caulfield12

QUOTE (qwerty @ Apr 20, 2011 -> 11:44 AM) It all makes sense in the brain of caulfield. Which is disturbing. Post of the Year. Quite clever. At least try to have some style, like Bob Dylan employed incisively. Maybe you can just send a private text message between each other, Caulfield : LOL BFF

QUOTE (NCsoxfan @ Apr 20, 2011 -> 02:26 PM) A great benefit of my job is my building overlooks the Durham Bulls park. I just walked over and caught a few innings of the game. A few comments: -Jhonny Nunez was absolutely blowing people away. I think his strike out on desmond jennings was on a 95mph pitch. -Viciedo looked terrible against the Bulls good ppitcher (de la rosa??), but hit a solid single off the "blue monster" in a later inning. Beautiful day outside, wish i could stay the whole time!!! Nunez, Bruney and Kinney have all been pitching well so far. The starting pitching depth is the problem, though, as usual.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 20, 2011 -> 03:41 PM) And I'd venture a guess that there are very few managers in baseball history who average 89 wins, and even fewer who are currently available. Besides Joe Torre due to his time with the Yankees...? Braves' years probably pull the average down, though. Cito Gaston? Cox? Scioscia?

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Apr 20, 2011 -> 10:03 AM) Everybody seems to forget that. Any time someone's head is called for, it's a knee jerk reaction. It's never the culmination of years of disappointment due to the ineptitude and failings of the manager or general manager. Remnants of 2008 and 2010. If we didn't have the miracle playoff run the last week (along with Minny collapse) in 2008 (along with the fortuitous coin flip) and the 26-5/38-13 spurt last year, you're right...it would be hard for even the staunchest optimists to use much more than the Cardinals/Astros/Rockies and the fact that it's the Royals/Indians and not the Twins/Tigers out in first and second.

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ Apr 20, 2011 -> 10:01 AM) First loss was a blown save so you can say that was the starting point. The Sox held a lead in every game until that point and have since lead for a whole half iniing of play the last five games. The triple play may not have killed the momentum of this team but the 6 runs in two innings to a terrible offense seems to have killed any confidience this team has. Basically our season has boiled down to a triple play (Alexei), the dreaded A's series at home and letting TB get their first win of the season, all via blown saves...along with Juan Pierre, Matt Thornton, Opening Day offensive fireworks and the amazing comeback versus Soria. It has now been 8 days since Alexei's walk-off homer. Seems like a month.

Otherwise, you'll have to go into Jerry Reinsdorf's brain and plant the idea that "all in" wasn't such a good idea after all and reverse the Hudson/Jackson, Peavy and Swisher trades (both for good measure).

Val Kilmer looked very bloated to me in his recent movie appearances, hopefully he's in better physical condition now. After Top Gun, he was riding on top of the world, but he gained a reputation for being one of the most prickly and demanding actors in Hollywood. Interesting to see that he's still intimately involved in Native American issues after filming the movie "Thunderheart" about Wounded Knee almost 20 years ago now. "I'm your Huckleberry." Roy Halladay

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 20, 2011 -> 08:27 AM) I didn't know they were all in this season and telling their fans that they need them to show up in order to support the record organizational payroll. Who would the Indians be forced to trade in the next year or so if they got too expensive? Carmona or Choo? They're pretty much stuck with Hafner and Sizemore for the time being, right?

