caulfield12

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 12, 2012 -> 09:54 PM) What if the team's charter went down over Lawrence, Kansas? We'd have to have a COMPLETE rebuild! Close. That's what happened to Knute Rockne, except it was the Flint Hills, further to the south.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/10-degrees--j...free-agent.html Free agents available...status update/rankings: Greinke Brandon McCarthy Shawn Marcum (probably doesn't have good enough stuff to survive USCF in summer) RA Dickey (unlikely to be avail) Jorge DeLaRosa (more typical Cooper possibility) expensive enough that he wouldn't cost nearly as much, also with an option for 2013, similar to Gavin Scott Baker they traded Delmon Young to the Tiggers last year, but isn't he yet another version of Gavin? perhaps Cooper has identified some of his flaws from watching him so frequently Francisco Liriano...wild card 3B Youkilis Mark Reynolds (if Orioles fade, but not a good pairing with Dunn in same line-up) Polanco (is he done already?, won't cost much but not sure that he's an upgrade, familiar with AL Central from time with Tiggers) Eric Chavez (probably couldn't handle everyday duty) Stephen Drew OR Yuniesky Betancourt if they felt either one could adapt quickly to play 3B Catchers Napoli (too expensive and risky, will want 4 year deal, probably will at least try to get Napoli Lite out of Flowers first) Doumit Iannetta Nothing much to get excited about, Doumit might be the most likely option if AJ's gone and they're not confident in Flowers/Phegley to handle the position. Iannetta's not worth $5 million +, might as well go with the youngsters.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 12, 2012 -> 09:27 PM) Well if you want to take 3 SPs away from some of the other teams, I'll bet they'd be s*** out of luck too. Let's take Justin Verlander/Max Scherzer/Doug Fister away from the Tigers and see how good they are... I don't get this line of reasoning. Not this year, referring to why they clearly would be in rebuilding mode beginning in 2013, barring some more miracles.

QUOTE (Springfield SoxFan @ Jun 12, 2012 -> 11:25 AM) Can Johnson play third? Think a cross between Dayan Viciedo and Miguel Cabrera.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 12, 2012 -> 11:51 AM) I'd only trade Viciedo in a deal where the guy I got back was going to be under team control for awhile (if that means resigning the player, fine), but I'm not dealing him for someone that will be here for 3 months. Otherwise, I don't quite get why folks see such a long rebuilding process (if any at all). I get the lack of quality position player prospects. I also see us continually find ways to make it work and stay competitive. I don't know how anyone can say with any certainty that there is a lengthy rebuilding ahead in the face of what we are watching right now. If we can shore up this rotation and put something worth a s*** at 3b, this team is every bit as balanced and talented as we've seen here. Lose Peavy. Sale doesn't or can't stay healthy. Probably lose Floyd. That leaves John Danks, who's paid like a #2 starter but hasn't performed at that level this year (due to injury, perhaps) or really on a (half-season or longer) consistent basis since 2008. That's the worst-case scenario. Of course, nobody knows how long Sale will last. But, even if he is the next Randy Johnson, we have to replace one of the top 10 pitchers in baseball in Jake Peavy...and that's VERY unlikely to come from our own system. Can we find another Humber in Mr. Quintana? Perhaps, perhaps not, early signs are encouraging. But it's hard to see the team biting on Gavin Floyd's 2013 option at $9.5 million at this exact moment in time. Hopefully that will change or he can be traded for a younger version of Gavin, but that's IFFY at best.

