CaliSoxFanViaSWside

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Nov 4, 2013 -> 02:39 PM) I look at it as paying for future services up front, basically like pre-paying for a loan. If you know you are going to have the funds today, you may as well spend them on something that will help you in the future. I really do feel like Hahn is going to do really good and big things with this team. Are we 100% sure that $10M bonus and the $15M allotted to draft picks and In'tl. players is included in the Sox player payroll ? Did somone add up what the players salaries were last year and add the draft pick money and in'tl. money spend on Zapata and others to come up with the $118 M the Sox supposedly spent on payroll last year ?

QUOTE (woods of ypres @ Nov 4, 2013 -> 01:08 PM) Does free agency start at midnight? Or is it an arbitrary start time like 6AM ET, or whatever? Midnight eastern time.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Nov 4, 2013 -> 07:12 AM) 4 years, $36 million is really not that big of a contract. I understand what you're saying. It just seems like so much because we all make so little comparatively. It seems like any 2 WAR gets a lot of players $10M/yr after arbitration years pass.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Nov 3, 2013 -> 10:46 AM) There are numerous ways the Sox can go about this rebuilding and that's a big point in their favor. I think we'll find out which way they are going by what they do with Quintana and/or Santiago. By the way , I didn't vote because none of those choices reflects an accurate way to describe what I think will be done. I don't even think Hahn knows how things will or will not fall into place. I know he'd prefer to get more guys like Avi Garcia 1st and foremost and he isn't completely ruling out free agency. His first major trade will dictate subsequent moves.

I'm not sure you can just say one of those or another. I know I talk about signing Ellsbury a lot but I'd like to see what Hahn can do in trades 1st or with improvements through the mid-tier free agents. How much he can make some interesting trades can determine if it's worth it to go after bigger names.

I think the Sox should do some TV ads right away about Abreu . Show footage of his WBC highlights while showing his stat lines from the WBC and Cuban League. Ask him to do some batting practice at the Cell before it gets too cold and film it and the last part of the commercials showing him at the Cell in full uniform interspersed with clips of the scoreboard exploding and thousands of fans cheering . End it with a catch phrase like white letters on a black background saying " THE FUTURE IS NOW ." This commercial ending only is good if we can add some more quality pieces. Fans need to move on from the Konerko era. Get some quotes from Konerko and The Big Hurt endorsing Abreu as part of the commercial too

