caulfield12

QUOTE (bucket-of-suck @ Jun 2, 2012 -> 02:05 PM) Sox are in on Youkilis and if it happens they want it done soon. But if it doesn't happen, it didn't happen quickly enough?

QUOTE (BigEdWalsh @ Jun 2, 2012 -> 02:26 PM) This is a funny discussion. Everybody is right. Yes, the White Sox have a small fan base. Yes, the common everyday Joe can't afford to go to games any more. I can barely afford to go to games and when I do I can't afford to eat. I sneak in some snacks and go to Wendy's on the way home. This is a great deal. If I were in the Chicago area, I would definitely be taking advantage it. They need to advertise it! If they don't it wont help to increase attendance much. They need to advertise that you can sneak in food? Well, I remember always going to Taco Bell across from Kauffman Stadium and parking for free, but it all adds up. Movies are the same way. But I'll still order at least a Dr. Pepper in the stadium, lol. Can't survive without some type of drink and chili cheese fries.

Ventura is really pushing all the starters this year...hopefully they can all hold up in August/September. Then again, the superstitious baseball manager never changes a line-up's that working, except for the catcher occasionally.

QUOTE (Baron @ Jun 2, 2012 -> 03:27 PM) So we need a 3B and a starter....With the way Gavin has been playing starter is more of a need The problem is that who are going to trade to get one...Gavin? Matt Thornton? We're just going to have to play "whack a mole" with Quintana and all of our minor league starters, in all likelihood.

Gavin Floyd might be the Alex Rios/Adam Dunn of 2011. If it wasn't for Danks' DL stint, John'd be more noticeable on that list of villains too, especially with the new contract.

Didn't realize Encarnacion had 17 homers already with the Jays. He was almost out of baseball 2-3 years ago. Well, that's not a good sign. Noesi mowed us down. Last time, we knocked him out very early.

Jetstream out to RF today. 20 mph, more or less. Floyd 3-0 with a 1.27 ERA in his last five starts against the Mariners. Over/under on homers hit in this game? 73 degrees, so no weather excuse today.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Jun 2, 2012 -> 01:50 PM) These are all just excuses. Not buying it. I'm sure we'll see 100 more excuses in this thread before it's said and done. Let's face it, our fan base is just very small. Unless we win another World Series, you might be right. See 2006 attendance. And, even then, the thrill/excitement is going to have already worn off a BIT because of that '05 breakthrough. The way things are going right now, you'd think they would certainly struggle to get 30,000+ for playoff games against the Rays.

QUOTE (sunofgold @ Jun 2, 2012 -> 01:47 PM) This is a good name. Should also conjure up good recollections of Greg " the Bull" Luzinski. Remember him? Which is kind of the point, that there's only ONE "Bull" or "zynski/zinski" in Sox Lore. AJ is good enough. Everyone in baseball knows exactly who you're talking about. You can always use Anthony John, Gator (for his UF fandom), Wrestling Persona, Card Shark or "the wiliest player in baseball/future Sox manager"

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Jun 2, 2012 -> 01:38 PM) I don't buy that. With several million people in the metropolitan area you'd think getting 35k on a weekend for a 100 win team in 2005 shouldn't be a problem. Same goes for yesterday. The hottest teams in baseball playing extremely well in all facets of the game with an elite pitching matchup and you can't break 20K?! There are very few teams I could think of that would have this problem. Most cities would have broken 25K last night if their team had won 8 straight going in and was in 1st place. And this is Chicago not some podunk town. Even CLE had been drawing much better recently on weekends, and they're far far far away the worst team in overall MLB attendance. I would guess the only situations that fit your scenario are Tampa Bay, Miami (before the new stadium) and Oakland. Maybe Toronto, Baltimore and Seattle...to an extent. You have to think at least 25% of it's the dynamic pricing model and the fact that it's just much more convenient than ever before to follow the team on cable tv, satellite, at a bar, internet, cell phone, GameDay Audio, AtBat, etc.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Jun 2, 2012 -> 01:30 PM) I guess I'll never understand why the 3rd largest city in the US cannot support this team and fill up the stadium when we have one of the best teams in baseball. I'm sick of all of the excuses over the years that even I have used to justify the lack of attendance. Just look at 2005. We had weekend games in September where we could only draw 28K or 30K. A year where we were close to winning a 100 games. I guess I've come to realize that our fan base is pretty small. Or 2000. But it's because the fans didn't fully believe in the team because of the previous half-decade, lol. If it wasn't for the 2005 trophy, it (glass is half-empty rather than half-full) would be firmly-entrenched in the RNA/DNA of EVERY White Sox fan. As it is, you'd think the younger fans in their 20's and 30's who missed the 60's-90's would be more immune to that skepticism. But then you have the economy card for that group. And young families. Location. Traffic. Parking prices. Dynamic pricing. Weather. The Bulls/Blackhawks. Residual effects of the initial negative publicity about the stadium. Etc. Etc. Blame it all on Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.

