caulfield12

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 02:05 PM) Just got Tommy Hunter also He used to have a pretty electric arm with the Braves/Orioles once upon a time...better as a reliever than starter.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 02:01 PM) lol what? The Tigers got two two prospects I've never heard of from the Mets. How did we lack the chips? Once again, great job with that farm system guys. Always second best for a decade, seemingly started when we didn't have the pieces for Miguel Cabrera. Without any quality depth and lacking the secondary pieces to get things done (see Astros, Blue Jays, Dodgers)...well, we shouldn't be surprised. We can't (seemingly) trade Fulmer/Montas/M.Johnson/Anderson/E.Johnson and nobody wants whatever's left behind those guys.

Between Sale last night, Billy Pierce passing away, all the moves other teams made to improve themselves, Detroit getting a lot stronger for next season compared to a week ago...all of the excitement about the last two months of the season has kind of gone out of the balloon.

Cue random groundscrew guys in MAJOR LEAGUE... "Yeah, but they still suck." Or was that a Rob Schneider line in The Waterboy?

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 01:49 PM) Great initial post to this thread. I do agree they probably should have made a trade. But I also agree I'd hate to see any of the Sox "name" prospects gone for a rental. It's kind of buzzkill to not make any changes at all when Baltimore and Toronto and Texas added guys. I will say this ... it's up to the team right now to remove that buzzkill. The team just won 7 of 8 on the road. If it could win the Yankee series at home and continue to hit a bit, there still could be some excitement in the Cell. Saladino is a recent addition and the new Sanchez is almost like an entirely new player. Ditto Melky. Even Rodon appears a new guy the last 3 starts. We are the Rays, lol...franchise stuck in neutral. Unless something changes in the next hour of those announcements that always leak rapidfire in the hour after the actual deadline and they're just messing with us to build the suspense.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 01:49 PM) Bruce Levine ‏@MLBBruceLevine now7 seconds ago Source says Cespedes has been dealt to the Mets . They've just managed to lose two in a row and made one of their players cry, so hopefully they can stop the Cubs at least. Does that mean the Tigers have added Norris and Wheeler to their rotation? Ouch...

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 01:48 PM) Why the hell would we want Rajai Davis? On the theory nearly anything is better than Avi I guess...

Why is the headline in ALL-CAPS and misspelled to boot?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 01:44 PM) Bob Nightengale ‏@BNightengale 35s36 seconds ago The #Whitesox were aggressive, but fell short, and now out of #Tigers Cespedes sweepstakes If they don't acquire anything until August waiver deals and/or we still have Samardzija, it will be beyond disappointing.

If for no other reason than to see how he, Ramirez and Abreu get along. It would be a lot more entertaining than Aviball recently, that's for sure. Dang, if we traded Samardzija at the right time, we could have had Olivera at 3B with that trio...then add Puig and play 20 games in Havana every season to exploit the newest market inefficiency, with the US opening diplomatic relations. Imagine the tv ratings in CUBA!!! April games instead of snowouts. Sellouts instead of September crowds of 12-15,000.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 01:39 PM) Yeah, Montas could be fantastic but very high risk at this point to drop in value. Still think he'd be a dynamite reliever. And if he's Wade Davis/Andruw Miller/Herrera impact level...that's still worth a ton in today's environment. We have a lot of pieces down there now, but nobody with electric stuff. Not even Nate Jones at 100% health because his fastball was so straight (and Greg didn't like his mechanics!). Apparently Montas' offspeed stuff (knuckle curve for one) is much better.

Do we have a reliever named Montes instead of Montas...we can do the reverse of the White Sox/LA Jeff Berry/Barry fiasco for KW and slip him into the paperwork instead?

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 01:00 PM) They'll just build more ghost towns. Stabilized a bit though. Their whole economy is a relative sham based upon government mechanisms. That's a bit of hyperbole, but yeah, it's hard to know the real numbers (realistically the GDP growth is probably closer to 4-6% than 7%). With the stock market, it's not a situation like in the US where 65-70% have a stake...it's a much smaller percentage, and it doesn't reflect nearly as large a chunk of the GDP either because there are many SME's, state-owned hybrids (banks/insurance/construction) and simply private companies that haven't done IPO's or are waiting on economic conditions to shift to more favorable. It's more the psychology of the stock market, and how it will affect consumer sentiment/buying (especially luxury goods) behavior. From living here now for almost 5 years (off and on since 2007), I'd be more worried about the real estate bubble/ghost towns/shadow banking and margin lending side of things than the stock market bubbles, per se.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 11:21 AM) Many of the buildings, including the Bird's Nest stadium, are now ghost towns. They're planning to reuse those facilities for the Opening/Closing ceremonies, Athletes' Village, etc. From what I've seen online, it's mostly things like beach volleyball and kayaking/canoeing courses. Not any different from Athens, Sydney or some of the former host cities. The weirdest site (like Chernobyl) is the bobsled/luge run at Sarajevo from 1984.

