caulfield12

Really fortunate, so far, to avoid any runs being scored against Quint.

Jason Kipnis is really playing well for the Indians now, .280ish average, 10 HR's, 40 RBI's, 15 SB's, he's doing it all. More surprisingly, Brantley has an 18 game hitting streak. Cue Phil Rogers about another local product that got away from the Cubs/Sox, like the Grandy ones. J. Gomez hasn't pitched well his last 3 starts, but he's out to an early 1-0 lead behind a Shoo double and Kipnis single.

CHICAGO -- The Chicago White Sox are the latest sports team to experiment with "dynamic pricing" for single-game tickets. The Sox are planning to offer variable-based pricing on a select number of tickets next year, joining the San Francisco Giants, Houston Astros, and several NBA and NHL teams. ESPNChicago.com White Sox blog The latest news and notes on the White Sox. Blog The team is experimenting with the idea over its last seven home games this season, with 750 seats spread around several sections being dedicated as dynamic-priced seats. Only two of the remaining home games had pre-sales over 20,000, as of Friday, according to White Sox Vice President/Chief Marketing Officer Brooks Boyer, so the team decided to try out the idea this season rather than wait until 2011. The White Sox have been working with Austin, Texas-based software consulting firm Qcue to implement this pricing strategy. Qcue pioneered this idea for sports teams, inventing a software engine that takes in a variety of factors including team performance, giveaways, weather, starting pitchers, and possible milestones to create market-based ticket prices. "This is like secondary ticketing," Boyer said. "At first, four or five teams do it, and then everyone follows. It's not something that's revolutionary. Airlines have been pricing tickets this way for years." The team can check Qcue's recommendations every morning, or before every homestand, and decide how to price tickets based on certain factors. Prices don't have huge fluctuations, but can go up or down several dollars. Teams don't have to take the recommendations. San Francisco made waves in the industry when they first started utilizing this technology. The Giants started with 500 variable-priced tickets in 2008, and then expanded to 2,000 seats in 2009 to every area of their park where single-game tickets are sold in 2010. Qcue is expanding to the NBA this season, with the Atlanta Hawks, Houston Rockets and Utah Jazz offering dynamic-priced tickets. They started talking to Qcue last season. The White Sox are averaging 27,342 per game, which puts them at 17th in the majors. Last season they averaged 28,199. "We were thrown on the pay-no-mind list in April and May and that affects our big months of June, July and August," Boyer said. "You need your team to carry you in September and unfortunately, we're out of it. "Typically one of our highest-drawing tickets is the Red Sox, and this series will feel more like we're playing the Royals." The team already uses four different pricing tiers to differentiate games: premier, prime, regular, and Monday. The Red Sox games fall into the premier category, with the idea that the team would still be in playoff contention. None of the dynamically priced seats for the series, that runs Monday through Thursday, are in sections that include season-ticket holders. The Sox are experimenting in the upper deck, the corner of the club level and lower levels by the foul poles. Tickets will be priced as low as $15 for the final series against Cleveland beginning Friday. "We don't want a situation where someone with a $40 season ticket is sitting next to someone who paid $25," Boyer said. While White Sox fans get a deal right now, tickets can go up for major pitching matchups, important games or milestones. "We're not talking about a huge or significant amount of tickets on a per-game basis," Boyer said. "This does favor the fans when a game is not in the highest of demand, as you pay less than what you would pay if you walked up to the box office." While fans will have the chance to get lower-priced tickets through this plan, Boyer said overall ticket prices likely will have another small increase next season. "We've had a ticket price philosophy where [we] have made small, incremental jumps year after year," Boyer said, "whether it was after we won the World Series or after 2007. I anticipate us sticking to the same philosophy moving forward." http://sports.espn.go.com/chicago/mlb/news/story?id=5618359

Liriano might be going from invisible/out of baseball to the most valuable trading chip in all of baseball...although his track record since surgery suggests it won't last, there's nothing like Free Agency to stir a player's competitive juices (see Pierzysnki, AJ, or Hamilton, Josh).

