caulfield12

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 09:08 PM) Pretty good post. Flavum, save this post. I think this is how it'll play out, sir! It might be Alomar time, actually. Beware, however, Tony Pena sucked as KC skipper! OMG! Don't tease me. The return of Ozzie would be immortal. OK, think of it. Robin quits tomorrow. Oz is interim. What would it hurt??? See how he behaves the remainder of a lost lost season. If he shuts his mouth and is a modern day manager, five year extension, baby!!! I love Ozzie and this plan would hurt nobody. This team has long been out of it. I repeat .... WHAT WOULD IT HURT? At the least it could resurrect the career of a guy who deserves to be in baseball? Greg775, Bill Self and the manager of the local Lawrence Applebee's or Chili's all have a higher probability of being the next Sox manager while KW is still ensconced in the front office suite.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 10:41 PM) Teed it up for me as well. IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN. Not good at pitch framing, haha. Seriously, that would be a clubhouse where it might work for 2-3 months, but he doesn't have the right type of personality for managing in today's environment. In the end, he's better off in broadcasting. Sandy Alomar, Jr., or Joel Skinner or even McEwing would be much better choices. Parent was a catcher as well, but haven't seen anything to be extremely impressed from his tenure with the organization. Anything besides Buddy Bell would be a step in the right direction. No to Konerko, Thome, Rowand, DJ...and Steve Stone is too comfortably situated from a financial standpoint to do anything but front office work if he was to leave the broadcasting booth. That might be one of the problems for Ventura...being too comfortable, in the sense that his family will still be set for life no matter how long his tenure as a manager lasts, compared to someone like a Clint Hurdle who didn't make nearly enough as a player (and with pensions now, it's QUITE comfortable) to set up both his children and grandchildren for life.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 08:51 PM) Yep. If they score 4 runs a game during that 0-8 stretch, they'd be something like 36-38 and the tone would be much different. This game can go back and forth.... If they hadn't had so many comeback victories when down 2-3-4 runs early, only to rally late. I think there were at least 5-6 of those examples, more than the White Sox probably had in 2013 and 2014 combined. The pythagorean number for expected wins and losses being way out of whack. ERA and BA is the bottom 3 in the AL, the worst defense (by DRS), one of the worst bullpens, the worst baserunning/near the lowest percentage of opposing baserunners thrown out, etc. OTOH, the sheer talent level of Sale, Abreu, Rodon, Quintana, etc., makes it impossible for them to be the absolute worst, compared to the Phillies or Brewers. If any offense could consistently score exactly 4 runs per game in this run-averse environment, they'd probably be a 108 win team. The problem is most teams will score 6, 2, 0 and 8 to get to those 16 runs, leaving them the likely losers of two games unless they're getting incredible starting pitching, defense and a lockdown closer nailing down games.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 08:23 PM) They are both good at pitch framing though Caulfield……..wasn't it you that pointed that out? Haha. I'm just giving you a hard time. Both are bad. I think Phegley is bad too though. I think more than anything it was the rumors of Phegley being on the outs with management, as he was perceived as having an "attitude" by some...of course, looking at his statistics with the White Sox, it's not like he was owed anything. On the other hand, any catcher in baseball "stuck" behind Tyler Flowers would understandably be a bit frustrated. Pitch framing is very important/underrated, but it's hard to see what other defensive facets Tyler excels in...so yeah, it's kind of amusing that this one statistical factor which really didn't exist on the radar screen five seasons ago is now what's keeping him as a major league starter (well, 60% of the games, at least).

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 08:16 PM) They don't like Phegley's game-calling skills. He was never going to play for the Sox anymore. Which makes it a bit ironic that the team with the best ERA in the AL has use for him, but the team with the 13th best ERA doesn't. And, going by the game threads this season, there aren't very many fans of Tyler Flowers' or Geo's pitch calling, either.

SF Giants waiting on Peavy and Cain first before they make any kind of deal.... Royals waiting on the return of Ventura/Vargas...Kris Medlen and former 1st rounder Sean Manaea are both rehabbing in the minors and getting closer. They're more concerned with their lack of frontline "oomph." Right now, they have Volquez, Duffy, Chris Young, Blanton and Guthrie. Not sure how confident they are in Young/Blanton keeping this up. http://www.csnchicago.com/cubs/cubs-can%E2...&ocid=yahoo In the middle of January, a fan stepped to the microphone inside a downtown Chicago hotel ballroom and told the Cubs prospects on stage: “We love you like we love our wives and our children.” If that sounds a little creepy, well, that’s how prospects are treated in the age of social media. They got the boy-band treatment at Cubs Convention, fans rushing forward for autographs as soon as the Q&A session ended.

