chitownsportsfan

wow, that is a f***ing little league swing on 3-1. Not even close.

dude, Avi. Have a game young man!

QUOTE (daggins @ Sep 20, 2014 -> 10:34 PM) He's 23 He did lose nearly a season of playing time and still has I think he will be a good hitter People talk about Jose having "slider bat speed" but that better describes Avi at this point. Avi will need to improve on fastballs to have a really great career but he could be a pretty good regular just hitting 280/330/450 is he can pick it up in RF a bit. I think he's got a pretty high floor he just needs more experience. I'm taking anything he does until the end as a bonus. He's held his own since coming back that's all I hoped to see. Next year will be the year to look for some progress, especially defensively.

Ventura is growing along with the team? Huh.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Sep 19, 2014 -> 02:20 PM) Aren't prospect rankings basically projections? The White Sox have reports on every player. Apparently they liked Davidson a lot. In the end, it is the result that matters. If Matt Davidson doesn't help the White Sox, trading for him was a mistake. It won't be Hahn's last mistake. If it is, he will go down as the greatest GM in history. The hope was the Sox got a middle of the order bat who could hold his own defensively and would be called up as soon as his super 2 chances were at zero. The reality is they have a poor fielding strike out machine (contact was always a red flag) who couldn't make enough contact against mediocre AAA pitching to hit .200. Yes he still will only be 24, but it looks like he has a long ways to go to get anywhere near what a lot of people thought he was when he was acquired. IT'S NOT THE RESULT THAT MATTERS. IT'S THE PROCESS. Good god. If I drive my car 90mph through a red light and I don't hit anyone and I get to work on time can anyone in their right mind possibly say "it's the result that matters"? When I get pulled over I'll tell the cop "well I didn't hit anyone officer".

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Sep 19, 2014 -> 01:59 PM) If that is the case, Brock for Brogolio if you look at their previous numbers, wasn't a bad trade for the Cubs. And if that is the case, no one should ever complain about Jeff Keppinger being a bad signing even though Hahn himself said he f***ed up that one. If all trades and signings should be judged at the moment they are made, especially if they include prospects, to me that is silly. I don't care if Matt Davidson was ranked 1 or 1000 by BA or any of the others, and neither does Hahn. It is what the White Sox think of him that matters. And if he turns out to not be the prospect BA or BP or Keith Law make him out to be, that really is inapplicable, because the White Sox shouldn't and don't rely on their scouting reports to acquire players. A GM needs to be able to project. Hahn looks like he is capable of this, but this one blew up in his face. Sometimes no matter how good your scouting and process is a guy just doesn't pan out. It's just the nature of prospects. You always trade a mediocre closer entering ARB for a top 100 MLB prospect. You continue to argue from a crystal ball hindsight is 20/20 perspective but you can't do that. It's like saying you have a chance to PH Jose Abreu for Gordon Beckham in the bottom of the 9th with the tying run on second and Jose strikes out to end the inning. That doesn't mean it was a bad idea to insert Abreu, it just means the process was good but you had a bad outcome. Say you leave Beckham in and he gets a hit and ties the game. Jose remains on the bench. Would anyone in their right mind think that was anything other than dumb luck from a bad decision?

Wilkins looks like a guy that sits dead red fastball in AAA but can't recognize or hit a breaking ball or changeup to save his life. Maybe in AAA without advanced scouts and guys that don't have the best command he just sits on fastballs.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 17, 2014 -> 11:28 PM) As far as Green Sox saying Alexei should have been traded in July ... that would not have been such a good move. I mean some of us don't want the Sox to suck eggs again next season. Losing Lexi would truly affect the team performance more than one or two games no matter what WAR says. I mean you lose a damn fine shortstop, hitting and defense wise, and replace him with uh, nothing?, and it'll assure the Sox of the No. 1 draft pick next year. I'm kinda willing to ride Alexei into late July at this point next season and see what happens. He's proven that he's durable and keeps himself in tip top shape. His range will continue to decline but his arm should make him at least average with the glove for at least another couple years. In today's s*** run environment a shortstop that hits 280/315/405 is a 3 to 4 WAR player so there is no rush to move him. Even in his decline he should be above average until at least '16. If the Sox are way out of it next July yea, move him. But that's not a move that's going to help short term (through 16) at all unless the Sox are absoutely bowled over on an offer, and that's not likely to happen.

man wtf, two bloops and a blast

un f***ing real

great changeup

and that's why you're the Royals f*** faces.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Sep 17, 2014 -> 08:38 PM) Aoki has gone full Punto Punto Rayburn Aoki f***'em all

This f***ing Aoki POS is pissing me off.

not a good play from Jose

looks like sale has his good fastball command tonight. Just score a few Sox should be enough.

ah crap, probably gonna call him out.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Sep 17, 2014 -> 04:29 PM) What did they say that was so offensive? Just constant s*** talking about the Sox. They implied Conor was scared in his bases loaded AB. They constantly talked about how awful the Sox bullpen was and every thing that happened was confirmation of why the Sox are 13 under and blah blah blah. I mean, you're the f***ing Royals. Surely you know bad baseball when you see it and don't need to constantly drone on about it. Seeing Conor hit that triple after they basically questioned his manhood was one of the top moments this season for me as a viewer. It was great. I hope the Sox help knock them out of the playoffs the arrogance of their announcing crew for a team that historically has sucked donkey dick was just very off putting. You can pump up your own team without constant bashing of the other team. That's something Hawk even does.

Until I heard the arrogant, buffoonish KC broadcast team last night I was actually sorta rooting for KC to make the playoffs over Seattle (the city I live in). f*** THAT NOISE. I hope the Sox win 20 to nothing and KC uses every single pitcher in their pen so they are screwed for the next series.

