caulfield12

QUOTE (2nd_city_saint787 @ May 8, 2012 -> 07:09 PM) Hes throwing a solid game and is under 100 pitches, why is it ridiculous....guys a bulldog The last thing he needed was to give up 2-3 runs there, exit the game and possibly lose his victory. I would think with his velocity being down this season they'd want to get him out of there after 7 and then when (at the very least) the FIRST hitter reached. No reason to face Hannahan with Danks. You have to use Reed and end this losing streak.

This is setting up to be the biggest debacle yet this season if he leaves Danks in too long and forgets that he now has Addison Reed and Chris Sale at the back of the pen.

I hope Ventura's more concerned with the team win than getting Danks a CG shutout. This is the point where he'll walk a guy or two and the bases will quickly be loaded when he's out of gas.

Kotchmann 10/23 now in his career against Danks. At least Viciedo went for the huge catch, but you don't want that runner on 2B there. He did hustle to prevent the triple. Make or break play.

QUOTE (Jake @ May 8, 2012 -> 06:42 PM) I don't know what's gotten into AJ In all seriousness, Cowley might have been able to throw out Santana there on a delayed steal with a C/1B/DH running.

Pretty fortunate Santana tried the delay steal trick again or this inning would look quite differently. Last time, AJ threw the ball into CF. This time, he was out by a country mile and should have turned back he was that far away from being safe.

13 pitches that AB to Duncan, 32 pitches for 4 outs.

GameDay nugget of wisdom. Trying to throw inside because Duncan is hitting .222 against pitches there versus .224 overall. Haha. That's going a little bit overboard with their computer analysis software of trends. Danks has YET to throw a curveball all game. Weird. Not sure how he can make it as a two pitch pitcher with a diminished fastball. Cutter isn't working well, either. Just fastball and slider pitcher for the moment. And he's struggling to put away hitters because his stuff just isn't as crisp, not sure why. This AB started with an 0-2 count and has climbed to 12 pitches already and still no out.

Gee, thanks for that info Farmer. Harrelson's wife (Aris, sp?), son KC and their puppy are driving up from Florida to South Bend and will be in Chicago this weekend.

What's the number there Fathom? I remember you were tracking how many times Danks gave up leads (or at least runs) the inning directly following runs scored for the Sox. It was something like 6/10. I suppose 50% makes sense when you've got an ERA of 6.34 at the moment.

It's all those Santos and Quentin fans who are still upset. Is there any evidence that attendance has been higher for Chris Sale starts, for example?

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 8, 2012 -> 10:28 AM) Its funny you're now crying about money when you jab me all the time for saying the Sox weren't being straight in April of 2009 saying they had nothing to spend. Seriously, change your name to Mitt. And if nothing can be worse than where they are at right now, there's nothing from stopping you from paying any attention. If the entire situation bothers you that much, you should spend your hours doing something you might enjoy. Its not like JR is going to read your posts and give you a call for more of your opinions. Says the same poster who seems more concerned with a hitting coach no longer associated with our organization. If you want, just go ahead and put me on ignore. Your telling me I can't be a fan or that somehow you're a more optimistic fan or a diehard believer in Kenny Williams' ability and strategic vision to right the foundering ship is a bit laughable. For all your conspiracy financial theories, I'll say touche....JR could care less what you've posted as well, for that matter, who cares, it's only a sport, it's not life or death, right? But let me get this straight. This season, why have you been posting here with the same consistent message...are you really thinking that you will change people's minds? What's the point?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 8, 2012 -> 10:17 AM) That still doesn't explain places like Oakland and Toronto which do have past histories of drawing fans. Another team that had great attendance, went through a down period and got back at least 50% of their fans (compared to the Indians, Blue Jays and Mariners examples) is Colorado. The Brewers have done a great job moving from a largely-irrelevant small market team to a perennial powerhouse. It's not impossible. And even in the 1980's/early 90's and then again in the late 90's/early 00's, the A's NEVER drew huge crowds. And even though Beane hasn't been very good recently, I credit him for sticking his neck out with the Cespedes signing. You have to take a risk to get a superstar player when the odds are more likely it will go bust and really end up hurting a small-market team for years to come.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 8, 2012 -> 09:59 AM) I remember when KW acquired an $11 million a year #5 starter, people were fine with that. So if Danks is a #3, his contract appears to be right in line. And if the Sox totally bottomed out and got rid of all their top players, you would still be complaining, and there is no guarantee the rebuild will work. The guy pointed out that long rebuilds tend to lose you fans forever. He said one reason TB can't draw 10k is because they were bad so long, people became disinterested forever. People have no patience with the current young guys on the Sox roster. They will have no patience if the entire line up was full of these types of players. They would stop caring all together. That was at a time when JR was willing to open the purse strings and the fans were coming out to support the team because they were putting a good product on the field. Nothing can be worse than this current oblivion we're mired in. Even a GM throwing darts against the wall with a blindfold on has to get something useful back for Floyd, Crain, Thornton, AJ, Alexei, Konerko, Dunn, Danks, etc. With the White Sox generating SO MUCH MORE MONEY than any of those other 6 teams from media rights, with their valuation at #10 in all of baseball, with a pretty inelastic market in terms of season ticket/suite buyers (corporate side) who will be supporting the team indefinitely into the future, they're financially in a much better position to weather the coming storm. Arguably, the Dodgers' sale price (over 20 interested groups in on the sale at one point or another) and upcoming national baseball renegotiated contract dollars/revenue sharing puts the real value of the team in the $900 million to $1 billion range. But seriously. what's the difference between 72-90 with John Danks on the roster and 65-97 without Danks? Will there be ANY difference in attendance? I sincerely doubt it. Moving up 5 spots in the first round of the draft will be much more valuable than then negligible difference in ticket revenues lost from being a semi-horrible team compared to a REALLY horrific one.

