Chisoxfn

QUOTE (bmags @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 02:52 PM) Ha, it was the one game I think I've missed. Was nice they had that 4 day rest for him/Taj. Now, granted Lopez was out, but apparently Gasol/Taj looked great. I only get national games (decided not to buy package this year since so many games are nationally televised). Looking forward to catching Friday. I never watch live...always on tape delay so stay away from all sites on gamenight. Obviously had a shaky first half but Rose apparently led back the 1st half charge and than Taj / Pau dominated 2nd half. Thing I liked was Rose seemed to be consistently in the paint. Key is to stay on the court for him...more games he strings together, better condition he gets in, better timing, more confidence, etc.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 01:50 PM) Talk to your boss and give notice. If they ask, write the letter. Put nothing more in it than you have to. Talk first, than once talking, a lot need a standard letter of some sort. Basically just state that I, XYZ, am resigning from my position and will put in x weeks notice, with my final day being on XX/XX/XX. Nothing more is needed. The conversation is the key part, imo.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 01:50 PM) Profit Sharing Trust. Right now if we "meet" our PST goals then the company puts in a full 18%, which means about 22% of salary for those fully vested. Their plan is to reduce that 18% to 10-15% and add in new compensation models to reward top performers. All on board for that, except next year they are reducing without adding anything new, not cool with that. That 22% is in lieu of the standard 3% 401k contribution match, instead the company just puts that amount into a retirement fund for you. This may seem nuts, and in a way it is hence the change, but we don't get paid as much as other companies because of this. This is the summary I came up with for myself: 2014 (paying out in 2015): Not affected, my payout will be around 12% is my guess. 2015: reduced to 10-15%, my payout would range between that same % compared to about 18% in recent years. I could actually end up with a lower % in 2015 then 2014 (I’m not full vested until 2016, so my increase may be less then the difference in the reduction they are planning). 2016: same as 2015, but introduction of new compensation packages to reward top performers. Following everything but the 22% being in lieu of standard 3% 401K match. 22% of your pay > 3% of your pay. I presume HR will look into comp comparison of peers and potentially act quick if their new plans don't work. Would have thought they'd have implemented new plans in 15 vs. waiting till 16. Seems odd.

I only saw highlights last night but surprise more people weren't talking about Rose. Saw quite a few aggressive moves during the highlights.

What is PST?

QUOTE (shysocks @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 01:39 PM) It does. Simon's ERA has been substantially better than Noesi's without a doubt, but their FIPs are more comparable. I don't really think either is any good, for the record. If I had to pick one to start the wild card game, I'd shrug my shoulders and pray for rain. So you tell me...why should I focus more on FIP than ERA+? I'm curious what your thoughts are on which one is more valuable / why.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 01:27 PM) It is way too early to punt on Webb. He is a rookie who was learning on the job, and thrown into some roles he wasn't ready for. I want to see more of him for sure, either in a set up role, or as a AAA closer. I wouldn't be moving either one. About the only two guys from our existing pen that I have a lot of faith in going forward, mainly cause I like both of their arms.

QUOTE (shysocks @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 01:34 PM) The argument is that Simon pitched in the NL and FIP doesn't account for that. FIP-: Simon 116, Noesi 123. Depends on your definition of "substantially" I guess. Doesn't ERA+ take those factors into account?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 01:32 PM) So if you drop the "stretching his arm out to go 6 innings/terrible with the Rangers and Ms" portion, basically Noesi was just about as good as a guy the Tigers had to trade for? Alfredo Simon has a career ERA + of 102 in 209 major league games (51 starts) and has put up 156, 132 and 105 ERA+ in the past three seasons. Now a lot of Simon's career was spent in the bullpen and I don't know enough about him to factor tools into the equation but when you consider track record, etc, I'd say it would be hard to argue a paper spot in the rotation is better with Noesi than Simon.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 01:21 PM) Not all WHIP is created equal though. I see a guy who gets a lot of ground balls who was on a team who may not have had a ton of range or defensive prowess. The Sox infield defense could be better than it is, but I feel safe saying it's better than the Marlins. Maybe the Marlins can tweak Rienzo, but I was definitely wrong on him. We're complaining about Jennings putting up a high WHIP in the majors, but Rienzo's was just as bad in AAA this past year, which does not bode well. Based upon the below, not too sure about that. This was the Def per Fangraphs for each team by respective positions. I don't know enough about Marlins to say whether these stats make sense or not. Looking at the Sox it all makes sense although I really can't figure how 1B can be so negative for either team, presume that is just more some form of positional factor or something? Marlins Team Infield D: SS: +.4 2B: -.5 3B: 1.4 1B: -19 Total: -17.7 White Sox Team D: SS: +7.3 2B: -4.4 3B: -2.4 1B: -18.3 Total: -17.8

