caulfield12

QUOTE (Lip Man 1 @ Sep 30, 2015 -> 11:59 PM) Found this at another location and wanted to share it. This will be the 7th year in a row the White Sox have missed the postseason. Out of the 122 professional franchises in the 4 major North American sports, here are the only teams that now have longer postseason droughts than the White Sox: 1.) Buffalo Bills, 15 years 2.) Seattle Mariners, 14 years 3.) Oakland Raiders, 12 years 4.) Cleveland Browns, 12 years 5.) Miami Marlins, 12 years 6.) Minnesota Timberwolves, 11 years 7.) St. Louis Rams, 10 years 8.) Edmonton Oilers, 9 years 9.) Sacramento Kings, 9 years 10.) San Diego Padres, 9 years 11.) Houston Astros*, 9 years (still alive this year.) Solid company. And as yet another poster pointed out a lot of the teams on this list play in smaller markets than Chicago. The 3rd largest market in the U.S. This franchise is in as bad of a shape as the late 60's / mid 70's. Obviously that's not good. Mark As a Dolphins fan who lost interest fifteen years ago....you have one Wild Card game loss in 2008 and that's basically it for fifteen years (assuming 0-3 start dooms them again this year). It's hard to imagine almost thirty years like the Royals, but 15 for the Sox would still be a killer unless that success was sustained for at least 3-5 years (as opposed to a one year or temporary blip). We'd also get little or no advantage from the new tv contract that will set the Cubs up for another generation financially.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 12, 2015 -> 01:36 PM) I would imagine if they go to an INTL draft, they think up a penalty, such as no first round pick, no first and second round pick, etc, which is commisserate with how far over the cap they went, remembering that there are few different levels of being over. The first level is a just a fine. Commensurate Commiserate is what we'll be doing when another year of (young) impact players from abroad has passed us by...

Used to be we would scoff at Cubbune stuff and only post the Sun-Times, Daily Southtown or Arlington Daily Herald.

QUOTE (harkness @ Oct 4, 2015 -> 11:09 AM) He got fired after that 4th season and didn't manage again for another 4 years. Oops. We've contributed a lot to the careers of LaRussa, Dombrowski, Lamont, Leyland and Francona...but mostly with other organizations, unfortunately.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 3, 2015 -> 09:08 PM) 15th in spending, 26th in attendance. And still undoubtedly 15-18th in total or overall revenues generated... When attendance has moved to the 15-25% level for most teams, it's pointless to keep looking at that as the sole indicator and then intimating White Sox fans should neverthless support the spending of millions of dollars on Cabrera (peds), Keppinger, Danks, Dunn, Downs, Belisario, Paulino, Duke, Samardzija, LaRoche, Bonifacio, Beckham, Robertson, etc. When you've made just one really good acquisition in half a decade that was a clear win in Abreu, there's bound to be problems. Besides, the White Sox had their best team a decade ago with only a $75 million price tag. They've yet to come close to a .500 record in 2 1/2 years of rebuilding and their top three prospects (Anderson, Fulmer and Montas) all have major question marks attached. In fact, we're closer to the cellar of the AL Central going into 2016 than when we started, so there's basically only Rodon and Fulmer to show for those fatally flawed, difficult to watch past August teams.

Realistically, this team's not going anywhere in the future without Tim Anderson playing a role at SS or 2B. He has to be a dynamic player...because you just know that there's no way to fix 3B, 2B, C, RF and DH in one off-season anyway. At least this way they're pretty much forced to find a 2B from among Sanchez/Johnson/Saladino and give Garcia and Thompson a year to battle it out and/or eliminate themselves from 2017 contention. The problem keeps coming back to those two critical positions, 3B and C...and whether you can count on Johnson/Montas/Fulmer (and there might be no choice) enough to trade Quintana or even Sale. Logic says that trading Quintana is the best way to have a chance to win it all (keeping Sale as #1)...but the odds of making the playoffs are much higher with the talent you'd be getting in return for Chris versus Jose. Neither one's a good alternative, obviously, but both are better than trying to miraculously patch this thing up through mid-tier free agent signings. Even if we added Zobrist/Heyward/Gordon/Cespedes, it wouldn't do much more than make us a .500 team in all likelihood, and that would push the budget to the absolute limit for those last three. Therefore, a trade's the only way to fix (potentially) 2-3 problem areas at once.