Part of it's the immediacy and depth of information from the internet, which didn't exist for most of the 80's and into the early to mid 90's. The other reason is ESPN and its massive network of channels...showing LeBron's high school games, or nearly every single game of the Little League World Series. Before, we just had the final/championship game in the U.S., and I can't remember if we had the international championship, but it definitely wasn't on ABC.

QUOTE (harkness @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 03:13 PM) Minnesota and KC look good.. the rest look just as crappy as the White Sox or worse. Almost the entire Minnesota starting 9 is now homegrown. Of course, that's not entirely surprising with Terry Ryan back in the GM chair. Buxton, if he can stay healthy, is a future superstar (ceiling-wise), and they've got 2 more Top 25-35 guys in Sano and Berrios. Cleveland has a much deeper and stronger connection to Latin America right now, with Francisco Lindor being the prime example, but they've also discovered the likes of Yan Gomes (Brazil) and Carlos Santana, to name just a few. Their newest 3B is also a Latin player, internally-developed, and they had Ramirez at SS, but he didn't hit well enough to hold that position.

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 05:53 PM) Heyward Goodbye, $175 million or maybe even $200 million. That's well beyond what we spent this offseason on LaRoche, Cabrera, Robertson, Samardzija (one year payroll addition), Bonifacio and Zach Duke combined. The biggest problem is we're not playing in OLD Comiskey. If we had a huge outfield like Minnesota does, it would make more sense to spend millions on RF defense, but we're in a park that rewards offense first and foremost.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 11:32 AM) So Dunn declined, therefore no White Sox players will ever bounce back. (Danks doesn;t count, his shoulder was ruined and no one thought he was bouncing back. Or at least no one should have) The point isn't those particular players, or Melky Cabrera...it's that the White Sox simply can't afford to make mistakes or suffer major injuries because they're not in that group that can eat major contracts and live to tell about it. For one reason, financially, for a second reason, the lack of major league ready replacements residing in AA/AAA. It seems recently we're always "stuck" with players who we have to keep sending out there to take their lumps...which has a corresponding negative reaction cycle from the fanbase as they become cynical and start to give up hope those players will ever amount to what they were initially billed as.

QUOTE (Vance Law @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 05:12 PM) He has played basically one full season with the Sox (via parts of 3 seasons). In 153 games he has hit .272/.317/.414/.731 with 19 HR 79 RBI 42XBH 10 SB (in 18 tries). Those numbers at the plate look fine to me for a 22 - 24 year old during a period of time where the average MLB OPS is about .708. Garcia's usefulness as a starting outfielder will hinge on whether or not he can take his hitting up a notch and his fielding up 2 or 3 notches. As he currently stands, he is not proven to be a building block for the future but his athleticism allows for the possibility he'll improve in the OF in a way that Viciedo was never going to and his approach at the plate makes him more hitter than just whiffing slugger. Tank was given 3 full seasons to try to improve. We'll see where Garcia's at after his first full one is done in September (yes, September, I'm saying it here, this team will not make the playoffs). There's only one problem with this... If he's leading the league or close to leading the league in OF assists, where do we expect his positive defensive improvement to come from? There are a ton of balls dropping in front of him because he's not comfortable going back on the ball. The White Sox are literally forcing/benching Eaton to change his defensive positioning due to not playing shallow enough. Even when he's in doubles-prevent defense, he's taking the wrong routes and not cutting off balls before they get to the wall. Any ball up in the air is an adventure, with one exception...the balls down the foul line or where he has to run a long long distance to get to them and get can up a full head of steam going in a defined direction. But initial reads and first step/false steps, he and Eaton are practically brothers out there in that regard this year. Say what you will about Dayan Viciedo, but his 2012 season at least showed he had the potential to put one full season together defensively, to the point where he wasn't hurting the team out there and came up with quite a few positive plays. In the end, they will live with his OF defense, but he's got to be more selective at the plate....fewer K's, more walks, more XB hits and not so many singles.