At Major League Baseball's draft Monday will be five players: Carlos Correa, Andrew Heaney, Gavin Cecchini, Courtney Hawkins and Clint Coulter. Unless you are a nerd, you have not heard of any of them. You have not heard of any of them because baseball is not like football or basketball. Its best amateurs don't feed directly into their professional equivalent. The best baseball players spend at least a year in the minor leagues. Most take three, four, five years of seasoning, sometimes more. Baseball treats its prospects like wine while basketball and football are tequila and Jager. Bud Selig will start the first-round festivities at 7 p.m. ET. (Getty Images)Baseball, of course, wants to have its alcohol and drink it, too, by televising a draft that is hours of soul-numbing viewing. The entertainment quotient is restricted to prospect hounds and those who tune in to see Bud Selig pronounce the Dodgers' hometown as Los Angeleeze. When MLB first decided to televise the draft, it seemed like a decent enough idea. Personalize it, build slowly and within a few years players would want to attend it in New York. Only it hasn't worked that way because baseball hasn't done the requisite work to make those players interesting. MLB owns a television network. This is a very powerful medium. This gives the league the opportunity to broadcast a game or two of the best high school players in the country. This allows the sport a chance to scope out college players and promote them so they're not just a first name and a last name come draft day. There is no intrigue if there is no emotion, and there is no emotion if there's no connection, and there's no connection if there's no conduit – and with no intrigue, emotion or connection, it's like a TV series with characters nobody cares about – the sort that gets canceled. The exception comes when baseball happens upon a grassroots superstar. For the draft's first two televised years, it had one: Stephen Strasburg in 2009 and Bryce Harper in 2010. Last year, when Gerrit Cole went No. 1 and everyone after him was nothing more than a local story, nobody cared. Same for this year. Correa is a dark horse to go No. 1 overall to the Houston Astros. He is a household name – in his own house. Hawkins and Heaney might be top 10 picks. The others are first-round talents. Not there: Mark Appel, Byron Buxton, Kyle Zimmer, Kevin Gausman, Mike Zunino, who could comprise the first five picks in some order. The sport treats the draft with an if-you-build-it-they-will-come mentality. That's backward. Baseball needs first to build the idea of its amateur product as something more than a D-list sport. This will take years and patience and money – all of which will pay off with more fans following the sport. The NFL and NBA drafts are only as good as their college programs that earn billions of dollars a year in television money. High school and college baseball earn billions of pennies a decade. Until baseball changes that, they might as well go back to the old format – a conference call – because they shouldn't have to rely on those like … 1. Bryce Harper to single-handedly carry the interest. Though, come to think of it, he is quite well-equipped to do so, something he affirms more every day he spends in the major leagues. It is easy to forget Harper is 19 because he is so good. His OPS now sits at .922 after his fifth homer Sunday, one of 16 extra-base hits in 118 at-bats. Among those with at least 125 plate appearances, only 26 players have a better slugging percentage than his .542. Just 30 contemporaries beat his .380 on-base percentage. And while the small-sample-size police ticketed me on Twitter for leaping onto my jump-to-conclusions mat, I did so – and do so – with no shame. Harper is a star already, a bona fide prodigy who is doing things we haven't seen since, what, Mel Ott, who only put up the greatest teenage season ever in 1928. The closest in modern history is Ken Griffey Jr., who at 19 went .287/.356/.434 in his first 136 plate appearances. Maybe Harper keeps this up. Maybe he doesn't. Either way, any time a player so transfixes the sport with his talent, it's a blessing for fans. And to have two of them at once, with … Mike Trout2. Mike Trout doing his best Junior impersonation. No, they're not all that similar. Griffey had more raw power. Trout's blessed with great speed. But Trout is getting on base at a .374 clip and slugging .538. Junior's lifetime OBP and SLG numbers: .370 and .538. Trout and Harper simultaneously generate excitement in different leagues, on different coasts, from different sides of the plate – and with similar styles of play. In short: aggressive. Harper stealing home was impressive. Trout beating a Nelson Cruz rocket throw from right field on a tag-up Saturday night was almost equally so. They're both fun. They're both exciting. Still, when someone on Twitter asked who I'd rather see in the All-Star game, I didn't hesitate: Harper. The allure of his power, the doesn't-give-a-damn vibe he gives off, the feeling that this is someone with a chance to make a historic impact. – it's intoxicating. And while I'd take Trout over pretty much anyone else in baseball, with a few exceptions, he's still not Harper. Whether … http://sports.yahoo.com/news/10-degrees--a...ateur-hour.html

Dan Johnson with his 15th homer and 47th RBI. Jack Hannahan on his rehab assignment, also saw Andy LaRoche's name in the box score.

QUOTE (balfanman @ Jun 11, 2012 -> 08:29 PM) I think that most Sox fans realize this and that this is the biggest reason that attendance stinks, even though they have played fairly well recently as a team. We all just have this feeling, like most of the last dozen years or so, that this team is eventually just going to fall apart when it comes time to play games that will decide the division. On the other hand, as opposed to last year, when we were the "talented team" that was supposed to wake up and cruise to a division title, why is it that most still feel that Detroit is the favorite to win this division. Like the Sox last year, they could very well "snooze" the season away. And you have the evidence of 2000, 2005 and 2008 that when the Sox were leading the division on June 1st, they went on to take the division title. The only time this didn't happen was 2004. Of course, many have LONG memories about 2003, 2004, 2006 and the 2009-10-11 seasons. So there's going to be some natural and healthy skepticism, even if our old nemesis, the Twins, are gone (and I'm not even sure we can really say that with the way they've been playing recently, at the very least, they could play spoilers, along with KC).

