caulfield12

They better hope Rodon is more Cory Kluber/Garrett Richards than the typical rookie pitcher. That's a lot of pressure. He's going to be constantly compared to Chris Sale, and this idea of bringing him up in 2014 seems ill-conceived. The White Sox are basically saying we believe in Rodon so much we're not going to add any free agents, it's on you to perform right out of the gate.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 20, 2014 -> 09:07 AM) Why do you insist on bringing up attendance? It's like always the crux of your argument over and over and it's never, ever been that big of a deal. Reinsdorf's goal is to win, and it's quite clear that Hahn has a long term plan that the Sox ownership is comfortable with to maintain winning long term, but that involves taking a few lumps in the short term. When the Sox win - and do so consistently - they draw. This has been proven. The only times they've played well two consecutive seasons are 1993-94 and 2005-06. I hope you're right. The only comparison we can make is the falloff from the 1983 White Sox. They lost over half their attendance in the span of 5 seasons, going from 3rd in the American League in 1984 to 14th and barely over 1 million in 1989. It's a good comparison because, while there was no new stadium, that 1990 team had Ventura, Thomas (as a rookie) and many reasons to be optimistic as a White Sox fan with the influx of young talent. However, the 2015 team is going to have to finish at 90 games or better to duplicate that turnaround from 1,045,000 in 1989 to over 2,000,000 in 1990. How likely is that to happen?

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 20, 2014 -> 09:18 AM) There's a severe lack of power in the lineup you proposed. Also, as much as I love Rodon, I don't think he's ready for an entire year in the rotation yet. I think there's going to be more significant changes to the lineup this offseason. I do think the 1-2-3-4 in the lineup will be: Eaton Avi Gillaspie Abreu Does Garcia have enough contact skills to hit in that position? We know he can hit the ball to the opposite field, but for the time being, I think they see him more as a middle of the order run-producing player with someone like an Alexei Ramirez (if he's back), Semien or Micah Johnson hitting 2nd.

Spending $12-18 million alone on fixing the bullpen for 2015 makes little sense, since we'll only end up losing (as FA's) or trading those pitchers and starting all over again when we really need them in 2016-18. As we've seen with Downs and Keppinger, even if you sign players coming off good seasons, there's no guarantee they'll repeat. It makes little sense to think a rotation of Rodon as a rookie going through his learning curve, Danks continuing to struggle and Noesi doing his VORP 5th starter thing will end up anywhere besides 8-12 games under .500 again. For every positive, there's going to be just as many if not more question marks. Right now, we have ONE position player we can 100% count on for next year in Abreu, and he's seemingly going through an adjustment period as the league is figuring out how to TRY to limit his homer binges.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 20, 2014 -> 07:09 AM) Stop and think a bit more about this post. "If a rookie who has spent 1 month at AAA is in the starting rotation next year it's probably a rebuilding season". That's surprising why? Because wouldn't think JR would like to go all the way down to 1.4-1.5 million in attendance and decline for a 9th season in a row and waste another year of Sale and Abreu together, but if they're still content with profitability at this payroll level, more power to them. Actually, I do not know exactly what it takes for Brooks Boyer to lose his job and for the White Sox to try another approach, because it's going to be challenging to emptier stadiums than US Cellular in September. Even the idea of Rodon coming up quickly is going to be met with a shrug by fans unless he debuts and sustains an ace level of performance instead of profiling somewhat like, say, Kip Wells.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 20, 2014 -> 08:27 AM) From what I understand JR is probably a majority owner by now. There have been stories about him buying up the minority owners as they have wanted to sell. For some reason I have it in my head that one estimate was as high as 80% ownership. Can anyone else verify/remember that? Dick Allen always talks about this issue. He'd probably be the one.

Surely the Giants will protest and lose, but it really sucks for a playoff contender to have a chance to win a game be taken away by the lack of preparedness by an opponent's grounds crew. Granted, it was a very very localized storm, but it shouldn't decide a playoff race...or contribute to deciding one. One of the only examples of a protest being upheld that I can remember was the early 80's George Brett pine tar game, where the league office overruled the umpires...gave the Royals the lead and then they ended up going to New York on an offday to play the bottom of the inning, with the Yankees going down 1-2-3. I think they even offered discounted $3-5 tickets for folks who didn't attend the original game.

