caulfield12

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ Dec 18, 2010 -> 08:46 AM) Brewers, White Sox and Cardinals should all be in on this. The White Sox should move Danks to the Yanks for the prospects the Royals would like and then add Viciedo or Morel. A three way deal gets you around the NTC to a degree. Danks is almost in the same position as Greinke (two years left on deal), except he might be an even better fit in NY because of Pettite (if he stays) and Sabathia, but that would give them an overload of lefties, perhaps. Of course, for the White Sox to trade Danks and not get pitching back would be crazy. I think it would take a lot more than Danks and Viciedo...and Morel simply isn't viewed as a legit starting 3B who will have a 10-15 year MLB career (with 2-3 All-Star game appearances) by the majority of other MLB scouting departments. He's kind of like the equivalent of Michael Morse in the Garcia deal, with a bit more upside because of his stellar defense at one position but serious questions about his power.

He's a pretty unique kid. I think he'd actually be okay in New York, there are so many other superstars on that team that he could blend into the mix fairly well. He wouldn't be coming in as the savior or with one of those huge contracts like Burnett. I'll never forget the article in the KC Star where he said he would like to just walk away from baseball and "mow lawns with his headphones on" as his job. I think (correct me if I'm wrong) he was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder at that time...I do think that all the losing has worn on him, and he'd be much better off on a winning ballclub. He's not a Javier Vazquez. If I'm Cashman, I make the deal and cross my fingers. (The downside is that Rivera, Jeter, Posada, Pettite, etc., won't be around forever and they'll need to build around some of their new younger wave of star players and prospects, like Cano and Montero). But yes, teams like the Rangers or LA Angels/Dodgers (in terms of having a fanbase and mentality that's more laid-back and casual) would seem like better fits than East Coast teams. In some ways, he's always reminded me of Garland a bit, although I think he really has a next gear and "adrenaline" level where he can crank that fastball up into the mid to high 90's when he wants to, but he loses some of the control he has at 92-93.

For a long time, it was their speed and athleticism, defense, fundamentals and bullpens that beat us. I liked to think of it as the Martina Hingis analogy...they would just stay in the game with you and wait for you to beat yourselves (which the Sox have often done), but the game had to be close enough for them to do it, and their bullpen with Hawkins/Romero/Guardado was even scarier in 2002-2004 than their recent ones. So, as someone posted it, part of it is having the kind of offense we LOOK to have on paper that can score runs in bunches (like the Yankees as well) and just dominate the game in the first 3-4 innings and then cruise to a victory. The problem typically is we would be up by 2-3-4 runs and then the Twins would slowly whittle the lead down to zero and go ahead (those darned Jenks blown saves in 2008/2010 still haunt me). Clutch hitting with RISP...virtually non-existent for the White Sox in the second half against MIN. We had many, many opportunities to blow those games wide open and failed at a 90-95% rate. Somebody said the Twins blew us out....totally disagree with that. There were legitimately 10-11-12 games you could go back and dissect one or two key situations going against us and the Twins eventually winning. They weren't all so dramatic as the Thome homer off Thornton, but that was another huge backbreaker. I'd guess another way would be for Mauer/Morneau to be out significant periods of time and for them not to resign Pavano. Having Kyle Gibson turn out to be a huge flop wouldn't hurt too much either. They had the likes of Duensing, Valencia and Young come through in unexpected fashion last year. So we need to improve our minor league depth, and we all know that's our #1 weakness and it always has been under KW. Let's say Nathan doesn't return to form and Mauer/Morneau are hurt, that's like $50-60 million of payroll that's both ineffective and also blocking their flexibility to make other moves with the bloated payroll. And I'd still be pretty shocked to Greinke traded within the division....although I'm sure the Royals would take Gibson, Hicks and another prospect for Greinke...at least PRETTY sure. I really believe the Twins simply don't want to pay his salary. They're kind of at that in-between stage where they have players like Baker, Blackburn, Young, Cuddyer (especially) and Kubel all starting to make bigger bank. Also, they had to create some room for Capps....they couldn't just let him go after they gave up their best catching prospect, and Top 3 (arguably in baseball) for him. That's why they let O. Hudson, Hardy, Rauch, Crain, Guerrier and possibly Thome/Pavano were all let go. And it's going to be interesting to see what happens if Nathan struggles (likely at his age and with the two year timetable for being 100%) and can't be the closer but isn't actually hurt enough to go on the DL.

