caulfield12

QUOTE (hawksfan61 @ May 27, 2013 -> 06:02 PM) Why is Peavy criminally underrated on this site? I think people are underestimating how good Peavy was last year and how good he has been so far this year. Yes I know the Tigers lit him up last year but Danks stands as a very very poor man's Jake Peavy. The only year Danks has even come close to matching Peavy's numbers from last year is in 2008, which was 5 years and a shoulder surgery ago. Keep the rotation, buy/trade for bats. Most everyone would be quite happy if Danks morphed into a Buehrle-esque, #3 starter, middle innings eater...as long as he doesn't become a huge contractual liability/albatross. The primary concern (with Peavy) is whether he can maintain it in the 2nd half. Along with that is the "Big Game" issue, especially against the Tigers. If you'll look at his pitch counts over the course of the 2012 season, you'd almost think he was being abused or overutilized to the nth degree with the thought he wasn't coming back to the Sox in 2013 and we wanted to maximize whatever we could get out of him. So there's always going to be that Verducci Effect concern with Sale/Peavy/Quintana....until they get through the entire 2013 season without any ill effects.

QUOTE (Heads22 @ May 27, 2013 -> 05:53 PM) Nice single by Conor, quickly erased. He has the title now of "shortest/quickest" swing against a FB...passed down from Paulie, finally.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 27, 2013 -> 05:49 PM) Did you spend the spring at Camelback or just making things up? Everything that has been written, inferred/implied....going from the best defense in the AL to the worst with almost the exact same line-up except for AJ/Flowers and Beckham's injury. Many, many more fundamentals errors, missed cutoff men, base-running....it has been endemic, and a good explanation has never been provided, beyond the carryover effect from the last 6 weeks of 2012. How else can you explain it? Farmer saying more Cubs fans there than Sox fans by the sounds coming from the crowd on the DP. From the noise, you would have thought the throw got away or went into the stands, but it was Cubs' fans cheering....

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 27, 2013 -> 05:41 PM) Prospects not panning out in KC is the rule, not the exception. There are exceptions. Alex Gordon, 2-3 years later...and not at his original position. And obviously kind of a no-brainer for them to draft coming out of Univ of Nebraska/Omaha connection. Bo Jackson. Who was a gift from Mt. Olympus as much as a product of minor league development. Mike Sweeney, originally a catcher....was on the verge of being released, then caught fire when moved to 1B. Then you have to go back a decade back to Carlos Beltran and Johnny Damon... Littered along that path are the likes of Bob Hamelin, Jose Rosado (injuries), Jim Pittsley, Dee Brown, Colt Griffin, Mark Quinn, Angel Berroa, Luke Hochevar, Carlos Febles and many many others.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 27, 2013 -> 05:41 PM) Which means...the manager needs to go into spring training knowing he needs to drill every single basic move into Lexi's head over and over. I think that happened last year. I think he got the Ozzie "he's a veteran and he knows how to get himself ready" treatment this year. The nicest thing you could say about the White Sox is that they were "complacent" in spring training this year. Which really isn't understandable with how last season ended...with a very bitter taste in their mouths, with the 3-9 mark against the Royals in August/Sept, etc. Viciedo can't load his hands up as much there against guys throwing 96. Needs to be short and quick/er.

Quintana settling down. The main question is whether our offense will show up tonight. If they can't get motivated playing in front of their 2nd biggest crowd of the season and for the first time back at .500 for weeks, don't know what to say. Tip your cap?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 27, 2013 -> 05:34 PM) The funny part is that then they gave up on that, and turned to the Kenny Williams model of trading prospects for established veterans. A lot of that had to do with the injuries/non-performance issues with John Lamb, Duffy and Montgomery. Moore was under pressure for his job and couldn't wait two more years on their younger pitchers to rehab or go into Year 2 of Tommy John recovery. The one good pitching prospect they had left was Odorizzi, who will ironically become a star in TB with their (Royals') bad luck.

