chitownsportsfan

s*** for some reason I thought he was signed through next year too, at 15m, well that makes trading him a bit easier although it also means you're only saving 7 million or so if you trade him at the deadline. Man, if Dunn was even 3/4 of the player he was in Cincy for the Sox that would have been a great contract. Still one of the more bizarre cases of a player just completely cratering after a long run of success I've seen.

IMO getting anything other than a "C" level prospect for Dunn, without sending out a ridiculous amount of cash, like 30 million or so, is a pipe dream. Dunn is what he is at this point, his absolute upside is a 2 WAR player, maybe 3 if you squint really hard and blame the appendix, hitting instruction, etc for his recent poor years. His middle case scenario is a barely better than replacement level 1B, that's...not valuable at all, unless you find a trading partner that has a huge hole at 1B/DH and needs an extra 1 or 2 wins to try and get into the playoffs. At this point I'd just keep Dunn, relegate him to a rather strict platoon with Paulie and see if you can regain some value before the trade deadline. I would have preferred not to have signed Konerko but at this point you might as well try and make use of his roster spot by spotting Dunn against LHP. This assumes of course that De Aza is getting moved and that Viciedo is in their plans for every LF. If Viciedo somehow gets benched in favor of De Aza or Konerko against LHP I'm going to be very upset, but I don't think Hahn and Robin are that dumb. I hope they're not.

Forget closer for now, if in July the team is actually good enough for there to be a lot of high leverage innings available in the pen then see about adding a piece and sacrificing a little of the future for the present. That would be a good problem. For now I'd go with closer by committee, with Jones getting the bulk of the chances early.

From the early returns over at Baseball Think Factory is seems most voters are voting for 10 guys and that Frank is one of the 10. Frank would get in eventually but as a huge Frank fan and Sox fan it seems the guy was almost always chronically under-rated and didn't get the accolades a top 20 hitter of all time should have received. That he had one of the greatest offensive seasons of all time cut short by the strike adds further insult to injury (perceived, perhaps). It would be nice if he could add "1st Ballot HOF" to his resume although I get the "HOFer is a HOFer" argument there is something about going in on the 1st ballot that would make up for any slights -- perceived or otherwise -- during his playing days. And yea, the voters have nobody to blame but themselves for this current backlog, there are a lot of HOF worthy players on the ballot and some of them, like Trammel and Raines ,are going to probably get fugged because of the situation the voters put themselves in with so many worthy candidates now coming on the ballot.

QUOTE (SI1020 @ May 16, 2013 -> 07:28 PM) I could not possibly disagree with you more. You just can't look at as Lee the fearsome hitter vs Podsednik the weak armed slap hitting outfielder. 2005 was the only year in recent and not so recent history that the Sox didn't have an all or nothing approach to offense. Yeah they hit a ton of homers but they got off to that great start with Pods and Iguchi leading the way. Didn't they take the lead in the first 37 games that year? Podsednik totally changed the dynamic and it's no coincidence that they struggled when he started having his injury problems. Like Caufield mentioned the Podsednik trade opened up the other possibilities and fortunately Kenny was at the top of his game. Scott Podsednik is a big reason why I refuse to become a stat slave to WAR. Kenny doesn't make that trade and we're looking at 95 years and counting. Actually, Pods was almost a solid starter (around 2 WAR) that year, he posted 1.7bWAR. So, WAR confirms the value of solid defense, slap hitting, and speed and it gives PODS 1.7 bWAR but you disagree? Come on man, nobody should use WAR as a monolithic stat, but it's pretty damn accurate most of the time (let's leave the defensive variance stuff aside for now) and it's in agreement with you that PODS was pretty good in 2005. If we learned anything from the debate over Cabrera and Trout last year for MVP it's that WAR measures all types of contributions and all types of players, not just sluggers. It likes defensive wizards, base running geniuses, etc.

QUOTE (Jake @ May 13, 2013 -> 08:40 PM) If everyone comes here and gets worse, what does that mean? Ozzie Guillen...wait, he's gone...uh....Greg Walker... I got nothing.

QUOTE (Jake @ May 13, 2013 -> 08:32 PM) I'm searching for a logical explanation as to why he was basically fine last year and he's looking far worse than 2011 so far this year. The approach change made sense early, but he has clearly abandoned that Look at his splits last year. He had a nice 1/3 of the season to start then basically went back to being s***. Even with all those HRs he was still basically a 1 WAR player because of his s*** defense, playing DH, s*** baserunning and s*** (for a DH) OBP. he's had two nice months as a Sox. The rest of the time he has been complete and utter garbage. How his string hasn't run out,well, we got 16 or so million reasons why I guess.

Why the f*** do we have Dunn and Keppinger back to back? Just stupid Robin.

