caulfield12

Jeremy Reed and Beckham are the only position players I can recall that were consensus first-team/All-America type that we've drafted fairly high. Seems that we need a more refined hitter, higher contact/BB rate, maybe a bit lower ceiling, but one who will definitely make it to the majors and contribute. A speedier, more athletic/dynamic version of the player Keppinger was supposed to be in the 2 hole, kind of along the lines of Almora with the Cubs. Of course, there's a downside to those NCAA All-America type players like a Beckham or Alex Gordon. If you'll recall that Garcia trade, the players that eventually had the greatest MLB impact were Olivo and, of course, Michael Morse. At the time of the trade, Reed was the biggest name involved from a prospect standpoint (although Olivo had enjoyed some MLB success and also showed off that arm every opportunity he had). But it took Morse a long time to come around...he didn't ever produce for SEA, and, at that time, he was transitioning from SS to 3B and eventually LF, so he was more of a utility player because of his height (making SS impossible) and lack of power.

QUOTE (Jake @ Apr 21, 2013 -> 11:20 PM) I'm just going to keep rooting for Adam for now and hope something clicks. I feel like hating him is a bad investment of my emotions since it is unlikely to change anything. Hate Donnie Veal, instead. You won't have to hate him long before he's sent to AAA or released (don't know if he has options) The problem is that's like hating Keppinger or Gillaspie, Jordan Danks or D-Wise, or even Tyler Flowers. They're not responsible for this situation. Dunn is the one earning $15 or $16 million, which is keeping this franchise stuck in neutral while the rest of the teams are moving forward (CLE, MINN, KC). Without Dunn and John Danks producing positive results, it's going to be nearly impossible to overcome just those two contracts in the short-term.

QUOTE (winninguglyin83 @ Apr 21, 2013 -> 10:49 PM) hoping Ventura, Hahn, the chairman, Gene Honda, Stone Pony, somebody says enough and says the Dunn drama is over. Why compound an awful contract by driving more fans away? Take some of the buy-out money from Kenny Williams's salary. It's his folly. That won't even come close to paying for one month of Adam Dunn, if you lump in all three Williams kids, as well (well, I guess I should exclude the SF 49er from discussion).

QUOTE (joeynach @ Apr 21, 2013 -> 09:35 PM) It would erode further for sure, but if any team can adapt to lower than expected attendance and still produce steady revenue and thus decent payroll its the White Sox. They have mastered this skill and they don't even have one of those crazy TV deals. Id say they have learned how to drive revenue from non team performance related sources so maintaining a good cash flow if they were to rebuild doesn't scare me nor should it scare management all that much. Agreed. Reminds me of the scare tactics over hyperinflation resulting if there's more quantitative easing (and rising national debt) and we don't go with austerity measures instead. A preponderance of the evidence points to the White Sox being a tremendously profitable enterprise. They'll be getting an additional $25 million next year because of the national baseball contract (as will all the other teams). Even if they went back to that $65 million 2005 payroll, they'd be in no danger of leaving Chicago. In fact, their lease and the guaranteed 1.5 million in attendance/tickets sold means the taxpayers have no other choice but the White Sox at USCF until at least 2029.

The White Sox showed a lot of patience with Crede and Rowand. Downside to the "all in" or competing year-in, year-out is a player like Trayce Thompson or Mitchell would come up and immediately be sent down if they struggled in their first 50 AB's. It happened with Brian Anderson, it happened with Borchard, it happened with Ryan Sweeney. We'll see how patient Hahn is with Flowers this year, as well as Beckham (when he returns) and Viciedo. Beckham's still young to be part of the future, but his ROI is lessening dramatically unless he's putting up a 725-750 OPS instead of a 625-650 OPS, despite his defensive ability. Because right now, there aren't very many positions besides RF where we are getting above average AL production...we can't afford to have many "defense first" players or we'll end up being a 75-78 win team that's just treading water and completely boring to watch 81 home games at USCF.