And yet trading or benching Ramirez isn't going to work either... Catch-22. Remember the Olmedo disaster last year when Alexei was late and benched? Honestly, you can't play a shortstop every single inning of every single game for 2 months and not expect them to wear down or make some mental mistakes. Part of that's on Hahn for not providing another option besides Keppinger (yeah, Sanchez was DL'ed and Beckham hurt) and Tyler Greene that Ventura would feel comfortable with playing there.

QUOTE (knightni @ May 27, 2013 -> 10:38 AM) WHY? Is that like the Human Centipede? Zombie movie? Has anyone seen MUD, by the way? Am going to watch Better Luck Tomorrow, the Justin Lim (director of two Fast & the Furious movies, including the recent one), flick from about a decade ago which stars Sun Kang (the Korean star who emerged in the last 2 F&F movies with Giselle, the Israeli/Mossad gal-pal). yahoomovies.com Universal's "Fast & Furious" franchise has been a hit for more than a decade, but Latino moviegoers are steering it into the blockbuster fast lane. The latest entry, "Fast & Furious 6," roared to $120 million over the past four days and has been the driving force behind the biggest Memorial Day weekend ever at the domestic box office. Latinos made up 32 percent of its audience, as they did for the previous entry in Universal's muscle car franchise "Fast Five," and this film is now on track to pass that one as the highest-grossing in the series. "It's not just Hispanics, it's the diversity in general that helped this movie become so popular," Universal's distribution chief Nikki Rocco told TheWrap Monday, and the numbers bear that out. White moviegoers made up 29 percent of the audience, while African-Americans were 22 percent and Asians were 13 percent. Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson and their pals easily outdistanced the weekend's No. 2 film, "The Hangover Part III." The finale in the raunchy R-rated comedy franchise will finish the four days with around $51 million, and has run up $63 million for Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures since opening Thursday. Last week's No. 1 film, Paramount's and Skydance Production's "Star Trek Into Darkness," was third with nearly $47 million for the long weekend. That topped the weekend's other wide opener, Fox's animated "Epic," which brought in $41 million. The connection of "Fast & Furious 6" with Latino audiences is no accident. With stars like Michelle Rodriguez, and a healthy amount of Spanish dialog, Universal went out of its way to court them. In its marketing, the studio made a point of emphasizing elements that set it apart from summer blockbusters headlined by white males, namely a cast that included Asian, African-American and Latino actors like Rodriguez, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, and Sung Kang. "We're the Benetton of casting," Jeffrey Kirschenbaum, Universal Pictures co-president of production, told TheWrap prior to the film's opening. The result is a cast that looks like many of today's moviegoers -- social media savvy, ethnic and frequently bilingual. Broadening the base via the multicultural casting is a strategy that translates abroad as well. The effects really began began to kick in with "Fast Five," which was set in Rio and drew more than $632 million worldwide, nearly $270 million more than what the next highest grossing film in the franchise had netted. Internationally the film continued to pick up steam, more than doubling the previous high-water mark for foreign grosses on a "Fast" film. "Fast & Furious 6" could be even bigger overseas. It opened No. 1 in 59 foreign markets and took in roughly $160 million abroad this weekend, giving it a global total of $300 million, the studio's best-ever worldwide opening. At $13 million, Mexico was the second-highest grossing market, behind only Russia with $17.8 million. The increasing clout of Latino movie audiences -- who go to movies more than any other ethnic group -- is a growing reality for Hollywood. Latinos represent just 17 percent of the U.S. population, yet accounted for 26 percent of domestic ticket sales in 2012, according a study by the Motion Picture Association of America. Universal has scored by targeting Latino audiences before. Director Guillermo del Toro's horror film "Mama" surprised with $32 million over the four-day Martin Luther King Jr. earlier this year and Latino moviegoers made up 47 percent of the audience.

