Balta1701

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 16, 2018 -> 11:40 AM) No I don't. You are saying they had a choice. You don't know that as a fact. The guys they received have plenty of flaws and are either pretty blocked or of the age it's time to either put up or cut bait. To say a 19 year old 10-15 range prospect could have easily been substituted is pure speculation, and for many reasons, perhaps not true. There's nothing wrong with picking these guys up by the basket full, there is certainly going to be another JD Martinez or Jose Bautista or Justin Turner that becomes really good after scuffling, but teams would rather give these older guys up than the younger ones identified with potential. Here's Cordell coming in pre-2017 at #12 in the Brewers system, found another list with him at #15. Here's Gillaspie at #5 in the Rays system coming into 2017. To fail to recognize what the White Sox did with these deals is pure naivety.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 16, 2018 -> 12:18 PM) While I agree JD Martinez is not a good idea right now, who are these lower level prospects that would have been in the 10-15 range the White Sox turned down for Jennings and Swarzak? You know darn well that's an unanswerable hypothetical question, and you also know darn well that would have been fair value for those guys.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 16, 2018 -> 11:15 AM) Should also mention that the ask of the top level guys was at the expense of more quantity of B level guys. IE we asked for 1 A level guy when we could have had 3 B's. So while the top of the system looks amazing, it means that we still lack mid-range depth and it also limits the number of breakout candidates while putting more pressure on the top 10 to not bust. Almost all of the C level guys who were brought in have major flaws that will limit their ceilings. QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 16, 2018 -> 11:34 AM) Frankly I think our drafting should be providing a better 15-30, so lets hope this year we see jumps from players from latam and the past two drafts, and we dont' need to rely on only filling up our farm via trade. One other thing I think that is being missed is that the White Sox had opportunities last year to add guys who would probably have fallen in that 10-15 range, in deals like the Swarzak and Jennings deals. If the White Sox had wanted to get them, they could have targeted guys at the lower levels of the minors, guys who were picked in the 2nd or 3rd rounds the last 2 years, and those guys would have filled in that 10-15 range. They explicitly chose to do something else. The White Sox realized they had another type of asset; they were moving so many big league players out of their system that they had a lot of playing time available at AAA and in the bigs, and they had a lot of open 40 man roster spots. They could instead target guys who were either blocked or who teams had soured on, acquire them, and give them a shot. That's how we wound up with Cordell, Gillaspie, Viera, maybe to a lesser extent Polo. Throw in some of the guys from our org like Engel, Delmonico, Leury - and that logjam at AAA/Big league level is what we have in lieu of depth in the 10-15 range in our prospect lists. Like "B" level prospects, not all of them are going to turn out, but there's very likely a couple of good ballplayers in there. Good teams in the past have found great players this route - giving guys a shot who were blocked elsewhere. This is how the Cubs turned Arrieta into a stud - took a guy the Orioles had soured on and gave him a shot. The key thing we have to do is actually play and develop them. If we acquire these guys and we don't give them a shot, then we have done this exactly backwards. Hence, this is why I go after every idea like "JD Martinez is undervalued we should go after him!" like we're seeing this offseason. Heck, JD Martinez was one of those guys once. We made a decision that we were going to give these guys a shot when we acquired them. If we don't give these guys a shot, then we screwed up every one of those trades.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jan 15, 2018 -> 11:53 PM) https://sports.yahoo.com/cubs-know-waiting-...-155434272.html Cubs know waiting for Bryce Harper and next winter's insane free-agent class is affecting baseball's offseason Are the White Sox better off going after Donaldson next off-season or Arenado after 2019? Interesting decisions to be made, because it seems like it's going to be almost impossible to land Machado...as that would fly in the face of allocating a large chunk of money instead of 3-4 major improvements simultaneously. Abreu/Avi situations need to be sorted. Blackmon would be attractive, but a five year deal seems risky if you're waiting on Luis Robert. Still, he might be the best "fall-back" outfield target after Harper. Cruz and McCutcheon are too old, and Jimenez is supposed to be the next Cruz, right? A.Miller/Britton/Cody Allen/Kimbrel, they're probably going to be overpaying for a closer (see Robertson in 2014) in all likelihood, although there's always a possibility Burdi or Lopez ends up doing the job internally. Andrus might be in play if Tim Anderson doesn't fully rebound....Beltre on a two year deal, but there's that huge risk you overpay so late in his career. The Chicago White sox have put themselves in a position where they 100% ought to be able to deal with the Garcia and Abreu situations AND add Machado, and frankly add Kimbrel, if that's what they want to do. That was the point of this. They should be very disappointed if they fail in this. They have 0 bad contracts. They should have >$130 million to spend. The White Sox have the most young talent in major league baseball, without any serious second place contender. The White Sox have 0 bad contracts after James Shields is gone. The White Sox have 10+ contenders for the 3-4 positions that aren't filled by a top 20 in MLB prospect. This team is F***ing loaded right now. It needs time for these guys to develop and to filter out some of the chaff. That's the point of this year. Filter it down, decide on 2-3 targets for this offseason, then go win 205 games in 2019 and 2020 combined. There's no reason why we can't do that other than cowardice.

