southsider2k5

QUOTE (Reddy @ Jan 29, 2015 -> 11:06 AM) I want some of what you're smoking. Both in how many runs we score and how many runs we allow. A 5 ERA out of Danks and Noesi is not completely unlikely. I would even say that the odds of one of them being over 5.00 is over 50%.

Christopher Kamka ‏@ckamka 46m46 minutes ago This day in #WhiteSox history 1981: AL owners approve sale of team to group headed by Jerry Reinsdorf & Eddie Einhorn

http://tbo.com/sports/rays/manfred-availab...0150128/?page=1

http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/writer/jon-he...well-in-chicago

QUOTE (flavum @ Jan 29, 2015 -> 10:40 AM) I like the Sox pitching staff to be the best in the league. If they stay healthy, 90 wins. Bold prediction: Sox score more than 700 runs, and give up fewer than 600 runs. Run diff will be more than +100. The Sox have a good, not great, bullpen. They have a great 1-3 and a terrible 4-5 in the rotation. I don't see that as the best by a long shot.

QUOTE (ewokpelts @ Jan 29, 2015 -> 10:36 AM) Is it a coinkydink that the new draft system favors the white sox? I think not Sox have done slot pay before it was the rule. That is what you get when you have a powerful owner. But let's not pretend that following that system didn't cost the White Sox a lot of potentially great players that they passed on in order to say in those slots, in order to funnel more money to the major league roster.

The big difference is that Kenny Williams always did spend the extra to get that one more guy, and took it away from spending on the minor leagues. As a GM you have to make that choice. That's why they get the big bucks. Sure they could bring in the one more guy, but what if it costs you Steven Adams because you have to spend lower amounts on your draft picks. It could mean you don't have the $1.6 million to spend on an Adolfo, and instead stay in the $250 to $500k range of guys with lower ceilings. Those major league roster decisions do have a ripple affect through the rest of the organization. Do you want the depth signing now, or the lottery ticket for the future?

QUOTE (WhiteSoxLifer @ Jan 29, 2015 -> 10:25 AM) Hardly many teams have great back end of rotations. I wouldn't say our back end is s*** tastic. Danks should at minimum he can be a inning eater. Plus cooper has been working with noesi and danks this offseason to be better. These were during sox fest. Coop wants 33 starts 200 innings from Danks. Cut down on walks and home runs. https://twitter.com/scottmerkin/status/559404161968898048 Coop on Noesi: I've got plans for this guy to nail down that spot. https://twitter.com/scottmerkin/status/559402418958774272 Merkin said in his mail bag on the white sox site that cooper has been working with danks on lower arm level and lower leg kick. I hope it works and all, but Danks hasn't shown many signs of being pre-surgery John Danks. I was optimistic he would come back to form last year, but lost most of that optimism as the season wore on. I feel like the John Danks we used to know is gone.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 29, 2015 -> 10:24 AM) Then trading for a starting pitcher 1 year away from FA and blowing all of our FA spending money this year ($110 million already on the books next year counting Alexei's option) was really silly. The idea has always been to view Samardjiza not as a one year thing.

QUOTE (flavum @ Jan 29, 2015 -> 10:19 AM) That's why I said reaching a best-of-5. Sure, they may lose a close division race, but I expect the Sox to have one of the top 5 records in the league, and if they have to play one game--hopefully it's with Sale or Samardzija on the mound and they win it. I expect this team to be more in the 6 to 8 range. Like I said, 85 wins sounds right me. With some luck, sure they could push into the 88 to 90 range. With some bad luck, they could also push under .500.

QUOTE (Stan Bahnsen @ Jan 29, 2015 -> 10:19 AM) Just plain silly to make this statement in late Jan., imo. You seem rather certain. Do you expect there to be more big moves by the White Sox? At this point I feel pretty good about the top of the roster being pretty well set. Maybe we add a guy or two on a spring training invite type of thing, but the Sox roster is basically in the system today. Taking that and comparing it to the rest of the AL and AL Central, I feel this is not a 90 win team, without some breaks. With the catching situation, 2b up in the air, and the back of the rotation being scary at best, I am not sure how you can squint hard enough to look at this team as a sure fire playoff team.

QUOTE (flavum @ Jan 29, 2015 -> 10:12 AM) That's nuts. This isn't a rebuilding year. Get over it. It is not a rebuilding year, but is also not a division winning roster.

QUOTE (flavum @ Jan 29, 2015 -> 10:06 AM) They didn't put this team together just to compete or contend. Anything less than reaching a best-of-5 series would be disappointing. I would be prepared to be disappointed.

QUOTE (Tex @ Jan 29, 2015 -> 08:10 AM) Football players do not need zones marked on the field for them to line up correctly, why would baseball players? Uh, offsides?

