caulfield12

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 10, 2012 -> 06:16 PM) Out of that list, the contributions from the "Farm system" are pretty minimal. Loaiza wasn't a farm system product. Matt Karchner was a 30 year old journeyman we'd picked up from the Royals a few years earlier. Jenks spent 1/2 of a season in the Sox Farm System after the Angels tired of his act. Thanks, Doc Rock. Saved me some typing. And Konerko had been around a LONG, long time before 2005.

•A source says Cespedes' eventual contract will be in the range of four years and $32MM, writes MLB.com's Joe Frisaro. "Several teams have backed away" from Cespedes' original goal of an eight-year, $60MM contract. Frisaro says the Marlins are among the teams still very interested in the Cuban prospect. •Also from Frisaro, Cespedes is tentatively expected to establish residency in the Dominican Republic on January 15, and then the outfielder will petition Major League Baseball for free agent status.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jan 10, 2012 -> 05:00 PM) Or people can stop being silly and realize Tampa was a freaking expansion team run by the great Chuck Lamar. 2005 onward for Tampa is the model everybody should want to emulate. Minus that one small, tiny, minute detail of the Rays, Twins or A's (the 3 most commonly-cited) never winning it all. We have this conversation over and over. We should look at teams like the Giants, Mariners, Rangers and Cardinals for comparisons in terms of market/financials/media, etc. Maybe the Braves. And that Braves' model still has a patent defect, the lack of enough potent offseason to survive most of those postseasons after 1991-1996.

QUOTE (SOXOBAMA @ Jan 10, 2012 -> 04:50 PM) What kind of team would you like to see next year? A team exemplifying "sustained excellence" as a strategic model, which polls well in the Heartland and finally, just wins, baby! By the way, what were the Blue Jays' attendance numbers over that last decade...? Just as important as their draft position/s. Pretty bleak, compared to the SkyDome rocking in the 80's/early 90's.

And the White Sox don't have to compete in the AL East, our division is much more wide open, historically. Looking at the 2005 roster, almost none of it was built internally, with the exceptions of Frank Thomas, Rowand, Crede and Buehrle. I guess you could count Jenks and Konerko, but not really. 20008 again proved that four well-timed acquisitions (Ramirez, Danks, Quentin and Floyd) can propel a team to the division title. Even though the 2005-06 teams were not homegrown, they had as good a chance as any the Blue Jays or Rays produced to have success for 3+ consecutive years at the major league level...because of that pitching staff. The problem is that Contreras and Garcia were never really the same (Jose for April/May 06 and then poof) and Garland had peaked with us. But we also had Javy Vazquez, on paper...things looked pretty much set and that didn't last another full seaosn before it fell apart. Injuries so often play a huge role. Based on the talent in our farm system from 1998-2001, we should have won at least one World Series. But that great farm system had almost nothing to do with why we eventually ended up winning it...the key players in that group, Rauch and Borchard, were total flops with the White Sox.

Paging Richard Allen to the courtesy Sox Financials booth.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jan 10, 2012 -> 02:04 PM) Nice rebuttal. Or Mike Pepperoni Piazza. The Sox best guys over a decade (developed internally) were Ordonez (FA), C-Lee (FA), Durham, Buehrle, Crede and Rowand. Not so many Top 10 draft picks in that group.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. How many fourth or fifth place teams have we had since 2001? 2007. And that was followed by the 2008 playoff team. Someone needs to take a valium.

I'm starting to think Obama joined SoxTalk yesterday and skipped all the previous threads ever written since mid season 2011. Actually, since 4-18 in April/May. Oh my Lady Gaga...or, to quote Balta, "What the...?"

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Jan 10, 2012 -> 04:34 AM) Damn. Is it your goal to bang someone in every Asian country (and Colombia)? Funny, I never even dated an Asian chick in America except a Chinese one I met while volunteering for Gore/Lieberman in 2000. Before I started travelling, the two ideas were Venezuela/Brazil and Czech Republic/Hungary/Russia/Ukraine. Only the Shadow Knows where I will strike next, lol.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jan 10, 2012 -> 01:54 AM) Wait, so does this mean she wants you to f*** her? If so, you better do that s***. Unprotected sex with a woman and you can simply walk away if/when you get her pregnant? That's the american dream right there. Long as she doesn't look like the Jap version of wite, do it. She is very very cute, 170 cm, 48 kg, to American, model thin (I can't remember which poster here was in SHANGHAI last year, but I'm sure he remembers all the Louis Vuitton high society/fashionable women with black glasses, knee high leather boots, mini-skirts and thighs you can put Michael Jordan's hand all the way around)...like the typical idealized version of Chinese doll (cue David Bowie song). Great in sports, university-educated, amazing karaoke singer and classical dancer, runs a real estate office. The problem is that the more time we spend together...well, it gets more and more complicated. Yeah, she plans to move back to her home province when she has the baby and raise the child with the help of her parents...seems the husband is only in China 3-6 months out of the year. And only one sexual partner her whole life, so don't have to worry about the STD angle (have enough experience with that from my time in Russia, South Korea, Taiwan/HK/China, Indonesia, ESPECIALLY Thailand, Colombia and the Philippines!!!)