QUOTE (fredmanrique @ Jan 15, 2018 -> 10:33 PM) Well, I'd like to leverage an $81M payroll to take on money and think pence is perfect and there should be motivation to dump him. Moving Avi to clear RF for Eloy makes sense. I'm fine keeping Avi and seeing if he forces us to want to keep him long term too. Soo... I'm interested in getting as much talent as Avi + a bad contract yields to get legit top 50 talent. If that means Ramos +, and that is universally more than we would get for Avi alone, sure. More assets that either play alongside eloy and robert in the future or help fill holes down the road. If I could get a top 50 prospect I would totally take on that payroll and give up Garcia. I do not believe the Giants would do that. There was an article a day or two ago about how, despite the fact that they want to contend, the Giants don't want to give up the few pieces they have remaining, including their draft pick for Cain or their 1 or 2 remaining top prospects. I can't find it right now due to the Giants making a tiny bit of news today.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jan 15, 2018 -> 09:12 PM) http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/15/opinions/dac...nion/index.html Don't Let Trump's Bad Words Kill DACA Deal Too F***ing late. Mitch said he will not pass something that Donald Trump doesn't approve and Donald Trump does not want all these S***house races. You know what? Hey 2k5 remember how in 2007 your reason for opposing any comprehensive immigration reform was that it was unfair to the rest of the world and people from Africa and Asia deserve to have equal chance even though they're not that close? That's what Donald Trump's #1 priority to get rid of is - the Immigration lottery does that, even if it's only 50k people, that's the Republican Senate and President's current biggest enemy! (To stress, this is me defending a deal that GWB was in favor of).

Link

Video probably won't embed but here's Robert taking BP at mini-camp today. Follow link if it doesn't embed. <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8">

QUOTE (Jack Parkman @ Jan 15, 2018 -> 06:10 PM) If Hansen and Kopech force the issue by midseason, and Rodon returns then they suddenly have 6 pitchers to see if they're starters for 5 spots. Rodon, Giolito, Lopez, Fulmer, Kopech, Hansen. Might actually be a good time to try a 6 man rotation to keep innings down. Hansen will not be forcing the issue in 2018. He has 68 innings above low-A ball. He's in the position Kopech was last year - he'll get a nearly full year in BHam and possibly a callup to Charlotte late if he earns it. By 2019 they could be talking about 6 pitchers, but that's a whole lot of things going right. Name one team that is 6/6 in developing pitchers from AAA to the Bigs with no failures and no injuries. If somehow that top 5 is clicking in 2019, then not only will it be useful to have Hansen as the 6th starter to fill in when someone does hit the DL, but I won't be mad putting him in the bullpen in September and October.

QUOTE (soxforlife05 @ Jan 15, 2018 -> 06:04 PM) JD Martinez must be going to Boston then. Giants were going hard after him. Who are their corner OFs? Pence is there but was rotten last year, I'm finding Gorkys Hernandez and Jarrett Parker on their roster and I barely know them beyond the name Gorkys because they're nothing special. Am I missing someone else they traded for or something? Because they could still use an OF in my eyes.

