caulfield12

Let's face it, the Royals had more motivation to win this game. Home opener. Playoff prognostications. For their season, starting 0-3...with how things have gone for them when fans had just about any level of expectations, you just can't lose to the White Sox. If we picked up those 2 runs right away in the first, the story might have been different.

On the plus side, Tyler Flowers is actually hitting. Let's hope it is not a mirage like Phegley's first couple of weeks in 2013. Throw beat Hosmer, but he was able to dodge the tag somehow.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Apr 4, 2014 -> 02:48 PM) Not that it will matter, but that third place coach is a fricking moron. How can you be that dumb and have a major league job? Gordon is the best in baseball at plays like that. My god, McEwen. Idiotic. McEwing. Generally not a good idea to run on Royals' outfielders, although Gordon played that one perfectly. Francouer had an even bigger arm, but Aoki's in RF now... Eaton had a chance at that, but the wind killed it and took the ball away from Adam. Nothing you can do with the swirling winds today. Almost made a spectacular play on it though, great effort.

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 4, 2014 -> 02:45 PM) Stay hot Flowers...but jeez Alexei, did he know there were 2 outs? Probably not. You just don't run on Gordon and Escobar. Two great arms.

QUOTE (shakes @ Apr 4, 2014 -> 02:42 PM) Quickly jumping on Garcia's defense is now the cool thing. Did anyone see where he was positioned on that play? It wasn't a bad jump, he was playing way too shallow to catch that ball. Yell at the bench coach for that one. Why would you play shallow in RF against Alex Gordon with a gale force wind blowing in that direction? He's the most dangerous hitter for the Royals, arguably. Or Butler. He's already showed an inability to get back on the ball...the one that got over his head from Collabello yesterday.

Another ground ball from Garcia. Hopefully DeAza can keep up his hot start. After Conor was retired, I thought they would walk Abreu and Dunn and Garcia would be retired without any runs scoring. At least they scored one. That's sort of new. Having a professional hitter who can get the RBI job done in Abreu, we haven't had that since Konerko in 2012.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Apr 4, 2014 -> 02:36 PM) What was Johnson's velo in ST? Arm lagging here. Hopefully the dreaded "dead arm" thing going on here...out of spring training, it usually happens in April for most starters.

Who would have thought, with all the talk of Garcia in CF, that Viciedo might end up being a better option in RF...? He couldn't be playing any worse, that's for sure. If Hahn was planning on building a team based on strong defense, adding Davidson and Abreu is a questionable way to do it. At least Eaton's looking competent in CF, from everything we've seen so far.

Garcia, in the eyes of the Royals' announcers, didn't read the wind well at all. Jetstream going out to RF today in KC. Johnson pitching behind to nearly every Royals' hitter, that's a recipe for disaster.

Shawn Kemp use to have a personal assistant whose entire job was keeping him out of trouble when he played in SEA with the Sonics. Surely, that person should be able to do the one thing he's getting paid to do. It worked out nicely for Mattingly to be able to send a lesson to Puig and simultaneously avoid the first big controversy of the season...sitting Kemp in favor of Puig/Ethier/Crawford. At some point, they might end up having to dump one of those three guys if they start having chemistry issues in the clubhouse. I doubt they're close to the "trade Puig" line of thinking yet, but short-term, they could live without him with all that talent on the roster...IF IF IF they could keep their three veteran outfielders healthy.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 4, 2014 -> 07:37 AM) Also should point out that if the White Sox want to spend bigger money on a guy on a multiple year deal to fill their DH spot, Sandoval is an obvious option as well. I think Sandoval ONLY makes sense if he's injured for most of the season...and they can come in and buy on a dip, like the Orioles with Nelson Cruz coming off the PED's stuff. Or like how we were able to bring in Dye and AJ coming into 2005. You definitely don't want another Dunn or Keppinger deal, buying at their peak value. A 2 year contract with an option for a 3rd, based on meeting a set of statistical criteria. But that's more of a pipedream than reality at this point, with Sandoval knowing a healthy season is probably going to lead to a $100+ million contract from SOMEONE being 28-29 and the best hitting option on the market, along with Headley and Rasmus.

