caulfield12

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Aug 9, 2015 -> 01:55 PM) TT pick the ball up. Ventura never would of bunted in the 5th but KC has no issue doing it. And that's a situation where it actually does make sense. High contact rate for KC, basically a singles/doubles hitting type of team...and the win loss percentage for the Royals with a lead going into the sixth is pretty darned hard to argue with over the last two or three seasons, especially at home.

Knew the bullpen war of attrition was coming...hard to come back on KC if the game gets to Herrera, obviously. Had their chances. Eaton getting picked off didn't help much, either.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 9, 2015 -> 01:44 PM) I continue to think this is 100% wrong. He constantly tries to flip the ball to right field and so he's extremely vulnerable to the pitch in the middle of the plate/in. Unless he can pull his hands in and turn on the ball, he's going to get a steady diet of fastballs there. Abreu was able to adjust to that same exact pitching approach. Avi has to either force his hips to open up by changing his stance...or simply rely on feasting on breaking stuff, which isn't going to be enough to get him to even a 1 war with his defensive issues.

Didn't realize we hadn't won a game yet in KC. 3-9 on the season, 0-5 at Kauffman. 6-6 and the White Sox are at .500. Of course, we probably shouldn't be 5-1 against Houston. More baserunning exploits...Balta was right, Eaton probably needed to sit, everything has been out of sync with him since then.

Well, that's not a complete surprise from Flowers... Up to Beckham here. That was all scouting...nothing but 92-93 mph fastballs from Medlen there

Well, that's not a complete surprise from Flowers... Up to Beckham here.

Duffy can't get anything but his fastball over today. Medlen auditioning for next season's rotation. $10 million mutual option, $1 million buyout.

Still a game, but barely.

Eaton should had the walk but Ramirez picked him up. Duffy doesn't have anything but his fastball this inning...sitting on it.

QUOTE (L. Ron Paultard @ Aug 9, 2015 -> 12:43 PM) This was a supremely all-around DUMB team for years. A supremely all-around DUMB team coming out of '15 Spring Training. A supremely all-around DUMB team whenever it was actually expected to play like a playoff-caliber team. The only saving grace has always been that overall level of talent was above-average, lots of big names.... but the tsunami of Dumb would just overwhelm in the end. The bizarre pitch-sequences and shifting alone should have gotten Mark Parent or Coop fired like 2 years ago, haha, while KC seems to pitch to their advance-scouting reports, our dunces prefer to almost pitch TO the KC hitters strengths. So bizarre and hilar, haha! And yet the pitching war (at least for starters) was among the best the majors two weeks ago. Something's up with Sale, physically. That long strikeout streak took something out of him...hasn't been the same since. Flowers an abysmal 5/43 throwing out runners. But, pitch framing! Toronto continues to advance like a wheat thresher through the AL.

The mistakes on the basepath and mental game continue to kill this team... Soto daydreaming (Abreu homer there gives them a 5-3 lead instead of solo homer to make it 7-3 trailing), Jennings more concerned with holding Morales on than getting the hitter out, Melky clowning around all over the field, etc.

QUOTE (L. Ron Paultard @ Aug 8, 2015 -> 07:52 PM) haha, don't I know it. I can be that myself as a kid in particular, but since then grew up and prefer to avoid everything sports-related like a plague (Soxtalk excepted every few years, and even then I am only here until Monday, so better enjoy my infinite know-it-all swag Is your cousin/alter-ego The Ultimate Champion? Didn't realize he was a Scientologist/libertarian.

QUOTE (SouthSideSale @ Aug 8, 2015 -> 07:49 PM) Good luck getting one off Holland He's been worse than Robertson the past two months. We got one last night, to boot. Joe Nathan with the Twins, he's not.

QUOTE (L. Ron Paultard @ Aug 8, 2015 -> 07:45 PM) Josh Phegley is playing in a zero-pressure environment and even at his peak, he's a 1-WAR player (not that S-metrics can't be useless in a smaller sample size or can capture the true suckage that is his defense... mind you) As for Avi, again you're mixing everything up. Avi wasn't rushed to the big at all. At a quick glance, Mister Garcia's problems are 2-fold: 1) aformentioned Terrible scouting. Apparently someone told Rick Hahn that Garcia is a top-flight defensive CF.... who can also steal 30 bases with ease... and has Miguel Cabrera's HOF-caliber combination of poise, early pitch-recognition, hand-eye coordination & batspeed. I feel sorry for Hahn, haha. 2) And even with limited upside, Avi could still hit 20-25 HR in the majors because of his natural strength & an all-field line-drive swing. Which is what seem to happen before he tore his shoulder at age 22. When he came back, his mechanics were different. Still got off to a good start in 2015, including an impressive oppo HR against David Price no less. Sure he still needed to learn a lot in terms of plate-discipline & how to "think along with the pitcher".... but he was trending in a positive direction at 23 yo. Then everyone, including the media and fans began to whine how Avi need to pull more of those majestic Gio Stanton type HR to LF. Evidently Garcia took heed. And has been in pull-n-uppercut loopy off-balance swing mode for a couple of months. Numbers tanked big-time. Sure some responsibility is on Avi himself, got greedy, got out of his element. Doesn't seem to have affected Eaton too adversely that he went on a homer binge...

