caulfield12

Here you go Greg...I'm sure there are many other possibilities Joey Cora Joe McEwing Bobby Valentine Buddy Bell Sandy Alomar Jr. Dave Martinez Red Sox bench coach DeMarlo Hale Giants bench coach Ron Wotus Don Cooper Robin Ventura Ryne Sandberg Omar Vizquel Scott Ullger (Twins' 3B coach) Ron Kittle Steve Stone

Greg, would you really be happy with Guillen coming back if the White Sox finish 3rd, 4th or last? Why? If you consider the "All In" strategy a failure, you prefer to fire KW instead? Because there are thousands who would want to be White Sox G.M. (starting with Rick Hahn) but not very many managers desiring the job? Hmmmm....I guess that explains 80 year old Jack McKeon possibly returning to the Marlins.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 18, 2011 -> 01:38 PM) Are you kidding? It's a union job. I'm sure those health care plans cover implants. Unions are destroying the world to get teachers boob jobs. Maybe the MLBPA can get Juan Pierre a boob job so we can transition him to another line of work.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jun 18, 2011 -> 11:30 PM) I guess so man. For a team with the "best system in baseball" that is not competing, I don't know why you would waste $2.5 million on a guy that nobody else wants, who has proven to automatically decline after he spends a few months with a team. That's cool if you are happy with him, but there is no way that it can be considered a "good move" for Moore. We can debate the Gil Meche signing, but that was very important symbolically. Of course, the problem has always been these "filler" contracts like Bloomquist, Pods, Ankiel, Callaspo/Betemit, Farnsworth, Juan Cruz, etc. The argument was that they had to put "legitimate" major league players out there on the field in order to bridge that time period from 60 win teams to competitive ones instead of rushing ALL their minor leaguers up prematurely. And the Royals have really struggled to develop outfielders internally since Damon, DeJesus, Beltran and Dye (via trade from ATL). So you have to be credit with their seeming patience. Hosmer was actually brought up earlier than most projected because of that future Super 2/arbitration years concern. At the time, the Royals were in a much better position than the White Sox, Twins and Tigers. But they've done a pretty good job transitioning from the Sweeney/DeJesus/Greinke era fwiw. At least to the fans, there's now a clear identity and direction for the first time since the early 90's.

