caulfield12

WHITE SOX are now one run behind the Baltimore Orioles for 3rd in the AL. Craziness. Ironic to hear the Indians' announcers complaining about White Sox attendance vis a vis the Cubs, especially after the recent Chris Perez rant about how the Indians lost Beltre to the Cardinals because of that one factor.

Batting .500 with RISP this weekend. An incredible 21-42. We've gone weeks at a time without 21 hits with RISP since 2009. Konerko at .399, and should be well over it. That 21-42 will carry out the team statistics for quite some time as far as hitting with RISP. Too bad we couldn't save some of those for later. Two triples, pair of doubles and a single given up by Ascensio. Already 11 runs surrendered by the CLE bullpen, could have easily been 13. And the Cubs are going to lose again, lol.

QUOTE (chw42 @ May 27, 2012 -> 02:22 PM) Floyd got in deep s*** today because he couldn't get Marson and Diaz out. Those two suck and they've jump started every rally so far. And he's never gotten Damon out in his entire career. 12/22 coming into today. The DP ball that Lopez hit into when the game was tied 4-4 with bases loaded and after Beckham botched a surefire DP definitely looks like the key play of the game at this point. But stay tuned. Konerko should be hitting .400! Between Dunn's baserunning, Hudson's error, Beckham's botched ball, Viciedo and DeAza on the basepaths, just an absolutely crazy game.

Tied the record, 4 games in a row with 9 runs or more scored. 1938. How can we only have 22,000 fans after the way the White Sox have been hitting and winning 12/17??? Now it's TOO hot? And the Cubs are averaging 37,000 and have the worst record in baseball (tied with the Twins). And you're sitting there saying those runs given up by Viciedo and DeAza might end up coming back to bite them, lol.

Indians have 9 June home games, 18 road games. Trip to DET, STL and CINCY...then at the end to HOU, NYY and BALT. Tough schedule.

Well, that was pleasantly unexpected from Gavin. Zach Stewart had been warming already. 46 pitches today in two innings in the mid 90's heat. Will be interesting to see if Jimenez can actually get his act together... Now Ubaldo Jimenez might be out of the game due to injury!!!

Gavin now has a 5.05 ERA. Ooops. Marson now 1 for 10 career-wise against Floyd, haha. What next? 3 run homer by Choo?

QUOTE (greg775 @ May 27, 2012 -> 12:43 PM) It's hard to expect the offense to bring it every day. Woulda been nice for that 3-0 lead to stand up for several innings. Cmon Gavin, you have the talent. Yeah, they've been saying that for over a decade. Some scout will be saying it 25 years from now about the first time he scouted Gavin.

Trade Floyd now. Ooops. Don't think he even got hit there. Did he? Don Cooper, not even you can work miracles with Mr. Headcase.

13 for 23 Damon against Floyd. 1st homer as an Indian. Came into that AB at .153. And all our clutch hitting again goes out the window with one swing, lol.

Nice 2 strike pitch Floyd. UGH. Can we ever hold a lead, pitching staff? LOL. The excuse can't be the fact that the White Sox have given Floyd the 3rd worst run support in the AL (just under 3 runs per start). 12/22 lifetime for Damon against Floyd.

Could easily have been four or more runs if Dunn doesn't misread that ball over Kipnis' head. Viciedo got robbed of an RBI when Konerko wasn't sent, but Ramirez picked him up. BTW, Konerko hitting .571 in his 12 game hitting streak. Should have been close to .600 if Dunn would have gotten to second. Last time White Sox scored 9 or more runs in 4 consecutive games was in 1938. This is the latest a White Sox hitter has been at or close to .400 in the history of the franchise.

Hit parade continues. Let's get an early lead and step on their throats. They did it to the Tigers last weekend, so turnabout is fair play.

Kipnis was hitting .480 with 3 homers and 9 rbi's at USCF this year coming into today... And he's raised that average... Also funny that the Indians outright for assignment their clean-up hitter and nobody claimed him, in Lopez. Wonder how many times that's happened in recent MLB history? Travis Hafner might have to undergo meniscus surgery....Santana out at least 7 days and Cabrera 3-4-5 (day to day).

