Balta1701

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 9, 2014 -> 10:17 AM) I think he would get something more like a million or two on a one year deal. He put up 0.3 fWAR in 2013 and 0.8 fWAR in 2014. If you just follow that last number exactly he was worth ~$4 million, and that seems fairly reasonable to me.

QUOTE (Real @ Dec 9, 2014 -> 10:29 AM) KW says the plan may have changed with Rodon due to these recent moves. Hints at bullpen in 2015 The only worse idea I can come up with is putting Sale back there.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Dec 9, 2014 -> 10:31 AM) That's definitely not true, but the Sox have made some moves that will help them win and will be making others too. LaRoche and Samardzija will help get that close and I think they'll be looking to add an outfielder and a couple more arms on top of that. And interesting implication from this move would be that it opens up a 40-man roster spot. They were at 39 when they had to protect players as well. I still think Hahn will add someone via the Rule 5; whether they keep them is a different story. They just picked up that catcher from the Marlins who takes up a 40 man spot right?

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Dec 9, 2014 -> 10:15 AM) While I agree and I think some people overstate the value, I do think it's worthwhile to mention that when considering contextual and leverage differences, relievers are going to be able to affect more games than others. Ultimately a 2 WAR reliever may affect 4 or 5 or 8 games, but it's impossible to know. With the additions of Duke and Robertson, I think we can safely assume that the Sox gain 3 wins. When you consider who they are replacing - basically Downs/Snodgress and Belisario - you can add another win or 2 on top of that. This was a significant move. I'm OK with the general structure of it for now. Those kind of numbers make sense to me. It's the people who say "oh just fix the bullpen and we're a .500 team or better" who I'm disagreeing with.

lol, just got the email about how the "pick 14" ticket plans go on sale in 1 hour.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Dec 9, 2014 -> 10:06 AM) He blew out his elbow when he was starting his throwing program after his back issues had calmed down Then people in the other threads need to stop counting on him, it seems like no one knows that there either.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 9, 2014 -> 10:07 AM) Blown saves may literally be one of the worst stats out there. I think it does make one important point - that it takes an exceptionally good bullpen to make a large difference in a team's record.

