Balta1701

QUOTE (GreenSox @ May 14, 2015 -> 06:31 PM) At this point, is he ever going to be a good second baseman? Position change, perhaps? There is no other position on the diamond he's suited for given that he's already had arm issues. Putting him in a place where he has to make longer throws is a very risky move for his career. He's made a lot of errors at every stop in the minors but they also pushed him aggressively upwards because his bat was playing. He's had very little time to adjust with the bat at every level, so finding time to continue working on defense was probably a challenge for him. Unfortunate side effect of pushing the kid up a level every 1/2 season.

QUOTE (Brian @ May 14, 2015 -> 06:15 PM) Davis and Perea booted from Hoosiers. Link Both of them have had prior issues so I can understand the zero-tolerance thing happening here and will not complain, hurts the team next year though.

QUOTE (Condor13 @ May 14, 2015 -> 04:52 PM) You do the smart thing and don't say anything, it accomplishes everything you want and does not make your organization look classless. The when you want to make a move you make it. I gotta disagree here and go with 2k5. If you're asked about a struggling player, or even a coach on a struggling team, and you're the GM, if you don't give that player a "vote of confidence" then you're undermining that player/coach even more. There's a reason why the worst thing for a head coach is to receive a public vote of confidence from his GM, that means the GM is being asked about that coach and whether or not he needs replaced.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ May 14, 2015 -> 04:10 PM) I am glad the front office isn't purely working off the stats and is also using their eyes. Then based on this move I am going to suggest corrective lenses.

QUOTE (iamshack @ May 14, 2015 -> 03:48 PM) To me, this is a short-sighted move. If they weren't willing to be more patient with him than this, they shouldn't have made him the stater. The problem isn't with this move, it's taking a guy with 484 PAs above A-ball and making him a big league starter on a team that added a whole bunch of guys to try to be competitive this season. The 2nd clause is the correct one.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 14, 2015 -> 01:46 PM) I give them credit for pulling the plug early on their decision to push Johnson so aggressively. Last year it seems was an incomplete season for Johnson due to the injuries he had. Hopefully he comes back a better player when he returns...or Sanchez makes him a valuable trade chip by proving he belongs. it's a shame that no one in the white sox front office has access to the stats from Birmingham and Charlotte to be able to judge such things.

QUOTE (BigHurt3515 @ May 14, 2015 -> 01:40 PM) Damn, this shocked me. If Sanchez is taking over 2B I can deal with it but I really don't want to see Beckham/Emilio getting the majority of the time at 2B. Playing Beckham there just seems like we are going back to 2013 plus I like him better has a utility guy who plays 3B against LHP. And I'm really not a fan of Emilio's game and I don't think he defense is all that great. I honestly won't be mad seeing Beckham get more playing time as long as he's actually hitting like this. Some of that should be at 3b though, sitting Gillaspie against lefties should continue. I'm less annoyed with Beckham playing and Sanchez sitting on the bench than I would be with Micah sitting on the bench regularly.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 14, 2015 -> 01:38 PM) No doubt this is 100% about his defense. A week or so ago, Hawk/Stoney were talking though about how the coaches wanted Johnson to improve his timing at the plate, as they thought that was what was making it hard for him to hit fastballs. Hopefully he takes this opportunity to find his stroke again at the plate. Your first sentence seems to completely disagree with the 2nd and 3rd sentences.

Ok to call this a complete failure of the white sox policy of aggressively pushing prospects up to the big leagues as fast as possible and an admission of that failure/attempt to correct it?

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ May 14, 2015 -> 01:31 PM) Should they bat Sanchez in the 2 hole and move Melky to 5/6? not until we see Sanchez actually have some success. If he's hitting .300 in 2 weeks maybe you think about it.

QUOTE (knightni @ May 14, 2015 -> 01:29 PM) I clicked the link and there was a much larger photo there. That's why link was included.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 14, 2015 -> 12:09 PM) Dan Hayes ‏@CSNHayes 18m18 minutes ago The #WhiteSox plan to be patient w/ Micah Johnson and their young players. http://bit.ly/1HjiFif #CSN plans to be patient with Dan Hayes and their other still-learning journalists.