QUOTE (TitoMB @ Jun 2, 2012 -> 01:26 PM) FTFY. Tar? Rios? WTH? I don't think you want to put "tar" in a nickname with any African-American or Hispanic player. See Toni Morrison novel.

QUOTE (TitoMB @ Jun 2, 2012 -> 01:26 PM) FTFY. Tar? Rios? WTH? I don't think you want to put "tar" in a nickname with any African-American or Hispanic player. See Toni Morrison novel.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jun 2, 2012 -> 01:28 PM) Pitch him. It's at home. We're playing Seattle. Sox are going for 10 in a row. Pitch him. Or don't pitch him for the jinx to take place and him to throw a great game. But we don't play well at home. In all seriousness, Floyd has been lights out career-wise against the Mariners. Which probably means nothing because of the 12+ ERA in his last 3 starts.

Option A White Sox barely hang on to make the playoffs but are swept in the first round, Ventura still wins AL Manager of the Year Option B Marlins win the World Series, Ozzie Guillen is consensus NL Manager of the Year...Greg775 has opportunity to start collecting donations for Ozzie Guillen's managerial shrine in Cooperstown and launch hundreds of "I told you so's" at Soxtalk.com. Not that the Marlins winning the World Series wouldn't be MORE about the talent on that team, lol. Which one would you prefer, if you had to choose between the two options but couldn't have both?

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jun 2, 2012 -> 12:57 PM) That was a great post until you brought Guillen into it. WTF? You think any manager cares about fans? I mean they are nice to them and sign autographs but why the f*** would Ozzie Guillen or any manager care about the second guessing fans who call talk shows and reveal their stupidity on a daily basis? Your post went to hell when you brought Guillen into it. 3. Ozzie's blasts at the fan base the past few years, which rubbed raw a lot of people. (For example, I sent Brooks an e-mail after Ozzie's 'pissing on statue's' comment. It was a week before he got back to me, which is very unusual. Brooks apologized saying he was trying to catch up to all the fans who had written him.) "As soon as you leave the ballpark, they don’t care about you any more. They don’t. The monuments, the statues they have for you, they piss on it when they are drunk. That’s what they do. Thank you for coming for 30 minutes for all the suffering you did all your life, day in and day out." Ozzie Guillen

Anyway, Sox are selling discounted tickets for the Jays series...finally. 5 dollar upper deck tickets for the entire series....now,c'mon Sox fans,lets show management that the pricing is the problem...and fill that upper deck!! I think they should just go with 5 dollar upper deck tickets for til all star game,at least. But they're not publicizing it very much at all...or going out of their way to mention it at chisox.com or through their tv and radio teams. Perhaps for the first two months of the season, they really were better off with their dynamic ticket pricing model, treating Chicago like an "inelastic" market that would bear any pricing burden. However, where they're at now...they need to start making efforts to bring out the casual/bandwagon/"cheapskate" (in the eyes of the marketing dept.) back to the park. Because right now, 25,000 fans and the EXACT same revenue is worth more than 19,000 fans to the team itself winning on the field. If they want to create a buzz around the team and in the city, it can't be done with selling tickets in July/August in mind. They need to maximize this opportunity right now to take advantage of the hot streak. If they want to hold onto the dynamic pricing model in the bottom level, fine. Protect the season ticket holder/premium experience. But the more games go by where the Sox are playing this well and drawing such abysmal crowds (Friday night), the harder it will be to start breaking that trend and consistently drawing at least 25-30,000 per game, especially on the weekends, Fireworks, promotional item giveaways, etc. For KW and Boyer to keep digging at the fans supporting the team when they have this system in place is disengenuous at best. It's a direct reflection of the fact that the front office and especially former manager Ozzie Guillen could care less about the 1-5-10 time per season attendees.

