Balta1701

QUOTE (shysocks @ Oct 16, 2014 -> 11:33 AM) I read it that we came to fairly similar conclusions - that if Rodon needs to come up there will probably be room for him, and if there isn't we're just fine anyway. You said leaving him in the minors wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, and DA says that he's a top prospect and you're not leaving him in the minors no matter what. There's my problem. IMO, you plan for this scenario when you're deciding who to bring in. I don't object to bringing in rotation help, but someone on a short term deal that you might even be willing to move to the bullpen or trade would be absolutely ideal because no matter how that person does you have the ability to clear them out of the way. Hence why I can get the case for someone like "Just shut your mouth and pitch for once" Peavy or Masterson as opposed to any of the big money guys. Short term deal, can move them out of the way or even do a bullpen stint if it comes to that.

QUOTE (shysocks @ Oct 16, 2014 -> 11:22 AM) Maybe, it would depend on a lot of factors. No matter what I would wait until after Super 2. I would try to avoid a bullpen assignment. If we're assuming the rotation on Opening Day is Sale/Q/Free Agent/Danks/Noesi and all five of those guys are pitching well and we're contending, why would we even need Rodon? Leaving him in the minors wouldn't be the end of the world. There is also reason to think that - maybe - Rodon won't excel in the majors right away and that we wouldn't be missing out. I'll sum up my thoughts like this: Danks and Noesi both pitching well, AND the Sox being contenders in June, AND Rodon absolutely kicking down the door to MLB - the likelihood of all those things happening is low enough that it wouldn't enter my thought process when deciding whether to bring in starting pitching help. QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Oct 16, 2014 -> 11:23 AM) BS. This is a guy they consider a cornerstone of their future. This isn't Andre Reinzo having a couple of good months in AAA. They didn't pay him the bonus they paid him and drafted him with the highest pick they have had since Harold Baines so he can wait for Hector Noesi to blow up. Besides, someone will get hurt or be bad. That is just the nature of the game, and if somehow that didn't happen, there will be nothing to complain about because the White Sox will be rolling. And here's a good illustration of why I keep bringing it up. Two people both admit its a possibility, but hope that it isn't the case, and come to exactly the opposite conclusion if it does happen.

QUOTE (shysocks @ Oct 16, 2014 -> 10:51 AM) And like DA, I fail to see the problem there. Do you keep Rodon in the minor leagues all year if the team is above .500 ?

QUOTE (shysocks @ Oct 16, 2014 -> 10:44 AM) We've had this argument before, but that seems unlikely. Noesi is expendable. If this team is below .500 I can buy that, but if the pitching staff comes together early and this looks like a competitive team, you're not putting a rookie in the rotation unless someone gets hurt.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Oct 16, 2014 -> 10:41 AM) I personally loved his attitude in Chicago. He wanted to take the ball at any given cost and all he wanted to do was win. To me, that's more an indictment on his intelligence (pitching hurt or pitching when he should not have been), not his attitude. My view of his attitude is "all talk".

He lasts in big league camp as long as possible before filtering down to the minor league camps. We pencil him in for starting in AA/AAA depending on his ST performance but AAA most likely. He gets 10-ish starts there and we look at calling him up around June 1 if the major league team is not on top of the division. This assumes we do not sign a big money pitcher and no one gets hurt. Injury opens a big league slot, he can come up earlier. This is a reasonable path for him and "Super 2" is a bonus if we wait that long.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Oct 16, 2014 -> 10:34 AM) I would feel much more comfortable with Peavy or McCarthy next year than I would Volquez. Guys who exhibit good command of the strike zone. Frankly, I feel that way about Masterson too. I think those may be targets 1, 2, and 3 for the Sox going into the offseason. No draft compensation, no long-term commitment, no extraordinary cost. I am just so sick of Jake Peavy. I get why he would make sense. I am just so sick of him, his attitude, and how that played out in Chicago. Call it personal all you want, I'm allowed to have a visceral reaction to a guy. Ugh.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Oct 16, 2014 -> 10:32 AM) There is ZERO chance there will be a pitcher that blocks Rodon if Rodon belongs in the major leagues. ZERO What happens if the arrival time for Rodon is June/July? IMO that's by far the most likely scenario, a few months of AA/AAA and then appears late enough in the season that it happens to be after he'd pass the Super-2 point. Not just because of that, but because he's had so little minor league time. If he puts up an ERA in the 2's in AAA in the first half there's no reason to keep him in the minors all year, but if you sign someone to a big contract, who leaves the rotation? One of the big contract guys? Quintana/Sale? Or are we counting on Noesi to be worse than last year - because if he's any better than this year, replacing him mid-season with a rookie would be a downgrade that won't happen.

