Jake

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 03:21 PM) Pay him to play meaningless games. That's a pretty expensive draft pick to hang on to. OTOH, considering this GM is pretty new, it would show others he won't cave at the end. I think this is important. If you never stick to what you say, everyone will be able to call your bluff.

QUOTE (woods of ypres @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 03:07 PM) I still believe they'll regret not moving Shark. Well I feel quite certain that Sox fans for years will bemoan the fact we didn't get the ultra-massive, franchise-changing prospect packages that we surely passed up on

I'm guessing Nightengale is getting pestered by White Sox fans and decided to just throw out a hollow update

BA rated Eaton's arm as the strongest in the Arizona system before he lost prospect status. He did miss much of 2013 with an elbow problem, though. I think he appears to have a really strong arm but is not very accurate.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 02:50 PM) By the sabs, he was nothing but an awful player. Juan Pierre had 4.2 and 4.0 WAR in 2003 and 2004 with 110 wRC+ and 100 wRC+. Those peak two years of Pierre were great and I'd be very surprised if Ben Revere manages to post those sorts of numbers. Pierre's defense graded out as solid to great for the first ~7 years of his career before there was a quick dropoff to well below average.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 01:25 PM) If we're trying to contend, how does trading Samardzija and acquiring Cespedes make any sense? If we're gonna buy, then let's buy. It's a lower risk type of buy, which makes sense given our position in the standings

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 12:55 PM) Not when I don't see any long-term value in Avi. I don't think Avi is a good baseball player. If you look at my history of posts, I am typically very patient with prospects, etc. What I have seen from Avi, given his defensive struggles, gives me very little faith in him ever reaching anything close to his perceived "upside". I think if this team intends to compete, it needs to add a very good outfielder. I am okay with then using Avi and LaRoche in a DH roll, with Avi giving our outfielders occasional breaks. But this is the exact type of thing they're trying to decide. Do they do that or send him to Charlotte? How do they split the ABs considering that a straight platoon would mean the younger (and player hitting better this season) player spends a ton of time on the bench?

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 12:08 PM) How to manage roster moves of guys with negative WAR's? I really don't understand what their is to be conflicted about. AVI & LaRoche's combined WAR is -.3 (-.2 and -.1), respectively. I realize WAR isn't the end all be all stat, but it does magnify just how bad both players have been this season. There's more to it than what a guy's WAR is this season. Avi is a young player who you are trying to develop and LaRoche is a veteran with a track record and a big contract that you want to get value out of. It's not a deal where they necessarily think these players are better than rest-of-season Upton or whomever, but you have to figure out how to handle these guys in the ways that benefit the team most now and in the future

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 12:30 PM) If his defense can't improve, he'd have to be a hell of a hitter to be a 2.0 WAR player. His defense is that bad and I don't really see him improving. He gets horrible reads and is just a lousy fielder. And it is magnified more when you have a team built around pitching. Just for a statistical comparison since I can't calculate hypothetical WAR values in my head, Brandon Moss of last year had a net defensive rating of -11.1 runs below average from his time in the OF, DH, and 1B, which is similar to where Avi projects to be (and he'd have a better defensive rating if he moved to LF in all likelihood). Moss had a 121 wRC+, which I don't think is out of reach for a version of Avisail that is panning out--though he would get to a 121 wRC+ in a different way than Moss, who always carries a low average and high walk rate. Moss had a 2.1 WAR and that's with positional adjustments for 1B and DH included. I don't think it's out of reach, especially when we're talking about a player's upside.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 12:17 PM) If he could play defense, I'd be more patient with Avi cause I do see potential for offensive upside. I just never see him being a capable defender and thus he'd have to really really hit and the odds of that are pretty minimal. He has the physical tools to be an acceptable outfield defender, so I want to say he can improve. But he really seems to lack the instincts out there and if he's this bad now, I don't know why he didn't get better in his long minor league career spent solely in the outfield. I don't think the odds of him hitting well are minimal, but we might be having a vocabulary difference as to what "really hitting" is. If his defense can't improve, might be reasonable to say that he has the upside of 2.0 WAR player, which is nice to have but obviously not something you'll mortgage the franchise to develop

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 11:58 AM) IF their is truth to this, I just shake my head. Overloaded with what. Garcia sucks and LaRoche has not been productive. What overload are we talking about? An overload of crap? They have to decide how to manage roster moves and playing time. It is not at all straightforward and they are right to be conflicted about it.

