caulfield12

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Oct 3, 2013 -> 02:27 PM) Good idea Really, really hoping the Pirates can win the whole thing. It hasn't been 88 years, but that would be one of the more gratifying World Series wins in recent years. 1960, 1971 and 1979... It just seems like a long time because you're younger probably, and the last 20 years have been similar to what the Royals have experienced (except the Royals haven't been relevant since the 1980's), so it seems worse than the actual history would tell you.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 3, 2013 -> 02:57 PM) Agreed. We have brought guys into the organization in many ways. Draft and development has worked for pitching, and it hasn't for offense. We have brought them in other ways. Sure, but doing that has also caused questionable chemistry and resulted in a lack of cohesiveness on the field. None of these Sox players came up through the system and learned how to win and play the game the right way fundamentally...as a group. Now all the fundamentals in the world won't make average or below average Twins' players great.....because they just don't have the pitching to cover up for it, but when the differences are more negligible, it makes all the difference in the world between 88 and 92 wins, for example. Playoffs or "wait 'til next year." Let's look at our starting line-up (for the moment) going into 2014 RF Garcia (Tigers/Venezuela) CF DeAza (Marlins/DR) LF Viciedo (Cuban system) 3B Gillaspie (Giants) / Keppinger (Rays, but Ventura is no Maddon in maximizing the results of his "spare parts") SS Ramirez (Cuban system) 2B Beckham (UGA/Team USA/NCAA) or Semien (only Sox prospect) 1B ??? DH Dunn (never on a playoff team) C ??? It worked once....by some miracle, in 2005, and to a lesser extent in 2008 because of great starting pitching and relief pitching for one half of that season while Linebrink was 100% healthy.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Oct 3, 2013 -> 02:54 PM) While I agree it would be nice to have one drafted/signed and developed, it's not necessary. I'm sure plenty of people will inevitably buy Avisail Garcia jerseys. This isn't necessarily a process that can be done overnight. Sure, in the same way you would have been excited to buy a Quentin jersey, for example....although it's a pipe dream right now that Garcia is also going to lead the MVP voting for 5/6th's of a season in 2014. My comment is more aimed at wanting to have SOME reason (I'll take one) to believe in this organization turning things around. If we can never develop a single position player, all the pitching in the world won't make up for it. (And we couldn't even manage to get anything productive out of Francisco Liriano last year....therefore, starting to come over to the Dick Allen side on this one). And if we can't adopt modern baseball strategies/methods, like the Pirates or Rays with their defensive alignments/shifts/quantitative analysis, it's even bleaker.

QUOTE (bbilek1 @ Oct 3, 2013 -> 02:46 PM) Caulfield needs to go off on an irrelevant tangent. It's his trademark. And it's your trademark to follow me around the website making the same comment. Grow up...block me, whatever. I'm sure you are taking credit for Hawkins' season going downhill with all of your friends. I mean...seriously, I've hardly posted in months because the White Sox are so depressing and then to come here and have to fight the same battles over and over again...what's the point? (Coming is 3, 2, 1....some comment about women or my ex or links to some thread from months ago that will somehow be designed to enact or wreak revenge upon me and anger all those who care, which is pretty much limited to less than five or perhaps even three).

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Oct 3, 2013 -> 02:37 PM) Keppinger has a career OPS of over .700. He just barely got to a .600 OPS by the end of the year. It was a colossally disappointing season. Blaming Hahn for that is like blaming Williams for Dunn - at some point, it's just bad luck, because on the surface the move is decent. And the last part...why are you so obsessed with jersey sales? Who cares. Can't you just say "it was a good move" and be done? It would be nice, just once, to have a player to be excited about who was a position prospect we drafted and developed. That's all. Last year at this time, we all thought it might be Courtney Hawkins. Once upon a time, it was Beckham. If they're already starting to losing fans who used to live and die with the White Sox, it's going to take even longer to get back the casual fans.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Oct 3, 2013 -> 02:24 PM) That's managerial decisions. Some of those are tougher, but if it just comes to bunting, swinging, taking pitchers out, whatever, I truly believe a trained chimp could do that. Actually GMing a team is an entirely different story. Except a trained chimp could have done a better job coming up with a Sox offseason than Jeff Keppinger. He could have been programmed with code...never take a former Rays' super-utility player, never take a former Rays' super-utility player. Rinse and repeat. About the only thing that went okay/well/better than expected was picking up Gillaspie for Soptic. However, I bet there must be no more than 100 or so Conor authentic jerseys in existence in the United States today.