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 02:49 PM) This is already practiced by the organization. In the minors you had people who aren't very good at catching a baseball to begin with like Viciedo and Fileds trying to play 3rd. I may be wrong but even when they got Swisher he never really played CF. There's a point where trying to fill a whole with a player based on need doesn't work. Mark Teahen at 2B, etc. The Royals also briefly tried him there and in the OF...before Buddy Bell had his amazing revelation he could help the Sox at 3B.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 11:13 AM) KW has done different things in different times. I agree with DA here. The Sox have done both strategies (building up closers/buying closers) with varying degrees of success. To attribute an ideology to KW and acknowledge he has partaken in a different strategy more frequently in the same post is a big contradiction. It seems like you're just looking for reasons to hate on KW. I don't hate KW, nor Hahn. I just want to know who chose Robertson as the primary closing target, that's all. If one thing is obvious, this current structure isn't working, and something HAS TO CHANGE. The end.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 10:59 AM) I see how you ignored this: “I’m a little disappointed,” Reinsdorf, the 78-year-old owner who is never one to mince words, said to the others at the summit, referring to how far his team appeared to be from contending. Reinsdorf had another message: I don’t want to hear about a rebuild. Do what you need to do to make this team a contender in 2015. Well, they should have traded for Donaldson/Grandal or Cervelli and signed Brett Anderson, Kendrys Morales and anyone not named Melky Cabrera (such as Cespedes, Aoki, Yasmani Tomas, Rasmus, etc.) to play LF. Then they could have used some combination of Semien/Phegley/Bassitt/Ravelo to get a younger/cheaper closer candidate.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 10:52 AM) Here's the story from SI. It appears the "culprit" is JR. But let's not let facts ruin some KW bashing. http://www.si.com/mlb/2015/01/30/white-sox...david-robertson Hahn and his lieutenants had their work cut out for them. To turn a team that had won 63 and 73 games, respectively, the previous two seasons and had posted the majors' third worst run differential in 2014 into a contender overnight would be no small undertaking. They’d have to be creative, and they’d have to be aggressive — and the Samardzija trade would be a start. It was Reinsdorf's idea to OKAY THE SPENDING. It wasn't his idea to choose Samardzija, Robertson and (eventually) Cabrera specifically. From that article, it was clear that Samardzija and Robertson were the two initial targets of the off-season. But someone put them on that list in the first place, and it wasn't JR writing in ink on that infamous BIG BOARD. Someone "sold" the idea of going after Samardzija and Robertson to him, just like Buddy Bell was the one who pushed for the Mark Teahen acquisition, or Marco Paddy with some of his specific Latin American targets.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 10:46 AM) Actually I think that was Robin Ventura but anyway. You might be 100% right. Ventura could have gone to KW/Hahn or even mentioned to JR at one time or another last season that there was no way to "fix the bullpen" without there being established/defined roles and someone at the back-end he could go to confidently...that the team was losing confidence in its ability to close out games and "expecting bad things to happen" (not unlike now) in the 7th, 8th or 9th inning. They tried to bluff their way through it when Nate Jones went down with Petricka and Belisario and the task proved to be too big.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 10:45 AM) Yes! You're reading it wrong. KW acquired Billy Koch in 2003 so the David Robertson signing in 2015 was also Kenny. Right. KW basically had his viewpoint about what a closer should look like (more Koch/Jenks and less Foulke). For the last decade, he evolved and started following the A's philosophy of pump and dump with closers, so to speak. Now, all of a sudden, when we come off a year of bullpen struggling (same thing with 2007), we see an overreaction and over-investment in Duke/Robertson to correct for the lack of minor league development. Who advocated for this more, KW or Hahn?

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 10:39 AM) So you mention about 6 closer acquired on the cheap by....KW, and then say signing a closer to a big money deal seems like a KW move, when he really has never done it before. I can't believe I am defending him, but where do you come up with this BS? You tell me, who pushed the most to sign Robertson...was it Hahn, getting KW and JR on board....or KW, pushing Hahn to get it done and after/then convincing JR? We've read all the stories about how it actually took place at the winter meetings, but who was the one who pushed for the overpaid, expensive "elite" closer the most?

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 10:25 AM) Rongey had him on White Sox Weekly this Saturday and my god does he sound clueless. He literally offered no insights into any of our minor leaguers, but rather spit out high-level nonsense like "a lot of these guys can't do two things at once". He seems like one of those guys that pretends to have all the answers but simply spews a bunch of BS. Without question, Buddy Bell should be the first one to go if we shake up this organization. http://www.theheckler.com/2011/04/20/white...stupid-callers/ I'm not sure whether to laugh about stuff like this or feel that it's ridiculous we're supposed to feel sorry for him?

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 09:53 AM) The solutions are still very few. The families don't travel very often as no kids do very well leaving every 3 days and they can't travel with the team. Most of the players do not make the"millions" Don't forget about the February and March of Spring Training where the kids are in school and can't leave and neither can their fathers. don't forget they also started this in the minors as well. Baseball is not a lifestyle that is easy on a family. It is very difficult to make it work. If you value money over everything else and think it can make it work, you're right for some. However for many it doesn't. Just because they make alot of money doesn't make it an easy life. Their actual life is much more difficult than the average person. That is why many people including me got out of it. Agreed, that's why I gave up on minor league baseball after two seasons...it was taking my enjoyment away from the sport I loved. While in theory, the idea of doing what you love works (sometimes), it's hard to have the patience to fight for those 8-12 years and still not be sure you're going to end up in the destination in professional sports that makes all the sacrifices in terms of family/friends/social life/free time/travelling worthwhile.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 10:23 AM) Hahn would need to be a complete idiot to take that job. There were two competing philosophies about closers. The KW one was to go out and get the established guy, like a Billy Koch....ignoring the fact that Howry, Foulke, Gordon, Takatsu, Hermanson and Jenks were all inexpensive and able to get the job done pretty darned effectively. We saw that trend continue with Sergio Santos, Hector Santiago and Addison Reed...shipping out pitchers from this position and continually trading them to fill in gaps (or try to) in other places. Essentially, copying the Oakland A's way of doing things, which wasn't to sink a ton of money into the closer's spot, and trade those players when they became more expensive. It DEFINITELY SEEMS like a KW move to go after an elite closer like Robertson and do a slight overpay...because it's ignoring that trend which has existed since 2002-2003 with the front office acting out of desperation (just like the Dotel/Linebrink/MacDougal deals).

