Balta1701

QUOTE (Brian @ Jun 30, 2015 -> 09:00 PM) "Me & Earl & The Dying Girl" was excellent. apparently filmed down the street from me in part.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Jun 30, 2015 -> 03:33 PM) One area in which I think the gurus are wrong is that Sale's value is maximized in July. I think you can get a better return in December. In July, any roster contributor is off the table; further, it's harder to take bad contracts because they'd have to kick some other players off the roster. The counterpoint would be that teams are more salary-restricted in the middle of the year since they spent on free agents in the offseason and therefore could pay a premium in terms of talent to get a guy who has a limited current salary. How those 2 effects would balance out is hard to know.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jun 30, 2015 -> 02:09 PM) nobody is as down on this franchise as you at the moment The optimism last offseason didn't work out so well for those who had it.

QUOTE (shysocks @ Jun 30, 2015 -> 01:56 PM) Fixed. They had a pitcher who everybody wanted, a bona fide stud, and that was the type of offer they were fielding. Couple that with teams valuing their pre-FA players more now than they ever did, and you expect a Chris Sale return to be remotely satisfactory. No. You will not get fair value for Chris Sale, but the problem is that it's entirely possible to hold onto him and wind up like the Mariners. You convince yourself you're right there so you make a big trade to bring in a pitcher to go alongside him (Cliff Lee, Erik Bedard) and give up several future starters in the process. Then you go onto the free agent market to make a splash and fill a hole, but you don't want to sign the top guy for $200 million+ so you sign a contract like Chone Figgins. Then you make a couple trades for talented players with guys who are close to the end of their contracts (Cliff Lee), play them for a couple years, and you stink at player development so they wash out and are released. Then you finally say "Oh well let's spend big time" and wind up paying Robinson Cano. We haven't done the $200 million deal yet, but the "We've got this great talent so let's put guys around him so we don't waste him" format so far is one we've matched extremely well...trading for guys in the last year of their contract and giving up talent in the process, signing guys to medium-level FA deals and having them implode, trading for talented guys that you fail to develop... We're doing a great job of matching that.

QUOTE (shysocks @ Jun 30, 2015 -> 01:39 PM) Just like the best five players among... Clay Buchholz Daniel Bard Michael Bowden Justin Masterson Nick Hagadone Josh Reddick Yamaico Navarro Felix Doubront ...would have had the Mariners set for years if they had traded Felix! Here's the problem with that comparison. What have the Mariners done with Felix? 0 playoff appearances, 1 year above .500, 1 year finishing better than 4th in the division since 2009. Oh darn...so trading that pitcher would have done what...make them a bad team and a losing franchise?

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Jun 30, 2015 -> 01:25 PM) Seems to make sense why we got him for a free falling Jake Peavy in his walk year, eh? Jake Peavy was not in his walk year when we traded him.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jun 30, 2015 -> 01:24 PM) You could almost say more than both of them as well because of his ridiculous deal. Either way, it is nitpicking, Sale's value is off the charts And while I agree, if you're down enough on this franchise as I am such that you expect this team to continue losing for several years...comparing "rebuilding with the best pieces we could get for Chris Sale" and "letting Chris Sale be the dominant player on a losing team until he is traded in 2018 or gets hurt" at least motivates consideration of the "take the best offer you can" option.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jun 30, 2015 -> 01:04 PM) Be sure to add in that list obesity. That's the next horizon. Should people be able to be fired for being too fat?

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jun 30, 2015 -> 12:43 PM) What is the 125 over 6 you are talking about? You also have to add that 6th year to his presumed earnings from Bulls. But if he goes elsewhere, he isn't getting a 6 year deal from anyone. Also, Butler hasn't even made 10M thus far in his career. He's got ~$5M in career earnings. So if he takes the qualifying offer this year, he'd have a guaranteed $10M income stream (in terms of his career) vs. taking the max qualifying offer and being just shy of $100M guaranteed NBA income (counting the $5M he has already made). And you could counter this all by saying he could probably pick up an insurance policy that covered somewhere between $30-$50M of lost earnings but even then, you have a lot of money left on the table and a heck of a lot more downside then upside. If he were to take $5 million this year, his contract for next year would look something like 5/$120 if he reupped with the bulls, in other words he'd be playing for about $125 million over the next 6 years total, counting the 1 year QO this year and a max deal next offseason. He'd make more money overall, probably, but he'd have to delay another year and he'd be giving up another year of his career when he could be earning a lot.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 11:43 PM) Is that true? You can be fired for being gay? Isn't it like age discrimination? If you can PROVE you were fired for being gay, don't you win a huge huge lawsuit?? We would need to specifically add sexuality to the list of protected classes for that to happen. It is not currently there. Here are the reasons why you cannot fire someone or deny them housing currently: Sexual orientation is not on that list. If you're a landlord in one of the many states that has not filled in the gap, you can deny people housing or force them to move out because they're gay, you could fire someone for being transgendered if you're an employer. This is another which it would be nice to fix, so hopefully you'll be on our side and write your representatives about how unfair that is.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Jun 30, 2015 -> 12:10 PM) If he takes the 5 year deal, I think it's 5 years and $90 million. That'd be a helluva lot of money to turn down for a shot at getting $125 over the next 6 years.