QUOTE (The Ultimate Champion @ Apr 21, 2013 -> 09:10 PM) The Tigers model? The Tigers were horrible for a number of years and watched supposedly excellent prospects fizzle out and turn into bench players, or like Carlos Pena, break out elsewhere.; The Tigers got back on top following two massive overpays to Magglio Ordonez and Ivan Rodriguez, coupled with a couple nice trades, namely acquiring Carlos Guillen, and then getting a few good years out of Bonderman did it. After that the Tigers were in a mess of really bad deals. Robertson, Guillen, Inge, Ordonez, Bonderman, Willis, etc. you looked anywhere and there was a bad contract. Their owner ate it - here's something the Cubs are doing - and the big move there was picking up Edwin Jackson from the Rays and trading him with Granderson for Scherzer and Austin Jackson, which is one of the best deals a team can ever make. Drafting Verlander doesn't count, because he's the best pitcher of his generation and one of the best pitchers to ever live, and players like that simply do not come around, you don't get them. They offered the right mix to the Marlins for Cabrera though, but the package they offered turned out to be vastly inferior to the one we offered, and so you really have to credit the Marlins for making that deal happen. Especially since no team other the Marlins are cheap and petty enough to trade a young Miguel Cabrera. What the Tigers did that the Cubs can do is overpay for free agents and then eat the bad deals that result, and then look to acquire big names in trades when they are out there because they can afford it. Tearing everything down didn't help the Tigers: the centerpiece of the Cabrera deal was Maybin who fell in the draft due to signability issues, same way they got Porcello. The draft has changed and this stuff isn't going to be happening all the time like it had been. What the Cubs need to do is make those Austin Jackson/Max Scherzer deals, find the Doug Fisters, find the Carlos Guillens, etc. and you don't need to load the field with garbage to make that happen. In fact, the better pieces you have out there, the better the return. For instance, rather than toss all that money at Soler and Concepcion, what if they had waited until the end of FA, signed Bourn and whoever else was out there, and then ate a bunch of money and sent those players off for prospects at the AA level or above? Because if money -> prospects -> core of good pre-arb players is the gameplan, there are other ways of doing it while still putting something viable on the field. Soler never made sense for the White Sox...definitely not Concepcion, that was a CLASSIC overpay, when we had our own stable of LH pitchers already. The ones that we can legitimately argue about are Cespedes and Puig with the Dodgers...but we can't go back and reverse the Dunn signing or the Danks extension. Those two big financial disasters (potential in the Danks case) are weighing on our future the most heavily. We do ditch smaller deals like Linebrink or MacDougal, or Teahen, essentially, by packaging him with Edwin Jackson. That's the symbol of the White Sox right there, unfortunately...not eating Teahen's contract and getting nothing back for Edwin Jackson. Both Swisher trades. And the Daniel Hudson trade. All of them have gone decidedly against the White Sox and weakened our major league team considerably. With either Gio or a healthy Daniel Hudson, we're probably not talking about a rebuild at all...we're trading the likes of Quintana/Santiago to get another impact bat.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Apr 21, 2013 -> 08:45 PM) I like listening to his postgame comments on mlb.com. He's not a dummy. He just has unreliable veteran players (pitchers). The bullpen issues (Lindstrom/Veal/Crain) in Sunday's game wouldn't be so magnified were in not for our putrid offense. Even with the best starting pitching in baseball, we can't win more than 85 games with the offensive issues that are patently obvious up and down the line-up, from 1-9.

The rebuilding team and model that's closest to us is the Mariners... They kept Felix Hernandez and tried to build around him. Huge fanbase, sellouts, new stadium...but their success of a decade ago has worn off almost completely, just like the 2005 World Series in Chicago. And they finally traded their last marketable star in Ichiro, just like the White Sox will eventually do with Konerko. Leaving no homegrown stars, other than Chris Sale, who doesn't even see a significant walk-up in terms of ticket sales on the days in which he's pitching.

