Dam8610

QUOTE (Dunt @ Dec 16, 2015 -> 10:00 PM) Don't think defense can ever be overvalued, it's way too important. What I learned from last season is that K% is overblown. The Cubs had one of the best rosters in baseball, but set a record for K%. It didn't matter b/c they had a bunch of guys that could also walk. Then ran into a good pitching staff and lost because they struck out so much. During the postseason last year, someone here posted a statistic that the team with the better contact rate (see: lower K rate) wins a postseason series something like 70% of the time. That makes it definitely something you want in your favor.

QUOTE (Baron @ Dec 16, 2015 -> 09:41 PM) What about Murphy? He would of had much more interest if he had played solid defense in the playoffs and most of the year. You're illustrating the point of the OP there. His average defense is not that bad and (at least personally) his career 13.1% K rate including last year's K rate of 7.1%(!) is very attractive.

I think low K rate is the new market inefficiency, look at how the Royals constructed their lineup for proof. Also, look at the expected contracts for Murphy and Upton.

Go get Cespedes or trade for an OF. Or shock the world and sign Dan Murphy to a Headley type contract and play him at 2B/3B/LF/DH. Murphy will be a lot cheaper and a better overall asset. You lose the comp pick that way I think, but Upton loses you the comp pick as well, and the White Sox need some versatility and a hitter who just does not strike out.

I wish this level of outrage for cheaters who lie to try to cover their tracks existed in football.

Didn't Kang work out pretty well for the Pirates? How does Kim stack up against Kang?

There's always the option to sign Murphy (who also plays 2B and 3B) and one of the OFs.

I love the write up and the positivity, but it seems a tad unrealistic. I can see an 85-90 win team in 2016, but the 2017 outlook is positively sparkling, and in fact perfect timing for the "incredible free agent class of 2018", which the White Sox could use their newfound success and payroll flexibility to buttress their position as a playoff contender and potentially push themselves into the ranks (and payroll levels) of the big market teams that have the ability to buy prolonged success. It all sounds fantastic, but the premises on which it's based are a bit too good to be true. That said, I'm all for making those additions provided they can be made in the ways you suggest, because that would likely be a playoff team in 2016. I have my doubts as to the rest, but I think those additions along with the positive regression you mentioned and the additions already made this offseason would likely put this team in the playoffs.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Dec 14, 2015 -> 08:14 AM) Cespedes is a lot like Samardzija in that (1) he's going into his age 31 season, (2) he's a 2015 free agent, and (3) his career is made up of a bunch of slightly above-average seasons and one monster year. Cespedes is UNLIKE Samardzija in that the career year came in 2015 instead of 2014. I don't want to pay for that career year. The biggest differences in Cespedes' 2014 and 2015 were a 30-point difference in BABIP and a 9% (!) difference in HR/FB%, both of which are among the least reliable year-to-year metrics for hitters. Walk rates, K-rates, swing rates, and other peripherals were about the same. I think Cespedes is a 3-win corner outfielder who just passed age 30. I don't want to pay him like he's a 6-win outfielder without a draft pick attached. Can he be had for 6/$100 (I've heard his market is lower than expected), would that be an overpay, and is it something the White Sox would be willing to do?

Q for Baez and Soler would be lopsided in favor of the Cubs.

QUOTE (ChiSox59 @ Dec 12, 2015 -> 12:15 PM) No one is taking LaRoche. But I really hope that doesn't stop the sox from adding an OF and shifting Melky to DH most days. LaRoche is a substitute for them eating cash on Gonzalez.

QUOTE (Blackout Friday @ Dec 12, 2015 -> 07:21 AM) Trayce is probably a .720 OPS CF with good defense. And that is a valuable player. Be prepared for a drop off, but don't crucify him for it. That's about where he was in September, when he had a .233 average. If he can hit .250, he'll likely be a .750 OPS CF with great CF defense, which, as you said, is a valuable player.

Montas, Danish, Guerrero, Engel, LaRoche for Gonzalez, McMahon? Too much? Too little?

Wow, that is quite a deal. They gave up nearly nothing and got a starting 3B with a lot of upside. Even if he's ML average, that's a huge upgrade on what the Sox had at 3B last year.

If that's the package the Braves get for Shelby Miller, then a 5 year cost controlled Quintana should get Seager, Urias, and another young, ML ready bat from the Dodgers. That would be about an equivalent price all things considered.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Oct 3, 2015 -> 12:25 AM) The question is in the title. Why should they keep him? Why should they not? You know where I lean, but as an economist, that always garners an "it depends." I'm drunk and bored and want to light a fire. I like chaos. But seriously..why not? I've been away. Talk to me goose. Economist, huh? Well, the team's production curve would recede without him and the law of diminishing returns makes it unlikely that the value they'd receive in a trade would be enough to replace his value.