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 28, 2015 -> 01:35 PM) I don't know if Avisail Garcia can be turned into a successful ballplayer or not, but this is the mess the white sox are in. They have a roster no where near strong enough to compete even for a wild card even with significant extra spending and that isn't going to change any time soon. First they need to overhaul their player scouting. They can't keep acquiring these high risk players who don't contribute on defense and have poor approaches at the plate unless they develop a newly-found ability to coach those guys into hitters. That's on both scouting and development. They're doing terrible at it. Beyond that, they need to start over. Get rid of as much veteran payroll as they can. These guys are literally useless to this franchise. If all they turn into is guys who are relievers for Charlotte in 3 years, that's ok, it's better than what we have now. Next, they need to acquire as many Avisail Garcia like guys as they can and give them playing time as long as they're cheap. Guys with talent but who will need several years, at the least, to see if they can learn how to become big leaguers. The key for guys like this is "don't rely on them in the least". If they put up sub .700 OPS numbers for multiple years in a row, you cast them aside when they become expensive, and maybe you keep the solid contributor or two. Meanwhile, continue making picks at the top of the draft, and for gosh sake please don't give away any more 2nd and 3rd round picks for garbage like what we brought in this year until we actually have a roster around them. Stop trying for the quick fix, realize what kind of mess we've made, and act like it. The way out requires patience, coaching, and rebuilding the organization up and down. No more quick fixes. No more gambling $50 million payroll increases on highly questionable players. Another thing is that with the right defensive set-up, a fundamentally-sound middle infield and the players all buying in...you can turn guys like Jason Grilli or Mark Melancon into quasi-elite closers that aren't very expensive. Hahn got desperate and overreacted to the 2013 bullpen problems the same way KW overreacted to 2007 and went out and spent a lot of money on Dotel, MacDougal and Linebrink (compared to past years). While Robertson/Duke gave them a boost and helped keep them floating the first 6 weeks or so, the roof was bound to cave in at some point with the general direction of the entire roster pulling everyone but Sale down.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 08:49 AM) This is true. Most of us don't miss all of our kids little league games, don't get to be there on their birthdays. We don't need to live away from our families for 8 months of the year. It's a pretty easy life for them because of the money. OTOH, with the money involved getting bigger and bigger, it's MUCH easier for those players and families to be together on the road for part of spring training (schools have breaks) and for at least half of the time during the summer. Sure, there are 81 road games, but with the money being what it is, even then....it's not an insurmountable obstacle for families to spend time together during summer vacation as well. Look at the situation with Mark Buehrle and his dogs...complicated, but not insurmountable. There's always a solution when millions of dollars are involved.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 09:12 AM) The quickest fix will be several players returning to their former levels of play. It isn't so crazy it will happen. And we waited for Dunn and Danks to do just that....and, are still waiting. Even with Cabrera and Eaton hitting much better, this team is still fundamentally-flawed. With those players rising, guys like Ramirez, Beckham and Avi are correspondingly falling, so we're still not doing anything much besides treading water. If it's not the bullpen, it's the defense...if it's not the offense, it's the base running. We can fix one wall of the foundation, but the whole thing will collapse eventually and need to be rebuilt from the ground up. And I'm not even sure who we are waiting on NOW that we can expect to return us to greater glory? Alexei Ramirez? Samardzija? Quintana? Beckham? Sanchez? Gillaspie? Flowers? Robertson/Duke?

QUOTE (shysocks @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 08:15 AM) Which major free agents were the Indians banking on? Their expectations were based on growth from starting pitching. Unless you're not counting them among the four teams that had expectations. Maybe backdating it to the idea of Swisher and Bourn coming in before 2013 (probably)....while their "core" of Santana/Brantley/Gomes/Kipnis/now Lindor has basically remained the same. Their pitching staff was either internally developed or traded for (Bauer/Carrasco), but no huge free agents additions there.