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Nov 2, 2013 -> 05:40 PM) Here's why I'm advocating for Ellsbury. We could give him 7yr/$140M and McCann 5yr/$80M because our payroll is so low right now. Then Dunn comes off the books and McCann can become the DH eventually. Ellsbury is an all around player who did just steal 50 bags and I can't expect his speed to disappear completely next year. I'm paying him that money for the next 2-4 years of him being a top flight player. His defense, ability to get on base, and power that he does have makes him incredibly valuable. Same for McCann. I don't expect him to be a top flight C for his entire tenure in Chicago if he were here, but to get 2-3 years out of him then DH him? Sign me up. Ellsbury and McCann, combined with Abreu, completely changes the complexion of the lineup. Ellsbury vastly improves the defense. Add in a full season of Avi and you may have the workings of a good offense to compliment the pitching staff. You could be in contention next year. Edit: Also, for reference: AJ was 28 when we signed him and Dye was 30. I like your thinking even though we both know getting one of those guys is a longshot and both is insane. I hate the idea of Abreu on an island in the Sox lineup. He just got off an island and thrust himself into another one in the middle of the order. Let's get some good players around the guy quickly before he gets discouraged.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 2, 2013 -> 04:02 PM) ok, if he's a switch hitter you've got a point, my bad for missing that. But the point stands, if we're signing a guy like that it really is being done with the idea that Rick Hahn thinks Josh Phegley is a starting catcher at the major league level and will show significant growth this year. I got screwed up because Navarro's numbers were so good against lefties last year, 1.123 OPS when his career number against lefties is .778. It's also worth noting that career against righties....which is how he'd get the majority of his work if Phegley was the starter... .650 career OPS. So yeah, he can switch hit, but his weakest side is the side he'd get most of his work. Navarro will turn 30 in Feb. He's a hard guy to figure out because he looked great in 2008 with the Rays (Caulfield should love that )when he was pretty much a full time catcher and hit very good against RH's. Didn't show much power then so I don't know what got into him last year unless it was just Wrigley Field. But since the Cell is also a hitters park maybe that bodes well if his warning track power suddenly played well in a hitters park. Maybe he just started pulling everything . I haven't bothered to look at his spray chart on his HR's.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Nov 2, 2013 -> 03:59 PM) And, if I'm Mike Illitch/Dombrowski, I'm looking for an upgrade over Avila at catcher (a bit touchy with his father in the front office, but he's been subpar two seasons in a row after looking like a future star in 2011)....2B (Cano?)...and then a power-hitting corner outfielder/LF/DH type who can help replace Victor Martinez's bat. So the Tigers, yet another team in the catching sweepstakes that could outbit nearly everyone if they chose to do so. The A's might be looking as well. Buck and Suzuki are two other names to watch. Toronto is also looking for a C.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 2, 2013 -> 03:41 PM) For the White Sox...going with one of those guys would make sense if they were confident in Phegley or Flowers and wanted a more veteran backup alongside. In that case, Navarro might not fit well since he's a righty. Just keep in mind, neither of those guys has 400 PA's since Navarro in 2009. They're backups. .684 career OPS for Navarro, .651 for Pena. Navarro had solid numbers last year....in 260 PA's as a heavily platooned player against LH starters. I can see how one of those guys can have a role just fine...but it's a backup role next to a starting Josh Phegley who gets 450-500 PA's. Are you confident Phegley can be a solid starting catcher and contribute with the bat like a starter? Is Hahn? I don't know, but that's the situation where adding one of those guys makes sense. In terms of AJ...fine...if we're expecting him to get 200 PA's. The problem is...if AJ gets his usual 500+ PA's and Phegley or Flowers gets consigned to backup duty...we're not doing anything to set ourselves up long term. If you're pessimistic, maybe one of the guys we currently have has a 5% chance of breaking out next year...but AJ would have a 0% chance of being a contributor to the White Sox long term. he'd only be a fit if we signed Ellsbury and had other upgrades on top of that - where they want a starting catcher next year that they can count on to help compete next year. Navarro is a switch hitter Balta you got your stats backwards on him. He got the majority of his AB's against against righties, and hit .279 with 7 HR's in 195 AB's . Against lefties as a RH hitter he had 61 AB's hit 6 HR's and had .361 BA. I think splitting time would be just fine , not sure Phegley should get that many AB's but it's splitting hairs. I'm not expecting any of those guys to be long term solutions thats why I never really wanted to think about AJ before. I'd rather get the 31 or 32 yr old guys and pray Phegly can get it together at the ML level.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Nov 2, 2013 -> 11:35 AM) Wasn't that because Ross was a personal catcher for one of their starters? He had a pretty miserable post-season, but unless the Red Sox can sign McCann...they're going to want to hold onto him. What other players out there would be a clear upgrade? Then you have the Rangers, the Yankees, the Braves, White Sox, there are quite a few teams out there looking for catching all circling around the same 2-3 guys. You made a post earlier about the Red Sox adding mid level free agents. Let the rest of the teams who need a catcher circle the wagons around MaCann and Salty . I still think guys like Brayan Pena and Dioner Navarro can both provide the Sox a decent starting option at catcher and yes even AJ . Pena and Navarro both switch hit and had pretty decent years in limited roles . Both of those guy are midt-tier free agents . Navarro also has pretty good power for all those who remember him hitting 3 HR's off us with the Cubs last year. I think they represent a clear upgrade because , frankly, who doesn't ? Flower's might be non-tendered.

QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Nov 2, 2013 -> 12:21 PM) Exactly. That's when you roll the dice. A lot of us are advocating Ellsbury because we want the Sox to compete ASAP and we also know theres financial room for him .Beyond that we also know there's a 90% chance it won't happen because he should defintely get more than the 5yr/100M me and scs87 wish he'd get. We want to get as good as possible as fast as possible while we still have our good core of starting pitching. This is where we have our fundamental difference. You think we were so bad that its going to take a while to compete again wheras we see a lot of close loses thats can be turned into wins with defensive , hitting and baserunning improvement and Ellsbury provide s all 3 of those things . That's why guys like Ellsbury and Manny Machado and a handful of other are so valuable. There just aren't that many players in baseball who are good offensively and defensively. Then throw in his baserunning . It's very difficult to develop minor league pieces that might be ready right when our starting pitching starts disintegrating. You also said when we get close then add that one big free agent piece but going after that piece and getting it are 2 very different things. But I've enjoyed the discussion on both sides and am glad a poll or thread about Ellsbury didn't have to be made in order for everyone to get their 2 cents worth in about it.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Nov 2, 2013 -> 10:14 AM) This is a team that lost 55 games by 2 runs or less(36 by 1 run, most in the majors), yes, the record looks bad on paper but it's not like they were consistently getting blown out. If you make 3 offensive upgrades there's no reason they shouldn't be at least closer to competing in 2014. How many of those 1-2 run games they lost were caused by errors? You upgrade CF defensively with Ellsbury and that helps a lot. How many of those 1-2 run games were caused by having a middle of the order bat that had a .310 slugging% vs RHP(what we mainly faced)? You hope you upgraded that with Abreu over PK. How many of those 1-2 run games were caused by having a Catcher platoon that hit in the .200s with an OBP around .220 and defensively wasn't very good to boot? An upgrade there helps the team a lot as well. We are on the exact same page .I've commented many times about those close games and and upgrades at 4-5 positions will help more than you might think, at least in theory ,if our starting pitching can put up basically the same numbers as last year. I'm hoping Abreu and Garcia for a full season is 1 upgrade and maybe 2 though Garcia might not have the same kind of impact as Rios did , but it's possible. Hoping Gillaspie improves or you see if you can get Lawrie . Brayan Pena or Dionnerer Navarro catching( switch hitters ) and Ellsbury is a huge upgrade. I know he's more of a dream with Boras as his agent but each year has to get major upgrades or competing in the next 2 years seems a lot further away.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 07:53 PM) You're stuck in what guys did in the past. Ellsbury doesn't win the Sox anything, he might get them back to 80 wins. Money wasted. So we don't want to get to 80 wins after winning 63 ? Are we supposed to win 70 then 75 then 80 then 85 in your plan then compete in the 5 th year ?

QUOTE (Joshua Strong @ Nov 1, 2013 -> 12:18 AM) I think that standing pat is the right thing to do for the White Sox, I love the Abreu signing and it makes sense from a baseball standpoint and I love it because they nabbed a middle of the order hitter for $10 million a year. But there is no one that makes sense for this team on the open market, and if I am Rick Hahn, I am calling every GM in MLB as I try to bring some young talent into the fold. (Here's to you Angel Sanchez) CSN article from Hahn: “Obviously we have a number of areas where we need to improve,” Hahn said. “We will explore all of them whether it’s free agency or trade. It’s probably more likely that trades are next, but at the same time we haven’t even hit true domestic free agency yet so it’s not anything we’re ruling out until we do our similar due diligence on some of the players that are available there.” November 5th is the start of domestic free agency.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Oct 31, 2013 -> 08:06 PM) I would actually be completely content with this team not spending anything else on Free Agency this winter. We probably won't compete in 2014 unless we sign/trade for at least 2 or 3 more major pieces. I would like to see some trades however. Move Alexei, De Aza, Beckham, and a pitcher somewhere for some nearly ML ready prospects and then gear up for a strong run in 2015. Remember free agents don't necessarily have to be big ticket free agents. Guys like Brayan Pena and Dionner Navarro can be good short term gets since both are switch hitters coming off good years in limited roles at catcher instead of McCann or Saltalamacchia.

