Balta1701

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Aug 19, 2015 -> 11:18 AM) He won't have to be into them. They will be into him. Prison rape jokes. Classy.

QUOTE (SCCWS @ Aug 19, 2015 -> 08:42 AM) They should have gone to a 6 man rotation a few weeks ago once it was obvious they were out of it. Calling him up in September does not get a good enough reading on him since the level of play for most teams deteriorates with the call-ups. I get having to do it sometimes, but I hate the idea of doing a 6 man rotation for a full month. It really taxes the bullpen and the lineup since it requires limited depth in at least one of those spots, and especially since the White Sox are playing catchup for the whole 2nd half on number of games I strongly dislike it. You can't exactly carry a long man or a deep bullpen if you're running the 6 man rotation out there for a full month, and if you hit one extra inning game suddenly your bullpen is gone and you don't have an offday for 2 weeks. September...fine, you've got the full 40-man roster to play with.

QUOTE (ron883 @ Aug 18, 2015 -> 09:46 PM) Man, I wish robin would give him more burn when he is hitting well. I understand that he isn't yet established, but you should play him when he is hitting well. Richards is a bit of a tough righty, correct? Where doubleT might be a bit outgunned?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 18, 2015 -> 09:46 PM) As quiet as they were about Johnson last year, and as many chances as they have had to call him up, I really think there is a reason we don't know about that we haven't seen him. My guess is that they don't trust him. I think they made their bets on competing with Samardzija. "If we keep playing like this, we'll be right there in the end" - Rick Hahn. They're not going to eat Danks's money, they're not going to shut down Sale or Quintana or Rodon, Samardzija has to pitch, they'd have to release someone from the bullpen to move Danks there, they may as well pretend to be competitive until Sept. 1 since they already committed to it.

QUOTE (Vance Law @ Aug 18, 2015 -> 04:47 PM) The relatively tiny number of at bats LaRoche gets against lefties is not enough to drag his value down much if he's hitting righties like he always has. His OPS against righties is still .700 on this season.

Tyler Flowers has left 122 men on base this year. Melky Cabrera is worst on the White Sox with 166 (numbers as of yesterday's box scores for qualified players are here). Melky actually, counting last night, appears to be leading the league by 1. No obvious correlation between leading the league and being a bad player - Buster Posey and Kris Bryant and Josh Donaldson all notably within the top 10.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Aug 18, 2015 -> 02:34 PM) Not kidding, he actually said that today Worth keeping in mind...with the cap skyrocketing it's worth a bloody fortune to him to have a really good year.

QUOTE (Dunt @ Aug 18, 2015 -> 12:53 PM) Exactly. Why not see what he is exactly? You already know what you have in the other 3 OFers, let the kid get some real, meaningful playing time. If he is ultimately a 4th OFer, atleast we can get that figured out now instead of next year. If he hits .050 the rest of the way does that prove he's a failure and can't handle it as a 4th OF? If he hits .500 does that prove he's 100% ready to go? I don't think either of those is the case.

QUOTE (bmags @ Aug 18, 2015 -> 10:33 AM) Balta's just trying to rub the samardjiza trade in everyones face by implying that even the QO offer process will be a disaster. It is the last thing I'm worried about. If his August performance continues for a couple more weeks I could certainly see it becoming possible that they won't offer or he'll reject. I genuinely do think there's a solid chance he winds up unsigned until the QO compensation expires already.

QUOTE (bmags @ Aug 18, 2015 -> 10:21 AM) For what? Why? Your whole stance is that they incorrectly accelerated a rebuild, and you are worried about an extra $7 million we are hamstrung by for one year? Your question is are we nervous about Shark accepting, but no, I would have no reservations about delivering a qualifying offer if the worst case scenario is getting a 200IP pitcher for 1 year, 17 million. I would be shocked if he didn't outperform this year, but even if he did, it has very little ramifications longterm with the exception of possibly/maybe creating a temporary surplus of pitching depth. If that's the worst case scenario, that is certainly worth extending with the hope fo getting a comp pick. At some point we are going to need to develop some of these pitchers into big leaguers. That's the last I'll say on the subject.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Aug 18, 2015 -> 10:15 AM) Hanley is a DH. He's more than capable of playing a decent LF, he's not doing it because he doesn't give a s***. I don't see any reason to believe that would change if he was moved to 3B. For the park he's playing in, his mid-.700s OPS wouldn't be particularly impressive for a DH. Upgrade from LaRoche but not saying much.