Holy s*** Conor is 10th with a 292? Man, offense is sooooooooooooooooooooooo down.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 17, 2014 -> 01:24 PM) Just to note, Avi's been a -0.5 run guy on the bases this year after a + 0.2 base guy last year, and he's on pace to be a -10 guy in RF this year after a -11 guy last year. He'll have to massively improve in all 3 aspects of his game to reach that level. I think with time he'll improve but it was a big blow to have him miss so much dev time this year. I just really hope they keep him in RF and don't jerk him around to LF or some stupid crap like that. As for the baserunning I think it will come with experience. Realistically we can hope for 3 WAR and expect 2 from him next year but in my fantasy land I hope for 5 and get 3.

If Avi turns in a 5 WAR season a lot of problems are going to be solved. A lot hinges on him staying healthy and developing into the guy that is +5 runs on the bases, hits 290/345/480, and plays a run neutral RF. That's not quite 5 WAR, more like 3-4, but I think he can get there next season. It's really great that he got to get ~110 PA in at the end of this season. He's working through his post-injury adjustments now instead of next April.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 17, 2014 -> 01:58 PM) It's worth noting that in the fan graphs world, we're only a couple fWAR ahead of the pace we set for all last season (with 2 weeks still to play), so the biggest difference this year has been underperforming less than last year. I agree there are paths that can get you there...but just look at your list. You're assuming everything goes right just to get close to 30 without a big FA spending spree. That alone is disconcerting and worrisome. Maybe it can happen, but then you have to seriously look at every single guy and ask what the downside risk is as well. Noesi struggles more, Abreu's foot acts up, Rodon doesn't come up until June after a slow start, Sale spends a month on the DL, and Ramirez and Flowers step back a bit, and suddenly we've spent $35 million a year and wound up with a team in the low 70s in wins again. I here ya, even my best OOTP teams that are predicted to win 95 games occasionally struggle to 80. In the real world a team that is projected to win 88 can easily slide down to 77 because of regression and injuries. But, it's now or never for the Sox to "go all in" with this current core. That doesn't mean they need to go trade Tim Anderson and Micah for a 2 WAR LF -- but it does mean it's time to approach the bullpen and the crater positions -- DH, 2B, LF -- as a team that plans on contending.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 17, 2014 -> 01:45 PM) Let's try it this way. The White Sox are currently close to 20 fWAR. This year, every single team over .500 with a shot at the playoffs has >30 fWAR. Therefore, for the White Sox to even have a shot at being competitive next year, they have to come up with 10+ fWAR next year and then have things go right. For the White Sox to nearly guarantee themselves a playoff spot, they need to be figuring out a way to come up with 20 fWAR beyond what they've produced this year. If they just tried to fill these needs paying fair market value for free agents, with nothing else happening, then we're talking about spending well over $50 million next year beyond what we currently have on payroll to make up that difference, and even then we're counting on the team to over perform rather than underperform. If you go into the numbers maybe there's a few guys who can get better. who knows what Abreu can do if he's in his 2nd year and his manager doesn't try to kill him. Getting rid of Konerko helps some. Maybe Semien and Sanchez have really good years. Garcia is back. Noesi in his 2nd season with Coop as a starter the whole time maybe can add 1-2. But then again, Alexei, Flowers, and Gillaspie might not repeat their seasons. If all we think about is adding a starter like James Shields and a couple bullpen pieces, the only way that pushes us into the playoffs is if other guys step up a whole lot to cover the rest of that gap and we actually get lucky with health/outperform a bit. I'm not using it as predictive, I'm trying to instead figure out what guys might do next year and see where that puts us relative to what we need to reach to even plausibly compete for a playoff spot, and that is a really, really big gap to fill. They are gonna have to get more than ~1.5 WAR from DH, LF and RF combined next year to make the playoffs. I think Rodon is probably a 2 WAR starter right there. Add in Noesi for a full season you get another 1 WAR. Improve the bullpen by throwing say 15 million at it. Ok you just got 1 more WAR. So we're left with about 6 WAR (assuming no regression from Jose, Eaton and Ramirez, which is probably unwise) from those 3 positions (at least). Looking at it that way it's not as tall an order. If you think Hahn added about 10 WAR last offseason without spending much hopefully he can repeat that this offseason (with a lot more dough to spend) and you can see the outline of a team that can reasonably expect to win around 84-90 games. The Sox are well positioned IMO but the next step -- from mediocre to good -- is the hardest. Luckily they have a lot of youth (probably a 5 year window with Jose and Sale and Q and Eeaton and Avi all at peaks) and quite a bit of spare payroll to help them get there.

Trading Chris Sale would be dumb because there is no way you're going to get fair value. You'd need a youngish, cheapish, proven MLB regular to start at a position of need (say someone like Wieters or Kyle Seager) and then you'd need at least two top 50 MLB prospects that are ready for promotion sometime in '15. The teams that are in a position to make that trade? Probably just a handful -- Cubs maybe, Padres, Red Sox as well. Maybe Astros. And in reality you'd want two surefire starters and prospects, even top ones in the high minors, don't hit much more than 60-70% percent -- so maybe you ask for 4 top 100 guys instead -- don't know if any team is in a position to offer that -- because you'd probalby just rather keep those guys if that's the cost. You rarely see superstar trades in baseball for a reason and it's just due to the nature of prospects and how value is assigned. One in the hand in MLB is often worth 4-5 "in the bush". And the teams with prospects "in the bush" are usually risk averse because they (probably rightly) feel that their prospects that they know are a surer bet to help them more long term than the one superstar. In the NBA a superstar can tilt the scales way more than simply summing up a few draft picks or young talents. Not so much in MLB.