caulfield12

RH hitters at .169 versus Floyd, lefties at .254. That ball hit to Rios really knuckled, hit right on the seams. Didn't have a chance to get it, it was a good play to just keep it in front of him.

QUOTE (danman31 @ May 14, 2011 -> 01:40 PM) Really? That's a totally different scenario. You're comparing a team that was 2 years removed from 93 wins to a team this year that's mostly devoid of pitching talent and is somehow pitching well. I'd be surprised if the Indians finish over .500. http://www.waitingfornextyear.com/2011/05/...ell-yeah-sorta/ I don't think any person in baseball would argue that Carmona, Alex White or Justin Masterson aren't talented. Jeanmar Gomez, fine, I'll give you. But until Tomlin and Talbot and Carlos Carrasco (who's injured) prove they are complete frauds, as well as LHP Drew Pomeranz in AAA, they look to be in a lot better shape than we are, and certainly going forward into the future.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ May 14, 2011 -> 01:15 PM) And the Sox increased payroll this year... Running a business isnt about hoping for best case scenarios every year, if they want to be successful over long periods of time they will need to make profit some years. Do you want them to run negative? If they've made $140 million in profits since the World Series, I don't see any reason to believe they'll be losing money now. I certainly don't buy the idea anymore that they need to tear the entire team apart if we're out of the race. It just shows, though, how effective KW and JR have been in their "crying poor" soundbites over the years that it's now become common wisdom to accept at face value. If there was a concern, they never would have added Manny Ramirez last year. And the White Sox have to be spending less money than just about any franchise on the draft and scouting/development. If they are spending a HIGH amount in this area, they consequently have the worst ROI of any MLB team over the last five years, that much is not in doubt. YES, CUE DAVE WILDER JOKES, I KNOW....that scandal was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, not millions.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ May 14, 2011 -> 12:23 PM) http://harvardsportsanalysis.files.wordpre...ckers-costs.jpg This was the Packers' expenses from 2009, approximately $230 million. I would venture to say a baseball team costs a lot more money to run, so you can see how much expenses are even if you are bringing in a lot of revenue. So because the Green Bay Packers spent $23+ million in marketing two years ago, in a completely different sport, you're assuming the White Sox are spending the same amount? What? The NFL broadcasting rights deal alone is currently at $20 BILLION. The current MLB deal is $3 billion for 7 years. You can't compare NFL teams and MLB teams.

Just a few days ago, everybody's favorite agent threw baseball's pooh-bahs into a serious froth. All it took was Boras telling the Boston Globe's Nick Cafardo that some teams are collecting $80 million to $90 million from Major League Baseball just in revenue sharing and central-fund welfare -- and essentially stuffing much of it in their mattresses. Well, not quite. Not that there weren't some shreds of truth in there someplace. But we've run those figures past all sorts of people who ought to know. None of them thinks that particular number adds up. However … Boras would have been a lot closer to the actual facts if he'd just included teams' local TV and radio payouts, which are heftier than you might think. So we did that. And that led us to … Our second conclusion: If you add in that local TV-radio money -- and if you add only that money -- you'd be astounded by how many clubs seem to be running up higher revenues than payrolls before they print a ticket. We've added up all the revenue streams. And here's what we found: If we just use the raw numbers, it appears that at least 10 teams collected $90 million-plus this year before they opened their ticket windows, let one car into their parking lots or sold one slice of pizza. That number, once again, was $90 million-plus. By at least 10 teams. But not everyone in baseball thinks that's a valid figure. Some argue that $10 million of that $90 million-plus shouldn't count -- because each team is required to pay $5 million into a pension fund and another $5 million into an MLB operations fund. OK, so fine. Make it $80 million-plus. Whichever it is, we're convinced our estimate is on target. Do the math yourself. • Central fund (includes national TV, radio, Internet, licensing, merchandising, marketing, MLB International money): Each team, from the Marlins to the Yankees, gets the same central-fund payout. And that check comes to slightly over $30 million per team if you deduct the $10 million in pension and operations fees, or just over $40 million if you don't. • Revenue sharing: Only income-challenged teams get a revenue-sharing check. But you should never forget that those checks are a lot larger than your average rebate check from Target. This sport shared $400 million in revenue this year -- more than the gross national product of Western Samoa. Now every club's payout is different. But the five neediest teams -- which we believe to be the Marlins, Pirates, Rays, Blue Jays and Royals -- averaged somewhere in the vicinity of $35 million in revenue-sharing handouts per team. And that still left over $200 million -- more than $20 million a club -- for the rest of the "payees" to divvy up. • Local TV/radio/cable: Good luck getting these exact figures. But we know that 29 of the 30 teams make at least $15 million a year in local broadcast money, and no team rakes in under $12 million. Obviously, some clubs collect much, much more than that. Or own their networks. Or both. Add $30 million, plus $35 million, plus $15 million, and what do you get? That would be $80 million. At least. Before these teams spin their turnstiles once.[/i] http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/stor...rumblings091119 So we can be pretty accurate with some of our numbers. White Sox at close to $80 million just for broadcasting rights. Central Fund=$30-40 million, depending on how you look at it (net is $30 million) Ticket Sales=$70-110 million (anywhere from 2 million - 2.7 million) Parking/Food/Concessions=$35-45 million Once again, taking the MOST conservative numbers, $235-245 million for revenues.