QUOTE (KPBears @ Apr 21, 2013 -> 07:44 PM) Your point about the Astros extended problems is well taken, but their current GM is only in his 2nd year, so you can't blame him for the several bad years before that (and to be fair, you can't really blame him for a bad year last year, or probably for a few more as he inherited a terrible team). But the point I'm trying to make is that I like the direction they're going in now. The honesty about the current situation and the direction, and the promise to spend money in a few years if things work out. While there's no certainty that things will work out for them, I think the promise to spend money in a few years is actually a very powerful and positive statement. If the Astros have a few prospects break out, and look like they're on the cusp of competing in a few years, and their management fails to add to payroll at that point, their team will be facing a pr disaster. And as I also mentioned, Houston seems to now be copying the Tigers model, which has worked out very well. It's unlikely that the Sox (or any team) will hit on a young pitcher who turns into Verlander, or picks up another team's young position player who turns into Cabrera. But I like the idea of being patient while drafting and developing, and then spending when the time is right (and the Sox, Tigers and Astros may not be the Yankees, Red Sox and Dodgers, but they are not among the poor teams like the Royals and Pirates). Of course, this is all easier said than done. If I was that smart at building a baseball team, I'd be living in a much bigger house, but would probably see my family a lot less. I'm not really sure how you can say there is anything resembling a Tigers' model, in comparison to the Astros. Maybe the respective markets for baseball, perhaps. But you have an owner in DET who will stop at nothing to win a World Series, and just gave his ace one of the most potentially risky contracts in recent baseball history. Hard to imagine the Stros doing that. They got Scherzer in trade for Edwin Jackson, so they didn't develop their own ace #2, they simply made a very good trade. In fact, Porcello, their own homegrown player has been one of their biggest disappointments and is on the verge of being out of the rotation. Same thing with Anibal Sanchez and Doug Fister, both acquired from other organizations in trade. With Cabrera, they had a talented enough minor league system that they could outbit the White Sox and other teams with Maybin and Andrew Miller, who were both perceived as top 50 talent at the time of the deal. The White Sox didn't have enough to offer, unfortunately. Fielder, that was all about money, and having the luxury of being able to go out and spend and not have to wait on Victor Martinez to come back in 2013. Austin Jackson was a brilliant move for them, as Granderson was becoming homer happy and struggling mightily against LHP to the point where he was considered a platoon candidate...so they flipped him for a cheaper leadoff hitter who has matured into one of the best all-around CFers in baseball today. Peralta and Infante were also acquired via trade. Some of the best players they developed, like Inge and Zumaya, didn't end up lasting. They have had a knack for bringing up minor league outfielders (Boesch, Clete Thomas, Avisail Garcia, Andy Dirks, Worth, Don Kelly) who were at least capable of playing at replacement level of higher. BUT, if you look at almost all of the players they acquired, NONE of them were really prospects, with the possible exception of Scherzer, although even Max had significant time already pitching with the DBacks before that trade. It's not as if he was the equivalent of Erik Johnson or Snodgress in our minor league system, this was a guy with all the potential in the world if he could put everything together.

QUOTE (Swingandalongonetoleft @ Apr 21, 2013 -> 06:07 PM) The cherry on top of that is the kind of fans the team does draw to the ballpark.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Apr 21, 2013 -> 06:19 PM) The promblem has never been keeping good players it has been about acquiring good players. If Chairman Reinsdorf is not going to pay for free-agents, he needs to spend money on better scouting and development. Rios/Danks/Carlos Quentin/Ramirez/Floyd...all added within a two year period at little to no for the White Sox. Unfortunately, Swisher/Gio is the one that's hurting the most of all, right now. I think many are starting to lose faith in Buddy Bell. First, Mark Teahen. All of these young outfield prospects we've been hyping are regressing or not taking a step forward, to the point where you could plug any of them as starters in the outfield of 2014 or 2015. When you have four prospects like that miss...you just can't afford for that to happen. At least one of them has to make it and become an above average (or close to All-Star level) player. Otherwise, you're having to overspend in the FA market. You're limited in international spending. And you're buying the Jeff Keppingers of the world at their highest value instead of following the traditional Sox path of reclamation projects bought at the cheapest acquisition price possible. Bad combination....it's a perfect tsunami that works against rebuilding, when the players you're trying to trade have limited value, with the exception of the pitchers that you need to build a rotation around in order to be competitive.