QUOTE (Knuckles @ Oct 15, 2014 -> 11:11 PM) I live about 15 minutes from Dallas, maybe this is a stupid question but should I be worried? You might want to be worried about the lack of competent infection response procedures at a major local medical center more than anything else. This bug gives a flashing neon sign saying "hey this hospital is completely screwing up these several hugely important things". If they can screw this up, then they're absolutely set up to be a source of transmission for a variety of other diseases, including to patients who are visiting for other things. Not just this bug, but the kinds of things that cause post-surgery infections and so on. That's probably a statement that could go for many major medical centers around the country, FWIW.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Oct 16, 2014 -> 10:17 AM) Is there any such thing as a pitcher in this day and age who DOESN'T scare the hell out of you? It all depends on what else we're doing this offseason. If John Danks is in the rotation by contract default, but we're going to blow huge money on a FA outfielder or DH, it would scare me a lot more to go into the season relying on Bassitt and Rodon as middle of the rotation starters on a competing team than it would to spend money on those guys. On the other hand, spending big money on a guy to block Rodon would scare me if we're still continuing the youth-movement theme.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Oct 15, 2014 -> 08:46 PM) Liriano has an $8 million option that will be exercised. Volquez made $5 million this past year. That's ($13 million) less than the White Sox pay Danks, combined. Surely, they'll lose Martin and put their efforts into keeping Volquez, since he seemed very comfortable with their coaching staff and pitching coach. If I had to guess I'd actually say it would be the other way around, they'll do a lot to try to keep Martin.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Oct 15, 2014 -> 06:21 PM) Yea, I just don't get it. They are putting him at the helm of 4 major films for DC. MoS wasn't all bad, but it had a heavy Michael Bay dose of camera work and endless carnage. I like that Marvel has many directors at the helm of their films for different looks Just so someone says it...yes it was. It was terrible. I liked the Transformers films better. (Personal opinion fine, but someone had to say it).

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Oct 15, 2014 -> 08:36 PM) Isn't Tabata now available for basically nothing (removed from roster)? The Pirates are going to put all their resources into keeping Volquez, Liriano and Martin, not adding someone like John Danks. I think it's very clear the Pirates will be losing at least one, if not both of those pitchers, so if you make Danks cheap enough to them they'd probably consider it.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Oct 15, 2014 -> 05:29 PM) Erik Johnson may be below Davidson right now, but I think he has a much better chance of returning to form in the long-run. Johnson most likely had some sort of injury last year that caused him to lose his stuff. I think it's far more likely he gets healthy next year and his velocity returns than Davidson being able to make the necessary adjustments to overcome his significant contact issues. If that were the case, then what was he doing pitching? Why was there no improvement seen during the year?

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Oct 15, 2014 -> 05:09 PM) Do we know when awards like Cy Young, ROY, GG, etc. will be announced? After the world series spread out over a few weeks.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Oct 15, 2014 -> 04:28 PM) Erik Johnson is very much in the Matt Davidson boat right now. You give him this year to figure it out and improve. Maybe he needs the offseason to recover, or perhaps it was a case of the "yips" where he was uncomfortable pitching and couldn't figure out what to do and everything compounded from there. This is definitely not the time to move him and he could certainly still develop into a capable pitcher for the Sox down the road. Even a move to the bullpen is possible at this point. Don't rule him out, but the Sox and we as fans are definitely in a "wait and see" mode. Erik Johnson is very much below Matt Davidson right now. Matt Davidson having a terrible season due to some mental and technical issues I can understand, but I don't know how mental and technical issues make your fastball lose that much velocity. He's not a big league pitcher until he gets his fastball back. If he can do that then he's right back to being a potential rotation contender.

