caulfield12

What team (besides the Cubs, and they made the playoffs more often than the White Sox over the last 30 years) has had a consistently loyal fanbase over roughly a decade of mostly being a bit above average but rarely making a playoff run? The Indians, Orioles, Blue Jays, Mariners and Rockies all were among the attendance leaders roughly 15-20 years ago. Same with the DBacks and Astros for that matter. Their fanbases aren't much different than us. They just want to win too. Indians fans used to pack Jacobs Field year after year....of course, they had an extended run of playoff teams. But blowing up your franchise multiple times (2002-2003 and 2008) will demoralize even the most loyal fans. Does it help Dolan now to blame them? You reap what you sew.

QUOTE (LDF @ May 13, 2015 -> 05:19 AM) the uncertainty should be that wildcard. not b/c of what you posted, but b/c no one knows what will happen not be able to predict or assume anything. i guess i look at it in a more pragmatic way. for me, build or rebuild the farm system. have players at different level in their developmental stages, hopefully 1 will become a good player. by the meaning of different levels, i mean when 1 player leaves thru FA, there will be another one to step in. re the bold, i do not mean to nitpick, or maybe i am misunderstanding this, but those will not be around till 2019, b/c of the length of their contract. Sale, Abreu, Q, Avi, Rodon, Eaton....that group.

Stanton hit one all the way out of Chavez Ravine. 5th in history.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 9, 2015 -> 04:13 PM) One of the media writers at the DC-political magazine Politico gave this interesting description of how the media is looking at the race with Hillary Clinton: Greg happy! Hulk smash!

QUOTE (LDF @ May 12, 2015 -> 09:28 PM) i am with you on the bad location. and you are right about the 2 million. the sox will always be the 2nd fiddle in baseball in chicago, esp in the location they are in. there is no appeal factor there. so win WS's and that can help the attendance. i don't b**** b/c i like to b****, i don't rag on the owners b/c i hate them. well i do when they try to insult my intelligence. Justt getting to the playoffs in 2 of 3 seasons feels like a minor miracle. Not expecting a World Series win anytime soon.

LaRoche could have PH there but LHP W.Smith would have nullified that. Better to stay with the hot hand in Sale.

Hard to get too upset there with Sale. If you're going to go down, let it be with your best pitcher battling his butt off to get a win.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 12, 2015 -> 07:14 PM) Again, the last time the team made the playoffs, attendance fell, both that season, and the year after. With how disappointing Peavy and Rios were...why would fans have had a right to be optimistic heading into 2010? For Gordon Beckham alone...well, he really fell off in the second half aand struggled to make .270.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 12, 2015 -> 07:14 PM) Again, the last time the team made the playoffs, attendance fell, both that season, and the year after. If Carlos Quentin wins MVP, doesnt get hurt and they arent wiped out by the Rays in easy fashion...then 2009 is a totally different story. Once CQ was out, it was just survival mode. I dont think even the most optimistic Sox fans expected a different result in the Dome with the way the Rays played that season.

QUOTE (scs787 @ May 12, 2015 -> 07:43 PM) Wow, I was reading the first 5 pages during the bulls game and thought the Sox were getting blown out. Just now flipped it over and really, just 2-2??? Game threads sure are fun. Making a terrible pitcher look good...and waiting halfway through the game to mount any type of offensive attack will do that.

QUOTE (Condor13 @ May 12, 2015 -> 07:26 PM) Micah just stole on a gun from the catcher He had a great running jump.

Probably be changed to a hit later when/if the no hitter is broken up. Another difficult play. Kept the ball from getting through to preserve the lead.

QUOTE (jdupps @ May 12, 2015 -> 06:44 PM) That guy is currently leading all of baseball with 10 errors. The problem is plays like Johnson didn't make that have to be made and aren't ruled errors because of the agenda of scorekeepers to give away stolen bases to Carlos Gomez.

