Balta1701

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Feb 21, 2014 -> 08:56 AM) That's ok. I think the best place to break a pitcher in is via the pen. When in doubt look to Earl Weaver. And, as you can probably expect, I totally, fundamentally disagree with this concept. I think its the exact opposite of how you should break a starting pitcher into the big leagues, I think it hurts more guys than it helps, and I think it's only a special player who can do that without serious problems.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Feb 21, 2014 -> 08:41 AM) He can stretch his arm out in the majors we aren't winning anything this year, it doesn't matter if it takes him three starts. Except for the potential benefit of having him throw 150+ innings this year on the chance he does earn a 2015 rotation spot and needs to be strong enough to throw 200.

Thankfully there's no roster problem.

QUOTE (kevo880 @ Feb 20, 2014 -> 06:35 PM) I really think Pauly will be the odd man out opening day. Dunn at DH since it is a lefty pitcher and Abreu holding down 1B to start the season. Huh?

Is opening day at home or on the road?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 20, 2014 -> 02:22 PM) .260 with 40 homers in this day and age? Two guys did that in all of baseball last year. The problem there is the average. If he's hitting 40 HR and only hitting .260, he's striking out like 175 times to get there. The home runs and other extra base hits ought to keep his average up unless he's K-ing like crazy. Again, that doesn't mean he wouldn't be an extremely valuable player...but that kind of average would put him in the Ryan Howard level.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 20, 2014 -> 02:59 PM) You have to be joking. also, as someone else pointed out, I think he meant more of an either-or thing. I certainly can't see that given the use of "and". I read that as "he can put up average and power".

Congrats, you're not alone, Arizona just passed the same trash.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 20, 2014 -> 12:18 PM) Dan Hayes ‏@DanHayesCSN 1m Konerko on A. Garcia: He can be average & power, he can go out & hit .260 w/ 40 HRs. He really has potential to be monster in this league. .260 isn't a great "average" paulie, esp. with that number of HR's.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Feb 19, 2014 -> 06:53 PM) I've got perhaps a dumb question about Cutlers contract. After the Bears pay Jay his 54M guaranteed he can be cut with no cap ramifications. So if they plan on keeping him for 5 years couldn't they theoretically make his cap hit 10.8M every year(if need be) then cut him before the number gets ridiculous? The problem there is that his salary isn't just $10.8 a year, he'll get paid >$54 million in the first 3 years. If they plan on keeping him for 5 years, he's going to make $100 million. They can move some of that cap hit into future years, but if he's going to make $100 million, eventually the Bears will have to take $100 million in cap hits, give or take. They could pay him for probably 3 years and find a way to spread that cap hit out to $10.8 over 5, but then they wouldn't have a quarterback for the last 2.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 19, 2014 -> 03:30 PM) They did in the link “I’m glad I don’t have to face them (in the regular season),” Sale said. “Abreu got in there, and I was like, ‘All right, someone else can pitch.’ I’ll make sure to keep that L screen in front of me. Those guys look good. Everyone looks like they’re coming in, gaining some weight, looking strong. I’m looking forward to it.” Abreu and Garcia might have looked imposing, but they were hardly confident facing pitches at 90 mph-plus for the first time. Garcia looked uncomfortable facing Sale’s fastball and then laughed when the left-hander threw an off-speed pitch that buckled his knees. This makes me remember that first at-bat Joe Mauer had against Chris Sale.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Feb 19, 2014 -> 04:56 PM) I love Paulino too, but the injury concerns are very real and worth mentioning. If he stays healthy, it could be a very good move. And conveniently, if he manages to open the season with the team, he buys Rienzo some extra time in the minors.

