greg775

It's like Avi has the plague. Let's see. He has playoff experience, he hits .280, he knocks in 70 or more runs, he'll whack you over 25 homers in The Cell and he's a veteran presence who loved wearing a Sox uniform. And on a team that needs to spend a ton of money he comes cheap. No more than 5 million a year for 3 years? Three years 15 mill or 3 years 18 million if you want to throw him some extra cash, with a few incentives maybe in case he finally reaches mini-Miggy potential? And yet no mention of Avi ever. We could fill that hole for pennies and we already have two catchers in Collins and McCann who are signed. Chances are Collins will succeed next season, not fail. Finally think of all the money you could spend on pitching if you just sign Avi and give catcher to Collins/McCann? Is it this difficult? It's not like Avi is gonna hit .151 with an error a game? He may be butcher-like in the outfield, but he's a tad below average out there, not hopeless. Endorse this post, please! GO SOX! p.s. If some reason by June, Avi is having a Palka-like season ... well you can throw Engle in there or even Palka. This isn't rocket science. My post saves the Sox a lot of cash, cash we need to REBUILD this pitching staff. ... and those who think you need an all star at every position. Last time I looked the Rays made the playoffs with you-know-who as a STARTER. He didn't ruin their team.

One year after signing Machado ... do you think the Padres are happy they signed him? Or would they dump him in a second if there are any takers? I'm all for Jerry having a $150 million payroll. Personally I'd prefer it go to several players, adding up to 150 million and hire a stellar manager to lead us to the WS title. Face it if you have a great manager (we should hire Maddon or Joe G NOW) you don't need as many of the mega $$ superstars. We have a small window here. I laugh when I hear some fans willing to go .500 next year. Why in the heck would you want to waste a lineup with as many stars as we're going to have. The time to win is now. But you need good instruction. Is Coop outdated and lousy? Obviously you can do much better than Ricky.

We're going to sign Moose for 10 million a year over 2-3 years. He'll be DH, maybe get a few starts at 2B to rest Madrigal, a few starts at first to rest Abreu and a few starts in right.

My billboard would be positive: The word "Congratulations" in Sox script (with pix of Timmy and Abreu for leading league) and below that "2020: Pursuit of a trophy, not atrophy!"

If the Sox truly were serious about winning they would hire Girardi or Maddon today. Ricky will always have a job in baseball. No reason to feel sorry for him. We need an outcry on the south side for Maddon/Girardi. put somebody real in charge, Mr. Hahn. Geez, it's not that difficult.

The A's genius front office did it again in fleecing Semien from the Sox. Semien had quite the season.

Man, to those of us who don't really care about WAR (too complicated, baseball is supposed to be fun, not mathematics) ... Manny had a decent to above average year. Marcus Semien hit one more homer than Manny. He only knocked in 85 runs and he only hit .256. I guess his 65 BBs make him worth his money. Not a bad amount of walks. Arguably if he played in the Cell he'd have blasted more homers, maybe 40 to 50. I think Hahn comes out looking good, though, in not signing Manny.

I love King Timmy Anderson and am not bagging on him. Just making an attempt to bag on the advanced stat folks who probably don't care Jose Abreu led the AL in RBIs. Way to go Jose. But in trying to say I don't care about advanced stats much, Marcus Semien had 8.2 WAR this year; Timmy had 3.9 WAR. Would an Oakland fan be right in saying, "you keep your Tim Anderson; we want Marcus Semien whose WAR is so much greater than your Anderson." I would say probably 10 out of 10 baseball fans would take Anderson over Semien. So how do you explain this WAR thing, folks?

No way they are trading those two guys. Gosh, peeps, we tanked to get Madrigal and Vaughn for gosh sakes. That would be pure insanity to trade them.

I don't want peeps to get banned but I hope in the future they are as lenient on greg as a couple peeps saying rude stuff to me.

I won't take the bait. Off to Octoberfest. Adios for now. GO SOX!

WGN's camerapeople revolutionized baseball on TV. I remember as a kid and teen watching games and there would be a bullet smash liner to third and I remember it amazing me how the cameraperson got the shot. From the swing to the ball hitting the mitt. Crazy stuff. p.s.: Too bad Sox can't end the season on a nice win streak. Hopefully if we have another miserable season in 2020 some folks will get fired after next season. It's time to win.

72 years of WGN. Very very sad.

The offspeed pitch ... had no chance. Had to hit the fastballs he was served. Fail Palka.

Home run derby baby. Zack and Yolmer fail. So far Yoan succeeds.

MVP (someday soon).

What's with the fly ball Yolmer, get on base u know? Fail.

Well I see we got the good/great Lopez today. Cmon Coop. Work on him being consistent next year. Stellar outing.

ANOTHER great post. Is anybody against giving RF to Avi? 2 years, 11 million total? He'll give you 25 home runs if he's healthy in the Cell, 75 RBI and .260 to 270 BA. Also a White Sox through and through now with playoff experience coming. Avi baby OK with everybody? Anybody besides Greg? He's very cost efficient if you need to put the $$ in pitching too. I mean do we really want to pay a RF candidate huge bucks when we still have guys in our system that may pan out in the OF? Like Rutherford? Couple other guys too might respond to MLB and do well. (addendum note: when i talk about money in threads please realize I don't care about Jerry's money but I realize payroll is a factor in discussing the Sox)

You know, I do want Jerry to spend until it hurts and Rick Hahn to spend some of the owner's cash. I do, However, I agree Mr. Hahn faces some challenges in this regard. I point out Greinke. Would I want Greinke's production the past few seasons? Yes. But just think, in his six year, $206 million contract, you pay him $32 million in 2020 and $32 million in 2021. Can we identify the next Greinke? A free agent or two that we must pay 25 to 30 mill a year that guarantees us postseasons? Tough job I'm sure. It's crazy money to acquire one or two players sometimes. It's up to Hahn and KW to sort all this out and figure out which top dollar players will get us over the hump. Because Jerry's not the easiest man to work for I'm sure in terms of final payroll figures. Perhaps we need to hire somebody off the Twins staff. They have Cruz as their highest paid player at 14 million for this one year.Next highest is Gonzalez at 12 million; Odorizzi 9.5 million. They only have nine players making over 5 million a year. In other words, our patient fanbase deserves a winner and Mr. Hahn must Just.Do.It. Make the right decisions, sir. Twins are 18th in total payroll at 125 million; Sox are 26th at 91 million. tampa bay is last at 63 million. I betcha our payroll will not be over the Twins' 124 mill anytime soon though.

Certainly worded better than my posts on the issue. Jerk is the man IMO.

Bama Doc deserves credit for a fantastic post.

It all depends. Right now, no. If we win an AL pennant or two or one WS and he's one of our better hitters on those teams, yes. If he has the hit the wall and has a significant age 33, 34 decline and blows, no he will have no chance IMO. Pure odds would say no at this moment IMO.

I tried. I failed. Not worth fighting this battle any more.

Why didn't a team with the Cub$' re$sources win pennants in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s? Bad people in charge and not spending enough money on good players. Do you dispute this? They finally won a WS via the tank/rebuild. Why couldn't they win in the decades before tanking was allowed by fanbases, owners, and commissioners? That was my point. Any competent team with those resources should have won many WS titles in the pre tank eras.