I've stated that at this point, the biggest reasons for the Sox slow home attendance are as follows (in no particular order...) 1. They weren't expected to do anything this season. No off season buzz heading into it. 2. Three losing seasons in the past five years. One playoff appearance since 2008. (no consistent stretch of winning) 3. Ozzie's blasts at the fan base the past few years, which rubbed raw a lot of people. (For example, I sent Brooks an e-mail after Ozzie's 'pissing on statue's' comment. It was a week before he got back to me, which is very unusual. Brooks apologized saying he was trying to catch up to all the fans who had written him.) If they can stay in this thing, I think the fan base will start to respond but if you want to consistently get a large attendance seasonally, the Sox are simply going to have to start consistently winning. The had (in relative terms) a consistent winner (i.e. winning seasons) from 2003 through 2006 capped off by a World Series win...attendance grew over that time period. It's going to take the same consistent winning / playoff appearances to do that again in my opinion. And the longer the Sox could do that, the greater the buzz and the bigger the number of fans who'll come out. The problem is though that in over 100 years the Sox have NOT been able to consistently win...they are the only one of the original 16 (pre expansion) baseball franchises to have never made the playoffs in back to back years. That's incredible. Lip (saw this from Mark Liptak over at WSI.com, they have a 19 page thread/complaint on the dynamic pricing issue) Brooks was on ESPN1000 a bit earlier and said when trying to promote tickets this weekend: "Dynamically priced tickets means the ticket prices are very similar to what you’d find in the secondary market." What secondary markets is he looking at!? Indeed. I checked whitesox.com first to buy tickets for tomorrow's game because I REALLY wanted to buy from the team to reward the winning streak. However, I'm on a budget and I simply couldn't ignore the savings that were on stubhub compared to what they were charging on the team website. I ended up getting four Club level seats above the Sox dugout (PLUS a parking pass) on stubhub for $10 cheaper per ticket than four regular lower reserve seats in the outfield on whitesox.com. Clearly, the best deal for me was on stubhub and not whitesox.com. If anyone in the Sox organization is tracking this thread, you lost the sale of four extra tickets for Saturday's game due to the high "dynamic" price. I did the same exact thing. It is absurd that the cheapest ticket, not in the upper deck, is $50 through whitesox.com. I hear you, I really noticed a lot of negativity on the Score regarding the Sox lately. They usually either make fun of Hawk or bash the Sox or their fans about attendance. This is especially apparent on B&B. I just want to hear them talk about how good the team is, but they go for cheap shots. Then they follow it up with "Don't worry the Cubs will be good in 3 years" over and over.. This on the Sox flagship station, sheesh..

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/cowley/1289...touchables.html

QUOTE (chw42 @ May 30, 2012 -> 09:48 AM) I really don't know about Matheny. Last I checked, the Cardinals aren't even in first place and they've struggled lately. Add in the fact that he took over a World Series champion...and I don't think he will win it unless the Cardinals win 100+ games. But, they had to replace Pujols, and the "genius" of LaRussa and Duncan, lol. Not to mention quite a few injury problems. But your point is well-taken, despite the fans who are holding onto the "they just got really really lucky twice in five years" card.

QUOTE (Hawk09 @ Jun 2, 2012 -> 10:36 AM) Sit tight,Kenny. O-Dog has a .633 OPS,which is not great,but it makes a big difference over Morel's .425 OPS. I love the switch-hitting angle with O-Dog....it makes pitchers uncomfortable. Also the speed factor. He gets on more often,and when he does, he can mess with the pitcher who is facing the dangerous DeAza. Or he can mess with our minds by getting thrown out on the basepaths right in front of Beckham homers. That extra run would have come in handy in the 8th inning yesterday.

Cue Balta defense. In all seriousness, there's ZERO way we can trade Floyd for Youkilis with all the uncertainty around our rotation right now (granted, part of that uncertainty has been caused by Gavin!) First of all, we're actually playing well and winning with Hudson. Second, KW won't want to "reward" the fans for NOT showing up to support his creation. Joking, I think. Third, Morel's a pretty decent second option (for now). Fourth, where it becomes interesting is that the Indians also could use a 3B. Hannahan's had all kinds of health problems, but they're also going to go with their former 1st round pick in Chisenhall before trading away future resources...and that Jimenez trade ended up really stinging them badly.

http://aleastbound.com/2012/05/28/should-t...e-colby-rasmus/ Article about the disappointing Colby Rasmus and possibility of trading him for pitching (not sure why Gavin Floyd would be mentioned, along with Joe Blanton) to open up CF for Anthony Gose. Expresses doubts he'll ever be able to hit LHP well.

He was released from jail, fwiw.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jun 2, 2012 -> 03:31 AM) But what if Ozzie slid spikes up at the umpire after he blew a call? Totally justified. Good ol' fashioned hard-nosed baseball.