caulfield12

Jim Thome doesn't strike me as someone who would be naturally arrogant enough to think he would be well-prepared to manage without any minor league experience. The thing is, if Ventura "fails" this year, you can't turn around and do the same exact thing...hiring another totally inexperienced guy, that would be borderline insane for Hahn after the work he's put into building this team.

QUOTE (LDF @ Feb 1, 2015 -> 05:49 PM) and that is why he wants more than 100 mil. look at shields, i bet he would have signed that contract that he was offered earlier. Shields is still going to get $80-90 million from SOMEONE. Eventually. Not the $144 million Greinke deal he and his agent were seeking going into last offseason. But he won't be hurting. It's not going to be one of those situations like Juan Gonzalez and DET.

http://chicago.suntimes.com/baseball/7/71/...ation-difficult Article with more quotes....doesn't look as optimistic as the Rock posts, but we'll see...posturing, perhaps.

QUOTE (LDF @ Feb 1, 2015 -> 06:10 AM) i agree, i was really hoping that michael keaton would win the oscars, but steve carell, and eddie redmayne should be favorites to win. There's no way Carell's going to win. Keaton, Cumberbatch, Cooper after Redmayne right now...Carell's at 125/1 and falling like a rock.

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Feb 1, 2015 -> 12:41 PM) Yeah his OPS was over 800 with us. Of course the defense slipped due to injuries and old age most likely. And weight gain.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Feb 1, 2015 -> 10:21 AM) I think he meant most important regular season game. However, even that might not even be true. Crede heroics off Riske would definitely trump that one...maybe not at that time, but definitely after seeing how everything played out afterwards.

No more Basset hounds, either.

So the best in the AL, with only the Cards, Dodgers and Nationals ahead (for the top 3)

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jan 31, 2015 -> 11:15 PM) With the state our system was in at the time, the sox top pitching prospects weren't much. However, I'm usually against any trade where the Sox give up more than 1 pitcher. It's just too valuable of a commodity. That's one reason I really hated Wells, Fogg and Lowe for Ritchie.

Well, that and there was apparently a falling out between Hudson and Cooper of some sort.

QUOTE (LDF @ Jan 31, 2015 -> 02:54 PM) lets take all things into contents. lets not use the performance of last yr, 2014 as the basis to judge all offseason additions. there was many things that went wrong. i do hope you can at least think that is right, right? after a majority of the fa's signing, there were rpt that season tickets sale did go up, this according the the FO statement some weeks ago. second, does anyone have those numbers. while that may be a decent question, do you think the sox will actually present those number to the fans??? yes i still do think that the sox can make the wild card and thus being in the playoff. how are you basing that the sox will not make the playoff. b/c vegas doesn't have them listed in making the playoff?? i am reposting my questions as a point of reference. There were reports that at least additional 1000 season tickets were sold after Samardzija/Robertson...which gave them enough confidence to go to JR and ask for the Cabrera money as well.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 31, 2015 -> 10:34 AM) In hindsight, the Swisher crap looks real bad. In real time, not that bad. He was a switch hitter signed to a team friendly contract, who took his walks, and got on base, hit with power and was coming into his prime years. Gio was a high price, but he wasn't loved here at Soxtalk. People want to be like the Cardinals. They traded Shelby Miller for a one year rental who hits lefties worse than Adam LaRoche, and people here seem to freak out about how LaRoche can't hit lefties. Swisher obviously didn't work out. He refused to work with the coaches, performed poorly, and his act got old fast. They were getting rid of him no matter what. They got garbage in return without a doubt, but that was the going rate. With the Edwin Jackson, I still don't understand how that is a franchise killer. Hudson was impressive for a while. Jackson was really good with the White Sox. Hudson now has had 2 TJ surgeries, and the Sox still have Daniel Webb to show from the EJax trade. At this point, I would rather have Webb than Hudson. Carlos Quentin wasn't netting the Sox anything. He spends most of the baseball season on the DL. Santos, Reed, Floyd and Crain. Those hurt, too.

Would be a huge win for the Rays but they won't be able to outbid the others.

