caulfield12

QUOTE (SpainSOXfan09 @ Sep 20, 2011 -> 05:56 PM) Hey Caul, if he visited China would you hope he would be near you so you could track him down and give him a piece of your mind? :lolhitting Surely it would be an enjoyable conversation. (A point for Greg's team on this one). Probably zero baseball talk, and more discussion of politics and the common experiences of living in South America. I wouldn't even bother to ask him a baseball-related question as his response would be as predictable as Rongey's.

http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/daily-take...ont-work-anymor Good Passan article on the demise of the baseball movie (Bull Durham/Major League/Field of Dreams) and why Moneyball comes up short...along with the changing world demographics of movie watching and the growing appeal of the NFL (and I'll add NASCAR).

Guillen is Catholic, is he not? As much as many of us don't want Ozzie to be the manager next year, to deliberately misconstrue this particular quote is the right way to go about it.

He’s planning a trip to Spain with his wife two days after Chicago’s final game on Sept. 28 and was unsure if White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf will let him know on an extension before he leaves the country. Guillen doesn’t want to be talking baseball once he’s on vacation. “I don’t want to spend time with my wife thinking about baseball or thinking about my future,” he said. “I hope my conversation having dinner with my wife is about having fun and forgetting about this crazy summer and this very sad summer, if you put it that way.” Chicago, expected to contend for the AL Central title, is finishing a disappointing season. The White Sox are in third place with a 74-78 record and were eliminated from the playoffs last week. Guillen admitted the White Sox fell short of expectations. “I don’t say (it was) embarrassing, but we didn’t get where we wanted to get,” Guillen said. “It makes you think, and it makes you wonder if you’re that good. It makes you wonder if you’re managing well and if my coaching staff did its job.” Several key players, most notably Adam Dunn(notes) and Alex Rios(notes), have had poor seasons. Guillen’s decision to go with a six-man pitching rotation also has been questioned. “At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “You had a losing season. That’s all that matters. A lot of people have to look at themselves in the mirror from the top to the bottom to see if we did the right thing with this ballclub this year.” Guillen knows as manager he should be held accountable for what happened this season. “I will take the blame,” he said. “I don’t make any excuses for anything. They gave me a good ballclub, and we didn’t play well. We didn’t play the way we should be playing; I should be part of that.” www.yahoo.com/sports

QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ Sep 20, 2011 -> 08:38 AM) What makes me laugh (or cry) is that the past 12 or 15 pages were consumed by one argument. That being replacing Dunn with Lillibridge. Now, I didn't take the time to read every single post, but I think I got the idea. I don't remember anyone saying that playing Lillibridge over Dunn saves the season. But that's what the argument became. Well, that and sticking out tongues, name-calling, and inaccurate claims of having won the argument. I don't see how anyone can't see that playing Lillibridge over Dunn gives this team a better chance of winning (and I think that was the original thought). Dunn was almost always a certain strikeout or weak flyball to centerfield when Lillibridge has shown THIS SEASON that he had a better chance of getting a hit, including a HR. Throw out as many numbers as you want and skew them how you wish, but on August 1, how could anyone say, "Well, I'd rather have Dunn up right now with two outs and the bases loaded"? Don't start that argument, lol. Lillibridge has been pretty horrific the last 2-3 months in bases loaded situations. Probably not possible to be WORSE than Dunn, but he's not one of the names that come to mind you'd want up at the dish, either.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 20, 2011 -> 12:36 PM) Alexei's turned into a pretty darn good glove man as well. Because of Vizquel in 2010, not having Teahen/Viciedo next to him or Cora?

We can't get another 12-15 pages out of this topic today? I woke up in China and thought something interesting had actually happened with so many pages....but, alas, it was not to be. Getting a compliment from Victory is like having Floyd Mayweather, Randy Moss, Russell Crowe and Greg Walker on my side. Well, better than bozzie or bossie or whatever his name is, I guess.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/site/newspap...0,2328106.story Konerko, "It's Failure" on the Sox missing the post-season yet again.