What's his average velocity his last three starts, since he returned from the pen? Keep in mind, the Twins are still "only" 8 1/2 games back of the Sox and far from out of it completely. 17 2/3 11 hits 5 ER 6 BB (very low for him) 23 K's 1.96 ERA

QUOTE (Wedge @ Jun 12, 2012 -> 10:22 PM) Sorry if already posted, but from Phil Rogers' MLB power rankings today: 29. Cubs (29): Ryan Dempster is turning himself into a big-time bargaining chip. But don't forget that he's a 10-and-5 player, with full no-trade rights. 30. Padres (30): While trading Carlos Quentin is the easy move, the right one is to suck it up and sign him to a long-term contract. He's a hometown guy and he can really hit, when he's healthy. The problem is the Padres are like the Cubs when Ted Lilly was approaching free agency. They don't have an owner on hand to authorize a major expenditure, and it will take one to keep Quentin off the market. Note to Padres: Please don't trade him to the Tigers or Indians. Thanks a bunch.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 12, 2012 -> 10:27 PM) And in a stunning twist, Caulfield changes the subject from baseball rebuilding humor to discussing the first female President! Well, we already had cannibalism and Kenny Williams piloting a plane in a scene out of Eight Below or The Grey, lol. Marcum, Greinke, DeLaRosa or Liriano? I'd go for DeLaRosa because he has an $11 million option for next year, so he won't cost nearly as much...on the other hand, it's like acquiring another version of Gavin Floyd, mentally. However, I have faith that Cooper can, at least in the short-term, maxmimize results from nearly every pitcher with pretty good stuff...at least starting pitchers. Liriano would be awfully tempting, but you'd be buying high after just 2-3 starts and could just as easily see him crater and take down your entire team behind in the wake. However, just from a fan's perspective and someone who is sick and tired of seeing Floyd and Humber get their brains get beaten in, I'd love to see what happens when you pair Cooper with Liriano and also have AJ, Sale and Danks around him as a support group.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 12, 2012 -> 10:18 PM) This depends...was Kenny on the charter? If he was, then I want Kim Ng, just to prove a woman can use the same tools at everyone's disposal to win a World Series title. We're always on the cutting edge in this department. It will be interesting to see which comes first, female president or female GM. The president part COULD come as early as 2016 or not in my lifetime, more or less 30-40 years from now...

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 12, 2012 -> 10:16 PM) Just goes to show you there isn't all that much to worry about! If we were the Yankees, Phillies, Rangers or Red Sox...but not quite.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 12, 2012 -> 10:03 PM) And the Uruguayan rugby team in the Andes...they had to do a complete rebuild after they ate one another. Edit: This is in terribly poor taste, but I think the team would understand it is necessary to make the point to Caulfield. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campeonato_Uruguayo_de_Rugby Very bad example. Old Christians was like the NY Yankees of Uruguyan rugby. They won the championship again the next season, after the 1972 crash. Look at all their championships in the 1970's, they were actually better AFTER the crash.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jun 12, 2012 -> 10:04 PM) Conversely, i think Kenny Williams would need to be s***face plastered in order to trade for Baker I think swapping Floyd for DeLaRosa wouldn't be horrible, except for the fact we should wait for Gavin to go on his run for 2 months and see if we can get something even better. Kind of a change of scenery move, two pitchers with great stuff but suspect mental games. Marcum's much more doable than Greinke, but what are we willing to give up to get him? If his average fastball's only been 86-88 MPH this season, that would be a bit of red flag...but I haven't seen him pitch this year to make any type of comment on the movement or his K/9 rate. Can you imagine Sale, "The Franchise" Liriano and "good" Danks together in one rotation?

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 12, 2012 -> 09:58 PM) Marcum certainly has the stuff...whether he can put it together or not is another question. I'd have to think Terry Ryan would need to be s***face plastered in order to trade us Liriano... A month ago, we probably could have taken him for just the salary relief. Now, not so much again, but it's a little like Edwin Jackson or Gavin, except 5X more volative in terms of results and predictability.

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.