Balta1701

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Sep 18, 2015 -> 06:33 PM) Sabermetrically he is a 2.3 WAR. At $7 million a WAR, which I think is conservative, that is worth $16.1 million. Note - in Fangraphs, he's worth 2.3 fWAR (and that number has gone down recently from >3 earlier in the year), in Baseball-reference rWAR he's worth -0.5 fWAR, so at $7 million per WAR he owes us $3.5 million for this season. The Sox have a huge difference between their fWAR and rWAR numbers from their pitching staff this year, the biggest in baseball 2 weeks ago when I looked.. I think the difference is reflecting how good of a job they do respectively of turning hit balls into outs - fangraphs is giving too much credit to the pitcher and placing too much blame on the defense, while B-R is giving too much credit to the defense and placing too much blame on the pitcher. Probably "poor defensive positioning" plays into it somewhat too. But beyond all that, "throwing balls that are just really easy to hit" is playing into it too, and if you believe "Jeff Samardzija is throwing a lot of baseballs that are unusually easy to hit", then you believe he's worth closer to the Baseball Reference number. Fangraphs has also always bothered me a little because I think they overvalue "innings" rather than performance during those innings from starters, that's probably another ingredient.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 18, 2015 -> 03:53 PM) Can you give a reference on the QO being nonguaranteed? Because the CBA seems to me to say the opposite. Clause 7(b)2 which allows for outs states: Article IX seciton C states: As far as the text of the CBA, unless I'm missing something, the CBA says that you can be terminated in-season but that it costs your full salary to do it. There is zero language stating anything different happens prior to the start of the championship season in the clauses I can find, can you point me tot he right one? Ah, I think I've got it. They hid a clause related to 7(b)2 earlier in Article 9: If terminated by March 15th it'd cost $3.5 million, you're right.

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Sep 18, 2015 -> 03:36 PM) He can def do better than (or at least the very same) as Ervin Santana's deal. 4 years/$55 mill is better than 1/17. He's going to reject the QO. Don't forget that coming off his 2013 season where he had pitched 200 innings for the Royals he received a qualifying offer, turned it down, and wound up signing a 1/$14 mil deal with the Braves.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Sep 18, 2015 -> 03:34 PM) Or the White Sox can cut him in Spring Training, pay him $3.5 million and he could play for peanuts in 2016. Also, if he takes his $16 million and flops, that 4 year $50 million looks really good. Heyman's guys, as well as Olney's guys have said Shark will do much better than that. He will get a QO and reject it. It's , to borrow another poster's line, 99.9999% assured. Can you give a reference on the QO being nonguaranteed? Because the CBA seems to me to say the opposite. Clause 7(b)2 which allows for outs states: Article IX seciton C states: As far as the text of the CBA, unless I'm missing something, the CBA says that you can be terminated in-season but that it costs your full salary to do it. There is zero language stating anything different happens prior to the start of the championship season in the clauses I can find, can you point me tot he right one?

QUOTE (Markbilliards @ Sep 18, 2015 -> 02:46 PM) Why don't they give him the QO and tell him not to accept it or else he will be put in a long relief role and blah blah blah..tell him basically everything you can legally, to get him to decline it. The White Sox did something similar with Orlando Cabrera in 2008. They offered him arbitration to get the draft picks but then came out and kept outright saying "we don't want him back". If he'd accepted arbitration he'd have gotten like $11-12 million. He declined arbitration and eventually signed for $4 million.

QUOTE (Tony82087 @ Sep 18, 2015 -> 02:27 PM) You use the word "risk" Explain what the risk is to 2016. Paying $16 million, getting similar performance, wasting money, blocking Johnson so that he is unable to face big league hitters, not having confidence in your 2017 rotation because the kids didn't get to work there in 2016, not being able to add to the 2016 ballclub elsewhere due to being at or near the max payroll level the team can afford. You may say that the "sandwich pick" overwhelms that risk, or that he'll come back around next year and be a useful quantity, but "paying $16 million for this performance and blocking any other things that could happen" is definitely a potential downside.

QUOTE (BlackSox13 @ Sep 18, 2015 -> 01:48 PM) What I'm hoping for is that Shark bait informs the Sox he's not interested in returning so the Sox may extend the offer to which Shark bait rejects and get the comp pick. Kind of a gentleman's agreement before the end of the WS. This would be a terrible move from Samardzija's side. If he has a QO attached to him it will cost him a lot of money as a free agent compared to if he has no QO attached to him. Could even keep him from being signed at all until mid-June.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 18, 2015 -> 01:54 AM) The way it's set up electoral wise, the Democrats pretty much are assured victory in the presidential election. It would take a massive fluke or something like the election where Gore got screwed out of the title. Or the Republicans could adapt their policies to reach out to some group other than white males...

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Sep 18, 2015 -> 01:24 PM) I thought we've all agreed that pitcher's wins are a stupid stat? I haven't paid attention to it in years. It would still be really nice to get Jose Quintana a bundle of wins. We owe him.

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 17, 2015 -> 06:15 PM) Just a real bad decision not to get out of Robertson's contract when the Yankees claimed him. It's amazing how bad our major FA signings have been over the last 5 years. For reference, now that I've looked into how poorly the average free agent actually performs and given that our strategy is to go after the mid-level guys who don't get top dollar, I disagree with this. I don't think it's amazing at all, I think that's exactly what you should expect from the class of free agents we're targeting.

40 consecutive years of Democratic presidents? I guess if we have to...we have no choice right?