QUOTE (johndyce @ Apr 20, 2011 -> 08:49 AM) Don't get me wrong, we will rebound. Might even get above .500 for some stretches of time. All I'm saying is that if we're below .500 at Jul 31 there will and SHOULD BE a firesale. hell, as a white sox fan, how can any of you not endorse a firesale with this team? The team as it is built is not a team that can consistently take us into the playoffs let alone ever reach another world series. With strong starting pitching, any team can get hot at the right time and fly through the playoffs. Even without Peavy, we still have the strongest front four of any AL Central rotation. Of course, if the bullpen continues to leak like a sieve, we're unlikely to get anywhere this year, but the Central has too much parity for one team to run away with it (as the two pre-season favorites are in 4th and 5th). I don't think the "casual" White Sox fan would endorse a firesale because they could care less about the payroll or JR...they only want a winning team, period. How many other teams outside of NY and Boston have been built in baseball in the last 2-3 decades to consistently make the playoffs? The Twins, maybe? But the Twins, A's and Braves were all short in one category or another, the Indians didn't quite have enough pitching to go with their hitting, etc. The Angels? Well, they've only won one World Series title, same as us. Unless the talent all comes at roughly the same time from the minors in 2-3 consecutive, well-timed waves, you still only have that 2-3 year window that has already closed on the Rays as quickly as it opened.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 20, 2011 -> 07:11 AM) Seriously, if the Sox next GM doesn't have experience and is like 35 years old, all of Soxtalk will erupt because JR is cheap. I'd just like to know what Rick Hahn (besides his son winning the coin flip) and Buddy Bell have done in the last 2-3 years to warrant their inclusion in discussions of the possible/future White Sox front office. If they're going a different route, I want any and all vestiges of the KW philosophy erased and the slate wiped completely clear.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/20/sports/b...1510A9147EF5A17 Enjoy. Except the 4 for 4 came at the expense of the White Sox.

QUOTE (whitem0nkey @ Apr 20, 2011 -> 12:56 AM) having the best minor leagues means your not making your pro team better. BTW go sox, lets get going. It does give you the luxury of being able to trade away one of the game's best catching prospects (Ramos) for another team's closer without touching Revere, Hicks, Gibson, etc. In the future, the Twins might rue not holding on to Ramos and moving Mauer to 3B or 1B, however.

See Garcia, Freddie. I'd like to think he'd consistently be at least 90-92 instead of 86-89 though. Then it might be hopeless. Depends on how much movement he has on his pitches.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Apr 19, 2011 -> 03:54 PM) nice 2003 White Sox look like the best team in baseball as late as early September 2004 White Sox have pieces, but fall short due to injuries 2005 World Series 2006 Best team in baseball for most of the first half of the season, along with Tigers, 90 wins 2007 Not so much 2008 A Carlos Quentin injury away from being a legit World Series contender 2010 White Sox go 38-13 and with a seemingly healthy Jake Peavy, look like one of the best teams in baseball Outside of the Yankees, Red Sox and Angels, no team has had that kind of run this decade. Whatever you say about the Twins beating us, they've never been seriously considered to be capable of winning it all or the best team in the game.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Apr 19, 2011 -> 03:46 PM) The AL Central has won the Wild Card a grand total of one time since its inception. If I have the time later, I'll dig into AL Central vs. MLB statistics. It's pretty irrelevant when you have the Yankees and Red Sox clearly outspending everyone by 20-30%. The odds are always going to be against the rest of the AL East and another wild card team from the other 2 divisions.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Apr 19, 2011 -> 03:42 PM) How many other American League teams have won more than 1 World Series since 1993? I can think of two: the Yankees (5) and the Red Sox (2). These teams have won one: Angels, Blue Jays These teams have won none: The Mariners (not even a pennant), Indians, Devil Rays, Rangers, Twins, Tigers, Royals, Orioles, Athletics. 9/13 other teams haven't won a world series, 2 others have won exactly as many as the White Sox, and 2 have won more. How many other AL teams have had more than 4 playoff appearances since 1993? New York, Boston, Minnesota, Cleveland, Seattle, Oakland, LA. 7 of the 14 AL teams. 3 of those play in a 4 team west. I honestly don't understand how anyone could evaluate the White Sox as anything but a top 5 AL franchise over the past twenty years. Especially when you consider the lack of post-season success by the A's and Twins. Are those organizations more "dollar spending per win successful," of course! The Mariners have totally bottomed out since their early 2000's hey-day. You'd have to rank the Yankees/Red Sox at the top, the Angels a distant third and the White Sox up there with anyone for 4th. Now whether being in the Top 30% of a league when you're in the 3rd largest media market (but traditionally the second-tier team) is success...I definitely think they've done pretty well compared to the past, especially 1961-1989. Those were three lost decades of Sox baseball, except for 1984's aberration.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 19, 2011 -> 03:37 PM) Here's the problem though...if only 5/30 teams do a better job of extracting wins from a fixed amount of dollars, then what are the odds that if you fire everyone you're going to do a better job? It's 16.7%. It's much, much more likely that you fire everyone and get worse. Then you do the same thing again. Or you hire the Twins', Rays', Rangers' or A's entire front office and pray for post-season success!!! If we did have Beane or Ryan/Smith and this team started appearing in playoffs like the Braves or Indians but almost always coming up short, I wonder if the b****ing/moaning/whining/griping would be any worse? I think a lot of Twins' fans might trade the last decade for our World Series, that's for sure. Fortunately for them, they still have memories of 87 and 91, at least a large amount of the fanbase.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 19, 2011 -> 03:35 PM) No, based on payroll. The Sox's attendance is in the lower part of the league but they have some of the higher ticket prices in the league. In revenue and overall club net asset value, we should be between 8th and 10th in the majors. Attendance is only 19-23ish during that time. So we're overspending this year a bit out of choice, hence, "All In."