With the deals at number 9-10, I have no idea how the Davidson deal didn't make this list.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Feb 19, 2014 -> 04:18 PM) I think he can be a starter, but he REALLY needs to work on his command. I would love to see him in AAA learning how to keep the breaking ball down. Rienzo definitely still could benefit from working on stuff. That breaking ball was a really intriguing pitch last year, and supposedly it wasn't even his out pitch in the minors - everyone says his cutter was his out pitch. I like the big sweeping breaking ball he was throwing but it would really, really help if he could learn to change speeds on it - mix in the big breaker with a sharper breaking curve that drops farther out of the zone.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Feb 19, 2014 -> 02:16 PM) I think one of the things to factor into this rebuild is that the White Sox will not buy top talent on the free agent market. They just aren't going to win a bidding war with the big boys. Draft, trade, and mid-tier free agency is the way they have to go. To mitigate the many risks that go along with mid-tier free agents I think it's best to buy early as the price will continue to rise. Here's yet another counterpoint. I see very little evidence to actually support your claim of constantly rising prices for mid-tier free agent starting pitching. For example, the starting pitchers signing in 2008 other than CC: AJ Burnett 5/$82, Derek Lowe 4/$60, Dempster 4/$52. In 2009, a guy like Randy Wolf got 3/$30 and I think he's at a lower level than the guys this year. 2011, Mark Buehrle, 4/$58. 2012, Edwin Jackson, 4/$52. 2007, Carl Pavano, 4/$58. 2006, Gil Meche 5/$55, Jason Schmidt 3/$47, Jeff Suppan 4/$42, Ted Lilly 4/$40. I have to go back to 2006 to really feel like I see a moderate price increase on a middle of the rotation starter (Lilly), and every one of those years there were also guys signed for 2/$20 million-ish who could fill roles shorter term. 5 years ago, Ryan Dempster got a contract as a free agent earning more than Ubaldo Jiminez at a more advanced age. There are mid-tier starters available every year for ~$10-$12 mil a season and there's little evidence of a significant price bump.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Feb 19, 2014 -> 02:08 PM) The problem with Marty's idea is we simply don't need another mid-rotation starter. If you're putting together a championship caliber rotation, Sale as a #1, Quintana as a #3, & Johnson as a #4 works IMO. All three are young, cheap, & cost-controlled for the foreseeable future. That right there is your core. On top of that, we have an expensive Danks who has a reasonable chance of rebounding this year and becoming a strong #3 starter again. Throw Chris Beck into the mix, who should be ready by opening day 2015 IMO, and we should have 4 legitimate starters to cover the back-end of the rotation (and this assumes that Rienzo, Surkamp, & Paulino aren't factors). What we really need is another top-of-the-rotation starter, not at Sale's level, but one that can solidfy that #2 spot, especially come playoff time. Tanaka made a ton of sense for us because he could fill that void and do so long-term. Wasting money on Jimenez or Santana doesn't help us achieve that goal, and quite frankly, signing one of them to hopefully spin Quintana down the road seems counter-productive and incredibly risky. I get the logic in doing so, but those simply aren't the right guys to gamble on. Just to note, Chris Sale + Jose Quintana last year was one of the better 1-2 starting pitching combinations in baseball.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Feb 19, 2014 -> 10:25 AM) I think he means the actual trailer. But yeah looks good. Marvel definitely never takes itself too seriously. They know how ridiculous their movies are. DC could learn from that.

The nice thing from my perspective is...it's not my local representative introducing insane legislation this year. At least not y et.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Feb 19, 2014 -> 08:14 AM) It is amusing that this juror gives a face interview yet refuses to give her name to protect her family. On the subject of this thread, Zimmerman complained in an in-person CNN interview how he can't go outside without people recognizing him.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Feb 18, 2014 -> 08:10 PM) So if they have a good '15 or '16 we will be proven right I guess. Wow, congrats on getting the concept finally.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Feb 18, 2014 -> 07:49 PM) I believe this but by what metric? Either Defensive Runs Saved or UZR, I think they show the same thing. But of course those are position-adjusted, so to pile up a large negative number a player has to play a single position for a long, long time.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Feb 18, 2014 -> 04:43 PM) Or they could just set some type of baseline for the "average" MLB team positional arrangement of the defense against every player in the majors and then look for statistical deviations from that standard book. The problem is that you're also having to take into account individual pitches within an-bat as well....such as shading to the opposite side with someone like Scherzer or Verlander pitching or playing pull when guys like Dylan Axelrod are on the mound, or guys like Gavin Floyd are pounding hitters with curveballs. It would be interesting to see if the White Sox, for example, shifted at all when Santiago was throwing a screwball vs. his standard repertoire of pitches. Or how much more they were playing pull when Dank was pitching post-surgery as opposed to with his best stuff. With the data currently available through pitch-Fx, all of these things can be produced readily. The one thing you'd have to worry about is that you don't completely give away the pitch (i.e. the CF or 2b move a huge amount when they know an offspeed pitch is coming), but otherwise that's a tractable problem. It'd be difficult to do with the OF's because they couldn't see the signs being put down, but you could certainly have your 2b and SS trained to catch the sign and move a few steps when the pitch is thrown.

I'd 100% do that for either of them, and it actually kind of makes sense since they have Gaby Sanchez, a righty who put up a .987 OPS against lefty pitching last season there already. I'd be content with sending them both of them, including Andy Wilklins. I have absolutely zero problems with the Sox having no obvious internal 1b/DH candidates right now, as I 100% expect that situation to change by next offseason. Viciedo is an obvious candidate to move there with Eaton moving to LF if both hit well enough for the positions. But even if they don't change those spots, the White Sox next offseason are going to have a major need for a left-handed hitting, middle-of-the-order bat, and as of right now there's no reason to expect that to be Andy Wilkins. Wilkins's value would be in being a LH-hitting 1b, particularly as a rookie I can't imagine his production being good enough to hold down a quality everyday DH slot if the team is looking to compete in 2015.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Feb 18, 2014 -> 04:09 PM) Tonight's Iowa-Indiana basketball game has been postponed due to falling debris from the ceiling into the stands at Assembly Hall. Yeah, i read that and winced.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Feb 18, 2014 -> 03:55 PM) I'd personally go with what they have, but if they can find someone available that's worth it for a guy like De Aza or Gillaspie, I have no problem with said move. Clearly no one would...but worth considering that if Rogers were right...it would mean going into the season with a catcher who hadn't worked with the pitching staff very much. That would be disconcerting on its own if the team cared about competing.