QUOTE (LDF @ Oct 15, 2014 -> 03:14 PM) and I will still continue to say, he may surprise many next yr. I still think he will rebound. I am done with danks discussion. I am really battling an uphill battle. keep up the good discussion. I was really hoping this would be the year Danks rebounded and he flat out did not do so.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 15, 2014 -> 02:02 PM) Wasn't 2003 the year that both Maggs and Frank went down? without looking that had to be 04, Maggs went down the year before his contract was up and walked away as a FA to detroit replaced by Dye, Thomas had the foot issue that kept him out until June. IIRC 2003 was the year that Konerko and the offense got off to a terrible start.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Oct 15, 2014 -> 01:36 PM) If anyone has any statistics towards black players in the MLB I would be more than interested in seeing those. Peaked at 19%, has dropped to just over 8% today. On opening day, 3 teams had 0 African American players. 2 of them are in the NLCS.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Oct 15, 2014 -> 01:25 PM) Those are 3rd tier guys. We have one of our own - Danks. If Danks were on the same level as any of those guys we'd suddenly have a lot fewer problems.

QUOTE (bear_brian @ Oct 15, 2014 -> 11:52 AM) The Orioles just declined the option on Markakis. He is not as good as Melky offensively, but would solidify our outfield defense and could hit second behind Eaton. Wonder what he will be asking? They did this in the middle of the ALCS?

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Oct 15, 2014 -> 11:09 AM) People should be losing jobs over this and given there was a positive outbreak and the hospital screwed up, it also blows my mind how long it took the CDC or some other agency to take over from local admin in regards to this. The reality is each and every individual hospital is not going to be experts (or at least I presume they aren't) on these sort of items. They should be prepared. That doesn't mean you throw hundreds of billions at a problem either. There are plenty of other ways to solve things. Simpleton example, I could give 10 different people 1 million dollars and 8 or 9 of them would probably end up losing it all. I wouldn't disagree that people at the hospital should lose their jobs, but this is a problem not just at this hospital but at many. There's no authority anywhere for the government to monitor hospital disinfection protocols and I'm betting you'd be surprised at how weak the hazardous waste regulations are...but you'd only be surprised by those things now that its become a problem. This hospital's lax disinfection procedures aren't abnormal, but we have no authority as a country to make them happen better, and we certainly have no money to do so. We've slashed literally billions of dollars nationwide from public health and emergency response over the last half decade, it was one of the first items on the chopping block when the financial disaster hit, and budgets for health science research have been falling for longer than that. Why you'd give 8 or 9 people money randomly instead of just not laying off people working in these areas I'm a bit confused by. I should also add, the World Health organization, point organization for fighting this in Africa, has had its budget cut by >10% over the past couple years as well, leading to >50% cuts in their emergency response funding, because that's where these kind of cuts fall. But no one will be fired for slashing those budgets.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 15, 2014 -> 10:45 AM) I seem to recall some rumblings of some attitude issues with Conor in SF. Always do wonder how much "Knowing you're blocked and having no shot at playing for the big league team unless someone gets hurt" plays into such things.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Oct 15, 2014 -> 09:56 AM) Eventually, you would hate Rasmus. BTW, Rasmus' defense wasn't so great this year. I gotta think there's a good chance this is accurate and pretty rapidly we'd all hate Rasmus, it seems the norm with him.

QUOTE (LDF @ Oct 15, 2014 -> 09:28 AM) you see this is the glass half full and half empty. no one will have a good enuf penalty let alone if the player finds atonement. he worked hard to deceived the system. it is the system that gave him the penalty. he paid for his actions. where we like it or not. But just from a baseball perspective...I would say that a person with a steroid suspension in their background is more likely than the average player to disappoint, either by injury, additional suspension, or by simply falling off in their production level as they get farther from the point when they were abusing.