Kang obviously would have been a very nice get, too. Since we just know KW wasn't going to get Donaldson anyway, it's pointless to even think about.

Kang obviously would have been a very nice get, too. Since we just know KW wasn't going to get Donaldson anyway, it's pointless to even think about.

We can't even quite be bad enough to know when to lose. The funny thing in all of this is that it will wipe out a decent percentage of moves that Hahn and Co. might have been tempted to make, so that's not a bad thing. The biggest concern has to be that taking some of those options off the board will force the White Sox to make a trade like the proposed one for Todd Frazier that will end up causing the team to not only tread water, but really push contention into close to fantasyland and force the inevitable trades of Sale and/or Abreu a year or two down the line.

QUOTE (fathom @ Oct 3, 2015 -> 10:04 AM) Yep, Betts quietly had a great year (5 WAR). I've said all along it would have to be a package of something like Betts, E. Rodriguez, Swihart and a good prospect. Unfortunately I don't think Boston would do something like that. Nor should they, with all their abundant resources, the number of pitchers on the market this year...they're essentially in the same position as the Cubs last off-season. As badly as the Porcello, Ramirez and Sandoval moves went for them, they're always one great off-season away from being back in instant contention again, although Toronto's going to be a tough out for the near future.

http://www.southsidesox.com/2015/10/3/9443...t-robin-ventura Says it better than most could on the subject of Ventura. Also, it's not clear that Ventura received an extension of any sort, just that he's being "retained" as the manager for next season...with the obvious concern now that the new bench coach (let's say, Jose Valentin or McEwing if he doesn't go to the Mariners) then automatically starts out as the back-up QB and the pressure's going to be immense on the team (regardless of what they do in the off-season) to get off to a much better start than in 2015. As things stand right now, they're going to be picked for last place (behind DET) by about 80% of the baseball writers out there. And that woul be the case even with Yasiel Puig and Iwakuma/Latos coming on board, possibly.

Bumgarner has a decent chance to merit consideration for the Hall of Fame if he can sustain his recent level of pitching another five years, but guys like Cain, Hudson, Peavy and Lincecum became shades of their former selves and they still won. Sure, they had Sandoval as well, but it will be hard to name more than a couple of position players from that starting roster a decade from now. What will stand out is the pitching, Posey and Sandoval.

Saying someone is evil is a little over the top. You can take pretty much every politician apart other than Jimmy Carter, and he was arguably one of the five worst presidents of all-time. Taking a quote from a Secret Secret agent (probably with an axe to grind, maybe he was relieved from her detail or caught up in one of the numerous scandals over the past couple of decades?) isn't going to convince anyone to compare her with Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Hitler and Joseph Goebbels. It's not a popularity contest. For every good trait of Bill Clinton as a politician or intellectually, there are just as many "evil/manipulative/lawyerly" ones that always worked to his detriment and will forever stain his two terms in office. Let's face it, the same characteristics in men...women always get described as "b----es."

Other than Buster Posey, SF a decade or fifteen years from now will have zero players getting more than 10% in their Hall of Fame votes, but they will have at least 3 World Championships during that time period. That says something about the level of managing they've received.

