caulfield12

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Feb 25, 2015 -> 11:48 AM) Hector Olivera isn't a prospect in the traditional sense though, only in the sense that he's never played in the majors. He turns 30 just after the start of the season. You'll be lucky to get 3 good years out of him. If you sign Olivera, you are signing him to be the starting 2B. Iguchi had just turned 30 the winter before the 2005 season began. But three years are really all that they need. And I hope they get at least three years, because Melky Cabrera will be 33 at the end of his deal as well...and we don't know exactly how much damage he did to his body or the total duraction of his PED's usage. Granted, Cabrera has a track record to fall back on. Another option would be to swing a deal for Alex Guerrero of the Dodgers...since Howie Kendrick and Dee Gordon are blocking him. And they could probably get at least $10 million shaved off the remainder of his contract.

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/109401778/ac...ly-sought-after https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/yadier-alvarez Haven't seen the White Sox connected to him recently, but he would seem to be the perfect fit just like Iguchi was before 2005. Let's face it, very few believe that Sanchez or Micah Johnson are ready to play everyday, nobody wants to see Beckham as more than a utility player, and the same thing goes for Bonifacio. With the blood clot/thrombosis issue hanging over his head, it COULD be possible to sweep in and sign him for $24-36 million over three years. Plus, that might give us yet one more reason for Yadier Alvarez to give the White Sox serious consideration as a future destination...although having Cuban players obviously doesn't guarantee we can sign every guy on the market, it certainly can't hurt...especially with how well-respected Abreu is compared to Puig and Cespedes, for example. One drawback would be the likelihood that we're already at or beyond projected budget and it would make it nearly impossible to keep Samardzija, although that might already be a foregone conclusion, that he'll hit the market. Another possibility is the White Sox moving Tim Anderson over to 2B, with Alexei staying through 2016. Of course, you could also keep Alexei and play him at 2B with Anderson at SS...or pair Olivera and fellow countryman Ramirez. A final factor to consider would be the "insurance" angle as Olivera can also play 3B...in case of a serious Gillaspie slump. Has anyone seen any connections with the White Sox and Olivera? Are the White Sox foolish to count on Johnson/Sanchez/Beckham at that position? The odds of this happening are basically slim and none, but it would really push a lot of us over the edge on the excitement meter.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/02/d-ba...n-contract.html Diamondbacks the latest to sign a bigger tv deal...putting them in the low $90's just for their regional sports network Based on this number, the Mariners' new deal (started in 2014)...and where the D-Backs franchise is at the moment, the White Sox have to be shooting for $140-180 million per season in 2019, not taking into consideration their revenues from the national baseball contract as well as MLB Media. the increased revenue won’t vault the D-Backs into the division-rival Dodgers’ financial stratosphere. The Dodgers’ TV deal averages out to roughly $334MM annually, according to a Forbes report from March 2014, trailing only the Yankees, whose annual revenue from the YES Network averages out to about $385MM. Recent examples of this type of mega-contract include the Rangers, Mariners and Phillies, each of whom have AAVs in excess of $140MM, per Forbes. Piecoro notes that since the Rangers signed their 20-year, $1.7 billion deal in 2010, nearly a third of the teams in the league have inked similar contracts. Per Forbes, the previous top 10 television revenues belonged to the Yankees, Dodgers, Phillies (20 years, $2.5 billion), Rangers, Angels, Mariners, Mets, Red Sox, Giants and Padres.

Mitchell, Shuck, Tr. Thompson, Anderson and Michael Taylor

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Feb 24, 2015 -> 10:03 PM) When was the last time this city had such a devastating injury? It's over for him. Jay/Jason Williams

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westgate_shopping_mall_attack This would an example of a terrorist attack which was random but certainly not random in the targets selected...any non-Muslims, or at least anyone who couldn't quote from the Koran/Quran. Actually, the more that you think about it, even though it seems random to people in the mall, strategically targeting upscale shopping malls and/or hotels (like the Mumbai attacks) is anything but random. http://news.yahoo.com/al-shabab-threatens-...TI3XzEEc2VjA3Nj Al Shabab threatening US/Canadian/UK malls, and countermeasures being taken. To echo what Tex has already asked, what difference would it make if the President stated tomorrow that "we are at war with radical Muslims who are misinterpreting the Koran for their own nefarious/terrorist purposes"? Maybe you would say we shouldn't imply a war, but then what terminology would be aggressive enough to satisfy? And actually make a difference? In reality, "boots on the ground" really hasn't made a significant difference in Iraq, Afghanistan/Pakistan or any region of the Middle East. Most would argue things are no better, and probably worse than they were 20-25 years ago. That Egypt, Libya and Iraq were better off. Others would mightily disagree, depending upon their agenda and political perspective. http://news.yahoo.com/jon-stewart-giuliani...-130217052.html This debate between Stewart, O'Reilly and Guiliani's camp illustrates the issue. So if Obama is responsible for ISIS/ISIL, etc., then what should he have done differently? Print more to money for yet another ground war in the region when the U.S. economy was just starting to turn around? Then he would be accused of blowing up the budget and running even bigger deficits by the fiscal hawks/Tea Party. What would Rand Paul do?