QUOTE (TheFutureIsNear @ Oct 31, 2013 -> 04:25 PM) Gillaspe was only better than Freese if you think HR's are the only stat that matters. Because he literally didn't do anything else better. And you're also factoring in Freese's career worst year. Gillaspie's WAR was better. His defense is better. not even close . His SLG % was better. He hit's righties better in a division full of RH starting pitching .He's 4 years younger with more upside than a 31 yr old coming off his worst season. And you are still not talking about Ethier's contract. He makes $17 M a year for the next 4 years ! That's the same as what the Sox just signed Abreu for but in 4 years as compared to 6 for Abreu and Abreu is 5/6 yrs younger. Ethier will be 32 in April . If everyone elses reaction to these "realistic" trades doesn't tell you something , I'll give up.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Oct 31, 2013 -> 03:45 PM) Acquiring Kendrick, Bourjos, and Ellsbury, would push this team further from a championship. Very little upside to those three. Furthur ? Furthur than last year ? All 3 play very good defense . You don't like defense ? Maybe last years defense suits you. Did the Sox have any position players last year come close to a 5 1/2 WAR , steal 50 bases or play even an adequate outfield ? Maybe 2 great outfielders with speed aren't as good as what we got from DeAza and Viciedo ? Maybe you prefer bad baserunning instead of some of the best baserunners in baseball. Maybe Ellsbury being 30 and Bourjos 27 is too old because De Aza is so much younger ? Maybe Kendrick is too old at 30 or his .290 lifetime batting average isn't as good as Beckham has been for the last 4 years ? Maybe our pitching staff would love to have our guys kicking the ball around the outfield again next year or being such great hitters that during our 10 game losing streak the starting pitchers collective ERA actually got better during it ?

QUOTE (TheFutureIsNear @ Oct 31, 2013 -> 04:01 PM) Trade 1: White Sox trade Gordon Beckham, Hector Santiago, and Chris Beck to Dodgers for Andre Eithier. Why it makes sense to me: - Its no secret that LA has 1 too many OF'ers and Eithier seems to be the odd man out. - Beckham can play either 2b or 3b and both are positions of weakness for the Dodgers. Uribe, Schumaker, and Mark Ellis saw a lot of PT for them - Although hes been a bit of disappointment for us, Beckham is a good buy low option for a team like LA. - Santiago is a young, cost controlled SP who should excel in the NL west. Presents a very cheap #4 starter for the next 3-5 years. - Beck is a decent arm that could be a 5h/middle reliever in the near future. - Don't think I need to explain why Either is a good fit for us. Trade 2: Alexei Ramirez for David Freese -No need for me to ramble here. They need a SS and we need a 3B. Freese's down yeaer of .260/.340 is sadly a huge upgrade for us at 3b but he should be much better next year, especially at The Cell. Let me know what you guys think.... Welcome to Sox talk ! You can't talk about Ethier without talking about his contract and who picks up how much of it . We're not in a position to give away youth for a high contract . The other trade then who plays SS for the Sox ? And beleive it or not but Gillaspie was better than Freese last year and is younger and one of our few LH bats. Freese turns 31 in April.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 31, 2013 -> 02:38 PM) When's the last time a guy hit the FA market and you felt the team got a good deal? I'd expect the Carl Crawford range, 7/$140+, is a reasonable starting point and I wouldn't be surprised to see him beat that. I think that's a little high for a starting point on the years anyway but you're probably right , he'll get around 7/150 . I'm hoping that Crawford deal has the opposite effect on handing out that kind of contract. Crawford put up a 7.4 WAR before he hit FA (Ellsbury 5.8) and has put up around 3.0 WAR since signing that contract in 3 years. Ellsbury has already spent a good deal of time on the DL and getting more durable as you get older usually doesn't happen. I guess I'm hoping if it stays around what I suggested the Sox might consider him but if it gets up around what you expect , then no way, especially with what we'd have to give up in draft pick(s) and slot money.

