Jake

Gosh, he'll hardly have any left

I don't know why you would ever want to give a 30+ year old pitcher a long free agent contract. These almost never work out, especially beyond the first season

After living in the South for a few years and having decided the weather was the main positive of that location, I started to hate it. I miss winter. It can be inconvenient and sometimes worse than inconvenient, but it just feels right to me. Four distinct seasons. I love it.

I'm glad it's going to be in cold weather - why can you play in NY/Chicago/Green Bay/etc. one weekend but not two weeks later? It is much more exciting to see people play in "bad" weather

Here's some fun Steamer projections: http://www.fangraphs.com/projections.aspx?...0&sort=22,d Eaton as top position player with 2.3 WAR Alexei 2.1 ...Phegley 1.2 ...Beckham 1.1 ...Dayan 0.9 ...ADA .9 ...Davidson .9 Oliver (assumes every player is full time, while Steamer tries to prognosticate playing time/injuries): http://www.fangraphs.com/projections.aspx?...0&sort=22,d Eaton, top dog again: 3.4 WAR Avisail: 2.9 WAR Phegs: 2.8 (you can see how much your last MiLB season factors in between Phegs and Avi) ADA: 2.8 Semien: 2.6 Flowers: 2.2 Jake Elmore: 2.2 Alexei: 2.2 Leury: 2.1 Gillaspie: 1.7 A few guys making all their hay on defense in there Steamer for pitchers: Sale - 4.6 WAR, 3.17 FIP Quintana - 2.7 WAR, 4.05 FIP Danks - 1.3 WAR, 4.42 FIP E. Johnson - 1.1 WAR, 4.43 FIP Jones - .8 WAR, 3.34 FIP

Yankees projected starters this year and their 2013 WAR/ERA Kuroda - 3.8 / 3.31 CC Sabathia - 2.7 / 4.78 Masahiro Tanaka - Ivan Nova - 2.5 / 3.10 David Phelps - 1.1 / 4.98 They're hoping Nova is legit, hoping something other than Phelps appears for the 5 slot, hoping Tanaka is good right away, hoping Sabathia rallies way back, and hoping Kuroda doesn't age

Not a good story unless he was masturbating

QUOTE (raBBit @ Jan 23, 2014 -> 10:09 AM) Yeesh. If Hoffman gets hurt and barely pitches some team is still going to take him in the 1st round. I was thinking more along the lines of "I, Hahn, who has only one first round pick and it is at number 3"

I had PRP therapy, didn't do s***. It's a very non-clinically proven procedure and they're still trying to figure when it helps and when it doesn't.

Jeff Hoffman - 6.89 K/9, 3.2 BB/9, 1.26 WHIP, 3.20 ERA am I missing something here? I don't care how talented you are, you have to pitch better than that for me to take you at 3. That K rate needs to be at 9 or better this season

Tanaka to Rangers? Sounds like we need a new thread

If it was theft, then the Indians are Robin Hood

Rose returns late and we win the 'ship

I think Trea Turner looks like a special player. Hoffman has not impressed me. He has to have a really big year or else he's more like a 2nd rounder to me.

QUOTE (Bigsoxhurt35 @ Jan 22, 2014 -> 08:30 PM) Hey guys, long time sox fan. Just found this site from woods of Ypres. Been looking for a great sox board. I'm the only sox fan here in charleston,sc. Grew up in ohio though and Frank Thomas was my favorite player so I picked the sox. Meanwhile all my friends liked the tigers and Indians. Just telling ya a little about me so you don't think I'm a troll lol. Excited for this season finally with a young core of players to look forward to the future. Wish we got tanaka but at least we tried. It's all I ask for. Still wishing we trade for a catcher. I know Wieters was on the block but he's probably too costly and a boras client so no extension could be worked out likely. Hope we can flip De Aza for a catcher. Can't stomach any of his little league base running. Welcome!

This was the time of year last year where I was getting sour on Groce too. The team was really with the program by the end of the season, which tells me he was coaching them up -- it just takes some time.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Jan 22, 2014 -> 08:27 PM) For home protection get a shotgun. Mossberg or Remington 870 would be perfect. Won't go through walls, great effect and it's a billion times easier to aim if you actually need to use it. You don't want to go pouring 9mm rounds through drywall, that's how bad things happen. If you absolutely must go handgun I very highly recommend the .45 Sig. I own one myself, lovely little thing. This is actually very good advice. A novice or a person that is simply nervous or aiming at a moving target is liable to unload a clip and not hit anyone. You won't miss with an unchoked shotgun

DeMarrrrrrr Also, I'm surprised there hasn't been any discussion of this: Jason Lloyd ‏@JasonLloydABJ Deng this a.m. on possibility of returning to CHI next season: "Maybe they'll offer me 3yrs, $30 million. That might be an option to take." K.C. Johnson ‏@KCJHoop 7h Apparently, the art of sarcasm is dead. Deng was tweaking Bulls' 3 yr./$30M offer. He's not coming back in free agency. Of course, to your average person, $30M isn't a f***ing joke