I loved all of those Clancy books.... Sad to know there will never be another Ryan one.

That was followed five days later by "Grandstand Manager's Day," perhaps Veeck's most elaborate stunt. With himself, former Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack, and thousands of fans holding placards that said yes on one side and no on the other, publicity director Bob Fischel held up cards with proposed moves - steal, bunt, change pitchers - to which the grandstand managers flashed their opinions. While manager Zack Taylor puffed a pipe and relaxed in a rocking chair, the fans called an excellent game: The Browns won, 5-3, to stop a four-game losing streak.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Oct 3, 2013 -> 11:45 AM) They will be the Kansas City White Sox and Greg will be their manager. And he will be popular with 82% of the Applebee's (Lawrence) customers, 74% of who would rather have a beer with Greg than Ozzie Guillen.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 3, 2013 -> 12:16 PM) Well the Sox better get some new bodies somewhere. Maybe get some journeymen like the Indians did and hope they pan out. Sox are going to have to pay for somebody unless they refuse to sign guys to big contracts after the Dunn/Rios fiascos. I wouldn't consider Michael Bourn to be a journeyman. Swisher was somewhere in between....he's in his early 30's now but had some decent seasons in NY, kind of like Granderson's status now. Declining, but a "name" player who will get a lot more money than he's actually worth from someone.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Oct 3, 2013 -> 07:33 AM) If you look at the 2005-2006 and 2008-2009 offseasons, you'd find that most people thought the Sox would go on sustained periods of success. It's a fickle game. Adding Javy (the now questionable 6 starters strategy, with McCarthy eventually traded for Danks) and adding Viciedo (who seemed like he was pretty close to being a legit contributor at 3B in light of the ending of Crede's career and Uribe filling in to end 2008) were pretty logical moves. The Thome for Rowand one, in particular...perfect situation where we got back a ton of cash and ended up with a hitter not so far off his prime for most of the time he was with us. But Mackowiak...? Wish we could redo that one.

If you look at the 2004-2005 and 2007-2008 offseasons, you'd find perhaps a majority of Sox fans thinking those teams were 3-5 years from contending for another division crown.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 2, 2013 -> 01:09 PM) It's pretty simple: Sign Abreu and McCann or AJP; McCann long term; AJ one year if can't get McCann. Then trade Hector and Beckham for a third baseman. Let Semien play second. Now you then sign Granderson or Choo while trading DeAza for whatever you can get for him. You now have better hitters in the lineup than this year: McCann, Grandy, Abreu, Semien and A. Garcia. That's a pretty fricking good upgrade and IT CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED. Granderson's not an everyday CF and won't stand up well against LHP...strikes out too much, we already have a cheaper version in DeAza. Choo will be way overpriced based on this year's results in the NL, and then he forces either himself or A. Garcia into CF, which is a big no-no. You might as well make it Hector Santiago and a bag of baseballs....at least Santiago's going to get you something back. I just worry when he's away from the White Sox he will come into his own, like Liriano has with the Pirates this season going with mostly 2 seam sinking fastballs and a much more strategic defensive positioning strategy than the White Sox currently possess. No to AJ....too late. His time has come and gone. Abreu, you better do your due diligence...and McCann makes sense if you are able to add 2-3 players together, but that's almost impossible to imagine the White Sox doing, which is committing to $100-150 million in new FA contracts for McCann, Abreu and one more player (Choo and Ellsbury are going to be too expensive). The problem is that adding just one of those three (catcher/1B/OF) doesn't really put us in a position to compete. So I think you have to sign two free agents and deal Santiago/Quintana for the highest possible return....or tread water and keep waiting for the right pieces to emerge at the right prices (like Dye or Thome, as mentioned earlier).

