caulfield12

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.

If Liriano pitched like he would go on to throw from 2013-2015, we might not be having this same conversation.

All depends on how motivated the Red Sox want to get rid of him, and/or Sandoval. Ramirez is probably the first to go. They'd probably prefer to play Bradley, Jr., Betts and Castillo and go younger, all things being equal. If it was Jeff Banister, I would trust him to get the most/best out of Ramirez. But Ventura? That leaves it all predicated on who the new Hispanic bench coach is, and his relationship with Hanley. Personally, I'd rather role the dice on Puig.

http://www.businessinsider.com/navy-seal-r...hooting-2015-10 Here you go, Greg. Now you'll be all set for the next shooting...

Except for Rick Hahn...

25% chance, maybe 1/3 if really lucky.

The story so far seems to be blaming it on forcing the Cubs to expand their strike zone (Phil Cuzzi, of course, Maddon was gracious enough to observe it was the same for both sides)...and also the possibility that Lackey ("I'm not accusing anyone" and then Ross inevitably did just that) was doctoring the ball or the Cardinals were putting balls that had been scuffed or fouled off back into play.

My whole thing about this is 1) I would never in a million years root for the Cubs to win it, 2) if they were to win it, I would attempt to be gracious and congratulate any Cubs' fans ("how does it feel to FINALLY join the club?" derisive comment attached) and then I would TRY to consider it philosophically in terms of all the lifelong REAL Cubs' fans, the grandparents and great-grandparents and aunts and uncles who suffered for decades and decades waiting for a winner to come along, made it through 1969 and 1984 and 1989 and 2003 and all those other heartbreaking years but never wavered in their fandom or abandoned their team. For me, it's Uncle Herman, who died about 20 years ago the tried to get me to follow the Cubs when I was growing up. It just so happens that my favorite uncle loved the White Sox (and drinking beer), and gave me some White Sox baseball cards in 1979 (Claudell Washington, Lamar Johnson, Mike Squires) and that's what got me started. He worked for the Dubuque Packing Company and never got to enjoy the 2005 season, unfortunately. The yuppies from the 1980's on...the investment bankers and trust fund kids and Northwestern grads (just a slight dig at Hahn, haha), and especially all the bandwagoners now, F--- them. "Trashy bar. The prices are pretty good but the food sucks, the music sucks, and the staff and owners are trash. I had never planned on bothering with a review for this place until i saw their newest trashy decision to give out a free beer for any time the cardinals HR off the Cubs. I'm a die hard Cubs fan but when the sox were going to the series, i rooted for them and the respect the Cubs showed was big. I will definitely not be back here ever and will make sure everyone knows this place is garbage." From yelp review

Although I'm kind of warming up to the idea of those who donate at least 10% of their income to church/charity should be exempt/ed from tickets, haha. I can just see it now. Many drivers would game the system, and contribute the minimum 10% and then drive around like maniacs and eventually everyone's insurance rates would skyrocket due to all the accident payouts...counterbalancing all the positives of avoiding paying fines to the police and resulting in a 25-35% increase in highway fatalities.

Seattle not only fired their GM, they also fired their manager now in Lloyd McClendon...probably the end of his MLB managerial career.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-leag...s-183823514.htm McNally's has gotten thousands of dollars worth of free press out of their shenanigans at least. As someone pointed out, it's not even legal in Chicago to give out free beer but all the stories keep quoting that as the centerpiece of the story.

They did hold onto Thornton too long, but the exact same happened with Marte...when you have the best or one of the top three lefties in the league, it's a natural tendency to ride him until it's too late. With Matty, the beginning of the end was the All-Star game in 2010 and then definitely the game-winner he gave up to Thome late in that season. He was never the same after that, physically (lost 2-3 MPH off his fastball) or psychologically. As far as the Cubs go, they really haven't had luck with guys such as Soler, Olt, Junior Lake, Alcantara, Almora (so far)....Baez struggled mightily last year, and Castro for most of this season, but they were still able to cover or patch up a lot of those holes. Another example, Edwin Jackson was terrible, and they overcame that (whereas Dunn/Danks/LaRoche seem to constantly weigh down the Sox). Bryant, Rizzo, Montero, Fowler and Schwarber had a lot to do with that, and Chris Coghlan surprised as well. When we look at the back end of that rotation five or ten years from now, I'm sure we will all be pretty surprised they did as well as they did after Arrieta and Lester. Finally, their bullpen has been huge for them in the 2nd half...some of it coming via trades, some developed internally.

QUOTE (pettie4sox @ Oct 9, 2015 -> 04:35 PM) That's game Madson isn't Wade Davis. Not automatic by any stretch.

I guess the main point is to say that teams like the Cubs, Royals and Astros got a lot more back in return if you compared their 2012 rosters with ours. Surely, we rode a lot of our players into the ground when we should have rebuilt as early as 2011. We also got nothing to show for Crede, Jenks, Floyd, Crain, Uribe, Humber, etc. And, of course, Davidson for Reed has been a huge disappointment. Not to mention Viciedo and Beckham and basically most of our free agent adds other than Abreu and Alexei.

Huge recovery there from Fields to keep the game tied. Alex Gordon just lost $5-10 million on his next contract. Joking. But surely Cueto has by now with how he's pitched with the Royals. Without Holland, Madson becomes the weak point of the KC pen in the 8th. Fwiw, Keuchel is 15-0 at home with a miniscule ERA for Game 3. Of course, 33-48 and the worst road record in the AL leads to beating NY and KC on the road to begin the playoffs. Volquez for KC. Pretty sure with only 2 ip that Ventura will go again in a must-win Game 4 on the road.

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Oct 9, 2015 -> 09:05 AM) Not sure if I agree, I don't think everyone expects Mets fans to support the Yankees when they're on a playoff run. With the exception of 2011 after 9/11 against the DBacks in the World Series. At least being more "respectful" or not openly rooting against them...it would have been an interesting poll to see how many Mets' fans were secretl hoping for the Yankees to lose despite everything the city went through that fall.

http://www.si.com/thecauldron/2015/10/08/c...s-wild-card-win Poorly written but funny story about premature celebrations in baseball, highlighting Arrieta and his kid. https://twitter.com/Cubs/status/65196442267...src=twsrc%5Etfw

I'm not sure if you were watching the same David Robertson the final half of the season. More confidence in Quintana, Eaton and Rodon going forward.