Drain in the Cardinals' scouting-analytics department over the past few years. When Luhnow left St. Louis, he hired Sig Mejdal, the Cards' director of draft analytics. Other Cardinals employees followed Luhnow, including Mike Elias, Oz Ocampo, Charlie Gonzalez and Brett Strom. (And I'm probably forgetting others who jumped to Houston.) That's quite the turnover. Some of the ideas, concepts and methodology that made the Cardinals so astute in scouting, drafting and player development are now being administered in other MLB organizations (my add, another top guy went to OAK before Correa took his job). 5. One way or another, Mozeliak should disassemble much of what's left of the baseball ops to start fresh. The shameful cyber spying has sullied the franchise's reputation, and unless Mozeliak conducts a major sweeping, doubts about the Cardinals' integrity will fester. http://www.stltoday.com/sports/columns/ber...3631c7e6f0.html

Uh oh.

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/columns/ber...3631c7e6f0.html "Mr. Correa denies any illegal conduct," Williams said. "The relevant inquiry should be what information did former St. Louis Cardinals employees steal from the St. Louis Cardinals organization prior to joining the Houston Astros, and who in the Houston Astros organization authorized, consented to, or benefitted from that roguish behavior." Wow. Just hand Correa a Louisville Slugger already. He's going on the attack in an attempt to portray Luhnow and the Astros as the true criminals and villains here. I'd call this the Revenge of the Nerd, but I've already used that motif and it's too easy. Besides, I'm confused here.Who are the Alpha Betas in this plot, anyway? The Astros or the Cardinals? Yeah, that's going to work well for him!

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Jul 2, 2015 -> 06:43 PM) Everybody wants a catcher but seriously there's nothing there that says future all star to me. Think he'll end up being your typical ML catcher. Cecchini is a rough fielder and doesn't have much pop. Give me Betts and Holt . You just know an overachieving utility guy from Boston or TB will absolutely tank with us. Betts is off the table right now, along with Moncada. Eddie Rodriguez would be another name sure to come up...although some of the bloom is off that flower.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jul 2, 2015 -> 06:40 PM) So, like I said, the point of the hack was not to steal draft info in order to draft better and steal scout info. But please go on Of course, anyone who has watched an episode of Silicon Valley would know that's what you have to say legally...protection of a proprietary database/work-related product, etc. If it was that simple, though, we never would have heard a thing about it. And it was multiple hacks from 4-5 different employees whose supervisors may or may not have known what they were doing.

Swihart and LHP Brian Johnson...and one more piece. Rusney Castillo and cash back subsidy.

They wanted to make Luhnow look bad by dumping that information into public view and nearly every detailed article written on the situation mentions many front office members were extremely upset that Luhnow was getting so much attention and credit for the results on the field (while still with the Cards), vis a vis Mozeliak/LaRussa and the players themselves, etc. Not unlike the KW/Ozzie squabble, or Scioscia/DiPoto. Controlling the narrative...and, if they couldn't do that, make him look like an ass. Infinity %.

LHP Marco Gonzales as well....not sure they are willing to deal Wong, now.

How many position players have improved in the 2012-2015 time frame? Throwing out all the guys who are older (Dunn, LaRoche, Cabrera, Bonifacio, Soto, Keppinger, DeAza, Ramirez, etc.) You have Viciedo and Eaton for sure who showed the ability to be contributors and play soundly on both sides of the ball...before falling off mentally/focus/concentration-wise. Avi, comparing his past efforts with this season? Beckham's probably not a fair example, but what about Flowers and Gillaspie? Either we're scouting and bringing in players who don't improve (or get exposed by scouting and dont/cant readjust) ot there's a flaw somewhere in development at the major or minor league levels, or both. Matt Davidson also comes to mind here. Eduardo Escobar, Semien and Phegley have become more valuable contributors than they were for us...the complement to that. Hector Santiago is a 50/50 All-Star with the Angels. Is Vince Coleman the worst baserunning coach in the league, or the players are the worst at following his advice/instructions? Just a case of being great at something (Ted Williams and hitting) doesn't make it easier for you to coach that same skill in others with lesser talent/ability? Most players of Ventura's ability (or above) haven't been great managers, with Joe Torre being one of the main exceptions. And, since all veterans essentially "are what they are...only they will get worse or fall off a cliff eventually" shouldn't we do more to find players on the other side of that curve?