Balta1701

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Sep 17, 2013 -> 08:20 PM) Indeed but this proposal would only happen if we upgraded big-time elsewhere and were making a run at it. Otherwise why not develop somebody full time at the position if we are punting 2014. I say tell Keppinger to GFH. And Keppinger takes your GFH and thanks you for doubling his salary next season and giving him a chance to earn a new contract playing for a team with a non-checked-out manager.

Link. Dude flat out belongs there. For guys who don't like Hawk...remember, he might keep going until he gets in! Stone and the other guys are up too, but yeah, Vote Hawk.

As a white sox fan, that Hawk remix was great and I'm prepared for the world to laugh at me for it.

If Gillaspie and Keppinger as a platoon could put up ~.750 OPS numbers together, which I note is worse than Connor's OPS against righties this year by a little and worse than Keppinger's OPS against lefties in his career by a lot, that would be good enough to put the White Sox 13th in MLB in offensive production out of 3rd base. Again, it's not Miguel Cabera spectacular and I'm not going to oppose efforts to improve on that if there's a stud available somewhere, but those 2 splitting time *should* give numbers that are tolerable based on what they've done in their careers.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Sep 17, 2013 -> 02:31 PM) Semien? I don't want him to be a platoon player, he either starts up here or in AAA. Keppinger. He's a righty, he's going to be paid whether we like it or not, he's a career .317/.361/ .465/.826 hitter against left-handed pitching. This has been an awful season for him obviously for whatever reason, but he's a reasonable platoon partner for Gillaspie. I'll say again I'm not opposed to a major upgrade at 3b if we can find one that's available, but for the money, Gillaspie and Keppinger on paper shouldn't be a bad platoon at 3b. Of course, that again assumes that Keppinger isn't a nightmare next year at the plate, but since there's no reason to buy him out, may as well pencil that in.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Sep 17, 2013 -> 01:59 PM) Pick up a platoon player and call it a day at 3B. We already have that guy.

Here's a headline I never thought I'd read. Bill Daley drops bid for Illinois Governor.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Sep 17, 2013 -> 09:59 AM) I think you are overvaluing Quintana and Santiago (especially Santiago) and undervaluing Carlos Gomez. Gomez has been worth 6.5 fWAR this year and has been the 3rd best outfielder in the game. Over his last 991 plate appearances, he's put up .273/.324/.477/.801 splits and he has been the best defensive CFer in the game for full time players over the last 2 seasons. If you could get Gomez for just one of those two, or just one of those two plus Trayce, then you do so in a heartbeat. Beyond any of that, I want to point out again that I was just spitballing and I showed how quickly you can put together a decent team with a little ingenuity without giving up any real key minor league prospects. For comparison though, Quintana is on his way to a 4 fWAR season and has 2 more years remaining where he's pre-arb. Carlos Gomez is paid $7 million next year whereas Quintana is paid $500k unless we extend him. if 1 WAR = $6 million, then when you factor in the contracts Carlos Gomez right now is only worth ~1 WAR more than Quintana/$6 million more right now, and Quintana is younger and has every reason based on this season to think he can continue to improve next year. Given all those things I'd take the slightly younger player, but then if you throw in the fact that there should be a major premium on cost-controlled, left-handed pitching, Quintana alone might well be an overpay for him. Santiago I'd be more willing to consider because the Sox have jerked him around and blew a year of pre-arb time for him out of the bullpen these last 2 seasons.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Sep 17, 2013 -> 09:44 AM) You deal Santiago or Quintana, Trayce Thompson, and a couple other smaller prospects and you have a CF and 3 or 6-7 hitter. I'd call that an enormous, worse-than-kenny williams type overpay.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 16, 2013 -> 11:53 PM) This would be another reason to bring Big Hurt back in some instructional capacity. ARGH

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ Sep 17, 2013 -> 12:31 AM) Faced the minimum and threw 97 pitches. That trade and the eventual extension of rizzo, if Cashner stays healthy could look really bad for Theo. LOL, that's the kind of post that makes me want to find some of the Rizzo praise posts (and yes, I've joined in San Diego for ridicule on that trade as well).

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Sep 17, 2013 -> 12:07 AM) I don't think he was referring to that particular limitation of the first amendment, it was more along the lines of if you lock people up for saying hateful things about the government then you're going to have less people who hate the government out in society and fewer terror attacks. Lives saved? Sure. But at what cost? At what point do we realize that in the process of stupid-proofing our country by banning everything risky we've essentially sentenced all those lives saved (and those would were going to live anyways) to meaningless existence where deviating from a politically correct liberal norm is bound to break some kind of law. Don't even start to call this paranoia or me alluding to some grand conspiracy, because I'm not. There are too many laws in this country and entirely too many people who somehow think we need more. We've long since made all the necessary laws to protect the right to property, liberty and life; now were in this habit of confusing causation and correlation where we ban things that in and of themselves are harmless but when abused can lead to someone committing an act we already have a law against. We're basically on this legislative hunt to eradicate every trace of suffering in this country, something we'll never be successful at, and have willingly signed away freedom after freedom in that pursuit. Because quite simply, not every law leads to a slippery slope towards pure evil. Society as a whole has the right to make the decision on where to draw that line. Places with far fewer guns than us seem to still have quite meaningful existences as far as any reasonable standard. And frankly, yes, I think we do the "freedom of speech" thing better than just about any place in the world and I'll give us props on that. But we do the "idiots stocking up on assault rifles" worse than countries in the middle of civil wars.

