Balta1701

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Jul 12, 2016 -> 04:06 PM) Bernie should have gone independent. He's a sell out for backing a corporate/Wall Street puppet like Hillary, the exact type of politician/Washington insider he was campaigning against. Especially in an election like this, where the threat of Trump actually winning is incredibly low. Hillary doesn't need his support and he didn't need to give it to her. But the potential results of him winning are so unbelievably terrible that even that hopefully low chance is something that decent human beings should be terrified of. A decent human being would be doing everything in their power to stamp out this disease before it infects the entire country.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 12, 2016 -> 03:10 PM) While I don't see them selling, I also don't see any of the top prospects going anywhere either. Maybe a guy like Adams or Danish if they have given up on them, but Fulmer isn't going anywhere the way I read the cards. They are prepping him for the team right now. That's exactly what I expect them to do also...and the end result of that is the path to hoping next year turns out better (maybe a new coach will do it!) and if not, a major risk of being trapped at or below this level for several more years as the current pieces start departing.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 12, 2016 -> 02:55 PM) I don't really see the difference between selling in July and selling in the winter in terms of what the final result in 2019 will look like. I can accept that, and in fact I could see you getting higher prices in the offseason for the 2 big pitchers given that competitive teams will be unlikely to move their big league players right now. However, I for one don't think that there's any chance this team sells at either of those points, and if that surmise is the case, then given the high price you've outlined for getting better next offseason and the fact that they've already gotten to the midway point of the season above .500 - that logic presents a strong case for trading Fulmer, Adams, and perhaps Rodon right now for guys who are ready to push them into the playoffs this year.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 12, 2016 -> 02:33 PM) At absolute worst, you are heading into the off-season of the worst free agent market is modern history with a ton of various tradeable assets. If the Sox so desired, they could sell into the biggest dearth of talent we have seen probably since before the reserve clause was ended. They could do everything from selling short term assets, such as Lawrie, Frazier, Cabrera, to the middle term guys with a couple of years left, to the cream of the crop in guys like Sale and Q. If they really do flop this year, and they finally decide to throw in the towel, there will be lots of teams looking for players that the Sox can sell to. There really isn't a big rush to do it RIGHT NOW when they can wait a few months for the off season and have all of baseball to sell to. If you really are going to sell, it would be pretty silly to sell into a market with only a certain number of teams bidding. Turn around and consider the other side of that - that also means that it will be extremely difficult for this team to find assets to get better in 2017 for exactly the same reason. The price for even trade assets to improve the team next offseason will be high, let alone paying for free agents. There may not be a big rush to sell "right now", but if they want to put a playoff contending team on the field prior to 2019, there is a rush to do that right now. If they do only minor moves (bullpen) and that proves insufficient to getting them out of the bunch of average teams, then they may well be forced into the scenario you just outlined.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 12, 2016 -> 01:57 PM) I don't buy that for a second. I have heard that same argument for years now, and we have kept finding lower to go to. That summarizes the Hahn regime quite well.... Anyway jokes aside...the organization has 3 contributors who hit free agency at the end of 2017. At the same time, the price of several other guys is creeping upwards, and then Eaton hits FA at the end of 2018. Like it or not, there is a literal clock on this roster - just to tread water, to stay where they are right now, will cost an extra $20 million+ at the end of 2017 and another $15 million+ at the end of 2018. And that's with players getting older too. At some point before July of 2017, one of four things is going to happen. Either they're going to finally get extremely lucky and have everything work perfectly, they're going to have to majorly sell off a number of players to just get something for them, they're going to have to sell everything in their organization's upper levels even guys they don't want to move to try to put a competitor on the field, or they're going to have to be content with guys walking away for nothing. They're an above .500 team right now but they are 4.5 games out of the wild card, and in the middle of a pack of 5 teams all within 1 loss column game of each other, all of whom are behind 3 other teams for those 2 slots. They could sit back and hope things go well in the 2nd half and maybe they're the team that gets lucky, but with that many opponents in the way the odds are low. They could sit back and hope things go well next year, but that's risky too - one bad luck injury could derail the franchise. You're over .500 right now and you've got tradeable assets in Fulmer, Adams, and Rodon. Standing pat right now and hoping things work watches time tick on the clock you gave. If you're worried about that clock and you look at the other things that will happen to this franchise, and you're unwilling to sell guys, the other option is to make your move right now and try to turn it around, a-la the Blue Jays last year. Doing nothing doesn't cost you anything this year, but it also eats away your time and is a high risk move itself. If you're worried about them "continuing to find lower to go", then sitting there and doing nothing big is a great path to that end result.

