Lip Man 1

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 31, 2017 -> 10:33 PM) Colorado is looking to buy, sell or stand pat? Cargo's having a garbage season. What about DBacks? Try to dump Greinke? Colorado lost their top set up guy for awhile but they are still one of the best teams in the N.L. They'll be a buyer. Arizona right now is in the playoff mix solidly. They aren't going to dump Grienke or anybody, they'll also be a buyer in my opinion.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 31, 2017 -> 08:11 PM) Starting to think the Cubs were right on Renteria....he's like Torborg/Manuel, good managers at working with youngsters but NOT the right man to lead them to the promised land. (But at least he played a major role in getting Luis Robert and will be around until the beginning of the 2019 season or halfway through that year.) Not to get to far off topic but remember Torborg was forced out by Ron Schueler who wanted to hire his own guy. That in my opinion was a major mistake. I have no doubt the Sox would of done extremely well in the next few seasons had he been allowed to remain. It also wouldn't have hurt had Larry Himes not turned down a deal that was offered to him in spring training 1990 from the Yankees. New York wanted starting pitcher Eric King and Steve Lyons. They were willing to offer Hal Morris...and...Bernie Williams!

When he and Drysdale were together they were one of the best duos in baseball. It was definitely time for a change though. Let the Jason Benetti era begin.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 30, 2017 -> 09:11 PM) http://www.baseball-reference.com/managers/lopezal01.shtml He AVERAGED 90 wins a season over the course of 9 years. If not the for the Yankees, he would be a lot more famous. 90, 94, 94, 98, 95 were his five best. Ozzie had 99, 90 (2006), 2008 team I think ended up with 88 or 89...2010 team had a good run, but I would still take Lopez, especially because of the way that things fell apart at the very end between the Sox and Ozzie. Exactly. Lopez was far and away the best Sox manager at least in my lifetime. Ozzie was a very good manager and a breath of fresh-air after Manager Gandhi but he started to believe his press clippings, felt money was more important than anything else (who can forget his tirade about more money / contract extension right before the Sox opened that series at home with Detroit that was going to make or break their season?) and he refused to keep in line his kids with their insulting and disruptive tweets. It was time for him to go. He could have had the job as long as he wanted after winning the World Series but he became his own worst enemy in my opinion.

The first seven runs Boston scored tonight (all off Q) came with two outs. Think about that one for a moment. According to a story in S.I. this week on the reemergence of the curveball in MLB among pitchers, Q is throwing the 3rd highest percentage of curveballs among all pitchers at 32%. Maybe that in part explains his struggles. Maybe he needs to start pounding fastballs more? Five of the seven runs tonight for example came on curveballs that were blasted.

QUOTE (greg775 @ May 29, 2017 -> 09:12 PM) He has no chance since he's an advocate of bunting. That means he's a relic. Can't survive if you approve of the bunt. I can't tell if you are being facetious or serious with this comment.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ May 30, 2017 -> 08:23 AM) Stay the course Agreed...no matter what happens this season.

Anytime you can get a win with a fill-in pitcher starting the game because there is no one else available is a good thing. It doesn't happen very often.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ May 29, 2017 -> 05:07 PM) Where are you going to put them? Well counting guys on the DL, you can Covey, Infante and Holmberg to begin with.

Davidson in my opinion. I voted for him. I think he can be a productive role player (part time DH, part time 3B) on the Sox when they get good in two or three seasons. Can supply some pop and is very cheaply paid.

Saladino remember had disc issues in his lower back at the end of last season and through this off season. Those really never go away even with surgery (and I don't know if he had surgery or not). That's a bad situation to have for a professional athlete.

Congrats to him. Hopefully the start of something really good for the kid.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 24, 2017 -> 04:10 PM) Reading through a lot of the Cardinals' blogs in recent weeks, you're talking the winningest franchise in baseball the past 12-15-20 years getting absolutely hammered by paid/professional writers. I think the reason for that (and my color analyst grew up in St. Louis and follows the Cards closely so he keeps me in the loop with them) is because they can't use attendance as an excuse and they just signed a billion dollar deal with Fox Sports Midwest, so why are they cutting corners regarding payroll, talent acquisition. To me those are valid questions.

Q had thrown five good games in a row. Today was not one of them. The Sox to me are looking tired. They've come back to make a game of it a lot of times but never enough to get over the hump. I just think all these road games are catching up to them.

QUOTE (Sockin @ May 24, 2017 -> 02:31 PM) Yeah, absolutely this. I don't think Quintana gets moved until Hahn is happy with the return. Nor should he be until or unless the Sox think the return is a good one.