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Nov 28, 2015 -> 10:33 AM) Sign 2B/SS Asdrubal Cabrera 2 years/20 million Trade SP Chris Beck and SP Brandon Brennan to the A's for 3B Brett Lawrie Trade 1B Adam LaRoche (Balances the money), SP Frankie Montas, SP Myles Jaye, and OF Adam Engel to the Rockies for OF Carlos Gonzalez and 1B Corelle Prime Trade RF Avisail Garcia to the Phillies for SP Jesse Biddle Trade RP Zach Putnam and SP Thad Lowry for UTIL Derek Dietrich CF Adam Eaton (L) 2B Asdrubal Cabrera (S) 1B Jose Abreu LF Carlos Gonzalez (L) 3B Brett Lawrie DH Melky Cabrera (S) RF Trayce Thompson C Alex Avila (L) SS Tyler Saladino OF J.B Shuck, C Tyler Flowers, 1B/3B Mike Olt, UTIL Derek Dietrich SP Chris Sale (L) SP Jose Quintana (L) SP Carlos Rodon (L) SP Erik Johnson SP John Danks (L) RP Jacob Turner (long man) RP Jake Petricka RP Dan Jennings (L) RP Tommy Kahnle RP Zach Duke (L) RP Nate Jones CP David Robertson Thoughts? I like this better than anything I've seen this far, but that 7-9 has the potential to be a black hole offensively. Also, since you didn't trade Sanchez or Micah Johnson, I'm confused as to how neither makes the team over Mike Olt.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Nov 25, 2015 -> 09:54 PM) That's just not true. Quintana's career high is 5.1 fWAR, and he's projected at 3.6 by Steamer. He CAN be a 5 win guy, but that's not conservative at all. He's probably most likely a 4 win guy, conservatively 3.5. I went a bit overboard by saying "conservatively", but Quintana has been worth 9.9 fWAR over the last two years, so saying he's a 5 WAR pitcher is reasonable. Conservatively, he'd be a 4 WAR per year pitcher. This doesn't address that calling Puig a 4 WAR per year OF is fairly generous.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Nov 23, 2015 -> 10:59 PM) :lol: Quintana is, conservatively, about a 5 WAR per year pitcher. Puig is very inconsistent, but let's call him a 4 WAR per year OF to be generous. So, player for player, Quintana is going to be worth 1 more WAR per year. At first glance, the contracts seem fairly even as well. However, Puig can opt out of his contract at any point now and opt in to arbitration. So either Puig is severely less valuable than Quintana and you overpay for poor production or Puig is almost as valuable as Quintana and you pay much closer to market value for that production. Either way, between player value and contract value, Q is probably going to be worth 2-3 WAR more per year than Puig over the life of their respective contracts. So, if they viewed Garcia as a player they could turn into at least an average OF and they viewed Montas as a future starter who could be a 2 or 3, it would actually be a pretty fair deal. It certainly, however, is a MUCH fairer deal than what that website came up with.

QUOTE (ChiSoxFanMike @ Nov 23, 2015 -> 07:12 AM) There's no way that LA gives the Sox Seager AND Urias without Sale going the other way. I just don't see that happening. I admit that for that deal to work, the Dodgers would have to value the potential of Garcia quite a bit and they'd have to view Montas as a future starter. That said, that deal is far more fair than the one this dumb website came up with.

Those deals suck. Something more fair in each case would be: LaRoche for Howard + cash (PHI eats the extra $12 million owed Howard) Q, Garcia, Montas and Jones for Puig, Seager, and Urias Change the trades to that, and do everything else except re-sign Soto, and I'd be good with it.

QUOTE (bmags @ Nov 14, 2015 -> 05:52 PM) Doesn't sound like that's the new value when your examples are two of the high priced free agents. Jason Giambi fit Beane's model of acquiring players with high OBP. He was also attractive to teams who valued power and average, because he hit near .300 with 30-40 HRs. Heyward and Murphy similarly have value to teams that value other things as well. The White Sox also need to drastically improve their offense. You're going to pay more for a player who can hit 1-6 in your lineup than for a player who would ideally hit 7-9.

So good defense and not striking out are, in my opinion, the current undervalued assets in MLB. If you look at the world champion Royals, 11 of their 13 hitters with 100 or more PAs strike out in less than one of every six at bats (Alex Gordon and Paulo Orlando being the exceptions), and as a team, they play very good defense. Using this line of thinking, I think if the White Sox wish to improve the most heading into next season, their top targets should be Jason Heyward, who is a great defender, had a K rate of 14.8%, and a wRC+ of 121 in 2015, and Daniel Murphy, who offers defensive versatility at two positions of desperate need for the White Sox, had the lowest K rate in the league in 2015 at 7.1%, and had a wRC+ of 110 despite having a very low BABIP. All that said, the White Sox rarely go the route I'm suggesting, and they're highly unlikely to hand out the contract it will take to get Heyward, so they'll likely go a different direction.

Alexei is a buy low candidate. BABIP of .264 in 2015 with above average defense. He'll cost much less than Desmond as well.

I think Murphy, Freese, Zobrist, and find a way to trade away LaRoche would make a very good offseason.