QUOTE (High Mileage @ May 27, 2013 -> 03:43 PM) The fans aren't patient, but the ownership and front office sure as hell are. As far as Ozzie, I don't listen to much of anything he's said, because I can usually only make out every third or fourth word. He is not the type of guy ownership will want, far too outspoken, far too temperamental. He may be "humbled" now, but his history speaks for itself. The Royals like the softer-spoken, religious types. When times are tough, and they usually are for the Royals, they want to hear press conferences filled with things like "aw shucks" and "geewhiz", not incoherent profanity laced tirades. Sosa? LOL. He was done when those rumors popped up. Thome? When was that? If it's not one, it's the other. He must mean signing Thome (instead of the Twins) before the 2010 season. If you recall Tony Muser, all KC fans remember the confrontation with Mike Sweeney about "milk and cookies." It became a quasi-religious debate for a few weeks about Mike being too soft/kind/not enough Ty Cobb in him...sort of like they say about Paul Konerko in Chicago sometimes (or Thome, for that matter).

Beyond the actual unearned runs, you can add at least another 10-12-14 that didn't show up in the box score but never should have scored. Struck out the side, but with Quintana....sometimes....you prefer him to pitch to contact and keep his pitch count down instead of bringing the bullpen in during the 5th or 6th. The main positive of that was that Soriano's ball didn't go out.

Losing his control all of a sudden. Seems like Konerko and Keppinger didn't pick up that ball off the bat. Farmer said there's a tell when Quintana is throwing over to 1st. Why was nobody covering 2B? SIGH. Thought we'd fixed all these defensive miscues/mental mistakes. Ramirez was actually taking a step towards 3B. Somebody blew their coverage. Should have been a strike 'em out, throw 'em out DP EASILY. Another run on the White Sox defense. Then the next pitch was right down the middle. Lucky it didn't go out...luckily the topspin brought it down and made Soriano look silly for not running out of the box and posting up/posing for pictures.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 27, 2013 -> 04:53 PM) Not to mention they had to offer some horrible contracts to get back into the game. How about 7 years and $140 to Juan Gonzalez? Or offering 5/$75 to a guy coming off of a huge knee surgery where you knew the first year wasn't even going to happen. That's the model the Royals tried to follow by giving Gil Meche that inexplicable contract. That Kansas City COULD be a FA destination, just like DET (part of the problem was their not so homer friendly stadium at the time with Juan Gone)...so they spent the money to bring in him and I-Roid/Rod.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ May 27, 2013 -> 02:21 PM) I'd just like to point out that making the playoffs in 2008 and at least competing for them (more or less) every year is extremely important. You do not want to get mired in Pittsburgh/KC-land where the culture of winning around the organization just disappears and losing becomes such habit that decades go by before the team even sniffs the playoffs. That's the risk you inherit with selling off, that you cede being bad and since everyone expects to be bad actually being bad isn't considered a big deal. The first couple years you justify it, "this is what rebuilding looks like guys!", but the guys you're rebuilding around dont work out and it becomes habit. Now you have no assets. What few guys wind up being stars you have to trade because you cannot afford them since nobody goes to see a loser and, honestly, you need 5 good players much more than you need 1 great one when you're awful in this league... it's just a disaster. Staying competitive, even if you are just pretending to be competitive to keep up appearances, means you always have players that other teams want and that fans want to see. Every season the team will be at least worth watching until ~ASB and you never know when you'll catch lightning in a bottle one year. That's the core of the argument here, why do we have to settle for this instead of the Cardinals/Giants/Tigers model? That in a big market, the White Sox as an organization should be capable of setting a higher standard, especially when you look at the relative weakness of the AL Central compared to the other divisions for most of the last 10-12 years (2006 being the exception). (Of course, this is where someone will argue we hadn't won a single playoff series since 1917/1919 going into 2005...and, that historically, going from there to 1959 to 1983 to 1993/94 and then following that up with 2000/2005/2008, the KW/Guillen Years were like manna from heaven, and they'll be 75% correct). A mixture of development/scouting, free agents and "value" acquisitions. Premium placed on pitching, and the benefit to the team outweighing individual superstars (letting Pujols go in favor of a balanced line-up and affordable payroll). SORRY...DREADED CHINESE INTERNET with VPN/PROXY...keeps sticking/reloading...delete

