Balta1701

QUOTE (Baron @ Dec 5, 2015 -> 05:26 PM) It'll be interesting to see where his location is next season. Something interesting about him - 3 of the past 4 seasons he's been worth exactly 2.7 fWAR. Only season he was worth any other number was 2014. If you just look at that, you think that's about what he might produce. But, in each of those same 4 seasons, Baseball-Reference's WAR has shown him underproducing fWAR by somewhere between 1 and 2.5 WAR. In other words, it's like UZR always blames the defense behind him and says he's doing fine, while DRS says he's doing much worse and blames him for the runs he gives up. But, outside of his time in Oakland, that's always been spent in parks you might call "Hitters parks", at least under the right wind conditions.

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Dec 5, 2015 -> 04:59 PM) Agreed. Since when does a change of scenery to the White Sox ever work. F*** that, I wouldn't care if we had the best change of scenery record in the league, he's useless and basically valueless right now. Per agreement last season the commish has a right to suspend a guy with no limit for domestic violence incidents. At least let the investigation finish first, at this rate another incident and he could be suspended for a season. And that's on top of the joy of "acquiring guys with domestic violence incidents" in their background.

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Dec 5, 2015 -> 04:53 PM) An organization named the White Sox didn't agree with you in the last off season. The Sox like to throw money at veteran NL talent that can't play in the AL. The way they've got to look at it is...in the first 1-2 years can he put them over the top? If you're playing the FA market that's the only plausible way you can look at a contract, you have to be willing to be stuck with 2-3 bad years in exchange for 1-2 contributing years. If you don't have a roster that is 1 player away, then stop playing the FA market because you're going to lose. Are they 1 player away? They won it in 2014, so it at least makes sense that they could think that.

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Dec 5, 2015 -> 02:37 PM) Any idea on what can be available at that time? Sox really need to hit on those picks and hopefully they are hitters. Last hitter they've developed internally has been who? Carlos Lee?? Just remember though, on a normal schedule it'll be 2-4 years before any of those picks other than the top 10 will be pushing the big leagues and maybe 5 years before they're really turning into anything useful...unless your goal is to trade them.

QUOTE (Baron @ Dec 5, 2015 -> 02:26 PM) That and you had some bad signs from him like SO/9 going down and hits+HRs going up. Playing in SF will help a whole lot if he can't get his K-rate back up because he'll give up hits but they won't leave the park.

You guys are still talking about Puig as a player worth acquiring a week after a domestic violence incident???

QUOTE (flavum @ Dec 5, 2015 -> 01:52 PM) For them, gambling on his durability, relative lack of miles on his arm, and some good years in 2013 and 2014, is worth it. They'll probably get 1000 innings and three good years...and that's enough for a team like the Giants. I get the logic, I think you're overestimating what he will do if you count the ballpark effect, but the only thing I can get from it again is that anyone who tries to build a team with FAs as a key component is out of their mind.

Genuinely amazed anyone would want him let alone for this money. He got more after that season than was on the table beforehand. Good luck with this deal SF. I guess you've done that before with Zito.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Dec 5, 2015 -> 11:50 AM) One of those times was purely due to Robin's idiocy. He left him out there for 127 pitches in early April of 2014. He was basically asking for Sale to be sore/injured the next day. "A guy can't handle the workload you want him to handle" is the kind of thing that at least makes him seem like an elevated injury risk. You can even throw the White Sox begging for him to get extra rest at the 2015 AS break and then having a terrible month afterwards into that pot.

QUOTE (ChiSoxFanMike @ Dec 5, 2015 -> 11:46 AM) I hate seeing the comments that say the Sox should trade Sale because of his "injury concerns". How is he that different from any other pitcher? Yeah, he has a funky motion, but he's so tall and lanky that I don't think it's as bad for his elbow/arm/shoulder as people make it out to be. People have said that he's a TJ surgery waiting to happen since the day he was drafted, and nothing significant has happened to him yet. Knock on wood that nothing ever does. Well, he has complained of arm and elbow soreness at least 2 times during his career, during one of those stints he wound up on the DL for over a month/having an MRI due to elbow soreness in 2014. That's something we haven't said about any of the other guys on our roster any time in recent years.

QUOTE (TheFutureIsNear @ Dec 4, 2015 -> 08:37 PM) I just thought the d backs lined up as the best fit of a realistic trade. Would have loved some sort of package involving at least 3 of Inciarte, Peralta, Lamb, Drury, Peter O'Brein, Randall Delgado. Maybe it's not dead, who knows. Losing out on their #2 guy and seeing him in the same division might be the kind of thing that makes the Dodgers desperate enough to open up the vault for one of our guys?

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Dec 5, 2015 -> 11:42 AM) Yeah I like seeing the money go around and different teams spending. Wonder who the first player we spend like that will be on. We spent $50 million in new money last offseason.