QUOTE (knightni @ Jan 9, 2012 -> 11:59 PM) What joke? You're the one with obscure references all the time that make people go "huh?" I was just "joshing," lol. Hard to meet many fellow SoxTalk members in this part of Asia. We can have a "MEET UP" in the Philippines, Kualu Lumpur and Singapore January 26th - 5th of February. No takers? Maybe I have to go back to the Lawrence/KC area again in July/August.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Jan 10, 2012 -> 12:33 AM) I just sometimes think you're on acid or at least a strong weed with the tangents you occasionally go on It's just a byproduct of having to teach English, Writing, Economics, Business, American Government, American History and Culture, World History, Philosophy, Sociology, Psychology, World Geography and African-American History, lol. Never tried any psychotropic drugs...although after this weekend, I very well might try (of course, if was caught in possession of them, being put to death by firing squad in Xinjiang or Gansu Province in the dead of winter doesn't sound like a great idea!). Was recently volunteered to do a "favor," my very good Chinese friend can't get pregnant (she's 29) by her foreign husband, so she now was the bright idea of me doing it this THUR and FRI. I guess I should be flattered, lol. The adoption and sperm bank/sperm donor option...doesn't fit the Chinese traditional model of what's culturally acceptable. See, did it again, haha.

Seriously, with all the SoxTalk "insiders" with their wisecracks, innuendoes and jokes, I share Milkman's concern that only about 50-75% of the site (and, in his case, my posts) is actually intellectually accessible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow

Changing landscape: This has been an interesting period for innovative hires. Under new general manager Jeff Luhnow, the Astros hired former Cardinals analyst Sig Mejdal to a position they term director of decision sciences. He's an aerospace engineer who has worked for Lockheed Martin and NASA. The Cardinals replaced Luhnow as scouting director with 33-year-old Dan Kantrovitz, who had been the A's coordinator of baseball and international operations. He was a star shortstop at Brown University and earned a master's in statistics at Harvard. phil rogers/tribune.com/sports

QUOTE (knightni @ Jan 9, 2012 -> 08:41 PM) How old are you? 42

If Rios can put up a 700-725 OPS and play above average defense (2009-10 version, not 11), then it's a huge plus. Whether he will or won't do that, only the Shadow Knows.

I, for one, would like to see Greg participating with Joe Cowley in a tryout to replace Alex Rios held at KU Baseball Field in Lawrence in late March. Just win, Baby!

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jan 9, 2012 -> 04:22 PM) Are you serious? Classic rebuidling move. All his peripherals suggest DeJesus had a year that was (1) unlucky, and (2) negatively affected by his ballpark. Cubs sign him on a short term deal at an extremely low rate, and now they will benefit not only by having a cheap way to win them a couple extra games for their fans while they rebuild, but also a potentially valuable trade chip at the deadline. That's what some team says to themselves when they sign CoCo Crisp every offseason, or one of those Hairstons. Guess I'll believe it when I see it. Somehow Danks and Quentin had/have very little value to most of baseball, but David DeJesus suddenly does in a similar contract situation? Nick Swisher should have had a monster season in our ballpark, same with Dunn or even Rios...none of those things have materialized. The mind plays tricks on you in those stadiums, a couple of wind-blown homers later and you're trying to jack everything, and that's definitely not DeJesus' game. He's more like a poor man's Johnny Damon, which isn't saying much at this point in his career. I could just imagine Williams signing him to the same contract and putting DeAza on the bench, everyone at SoxTalk would be crying about it for the entire season...almost as if we had brought back Juan Pierre on a two-year contract extension. We also thought Mark Teahen would be benefitted from playing at USCF, not so much. Look at how much Quentin and Beckham have struggled some of these years (at USCF), their splits, home vs away from 2010 and 2011. It's not like the Cubs were able to "leverage" anything out of Carlos Pena, or all those veterans the Royals have signed for the past 20 years have ever turned into very much of substantive value at the trading deadline, either.

He's Venezuelan, right? Miguel is Mike in Spanish, but the last name is not common...sounds more Eastern European.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 9, 2012 -> 08:16 AM) I finally watched Bridesmaids last night...hilarious...the dress scene alone was enough to make the movie...I was a little underwhelmed by Melissa McCarthy's performance, however...I guess my expectations were raised a bit too high. Read they're going to do a sequel potentially without Kristen Wiig. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/brid...niversal-277792 Big mistake. Like doing the Bourne without Matt Damon. We'll see how well that one works out for them.

How is having David DeJesus on your roster rebuilding? We picked up a player who'll be better and cost us virtually nothing in Alejandro DeAza.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jan 9, 2012 -> 06:40 AM) I really dont see how this connects to your previous point at all. Not even close to the same thing Which has/had higher Las Vegas odds? Rios, Dunn and Beckham all making the 2012 All-Star team and Peavy in the Top 5 in the AL Cy Young...or Tebow leading the Broncos to numerous come-from-behind victories and the 2nd round of the playoffs? Which one is more implausible? Both would seem very far-fetched, and yet it's been proven possible. Maybe because of the religious overtones that color Tebow, it's hard to have an "objective" discussion without passions being enflamed...but would the odds of Tebow accomplishing what he has already done be exponentially higher than the scenario just described? If you believe that the White Sox will contend and at least two of those things are possible (one of those 3 makes All-Star team or AL Comeback Player, Peavy in the Top 5 of AL Cy Young, throw in Reed for AL Rookie of the Year or Rookie Pitcher of the Year for good measure). Just trying to make an analogy, since very few posters believe we have the looks of a contender (as is), and that's before dealing Thornton and/or Crain and Floyd.

And then we'll have a $40 million nightmare and clubhouse cancer on our hands, like Milton Bradley. No thanks. I think Rios will have a nice rebound with some positive reaffirmation/support from basically what will amount to a new coaching staff. That tends to have a huge effect on most rosters, at least in ST and the first half of the season. Sustaining it all the way through September, that's another question altogether. But look how far the Broncos have ridden Tebow against all odds, with all the critics in the world ready to pounce after any slip-ups. If the AXIS OF UNDERPERFORMING FOUR all play well, odds are at least 50/50 that should put us on the cusp of contention. Then we can start talking about unloading their contracts. But sitting on the bench collecting dust and cobwebs, forget about it.