chitownsportsfan

QUOTE (raBBit @ Jun 24, 2014 -> 02:02 PM) I am excited for the end of Flowers/De Aza/Viciedo. So next year we have... C - no one 1B - Abreu 2B - Johnson/Semien 3B - Gillaspie/Davidson SS - Alexei LF - no one CF - Eaton RF - Garcia DH - no one Hahn has to find a catcher, 1B/3B/DH, outfielder, a SP and maybe one serious bullpen piece and a couple of fliers. Either way, we have some in house talent that could factor next year (Johnson, Semien, Davidson) and some money to spend. I think we'll be in for another fun offseason. I think you gotta put Sanchez on that list. He's raking in AAA, as a 22 year old that can play SS his slash line of 299/362/420 is excellent. Let him get a cup of coffee in Sep and then next year he should be the starter at SS heading into the spring IMO. GIve him two years to figure things out in MLB and see what we have. Obviously if he doesn't continue to hit you rethink it but so far so good with his season. Suprised more people haven't taken notice, guess his awful season last year, at a really, really young age for Charlotte, turned people off.

QUOTE (Tannerfan @ Jun 24, 2014 -> 12:48 PM) Does anyone think there's merit in moving Gillaspie to the outfield? If he could play left you've got him Eaton and Garcia left to right. This means Davidson has to pan out at 3b, or maybe Semien can stick at third. There's no merit in moving him to LF when he can play a cromulent 3B. His wRC+ is like 130, that more than makes up for the few balls he doesn't get to a month at 3B. In general, it's really hard to find good young infielders, harder than finding good young outfielders. At least it's clear that we need to continue to rebuild -- jettison Alexie, Belli and anyone else that will get a decent piece.

So, when does Robin's job start to come into question? I'd evaluate in the off-season but what do others think?

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 23, 2014 -> 10:34 PM) It's going to be interesting to see what happens with Alexei and Dayan. They're both in terrible slumps over the course of the last 70-100 at-bats. They will surely go on hot streaks again, where they will show tantalizing promise (Dayan) but will that be enough to keep Rick Hahn from pulling the trigger? Changing the attitude in the clubhouse is another big issue...with Dunn, Konerko and DeAza on the way out, who will emerge? Abreu is a quiet, "by example" type of guy like Konerko. Sale's a pitcher. So it has to be Eaton and maybe Beckham if he survives this season in Chicago. It would be dumb to release/DFA Alejandro right now, but if we can't get ANYTHING in July or August for him, I'd hope that Hahn would send a message like they did with Keppinger and free up playing time for ANYONE else. Dayan's entire career has been a slump. I've defended the guy time and time again and he was one of my favs, but a butcher corner outfielder that can't manage an OPS+ above 85 has no role in MLB except as a bench player.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 20, 2014 -> 11:21 PM) That's the question...how assiduously do Cooper and Ventura really look at those current stats and comb through them when looking at bullpen match-ups? Ventura's a lot like Harrelson in that sense. His memory of previous seasons overrules what his eyes are seeing in the current season. It's like his brain can't synthesize both pieces of independent information. So we have this prevailing idea that Mauer is nearly equally dangerous against lefties (as righties) because he had a 740 OPS in 420 at-bats from 2011-2013 against lefties. But his overall OPS during that time was 838 with an 885 OPS against righties. I've said this before and I'll say it again: anything Robin "gives" as far as team chemistry he takes wrt to tactics and strategy. He goes by his gut when he should go "by the book" and he goes "by the book" when he should go with his gut. The Mauer quote illustrates that perfectly. Do some damn research or have a guy whisper it in his ear.

figures as soon as I'd like to watch a game it gets rained out. Come on rain, go away.

QUOTE (The Ultimate Champion @ Jun 19, 2014 -> 02:06 PM) Also Hahn may hvae very well dumped Reed for nothing just like Kenny dumped Santos for nothing. Kenny had Teahen, Hahn had Keppinger, salarywise pretty much the same. Kenny didn't trade a couple vets when it was time, Hahn let Floyd and Crain get hurt, got basically nothing out of Thornton, etc. Hahn isn't some savior or anything. He's been aggressive but the biggest moves he's made were 2 extensions to players who already got her on KW's watch and a free agent signing out of Cuba. The Peavy deal we will have to wait on. Look at the roster in 2013 and then look at it again in 2014. In 12 months, Hahn took a moribund, aging team that was 30+ games under .500 and brought in enough talent (and young, cheap talent at that) to turn them essentially from awful to mediocre. That's a pretty damn good job. If his only mistakes are trading a 1 WAR "closer" for a top 100 prospect that didn't pan out and Keppinger -- then that's pretty damn good.