Once again, people are remembering too much what Markakis has done against the White Sox. He's a SOLID player, at least he was, but you want nothing to do with his declining years at over the top prices when he was never all that great to begin with.

Micah Johnson is miles away from being a projected major league starter. Biggest problem, even moreso than giving Rasmus that contract, is signing an over the hill one dimensional player in Markakis. If you took away his stats against us, he wouldn't be worth $6 million per year in his declining 30's.

I can just see it now...our big off-season headline acquisition is Sean Rodriguez.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Oct 2, 2013 -> 11:34 AM) How about it ends with the government stop spending money it doesn't have? That would be a good place for it end up. Like when Bill Clinton was running budget surpluses three consecutive years? What happened after that?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 2, 2013 -> 11:31 AM) Health and contract are huge things. Since 2009 Reyes has missed 262 games, including 69 this year. Ramirez has missed 58 total. Not only are you going to be paying an outrageous amount for Reyes, you will also being looking for another SS on average 50+ games a year. actually I added another years worth of games to Ramirez. He has missed only 32 over the last five years. The other 26 were from 2008. Was he injured then? I think he was just sitting on the bench for most of the first two months of 2008.

Something like what the Indians have done is closer to what the Sox need. They missed with Reynolds, let's called it a toss-up whether Swisher has helped but Bourn helped change the overall complexion of that line-up. (Sort of what they tried to do with Juan Pierre, but not 5 years too late). It still all comes down to pitching. Unfortunately, we don't have a Jason Kipnis or bat like Carlos Santana on our roster or minor league depth chart. (Also taking into consideration they lost arguably their best everyday player in Choo, although quite a few would have picked Kipnis over Choo even after last season).

QUOTE (Jake @ Oct 2, 2013 -> 11:18 AM) Reyes is a better player than Alexei, but Reyes is a huge wildcard with injuries. If I had no shortstop, I might take that gamble...but I have a decent one and no immediate need to dump him and not much to gain from a modest increase in production at SS. And even the modest belief that Semien could give you league average production at that position, possibly as early as 2015 or 2016. So why not think about using the Ramirez money and reallocating it elsewhere and getting a B or B/C (two in a package) prospect? But taking on guys like Reyes or Upton for a team in the position where the White Sox are is dubious business. Even if we could have Buehrle back at half of his remaining contract value, it wouldn't make any sense for the Sox.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Oct 1, 2013 -> 06:54 PM) Let alone why would a team give up any reasonable prospect for BJUpton and a $30 million committment? He was Adam Dunn 2011 bad in 2013. I wouldn't trade Dunn for Upton. $15 million vs. $60 million. I think my idea at the beginning of the year was Dunn for Upton and $30 million.

Bad contract (Dunn) for bad contract (Upton) might have been feasible... But how many prospects could you argue were worth $30 million at age 18 or 19? Maybe Harper or Griffey, Jr.?

Where was this version of Liriano with Cooper last year? Seems the move to the 2 seam sinking fastball....in conjunction with infield defense/positioning/shifts, has worked wonders with his results.

Scary. This Upton for salary relief or Upton for Dunn (balancing salary relief) was one of my many ideas at the beginning of the season before I gave up. Now Marty's continuing to push it?

China and India are going to breeze past the US. We're making it FAR FAR too easy. Sad to watch from abroad...where the actual rubber is hitting the road (and dams/railways/subways/skyscrapers, massive construction and infrastructure projects from China to India and stretching into Africa). Wouldn't be surprised to see Indonesia's 240 million start to catch up soon, either. So it will be BRICS with the I "squared" for India and Indonesia. And the worst part of it is the senselessness and preventability of this whole thing. It's like we refuse to act until there's a REAL crisis and keep punting the ball (and crossbars) down the road to some future "point of no return" line.