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ May 27, 2013 -> 02:21 PM) I'd just like to point out that making the playoffs in 2008 and at least competing for them (more or less) every year is extremely important. You do not want to get mired in Pittsburgh/KC-land where the culture of winning around the organization just disappears and losing becomes such habit that decades go by before the team even sniffs the playoffs. That's the risk you inherit with selling off, that you cede being bad and since everyone expects to be bad actually being bad isn't considered a big deal. The first couple years you justify it, "this is what rebuilding looks like guys!", but the guys you're rebuilding around dont work out and it becomes habit. Now you have no assets. What few guys wind up being stars you have to trade because you cannot afford them since nobody goes to see a loser and, honestly, you need 5 good players much more than you need 1 great one when you're awful in this league... it's just a disaster. Staying competitive, even if you are just pretending to be competitive to keep up appearances, means you always have players that other teams want and that fans want to see. Every season the team will be at least worth watching until ~ASB and you never know when you'll catch lightning in a bottle one year. That's the core of the argument here, why do we have to settle for this instead of the Cardinals/Giants/Tigers model? That in a big market, the White Sox as an organization should be capable of setting a higher standard, especially when you look at the relative weakness of the AL Central compared to the other divisions for most of the last 10-12 years (2006 being the exception). (Of course, this is where someone will argue we hadn't won a single playoff series since 1917/1919 going into 2005...and, that historically, going from there to 1959 to 1983 to 1993/94 and then following that up with 2000/2005/2008, the KW/Guillen Years were like manna from heaven, and they'll be 75% correct). A mixture of development/scouting, free agents and "value" acquisitions. Premium placed on pitching, and the benefit to the team outweighing individual superstars (letting Pujols go in favor of a balanced line-up and affordable payroll).

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ May 27, 2013 -> 02:21 PM) I'd just like to point out that making the playoffs in 2008 and at least competing for them (more or less) every year is extremely important. You do not want to get mired in Pittsburgh/KC-land where the culture of winning around the organization just disappears and losing becomes such habit that decades go by before the team even sniffs the playoffs. That's the risk you inherit with selling off, that you cede being bad and since everyone expects to be bad actually being bad isn't considered a big deal. The first couple years you justify it, "this is what rebuilding looks like guys!", but the guys you're rebuilding around dont work out and it becomes habit. Now you have no assets. What few guys wind up being stars you have to trade because you cannot afford them since nobody goes to see a loser and, honestly, you need 5 good players much more than you need 1 great one when you're awful in this league... it's just a disaster. Staying competitive, even if you are just pretending to be competitive to keep up appearances, means you always have players that other teams want and that fans want to see. Every season the team will be at least worth watching until ~ASB and you never know when you'll catch lightning in a bottle one year. That's the core of the argument here, why do we have to settle for this instead of the Cardinals/Giants/Tigers model? That in a big market, the White Sox as an organization should be capable of setting a higher standard, especially when you look at the relative weakness of the AL Central compared to the other divisions for most of the last 10-12 years (2006 being the exception). (Of course, this is where someone will argue we hadn't won a single playoff series since 1917/1919 going into 2005...and, that historically, going from there to 1959 to 1983 to 1993/94 and then following that up with 2000/2005/2008, the KW/Guillen Years were like manna from heaven, and they'll be 75% correct). A mixture of development/scouting, free agents and "value" acquisitions. Premium placed on pitching, and the benefit to the team outweighing individual superstars (letting Pujols go in favor of a balanced line-up and affordable payroll).