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ May 8, 2012 -> 10:04 AM) Cue the "Well one is a starter" noise. I like all the left-handed mystery pitchers we have. They are all gonna be nice filler for that trade that lands us a young bat. Besides Chris Carter for Carlos Quentin, when's the last time we actually landed a good young bat via trade? The organization was also very high on Jon Adkins, Felix Diaz, Sean Tracey, Chris Marquez, Nick Masset, David Aardsma, Sisco, MacDougal, Zach Stewart...now Nestor Molina. PROVE IT with some results on the field instead of the PR/Chris Rongey/Scott Merkin talk.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 8, 2012 -> 09:55 AM) They apparently selected properly yesterday yet some still complain. Stults and Quintana were both good. It really doesn't matter what choice the White Sox make, there are a few people that wait for that choice before deciding the other choice was the proper way to go and no result can show them to be wrong. http://www.southsidesox.com/2012/5/6/30035...n-jose-quintana Now I'll make the same argument, overreact much? You're seriously going to tell me our pitching coach or our scouts are SO GOOD that they can identify a pitcher who's barely on ANY radar screens, who doesn't throw harder than 90-91, who didn't even make it beyond the Yankees' FSL team in four seasons of pitching, who weathered a PED's suspension, who wasn't protected by that same team which is in pretty dire need of pitching help....he's going to be a steady contributor in the future who we count upon? When Quintana came in, the game was already well out of hand. Hector Santiago looked good in two similar appearances last year against the Twins, and it's not like that turned out so well as future projection of big league success. Mopping up in a double-header when the teams just want to get through the games as quickly as possible and actually starting a game against a really good AL line-up are two quite different things. I guess you can argue that Quintana being our best possible option (or Stults or Axelrod) is the biggest condemnation of all regarding our minor league depth in terms of major league ready quality arms at this exact moment in time.