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Dec 4, 2015 -> 06:43 PM) I mean Steamer projects Lackey at 2.6 WAR next year, if he hits that it's not a bad signing at all. I thought the money would be more in the $12-13M per year though. Recalibrate all your free agent estimates up by 25%? The Price contract is consistent with that. The Happ contract is even more than that.

QUOTE (Baron @ Dec 4, 2015 -> 06:18 PM) Thanks. Good deal. I dont see why they shouldnt just try and load up a few of those free agents at this point. Probably should bring Fowler back. FWIW, this deal puts the Cubs close to $140m in commits next year. The highest opening day payroll they've had on record was $146m, back in 2010. With the stadium renovations/extra advertising and a big boost in shared revenues since then, plus a packed ballpark and some ticket price gradual increases, they probably still have substantial room to add next year.

QUOTE (Baron @ Dec 4, 2015 -> 06:03 PM) He's the opposing teams favorite catcher. He's just awful at this stage. I think this is a decent signing even with the draft pick although that does dull it down a bit. So basically what we should probably want is Shark not to sign there right? Because we'll get their second round pick now. That's not how it works any more. The Cubs would lose their 2nd round pick but the White Sox would still be in the compensatory round between 1 and 2. This deal could well make more sense if it's not the only QO'd FA they sign, where they're losing a couple picks and saying heck with it.

Seemed like basically everyone had the parameters of a Samardzija deal down last year early enough for me to spend a couple days saying how terrible of an idea that deal was before it happened.

Pedro Alvarez literally cannot play 3b any more. See here for full.

QUOTE (spiderman @ Dec 3, 2015 -> 10:17 AM) How does Alvarez grade out defensively at 3B? QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Dec 3, 2015 -> 10:41 AM) Take Conor Gillaspie and go 2 or 3 levels below. QUOTE (BlackSox13 @ Dec 3, 2015 -> 10:43 AM) Horrible, deplorable, s***ty and over all skid-mark tainted underwear. He's pretty bad. His dWAR last season was -2.3. See for yourself. http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/a/alvarpe01.shtml Alvarez would have Sox fans missing Gillaspie in no time. it's actually worse than that. During his last season at 3b in 2014, Alvarez developed a case of the "yips". Every time he got an easy ground ball where he had time to think about the throw, he airmailed the throw 20 feet to the right of 1b. A fast play where he didn't have time to think he could still handle, but every easy play went into the stands for about a month before they gave up and stopped playing him there. It's not even a matter of him being bad any more, it's Chuck Knoblauch/Steve Sax syndrome. You literally cannot put him at 3b any more. He will not just be bad, he will lose you every game where there is a ground ball right to him.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 3, 2015 -> 09:02 AM) I dont see how Crean survives this season. There were board members at the game with their heads in between their hands during that game. IU trustees, fans etc view the program as close to if not equal to Duke, UNC etc and its pretty clear Crean isnt going to get them there. http://www.tomcreanbuyout.com

QUOTE (shipps @ Dec 2, 2015 -> 06:07 PM) What is the speculation on the motivation of this one? Its not ISIS or anything right? Right now the speculation seems to be that one of them was an ex employee there or somehow knew some of the people there.

When the first $100 million contract for a pitcher was signed, for Kevin Brown, baseball's total revenues were about $3 billion. Today they're $9 billion. The fraction of money going to players is actually going down. If the fraction of money going to players had remained constant, the top pitching contract would be worth something like $45 million per year. Owners are doing fine even without a salary cap.

QUOTE (Saufley @ Dec 1, 2015 -> 07:37 PM) If their trade value will sky rocket, why not trade Q? See what teams are willing to overpay for him in a deal. I believe this would be the time to sell high. Because the end result could be be "The White Sox can't get fair value in a trade from moving Quintana because teams are willing to risk money on players, but they're not willing to give up multiple of their own players for a guy for the same reason we're not willing to move Q".

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Dec 1, 2015 -> 07:03 PM) The Sox have to open the pocket book and sign Heyward. Our pitching is cheap for the rest of the decade. Spend some dough on some premium bats. Heyward is the least risky FA signing one can get just based on his age. Gotta spend some dough and compete or Abreu is gonna opt out and walk. It's not like we're in a thread about a case clearly showing as obvious as could be how terrible of a deal you're getting for top level FAs any more.

Genuinely surprised he didn't go to the Cubs.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 29, 2015 -> 05:50 PM) One of the years you are using against him was also a contract year. Given that my question was "how can we be certain that his 2015 will be more representative of his future performance than his 2013-2014 years" and that was your reply, I interpret this as you asserting certainty that his next 3 years will be well represented by his 2015 performance. Is that fair?