3E8

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 3, 2010 -> 02:46 PM) What would you consider the right price? I don't think I'd pay much more for him than what we paid last year. I think we'd be better off trying to find a guy who fits as a better platoon partner with Quentin. If you want a platoon in RF, we'd be better off finding a platoon partner for Jones. His fWAR was nearly 2 in a limited role. Better defense and wOBA than Quentin for a fraction of the cost.

Didn't say he wasn't lucky, but still he had 10 outs. Several players get knocked out of the tourney on much worse beats every year

Wasn't that shocking, or that bad a beat. Duhamel's lowest odds were 4 to 1, I've seen much worse comebacks. A nice flop bettered his odds. Because of the timing it was totally devastating of course. Duhamel didn't exactly have odds when he called after the flop or turn, but he was very very close to having them in each case. I wouldn't say they were bad calls. And I understood his pre-flop re-raise, at the least he gets more information about Affleck's hand and at best he wins the pot right there

I do worry a bit about a beer list. I'm anticipating a Corona and Dos Equis landing near the top which would be cringe-worthy

This article details all of the important offseason events Hot Stove Season

He pretty much established that already by winning the Cy Young his first two full seasons

It should be something food/drink related, we haven't tackled that yet

If you didn't see every AB, then the sample you're pulling from to say he went deep into counts is smaller than the one i'm using. He may have worked deep into a few counts, but it wasn't very often

I can understand Rios not being in the top 10. He's a good defensive center fielder, not great. His jumps and speed give him a lot of range. But his hands are just average as is his arm/accuracy

Do you guys close your eyes when they are washing your hair

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Nov 1, 2010 -> 12:19 AM) From my eye and the PA's I saw of his, he actually had a decent eye, he just wouldn't walk (as in, he would go deep in the count, but would find a pitch to hit). Viciedo saw 3.34 pitches per plate appearance, 2nd lowest (Pierzynski) of all White Sox with at least 100 PA

Was pretty epic. That had to be one of the most expensive series premiers ever

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 31, 2010 -> 01:12 PM) And his patience improved after his arrival at AA. The longer he stayed at AA, the better his walk rate was getting. There was no significant improvement in his walk rate the longer he stayed at AA. Whatever minimal improvement there was meant his walk rate was going from non-existent to well below average. AA walks by month (non-intentional) May - 3 June - 9 July - 4 August -4 Taking walks simply is not going to be a part of Viciedo's game, he is and always will be a free-swinger. His status as a prospect is lessened because of that.

I'm only talking about his patience and ability to draw walks. Not his entire offensive game. He clearly improved overall from his first season in pro ball to his second

I'm not trying to imply his walk rate is worsening. The numbers clearly show a consistent lack of ability to draw walks, and there is no clear improvement happening either, as you stated

Viciedo BB% AA = 4.3% AAA = 3.0% MLB = 1.9% His walk rates are abysmal. Viciedo is not among the top prospects because he's stuck at 1B/DH with poor defense and has no on-base skills. His main talents are hitting for power and making contact, so he will be able to provide surplus value. Just not as much as other young players who can draw walks and offer premium defense in addition to the contact/power that Viciedo has. I would not be opposed to trading Viciedo and his remaining $6M to a rebuilding team looking for a young 1B/DH in exchange for a raw prospect

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Oct 30, 2010 -> 08:12 PM) But they are in the WS, and Texas picked up Vlad off the scrap heap, and they are in the WS. Pitching wins. I'd argue Vlad wasn't really picked up off the scrap heap, he got $6.5M guaranteed with another $900K in incentives, and $9M mutual option for 2011. Scraps don't get that much money. And the Giants got away with that lineup playing in the NL. You need more pop to compete in the AL. Pitching wins, but you need an offense too. For the last three years, the AL leader in fewest runs allowed per game has not made the playoffs