QUOTE (sin city sox fan @ May 14, 2011 -> 11:50 AM) Don't forget that the White Sox also have to pay taxes....just like any other business. You mean like Exxon, G.E. and Bank of America? With creative accounting and offshore accounts, a lot of Fortune 500 companies don't pay any taxes these days. I'm sure the IRS makes sure the players do, but the teams themselves? I'd like to see the tax returns for the White Sox since Reinsdorf took over.

Of course, for every line item, we can go back and forth. For example, merchandise/souvenir sales from all over the world. I live in Korea and 50% of the hats I see here are some variation of the White Sox hat, all licensed through MLB Properties, New Era, etc. It's also not taking into consideration monies from MLB Extra Inning packages, MLB.TV. MLB Gameday Audio, MLB International/World Baseball Classic, etc. Spring training costs can also be written off against taxes, for example. If the majority of "small market" teams have been very profitable (think of teams like the Royals or Pirates) by keeping artifically low payrolls and simply taking in the revenue sharing from the larger market clubs, there's still no way any of those teams are spending anything close to $50 million per year on all these other costs we're talking about, or they wouldn't be booking any profits. Very, very conservatively, there's at least a $70 million-80 million spread between revenues and player payroll. There's no way anyone can convince me they're coming close to spending that.

And they're sharing/splitting a lot of the costs of the Glendale ST site with the Dodgers. I'm sure they still net LOSE money on spring training, but perhaps not as much as one might think.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ May 14, 2011 -> 10:06 AM) Youre probably overestimating revenue and underestimating costs. The White Sox have employees and staff 365 days a year. The Sox have a spring training facility that costs money. We just have no idea how much it costs for things like transportation, travel and other operating costs. Where am I overestimating revenue? Forbes, sportsmarketingreport, Fan Cost index numbers, there's not really any debate about them. I might also be underestimating parking/souvenirs/concessions spending. I came up with pretty a conservative estimate. They have spring training costs, but they also derive spring training revenues. I'm pretty sure they have sweetheart deals with the airlines (when/if they ever fly commercial, such as Southwest) in return for advertising. There has to be a lot of trades engineered by the marketing/promotions department, where they're not booking revenue directly but the expenditures are dramatically lowered. Same thing with hotels for road trips. Last year, we were under the assumption (or the year before) they took losses because of the spring training complex construction and the Viciedo contract. I wonder if those two were figured into the Forbes calculations or not. And the majority of the secondary staff/support doesn't work 365 days per year, they're only working 81 home dates at the stadium.