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 12:59 PM) I also wouldn't be surprised if Rienzo had a decent career at some point. He has decent stuff, strong fastball and curve ball as well as room to grow on both, but that doesn't mean I have any problem with this deal. Ok...I think you and are on the same wavelength here. I'm just saying, from the Marlins perspective, I totally see why they would make this deal. I also don't really see Jennings as some key cog to our pens success. I think the key to him being valuable is if Coop can truly fix him cause if he pitches the same as he did last year, to be frank, I think he'd piss off a lot of Soxtalk cause that WHIP, over a long-term timeframe, is going to result in quite a few runs.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 01:04 PM) Just pointing out factors. If Jennings and his 1.5 WHIP was on this team, you guys would want to cut him. The WHIP is the exact reason I can't get overly ecstatic about this trade. I just don't know how you can have sustainable long term success based with that sort of WHIP.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 01:01 PM) But if you've got one guy Coop says "I can work with" and one guy Coop says "I can't work with".... I'm not saying its a bad trade, just saying, I could see the player we traded having more success elsewhere. Clearly you consider what Coop says but also isn't a lot of this talk about Coop disliking Rienzo pure speculation. Or has Coop came out somewhere and blasted him saying he'll never be anything. I don't have a problem with this trade but I don't think this is really a deal to get super excited for and I can't say that Hahn dominated everyone on this deal. A year ago I'd have been pretty pissed if we traded Rienzo for a reliever like this. Rienzo did struggle this year so that impacts things a bit but again, I think long-term, he has a shot at sticking as a 4th/5th starter. We aren't the right fit for him so we are trading from an area of surplus and filling an area that isn't but I really can't fault the Marlins for trading a reliever for a guy who could into a cost controlled back of the rotation starter.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 12:57 PM) I geuinely think you are the only White Sox fan who could find anything wrong with this deal at all. Technically speaking the upside from the trade perspective would be with Marlins. If Rienzo can pan out in the NL into a 4th / 5th starter, probably more valuable than Jennings upside as a reliever. How likli that is is another story but I could see plenty of scenarios where Rienzo contributes a greater WAR long term than Jennings. Jennings happens to be a nice fit for now but comes with his own issues. We aren't talking about some stud reliever here, rather a solid back of the pen guy with really bad lefty splits.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 11:26 AM) But Dee Gordon isn't gonna do what he did last year. They essentially had to "replace" that production. And the loss in value for Kemp has to be compared to his replacement, because all those guys can't play at the same time. So they're really not losing all of Kemp's value, they're losing the difference between Kemp's value and Crawford's value, and you can make an argument that the productivity of all the OFs will increase as the logjam lessens. And you know that how? Dee Gordon made major strides forward last year and while he struggled the year previously when coming up through the Dodgers system he was widely regarded as a top 100 prospect. He was a much different player a year ago and when you combine his speed and value on the paths, he brings a very unique skill-set. Like I said, I would trade Dee Gordon for Howie Kendrick when you consider contracts, etc. Kendrick is a better player but Gordon is on a superior contract.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 09:01 AM) With the international and domestic spending limits in place now how does that make sense? They literally can't just go "over slot" and score a huge draft or go spend that $1 million overseas without penalties any more. You can take a lot more draft picks that you throw that amount below $100K which doesn't count towards your overages (so while we aren't talking about going overslot on a guy in the 15th round with a 1st round value, you could go overslot on a significant number of guys in later rounds that might have been 5-12th round talent and convince them. As an ORG, we also have had situations where we haven't even spend to our international cap anyway (I believe we still have cushion in our budget right now).

I really don't know enough about Jennings to evaluate. Is he just insanely lucky with that WHIP. FIP isn't all that bad either, probably largely driven by the high strikeout rates, but really hard to like those BAA's. Curious what his actual stuff is like, etc, and how he projects going forward.

