ScottyDo

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 24, 2014 -> 02:16 PM) That's not the point. The point is raising the talent level, and increasing assets that can be used or make other assets available to be used to acquire assets in areas of need. For example, there is no secret the Sox could use and need a catcher. It isn't like one is just going to fall into their lap. If they have enough surplus to trade 2 or 3 pitchers to get one, it probably will be the way to go. Again, I'm not so sure Santana or Jimenez is the answer, but adding talent, no matter what position, makes a lot of sense when your talent level is lacking. Yeah, maximize the talent. Getting talent that requires the sacrifice of other talent is an inefficient way of doing that.

QUOTE (TheFutureIsNear @ Jan 24, 2014 -> 02:08 PM) Sorry I don't think every player on the white sox are going to be great. Paulino and Reinzio are 5th starters/long relievers. And singing any pitcher takes 0 innings away from Johnson. It's not just one issue. It's the sum of many issues including: 1) Price of contract 2) Age of veteran pitcher 3) Loss of 2nd round draft pick 4) Taking playing time from younger players 5) Potential for veteran pitcher regression 6) Unimportance of their WAR early in the contract due to the Sox likely sucking It's not that any ONE of those issues makes signing a vet here a bad idea. It's that ALL of these reasons combined make it a bad idea.

Woah. Lots of same point.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 24, 2014 -> 01:49 PM) Frankly, I don't know if Garcia will pan out, but I would rather acquire him at his development stage than the unknown in the second round. I'm not saying I would rush out and sign Santana or Jimenez, but picking up a veteran pitcher at this stage makes a lot of sense. Increase the inventory. Money aside, banking your future on future 2nd round picks is a bigger longshot than banking on Santana or Jimenez being All Stars. This speeds up the rebuild. You want to play it close to the vest, you wind up like the Cubs who are now saying to their fans their rebuild might not be complete until next decade. So I take it you liked the EJax signing then?

QUOTE (TheFutureIsNear @ Jan 24, 2014 -> 01:41 PM) So you mean a proven pitcher is going to make more than a guy who has done absolutely nothing in his career???? This is crazy news to me, thanks for sharing. I am not telling you it's news, I'm telling you I think it's smarter to eat innings with cheap guys who might turn it around when you know you're going to be bad.

QUOTE (TheFutureIsNear @ Jan 24, 2014 -> 12:57 PM) Expensive relative to what? The money you and I make? Or the going rate for pitchers like Scott Feldman and Scott Kazmir who make 10 or 11 million dollars a year? And you're still ignoring the fact that Ervin Santana is a better pitcher than you're giving him credit for. 4 out of the last 6 years he's pitched 210+ innings and posted a sub 4 era. And 3 times his ERA was sub 3.5. All while pitching in the AL. So what's the risk? He has 1 bad year out of the 4 he's under contract for? Sign me up. Expensive relative to guys like Paulino. $10-$15M isn't nothing. It's 12-18% of our current total payroll. Ervin Santana has had xFIPs in the mid-4's 3 of the last 5 years, too. It's not bad. It's also not that good. He's got just as good a chance of repeating 2012 as 2013. He's 31 and we're talking about signing him to a, what, 4 year deal? He will definitely cost a draft pick. There is definitely risk there, and it's just unnecessary. Wait till next year if appropriate.

QUOTE (SCCWS @ Jan 24, 2014 -> 11:50 AM) I think another consideration is the #4 and #5 projected starters. If the Sox don't feel they have young pitchers that are better off in the majors than at AAA, then signing a free agent does not make sense. But if the thought is that you are rushing a young pitcher to the majors, then go ahead and sign someone. Next year most likely is a year of experiments at many positions as we look to the future. Fair enough. But if we're just looking for someone to eat innings until a youngster comes up, that's why you sign a guy like Paulino to a cheap contract. If he shows up and pitches well, then you can flip him like others are suggesting, and you've just gotten double benefit without taking needless risks and losing draft picks.