QUOTE (bmags @ Aug 18, 2015 -> 10:11 AM) Oh no, what a terrible problem, let's kill ourselves. I can think of $16 million or so reasons why it's a potential problem.

QUOTE (bmags @ Aug 18, 2015 -> 10:09 AM) I see no reason to take it for granted that Fulmer would be ready next year. With Danks on the roster I don't think I did. However, I also see no reason why we should expect him to follow a path that different from Rodon. Really for starting the season though if Samardzija is here then EJ isn't. That's who the initial tradeoff would be.

QUOTE (Dunt @ Aug 18, 2015 -> 09:05 AM) I think putting Trayce in RF permanently will positively effect Eaton's defensive metrics If Trayce's bat is questionable in CF, and I think it is, then his bat would be even more questionable in RF and he'd also be getting fewer defensive chances there.

A "Muslim Free" gun shop in Florida is selling $50 prints of and auctioning an original painting of a Confederate Flag done and signed by George Zimmerman. I can't do any better than the headline.

There are several options on this front. First and foremost is waiting. Adam Eaton graded out as a plus CF last year and a negative CF this year. As of right now, his track record isn't consistently bad enough that I'm ready to move him out of the CF spot. An additional half year of playing poor CF defense and then you can start considering moving him to LF, but for now it's too soon. Should Eaton need to be moved out of CF, the obvious initial option is moving him to LF and moving Cabrera to the DH spot. That was potentially an option anyway once LaRoche's contract ended. Waiting until next season thus creates opportunities to see if LaRoche can have a final recovery year and it gives Eaton a chance to return to his 2014 defensive form. Should doubleT hit well enough to earn a starting chance, then rotating him in should work, but giving him time to come off the bench might not be the worst thing ever. He's been raw at every step and struggled for several years in the minors, we shouldn't get too seduced by a few hits falling early in his career. He's likely still to be a project offensively. On the other topic that is brought up, if the White Sox are serious about being competitive in 2016 then the posters above are correct and Avi Garcia is a big enough problem that he has to be moved out of the way. However, Cabrera-TT-Eaton isn't an obviously competitive OF unless Trayce is one of the best fielders in the big leagues. That would still leave the Sox with a pretty weak OF. A FA upgrade would still seem like a better option than that OF if the White Sox insist they are going to be competitive next year. Should the White Sox be willing to take some time next year and work to develop what they have rather than attempting win-now moves as they did this year, an OF of Melky-Eaton-Avi with TT as the main backup (and heck, possibly Shuck thrown in as well) on opening day gives some time for several guys to grow up and gives us more time to evaluate whether Eaton's defense truly cannot handle CF while also working to open up money and the DH spot.

QUOTE (Vance Law @ Aug 18, 2015 -> 03:16 AM) Laroche was 1 of the 20 MLB players who managed to hit as many as 26 home runs in 2014, and 1 of the 3 who were free agents . His .817 OPS was good for 28th in baseball despite hitting lefties poorly. It's reasonable to assume he had enough interest to pick a non-platoon job. It's also reasonable to assume that if he were putting up an .817 OPS right now, Sox fans wouldn't especially care that he wasn't hitting lefties well. If you look back through threads earlier in the season he had an .800 OPS against righties for about the first 3 months and that entire time we've been registering this same complaint because Tyler Flowers does solidly better against righties than he hits against lefties. He had a .500ish OPS against lefties when he was hitting competently. If Adam LaRoche insisted that he needed to be an everyday player and couldn't platoon then signing him was another foolish move. If Adam LaRoche was open to it and we didn't do so then that was a foolish move. And in either case, it was a problem that could easily have been seen coming.