QUOTE (knightni @ Jun 19, 2011 -> 04:48 AM) Baines and Burns were drafted. Hoyt was acquired by giving up Bucky Dent. Dotson by giving up Brian Downing. Kittle was a minor league free agent Walker was a Rule 5 pickup R. Law came from Espy who Veeck drafted V. Law came from Baumgarten who Veeck drafted Compare: Beckham, Morel and Sale were drafted. Quentin was acquired for Chris Carter. Humber was a minor league free agent A.J. was a waiver pickup Santos was given to the Sox by SF Ramirez was a cheap free agent Thornton came from Borchard who KW drafted Danks came from McCarthy who KW drafted Talking 2005: Jenks as a waiver pickup, Dye as a cheap-ish free agent, Crede, Buehrle, Garland and Rowand developed. Iguchi as a cheap free agent, Pods acquired for a free agent-to be C. Lee, and Contreras acquired for a fading Loaiza. Seems like KW hasn't done the worst job in the world. Record 1976-1984 (1981-84 Veeck's "legacy"): One division Title, .487 winning % Record 2000-2008 (An equal 9 years of KW): Three division Titles, One Championship, .534 winning % Except KW wasn't the GM in 2000, Schueler was...his record looks a heckuva lot better if you cherrypick that 2000 season and add it into the mix. That 1983 team also featured Fisk, Luzinski, Julio Cruz (who became an instant bust when JR then gave him a long-term deal), Floyd Bannister, Jerry Koosman with Lamp, Tidrow and the late Salome Barojas as the three key components of the bullpen. EDIT: Okay, I get it....wasn't reading thoroughly enough, all the players I listed were brought into the fold by JR and company after 1981. If you want to start doing this, you could argue the 1990-1995 White Sox were more successful if you remember how good that 90 team was (Oakland was just an exceptional team at that time, nothing like them back at that time), 1993 and the cancelled 1994 team that was leading the division at the time of the strike...you could argue Himes was certainly better at drafting and developing players.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 18, 2011 -> 10:01 PM) Especially when these same people are absent when we put a little winning streak together. Well, the anti-Ozzie crowd already will have been given a gift on a silver platter if Ozzie seriously sits Konerko for Dunn tomorrow. Paulie's basically our ONLY offensive threat these days, along with Alexei. We can't just HOPE Dunn flares to life in a Sunday line-up when we have the hottest hitter in the AL. And we lose a lot there defensively as well. Honestly, I'd rather risk Dunn in LF for one game than sitting Konerko.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 18, 2011 -> 09:56 PM) Or the 15 multi-million dollar homes the McCourts bought. Which is why he was backed into a corner and was planning to undersell their local tv rights package for many years into the future to get the cash into his pockets ASAP. Cue Bud Selig and the "not in the best interests of the game" clause which is very open to interpretation.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Jun 18, 2011 -> 09:07 PM) I know people hate hearing this and it's a cliche around here, but based on the combination of number of posts, tone of said posts, and the timing of said posts, I really have to wonder if some people are happier about being "right" when the Sox are terrible so they can post over and over about the reasons why than they are when the Sox are winning, maybe because there's not as much to hyperanalyze. I don't know, but oftentimes PHT is a pretty depressing place because of this. And I'm someone who's spent more time feeling pessimistic than optimistic since '07 and a pretty big critic of Ozzie and some moves by KW that I thought were boneheaded. For me, it's just frustration with muddling along as an "average" (this year, below average) team going on three years now. That, and the mystifying inability to beat AL Central opponents, especially the Twins and the Tigers (since the end of last year). And the knowledge that continuing on this path has no future...yet not particularly believing we have the front office and managerial/coaching staff in place to completely start over from scratch with a new philosophy/direction and stick with that plan...I just want SOMETHING to be excited about for the future, SOME reason for hope. For me, it has been Viciedo, ever since we signed him. But I'm not sure if that's enough for the casual White Sox fan.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 18, 2011 -> 09:43 PM) This is a private ownership group so it's impossible for us to know how much each owner put in the bank from a year like that. But it's safe to say that the teams owners aren't hurting. the franchises that actually get in trouble have major issues. The Mets might owe the Madoff prosecutor a billion dollars. McCourt had to lose a couple hundred million to his wife to get in hot water. Texas had to owe arod $250 million. Don't forget the atrocious deals for Juan Pierre, Andruw Jones and Manny Ramirez...they've impacted the Dodgers as much as anything else.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 18, 2011 -> 09:40 PM) What did they do with the profit Forbes said they made previous seasons? It will be interesting to see what happens after the owners get all the cash from the new television deal flowing into their coffers. Slowly but surely, attendance/parking/concessions revenue is shrinking in importance, becoming a smaller and smaller piece of the pie. Which is why the White Sox will always be "okay" as long as they're drawing at least 20,000 per game. It will be especially hard for the owners to cry poor in the face of all the economic evidence to the contrary.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 18, 2011 -> 09:37 PM) Teachers are greedy bastards destroying the country. No teachers anywhere should have health care!!!!! I had a good health care package in Kansas City, but a lot of my fellow teachers were spending an additional $400-500 to cover their spouses and children. I'm not going to get into the whole Wisconsin fiasco here, I'll just say I have great health coverage from my international school in China. When I had kidney stones, I think I paid something like $75 total for two ultrasounds, an ambulance (well, it's more like a long jeep), all my meds, 2-3 consults with doctors before they could diagnose correctly because they were so small (and PAINFUL!!!)....morphine/IV drip at hospital, etc.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 18, 2011 -> 09:27 PM) Then they have no reason to raise ticket prices every year. We will agree to disagree because I think guys like Alex Rios, even if he were halfway decent, making $12 million a year, is silly. Seriously, $12 million is a lot of money. It's all relative, though. What about John Bon Jovi making over $125 million last year??...Lady Gaga, etc. Is he 10X more valuable to society than Alex Rios, lol? Then you get into very esoteric arguments about music/culture having more creativity and intrinsic entertainment value than sports....it can go on and on. As a teacher, it's a common argument about how much is enough.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 18, 2011 -> 09:26 PM) Why does it matter if long term seat holders cancel their rivets if they have replacements for most? That's a huge revenue increase. The other problem is you're losing those potential generations of future fans...going to baseball games is a habit, the shared memories of going with your father or grandfather to the game. Once you lose a loyal customer after so many years, it's 10X harder to get them back in the fold. If you give up your tickets...a lot of people are finding new hobbies and interests, or they're simply just trying to survive financially. Just not as much time for sports/entertainment spending.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 18, 2011 -> 09:24 PM) Many of the people they sent invoices to are cancelling, some have had their seats over 30 years. Salaries cannot continue to go up if you expect the paying customers to foot the bill. I don't think televison ratings have been particularly stellar with Fox. Rios with a homer. I think I read somewhere that we were in the bottom 5. Still, because of the larger base of media customers in Chicago...it's not completely bleak. They just have to start winning.