I was reading where the Indians have recently faced 7 out the top 20 pitchers in the AL in ERA in their recent stretch. I'm sure we went through something similar in our 4-18 stretch, too. Probably worse. Between the A's/Angels/Rays, that's some stout pitching. And then Felix with the M's. Verlander and Scherzer aren't too shabby, either. And it sucks the Indians are missing Felix. Then again, I never thought Fister would win the game yesterday, or they'd have a 4-2 lead going into the 9th.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ May 14, 2011 -> 10:32 AM) Exactly. More than likely, the Sox aren't going to lose money this year. Moreover they made a ton of money last year according to Forbes, so they can afford a down year if they have one. What I find fascinating is this notion that the Sox have to draw 2.5M to break even. Chairman Reinsdorf never gives out that type of stuff. It's largely reporters speculation. Reporters, who have the same access to Forbes as we do, and who can see Forbes estimates, believe the Sox need to draw $2.5M just to break even. They have to do their jobs a lot better. If we drew 2,700,000 fans, we'd book $110 million in ticket revenues. That would put our net revenue in the $225-235 million range, or a full $100 million over our player payroll. Which doesn't even take into consideration profits of roughly $50 million over the last two years. They can intimate it's all being rolled back into team, but how is that possible??? Where?

I found this at wsi (cws05champs gets the credit) Assuming the Sox play 32 WGN games as they did in the regular season last year, 18 WCIU and 112 CSN games I have estimates the total revenue: 32 WGN games (@ ~$350K): $11,200,000 18 WCIU games (@$200K): $ 3,600,000 112 CSN games (@ $450K): $50,400,000 ---------------- $64,800,000 Sox Average ticket price was $38.65 and average attendance was 27,091 giving you and estimated: $1,047,067 per game or $84,812,435 for the 81 games at home. That's a total of $149, 612,435 revenue just from TV and attendance. This does not include concessions, parking, merchandise, advertising, spring training revenue and revenue form their Silver Chalice digital media firm among other things. And of course it does not take into account expenses such as their lease, operating costs for the stadium and staff etc. But you could confidently say they bring in well over $200M in revenue. You can also add in $14.3 million per team for national broadcast rights, shared equally (7 year agreement pays $3 billion, or $429 million per season and will at least double if not triple when it's renegotiated after the 2012 season). So you have $64.8 million from local/regional and $14.3 million from national rights (ESPN/TBS/TNT), so that's $79.1 million alone. The average ticket price this year is $40.67. (http://sports.espn.go.com/chicago/mlb/news/story?id=6281410) Right now average season attendance is at 22,180. Even in any WORST case scenario (let's say we continue to average only 22,000 for the remainder of the season), the White Sox will STILL generate at least $72.5 million from ticket sales alone. So right there, you're talking $72.5 million + $79.1-89 million=$151.6-161 million. If we average the 27,000 of 2010, it's $89 million from ticket sales alone. For concessions/parking/merchandising or souvenirs, I'll throw out 3 numbers and try to come up with some type of average. The cost to take a family of four to a Cubs game, using the Fan Cost Index formula, is $305.60, and the White Sox is $258.68, the third- and fourth-highest totals in baseball. Let's say the average family of four goes to a game (father/mother/2 kids)....that's an average of $65 per person entering the stadium, essentially $25 X 4=$100 over the average ticket price of $40.67. So let's say 40% of the attendance at Sox games is families, 20% are the type who may or may not pay for parking/buy food before the game or bring it in, don't buy souvenirs, maybe they buy 1-2 beers, etc. (we'll put them at $10) and the other 50% spend let's say, $17.50 on average above their ticket prices.... 40%=$25/person above ticket prices 20%=$10/person 40%=$17.5/person That's another $35-40 million booked in revenue (based on 2010 attendance). So you're looking at somewhere between $185-195 milllion for total revenues. Minus $129 million payroll, of course you've also got insurance (for example, Peavy's contract), running the minor league system, draft/scouting, front office/admin, security for games, the stadium lease (pretty negligible), etc. Then there's $68 million/20 years for US Cellular naming rights, or $3.4 million per season (about one stupid Manny Ramirez contract). That doesn't even take into account a litany of corporate sponsorships, promotional events and tie-ins, stadium signage/billboards, executive suite rentals, etc. As cws05champs guessed, the overall revenues have to be in the $200-220 million + range. Are the White Sox capable of spending $70-80 million in other areas??? How? We certainly know it's on not the draft or are Dominican and Venezuelan operations, since they and Jerry Krause seemingly haven't produced any results yet. Ozzie and KW don't make THAT much. Although Ozzie would like to, I'm sure. He keeps reminding us that he has a new house to pay for and his twitter feed to maintain. http://www.forbes.com/lists/2011/33/baseba...Sox_334758.html Forbes has us at $26-28 million for EBITDA and overall revenue of $210 million.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ May 13, 2011 -> 11:23 PM) Please god no more nicknames. Does that mean we have to get rid of CarGo too while he's under an 800 OPS?