If Mitchell wouldn't have gotten hurt, this might have been a little bit more realistic. That, and the disappointing seasons by Flowers and Danks really pushed any idea of going totally young out of the window. I think the current struggles of the Cubs have something to do with it, too. It just didn't see like the right moment to "fold" when they were seemingly only 2-3 players away from having the best team on the South Side since 05/first half 06. You can easily see where it would have gone...they would have probably held onto Floyd and Peavy (no choice but to rehab him, obviously) and jettisoned Danks and Buehrle. Viciedo would be at 1B or DH. They would have had a big decision to make with Ramirez...probably, they would have traded him at his highest value (because of his contract structure) instead of waiting 2-3 years on a competitive team. You would have had Flowers, Viciedo, Beckham, Morel, Mitchell in LF, someone like Rasmus in CF (or the 2nd or 3rd best young CF we could get, with Rios gone as well)...theoretically Danks/Andruw Jones in RF (if he was affordable, if not, adios). Then the rotation would have been Floyd (until he was traded at highest value), maybe Peavy, Sale and then a lot of young prospects that we got in return for Konerko's departure (draft picks), Edwin Jackson, Rios, Jon Danks, Quentin, Matt Thornton, Buehrle, Alexei Ramirez. If you put the group of Rios, Danks, Jackson, Quentin, Thornton and Ramirez (along with Floyd at some point in 2011/12) on the open market and had pocked the money from Buehrle's departure to use signing draft picks that fell due to signability, it would be a pretty darned big haul in return.

I think we can agree that most Sox fans are happy with the way this offseason has gone and are pleased with the team as-is and certainly consider them good enough to be competitive. If that is true, then when the season comes to an end and if a lot of these moves don't result in a winner, I think it would be disingenuous to say, "KW should take the heat for this season!" To me, you can't be on board with the team and happy with the deals and acquisitions if you're going to change your mind later and blame the GM for failure. But by this logic, then only a tiny cross-section of fans could have been happy BEFORE 2010 because EVERYONE at soxtalk and throughout baseball saw the gaping holes in the structure of the team (particularly no DH)....this way, I guess the argument goes that ALMOST every Sox fan should be satisfied with the offseason and therefore, ergo, have no excuses for not supporting the team (particularly in terms of their attendance). The year prior of that, it was Wise coming out of ST as the starting CFer. There was just no way you could sell that to the fans. Of course, someone will say not even the Red Sox have All-Stars at EVERY position, but Wise wasn't even close to being a legitimate, non-platoon candidate from the opening bell. To those like greg and myself who'd seen Teahen play a significant amont of time, including the ill-fated RF and 2B experiments, you can go back and see predictions of impending doom/disaster, especially after that ridiculous extension was signed on the dotted line. Or am I misreading that...?

2/10 isn't the greatest success ratio either when we're the largest market team in the ALCD by far... that said, everyone would take 05 over the the Twins, BUT we all know the Twins' approach increases the probability/likelihood of winning another...or do the riverboat gambler moves make for more excitement? just like a sales manager has to assemble the best sales team with the budget allocated him...if they don't perform collectively well enough to meet their quotas, then the manager is replaced and someone new brought in...if the team weren't at least breaking even under the KW approach, he would be gone for now, it's working...but this season will be the biggest test yet since 2006 of our fanbase, GM/manager and ownership group....luckily the Twins are staying in neutral so we can catch up to them, and part of it has to be the fact that the Cubs seem dead in the water with piranhas in 3D circling them and smelling blood

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Dec 15, 2010 -> 09:51 PM) Effort is for kids. Results is what matters in the real world. If you owned a company had 2 salesman and one worked his ass off was a great guy etc.but couldn't sell a thing and another was a total ass, put in 5 hours a week but sold a ton, and one of them had to go, which one is it going to be? There isn't a GM in the game that doesn't put in the effort. Alard Baird in KC, now Dayton Moore....both those guys WORK/ED really hard, BUT...what do they have to show for it? I think if this current reincarnation of "all in" blows up like it almost did in 2010 (but the expectations will be much higher going into 2011)...then KW or Ozzie will definitely be having new roles. Ozzie most likely with another organization.

The Tribune is running it right now as if it's a "LIVE/BREAKING" story, but apparently not...??? You would think the editors over there would have some clue, but it's a former Cub, so maybe it's another chance to get a shot in at the White Sox (that he apparently doesn't want to play on the South Side). You'd have to think if Wood came in, it would be as the closer. Crain definitely won't be...he'll be more like Dotel or Santos for the middle two months of 2010. FWIW, they already noted in the story he had apparently said he wasn't interested...which was going to get interesting, or words to that effect.