QUOTE (VictoryMC98 @ Sep 19, 2011 -> 08:03 PM) a voice of reason in this insane place.. Nicely done.. Nicely done... The other name I would love to see.. Billy Beane, just think if he had cash what he might be able to do. I don't know enough about the up and coming GMs out there to throw their name in the hat.. My only problem.. I don't know if Hahn is a KW right hand man, or just doing his job to save it.. ( you know what I mean) But, I agree this organization needs a reboot from the top down.. Does JR have the business sense to do what is right for the organization long term? Before the All-Star Break, Lillibridge was hitting .256 with an 816 OPS. He had already cooled off a little bit after his hot start when Guillen started playing him more and more sporadically. As far as Beane goes, what would the Oakland A's have been without 1) Mulder/Zito/Hudson/Harden and 2) steroids for Giambi/Chavez/Tejada? Terry Ryan of the Twins was/is a much better general manager. He just doesn't have the advantage of a PR machine, the sabremetrics world, DePodesta and JP Ricciardi, etc. JR doesn't have so many years left. He knows how important this decision is...and that bringing KW and Guillen both back will just delay the inevitable falling out and worsen the situation that much more than it already is.

What the hell is going on here? With the suspicious comments about SoxTalk from Ozney (I think it was him) and that CSN column...one almost is starting to believe that it has to be someone with the Guillen family, Cowley's family, someone who's stubbornly recalcitrant in their Guillen Knee Jerk Defense. The fact of that matter is that nobody could have done worse than Dunn over that time frame. Certainly not Lillibridge. There are plenty of others....DeAza (when he wasn't playing for Rios), Viciedo, heck, arguably Vizquel, Kuhn and Milledge, to name just a few. Or Flowers, when AJ wasn't playing. None of those aforementioned scenarios are empirically-refutable...just as there will be some arguing that Dunn has now been "ruined for life" because he was forced by KW to the bench down the stretch, using Rongey's "you can never sit your way out of a slump" argument. There are so many arguments going back and forth it makes your head spin. Does it really matter who's to blame, 75%/25% or 50/50 or "it's all Reinsdorf's fault." KW backed himself into the uncomfortable position of "doubling down" and JR obviously signed off on it. The entire organization needs to be torn apart (yes, that means Brooks Boyer and Rongey too) with the only two left standing potentially Hahn and Don Cooper. I really think Sox fans are going to go bananas if they have to listen to an entire offseason and then April of Dunn/Rios/Beckham excuses/explanations. Or how Jake Peavy will pitch like the Cy Young winner he formerly was after another offseason of recovery, etc. The whole situation is toxic. KW and Ozzie both need to be shown the door. Who knows, maybe Epstein will be available if Boston collapses. Then again, he wouldn't have the money or the organizational imperative to build a farm system (especially international signings), so I'm not sure why he would ever leave Boston unless he was fired or JR offered an open checkbook, which just doesn't seem to jive with the current economic situation the White Sox are facing moving forward.

QUOTE (gatnom @ Sep 19, 2011 -> 04:29 AM) All I'm really saying is that you don't need to be the Royals or Pirates or whatever team to rebuild your franchise. The main thing I'm advocating is that we should trade away our 2008 "core" since it's getting to the point where they need to be paid what they are worth, and we don't have a lot of money to throw around while we wait for our bad contracts to expire. Oh, and by the way, we could spend as much as the Pirates on the draft and still have a $90 million big league budget, assuming our "maximum" payroll is $100 million. Nothing is going to force JR and the owners to start pocketing an extra $30 million. So why keep Konerko and Buehrle as well if we wouldn't be able to compete until 2014 probably?

QUOTE (gatnom @ Sep 19, 2011 -> 01:02 AM) You really need to quit the rebuilding hyperbole. You can't exactly call it reloading, but we're much closer to that than any type of rebuilding why KW is still in charge. Maybe a new GM (Hahn) would be given the Marty34 directive, but, until that happens...it's a moot argument. One thing's for sure, it would take Ozzie Guillen another 3-4 years to be fired leading that youth movement into the ground...if his ego would even allow him to take a step back from the pretense of competitiveness in the AL Central and go with the Jerry Manuel late 90's program.