QUOTE (The Ultimate Champion @ Jun 19, 2014 -> 02:04 PM) What are you talking about? The Sox cut payroll and put a bunch of young guys on the roster that year. It was only 2 seasons ago you should be able to remember that. Sorry, let me rephrase: it was a half assed rebuild. Letting Mark walk and trading Quentin were half measures. In hindsight it would have been much better to strike while the iron was hot on Konerko and Rios. God, looking at the wiki for that season is depressing.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 19, 2014 -> 01:42 PM) Agreed. But a lot hinges on Garcia...we all know that. And there's as many knowledgeable opinions on how good he will be in the future as there are believers in Marcus Semien, Gordon Beckham or Conor Gillaspie. If we are approaching 2015 as close to an "all in/we're back" year from a marketing perspective, there's going to be an immediate pressure on him to produce. It's not going to be like 2006 where they can afford to carry a struggling Garcia for 2-3 months because we're already having to replace a Top 30 MLB OPS in Adam Dunn. Yep, luckily Avi is unlikely to hit much less than 270, even if his slash line is like 270/300/380 it won't LOOK awful to the casual fan. I'm high on Avi, I think he's a helluva talent and it was crushing when I found out he was injured for the year. He's a 2 WAR player right now IMO and could peak out at 5-6 if he puts it all together.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 19, 2014 -> 01:28 PM) If you're going to replace Viciedo, and not trade Alexei Ramirez (since we also need catching/pitching even more), then where are you going to get a 750-825 OPS LFer??...also considering the fact that Garcia might be a bust or very rusty and in need of extensive minor league time to get his timing back in 2015. Does anyone really believe Semien/Micah Johnson in LF, along with Eaton's 700ish OPS...is going to be a huge improvement? I'm not saying it's impossible to replace Dayan, simply that you don't dump him until you have a much better solution than Sierra/Taylor/Danks/Tuisasopo. I agree that's as of now the Sox don't really have any better options. We had so many holes coming into this year that Hahn (imo) did a masterful job this offseason fillign as many as possible. Eaton and Abreu and Avy (in his very limited run so far in MLB) look like three legit starters and obviously Abreu looks more than that. Now we just have a hole in LF, DH and C. Gillaspie, Abreu, Eaton and Avy has drastically upgraded the position player talent. Good job to Hahn. Hate to say because he did a lot of good but KW's doubling down for the 3rd straight year in 2012 set this team up for disaster. Hahn has righted the ship, soon we'll be sailing again imo.

QUOTE (The Ultimate Champion @ Jun 19, 2014 -> 01:10 PM) Viciedo has the ability to be a s*** ton more than that. Will he? Who knows, but he's still young enough to get there in theory. No way do you move Abreu to DH unless you just get a f***en monster at 1B who is even better than him. Moving Abreu to DH and then bringing in Casey Krothman or some ballsucker like that is disrespectful to our superstar and probably not a good baseball move either. It's hard to over state how much Viciedo has to contribute with his bat to be an effective starter anywhere he can play. Look at this Fangraphs page this year for example, he's -8 runs (wow) already on defense and -.2 baserunning. Oh well he hits you say -- his wRC+ is 86. More akin to a catcher or SS then a butcher in the field corner outfielder. He now has over 1500 PA in MLB and his fWAR is .2 -- .2! If you don't like WAR just look at his fielding percentage and triple slash line: 261/305/425 and a .978 fielding percentage, which doesn't even account for the dozens of balls he misplays into triples and hits that he doesn't get the error. I was a huge Viciedo booster. Tragically, he's not very good I've come to realize.

QUOTE (The Ultimate Champion @ Jun 19, 2014 -> 12:53 PM) I'd like to dump off Dunn & DeAza first, open up 2 spots, move Viciedo to DH permanently The problem in this scenario is that Viciedo does not hit enough to be a DH. Right now he's a 4th OF you start against LHP. That's it. That's all he probably ever will be. If anything, the path to DH is now clear for Abreu.

Trading an established 3 WAR starter that you have on a very team friendly deal for the next few years for an unproven starting pitcher prospect (with a history already of shoulder soreness) would be an awful, awful move. If the M's want to throw in the kitchen sink sure do it, but Nick Franklin and Erasmo Ramirez are not nearly enough. Living in Seattle I've seen the Walker hype first hand and right now the reality is he's not a good MLB starter that battled shoulder problems in spring training. His absolute best case scenario is probably a 4-5 WAR starter. His middle case is worse than Q imo. His floor is bullpen. We are desperate for starting pitching the last thing we need to be doing is trading Q. If some team wants to over pay wildy sure do it. But it's not something we should be just throwing out there to see if s*** sticks.

lol at Sale. Dude should go back and get his degree, he'll learn even more fancy words.