QUOTE (joejoedairy @ May 24, 2017 -> 02:02 PM) I understand your point, but let's say Yahoo read your work on soxnet and wanted to hire you write about baseball in general. The thing that helped get you discovered in this situation is writing articles as a sox fan. Wouldn't make sense to continue to write from that same perspective. Many media personalities start out this way (Simmons, Wilbon, almost any blogger) and as long as you can admit to your bias and still produce good work, it shouldn't be an issue. If you're watching a game on a national broadcast, I can see why you wouldn't want the announcer to have an obvious bias against your team. There are certainly cases of this, but most fans think all national broadcasters hate their team. The key is admitting the bias and trying to not let it influence you as you suggest but that is very hard to do at least for me because I know that eventually it is going to come into play. I think I could write nationally on baseball because the Cubs are a very small part of that. But covering the Cubs exclusively? Like I said in the previous post I'd have to think very hard about that because I know myself. Thanks for a good comment though I agree with your basic premise.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 24, 2017 -> 12:29 PM) You write as a White Sox fan on the White Sox all of the time. That's right...and I'm not getting paid for it by a mainstream media outlet (or anyone for that matter) who is supposed to be unbiased nor am I trying to mislead anyone about my fan loyalties. In my opinion that's a big difference. As far as what I am being paid to do professionally, broadcast Idaho State sports and report on them, I understand the conflict of interest but have always tried to be honest about what I'm seeing / reporting... and tell the truth that has gotten me in some trouble from time to time. With all due respect to Sox Talk, White Sox Interactive, Southside Sox and the other internet sites they'll never be considered "mainsteam" and probably won't ever actually start paying people to work for them. Not saying they don't do good work, often it's better than mainstream outlets but you are talking about a different animal. Those sites are biased about the Sox, make no bones about it and when I write or post something on them, everyone knows the point of view that I'm coming from. I don't have to be unbiased on them because of the nature of the sites themselves is the way I see it. I can criticize the team as you know (hello Dylan Covey!!! LOL) but my loyalty or fandome isn't a question. I've actually been thinking about the premise, what if I was being asked to cover the Cubs and get paid for it...what would I do? Since that situation has never come up I can't give you a 100% honest answer as far as what I'd decide. What I can tell you...with 100% accuracy is that I'd have to think long and hard about it regardless of how much they were willing to pay...and I'd make damn sure the prospective employer knew my background. Having grown up on the South Side a White Sox fan, disliking anything to do with the Cubs, having written (unpaid) for 11 years for a White Sox web site, am collaborating on a book about Jerry Reinsdorf, that I'm a White Sox historian and know a lot of people in the organization. Then IF they still wanted to hire me and IF I actually took the job, they can't say they weren't warned because despite my best efforts, at some point, that bias is going to come though. I'm human, it can't be helped. You want me to cover the Diamondbacks? A's? Rays? Phillies? I'd love to do it, no problem and I'd do an honest job of it because I wouldn't have any emotional or historical attachments to that franchise. But covering the Cubs? It wouldn't really be fair to the organization that hired me, the Cubs, their fans or myself when all is said and done. That's about the best answer I can give for this hypothetical situation.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 24, 2017 -> 10:59 AM) Welcome to the 21st century. Everyone is biased. I understand it's the 21st century and being in the media means you are supposed to be unbiased or if you are you recuse yourself for commenting / reporting on things that you can't objectively talk / discuss. Obviously I'm out of step with the times but personally I don't care. There's a right way and a wrong way to do things in the media. I've tried very hard in my career to do things correctly. Not trying to preach, simply saying if you are ethical, you do the proper thing. If I had to cover / report on the Cubs for example I simply could not do so because I know I couldn't talk about them objectively.

QUOTE (soxfan49 @ May 23, 2017 -> 05:25 PM) Was there a reason he should have cared? Outside of 2005 they have been historically bad, and their minor league system historically has been even worse. He should care because he is getting paid by ESPN to be an unbiased observer in my opinion. It doesn't mean what he is saying is necessarily wrong but admitting for the world you are a big Royals fan colors his judgment...again in my opinion. That's as bad as ESPN having Chris Berman do the play by play for the Red Sox / White Sox series in 2005 after telling everyone he's been a Red Sox fan for years. (Oh no! He gets him to go...LOL). That simply should not happen.

Covey is actually getting worse if that's possible. ERA back up over eight now. Sox now saying Covey has an oblique injury... (nudge, nudge, wink, wink SAY no more...) Who knows if it's real or if the Sox have finally decided, 'we've got to get this guy off the mound and out of the rotation because he's flat out brutal...' As a rule 5 they have to keep him on the roster. If it is real, he'll be the 6th Sox pitcher on the DL.

QUOTE (Kalapse @ May 23, 2017 -> 04:38 PM) You do know he's kidding, right? He's been getting tweets from Sox fans all day asking why he hates the Sox because they read his write-up on Robert whom he's been less than impressed with since this whole thing started. The only national writer I've ever thought really had an anti-Sox lean was Dayn Perry though I can't remember the specifics so it may have just been youthful naivete. This may have been a joke / clickbait but he has a very long track record of openly disparaging anything concerning the organization.

QUOTE (ron883 @ May 23, 2017 -> 04:22 PM) I expect better out of an admin. I guess I was wrong. Rick is a good choice for what the team is going through right now...rebuilding. No real pressure. It remains to be seen if he'll still be the manager say in 2020 assuming the Sox are good. That will be a decision the organization will have to make, if they think Rick is a guy who can take a team over the top or simply be the caretaker for the near future to be replaced by someone else. There are coaches who for whatever reason have a good track record but just can't get over the hump. Jerry Sloan with the Jazz immediately comes to my mind in this regard.

Again you need to remember that Law historically has never cared for the White Sox organization in any way, shape or form. He didn't like the major league team, the minor league operations or the organizational philosophy. He's also admitted that he is a die hard Royals fan who happen to be in the Sox division. You must take anything he says about the White Sox with a big grain of salt in my opinion, he appears pretty biased against them.

QUOTE (ptatc @ May 23, 2017 -> 11:57 AM) It's the same thing. The bicep attaches to the labrum right under the supraspinatus tendon of the rotator cuff. So most of the bicep injuries to pitchers are in the shoulder, just the very superior aspect of the bicep. PTATC: Not doubting you of course not with your background. Then I have to ask why did the Sox from day one call it bicep soreness? That doesn't sound so bad...certainly not like when you start saying it's a shoulder injury. Could that have been part of the reasoning? Fan reaction??

Here's the Sun-Times story on Rodon: http://chicago.suntimes.com/sports/carlos-...long-road-back/ What I found very interesting is that he says the injury is not to his bicep...but to his shoulder.