Also, the suggestion that we should just trade Sale if we don't buy pitchers now is...well, you're partially trolling, so I'll just say it's silly. Just because we shouldn't buy now doesn't mean we shouldn't buy next year, and Sale's value will be intact for several years.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Jan 24, 2014 -> 10:42 AM) Dick Allen made a great point about the Sox running out of players to trade. That's the reason you sign a pitcher now so you have the flexibility to deal a pitcher next year because if you are waiting on the farm system to produce they might as well put Sale on the block. So you get rid of a 2nd round pick in the hopes that an expensive guy with a questionable background performs so that you can trade him for a prospect.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 24, 2014 -> 06:43 AM) Last year if you knew the Sox would lose 99 games, the consensus would have been signing Jake Peavy was dumb. Wait until you are ready to win. But signing Peavy ultimately got you Garcia. I think the plan would be the same. Sign a guy to help you win, if you don't, it increases the pitching stock and someone could be traded near the deadline for prospects. It could all blow up in your face, But if you have some money, it is worth a consideration. That benefit seems greatly mitigated by the loss of a draft pick. Risks mentioned + $10-15M/yr + 2nd round pick for Prospect X does not seem that worth it.

Add Maeda to the list of possible targets next year. Plus the names listed above. Next year's FA class is likely just better. I don't get the impatience.

1) Marty & co. are missing the biggest risk of all: that we sign a pitcher to an expensive 4 year contract, we have a bad 2014, meaning we're not even on schedule to compete in 2015, and we have just lost the "good" part of the contract in time for us to compete with an expensive, declining 34 year old pitcher on our hands. 2) I understand that our farm system is not good, but we're not in so desperate of shape that we need to spend $14M annually plus a 2nd round draft pick on a gamble to slightly restock our system by later trading this person. There is really just no reason to take a risk now when you can do it later, after you have a better handle on whether or not the risk is likely to pay off. And it's really absurd that anyone would be so in love with this pitcher market that we would need to strike while the iron's hot. The iron is not hot. Yankees/BoSox/LAD or not, these guys are pretty crappy pitchers.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Jan 23, 2014 -> 08:00 PM) I think it's safe to say the Sox will be outbid for the top of the market, Lester, Scherzer, Bailey, Masterson, and Shields. Those pitchers have much better profiles than Santana or Jimenez. If Santana or Jimenez looked like those guys, they would not be bargains any year including this one. And the timing right now is crappy anyway, given our timeline.

QUOTE (whtsoxfan @ Jan 23, 2014 -> 06:09 PM) Tony La Russa will go in without a logoon his cap on his plaque. Quote: "The Chicago White Sox gave me my start in the game as a big league manager for my first eight seasons in my 33-year managerial career," he slurred, sloshing bloody mary mix all over his sweatpants. http://www.mercurynews.com/athletics/ci_24...fame?source=rss Fixed. Hurray, he's ours too!

QUOTE (TheFutureIsNear @ Jan 23, 2014 -> 05:56 PM) There won't be any SP's of the same quality of Ervin Santana available for $14M per year next year, or any year. That is the point of the entire thread and idea. For whatever reason the market for SP's has completely dried up at this point and its a good time to capitalize. $14M a year is almost nothing for a SP recently, why not take a chance on 1 that just put up a 3.2 ERA? I have no idea why anybody wouldn't want to do that. Ervin Santana had a solid year last year. The year before that he gave up 39 home runs in 178 IP. That's....just monstrous. There's a reason he's gonna get an affordable contract.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jan 23, 2014 -> 05:37 PM) It's our last year of the big bopper/whiff king Adam Dunn. It's Konerko's last year. We have Chris Sale for gosh sakes. We allegedly have a starting staff that can compete. We have allegedly a decent bullpen albeit no closer, which is a concern. I'm just saying we have the payroll to work with. Add a starting pitcher, pray the bullpen is finally consistent, add a bat at catcher (we can still trade Beckham and DeAza and be OK with Semien filling in for Becks) and we might win the freaking division and save Robin's job. Sure. We'll have that next year, too, if we don't spend it on a veteran pitcher in 2014. So, why now and not in 2015 when we might theoretically be better? Are Santana and Jimenez so attractive to you guys that you think we'd be wasting resources by choosing to get someone next year rather than this year?