I'm still not sure exactly what Cora or Baines have done with the Sox besides 1) being Ozzie's buddy and 2) Camp Cora, which has seen, at best, dubious results. (See Fields, Josh and Viciedo, Dayan at 3B)

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Sep 18, 2011 -> 11:09 PM) I cant believe how comfortable people are with just dumping Mark Buehrle. Its so ridiculous. There's a difference between "dumping" Mark Buehrle and dumping Magglio Ordonez. He can't go to the Cardinals, their rotation is set for 2012. So unless we 1) don't want him back or 2) lowball him to the point where he's insulted, the likelihood of him returning to the White Sox would have to be considered at least 75%. I would love to have him back. My argument (in this particular thread) is you don't want Mark Buehrle (or Konerko for that matter) for 2012 if you're trading away Quentin, Floyd, Danks, Santos and Ramirez.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Sep 18, 2011 -> 08:54 PM) You must have Ramirez confused with a Hall of Famer. You can't argue both sides. He's either nowhere close to a Hall of Famer and can be easily replaced by Brent Lillibridge, Saladino or Escobar, or he's the most valuable trading chip we have in our stable, by far. Which is it? You'd rather pay Mark Buehrle $12-14 million per year to be the equivalent of a #3 or #4 starter, yet you don't see any value in keeping Ramirez around? Why would we bother to keep Konerko and Buehrle if we were basically dismantling the entire team? Isn't now the best time to unload Konerko's contract before he goes south, too?

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Sep 18, 2011 -> 09:35 PM) Too many sliders is my feeling on Santos. I get the feeling you want to keep this team together. Of course not, that's silly. But, unlike in the world of fantasy leagues, it's not easy to just get rid or Dunn and Rios. Peavy's not a great concern, seems that he would be the least of our problems in 2012. If we got replacement or above replacement level offensive numbers from Dunn and Rios, we would have been in a decent position to compete even with Beckham falling off a cliff offensively. If nothing else, you're arguing against the decision KW made in 2007, which was to keep Buehrle/Thome/Dye, etc., and move forward instead of tearing that team apart. Are we really worse off than we were heading into 2008? How so? This approach in 2007 would have prevented 2008 from ever happening...and, if Quentin hadn't gotten hurt, you can make a legit argument we could have gone much deeper into the playoffs, especially if we could have bypassed Javy and not gone down to Game 163.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Sep 18, 2011 -> 09:08 PM) I don't think Santos' shelf life will be all that long. Let's see what we can get for him. Appreciate the support for breaking the team up! This theory on Santos is based on what? A hunch? Having one of the best sliders of any reliever? A consistent mid 90's fastball? The fact that as someone who's only been a pitcher for about 3 years, he's already maxed out his ability? Or you're extrapolating based entirely on his recent blown saves against the Tigers? That he's going to fall apart as a closer eventually, that he's not mentally strong or tough enough? Do you really want Addison Reed as the closer for 2012? And then what happens when we get off to a similar start as 2011 when Thornton was the closer? We just sell off the entire team before mid-season and drive down the attendance to 1.2 million? Is this based on your idea that Reinsdorf was going to get paid for 2 million in attendance no matter what he spends on payroll...even if it was $50-65 million?

I'm not getting what the point is with Marty trying to tear the entire team apart. So we can play the likes of Escobar and Saladino in the future? In order to set the record for lowest attendance/lowest payroll/highest payroll efficiency in the AL? Sure, our payroll was only $65 million or so when we won in 2005, but that was a long time ago economically. As long as the Tigers are spending the way they are, that means with have to be 2-3X as good with our minor league development system. If the Tigers are spending twice as much, there's simply no margin for error. All of those trades (especially Santos, Danks and Alexei Ramirez) have to break perfectly for the Sox, like Danks/McCarthy, Quentin/Carter, Floyd/Garcia. At this point, we're not going to get anything close to a Top 30-50 minor league prospect for Quentin. But discounting the reality of how hard it is to find a reliable closer and how hard it would be to replace Ramirez...well, it sounds more like Marty is an accountant for JR rather than a baseball fan. And, in actuality, an accountant would know you have to spend money to make money. Why trading away Ramirez/Santos/Quentin/Floyd/Danks BUT keeping Mark Buehrle is going to do anything for our record or attendance, I have no idea. And it's not like the Indians or Royals can't threaten to come up and bite us, either. For now, with Morneau/Span potentially never playing again, the Twins can't be the primary concern.