I think holding on to Shark is a move in and of itself and probably the only prudent one

QUOTE (shipps @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 11:17 AM) But not every player has the same obvious potential showing speed, power and athletic ability. Plus the way he fought to come back early last year from the inury showed he is truly willing to work at improving and has some guts. I like that. To each is own. What's most frustrating is that he lost last year. Lots of solid to great players come up and have the sort of mild struggles at the plate that he's having and eventually put it all together...but now the Sox want to contend and he's the weakest link. Gets a lot harder to be patient with his development. His poor defense also makes it paramount that his bat reach its potential in order for him to be tolerable on a winning team. I think this is a spot where the Melky deal hurts because you really need Avi in LF where his defense might fit better. Of course, Melky is actually hitting, so that makes one of them.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Jul 31, 2015 -> 03:03 AM) Today is the 5 year anniversary of the Sox inexplicably throwing in Holmberg on the Hudson-Edwin Jackson deal. I know this because Facebook "reminded" me of how outraged I was over the deal at the time. On the bright side, he's not good. 4.40 ERA/4.75 FIP in AAA this year, 5 K/9 and 3 BB/9.

Probably should have batted righty today.

What a bunch of morons

Saladino has a crazy high ground ball rate. Hope he starts putting a charge into some pitches.

There are two legitimate criticisms you can use to explain why we have a non-elite (but non-horrible) farm system. First is that we have drafted badly, which at least until around the Sale draft is hard to argue with. You can lump in international scouting as well. Wilder looms large even after all this time. Second is not that we have traded out of our farm, but that we haven't done enough trading into it. You could argue that years we have gone for it we should have instead moved our big league assets to reload our minor leagues. Somewhere between those two is the publicized fact that until the draft slot system was in place, Reinsdorf more or less despised the idea of investing money in draft picks. I suspect the Joe Borchard signing had a significant and lasting effect as he thought about the nice big leaguers he could have gotten for that money instead.

Peace out, kid

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Jul 30, 2015 -> 07:12 PM) Another milestone! (lol) Carlos Sanchez has been worth roughly .8 fWAR over the last 4 weeks and is back up to replacement level on the year! Seriously though, Sanchez and the Melkman have been critical in this run, hopefully they can keep it up as both are assets not just this year but hopefully the next couple. Somebody with the White Sox deserves a lot of credit for sticking with him. He had a long time where he was sub-Phegley level at the plate and they let him work through it. Most teams wouldn't. He doesn't have to stay this hot from here on out, but he does have to keep hitting well to show that we didn't just experience two flukes (one bad, one good)

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Jul 30, 2015 -> 06:34 PM) The official twitter of the Charlotte Knights just posted that Sellers is headed there. Trade is official. Just some cash I guess. The seems to be a precursor to another move, perhaps an infielder (Micah?) getting shipped off... The same tweet from the Knights says Micah is on the DL

I have basically always avoided catch-alls. In a time like this, you're irrevocably behind if you're gone for a couple of hours. I hate trying to poke around a mass of pages trying to figure out what post everyone is reacting to while also trying to figure out what subject each poster is talking about.

I don't like adding Cespedes compared to Upton because Cespedes outside of this season has been a worse hitter than Upton and I fear for his approach since he walks so little...not sure that I like the "synergy" for the lineup with Cespedes compared to Upton. And if we dream of re-signing the rental player, it just won't happen with Cespedes.

In fairness to the 14 year old, it is so oddly specific and inconsequential that you have to think he didn't pull it out of thin air.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jul 30, 2015 -> 11:08 AM) But that sort of ignores reality right? They're not going extinct because people are killing them just for s***s and giggles or even for sport. I'm sure for most animals the biggest problem there is habitat loss. But even with regard to human killings, there's a market out there for hides, ivory, skins, etc. We can pretend like that will just magically disappear, but we all know it won't, at least not 100%. Keep working on that angle, obviously, but an additional method to save these animals IS to allow some heavily regulated, for-profit hunting. It has to be done right. There needs to be control. But what they've found is that in some cases, MORE animals get protected and MORE people guard against poaching because they want to appeal to big game hunters (i.e., have animals to shoot, usually old, non-procreating animals). There are a few examples of big game ranges in Texas that are doubling and tripling the number of safari animals because with the price for the few that they allow to be killed, they are able to buy, bring over, save, and then multiply other animals. I think there's an antelope that went extinct in Africa but is thriving in Texas. I was reading on some of this yesterday and a lot of conservation groups and even the US Wildlife service agrees that the big game hunting can and does help conservation efforts. The devils in the details though and how the system is set up and managed. As a principle, while it sucks that a beautiful animal will be killed, if it's saving even more, i'm all for it. I think very similarly with regards to zoos and their breeding programs. Yeah it sucks those animals are stuck in cages and small enclosures, but at least they're still around and even breeding. I think you make good points, but I want to make clear that the premise is that those indirect causes of population loss like habitat loss would arguably also be a result for our low regard for the animals. With that said, I'm not closed off to other solutions that use the same negative impulses (greed) to try to extract some positive (intentional protection of the animals in some way, shape, or form)