caulfield12

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 13, 2014 -> 08:22 AM) The White Sox are not going to spend a lot of money on their pen at this stage. The might sign a set up guy, but it will be mostly reclaimation projects and internal promotions. With the Tigers being vulnerable finally, I think they have to give some serious consideration to making a more than half-hearted attempt to compete in 2015. If nothing else, take away Butler from the Royals or Victor Martinez from the Tigers. For example, if Matt Lindstrom's projected to be the closer again next season...forget selling any season tickets. I'm with the crowd who says you can't keep wasting years of Sale and Abreu in their prime. That doesn't mean sign Scherzer, Lester, Shields, Hanley Ramirez or Sandoval...but they can definitely compete in 2015 if Hahn makes the right moves and all of the core pieces (Sale/Quintana/Eaton/Garcia/Abreu) can stay healthy.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 13, 2014 -> 08:23 AM) It will be really interesting to see who gets moved. Jordan Danks is the last guy on the roster, but then either De Aza or Garcia is your CF. When can Eaton come off the DL?

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 13, 2014 -> 08:04 AM) I do not think that is a better idea, I think it is equally bad. I would not give up Viciedo for Morneau. Next year, he will be a 34 year old 1B coming off his first good season in 4 years with 1 year remaining on his contract. What future value is there in that contract? If you think Viciedo's done as a prospect, and we're not going to compete until 2016...then it carries the same amount of logic as signing Lindstrom for next year. Even as a huge Dayan fan since 2008, I think the odds are 5-10X greater that Morneau would help this team (just from being left-handed) and line-up a lot more. I also thinks the odds are higher he could put up monster numbers at USCF and bring back a good trade return if the Sox still aren't competing for the division. Finally, some are advocating signing Adam Dunn for $5-7 million next year. Isn't he basically the same exact age as Morneau? Those same people want to sign Dunn for 2-3 years, or just one? Besides, everyone keeps saying the Viciedo has a negative WAR, can't play the outfield and can't be a DH with a 700ish OPS. Which is the higher probability of success, Morneau slugging 800+ or Dayan when his average for 3+ years is 746? Finally, 75% of the board doesn't even want him on the roster for next year, so controlling his arbitration rights through 2017 isn't a HUGE advantage if he doesn't produce any more than Beckham or DeAza statistically. Finally, there's a MUTUAL option for 2016 on Morneau, so it's not just 2015. $9 million dollars. There are also escalators for 2015 (550+ plate appearances, All-Star selection and Top 3 in MVP vote, $500,000 each). But there's more. http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/7063/splits/ An 858 OPS on the road...where everyone's going to suspect it would be less than 800 and plus 900 at Denver. And we kind of have left-handed power hitter right up there as possibly our top off-season need.

QUOTE (shysocks @ Aug 13, 2014 -> 08:09 AM) I'm guessing the brain trust decided to go a little further into the dictionary now that the national media has picked up on the game. It was funny the way whoever was interviewing him just shrugged it off and went on to the next point about his near hit off Vogelsong...I think I might have said, "what the hell?" but then it would have ruined Chris' moment of being able to throw that new word out there each time with a straight face and proper contextual support to demonstrate word mastery.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Aug 13, 2014 -> 08:03 AM) Sounded like suserration. He was saying that he either did or didn't hear any "negative murmurs" from the crowd, lol. At the buzzer. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/susurration Wow..I'm an English teacher and am familiar with all the words he's previously used, but that's definitely a new one for me. How would/could he not hear any negative murmurs? It's a Giants' home game!!! He has superpowers to block them out, lol? Guess he was just "in the zone," so to speak. I honestly feel the Sox players get up more for big enemy crowds than playing at home sometimes. Hard to blame them for feeling that way.

As reported by The Score and CSN Chicago. Too bad he's going to miss Jake Peavy by less than a week. That would have been a fun match-up.

http://www.csnchicago.com/white-sox/white-...bullpen-failure Can't even figure out what word he was trying to say...it's around the 1:20 mark "negative assesserations"? accesserations asseccerations....those aren't even words assertions...? Speaking of Sale, this scouting report from back in 2010 was pretty amusing to read. Claimed his fastball was only 90-92 then but COULD be a plus pitch, and then goes into long and detailed description of his mechanics and why he's so flawed and likely to be injured in the future. http://projectprospect.com/article/2010/05...scouting-report They were right about one thing, his weight and difficulty of adding to his frame. Looking strictly at future potential, Sale could have a plus fastball, plus change up and average slider to go with well above-average command. If he can stay healthy, that’s solid No. 2 starter upside. Let’s take a closer look at that last prepositional phrase. Mechanics Special thanks to Baseball America's Conor Glassey who took the video used below. Follow Conor on Twitter @conorglassey. Up until now the picture of Sale’s prospects has been pretty rosy. A team looking to draft him in the top 10 is likely relying on his stuff/production combo. Those who rank Sale lower, will do so predominately because of concerns about his throwing motion. Standing nearly 6-foot-6 and weighing 47 pounds (approximate), Sale could be broken in half by a strong wind. On the one hand, he has plenty of room to mature physically, adding functional muscle. On the other, if this is what he looks like after the freshman 15, his body just might not be made to handle a lot of weight.

