caulfield12

QUOTE (TRU @ Jul 22, 2014 -> 07:44 AM) Congrats man, my wife is also currently pregnant at a little over 8 weeks as well.. well have to have a race to see who comes out first Chinese New Year's/Spring Festival is in late February next year, so that's good luck for the baby to be born around that time. OTOH, it's pretty cold here in late Feb/early March.

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Jul 22, 2014 -> 06:26 PM) Wilkins is just straight killing the ball. Side not, I wonder if Recchia might get a call in September, almost striking out 1 an inning this year with few walks. Doubt it.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Jul 22, 2014 -> 07:10 PM) The fact that Nieto is hitting .268 vs Major League pitching without playing above Rookie Ball is incredible. He was at High A last year. Two leagues above rookie ball.

LOL at Merkin. Charlotte Knights leading all of the WORLD in homers at 129 so far. 3 tonight. Really pulling out desperation/filler stats to take away from the boring nature of this game.

Wonder how much Despaigne will fetch on the open market, when/if he's declared eligible...? By all accounts, he's the best, most-polished hitter out there among the Cubans. Moncada is the most interesting younger prospect, along with Tomas. Frederich Cepeda at 34/35 is just a bit too old. Gourriel's closing in on too old, although there would still be a lot of legit interest if he ever became available.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 22, 2014 -> 06:50 PM) Sox have no idea what to do against this batting practice pitcher, though Paulie did hit a liner. Chen is only good against the Sox so he drives Royals fans crazy, too. They don't even want him on the team. Yet against the Sox we'll be lucky to score one run. Wild. Chen is 7-2 with a 3.12 ERA against the White Sox over the last 3+ years. A notch below Guthrie.

Hitters 4-8 in Sox line-up at .238 or lower. OUCH. Take away Abreu and Eaton, and we might be even worse than 2013 offensively. Beckham now in the 220's for the first time all season, and Viciedo in the 230's.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 21, 2014 -> 10:19 PM) Tell us some stories. I'd be interested. It seems like we Americans are going to have to start asking questions regarding our treatment. We're truly in a bind. We go in the hospital or our kids go in and we/they get treated. The doctors do their jobs and do whatever they need to do and it is all recorded on a bill. Now normally, in the old days, this was fine. Let the doctors do their jobs to save us and our our loved ones and insurance paid for it all. The problem is now, the insurance companies won't pay squat. So we go in the hospital, heaven forbid for 2 weeks, and need major surgery, and let's say the total cost is 500,000. Let's say our insurance pays 350,000. I mean why have insurance? What's the difference between being on the hook for 150,000 bucks or 500,000. It ruins our lives either way. We're still on the hook for 150,000 bucks which the average Joe can't pay. Or if he can pay in one swoop his retirement is gone. We're going to have to get to the point we ask the doctors to OK everything through us so we can call our insurance companies to see if they'll cover it. If not we have to refuse the medications and services beyond the bare minimum and the hospitals will be guilty of cruel and inhumane treatment toward human beings. Funny thing is the hospitals would NEVER agree to such a thing. They provide treatment as they see fit, and we have to deal with the costs later. You know damn well every insurance company worker is told by their bosses to reject EVERYTHING they can. EVERYTHING. This is insane. Lives are being ruined daily/weekly. It's a slippery slope. With modern technology available, the days of diagnosing injuries through "intuition/gut instinct" are simply gone as doctors and hospitals have become afraid to make any type of mistake that would expose them to a potential lawsuit. So we're all subjected to a battery of expensive tests that aren't necessary 90% of the time. I've always been one to side with lawyers and class-action claims if they're credible (otherwise, corporations would have TOO much protection against Joe the Topeka Plumber, but there has to be a way to balance things more equitably to protect the rights of consumers to get only the care that's truly needed without incurring costs they can't afford to pay...or will take years to pay off. In China, if you have a baby, every single cost is paid back by insurance and/or the government. Of course, one caveat is the baby has to have married parents to receive this compensation. Otherwise, it's an "illegal" baby. Not only that, but mothers by law have three months off from work.