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 19, 2011 -> 03:32 PM) You know, I'm not sure that I buy the "AL Central has been pretty weak" for the last decade. The AL East, for example, has had 2-3 moribund franchises for almost the whole decade, the Central has only had one. All of the other 4 teams from the Central have made the playoffs this decade, everyone except Detroit more than once. Every team has had at least 1 down year. You can definitely make the argument that in 2005 and 2006 and parts of 2007, the AL Central was the best division in baseball. At least in the AL, which has been clearly superior to the NL for much of that time period. Not so much now, with it shifting back to the Rays/Red Sox/Yankees since 2008.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 19, 2011 -> 03:28 PM) Yes it does, it means you're watching a team that wins more games than it would at the same payroll if we weren't getting that. The White Sox, based on their payroll, should be an average team, winning about 81 games a year. Instead they average about 85. Don't you mean based on their attendance, and not payroll?

QUOTE (Elgin Slim @ Apr 19, 2011 -> 03:24 PM) KW and Ozzie should have been fired at the end of last season, and they should have gone young. I was prepared for that as a fan. Now, they have to find takers for underachieving, aging players that are a year older and declining more. I heard on the radio that baseball people were appalled at the Dunn contract because it paid him too much for a guy that has no speed and can't play defense. That was NOTHING compared to the Werth and Crawford deals. We overpaid...gave up on Thome one year too early, but if Joe Borchard was the right pick 10 years ago, we're not in this mess and having to constantly go outside the organization for talent. By the way, you've just described Carlos Quentin as well as Dunn. But at least we didn't give up much for him.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Apr 19, 2011 -> 03:18 PM) When they start giving rings to teams with good win averages per season I'll start flaunting that stat around. In the meantime, I'll continue to expect a high payroll team in a weak division to start making the post season on a more frequent basis. It doesn't matter about the past or the present with this year's team. KW and Ozzie will both be gone and we'll be dealing with a major reconstruction project unless Quentin/A. Ramirez/Danks/Floyd PART 2 can be secured from other organizations in the offseason without dramatically degrading the major league roster. Not even all of KW's gambles working out again (to counter Peavy, Swisher, Javy, Rios for now, Teahen, Linebrink, Hudson/Jackson) are enough cushion to absorb the losses we'll suffer in firesale mode. Right now, I'm far from certain what we have with Matt Thornton and whether it even makes sense to build around Beckham and Alexei. If it's not those two, along with Santos and Sale, there's no reason not to blow the entire thing up and start over from scratch with a completely new vision. Of course, this is incredibly unlikely to happen, but we're in real trouble if Beckham and Alexei never sniff an All-Star game in their future Sox careers.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Apr 19, 2011 -> 03:14 PM) Since 1993, the White Sox have won more games than any team in the American League with the exception of the Yankees, Red Sox and Indians, and they are JUST BEHIND the Indians. They've averaged 86+ wins per 162 games during that span. I really don't know what else to say. If you think this organization is s***, then do yourself a favor and just stop watching baseball. If you include the NL, I think the Braves or Cardinals are the only teams that end up on top (of the Sox) depending on which years you include.... and we have the same number of World Series championships as the Yankees and one more than the Indians or Twins. Of course, the reverse/flip side of that is being one coin flip by Rick Hahn's son in the wrong direction from being 1/10 over the last decade in post-season appearance versus the Twins' 7/9. Of course, if you include 2000, it's 3/11 versus 6/11 for the Twins, but statistics can be slanted any way you want to support your point.