Justin Morneau is a much better idea, but it would suck to have to give up a lot (of talent) when we could have had him this past offseason for pennies on the dollar if not for the fact that we were still suck with Dunn on the roster. Wonder if they would take Viciedo for him?

Danks simply cannot HIT or LAY OFF a high fastball to save his life. Last night, he couldn't even make contact with 87-89 MPH fastballs right over the heart of the plate. He has always had a slider-speed bat and poor pitch recognition. If you will recall, there was one at-bat where Danks just was overmatched by below-average stuff and then Chris Sale, the skinniest player in the majors, took a couple of nice cuts resulting in foul balls and then hit a hard grounder right up the middle which seemed it could even get through for a hit but the defense was positioned right there.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Aug 12, 2014 -> 09:00 AM) OMG, the HBO standup special I was obsessed with is on YouTube. Still one of the funniest performances I've ever seen. wow...i started playing it earlier this morning, then was going to come back to it and now it's being blocked by HBO/copyright battle

QUOTE (ptatc @ Aug 13, 2014 -> 06:30 AM) I've seen it twice this year and probably a dozen times in the races if been to over the years and that's a small fraction of all the races around the country. I've seen it at the Indy 500 and those cars do not turn like these sprint cars. He couldn't turn, it's impossible to turn on a dirt track without skidding out of control and injuring or killing more bystanders than a Final Destination movie. Or so they say.

QUOTE (LDF @ Aug 13, 2014 -> 05:16 AM) I am a little confuse here. Caulfield, earlier when I mention about the should invest in certain players, Melky as an example, you mention that he was on the wrong side of 30 and not worth the investment. now you are advocating on the Willingham who is 35. I am confuse with your logic. no offense is intended, just lost. I'm not sure where in this post I'm advocating anything, exactly. Just saying buyer beware, or caveat emptor. That said, I would rather gamble of the equivalent of 3-4 Willingham's (players coming off down years but solid rebound candidates) than buying a Melky Cabrera at the height of his value (not to mention the PEDS background, which further complicates things). We're not the type of franchise that can afford to have more than just a couple of bad long-term contracts at any one time (Dunn/Danks now). Realistically, the only guy out there on the free agent market who's under 30 and fits in that "buy low" category is Colby Rasmus. In the end, I firmly believe we DO NEED to have 2-3 experienced veterans who have playoff time on our roster to take that next step forward. It can't be automatically "he's older than 30, he can't be part of the long-term plan, etc." You simply can't find cost-controlled All-Star level players that are 26-29 without trading away every single prospect for a guy like Giancarlo Stanton. So my concerns with Cabrera are less about his specific age and more about buying him coming off a career season and then the PEDs suspension. http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-leag...-025840860.html Jarrod Dyson's flip after catching the final out in Monday's game as the Royals took over 1st place in the ALCD

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/a...s-fatal-accide/ Criminal charges still possible for Stewart, experts say

QUOTE (shysocks @ Aug 12, 2014 -> 09:30 PM) Good, that takes care of any qualifying offer concerns now that he changed teams. His path to the Sox is clear. I'll roll out the red carpet for ya Josh. The problem is that Willingham's a terrible defensive outfielder coming off a down season and in the declining period of his career. It's a gamble. If KW was good at one aspect of his job, it was identifying these "buy low" bargain acquisitions of veterans.

