caulfield12

QUOTE (Swingandalongonetoleft @ Feb 15, 2012 -> 12:08 AM) Sox fans need to seriously start worrying about a 48 year old Ichiro and Torii Hunter on wheels rolling around in the outfield soon. I know Manny got to take an iPod with him while on "defense"- would canes and respirators be permissible? I'm sorry for using Manny as an example again, but he was able to relieve himself inside the Green Monster while a pitcher was being relieved on the mound. Catheters just seem like they would be more convenient and would allow the outfielders to study whoever was in the on-deck circle like a hawk would study it's opposition (smaller-sized mammals). Bonus- opposing hitters would have to get used to being surrounded by four hawks. The fourth has an ideal vantage point perched directly behind home plate enabling him to assist the umpiring crew with any trouble they may have in making a correct decision. Bonus 2 - game worn jerseys are big business for memorabilia stores , but game used collection bags would be sought after and a new revenue stream is, more profit. You said "stream." tee-hee, Beavis.

The Cubs didn't have to do that with Concepcion...even though he's not "officially" contracted with, either. Maybe it's one of those things like the Jays' "fake" interest in Darvish that is mostly meant to placate the fans who were excited about getting Cespedes and feel let down. Who really knows at this point?

Or Valverde not blowing a single save.

Insurance for all 3 outfielders. Allows Lillibridge to spend a little more time practicing at all three infield positions. Experienced LH bat and walk machine off the bench. Paying him less than the likes of Castro, Vizquel and Linebrink (not to pitch for us last year). Decent to good glove, certainly a replacement for Dayan in late innings of close games. Hard to see any reason to complain here. For some reason, I was expecting Magglio Ordonez (just to spite Ozzie), but we needed a LH bat more.

Can he play SS for Alexei in April? Hey, the Royals had the bright idea of putting Teahen at 2B, anything's possible. Just not likely.

Would anyone be jumping up and down with joy if we paid Soler $30 million? Maybe a few, but most would be skeptical/pessimistic. Of course, it's not our money, but we've all seen how much the Axis Of Evil (Peavy/Dunn/Rios) Contracts have hamstrung the organization from an operational perspective and aren't keen to take on another dubious financial commitment.

http://blog.chron.com/ultimateastros/2012/...rojection-game/ Thought this was an interesting read related to the new reliance of SABR/quant/quant analysis going on the game today.

QUOTE (SOXOBAMA @ Feb 14, 2012 -> 12:33 AM) I've pretty much written this season off.. For the Sox to spend 0 dollars on new major league talent is pitiful.. I will be at the ball park for about 50 games this season. I truly hope to see some good ball games. They really can't spend any money going forward until they know what they have in 2012. Sure, they could have signed Soler for $20-30 million, that's not a move just for this season... Would it have made sense to spend another $10-15 million on the bullpen? Even if they kept their payroll at last year's levels (let's say, bringing back Buehrle/Santos/Quentin), would anyone be predicting anything above 83-85 wins? You'd have to doubt it, right?

http://www.southsidesox.com/2012/2/1/27624...n-the-white-sox I don't know what this says more about, KW or Ozzie. White Sox only ahead of the Royals (and defunct Expos) for having the most negative WAR players with over 100 at-bats in the last decade.

■if Viciedo has enough service time to qualify for arbitration after 2011, he may void 2012 season (if voided, club may exercise option at $3.5M) He only has 0.123 years of service as of now, of course. Where does it say somewhere in print that we control his rights all the way through 2017? http://www.southsidesox.com/2012/1/18/2715...contract-status Okay, found it. Has anyone ever read that Mark Gonzales piece on Marco Paddy for Baseball America? Just curious. It's subscriber-only, unfortunately.

So we theoretically control Viciedo through 2017? That doesn't sound right.

QUOTE (DirtySox @ Feb 14, 2012 -> 12:27 AM) The Cubs have the money to blow on such signings, so the circumstances hardly matter. Especially since the market changes completely for international signings and the draft in a few months. If Kenny had the resources and go ahead from Jerry to go wild before the "cap" is instituted, you'd bet he'd be throwing that money around. It's certainly not a shrewd move by Theo, just a I have lots of spending money move. There's not a chance JR would have allowed that much money be spent on unproven talent anyhow. We all see know how he treats the draft. With the exception of Iguchi, Takatsu, Alexei and Viciedo, but all of those guys (except Dayan) were major league ready at the time of signing and expected to contribute from Day 1. The only anomalous signing was Dayan, and many of us were optimistic he'd be playing in Chicago by the end of 2009 or early in 2010 simply due to his hitting ability (and throwing all some of his other deficits, such as lack of a defensive position).