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ May 14, 2011 -> 07:48 AM) You mean Humber's .213 BABIP is unsustainable? You've got a lot of nerve! His current rate stats are totally flukish and his below average 5.18 K/9 doesn't do anything to mask that. Smoke and mirrors for the most part. As the weather heats up and he starts seeing better offenses, reality will set in. Not that he possibly couldn't be serviceable all year. But trading guys because we have Humber? lol. He was striking out 6.65/9 with the Royals and they let him go. As did the Twins and A's. It's a little too early to read anything much into the stats until he has at least 15 starts. He's working fast and usually has kept his pitch count quite low (hence, pitching into the 7th inning a number of times)...sometimes, strikeouts are less desired than keeping your fielders alert and into the game, as we've learned to appreciate with Buehrle. For whatever reasons, he's been able to pitch out of trouble quite frequently this year, and his curveball has been more consistent than Floyd's. Does it really matter if Danks is striking out 7-8 batters per game if his pitch count is elevated and he has to leave in the 6th usually? Let's just wait and see what happens with this six man rotation. Theoretically, the starters will all be able to go an extra inning and add 10-20 pitches per game. We'll see if that also results in an uptick in their strikeouts, "stuff" and velocity.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 14, 2011 -> 05:02 AM) As of this moment, you don't trade him for a goddamn thing. Oh, and not wanting to count on Peavy? How about not wanting to count on Phil Humber...you know, the dude who is 28 and has never had any sort of sustained success at the major league level? He's proven he can be adequate, but you are talking about replacing a guy who is almost an ace with a guy who is probably a 4.50 ERA type guy at his best. That is absolutely absurd. As of right now, the Sox have, optimistically, anywhere from a 25-50% chance of winning the division. If they trade Danks, that drops to 5-10%. 20% at BP. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/odds/ Tigers projected to win the Central with 85 victories.

Crisp made the decision on his own, mostly because he sensed Thornton wasn't paying attention to him. Crisp got no sign from the bench and no guidance from third-base coach Mike Gallego, who saw Crisp take off and had only one thought: "Please be safe." "It was a shock," Gallego said. "Coco's an exciting player, a winning player. He can take a game in his own hands and win it for us." Jackson pinch hit for Ryan Sweeney, giving Crisp a right-handed hitter to potentially shield Pierzynski's view. Crisp had some positive vibes: He tried straight steals of home three times in high school and once in the minor leagues. He made it all four times. This time, Thornton threw a fastball down the middle - an easy pitch for Pierzynski to handle. "I got out there far enough, but my timing was a little off - I hesitated," Crisp said. "I saw (Pierzynski) catch it, and I knew I had to slide to the inside. He barely got me. He saw me coming and lunged out there right away. Good pitch, good play by him. "It's one of those plays where you've got to be safe. You gotta make it. I'd do it again, just without the stutter step." Pierzynski, in his 14th season in the major leagues, couldn't remember another opposing player trying a straight steal of home against him. "Most guys usually just deke; that's the first time I actually had somebody come," Pierzynski said. "I saw him coming and I was like, 'Hurry, Thornton! Just give me the ball!' "I didn't know what to do, so I basically just laid on top of the plate. That was the only thing I could think of to do. ... But it worked out and it was a huge moment in the game. It stopped their momentum and got us a win." Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...L#ixzz1MJArIdpV

