caulfield12

QUOTE (Brian @ Jul 11, 2012 -> 03:31 PM) If you like unfulfilling endings, you'll love SAVAGES. Wasn't bad. Just felt more disappointed than pleased when walking out. Yeah...maybe. I really liked the first 3/4th's of the film, but I like Del Toro more than most (definitely an acquired taste) and also a big fan on the novel, so that probably influenced me too much. Watching Moonrise Kingdom, the Anderson movies blows anything out of the water that I've seen pretty much all year. Then again, many people don't love Wes Anderson or Aronofsky, for example Acquired tastes.

Hence, guys like Nathan Jones or Soptic being ranked 25-35th, despite their stuff. And guys like Johnson and Petricka much higher. By the way, have we seen any results from the kid (pitcher) that Paddy signed out of Venezuela for $250,000? Mitch Mustain, haha?

Definitely, go with ceiling/potential. That's why Thompson is off the charts to an extent, or Hawkins, or Barnum. For my list, I'll just stick Petricka at #15. We these things, u have to ask "who could potentially be a major league All-Star caliber player?" That's where Sanchez falls a bit short, lacking both plus speed or power. And, because there aren't any other middle infield prospects in our system, it makes him appear a bit better than he really is, perhaps. Axelrod is pretty much interchangeable with Zach Stewart...and until Molina shows better stuff, any amount of control makes him not so much better than a glorified Matt Guerrier. Someone mentioned Wells, Danny Wright...those guys were potentially 1/2 frontline starters. We really don't have any of those types....maybe Castro, maybe Beck, maybe no one at all. It's going to take a huge turnaround for most of us to believe he's (Molina or Axelrod) anything more than a back-end of the rotation guy. I wonder where Doyle would have ranked here? Probably 5-10 for some people, not in the Top 15 or even 20 for most others. It makes for some interesting arguments. Or even where Zach Stewart would have ranked if he was still considered as a starting prospect, not a reliever and he hadn't forfeited his "rookie" status with 50 IP.

MOONRISE KINGDOM, highly recommended....like Super 8 combined with Stand By Me with the usual Anderson twist Interested in seeing FLIGHT (D. Washington, pilot does a Sully Sullinger but it later turns out he was under the influence of alcohol, even though he ends up saving everyone with an unbelieveable landing nobody else could have pulled off, drunk or sober) and the new Ben Affleck one (ARGO) about the Iranian hostage crisis based on true events supposedly....with John Goodman, Bryan Cranston and Alan Arkin, among others....they have to pretend to be a Canadian film crew shooting a movie in Iran and sneak out with everyone in the country still looking for them

1 Simon Castro 2 Jared Mitchell 3 Courtney Hawkins (I should get killed pretty good for this in here) 4 Keon Barnum 5 Carlos Sanchez 6 Charlie Leesman 7 Pedro Hernandez 8 Josh Phegley (opinions varied widely on this guy) 9 Trayce Thompson 10 Nestor Molina 11 Rangel Ravelo (Have him migher than most would) 12 Dylan Axelrod 13 Andre Rienzo 14 Keenyn Walker 15 Chris Beck 16 Jordan Danks 17 Tyler Saladino 18 Erik Johnson 19 Kevan Smith 20 Jacob Petricka 1. Hawkins 2. Mitchell 3. Castro 4. Beck 5. Barnum 6. Molina 7. Thompson 8. P. Hernandez 9. Leesman 10. Walker 11. Sanchez 12. Soptic 13. Saladino 14. Rienzo 15. Soptic

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jul 11, 2012 -> 11:29 AM) Wherever did they say JR wasnt willing to take on additional salary? Pretty much every season JR gives KW money to make moves if they feel that there is a chance to win it. Everything you are saying above is just you guessing, we have no idea what is or is not an option or monetarily feasible. Well, yeah....Dick Allen and someone, I think "iamshack" already had this debate. It is a fact, however, that it does SOMEWHAT limit our options in terms of acquisitions if money/payroll space is the only weapon in our arsenal. We got really really lucky with Youkilis. He was the victim of circumstances in Boston. But the odds of that happening twice...especially now with everyone focusing on the trademark and buying/selling...not nearly as good.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jul 11, 2012 -> 11:06 AM) What matters is the major league team, not who was drafted and who is fumbling around in the minors. And more often than not, Ozzie was given some really good teams that never played up to potential. Yes, BUT... If JR isn't willing to take on additional salary, then it severely hamstrings our ability to make a deal for an impact pitcher. Mitchell just doesn't quite make it right now as the centerpiece of any type of trade. Same with Castro. Intriguing, sure, but you don't trade a Hamels or Greinke for huge question marks. Even those "sure thing" guys like Maybin/Andrew Miller or all the prospects the Brewers gave up for Sabathia, or the Mets for Santana....none of those guys have panned out.