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Apr 4, 2014 -> 08:39 AM) I'll go out on a limb and say Abreu gets his first career HR today to right center. It's a poke to put the ball into the fountains or onto the grassy berm in RCF in Kansas City for a RH hitter. Abreu can do it, but I think a homer to straightaway CF or LF is much more likely.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Apr 4, 2014 -> 07:24 AM) Yeah, Eaton-Semien are better OBP players right now, so they should definitely be 1-2 if they continue to develop. Micah potentially could be a dynamic #7-8-9 hitter. Perhaps, most importantly, he will need to find a position where he can handle defensively. Might end up in LF. Johnson/Eaton/Garcia might give you 18-20 homers. That's probably not going to cut it unless you're making it up at 3B, middle infield and catcher.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 4, 2014 -> 07:15 AM) The "middle of the order LH bat" is IMO probably easier to solve for this roster than a catcher. For the catcher they're clearly looking for a long-term solution. The LH bat is something we could plug in from the free agent market with a veteran since we have the DH slot open, and we could even cycle through more than one of those guys over a couple years. If we're signing late-in-their-career veterans, we'd still have to worry about injuries and declining performance, but the long term cost risk might be kept to a minimum. Raul Ibanez would tend to agree with you. Still, there's no sure-fire obvious candidate like Dunn this time around. VMart/Morales/Lind/A.LaRoche/S.Smith/Doumit/Melky Cabrera...etc., not exactly a Murderer's Row. Look at the success (we'll see how long it lasts) the Twins are having with Collabello or whatever his name is...he was THIS close to taking an offer to play in Japan during the offseason, despite putting up really impressive minor league stats last year.

QUOTE (hammerhead johnson @ Apr 4, 2014 -> 07:08 AM) He was merely below average before 2012. Since then, he's been particularly awful. How about Castro?

http://www.kansascity.com/2014/04/03/49353...ntura-robs.html Here's the answer for Greg. Basically, there is no "good" answer, just a hunch/feeling. The fact that Guthrie's had more success with the Sox than any pitcher in recent years. Avoiding pressure of home opener. Keeping Shields from going a week between starts. Protecting his arm, etc.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Apr 3, 2014 -> 10:37 PM) If attendance doesn't matter, why not just charge 10 bucks for box seats and be done with it? Any business is going to maximize revenue...are they not? Obviously, there's a price point they feel comfortable with. If they cut ticket prices by 75%, then they would be cutting off their nose to spite their face...leading to an even lower payroll, it would be a irreversible cycle, not unlike during the Veeck days. The only thing that's going to get them back to that $125-135 million payroll level is a winning team and/or their new media deal, which could be as much as five years away. Forget about $10 box seats, let's just go with $20. If you cut ticket prices that amount, to stay even, you're going to have to double your attendance to break even...in terms of ticket revenues. Just for argument's sake, let's assume the increased attendance is enough not to quite double attendance because of additional parking/souvenirs/concessions to offset it. On the other hand, all those season ticket holders and corporate box/luxury box holders are going to furious because you just eroded the value of the product they're buying substantially. Let's put it another way....say the homeowners on your left and right decided to sell their houses for half of market value because "housing is too expensive." Would you then feel obligated to take half of what you think something is worth for your house? Let's even imagine they started giving tickets away for free...with the idea that would be offset by the parking/concessions/souvenir revenues. Wouldn't you feel insulted if you were a season ticket holder all those years? The biggest problem is that you do cut prices substantially....it's going to take a LONG time to return them to the levels you want to charge. For the White Sox, it would require having a deep run in the playoffs, and cutting revenues from ticketing makes that task all the more difficult by limiting incoming revenues. So to break even, you're going to have operate under the assumption that you can get 3+ million fans to come out to USCF to watch a team win 66-76 games. Do you honestly believe that White Sox fans, knowing them as you do, even if box seats were $10, would want to pay for all the other charges (parking/souvenirs/food, etc.) that go with attending a game? What would the motivation be? I'm referring here to the non-diehard/casual fans who only support the team when it's winning. The Royals for many many seasons had outfield/bleacher/upper deck box seats available for $7-15 and people still wouldn't show up unless there was a good product on the field.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Apr 3, 2014 -> 11:00 PM) Or maybe they are just saving a start from Ventura's arm in this, his rookie season. It's not uncommon to skip rookie SP's starts when you can. Especially when the weather's questionable. They also probably don't want him to face the pressure of starting the home opener. Just a theory.