Danks has the same problem Gordon Beckham has, at least one of them. Can't hit or lay off high fastballs. Just doesn't have the bat speed...more of a slider speed/AAAA bat. At the major league level, he quickly gets exposed with everyday playing time. As the 4th outfielder and not getting 60-70% of the at-bats in a platoon situation, fine. We don't need to pay DeAza $4.5-6.5 million to do that, certainly.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Aug 20, 2014 -> 01:33 AM) Yeah, I'm not qute sure that Eaton gets that ball. I didn't catch the jump that Danks got on it, but considering how much taller he is than Eaton, I'm not sure that if it tips off Danks stretched out body that Eaton doesn't get a glove on it at all. Hardly a catch you should count on ANY centerfielder in the game to make. Eaton is at least two steps faster than Danks, IMO. Danks, once he gets going, makes up ground with his longer strides, but lacks explosive quickness. It's why he hasn't been much of a basestealer in his career. Players at that height rarely have the acceleration necessary to reach top speed in their first 2-3 steps.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 09:07 AM) Also, I get caught up in K rates, but so long as you have command and can locate, pitching to weak contact early in the at bat is a very good thing. Shoulder problems eventually derailed him, but Roy Halladay did the same thing and he was a workhorse for years and years. He had the stuff and ability to strike a lot of guys out, but he kept pounding the strikezone with really good pitches. A lot of times, the first pitch you got in the at bat was the best you were going to see, even if it wasn't a good pitch to hit, and you swung at it a lot of times hoping to do something with it. I keep making these comparisons of the Sox prospects to these all time greats, but it's primarily just to show these examples exist. I do not expect Beck to turn into Halladay (more along the lines of a Jon Garland, about a league average pitcher), just saying that there is precedent for his philosophy working. That's being pretty darned optimistic, as Garland was one of the Top 20-30 prospects in all of baseball as an 18-19 year old. If you told me he was going to be in the 2015 starting rotation, I would quickly say it's another 76-86 rebuilding year, unless they've also addressed the significant holes in the line-up and bullpen. Even then, a rotation of Sale/Quintana/Rodon with Beck/Noesi/Danks fighting for the 4th and 5th spots is at least a year away, optimistically. If we were willing to get rid of Danks' contract and/or add another veteran to the back end for stability, I would be a bit more optimistic, as the assumption now has to be they're going to want no part of a FA pitcher over a 2-3 contract.

He's not as good as Adam Eaton defensively...there was a ball hit a night or two ago that tipped off Danks' glove that I'm sure Eaton would have gotten to. That is, if he can actually stay on the field and stop trying to run through fences.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 04:56 PM) Yea that doesn't make any sense Not everyone Harrelson hasn't seen eye to eye with has "lost" to Hawk. LaRussa's revenge was the rest of his career after he left Chicago. It's not the same as a media member such as Cowley, Mariotti or Abattacola, but the point remains. And isn't Cowley still covering the Bulls for the Sun-Times? Did he get fired? Mostly, his relationship with the White Sox was filtered through Ozzie Guillen, and once Ozzie was gone, his "inside source" was cut. That's less about Harrelson and more about the way he put himself in a corner as a beat writer by losing his objectivity about the team.