And therein lies the problem. Even if you sell out the farm (let's say Mitchell, Nathan Jones and Trayce Thompson) for 2-3-4 months of Zach Greinke, there's nothing close to a guarantee we'll be able to make the playoffs this year because Sale will start pushing that 160 IP mark at the beginning of August. If you knew Sale could last through the remainder of this season at his present level, as well as Peavy, then you'd probably say "Go for it!" but there's a pretty big downside risk to swinging and missing. I get it, it's KW's modus operandi to swing for the fences and go for the big names, but how many times can we keep going through this "boom or bust" cycle? Meanwhile, we'll have the possibility of the Tigers making a couple more big moves and blowing past everyone like they did last season. Even if the odds of that are only 50/50, due to their defensive holes all around the diamond.

QUOTE (The Gooch @ Jun 12, 2012 -> 01:08 AM) The Cubs are awful and there will be a huge lack of interest for Cubs fans to go. I wish they would have made it a weekend series, as it would probably sell out then. The other side of that is that we'd probably only draw 20-22,000 for any weekday series, unless it's the Red Sox (even that didn't draw well earlier this season), Yankees, select interleague teams like the Cardinals, etc. It's not like our weekend series have done all that well, with a few exceptions, we've struggled to get in the 25-30,000 range more than 2-3 times this season.

The problem is there's just not enough to get both Greinke and Youkilis. We've gone through this before with the Jackson/Hudson trade. Or wasting money on Manny Ramirez. The only and perhaps main reason to do it is because this team is more set up to win it than in 2013, 2014 and 2015. But with Danks on the books, it's going to take a lot more than just making the playoffs for JR to ante up for Greinke when he's just now getting free of the Peavy deal. On the open market, you just don't see much likelihood of keeping him. And then why Milwaukee would want Gavin Floyd for $9.5 million in 2013, is beyond me. He better go on a phenomenal run the next 6 weeks, in which case it becomes very hard to deal him, even though your heart tells you the worm will turn for the worse again and he'll revert back to "bad Gavin." Thankfully, we still have a month or more to monitor things before we make any moves.

Then, we DEFINITELY would be looking at 4-5 years of rebuilding, and there's zero guarantee we'd get anywhere because we don't have a replacement for Viciedo's bat, nor do we have a solution for when we have to shut Sale down later in the season. Then next year, you can turn around and say KW was "all in" and failed again, therefore he has to go, etc.

QUOTE (The Gooch @ Jun 12, 2012 -> 01:05 AM) But they don't really do that anyway in the UD. I buy deals like these all the time when they have them and just move to UD seats behind home plate. I am never questioned. Still can't get downstairs, but staffing those entrances would be relatively consistent regardless of how well the UD sells. I am also upset at the price of bleacher seats this year. I used to sit in the bleacher a lot, but prices have gotten outrageous. I guess they "stole" this idea from the Cubs, because they used to be among the MOST affordable. But I remember them raising the bleacher seats to much more exorbidant levels 10 or even 15 years ago. Probably with all the improvements out there, the backdrop, patio deck....what is the price now? It seems to be it was in the 20's or low 30's around 10-12 years ago already.

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Jun 12, 2012 -> 12:50 AM) So what kind of contract did Edwin get this season? $11 million, plus bonuses for All-Star, World Series, etc. In hindsight, you can argue we should have dumped Floyd's contract and kept Jackson, but way too late for that. Or not re-signed Danks, but oh well.

QUOTE (soxmaniac! @ Jun 11, 2012 -> 01:06 PM) keon barnum supposedly has lighttower power That's perfect, after Mr. Maxwell's blast today at USCF over the foul pole for 461 feet. Need all the power we can get, as we'll have to replace Konerko, Dunn and AJ. Of course, everyone said the same type of thing about Joe Borchard's power when he signed...hopefully Barnum won't have such a big hole in his swing, nor will he be so mechanical, for lack of a better word.