Are sequels better or worse than originals judged by RT scores. Most improved? Wrath of Khan. Yeah, I buy that.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 14, 2015 -> 12:09 PM) Dan Hayes ‏@CSNHayes 18m18 minutes ago The #WhiteSox plan to be patient w/ Micah Johnson and their young players. http://bit.ly/1HjiFif Which is the exact opposite of how they are with them in the minor leagues.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 13, 2015 -> 10:20 PM) Except it's pretty hard to argue that letting Ramirez go and/or trading him is going to lead to a better team next year. We'll forget about Semien for the moment. Anderson, Carlos Sanchez, Saladino and Leury...none of them are equipped to be an everyday SS next year for a playoff-competitive team. They'd have to get extremely fortunate to spend less than $10 million on the problem, IMO. Then we need enough of a competitive run to sell tickets for next year. That's all.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 13, 2015 -> 08:04 PM) Furious 7, I'm sad to say...was actually more entertaining than Avengers 2. Just too many storylines, too much CGI, no Coulson...it was just lacking something in the chemistry department. Too disjointed? You don't go Marvel movies these days for cohesive/logical plots, but I would watch Furious 7 five times before I'd want to watch Avengers again. Was a bit too reminiscent of IM 3. The self-created villain was just too convenient, too, although Spader's voice work was great. I've decided that I think it needs another 20-30 minutes, I think it was just too heavily edited. Make that a 2 hour 50 minute movie and they can suddenly delve more into the Stark/Ultron relationship, they can actually tell something about Thor's vision (My word that was underdone), etc. I'd really like to see a "Director's cut".

QUOTE (raBBit @ May 13, 2015 -> 09:43 PM) What about the extra TV money? Accounting for inflation and time value of money? Bigger season ticket base? If you really think the Sox aren't going to spend any money next offseason you're going to be surprised. That extra TV money arrived last year and was why they turned a $31 million profit instead of a $6 million profit. That's why they're at $117 million this year when the last time they were at this payroll (2013) they lost money and have lost ticket sales since then. Otherwise, the next time they will renegotiate their TV deal is 2019, and that's actually a good thing because as 2k5 pointed out, they have the 2nd lowest TV ratings in MLB.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 13, 2015 -> 07:14 PM) Right, but it's also not fair to say the Tigers have "better fans" either, because of the unique circumstances surrounding "super fan/hands on" owners like Illitch, Mark Cuban or George Steinbrenner. And they did make it to the World Series in 2006 (largely due to Verlander and Cabrera, two huge superstars), which was enough to sustain interest (2009 they were in the race up until the final day, similar to the 2008/10/12 seasons for the White Sox) until 2011. Didn't arrive in Detroit until 2008, was a Marlin.