QUOTE (Charlie Haeger's Knuckles @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 05:04 PM) A) He already turned down a massive contract extension to stay with his current team, a team that plays in what is likely the weakest division in the league and has a "decent chance to play for a pennant" every single season. B) He is a Scott Boras client. He will receive the max contract the free agent pitching market allows this off-season. His contact will either set the market at the beginning of the off-season or he will wait until late February to sign. C) Scherzer wants to sign with a team where he will be the "ace" and the opening day starter. Chris Sale owns this town. He's not going to sign here so he can play second fiddle. D) After the Danks contract blowing up in the Sox face (not like, OMG NUKE explosion... more like, mentos + diet pepsi) and Reinsdorf's persistent commentary about the dangers of free agent pitchers' contracts both would suggest that the Sox aren't signing any significant free agent pitchers any time soon. Especially Tanaka...that would have been as much a disaster if more more than Abreu contract has been a pleasant surprise.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 04:15 PM) I see what you're saying, but this is a man who obviously didn't think logically or even morally. He's a thief and a bully given his actions at the convenient store, and he's also incredibly stupid for picking a fight with a cop. All three things that the vast majority of people would never do. So "logic" can be thrown out the window. He was capable of doing anything. Once again, this (the released convenience store video) is "hindsight" and not probative or admissible later for evaluating Officer Wilson's reactions at the time of his first contact with Brown. At no point was the cigar situation an armed robbery, where an imminent/deadly threat or force was involved.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 04:08 PM) He should nominate everyone who he has outlasted as a critic. Jay Mariotti, Joe Cowley, etc. It is funny, they all took on Hawk, and he has outlasted them all. LaRussa is getting his Bobblehead Night soon at US Cellular, so not 100%.

Matt Abbatacola @MattAbbatacola · 20h "Chicago doing a great job with RISP. They're 6-for-8." I'll take things you don't hear about pro baseball in Chicago for $500, Alex. He just can't resist, clearly making a reference to Jackie Robinson West LL.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 03:57 PM) Huh? From 35 feet running at someone that is shooting you is a better option than running away? Let's assume that Brown thought he could run away and that Officer Wilson wasn't going to fire at him, because you don't expect the police to shoot you down from behind if you're unarmed, even if you had confronted him violently 30 seconds ago. Fight or flight response, right? Then you realize he is shooting at you...and that your life might be in danger even. Do you 1) put your hands up and risk being killed surrendering, or 2) charge at the officer, knowing you're unlikely to survive that 35 foot distance against a trained officer with his gun trained on you, also realizing you're not exactly a small or elusive target? Logically, if confronted with this scenario in a simulation, almost nobody would run at the officer and think they're going to survive unless they feel there's no other alternative. As there was reportedly marijuana in his system and not a stimulant, wouldn't that make him LESS likely to fly at the officer from so far away?

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 03:49 PM) My own eyes watching live footage, and I've repeatedly seen police trying to ask media members to do something rational like move back 3 feet and they completely ignore it over and over. I saw a camera man basically walk into the path of tear gas last night when warned for around 10 min that it was going to come. I dont trust their words, but I trust their pictures . Even that's not 100% trustworthy if it's taken out of context....or just showing PART of the picture, or it's not continuous footage, etc. For instance, I can watch looting/rioting for 10 minutes, but if I don't see anything that happened before or after, how can you assess it without your own preconceived biases kicking in on one side or the other? We had a debate for a week or so on the Tony Stewart footage, for example.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 03:47 PM) But that's still not getting us anywhere. We still need to find out if Brown was running back towards Wilson. If Brown was running/moving away and Wilson missed him or just clipped him in the arm after he shouted "Freeze!", then Brown subsequently turned around and charged back towards Wilson, that's a very different scenario.

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 03:06 PM) In some areas MLB tickets are up their with the NFL and NBA. That casual fan will opt for the latter. Probably for the Yankees and Red Sox. Definitely not the case in LA for the Angels or Dodgers, for example.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 03:43 PM) Media reporting on why they did something wrong and were gassed is not a legit source. Who would you actually trust and believe to accurately report ON THE MEDIA...? Is such a thing possible in this day and age?

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 03:41 PM) Here's a decent breakdown of why the three witnesses' versions are a little questionable: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/20.../hands-up-story And yes, it might make sense if he's a hot-headed moron, which he appears to be. He could have known the gun going off was accidental. And Brown also knew that instead of firing after him immediately when he ran away, Wilson was yelling at him to freeze. When you endanger the life of anyone, that person has the right to defend themselves. If you're that stupid that you want to assault someone with a gun, you need to be prepared to die as a result of a defending act. Yes, if Brown really ran away and was 35 feet away and was shot from that distance, then ok, that's not right and even though Brown is a moron, he's clearly outside of that zone of danger. But if he's facing Wilson and coming towards him for a second time, he's not a "victim" in any sense of the word. He got what was coming to him. It might as well be Matt Drudge or Fox News, lol. Breitbart.com and "Big Government" in the link of a story, c'mon, that's not going to be close to impartial, any more than CNBC anchors like Rachel Maddow or The Ed Show would be reliable sources for unbiased reporting.