QUOTE (LDF @ Sep 17, 2015 -> 05:32 PM) no it isn't.... it was a business move. as it was a business move for ozzie to look elsewhere..... when the season ended. Ozzie had no legal right to look elsewhere unless the team let him out of his contract for 2012. To do otherwise was to breach his contract. Which he did.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 17, 2015 -> 05:01 PM) Why does Robertson get a pass this season? He has been rather ordinary at best. I advocated trading him at the break and people laughed at me. Some of it is that he's burned repeatedly by the defense behind him. Some of it is that it could be worse (2014). Some of it is that he's the only free agent we brought in last year who has been actually worth his contract and therefore is the only one we could move for anything.

QUOTE (bmags @ Sep 17, 2015 -> 04:54 PM) One of the reasons I fell out of interest with the Daily SHow was after a while you realized that nobody watched cable news, and he kept hitting on the low hanging fruit that frankly didn't matter that much while others were doing much more interesting things. But then, I watched some of the debate last night and was thinking how ridiculous it is that we still allow so much of the presidential campaign narratives to the 24 hour news channels who have the candidates talk about nonsense issues for 3 hrs. Today the Fed decided not to raise rates. It was a decision that probably meant more to the day to day lives of people than any of the crap talked about last night. Not even mentioned. For kicks, could we get a nationally televised debate on youtube or something where real questions could be asked? IIRC Someone did a debate in 2012 that was all questions submitted through FB and they were the best questions asked in any of the debates.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Sep 17, 2015 -> 04:49 PM) Baltimore refuses to give teams afternoon getaway games at home, but complain to the league office when they are on the road and teams do not do it for them. And I think Baltimore's ownership doesn't have the best reputation around baseball, so these things are probably connected.

QUOTE (Mike F. @ Sep 17, 2015 -> 04:40 PM) I never understood why day games are scheduled during the week. The attendance will always be low because most people will be at work or school. Because tomorrow night the A's have to play in Houston and a direct flight is just under 3 hours, so if teams play until 10 pm they don't get into the hotel until 3 a.m., and occasionally games do go into extra innings where they'd get in at 4-6 a.m. It costs teams money so not every team is nice enough to schedule the day game on a travel day, but it really is professional courtesy. If you want other teams to treat your guys well so that they're not getting into the hotel at 4:00 am before their next game, then you sacrifice some ticket sales to treat their guys well. If we were in a playoff race, we'd be flying to Cleveland, losing an hour for the time zone shift after tonight's game, so we'd be getting in at 1-2 a.m. and we'd be unhappy if our guys came out sluggish.

QUOTE (bmags @ Sep 17, 2015 -> 04:35 PM) I mean, who can go to these games? If you already bought season tickets, you can always find people who will take freebies.

QUOTE (bjm676 @ Sep 17, 2015 -> 04:15 PM) I'm hoping they pick up Alexei's option. They can't go into the winter with question marks at 3/4 of the infield. yes they can and they absolutely should, but they won't and it'll probably work as well as it did this year.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 17, 2015 -> 04:13 PM) Trump is a sideshow clown. He can't beat Hillary. Celebrities will love it if he's the candidate vs. Hillary. Fallon will probably put Trump on a zillion times to make sure he gets the nomination. The timing of Hillary's appearance could not have been a coincidence. Of course it wasn't a coincidence. The candidate would absolutely want that, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with NBC playing for ratings either. The premier episode of the Late Show with Stephen Colbert got by far the best ratings of the show's first week because it was the first show and it featured Jeb Bush. How unfair was that? CBS totally helped Jeb get a bigger audience than any other candidate. Could they be more in the Republican's pockets? It's sickening how all the media is so totally in the Republicans pockets. Either that, or Jeb's campaign thought that was a good venue to go on because it would get a big audience and that's the kind of thing both campaigns and TV organizations want.

Offense in 2015 so far is up for the first time in 3 years and is getting close to the total output seen per game in 2011.

And that's from the official account. Apart from that Mrs. Lincoln how was the play?

Good read, made me sad.

QUOTE (Swingandalongonetoleft @ Sep 17, 2015 -> 12:58 PM) I know this isn't hockey (or the Bears), but there has to be something more to McCutchen "resting" today. Clint Hurdle is very willing to rest his guys even in big games.

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Sep 15, 2015 -> 10:26 PM) They need to stop. How else do you fix the fact that we're below average at 7 positions again? If we're going to compete next year we can't afford to just sign one guy and we need solid upgrades at many positions. We must spend big money on mid level free agents to compete next year. It'll work this time.

QUOTE (Flash Tizzle @ Sep 15, 2015 -> 10:19 PM) Exactly my sentiments. Not trading Shark has turned out to be a HUGE failure for the organization and yet another spoiled opportunity moving forward to acquire talent. I'm not even going to give Hahn any remorse, because while no one could have predicted this regression to absolute garbage, he retained Shark either under the guise of competing (which was ridiculous because many of us here knew this team wasn't a playoff contender), or was not satisfied with his trade value. While it wasn't on par with Scott Kazmir, even a step below his value was still worth more than the risk associated with a compensation round draft pick. At the time ofvthe trade deadline he was pitching quite well. All I can hope is they learn from their mistakes. I'd just ONCE like to see them trade someone at peak value. Deal someone like Quintana should all but be a certainty, and if I'm JR/KW whoever else I'm putting very high expectations on him to succeed. if you go back to the Scott Kazmir trade thread there's a large contingent of people who explained to me that Samardzija should be more valued than Kazmir because he's more reliable historically and you'd probably want Samardzija pitching if you had the choice for 1 game.