Still havent come close to a clean game defensively on the road...constantly forcing our pitchers to throw extra pitches. No adjustments offensively to the shifts. Making a pretty terrible pitcher look like Cy Young, as usual. No hat tipping tonight. Just bad.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 12, 2015 -> 04:36 PM) How exactly are they trying to do that? He's been a 2 pitch pitcher since coming up - fastball slider. So far 1/3 of the pitches he's thrown in the big leagues have been sliders. He's thrown a total of 3 pitches that pitch FX didn't think were fastballs or sliders and conveniently they match the slider velocity, so I literally don't know if he's thrown a single changeup. According to pitch F/X, he's actually thrown more sliders this season than Chris Sale. The first two times out as a reliever.

There's a huge difference (partially due to his delivery, which is far from smooth) between 180-210 and 140-160. It seems they're already trying to limit slider usage when that's his best pitch...in order to avoid him becoming the next Francisco Liriano (and interestingly, that 2006 Twins' 3-4 month run is exactly what we need right now).

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 12, 2015 -> 03:57 PM) Hey great speech, now welcome back to reality. Reality is that the White Sox will always be limited by their fan base. It is the reason why our rebuild is rushed as soon as reasons for any optimism can be found. Even the Cubs after six years of perpetual sucktitude were outdrawing the White Sox by 12,000 a night. Even in 2006 after a World Series title we drew 3000 a night less than the Cubs. It gives them resources that the White Sox will never have. It allows them flexibility that the White Sox will never have. Even after a playoff year, and after a very near playoff year, attendance fell. If that is what being a non-fickle and not compromising fan is, then you should also have the intelligence to understand that this organization will always have a hand tied its back when compared to most of the rest of baseball. You can't have it both ways. It means periods of success will be shorter because they won't have the resources to hold the team together that others will. It means that recoveries will be shorter, and less robust, as they can't devote the time needed to full rebuilds that others can. It means there will be choices made between spending in the majors and in the minors because both can't be afforded. It isn't slamming fans. It is reality. 2006 (second half), 2007 and 2009 hurt as much as the strike because that was their window to take advantage of the momentum gained through 2005. Sox fans began to lose faith. Borchard, Anderson, Fields and Quentin...not to mention Floyd, Danks and eventually Beckham, all ended up disappointments. Peavy and Rios got a lot of publicity but were inconsistent at best. While Sale and Abreu have kept the franchise alive and relevant, they haven't played well together as a full team or unit for three years now. Plus, we have been absolutely dominated by the Tigers and Royals when the games really mattered in second halfs. What franchises have fans to overlook that? Minnesota. Cleveland. Seattle. Toronto. Arizona. Colorado. All those teams are in similar boats with the White Sox. Oakland, too. Pittsburgh and Cincy. Atlanta...although they have the new stadium. TB. Not every team has a fanbase like St. Louis, the Cubs or Milwaukee. Detoit's also an anomaly due to Illitch's spending. We are literally surrounded by four outliers. Houston made the right move....they suffered historical bad seasons, tv and radio disasters, eventual bankruptcy of the network, Appel over Bryant, Brady Aiken, Singleton...and have still emerged whole on the other side by sticking to their plan no matter what.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ May 12, 2015 -> 12:15 PM) I've seen at least three posts now conflating this "all in" with the KW "all ins" (pick your year) and as you said, it should stop. This isn't picking up Alex Rios on waivers or trading for Jake Peavy. The Sox have exactly one contract they might have trouble moving (La Roche) and even then it's not like they are on the hook for much there. The only player of any consequence they gave up was Semien who wasn't going to see much time here anyways. We can argue that picking Micah over Semien was dumb but whatever it's clear they didn't have a plan for him here. Cabrera's quite possibly another contract that won't be easy to move or will require us eating part of it. And Duke...although perhaps last night was a sign of overuse/familiarity more than an indicator of a particularly worrisome event or trend. Finally, moving Robertson just puts us right back into boom/bust territory again. The scariest problem is there's just way too much uncertainty at C, 3b, 2b and SS for our 2016-2019 cycle. And that's operating under the assumption Eaton, LaRoche, Cabrera and Avi are all solid or above-average over that time frame. Those are all quite challenging positions to fill, especially C and the left side of the infield.

