Balta1701

QUOTE (LDF @ Dec 26, 2015 -> 09:31 AM) Pitt needed a another sp, 1b they will also move both walker and marte b/c their prospects are ready to step in. Pitt signed John Jaso earlier this week and emphatically declared he was the LH hitting side of their 1b platoon with Morse. I seriously doubt they're looking for a 1b unless you give them a bargain.

I am SO not used to cheering for Alex Rodriguez in this stadium.

QUOTE (shipps @ Dec 23, 2015 -> 12:07 PM) I dont know. Under the Thibs years I would have agreed with you every time but this year is different. It actually feels like it is on the verge of being an absolute full out disaster where they may be under .500. Not only is it the losses that they are taking but they look totally confused. They all have their own agendas out there on the court. Rose thinks he is someone he is not. Butler actually thinks he is the superstar which he is not. They dont play together. They dont play for each other. They dont buy into the new coach. They arent a happy team. They are all looking to the future when they are not a part of the Bulls other than Jimmy. Hoiberg is in over his head. This is a bad situation that I unfortunately only see it getting worse. This is Trestman 2.0 NBA version. The other part of this to not ignore though is...with Butler under contract and the young guys the Bulls do have, plus the general weakness in the East that will keep them in the playoffs yearly, they're going to be able to convince themselves that they're only 1 piece away and that they don't need to do a major overhaul. They might not be wrong either, but then they'll just keep trying to acquire that "one last piece" and whiffing on it or having it not be enough. (Which does sound vaguely familiar).

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Dec 23, 2015 -> 11:49 AM) I know they said no once, but once the Pirates sign a mid-tier pitcher (linked to Kazmir earlier in offseason and have moved some money around since), maybe offer them the same deal again just in case they decide they have a little extra room for a defensive first first baseman who can hit in the 6 or 7 spot in that lineup. They're still not picking up money unless you include a prospect or player worth that money. If you want the Pirates to pick up $5 million you have to give the Pirates a player worth $5 million.

QUOTE (DBAHO @ Dec 23, 2015 -> 10:03 AM) Wondering if he'd waive that though to move to a contender if the Bulls are around the .500 mark come February. IMO the best sign he might waive that is that it took him what, 2 weeks of the season to complain about not getting the ball enough? He's playing for his last contract in the season right before the cap explodes. If someone wants to get him the ball more, he'll go.

QUOTE (SouthSideSale @ Dec 23, 2015 -> 09:27 AM) The royals have to play poor. They have guys coming up. Hosmer, Perez, Cain, etc. They could alternatively say "We can't sign all these guys so we may as well try to win it one more year next year".

QUOTE (bear_brian @ Dec 23, 2015 -> 09:28 AM) In Gordon's career he has an OPS of .653 and a career BA of .226 hitting 4th. He is not a cleanup hitter. Sometimes the feeling that you HAVE to have a balanced lineup just does not work. I will again go back to the 2005 Sox, where the majority of that lineup was RH. Unless we trade for CarGo (doubtful), I think Cespedes is the best alternative, since he can play RF and has legitimate power. That does leave Melky in LF (not good) but moves Avi out. I believe they also will keep LaRoche and hope for a bounceback - there is your LH bat. Didn't the 2005 white sox bat Carl Everett 3rd most of the season to break up their righties in the upper part of the order?

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Dec 22, 2015 -> 03:48 PM) What is the status of Noah? Does he need surgery or is it a week to week thing? I got sad last night wondering whether I saw his last game with the Bulls (as I know sometimes dislocated shoulders can be season ending). Last i saw was a shoulder sprain and will be evaluated again in 2 weeks.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Dec 22, 2015 -> 10:50 AM) I feel like it'd have to be 4 or 5 in a row. If we'd done 2 in 3 years, starting in say...2010...perhaps. Now? The Cubs actually have a good team.

QUOTE (spiderman @ Dec 22, 2015 -> 10:20 AM) Cardinals rotation remains strong with this move. 1) Adam Wainwright 2) Carlos Martinez 3) Michael Wacha 4) Mike Leake 5) Jaime Garcia With Wainwight missing almost all of last season, they have added 1 elite starter and another dependable starting pitcher. Their offense still leaves a to be desired, but that was probably the case with Heyward as well. I'm sure they aren't done adding to the offense. As optimistic as Cub fans should be (and they do look very good on paper), this is still a top heavy division that may take 95 wins+ to win. St. Louis is formidable with that rotation alone and the Pirates are still around as well. This will be a fun division next season again. There's a real decent chance the Pirates take a step back next season and look towards 2017 when Bell and a couple of their pitchers arrive, so that could leave it more of a 2 team race. The Pirates are just sorta "plugging holes" right now and I guess that could work, but you can see them looking to be absolutely loaded for 2017-2018 after bringing up those 3 in the 2nd half of this year. The Q for them right now is whether they'll move to trade Melancon this offseason. IMO there's a good chance they will, but we'll see.