QUOTE (soxmaniac! @ Jun 11, 2012 -> 12:25 PM) How much longer before robin sends him to the pen in favor of Quintizzle? Sure, he pitched a perfect game, but he hasn't done jack since then. Jose has shown so far that he is capable of being our 5th man, and Humber can replace trashy Zach Stewart as a long reliever. How many more starts before Robin pulls him from the starting role? what about "geek chic" Zach Stewart?

QUOTE (2nd_city_saint787 @ Jun 11, 2012 -> 01:04 PM) First and foremost as my last post said I am for Humber in the pen over Stewart. But for the sake of argument... Take out the perfect game this year and Phils ERA/Whip are at 6.75/1.69 Take out Zachs game vs the Cubs and his ERA/Whip are 3.58/1.47 So if neither of those games happen from looking at the numbers yes Zach has been better. Except by that line of thinking, DJ Carasco should have been named a starting pitcher, or Tony Pena. There's a big difference pitching in blowouts when the other team is often looking to catch a flight out of town or make their dinner plans, compared to the pressure of starting a game against a good major league team. There's really no comparison. It would be like saying you could take Wil Ohman and he would be a better starter than Humber because his ERA is lower, too. It's much more instructive to look at Stewart's body of a work as a starter last year in the majors or as a starter even in spring training, as opposed to extrapolating any type of positivity out of him being a member of the starting rotation anywhere but Charlotte or Birmingham right now.

QUOTE (2nd_city_saint787 @ Jun 11, 2012 -> 11:54 AM) If you've followed my thoughts on Zach Stewart as long reliever you will know this is indeed sarcasm. If everyones so fed up with having Zach Stewart as the long man then why replace him with a perhaps equally as bad Humber? I will agree though that in the situation the Sox are in it does make sense to put Q in the rotation and have Humber replace Zach. Zachs still fairly young and could benefit from getting more time in the minors. I just fear (well not really) I'll be hearing the same kind of things about Humber that I have about Zach when he comes in in a a blowout and gives up a run or 2 "Phils 100% garbage DFA him NOW".... The difference is that: 1) Humber does a big strikeout pitch in his curve 2) first half 2011, ASG, history of a pretty extended run of success, etc. 3) perfect game 4) pedigree as a starter, Top 5 pick in the draft 5) his ERA as a starter against all teams not named the Twins last year was much better than 7.88, his ERA this year despite how bad he's been is nowhere close to that

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Jun 11, 2012 -> 06:06 AM) But aren't those tall dudes essentially human? They had a 100% DNA match. Higher order primates are something like 98.6% match, right? Prometheus notched the best debut for an R-rated picture since Paranormal Activity 3‘s $52.6 million bow in October, but where it goes from here is anyone’s guess. After topping the box office on Friday with $21.4 million, Prometheus sank 22 percent on Saturday — a sure sign of built-in excitement from fanboys and fangirls who rushed to the theater to find out if the film really was an Alien prequel. Discouragingly, Prometheus earned a lukewarm “B” CinemaScore grade, yet it’s sparking more post-release conversation than any title in recent memory, and although much of the chatter is negative (and filled with over-the-top vitriol for scribe Damon Lindelof), all the buzz could work in the film’s favor. Word-of-mouth doesn’t suggest that Prometheus will become this year’s Inception, a thinky thriller-turned-box-office-smash, but its successful debut and ample international receipts (it’s earned $91.5 million after two weekends) should have the suits at Fox pretty happy. http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/06/10/box-...r-3-prometheus/

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jun 11, 2012 -> 10:43 AM) Same with baseball. Get 'em in the park and let the fans walk downstairs and they'll prolly buy tons of merchandise and food and beer and also pay the parking. If you can: 1) Control the longer lines for concessions/bathrooms, etc. 2) Keep those who didn't pay for premium seats up out of lower tier boxes as well as the bleachers. 3) Figure out a way to keep the vendors for the upper deck contented

http://www.kansascity.com/2012/06/09/36501...of-bullpen.html This is a long, but very well thought out article on the Royals and how they're exploiting (potentially) another "Moneyball market inefficiency" to survive in this season. Maybe KW, if the price for starting pitcher, anywhere from Greinke to Volquez, becomes prohibitively expensive...will start thinking about a way to structure the middle innings in those games started by Humber and Floyd so as not to let the game completely get away. Not going back to the Little League idea of 7 starters throwing an inning or so each, but we're going to have to get creative. After all, this is the area in our organization with the greatest amount of depth. For example, trying Santiago as a starter...or Axelrod, or even Stewart, they have to do something to shake up their rotation. Bruney or Doyle could spot start, at this point, you have to be open to any possibility. We can survive, but we need to have 3 quality starters, not just 2. Hopefully Danks can return to form after his two starts for Charlotte. Everyone will be watching his Tuesday outing for the Knights.