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 22, 2014 -> 01:50 PM) I don't get how people were surprised by this stuff. Presidents have been doing this for decades. Am I the only one who remembers the Echelon outrage? Looking back even further, the US kept files on tons of people during the Red Scare era, for no good reason. My assumption is that when it comes to the government, there is nothing private about our lives. Yeah, in some ways, we might even be better off now than some times in the past. I remember the FBI recording MLK having sex with mistresses and then giving the recordings to his wife. Then they would do all this s*** like write fake letters and send compromising/controversial photos to civil rights leaders, etc. They actively meddled in all of this s***! Maybe they're doing it now...and we just don't know. I'm not sure. I think it would be fairly difficult to hide. I know there were a lot of rumors that intelligence agencies were meddling with the Occupy movement, but I don't know how substantiated those claims were

We have a whole bunch of guys ready or almost ready that could plausibly become very valuable starters. There is nothing more valuable than good starting pitchers on their rookie deals. There is nothing riskier than veteran pitchers on market priced FA deals. Given all the other rolls of the dice we're taking in '14, let's go ahead and figure out which of these guys will be valuable instead of forcing a veteran FA pitcher into the mix to become an immediate time bomb with a high salary and aging arm

QUOTE (Vance Law @ Jan 22, 2014 -> 05:42 PM) Gillaspie/Keppinger platoon will put up better numbers than Davidson would in 2014 and we're already paying them. Let's see if Davidson can become a better fielder and at least put up some Phegley numbers in AAA. Some Josh Fields numbers. (*these are terrible hitters who nonetheless displayed more success in AAA than Davison has) The dude batted .280 with a .350 OBP along with 17 HR in 115 games. He then went to MLB and posted an almost .800 OPS over 31 G. I don't want him to put up "Phegley numbers" anywhere, because Phegley numbers involve a .522 OPS and the lowest wRC+/OPS+ in baseball among everyone who batted as many times as he did and a career full of sub-.700 OPS, powerless seasons in the minors. Davidson has hit over 20 HR in every full pro season he has played. He hit very well in AAA. He has hit very well at every level he has played. He went on to have very serviceable numbers in MLB in limited time. Give me him over that lot -- we should absolutely be expecting him to outproduce a Gillaspie and Keppinger platoon the very moment he steps foot on the Spring Training diamond.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jan 22, 2014 -> 04:15 PM) And he would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for that meddling internet. Seriously, can you imagine the days before the internet where you can say s*** like that and people will believe you since they can't easily fact-check? I can't tell you how often I see people get hung up on things that are so easily google-able. Don't spend more than 60 seconds on any piece of factual information in conversation without pulling out your smartphone and just figuring it out.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 22, 2014 -> 03:49 PM) Since PHegley does have options, sending him to AAA to start the year and going from there is a sensible move. However, here's the one question to consider...what happens if he outhits everyone in ST by a fairly good amount? That's the scenario it would take for us to consider putting him on the team right? I'm not against letting the coaching staff evaluate and allow production to (an extent) dictate the winner of that position. QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 22, 2014 -> 04:31 PM) Wow, that's a good detailed write-up Jake. Really though, you are reinforcing everything I said, except trying to put overall hitting values on his years in the minors. You have to take his history into account, you cannot look at overall hitting numbers per-level with him and have it make any sense. I guess my argument is mainly that we can't ignore those numbers, even if we do take into account the very meaningful health obstacles. When we try to decide if the beginning of his 2013 is meaningful, we look at whatever other evidence we have...and that evidence is bleak. Incomplete, certainly. Given the other "healthy version of Phegley" evidence we have is him being MLB's worst hitter and trying to set records for passed balls allowed, I honestly don't want to see him anywhere near the MLB roster before he hits well in AAA again. Of course, even if he starts to see some of that upside as a hitter, I am seriously worried about his value as a defender. It seems like scouts have always wanted to discount his good throwing numbers, but even if those will persist, the PB issue is mindblowing. Can we teach him not to do that? How do you teach a catcher to...catch?

I remember getting into an argument with a Cubs fan teammate back in high school. I asked him what he has to say about the Sox winning a World Series in 2005 while it's been almost 100 years longer since the Cubs did. "Wins don't matter, bro"

QUOTE (southside hitman @ Jan 22, 2014 -> 03:25 PM) Why not? He's only 22 and hasn't dominated AAA. Kepp and Gillaspie can form a halfway decent lefty-righty platoon and keep it warm he's ready to stick for the long term. Keppaspie? Gillinger? So many possibilities! He did very well in AAA last year and really held his own in MLB. The only good reason for putting Davidson in AAA is the presence of Keppinger and Gillaspie. IMO, those two don't make a compelling reason to keep our best MLB ready prospect in the minors