Would have liked to see Beck higher, but he has to prove it himself. Just based on potential, in our system, he should be a Top 10 guy. Once they get his muscle mass down and get back to the basics with his mechanics, he should be a better pitching prospect overall than Molina. Saladino's fallen quite a bit, but there are some obvious reasons which were duly noted. The only way he could be a major league starter is at SS or 2B, definitely not 3B. Needs to rediscover that missing power. Probably would have had Soptic higher, too. Some names that didn't make it: Wilkins (struggling average-wise), Heath, Veal, Olacio, Santos Rodriguez, Kenny Williams, Jr. (haha), SS we just signed from DR, Miguel Gonzalez, Jaye or Webb (the two kids we got from the Jays for Frasor) A lot of people like Hansen and Ayala from this draft. One other thing that sticks out is how low Quintana and Jones were coming into the season, even here....where these prospects are followed religiously.

But look at all the players who KW was part of drafting that were hybrid baseball/football players or never taught how to play the game fundamentally well... You can blame it on the minor league staff, but drafting athletes and turning them into baseball players hasn't worked on the position player side. Beckham was supposed to be a "pure/natural/instinctive baseball player" and look where we're at with him. It's like he is either listening too much to others or he won't listen enough and he's stubborn, because you can't have a 15 homer guy striking out 150 times per season and not hitting well with RISP or advancing runners professionally. We've proven we can find pitching talent. And maybe Viciedo will become an All-Star. And maybe Hawkins or Barnum will make it, but we've always done better finding guys like Quentin and DeAza when they're with other organizations. It is fitting that Youkilis kind of represents something we've never been able to produce ourselves. High OBP. Patience. Ability to professionally work an at-bat and extend it. Clutch hitter. Granted, there aren't that many Youkilises out there...but it's almost like Morel was the anti-Youkilis in terms of patience and drawing walks. And yeah, we might produce a "grindy" infielder like an Aaron Miles or Chris Getz from time to time, but they're not impact players. And while a LOT of teams missed on Trout, it's ironic that we picked the high risk/high reward guy in Mitchell instead. (At least Mitchell's proven he can take a walk in 2012, there's that.)

http://www.cleveland.com/tribe/index.ssf/2...ering_grie.html Union/Indians' Hagadone might be filing a grievance over pay. Interesting case.

JC Romero is available. I would take him over the inexperienced Septimo, who has no clue how to hold runners on and spotty control. Juan Uribe has a 25% chance (or more) of becoming available to bolster the bench. http://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgersnow/l...0,3368879.story

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Jul 10, 2012 -> 11:14 PM) I remember the use to be a show called Sports Writers one of them was Gleason and some other old guys. They always made the younger guys (Morrisey?) look like a dope. Those guys new their stuff. I miss having journalists do commentary. Now it's ex jocks. Telander was always there. There was another old writer with very grey hair, 60's, veteran guy whose name escapes me...yeah, they were MUCH MUCH better. I think he must have written for the South Bend paper or possibly Daily Southtown or Herald....? Looked it up, Bill Jauss. Bill Jauss, Bill Gleason, Ben Bentley, Joe Mooshill, Lester Munson, and Rick Telander