http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=93013 This is just part of the story. Most would posit the viewpoint that there's a 3-4 game shift with a league average or slightly above average bullpen, from top to bottom. Or if Addison Reed had been the closer all season long, and the Davidson deal had never been made...which would have left Putnam, Petricka and Belisario in their more customary/comfortable set-up roles. That would put them around 6-8 games over .500 (of course, a big assumption, and one that can never be proven one way or the other). Fwiw, Royals are 10 games over, Detroit and Seattle are tied for the wild card lead at 9 over .500 currently. OTOH, we have a -54 run differential (a lot of that was due to three huge beatings in the last week or so) and are currently tied with the Mets and Padres for the 9th worst record in baseball. As far as the future, Daniel Webb's a huge question mark. Nate Jones is out for 2015 and might not be re-signed even. Do we bring back Lindstrom, and to what purpose, just to try to flip him again in July or August, 2014? Wouldn't it be better to choose Petricka (for example) and give him a chance to learn and grow as closer and stick around into our competitive window? It seems pretty clear Hahn's not going to forfeit a first round draft pick on bringing in a closer like Koji Uehara, David Robertson, K-Rod (leading the NL and maybe all of baseball in saves), Casey Janssen or Rafael Soriano. That's why you'll see the huge back-and-forth argument about the benefits of finishing with a bottom 10 MLB record, which would protect that pick if we signed a top FA. The Mariners, for example, signed Fernando Rodney for $14 million over 2 years and that was a huge bargain, so far (when you look at our spending on Downs, Belisario and Paulino, comparatively). But can Hahn pick the right guy from that list of five and not have it blow up in his face like Keppinger or Downs? We'll find out. Our three best arms in the minors are Rodon, Montas and Adams, and it's unlikely any of them would be converted to closer with the dearth of rotation depth at the major league level. Fwiw, I might switch Erik Johnson into a bullpen role to see if he can contribute anything or figure out a way to get more juice on his pitches in shorter stints. But closer, no way....just an experiment.

QUOTE (Vance Law @ Aug 13, 2014 -> 01:28 AM) Pretty dumb move by Robin putting Adam effing Dunn in right field. He can't play outfield. Ridiculous. It's a good thing Dunn basically won the game with his 2 run homer, but still, it's dumb because Robin did it and he loses all of our games for us. Probably part of showcasing him that he can "semi-adequately" play another position besides DH and 1B. He actually has more experience in the outfield than at first, but not recently. Plus, Viciedo has been pretty cold recently (except for hitting a few homers).

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Aug 12, 2014 -> 11:45 PM) That scares Sox fans of having to put up another year of Beckham. Not as scary as another year of this terrible bullpen.

QUOTE (oldsox @ Aug 12, 2014 -> 07:34 PM) Ravelo didn't really emerge this year. He's been a pretty good hitter ever since we drafted him. Well, since a lot of lists (outside of here) aren't even promoting him to the Top 10-20, it's hard to say he's really emerged outside of hardcore prospect sites.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Aug 12, 2014 -> 07:26 PM) Publically. What are they going to say, "yeah, Tony tried to go at him." There's another liable law suit. They can't have this type of black eye in the sport.It wouldn't have happened if Ward hadn't walked on the track. It also wouldn't have happened if Stewart didn't happen to be in such a high line. As I've said it's pretty odd that out of all the times in the past that racers have done this, not a single one has ever been hit. Stewart must be an awful driver. Or "unlucky" and the victim of the worst coincidence possible. So Occam's Razor would tell you what?...as usually the simplest explanation is the correct one.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Aug 12, 2014 -> 04:33 PM) I see your on the tanking train now eh greg? It's a very quiet .271 though. His career slugging% against is just .365. Here's a fun pointless fact, Matt Lindstrom has given up 22 HRs in 405 innings....Addison Reed has 23 in 181. Career saves converted percentages?

You would think with Johnson they would have preferred to DL him if there was ANY reason to believe there was something wrong physically. Like Davidson and Semien to a lesser extent, he's gone from a tradeable asset to a huge question mark we have no choice but to hold onto and see if he can turn things around. (Joining the likes of Mitchell, Walker and Trayce in that category.) Thompson's disappeared from the conversation completely, not unlike Miguel Gonzalez or Saladino a couple of years ago.

Matt Guerrier at the beginning of his career would be another comp. Seems that the kid really is consumed with studying opposing hitters and learning the art of pitching. He's always asking their video guys and advanced scouting people for more information than they have, and that's pretty exhaustive information compared to 20 or even 10 years ago with the advances in tech.

Next year's going to be simply huge for Hawkins, Anderson, Montas and Danish at Birmingham. AA is what really starts to separate the pretenders and contenders. Hopefully May or Barnum can emerge in the same way that Ravelo has this season.

Uehara's a free agent and nearing age 40, but will probably get a two year offer with year 3 being a club option or one where he'd have to meet a number of incentives for it to kick in. http://bostonherald.com/sports/red_sox_mlb...a_in_for_1_more Can't imagine they'd have any interest in Papelbon, unless taking on his contract could protect some of the prospects being inquired about by other teams in Hamels discussions.

Call them cheesy, but Mrs. Doubtfire and The Birdcage are my two favorites, along with Good Will Hunting, Dead Poets Society and Good Morning, Vietnam! Don't know why I confused Autofocus with One Hour Photo...was thinking of photography themes, I guess. And he was excellent playing Teddy Roosevelt in the first Night at the Museum, too.