I don't know about only 4, but John Danks is definitely not one of them. Another definition would be someone, no matter how the team has been doing, how it's hitting, you just feel at least 85-90% confident they're going to win that game, no matter what happens. Like Contreras in 2005-06 or Loaiza in 2003, Black Jack in the early 90's...sometimes it's about personality or leadership traits. Other times, it's just sheer pitching brillaince. Another example would be that stretch in 2006 when Liriano and Santana just sliced through our division. You knew going into the game the chances were about 5-10% at best of beating them. Or CC Sabathia. The White Sox, overall, have one of the best rotations in baseball, if Peavy is healthy. They also don't have a pitcher who "scares" an opposing team or that you really have to "get up for" to face. There might be a lot of respect for our starters, but we haven't had that ace since Contreras, which is why KW went out and got Peavy in the first place.

QUOTE (JorgeFabregas @ May 13, 2011 -> 11:46 PM) Major league teams generally don't enforce "accountability" by cutting veteran players. That's not really the way it works. Unless it's Milton Bradley or Carlos Silva.

B-League taketh and giveth away. I guess, in the overall scheme of things, he handed one game to us as well on the road. And we're 2-1 against the Indians. It always comes down to play in interleague and the AL Central internecine warfare down the stretch. Obviously their home record can't stand up, and they're going to have to prove they can win on the road against the big boys. The "hope" in the title...it stems from Peavy and having at least one weapon in Viciedo lurking in the minors. That's at least two bullets we have left. Or perhaps that Ozzie will recognize Pierre's no longer an everyday player. When you have a 44 year old 3B who's played the 14th most games in MLB history, what else do you have? A hope and a prayer.

A lot of it has to do with the durability of Sizemore, too. He was Ozzie's favorite player in baseball not so long ago. How long will the likes of Masterson, Tomlin and Alex White continue to pitch so well? How long can Chris Perez continue to pull his Houdini Act? Of course, looking at us, any fan would question Humber's success....Peavy's durability and what the heck's going on with Gordon Beckham and Matt Thornton.

Sergio "The Silencer" Santos?

If we can just go 10-9 the next 19 games against TEX/CLE/LAD and then survive another 10 game road trip to Texas, Toronto and Boston. That's the big if for now. At that point, we've finally got to beat 2/3 Detroit at home (they have a current eight game winning streak against us) AND sweep the Mariners out of USCF. Doing all that, we'd still be 2 games under .500 but with far and away the most difficult portion of the season out of the way. Then it would mostly be a battle within the AL Central itself to see who survives, like it has been every season since 2005.

QUOTE (scenario @ May 13, 2011 -> 11:45 PM) Nice outing for Lucas Harrell against the Twins AAA team. 6 innings; 1 run on 5 hits; 9K's; 1BB Just imagine how bad they are if you look at the Twins' major league offense and most of these guys ostensibly aren't even good enough to replace the guy's below the Mendoza line up there.

There's your White Sox All-Star representative. Awesome save, way to shut down the A's and not even give them a breath of life.

Santos' slider is almost as devastating as Mariano's cutter. Wow. Can't believe they didn't give him more consideration as the closer coming into ST. He's definitely earned it by now.