Alex Rios sighting. Fathom, where are you? This might be the 2nd or 3rd time he's played a memorably significant role in winning a game this season.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 18, 2011 -> 09:18 PM) The Knicks are screwing ticketholders because there is demand for those tickets Comparing this to wall street is just nuts. No one is using baseball tickets to hide losses or betting 100x on the future price of tickets. Don't think he was trying to do that. The idea simply was that people feel a lot more financial insecurity because of the declines of their retirement nest eggs, their 401-k's, profit-sharing...and they can no longer count on their home appreciating and borrowing against that asset. Liquid assets are becoming more and more important....so it's understandable that families are thinking long and hard about this. I have a cousin in Plano who's had Dallas Cowboys season tickets in his family for 30+ years and he finally gave them up because of the escalating costs and the struggles his IT company has been having the last 3-5 years during the recession.

Almost another great catch by Lillibridge. Danks is smelling win #3. Excellent job pitching out of that situation. Owings has 9 career homers, he's no slouch at the plate.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 18, 2011 -> 08:58 PM) No. It probably shouldn't cost someone $200-300 to take their family to a game, but people have been willing to pay it, although I believe the tide is turning. And those corporations that used to buy box ticket packages or suites are hoarding their cash...it's definitely a different economic landscape for most American families, and sooner or later the NBA and MLB will have to acknowledge that and readjust accordingly.

QUOTE (South Side Fireworks Man @ Jun 18, 2011 -> 08:59 PM) Rios would make a pretty good fourth outfielder. That's a pretty expensive fourth outfielder, but the cost is sunk anyway so might as well pay him for the role he is suited for. How much better would the Sox be this season if Viciedo and De Aza were on the 25 man roster in place of Pierre and Rios? I'm not convinced De Aza would make much of a difference, but Viciedo in LF/RF and having Hudson back and we'd be a lot more competitive. Of course, we can't just take Hudson's stats and project them to the White Sox. It seems part of the problem in Chicago is that he wasn't listening to the coaching staff and was trying to do things his way because he'd been so successful at the minor league level doing just that.

Poor Ubaldo Jimenez, going all Dontrelle Willis. He went from a 15 game winner at the ASB to 5 wins in the past 5 1/2 months and is now out of the Tigers game with an injury. I'm sure a lot of unhappy rotisserie league drafters aren't so amused. So much for Lillibridge. They're going to have to let him play everyday to get back into an offensive rhythm. Unfortunately, that will never happen.

I'm starting to think they need to bring in a sports psychologist to work with Beckham and Rios. It's pretty obvious Walker doesn't have the tools in his toolbag to get through to either of these guys.

Upton's not getting cheated. In his last 19 games, he's hitting a crisp .452. What a talented family.

I think we're another 2 weeks from Beckham going back to the minors. He made solid contact in his first at-bat...but at some point his long-term viability (2012-2014) as a player has to take precedence over one season. They're going to have to re-engineer a Tiger Woods swing change and get rid of that hitch in his swing somehow.

3 weeks ago, you would have said Santos. Now it has to be Konerko, with Humber (if they need a pitcher), Quentin and Ramirez on the periphery of the discussion. Minnesota on a 13-2 run (another 1-0 win) and still only 8 GB now. At least the Tigers are cooling off against the Rockies. C'mon Gordon, we need a bases clearing double to break this game open and give Danks some breathing room for once.

That's 51 interleague homers now for Konerko, tied for 3rd All-Time behind Thome, Griffey JR and tied with Farmer in the Delgado.