QUOTE (ptatc @ May 13, 2015 -> 07:07 PM) I don't think anyone would argue that an owner who doesn't care about losing alot of money to win would help any team win. However, these are few and far between. even ilitch who you set as an exmple had 13 losing seasons in a row before a winning season and has had 14 losing season in 24 years as ownership. The JR group has done better than that just not in the last 4 which are the tigers only 1st place finishes under this ownership. So an owner willing to go into the negative to win isn't really the answer. The other difference for Illitch is that as a single owner, if he's on average close to breaking even every year, the increasing equity in his team by being a championship contender winds up as increased net worth for him as long as he doesn't lose $50 million every year. The equity increase is nice for an ownership group but they can't cash that out as easily without selling the team.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 13, 2015 -> 06:59 PM) They also have Keppimger coming off the books and Paulie has a million or so coming off. This idea that they will have no money is a joke. How the hell were they goimg to pay Samardjiza if they extended him? They made $31 million last year with revenues about as low as they could be. And then they jumped payroll by $26 million this year. To go beyond that, they need more revenue.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 13, 2015 -> 06:44 PM) Does that account for the draft and international money they aren't spending this year? No.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ May 13, 2015 -> 06:18 PM) I am not that worried. This is a team that should get better, not worse. Are they ready for mainstream now, no. Do they need certain guys on current roster to step up, yes, but they also still have pieces in the farm and that will be an integral part to where they end up. This doomsay talk is just crazy this early in the season, that is all I am saying. If the Sox wanted to they could likely move Shark for some top prospects and if Alexei gets going they should be able to get something valuable for him. I am sure if they wanted to, Robertson could go somewhere (I don't think they would move him). If we think Eaton is as bad as he played and Sale is as bad as he played and Shark is as bad as he played, then sure. Eaton has shorter track record so he could be, but I don't think Shark / Sale / Q are going to stink all year when they have proven to be above average (and in Sale / Q's case extremely above avg big league players). Our front 3 pitchers have been lousy and we are just a bit out of the wild card. They will pitch better and probably get in a run where they are all consistently pitching better (to get back in line with their historical norms) and at that point we are talking about what should be an extended winning streak. My concerns are whether we can win pitch over the D, deal with the bad starts from danks / Noesi (maybe Rodon helps with that, but he'll have his issues too but hopefully its more pluses then N). And I honestly disagree. I think this is who they are. I also don't think they're going to be able to get a "top" prospect for Samardzija any more. Even if he gets into a good groove the next 2 months, by the time the deadline rolls around his numbers for the season will be decent at best. He's established that he's an inconsistent starter and he is very unlikely to be the best pitcher available on the trade market. If he were to go on a streak for the next 2 months that equaled his great start to 2014, his ERA on the season would be 3.63. More likely we go into the trade deadline with him having an ERA around 4, worse if he has any other terribly bad starts. He's a guy some team would take but he's not a guy you're going to pay through the roof for. Robertson going somewhere is, IMO, what they don't want to do but might have to in order to get the payroll for 2016 under control.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ May 13, 2015 -> 06:11 PM) And in general, payrolls go up, so yes, White Sox payroll will trend up a bit next year, but so will vast majority of other teams. Average payroll increased 8.2% between 13 & 14. I don't think anyone will look at the Sox and say wow they are in bad shape (from a payroll perspective). I would have said that a few years ago, but not today. We could say that a year from now or two years from now (depending on what various guys do, but that isn't the case today). I also think by seasons end we won't be saying that (as I still think this team contends...doesn't win, but contends). Its defense is so atrocious though. The thing that puts us in bad shape is being a losing team this season because there's no money left to upgrade in free agency unless we downgrade somewhere else, and its possible that with erosion of ticket sales after being a losing team again this year the shape could be even worse. That state would leave trades as the only option to upgrade. The answer to that is to stop putting together losing teams, but alas.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ May 13, 2015 -> 05:54 PM) The payroll is 15th in baseball this year. If you took Shark and Ramirez off the books (which you could do pretty easily, that would move the current 2015 payroll down 18M. That would put them squarely with the Braves (23rd highest payroll in baseball). Every team will have some form of arb hits, etc, so payrolls will move anyway. Rodon replacing Shark and the Sox using Montas or Beck or someone else (or inserting top prospect acquired for Shark) does not increase the payroll by 10%. Again this is all hypothetical anyway but the Sox in no way shape or form, currently are in payroll hell. Not when you look at the macro major league environment. And with those MLB tv revenues in place and the various contracts getting handed on tv deals, I'm not worried about the Sox ability to field a payroll in the 115M range. I just flat out am not concerned about that. They may not want to, but they can do that and then some and should be able to. Local TV deals alone (based upon new terms) could practically drive a $100M payroll alone. That's not what does it. Abreu goes up $3 million next year. Robertson goes up $1 mil. Melky goes up $1 mil. Sale goes up $3 mil. Quintana goes up $2 mil. Eaton goes up $2 mil. Duke goes up $500k. Bonifacio either goes up $1 mil or has a $1 mil buyout. Then throw in a good number of arbitration guys like Jennings, Garcia, etc. Add all those together and "Just to stay right where we are with no Samardzija" the payroll goes up substantially from the $117 million starting point this year. The White Sox break-even point right now is probably around $120 million. That's consistent with what they've spent this year and its consistent with the Forbes numbers. They're on the book for more than that next year if Alexei is still around. Hence, revenue MUST grow to keep pace with what we've already committed to spend, and that's assuming Samardzija walks. They have already committed to spend a number substantially greater than $115M.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ May 13, 2015 -> 05:42 PM) What payroll mess did we create? LaRoche is fine and fairly paid (I am going to with long history of him having slow starts and then doing very good). Melky, well, we will see, but I certainly wouldn't jump to that conclusion based upon 30 games. I don't think the Sox have a payroll mess, other then Danks who they are stuck with (Ramirez / Shark / etc come off the books this year so nothing going there). Ramirez coming off the books this year when he's only owed $10 mil next year would seem like a pretty silly move to me unless he keeps being this bad of a hitter all year. If Ramirez comes off the books and Samardzija leaves, then their fixed payroll is basically equal to (within error of cutting guys like Flowers loose) their opening day payroll in 2015 without a single addition. If they pick up Alexei's deal and make no other moves, their payroll will grow by >$10 million next season regardless of whether they finish this season in the playoffs or win 75 games again. If the White Sox go into next year with the same starting 9, including Gillaspie and Flowers as arb guys, without filling any of their holes and with Samardzija gone, seemingly a weaker roster or at best a lateral one (Rodon replaces Samardzija and player x takes the 5th starter spot) their payroll grows by 10% or so. That's why I call this a mess. They're on pace to have an increase of about 2000 in ticket sales this year over last as of now, but they've already spent more than that next year unless they trade someone away. They need to actually win games and be competitive just to support what is already on the books. Otherwise, they're going to need to trade someone away to stay in the black.