QUOTE (Jack Parkman @ Jan 15, 2018 -> 05:46 PM) Honestly with the market tilting greatly toward buyers, I'd be willing to consider trading some of the back end top 10 guys and some other guys with upside for available players with control. Honestly, I think there could be another deal with the Cubs in the future, with the Sox swapping some pitching prospects for ML ready hitters. They have too many hitters, Sox have a ton of pitching depth. I think it makes too much sense, similar to the Q deal. I'd actually say this is backwards right now - the White Sox have too many ML ready hitters. They acquired a bunch of AAAA caliber players last year in the Swarzak, Robertson, and Jennings trades, and they have a bunch of AAAA caliber guys of their own. Right now we have more IFs than we have room for and more OFs than we have room for in the big leagues and AAA - which is why it's really important to play these guys this year, so that we can whittle down to a few needs for the next offseason. We have pitchers throughout the organization, but we're not busting at the seams with major leaguers, at least not yet. Throwing in injuries like Rodon, we're not going to have a rotation that is overflowing until at least 2020, and that's if everything goes well. Frankly, we could use more pitching depth at the lower levels.

QUOTE (WBWSF @ Jan 15, 2018 -> 04:37 PM) Reed is easily better than anybody the White Sox have in their bullpen now. With the young starters the team has now you would think the organization would want somebody like Reed to close out the games. As of now this 2018 White Sox bullpen is really looking bad. You're 100% right the bullpen is looking bad. This is exactly where the 2018 White Sox should be. I know i know "losing is bad and so on", but seriously, making this bullpen better to win more games in 2018 doesn't get the White Sox where they need to go. You make the bullpen better and maybe get some prospects by trading Reed, you make the draft pick worse next year. Play the kids. We have 1 more crappy rebuilding year to play through, commit to it, and then in 2019 I'll sign anyone you want that fills a need. Anyone.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 15, 2018 -> 03:50 PM) They probably SHOULD rebuild, but want to go for it one more time, probably while Posey and Bumgarner can still contribute. They should be flush in cash after their 3 titles. Apparently they also own a lot of the land around their stadium after buying it up in the 1990s, so they are absolutely rich as **** right now.

I am not a fan of the idea of McCutchen in that CF. He wasn't terrible last year in CF but he was awful in CF in 2016. I dunno what injury he played through that year, but this seems to play to his weaknesses.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jan 15, 2018 -> 06:27 PM) As opposed to the Jax/Steelers game where they were allowing them to do anything they wanted on every play. AJ Boye held Antonio Brown for 40 yards. Brown still caught the ball.

QUOTE (TheTruth05 @ Jan 15, 2018 -> 04:09 PM) McDaniels to the Colts. Should be interesting to see what happens there if Luck isn't healthy. I think McDaniels will want to move on if he doesn't trust Luck's shoulder anymore They've got a $12.8 million cap hit if they cut him "After" this season, if I'm reading this right it's $22 million to cut him this season.

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Jan 15, 2018 -> 03:34 PM) See edit above. I think you would get another piece back (and possibly 3 pieces back). If he was traded this July, he wouldn't be on the books for next offseason anyway. What's the worst thing that could happen? He gets hurt or performs lousy and you are still stuck with him for one more season at a still reasonable rate. If his ~$8.5MM contract next season is a deal breaker in whether or not the Sox sign a guy like Machado, then this rebuild is in serious trouble. He shouldn't be the deal breaker in signing a guy like Machado, but like I said, I want that money to spend next offseason and that isn't just Manny. Next offseason is also when I decide how many pieces I have and need in my bullpen, and notably both Miller and Kimbrel are on the market too. The $17 million I'd give Reed would make a nice ingredient to that deal if it weren't spent. I just don't buy the idea of signing guys to flip right now. It's just not the way I'd use either monetary resources or playing time.

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Jan 15, 2018 -> 03:24 PM) I guess that was kind of my point. It doesn't seem Reed accepted "full price" because he wanted to play in the Midwest. 2 years/$17MM for a solid reliever in his prime (be it setup guy or closer) is peanuts in this market and another flippable asset 6 months from now. The young guys will have plenty of time to prove themselves after that and into 2019... $8 million is a lot for me to give up for a reliever on this team for 2018 if I'm not getting another piece back along with it. That $8 million is way more useful to me next offseason.