Just ask the White Sox how difficult it is to draft a sure thing. The last time the Sox drafted a position player who became an All-Star for them was third baseman Joe Crede, way back in 1996. From 1997-2011 the White Sox drafted 369 position players and none of them became an All-Star for Chicago. Only five of them have managed a career WAR of even 6.0, including time spent with other clubs. Rowand (20.8) is the best position player they have drafted in the past 18 years, followed by Chris Young (15.3), Scott Hairston (6.6), Ryan Sweeney (6.6) and Gordon Beckham (6.2). That's the most amazing part of all this, for a time period when they had a Top 5 record in all of MLB, yet to only produce one All-Star (whose career was cut short by injuries) and almost zip position player-wise. Rowand and Crede were basically it over a 15 year period, since Young, Hairston and Sweeney played for other teams. Of course, that's not counting Magglio, Carlos Lee and Alexei Ramirez.

It's not like WI is going to lose two more games in the B10 in the final weeks. Good for Iowa's RPI, haha. But still wouldn't be shocked if they lose to Illinois WED night or blow them out by 15-20.

Where's Greg?

Scott Walker for PREZ!!!! Maybe we should elect a president who didn't graduate from university to show those elitist snobs who's really in charge. https://tv.yahoo.com/news/espn-suspends-kei...-190538658.html ESPN not too happy with Keith Olbermann over his Penn State comments...suspended for a week.

Depends on what the definition or "random" is, these last 5+ pages of thread...

Sale=Jamie Lannister At least there should be a story about how Chris has spent the entire off-season memorizing additional SAT vocabulary to make post-game interviews more efficacious, haha. He's officially pledged to sound as much like Dr. Spencer Reid in Criminal Minds as possible.

Alexei Ramirez might disagree with that assessment. This year's the first real test of that since 2012, when the team obviously wore down during the stretch run. Guys like Eaton, Abreu, Conor...and most of the pitching staff, as a close to .500 team became a pretty bad/below average one. The other problem here is separating for factors like Herm Schneider, or the fact that the bench has been very weak...thus not providing many legit options when resting regulars (see Leury Garcia). And "pretty decent" doesn't exactly fill one with confidence, lol.

They would be better off having a Bachelor show from all the actresses on Cinemax's Banshee. Lili Simmons, Meaghan Rath, Trieste Kelly Dunn, Ivana Milicevic, Odette Yustman (Annable), etc.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Feb 24, 2015 -> 09:28 AM) The Bachelor has officially eliminated the good looking girls from his show and now is focused on two girls that may actually be open to moving to Iowa. Riveting stuff. Because no beautiful girl would ever move to rural Iowa, unless she was married to the Univ. of Iowa or ISU head basketball or football coach...like Andy Enfield at USC. Just kidding. I was reading somewhere that the current bachelor was a millionaire, but I'm assuming that was mostly based on the value of his farmland? From what I understand, one of the best-looking girls was in Playboy and only seemed interested in using the show for promoting herself (surprise, surprise). At any rate, the Chicago girl could work at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, so she SHOULD be the favorite.

I wish the White Sox would try to get their hitters away from wrapping their bat too much behind their head and back towards the pitcher...unless you're Gary Sheffield, Eric Davis or Julio Franco, you have to be incredibly strong or quick-wristed to be effective with that approach.

LDF has been a bit like the Greg "Little Bulldog" Hibbard of SoxTalk these days, haha.

QUOTE (LDF @ Feb 24, 2015 -> 09:18 AM) i like the idea of a nice group of pitchers in the pen. this may be the best group the sox have had in a long time. as of right now, they may even have more in the wings, via thru the off season trades. in addition the top prospects, those who were also drafted. now this would be an embarrassment of riches. now here is where Hahn comes in, i know the sox will have more of an idea towards the end of spring training, but maybe Hahn can trade some of them. use them to continue to build the system. positional players, a catcher, would be the main focus of those trades. any ideas?? Not really. Nobody's going to give you much at all for a Putnam, Petricka, Webb or Guerra at the start of the season...they're way too unproven. What will be more compelling to watch is whether Rodon, Montas or Danish end up in the pen (especially the last two names) in August and September. Sanburn's another arm to monitor, if he's 100% healthy. As it is, there aren't a lot of veteran arms down there. We're waiting on Crain and Nathan Jones...then you have guys like Cleto and Surkamp with pretty minimal value. If you were another team, why would you want Chris Beck or Brad Penny, for example? You can find them on the waiver wire for practically nothing.