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Jul 10, 2012 -> 11:53 PM) I thought that the benefit of having Ventura is he adds an extra set of eyes for a hitting coach. Those hitting coaches can miss a lot of things after being with players for so long. Walker did not have this advantage. Ozzie and Cora were glove guys. Even under Ozzie the Sox were some of the best fielding teams. I also believe the success is due to more teams being bad. After the way Detroit finished last season you would think there wouldn't be a division race this year. The Twins are getting to the level of Cub bad. Two of the important pieces last season weren't even mediocre. You have Peavy back to form, Dunn driving in runs, Rios having a decent year. Those things add up tremendously. If that existed last year they might have won the division. As much as people don't like to hear it on this site, journalists outside of Chicago gave Ozzie credit for having the team still in the race that long with some unproductive big name players. I hope this doesn't escalate into an Ozzie vs. Ventura thread. I still think the Tigers are going to take the division. The Sox had to rely on a lot of youth for success. Who knows how that will pan out when there is a lot more pressure. Sale and Quintana have out performed Danks and Floyd. That's not a good thing. I just think the veteran Tigers are going to beat the kids this year. If it turns out that way I won't be too disappointed. We are seeing achieving instead of the usual under achieving. You are not turning the TV off after the 7th thinking it's an automatic loss when they are down. I think with guys like Dunn and Rios performing better it takes some pressure off guys like Beckham. Alexi seems to have lost some power but he has made some key hits. At the beginning of the year, we kept saying that we were giving up 7-8 wins by subtracting Quentin, Santos and Buehrle. Santos has been adequately replaced by Reed, although last year's bullpen was better on paper. Quentin and Viciedo are about a wash, overall, because obviously CQ would have missed 2 months. Quintana has made up for the loss of Buehrle, but the fall offs from Danks and Humber have really hurt. Youkilis adds a huge bat and presence. Let's say Konerko, Beckham, Dayan (I actually think he'll do better in the 2nd half), DeAza have played about as expected...perhaps Paulie should fall OPS-wise, but his HR and RBI numbers are actually below-average for him. Ramirez has good RBI totals but very little power. Rios can't expected to continue to be this good, while Dunn hopefully will be similar, while cutting down the K's. AJ will regress, for no other reason than playing too often and wearing down in the heat of July/Aug/September. The bench and bullpen is a weak spot and a worry, but DET's is no sure thing, either. As usual, it's going to come down to pitching. On paper, DET has us beat unless Danks comes back and contributes like we expected b4 the season or we make another major addition. DET, if they add some offense (2B, LF, RF, DH)....let's just say they have more room or expectation to improve offensively than we do, with an owner willing to spend and a better minor league system. That 16/19 stretch on the road, we'll be pretty fortunate to still be in 1st place at the end of that stretch. After that, it gets a lot easier. Just need to be no worse than 4-6 games over .500 (8-11/7-12). Then we face the Angels, who might actually end up being the best team in the AL if they can get enough starting pitching. Tough. Has the feel of that 2008 race, where it will be a grind all the way down to the end...87-88-89 wins to take the division.

Greg, u knew you weren't going to do a line-by-line rebuttal. He's admitted he drinks (excessively) after most road games in his hotel. He's proudly admitted letting his coaches do most of the work and not paying attention to stats or modern managerial techniques...even though he's one of the most "textbook" or by the book predictable managers in recent years you could ever imagine (except for the ones which are illogical, like Pierre over Viciedo, Kotsay/Jones over Dunn, not benching Dunn or Rios last year, etc.) He was just trying to throw some catchy alliteration out there to punctuate his post persuasively. I thought it was one of the better attack jobs on Guillen all year, but the thing is...is it unfair? It's definitely a criticism, but of all the things he wrote, which ones can you disagree with in a coherent way, except for taking exception to the language used? Those are rules for attacking other posters, by the way, not a public figure like Guillen.

QUOTE (False Alarm @ Jul 10, 2012 -> 11:10 AM) best books i've read since last aug/sep were hundred years of solitude (reread) and blood meridian, both of which i'm sure you've read. best few after those: the last unicorn, peter s beagle the year of the death of ricardo reis, saramago a dance with dragons, grrm never knew another, jm mcdermott i ain't gonna summarize em. throw em into google and read the jacket descriptions. now that i look at it, all four are fantasy of some type (you could call the saramago magic realism and argue that magic realism ain't fantasy, if you were in the mood). kind of a coincidence--i like mystery and SF and so-called literary fiction too. as for DFW, i knew him a long time ago. had him a couple semesters at ISU. great guy, great teacher. i've read only a few short stories and an essay or two of his writing, so i don't have a strong opinion on him as a writer. his talent is obvious, at least. suppose i'll take up IJ one of these days. I've heard of Saramago, pretty sure I've read something of his. My favorite fantasy writer is probably Terry Brooks. I'm currently addicted to Haruki Murakami novels. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and IQ84 were so good that I checked out all ten of his other novels (After Dark is a short novella I just read this afternoon)... For Marquez, I've read most of his majors works...having lived in Colombia, he's such an icon there. My Melancholy Whores was the most recent. Snow Country is another novel that I greatly enjoyed this summer vacation. And yeah, Cormac McCarthy is one of my favorites. Very talented writer. Dave Eggers, too.

Cue discussion of Quantrill's Raid, Nathan Bedford Forrest, John Brown and the Burning/Looting of Lawrence.

Like the Marlins, CLE went through two complete rebuilds/tear-downs. 2002-2003, and after the 2007 team almost went to the World Series (CC, Lee, Victor Martinez, Peralta) I think you can survive one in a decade, but not two. And then the economic problems in the Rust Belt...and the complete lack of faith in Dolan, who was pretty much another version of Huizenga minus the World Series championship to put on his resume from 1997.

I'm in a catcher anywhere in the world...I want to be in the White Sox system right now. There's free and clear path straight to the majors in 2-3 seasons.