Well, this weekend keeps going from bad to worse. Chapman had a 0.30 ERA entering this outing? Crazy inning there, don't have any idea how it's not worse than 7-6. He giveth, he taketh away. Yikes, not a good weekend overall for the Cubans. Tigers win 7-6, only 5 GB now.

Edinson Volquez is a lot more likely than Greinke. The Brewers would never in a million years want Gavin Floyd back to rent for just one and a half seasons....his option's what, $9 or $9.5 million next year? And they're not going to want Crain or Thornton, either. They would ask for Mitchell and Viciedo, and probably Nathan Jones if they couldn't get Reed. It's not going to come cheaply for us to pry away a pitcher of that caliber.

Only Justin Verlander, Felix Hernandez, CC Sabathia and Edinson Volquez have thrown more than his 1,211 pitches. (David) Price is an ace and a workhorse, the sort of thing teams dream of when they choose a pitcher with the No. 1 selection, and the decision whether to let … 9. Stephen Strasburg fulfill that destiny this season will drive the Washington Nationals to a decision bound to be scrutinized either way. Here are the pertinent facts: The Nats are in a three-way tie for first place in the NL East on June 4. Strasburg is 21 months separated from Tommy John surgery. Following seven shutout innings Saturday, he has thrown 65. The Nats want to limit him to 160. And so the conundrum: go for it now or save Strasburg for future years – even if the arm could survive this year just fine or blow out the next even after being shut down. If Strasburg weren't so damn good, this would be an easy decision. But his 2.35 ERA is the fourth best in the National League, and he's got the second-best strikeout rate behind teammate Gio Gonzalez, and his raw stuff is even better than his numbers indicate. Even after the surgery, he's the pitcher we thought he'd be in the 2009 draft, when the Nats chose him a year before … http://sports.yahoo.com/news/10-degrees--a..._qhUxqMETkRvLYF The medical miracle that is Jake Peavy is 6-1 with some terrific outings. He sounds like a guy who eats wrought iron for a pregame meal, and so, I had him pegged as the Sox’s stopper. But no. Only one of Peavy’s six wins came after a Sox loss, and that was in April against Baltimore. Peavy twice gave the Sox stopper-caliber outings, but he suffered a 1-0 complete-game loss to Jon Lester and Boston at the end of April and then watched Matt Thornton blow a save against Detroit in early May. Part of the opportunity to play stopper, of course, is the result of where a pitcher’s turn falls. Another element is that a first-place team wins more than it loses, thus requiring a stopper less often. And look, there’s nothing wrong with extending a winning streak. I’m not trying to diminish Peavy’s season here. Fact is, I began looking up Sox results to back up my feeling that Peavy was the team’s stopper because of his win total and often electric performances. But Sale has been better and more important than you can believe. Well, at least more important than I believed. Turns out, five of Sale’s seven wins (now six out of eight) have come after Sox losses. To put that into perspective, the wispy left-hander who makes floss looks like it’s on steroids has nearly as many of those wins as the rest of the staff combined. Sale has won three of those five on the road and has allowed more than two earned runs only once, posting a 1.83 ERA with 37 strikeouts and 10 walks in 34 1/3 innings. We knew Sale was having a good season, but this is a great start in the context of preventing bad things from getting worse. To think, only a month ago, Don Cooper was saying that Sale’s tender elbow was reason to remove him from the rotation and make him the closer. Sale would fight the move, angrily, it turned out, during a full-metal conversation with general manager Kenny Williams. Sale was returned to the rotation and has won four straight. Imagine where the Sox would be without those starts against the backdrop of John Danks’ injury, Philip Humber’s fall from grace and Gavin Floyd’s interplanetary travels. You could argue, then, that Sale’s most important victory was stopping his team from making a bad decision. http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/rosen...,2492715.column