Don't know much about him. ERA, strong k numbers, not so great WHIP. In general though, would appear to be an upgrade, especially since it appeared Rienzo wasn't going to be a good long-term fit. Like the fact that Jennings is cheap / cost controlled.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 08:47 AM) Idk, I'd say the Dodgers are look roughly as good as last year, despite losing Hanley, and they've done it without trading ANY significant prospects and also cutting significant payroll. What they've lost in offense they've gained back in defense. RE: framing. I think the issue is that Baseball Prospectus has WAY overvalued the level of contribution that framing has, but I don't think there's much, if any, criticism in how they collect and analyze the data. In other words, BP overrates the impact, but they give us a good list of who is best and who is worse. So if I look at the Dodgers...they have lost Dee Brown, Hanley Ramirez, Matt Kemp, and Dan Haren (who was actually pretty darn solid last year). They have added Howie Kendrick, Jimmy Rollins, Brandon McCarthy, and Grandal. That is relatively lateral, especially from my perspective that Hanley & Kemp are the best players on that entire list, both of whom are out. Have they cut payroll? I don't know. They sent $42M in cash in the two trades ($32M for Kemp + $10M in the Brown/Haren trade) They spent 48M on Bmac (12M this year using a straight average) Jimmy Rollins = +11M Howie Kendrick = +9.35M Grandal = + Hanley Ramirez = -16M Matt Kemp = -21M / -107M Total

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 08:36 AM) I think the exact opposite. Kemp belongs somewhere that he can DH. Grandal actually graded out as one of the best framers in the league last year, Wieland is good but hasn't been able to stay healthy. Given the logjam the Dodgers had in the OF and the pressure they are assumed to be under to reduce payroll, clearing $7m and improving your C situation AND adding quality pitching depth AND some other prospect seems like a coup. The Padres spent $77m to maybe not get much better, especially if Kemp's defense doesn't improve. Said another way, I don't really see what strategy the Dodgers are implementing here. I presume they are going to make a major push at Cole Hamels but it seems like they are to some extent, just making moves to make moves. If I were the Dodgers, I'd have been doing what I could to move Ethier and Crawford, not Kemp.

I've long said the Sox need to stop comingling developmental funds with major league contracts. It is just ludicrous. We need to set aside and investment good money into our farm system regardless of what is going on with major league club.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Dec 11, 2014 -> 08:36 AM) I think the exact opposite. Kemp belongs somewhere that he can DH. Grandal actually graded out as one of the best framers in the league last year, Wieland is good but hasn't been able to stay healthy. Given the logjam the Dodgers had in the OF and the pressure they are assumed to be under to reduce payroll, clearing $7m and improving your C situation AND adding quality pitching depth AND some other prospect seems like a coup. The Padres spent $77m to maybe not get much better, especially if Kemp's defense doesn't improve. Kemp at 77M has a chance to be a legit value and the Padres needed to make a splash. I really don't quite grasp what the Dodgers are doing. I think they are no better today than they were at the end of last year, possibly slightly worse. And on top of that, while getting rid of Kemp's contract, they also have put themselves in a position where they have a couple guys that will be walking a year / getting big contract (Rollins / Kendrick). Yes, Dodgers have guys in place but I think the Angels did best in that 3 team trade. Getting a young cost controlled power arm that is near to big league ready is a major coup for a club like the Angels. Yes, Kendrick was good but with the Angels payroll that move was fantastic, imo. I will say I think Grandal is a pretty darn good player. I also am not a big buyer of the "pitch" frame concept. I think there are significant flaws in the early statistics behind it but I do agree it is an important concept but IIRC, there is a lot of variability depending on the pitch frame / defensive catching metrics that you look at.

Dodgers are busy but I don't know that they are a better team today than they were at the end of last year. Good fit for a flyball pitcher like Bmac.

Wow. Nice move for Padres. $32M cash and I think they got maximum value for Grandal. I don't like what the Dodgers were doing.

Given the Tigers defense, Cespedes move is nice for them. Porcello is a nice get for the Red Sox though and I presume they will try to sign him to an extension. I wanted Cespedes on the southside but would not have been able to justify this type of price.