Is gillaspie still sick? Otherwise I'd much rather see him at 1B then Dunn against LHP. Conor is no great shakes against LHP, but his glove is miles better than Dunn's and at this point, his bat probably is too.

QUOTE (greg775 @ May 12, 2013 -> 03:51 PM) Like Dick Allen and others said, nobody would take Dunn off our hands under any circumstances except the Sox paying every penny of his salary. I bet if a team could get Dunn for free, that team would send him to Triple A for a month and see if they can reinvent his stance, etc. nailed it.

QUOTE (flavum @ May 12, 2013 -> 04:06 PM) Danks is probably done. 6 IP, 7 hits, 3 runs, 2 er, 3 bb, 5 k 101 pitches, 66 strikes. I don't know. Maybe one more rehab start. what was his velocity? many swinging strikes? I'm skeptical until I see him sitting at 90-91 that he'll every be the same pitcher. Colin at SSS has done a lot of research on injuries like his and it's not pretty.

I've accepted that we're never going to see a 5 WAR John Danks again, or it's highly, highly unlikely. I'd settle for 2-3 WAR Danks however. There is a chance he's never effective as a MLB pitcher again however, and that really sucks for a team already weighed down with cord upon cord of dead wood.

Not until they commit to a full tear down and rebuilding. Which, under KW, was never. Hopefully under Hahn things change. The Sox should have committed to a rebuild back in 2010, instead they went all in with guys like Dunn and the Konerko extension. You'd have to think 2016 is the earliest they could field a contender. All the big bad contracts will be off the books and you'd think a few of the young outfielders in the system would hopefully have progressed to MLB ready by then. Hawkins will obviously be key.

Yea as Balta noted these "bold moved" are nothing but crazy. Let's see, the defense stinks so lets trade the best defender on the team so we can move a guy who hasn't played there full time since he was in Birmingham 5 years ago and then, we can put the excellent (sarcasm alert) Keppinger at 2B full time! Do you know how god awful that infield defense would be? Gillaspie/Beckham/Keppinger/Dunn/Konerko. There are softball teams in Chicago that have better infields than that. That's only a slight exaggeration. Furthermore, if the Sox are having a fire sale with "bold moves" the last thing they want back is sunk costs like Upton. The Sox would be much better off just working out a buyout with Dunn rather than taking on salary back in any trade. You want to bench a 24 year old Viciedo (who, by the way, has the 3rd highest OPS on the team) so you can bring in Justin Upton? That just doesn't make any sense either. Fairly paid, still usefull players like Ramirez and Viciedo are hardly part of the problem. The big problems on this team are, in order: Dunn, Keppinger, Flowers. Those guys are worse than replacement and in Dunn's case, he's eating up over 20% of the payroll. Any sort of "bold move" starts with committing to a complete rebuilding. That means working out a buyout or trade with Dunn (eating most of his salary), and then trading the few assets the team has, maybe packaging them together to get the most value. That means Konerko, Peavy, Crain, Thornton, Lindstron should all be on the block. Rios and De Aza should be available in the right deal. Everyone is tradeable in the right deal on a team this bad, but to suggest that the first player off the island should be Ramirez is absurd.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Mar 7, 2013 -> 10:14 PM) I've said before they should put him on waivers and if anyone wants to take that contract let them. It's going to be a long three years waiting for his contract to end. Congrats your post was so ignorant it compelled me to make my first post here in years. The value of a win is about $4 million. The Sox are going to be paying Ramirez 26.5 million over the next 3 years with an AAV of 8.9 million. Even with his career worst year at the plate last year due to the paucity of legit MLB caliber shortstops and his solid glove, bWAR had Ramirez for 2.2 wins and fWAR had him down for 1.8. That means he was basically worth his salary (note he only made 7 million in 2012). I will concede that the arc of Ramirez's career is not promising, but thanks to regression to the mean all the projection systems have Ramirez somewhere around a wOBA of .300, which would add about half a win over his 2012 numbers -- assuming his glove grades out about the same. It's probably fair to project Ramirez for about 7 WAR over the next 3 seasons -- at 4 million per win he'll be making...about exactly what he "should be". The idea that Ramirez's contract is some albatross hanging over the Sox is ludicrous. You'd rather rush a 20 year old to the bigs (and starting his arb clock no less) that projects a worse WAR just so you can jettison a 2 WAR player (aka a solid starter) that is being paid a fair salary. I've held back, but seriously? GTFO with such non-sense.