Don't forget the Rangers, now that they have Hamels. They're more likely to be there than the Tigers sans Price, Soria and Cespedes.

The hitter who had the highest OPS of all the bats available and who used to be one of the best defenders in baseball...interesting he can't even get a 2nd page on his thread. Who was the poster who was absolutely in love with Parra on the DBacks and hyped him like an Adopt A Prospect?

If the White Sox didn't have the killer schedule they do over the next six series, then it would be be worth considering something more short-term... And sure, there are a lot of teams with killer schedules coming up, look at what the Giants have to face in August, for example. If the White Sox were in a position financially to go out and spend unlimited amounts in the off-season, it wouldn't matter, but that's not realistic. It's pretty apparent we could have had Hector Olivera, for example, for the next five years and only $32 million remaining on his deal (and a sixth year for $1 million if he had elbow surgery) if we had been willing to trade Shark at that moment. (This is where the argument comes in that because Wood has multiple years of control, he wouldn't have netted the same package as Wood did, which is impossible to determine with all the other moving pieces in that deal). Even the most optimistic fans in their heart of hearts can't realistically expecting the White Sox to do much more than a game or two above .500 with our upcoming schedule, and more likely a game or two under .500, especially if we dealt Shark and had to replace him with Johnson from here on out. We also are cognizant of the fact that the AL East is softer than the AL Central because the Royals are probably the best team in the league at this point...and that the Blue Jays have four superstars now on that team, and Encarnacion as well. Everyone is picking them at this point, especially AA, whose job and future depend upon those moves working out. He's going for broke. Surrender? No. But make moves that don't completely push this team back into 2017 in terms of competing...take on a contract like James Shields for 30-50% of the rate they would have had to pay for him at the beginning of the year, for example. Get the equivalent of a Hector Olivera for 3B. Maybe there's not an impact catcher out there, but the Giants still have Susac and Sanchez and lots of interesting pieces in the low minors. Bruce/Cargo, whatever...give us at least one position player or a starting pitcher that makes the heavy lifting in the off-season all that easier. At the very least, a Napoli for tier b/c prospects who will give LaRoche relief against LHP and bring another veteran into the clubhouse. Right now, the only players we know for sure who will be back as starters are Cabrera, Eaton and Abreu...and leaning heavily towards keeping Alexei (which has changed in the last 3-4 weeks). That gives you 2 months to make determinations on catcher, A.Garcia, Saladino/Sanchez/Johnson and LaRoche...as well as time to look at Erik Johnson, Montas, Nate Jones, etc. Odds are pretty high that of Saladino/Johnson/Sanchez, we'll be fortunate to get one regular/starter of those three. So we can confidently say we have 5 1/2 players (counting LaRoche as 1/2 for now) and are going to have to fill 3B, C and RF/LF. That's a lot better than a month ago, so there's that.

The Twins also need to do something...anything. A reliever, bat (they're willing to part with Arcia for a rental), another starter. Ryan hasn't made a huge trade in seemingly a decade.

QUOTE (Frank_Thomas35 @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 08:08 AM) I agree I don't want to give up Montas or Anderson. Or Avi but im good witth Davidson and or EJ Do we still even have Hector Noesi? He's in AAA?

QUOTE (spiderman @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 08:06 AM) If it's safe to assume that the rotation next year will include: - Sale - Quintana - Rodon - Danks They are obviously hoping to get Samrdizia back...I can understand why the White Sox think they can move Johnson (although losing Samardzia, a #2 type starter would hurt the quality of the rotation) given they have in-house candidates to replace Danks after next season (or even during) while the rest of the rotation is young. Sox have a done fabulous job of developing pitching. But that depth disappears in a hurry if you're forced to deal Quintana as a result of not possessing the financial resources (or projected season ticket purchasers) to go out and make enough meaningful additions via trade or FA this off-season.