QUOTE (TheFutureIsNear @ Jan 23, 2014 -> 05:27 PM) Is the world ending and you're not telling anybody?? You do know there will be a 2015 MLB season right? And I'm pretty sure the White Sox are still participating. Not every move has to have an immediate impact. And signing any SP doesn't affect Erik Johnson....taking away a rotation spot from the other 2 guys? Don't care. They are dime a dozen 5th starters who can be found anywhere. Why take the risk now when you could take it in 2015 then? If all the acquisitions we just made fall flat on their faces, then you just paid a bunch of money for nothing.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jan 23, 2014 -> 04:39 PM) It's like some people suddenly don't even want to compete for a few years, thinking it means we are in total rebuild mode. We STILL have a lot of veterans on this team and a lot of good pitchers on this team. We play in a HORSEs*** division. Detroit just lost a Hall of Fame manager and Fielder. We could win this thing if we added a good veteran starter/inning eater/winner and a catcher who can hit. Now if you are saying our defense is so putrid, so horrific, that we cannot compete, perhaps I can buy that argument. But aside from defense, adding a starter like Santana and a good catcher and we should be a contender. We lost almost 100 games last year. Even if this division is as putrid as you say, we'll need at least 85 wins. We have surely upgraded somewhat, largely in future returns, but do you think we got 22 wins in the offseason? Please list these wins and where they came from. Two of the biggest acquisitions this offseason were Eaton and Davidson. Both of those may be key factors in the future, but they are not at ALL dependable for production in 2014. Each is more likely to be below-average than above. The reason we signed them is to develop long-term into dependable producers. What I don't get is the impatience. Do you guys think there won't be a Santana-esque pitcher on the market next year? This is not a particularly well-saturated offseason for free agent pitching.

QUOTE (TheFutureIsNear @ Jan 23, 2014 -> 04:21 PM) Garza went for less than expected so the timing makes a ton of sense to grab a guy like Santana right now. We would have to give up a comp pick (2nd round), but either A) you keep him and he makes a reasonable $14M-$15M per year. B) You flip him next year and get back a ton more than the 2nd round pick or C) he flops and Jerry can only go to the Bahamas twice this year . But seriously, with a seemingly down market and SP always held at a premium at the trade deadline I think it makes a ton of sense. Of course I'm realistic and realize there is a very slim chance of this actually happening. To what end? How many games do you expect us to win with and without a short-term veteran pitching contract? Why not try to develop a prospect internally for free instead? There's no risk there, because we weren't winning this year anyway.

As far as I'm concerned, this thread still involves the White Sox until I know the ballpark of what we offered

Buying one of those SPs right now makes exactly as much sense for us right now as it did for the Cubs to buy Jackson last year.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 21, 2014 -> 10:41 PM) Depends on your prespective. Williams time with the Sox is some of the historically best time the franchise has ever had. This is true, but when you call guys "geniuses" and say "we're lucky to have them", I'm comparing them against all other GMs, not just GMs in White Sox history. They may actually be geniuses, but they certainly haven't lapped the field or anything.

QUOTE (The Ultimate Champion @ Jan 21, 2014 -> 10:31 PM) I loved Kenny, but he was a dick very often. Hahn is direct and non-dickish. Both are geniuses & we're lucky to have them. I was definitely on board except maybe the bolded part. The proof is in the pudding there...it's not like we've had sustained success on their watch. I do think Hahn is the right guy for the job, though.

QUOTE (lasttriptotulsa @ Jan 21, 2014 -> 07:16 PM) Ah man, don't tell me you're a Brony. sounds like someone hates friendship

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Jan 21, 2014 -> 07:14 PM) Absolutely not. I wouldn't sign any of those nor trade E Johnson. That will put us right back in the cycle we've been in since the WS. Agreed. I think this Tanaka thing has gotten to people's heads. We're still in rebuild mode, it's just that Tanaka is the very specific type of player that fits into the context of a rebuild (costs no prospects, is very talented, is young). No reason to go extending that concept to players that don't match those conditions. We're not that good yet.