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Aug 17, 2015 -> 09:34 PM) I see your point but I think that seven million is the cheapest way to get a solid 200 innings without further commitment. What are the chances Shark accepts that QO though. He's running out of years to land a megadeal. IMO, if you count Fulmer, the White Sox are back to having 6 starters who should/will be in the big leagues for most of next year even without Samardzija. Fulmer may not be ready for a whole season, but conveniently I won't mind replacing Danks with him. So that's the risk. (Danks, of course, has a better ERA than Samardzija this year too. But him, we'll be able to replace)

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Aug 17, 2015 -> 09:18 PM) Ok we get it, they both suck It's a terrible-off!

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 17, 2015 -> 09:13 PM) For SS's with 100 or more PA's he ranks 26th in the fangraphs defensive ratings stat. There are only 27 qualified. He is 23rd in overall WAR Jeff Samardzija is 82nd out of 90 qualified pitchers in ERA.

QUOTE (ChiSox59 @ Aug 17, 2015 -> 04:49 PM) 3B maybe used to be a big time power / home runs / big RBI position, but it really isn't anymore. Sure, it'd be great to have an elite 3B, but there are very few. There are about 5 really good ones (Donaldson, Machado, Arenado, Frazier, Seager), a few good ones that are getting old (Beltre and Longoria) and some solid guys and promising kids (Carpenter and Bryant). After that it is pretty meh. You can get away with a 3B without a ton of power, but you probably need to have it elsewhere. League wide, 3b has the 3rd highest OPS out of any position. It's comparable to the DH in the average lineup in that stat. 1b is the strongest, RF is slightly ahead, then 3b, DH, and so on. With an above average offensive 1b, we could probably survive with a below average 3b if we got solid contributions out of the RF and DH slots. We should have an above average CF, but at SS and 2b we've been below average and LF and C we've been at best average. If we had an average RF and DH, we'd have ~4 positions with average production, 2 positions above average, and 3 that are below average. That still wouldn't be a great lineup but it wouldn't be bottom of the league. RF and DH have been no where near average and the player producing offense at the catcher's spot is a FA at the end of the year, which could shift that position back to below average. We need offense somewhere.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Aug 17, 2015 -> 03:59 PM) I dunno but the Sox should probably find out in the next 40 games. Unfortunately....I wouldn't have confidence either way based on a 40 game sample as a rookie, and you know that Alexei is going to play every day as well as i do

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Aug 17, 2015 -> 03:53 PM) Pretty much agree with this. Saladino has proven he's an excellent defender at 3B but his bat won't play as a starter. If he can play 2B and SS adequately he's the 2016 utility IF, and he's a step up from Garcia and Boni IMO. Will his bat play as a starter if he's an average to above average defensive SS?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 17, 2015 -> 02:17 PM) A 0.9 dWAR in 31 games is pretty damned impressive. That is basically a 4.5-5 dWAR player over the course of a full season. Yes, that means we are talking about a kid could be a 5 WAR 3rd baseman, and totally drafted and developed by the White Sox. Just did some checking to make sure what a 5 dWAR 3b would be. Brooks Robinson had 1 season where he put up a 4.5 dWAR at third. Manny Machado did it once over there. The highest dWAR season ever recorded by Baseball Reference is Andrelton Simmons with a 5.4 dWAR season at short. Basically, if Tyler could do that for 1 season, it would rank among the top 10 defensive seasons in history regardless of position. If you are expecting him to do that every year....Brooks Robinson couldn't do that.

Just to put some numbers on things.... The average OPS amongst 3b in baseball in 2015 is .743. The average OPS amongst SS is .677. Tyler is currently at .634. He's currently on pace that over a full season he'd strike out 140-150 times and walk only 30 times, so there's room to grow into this league with time. But if we look at his numbers right now...if he's an average or better SS defensively his bat as we've seen it right now comes close to playing. But even as a solid defender...he has a long, long way to go to become a tolerable bat at 3b. I think he can play long-term at SS. I don't think on this roster we have the firepower to afford him at 3b.