QUOTE (Joshua Strong @ Jan 30, 2015 -> 10:37 PM) He's a good guy do deal with the media but I do not want him to have anything to do with making baseball decisions. I think that the Sox should promote Jeremey Haber, who is Hahn's right hand man and assistant to Ast. GM and Bell should be a special assistant like Thome. He's not ready. Read this. It's a pretty amazing/cool story, but he's not prepared to do talent evaluation yet. The White Sox had another guy, Mike Gellinger, working with video and advance scouting but I believe he encountered some health problems. They even had him coach Third or First a couple of times as a fill-in. http://www.csnchicago.com/white-sox/white-...er-assistant-gm

I don't believe they can afford to take that chance with a completely inexperienced manager again. That definitely wasn't one of his better interviews. He should have redirected and taken the opportunity to discuss Anderson, Montas and Adams, the three breakthrough players from last year.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 30, 2015 -> 08:44 AM) I received my BP yesterday. Melky was supposed to be decent with about 12 homers, the other numbers pretty average. I don't have the book with me. They had Avi hitting 7, and Abreu 23. They also had Abreu driving in 74. They are normally very conservative with everyone. The write ups made Q seem like he was going to be a Cy Young contender, but he made the top ten in WAR depreciation. If all of that happens, I agree their 78 win projection will look good. But unless there are season ending injuries, I'm pretty certain Avi and Jose are going to blow by those numbers. That's one obvious flaw when most of the projection is based on last season...which for Garcia was injury-shortened. I'm sure the over/under in Vegas would be around 14-15 homers.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 30, 2015 -> 08:17 AM) Are you saying that trade didn't work out? Without Jon Lester the 2014 A's probably don't even make it to KC for the wild card game, so I think it was a positive trade. I mean everyone was predicting them to win the WS at the culmination of all those moves.

Not based on how bad he was for the Tigers last year.

http://m.mlb.com/video/v37188373/buddy-bel...150129_39636747 Takes some blame for pushing Hawkins too fast. Talks mostly about Rodon, Micah and Saladino. Asked if there is a new emphasis on speed in the org...says he still prefers power. Nothing much about Anderson. Nice video montage of Sox rookies. http://m.mlb.com/news/article/107841198/ch...on-as-favorites Another Merkin puff piece.

Reminds me a little of the Josh Johnson situation coming into 2014. Or Beachy and Kris Medlen this year. The problem is that the White Sox are in a vastly different position heading into Spring Training. They can't afford to "experiment" with rehabbing Billingsley in the major league rotation. If it's a situation like last year with Tommie Hanson in Charlotte, sure, why not? Nothing to lose. But you wouldn't want him to be in the starting rotation pitching every 5 days in April and May. That wouldn't be fair to Billingsley, the fans or the team, to put him in that position. FWIW, the Royals are HOPING that Medlen can make an impact in replacing Shields this season. Ken Rosenthal reports the Royals have signed right-handed pitcher Kris Medlen to a two-year deal worth $8.5 million with a $10 million mutual option for 2017. Of course, $8.5 million for a pitcher who won't come back until mid-season is a HUGE risk for KC. They already went 2 years and $20 million on Edinson Volquez, so basically they're betting those two COMBINED will outperform Shields in 2015. http://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-colum...cle8162523.html Article on unlikelihood of Shields going back to KC, complete silence from his agent.

Hoiberg=Bob Huggins/Kelvin Sampson/Jerry Tarkanian albeit with much more likeability and no scandals

It's a great time in Sox history when Balta is the most negative/"realistic" poster these days, haha.

2004-2005 Starting with the additions of Garcia and Contreras, followed up by AJ, Dye, Pods/Vizcaino, Iguchi and El Duque. 2007-2008 Alexei/Danks/Quentin...Floyd was added in 2007 and then Viciedo would be added after, was REALLY excited at the time about the biggest signing bonus player (surpassing Borchard) in Sox history...with Beckham also drafted that summer as well 2009...With Peavy and Rios coming onboard, especially the season-long courtship of Peavy...unfortunately, it also pushed out Jermaine Dye, and that left a sour taste

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 29, 2015 -> 09:47 AM) Here it is. Read it. We put lots of work into it, and I think it's a darn good list. Thoughts? Disagreements? Are we insane on someone, one way or the other? Anyone we missed? Yay! An end to Miguel Gonzalez, Jared Mitchell and Keenyn Walker. That's progress.

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ Jan 29, 2015 -> 08:37 PM) Is that good? It's not so amazing for the NL West. Guys like Eric Stults and Clayton Richard have looked good out there for stretches.