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 08:01 AM) So his utter dominance down there means nothing? Really? Guys who completely tear up AAA stick at the MLB level more often than not. Even if you don't believe in EJ, his turnaround has increased his value quite a bit. If we wanted to trade him, we could do a lot better than an Upton rental. The problem is that he's yet to prove anything at the big league level this year, and he had an unexplainable breakdown last year that still hasn't been diagnosed to anyone's satisfaction. The Cubs are in a similar situation looking to deal Baez but teams not valuing him the same way they did in say May, 2014. If this was the 2013-14 offseason or mid-season 2013, then it would be a different situation, but some of the bloom's off the rose. Then again, that kind of streak of excellence is going to raise some eyebrows when half your games are played in Charlotte. I would be pretty shocked if the Padres would accept him as the centerpiece of a possible trade.

The thing is, if they do trade Johnson, they're going to go out and get another pitcher unless they want to push Fulmer and Montas into the rotation in April of 2016. It would be pretty incredible...so Erik does have a lot more value to us than he does to other teams. As for pitching in SD, we've had guys like Richard and Eric Stults (let get away for nothing) pitch pretty well there. Pitching hasn't been one of the biggest issues for the Padres, it's offense and it will be bullpen if they trade away Kimbrel. That's probably why they would target Montas, to make him a closer.

The Dodgers essentially ate about $50 million on Olivera and Morse alone.

2. Where does Upton land? The Baltimore Orioles, Chicago White Sox or New York Mets seem the most likely destination. The Orioles have received terrible production from their outfield corners and while they're just a game over .500, they're only two back of the Minnesota Twins for the second wild-card spot. The White Sox climbed back into the wild-card race with a seven-game winning streak, although that was snapped Thursday as the Boston Red Sox pounded Chris Sale in one of the worst outings of his career. The White Sox spent a lot of money in the offseason (Melky Cabrera, Adam LaRoche, David Robertson) so they may fancy themselves contenders even if the minus-52 run differential suggests otherwise. Their next six series are against the New York Yankees, Tampa Bay Rays, Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Angels, Chicago Cubs and Angels again, so that tough slate may drop them back down in the standings. The Mets? The question there is whether ownership is willing to spend the money on Upton's contract, or if they'd give up a better prospect if the Padres included cash. Prediction: White Sox. I'm starting to think KW is a bit insane. The "under the radar" player we'd be better off with is Gerardo Parra, since he won't cost nearly as much as Upton and is exactly the kind of player who if he fits in would be more easily lured back next season. (Yet somehow, Shuck/Avi will "block" Parra in a way they won't with Upton.) Rumors that Aroldis Chapman is being moved (a couple of days ago they said he was off the market)... http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/i...gs-to-watch-for It's crazy to think if you went back ten days ago that we'd be accepting a compensation pick for Shark and we'd be trading one of our top 4-5 prospects to rent a slumping Justin Upton for two months and not get a comp pick back for him.

QUOTE (Elgin Slim @ Jul 30, 2015 -> 10:40 PM) /thread However there are a disproportionate percentage of the rich people who are white. I don't know the numbers exactly, but I'd guess that at least 85% of those people who are super rich are white. Now on to another subject: If you are white AND disabled, good f***ing luck to you. You get no protections except those under the ADA, which are a start but need to be expanded at this point. If you are a racial minority, and disabled, you have double the rights of the other guy. It makes a company more willing to take you on because you kill two tax breaks with one job. Otherwise FOD. Everybody should know how business treats disabled people. It is despicable. I have firsthand experience with it, but won't go into it. there is a reason why the disabled have 70% UE even in the best of times. You are allowed to ask for "reasonable accommodations" but "reasonable" is not defined by you it is defined by the employer, which in turn means that the question is asked: 1) Does it cost us a cent to make this request possible? if the answer is no, then sure, come aboard. if it costs them even 50 cents to make that accommodation, then f*** off, that is unreasonable. In any event, did anyone hear about the scandal with the ADA hiring? Despicable, greedy, and selfish. I hope these people rot in jail, and i think that we should take all of the $ from the CEOs of these companies involved bank accounts and put it all into the SSI/SSDI fund. It is super tough to live on less than 900 dollars a month even if you have not to pay for room and board. Sounds like a situation not unlike the recent VA hospitals scandal. Except veterans in this day and age (anything past the Vietnam War) are treated with much more respect than in the past...and there are a lot more charities to support them (although we can never be sure about much of that money is actually getting to them directly, as opposed to executive salaries, marketing/direct fundraising costs and just simple scams/corruption like a recent situation with the NASCAR driver Busch's g/f).