‘‘It’s just kind of a little bulged disc, just kind of get that separation back so it’s not so much bone-on-bone,’’ Morel said of the injury. ‘‘Give it a little time.’’ As he was giving that description, Morel’s cell phone dropped in his locker. Watching him bend over to get it and place it back on the shelf was painful in itself. Give it a little time? Morel, 25, said doctors have told him surgery is not being weighed as an option yet. He admitted he’s not just forgetting Crede’s back issues. ‘‘It’s true — it’s going to be in the back of my mind a little bit, but hopefully I won’t have to cross that bridge,’’ Morel said. Besides, there’s another bridge he’s still trying to cross. Morel’s situation is complicated; details are murky about a condition that started as a mysterious loss of weight. According to a Sox source, Morel was having issues since the spring with keeping weight on and was feeling lethargic at times, raising a red flag about what was initially thought to be Crohn’s disease. After that was ruled out, there was concern he might have to undergo surgery on his intestine. Celiac disease was thrown around. Morel didn’t want to go into too many details about his issue but said that as of Tuesday, the plan involves a change of diet. ‘‘It’s not celiac disease, but it’s just a sensitivity to wheat,’’ he said. ‘‘I have to eat gluten-free, but actually I finally have been able to keep [some weight] on. I went into spring training at 220, and I’m back up to 215 right now. For right now, I just have to have a gluten-free diet, and so far it seems to be OK as we go forward.’’ www.suntimes.com/sports (Cowley)

THE DICTATOR is much better than Bruno, a tick or two below the classic BORAT. Started watching "Get the Gringo," by the same person who has ATTACK THE BLOCK in their sig...it's not bad, and didn't even realize Mel Gibson had made another movie since Jodie Foster's bomb, THE BEAVER (which wasn't so horrible, just a victim of almost unfathomable real-life events conspiring against it with Gibson's public self-destruction).

QUOTE (ptatc @ May 27, 2012 -> 12:08 PM) I don't know they seem to find alot of them. Quintana, Humber, Thornton, Pierzynski, De Aza were all guys released by other teams or were on thier scrap heap. The Sox have a pretty good history of getting production out of players from thin air. Not to mention Jenks, Santos and Alexei Ramirez weren't highly coveted. Floyd fits this bill, with his trade value at an all-time low. Loaiza. Contreras, Dye, Pods, Iguchi, etc. Quentin was the classic buy low candidate, an unquestionably talented player trapped by injuries and the depth chart out it AZ. The $10 million for a 23 year old Viciedo seems like a bargain compared to the $45 million and only 4 years of rights to Cespedes.

You also have to consider the fact that the real market value of this team has jumped to the $750-900 million range from $600 million, based on the Dodgers' deal and the explosion in national/regional broadcasting fees all around baseball. While our own agreements aren't going to net us huge amounts of money anytime soon (see Texas Rangers), we do have a significant ownership share in the sports network of one of the 3 biggest media markets in the US, and that is also exponentially increasing in value each and every day.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 27, 2012 -> 10:01 AM) Attendance also hasn't been an issue before. This is the lowest attendance since 1998. The last time the payroll was in this area, we were drawing 8000 more people per night, or about 650000 more twirls of the turnstiles over the course of the season. It makes a big difference. But there has to be the equalizer. We now have a top 3-4-5 average ticket price as well as parking price in all of MLB. That has changed significantly from 1998. I'm not sure about our concessions prices averaging in the top 5 as well, but we're booking a significant premium compared to the rest of MLB teams not named the Yankees, Red Sox and Cubs. http://espn.go.com/mlb/attendance I haven't checked the lastest numbers for 2012 from one of the sports marketing websites, but almost none of the teams in the bottom 10-13 in attendance charge comparably high ticket prices or have dynamic pricing. Maybe Seattle, Houston, Baltimore, San Diego and the Mets are SOMEWHAT in the same neighborhood but pricing, but not like the Sox. So just to look at sheer numbers or totals of tickets sold isn't nearly the same thing as total ticketing revenue booked, not to mention the luxury suites and corporate side of things, sponsorships, advertising dollars, etc. As we've noted over and over again, attendance is diminishing each and every year in importance, to the point where it's closer to 20-25% of revenues versus the more traditional 40-50%, especially for a big market team like the Sox.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 27, 2012 -> 08:57 AM) Unless attendance goes crazy here in the next two months, there are no moves to be made. Orlando Hudson is your move, unless it is a guy who is in the minors. What was our attendance spike in 2010 during and after the 26-5 run? Did that make bringing in Manny Ramirez largely possible, or was the money already there in reserve? Let's say we jump from 20K to a 22K average over the next 2 months. Is that enough to justify an acquisition that adds significant salary ($7.5 million and above)?