QUOTE (illinilaw08 @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 03:37 PM) He might very well have been fleeing when he was shot AT. It's relevant if the first shot that was fired is while he's fleeing, but he isn't hit until he has turned around... That's why we need the ballistics report. Supposedly, Brown was shot 6 times. The weapon went off at least once when they were struggling over it (according to most witness accounts). How many shots were taken...and what was Michael Brown's initial position when the first shot was fired? Did the officer fire at him while he was fleeing/with his back turned, which might have surprised Brown and caused him to turn around, knowing he wasn't going to outrun a much smaller officer with a gun? It's not exactly a rational idea for someone to charge into a police officer's path of fire from 35 feet away unless something has precipitated the thought that this is the only course of action left remaining to survive...that running away wasn't an option.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 03:27 PM) So what did those police do so differently? Why didnt the community decide that the cops were wrong and they needed to burn down local businesses? In the end, part of the reason things didn't blow up THAT night was because it was New Year's Eve and 2:15 a.m. in the morning (everyone was tired and going home) and because of the fact that the victim was pretty much isolated away from public viewing...at least from inside the subway cars from which they'd been taken for questioning and lined up inside the station. In this case, social media really didn't have a chance to disseminate the images right away...it wasn't until the following days the story picked up steam. In the St. Louis case, the first mistake (in my opinion) was leaving the body out on the street in plain view (without even being covered with a sheet for hours and hours. In Oscar Grant's case, he didn't die right away...he went into surgery in a local hospital and the story wasn't pieced together by the media until later. The Fruitvale Station situation wasn't on CNN and the lead story on the nightly news for 7-10 days...that's for sure. I even have my g/f in China asking me what is going on in the United States with this situation, and why can't the police control it? It's also clear the jury didn't completely believe the officer's account he thought he was pulling out a taser when the reality was he was drawing his service revolver. BART Police officers detained Oscar Grant and several other passengers on the platform at the Fruitvale BART Station. Officer Johannes Mehserle and another officer were restraining Grant, who was lying face down and allegedly resisting arrest.[4][5][6] Officer Mehserle stood and, according to his attorney, said: "Get back, I'm gonna Tase him."[7] Then Mehserle drew his gun and shot Grant once in the back. During his court testimony, Mehserle said that Grant then exclaimed, "You shot me!"[3][4][8] Grant was unarmed; he was pronounced dead the next morning at Highland Hospital in Oakland.[8] The events were captured on multiple digital video and cell phone cameras. The footage was disseminated to media outlets and to various websites, where it was watched millions of times.[9] The following days saw both peaceful and violent protests.[10] The shooting has been variously labeled an involuntary manslaughter and a summary execution.[11] On January 30, 2010, Alameda County prosecutors charged Mehserle with murder for the shooting. He resigned his position and pleaded not guilty. The trial began on June 10, 2010. Michael Rains, Mehserle's criminal defense attorney, argued that Mehserle mistakenly shot Grant with his pistol, intending to use his Taser when he saw Grant reaching for his waistband.[4][5] Pretrial filings argue that his client did not commit first-degree murder and asked a Los Angeles judge to instruct the jury to limit its deliberations to either second-degree murder or acquittal. On July 8, 2010, the jury returned its verdict: Mehserle was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and not guilty of second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter.[12] Initial protests against the ruling were peacefully organized; looting, arson, destruction of property, and small riots broke out after dark. Nearly 80 people were eventually arrested.[13][14] www.wikipedia.com

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Aug 19, 2014 -> 03:17 PM) Are these the same witnesses that said he was shot in the back as he was running away? Which doesn't seem likely now? He attacked a cop. He caused facial fractures. He's not some random victim of a cold-blooded killer cop. I don't care if he ran away, he's not the "victim" that he's being portrayed as. Link? Do we know that as a FACT now? Have the police reported this in one of their briefings or it's just a rumor flying around the internet now?