Ryan Gosling’s artsy thriller Drive raced into third place with $11 million. The R-rated FilmDistrict production, directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, played mostly to an older crowd, as 75 percent of the audience was 25 or older. Unfortunately, not everyone who saw the film liked it — despite strong critical reviews, audiences issued Drive a harsh “C–” CinemaScore grade, which does not bode well for its box-office longevity. Hopefully this is not a sign of things to come to Gosling/Refn collaborations. The film earned a fair $3,818 per theater average. Looks like yet another movie the critics and public will disagree completely on. If movies like The Zookeeper can get a higher CinemaScore grade, you just wonder what the world is coming to... By the way, watched one of Gosling's first movies, "The Believer," that movie is almost as good as American History X. Contagion was a bit antiseptic (no pun intended) for a medical thriller. The first 45 minutes were good...but it seemed more like something from a textbook and you never cared about the fate of any of the characters involved despite the many big names in the project. Matt Damon wasn't as good as usual, IMO. I guess many filmgoers were happy Gwyneth Paltrow was knocked off in the first five minutes.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Sep 18, 2011 -> 10:55 AM) did you really just take this thread seriously? And write a mile long post about it? Only caulfield. If you actually think that's a mile long post, well...I'm not quite sure what to say. I guess I should be like Oney and just out sent tweets.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Sep 17, 2011 -> 03:08 PM) Wow, Morel's walking and hitting for power. Never thought I'd see this happen. But we've seen the same kind of thing out of Josh Fields, Beckham or even Brian Anderson. Let's see if it's sustainable for 150+ games....especially when the White Sox are still in the race and every game counts.

The thing is...and even if it's just a theoretical exercise, 20 years ago, having this conversation would get everyone laughed at. With the success of "non-traditional" backgrounds such as Ivy Leaguers and MBA's succeeding now as GM's, the door is open, but only a bit. In that sense, many future executives do have Billy Beane to thank...for making nerdy but stat-saavy cool. However, as a manager...it's very hard to this day to imagine someone without any professional baseball experience 1) getting more than a job interview and 2) getting the respect of his players, unless he could prove right off the bat that he could help them individually perform as well as make the team stronger than the sum of all its parts. Scouting, same thing. The areas that have really opened up since the early 90's essentially have been broadcasting and the front office. If you took anyone who posted at SoxTalk and made them manager this year, they wouldn't have won more than 85 games or lost more than 90. There's more to it than Steve Fisher just rolling out the ball for the Fab Five every night and letting them do whatever they wanted.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Sep 16, 2011 -> 11:47 PM) I thought I'd heard that the Cardinals' rotation was already set for 2012? For the first time in years the Cardinals have some expectation of depth. 'Waino’ (Wainright) and Carpenter should project for a combined 400 innings even if the club handles Wainwright gingerly post-surgery. Jaime Garcia is locked up for 4 years. Jake Westbrook and Kyle Lohse are under contract through 2012 for about $20 million combined. Kyle McClellan, Lance Lynn and Brandon Dickson offer alternatives, though the arbitration-eligible McClellan may fit better in small-market rotation. The Cardinals love what Edwin Jackson has provided since his July 27 acquisition; however, the Cardinals are all about short-term contracts given their current posture. Seems like there's not a place for him (Buehrle)...or they would have to trade Lohse, and that would make their rotation (with the Carpenter signing) way too expensive to even dream about bringing back Pujols. Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/sports/columns/rou...l#ixzz1YCvNK9Mb

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Sep 16, 2011 -> 11:17 PM) Thor was second to the first Iron Man for superhero movies in the last few years. And it was close. X-Men/First Class and Captain America were arguably better than Thor. Hard to beat the first Iron Man, though. Hard to be much worse than Green Lantern, as well.

Dick Allen would be the CFO. What was Tex's job, again? Sox Advance Scout/Contrarian?