So who goes under the mendoza line first, Flowers or Viciedo? God what a disappointment Viciedo's career has been. He pretty much turned out to be the worst case scenario despite gaudy MILB numbers. Not enough power, not even average, zero patience, and not just a below average defender, a brutal defender. 4th OF to play against LHP, that's all he turned into.

Tyler Flowers has a BA of .250 with a BABIP of 410. That is insane. If he wasn't having an historically lucky season with balls finding holes, he'd be batting around 180. 2014 is quite a bit about finding what the Sox have and what they don't. In case there was ever any question, the Sox do not currently have a starting caliber MLB catcher. That's a bummer, but at least for now it's certain.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Jun 12, 2014 -> 02:10 PM) I agree, 2B is not a position teams typically pay a premium to fill. That said, there should definitely be less supply of quality 2B available next month than in the offseason and hopefully a few teams in need of one right now. Get two teams bidding for him, say the Blue Jays & Yankees, and maybe you can get something of decent value. If so, you take that offer immediately and put Semien at 2B the rest of the season. Banking on a transformed Gordon Beckham at $6M+ next year does not seem like great use of resources when we have three cheaper & promising alternatives in AAA. Yep you plan for the most likely scenario and that is what you described. If Beckham is really a 4 WAR 2b in the future well shoot but it sure as heck isn't the most likely scenario. Gotta allocate resources as you said and if we can get cheap production from semian or Sanchez atn2b it frees up resources to help elswhere, like the pitching staff.

Nice, let's get him signed so he can get 7-10 starts in high A, a few at bham them in the Sox' pen in September.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Jun 12, 2014 -> 01:53 PM) Isn't the 2500 PA of below avg production also going to weigh heavier for the teams making the offers? Selling high isn't as easy as it sounds because teams don't like to buy high. Excellent point but teams like the Yankees will probably overpay based on desperation at the deadline. If he is traded max levarage will be in July, not the off season.

QUOTE (knightni @ Jun 12, 2014 -> 01:36 PM) I just saw them bait him into that bases loaded K last night. I knew what was coming but he didn't seem to realize what they were going to do to him. He needs to almost always go into his at bats looking inside and up. Easier said then done but if he can a 280, 290 avg is not out of the question. Right now my only complaint is lack of walks but with a 925 ops and the really good hitting weather still to come he might start seeing the ball better on the junk stuff outside.

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ Jun 12, 2014 -> 12:46 PM) Seems odd to me that we wait and wait for this 1st round pick to reach his potential and now that he does, we all want to trade him. The 2500 pa of below avg production weigh heavier than a meaningless 1st round history and 100 pa this year. Strike while the iron is hot Hahn.

QUOTE (LDF @ Jun 10, 2014 -> 06:16 PM) going the independent route is 1 yr and then he is a fa. signing for whomever offer the most money. Let's see, 6 million guaranteed, a fast track to the big leagues, or nothing guaranteed and a year of bus rides and hefty insurance payments on that arm. Sure, it's in the realm of possiblity. It's also possible the Sox finish the year with 100 wins -- just don't bet on it.

QUOTE (The Ultimate Champion @ Jun 10, 2014 -> 01:08 PM) Great so let's see Hahn go ahead and trade Leury Garcia for a 2-5 WAR player that can help us in the OF, rotation, bullpen, or as a starter in the IF. Seriously, let's see him do that. Seriously. Do it. Now. It's a rebuilding year. It has been since June of last year. Just keep repeating that. That money saved help free up money for Abreu and the Quintana extension. You're missing the point: Chicago needed more payroll space more than they needed an overpaid average starter.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Jun 10, 2014 -> 04:53 PM) We can debate all we want Bor-ASS will want both IMO. I'm guessing Rodon's family isn't going to be very happy if he misses a half yea of development in arguably the single best org for pitching development because of 500k either way. 6 million will be chump change if he's signing a pre FA deal with the Sox before he turns 25.

QUOTE (Stan Bahnsen @ Jun 10, 2014 -> 12:53 PM) I'm no fan of Robin's managing, but criticism in this case is just dense, imo. Every other hit in that inning, including vs. Petricka, was an average-hardness GB hit with Twin-like precision. Trout's a lock future HOF. S*** happens. Just hope this type of thing never happens in a game of greater import - playoffs, pennant race, etc. Trout is really good, what's really amazing is that Willie Mays basically had 12 seasons in a row at a Mike Trout level. In other words, if Trout has 10 more years of "Mike Trout production" he'll be in the conversation with Willie Mays as great outfielder of all time. Willie Mays is like the ultimate example of why WAR works.