“You’re always curious, obviously, because you feel like you might be playing them (the Mets) in the playoffs,” Maddon said. “But my focus is so much on us, what we’re doing. I went through the same exercise in Tampa Bay, where you’re playing against a lot of really stern competition in that division. If you get caught up in trying to compare yourself to everybody else, I don’t think it really works. “I really believe in comparing yourself to yourself first. And whatever everybody else is doing doesn’t really matter. I don’t mean to sound pretentious about that at all. “It’s about us getting our program across, our players buying into our program, us playing the game we think is the right way to play the game. And then how everybody else wants to fit into that, that’s fine.” www.csnchicago.com

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ May 11, 2015 -> 11:42 PM) Nah, I realize how crazy it sounds, I just believe due to his unique background he could pull it off. Q doesn't know how crazy he sounds, help. It would be a great human interest story. That said, I just think making it to the majors as a utility guy/PR would be amazing enough (like TB's Jim Morris in Rookie being rediscovered as a high school science teacher years after being drafted). With his advanced age, it probably doesn't matter what he does in the minors unless he put up a 1200-1300 OPS, and that's just not the kind of stat line you're going to get out of an Alvarez-type of player.

QUOTE (harkness @ May 11, 2015 -> 10:12 PM) Fair enough... however out of the countless people I talked to all of them talked about the Shark deal and how the White Sox now had a elite starting staff... I didn't encounter one person who thought it was a bad deal. It was a "win now" move though, one year too early...as it turns out. The main question is how much value they can extract for Samardzija compared to what they gave up to get him in the first place. It better not be like the Swisher, Javy or Edwin Jackson returns. Let's not forget that the Tigers only had to give up Drew Smyly and Austin Jackson to get a Cy Young winner in Price.

QUOTE (Andy the Clown @ May 11, 2015 -> 09:29 PM) I'm done with this franchise until Reinsdorf dies. Busted organizational philosophy that starts at the tippity top, and is executed by long-time buffoon KW. The trade of Semien for "Shark" is the perfect illustration of everything that is wrong with the franchise (along with the endless run of dips*** managers): Zero interest in developing young talent internally, zero appreciation for those few prospects with real "baseball" skills, and a desperate, needy affinity to go "All In" and mortgage the future when everyone else in the world knows you don't have a prayer. The Sox should just move to Quebec already. I'm appointing you new marketing director. We haven't tried an "insult the management/FO to the point where fans will come out and support the organization out of some combination of guilt/civic pride/fear of losing the team" approach. It would be a neat twist on KW's "can't spend $1.00 when we've only got 50 cents in our pockets" mantra.

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ May 11, 2015 -> 08:33 PM) Who's next on the Reinsdorf "No Experience But Loyal To The End" list to replace these guys? Thome or Konerko. Richard Dotson... I know Konerko isn't ready...and they can't possible force Thome on the fanbase after this, not without any official minor league managerial experience. Going with Dave Martinez would be cool since his mentor's on the north side of town and he's a former Sox. Sandy Alomar, Jr., was a finalist the last time as well.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ May 11, 2015 -> 08:35 PM) No it wouldn't have been. The offense can still build off their momentum. A blowout could have been disastrous. There is no momentum in baseball, I keep hearing repeated by the statisticians. Momentum is simply that day or night's starting pitchers.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 11, 2015 -> 08:28 PM) Has he kept them healthy though, outside of Sale/Q? Floyd and Danks both had catastrophic injuries, and Peavy was injured a lot during his time here. Crain and Nate Jones, too. Actually, a lot of the credit should go to Herm Schneider, Allen Thomas (Director of Conditioning/Strength/Weight Training).