I guess if you're comparing Crain to Rauch or Guerrier, he's the highest risk, but also has the most upside. He was pretty bad (almost to Linebrink proportions in 08/09) though in the past, spotty/erratic is how I would describe it. I don't think any Twins fans are upset about losing any of those three, but Crain was definitely the best of the group last year. Some even thought he pitched well enough to be a closer for one of the bottom 5-10 teams in MLB coming into this offseason. Let's hope for once we get a former Twin who can make his former team regret their decision to let him go.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/ct-sp...,7999899.column

Collapse THUMBS UP, just lots of interesting things to think about GET HIM to the GREEK 3.5/4.0 The Messenger 3.5/4.0

Captain Hugh JACKman, lol....would have been strange, but I think he would have been an excellent choice as well Forgetting Sarah Marshall 3.5/4.0 Date Night 2.75/4.0 The Town 3.75/4.0 Megamind 3.25/4.0 I Love You Phillip Morris 3.5/4.0 Easy A 3.5/4.0 JACKASS 3-D 2.75/4.00 (although kind of silly to try to objectively rate any of those movies)

I think the way the Nielsen company does it is random samplings in the thousands of viewers....they also try to enroll their subscribers in programs where they monitor tv usage automatically through a centralized computer database.

If you go by average number of households for the tv broadcasts, the Cubs were 9th and the White Sox 17th.

Quentin had some seasons in the minors where he was actually rated/graded as above average. In 2008, he wasn't horrible, compared to say Josh Fields or Mark Teahen at 3B. A lot of posters here felt that he would be even more comfortable playing his natural position, RF. And he hasn't really demonstrated the arm strength he had before his injuries, but we haven't had a RF who could throw in the Top 10-15% at his position for ages. I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility that he will be significantly improved this year if his foot has healed 100%. That's a big IF, of course. One thing is for sure, if you took a poll of most in baseball, they'd say we would be much more likely to win the ALCD with Quentin getting the majority of at-bats over a Teahen/Jones platoon. And I don't this the disparity between his home and road numbers will hold up either. (Didn't the same thing happen with Beckham in his rookie year, there was about a 150-175 OPS difference between home and road?) I've watched Teahen try to play both 2B and RF when he was in Kansas City. He really is worse than Quentin's worst possible performance out there.

I'm almost certain that Teahen is "only" for two more years, definitely not three. Not to mention there are other CFer's out there that teams will be willing to dump and send money along with them....Beltran, Vernon Wells, Mike Cameron, etc. Not sure about Rasmus or either Upton, Chris Young, etc., how available they are at this point, but trading Rios would be foolhardy, and no way that KW simply gets bowled over with an offer. If for no other reason than it would look pretty silly to give up a premium prospect when any team in baseball could have had him for free. I know, I know...any team in the past could have had, say, Jayson Werth or Carlos Pena for next to nothing. But it's basically making KW look brilliant and the rest of baseball look silly. I think most GM's want to wait one more half season of productivity before making a substantive offer on Rios, as he tailed off a lot the last two months.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...id=opinionsbox1 I thought of another one....Wyclef Jean. Mark Zuckerberg, not sure if he counts as an activist or how to classify him. Buffett and Gates? Ted Turner? The point of the Washington Post article was that John Lennon directly confronted "power/government" instead of being "captured" by it....even putting himself under FBI monitoring and being threatened with having his visa revoked because of his Vietnam War stance. Bono is not the only well-intentioned celebrity wonk of our age - the impulse is ubiquitous. Angelina Jolie, for instance, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (seriously) in addition to serving as a U.N. goodwill ambassador. Ben Affleck has become an expert on the war in Congo. George Clooney has Sudan covered, while Leonardo DiCaprio hobnobs with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other leaders at a summit to protect tigers; both actors have written opinion essays on those subjects in these pages, further solidifying their expert bona fides. But why should we pay attention to Bono's or Jolie's expertise on Africa, any more than we would ask them for guidance on the proper monetary policy for the Federal Reserve? True dissidents - celebrity or not - play a vital role in democracy. But the celebrity desire to gain political power and social approval breeds intellectual conformity, precisely the opposite of what we need to achieve real changes. Politicians, intellectuals and the public can fall prey to groupthink (We must invade Vietnam to keep the dominoes from falling!) and need dissidents to shake them out of it. True dissidents claim no expertise; they offer no 10-point plans to fix a problem. They are most effective when they simply assert that the status quo is morally wrong. Of course, they need to be noticed to have an impact, hence the historical role of dissidents.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=3008&p=.htm Looks like this might be the end of the Narnia franchise...although there will be a temptation to bring the two older kids back for one more go at it. Prince Caspian made over $425 million globally but cost $225 million or so, and that doesn't even include marketing costs, which were huge. I think the budget for this one came in around "only" $145 million but it's going to struggle to make $20-22 million this weekend. That's a really soft opening...of course, they're banking on the Christmas/New Year's holiday, but when you lose to the likes of Eragon, there are serious problems with the franchise. I think everyone is just about exhausted with 3D overcharging one year later for movie-going experiences that don't come close to matching Avatar, How to Train Your Dragon or even the latest Resident Evil. But, if they're making yet another Piranha movie, maybe they'll do another Narnia or Phillip Pullman novel. But don't count on it.

