Balta1701

I wouldn't go 3/$45 on a 36 year old.

QUOTE (balfanman @ Aug 29, 2014 -> 03:37 PM) Thanks. I thought that he finally started to hit a little at AA. Isn't there some precedent for some minor league players to start hitting better at higher levels because they face better pitchers, who are at least around the plate a little more? Yes, there is precedent for guys like him becoming better hitters as they get more experience. In fact it seems like its the case with several of those defense-first shortstops. Elvis Andrus, Andrelton Simmons, Eduardo Escobar, Alcides Escobar, Jose Iglesias all generally fit that description of getting better with experience. Omar Vizquel is of course the legendary example of that. The rule winds up being that a guy who is spectacular on defense at SS is a guy you can put up with hitting pretty poorly, and then once they start piling up the at bats in both the minors and the bigs they start learning to contribute on offense a bit more and become real huge contributors. The evidence suggests it takes years of patience though, potentially including several years of the guy struggling at the big league level before you reach that point. And, there is also no guarantee that it will happen and the guy won't remain terrible with the bats either.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Aug 29, 2014 -> 02:10 PM) What kind of money do guys on the practice squad make? Anything at all? Link

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Aug 29, 2014 -> 01:56 PM) Listened to a Fangraphs Audio podcast, and Carson Cistulli brought up Marcus Semien as being "one of his guys", and Dave Cameron immediately shot him down saying he's terrible. Just thought I'd leave that here. I know who 1 of those guys is.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Aug 29, 2014 -> 01:43 PM) Why don't you want Semien at 2B? If one of them has to move, Micah profiles much better in the OF because of his superior speed and inferior glovework. Micah also profiles much worse in the OF because of a weaker throwing arm and already having surgery on his arm, making long throws turn him into even more of an injury risk. Micah is the one guy the White Sox org clearly said "He's a 2b". Micah hasn't played anywhere else at all. He's not moving.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Aug 29, 2014 -> 01:40 PM) Cost of doing business these days. It's not like they can't just dump De Aza if Semien is raking or they bring in someone better. I don't think it should be plan A (plan A would be getting another stud young OF similar in upside to Avi) but as a backup plan it's not bad. Really, I think it's a pretty bad option. If there were any demand for De Aza at $5 million this year I have trouble believing he wouldn't be gone, he doesn't deserve that raise. If you're going to play Semien in the OF just put him out there and see what happens. There have to be more effective backup/platoon OF's available for less than that money. Hell, if you're really focused on a platoon out there, throw Danks in it.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Aug 29, 2014 -> 01:36 PM) The challenged him to respond and he has. I am really feeling OK about a Marcus Semien / De Aza platoon in LF next year with Marcus also able to platoon a bit with Conor at 3B and emergency fill in at 2B. Someone compared Semian to Zobrist and I kinda challenged that notion but if he can hit 270/340/400 and play 3 different positions well that's a poor man's zobrist and that's like a 2-3 WAR player. I really like what Semien has done since the demotion great mental toughness allowing his talent to come through. I am not paying $7 million for a mediocre platoon LF.

QUOTE (shysocks @ Aug 29, 2014 -> 10:22 AM) I'm not sure exactly what you're arguing. I think what you're saying is that Sale would have been in the minors getting SP innings if Rios and the team had played better that year. That IMO Sale should have been a starter that season, preferably in the minors if the big league staff had no role for him. By having him in the bullpen, we used up a year of his pre-arb eligibility and failed to work on building up endurance/innings in his arm. both of these were bad things for his long-term position with the Sox. He didn't continue building on the 150 innings/season he got in college, which likely was reflected in his exhaustion and extra rest the next year during an actual playoff hunt, and we also lost a year of him being cheap. Those were the downsides. The upside was supposed to be that we made the playoffs in 2011. We did not. There are multiple failures on that team, so it's not just Rios, but he had one of the worst seasons in MLB history, so at the very least he was a key part of it. The 2011 White Sox was the team doing an all-in bet at a casino. We risked 5 years of the franchise's health on winning that year. After losing that year, we have spent the 3+ years afterwards with a weakened roster still recovering from its failures. Chris Sale was only one small part of the things we put on the table that year.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Aug 29, 2014 -> 10:23 AM) Gillaspie has the 3rd best OPB and 2nd best SLG on the team. There is no excuse for him batting lower than 4th, at least not against a righty starter. I don't care if that means batting Abreu 4th, batting Gillaspie 4th, or batting two lefties consecutively, but there has to be some way to bat him up higher in the order. Oh, and Alexei should never bat 2nd. His slash line screams out #6 hitter. Unless you're willing to bat Gillaspie 3rd, you have to convince Robin it's ok to have back to back lefties. Good luck.

QUOTE (shysocks @ Aug 29, 2014 -> 10:12 AM) Not buying that Sale line. We had six starting pitchers put up roughly 3 fWAR that year and I know nobody's complaining about Sale's career path now. Would you be mad if we had another year of eligibility on Sale's contract? And I complain regularly that we screwed around with his arm that year, FWIW.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Aug 29, 2014 -> 09:56 AM) Rios was fine, lol. Paid ~$46.2m for 9.6 fWAR, which works out to $4.8m/WAR, which is below market rate by any estimate. This board kills anyone who has a bad year. There's a legitimate "opportunity/cost" issue though. The White Sox went "all in" as a bet, in the truest sense of the phrase, in 2011. Rios was abjectly awful that season. The White Sox's failure that season continues to impact this team to this day. We had to cut payroll after that, shed veterans, and eventually start a true rebuilding process. We also sacrificed a year of Sale's eligibility working him out of the bullpen to try to win every game possible. Alex Rios's debacle of a season fed the 2011 White Sox debacle of a season, and even though he helped the next 1.5 years, his terrible play that year contributed to long-term damage to the franchise.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 29, 2014 -> 09:44 AM) I won't go any further than I have, but I think the issue is much more complex than that. Whatever other things he might have going on in his life, I think that is a solid statement. He's being paid an enormous amount of money, more in a month than I'll make in the next 20 years, if "living out of a suitcase" is that much of a problem for him then why is he going on road trips anyway? If he wanted a no trade clause he could have negotiated one or stayed in Washington the last 3 years.