ESPN's Zach Lowe has a big piece up today on the Bulls dysfunction, including direct quotes even from Forman, in addition to on the record stuff from a number of players. Counts as a must read. Small Excerpt. Go read the rest.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Dec 20, 2015 -> 03:38 PM) So four players prove your point I didn't give the list of 4 players, I just actually looked at the 4 that were given as supposed evidence that there isn't a big Coors effect. I even noted why some of them could easily be "exceptions". I literally don't know how I can give a more fair summary of the numbers for those 4 players.

QUOTE (bmags @ Dec 20, 2015 -> 12:32 PM) I honestly don't care about home road splits. In our best example, with coors, we always hear about the coors effect. While there is number inflation, has anyone been overvalued by coors? Holliday had a great career from coors, Tulo was great, cuddyer, fowler... It's thrown around like this huge insight, but it seems pretty meaningless. Ok I can't resist, I have to look at your list. The 3 years before he played in Colorado, Cuddyer had a .805 OPS. In Colorado, .886 over 3 years. Last year, .699 and now he's retired. Were his numbers last year because he wasn't in Coors any more or did he finally get old? Fowler's career OPS in Colorado was 30 points higher than what he put up this year in Wrigley and that's counting his rookie time. Is he just past his peak now that he's 29+ or is that still part of the Coors effect? The Blue Jays looked great with Tulo in their lineup but he was terrible in Toronto. In August he put up a .665 OPS, in September .640 before he hit the Disabled list. Maybe you can make a case that's all injury and he'll pick it up this year, but Tulo was anything but "Great" in Toronto. Holliday is the one guy who almost put up Colorado numbers his first year in STL, but he also fell off dramatically his first year after leaving Coors before STL picked him up. You can make a strong case to me that he needed a full year to adapt to "not being a Coors field hitter" before his numbers recovered. The names on your list should worry anyone who acquires one of those OFs. Every one of them you can make some exception, "Age, Injury, etc.", but every name on your list performed worse outside of Coors than in Coors, especially in their first year elsewhere.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 20, 2015 -> 12:04 PM) It was Thibs time to go, but I sure as hell am not seeing what GarPax saw in Hoiberg.Because JR-owned franchises believe this statement is 100% incorrect. You're supposed to play favorites, up and down the list.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Dec 16, 2015 -> 03:31 PM) The only prospects of any consequence in either deal were Bassitt and Montas. Both of those are/worth the risks as at the time they were not in the top 2 pitching prospects in the system. This right here is what drives me nuts about these deals. "We gave up so little in this deal. All we gave up is a backup, RH hitting catcher, a right handed hitting infielder who needs work, and a right handed reliever". Then what do the White Sox need to sign the next season? A right handed hitting catcher, they trade for an infielder, and they're relying on a guy you have to worry about a little bit in their rotation as their only righty. "But oh, the White Sox had soured on those guys" you say, well boo-hoo. The White Sox can't work with people, only other organizations can do that? It's like reading that thread all over again. All we gave up is a reliever, the 2b we gave up was someone we had soured on, and the other guy was a platoon hitter. Good thing we won't have any need of those next year, just like we didn't need a catcher or an infielder this year.

QUOTE (LDF @ Dec 16, 2015 -> 03:04 PM) and you make a great point. but since i been using the pirates, 1. they the pirates need a stop gap at 1 b for one yr, until their prize prospect is ready to step in. 2. laroche will solidify the 1b position that has been lacking a good defensive 1b for yrs, 3. he still hit 12 hrs with the sox and if anything, will prob put up better numbers without that b/s stress on him. this can go with balt and the brewers excuse as well. but this is me and my opinion. The Pirates aren't going to take on $12 million, or even $5 million, unless you give them a really good reason to do so. None of the guys listed in this thread (Avi, Beck, Putnam, Webb) are even a decent reason. Basically, ask yourself, would you pay $5 million for any of those guys if LaRoche started off next season like he finished last season and was cut by the end of May? If you want the Pirates to take on a guy who was worthless last year and take money on in the process, you have to give them something worth that money. If you want them to take on $5 million, you have to give them a prospect they'd pay $5 million for. If you want them to take on $12 million, you have to give them a prospect they'd pay $12 million for.