QUOTE (johndyce @ Apr 19, 2011 -> 01:41 PM) Completely agree. Someone made the point that he has been playing with house money since 05 and its completely true. You give this guy an open checkbook and this is the s*** that he produces? He has basically traded away the farm for a team that has nowhere to go but down. Beckham is the only player on the team with any true potential and that has demonstrated success. Sale is also promising. That's it. That's what we have to look forward to. At least ticket prices should fall when they sell out Let's talk some economics 101. 1) Usually 70-80% of the tickets are purchased by the same 20%, your "core" audience, so to speak...not walk-up or StubHub types 2) Those people will be pissed, pissed, pissed that they paid top dollar for season tickets, only to see others paying 10-50% for similar tickets...so when you end up alienating half of your season ticket base (and corporate sponsors/luxury box renters), what's your response? 3) It's been proven by about 1,000 in-depth sports mgmnt studies that filling up the park with discount tickets doesn't come close to offsetting the normal concessions, food and souvenir sales of full-paying/non-discounted nights 4) Once the team starts to play well again, you have an incredibly difficult time getting customers to adjust to rising ticket prices again...it's very easy to discount tickets, but that erodes the core value of your product, making it much more difficult to re-price them at the level you really want 5) While I'll agree that the bleacher seat prices have gotten ridiculous since the opening of the park, that parking is too high (compare to the 2 LA teams), that upper deck tickets still should be somewhat discounted compared to previous levels...they've incorporated a lot of different promotions and implemented strategies for those Monday-Thursday night and day games to increase attendance over the years 6) One thing that works really well and they'll probably not do (at a major league park) is Two for Tuesdays or Thirsty Thursdays (discounted beer)...there are multiple reasons for this, but they have had family sections in the past to "protect" those with kids from the crazy fun-seekers who drink too much and get out of control, still, it wouldn't be the worst idea to make Thursdays more of a "singles/20's and 30's crowd" and target that specific demographic, do more outreach with local corporations for group discounts or Groupon, etc. 7) Besides the Saturday Fireworks, the sales and marketing team need to come up with some new creative promotions (besides giveaways) than past successes (copied) like Dog Day Afternoon and Bobbleheads and things like that....in all fairness, the White Sox probably rank in the top 50% in this regard, they've gotten more creative in the last decade, but their best marketing method was the 2005 World Series and the bloom came off that rose early with the 2007 season and collapse at the end of 2006 It's also true that corporate marketing dollars were in a stranglehold in the last couple of years and things are just now loosening up a BIT...especially compared to hiring.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Apr 19, 2011 -> 09:47 AM) Tyler Kuhn es en feugo. I remember seeing some info from a scout about him... he just plain can hit. Problem is, he's mediocre or worse defensively at his many positions. This scout said he was so type-cast as such, that they even refer to other prospects with similar skill sets as "Tyler Kuhns". Sounds like CJ Retherford all over again...until he bottomed out.