QUOTE (LDF @ Aug 29, 2014 -> 09:46 AM) I still say that Conor can be your #2 hitter. Move Alexei down in the lineup but in front of Avi. Conor could well profile as a quality #2 hitter but only if we have a right handed leadoff hitter. And before you tell me that it's ok to have 2 lefties hitting together, whether or not that's the case our manager does not believe it and will move Gillaspie out of that spot to avoid it.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Aug 29, 2014 -> 09:40 AM) That's a good message to send to veteran players around the league - if you sign with us, and we fall out of contention, we might release you and force you to move if you'd like further work in baseball regardless of your production. --- It is certainly possible that they've received offers for Dunn and, upon approaching him about going to a contender, he's said no. Some people may view that as a weakness in a player, but I don't. Just because a guy doesn't want to move to a new city and try and get acclimated with new teammates for all of a month and a half doesn't mean he doesn't want to win. It just means that he believes his current comfort level is at its highest. If a guy won't put up with a 6 week road trip in order to get a shot at the playoffs he ought to just retire. Especially if you take into account how vastly overpaid he's been in the city where he currently is and the fact that he'd be doing that team a small favor by living out of a suitcase for an extra 2 weeks.

Ok, I'm officially agreeing with the NFL Owners that one of these preseason games needs to turn into a regular season game. People still get hurt during these games and they're a complete waste of time.

QUOTE (oldsox @ Aug 28, 2014 -> 09:36 PM) Davidson? Why? What do you think the Sox have planned for him for next year? He gets another year at AAA to see if he can earn his way to the bigs, clearly. Burns an option on him I believe.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 28, 2014 -> 07:31 PM) The Sox have to pay Dunn anyway. There is no reason for them to be looking to not send money with him at this stage. Nobody wants the guy. And I will laugh when the A's get knocked out in the play-in game.

QUOTE (oldsox @ Aug 28, 2014 -> 09:32 PM) Nonsense. When Wilkins got hot, there was no place to put him. Sox could not get rid of Dunn, other than a DFA. That's why Wilkins wasn't promoted. If Dunn had been hurt, Willkins would likely have been brought up If he is not traded, he'll get a shot at making the team next year. Clearly, he should be brought up next month. I still can't believe that if the Sox offered to pay all but $1 million of Dunn's deal over the last 2 months that there wouldn't be a team in the AL who would take that, giving the Sox a chance to bring Wilkins up and improving the DH spot of some contender. It seems ludicrous to me.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Aug 28, 2014 -> 05:59 PM) Seems pretty obvious no team is willing to pay a couple million for .1 WAR or whatever. Makes perfect sense to me. If the Sox have to send along cash then f*** it. I still can't possibly believe that no team would take Adam Dunn for the last 2 months for $1-2 million. It seems crazy to me. The A's have been struggling to score runs for the last month, fallen out of first place, traded away a big middle of the order bat, took on salary, and they're willing to go to a 1 game playoff to save $2 million?

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 28, 2014 -> 05:12 PM) What a jerk. I wonder at what point you get kicked off the plane. If you are blocking people from doing their jobs like the drink service and checking on passengers, I'd think that asshole was close to getting the boot. I can see one potential problem with "kicking a person off a plane mid flight".

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Aug 28, 2014 -> 02:19 PM) I'd happily take nothing and open ABs to give to a guy like Semien. It should have happened a month ago and I have no clue why it hasn't.

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Aug 28, 2014 -> 01:10 PM) If that doesn't happen in the winter, then I could see around spring training that they could pull a trigger on a trade for Alexei if he were to be dealt. The only way a team is going to be looking to add an expensive, high-performing SS at the start of spring training is if someone gets hurt. Teams who are looking to compete will at least have some idea of who they're putting at that position well before then.

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Aug 28, 2014 -> 12:49 PM) I agree. Rotation of Sale, Shields, Quintana, Rodon, Noesi is pretty impressive. Hopefully they can make a run at Shields. Hopefully they can move Danks you mean. That's the hard part.

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Aug 28, 2014 -> 12:07 PM) Danish, Hawkins, Anderson & Jared Mitchell. 3 1/2 first-rounders; does that get Stanton? I feel like Anderson and Danish in a package should get us to any discussion table. No.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 28, 2014 -> 12:06 PM) [/b] Which offensively in 2015, MIGHT be a marginal improvement over DeAza/Viciedo...and Semien's defense is a complete unknown out there as well. Can we just assume he'll play CFer about as well as Alcantara has for the Cubs? Well, he can't hit in the 220's with limited power like Arismendy and hold down LF because it's not like we have the equivalent of Baez/Bryant/Soler arriving on the scene in the power department. Then you look at the #1 LFer available, Melky Cabrera, giving him more money than Jose Abreu and watching it blow up in your face is a ticket to disaster for Rick Hahn. You could just as easily substitute the name Colby Rasmus there as well. Easier said than done finding this year's Seth Smith or Willingham's offensive production the first year he came to the Twins. Justin Morneau in Colorado or Victor Martinez at his advanced age in that pitcher's park known as Comerica, etc. No, why would we assume he can play Cf when he's been a 2b? Corner OF is a step up in difficulty, why on Earth would we push him to CF? We have at least 1 anyway.