Dreaded vote of confidence from Dayton Moore for Ned Yost... http://www.kansascity.com/sports/mlb/kansa...icle781663.html Royals interested in Rios/M.Byrd as well for outfield help offensively. (Aoki/Dyson/Cain aren't quite getting it done...but Aoki's far and away the weakest link in that chain.)

Well, that would have been a 3-0 lead had they walked Perez for Moose. Theoretically. Butler's .382 on the season against the Sox just took a hit. We might as well trade the Royals Dunn...seriously, Raul Ibanez getting significant at-bats at this stage in his career?

http://espn.go.com/mlb/player/batvspitch/_...3926/bruce-chen Viciedo and Dunn (interestingly) are the only regulars hitting Chen well career-wise. Everyone else is at .231 or lower (not counting Abreu/Eaton who have both seen him for 3 Ab's) Beckham's 2/30, Flowers 0 for his career and DeAza equally terrible.

QUOTE (BigHurt3515 @ Jul 22, 2014 -> 06:16 PM) When Carroll is throwing strikes and his sinker is moving like that he is a solid pitcher Both Scott and Zach Putnam have some similarities in that regard...lower speeds, better movement=positive results. If you throw Leury Garcia into that line-up, it seems even worse than the one we fielded the last couple of months in 2013. OTOH, a 750ish OPS and 350ish OBP from Adam Eaton are nice to have...except for the stolen base department, he's been a real threat.

The Omar Infante on the Tigers would have advanced the runner to 3rd there...maybe he'll just swipe it. Not an easy task against Nieto, though. How many references are we going to get to Carroll pitching against his hometown (Liberty, MO....northeast suburb of KC) team tonight? I would seriously walk Perez in the 1st to face Moustakas. Maybe that's just me. (And it would have been the wrong call, haha.)

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jul 22, 2014 -> 06:06 PM) Replace Tigers with Cardinals. Cardinals are included and have been one of the most successful franchises in baseball the past 10 years. That said, given how much the draft is a crap shoot, I don't really think that the chance of one extra pick really equates to all that much in the grand scheme of tilting the balance. There's no logical reason for either the Cardinals or the Tigers to receive competitive balance picks.

It's going to be interesting to see whether those "new/er" radar gun readings in the low 90's stand up. Wonder if the White Sox were adjusting their gun up for the tv audience? Of course, it doesn't matter, as any organization truly interested in Danks would have had their owns scouts/radar in the park. It's quite a paradox in that he was lit up in that start where he was supposedly throwing harder than he has all season...so not sure what to take from that. That he can pitch more effectively now in the 80's? Or that the Astros just have his number career-wise? Or both? We all have heard from the beginning of time about needing to have a 10+ mph differential on fastball to change/off-speed pitch. Seems like any pitcher who spends 85% of their time pitching at varying speeds in the 80's without the command of Mark Buehrle is going to get lit up unless they play at PetCo, Safeco or in SF.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Jul 22, 2014 -> 12:51 PM) It's scary thinking about the payroll without Danks. Hahn would have basically a clean slate to work with. The Sox have their three insane values in Sale/Abreu/Quitnana (15.667 M), Alexei (10 M) and and a whole bunch of rookie contracts/arbitration guys. If the Sox trade Danks in the next 9 days the team will go into the offseason with their fourth highest paid player (after Alexei, Abreu and Sale) being Jeff Keppinger. Assuming Beckham, DeAza and Viciedo are all gone...

QUOTE (Bigsoxhurt35 @ Jul 21, 2014 -> 08:11 PM) Damn flowers almost went yard You're doing the wrong thread trick like I always do flipping back and forth between minors and game thread, haha.