QUOTE (Real @ Dec 9, 2014 -> 09:51 AM) Who remembers bmac being left off the 05 playoff roster.. lol In hindsight that was literally the single best decision in human history.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Dec 9, 2014 -> 10:00 AM) Im not counting him because he isnt gonna be around until at least mid season after TJS He had TJS???? I thought he had back issues.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Dec 9, 2014 -> 09:39 AM) This is the key. He is only going to pitch 160-175 effectively. How do you want to sparse them out. If you put him in the rotation at the beginning of the season, he will be gassed in August and could hurt the team. My vote would be to sart him in Charlotte and limit his innings early on. It's not out of the possibility that the Sox will have him in the Chicago pen for the first 1/4 of the season then by July work him into the rotation. He will learn to use his pitches to get MLB hitters out and move on to the rotation. I think that is what the Sox will do, although I think starting in the minors would be better. I don't agree with pt very often but I totally agree here. And just to stress, this really has nothing to do with the arbitration/super 2 deadline. It's simply the right move for his arm.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Dec 9, 2014 -> 09:41 AM) What the hell is this supposed to prove? Robertson was at 89 percent on his own. That fixing the bullpen with the additions we've done doesn't bring us nearly as far as people are thinking. It helps, no doubt, but people who are saying "oh if only we'd blown 10 fewer saves we'd have been a .500 team" are doing an exercise that doesn't work that way.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Dec 9, 2014 -> 09:26 AM) Disagree with that. How many blown saves did they have last year? I'm not a fan of the "save" stat but what it says about last year's team is that they lost a lot of games late that they should have won. Robertson and Duke alone will improve this. Now add JS and RV won't need to go to the pen, let alone inferior pen talent as often, and you get to .500. I don't think they are a favorite for a playoff spot yet but they are getting close to competing for it. They had 21 blown saves in 57 chances. That was bad but it wasn't nearly the worst in the league. In fact, Oakland was worse and made the play in game, yet Billy Beane thinks his roster isn't there and is selling it all off. We also were towards the bottom of the league in going to the bullpen anyway, so "not needing to go to the pen" won't be very different from what we saw last year. Considering that teams often still win a small fraction of the games that they lose due to blown saves, getting to .500 with just improvement in the bullpen would require the White Sox not just to improve the pen to average, it would require them to improve to the best bullpen in the league from one of the worst. Do you think this pen is comparable to Kansas City? Oh, by the way, the White Sox's save percentage last year was 63%. The Yankees, with Robertson and Betances, was 69%. The Yankees were middle of the pack in that number.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Dec 9, 2014 -> 09:21 AM) With Robertson and Samardzjia on the team now, what's the plan with Rodon? Does anyone else think that if he pitches well enough in Spring Training to earn a rotation spot, the Sox start him in the rotation as he might provide the best shot at the playoffs or wait to try and delay his clock? I think it's extremely unlikely Rodon has any shot of pitching his way onto the roster in spring training. The fact that he's never pitched more than 130 innings in a season ought to have told us that anyway, even if he'd made the roster we'd be in the "do we shut him down now" mess. I don't think this should change the plans for him at all. He starts in AA/AAA, pitches as a starter, comes up if there's an injury or when he's clearly ready, better than everyone down there, and better than whatever we have in slots 4/5 in the rotation. That's what I said a month+ ago and all this does is make it harder for him to have a spot.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Dec 9, 2014 -> 09:20 AM) While I'm not a huge JS fan, his presence makes the rotation significantly better and the Sox really didn't give up much unless one of the top pitching suspects is in with Bassitt. He is the Gio Gonzalez of the trade. I agree the white sox didn't give up a lot, but that doesn't mean I like the concept of going all in on 2015. I can satisfy myself with the fact that such an "all in" kind of move means that in the event it fails, which I still think is likely, I shouldn't have to put up with another Ventura coaching embarrassment season.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Dec 9, 2014 -> 09:08 AM) The rotation wouldn't be 2 lefties in a row, and Shark is better than Quintana anyway, he'd be #2. No he isn't.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Dec 9, 2014 -> 08:58 AM) Does that include arb/pre-arb guys? Yes. With commitments we should be over $95 mil with a couple million worth of potential plus or minus because we don't know exactly what the arb guys will get when they settle the deals and I didn't check the yearly breakdown on Robertson. Then ~11ish pre arb guys brings them up to just over $100 million.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 9, 2014 -> 08:58 AM) Yes, unless there are significant injuries to the likes of Abreu, Sale, Eaton and Quintana...or Robertson going down, probably LaRoche, Ramirez and Samardzija as well. If the team has decent health and isn't competitive, Ventura's neck will clearly be on the line. Most likely, he would fall on his own sword instead of waiting to be fired. I'm ok with that, as I'd be ok with him getting another extension if this time he earns it and this team winds up in the playoffs.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Dec 9, 2014 -> 08:54 AM) There wasn't much of a choice. And they didn't throw in the towel, they brought in a Top 5 MVP caliber hitter. Except we didn't know it at the time...and certainly without enough confidence to roll the dice by throwing money all over the place. As has been mentioned many times, nobody expected Nate Jones to be hurt or the bullpen to be such a disaster or Reed wouldn't have been traded....but that's all hindsight. We knew that we needed to give Flowers, Beckham, Viciedo and DeAza (to a lesser extent) one more season. All the answers aren't there...about Flowers, Conor, Garcia (thanks to the injury) and 2B (Sanchez/M.Johnson), but, at the very least, Hahn has managed to pull this team to respectability within the span of two seasons. Eaton, when healthy, proved he could be a significant force offensively and defensively, and he accomplished that without stealing many bases. That's a heckuva lot more than the Cubs have been able to accomplish in 4-5 years. Let's keep in mind that our core group of prospects in Anderson, Montas, Danish, Hawkins and Micah Johnson still hasn't been touched. We have a set of two distinct gambles going on here, one is winning within the next two years with LaRoche, Duke, Robertson, Alexei Ramirez and Samardzija....and then the next wave will arrive and make an impact beginning with Rodon and extending beyond those five prospects already named. It's still a 79-83 win team as currently constructed, but it's arguably one more starter and LF away from being at that magical 86-88 win total that ANYTHING can happen, as proven by the Royals and Giants as recently as last season. Basically I think you made my point for me. This is a sub .500 team still as it is barring lots of improvement, and just to bring it up to mid 80s and contention they still are probably a starter and a corner OF short. And it testifies to how little they cared about actually building a solid roster last year that they brought in a top 5 hitter in the league and still were a very weak club. no we didn't expect Jones to get hurt, but we didn't expect improvement from Gillaspie or Flowers, we didn't expect guys like Putnam to be surprisingly non terrible, etc.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Dec 9, 2014 -> 08:39 AM) Right on the money, Hahn was(said in Yoda voice) That's what you think, not what I think.

QUOTE (Dunt @ Dec 9, 2014 -> 08:45 AM) That post is so full of fail If they do disappoint, will you join me in calling for Robin Ventura's job?

QUOTE (OsweGo-Go Sox @ Dec 9, 2014 -> 08:43 AM) Wait. You think that's what Hahn did last offseason? Are you kidding? We signed an extra DH and committed to carrying Leury Garcia on the roster before the winter meetings. I canceled my Extra Innings subscription that day because it was clear the Sox didn't care about winning one iota last year.

QUOTE (LDF @ Dec 9, 2014 -> 07:48 AM) ahh for crying out load. 500???? the sox only improve in 2 positions??? what is Zack, and Adam signing??? for me, this is still a rebuilding, a quasi rebuilding. maybe Hahn has the same idea of rebuilding. Yeah, I think they're barely a .500 team. They need a whole lot of people in their lineup to get better to be any better than that.

This puts the White Sox at just over $100 million by my count.

Eh, still don't like it and fully expect the team to disappoint, but I'm a lot less annoyed with actually trying to win than throwing in the towel like we did last offseason.

Just make sure to wipe afterwards.