QUOTE (SouthSideSale @ Aug 8, 2015 -> 07:42 PM) Sigh..... Seven...I mean, next year will be eight for the Sox...and probably second consecutive year for the Cubs/Astros.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 8, 2015 -> 07:38 PM) And the end result of the thinking that "We must compete this year and we can't field a below .500 team multiple years in a row" is going to be 4 years below .500 in a row and a team that isn't nearly competitive the next year wihtout a huge FA splurge, again. Because we must compete every year, we've been uncompetitive 3 years in a row. You can't tell me "This team can't afford to be uncompetitive 2 years in a row" when they've been an utter failure 4 of 5 years. They're going to be worse next year in attendance because the foolish fans that bought into the 2015 BS are going to be even more angry because of the 2015 failure. They bought into this bullcrap and the team took advantage of them - how on Earth do we expect them to repeat that mistake next year? We're now going to be in Cleveland Indians attendance territory because we took the people who were interested and flicked them off with the 2015 season. This might be the one offseason overpaying a name manager makes sense, because they're going to have to spend $150-200 million to get anyone to buy in again on free agents making a difference. But JR won't pay two managers simultaneously.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 8, 2015 -> 07:38 PM) And the end result of the thinking that "We must compete this year and we can't field a below .500 team multiple years in a row" is going to be 4 years below .500 in a row and a team that isn't nearly competitive the next year wihtout a huge FA splurge, again. Because we must compete every year, we've been uncompetitive 3 years in a row. You can't tell me "This team can't afford to be uncompetitive 2 years in a row" when they've been an utter failure 4 of 5 years. They're going to be worse next year in attendance because the foolish fans that bought into the 2015 BS are going to be even more angry because of the 2015 failure. They bought into this bullcrap and the team took advantage of them - how on Earth do we expect them to repeat that mistake next year? We're now going to be in Cleveland Indians attendance territory because we took the people who were interested and flicked them off with the 2015 season. And yet we know it's quite possible nothing will actually happen until 2029, sigh.

QUOTE (SouthSideSale @ Aug 8, 2015 -> 07:24 PM) The Cubs, Pirates, Royals and Astros have been s***ty for a long time. They're due to get some really good players. Only a three year difference in last playoff appearance with Sox and Astros. Eight years each with Sox and Cubs.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 8, 2015 -> 07:23 PM) Josh Phegley has been worth 1.3 bWAR this season. Soto has been worth 1.3 bWAR this season. Yes I'm defending Josh Phegley. Giving up on him because the org decides they didn't like him was stupid and it's exactly the kind of mistake this organization has been making for years - we don't like a guy even if they're talented so we assume they will never learn anything at the big league level. We then give them away because we don't like them. Then we assume guys we like will learn a ton at the big league level, like Avi, then they are slow to do so and somehow we are surprised when we're a below .500 team as a consequence. As long as we're ok with being a below .500 team permanently, it's a successful plan. Daniel Hudson, Brian Anderson, Brandon McCarthy, Rauch, Phegley, etc. Then we stick with someone like Teahen because Buddy Bell loved him when he worked for the Royals...you would think Gold Glove guys like Bell and later Ventura could make better determinations with Teahen, Viciedo, Gillaspie, etc.

Samardzija had like 21-22 starts of 5+ innings. Last two after the deadline, of course...0 for 2 getting through the fifth even.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 8, 2015 -> 01:58 PM) That's a pretty good post. A mass murderer in the USA really doesn't have to worry about much. He either gets killed by the cops while committing his crime (which makes him famous thanks to the way we cover these stories in America) or gets life in prison (pretty cushy life unless inmates get to him) or is humanely thrust into the afterlife. Blowing a guy's head off or hanging him would be pretty scary and might deter some of this. Good luck to the people over there if they let him out. I'd make him wear a tracking device at all times so they know where he is and what he's doing. Or make America the equivalent of North Korea, China or a typical Middle Eastern country...

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 8, 2015 -> 06:55 PM) Samardzija's next game will be against Cubs. Be interesting if he throws at any of them. Might be the only way to keep the White Sox off page 17 of the sports section. That or some fresh Ozzie quotes.

Haha. Called that one. Hits that ball in the fifth, it's 5-3 White Sox. Soto with the wandering mind, though. Play smart you win, play dumb you lose.

Now is when Abreu homers or gets hit by a pitch...

If Hahn can't even name his own manager, he should walk. Supposedly, he's had tremendous interest from 3-4 other teams, if he's so great...should be easy to find another job in baseball. Or maybe he gets lucky and Williams finally leaves.