The White Sox were easily the most boring and unwatchable team in baseball in 2011. It really can't get any worse than last year, because wholesale changes in personnel will occur as a result...and watching younger, hungrier players is always more fun than watching overpaid veterans.

QUOTE (fathom @ Feb 14, 2012 -> 12:21 AM) Something I've noticed in a lot of articles about the 3 Cubans is the tidbit that Viciedo is in the last year of his contract. Is this true? Didn't think it was. From everything I've read here, we can offer arbitration for years 5 and 6, if we so choose to. So he's really like a first year arbitration player (4th year) in terms of his overall timeline, with us having complete control of his rights through the 2014 season.

QUOTE (fathom @ Feb 14, 2012 -> 12:15 AM) I'm happy that the Sox didn't end up spending a fortune on these 3 Cubans, but the question has to be asked "what exactly was KW talking about when he said that trading Quentin allowed them to do some creative things financially they couldn't have done before the trade"? Maybe he just underestimated the demand and was confident that had an in to reel in Cespedes or Soler...or simple due to their past history with El Duque, Contreras, Alexei and Viciedo, not to mention the ongoing relationship with Jaime Torres. The argument could be made that he meant "in-season" flexibility, which he clearly didn't have last year. Maybe he was simply implying that keeping Danks around was possible due to the shedding of those other salaries...at least, that would be his "spin" job on it.

Some might be lauding the Cubs' aggressiveness and open wallets, but I can hardly imagine that this constitutes a great signing at the dollars mentioned. I know you can't so easily compare it to someone like Borchard or Mark Prior, but the dollar figures have just gotten insane with an unproven five tool player. I'll take 10-15 Brian Goodwins over 1 Soler. It's not like there aren't any other five tool players in the Dominican, Asian market or Venezuela. Soler's just become way overvalued because of the circumstances. Someone mentioned Moneyball and exploiting a market, but the White Sox already set the precedent there, not the A's or the Cubs. The Cubs are like the mailman who buys the latest hot stock tip (Enron and WorldCom, you can't lose!) or plow their life savings into the property market at the height of the euphoria. The White Sox already got in and got out while it still made sense from a cost-benefit analysis standpoint.

Soler, according to one report, will be making $27.5 million with the Cubs for three or four years. He may have been courted by Cubs ownership and front-office officials while they were visiting their new Dominican academy earlier this month. That's just an incredible amount for a player who's arguably going to be starting 2012 in High A and is at least 2 years away from the majors, from all scouting reports.

Seems they plan on starting him in RF from the beginning of the season in April. Could be a big disaster if he continues to struggle so much with offspeed stuff and gets off to a terrible start and loses his confidence, which was already shaken a bit because of the rust in the Dominican Winter League.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=ApMJ...cespedes_021312 By the way, the White Sox are projected to be at $98 million for payroll, around 12th-13th-14th with Brewers/Twins.

The funny thing is that Willingham will basically be making about the same amount of money...$21 million for 3 years. Obviously, they see Cespedes as being a "higher impact" All-Star level player who can be leveraged when he proves himself for 2-3 "superprospects" once/when/if his contract begins to seem like a bargain. Still a huge risk if there's no new stadium deal and you're going to start another rebuilding process with the prospects you get back from dealing him. It's an interesting move, that's for sure.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Feb 12, 2012 -> 09:33 PM) There's quite a few posts that are multiple paragraphs. I always read them and then realize I'm not absorbing any of it. In other words, it's like a typical Michael Bay movie minus the bikini-clad girls and his trademark fiery car chase explosions have been replaced by rhetorical ones.