DOG DAY!

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Sep 16, 2013 -> 08:12 PM) I thought your idea about not signing players over 30 years old to long contracts was stating the obvious. He's 6 months older than BJ Upton.

White Sox Press release:

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Sep 16, 2013 -> 06:09 PM) Will the Sox ever have the likes of the Big Hurt again? Will anyone?

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 16, 2013 -> 04:46 PM) If he's still under Sox control they'll trade him in a minor transaction before just releasing him, right? At this point, it will be a very very minor trade as Beckham is yet another failed hitting prospect. If they offer him arbitration they're stuck paying him whatever the arbitration amount is. They could trade him, but they could also offer him arbitration and find there's no demand for him at that sticker price.

QUOTE (bmags @ Sep 16, 2013 -> 04:04 PM) While not a bad offense, the bears have not faced an elite QB yet and still have shown a lot of easy yards. Obviously cincy we adjusted but Ponder in the second half had no problem vs. our D. I think a big portion of why Ponder had it easy against the Bears is that the Bears were focused on not letting Peterson beat them. That said, they still need to get to the QB.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Sep 16, 2013 -> 03:55 PM) Unfortunately Beckham is a bad hitter, that's just a fact at this point. His elite glove makes it hard to just give him up but Semien needs to play somewhere next year and it should be one of the middle infield positions. I'll keep repeating it as long as people keep saying what you just said. His glove isn't elite. It just isn't. He's somewhere around average. Doesn't have a lot of range, turns a good double play, is a good fit next to Alexei because Alexei covers a lot of ground. His range has actually gone down quite a bit if you look at his year over year numbers as well.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Sep 16, 2013 -> 03:42 PM) I think Wite coaching the Heat would have more championships today than Spoelstra if he coached the Bulls during the same time frame. There is something to be said for being able to get superstar level players to be willing to work together for the benefit of the team. That's one Phil Jackson appears to be the legend at doing. Spoelstra's managed to pull that off somewhat, but it did take a while.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Sep 16, 2013 -> 09:18 AM) Active shooter on the ground at the naval yard right now in Washington DC. One confirmed injury http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/16/us/dc-navy-y...hots/index.html The reported death toll is now 12.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Sep 16, 2013 -> 02:12 PM) Do we? I wanted to believe in Beckham earlier this year, but he's shown he is what he is. It sucks and maybe he finally figures it out one day (doubtful), but we've done our due diligence with him and I think it's clear he should not be part of the long-term core. Sure, he can be a useful fill-in at 2B for a team with a big hole at the position, but I don't think it would be a hard decision to let him go, not if he's going to make $5M next year. And Ramirez is a solid player, but his lack of OBP and power are part of two major team-wide problems. At some point, we have to move some of these guys if we're going to improve the lineup. Don't get me wrong, Alexei would make a nice #9 hitter on most teams, just not ours. If we could move him and get anything of value (i.e. more than a pure salary dump), I would do that deal in a heartbeat because we already have a replacement in-house and we'd have even more money to upgrade other areas of the team. As for 3B, I think we need to look for a long-term solution there. If we have to trade a young starter, that's the position I'm targeting. I just think Semien is too good of a prospect to use as a fill-in at 3B. I think we pretty much have to open up a middle infield position to improve the offense and get younger. Unfortunately, Marcus can only play 1 of those 3 positions at a time.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 16, 2013 -> 11:10 AM) Fewer speech freedoms = fewer terror attacks Shouting fire in a crowded room = putting everyone around at risk = carrying a gun in a crowded room.

QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Sep 16, 2013 -> 10:48 AM) Semien's not too far off and I'd try to find a way to get L. Garcia more AB's. I'm generally fine with good defensive middle infielders that can't hit, but they better be ++defenders or steal bases. Beckham doesn't really do anything exceptionally well outside of turn the double play. Just remember the example of Josh Phegley when discussing how far away Semien's bat might be from contributing.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Sep 16, 2013 -> 10:35 AM) I agree, just not as a centerfielder. I haven't paid enough attention to know whether or not Avisail will be a good enough option in CF everyday. I suppose they can keep De Aza in CF, the benefits of having Choo in the lineup kinda outweighs subpar defense. At this point no one should have a clue whether Avisail could be a solid CF. He has the speed to stick there but he hasn't played the position enough to get used to the ways the ball will travel and how to get a good jump on it. If you want him to be a CF long term, play him there and see what happens.