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Jan 15, 2018 -> 02:13 PM) At this point, the only area I would consider FA signing is pitching. Pitching on short term contracts (assuming they are performing moderately well) can always be flipped at the deadline. Disappointed the Sox didn't make a play for Reed considering what he signed for. Could be a solid trade chip at either this or next year's deadline, especially if he were tasked with closing. At this point, Soria is the closer until someone takes the job from him, and I'm totally ok with that. No reason to sign another reliever this year - if we can develop a couple from our system that makes us a lot better in 2019, and we could darn well find another "Soria" like guy that a team has soured on to take on and that would serve us better than signing one because presumably we'd get something else for taking on the salary. There's really no reason to pay full price for a free agent on this team this year.

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Jan 15, 2018 -> 12:53 PM) There was some really bad calls on the Saints early in the game. There was one play where the Saints CB didn't even touch Diggs and they called PI. I think the NFL needs to take a look at PI flags. Maybe do a minor one for 15 yards and a major that spots the ball. You can't have a PI that the CB barely even touches the WR and it turns into a 50 yards penalty. I've long thought PI should be challengeable. If they still used the "conclusive evidence to overturn the call on the field" standard then I think it could fix a lot of the egregious ones, where a guy trips over his own feet and still winds up with a PI called on the defense & stuff like that. Unfortunately, with how the "catch" rule has gone on replays this year, I'm less confident in my belief that this would work than I was last year.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Jan 13, 2018 -> 08:28 PM) Pirates really are a disaster. Shouldn’t have picked a clear direction a few years ago instead of playing the middle. The Pirates have been pretty darn snakebit the last 2 seasons. They started as a 98 win team in 2015 looking like they could compete with the Cubs and Cardinals, and take a look at what happened. In 2016, McCutchen went from being an MVP caliber player to a scrub and Cole went from being a Cy Young contender to an injured scrub. Your top hitter and top pitcher fall apart and it's pretty hard for any team to keep up. On top of that, Liriano fell apart - maybe you could have seen that one coming, but the dude had an ERA of 3.26 over a 3 season stretch with Pittsburgh from 2013-2015, then suddenly dropped a 5.46 ERA on them. Yeah he's been inconsistent over his career, but he was legit for 3 straight years. In 2017, McCutchen went back to having a good but not All-Star worthy year after a weak start, but Starling Marte got his butt suspended for steroids, Jung-Ho Kang got himself a DUI in Korea that wound up making him lose his visa/miss the entire season, Cole was an average pitcher at best, and they had a couple more disappointments in guys like Meadows. Maybe you could see a couple of those coming, some of the injuries do happen, but an MVP turning into a weak hitter overnight? A guy losing his visa over a DUI arrest? Marte's suspension? If you're expecting that kinda stuff to happen to your franchise then you might as well never try.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 15, 2018 -> 01:50 PM) For my two cents, it is about accumulating assets at this point. You don't want to block your "guys" but at the same time if you can find a way to create more depth and quality in the minors, you have to explore that road. For example, if we took on a good chunk of Ellsbury's salary, and the Yankees were willing to send us a guy like Andujar, we should be willing to do it. If you can get a high value asset sure, that's a reasonable move, but what's more likely to turn into an asset for us - paying out money for Nunez for 1-2 years, or playing a guy like Sanchez who was a better performer last year than Nunez was and who was a better performer than Nunez was at the same age?

I would find it disappointing if Niko was moved without a late first round quality return right now. He could be a difference maker to a team that is in the 1-5 range in the playoff seeding. Those guys should be sitting there with late round picks available, and even though the Warriors look tough, it doesn't look like the same sort of "It's the Warriors and the Cavs and no one else matters" setup that we saw the last 2 years, where teams 3-5 couldn't convince themselves they had any chance.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jan 15, 2018 -> 12:46 PM) Definitely like Nunez much better on a one-year deal. Let the kids try to take the job from him. I'd rather play Sanchez, Anderson, and Moncada from day 1 and see if they can hold onto the jobs.