One thing not addressed - why didn't the White Sox believe in a guy. Why weren't they willing to coach him into a decent player when another team was?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 12, 2016 -> 01:43 PM) Sounds like a team that is primed for a rebuild. Well, I could make the argument that there's literally no further for them to fall. But instead I'll go with: at the very least the current path of 3rd-5th place finishes in the division is by far the most unacceptable. If you're going to bring up the 2019 contract as a worry - they're in disastrous shape with that on the current path. They literally could not be behind any other teams.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 11, 2016 -> 05:37 PM) The big problem is that their TV contract is up in 2019. Are you willing to risk a rebuild being at a place in 3 years, well two really because 2016 is pretty much a sunk cost, to where their is fan interest enough for getting them the best possible TV deal? Two years from now is probably going to be the bottom point of the rebuild. Here's the potentially bigger problem. This is a statement on MLB ratings from Forbes last July - I don't have numbers for this year, but in the middle of 2015 they had spent 1.5 consecutive years as the lowest rated team in MLB in prime time games.

QUOTE (Deadpool @ Jul 12, 2016 -> 10:36 AM) The concern is that Frazier is going to ask for a lot of money in arbitration, right? Somewhat understandable as power numbers are sexy, but he doesn't really hit for average. He leads the league in popups and is getting killed by the shift this year. I wouldn't want the Sox to sell on him yet, but I get that the home runs tend to hide a good-not-great player. Just a general estimate based on last year - Arolids Chapman went into Arbitration with a salary of $8 million and 1 year away from free agency, wound up at $11.325 million this year. I think that's probably, plus or minus a million dollars, the range Frazier probably would look at.

Note that what isn't taken into account is how often each race is stopped in the first place.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jul 11, 2016 -> 02:34 PM) Big difference from last year's team: at the break last year, the Sox position players had a cumulative -3.1 WAR, by far the worst in the league. We also had a team 76 wRC+, worst in the league and by far worst in the AL. This year we're 26th in position player WAR, so it isn't as if we're setting the world on fire, but the bats are not so far from league average and the kind of leap necessary to push us into the playoffs isn't nearly as far-fetched. If Morneau is a 110 wRC+ bat at DH and Abreu returns to 2015 form (not an amazing year by any stretch) while everything else more or less holds steady, you're not far off right there. Have a couple things break our way and we're not unworthy. Worth noting - they've improved from a -3.1 to a 4.9 position player fWAR, but they've declined from a 12.9 to a 10.0 pitching fWAR from first half of 2015 to 2016 as well.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 11, 2016 -> 05:55 PM) My guess would be very few, if any, have done it consistently over more than a period of say five years or more. With mid-markets, the payroll forces a break up, which it about impossible to recover from without the resources of a large market team. So while a team like the 90's Indians can come along once in a while, the shelf-life is limited. The other one I can think of the Braves playoff run. Other than that, probably no one has done this, no matter what stipulations you put on it. What do we consider the Rangers and the Giants? Going back to 2010 the Rangers payroll was the bottom of the league, the Giants was top 10 but behind the White Sox. What do we consider the Cardinals?

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ Jul 10, 2016 -> 08:06 PM) The Sox aren't in the middle of anything. They are on the outer bounds periphery of the race for the second wild card playoff spot. 4 1/2 games behind four teams currently constructed better than the Sox, and tied with the defending World Series champions competing for that same spot. Better Hahn & Co. be thinking about converting Quintana into the likes of a Yoan Mancada or Jurickson Profar while they can. So, sometime before the end of the 2020 season?

is this the same jim johnson who used to close for the orioles?

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Jul 10, 2016 -> 04:06 PM) Can't ask for much more from a rookie he has been fun too watch. He's been disappointing when compared to Josh Bell!