QUOTE (Swingandalongonetoleft @ Feb 12, 2012 -> 10:52 PM) Later on in the same interview, she attempted to sell her some prime beachfront property in Iowa. Hey, Sioux City, the Quad Cities and Des Moines have some beautiful lakefront and riverfront properties. You have to interpret the term "beachfront" very loosely, though. Certainly not pristine white sand beaches like the Maldives, Philippines, Thailand or Malaysia.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Feb 12, 2012 -> 09:32 PM) I don't mind the notoriety, but I'm trying to figure out why so many people mention my posts on here. It's either a.) people are curious if I'll ever start agreeing with the majority, which is deemed the correct position on all matters White Sox. or b.) for some reason my posts stand out. I'll respond with something another poster wrote to me. In fact, being kidded and chided and called out has caused me to rething my posting style A LITTLE over time, lol. This was from 2009. So you're not the only one here, Marty34 and VictoryMC, dick allen on Greg Walker or financial conspiracies, J4L has had his share of detractors through the years, etc. Good to see you're still posting. You catch a lot of s*** from people here -- more than I'm used to seeing, and perhaps have ever seen -- and it's just people massaging their ego. Good to see it hasn't gotten to you. As a fellow English major (and aspiring writer) I know exactly how easy it is to write a thousand words and drift off the point here and there. Most of the people here couldn't write a thousand words if they had a gun to their head. So, keep at it, even if it means I write another long post that makes no sense and suggests Alexei should play catcher to parody your style. After all, if anything, that just means you're doing something right.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Feb 12, 2012 -> 09:40 AM) Entirely her own fault for being with him and doing f***tons of crack. One less crackhead out there. Her sobriety had been a matter of public concern since the late '90s. A common public misassumption had been that if she ever got out from under the sway of husband Bobby Brown, she would be all right. "He was my drug," she told Oprah in 2009, two years after their divorce, after apparently cleaning up. "I didn't do anything without him. I wasn't getting high by myself." Whitney Houston remembered at Clive Davis's pre-Grammy gala But more recently, it'd started to look like her ex-husband was no longer the sole driving force of her substance abuse, if ever he had been. Last May, a Houston rep acknowledged that the singer was involve in outpatient rehab for ongoing drug and alcohol problems. That was right around the time Houston and her daughter, Bobbi Kristina Brown, made the news for getting a little too boisterous in the front row at a series of Prince concerts in L.A. Although Prince's reps later denied there was any dispute, it was reported at the time that Prince was so fed up with Houston's behavior and requests to get up on stage that he supposedly banned her from coming to the rest of his run. All that was just a couple of months after the March 2011 edition of the National Enquirer that featured a double-page photo spread of Bobbi Kristina allegedly snorting lines of cocaine at a party (albeit with her mom nowhere in sight). The tabloids also reported last year that Houston's fortune had run out. With no new albums on the horizon, her best hope for career renewal was the movie Sparkle, in which she played a supporting role as Jordin Sparks' mom. The film — her first since The Preacher's Wife in 1996 — was shot late last year and will come out in August, accompanied by a soundtrack that includes two new Houston tunes. Otherwise, Houston didn't have much of a career going at the time of her death. Her should've-been comeback album, 2009's I Look to You, sold about a million copies in the U.S. — far from a shameful number, but also far from the 13 million copies for which her 1985 debut had been certified. The most embarrassing factor was that none of the singles from the album rose above No. 70 on the Hot 100. (Houston's only top 10 single of the 2000s was a re-release of "The Star-Spangled Banner" in the patriotic days following 9/11.) Whitney's life in photos Houston's only major tours in the last decade were overseas, far away from the critical eyes of the American media. In September 2009, she did a short comeback concert for "Good Morning America" in Central Park. The blurring of the line between entertainment and news on morning shows became apparent as hosts Diane Sawyer and Robin Roberts lauded Houston's performance on their show, even as every other media outlet was reporting on how the voice of a generation could no longer handle the demands of even an abridged show, clean or not. The reports of ongoing trouble for Houston never served her image the way they might have, say, Amy Winehouse's. America never wanted to think of her as a bad girl, just a perhaps more grown-up version of the Girl Next Door who'd seemed so wholesome wanting to dance with somebody who loved her. But with the chops as well as the image failing her, there wasn't much left to make a thriving recording or certainly touring career out of. In recent days, one solution for returning Houston to the limelight without subjecting her singing voice to harsh scrutiny had seemingly been arrived at. Rumors had been floated — and published by the Hollywood Reporter — that she was up for contention as a judge on "The X Factor." Simon Cowell told Piers Morgan that Houston had not actually been approached, but that in response to the news reports (which he implied might have been instigated by Houston's camp), his team had planned to have a meeting about considering her on Monday. Bobby Brown breaks down But getting in that public scuffle Thursday night with Stacy Francis, an admirer who was one of the Season 1 "X Factor" finalists, might not have done Houston any favors, had she lived to come up for contention with Cowell and his producers this week. Even in as high-profile a period as Grammy week, Houston couldn't seem to shy away from small acts of self-sabotage. Her fans can only hope it's the years when pride predominated that ultimately define her legacy. ..

•Orioles executive director of international recruiting Fred Ferreira will watch Cuban outfielder Jorge Soler in the Dominican Republic when he travels to watch Yoenis Cespedes play, Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com reports. This was written on the 6th or 7th of FEB.