Interestingly, the White Sox are the one team out of the bottom six who hasn't done the "full out" rebuilding with youth, at least not since the late 90's. And yet we're going to have our worst attendance since 2002 and threaten the USCF stadium low 1.3-1.4 milllion mark (1998-99) if this team is knocked out of it again completely in May. As Fathom and many others have been pointing out, there comes a moment when even holding on to a Paul Konerko or Alexei Ramirez makes little to no sense going forward, as there's not any more ground left to fall from an attendance and PR standpoint. It has been a blessing and a curse during the KW years that we never bottomed out completely so that rebuilding could have started in 2007 or 2009 or 2010 or 2011. You can make an argument that 06-07 knocked off 50-75% of the bandwagon fans after the World Series and the remainders were lost the last 3 years with all the internecine warfare and squabbling between KW and Ozzie Guillen. Fans are fed up, and they're not going to come out to pay top dollar for a clearly inferior product, or simply to support former Sox All-Star Robin Ventura. The fact that we hired a manager with ZERO previous experience also has caused skepticism in the fanbase. For all we know, Terry Francona could have managed the club to the same record, we'lll never be able to test what would or could have happened with a more experienced manager, but the seriousness of the organization about winning anytime soon is questionable, some would even say dubious. Now, with Danks' contract on the books going forward, along with Dunn and Rios, we're still hampered payroll-wise to the point where rebuilding is made more difficult. If there's anything that's going to be questioned in the next 2-3 years, it's the intelligence of investing so much money into a #3 starter when the only thing that will pull this team into contention are elite arms like Chris Sale (assuming they actually have the durability to start). But you definitely don't build around John Danks as your franchise cornerstone.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 8, 2012 -> 08:46 AM) Stults was also one of the last players sent down at the end of spring. The Sox obviously like him, and he has a history at the major league level. By any measure he is ahead of Molina right now. But if we're now DEFINITELY going into a phase where the young players have to go everyday (no more Fukudome for Viciedo, for example, or Lillibridge for Morel) then why are we somewhat realistically looking at Stults as being a possibility for the starting rotation in 2012 and beyond? What's the point of wasting innings on him at the major league level? Just to buy time while our AA pitchers are getting ready? Wouldn't we be better served giving pitchers like Simon Castro or Hernandez or even Terry Doyle spot starts instead of a career minor league journeyman? If we are seriously considering an investment of starter's innings in 2012, well, that doesn't bode well for the future at all.

Coming into yesterday's action, for their careers: Quintana, 35 IP in AA Nestor Molina, 58 IP in AA Just think it's interesting we're all saying that Molina is at least a year or more away when Quintana just pops up out of nowhere and nobody is really questioning that decision, or wondering why someone at AAA wasn't selected.

QUOTE (2nd_city_saint787 @ May 8, 2012 -> 12:04 AM) I think Axelrods still the guy they just wanted to bring up Quintana to have a another arm in the pen. That def worked out for them and earned him future consideration should Axelrod fail. Man does this place get annoying when the sox play bad baseball...If I wasnt so addicted to these damn boards I'd stop coming...I'm not in doom and gloom mode yet and its annoying reading posts from those of you that are. I'm still a month away from getting there. If the Cubans dont heat up in that month time span then I start to worry. If they can get it going and the sox can go ADA-Lexi-PK-Dunn-Dayan-AJ-Rios-Becks-Morel then I think the offense can do enough be an over .500 that can contend. As far as the pitching goes, I'm an Axelrod fan and I think he's a capable 4-5 starter. I'm more concerned about Humber than I am Dylan to be honest. That said Dylan might have to become the #4 starter I said I think hes capable of and then we'll have to see If guys like Stults and Quintana are legit or guys like Molina and perhaps Stewart can become serviceable #5s. Just those starting pitching names alone are pretty strong reason to be doom and gloom. Actually, it's actually a much brighter future the more we lose right now because it means we can finally start to turn the pieces on this roster around and stop pretending we're legitimately in the process of competing in 2012. The faster KW acknowledges this, the faster the organization will be able to be competitive again. Just don't believe it can happen under KW at this point.

Just saying, I don't think anyone would have been upset had Quintana gotten totally bombed yesterday. However, had they started Molina instead of Stults, and Molina got lit up like a Christmas tree, it would have been a big story. It's hard to believe the Yankees would just let him go like that with their pitching issues.

Or Justice League versus the Avengers, lol. It's kind of like Mayweather/Pacquiao, has to happen eventually, there's too much money out there. Battle Royale.

Jorge Soler has disappeared from the face of the earth. That situation is taking forever to get untangled.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 8, 2012 -> 05:12 AM) 2 of the 3 hits off Thornton were of the very cheap variety. He was way closer to unlucky last night than bad. But that's exactly what you say every time he falls apart in those situations. It's not just bad luck, it's about having a limited arsenal of pitches and not getting behind in counts. Chunk fastball after fastball over the plate against major league hitters, they'll make contact eventually.

Only for Dominique Strauss-Kahn or Sarkozy/