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Jul 10, 2016 -> 02:08 PM) Keith Law bummed he doesn't get to TP Yost's house He could do it anyway...

That was genuinely a fun game to be at last night. The crowd loved beating up Arrieta.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jul 7, 2016 -> 05:49 PM) But they could sign durant and then re-sign everyone, right? Depends on the "Cap holds" - they would need to be able to fit all of the cap holds and Durant's full contract under the cap. Calculating all of those is more math than I have time to do right now, but a quick check and I think Curry's is $18 mil. Iguodala is slightly less but close - if a guy makes more than the NBA average salary the cap hold is 150% of their last year's salary.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jul 7, 2016 -> 05:35 PM) Do they have to give them up? I presumed they would have bird rights, so they could just resign everyone and pay absurd luxury tax. Am I mistaken? (referring to the Warriors). I don't think they get full Bird rights on Durant - player has to be there for 3 years.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jul 7, 2016 -> 04:19 PM) I think he also had some injury issues that contributed to that in Oakland QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 7, 2016 -> 04:22 PM) Oakland is also about the worst hitters park in baseball, so that isn't exactly a big shock. The spacious foul territory creates a lot of extra outs. A quick double check shows that his OPS+ (Ballpark adjusted) fell from 140 to 120 upon moving to Oakland, so there was still a notable dropoff. Cargo this year is putting up a 124 OPS+, 114 OPS+ last season. If he were to see a 20 point drop in OPS+ upon moving to Chicago, that would put him right around what Jose Abreu has produced this year. Also worth considering - CarGo's overall production is much more slugging heavy than Holliday's was. When Holliday moved to Oakland, his OBP fell by 0.02, his Slugging fell by 0.09. That could put Gonzalez at risk for a bigger dropoff in total performance than Holliday. Injuries certainly could have played a part in that as well...but that's where it becomes hard to figure this picture out. Holliday is about the only guy with a seemingly strong career after leaving Coors, but there's reason to look at his numbers and expect that just about anyone is going to experience some dropoff. How much of a dropoff and how rapidly could they adapt to hitting well elsewhere are the hard questions. If Holliday is the ideal situation, he still suffered a dropoff for several months and that'd be troublesome in a pennant race. If I had to guess, I don't think (if healthy) he's a .750 OPS player outside of Coors, but I also don't think he would hold up an .850 OPS, at least not at first. Maybe given time to adapt to a new ballpark he could get above there, but I think you have to expect some significant ballpark effect on him.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 7, 2016 -> 05:09 PM) Latest speculation was Bruce to the Nationals, fwiw...so that's one Cargo suitor off the list, if it does in fact take place. Way too early to be "taking teams off the list" based on speculation.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jul 7, 2016 -> 03:00 PM) I always get torn about his home/road splits. I've read breakdowns about how it can take a couple games to adjust from Coors Field to a regular elevation, so there is an even larger difference in their home/away splits. Matt Holliday was fine outside of Coors. Corey Dickerson...not so much Worth pointing out about Holliday, he was fine...but it also took him more than 1/2 a season and being traded back to the NL to be fine. His OPS dropped more than 100 points from his previous season upon going to Oakland, then he recovered to the hitter he was once he was traded back to the NL.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jul 7, 2016 -> 02:47 PM) I don't think anything I said shows a failure to recognize that whatsoever. Obviously, the high violent crime rate in Chicago occurs in very few places. I'm well aware of this...I think most people are well aware of this. Telling a non-white person to leave the country because they don't experience the same environment you do.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jul 7, 2016 -> 02:34 PM) No, that's NOT a fact. I posted data to prove this wrong, stop repeating it now. This isn't an opinion of yours. And it's a great illustration of white privilege, because it's a complete failure to recognize that non-whites are effectively living in a different country within our borders.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Jul 7, 2016 -> 01:44 PM) Can someone explain to me why a Chris Paul or the like would want to come here next year? We don't seem to attract any top level free agents. They're a lot more negative than the ChisoxFN version, but there's plenty to like either way in this article and they go specifically after that point - whether or not this signing and the surrounding setup could be the opening move in changing that pattern.