For ten or fifteen years under KW, we've been attempting to catch lightning in a bottle throwing together players from different teams (mostly with losing organizations, although a few have been exceptions) and expecting that mixing in a few home-grown players would be enough to get it done. Obviously, Sale, Rodon, Ramirez and Abreu have held their own, but they spent very little time in our system and were fundamentally-flawed (the Cubans) in some mental or defensive aspect of the game that hasn't been correctable at the major league level. The club hasn't been able to draft and develop a single impact player that was sound on both sides of the ball, both offense and defense. Thompson might actually be the closest, but who knows if his hitting will hold up. Avi Garcia, Soler and Viciedo are essentially the same player, and even Eaton's had a lot of issues putting all aspects of his game, offense/defense/fundamentals/baserunning together at the same time, at least not on a consistent basis. That's simply not going to work in this day and age. The White Sox can't afford to pay the Heywards/Uptons/Gordons/Cespedes so we consistently get stuck with the next tier down in terms of talent, with Robertson being the only free agent other than Dunn who was close to his prime as a player (and both 2-3 years past, realistically).

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 3, 2015 -> 01:16 AM) Exactly. And as this escalates ... wow. In 20 years you won't recognize America. It's really going to be a mean, scary place where people are scared to death to go anywhere. Wait til we get an incident at a sports event, which is inevitable. Wow that will change sports too. Second half of a sports event a couple hours into the game when some nutjobs storm a 20,000 seat hoops arena or 50,000 stadium? Wow. Lots more will be killed but hopefully the rent a cops are armed and kill the nutjobs before they do too much damage. That already did happen...in Beslan, Russia, or even a country that always finishes in the top 5-10 of the world for quality of life, Norway (77 shot by one individual). Mass killings far and above anything in US history other than the Oklahoma City bombing. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeremy-haft/..._b_8227680.html This should calm you down. America already is pretty great!

QUOTE (LDF @ Oct 3, 2015 -> 02:51 AM) why is there always someone using another team and their history to justify something. there is no comparison . Comparing the Cubs entering 2015 with the White Sox entering 2016 wouldn't even make j4l's lmao/laugh trax album.

QUOTE (ewokpelts @ Oct 3, 2015 -> 01:06 AM) despite 2015 having the 2nd highest payroll in sox history. Expecting fans to come out when they're spending that money on the likes of Cabrera (peds), Keppinger, Belisario, Beckham, Bonifacio, Downs, Dunn, LaRoche, Samardzija, etc., is what kind of strategy exactly? Besides, they always have amongst the lowest paid coaching and scouting departments in baseball, once you get past Don Cooper. Consistent misallocation of resources.

http://www.vox.com/2015/10/2/9441957/trump-gun-control Trump actually makes sense on gun control/mental health...BUT offers no solutions.

Tied with Padres (getting shut out by LAD) for the ninth spot. Almost wish they would be outside of the Top Ten to prevent Hahn from doing something else that will push the rebuild back even further.

Because everyone wants to vent their frustrations... What next, Vince Coleman will get an extension or praise for the job he's done this year? We can keep throwing out examples like 2012, 2008, 2000, 1983, 1977...but nobody's buying it with the same front office and essentially the same managerial/coaching staff coming back intact. Does anyone believe that replacing Baines (whatever he did) will make one iota of difference? What are the odds Sale, Abreu, Quintana, Robertson, Nate Jones, Rodon, Cabrera, Ramirez, etc., are close to 100% health for another year?

Now, with this exciting announcement of Ventura's return, would be a great time to send out those season ticket renewals. Meanwhile, the other 3 teams with longer playoff-less streaks have changed their manager, GM or both.

http://news.yahoo.com/lightbox/douglas-cou...3747412056.html 2013 letter (written after a previous mass shooting) from local Oregon sheriff stating he won't follow any Federal laws regarding gun control that he believes to be unconstitutional...

Vince Coleman deserves another 3-5 years for his baserunning philosophy to take further hold.

http://heavy.com/news/2015/10/chris-harper...cebook-youtube/ The latest mass gunman counts himself as Republican, anti-religion but spiritual, anti-consumerism....a lot of contradictions. Bi-racial. Never had a gf apparently.