QUOTE (South Side Fireworks Man @ May 27, 2013 -> 01:02 PM) I would hope they'd start Gimenez again. They've been winning with him starting and he's been playing better than Flowers. They said in the Trib that Flowers has been dealing with back spasms.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 27, 2013 -> 10:27 AM) Considering how Dunn, Paulie and Keppinger have hit. Missing Beckham's defense, and Viciedo for a while, and with Flowers yet to blossom, .500 4 games out is actually pretty positive right now. Axelrod, Quintana, Santiago, Crain and Reed have kept us from being a sub .500 team. You might be waiting a while on the "Flowers yet to blossom" line. And DeAza has been, at best, an enigma.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 27, 2013 -> 10:27 AM) Considering how Dunn, Paulie and Keppinger have hit. Missing Beckham's defense, and Viciedo for a while, and with Flowers yet to blossom, .500 4 games out is actually pretty positive right now. Axelrod, Quintana, Santiago, Crain and Reed have kept us from being a sub .500 team. You might be waiting a while on the "Flowers yet to blossom" line. And DeAza has been, at best, an enigma.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ May 27, 2013 -> 02:10 PM) Taking on the right contracts can work out. I think the Sox might at some point have taken on the contract of a bat that is working out fairly well. Although it would be nice to pretend 2009 and 2011 never happened with that aforementioned assumed contract...somehow, at least this far, Rios is getting out of the Brett Saberhagen, odd year/even year jinx pattern. It's working out NOW, but man, 2 of those first 3 seasons were really ROUGH ones.

Verlander vs. Francisco Liriano (3-0, 1.00 ERA) today at 12:08 CST.

QUOTE (hawksfan61 @ May 27, 2013 -> 08:56 AM) I think in five years both plans have about the same chance to succeed. However under the "re-tool" plan you haven't alienated the fanbase and presumably have some talent on the major league level to work with (if you are winning 80-82 games then you have some guys that can play). Under the set the world on fire plan in THEORY you could end up with the Rays (we will ignore the fact that they were godawful for 10 years before they became a 90 win team) but you also have a great chance to become the Pirates, Royals, Mariners, etc. I would rather delude myself with the re-tool method, because nothing about being out of the race on opening day for 5-7 years sounds appealing to me. All-stars can be found anywhere in the draft, ask the Angels and Cardinals. I would rather do it that way. The Angels haven't drafted well. Just Trout, Jared Weaver and Howie Kendrick....at least in comparison to all the pitching the Cardinals have developed. Even once-a-decade talents like Trout or Harper or Machado can't offset lousy starting pitching.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 27, 2013 -> 08:35 AM) If it is so great, why the need to spend half a billion dollars to upgrade it or they would have to move??? I'll hang up and wait for my answer. “[Quotable:] The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and that could be again. Oh, people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come..." Ivy makes you think of the past, of tradition, of Williams and Santo and Jenkins and Sandberg and Banks and Sunday doubleheaders. Concrete=cold, antiseptic, cookie-cutter stadiums, no personality, no memories attached It's pretty smart conjuring up the past to cover up the sins of the present regime.

QUOTE (PlaySumFnJurny @ May 27, 2013 -> 08:32 AM) Thanks (I almost posed those questions to you in a PM, without exposing my ignorance to the board). Yeah, like I wrote in reference to the "time travel", I did see it, but it apparently didn't leave that lasting an impression on me. I remembered there were differences with the demise of Kirk Sr. and the meeting of the old and new Spocks, but I guess I should have rewatched it or studied up, to make sure I understood all the implications. And I thought Oblivion was a stretch, lol... No wonder I never got into the whole Star Trek universe, it's like a Christopher Nolan movie on speed following the various plotlines.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 27, 2013 -> 08:24 AM) Rasmus had just has much success with the Cardinals as Hudson has had in AZ. And now Hudson is coming off surgery. For all this cost control, 2 years for Hudson will be for nothing. Put it the war or f/war test....who wins? After all, I heard an argument made that Sale theoretically could be worth almost his entire contract extension for just this one year. Hudson helped lead the DBacks to the playoffs, which generated additional revenues for the team, quite the ROI on his sub $1 million salary. What has Rasmus led the Blue Jays to?