One thing that is interesting is that Q only has a career BABIP of .266, this year he's down to .223. Given even average luck and he'd be looking at a 270/370/550 line, and that would be a monster year. The guy is not made of very sturdy stuff though, hopefully he can stay healthy. He should be DHing as much as possible.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jul 11, 2010 -> 09:04 PM) I just checked for sure, the combined wOBA of the 3 is .383. Those three have produced 43 batting runs, the team itself is at -14 batting runs as of yesterday. So the success of the second half on offense isn't really up to these three, it'll take a big turnaround from Beckham, Pierre, Kotsay, etc to really make this a good offensive club. You can get these guys help, but unless the guys that are already here produce, this offense will be pretty mediocre. I don't think the offense will ever be anything other than mediocre unless you see something flukish happen where Jones goes on a tear, Pierre heats up, AJ starts actually taking walks, hell freezes over, etc. Luckily with this group of pitchers an average offense will suffice.

How horrible does the Teahan signing look now? I mean, it looked bad at the time but with Vizquel and Brown Bear giving the Sox a nice little offense/defense platoon at 3B there is no room for him on the roster. Like others have said, just man up and cut Kotsay. Sox don't need a backup first baseman that is barely hitting his weight.

Yea he's back. I would continue to try and protect him by using him as a DH. Sox need to keep this guy healthy and as long as Jones is on this rollercoaster ride (he's going up now) he should be out in RF because he's very good out there whereas Q is average at best. Sox' offense really is "stars and scrubs". You have Rios/Kong/Q with an wOBA total of .385 (that's really good) but you also have guys like Pierre, Beckham, AJ that are just having horrible years. Even though Q is only batting .244 he's had rotten BABIP luck but his power numbers and isoD are as good as ever. I am expecting a 250/345/520 line with 30+ dingers and around 110 RBI when it's all said and done. That's the sort of power threat this team is going to need to make a pennant push.

This is huge news. I was operating under the assumption that neither of these guys would be ready until May/June at the earliest. The fact that both are throwing off the mount already an excellent sign. Every day that goes by with no setbacks is another day closer towards fulfilling their 4th and 5th starters that this team needs to win the Central. A 4th and 5th starter combination of Marquez/Broadway/Egbert/Richard is a recipe for another 72 win season.

QUOTE (Jenks Heat @ Feb 26, 2009 -> 06:02 PM) Which leaves a pain in my stomach that we passed on one year of Hudson Meh. Hudson prolly means no Colon. I think Getz is fine for good defense and a 280/350/360 line or something.

Saw the box, an impressive line from the pitchers. Good to see Carrasco striking guys out. Broadway and Egbert look like 6th starter fringe types but perhaps one of them can pitch well in spot starts or out of the pen this year. Viciedo ripped a single and Beckham the BB and SB. Yep, it's spring training. Time for the ...

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jan 23, 2009 -> 01:12 PM) On a positive note, we do have 3 of the top 57 but nobody in the Top 30. I really think nobody has a firm idea where to slot Viciedo. Legitimately, based on his hitting skills alone, he's thought to be a Top 5-10 guy. We'll have a much better idea down in Arizona what we might actually have on our hands...or we might be wishing we had used that $11 million to sign Ben Sheets instead. Could go either way. Interesting question though...would you rather have Ben Sheets in 2009 or Viciedo in 10/11/12? If the Viciedo bidding happened again, it might be somewhere between $4-8 million instead of $10+. Yea I really think people are sleeping on Viciedo hard core. From the amount of money he got (and the interest from teams like the Yankees) I would think he would have been a top #10 pick in this year's draft. So he's overweight? He's 19 years old for god's sake. Give him a year or two with a professional training staff, a personal chef, and the pride of being a cuban MLB player and I think he'll be a bronze titan soon enough. Most non-track athletes (football players, baseball players, basketball big men) are a bit soft in their late teens. I see no worry here. Plus the Sox are expecting him to compete for a starting 3B spot as a 19 year old! That speaks to the lack of any real options in the org, but it also speaks to how advanced Danny is for his age.

what is there, 31 teams? So assuming a random distribution you'd expect every team to have a least 3 guys in the top 100. So Sox are just average there. anyways, I put very little stock in Law's observations. He goes and watches a player once or twice than passes judgment. He basically admits as much in the article. Not my idea of proper scouting, which should be a mix of DETAILED and SUSTAINED observation and statistical analysis.

lol, what is it with some of you guys. Cabrera is a great defensive shorstop and was a good, useful player last season. Now he's going to get us 2 top 100 draft picks. That's awesome. He didn't hit very well but what shorstop in the AL could have been had that did? Uribe has one of the best arms in the game, but he also has limited range, who knows how bad it is now with the weight he's gained. And Uribe isn't any more of threat to hit than Cabrera. Who cares if the guy pissed some people off, he helped on the field and that's all that mattered in the end. I have a hard time believing playing the way he played that that many people on the team had a problem with him.