QUOTE (Marty34 @ May 27, 2012 -> 08:45 AM) T?he crazy thing about this Dick is nobody has reviled in his recent success more than me. I hope he proves me wrong all the way to Vlad Guerrero. I think you mean REVELLED. Although sometimes you can be reviled when you are deliberately obtuse or obfuscating your true nature here, lol. I don't think ANYONE expects or predicts Vlad Guerrero. He's a Hall of Fame caliber hitter, and was a true 4 1/2 talent player when he first came up (just a bit short on the speed but an amazing once in a generation arm). Some amalgam of Vlad, Beltre, C-Lee, Uribe and Bobby Bonilla would be fine by me.

I was going to do a poll but skipped it. I think Dunn, it would be 25-35% for trading him now, Rios 65-80%. But we still couldn't get out from under the entire Rios deal...and Mitchell's the only outfielder that theoretially could replace him, and not until mid 2013 at the earliest, in all likelihood. And then it's going to take another couple of years for him to establish himself. But yeah, we've been down this road with Alex in early 2010 as well. So I think it all depends on 1) if we could get something back for Dunn, and 2) how/if we spent that money or invested it into the farm system and development. We don't have anything resembling an impact LH bat in our system. Rios would be much more easily replaceable, and then you could do lots of different things with his salary. But just for savings, no fan is going to love that if the team doesn't end up in a better position down the road. But maybe Marty would have been right about trading Alexei this offseason. Of course, who the heck would be playing SS now? I can't imagine Escobar there all season. Or Lillibridge.

Marty is right about one thing. We are much better set up to compete this year than any year going forward, because of AJ and Peavy. Alexei isn't getting any younger. Konerko only has one more season under contract. It almost feels like 2007-2008 all over again, where we were just about to rebuild only to end up re-signing Buehrle/Konerko and keeping the 2005 nucleus around for one more run at it, which somehow got extended by four more years because of Danks/Quentin/Alexei/Ramirez/Viciedo/Beckham/Sale/Rios/Peavy all coming into the organization over a two-year period. Still feels like we're "stuck" with no clear direction...other than the fact we're not going to cripple this team's chances to compete (because it will be our best shot for 2-3 more years) and we're not going to cripple the future either with any blockbuster deals, like one for David Wright, which will completely decimate what's left of our minor league system.

There aren't very many areas you could say that we need a definite improvement right now. Of course, David Wright would be nice, but at what expense? Hudson might end up doing an adequate job, and there's reason to believe that Morel could also return to being a productive player after all of his health care problems (gluten-free diet, weight loss, back problems) are behind him. In the everyday line-up, the main holes (after Hudson) right now are Beckham and Ramirez, and regardless of our offense, both are very solid defenders. Beckham has been hitting much better the last 2-3 weeks, and Ramirez has been hitting in awfully bad luck, with lots of line drives recently and not much to show for it. Messing up our stellar middle infield defense and DP combination seems to be a no-go from the start. The pitching has been shaky after Sale and Peavy (the two blown leads against DET and CLE notwithstanding), with Danks suffering from diminished velocity and clearly not 100% for most of the season, and Floyd and Humber on the consistent path of inconsistency. That said, all things considered, it's a rotation that is capable of winning the division and carrying the team for stretches, just as our offense has carried us in recent days. Trading Gavin Floyd would force Axelrod, Stewart, Quintana, Hernandez, Doyle, Castro or Hernandez into the starting rotation for 40-60% of the season, and while the evidence suggests one of those young guys COULD potentially replicate Gavin's numbers, can you take that risk NOW for the cost/salary savings and to get prospects back for 2013 and beyond? It doesn't seem to be KW's way. Second, we could trade Thornton and/or Crain with the emergence of Reed, Jones and Santiago to fortify the bullpen, but that would lead to us missing all veteran leadership and depth. You have to expect Jones will go through a down period, and we already let Frasor go, so trading Crain seems less likely. Dealing Matt Thornton might make the most sense, with Santiago, Ohman and now Quintana ready to supply depth there. But, once again, like in the Gavin Floyd case, if you're not getting something amazing back and the payroll level right now isn't killing you (with attendance expected to spike up in the summer), do you pull the trigger? Other than that, the only two places we could look to improve are replacing Fukudome and especially Escobar. If it comes down to it, we could bring up Danks, McPherson or Dan Johnson, but hopefully Kosuke can show some signs of life soon.

QUOTE (2nd_city_saint787 @ May 27, 2012 -> 01:23 AM) 2nd best Run Differential in the AL now. 6th in MLB at +24, right behind Atl @ +25 and Wash @ +26. Like I've been saying this team is awesome. There's room for improvement. 5 blown saves (7 total) resulting in 5 losses OBP Everyone in the starting rotation not named Sale. Our bench. Winning at home and winning close games (3-6 in one run games, CLE is 10-2)