Jon Morosi ‏@jonmorosi 1h1 hour ago #BlueJays have made progress on a deal for reliever Ronald Belisario, but it's not done yet, sources say.

The trade market for Viciedo http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/just-a-bit-ou...-to-deal-012815

QUOTE (oldsox @ Jan 29, 2015 -> 08:27 AM) Kinda like blowing the $4mm on Viciedo? Except they didn't, so...

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Jan 29, 2015 -> 09:15 AM) http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/...0-prospects-mlb White Sox with only 3 top 100 guys according to Keith Law. 12. Carlos Rodon 67. Tim Anderson 94. Spencer Adams I am OK with that. While Montas has an extremely high ceiling, he still has some big work to do to get there.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Jan 28, 2015 -> 08:39 PM) Admittedly I don't know too much about Cleto but his bread and butter is his fastball and slider. In reference to his changeup, pitchers are usually looking for 8-11 MPH difference from FB to CU. Now there's definitely going to be successful guys outside the norm, I just wouldn't bet on Maikel Cleto's third pitch being that exception. It is the bullpen though so anything can happen. The problem with Cleto is that he can't throw any pitch consistently for a strike. Unless he can do that, he is a career minor leaguer.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Jan 29, 2015 -> 07:51 AM) If Laroche failed and you were expecting Viciedo to swoop in and save the day, I am sorry you got your hopes up at all. They arent a weaker team because they swapped out bench players, and got rid of one that couldnt play a lick of defense Lets face it, everything about Viciedo's game makes him a terrible bench option. He can't field. He can't play multiple positions. He isn't fast. He has a long swing, and strikes out a lot. If you have him on your team, you need to be getting him 500 ABs to maximize what he does do well.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Jan 29, 2015 -> 01:16 AM) I'm optimistic about the team and this year. Totally. But that said, those of you thinking about upper 80s to 90 wins are - in my mind - completely out of touch with reality. BP is projecting 78 wins, and while we usually beat PECOTA by an average of 7 wins/season, that STILL only puts us at 85 wins. Things would have to swing astronomically in the right direction for us to be in the playoff picture. 5 more wins is a lot to get out of this lineup/pitching staff. Not impossible - it happened in '05 - but unlikely. I don't think there's any world in which Robin gets fired this year UNLESS the team does worse than last year, which I also don't see happening. Side note. Gordon Beckham is a better baseball player than Emilio Bonafacio, so in that regard, I like the move. 85 feels right as a solid median number to me. I don't see us winning this year, but I see us competing, and coming close... sort of like 2012.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Jan 28, 2015 -> 11:54 PM) It's def Robin's make or break year IMO. If he doesn't do SABER style things like play the platoon advantage (backed up by splits, not just some gut feeling) then he's going to be second guess both in the media and the FO imo. Hahn doesn't seem like he's expecting anything other than 85-90 wins this year. If Robin doesn't deliver the axe will fall, as it should, again, imo. I don't think so. Wins are the most important stat this year. If the Sox win 88 to 90 games, it won't matter if Robin Ventura sends Leury Garcia out to catch with the Mad Hatters hat on, the media will lap it up, and so will the fans. If the team has a bad year, the pressure might turn up, but I doubt the axe drops. Even Guillen had some bad years mixed into his time here, and none of those got him fired. The only way Ventura is out the door is if he opens it up himself and leaves.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 28, 2015 -> 06:12 PM) I am so tired of hearing stuff like this. The Kansas City Royals hit 95 home runs last year. The Chicago White sox hit 155. The Chicago White Sox were 8th in the AL in runs scored. The Royals were 9th. We hit 60 more home runs than they did while scoring a total of 9 more runs than they did. More than runs scored, I would love to see what our standard deviation for runs scored was. Of course the biggest difference between KC and Chicago started and ended with the pitching staff.

QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Jan 28, 2015 -> 04:54 PM) That still wasn't the argument. I don't subscribe to any defensive metrics. I'll just leave it at that though. The discussion will just get me banned. It is exactly the argument. Is he worth $5 million? According to advanced stats, he put up just under $5 million of WAR last year, and more than that in each of the previous three years.

QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Jan 28, 2015 -> 04:48 PM) That wasn't your statement. You said his defense was worth $5M last year. That's pretty crazy. He's an average, at best, defender with limited range. He does turn the double play well. That's not worth $5M. He posted a .6 WAR last year. The fangraphs article I found from last season put the cost of 1.0 WAR at $7 million. 60% of that is $4.2 million. It isn't crazy to think we are at $8 million per war now, and 60% of that would be $4.8 million. Previous to last year he posted 0.8, 0.8, and 1.2 from 2013, 12, and 11 respectively. The number isn't that crazy is you subscribe to the WAR numbers.