QUOTE (CanOfCorn @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 04:55 PM) Not willing to pass judgment yet, especially since he was raking until he hurt his knee. The flaws in his game that are being exploited right now were all present earlier this year and in previous years, the season has just gone on long enough for things to be exploited fully.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 03:58 PM) The rotation alone had plenty of post-season experience (club had made the playoffs in 2000 and still had some guys from that roster, including Garland / Buehrle / Konerko). Then you had AJP / Dye / Carl Everett / Big Hurt (albeit he was hurt) as regular position players. Other pitchers with experience included Jose Contreras, Frederico, El Duque, Luis Vizcaino, and Dustin Hermanson. Oh yeah, that guy really does stack the deck. He might have had more than the entire rest of the roster.

QUOTE (flavum @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 03:55 PM) Probably Thome. Thome for a couple years then Konerko.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 03:29 PM) Say what you want about my idol, Ozzie. Can you imagine if his team was playing like this?? He'd be all over these guys in the press and in their faces in the dugout. Talk about entertainment! He'd take them to task. Yes, we saw it in 2007.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 02:30 PM) Teams need Shark now. We can get more for these stiffs now than down the line. The season is tick, tick, ticking away. I don't really think that's true...the trade market hasn't broken at all yet, no one has made anything resembling a solid move, and the Samardzija one in particular might not break for a while. If Cueto and Hamels are both on the market, teams might be much more willing to low-ball the White Sox on Samardzija to see if they get desperate while targeting the much better pitchers as their first options.

That cheer you hear is coming from Bloomington.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 02:22 PM) Balta is right. I absolutely cannot understand why, if the Cardinals want LaRoche, he hasn't been traded yet. Get rid of him. NOW. And trade off Lexi, Melky, Shark for starters after LaRoche! Let's get on with the restocking! For once there isn't a rush...we've got a couple weeks and who knows, some other team might have a 1b go down with an injury. Mid-July is ok to wait for.

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 01:54 PM) I think AL pitchers do better in the NL. They basically have to pitch to 8 guys. It's probably less these days because of offense being down and the extra intraleague games but in about 2008 the average was that when guys went from the AL to the NL their ERA dropped by about 0.75 and vice-versa.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 02:09 PM) This team is not as bad as they have played. Perhaps the single most important thing this franchise needs to accept this offseason is this one. Yes, they are. They are absolutely this bad. They have a run differential that is worse than the Brewers. They have 2 people in their lineup who would start for a decent team right now and 1 of those is a DH who they ought to trade. They have a strong 1-2-3 in their rotation but one of those guys is a free agent at the end of this year. They have youth to replace the back end but turning youth into production can take time. They haven't cared at all about defense in scouting players so even if somehow the players started hitting more as they got older, they still wouldn't be able to catch or field the ball and would need a top of the league offense to offset that. They are absolutely this bad. They are actually probably worse than their current record. If they don't accept that, if they don't act as if that's true, then they will remain absolutely this bad next year and for years to come.

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 01:39 PM) This cycle will have to repeat until they fix the farm. Trading bad players only expands AAA with maybe some hope one of them will be lightning in a bottle. Problem is - signing big-money free agents actually hurts the team's ability to fix the farm. It sets us up to trade pieces from the farm for guys near FA because "we signed all these guys now we need to fill these last holes", and it costs draft picks and money. Until we're ready to "expand AAA and look for lightning in a bottle" for a few years while letting the draft do its job...we're going to repeat this cycle...in that we're going to keep utterly failing.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 01:33 PM) It seems like just a couple weeks ago his fan boys were telling me that his .350 OBP was a bit low for what he had in his future. Funny how BABIP works. It would be great if he put it together and I am fan of him but from a scouting point of you I've never seen the love the Sox FO has. I totally get the love. He's a physically gifted player. He has the physical tools to be a really good player. Taking those tools and turning them into an actual contributing ballplayer continues to be a much bigger step than this organization treats it as.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 01:32 PM) So Dunn declined, therefore no White Sox players will ever bounce back. A more general lesson that might be applicable to the White Sox and to other teams this offseason, and in other recent offseasons, is that it is very difficult to rebuild through the free agent market by paying for full-priced, multi-year talent. Especially if you don't have the roster to carry your team without that person.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 12:45 PM) You tell me, who pushed the most to sign Robertson...was it Hahn, getting KW and JR on board....or KW, pushing Hahn to get it done and after/then convincing JR? We've read all the stories about how it actually took place at the winter meetings, but who was the one who pushed for the overpaid, expensive "elite" closer the most? Actually I think that was Robin Ventura but anyway.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jun 29, 2015 -> 12:29 PM) There were two competing philosophies about closers. The KW one was to go out and get the established guy, like a Billy Koch....ignoring the fact that Howry, Foulke, Gordon, Takatsu, Hermanson and Jenks were all inexpensive and able to get the job done pretty darned effectively. We saw that trend continue with Sergio Santos, Hector Santiago and Addison Reed...shipping out pitchers from this position and continually trading them to fill in gaps (or try to) in other places. Essentially, copying the Oakland A's way of doing things, which wasn't to sink a ton of money into the closer's spot, and trade those players when they became more expensive. It DEFINITELY SEEMS like a KW move to go after an elite closer like Robertson and do a slight overpay...because it's ignoring that trend which has existed since 2002-2003 with the front office out of desperation. Bah, their bullpen was so bad last year that if they were actually going to be a competitive team they needed a major upgrade in reliability there and I think most GMs would agree with that one. The problem was believing they had a roster that was remotely competitive elsewhere without assessing the risks of people not performing and without considering defense, depth.