QUOTE (DirtySox @ Oct 31, 2013 -> 03:11 PM) Sounds about right. This team isn't likely to be competitive this coming season. No need to for any dumb/exorbitant contracts. Make some trades, build internally, sign some scrap-heap guys that can be flipped at the deadline and go after some free agents next year and beyond. What's the difference between signing a free agent this year or next year ? If we sign someone like Ellsbury this year will he not be on next years team ? Still have to plug the holes we have to compete eventually so if it's a good piece take care of it now. Everyone talks about stockpiling draft picks but I hardly hear anything about when exactly the Sox should be able to compete and how the holes are going to be filled. All I hear is " no don't want him. too old, we won't compete next year , we're building for the future, don't want to give up the draft picks etc. Holes have to be filled somehow. Maybe we can pick up a Kendrick ,Bourjos or Lawrie in trades bringing us a lot closer to competing much sooner and Ellsbury might be the final piece to that puzzle. If we don't attempt to get any more free agents this year what happens if we try for some next year and we don't get them ? Now I hear a lot of sign guys to 1 year deals to trade them for more minor leaguers at the deadline. That's all well and good but with our young quality starters how long can we actually do that and when do we decide to go for it again ?

QUOTE (Jake @ Oct 31, 2013 -> 01:41 PM) That's what we'd say if we weren't and it's what we'd say if we were. With that said, with the possible exception of McCann who will probably be too expensive and too much of a risk, there aren't a ton of great fits for us among the best free agents I think Ellsbury is a great fit. Great baserunner/stealer, solid defense , hits for a decent average. Just a heady pro for CF or even LF if the Sox pick up someone like Bourjos in a trade. Saves his legs which are his greatest asset if you stick him in a corner . I can always hope no matter what Merkin writes or Hahn says in public . You sign Ellsbury, trade for Kendrick and Bourjos then the lineup starts looking very solid with good speed and defense and probably with a payroll not any higher than last year if we can avoid giving Konerko any money. Pick up a cheap switch hitting catcher like Brayan Pena to add to the Cuban Connection or Dioner Navarro who would be a pretty reasonable free agent pickup .

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Oct 31, 2013 -> 01:04 PM) I think Linstrom is a luxury more than anything else. $3.5m for a glorified one-out righty guy is a lot for a team rebuilding. Where do you come up with this stuff ? Lindstrom pitched more innings than he had in 6 years. "One out righty guy" is far from how he was used.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 31, 2013 -> 07:52 AM) That seems awfully low. That's my guess without reading what anyone else thinks. If teams want to go higher or more years for a speed guy that's on them. Bourne is already losing his speed if you base it on his low total of steals from prevoius years. What do you think ? Some one will probably go higher . They always do.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Oct 31, 2013 -> 03:17 AM) Why would the Red Sox let Ellsbury go and lose him in a bidding war to the White Sox? They might not but if Ellsbury is available for 5 years $100M I'd say go for it. Ellsbury is 5 months younger than Pence who got 5 yrs/90M . Pence hits for more power and is very durable . His D isn't as good but he also provides value on the bases though not as much as Ellsbury. Ellsbury's pluses are defense and plays a premium position but in a few years probably is a corner OF . He's a great basestealer but then again that's not likely to last more than a few more years, too. Ellsbury isn't neary as durable nor does he hit for power or drive in as many runs as Pence. I think the Pence contract is comparable to what Ellsbury will get. Durability is a key factor for Ellsbury not working in his favor. Ellsbury had a very good year and a monster year in 2011 but we're not likely to see a 9 WAR out of him ever again. It'll be interesting to see what he gets .