It's difficult to tell how much of last year's offensive output was Rasmus growing up and developing power, and how much was benefiting from good fortune. His BABIP was the highest of his professional career, over 70 points higher than last season without any significant change in batted ball percentages. For players with over 400 PAs, Rasmus was eighth-highest in BABIP, which is a bit staggering considering how few ground balls he hits. Nobody in the top 50 in BABIP has a ground ball-rate below 35% except Rasmus, who was at 32%. The amount of his fly balls which were home runs increased by over 5 percentage points compared to last season (according to HitTracker, 9 of his 23 home runs are categorized as 'just enoughs' or those barely making it over the fence). All this while his contact rate plummeted, his strikeout rate was 32% in 2010 compared to 20% the previous year. He's still very valuable because of his pre-arb status and still quite young. But it's hard to tell exactly what type of offensive player he will develop into. Anyway, I wouldn't put together a trade package for him based on the 2010 numbers. And KW is always looking to buy low, he's rarely (if ever?) traded for someone at the professional level coming off their best season

Now if you don't go through the full body scanner at the airport, the TSA can touch your genitals, your genitals http://jalopnik.com/5675907/tomorrow-the-t...n-your-genitals

Any time the Sunny opening credits shows that Rob and Charlie wrote the episode, I know it's gonna be great

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 27, 2010 -> 12:01 PM) People here tend to think that a person's high net worth means that they can, or will, spend a ton of money. First of all, a big part of Illitch's net worth is tied up in corporations - and therefore not highly liquid, or even usable in the way you describe. Second, if you read articles the past year or two, the Tigers have made clear they are losing more and more money on the Tigers and won't be spending tons of money. Being rich doesn't mean you have a ton of money to spend, and even if you do, you may not want to. The articles have been clear that the Tigers have lost money, almost $30M in 2009 to be exact, yet their actions have not indicated they will curtail spending. After a $30M loss in '09, the Tigers committed to over $100M in new contracts in the '10 offseason between Verlander, Valverde, Damon, and Laird. Last week they signed Inge to a new 2-year/$11.5M deal. Detroit as a city has been hit hard. But so far we've seen it hasn't affected Ilitch's willingness to pour money into the organization (which he played for) and I don't see why we should believe they are going to cut back given recent history

Severely backloading a contract is a risky practice because we don't know exactly what our financial situation will be 2-3 years from now. And yes, you have Buehrle's 14M coming off the books in 2012, but we of course will have more holes to fill at that time as well. As it stands now, in 2012 we have $42M committed to just four roster spots between Peavy, Rios, Floyd, and Teahen

QUOTE (bucket-of-suck @ Oct 27, 2010 -> 09:34 AM) The Sox have plenty of money to spend. Especially if PK is off the books. Unless we move one of our higher paid players in a trade, this isn't really the case. The Sox policy is well-known, put into the team what was gained the previous year. We should expect '11 salary to remain similar to '10 ($103M) after a decline in attendance. I'll fill in the '11 roster as of today with salaries SP - Peavy 16 SP - Buehrle 14 SP - Jackson 8.75 SP - Danks 6.5 (arb estimate) SP - Floyd 5 C - empty 1B - empty 2B - Beckham 0.5 SS - Ramirez 1.225 3B - Morel 0.3 LF - Pierre 5 (after cash from LA) CF - Rios 12.5 RF - empty DH - empty BP - Thornton 3 BP - Santos 0.4 BP - Sale 0.3 BP - Linebrink 5.5 BP - empty BP - emtpy BP - empty BN - Castro 1.2 BN - Teahen 4.75 BN - empty BN - empty 2.25 commitment to Viciedo Total = $87M This leaves us less than $20M to fill starting catcher, 1B, DH, RF, three pen spots, and two bench spots. That's an average of $2M/year per remaining roster spot. If you tender a contract to Quentin, who get $5M in his 2nd-year arbitration raise, then you have less than $15M for 8 remaining spots, or less than $2M/year per remaining roster spot. KW is definitely in a tough spot this offseason given how many roster spots we have to fill and our budget constraints. We do not have plenty of money to spend, we have plenty of spots to fill

Mike Ilitch is one of the richest Americans, worth nearly 2 billion. The Tigers have the ammo if they choose to use it, they do not have "far less" to spend than the White Sox

Classy Yanks fans spat at and yelled obscenities at Cliff Lee's wife