QUOTE (sammy esposito @ Apr 3, 2014 -> 09:31 PM) If Avisail had options he should have been the one sent to triple A , We have a ready to play outfielder names Danks who can play outstanding defense and led our sox during spring training. Send Garcia down so he can learn the art of fielding and hitting and bring up Jordan Danks. It doesn't matter what you have invested in Garcia the best man is in Charlotte. dy Then you're setting back the time you can legitimately compete by another year if players like Garcia, Davidson and Semien spend the whole season in the minors...meaning 2015 is another "adjustment/rookie" season and you're in perennial waiting mode like the Cubs. Maybe the offense starting out hot has everyone a BIT excited, but it was ONLY against Minnesota, in the final analysis. As flavum has pointed out, the schedule for the next month plus is pretty brutal. It's expected they're going to be 5-10 games under .500 already and beginning to look as much towards 2015 as 2014, especially due to the fact that this bullpen is certainly not constructed to be in "win now" mode.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Apr 3, 2014 -> 07:50 PM) Webb is a stud. Obviously it's just 1 game and 1 series but I wish that Webb was the closer. He's going to be the closer eventually. No better time than now. If Lindstrom looks like his career numbers in SV/SVO over the next two months, that's exactly what you will see...especially if Belisario and Jones aren't getting the job done.

QUOTE (Feeky Magee @ Apr 3, 2014 -> 05:53 PM) Thanks, this is more what I was looking for. Is there a history of guys who graded awfully on defence to start off with but turned into average or plus defenders with more coaching and reps? Do guys playing MLB way ahead of schedule tend to grade a lot poorer on defence than they will go onto do, simply because of lack of experience? Instinct would tell me that defensive performance would tend to be more stable regardless of age for the level than offensive (not to say it can't improve). Viciedo really improved defensively in 2012 and then regressed greatly last year. Another example, Pods and Juan Pierre had periods where they were really good and then bad...but Pods was actually much better defensively his second time around, even though he was older. Alex Rios was both great and abysmal with the White Sox during different stretches. Why this was, you have a million different theories out there.

LOL. Every pitcher out of the pen right now is a "bullpen killer" at the moment. Doesn't really matter when they enter the game. Still, it's a lot better than when Thornton and Hector Santiago were blowing those early April/May games. This situation has been a LOT more predictable.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Apr 3, 2014 -> 04:15 PM) It sucks that we can blame Nate, we can blame Bellisario, or we can blame Lindstrom. Cleto and Daniel Webb are the only guys not to s*** themselves out of the pen so far this year, and they were the last 2 guys to make it. And Webb gave up a run yesterday...with Cleto giving up his two inherited runners and almost completely giving the lead back if Arcia's ball was hit another 10 feet.

QUOTE (BigHurt3515 @ Apr 3, 2014 -> 04:11 PM) This bullpen is going to be hard to watch if they don't learn how to throw strikes. Jesus.. Or learn how to get ahead in counts so that the batters don't know exactly what's coming next... Hawkism 101: The best pitch in baseball is strike one (see Eckersley, Dennis) Well, the Royals and Cardinals both have very strong pens, they probably knew that Cleto wasn't worth the trouble....whereas we have the luxury of being able to afford some patience with him.

QUOTE (JoshPR @ Apr 3, 2014 -> 04:04 PM) Jones is just brutal. I agree with someone on the other thread said about his delivery. I can't understand why he pitches backwards. Five batters faced so far on the season and no outs. And he was the favorite to be the closer two weeks ago.