There's no question if you have to choose Andruw Jones at $3-4 million or Quentin at $5.5 or whatever he ends up with in arbitration that Carlos has 5X the upside....both are/were incredibly streaky, but I think Quentin can have a breakout year with more focus/pressure on Konerko and Dunn. I hope Beckham can get off to a hot start as well. Hopefully the offense takes off like the first half of 2006 and Morel can be this coming year's version of Brian Anderson, albeit with a 675-700 OPS instead of horrendously bad. It's pleasant to imagine a future White Sox team with Mitchell in LF, Viciedo in RF, Morel at 3B, Beckham at 2B and Flowers at C....we need to have some of those young players break through and become regular contributors like the Twins always seem to have (Valencia and Duensing last year) in order to keep the payroll at no more than $125 million.

LOCAL RATINGS http://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/article/66312 White Sox 26th, Cubs 23rd....but this was in the middle of last season, I'd assume the White Sox average ratings picked up from July-August for sure http://www.sportsmediawatch.net/2010/10/ca...atings-red.html (i can't access this here in China) Reactions? Seems a lot of the huge market teams have low/lower ratings as well, which makes sense in terms of the fact that many in LA and Chicago aren't interested in baseball and the sports followings are less concentrated in markets like St. Louis or Minnesota.

Yes, Coco Crisp is a significant improvement over Juan Pierre. If he gets hurt... you can say that about anyone. But it doesn't take a worldbeater to replace what would have been Juan Pierre's production. You put DeAza there, or grab a Reed Johnson for little to nothing, something like that. You don't have to sell the farm to spot patch that kind of loss. The problem is that is we've seen firsthand how difficult it is to find bullpen replacements (2006-2007/2010), CFers since Rowand, a fifth starter (2001-2004), a quality lead-off hitter, a DH last year, etc. I'm not going to put Crisp in the Nick Johnson category, but there's no way I would feel confident in him staying healthy for a full season.....same with Andruw Jones. There's calcuated risk (bringing in Putz/Jones/Vizquel on value contracts), and then there's even higher risk. This whole idea of patching losses easily took a big hit last year with the whole Mark Kotsay fiasco. We said it in the offseason...up until the season started, and then again in June/July. Still, no solution.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405...IDDLETopStories Why do things like this always seem to happen around the holidays? You've got to feel a LITTLE for the guy, can you imagine living in a world where your wife petitions to have her last name/child's name changed because of something your father or mother did? I guess we have to assume he's probably guilty of something...but it's always sad when children lose a parent, they're the real victims in this (along with all those defrauded by the Ponzi Scheme in the first place).

Isn't Collapse that "conspiracy theory" movie? Isn't Inside Job better? I had a friend who insisted I see Collapse but I wasn't that interested when I watched the trailer... And everyone ripped The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo to shreds...you liked it? As far as Transformers III goes, it's a mixed bag. As a history fan, I like movies that get everyone to research things on their own and learn more about the past...otoh, there will be a significant segment of the population (especially younger, more impressionable viewers) who start to question whether we even landed on the moon or there's another government cover-up, Area 51 (Independence Day also comes to mind off the top of my head), etc. I'll admit when I was younger I got into the whole JFK thing, reading about Pearl Harbor as well...there is so much stuff out there about 9/11 now too, you just have to make sure you study both sides (like the Warren Commission Report) to get a balanced/objective view.

The players that we'll really shake our heads about getting those 5-7 year deals will be Cliff Lee (because he'll be 39), Adrian Beltre and Rafael Soriano, all of them definitely have Werth/Crawford and/or Scott Boras to thank, especially. Even the Tulowitzki deal. You start seeing those numbers all around the board and you start to realize the writing is on the wall with Jon Danks...and I'm certainly not an advocate of making him our first $100 million dollar contract. Those things (especially for pitchers) just always tend to blow up in your face. For every 1 that works out, there are 9 that don't.

Sure, Jamie Buehrle's in a better position than all (or most) of us to shell at $2400 to save a dying animal. I had a black Labrador retriever that swallowed a rock and Max was going to die because it got stuck in his stomach/intestines and he started eating grass and throwing up and luckily I caught it 2-3 days in time....I think that surgery was well over $1000 and I have never regretted it. Yes, you can "deworm" an entire province in Haiti for less, it's just hard to put any type of price tag on saving a loved family pet, dog, cat...whatever. You don't have to be hit over the head by the weepy sentimentalism of Marley & Me to understand.