QUOTE (woods of ypres @ Jul 14, 2014 -> 08:50 PM) 44 year old first time dad, eh? Not bad. My dad was 38 when I was born. And congrats. Yeah, the weird thing is my mom was 40 1/2 when she had me (married for first time at 38, which was super unusual back in 1967) and my father 33 when I was born. (My father's brother was a lifelong bachelor...so it's just one cousin and myself to carry on the family name, haha). My mom tried to have a baby (girl) 2-3 years later but I think she had a miscarriage, so I ended up the only child. Now I have to try to find the engagement rings thread...trying to decide between 4 ("harmony") and 6 point (traditional/classic) settings. Tiffany's is incredibly expensive here in China, so I'm going to try to find a ring in Chicago or the Quad-Cities.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 21, 2014 -> 08:15 PM) Yes it's painful to listen to the KC crew. Although Lefebvre is OK. Hudler, Physioc and Steve Stewart and such homers it's simply unbelievable. They're not as bad as Harrelson, by a long shot. Hudler was 10X more cocky and annoying when he did the Angels games. He's been humbled quite a bit.

Flowers hitting .222 against RHP on the season, Gordon .202.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Jul 21, 2014 -> 08:06 PM) The Boras Story was posted in here. Easy to read. A pretty good plan too. LDF and Caulfield both said they did not read the article that was easily posted in here and very clearly readable. Then they both posted information that wasn't in the article and asked questions about things that could have been read. I love Soxtalk. Well, that's true....but I read that thread on my Samsung Galaxy chat phone, and here in China I couldn't get the article to open. Recently, google.hk hasn't even been working. The only reason I was able to find all the Aiken articles was because I was in Thailand from the 12th-20th.

QUOTE (winninguglyin83 @ Jul 21, 2014 -> 07:46 PM) hope we see a regime change and Micah at second base no later than september. And if they can dump Dunn, give Wilkins a look too. All depends on whether they believe Ramirez can be replaced by Semien or Sanchez. Otherwise, you've got to make Semien the jack-of-all-trades McEwing/Oquendo player and let Sanchez/Micah Johnson fight it out for 2B. Would be pretty shocked to see Johnson moved to LF, but apparently they're not ruling it out. Just don't think a line-up with Eaton/Johnson/Sanchez is going to have enough pop. We'll find out soon enough.

At least Eaton seems to be coming around now, that's a big plus....IF IF IF he can stay healthy.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 21, 2014 -> 07:15 PM) Exactly. Or they could form some type of 5, 7 or 9 member "medical committee" mutually-agreed upon by MLB and the Player's Association to attempt to objectively assess risk in pre-draft physical examinations (for let's say the Top 250 players) and pass those results down to the teams, players and advisors. Maybe teams wouldn't be allowed to offer anything less than 10% below slot if a player had a majority (3/5, 4/7, 5/9, etc.) vote that had cleared his physical and declared him to be physically fit to play. Teams would also have access to the "dissenting" opinions, almost like a S.C. case.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jul 21, 2014 -> 07:10 PM) I thought Boras, that the most you could bid was the cap amount (or what the agreed upon bid was). You couldn't ever go past that, so you were tied to the slotting system. This just meant if a team wasn't willing to pay slot because of an injury risk, the player could go out and find another team who would pay that value. The team that didn't want to pay is restored by getting their draft pick and the player, who was going to be forced to take less money or re-enter the process, was made whole by going to another organization who paid. In terms of southsiders post, he was referring to the fact that under the Boras scenario, the maximum bid, was $6.5M (which I believe was the agreed upon offer prior to the physical) and thus since the player couldn't reach an agreement after the physical, they would become a free agent and no team could offer more then 6.5M (but could offer less). However, in this case, southsider is assuming, every team in baseball would offer the maximum, which then poses the question, do you leave it up to the player to then pick the team or is there another process to determine when similar teams have same bid? Aha. Got it. I guess the simplest way to resolve that would be to do it like waiver claims, where you go in order from worst to first, although that's done by leagues and not for all of MLB sequentially by reverse winning percentage. Of course, this would also lead to the possibility of even more teams intentionally tanking in order to position themselves for either a rebuild or quick 1-2 year turnaround....where a veteran team like the Phillies, for example, started off slowly and just decided as an intentional strategy not to be concerned about their May results, considering the season already lost. And of course that wouldn't be "fair" to contending teams. And it would take quite a bit of time to "unwind" all the different permutations with each player in the first 3-5 rounds, so those players wouldn't be able to join their short-season teams until as late as the second week of July.