QUOTE (LDF @ Feb 24, 2015 -> 09:11 AM) i do have faith in Danks and i believe he may find a way to get the job done. he is a throw back to the old school pitchers, but i guess, we as fans will see how spring trng pans out. Spring training is meaningless for Danks at this point. Looking at his stats through May 15 will be the most important indicator. I'm sure if he's throwing harder we'll hear Hawk gushing about how he's going to win 15+ games and be an anchor to the back of the rotation, results in AZ doesn't mean much because of the desert air and faster sun-baked infields. Still, it should have less of an effect on his change and fastball than curves and sliders.

That Samardzija article called back to mind the interaction of a "stat geek" and Hosmer/Moustakas. http://www.hardballtimes.com/learning-the-...-the-clubhouse/ There's a steep learning curve for the "sabes" (I love that Greg-ism) people to go through when interacting with professional athletes using their statistics-driven language. Athletes can sniff out a "poser" a million miles away, and they're often not as nice as someone like Mark Teahen or Jim Thome would be about it. You have to build a relationship and get respect from an athlete first..or at least give them some pertinent statistical information which helps them improve their games (rather than criticizing it).

QUOTE (farmteam @ Feb 24, 2015 -> 08:12 AM) Watched CITIZENFOUR last night. Pretty good, lots of context. Snowden has a God complex, but in general I come down on the Patriot side of te "traitor or patriot?" debate. Of course we didn't have access to all those hours in Hong Kong. Naturally, he would be a little paranoid. He wasn't very pleasant with some of the people calling on the phone, especially the hotel staff. Maybe some of the "getting behind the story" stuff seemed to be too self-serving, as he knew eventually he was going to be outed at some point and become THE story (Kill the Messenger, which is a much better movie with Jeremy Renner, ironically). The way he treated his g/f, considering they were in an almost decades-long relationship, seemed pretty insensitive. We're left thinking about him being mainly concerned with how he looked on tv, whether his goatee was shaved or clipped to give him the right look....one of the scenes that stuck out was when he started getting attention and then all of a sudden he's slicking his hair back like he's Gordon Gekko in Wall Street. If any of us were in that position, it's hard to say what we would do. He already had the past examples of Assange, Daniel Manning, etc. So surely he could anticipate becoming a household name and celebrity for 15 minutes at least. Whether he's actually "living the dream" and what he's doing in Moscow currently is a different question altogether. It would have been interesting had the director interviewed his parents, girlfriend and some of his classmates back from his university days...that would have provided a clearer picture of the person. At any rate, compared to documentaries in the past, this was one of the weakest Oscar winners.

QUOTE (glangon @ Feb 24, 2015 -> 08:45 AM) It's all very well to say he'll be fine but the only way to deal with this is to look at what went wrong in the 12 games where he gave up the runs. Was his arm tired? was he on short rest? Did Robin leave him in too long and not go to the pen quickly enough. If Coops can work with him and reduce either the number of games where he is terrible or the amount of runs that he gives up when he is not pitching well, then he has a chance of becoming much better, however if Coops can't "fix" some of those 12 games, then he will remain what he is, an overpaid 4th starter. It was mostly location, the fact that there wasn't as much of a differentiation in pitch speeds compared to previous years, leaving a lot of pitches up in the strike zone (which is obviously mechanics as well)...getting behind in counts and not having the stuff to miss bats unless his change-up was on that day. Unless he's throwing 91-93 like in the past, he has to feature much better command and get ahead more frequently. It's simple, Mark Buehrle's tried and true formula, but of course it's not in reality. Working at a faster pace might help, too, as he really slows down when he gets out of rhythm and it exacerbates his struggles. Limiting pitch counts (which is affected by not getting as many swings and misses) should help, but at this point it is what it is.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Feb 24, 2015 -> 08:10 AM) Of those that qualified for the ERA title last year: By ERA, the fourth worst pitcher in the majors was Hector Noesi. The fifth worst was John Danks. By FIP, the third worst pitcher in the majors was Hector Noesi. The fourth worst was John Danks. By xFIP, the second worst pitcher in the majors was John Danks. The tenth was Hector Noesi. By fWAR, the sixth worst pitcher in the majors was Hector Noesi. The ninth was John Danks. TL;DR No matter how you slice it, both sabermetrically and traditionally, John Danks and Hector Noesi were among the bottom ten pitchers in the entire major leagues last year. And if you remove his SEA and TEX numbers?

Where is Brady Aiken these days? IMG Academy in Florida? Juco? Independent League? It's hard to find any information about his whereabouts.

QUOTE (Brian @ Feb 24, 2015 -> 05:48 AM) The movie was very awkward and had some scenes that hinted at it. Carrell was on Stern when the movie was first released and even said something to the effect that there were rumors of his sexuality and some scenes were done to give that unsure feeling about it. http://articles.philly.com/1996-02-13/news...tcher-dan-chaid Seems that unless they open up that agreement with Metzger, the full truth will never be known. Right now, it's still conjecture and hearsay with no evidence or proof backing it up.