It's the same theory of the movie theatre (let's say it's an IMAX to equate it with Wrigley) down the street being sold out, so if you want to see a similar product, you have to go to another theatre. Now, many will argue that the White Sox are not a product substitute for the Cubs, that the crossover is limited or that "independent/casual/touristic" fans who don't have a strong affinity for either franchise are unlikely to be motivated enough to choose the Sox as a 2nd option, preferring to wait for Cubs tickets to become available.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 21, 2013 -> 04:09 PM) My response to anyone calling the Astros a positive example is going to be pretty simple. They had a game last year where 1100 people watched. On TV. The 4th biggest city in the country, with no competition, drew 1100 viewers on TV for a game last year. On a weekend. The Astros have 2 winning records since 2006, They have an 82 win season and an 86 win season. They've been under .500 for the last 4 years, they've sold off whatever talent they had, and they still are facing several more years of being the laughingstock of baseball and having no interest whatsoever before they'd be able to rebuild through the draft. The White Sox have legit competition in their area, even if that team is also terrible. The end result of a period of 5-8 years losing by the White Sox right now is going to be the end of the White Sox. They would either be moving or close to folding. The Chicago market will not be that forgiving. Oh, and welcome to the site . The counterargument is that the Astros have lost 213 combined games the last two seasons. In a year in which the White Sox were in first place for the majority of the year, they only outdrew the "no interest whatsover" Astros by less than 400,000 fans. Per game, it was 24,271 vs 19,848. And the Astros are outdrawing the White Sox so far this season. AND, there's a guarantee in the lease of 1.5 million in attendance written into the contract...so this whole idea of moving or being close to folding is dubious at best, not for one of the most profitable franchises in baseball over the last decade. Balta's same argument about "no interest" will start unfolding as early as the next 7 SOX home games, where attendance figures will range in the low teens and could even challenge going below 10,000 for the first time in recent memory. Sure, it COULD get worse. OTOH, the only thing that avoided this rebuilding process in the first place was the injection of Alexei, Carlos Quentin, Floyd and Danks into the 2008 team...and living off Buehrle/Dye/AJ/Konerko/Crede/Rowand/Jenks as long as possible. All of those former players are gone, and Konerko soon will be...so if now's not the right time, when will it be? Who are they going to build around? Alex Rios? He's getting older, and will be be gone after 2014 or 2015 anyway. It's either you gamble completely behind Chris Sale's arm not falling off, or you trade him and get the highest return possible.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Apr 21, 2013 -> 02:43 PM) Brewers could use a 1B. Are the Brewers legitimately in a position to be competitive this season?

I don't care if Hawkins/Mitchell/Thompson/Walker never make it to the major leagues. I would take those four picks over McCulloch, Broadway, Poreda and Royce Ring every single time and twice on Sundays.

QUOTE (Baron @ Apr 21, 2013 -> 02:35 PM) Rangers have two DH types on their roster already Who is their everyday 1B these days? It's not Moreland anymore? I haven't been following baseball this season as much because the Sox are so depressing. I do know the Rays need offense. I listened to a couple of their games.

QUOTE (Baron @ Apr 21, 2013 -> 02:32 PM) Christ is it your mission to depress us even more? We have a good rotation, potentially. Alex Rios. Quintana and Santiago have looked good. Addison Reed. That about does it, for the entire organization. I guess Johnson and Snodgress are making progress, but none of our hitters in the minor leagues are giving us a reason to have any hope, either. When your big league team is horrible, most fans at least can get excited about SOMETHING. We don't even have that, right now.

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 21, 2013 -> 02:30 PM) So what teams might be interested in PK if this season continues this way? I don't know what Loney's contract is, but TB could definitely use the hitting either at 1B/DH. Of course, everyone assumes he'd always go somewhere like AZ, Dodgers, Angels. Rangers?

Courtney Hawkins, 0/3, 3 K's, 1 BB. Ha! A walk.

Of course, Dunn hits a homer now. LOL. Bronx cheers...

Sigh. Probability of scoring 1+ running against Justin Masterson tmrw. 1.2%

Oh great, Masterson vs. Dylan Axelrod tmrw.

QUOTE (Baron @ Apr 21, 2013 -> 01:41 PM) They were blasting the Sox the other day. Reinsdorf, Hahn/Williams or the coaching staff? Or everything Sox?

The inevitable version of Gavin Floyd is back, perfectly timed. Javy-itis.

Must have been criticizing them recently... Do those guys have a Sunday morning show? Or just during the week? We don't even have good villains like Mariotti or Cowley to fight with in the media this year, haha. 19,587 today. We're going to be threatening to go under 10,000 in one of these Indians games during the week.