Greg? Well, Bruney and D. Heath didn't contribute much, YET. But the Charlotte/rookies on the roster point is well-taken. Wish there would be something more substantive on: 1) Holding runners on base (note to Leyson Septimo, NOT GOOD!) 2) Throwing out runners 3) Hitting with RISP 4) Outfield assists 5) Advancing runners to 2nd or 3rd with less than 2 outs 6) Scoring runners from 3rd with less than 2 outs 7) Throwing through or to the cutoff man, instead of allowing the trail runner to move to 2nd

QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ Jul 10, 2012 -> 08:36 AM) I think the one thing we're overlooking here is that Dunn did not say his son's condition caused his abysmal season. Nor does the article say that. And I didn't read anywhere that the condition was recently diagnosed. It sounds more like there were many things that affected his performance, and this may have been just a small part of it. Amen. Well, thankfully, he (Dunn) didn't have another 1st half like last season, or it really would have gotten quite ugly had a story like this been planted by the PR department. All things considered, Alex Rios is a player that all of us could have done without, and he's been one of our MVP's so far. That's the one thing I never saw coming....an Alex Rios who was "too emotional" and hustled his butt off in the field and on the basepaths.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jul 10, 2012 -> 08:00 AM) This would be an appropriate time for Ed Norton. You never answered the question. Maybe it would be a better time for Bana or Ruffalo. Unless it's the American History X version, or Italian Job Norton. When is possible to blame a coach/player/manager 100% for their actions without being able to make up an excuse to rationalize it?

I wonder what would have happened had Mike Anderson or Haith been there at the event and been booed? Would the fans have been accused of being racist? Or just hating Mizzou, the 50% of fans who go across the state line on I-435 from Johnson County (KS) to attend games? Self is a dick, if you're a fan of another team, just like AJ is, or John Calipari, or 50% of the golfers on the PGA tour. But, trying to think of a similar situation, I don't think I'd boo Bruce Weber or Bo Ryan ever as an Iowa fan. Maybe Lou Henson/Jimmy Collins, lol. So it's 50% the rivalry, 50% being a dick. Need both to qualify for a full boo.

Now this is actually the best strength that Ozzie Guillen had... Interestingly, it's coming up now, when many felt he played Dunn and Rios on purpose to humiliate KW, and refused to play Viciedo over Pierre. It always giving the players an "open door" and prioritizing family commitments or problems over winning baseball games. Of course, some fans get upset the players are paid so well and taking off games for this reason, but Ozzie stood his ground on this issue for the entirety of his managerial career. It reminded me...someone was criticizing Brenly in a local sports bar for taking off a recent road trip to NYC...because "his salary is something like $1 million to do something he loves, so why should he get time off during the season when normal people have to work?" So then you have the split argument. Dunn was selfish for not pulling himself from the line-up to deal with this...or Dunn has no right at the salary he's making to ask for concessions from his employer, as nobody else in "regular life" would be granted weeks/months of paid sick/vacation leave to take care of a child. And maybe it would be a different story if he was a single father and didn't have parents or relatives around to look after his child 24/7.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jul 10, 2012 -> 05:08 AM) The menendez brothers? Evil actions in history??? Hitler??? Followed by Brian Anderson???? WTF There is an excuse for everyone now in America. It's not the solution to blame external causes. For example, Jake Peavy in 2011 didn't say he sucked because he was still coming back from his surgery. He might have mentioned it a few times, but his barometer was always his performance level back in 2006-07-08, even if he had diminished velocity, he still held himself accountable for getting similar results. So my question then is, what can we appropriately blame someone for? Another example, even though a lot of my "B" class students are super rich, spoiled and lazy, their parents or school administrators won't take any responsibility when their IELTS scores are low. They'll blame the teachers for not motivating them, not pushing them hard enough, etc. Maybe it's human nature. The GM blames the manager, the manager blames the players (or his coaches), it's a vicious cycle. Same thing happens in schools. High school teachers always ask how the hell did middle school teachers ever pass the students on when they were so improperly prepared. Middle school teachers ask what the heck was going on in that elementary school? Elementary or K teachers blame the parents when the students have only mastered 2000-4000 vocabulary words by age 5 when many of the suburban kids are at the 20,000 mark. It's like saying I'm going to blame Greg if the White Sox lose 2/3 to the Royals or get swept...because his bad "aura" or energy or "qi" will rub off on the Sox players from the stands, as he is projecting them to fail, so they will feel Greg's negative vibes from the OF bleachers and self-implode.

Ben Sheets strikes me as a KW target, fwiw. Mitchell continuing to flail away, 0/5 with 3 k's. Saladino actually passed him in batting average.