QUOTE (Knackattack @ Dec 16, 2015 -> 02:55 PM) Adrian Beltre is one of the best defensive 3rd basemen in recent history and by far the best in the Majors. Longoria was a revelation and an incredibly elite player, offensively and defensively at 3rd. Either of these guys in their prime would have cost Rodon, Fulmer, Anderson and the rest of the farm. We acquired an above average offensive player at a position where that is a scarcity and the fact is that he is an above average defender there and we got him for a bunch of potential but zero certainty in the 3 players we lost. 4 months of Bryant UZR isn't enough to justify comparing Frazier to him since we all know the defensive metrics (that you used as well, Balta) take a few years of accumulated data to be held as reliable, and when that fact is brought up your counterarguement was that it has to be guys that are consitent for 4 years... I respect your views and your posts, but wouldn't you want a guy that has consistently posted UZR stats of the 5-9 range for the past 4 years? Sanchez put up a 4.4 and this whole board was claiming he was an elite defensive 2b... The "defense" point isn't a "wouldn't want him", argument, it's just "is he going to be as good as the language people are using would suggest". Some of that is also me wondering whether I understand the defensive stats enough, because Bryant being right next to Frazier seems to make no sense to me if Bryant is a guy who should be moved away from 3b and Frazier is "Well above average". The "wouldn't want him" part comes from me continuing to think this team is no where near as good as they want to believe they are.

QUOTE (steveno89 @ Dec 16, 2015 -> 02:44 PM) Markakis defense concerns me, as he has graded out poorly and won't likely get better with age. Also what would we have to give up to get him? I don't want to raid our minor league system too much more after the Frazier deal. I am glad that we managed to keep Fulmer and Adams as I don't feel as strongly about Montas as I do about those two With the Braves selling off everything and Markakis signed for 2 years at >$10m per year, I can't imagine he'll cost a ton unless you want money from them.

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Dec 16, 2015 -> 02:44 PM) And why shouldn't we use the larger sample size? Even if you just go by 2015 he was 7th. Bryant was 8th so it's not like UZR dislikes his defense. No, he was 7th if you switch to the total UZR which is the counting stat. IF you do UZR/150 he was 48th with Bryant as 50th. But of course, in that case you've made the opposite error - including guys like Saladino who played there a month or less. Basically, if you count his defense as "Well above average" you wind up describing Bryant with the same word based on those numbers and that confuses me.

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Dec 16, 2015 -> 02:39 PM) http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=...0&sort=24,d Last 4 years Frazier's UZR/150 is 4th among all 3B, behind Arenado, Donaldson, and Machado. By DRS he's 6th. Whether he want to call that well above average is semantics, but regardless it's a pretty big upgrade from what we had (except for Saladino's superhuman DRS numbers at 3B this year). Well yeah, of course if you filter to "last 4 years", but that's because you've now limited it to "guys who have been consistent over 4 years".

Another OF idea: Nick Markakis? Braves clearly willing to move players, name we've been rumored with in the past.

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Dec 16, 2015 -> 02:33 PM) Please elaborate. A few weeks ago, the Mariners were making "Win now" moves and people said "what on Earth are they doing"? The Tigers made their "win now moves" and people shrugged because they don't have the team or organization around them to support winning with those guys. I put us in exactly that same boat, continuing to sacrifice the long term on bets that "This team is ready to win right now", which to me, is exactly how we've gotten the last 5+ seasons.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Dec 16, 2015 -> 02:28 PM) 3B was a pretty big issue as well. I am Trayce's biggest fan and absolutely think he has a place on a major league team. That said, I'd bet against his initial hot start being the norm and bet more on him being a slightly average to below average bat and an above average defender. All good things but to get a 3B who is well above average at both is huge. Who knows, maybe Trayce is really a poor man Heyward in the analytic world though and his defense will be so good that pedestrian offensive numbers are just fine. I'm not sure if I'm just reading this wrong, but Frazier doesn't come through as "well above average" defensively in UZR. Normalized to playing 150 games, UZR/150, he put up a 7.5. Kris Bryant, who people keep wanting to move off of 3b, put up a 5.4. The "Well above average" people, like Beltre, Longoria, etc., all put up >10.

My reaction is: fair price for the player returned, totally the wrong type of move for this franchise.

QUOTE (fathom @ Dec 16, 2015 -> 02:21 PM) And after the upcoming draft, we will have three prospects that should be top 15 off the bat. Assuming we don't sign anyone.